Ireland to go down the Electric car route?

dr.fuzzenstein · 15-01-2011 8:36pm

pajo1981 wrote: »

For the last time hydrogen cars ARE electric cars, just very inefficient ones.

Battery capacities will improve over time and when that happens there will be NO reason to go fuel cell.

Fuel cells are a dead-end tech, with many inherent disadvantages - let it go!

Battery cars need to be charged for hours on end.
Fuel cell cars, filling them is comparable to filling a petrol or diesel powered car and they have range.
And they are still more efficient than internal combustion engines.
Why not develop a tech that has potential, instead of battery powered cars that will never have the range and will always take hours to recharge.

Hector Mildew · 15-01-2011 8:45pm

LIGHTNING wrote: »

Put it another way, all the batteries in the New Nissan leaf contain about as much energy as 3-4 litres of petrol.

You're assuming that an ICE can burn petrol at 100% efficiency, unfortunatley they cannot and never will.

Electric motors are simply more efficient, requiring less energy to travel the same distance as a petrol car.

So you will have to have:

1)Large number of batteries
2)Batteries that charge very quickly
3)Swappable batteries that you can swap in for charged ones

1. Done, the Tesla Model 8 has a range of about 450 miles
2. Getting there quickly
3. Renault/ Nissan are running trials of this in other countries

And then in the end when then batteries come to the end of their life you are left with 100kg`s of batteries that are a extremely difficult recycle.

Yes for older batteries. Li-ion batteries are very easy to recycle and do not contain toxic heavy metals such as lead, mercury, and cadmiun which caused problems in the past.

In the US it is common to re-use batteries from electric vehicles in other systems for years before eventually recycling.

Used petrochemicals cannot be recycled so easily and pollute a lot more

ei.sdraob · 15-01-2011 8:54pm

LIGHTNING wrote: »

What nobody has mentioned is that batteries gradually loose their ability to hold charge over time.

If you are a manufacturer then thats perfect!

Think about all these people with cars they would have very hard time reselling, so they endup replacing their cars sooner...

Hector Mildew · 15-01-2011 8:56pm

ei.sdraob wrote: »

Electrics need to come a long way in price especially in second hand market which is nonexistent at moment (how much to replace batteries?). I am interested in the theoretical promise of fast acceleration and torque at switch of a button. More importantly charging needs to be addressed, ive no issue charging one behind my house in country but in city where the hell will the things be charged? the only charging point in galway i know of in woodquay always has the local residents cars parked in front of it.

New technology is always expensive. I'm sure back in 1908 someone argued that you could by a fast horse and luxury carriage for less than a Model T ford. Not to mention that good roads, petrol, and filling stations weren't that common back then.

As already mentioned the rare earths required for electrics/hybrids and the wind-generators are causing great pollution in places like china and yes killing and posioning people
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6946038.ece

implementing proper environmental standards would only lead to the price of these to go up thru' the roof making for more expensive electrics etc

As already mentioned, this issue is not exclusive to renewable electricty generation or electric cars. The life expectancy of the device must be taken into account.

China is buying up world reserves at an alarming rate and is only happy to recycle our only other source of these metals - dumped electronic and electrical equipment (especially phones and computers).

Hector Mildew · 15-01-2011 9:04pm

LIGHTNING wrote: »

No I am not, that is taking into account the losses in a IC engine.

Maybe my calculations are out...

1 litre petrol gives 9.7kWh (x4 = 38.8kWh)

ICE Power to wheels (@ 20% efficiency) = 7.76 kWh

Tesla Model S Battery capacity 42kWh

Electric Battery and Motor Power to wheels (@ 76% efficiency) = 31.92kWh

Hector Mildew · 15-01-2011 9:13pm

LIGHTNING wrote: »

That was different time and the alternatives weren't great,now have a system that works and if its wasn't for the stupid taxes in this country nobody would be giving out.

I know

, but as I said earlier it would make sense to also invest in biofuel* production until we find a way to generate lots of electricity cheaply without pollution.

* I'm talking about second or third generation biofuel production, using waste byproducts and algae, which does not impact on food production.

Hector Mildew · 15-01-2011 9:19pm

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

Biofuel. This is what happened last time:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/03/biofuels.renewableenergy
I'm afraid I won't be driving a car that is killing children in third world countries.

You're right but things have moved on. Second and third generation biofuels (ethanol, biodiesel, and gas) are product from animal and plant waste/ byproducts as well as algae. Fuel can be produced from algae fed on sewage, treating our sh1t and cleaning polluted rivers and lakes.

ei.sdraob · 15-01-2011 9:19pm

Hector Mildew wrote: »

New technology is always expensive. I'm sure back in 1908 someone argued that you could by a fast horse and luxury carriage for less than a Model T ford. Not to mention that good roads, petrol, and filling stations weren't that common back then.

if you know you history then you know the first cars where electric, petrol won over,
anyways so does that mean the whole economy and everyone with a "conventional" motor has to be penalised for decades with high taxes to subsidise the one way bet on electrics?

Hector Mildew wrote: »

As already mentioned, this issue is not exclusive to renewable electricty generation or electric cars. The life expectancy of the device must be taken into account.

China is buying up world reserves at an alarming rate and is only happy to recycle our only other source of these metals - dumped electronic and electrical equipment (especially phones and computers).

actually it is since some of these rare earths are primarily used in car batteries and magnets for turbines

Hector Mildew · 15-01-2011 9:35pm

LIGHTNING wrote: »

What nobody has mentioned is that batteries gradually loose their ability to hold charge over time. So in a number of years when your electric car can no longer charge what do you do? I am guessing that the car manufactures will be offering very long warranties on the batteries.

Neccesity is the mother of invention and all that. Back in 1983 I remember an 'expert' (yes a real one) laughing at my suggestion that some day it might be possible to put video on compact discs too. He said it would never happen, and that even if it were possible, a computer powerful enough to decode the video would cost about £100000.

The warranty is built into the cost of the car, it's not exactly the same but the Prius battery is guanteed for about 10 years.

The other option is to rent batteries which can be swapped for charged ones when empty.

Say what you will about the IC engine but its a reliable old tech, my 30 year old car still has its original engine and still pulls like a train.

I agree but petrol is getting rarer and expensive (I know that taxes are the main problem right now)

Hector Mildew · 15-01-2011 9:51pm

LIGHTNING wrote: »

Ill go with your figures (which I`ll assume are correct)

Average saloon car tank size of 55 litres

55x 9.7
=533kWh

(Since Diesels is the biggest seller at the moment we will use it)

ICE Power to wheels (@ 35% efficiency) =

186.55 kWh

Nissan Leaf battery capacity (with 300kgs of batterieS) 24 kWh (@ 76%)=

18.24kWh

Diesel can be refulled instantly and at its end of life can be easily recycled.

Figures are correct, I'm sure they're on google. But I should have used 79% for the Tesla efficiency and 70kWh for the battery.

I'm not trying to say that an electric car can travel further than an an ICE car on a single charge. As you know a diesel car will travel further on 4 litres of fuel than a petrol car, now an electric car will travel even further

Electric cars can be recycled too, including batteries. The extra fuel used by the diesel car cannot be recovered.

alex73 · 15-01-2011 9:52pm

Was thinking of get an Electric car for town use (given the Greens 5K grant) But the Nissan Leaf cost 30K!!! even after the grant..

Come on... electric cars my arse, and with car finance standing at over 10% apr I would be paying 250 euros a month interests alone on the car lone.

If the Greens really wanted people to go for the electric car then they would have to make them more affordable, maybe with tax breaks and grants

Hector Mildew · 15-01-2011 10:02pm

LIGHTNING wrote: »

Using your analogy, imagine if somebody said the following to you today:

"Forget your mobile phone we can give you an alternative

that costs 3-4 times the amount,

Happens all the time with new phones but anyone with sense waits for prices to drop or a cheaper alternative from a competitor - market economics and all that..

does less

Faster acceleration, less moving parts to service, cheaper to run...

takes a day to to charge and can only be used in certain areas that your current phone works in. So do you want to swap?"

Lots of people buy iPhones

I'm not going to go over the charge times and ESB map again

What would you tell them to do with their alternative? I can only imagine but I cant post it on this thread! Thats the situation the electric cars are in

It will be a long time before I can afford one but I like the idea and would love one of these: http://www.rsportscars.com/tesla/2013-tesla-model-s/

Hector Mildew · 15-01-2011 10:13pm

LIGHTNING wrote: »

How many go around with 4 litres in their cars? Lets be realistic, the extra fuel cannot be recovered but whats your point?

How many cars can drive 160Km on just 4 litres?

The point was that the battery can be recycled, i.e. a good proportion of the energy used during manufacture can be recovered and the battery results in less energy use during the car life.

Even if you get a electric what percentage of electric energy in generated by renewable sources? If its oil/gas/coal you can knock a considerable amount from the 79% efficiency.

Discussed this already - given the same fuel, a power station will generate power a lot more efficiently than 1000s of ICEs

alex73 · 15-01-2011 10:13pm

LIGHTNING wrote: »

Faster acceleration true enough, less moving parts to service but will need to be brought to a specialist, good luck bring a leaf to an indy. Cheaper to run I dont agree, look at the price of a Fiesta and a Leaf and see the difference thats a lot of petrol you could buy.

You can post ESB maps all you want but they arent everywhere unlike petrol stations and the long charge times are still an issue.

Exactly the Price of Leaf is 35K (30k for first 2000 customers due to the grant)

30K for a car like the leaf is a lot of money for Middle Ireland.

Hector Mildew · 15-01-2011 10:19pm

LIGHTNING wrote: »

Faster acceleration true enough, less moving parts to service but will need to be brought to a specialist, good luck bring a leaf to an indy.

There were a lot more farriers than mechanics in 1908 but if there's a demand to be met...

Cheaper to run I dont agree, look at the price of a Fiesta and a Leaf and see the difference thats a lot of petrol you could buy.

I meant just running costs - A BMW 5 series diesel costs more than lots of smaller petrol cars but still costs less to tax and keep the tank filled.

You can post ESB maps all you want but they arent everywhere unlike petrol stations and the long charge times are still an issue.

Petrol stations will have them too (some do already), as I said earlier - supply and demand.

Bucklesman · 15-01-2011 10:25pm

LIGHTNING wrote: »

You can post ESB maps all you want but they arent everywhere unlike petrol stations and the long charge times are still an issue.

Long charge times and battery life don't necessarily have to be an issue. This setup has already had a pilot scheme in Tokyo.

As for cost, the initial high price can be evened out with battery rental. That's what Renault are doing with their Fluence ZE. Says it will go on sale for $20k, which isn't all that shabby.

Hector Mildew · 15-01-2011 10:56pm

LIGHTNING wrote: »

You dont seem to be getting half my point, my initial point was that the Nissan Leaf has as much stored energy as 4 litres of petrol. I didnt say people were driving around with that in their tanks.

Neither did I, I'm aware that the average petrol tank holds a lot more. My point was that the range of petrol car with a 4 litre tank would be a lot less than an EV, like the Leaf, with the equivalent battery capacity.

The Tesla Model S (my original example) has a 70kWh battery, equivalent to 450km, and a 45 minute charge time.

Hector Mildew · 15-01-2011 11:12pm

ei.sdraob wrote: »

if you know you history then you know the first cars where electric, petrol won over,
anyways so does that mean the whole economy and everyone with a "conventional" motor has to be penalised for decades with high taxes to subsidise the one way bet on electrics?

I'm aware of that and the first Diesel engines were designed to run exclusively on peanut oil. If (fossil) oil wasn't so plentiful and cheap things would be a lot different now.

actually it is since some of these rare earths are primarily used in car batteries and magnets for turbines

That's a little is misleading. The same metals are used in all high performance motors and generators, and rechargeable batteries... think about it. At end of life, the metals can be easily recovered from these appliances, computers, phones, cars, or whatever and reused. (I know we don't actually recycle it here but that's another issue)

We rely on oil and gas to produce plastics, fertiliser (and hence food), medicine, and many other necessities. If we burn it all then we can't get it back so easily so whatever we do burn should be burned efficiently.

Hector Mildew · 15-01-2011 11:28pm

LIGHTNING wrote: »

Competely irrelevant as cars dont have 4 litre tanks if they did you would have a point.

That was just an example to compare fuel economy on a like for like basis. I'm well aware of the advantages of liquid fuel..

Continuing my example 55 litres of diesel will do 1200km ( 4.5l/ 100km), that would require a 180kW battery in the Leaf (30 litre equivalent). But battery technology is improving fast - Nissan Leaf 24kW, Tesla S 70kW, ....

The Tesla S if it comes over to the UK and Ireland will cost Id say close to 80k.

Maybe, but there will be competition..

Hector Mildew · 15-01-2011 11:55pm

LIGHTNING wrote: »

The large battery pack in the Tesla S weighs 540kg`s over half the weight of my current car in my drive. Thats 8000 cells that have to made, its also a very large weight to be located in the rear of the car.

Now just for the record I do like the idea of the electric car and I love electronics. I build RC planes and cars so I am not some old fashioned stick in the mud Petrol head

Likewise, I'm interested in electric cars because they're something new as much as anything else! I'm very tired of the Jeremy Clarkson attitude to anything new or different - going as far as faking tests to prove his point. Even worse the numbtys who lap it up.

The Tesla design details look amazing, comparing with other cars I don't know how they can build it for $50k.

The battery actually weighs 1735kg (got that wrong earlier, this is the car's entire weight), considering that the 480km range is incredible. They designed the car around the batter which is fitted under the floor where the extra weight helps to improve ride and handling.

http://www.teslamotors.com/models/technology

woodyg · 16-01-2011 12:14am

http://automobiles.honda.com/fcx-clarity/performance.aspx

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AUurBnLbJw

the Tesla no doubts is a very good bit of engineering but still has 2 major draw backs weight and re-charge time.

Hector Mildew · 16-01-2011 2:54am

woodyg wrote: »

http://automobiles.honda.com/fcx-clarity/performance.aspx

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AUurBnLbJw

the Tesla no doubts is a very good bit of engineering but still has 2 major draw backs weight and re-charge time.

They're both very interesting cars.. (I got the battery weight wrong earlier - that was for the whole car!)

The pub has dulled my brain but here's a quick summary:

Purchase Price

Tesla Type S: $50k
Honda Clarity: $160,000 (lease @ $600pm)

Performance

Tesla: Top speed 120mph; 0-60 5.6 sec.
Honda: Top speed 100mph; 0-60 10 sec.

Total weight

Tesla Type S: 1735kg
Honda Clarity: 1600kg

Range

Tesla: 480km (70kW battery)
Honda: 480km (5kg H2 - 96km per kg)

Cost to refuel

Tesla: approx €6.00 (charge time 45 minutes)
Honda: US$3 per kg = US$15 (equiv to 5 gallons of petrol in US, so multiply by about 3 to get Irish price :mad: )

Tesla videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrtXXrRa5OI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vvqj7egMZMI&feature=related

ei.sdraob · 16-01-2011 12:00pm

I am sorry but these upfront prices are insane! I earn a nice average salary for myself but still would not spend more than my income on a car (actually the most I ever spend was 15K and that was stretching it), or get into debt for that matter

We would need at least 10 years for a second-hand market to develop and prices to drop, battery charging and replacement to be addressed and the infrastructure (including competition amongst dealers for service) to develop.

The only electric I seen for sale is the Leaf and while the fueling costs sound too good to be true, for the same price of 30K (first 2000 customers subsidised...) i could buy and park a nice and safe petrol car in my driveway such as a 5 liter 7 series (~6 years old), tax and insure it for few years and do several dozen thousand miles even with the ripoff petrol prices we have, and still have some change left.

The likes of the Leaf need to comedown to 10-15K new, about the same price as new Micras before people start looking at them en masse.

The TypeS needs to get into the under 25K bracket new.

Hector Mildew · 16-01-2011 1:15pm

Completely agree, 12,000 was the most cash I ever spent on a car...

I think prices will come down soon though. Nissan are early to market and don't have much competition right now but soon there will be more from Renault, Toyota, Mitsubishi, etc.

I know I keep going on about the Tesla S but if they sell it here for the same price (€37k) then government incentives would place it in the same price level as the Leaf. If that happens then Nissan and the others will be forced to slash their prices..

dr.fuzzenstein · 16-01-2011 4:58pm

Hector Mildew wrote: »

You're right but things have moved on. Second and third generation biofuels (ethanol, biodiesel, and gas) are product from animal and plant waste/ byproducts as well as algae. Fuel can be produced from algae fed on sewage, treating our sh1t and cleaning polluted rivers and lakes.

Absolutely all for that, good idea, maybe not quite a glamorous way of running a planet

but whatever works and with the world population going the way it goes it looks like we will have no shortage of fuel!
You can also use algae to produce hydrogen (don't write it off yet and in a hundred years we might need lots of it for fusion reactors), which is still a very useful and clean source of energy.
I have to honestly say that if there was a cheap, reliable way of getting me to work other than fossil fuel, I'd take it.

But keep this in mind: At some stage so many people will have gone green, that the government cannot make up the losses by loading taxes onto people with old fashioned IC vehicles.
These billions will have to be made up and as soon as everyone has switched, expect to pay taxes as before, maybe electricity will go through the roof (no maybe about it), or vehicle tax on green vehicles will rise sharply.
We only pay so much because of taxes and the state needs them, this idea of cheap motoring is only to lure us into parting with the old and in with the new and after that it's going to be business as usual, i.e. the motorist being a bottomless source of income to the state.
But as long as it's better for the planet it's all good.
Just no be under any illusions that there will be cheap and easy motoring ahead.
No such thing as a free lunch.

jimmynokia · 16-01-2011 5:47pm

Hector Mildew wrote: »

They're both very interesting cars.. (I got the battery weight wrong earlier - that was for the whole car!)

The pub has dulled my brain but here's a quick summary:

Purchase Price

Tesla Type S: $50k
Honda Clarity: $160,000 (lease @ $600pm)

Performance

Tesla: Top speed 120mph; 0-60 5.6 sec.
Honda: Top speed 100mph; 0-60 10 sec.

Total weight

Tesla Type S: 1735kg
Honda Clarity: 1600kg

Range

Tesla: 480km (70kW battery)
Honda: 480km (5kg H2 - 96km per kg)

Cost to refuel

Tesla: approx €6.00 (charge time 45 minutes)
Honda: US$3 per kg = US$15 (equiv to 5 gallons of petrol in US, so multiply by about 3 to get Irish price :mad: )

Tesla videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrtXXrRa5OI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vvqj7egMZMI&feature=related

the ESB or subsequent providers will love electric car owners and like fuel will in turn look for price hike

Hector Mildew · 16-01-2011 6:01pm

LIGHTNING wrote: »

Your living in another world if you think its going to be 37k over here, it say it will be over double that.

You're probably right, like everything else they'll more than likely just swap currency symbols and charge €50,000.

Just had a look at the Nissan US website, and that's exactly what they did with the Leaf :rolleyes:

However, prices will drop either due to competition or increased demand (remember how much LCD and Plasma TVs cost 5 years ago?)

Hector Mildew · 16-01-2011 7:40pm

jimmynokia wrote: »

the ESB or subsequent providers will love electric car owners and like fuel will in turn look for price hike

That happens anyway - supply and demand. It could also provide opportunities to others (e.g. filling stations) to generate their own power and sell it for less (possibly using a wind turbine to charge batteries for exchange), who knows...

Eric Cartman · 16-01-2011 7:52pm

2 reasons I wont buy an electric car any time soon
The Alpina B7 Bi-Turbo

The Ford F250

when they come in electric and dont look like the electric version , then we'll talk , electric cars are nowhere near ready yet

BULLER · 16-01-2011 7:55pm

jimmynokia wrote: »

the ESB or subsequent providers will love electric car owners and like fuel will in turn look for price hike

And how much you think that theyre going to hike it exactly?! A couple of cent a charge isnt very much now. We'd be talking marginal rises. The saving in car maintenance and dishing out 50 quid every week or 2 should definately ease the burden a little.
Besides, its fair to say most electric cars would be charged at night when a lot of energy is actually wasted.

Ireland to go down the Electric car route?

Comments