Electric Vehicles: What have you spotted?

[Zelandeth]

Saw one parked at the train station yesterday that I had to look up!

A BYD e6.

Another Chinese thing...car makers over there are like dandelions...every time you turn around another one's appeared!

[NewcastleFalcon]

Might as well have an image of it for other spotters. Bit of a rarity at the moment.

http://bydeurope.com/vehicles/e6/index.php

This is what Autocar has to say on it

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/byd/e6

Regards Neil

[Mandrake]

BYD has been around for many years and is one of the major EV players in China if not the biggest. Expect to see a lot more of them once they have satisfied their domestic market!

Forgot to say I saw a black BMW i8 in Glasgow the other day - my first sighting. Yesterday I also saw a BMW i3 - I've seen quite a lot of these including chatting to an owner of one at a charge point not long ago, but this one was in full ambulance livery. I wonder what use a small car like that is for the ambulance service ? It was stopped outside a university...

[white exec]

BYD is the company building all-electric double-decker buses for London. Delivery vans and trucks are also in their assortment.

Although some work is still to be done on it (which the Chinese obviously know) the capability of the e6 means that a reasonable size, family, urban/commuting battery car is here, now - almost. And it could have come from Britain, Mrs May. Maybe we'll just end up assembling them...

[van ordinaire]

If, as I was told on Saturday, it costs £80,000 to equip a garage to MoT electric cars, owners might find the nearest one is out of range.

[Mandrake]

If, as I was told on Saturday, it costs £80,000 to equip a garage to MoT electric cars, owners might find the nearest one is out of range.

Where did you hear this ? As far as I'm aware an MOT of an EV can be done by any garage. No special equipment needed, just a little common sense, like don't try to test the emissions of a non existent tail pipe! Having a fairly good idea of what is in an EV and how they work, I can't think of what specialist equipment they might need ???

Some aspects of servicing yes, MOT, no.

My Ion is due for its MOT in March and I plan to take it to the local independent garage who did my Xantia the last two times, we'll see if they baulk!

[van ordinaire]

My M0T tester told me; most of it seemed to be to comply with very strict insulation requirements.

[Mandrake]

My M0T tester told me; most of it seemed to be to comply with very strict insulation requirements.

I'm still very skeptical. I'm a regular on SpeakEV and I've never once heard anyone say that they had difficulty getting an MOT done or were turned away. Mind you a lot of the people on there are PCP leasers who take their car to the dealer for everything.

An MOT tester shouldn't be poking deeply into wiring anyway - they're checking for things like brakes, brake lines, rust, tyres, headlights, oil leaks etc... the high voltage lines in EV's are all double insulated in protective bright orange conduit, which is industry standard. On many EV's the HV wiring isn't exposed at all to the underside of the car - it isn't on my Ion for example. So you'd have to start dismantling the car to even get close to the HV wiring, and such dismantling is well beyond the remit of an MOT tester!

http://www.oaks-services.co.uk/news/ele ... d-to-know/

One thing to note here, is that an MOT tester isn’t permitted to remove any part of the vehicle to check for rust. Many electric vehicles come with an underbody panel, so this will be kept in place throughout the test.

It's perfectly safe to open the bonnet of an EV (although on some like mine, you won't find much if anything MOT relevant there except brake fluid level!) and the undersides are very well protected - they have to be when the underside of a car is subject to constant water exposure, road debris, getting beached on speed humps etc. There is no safety risk to an MOT tester who is not actively dismantling the car.

So I think it's all a lot of scaremongering and that your tester probably just can't be bothered. Imagine the same tester confronted with a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, which genuinely is a dangerous device!

[van ordinaire]

I don't doubt all you say but the conversation we were having wasn't about electric cars but fickle changes in DoT Regs. - which keep requiring him to put in hand in his pocket, to be allowed to continue conducting tests.

London papers are full of the first electric cab to hit the streets, makes me smile, after all it must be 100 years sincethe first one was actually taken off the streets!

[Gibbo2286]

http://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/in ... st-611103

[Timmo]

Saw one of those Odd little bmw jobbies earlier, was maroony red and black, displaying the usual bmw traits of bumper riding and no indication!

[CitroJim]

displaying the usual bmw traits of bumper riding and no indication!

That'll be it's special BMW adaptive cruise control and everyone knows BMW indicators are ornamental only

[van ordinaire]

I think you might find that's only on company cars.

[Mandrake]

displaying the usual bmw traits of bumper riding and no indication!

That'll be it's special BMW adaptive cruise control and everyone knows BMW indicators are ornamental only

Jim, up here, indicators seem to be ornamental only on all cars... especially on motorways and roundabouts. I steadfastly ignore the peer pressure of all those around me and continue to use my indicators.

Stopping at red lights also seems to be treated only as 'advisory' as well...

[Timmo]

I think you might find that's only on company cars.

Do people actually buy bmw's for Personal use??