"Adrian" wrote in message
...
Toby Douglass gurgled
happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Hasn't diesel caused a huge soot problem? they emit a lot more
particulate matter?

Not these days. Perticulate emissions have been VERY tightly controlled
in the last couple of rounds of Euro emission standards.

Of course, particulate filters in diesel exhausts bring a whole new range
of problems, but...

Not worth the bother using diesel.

The Natural Philosopher gurgled happily, sounding much like they
were saying:

And the answer to how big that is, is well under half a tonne for the
smaller one.

...or about half the weight of the rest of the car...

Similar to the power train on an IC car.

Rubbish. Rover's K-series weighs about 130kg with transmission. Add 50kg
for fuel, and you have a complete powertrain with a 300 mile range (and
five minutes recharge for the next 300 miles) for 40% of that "half a
ton".

The powertrain on a 2cv - engine and gearbox - is light enough to be
carried by two people. With 25 litres of fuel, it'll give a four-seater
car weighing half a ton _complete_ a range of 200+ miles.

On Tue, 27 May 2008 10:55:09 +0100, Roland Perry wrote:

200 miles is a very large threshold. I'd use 50 miles as where "long
distance" starts.

Depends where you live. 50 miles is barely enough for our weekly shopping
run, the monthly one is 100 miles...

And how well does an electric car cope with altitude changes? Hartside
rises 400m (1300') in about 4 miles. There is a 1400' difference between
home and the weekly shopping destination as well.

Fine for your 10 mile each way commute but that would be better served
with decent public transport rather than thousands of single occupancy
cars.

--
Cheers
Dave.

"Adrian" wrote in message
...
"Doctor Drivel" gurgled happily, sounding much like
they were saying:

But how do you heat an electric car? Not much fun using a totally
unheated behicle in the winter. Even keeping the screens clear becomes
a bit of a problem.

Some earlier electric cars had petrol burners to warm the interior. Is
that included in the fuel efficiency claimed?

There is zero insulation in a car.

Rubbish. I've got the headlining out of the Saab at the moment to re-trim
it, and - trust me on this - it makes a BIG difference.

Anyway, I thought car weights needed to come down, not go up?

I repeat. "There is zero insulation in a car".

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
Rod wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7f2f081e-2...077b07658.html

But how do you heat an electric car? Not much fun using a totally
unheated behicle in the winter. Even keeping the screens clear becomes a
bit of a problem.

Electric heaters, plus recirculating the odd few hundred watts that does
come off the battery pack. And maybe the motors. You don't need much more
than a couple of hundred watts to heat a decently insulated car.

A small unit with a heat pump extracting heat from the motors will increase
efficiency greatly, and the car space is small to heat too. If broke slot
out and new one in. Heat pump tumble dryers cut energy consumption by 50%.

"Adrian" wrote in message
...
The Natural Philosopher gurgled happily, sounding much like they
were saying:

And the answer to how big that is, is well under half a tonne for the
smaller one.

...or about half the weight of the rest of the car...

Similar to the power train on an IC car.

Rubbish. Rover's K-series weighs about 130kg with transmission. Add 50kg
for fuel, and you have a complete powertrain with a 300 mile range (and
five minutes recharge for the next 300 miles) for 40% of that "half a
ton".

The powertrain on a 2cv - engine and gearbox - is light enough to be
carried by two people. With 25 litres of fuel, it'll give a four-seater
car weighing half a ton _complete_ a range of 200+ miles.

...and still emits filth from the exhaust and still 75% of the energy in the
tank is wasted. Boy you are dumb!

"Adrian" wrote in message
...

Most mileage is in short bursts in urban areas.

I doubt it.

Stop making things up.

The _right_ question for short urban journeys is "Why are people using
private cars instead of public transport?"

The question here is not a social question it is addressing the vast
inefficiencies of the IC engines and the dirt it emits. Please focus.

Why restrict yourself to such a
narrow range of solutions?

There are lots of solution to stop wasting energy in vehicles and stopping
them killing the planet and our lungs with the filth they emit.

The articles are about the future. The electric Mini gets 200 miles
range and outperforms a Porche.

Yeh, right...

That is encouraging.

"Toby Douglass" wrote in
message om...
wrote:
What they probably mean is that by introducing cleaner diesels (in the
particulate/smog sense) they have persuaded new buyers to pick a diesel
50% of the time, but that market is now saturated and if they want to
further reduce their *carbon* emissions they must look elsewhere than
sell people the better-mpg diesels which have been achieving that goal
so far.

Hasn't diesel caused a huge soot problem? they emit a lot more
particulate matter?

They blacken buildings too.

Rod wrote:
Doctor Drivel wrote:

"Rod" wrote in message
...
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7f2f081e-2...077b07658.html

But how do you heat an electric car? Not much fun using a totally
unheated behicle in the winter. Even keeping the screens clear
becomes a bit of a problem.

Some earlier electric cars had petrol burners to warm the interior.
Is that included in the fuel efficiency claimed?

There is zero insulation in a car. Insulation can be bonded onto the
car panels. Herat can be reclaimed from the electric motor too.

In sunnier climes PV cells can be the whole roof of the car.


But with the super efficent electric motors they use, the 'waste' heat
will be fairly low - and will not devleop until the car has been driven
for a while. So some means is still required for clearing screens and
keeping occupants tolerably comfortable.


I estimate something like 95% efficiency on the motors, and probably
similar on the pack.

A normal drive would be an average of perhaps 10Kw average leaving
perhaps a KW for heating potentially available.Since there are no
combustion products, the pack heat could be simply circulated through
the car by a small fan. Obviuosly for winter starts, there wouldn't be a
great deal initially, but a 1Kw fan heater to demist and defrost and get
the car warm would not be a huge drain for the few minutes until the
battery warmed up. If on overnight charge the battery would likely be
slightly warm, and it would be possible to have the car pre-warmed off
the mains as well.



Actually, PV cells can be the whole roof of the car in any climes. But
they don't help very much with heating on a dark winter day in the UK.

Indeed. Drivel by name, drivel by content, mostly.

Don't let the fact of Drivel's idiocy have a negative impact on the
electric car though. With him its random as to whether the literature he
gleans his 'facts' from is competent and correct or total bull****.

Essentially he can, and should be ignored completely with impunity.

Adrian wrote:
"Doctor Drivel" gurgled happily, sounding much like
they were saying:

But how do you heat an electric car? Not much fun using a totally
unheated behicle in the winter. Even keeping the screens clear becomes
a bit of a problem.

Some earlier electric cars had petrol burners to warm the interior. Is
that included in the fuel efficiency claimed?

There is zero insulation in a car.

Rubbish. I've got the headlining out of the Saab at the moment to re-trim
it, and - trust me on this - it makes a BIG difference.

Anyway, I thought car weights needed to come down, not go up?

Insulation for heat, is not heavy. Polystrene foam, whilst not ideal
safety wise (fire) is an indication of how light heat insulants can be.

You need a LOT of heavy insulation for sound though. Fortunately
electric motors are quiet, and do not vibrate a lot. And the major noise
tends to be a high pitched whine, which is far easier to insulate against.

Double glazed windows are more likely to be the heavy aspect.

Doctor Drivel wrote:

"Adrian" wrote in message
...
"Doctor Drivel" gurgled happily, sounding much like
they were saying:

But how do you heat an electric car? Not much fun using a totally
unheated behicle in the winter. Even keeping the screens clear becomes
a bit of a problem.

Some earlier electric cars had petrol burners to warm the interior. Is
that included in the fuel efficiency claimed?

There is zero insulation in a car.

Rubbish. I've got the headlining out of the Saab at the moment to re-trim
it, and - trust me on this - it makes a BIG difference.

Anyway, I thought car weights needed to come down, not go up?

I repeat. "There is zero insulation in a car".

Repeat it as much as you like: It won;'t make it any less silly than the
first time you said it. There is in fact a considerable amount in every
modern car.

Adrian wrote:

The _right_ question for short urban journeys is "Why are people using
private cars instead of public transport?"

That's easy. Public transport is crap and an unusable replacement for
the vast majority of vehicle miles currently driven.

Even if public transport was good, you would still have a major problem
persuading people to use it since it is going to be hugely difficult to
compete with the freedoms that drivers are now accustomed to. (i.e. A
door to door service, in your own private air conditioned space, with
your own choice of music, and no other people in your face to put up
with).


--
Cheers,

John.

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\================================================= ================/

Adrian wrote:
"Doctor Drivel" gurgled happily, sounding much
like they were saying:

Unless and until that's addressed, pure-electric cars can only
replace internal combustion for short-to-medium journey use.

Which is the vast amount of car journeys.

...and the easiest ones to replace. It's also NOT the vast majority of
total vehicle mileage.

I said: "Which is the vast amount of car journeys.", andmost of the
mileage too.

You're forgetting that just one 200 mile journey is the same mileage as
200 2 mile journeys.

That is why hybrids answer the current problem.

No, it's why hybrids answer the wrong question.

You are confused or just plain dumb.

The _right_ question for short urban journeys is "Why are people using
private cars instead of public transport?"


Because the buses do not get you from your front drive to the
supermarket. With no hanging about, and without the need to fend off the
unpleasant people you find on them.

..

Are you denying the Pious has a two-mile range in battery-only mode?

I wouldn't deny anything bad about the Priapus meself. A cross bred
******* and an abortion, merely produced to sell to the gullible for
Greenie points (like Brownie points, but green).

Why it gets special treatment is beyond me. It should be taxed double.

"Doctor Drivel" wrote in message
...

....

The articles are about the future. The electric Mini gets 200 miles range
and outperforms a Porche.

What does 'outperforms' mean?

If it means that it goes faster I'm not interested. A Porche is an
extravagent status symbol which wouldn't do what we demand of our Laguna
Estate - which we use for fewer than 3,000 miles a year.

I think it might be some time before there will be an electric or dual
powered vehicle which will meet our demands which is sad, we'll probably be
dead by then. If there was one now we'd use it.

Our demands?

Capacity and being able to tow. Our lives would be less rich if we couldn't
do those things but we'd survive :-) A Porche in the drive would be
meaningless.

For the rest of our journeys we walk, cycle, scooter or bus.

Mary

"Longshanks" wrote in message
...
* Doctor Drivel wrote:
Which is the vast amount of car journeys. That is why hybrids answer the
current problem. Battery for town, petrol for longer.

The current problem is people use their cars for town.

Not everyone.

Mary

On 2008-05-27 10:39:18 +0100, Longshanks said:

* Doctor Drivel wrote:
Which is the vast amount of car journeys. That is why hybrids answer
the current problem. Battery for town, petrol for longer.

The current problem is people use their cars for town.

Umm yes.....

This is because public transport doesn't meet their requirements.

There are then two results:

1) People take their cars to town, which frankly is a PITA because of
parking arrangements being so poor in most places; and so

2) They go to out of town retail parks instead.

"Adrian" wrote in message
...

....


So how come 1.5kWh only gets the Pious two miles at slug-pace?

What's slug-pace?

....

And indeed on longer trips an hour recharge time for driver AND car
every 200 miles is not actually a bad thing!

An hour to recharge 200kWh?

It takes at least that time to re-charge a driver - efficiently and
enjoyably.

Speed isn't everything.

Mary

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Its not dependent on the size of the battery, though you need some
pretty serious charging equipment to do that. But we are talking
multi-million pound motorway service stations here. I don't see any real
problems in running a small substation in to them, and having the odd
440v 120A 3 phase connector littered around the parking lots..or
whatever combination of volts and amps seems most appropriate.

A big set of AAs[1] might be more workable. Go for a standard cell size
that can be swapped out as well as charged in situ. That way you have go
to a filling station for a cell swap, and they could slow charge a pile
of them off peak. You could also slow charge at home etc.


[1] obviously not real AA cells - but some standardised size

--
Cheers,

John.

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On 2008-05-27 11:33:50 +0100, "Doctor Drivel" said:


"Adrian" wrote in message
...
Toby Douglass gurgled
happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Hasn't diesel caused a huge soot problem? they emit a lot more
particulate matter?

Not these days. Perticulate emissions have been VERY tightly controlled
in the last couple of rounds of Euro emission standards.

Of course, particulate filters in diesel exhausts bring a whole new range
of problems, but...

Not worth the bother using diesel.

I'm pretty happy using my Land Rover..

The only issue is finding garages with high fill rate commercial pumps
so that I can fill it quickly. With 90 litres plus at a time, it
takes a while with ordinary mimsy pumps.

On 2008-05-27 11:32:48 +0100, "Doctor Drivel" said:


"Toby Douglass" wrote
in message om...
wrote:
What they probably mean is that by introducing cleaner diesels (in the
particulate/smog sense) they have persuaded new buyers to pick a diesel
50% of the time, but that market is now saturated and if they want to
further reduce their *carbon* emissions they must look elsewhere than
sell people the better-mpg diesels which have been achieving that goal
so far.

Hasn't diesel caused a huge soot problem? they emit a lot more
particulate matter?

They do and it is cacogenic.

You mean it gives you the ****s?

"Adrian" wrote in message
...
Toby Douglass gurgled
happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Hasn't diesel caused a huge soot problem? they emit a lot more
particulate matter?

Not these days. Perticulate emissions have been VERY tightly controlled
in the last couple of rounds of Euro emission standards.

When they're new.

Even with excellent servicing they are smelly in only a few months. I
wouldn't inflict the particulates of a diesel engine on anyone.

Mary

"Rod" wrote in message
...
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7f2f081e-2...077b07658.html

But how do you heat an electric car? Not much fun using a totally unheated
behicle in the winter.

You could wear warmer clothing. We don't heat our car, ever. We have a lot
of fun :-)

Mary

Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 10:41:35
on Tue, 27 May 2008, Roger remarked:
"Cleaner diesel cars have dramatically brought down average emissions in
Europe but diesel now accounts for about half of the market and
carmakers are looking elsewhere to cut their emissions."

Now what emissions would they be then?

I thought the article was all about reducing carbon consumption but ...

What they probably mean is that by introducing cleaner diesels (in the
particulate/smog sense) they have persuaded new buyers to pick a diesel
50% of the time, but that market is now saturated and if they want to
further reduce their *carbon* emissions they must look elsewhere than
sell people the better-mpg diesels which have been achieving that goal
so far.

Diesels don't have catalytic converters... petrol engines do and
therefore emit more C02

The Natural Philosopher writes:

Why it gets special treatment is beyond me. It should be taxed double.

Or even doubly.

Jon

Adrian wrote:
"Doctor Drivel" gurgled happily, sounding much
like they were saying:

My opinion is that the technology is JUST good enough to use for large
scale replacement of IC across the board in the next ten years.
Especially if attention is paid to the rest of the vehicle weight- and
aeodymamic-wise.

You got that right.

The aerodynamics barely come into play at town speeds. And why can't both
aerodynamic and weight efficiencies come into play for internal-
combustion vehicles as well? Simple. Because people WANT bigger cars and
they WANT cars which have high passive-safety scores. Both of which give
weight.

What people want is actually somewhat unknown, and in the case of the
USA at lest given cheap as chip gasoline, was easily supplied by bolting
a bloody great V8 into a 1940's truck body, and selling it to end users
at commercial vehicle taxation rates. But high gasoline prices are
frcing rethink even there..

Over here people buy a lot of small cars..and these would be ideal to be
replaced by something of not very massive performance, and fully electric.

The area that seems hardest to replace is the high mileage rep car. Big
luxury cars don't do high mileage,nor do delivery vans, shopping
trolleys, local busses, and the school run car, or indeed the majority
of off roaders and sports cars. Its the *long distance* vans, trucks,
coaches and rep cars that will be the hardest to replicate.

There may well come time however, when we see that any distance over
100 miles is better served by driving to a rail depot, and shifting a
container n(or indeed the whole car, as is done with the channel tunnel)
onto a train, rather than driving it there.

Doctor Drivel wrote:

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
Adrian wrote:
Roland Perry gurgled happily, sounding much like
they
were saying:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7f2f081e-2...077b07658.html

A very small step (for man or mankind....)

"The S-Class car, a 'mild' hybrid that will still draw most of
its power from petrol..."

Indeed.

But do Lithium Ion batteries provide the step forward that's being
alleged?

In my opinion, yes.

Not really. One litre of petrol provides 35MJ of energy, about 10kWh.
Even a small car will have a c.50 litre fuel tank, something the size
of an S-class nearer double that.

So that's 0.5-1MWh of energy on board. Wonder how big the battery
pack would have to be to replace that...? Wonder how long it'll take
to recharge...?


You forget that that energy is converted at less than 27% peak
efficiency, propably less than 20% average.: its nearer 95% with
battery electric, and with regenerative braking you get a little free
recharge.

Using super capacitors, 99% of all kinetic braking energy is recovered.

Seems unlikely given that the power of braking systems typically dwarfs
that of the motive systems in most cars. You will only be able to
recover at a rate proportional to the max output of the drive system.

Mechanical recovery into a flywheel might work.

--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

Toby Douglass wrote:
wrote:
What they probably mean is that by introducing cleaner diesels (in the
particulate/smog sense) they have persuaded new buyers to pick a diesel
50% of the time, but that market is now saturated and if they want to
further reduce their *carbon* emissions they must look elsewhere than
sell people the better-mpg diesels which have been achieving that goal
so far.

Hasn't diesel caused a huge soot problem? they emit a lot more
particulate matter?

Yup. and asthma one suspects.

For some reason they have never had the stringent (and carbon
innefficent) exhaust cleanups applied to them that petrol cars have.

Adrian wrote:
Roland Perry gurgled happily, sounding much like they
were saying:

Sub 200 mile trips account for probably 95% of al domestic motoring and
about 50% of commercial motoring.

200 miles is a very large threshold. I'd use 50 miles as where "long
distance" starts.

Which, going by the battery-to-mileage efficiency of the Pious would
require 75kWh of capacity.

There's also the problem of people not necessarily having access to
charging sockets at either home _or_ work currently, which would require
a LOT of infrastructure upgrades in order to be provided.


Domestically its a twelve hour charge overnight on cheap rate. Easy
enough for those with garages and well within domestic supply limits.

For regulated car parking, again easy enough to add socket-in-pole
charging meters.

Hardest one is on street unregualated parking. Poeple will have to find
sopmewhere else to park their cars overnight. Oh dear. What a shame.


And where's all this extra electricity coming from, anyway?


About 70 nuclear power stations by my reckoning, and a 3:1 upsize in the
the grid overall. Howver tht would happen over a couple of decades
progressively.


London ALONE sees 33bn vehicle km per year. That's about 15bn kWh of
electrickery at Pious battery-mode usage rates. 15 terawatt-hours.

Now, remind me why I was meant to be changing from 60w incandescent light
bulbs to 11w CFL?

For purely political reasons. We need to be using more electricity, not
less, as long as its nuclear and not fossil generated. Anyway, off peak
its cheaper than oil, now.

"Adrian" wrote in message
...
The Natural Philosopher gurgled happily, sounding much like they
were saying:

And the answer to how big that is, is well under half a tonne for the
smaller one.

...or about half the weight of the rest of the car...

Similar to the power train on an IC car.

Rubbish. Rover's K-series weighs about 130kg with transmission. Add 50kg
for fuel, and you have a complete powertrain with a 300 mile range (and
five minutes recharge for the next 300 miles) for 40% of that "half a
ton".

The powertrain on a 2cv - engine and gearbox - is light enough to be
carried by two people. With 25 litres of fuel, it'll give a four-seater
car weighing half a ton _complete_ a range of 200+ miles.

You must be getting weak. I can carry a 2CV engine and box myself :-)

Mike P

Adrian wrote:
The Natural Philosopher gurgled happily, sounding much like they
were saying:

And the answer to how big that is, is well under half a tonne for the
smaller one.

...or about half the weight of the rest of the car...

Similar to the power train on an IC car.

Rubbish. Rover's K-series weighs about 130kg with transmission.

And radiator? and starter motor? and exhaust system? and fuel pump, and
mountings for all those, and ancillary pipework?


Add 50kg
for fuel, and you have a complete powertrain with a 300 mile range (and
five minutes recharge for the next 300 miles) for 40% of that "half a
ton".

And costs ten times as much per mile on fuel to run.

Current lipo technology is about 185Wh per kilogram.

http://www.maxamps.com/Lipo-10000-Cell.htm


That puts a 50Kw pack at 270kg.


The powertrain on a 2cv - engine and gearbox - is light enough to be
carried by two people. With 25 litres of fuel, it'll give a four-seater
car weighing half a ton _complete_ a range of 200+ miles.

pretty much the same as an electric would be, then.

Doctor Drivel wrote:

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
Rod wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7f2f081e-2...077b07658.html

But how do you heat an electric car? Not much fun using a totally
unheated behicle in the winter. Even keeping the screens clear
becomes a bit of a problem.

Electric heaters, plus recirculating the odd few hundred watts that
does come off the battery pack. And maybe the motors. You don't need
much more than a couple of hundred watts to heat a decently insulated
car.

A small unit with a heat pump extracting heat from the motors will
increase efficiency greatly, and the car space is small to heat too. If
broke slot out and new one in. Heat pump tumble dryers cut energy
consumption by 50%.

A heat pump might not actually be such a bad idea, as it would be
reversible for aircon with little additional weight penalty or cots penalty.

Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 11:13:07 on
Tue, 27 May 2008, The Natural Philosopher remarked:
200 miles is a very large threshold. I'd use 50 miles as where "long
distance" starts.

Well I used 200miles because that is what is currently achievable at
decent performance with LI-Ion batteries.

Which car is that, then?

The one I calculated;-) T-zero is not far off that.

In uk.d-i-y The Natural Philosopher wrote:

There may well come time however, when we see that any distance over
100 miles is better served by driving to a rail depot, and shifting a
container n(or indeed the whole car, as is done with the channel tunnel)
onto a train, rather than driving it there.

Which is no doubt why MotoRail is a rapidly dying service.

--
Chris Green

The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Adrian wrote:


Hardest one is on street unregualated parking. Poeple will have to find
sopmewhere else to park their cars overnight. Oh dear. What a shame.



Municipal and railway station car parks could be used as re-charging
zones... like when you go to a campsite with a motor home or caravan,
there are generally two rates, one for a straight pitch and another
higher rate for services.

At least I'd feel I was getting some value from the pleasure of having
to pay £500+ for my car to sit somewhere for 8 or 9 hours while I'm away
at work.

Adrian wrote:
Rod gurgled happily, sounding much like they were
saying:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7f2f081e-2...077b07658.html

But how do you heat an electric car? Not much fun using a totally
unheated behicle in the winter. Even keeping the screens clear becomes a
bit of a problem.

shrug Easy. Instead of a water-to-air matrix, use an electric element.
The actual air distribution and circulation is electric anyway. For
aircon, the compressor is electrically driven, as many power steering
pumps currently are.

Some earlier electric cars had petrol burners to warm the interior. Is
that included in the fuel efficiency claimed?

Just as it isn't in modern common-rail diesels which are so heat
efficient that many of those have an additional diesel-fuelled heater.

As I said to begin with, early electric cars sometimes had a petrol
burner because the designers felt it unwise to use the stored electric
power for heating purposes. Given very low weight, low cost energy
storage perhaps the balance shifts. But most particularly, I would like
to know that the heating energy usage has been fully factored in - for
cold winters - when fuel consumptions are compared. It could make a huge
difference compared to a cool summer.

--
Rod

Hypothyroidism is a seriously debilitating condition with an insidious
onset.
Although common it frequently goes undiagnosed.
www.thyromind.info www.thyroiduk.org www.altsupportthyroid.org

Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Tue, 27 May 2008 10:55:09 +0100, Roland Perry wrote:

200 miles is a very large threshold. I'd use 50 miles as where "long
distance" starts.

Depends where you live. 50 miles is barely enough for our weekly shopping
run, the monthly one is 100 miles...

And how well does an electric car cope with altitude changes? Hartside
rises 400m (1300') in about 4 miles. There is a 1400' difference between
home and the weekly shopping destination as well.


No performance difference at altitude on electric propulsion.

Of course, hopefully the run down will charge the batteries by
regenerative braking for the run back up ;-)


Fine for your 10 mile each way commute but that would be better served
with decent public transport rather than thousands of single occupancy
cars.


Public transport can not do what a private car can: we may have to go
back to it, but not without a struggle.

I remember using public transport exlusively,. It took all day to get
from Surrey to Devon, and involved a lot of strenuous lugging of luggage
between various platforms. In a car, its about 4 hours door to door,
that public transport never achieved.

Public transport constrains where you can operate from as a normal
working person. I remember when my car broke, missing the only bus there
was, and being 3 hours late for work.

Now I agree that we should try not to commute at all, make more use of
public transport, and, indeed, its a fine thing when it works for you,
but it is exrenmely inflexible. And not a cure all for all trips by any
stretch of the imagination.


The extra time it takes might be the death of you when you need to get
to A & E. Strangely the early adopters of small cars in the 50's were
(amongst others) doctors midwives and district nurses...

John Rumm wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Its not dependent on the size of the battery, though you need some
pretty serious charging equipment to do that. But we are talking
multi-million pound motorway service stations here. I don't see any
real problems in running a small substation in to them, and having the
odd 440v 120A 3 phase connector littered around the parking lots..or
whatever combination of volts and amps seems most appropriate.

A big set of AAs[1] might be more workable. Go for a standard cell size
that can be swapped out as well as charged in situ. That way you have go
to a filling station for a cell swap, and they could slow charge a pile
of them off peak. You could also slow charge at home etc.


[1] obviously not real AA cells - but some standardised size

That is possible, but you need to swap the lot, and at 250kg or more,
its not something you can tuck in your pocket on the way from the till..

Mary Fisher wrote:
"Rod" wrote in message
...
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7f2f081e-2...077b07658.html
But how do you heat an electric car? Not much fun using a totally unheated
behicle in the winter.

You could wear warmer clothing. We don't heat our car, ever. We have a lot
of fun :-)

Mary


well more fool you. Current cars throw about 10Kw of heat way..you might
as well use it to stay warm and keep some poor sheep alive.

Mary Fisher wrote:
"Doctor Drivel" wrote in message
...
...
The articles are about the future. The electric Mini gets 200 miles range
and outperforms a Porche.

What does 'outperforms' mean?

If it means that it goes faster I'm not interested. A Porche is an
extravagent status symbol which wouldn't do what we demand of our Laguna
Estate - which we use for fewer than 3,000 miles a year.

I think it might be some time before there will be an electric or dual
powered vehicle which will meet our demands which is sad, we'll probably be
dead by then. If there was one now we'd use it.

Our demands?

Capacity and being able to tow. Our lives would be less rich if we couldn't
do those things but we'd survive :-) A Porche in the drive would be
meaningless.

Its possible, but pretty expensive to make a fully electric 4WD, which
sounds like what you are after. A sort of electric land rover.


There are of course a lot of advantages - full 4WD with a motor on every
wheel and instantaneous torque transfer to the wheel with grip without
much need for specialised drive train control.

All the weight low down in the battery pack, and keeping the electrics
dry through a wade is probably easier than keeping air intakes and oil
filled transmissions dry.

The actual car weight is not such an issue with towing either.
You are not looking for rocket like acceleration - steady torque is very
much what an electric motor gives you.
Given the actual weight of a Defender, you could put a pretty hefty
battery in its pretty light body..and still be no worse off than it is
now, weight wise.


For the rest of our journeys we walk, cycle, scooter or bus.

Mary

The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Mary Fisher wrote:
"Rod" wrote in message
...
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7f2f081e-2...077b07658.html
But how do you heat an electric car? Not much fun using a totally
unheated behicle in the winter.

You could wear warmer clothing. We don't heat our car, ever. We have a
lot of fun :-)

Mary


well more fool you. Current cars throw about 10Kw of heat way..you might
as well use it to stay warm and keep some poor sheep alive.

They don't slaughter sheep for their wool. They shear them.