|
Why do electric car manufacturers always quote the top end of the mileage range figures and not the bottom. What we as consumers would like to know is how far we can go in a rainy dark night with periods stood in traffic on the way, in other words the absolute minimum range.
|
|
With heaters,wipers a/c on etc.GM in the States had to modify their mileage claims because users were making use of the acceleration!!!
|
|
Thankfully we'll never see the stupid things the in the UK. Can you imagine the pathetic range on a cold morning when you have the heater on full blast, rear screen demister, radio, headlights etc? Barely to the end of the road! Add to that the fact that the national grid would collapse and all we're doing is shifting the CO2 production to a power plant.
|
DH - the Tesla website answers your point about CO2 production (which is a point which has occurred to me many times):
"Power generation plants, even coal burning ones, are inherently more efficient and less polluting than vehicles due to economies of scale and the ability to more efficiently remove pollutants from a smaller number of much larger fixed locations.
Also, an electric car is far more efficient than a gasoline car, so the amount of pollution generated by producing the electricity to drive an EV a given distance is much less than the pollution from the gasoline to drive an internal combustion car the same distance."
I'm not backing up the above claims and I don't know where (or whether) there is data to substantiate them.
|
French manufacturer Venturi do electric cars now. They manufacture a Tesla-rivalling sports car, a solar powered car that looks sporty but isn't, and a solar and wind powered golf cart/ milk float thing (the latter two are actually referred to as quadricycles):
www.venturi.fr/-gamme-.html
|
|
|
"Also, an electric car is far more efficient than a gasoline car"
I would think that the conversion losses from fuel to generator to grid to battery to motor to wheels is about the same. The torque characteristics of electric motors are better, of course, but any reduction in operational pollution is somewhat offset by the messy processes involved in making large batteries, which will require regular (and expensive) replacement.
Early Priuses (Prii?) must be getting a bit tired by now. Anyone with experience of battery collapse and replacement?
|
Early Priuses (Prii?) must be getting a bit tired by now. Anyone with experience of battery collapse and replacement?
I would have thought so too, but I see an old Prius somewhere or other most days when I drive about - saw one today for example - and I watched one accelerate through a dense crowd across Portobello Road like a silent rocket a couple of weeks ago. They're still quite healthy seems to me. Of course one doesn't know how many new motors and battery packs they've had.
|
The motor and battery are designed last the life of the car, at least as much as the transmission does in a normal car.
Never heard of a battery having to be replaced due to age, and I've not heard a loss of performance reported either. There are Prius taxis out there with 200,000 miles on still going fine.
However, a real electric car stresses the battery a lot more than the Prius does, so Tesla have got a lot more to worry about.
|
|
|
|
|
|
I wonder what the fuel and servicing costs work out as? The real range is of course no more than 100 miles since you have to get home again.
you could always buy an extra long extension lead to cover long distances!
|
|
Californian Zero emission vehicle=electric car with electricity generated in Nevada!!
|
Californian Zero emission vehicle=electric car with electricity generated in Nevada!!
which of course is powered by the Hoover Dam
|
|
|
|
|
could you not put a small generator on the roof and then use an inverter to maximise distance travelled?
|
|
|
|
