Electric Car

[Footie]

Here's a very nice looking electric sports car being shown off at British International Motor Show 2008

Lightning sparks at London - Yahoo! Cars UK

Lightning car company web site.
Site say the batteries have a fast recharge but I can't find any details on distance / range

Welcome to Lightning Car Company - The UK's Premier Electric Sports Car

Use's NanoSafe™ batterys - lithium ion.

Altairnano - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Comments anyone?
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[flecc]

Very nice, but I wish someone would concentrate on a sensible small electric car for mass production. I tried for one again early this year, but ended up with another petrol town car, nothing realistic electric available.

As ever, plenty just around the corner and plenty of promises, but nothing to exercise a credit card.
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[john]

Does the G-Wiz not do it for you flecc?

 

[flecc]

Does the G-Wiz not do it for you flecc?

I'm afraid not John, it's too hilly where I am and the G-Wiz is like a loaded milk float up hills. I'd cause a riot with the heavy and fast traffic in the lanes around my London fringe.

I'd had my eye on the electric Smart, but after years of delay there's only 100 released to nominees for trial this year.

Even better because of the interior space would have been the electric version of the Mitsubishi i-car, but for the third year running it's been put back a year, lithium battery problems. Now where have we heard that before?
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[prState]

Happened to see the editoral on this today.

Will Lightning Strike in the UK? - MSN Autos

The car is pretty.

Can you really get 700hp out of 30 batteries?

 

[flecc]

It's possible prState, depending on the battery type and an adequately high discharge rate. I agree with the correspondent though, the range they claim is quite ridiculous. I'm completely confident that like all the other high performance electric sports cars, Tesla etc, it won't arrive on the market anytime soon, and probably never.

At the present state of battery and associated technologies, the only viable realistically priced car is a town car, moderate performance and range. As I remarked above, even they keep getting put back year after year due to problems, despite having some of the top motor companies like Daimler Benz (electric Smart) and Mitsubishi (electric i-car) behind them. Previous e-cars from the big boys like models from GM and Peugeot have quickly disappeared from the market.
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[scobo]

It's really frustrating as the technology to build good electric cars is obviously here now if they can build cars like the Tesla and Lightning.
You have to wonder if there are other factors preventing the car manufacturers from developing production electric cars such as pressure from the big petrol companys not to.

 

[halfmedley]

There was a letter in The Telegraph motoring section from someone questioning the Lightning. I don't know the veracity of what he says but here it is verbatim:

"The Lightning GT Coupé is powered by a 36kW/h battery, which its maker claims may be quick-recharged in 10 minutes. Neglecting any losses, I calculate that this would require a supply of 216kW, nearly 1,000 amps at 240volts! This would need a large three-phase supply, not normally available at home, and demonstrates the ignorance of those who extol the virtues of battery-electric cars."

Are the figures correct?

I wish someone would concentrate on a sensible small electric car for mass production. I tried for one again early this year, but ended up with another petrol town car, nothing realistic electric available.

What about the Th!nk City car Flecc? Any good?

 

[flecc]

It's really frustrating as the technology to build good electric cars is obviously here now if they can build cars like the Tesla and Lightning.
You have to wonder if there are other factors preventing the car manufacturers from developing production electric cars such as pressure from the big petrol companys not to.

The snag is that the technology isn't here Scobo. For years we've had a succession of chancers trying their get rich quick luck, but nothing comes of things like the Lightning, Tesla and many others simply because they can't get the finance or backing to produce. And the reason that they can't get the finance or backing is that their products don't stand up to examination. See halfmedley's post above for an indication of what I mean. High on claims and instant appeal, low on reality.

The largest oil companies are heavily into electric vehicle and other environmental research since they need to be doing something else to keep their businesses going as they are increasingly starved of crude oil, so they are the last people who would want to impede progress.

See also my answer following to Halfmedley.
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[flecc]

What about the Th!nk City car Flecc? Any good?

Doubtful I think. After all, if Mercedes (Daimler Benz) have had to put the electric Smart back at least three years running to date and are still only doing a test market to a selected group of 100 to see how it goes, how could a tiddler succeed with their limited resources.

Again, Mitsubishi have put back the electric i-car another year for the third time due to lithium battery problems.

Equally, giant Ford after years of work on small e-cars have only released a few to one large organisation so that they can PR manage the failure rate without corporate damage, like Smart above.

The small town car at a realistic price and acceptable hill climbing, range and reliability will arrive when one of the giants of the motor industry succeed. The annual blast of publicity for such as the Think Car makes me smile as it must make the big car companies smile.

Batteries are the problem, lead acid works as in the G-Wizz, but cars like that climb like milk floats, and that's unacceptable in todays traffic except in the flattest areas.

With better quality e-bike lithium batteries from £300 to £450, imagine what a set for a car costs, £4000 to £6000 perhaps? Now think of the less than two year lives we've been seeing and you see the scale of the problems. After all, the NiMh batteries for the electric Peugeot 207 many years ago cost £4000 and failed to reach the promised four year life, rendering it not viable.

The answer may have to come by missing out on batteries altogether and using fuel cells, but that can only happen if we have access to abundant hydrogen or methane with a distribution network for motorists. Methane will probably not be viable for universal use, so we'll need nuclear generation to realise enough hydrogen.

I've almost given up on being able to buy an electric town car in my motoring lifetime, and I'm not demanding, being willing to pay at least 50% over the petrol equivalent and not needing a very long range. It does however need to perform with today's traffic on acceleration and speed, up hills as well as on the flat.
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[fishingpaul]

I agree with flecc here, the technology for an electric car is not ready yet,as for oil companies holding back development,this is only put forward by dodgy sellers selling useless items,this reminds me of magnets for better fuel economy,and run your car on water,all proven to be useless but attracting the odd buyer.believe me when really usefull electric car becomes available, it will make front page news on all the papers.

 

[JohnInStockie]

I think there are a couple of contenders beginning to emerge, but it seems that greed and monopoly are the restricting factors now. One such potential with range and speed, but without swappable batteries is Th!NK whose City model is based on the Ford City electric car but using a different battery technology, see here

Home - Think

Heres Autocars review from March this year.

Think City - Road Test First Drive - Autocar.co.uk

They have also receive investment from GE for their OX model concept using A123 batteries which seem to have to be leased (I suppose you dont have to worry about buying new ones then).

I dont know what is holding these guys back, the youtube videos and press releases dont say much. I dont think its the technology, I think its the price and margins personally (production margins in the automotive manufacture industry are very comfortable).

John

 

[flecc]

It is the battery technology John, some manufacturers admitting to that, Mitsubishi for example.

Would you shell out £4000 to £6000 every couple of years or less for new batteries?

If Ford haven't been able to achieve it, it's fanciful to think someone else can with part of their technology, or that they would grant part of a successful technology without exploiting it themselves, given their very poor commercial position at present. "Think" indeed, a certain irony in the name!

We are still at this limiting stage with our bikes, but since they only have to provide part of the propulsion power, they are viable. The cars aren't.

If you haven't read back, there's more in my various preceding posts on this since I've been trying to buy an electric car for years.
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[JohnInStockie]

Hi Flecc

Yes I have read back. I just think that this method with this technology seems to have something more than the others, at a price though. An electric car that can do 62mph, and cover a distance of 100 miles, with NCAP 4 rating.

Its getting there, just the £14k price tag is a bit steep.

John

 

[flecc]

I agree it looks attractive John, but I don't believe the figures anyway, they are as reliable as they were with e-bikes a couple of years ago when we used to have to halve most manufacturer's claims.

Just as the Vectrix overclaims it's speed by 10 mph, I bet this does too, ideal circumstances etc, and a real world range in a moderately hilly area will no doubt be well under half the claim as always.

Like Toyota Prius buyers, I'm not worried by that initial cost, but there's the all important matter they all duck, how long will the advanced batteries last. Using the full range it does have in real world conditions will probably finish those in two years, replacement at an astronomic cost which even at three years would be unacceptable. It's this which has killed all attempts to date, and since there's been no battery advance that solves it, the car remains not viable.

And I haven't even mentioned the other thing they all duck, the hill climbing. Electric vehicle weight kills the climb performance and that has to be adequate. Anyone can make an electric car that goes fast for a long time, even with lead acid batteries, but it's when a hill is met that they collapse. The little G-Wizz is acceptable on the flat, but on hills it makes milk float drivers impatient and that's just not practical in today's traffic. There's already enough out there to upset and enrage drivers without fleets of sluggish e-cars doing the same on every hill.

There's a huge potential demand for viable electric town cars, especially in London with no congestion charge, no parking charge and free recharging for them, and as the Prius proved, capital cost isn't a problem, but for the reasons I've given, we won't be seeing many Think cars around trying to satisfy that.

I wish I was wrong, but I'm completely confident I'm not.
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[Badge]

Long life batteries.

This firm in Glasgow is converting a Peugeot taxi
and giving a six year battery warranty.Do they
know something that we don,t?

 

[JohnInStockie]

@Flecc

Yes I agree, I imagine those figures are with a following wind, light weight driver, e.t.c.

The one thing these do do though as well is that you only 'lease' the battery, you dont own it. That means if it starts to misbehave, you can change it at no (extra) cost.

However, thats for £140 a month.

We need to be in a situation where we can swap batteries at a battery station, and the station itself check the condition of returned batteries, replacement being included in the 'swap-over fee'.

John

 

[flecc]

This firm in Glasgow is converting a Peugeot taxi
and giving a six year battery warranty.Do they
know something that we don,t?

Depends on the application Badge. The NiMh batteries in the Toyota Prius have an 8 year warranty, but that's achieved by cycling the charge at intermediate levels, the top and bottom 20% of the capacity never used.

That's fine in a hybrid where the petrol engine is available, but only 3/5ths of the range in an e-car wouldn't be ok. A taxi working locally and able to have fast top ups can be a different matter of course. Equally if it's working in a fairly flat area that can be done using lead acid traction batteries.

For the same reasons, electric vans have always been viable and have run on our roads for much of the last 80 years, I remember Harrods delivering with them over many decades.

It's the predictability of the usage that makes this possible, something not true of private cars.
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[flecc]

@Flecc

Yes I agree, I imagine those figures are with a following wind, light weight driver, e.t.c.

The one thing these do do though as well is that you only 'lease' the battery, you dont own it. That means if it starts to misbehave, you can change it at no (extra) cost.

However, thats for £140 a month.

We need to be in a situation where we can swap batteries at a battery station, and the station itself check the condition of returned batteries, replacement being included in the 'swap-over fee'.

John

That's usually been the model John, and the Peugeot electric 207 NiMh used this leasing as an alternative to the £4000 renewal of the battery four yearly,though the batteries didn't last that long in practice.

Battery station swapping is surely an answer, but it can only happen with a standardised battery across various car makes, so it's decades away at least. Therefore, as I've said before, fuel cells will likely be in use first and solve all these problems.
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[JohnInStockie]

... fuel cells will likely be in use first and solve all these problems.

I am not so sure they will solve our problems Flecc, I think one of our big problems is the deemed prerequisite for a mobile fuel source, and the fuel cell just replaces the fuel tank in this. As I understand it, making fuel cells is not at all cheap, and then there is the manufacture, recycling of empty cells, transportation, distribution.......all things we should be moving away from.

With a battery, the energy production is taken away from the vehicle, and can be controlled by a central source that can invest (if they have the will) in cleaner technologies for electricity production in the first instance.

John