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Diesel Vs Electric


Fly Navy

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I used to do London to Liverpool 250 miles in those days on exactly one tank of petrol 5 gals, minivan.  This was before the motorways were connected and had to do a long traverse around Birmingham on the A5 up towards Whitchurch and then through the Mersey tunnel into Liverpool. I got a bit lost once which messed up my mpg calculations and I ran out of petrol in the Mersey tunnel. The Mersey tunnel police came out in a red Land Rover with a gallon of petrol, it cost me a £1 fine plus 4/6p for the petrol. 

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1 minute ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Interesting document / test report here :

https://www.buyacar.co.uk/cars/economical-cars/electric-cars/726/electric-car-range-how-far-will-they-really-go-on-a-single

 

Worth reading all of the article

 

And quite pertinent :

 

A recent revelation (Jan 2019) has been unearthed about the Nissan's powertrain though. It turns out that you can’t rapid-charge the Leaf’s batteries more than once on a single journey.

Nissan says that this is to ‘safeguard’ the battery, in order to maintain battery life over an extended time period. While this won’t affect the range, it is something to bear in mind if you regularly travel long distances. While fast chargers will generally let you charge from empty to 80 per cent in around 30 minutes, on the trickle charge, it might take you more like two hours.

Quite well known in EV circles as Rapidgate and caused by Nissan's refusal (so far) to include active battery cooling, as used by other manufacturers. 

 

I believe they have mitigated the effect somewhat using software changes so that charge rate throttling doesn't affect their cars as much unless they have already had two rapid charges in 24 hours and/or have become hot enough to seriously affect battery life.

 

It is probably reason enough to hesitate over buying a Leaf if you will be doing regular very long journeys.

 

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6 minutes ago, Stilllearning said:

A question occurs to me :how much is the range of your average EV compromised by night driving, driving with heater and wipers on, AC, etc?

And wipers, headlamps, satnav and radio going, to the end of your street? Using the brakes causing the brake lights to work or the hooter could be problematic too.

Edited by bizzard
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5 minutes ago, Stilllearning said:

A question occurs to me :how much is the range of your average EV compromised by night driving, driving with heater and wipers on, AC, etc?

Probably a question better asked here...  https://www.speakev.com

 

There are plenty of posts there where owners of various models report on their own experiences of, amongst other things, long journeys, charging times etc.

 

 

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2 minutes ago, Lily Rose said:

Probably a question better asked here...  https://www.speakev.com

 

There are plenty of posts there where owners of various models report on their own experiences of, amongst other things, long journeys, charging times etc.

 

 

The speakev cookies policy doesn’t offer an option of no thanks, so I’m not going to look, but thanks for the link anyway.

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5 minutes ago, bizzard said:

And wipers, headlamps, satnav and radio going, to the end of your street? Using the brakes causing the brake lights to work or the hooter could be problematic too.

Using the brakes is not a problem, there is much energy put back into the batteries from regenerative breaking systems, especially going down hill.

 

The newer Nissan Leaf can even be driven using one pedal avoiding using the brake pedal at all except in an emergency. It's even smart enough to know when to put the brake lights on based on how much you have reduced the pressure on the accelerator pedal.

Edited by Lily Rose
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42 minutes ago, Fly Navy said:

The 1st question to ask before purchasing a 2nd hand EV is: How much to replace the battery pack (or how much is left on the battery warranty)?

It is still early days for used EV's and the subsequent owners arent used to their battery packs reaching their sgelf life. Example: 

BMW i8 is now 5 yrs old. Battery life: est. 8yrs. Replacement cost

 out of warranty: £8 to £10k!

 

There is now a lot of accumulated data for Tesla (probably the one EV with no corners cut in the powertrain):

 

https://cleantechnica.com/2018/04/16/tesla-batteries-have-90-capacity-after-160000-miles-may-last-for-500000-miles/

 

https://steinbuch.wordpress.com/2015/01/24/tesla-model-s-battery-degradation-data/

 

https://cleantechnica.com/2018/08/23/tesla-battery-life-longer-than-anyone-except-elon-jb-expected/

 

"Tesloop says its cost of maintenance over the life of the car comes to just 5 cents per mile. It estimates maintenance costs for a Lincoln Town Car over the same number of miles would have been 22 cents per mile, and for a Mercedes GLS, 25 cents per mile. "

 

These mileages are so far above what most normal drivers do -- 160k miles is more than 15 years for a typical UK driver -- that they're not worth worrying about.

 

Of course this is an EV with properly designed battery charging/protection/cooling systems, other EVs may not last as long. But you could say exactly the same about petrol/diesel engines, gearboxes, clutches, where cheaply-built models are unlikely to last as long as this -- it seems clear that running costs over lifetime including maintenance should be much lower for EV then IC.

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4 minutes ago, Lily Rose said:

Using the brakes is not a problem, there is much energy put back into the batteries from regenerative breaking systems, especially going down hill.

 

The newer Nissan Leaf can even be driven using one pedal avoiding using the brake pedal at all except in an emergency. It's even smart enough to know when to put the brake lights on based on how much you have reduced the pressure on the accelerator pedal.

Not to mention, heated windows and seats, using the fag lighter, electric power steering, higher powered rear fog lamps. I doubt if you'd get away from your house especially if its an uphill start.

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6 minutes ago, bizzard said:

Not to mention, heated windows and seats, using the fag lighter, electric power steering, higher powered rear fog lamps. I doubt if you'd get away from your house especially if its an uphill start.

All those added together only take a fraction of the power needed for propulsion. Reported reduction in range for worst-case use of electrical accessories is usually less than 10%, much smaller then the influence of a heavy (or light) right foot...

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33 minutes ago, bizzard said:

Not to mention, heated windows and seats, using the fag lighter, electric power steering, higher powered rear fog lamps. I doubt if you'd get away from your house especially if its an uphill start.

Also... when you get away from the house in the morning the car will already be fully warmed up, demisted, defrosted etc  because you can remotely set it to put the heating on as long in advance as you wish and without using any battery power at all - assuming the car was plugged in overnight. 

 

I assume (I haven't checked) that EVs have LED bulbs so lights won't be a problem. Many have heatpumps that recover heat, for example from the batteries, that would otherwise be lost.

 

Whilst going up hill uses more battery power a good proportion of that goes back in when (eventually) you go downhill. I've not heard anyone complaining that their EV struggles to get uphill. I suspect the way EVs work means they can get uphill just as easily, if not more so, than their ICE counterparts.

 

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7 minutes ago, bizzard said:

I'm not sure if LED lamps use much less elec than filament bulbs as there's an awful lot of LED's in the lamp clusters.

You could be right. On the other hand, when I replaced 27W filament bulbs on my boat with 1 and 2W LEDs I saved an awful lot of battery consumption with no reduction in light levels. I'm not sure why that would be different with headlights. Presumably manufacturers go to the extra expense of installing LEDs in order to achieve more energy efficient lighting. They certainly cut corners in many areas of the interior to keep costs down so surely they would do the same with lighting if it did not offer significant benefits.

Edited by Lily Rose
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Quite an interesting thread on SpeakEV, particularly post #11.

 

https://www.speakev.com/threads/rebutting-the-nay-sayers.134272/

 

I have no idea how fair this is. I don't own an EV (yet) and recently decided not to buy one just yet but I think it highly likely I will in 1 or 2 years time.

 

 

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3 hours ago, Machpoint005 said:

 

Are you suggesting that the energy to build an electric car is any less than that for a diesel, or that disposal costs at end-of-life are lower? I suggest that both are rather higher for an electric, but what really matters here is service life. I doubt that a Leaf will still be on the road after 15 or 20 years, unless it has had a whole new battery pack.

The reality is Vauxhall Amperas and Teslas have clocked up over 300-400k on their original packs so the question you should ask yourself is how can I covert my boat to electric using one of those packs?. I want my Grand kids to have a world to live in and we have to make hard choices. and they dont involve fossil fuels Ian, thats one of the reasons I have gone down the electric route for my cars and the boats

  • Greenie 1
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3 hours ago, Lily Rose said:

I would think journeys over, say, 250 miles are pretty rare for most people.

You are kidding!

250 is not unusual for me just done 250 down to Devon towing a 400kg trailer 60mph and 50mpg still got enough diesel to get back. How could I manage that in an electric car, not to mention the cost of buying the electric car in the first place.

How can I charge an electric car living on a boat, my solar panels wouldn't cope, I suppose I could run a cable down the towpath and charge it from my inverter whilst running the engine to keep the boat batteries charged!

 

For my use and budget and use electric is  a non starter.

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3 minutes ago, Loddon said:

You are kidding!

250 is not unusual for me just done 250 down to Devon towing a 400kg trailer 60mph and 50mpg still got enough diesel to get back. How could I manage that in an electric car, not to mention the cost of buying the electric car in the first place.

How can I charge an electric car living on a boat, my solar panels wouldn't cope, I suppose I could run a cable down the towpath and charge it from my inverter whilst running the engine to keep the boat batteries charged!

 

For my use and budget and use electric is  a non starter.

Today’s winner of worst inadvertent pun?

:)

 

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FFS, I said MOST people, not YOU!

 

Just check out the statistics on journey lengths.

 

Also, no-one is saying EVs are right for everyone. Quite obviously it depends on personal circumstances.

 

Given this sort of response I think I've had enough of this thread now 

 

Edited by Lily Rose
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1 minute ago, ditchcrawler said:

Are they really turbines 

Well - considering they were only generating wind and the definition of a Turbine says :

 

"a machine for producing continuous power in which a wheel or rotor, typically fitted with vanes, is made to revolve by a fast-moving flow of water, steam, gas, air, or other fluid".

 

Probably not.

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3 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Well - considering they were only generating wind and the definition of a Turbine says :

 

"a machine for producing continuous power in which a wheel or rotor, typically fitted with vanes, is made to revolve by a fast-moving flow of water, steam, gas, air, or other fluid".

 

Probably not.

But would you say 2 or 3 blades would constitute a wheel or rotor, was the Spitfire driven by a turbine or even the helicopter 

 

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10 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

But would you say 2 or 3 blades would constitute a wheel or rotor, was the Spitfire driven by a turbine or even the helicopter 

 

It would appear that given the options provided - a helicopter is driven by a 'Rotor' and a Spitfire by a 'wheel'.

 

rotor

Dictionary result for rotor

/ˈrəʊtə/
noun
noun: rotor; plural noun: rotors
  1. 1.
    a hub with a number of radiating aerofoils that is rotated in an approximately horizontal plane to provide the lift for a helicopter or other rotary wing aircraft.
  2. 2.
    the rotating assembly in a turbine.
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