Electric, Hybrid and Alternative fuelled vehicles - News and Discussion

[Ron Ron Ron]

49 minutes ago, Ian Morgan said:

 

I was grateful it did not happen on a motorway or fast dual carriageway as it was quite sudden and unexpected. Now I know what to expect and avoid, but I was not ready for it this time.

 

 

 

I suppose there's not much difference between your experience and running around on a nearly empty tank of petrol or diesel, hoping to make it home, or to a distant refuelling stop.

Particularly on a cross country journey on a dark wet night.

 

Once an ICE fuel gauge is into the "red", it rapidly becomes a guessing game.

You know you've got maybe the 40 miles or so left, that it says on the computer mileage readout, but after doing 20 or so of those miles it can be scary stuff watching the remaining range depleting rapidly.

 

I haven't done that for maybe 20 or 30 years, I hasten to add.

When the gauge reads quarter of a tank, I'm looking to fill up at my convenience.

 

 

.

[raymw]

Pre motorway days, I used to carry a can of petrol in the boot, just in case. I guess a pocket full of AA batteries may help?

[boxbrownie]

16 hours ago, royaloak said:

Nah its bloody stupid and dangerous!

It is, if that’s the maximum speed it will do for the last 5 miles it makes the car basically a vehicle you could be prosecuted for driving for WDC&A or even without reasonable consideration for other road users...........and basically reduces the useable range by 5 miles......

 

 

[Fenman]

54 minutes ago, boxbrownie said:

It is, if that’s the maximum speed it will do for the last 5 miles it makes the car basically a vehicle you could be prosecuted for driving for WDC&A or even without reasonable consideration for other road users....

 

 

 

Really? So why isn't every single tractor and combine prosecuted?

 

Paul

[boxbrownie]

53 minutes ago, Fenman said:

 

Really? So why isn't every single tractor and combine prosecuted?

 

Paul

Because they don't do 5 mph...…...funny but true, but don't worry if your that concerned with slow moving farm vehicles on the road stop buying the food you eat, that should stop them 

 

And also they are classed as agricultural vehicles.

[Fenman]

5 minutes ago, boxbrownie said:

Because they don't do 5 mph...…...funny but true, but don't worry if your that concerned with slow moving farm vehicles on the road stop buying the food you eat, that should stop them 

 

And also they are classed as agricultural vehicles.

 

No, I'm just intrigued by the enthusiasm with which people find reasons to attack EVs. Seems to me there are enough pros and cons anyway, without inventing scenarios.

 

You could as easily claim that any vehicle that breaks down is blocking the queen's highway and faces instant prosecution. Well, yes, sort of...

 

Paul

Edited October 8, 2019 by Fenman

[boxbrownie]

12 minutes ago, Fenman said:

 

No, I'm just intrigued by the enthusiasm with which people find reasons to attack EVs. Seems to me there are enough pros and cons anyway, without inventing scenarios.

 

You could as easily claim that any vehicle that breaks down is blocking the queen's highway and faces instant prosecution. Well, yes, sort of...

 

Paul

Only attacking a stupid design function, our i3 does not restrict speed or usage before it fails, it gives plenty of notice........same as any ICE car that runs out of fuel, they don’t suddenly drop down to 5 mph then conk out after 5 miles, why should an EV be different.

[boxbrownie]

16 minutes ago, Fenman said:

 

 

 

You could as easily claim that any vehicle that breaks down is blocking the queen's highway and faces instant prosecution. Well, yes, sort of...

 

Paul

But the Hyundai has not broken down, it’s a mobile 5mph hazard.....just a daft design.

 

If they are worried about what happens when it runs out of charge give it a decaying speed slope, 50mph for half a mile, 40mph.....30 etc etc, then you won’t ever be caught out in the fast lane with no go!

[Ian Morgan]

The Hyundai gives a gentle warning ping when the range drops to 17 miles (I had that once before), but there was no other warning before 5 miles left and the instant slow-down. That could be improved, I am sure, like gradually reducing top speed.

Edited October 8, 2019 by Ian Morgan

[Ron Ron Ron]

1 hour ago, Ian Morgan said:

The Hyundai gives a gentle warning ping when the range drops to 17 miles (I had that once before), but there was no other warning before 5 miles left and the instant slow-down. .......

 

An image flashed into my head of a vocal warning, featuring Marvin the paranoid android's voice .....

 

"battery the size of a planet .......there's no hope....did I do something wrong? ......don't talk to me about range....what was the point of it all?  .......battery life?  don't talk to me about battery life.......I'm so depressed "

 

 

.

Edited October 8, 2019 by Ron Ron Ron

[Ian Morgan]

No, it was more refined, like the gentle cough Jeeves would use before Bertie Wooster puts his foot in it.

 

 

[number6]

This is blue on blue conflict - careful people.

 

Sounds like the 5mph option Hyundai offer is quite useful and will be resorted so infrequently that the issue of holding up other road users isn't even worth worrying about. There are bikes and pedestrians, horse riders, mobility scooters, wildlife, lost delivery van drivers, Littlehampton residents and broken down ICE drivers pushing their cars to the petrol station all 'holding up' more traffic.

 

And I'm wondering how many ICE cars run out of petrol on a daily basis - I'm not linking to the Daily Heil but they had an article that referenced LV insurance calculating over 800,000 drivers a year run out of fuel, that is over 2,000 a day. How many Ionics are creeping along the highway at the same time?!

 

[boxbrownie]

1 hour ago, number6 said:

How many Ionics are creeping along the highway at the same time?!

 

Give it time 

[Ian Morgan]

I am not complaining about the 10mph creep back to my home, but the sudden, unexpected drop in speed down to 10mph. I would have been happier with the speed limiter starting at, say, 40mph with 10 miles to go, then dropping to 30mph at 8 miles to go, then 20mph with 6 miles to go, then 10mph with 5 miles to go.

 

Anyway, just had my home charger fitted today, so full charge in under 4 hours, and no need to open the garage door to plug in the slow charger.

 

 

Edited October 9, 2019 by Ian Morgan

[admiles]

1 hour ago, Ian Morgan said:

 

Anyway, just had my home charger fitted today, so full charge in under 4 hours, and no need to open the garage door to plug in the slow charger.

 

 

 

So daft question but what happens if you need to use the car during the four hour charge time?

 

This was one of the huge issues we found when testing the EVs we had on loan (admittedly with slow portable plug-in chargers). 

[Ron Ron Ron]

1 hour ago, admiles said:

 

So daft question but what happens if you need to use the car during the four hour charge time?

 

 

Presumably, that 4 hours will be in the middle of the night for most people?

 

.

[Buhar]

Or you unplug, make your journey (assuming there's enough charge) and then plug in again.  I need to have 100 miles or so range for emergencies, so I keep it full if I can, but don't top up until the charge is below 80% (read that somewhere).

Alan

[Ian Morgan]

Yes, battery technology has improved - there is no charge memory problems any more, however, I think some cars will refuse to charge if the battery is already nearly full. So, charge pretty much when it suits you, and stop charging at any time you want to. There is also some experimentation going on where cars being charged, which are full, or nearly full, can actually give some of their charge back to help charge cars with less power in them without drawing too much power from the main power source - to even out the drain on the supply.

 

[Talltim]

I drove our work Hyundai hybrid today. Found the mpg function so I found out the journey back from Barnsley to Sheffield was 38.9 mpg. I don’t know if that’s good or not.

However, as well as using the fuel, the battery went from 9 bars (out of 10) to 2. Wonder if that’s counted in the mpg figure?

[boxbrownie]

15 hours ago, Buhar said:

Or you unplug, make your journey (assuming there's enough charge) and then plug in again.  I need to have 100 miles or so range for emergencies, so I keep it full if I can, but don't top up until the charge is below 80% (read that somewhere).

Alan

The official line from BMW is keep it plugged in all the time, the car takes care of the charging management and also occasionally it will let the management system balance the traction battery cells when needed.

 

These aren’t mobile phone batteries and chargers, they are very sophisticated software driven battery charger/conditioners.

[cheesysmith]

15 hours ago, Talltim said:

I drove our work Hyundai hybrid today. Found the mpg function so I found out the journey back from Barnsley to Sheffield was 38.9 mpg. I don’t know if that’s good or not.

However, as well as using the fuel, the battery went from 9 bars (out of 10) to 2. Wonder if that’s counted in the mpg figure?

 

That doesn't appear very good MPG. My father's people carrier, a high roof long wheelbase fiat 2.0l diesel (the fiat version of those pegeot taxis, but bigger) does better than that, even when thrashed. It does over 30 round town. 

 

I thought one of the points of hybrids was increased efficiency through energy recovery (ie- better MPG).

[cheesysmith]

On 07/10/2019 at 18:47, Ron Ron Ron said:

BMW to launch an electric version of the mk3 1 series hatchback in 2011.

 

BMWi1

 

 BMW i1 EV hatchback

 

 

 

.

Is it a delorian modified by a mad professor?

[Sir TophamHatt]

On ‎05‎/‎10‎/‎2019 at 19:56, Nick C said:

The problem with location-based charging is that people will go out of their way to avoid it - look at the congestion on the M6 by people who won't pay for the M6 toll - even though they'll spend more in fuel sitting in the jam than they will in the toll. It's psychological.

 

That means that if you start charging more for the main roads with the big traffic jams, people will try to find 'rat-runs' that they perceive to be cheaper, resulting in much more traffic on side streets or rural lanes (and thus pushing the price up there too!)

 

Another good example of this is the nominal 5p charge for plastic bags (before they stopped all together!).

The usage dropped right off, even though it was only 5p.

 

Supermarkets have saved huge amounts in not buying bags.

 

I'm sure I read that if you re-use a plastic bag (one of the old ones) just once, it becomes 80% more environmentally friendly than a bag for life.

 

Good think I have hundreds of each saved!
Although Bag For Lives are more or less useless in my household (I have no use for them).
Old plastic bags go in bins in the bathroom and office.

The more durable plastic bags you can buy for pounds are fast becoming useless as I use delivery baskets (that supermarkets use anyway) when picking up my shopping now.  Just need to get hold of some Asda ones - then I can do a straight swap!

 

Sorry, all this is completely off topic!

[admiles]

16 hours ago, Talltim said:

I drove our work Hyundai hybrid today. Found the mpg function so I found out the journey back from Barnsley to Sheffield was 38.9 mpg. I don’t know if that’s good or not.

However, as well as using the fuel, the battery went from 9 bars (out of 10) to 2. Wonder if that’s counted in the mpg figure?

 

That MPG is frankly appalling. By way of comparison my 3 litre, 6 cylinder petrol BMW does 35 mpg in normal mixed use and 45 mpg on a decent trip. 

 

Most diesels will easily be mid-50's mpg on a trip, some considerably more.

 

How is using more fuel more environmentally friendly?

[boxbrownie]

3 hours ago, cheesysmith said:

 

That doesn't appear very good MPG. My father's people carrier, a high roof long wheelbase fiat 2.0l diesel (the fiat version of those pegeot taxis, but bigger) does better than that, even when thrashed. It does over 30 round town. 

 

I thought one of the points of hybrids was increased efficiency through energy recovery (ie- better MPG).

The biggest advantage of hybrids (apart from the obvious BIK company car advantages) is when used in heavy traffic such as jams and queueing in towns/cities they can creep along without the engine running thus eliminating Co2/Nox emissions completely, this was their true raison d'être, not really fuel economy.