Beware the EV car test drive...

And I'm sure all these EVs will need expensive garage treatment at some point in their lives too. Or more likely just thrown away when their expected life ends.

The Soul EV is FWD, disappointingly. And has an automatic transmission allegedly. And lots of torque, so presumably ESP. And steering wheel paddles to adjust the braking.

Pros and cons. The Honda e had a brilliant turning circle thanks to its RWD. It also had a ludicrously small boot and total absence of leg room in the back.

Um, I think 99% of EVs have no gears.

I?ll let you know, but I?m sure you?re right.

Yep.

Tim

I've driven all sorts of stuff - both on the road and on the track.

Modern PHEVs are where it's at.

Enough range for many people to commute on electric only, but an ICE powerplant for longer journeys.

I think the future will see the ICE replaced by fuel cell - so you can plug in and get 50-100 miles from the battery, but have hydrogen for long range travel.

Charging is still a massive elephant in the room.

Fine if you can plug in at home on 11kW, if you can't, then you're reliant on the public charging network. Which is unreliable and gets overloaded at pinch points.

My big example here is Exeter services on a summer Friday. Thousands of people set off from London and the SE with a full charge, heading for Cornwall. By the time they get to Exeter, they need a charge... how many chargers do you need and can the grid cope? - answer: more than you could ever install and no.

Install costs for chargers are silly, too - one 50kW charger costs as much as a full set of new petrol pumps for a forecourt (circa £50-£80k),

150kW... start at £200k if the local grid can cope. But you can get to £2m quite easily if the main feed is the wrong side of a dual carriageway.

Then you get charge throttling when busy - Tesla are installing shipping containers of batteries to try and get around this. Not perfect, but a bit of a kludge - and Tesla chargers halve their rate if 2 people use one 'station'.

I've done 1000 miles in 3 days. EV would be an utter pain in the arse for my use. So I have a PHEV on order.

The inconvenient truth about EV is the utter destruction of the developing world and exploitation of child labour in mining the precious metals in the batteries.

But it's happening to poor ethnic people thousands of miles away, so it doesn't count, right?

ICE banned in 2035. PHEV and self charging hybrids also banned in 2035 as the ICE is banned. (I have no idea why Toyota are still pushing self charging so hard. All self charge electricity is made with a 25% efficient ICE instead of 40+% grid power or clean wind/solar.)

Hydrogen filling station has some big disadvantages.

Two types.

1: Bulk fill, they bring a tanker to fill tanks at the filling station just like a petrol station. They fill that tanker with H2 made using a very dirty process. This is also how they intend to make H2 to supplement the domestic natural gas that we have run out off as we burnt it in gas turbines instead of our homes.

2: Electrolysis. The filling station has a shipping container for each pump. The shipping container has a small H2 tank that will fill 3 car tanks and a mains powered Electrolysis unit that fills that tank. It takes 90 min for the Electrolysis unit to make one car tank of fuel. It will fill the supply tank in 4.5 hours. One shipping container can only fill 16 cars a day. As it can only fill 3 car tanks (10 min each) if 4 cars are filled from 1/4 empty to fully full first thing in morning the

5th car has to WAIT 20 min while H2 is made or leave with a 3/4 full tank, 5th, 6th etc cars all have to WAIT 50 min while H2 is made before they can refill. Just like an EV rapid charge point it needs a quite beefy power supply, around 100Kw/h.

And people were concerned about the 15-30min they had to spend waiting for a pure EV to charge. With H2 you will have be the early bird, get up at 4am one day each week and go the fill the tank.

...compared with the spotless record of the oil industry?

Theo

Quite! Working out the 'least harm' is not easy, though.

I'd rather people worked out ways of avoiding things like cars for sole household use.

When I hear this, I like to ask if it includes you too? And throughout your life, rather than just now?

Nope, doesn't include me. It's what I think ought to happen, and I'd be the first to support a society-wide move to abolish private ownership of pretty much anything.

It's a tiny car

'1 speed automatic transmission', which I have to suppose is more than just an 8.2:1 final drive and differential.

Most are a single reduction gear to the differential.

Chevy Bolt does it bit differently as they have output shafts concentric with motor shaft. Using a double reduction to the diff, then run one drive shaft though the hollow motor rotor shaft from diff to inner CV joint. This gives them equal length half shafts but they are short so angles and change of length the shaft has to accomodate due to steering will be greater.

The reverse is simply the electric motor running backwards.

Have you seen one in the flesh? Not that small.

Just marketing speak I think. 1 speed = no gears. In this context, I think they?re just using ?automatic? to mean ?no clutch?

Tim

Will it be sleek and stylish? I wouldn't be seen dead in 99% of the gopping, bloated, devoid of style things that people are using for transport this century.

Would it be "free" for me. My present transport solution is making me money. Bought for £1400 ten years ago, now going for £6000+. Most I ever spent on a car was £3000, that lasted me 10 years when the shell was crushed but I've still got 75% of it. All new car buyers burn more than £3000 in depreciation every year, they must have money to burn so I think they can pay.

An oil and filter change costs me less than £20, around 1/2 hour but I leave it draining for 2 hours while I go do other stuff. Cam belt + water pump, under £100 + 3 hours of my time. I'm an ex mechanical engineer that has a 2nd qualification in computing. I refuse to pay £100/hr for the services of some 1/2 trained guy that knew it all and didn't listen in MV training. (I've worked in a tech college with a MV shop.)

As for public ownership. That reduces everyone to living in 1/4 of an international hotel bedroom.

Oh yes, think Trabant PHEV :-)

It'd be available according to need.

If that's what you fancy doing under my new world order, fill yer boots.

"Do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic" as someone once said :-)

Take the total wealth of the UK and divide it by 60-odd million. Then share out evenly. I'd bet a small amount that you'd be considerably better off than you are now.

Population est at mid year 67,886,011.

UK net worth £12.8 trillion, or almost £13 million million.

£188,551 each person.

Are you still in?

Yup. At about half a million a household, that'd even things out.

The difficult bit is what happens next.

<snip>

;-(

Given I have owned and driven as a 'daily driver' a plug in RV for over 35 years now I can remember the similar feeling I experienced at that time.

Even though it only has a top speed of 30 MPH and a range of 20 miles, the thing that makes them so different still existed even then.

I think the turning radius was 'ridiculous' (out turn a London Taxi and allow you to do a U turn in most side streets) and the general silence was deafening (given it is a soft top).

But for me the biggest issue was the *real simplicity*. No 'water cooled / heated batteries', no fancy control electronics and dash, just simple battery voltage / combination switching and a couple of different motor wiring configurations gave you the smoothness of driving an auto.

So, when I got it to mine I though I'd give it a service. I took the wheels off and checked / adjusted the brakes, checked the tyres and pressures, lights and wipers ... and that was it. ;-)

No plugs, points, belts, exhaust systems, gearbox, water to leak or oil to drip .. just a check of the electrolyte level and you were done. ;-)

Charge overnight on E7 and I could commute (with 3 passengers potentially) for a fortnight on 50p of lekky. ;-)

Ok, possibly no real tech or performance improvement on the first electrically powered vehicles but I bet the buzz was the same. ;-)

It was equally 'different' racing the electric motorbike I built. Strange to be 'racing' but still hear the birds singing. ;-)

Cheers, T i m