Electric vehicles-Conversions

[white exec]

Have to agree, Neil. The exotic are ok so far as they go, for marketing purposes and to establish the 'upper end' of performance. I'm much more interested in daily anf family vehicles, and apart from a few well-known examples, I regret to say it is China that are well ahead here. Another opportunity so far missed?

[myglaren]

The Swedish one is actually Chinese.

[NewcastleFalcon]

Forgot to mention anything French in my list of Model T-Esque cars of the people.

Well the best selling French Car ever is the Renault Clio

Interesting little list from wiki

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_b ... utomobiles

Its electric versions of the sort of cars on that list....many of them in the small category......that will bring about the most rapid change.

regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

Did come across this the other day, should you have a 2CV lying around, and would like to convert it to electric.

Prices for the various bits soon mount up, (higher than a second hand leaf with a decent battery life), but you would have a very different beast. Nice and easy to buy the kit though, just put it in your basket and wait for it to be delivered , and add a few months/years of trying to get it to work!

http://www.everything-ev.com/index.php? ... cts_id=384

Regards Neil

PS There is a Somerset connection, Blue Lias House no less, and close followers of Picture of the day will be more than familiar with Blue Lias ....I would expect "Beauchamp" to be pronounced Beecham as in the powders!

Everything-EV.com
Alternative Vehicles Technology
Blue Lias House
Station Road
Hatch Beauchamp
Somerset
TA3 6SQ
England, UK

[CitroJim]

I would expect "Beauchamp" to be pronounced Beecham as in the powders!

As a Somerset Yokel born and bred I can confirm that is the correct pronunciation Neil

These are many Somerset place names with their very own pronunciation... It's how we tell if a person is a foreigner or not...

Frome is a well-known example but just one of very many indeed...

[NewcastleFalcon]

Quite a comprehensive site, but when you assess their price for the battery packs in comparison to a full replacement pack for a Leaf from Nissan at 5,500 ish dollars, they are eyewateringly expensive.,

Article from insideevs.com re Leaf replacement batteries
http://insideevs.com/breaking-nissan-pr ... t-durable/


As the current generation of cars like the Leaf reach the battery replacement stage, I suspect the option of a number of replacements/ upgrades will be available together with appropriate financial arrangements to soften the blow..

The successful companies will do their utmost to retain their customers. I fully anticipate
Nissan will be at the forefront in this regard.

Regards Neil

[Gibbo2286]

Did you see the 'rowing bike' on the West News tonight Jim?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-38679575

[CitroJim]

Did you see the 'rowing bike' on the West News tonight Jim?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-38679575

Neat

[NewcastleFalcon]

Plenty of news stories over on insideevs.com

This particular one relates to the Samsung next generation battery for 373 miles range rechargeable in 20 minutes

http://insideevs.com/samsung-sdi-announ ... 0-minutes/

Samsung SDI presented in Detroit at the 2017 NAIAS several battery innovations for electric cars.

The major reveal is the next generation lithium-ion cells with both high energy density for 600 km (373 mi) of range in an all-electric car and high power density for 20-minute recharge (80%).

The drawback is that Samsung SDI expects mass production of these cells in 2021. Well… it seems we will have couple years to enjoy 200+ miles BEVs first then before ICE vehicles will finally be crushed by electric cars equipped with these new cells.

Many others working in the field too, including "car makers" such as Tesla and Nissan, but interesting quote here from Renault

While Nissan is making its own batteries at three different production facilities, partners Renault and Daimler are not following suit. Marianne Bataillon, leader of Renault’s EV division claimed:

“We are a carmaker, not a chemist.”

VW have a similar attitude, with the catch up to the leaders in the field such as Samsung and LG being too great and too expensive to set up their own battery manufacturing capability.

Regards Neil

[Mandrake]

Plenty of news stories over on insideevs.com

It's amazing how when companies actually put their mind to these challenges and do proper research and development instead of saying "it's too hard", they actually get solved pretty quickly. 10 or even 5 years ago battery capacity, weight, charging times, and longevity were major hurdles to electric cars - I think within the next 10 years battery technology will be a "solved" problem for electric cars where you have all the range you could reasonably need - once you get past about 300 miles per charge and 30 minutes to recharge do you really need any more than that for a private passenger vehicle ?

[white exec]

Hope so. A huge amount of R&D is now going into battery design, not least from universities worldwide. The prizes for success are considerable. Big oil must be sh****** themselves, and not before time.

[Mandrake]

Big oil must be sh****** themselves, and not before time.

Yes and no.

Oil is an a source of energy, batteries are only a storage device - you still have to provide the energy from somewhere to charge that battery, and I'm sure Big oil would be more than happy to burn that stuff that people don't want for their car petrol and diesel tanks anymore to generate electricity to charge those new fangled batteries.

Not that I'm suggesting that's a good thing, as it isn't (oil should be conserved for things that really need it, like manufacturing materials like plastics instead of wasting it burning it for energy) but I'm sure it will happen, so they won't go away overnight. They may just find that their market moves away from directly powering passenger cars.

[elma]

The oil industry have a lot of friends in high places, I don't think they are too worried. About a decade ago there was a trial of combo boilers with sterling motors in the flue which provided the houses electricity, as commonly found in Germany. A certain oil company used their friends in high places to have the system regulated out of the UK before the trial was complete. I lived with one of the analysts for the trial and they were absolutely fuming.

[Gibbo2286]

There's a lot of conspiracy nonsense talked about big oil companies, big companies in general in fact, if batteries are the thing of the future big oil will be investing in them not trying to block them.

Motor fuel, especially petrol, is a waste product of the oil industry and for the most part is not a profit maker for them, their real money is made in the plastics and chemicals goods they produce.

[NewcastleFalcon]

A snippet from the article on ultracapacitors

http://www.rdmag.com/article/2015/10/wi ... qus_thread

So why aren’t ultracapacitors more widely used?
The answer to this is question is simply because batteries are the incumbent technology. Power electronics are currently designed around battery technology, making the adoption of ultracapacitors more complex, as well as more costly. But times are changing. As ultracapacitors are used more widely every year, the technology around high-power devices evolves as well. Costs are coming down, engineers are gaining more and more experience with ultracapacitors and new applications are emerging.

Money talks,and the big investments are in li-ion batteries, particularly in manufacturing plant which will anticipate an increasing demand. Indeed one of the articles on insideevs.com was on a potential shortage of supply.

If the improvement in ultra capacitors continues conceivably they could rival or replace batteries as the most efficient method of energy storage for electric vehicles,

Research and development should go hand in hand, but with the big money being invested in battery power, the progress of ultra capacitors into electric vehicles could be hampered.

Regards Neil