Motoring Discussion > Electric car mileage	Green Issues
Thread Author: Ambo	Replies: 50

New Tue 14 Dec 10 13:48   Electric car mileage - Ambo

If you have an electric car, what is your mpc (miles per charge)? I read that it will be halved if you use the heater and you will lose another quarter if you use the aircon. (I use both in cold weather, as the best way of dealing with condensation.) I believe a good mpc figure is 100 miles so there would barely be enough left to get to local work and back. Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 14 Dec 10 13:54   Electric car mileage - Glaikit Wee Scunner Snr. {P}

Yes, exactly. But the development of the charging infrastructure is being encouraged. I'd be happy to have an electric vehicle with a backup dino fuelled charger, especially one as quiet as those little Honda ones. Could easily be automated to charge the main batteries when necessary. Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 14 Dec 10 13:57   Electric car mileage - Netsur

An electric car would suit my driving. I would have a Prius but it is too small for my needs and the Lexux Hybrid is far more expensive to buy and run than the S-Max. Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 14 Dec 10 14:04   Electric car mileage - Dog

I wonder why car makers haven't incorporated photo voltaic panels in the roof of leccies. Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 14 Dec 10 14:07   Electric car mileage - diddy1234

Not enough electric produced to charge the car. Say for example you had the car parked up at work for 8 hours on a nice sunny day. The generated electric would be used up within half a mile. Now if the car was somewhere like Florida then the story is different. Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 14 Dec 10 14:12   Electric car mileage - Zero

not enough usable surface area on the car. Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 14 Dec 10 14:19   Electric car mileage - Dog

>>Now if the car was somewhere like Florida then the story is different<< Or Tenerife :) We need to move on diddy - technologically speaking, make a quantum leap, as it were. Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 14 Dec 10 14:42   Electric car mileage - Oldgit

>> >>Now if the car was somewhere like Florida then the story is different<< >> >> Or Tenerife :) >> >> We need to move on diddy - technologically speaking, make a quantum leap, as it >> were. >> We have no excuse. We can use Di-Lithium crystals and then all of our problems would be solved. Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 14 Dec 10 19:44   Electric car mileage - rtj70

So back in the 60s, Gene Roddenbury called it di-lithium crystals.... and we use lithium in rechargeable batteries. Another example of how he was ahead of his time? The communicator = mobile phone for example. And the equivalent of the impulse drive now exists too. Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 14 Dec 10 19:52   Electric car mileage - Iffy

...So back in the 60s, Gene Roddenbury called it di-lithium crystals... "Beam me up, rtj70," somehow doesn't have the same ring to it. :) Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 14 Dec 10 20:05   Electric car mileage - rtj70

What about beam me up iffy? No it has to be Scottie... :-) Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 14 Dec 10 20:14   Electric car mileage - Iffy

...What about beam me up iffy? No it has to be Scottie... :-)... Agreed. Were you about to be beamed up, you wouldn't have much confidence in arriving safely if the bloke operating the controls was called Iffy. Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 14 Dec 10 14:10   Electric car mileage - Zero

The prius and the lexus are not electric. They are hybrids. Pure electric cars have no future until the charging problem is sorted out. And bear in mind 40% of the population will not be able to charge them at home (no drive or garage) Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 14 Dec 10 14:15   Electric car mileage - Netsur

Interesting article I read recently. An Israeli who worked from one of the large consulting firms (Accenture or similar) developed the idea of battery stations where you go to swap an empty battery for a charged one in five minutes. He met Carlos Ghosn(?) whilst at Davos with Shimon Peres and now the Leaf and Fluence will use this technology in the future. The infrastructure is not only being developed in Israel (which of course would welcome not buying Arab oil and can use the sun to generate electricity) but also Australia apparently. Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 14 Dec 10 14:22   Electric car mileage - Zero

Banks of batteries are heavy and quite large. Your average motorway service station that fuels say, two thousand cars a day, would need a storage area the size of a car park. Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 14 Dec 10 14:26   Electric car mileage - diddy1234

What about compressed air instead of Electric ? Can fuel a car quickly and compressed air can be generated by numerous methods. MDI in France could hold the key to this technology. Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 14 Dec 10 14:34   Electric car mileage - Netsur

But you would charge your car at home or at the office mostly. It was for long journeys that you used the station and then they would charge up the returned batteries using a high power pack that would charge fully in one hour. So you would need only say 200 batteries in stock at any one time. Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 14 Dec 10 14:37   Electric car mileage - Zero

>> But you would charge your car at home or at the office mostly. And there lies the fundamental problem. A large proportion of people can not charge at home as they have no drive or garage. Charge at the office? A hundred, two hundred charging points? IF you have the space. Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 14 Dec 10 14:41   Electric car mileage - madf

It's all irrelevant and a BIG blind alley. There are not enough power stations in existence - let alone planned - to recharge half of the UK car fleet if it was electric.. And the price of copper would triple if half the cars in the UK WERE electric. Which would do a lot for housing costs.. Good PR for car companies. Otherwise jsut BS. Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 14 Dec 10 14:38   Electric car mileage - Dog

I reckon that this world is just a backwater really, cosmologically speaking, I reckon there are worlds in this and other galaxies 1000's maybe millions of our years in advance of us. Were STILL using the infernal combustion engine STILL burning fossil fuel to heat our homes, like the caveman did. We certainly will move on some time in the future but - right now, npower have increased their charges, and I've just 'switched'. Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 14 Dec 10 14:46   Electric car mileage - hobby

Bit unfair, Dog... We are also using wind, water, sun and nuclear power... wind and water have been around for donkeys years but the other two are new-ish... It needs some sort of "push" to get things moving development wise - I don't know where that will come from, but rising oil prices may do the trick... Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 14 Dec 10 14:56   Electric car mileage - Aretas

To rephrase the original question - do you want to stay warm or to get home? I belive work is being done to see if seat heating is more efficient than space heating - at least then if there was only one person in the car you wouldn't be heating unnecessary parts of the vehicle. I rather like the Chevrolet Volt idea, which uses an on-board ic engine in its most efficient way to charge the battery. i.e. it is not a hybrid as traction is entirely electric. Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 14 Dec 10 15:03   Electric car mileage - hobby

The Volt still has an i/c motor to use when the battery runs out... Its still a Hybrid... Only a car with battery only power and no i/c engine is entirely electric.... Even Chevvy admit to that! Last edited by: hobby on Tue 14 Dec 10 at 15:05 Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 14 Dec 10 15:35   Electric car mileage - Aretas

It is a terminological issue. In my book a car needs two sources of traction to be a hybrid. If the traction is solely electric, sourced from a battery, fuel cell, ultra-capacitor i.c. engine, solar or a hamster in its wheel, or any combination, it is an EV. Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 14 Dec 10 15:51   Electric car mileage - hobby

>> It is a terminological issue. In my book a car needs two sources of traction >> to be a hybrid. It has two sources of power, and like other Hybrids it relies on the I/C motor to give it a decent range, without it it would be useless... How the power is transmitted to the wheels is irrelevant! Its a Hybrid! I suggest you look up the definition of what constitutes a Hybrid vehicle rather than make up your own definition... if we all did that things could get very confusing!! ;-) Last edited by: hobby on Tue 14 Dec 10 at 15:51 Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 21 Dec 10 14:20   Electric car mileage - Aretas

You win. I have re-defigned as a hybrid! Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 14 Dec 10 16:09   Electric car mileage - jc2

How can a seat heat your face?? Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 14 Dec 10 16:12   Electric car mileage - Crankcase

>> How can a seat heat your face?? Only BBD knows the answer. Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 14 Dec 10 17:01   Electric car mileage - Dog

>>Only BBD knows the answer<< - - - - > :-D Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 14 Dec 10 14:59   Electric car mileage - Dog

>>but rising oil prices may do the trick<< I also reckon (I'm a ready reckoner) that Exxon/Shell/BP etc. are quite happy with the way things are at the moment! Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 14 Dec 10 15:04   Electric car mileage - hobby

They probably are, but I suspect its a fine line that we will cross to push us into faster development of non-carbon based power... There's always being cut off from supplies (or threat of), I suppose! Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 14 Dec 10 15:38   Electric car mileage - DP

It concerns me what impact even a small shift to electric powered cars would have on the already creaking electricity infrastructure in the UK. According to some reports I've read, we are going to struggle to keep the lights on as it is over the coming years, with the severely delayed nuclear build not coming online until years after it's really needed, and many generating stations running well past their intended design life. It's not something that those pushing electric cars, not to mention the powers that be, even seem to acknowledge. Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 14 Dec 10 15:43   Electric car mileage - bathtub tom

>>Were STILL..........burning fossil fuel to heat our homes, like the caveman did. I think you'll find we've been using it for only a couple of hundred years. What chance of it lasting another couple of hundred? Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 14 Dec 10 17:06   Electric car mileage - Dog

>>I think you'll find we've been using it for only a couple of hundred years<< Just testing you Loo - I should have said carbon based:} Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 14 Dec 10 15:39   Electric car mileage - Cliff Pope

>> And bear >> in mind 40% of the population will not be able to charge them at home >> (no drive or garage) >> I imagined pavements festooned with extension cables, either to trip over or catch your head on, dangling from clothes props. Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 14 Dec 10 16:06   Electric car mileage - jc2

Somewhere in the sunny part of the US,(Phoenix,I think),GM supplied electric cars to a retirement community as part of an advertizing campaign and then found that batteries were going flat in fifty miles,not the expected one hundred and fifty.GM engineers investigating found that the pensioners were making FULL use of the acceleration available to them. Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 14 Dec 10 16:24   Electric car mileage - zookeeper

why cant the boffins generate the lecky at the power stations then convert it to microwaves then send it via satelite to your cars reciever where it is then converted back into dc current straight into the cars lecky motor , no more heavy batteries or heavy cables ...do i win the nobel prize for pyhsics ? Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 14 Dec 10 17:22   Electric car mileage - Boxsterboy

The Renault battery swap is the most sensible way forward but I still cant see battery power taking off. A quantum leap in battery design is needed, and there's no sign that it'll be here any time soon. Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 14 Dec 10 21:48   Electric car mileage - swiss tony

This is what we need....... keelynet.com/energy/ford.htm ...... if true! Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 14 Dec 10 23:20   Electric car mileage - Dulwich Estate

If I had to use one, I'd keep a generator and 5 litres of unleaded in the boot ! At least I'd get home....sometime. Reply to this message | Report message

New Wed 15 Dec 10 11:30   Electric car mileage - Glaikit Wee Scunner Snr. {P}

Dog. As far as I recall, the US Prius has an optional roof covered with photovoltaics in one of its new incarnations. The 'plug in hybrid' or something like that. Reply to this message | Report message

New Wed 15 Dec 10 11:52   Electric car mileage - Dog

>>the US Prius has an optional roof covered with photovoltaics in one of its new incarnations<< Useful in areas like California or the Gulf states, GWS Snr. - I was looking with interest at the Solar trickle car battery chargers recently, ideal for keeping a battery topped up I would have thought. This technology needs an evolutionary leap forward. Reply to this message | Report message

New Wed 15 Dec 10 12:37   Electric car mileage - Collos

If we all changed to electric cars where is the power going to come from,with power stations at full capicity I can see some problems on the horizen. Reply to this message | Report message

New Wed 15 Dec 10 15:59   Electric car mileage - Kithmo

Not just the US Prius, all countries have this option. But the solar roof is only to power the remote AC to pre-cool the car before getting in, it doesn't generate enough juice to power the car. The solar roof option is an expensive toy and it's heavy which increases the CO2 output and lowers the mpg, so much so that the UK Prius with solar roof can only have the smaller 15" wheels and not the 17" ones which would take it over the 100g/km CO2 threshold for free VED and London congestion charge. Last edited by: Kithmo on Wed 15 Dec 10 at 15:59 Reply to this message | Report message

New Wed 15 Dec 10 16:18   Electric car mileage - Dog

We should all contact The Anunnaki en mass and make a plea for details of photon drive ASAP. Reply to this message | Report message

New Wed 15 Dec 10 16:23   Electric car mileage - Tooslow

You have their phone nbr? On the other hand it may not be a good idea. Remember how the Magratheans raected when disturbed. John Reply to this message | Report message

New Wed 15 Dec 10 16:53   Electric car mileage - Dog

This reminds me of an LSD trip I had in the late 60's ~ www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbNtlS69HhU Reply to this message | Report message

New Wed 15 Dec 10 16:57   Electric car mileage - gramar

I'd love an electric car - smooth, silent -- but not until it is developed further and can charge itself as it goes along - a sort of perpetual motion AND it becomes affordable. Can't wait!! 1,000 miles in serene luxury -- no problem. Reply to this message | Report message

New Wed 15 Dec 10 17:07   Electric car mileage - madf

A hybrid Citroen C6 would appeal. Reply to this message | Report message

New Thu 16 Dec 10 10:30   Electric car mileage - MPZ

Surprised no one has mentioned the article in the Sunday Times - stuck on the A2 in snow in an electric Citroen they couldn't use the heater or the radio for fear that they would not make it to the next junction when the blockage cleared - sounds pretty miserable to me. Electric only cars have to get a lot better than that before we see many on the roads. MPZ Reply to this message | Report message       1

New Thu 16 Dec 10 10:52   Electric car mileage - hobby

>> Electric only cars have to get a lot better than that before we see many >> on the roads. Nail right on the head there, MPZ! Reply to this message | Report message