Top Gear - EV or not EV that is the question

[no golf clubs at all]

Right, let me say I am quite a fan of Top Gear, I like the blokeishness of the whole thing and find them all quite funny, if a little annoying sometimes (train thingy last week for example), however I have to say that the whole Electric car piece left me a bit bemused.

I would actually like an electric vehicle at some point in my car owning life, but not for driving far to the coast and expecting to plug it in without any forward planning, no what I would like to use this kind of car for is for my daily 14 mile round trip commute and at that point in the week when it needed charged up, plug it in to my own power socket in the driveway overnight.

Last nights piece was clearly an attempt to show how ridiculous these cars will be in the "real world" but for me there was no attempt to actually explore the strengths of such a car in my commute type of scenario. Rather, the TG coverage looked for weaknesses and exploited them to the point where the use of such cars was presented as totally ridiculous.

For me personally however the car is WAY too expensive (£25k!!!  ) wtf and more, the batteries only last a few years (if treated properly and at the moment they are talking about £5-7k to replace!  ) that just about scraps the car at the end of a 3 year period.

Until someone comes in with a plug in plug out battery system, where you go to a pit stop and swap the battery for a charged one then YES they just do not make much sense for the kind of journeys that Messers Clarkson and May took on last nights show but surely for a daily short commute this kind of thing may well be the wave of the future....

of course keeping a fast petrol 2 seater, or GTI for weekend blasts.

So whilst not a dig at Top Gear, I do think they could have made more of an attempt to show under what conditions the car could be used usefully and without the ridiculous cartoon capers that we all enjoyed last night....

I am not a sandal wearing hippy btw  Just wanted it off my chest 

[DaveB@Vagbremtechnic]

I was seriously considering a Lancia Stratos Kit Car prior to the kids coming along, they borrowed one of the cars from the Stratos Forum, it was a high profile car which had been put away for winter.

Anyway to cut a long story short,  listening to the owner..... the Stig Loved it, they couldn't get Hammond out of it they went through one and a half sets of very expensive classic Pirelli's (345/35/15's  same as a lambo Countach) they then slated it on screen as a unreliable typical lancia and kept making staged filmings of it being spun out and focused for at least a minute out of the 5 minute piece about a broken brake caliper.....

Top gear - great to watch but a bunch of tw@ts to lend cars to apparently

[BeezerDiesel]

The only thing that gets me with electric cars (aside from the fact that most of them are dull as hell) is where does the energy come from?

Answer: Power stations. So you're just passing on the pollution from one place to another.

[Weston]

The only thing that gets me with electric cars (aside from the fact that most of them are dull as hell) is where does the energy come from?

Answer: Power stations. So you're just passing on the pollution from one place to another.

My thoughts exactly. Add to that the carbon footprint of manufacturing these cars & you might as well drive whatever you want.

[Saint Steve]

Hydrogen cars are the future!! Electric cars are totally pointless and hugely expensive especially to maintain.

Makes a DSG car choice look pennies in maintenance costs 

[andrewparker]

The thing is, both cars (the Leaf in particular) are being sold and marketed as real world alternatives to petrol and diesel powered cars. On that premise you can hardly be critical when they are reviewed as just that. If they were being sold as an ideal car for a quick trip to the shops then I'd agree with you. I actually thought it was one of their more sensible pieces.

[cmdrfire]

1) That piece was wholly and totally wrong. I saw that and thought to myself, "My God, electric cars in the UK are finished".
2) Yes, a pure EV has a limited range. If you're doing more than 80miles a day, don't get one. End of story.
3) I use one for work (as do a few others now). Drive to work - drive home. 35 miles total commute. Charge overnight at home. Costs about 70p to recharge. Full recharge, overnight, in about 6 hours. I can also go from home or work to London and back on a single charge, that's about twice the distance, but often take advantage of a charge point in London to "opportunity charge" - just topping up the battery.
4) The battery is hellish expensive, yes. The battery can last ten years though. In the US, GM is offering an 8-year guarantee on its battery. Fast-charge is just a bad idea IMO as it is fast-charge that does (some) of the damage. Don't use the vehicle with fast-charge if you can avoid it. Do your commute or trips to the shops or school run or whatever. Then charge at home. If anyone wants to argue with me on batteries, go for it. You'll get bored before I finish 

Hydrogen cars are the future!! Electric cars are totally pointless and hugely expensive especially to maintain.

Makes a DSG car choice look pennies in maintenance costs :signLOL:p

Know what you're talking about, please - hydrogen cars are electric cars*. The hydrogen fuel cell is acting as a range extender. Some ultracapacitors or lithium-ion batteries sit in the way of the fuel cell and the motor controller to provide load-balancing capability. There's also a big problem with hydrogen generation and storage. It takes energy to produce the hydrogen, compress it, and then pipe or transport it to a pump so you can "refuel". Yes, you do need to refuel, even with a fuel cell vehicle. Yes, there is a fuel tank - a hydrogen cylinder. Don't think it's magic, because it's not.

Electric cars - maintenance? what maintenance? In any well-designed EV the battery will outlast the lifetime of the vehicle (this means 8-10 years these days), and apart from brakes and fluids and wipers there are no other maintenance items. The electric motor and electronics, again, will outlast the lifetime of the vehicle. There is nothing else to maintain. How is this more expensive than a DSG?


*I refer, of course, to hydrogen fuel cell cars and not hydrogen-fired reciprocating ICE, which is grossly inefficient.

[Saint Steve]

Neo, cars are not just for work, they are normally social, domestic and pleasure, which leaves you bugger Charge all for anything else  

The DSG link was purely as an example as in possible mainternance costs , replacing its batterys after 5years+ or so at a cost of £8000 is a rather large pill to factor into buying one of these cars.



Totally waste of money..

Wait for water for future development  

Im sure theres more future in that then these Electric options.

My current take is buy a economical Petrol and run that if ecomany is an issue. Something like a hyundia i30 Blue that is golf sized and will do 70+mpg.

[Sunglasses Ron]

Think I saw you on your way to work the other day Neo.......






































 

[Saint Steve]

^^

[mattyw]

I didn't expect any more from clarkson but thought may would have given a fair review of the EV,they deliberately showed them in there worst light,I don't have much interest in EV but actually thought the Nissan wasn't to bad inside

[cmdrfire]

Neo, cars are not just for work, they are normally social, domestic and pleasure, which leaves you bugger Charge all for anything else  

The DSG link was purely as an example as in possible mainternance costs , replacing its batterys after 5years+ or so at a cost of £8000 is a rather large pill to factor into buying one of these cars.



Totally waste of money..

Wait for water for future development  

Im sure theres more future in that then these Electric options.

My current take is buy a economical Petrol and run that if ecomany is an issue. Something like a hyundia i30 Blue that is golf sized and will do 70+mpg.

Social and domestic - there's your EV needs sorted. For pleasure (and you can drive an EV with pleasure - the one I'm using has more torque than a factory GTI) you can use the savings to buy a weekend (petrol) car.
And like I said, under normal use circumstances there is no need to replace the battery, in most instances it will last upwards of 10 years and still retain 80% of its capacity. Remember we talk about useful life here. So that's a null argument.


@Sunglasses Ron, clearly you need to take your sunglasses off. This is (one) of the cars we've developed at work (in association with Ital Design Giugiaro)



0-100kph in about 4 seconds and a maximum speed of 300kph. Four wheel drive with active electronic differential. Drive it gently it will return real-world 90mpg with 100km EV-only range. Bit quicker than a Golf.

[rich83]

More fuel efficient and cleaner diesels are the way if you want outright economy with out limited range. Polo bluemotion with do silly MPG if you blow gently on the accelerator. 

[ub7rm]

Hydrogen isn't the way forward either.  Hydrogen being such a small atom happily migrates its way through most plastics (think helium baloon going flat in a couple of days) and indeed most metals making them extremely brittle in the process.  Not to mention the cost of producing, transporting and storing the stuff.

I guess its all really early days for this kind of technology and a viable alternative to hydrocabon fuels will be found but its still a long way off IMO.

[cmdrfire]

More fuel efficient and cleaner diesels are the way if you want outright economy with out limited range. Polo bluemotion with do silly MPG if you blow gently on the accelerator. 

Absolutely correct (for now) Rich 

Hydrogen isn't the way forward either.  Hydrogen being such a small atom happily migrates its way through most plastics (think helium baloon going flat in a couple of days) and indeed most metals making them extremely brittle in the process.  Not to mention the cost of producing, transporting and storing the stuff.

I guess its all really early days for this kind of technology and a viable alternative to hydrocabon fuels will be found but its still a long way off IMO.

Nice to see two sensible posts in a row  Moving away from hydrocarbons is very difficult because we're used to their extremely high energy density, which has let us get away with absolutely lousy conversion efficiencies for the past 100 years. Point is, we can't do that any longer, because climate change or otherwise, the oil will run out (or extraction will become sufficiently economically unviable) at some point. As soon as we start looking at any metal-based energy storage system energy density falls off by several orders of magnitude - it's just the way the physics is. Fuel cells or other steady-state reactors are also not ideal as they are horrendously complex and require signifcant control loops. We could probably do quite a neat solution these days with nuclear heating options (they knew how to package it back in the 70s small enough for spacecraft) but there are major safety concerns. So not really sure what we'll see in the long term, but in the medium term (~25yrs or so) we'll see a mix of higher efficiency diesel and gasoline engines with li-ion based batteries of varying capacities in various modes (series hybrid, ev, etc).