Electric vehicles-Conversions

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Post by white exec »

Yes they do, and it will only get worse, I guess.
Cars are now often sold very much like white goods (and the expectations are about the same), and by 'staff' who have little idea of how they work, or any inclination to understand or sometimes fix.
My guess is that the move to EVs will push all this a bit further along the same road, which may (or may not) be a bad thing, depending on whether you want your high-tech machine poked about by an outfit who don't really know what they're doing.
As Peter says, some of the dealers seemingly got there years ago! 8-[
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Post by Mandrake »

Is this the first nail in the coffin for fuel cell electric cars ?

http://www.eenewsautomotive.com/news/da ... technology
Initially, fuel cell-powered vehicle offered a much better driving range and shorter refueling times compared to batteries. State-of-the-art battery technology however made this advantage melt down, in particular if the price is taken into account. “Battery costs are declining rapidly whereas hydrogen production remains very costly,” Zetsche said.
I've said it for a while now, but fuel cells just don't stack up anymore especially if we do get our much anticipated solid state batteries.
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Post by NewcastleFalcon »

It's the inefficient conversion/distribution chain for other "fuels" (hydrogen, ethanol, petrol & diesel etc) which is the convincing argument for me, in favour of battery electric vehicles, and against fuel cells.

I was looking for maybe a youtube video of how you would go about testing an EV's Battery state of health using the tools mentioned by Simon but have so far drawn a blank. There's a gap in the youtube world for someone to make such a video...anyone got a camera, an electric vehicle and the gear :?: :-D

Did come across this "Scientific Paper" which is probably only for the purist, but at least it goes into a bit of depth and uses the scientific evidence based approach to demolish a few general misconceptions about battery life. I am not in a position to challenge their methods or conclusions but here's what they say.....
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 5315000841
Quantifying EV battery end-of-life through analysis of travel needs with vehicle powertrain models

Abstract

Electric vehicles enable clean and efficient transportation, however concerns about range anxiety and battery degradation hinder EV adoption. The common definition for battery end-of-life is when 70–80% of original energy capacity remains, however little analysis is available to support this retirement threshold. By applying detailed physics-based models of EVs with data on how drivers use their cars, we show that EV batteries continue to meet daily travel needs of drivers well beyond capacity fade of 80% remaining energy storage capacity. Further, we show that EV batteries with substantial energy capacity fade continue to provide sufficient buffer charge for unexpected trips with long distances. We show that enabling charging in more locations, even if only with 120 V wall outlets, prolongs useful life of EV batteries. Battery power fade is also examined and we show EVs meet performance requirements even down to 30% remaining power capacity. Our findings show that defining battery retirement at 70–80% remaining capacity is inaccurate. Battery retirement should instead be governed by when batteries no longer satisfy daily travel needs of a driver. Using this alternative retirement metric, we present results on the fraction of EV batteries that may be retired with different levels of energy capacity fade.
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Post by Mandrake »

More on Daimler winding down Fuel Cell EV research in favour of BEV:

http://fortune.com/2017/04/02/daimler-f ... velopment/

And accelerating their development of BEV cars:

http://www.dailyherald.com/article/2017 ... 170409963/
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Post by Mandrake »

Looks like city councils (at least in London) are starting to crack down hard on idling, this time outside schools, by issuing £20 fines to parents idling while waiting for their kids:

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/s ... 05516.html

You can see from the video how defiant some people are about being told not to idle, and its certainly a grey area if for example you pull over for 30 seconds then drive away without switching the engine off. Are you still liable to be fined ? How long can you be stationary before you're accused of idling ?

While they're at it, why not go after the Taxi ranks, which must have the highest concentration of idling Diesel engines anywhere ? :x

No mention of the obvious solution to the problem of pollution around children and schools of course - BEV's, which don't idle and don't pollute even when they are moving.

Kinda makes you wonder why people continue to drive ICE cars to drop off their kids if their pollution is so bad that they're sending out enforcement officers to stop people idling outside a school. (Yet cars driving past are somehow OK)

One of the comments was quite funny but sadly true: "I drive my child to school so that they don't have to breath in all the pollution caused by parents driving their children to school"

I do look forward to the day when this sort of hassle between drivers and councils is a thing of the past because people are driving non polluting vehicles... :) Stopping an ICE engine every time you stop moving for more than a few seconds is not a solution, especially when catalytic converters are involved.
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Post by NewcastleFalcon »

More positive news, hopefully the penny will drop for all the large automakers, and rather than a token effort with the odd model, the pace of change will accelerate, and they will move towards all of the vehicles they produce being EV's.
From Simon's link http://www.dailyherald.com/article/2017 ... 170409963/

In a $10.8 billion project, the world's largest luxury-car maker intends to release 10 new electric vehicles by 2022, three years earlier than a target announced at the Paris auto show in September. The expedited time frame reflects the urgency facing manufacturers as they brace for a shift away from traditional automotive technologies. Combustion engines would continue to be refined for a "transitional period," Mercedes parent Daimler said on Wednesday.....

...Daimler's been focusing its investments on future technologies at the expense of short-term profits. The company plans to spend more than 1 billion euros on its global battery production facilities, about half of which will go to a subsidiary in Kamenz, Germany.
I do hope they are wasting their time refining ICE's :) , and it's good that serious investment is being put into battery production facilities. Will have to look up what Nissan are doing in the UK...about time we had our own "Gigafactory" or 2 or 3 or...

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Post by NewcastleFalcon »

...
Mandrake wrote: While they're at it, why not go after the Taxi ranks, which must have the highest concentration of idling Diesel engines anywhere ? :x
......and any organisation which runs a fleet of diesel vans especiallly in wintertime when you have 50 or more vans in a yard, idling away to "warm up" and clear windscreens.

I am definitely becoming more sensitive, and aware of the exhaust pipe fumes of both petrol and diesel vehicles. Even in rural Northumberland, with cars simply starting up and pulling away from a quick visit to the shops. Maybe its got something to do with pushing pushchairs once again, you just don't want our youngsters to be subject to breathing in the foul output of an ICE exhaust, which is for the pushchair user is right at their face level!

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Last edited by NewcastleFalcon on 03 Apr 2017, 19:36, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by CitroJim »

I never let my cars idle ever, if I know I'm going to be at a halt for more than a couple of minutes off goes the engine...

It's just laziness, just like holding the car on the footbrake and dazzling all behind with brake lights rather than slipping on the handbrake...

I both care about the life of my engine, my fuel economy and the life of my stop light bulbs :) Actually I just care and try to be courteous to ALL other road users...
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Post by Mandrake »

CitroJim wrote:I never let my cars idle ever, if I know I'm going to be at a halt for more than a couple of minutes off goes the engine...

I think the parents in question are getting dinged for well under 2 minutes of idling. It looks like if they stop for more than a few seconds and keep idling that they're getting dinged. The first car in the video was actually in such a hurry to get away from the camera that she drove off with the rear right door swinging open. :rofl2:
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Post by elma »

I grew up near there and I expect the reactions publicised are the more polite ones.
No turbo cars for dropping kids off then, I'm so used to turbo diesels I often idle for 30 seconds or so before turning the engine off which is totally unnecessary in my current car. A habit I must try to put a stop to.
I went to an East London comprehensive and the road was chaos outside some 22 years ago.
We were banned from cycling to school, it was considered as far to dangerous, the headmaster was the only one who used a bicycle.
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Post by Peter.N. »

I don't let my car idle even at road works if its looks as though I am going to be stationary for more than a minute or so - although I must confess its mainly on economy grounds.

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Post by NewcastleFalcon »

I think the 10 minute video posted up earlier in the thread does an excellent job of putting the case for battery electric vehicles over both ICE and fuel cell vehicles, and is quite accessible for everyone.



If you like lots of coloured charts, and a bit of in depth analysis you may be able to pick out some interest from this report, which covers similar ground.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/14yyt7swfhrcj ... n.pdf?dl=0

and a little "cartoon" from the Speak-EV forum sums up a view of Government Involvement in the "Hydrogen Economy"

https://speakev.com/threads/riversimple ... ost-504065

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Post by CitroJim »

NewcastleFalcon wrote:I think the 10 minute video posted up earlier in the thread does an excellent job of putting the case for battery electric vehicles over both ICE


For urban use such as the school run and so on, absolutely... The sooner the better and all efforts should be made to both make them the first choice and an affordable choice. IMO they are still far too pricey at the moment and odd and seemingly bizarre battery hire/lease/rental options do not do anything to assist in their mainstream appeal or uptake...
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Post by Mandrake »

Now that I've found cheap(ish!) monthly parking in Glasgow close to work we've both dropped our train and bus fares and are driving all the way into Glasgow in the Ion together. So far its working really well! About a 36 mile round trip, half of it on the motorway half of it in 30-40mph streets. So far with the heater on a couple of notches just so that it isn't blowing cold air into the cabin I'm getting home with about 40% battery and an estimated 30 miles range left. :)

As a city commuter it's brilliant, and is very smooth and relaxing to drive in traffic that is constantly speeding up and slowing down. No thinking about gears (whether manual, or trying to predict what gear an autobox is going to choose) just push the go pedal down more to speed up and lift it off to slow down! All perfectly smoothly with no lurches or unpredictable auto box gear changes. In most conditions I can do all of my slowing down until just below 10mph by simply lifting the throttle, so most of the time I'm doing "one pedal driving" where my foot doesn't leave the accelerator except at a stop light. (Steering is also nice and light at slow speeds so navigating junctions is effortless)

There is no doubt that one pedal driving is more comfortable and pleasant than constantly moving your foot from accelerator to touch the brake very lightly then back to accelerator. I really missed this one pedal driving style when I drove the Xantia recently! On the Ion I can hold my speed back even going down a moderately steep hill just by lifting my foot off the throttle, no need to press the brake. And every time I'm forced to slow down in traffic I just lift off the accelerator and feel a sense of satisfaction when I see the power gauge move into the charge region, knowing that I am not throwing away that momentum as heat and will gain a large portion of it back again as it charges the battery.

I am still acutely aware of how silent the car is to other people in an urban environment - just this morning I turned at a junction and watched a pedestrian step out into the road in front of me (at a fair distance though, and I saw him in plenty of time) without even looking in my direction at all, clearly he was looking for cars in the direction away from me and listening for cars from my direction and assuming that if he couldn't hear anything coming up behind him there was nothing there! :evil:

This is obviously stupid behaviour even without silent EV's, but people will get caught out so much more often with EV's driving around. I have seen a lot of people put one foot out to walk right in front of me without looking on the road or in car parks and then do a double take and stop with a fright when they see a completely silent car approaching and almost on top of them. As my car doesn't have a low speed noise maker that some EV's do, I am resigned to the fact that at low speeds (<30mph) where pedestrians are involved I will just have to drive extra defensively and assume that pedestrians ahead of me will NOT notice me, and give them a wide berth, be ready to hit the brakes, or give them a quick toot with the horn if they look like they're going to step in front of me...

I do also get the occasional stare from pedestrians on the street as I go by - I'm not entirely sure if it's the weird tall and narrow Kei car styling that they're staring at, (as it looks like nothing else on the road) or whether they've noticed that it's gliding by almost silently and that it takes a moment for that to register with them. :rofl2:

I implore everyone to look with their eyes not just their ears when they cross the road or walk around in car parks, and if you have kids, teach them to look both ways and remind them that some new cars are silent! As EV's become more prevalent you WILL be caught out eventually if you don't always use your eyes. :twisted:
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Post by Mandrake »

Not a new article but don't think it has been posted here yet ?

https://electrek.co/2016/11/01/tesla-ba ... gradation/

The summary is that according to independent research (Tesla owners getting together to share their individual cars battery health vs mileage and generate statistics from that) the battery packs are well on their way to lasting 500k miles with over 80% battery capacity remaining. Of course nobody has actually reached 500k miles yet, as the car itself is likely to wear out or become obsolete first!

This isn't representative of EV's in general especially those without liquid cooled batteries, but its certainly interesting to see what CAN be achieved even with current lithium ion cells if you are willing to pay for it.
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