Electric Vehicles - Your thoughts - MotorMouth, Newstalk

Daraghot

Long time no write on boards.ie!

Daragh Ó Tuama here from MotorMouth in Newstalk. We're currently working on a 6 part podcast for Newstalk on the electric vehicle. I'm hoping to get your thoughts on EVs so I can let our listeners know what the boardies think.

Sooo, if you have any thoughts, any thoughts at all all on the EV would you mind posting them here? We'll be recording over the next few days, and I'd really appreciate your thoughts.

Kind Regards,
Daragh

Atlantic Dawn

I can see it as a viable solution to probably 95% of journeys taken in Ireland today but for that other 5% it is inadequate, this is the main stumbling block for it. It's range is 109 miles and that is most likely with the radio, a/c and heat all off so if I want to drive from Dublin to any major city in Ireland I can't, this will be the killer for it as you will need a 2nd car or have to take public transport for these journeys.

Owen

There have been several thread on this OP, all discussed to death. Do a search and you'll have more info then your entire show can broadcast.

Daraghot

Owen wrote: »

There have been several thread on this OP, all discussed to death. Do a search and you'll have more info then your entire show can broadcast.

Thanks Owen, I'll look into that - I'm looking for fresh thoughts too.

squod

It's just moving the pollution problem somewhere else IMO. EV aren't so efficient, our electricity generation isn't at all green and battery manufacturing is anything but green! Where's the environmental upside?

Diesel/electric is the way to go. Either that or have our wonderful government spend actual money on wind pumped hydro generators to fuel a glut of these cars (at a probable cost of less than half of one bank bail-out).

EVs are a fad and will disappear into the same abyss as beta-max tapes and video discs.

Vicxas

Electrical cars while in principal are a great idea, in practice they're costly, expensive to run and take forever to recharge.

I dont think they're the future but a medium between the fossil fuel and the next fuel source.

Dardania

I think they make a lot of sense for a lot of people, particularly those that have predictable sub 100 mile daily commutes. If I had the money to buy one I would

If the government wants to support & foster the development of electric cars over fossil fuelled ones, a few thing need to happen:

Charging points installed in all new construction developments - building regs could provide this e.g. for every wheelchair accessible parking space, there should be a charging space. The public sector could lead with this (for example DoES is building how many schools over the next 3 - 4 years? Why not make all parking electric charging stations?)

Be upfront & clear with the costs. Electric cars are cheaper for people in terms of consumption, but they will have significant costs associated with replacement batteries. This needs to be clear to people, so they can compare with fossil fuelled cars (How does a battery change compare with getting a timing belt done for example)

It's clear that there will be a shift to more electrical energy demand - maybe renewables should be ramped up?

BrianD3

Most people don't particularly care about the environment (as long as it doesn't affect them directly) Their main concern is "will an EV save me money".

Therefore I would focus mainly on the cost aspect taking into account purchase price, battery lifespan and replacement cost and the effect of possible higher oil prices on the running costs of IC vehicles and EVs.

In a recent thread on the Nissan Leaf the "fuelling" costs were estimated to be the equivalent of an IC car doing 400+ mpg (city driving) or 200+ mpg (open road driving) . Thread is
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056298576

The poster's Leaf did 2100 km on 20 euros (night rate) of electricity. That's 1300 miles. 20 euros would buy you around 3 gallons of fuel at current rates. 1300/3 = 433 miles per gallon.

If the cost of a litre of fuel increased more than the cost of a unit of electricity increased, the equivalent mpg of the EV would be higher still.

You would want to research other costs too eg I think that if you have night saver electricity, you pay more for units used during the day and also pay a higher standing charge.

Dilbert75

The problems with EVs in Ireland are that they have limited range and they need charge points. We have such low population density that it would be expensive to provide charging facilities everywhere they'd be needed to ensure any significant uptake. And for most people their car is required mostly for short journies but occasionally for long journies - EVs will not work in this scenario so it will be necessary to have a 2nd car for that. The fixed costs of running cars make that difficult to finance.

Honestly for most people I can't see getting any closer to EV than a hybrid. After a slight EV detour, next stop is hydrogen.

bijapos

IK think the biggest singular problem with EVs in the future will be supplying the materials to make the batteries. The main issues with this are scarcity of resources, location of resources and access to them.

The EV itself makes the perfect 2nd car for most households. The main problems with range, recharging times etc I believe will be sorted out quite quickly when the market starts to increase for them.

Rapid technological development will always follow a rapidly growing market. Look at the diesel engine, a few years ago they were slow, noisy and had an agricultural image. Today they are on par with petrol for most things and are far more economical thus more desirable.

I do believe that EV will be the way to go for the next 30 years, if they ever get hydrogen production and safety issues sorted then that will be the future.

eagerv

An EV would suit me fine. I am a reasonably high mileage driver, however most of my trips are less than 80 miles per day. About 3 times per year I would need a conventional car, or else stop for a sociable break, which I quite like the idea of! I am sure I am typical of many drivers.
Battery technology will advance rapidly over the next few years, as will home charging.

Buffman

I think battery based EV's are a bit of a gimmick and won't catch on. Great for short commutes and the like but you still want the option of being able to drive long distances without running out of fuel. It's the recharge time that's the killer.

I reckon Hydrogen is the way of the future and will replace petrol. Cars like the Honda FCX Clarity are already driving around and the main thing holding them back now is the availability of Hydrogen.

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

Driving anything but an internal combustion propelled car fills me with depression, yuk, the thought of it.

Eric Cartman

if they can build me an electric pickup with the size, 0-60 time, towing capacity and offroad capability of a ford f150 , that doesnt look like its electric , doesnt cost any more than its v8 counterpart , has the same or greater range, fully charges in under 30 minutes and is serviceable by independent mechanics without voiding warranty, and the batteries dont die after 10 years and arent leased or any other battery rental job. then I will buy an electric car. Theyd also need to have as many charging points as petrol stations too.

Until then , nahh ill keep wrecking the enviroment, and even If I had an electric car for a daily driver, Id just buy some large V12 beast like a 750iL for the weekends

Eric Cartman

Eric Cartman wrote: »

............. has the same or greater range, fully charges in under 30 minutes .........

Wouldn't be part of the design brief to have a decent range and short charge time, mutually exclusive me thinks. :cool: concept you have though.

Owen

The short charge with a long distance range might not be so out of the way, there's tech in development which charges in a similar manner to a capacitor (Almost instantaneous) - but can slowly release a stable voltage and current similar to a battery. There are buses which will supposedly use this tech, with wireless induction recharging docks available at every bus stop, so they can charge wherever they stop to pick up passengers.

IMHO, that's where the electric tech needs to be directed, public transport, short distance utility vehicles such as eircom vans/bord gais repair vehicles/an post vans - vehicles which will be in regular use, but also regularly parked up for recharging purposes.

Del2005

The thing which annoys me is the out rights lies they are saying about electric cars. The Nissan Leaf has Zero emissions on it's site and on the car itself, since the vast majority of the worlds electricity is from coal power stations they are far from zero emissions.

Then there's our compo culture. I can see solicitors getting busy with people tripping over trailing cables if EVs do become popular. And with the cost of metals only going up I can see a lot of charging cables being stolen.

In saying that if I had the ability to own one I would. I've a 20km commute so it would be perfect. Unfortunately I live in an apartment complex and I can't see power points being installed any time soon.

Bens

Just watching a program in the airport about this very thing.
Most peoples experience of batteries is that they last x amount of time after a full charge when you buy them new.

One year later they last x/2 amount of time. And another year later it costs you a fortune when you have to get a new one.

How come nobody talks about this? They talk about the range as if thats the range you will always get, even as the battery ages.

Maybe a better elctric option would be motorbikes?

Eric Cartman

Del2005 wrote: »

The thing which annoys me is the out rights lies they are saying about electric cars. The Nissan Leaf has Zero emissions on it's site and on the car itself, since the vast majority of the worlds electricity is from coal power stations they are far from zero emissions.

Then there's our compo culture. I can see solicitors getting busy with people tripping over trailing cables if EVs do become popular. And with the cost of metals only going up I can see a lot of charging cables being stolen.

In saying that if I had the ability to own one I would. I've a 20km commute so it would be perfect. Unfortunately I live in an apartment complex and I can't see power points being installed any time soon.

the cables are with the cars, not the charging points, and the public charging points are beside the road , if you honestly thought it was a good idea to walk in the much smaller pavement space between the charging point and the vehicle id say a court would find you insane.

as for being stolen, yeah id say that will happen, possibly good for the ev maker to make it part of the alarm, if the cars locked and somebody disconnects the cable from the cars end, the alarm goes off

Dartz

I would like to buy one tomorrow as a second car. Unfortunately I'm broke and barely able to afford the first as it is.

For getting around town or short journeys the like of a few miles to the city centre and back, they're great things. Especially if you're able to encourage your workplace to install a recharging point. Just push to go. Push to stop. And whirr along.

Sesshoumaru

My family and I have a Nissan Leaf. My wife and I have two young daughters and we got rid of both our old ICE cars in order to get a Nissan Leaf. We've had it over 3 months now and have done more than 7500km in it. It is our only car and it meets my families needs very well.

My eldest daughter is 4 years old and the youngest is 8 months. So my opinion on the car itself is coming from the perspective of a young family man. The car we used to have as our primary family car was a 2000 model Audi A6 Avant Quattro Sport 2.5TDI. This was a nice large estate car for a family. In comparison the boot the in Leaf is smaller, but large enough to accommodate baby buggy, shopping and anything else we like to throw in the boot usually.

Interior space in the car for passengers is on par with what we had in the Audi, for both front seat and back seat passengers. The car is very roomy on the interior. Overall everything is quite well put together and looks like it will stand up to abuse from kids.

The car has a lot of modern multimedia features like USB port, bluetooth, audio jack etc. Great for entertaining kids as you can easily put their favourite songs on USB memory sticks to play in the car. Safety wise it scored 5 stars on the Euro NCAP.

http://www.euroncap.com/results/nissan/leaf/2011/432.aspx
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbwQva75bbQ&feature=player_embedded#at=126

Handling wise the centre of gravity is very low on the car. This car was purpose built as an EV, not a redesigned petrol/diesel car. As such the batteries are below the passenger compartment running along the floor. This gives the car a perfect 50/50 weight distribution and low centre of gravity. While the steering is a little light, the car is a joy to drive. With 108bhp and 280 newton metres of torque, I'm very happy with the power available from the car. Of course as a modern car it also comes equipped with ABS and ESP as standard.

The car has a lot of intelligent features, I won't go into all of them. But features people will end up using a lot are the charging timer and climate control timer. In relation to the charging timer I have the car set as follows:

Monday to Thursday:
Start charging at 00:10
Charge to 80%

Friday to Sunday
Start charging at 00:10
Charge to 100%

This means I get home and I plug the car in, but it doesn't start charging until just after midnight. This way I take advantage of ESB night rates without having to go out to the car at midnight to plug it in then. The car also has a subscription free connection to the internet built-in. If you want it to, it can keep track of all journeys you make and it automatically keeps track of all energy used to charge it. This is then stored online and available for you to access using your username and password. This means I can log on to the Nissan Leaf portal online and see exactly how much the car is costing me. See screenshot below from my own portal (price below excludes VAT at 13.5%).



The climate control timer I haven't used much yet as it's summer time. But basically you can schedule when you want the climate control to activate on whatever days and times you want. So in winter you could have the car start heating itself at 7:30am every Monday to Friday. Advantages of this are that when you get to your car it is nice and warm and fully defrosted. It also means it was all done using power from the charging unit on your house. When plugged in the car uses power from the plug to run the climate control. Before you leave for work your car is warm, defrosted and no power has been used from your battery leaving you with a full charge before you leave for work.

As far as range goes we actually drive more since we got our EV. Sunday afternoon drive? why not! It's only going to cost 1 to 2 euro for a leisurely spin. Beforehand we would drive less because a full tank of fuel would cost us 85 euro. If we want to go further we don't have to wait 7 hours (time it takes to charge from 0% to 100% on home charger or on street charger). We can just pull into a fuel station like this one in Newlands Cross Topaz



This Fast Charger can take the Leaf from 0% to 84% in 30 minutes. Presumably you won't enter the station with 0% left, so most times getting back up to 84% charge will take less than 30 minutes. Too long for some, but a compromise my wife and I are happy to live with considering the other advantages of our EV.

Fast Charging technology also mean longer journeys are possible. As soon as the Topaz in Athlone has its Fast Charger operational we will be able to drive from Dublin to Galway with one 30 minute stop in between. Considering we have two young kids, this is not really an inconvenience, we would be stopping anyway. Not suitable for everybody, but for us we consider it a small sacrifice to gain the other immense advantages of owning an EV.

You'll probably get a lot of comments about EV's transferring the pollution back to power stations, they're not emission free etc. The common theme with these comments are usually that modern diesel engines will have similar or outperform EV's on emissions. I'd ask you to do your homework on this before just accepting those comments at face value. The emissions from a diesel or petrol car as rated by the manufacturer are only those at the point of emission i.e. the carbon the car itself emits while burning fossil fuels. This is the figure most people use when comparing their modern diesel car to an EV's emissions from the power plant. This completely ignores the fact that it takes a lot of energy (carbon emitted) to get oil out of the ground/seabed, transport it, refine it and transport it again (possibly several more times) before it ever goes into a cars fuel tank. Please check out these links:

http://www.seai.ie/Grants/Electric_Vehicle_Grant_Scheme/I_am_a_consumer/Power_Station_to_Wheels/

http://web.mit.edu/evt/summary_wtw.pdf

I have to admit though I'm not a tree hugging hippy. I care about our planet, but I didn't want to save the planet by buying a Leaf. At the moment 14% of electricity in Ireland is generated by renewable sources. This can be and should be increased. This is energy we can generate ourselves without sending our money overseas to unstable oil producing regimes. People can go on and on about half the cost of petrol/diesel being taxes. But that other half leaves our country, leaves Europe even! and goes to places like Libya (where 20% of our oil used to come from before the war). If we use EV's and charge them using domestically produced energy, that's money and jobs staying in Ireland.

The other big reason we chose to get rid of our ICE cars and go with one EV as our family car is that, in the long run it will be a lot cheaper than owning a petrol or diesel car. How many moving part does a petrol or diesel car have in their engine? Hundreds! An EV motor has about 5 moving parts and electric motors are not new untested technology. We've been using them for years in trains and boats etc. The car has normal wear and tear items like tyres, brake pads and shocks etc. But with regenerative braking being easy on brake pads and the silky smooth electric motor easy on the tyres, that only leaves shocks and there is no reason for them to need regular maintenance if the car is driven with respect.

That only leaves the battery pack, which Nissan says will still have 80% capacity after 10 years. In Ireland it has a 5 year warranty and in the US the battery pack has an 8 year warranty. So I'm happy it will last a very long time. But long before the battery pack is useless, I expect I'll be able to put in a newer battery pack as technology improves. It's just a big battery after all.

Overall we're really happy with our EV and would not consider going back to owning a diesel or petrol car. It cost a lot up front, but as a long term investment it will work out cheaper. Considering the long term cost of something is not something we Irish are famed for! But I'm hoping EV's will be different.

*edit*
Last point:

Eddie Hobbs made a comment that the type of people buying these cars are the type who own Range Rover Sports and have the Nissan Leaf as a second car for appearances. That was just his bigoted opinion based on no evidence whatsoever. My family and I are regular middle class. I've met up with several other Nissan Leaf owners and most of them like me have their Nissan Leaf as their only car. They are all also firmly middle class. I haven't met any rich Nissan Leaf owners, but I'm sure they do exist. Maybe Eddie Hobbs as a member of the rich class in Ireland might be considering purchasing one?

Sesshoumaru

Sesshoumaru wrote: »

............ It cost a lot up front, but as a long term investment it will work out cheaper. Considering the long term cost of something is not something we are Irish are famed for! But I'm hoping EV's will be different.

Great post, thank you
How much are the Nissan Leaf do you mind me asking?

Sesshoumaru

RoverJames wrote: »

Great post, thank you
How much are the Nissan Leaf do you mind me asking?

After EV grant it will set you back 30K. But please don't put it in the same class as a Micra with a battery or say the Mitsubishi i MiEV. It's a surprisingly large car and very well spec'd.

Rovi

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Excellent post.

(#21 )

BrianD3

Sesshoumaru wrote: »

Eddie Hobbs made a comment that the type of people buying these cars are the type who own Range Rover Sports and have the Nissan Leaf as a second car for appearances. That was just his bigoted opinion based on no evidence whatsoever. My family and I are regular middle class. I've met up with several other Nissan Leaf owners and most of them like me have their Nissan Leaf as their only car. They are all also firmly middle class. I haven't met any rich Nissan Leaf owners, but I'm sure they do exist. Maybe Eddie Hobbs as a member of the rich class in Ireland might be considering purchasing one?

Hobbs is a clown and he drives a Toyota Landcruiser - or at least he did when he was driving around the country doing those money advice programmes on TV. And he wasn't doing a whole lot of off roading or towing from what I could see.

A Landcruiser would likely cost ~280 quid to drive 2100 km whereas as we've seen your car costs ~20 quid for that distance.

unkel

Those electricity costs are spectacular, Sesshoumaru.

Technically the regeneration ratio is pretty impressive I thought. And economically, with the night rates for electricity your fuel costs of €18 would compare to about €85 with a very efficient modern diesel doing 70MPG (which is barely possible given you do so many short trips)

So that's a fuel saving of at least €800 per year based on 25k km. Out of interest, how much do you pay insurance?

Sesshoumaru

unkel wrote: »

Those electricity costs are spectacular, Sesshoumaru.

Technically the regeneration ratio is pretty impressive I thought. And economically, with the night rates for electricity your fuel costs of €18 would compare to about €85 with a very efficient modern diesel doing 70MPG (which is barely possible given you do so many short trips)

So that's a fuel saving of at least €800 per year based on 25k km. Out of interest, how much do you pay insurance?

It was around €360 for fully comprehensive. The policy covers both my wife and I. The insurance companies seem to be classing it as fairly low risk. Low risk like a milk float I suppose

savagecabbages

I'm very pro electric vehicle. Anti hybrid tho;)
A full EV produces zero emissions when driving. A hybrid still has a fossil fuel burning emission producing engine when driving. Its a poor half solution to the problem of vehicle emissions...

I dont think the full electric cars have been branded with that 'smug mobile' image that I thought they would either. The general public seem to think of them as cool and forward thinking more than a fashion accessory. Maybe that perception will change as they become more popular(i hope not)...

But there is bad press out there, particularly coming from the 'only moving pollution elsewhere' brigade. Thats just narrow mindedness and not looking at the bigger picture, but unfortunately there are many people out there who will think like that...

We'll either take to electric cars slowly but surely as we have been doing
OR
Petrol + diesel prices will rocket up and everyone will be driven(no pun) to fully electric cars as a matter of necessity rather than a free choice.


Time & fuel prices will tell all

Sikie

Very eye opening I am running 2 cars at the moment and I think am seeing from this post an annual saving in running cost of trading in one of those a Qashqui+2 1.5d of 2,500 euro between tax and diesel. Problem for me is we use the 7 seats. But I do like the idea of re-couping my tax increases of the last 2 years through the grant and the discounted electric rates. I wonder how long these incentives would last if 1/2 million Irish motorists changed next year. They won't and the car companies know this too and they are continuing to plan to build just as many ICEs in 2020 as they are today but they will be more efficient

BrookieD

I would love to have got a Leaf for my last car, I needed to save money and could not afford my first choice of a 2008 diesel, So i went with a Civic Hybrid 2008, great tax saving and i am getting near 800km per tank.

If i could get the DAA to put in a charge point and then get a buyer for my Hybrid i would buy a Leaf in a heart beat.

This would be used to get me to work and back mon-fri, some light driving on weekends and would save me a bundle.

hopefully my next car

Daraghot

Thanks for your opinions folks, these are perfect. We (myself and Paddy Comyn) will be recording this podcast over the next couple of days. We'll be talking to alot of people including Chris Paine (Director of "Who Killed the Electric Car?"), Paul Mulvaney (ESB ecars), Jarlath Sweeney (editor of fleet.ie) and many more. The podcasts will be available to download from newstalk.ie at some stage next week, I'll confirm a definite date asap.

In the meantime, if you have more comments.......

Be good,
Daragh