I'm interested in going electric, since all the trips that I make are short and on local roads, and electricity is so cheap.
I am curious to learn whether any one electric car has stood out as being both a good value. Needless to say, Consumer Reports has never reviewed electric cars. But surely someone has done a 'round up' of the current models?
Or should I buy a kit to convert an existing car to electric? If so, which kit is best? I assume I would buy a VW Rabbit or similar for that.
The major problem with all electric cars that Ive seen so far is that whilst the car has very low running costs, electricity is cheap, the batteries needed to give the car any useable range arnt. The most common batteries used in EVs are either Lithium Ion or Nickel Metal Hydride , both of which are very good hi energy density and good performance , but limited life relataive to the life of the actual car. Most EV manufacturers are silent on how long the batteries will last and on how much they will cost to replace. From my experiance with fixing lap top computers which commonly use Lithium Ion batteries, average life is about 2 years, so if you are happy with having to replace your EVs battery every 2 years or so then go for it.
In the case of the Riva it appears to use Lead Acid batteries which are heavier and of lower energy density than Li Ion or NIMH. If you are thinking of buying an EV , make sure you get some info on how long the batteries will last , and what their replacement cost is.
There is no reason to think of replacing the whole battery pack at once, although when batteries are in parallel, they need to be close to being "matched". A well designed but easily removed interlock- connection panel can make checking batteries and only replacing bad ones feasible.
Don't you accept that with good regenerative braking weight is not as critical an issue? The entry of ultracapacitors has just happened, but can quickly make a big difference in performance and range. With ultracapacitors, EVs would be boring, but with them, the future is exciting. A national race of EVs would help, EVs competing against ICE cars, and the EVs would probably always win with ultracapacitors. Just the difference between 600 or 800 cranking volts of regular lead-acid batteries and my 1000 cranking amps NAPA sealed gel cell "orbital" battery is impressive in starting the old car, several people have noticed and remarked. Ultracapacitors can do the same for acceleration, an electric motor can deliver much more than rated power for a short time as long as it has time to cool between traffic lights.
I don't know about other countries, but in the US, an EV needs to be a normal size car, nobody wants to drive a miniature car on the same road as regular traffic. I would like to have a lightweight EV, but there is no place to drive one.
Come on, what did people do before 1940? :-)
What do people do to heat or cool an RV without a grid connection?
While the driving part would be cool to be all plugin electric, there is no reason to be without at least one small generator, just one of the regular ones like for emergency generation. I saw a small two stroke at Mejiers for $148 the other day. Maybe somebody will decide to adapt an outboard boat motor to an emergency generator with water cooling, and that could be connected to a heater.
There needs to be a lot of EV mechanics that can use common sense, but auto mechanics are hard to find now except at dealer garages.
MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.