We don't get discounts on EVs in the UK, so I really have no interest in those numbers. It's gonna cost the best part of £30k over here, and that makes it too expensive.
Sucks to be you then.
Top speed of 87mph. That means you'll be amongst the slowest things on the UK motorway.
Very interesting, so everyone in UK is disobeying speed limit laws? Considering the national speed limit in the UK is 70 mph?
My daily drive? Zero. I work from home. I don't feel the need to be a tree hugger at the weekends, when I've had zero carbon emissions throughout the week for travel. Most people in the UK travel around 4 miles to work. Fuck, they could cycle. You need to be advocating cycling.
Way ahead of you. I don't own a car, just a bike.
Can a PHEV pull a 1000kg caravan?
Sure, when they make SUV and Truck PHEV.
Using 480 V DC 125 amps. Yeah right, maybe you missed the bit where I said there was just ONE location with 240v 13A sockets available in my City. Early adopters here will not have a fast charge option.
Never said they would.
Sorry bub, it's on street parking around here. I think the neighbours might get a little upset if I trail a power cable across the pavement to an EV. Seen, EV's have limitations, like that.
Then your city should start putting up charging stations.
Well, we don't get the rebate, and why only compare to the Sentra? For 1/3 of the cost of the Leaf, I can get a car with the same performance, so we need to save £20k. Got that? Plus, average UK mileage for a car is 10k miles, you are 50% over your estimate.
What, you want a Smart Car? Sure I was going at 15k, but you can recalculate for 10k, just drop both values by 1/3 and subtract.
So, let's recap. I can't recharge an EV at my current residence because we have on street parking.
This is a early adoption issue, considering the electric cars make grid storage possible, plug in station will become ubiquitous as the only way to utilize the increased intermittent renewable energy sources like wind, solar and wave. Cities will build charging station and actually pay you for use of your battery as a gird storage utility.
EVs work for short commutes, and I don't commute.
Then you don't need a car do you? Oh you need it for luxury, as the world energy crisis hits us you honestly think you will retain the luxury go out to the beach with kids and tow a camper, I think you will be working hard enough just to keep the house warm in winter!
Tell that to a train, there is a reason why cargo trains are all diesel electric hybrids. The diesel engine lacks the torque to move a train from dead stop, but the electric motor can do so easy without switching gears. So the diesel engine spins a generator which then powers the electric motors so the train can move from dead stop to what ever speed. Add in batteries and you only need the diesel to be able to power the vechile while its in motion, not to accelerate, the engine can be much smaller and its parasitic loses reduced dramatically, that the concept of a serial electric hybrid, like The Chevy Volt.
Most people in the UK drive at about 80mph on the motorway, and the top speed is 87, and I presume that is unloaded.
No that electronically limited top speed. Again you need to understand the nature of electric motors, and stop thinking in terms of a ICE. Its not the the electric motor won't have any power at that speed, its that the bearings won't be able to withstand faster rpms, there no shifter remember, that car going from 0-87 mph without shifting gears. So I doubt the car would have any trouble moving at 80 mph with a full load.
You know what, ... I think biofuel is better alternative. I'll put my money on that.
Oh I'm all for that, but if you get a PHEV you can have both bio-fuels and electrics, then your bets are well hedged. In the short term biofuels could take a small percentage out of oil usage invisibly mix with petroleum based fuels, in the long term it can only replace a percentage of our energy usage, not unless we get algae farming going. Both ways your stuck with infrastructure change.
With electrics all the infrastructure change is at the user end, the power grid and power plants could supply the energy with minimal change as long as there is smart charging, but charging stations and EV will need to be purchased by end users. With biofuels energy crops will need to be grown, harvested, converted into fuels and distributed to fueling stations but the cars them selves can remain relatively unchanged. Energy crop needs though will be staggering! For the USA, just to make up the estimated 2.6x10^10 GJ energy usage increase from 2000 to 2020 would require 43-76% of the US total bioenergy reserves, we would need 50%-60% more cropland growing energy crops just to supply the increase in energy demand, we would need 4 times as much to replace all our energy demand! The UK as much lower energy consumption but also has far less cropland and of poor climate, without the potential of high yield crops like sugar cane.
Part of the problem is gross inefficiency, an ICE does on average 25% efficiency, so 75% is just wasted energy blown off the radiator and tail pipe as hot air. Consider 80% efficiency in converting crude oil to gasoline, minor loss in transportation and 25% in the car, thats a total of 20% efficiency. The worse power plants (coal burning steam cycle), generally do 35% efficiency, consider 5-10% loss in transport, 10-15% loss in charging a Li-ion battery, thats 28% efficiency to run an EV. Off of natural gas the initial efficiency is as high as 60%, so 48% by the time the EV is driving. With Nuclear and renewable, power plant efficiency can be dropped (same reason I did not count the efficiency of plants converting sunlight to biomass: ~0.5%, up to 7% in algae in high CO2 atmospheres) and it all comes down to $/w. With printable solar panels we are now below $1/w, but solar is so intermittent where could we store the power to use it consistently? Perhaps a battery, but that would be expensive, unless the battery could do something else as well like driving people around... just killed the intermittent problem of renewable energy and the transportation problem with one solution.
