This changes everything!!!!!!

Got a hot news story concerning EV's, be it on the TV, Radio or seen it in the press, then share it with us here.
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qdos
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Postby qdos » Sat May 17, 2008 7:27 am

Oh for sure electric cars are most definately going mass market that's why it's so important that we get our act together! I've been invited to show at several majour car shows but at £10,000 a stand obviously it's out of reach for all but the big boys.

Currently the main contender behind Toyota looks to be Renault Nissan with GM tinkering around with the Volt just to give the illusion that they are world leaders. It'll probably be Tata or another 'third world' country who will steal the march though.

hailstorm
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Postby hailstorm » Mon May 19, 2008 12:03 pm

San Francisco mayor in talks with PBP. Very important news imo as a presence in the US wasn't being considered straight away from what I've heard.

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/05/14 ... ter-place/

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MB
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Postby MB » Mon May 19, 2008 2:44 pm

qdos wrote:It'll probably be Tata or another 'third world' country who will steal the march though.


Doubt it, although Tata's development is well under way and we will start seeing the results next year.

By normal car development standards, however, building electric vehicles is easy and comparatively cheap. LDV are launching an electric version of their Maxus van later this summer, their development cost was £100,000.

Considering the development cost for the LDV Maxus was near £200m, £100,000 is chicken-feed.

As and when Ford and the alike decide that electric cars are now viable, they'll be able to have them in mass production within two years at a tiny development cost. Sitting on the fence is costing these companies nothing.

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qdos
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Postby qdos » Mon May 19, 2008 9:28 pm

The trouble is though the Wetern World is rather good at sitting on the fence Mike as is illustrated by the small invetment by LDV for example. I suspect the likes of Tata will put rather more investment in it.

Renault Nissan however are very much turning up the gas in their investment which is superb though it's a shame it's only Israel who are aiming to go Electric by the time 10 years has passed. Of course Israel has different political and strategic influences acting on them compared to most countries.

Grumpy-b
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Postby Grumpy-b » Tue May 20, 2008 8:05 am

From my own experience the main reasons why people seem to be interested in my own Berlingo, is firstly the cost of running it, and a way down the road second is the issue of polution.

From an economic point, many people have realised from my exlpoits that they could use a plug in, but the they still need to travel longer journeys, and for that they need access to a "normal" vehicle. Most people cant consider more than one car, so the compromise is the "normal" one.

But as fuel continues to rise in price, I believe that we will have to consider different ways of getting about. Perhaps shared ownership or short term hire of the "normal" vehicle would be a way ahead.

Over the last 3 weeks we have clocked up 800 + miles. These would have been carried out on fossil fuels, at 2p / mile versus 10p /mile thats not an inconsiderable saving.

Charging points is a big issue, and EDF have had little take up of their 250+ charging points theyhad on offer. They are willing to pay 60% of the purchase price of the kit, which is about £3500, and last year the Energy saving trust would provide the other 40% if you as the operator provided the power for free. EDF see this as a way of kick starting the market with a long term goal of creating a new income stream.

With regard to the battery costs, I am convinced that the battery costs do not need to be so high. For the old technology Berlingo this was fixed by Citroen, not to reflect the cost but to help support the whole business case, and give the leasing companies a long term income. SAFT are not allowed to sell the Cells for their real price, even now, they cannot undercut Citroen. It does not cost anywhere near 700euros to build the cells.
Hopefully that sort of attitude will slowly go away, but with the new Berlingo using the Zebra battery, its post original owners, wont be very keen to take them on. So commercially they will almost certianly be a dead end. Unless the enthusiat market takes them on and re batteries them with an affordable alternative.
As in the normal motor industry, cars with high costs of spares, and need for spares see their value drop like a stone in the secon hand market. If Renault/ Nissan could build a Golf TDI of the electric car world they would be on the right track. Renault is using a French supplier of their cells, so hopefully the quality will be good, and the environmental issues of manufature will have been taken on board. That is a concern to me for Chinese / Indian produced batteries, as these countries dont have stringent manufacturing standards, and so we are just exporting our polution and health issues abroad.

Grumpy-b

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Night Train
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Postby Night Train » Thu Jun 26, 2008 8:43 pm

In addition to the issues of battery life, range, cost, etc. I think recharging time is also a current issue. If your ICE car runs low on fuel it only takes a few minutes withoin a journey to put fuel in and then carry on.

With an EV if you ar out and run out of power for whatever reason then it takes time to wait for a recharge, even if recharging points were to be common place. I think a faster charge is needed so that long journeys, under load, on hilly roads, in rural areas can be undertaken without waiting hours every 20-40 miles.
The swap stations seem like a good idea but it would be interesting to see how many sets of charged batteries would need to be kept ready for use and how many are in the recharging process.

The infrastructure point is a good one. I have suggested this as an idea for my thesis and also written to Boris regarding the infrastructure first route for the London transport system. He got a bus company to write back saying that they were looking at engines.

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qdos
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Postby qdos » Sat Jun 28, 2008 9:15 pm

night train wrote:With an EV if you ar out and run out of power for whatever reason then it takes time to wait for a recharge, even if recharging points were to be common place.


Charging points are actually more common place than petrol stations and especially in rural areas. Almost every house in the country is full of dozens of charging points! :wink: My nearest petrol station is a 14 mile round trip for me to fill up at yet there's an EV refuling point every few yards

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Night Train
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Postby Night Train » Sun Jun 29, 2008 1:24 am

You know what I mean! :wink:
Proper, public charging that is next to the parking place to save trailing cables out of some old granny's living room window and across the pavement. Also I can imaging on some parts of my commute, if I knocked on a door asking to plug in I would either find no one in or I will get mugged for my troubles.

Where I work we have parking but it is on the far side of the yard from the building and it would be unsafe to trail a lead out. Also ground floor windows are sealed shut and the doors are access controlled so I couldn't run a lead out anyway. :roll:

As I convert my house into flats to let I am going to put a charging point outside on each parking bay for residents' use and have it as a selling point for each flat.

barryrvl
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Postby barryrvl » Tue Sep 02, 2008 4:22 pm

LDV will be at the Hanover show with an electric Maxus chassis cab that was built in Italy at Micro Vett.
The electric Maxus with no body has a range of approx 95/100 miles a top speed of 85 mph using the standard 5 speed gearbox.
Charge time is 4 hrs using a 3 phase socket.
A chassis with a refrigerated body is in use in London by a major supermarket and has arange of 85 miles a fixed top speed of 40 mph. There will be development work.
LDV are providing help on the project and who knows what t he future may hold.
Also bear in mind LDV is now owned by GAZ trucks

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qdos
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Postby qdos » Tue Sep 02, 2008 8:46 pm

Barry, I take it from the other post you've made on the forum that you're a sales person for LDV then?


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