Electric cars

The environmental cost of making the electricity can be minimised by using hydro schemes, and solar, wind and wave power.

When petrol cars were first invented, there were very few places where motorists could get petrol. They had to plan their journeys very carefully. It is the chicken and the egg - when /if electric cars really catch on, so will recharging stations, and when/if charging stations are everywhere, electric cars will be more popular.

Interesting thread. I can't see electric/hybrid ever being an option for us, because we live rurally, though I can imagine that for town driving it's a viable option. There's only one fast-charge point within a 20 mile radius of us.

We do long 500+ mile journeys and I get good mileage out of my present car, I think 620 miles from one tank on my last trip to London. That's petrol, not diesel.

I am not sure that an electric car has a clutch because the car itself governs when the engine is charging. It is difficult to get an electric car in Europe as most of them are the hybrids. They are really using both electricity as well as carbon fuel. With an electric car the engine is a small one as it is ONLY charging the battery and not driving the car - a different concept.

Fully loaded with 4 adult passengers? A lot of the figures published my the motor manufacturers are based on non-existent driving conditions - Driving one mile on a specified surface without braking, the driver being a specified weight, and so on. Unlike the average journey driving along a busy road, with a potholed surface, slowing down and speeding up using brake and clutch and several rises and falls, with an overweight driver.

My reaction to most manufacturer mileage figures is to halve the number of miles per gallon they do and you will be nearer the mileage got under real driving conditions.

I heard that some electric Nissans are pretty bad for battery replacement costs and should be avoided second hand, and once used are hard to sell

The range of electric cars is very small. Ideal in towns where there are pollution problems, but not suitable for longer journeys. From what I have seen of the hybrid cars, the battery means they have reduced luggage space.

Not at all the case with my friends toyota hybrid, she has run us down to Healthrow (a fairly long journey) before with no motorway issues and plenty of space. She finds it super cheap to run

My neighbour has a hybrid that charges itself & loves it.

For fully electric apparently you need to make sure you can replace individual cells otherwise the whole battery needs replacing which can cost more than the value of the car at that point.

I know someone who had a fully electric and found it very dangerous as pedestrians and animals didnt hear them coming, some fully electric cars are being developed to have fake engine noises apparently for safety reasons.

A lot of our charge points in our town get illegally parked in which is an issue. They are stand alone charge points so nobody is there to regulate it.

Gosh, you’re making me read up about these. It says in my google thingy that ‘for short journeys at lower speeds or inbuilt up traffic a hybrid car actually uses no fuel because it runs purely on its electric motor’.

Then it goes on ‘as its speed increases it automatically switches from electric to petrol. Even so the hybrid mpg is still very low’.

It’s all getting too technical for me now and BiL is in the States at the moment or I’d ask him. But why not visit a reputable garage and see if they can answer your queries?

But how far does it do on electricity Anja?

I’ve just read

On a single tank of petrol

PS newest hybrids can manage 500 miles.

I know you didn’t Monica which is why I emphasised the hybrid for those who might still confuse the two.

Anja I did not say the distance range of hybrids is limited I said the distance range of electric cars is limited. The problems with hybrids are that luggage room is limited, or it has been in those I have seen.

Apart from my car we own a large estate car, which is often full. Currently it is loaded up every day with two huge builders sacks full of leaves, which are taken to the tip. We have taken 10 bags so far and have another half dozen to go. You simply cannot load any current hybrid car like that. We use our estate car to full capacity a lot and until electric or hybrid can handle that volume and weight of contents and has a loaded range of over 200 miles, it will be impractical to change.

Monica my BiL travelled the length of the UK in his hydrid. Their range is not limited. The hybrid is the way to go until the infrastructure of charging points for purely electric cars is sorted.

It is such a complicated issue. We run two cars at present- left from our working days. Both are quite old (8 and 11) but when one dies we will go down to one. Was wondering about an electric one but it would be our only vehicle.

The range of electric cars is very small. Ideal in towns where there are pollution problems, but not suitable for longer journeys. From what I have seen of the hybrid cars, the battery means they have reduced luggage space.

We have said that when my car dies we will get an electric car, but the amount of energy embedded in acquiring the raw materials and building the electric car needs to be taken into account in working out their efficiency so, currently it is probably more energy efficient to keep my 13 year old, light use car on the road.

Do not forget the emissions from the power stations making the electricity and energy embedded in the wind turbines and solar arrays.

Thanks Anja and Welshwife. That's very useful

I don’t have one but DS is a design engineer on electric cars in USA. Most electric cars are hybrid with petrol engines in some way. The one he works on only uses the engine to recharge the battery but not charge the engine - most others drive using the engine while the battery charges. He did have one for a couple of years and spent less than 10$ on petrol the whole year. He had a point in his garage where he could top up at night if needed and at work there was a bank of solar charging points in the car park .His distance to drive to and from work was within the charging time of the battery so his driving cost was virtually nil.
Battery lives are getting longer and will now do a couple of hundred miles. He says that there is a lot of research into battery life.
One of the main safety problems is that they are silent and so pedestrians do not hear them approaching.

mumofmadboys a hybrid battery continually recharges itself when your car is in motion.

It does this as you drive, through the car wheels turning; and even when you use your brakes, through a process called ‘regenerative energy’. In effect, hybrid cars are like small generators, continually topping their battery power up with electricity and then using it to power the electric engine - and saving on fuel costs.

Unnerving in car parks for the aurally challenged

Didn't realise that running on petrol recharges the electric bit. Or that TESLAs are solely electric. Thanks folks. Anyone on the forum got one?

Not all electric cars are hybrids. When the electric bit runs out of charge they switch over to petrol. This then recharges the electric bit !

Not all, mumofmadboys only hybrid are both. Some like the TESLA are just electric.