On 30/09/17 14:48, Peter Hill wrote:
On 29-Sep-17 5:23 PM, NY wrote:
"Graham J" wrote in message
news
As an earlier poster commented: "we have not progressed an enormous
amount" - and the limitation is battery technology.

Irrespective of the battery technology you need to put in phenomenal
amounts of electrical energy, which means dangerously high charging
voltages or current that needs very thick cables - or a combination of
the two. 500 kWhr delivered in 5 mins is 6 MW - how the hell do we
solve the problem of delivering electrical energy at that rate

That's why you need either a swappable pre-charged battery or else an
on-board generator powered by an IC engine if you want to avoid the
very long charging times.

When electric cars can match my present car, which has a range of 700
miles on 60 litres of diesel, and I can replenish that 700 miles range
in a few minutes, then pure-electric cars will be a viable
alternative. Until then, you have to make sacrifices:

- have two cars (petrol/diesel for long journeys, mainly avoiding
congested town/city centres, and electric for shorter journeys into town)

- use public transport for longer journeys and hire a car locally when
you go on holiday for touring (this is not feasible if you want to
take bikes or lots of luggage)

- charge the car overnight or while you're at work, and live with the
fact that you cannot travel more than 100 miles or so (on current
technology) before you need to repeat this palaver.


So you need a hybrid or else a car with a fuel cell - either way, to
convert very "compact" energy of something like petrol/diesel or
compressed gas (LPG, hydrogen) into motion (via electricity).


I hope the government has correctly predicted the rate at which
technology will progress in the next 20 years, or there is going to be
a very ****ed-off population who have to accept a drastic reduction in
standard of living (live closer to work or at least to public
transport, no long holidays touring around).

The fundamental issue with fuel cell technology is that there isn't a
single dealer on the whole planet that can service the hydrogen fuel
system and the fuel cell.

Not only that but the RAC/AA/Greenflag can't do anything with them
either. Just put it on trailer and take it to the maker.

There will never be a lower cost non-franchise service option and the
only way of getting FCV will be on lease from the maker. That makes them
worthless on the 3rd hand market.


I'm not entirely convinced the problem of 'repairing' batteries in
either all electric or even hybrid cars is entirely fixed.

We are in the process of looking at a replacement car. We started
looking at the Tesla 4x4. Two things convinced us it was a non-starter
(no pun intended). One was the concern of getting stuck being unable to
recharge it. The other was the battery/batteries seem to be so 'buried'
in the vehicle that replacement / repair would seem to be either
extremely difficult to impossible. In other respects, the claimed
reliability seemed extremely impressive but, with a 'dead' battery, it
is just a pile of junk.

We are currently looking at a couple of hybrids- a Merc and the
Outlander. At the moment I'm in the early stages but the Outlander at
least has a long warranty on the batteries (8 years for 70%) plus you
have the petrol engine at worst. The Merc warranty is much less
'impressive', as is the performance- at least on paper.

We tend to keep our cars a long time, we buy one we like and 'get
comfortable with it'- our current 4x4 is 11 years old and, having been
'looked after' will last several more years I am sure if we want it to-
not least as he have several vehicles.