telstarbox
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Can you do engine braking in a full electric car?
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Electric Cars - likely to reduce rail travel?
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'Engine Braking' is one of the biggest benefits of EVs. Although I haven't driven one yet, I believe that the engine braking operates whenever the speed is above the throttle setting, i.e. you drive with your foot on the throttle to maintain a speed, when you lift off, electric braking feeds in. Then it is recharging the battery which is why their range is much better than some realise. There is a mechanical brake that should only be used for emergencies and fast stopping. I don't know whether newer systems blend regenerative and friction braking with light brake pedal use but I suspect when a reliable handover from electric can be assured, the friction braking will only be used for emergency braking and when there is a fault on the electric system, (think when an IC car is stuck in neutral) and you can't use 'engine' braking.
Harpers Tate
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That's how mine works. In effect - you can request the car to behave in a given way by different means, and it decides for itself how best to deliver your request.
For example - suppose I'm going downhill and wish to maintain a given speed. Or, I'm decelerating down to a speed limit or junction, etc.
I can do that by any or a combination of
- adjust the position of my foot on the accelerator
- set one of four rates of deceleration when the foot is off the accelerator
- use the brake pedal
in order to achieve the desired outcome.
It doesn't matter whether I have set it to zero retard when my accelerator foot is completely off (in which case, I'd need to use the brake pedal to maintain speed downhill) or I have set max retard (in which case, I may even need to apply a little accelerator to manage speed, depending on the gradient etc) or something in between.
The car will then use whatever combination of electric regeneration and friction braking (with a default preference to electric retard - always used unless it's not able to retard sufficiently) to maintain the downhill speed. If I do need to apply a little accelerator to maintain speed (i.e. due to a high retard setting), it may very well still be recovering power rather than using it. It will also make its own mind up whether it needs to apply the brake light; it's not directly dependent on using the brake pedal; it's dependent on the actual deceleration rate.
In other words, although the major controls are used by the driver conventionally, the car can and does operate itself quite unconventionally dependent on the circumstances.
For example - suppose I'm going downhill and wish to maintain a given speed. Or, I'm decelerating down to a speed limit or junction, etc.
I can do that by any or a combination of
- adjust the position of my foot on the accelerator
- set one of four rates of deceleration when the foot is off the accelerator
- use the brake pedal
in order to achieve the desired outcome.
It doesn't matter whether I have set it to zero retard when my accelerator foot is completely off (in which case, I'd need to use the brake pedal to maintain speed downhill) or I have set max retard (in which case, I may even need to apply a little accelerator to manage speed, depending on the gradient etc) or something in between.
The car will then use whatever combination of electric regeneration and friction braking (with a default preference to electric retard - always used unless it's not able to retard sufficiently) to maintain the downhill speed. If I do need to apply a little accelerator to maintain speed (i.e. due to a high retard setting), it may very well still be recovering power rather than using it. It will also make its own mind up whether it needs to apply the brake light; it's not directly dependent on using the brake pedal; it's dependent on the actual deceleration rate.
In other words, although the major controls are used by the driver conventionally, the car can and does operate itself quite unconventionally dependent on the circumstances.
My experience differs. Burning up kinetic energy by wearing pads down on a steel disc to generate heat is a ridiculous waste, especially when that energy has been generated by burning fossil fuels to create yet more CO2. Never mind, fairly soon, enough people will have moved over to EVs and the cost of running CO2 generating IC engined cars will start rising to clear the remaining dinosaurs from the roads. It's part of educating consumers to care for the environment, just like plastic carrier bags, non-recyclable black food trays and soon, new houses with gas fired heating systems.
None of that has anything at all to do with range, which is what the post you replied to was talking about. Since you raised it though, plastic bags turn out to have been greener all along than their canvas replacements, and black food trays are only difficult to recycle because the auto-sorting machinery can't sort them. If you want to buy into every bit of greenwashing going just to avoid making an actual difference then go for it, but don't pull people up for pointing out that electric cars are still pretty rubbish for the environment and you should be looking to make a more radical shift in your transport choices
HSTEd
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Also plastic is relatively easy to recycle if you broaden your definitions of recycling.
THe easiest way to sort this waste is to strike an electric arc through it and turn it back into monomers - and you don't have people in close proximity to potentially contaminated material whilst doing so.
THe easiest way to sort this waste is to strike an electric arc through it and turn it back into monomers - and you don't have people in close proximity to potentially contaminated material whilst doing so.
Harpers Tate
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Right. As should many many others. But just as (in the case in point) with EVs there will always be those - many in fact - who throw obstacles, both genuine and tentative or downright fabricated (or the result of misunderstanding) - in the way of them doing so. And just as with trying to promote EVs over fossil cars, the only real way to change mass behaviour on enough of a scale to make a meaningful difference involves spending (probably Government/Public) money, and a lot of it, to achieve an outcome.
Put it this way: if I suddenly and at short notice decide the weather is nice enough for a day trip to Scarborough am I going to
a) spend £85 (cheapest walk-up day round trip fare, two adults, one railcard); best trip time 2h 45 one way, 3h 15 the other, including walking - with no promise of a seat; no promise of a window or legroom even if you do get a seat; no promise of being seated together; and even less promise of room for our two bicycles (hence the walking) or
b) spend somewhere between £0 (in my EV) and, say £25 (in a typical fossil car) on fuel, two hours trip time both ways (no walking), with comfortable seating with legroom and windows, and room for our two bikes - bearing in mind that, as do the vast majority, I already have my car so depreciation and servicing costs are already committed. Even if you do account for such costs (RAC estimates on average about the same again as fuel) you still only get to £50 - 2/3 the train fare.
It's a no brainer. I'd have to be intending to get very drunk, I think, before I'd leave the car at home. And this is from someone who supports public transport and enjoys train travel. Good grief - even when Northern have their amazingly good value newspaper offer on, it still costs £20 in train fares plus £2.40 in newspapers - about the same, then, as fossil fuel in a car and way more than the cost of using an EV.
THAT is an indication as to how far we'd need to go in order to generate genuine, volume change in behaviour.
THAT is an indication as to how far we'd need to go in order to generate genuine, volume change in behaviour.[/QUOTE]
Plastic carrier bags are being replaced voluntarily by the public bringing their own bags (plastic or others) to re-use, so the 5p charge has worked. The supermarkets have agreed that blck food trays have no real justification and they are being replaced with just as effective alternatives. It's called nudge politics, - more carrot than stick.
Given that the enemy in energy is the creation of more CO2, (unless some here are denying that it is anything to do with climate change, - the equivalent of "we've had enough of experts" as per Mr Goves famous utterance on an off-topic matter), any optional creation of CO2 from a fuel that also has it's own non-renewable energy aquisition footprint, is just making any obligation to control levels of emissions even more difficult to achieve.
Most of my travel choices are reasonably green. The majority is by foot, some by bus, rail for longer journeys, and my car, a diesel is just over half the CO2 output of the equivalent petrol version, but as I do less than 3000 miles per year in it where there is normally no other public transport available, there is hardly much of an impact compared with some road users.
Electric cars are advancing at a rate that in 5-6 years, they will be about equal in price to equivalent IC vehicles, and much cheaper to run. Their real world range will probably be somewhere between 200 and 300 miles per full charge, and charging infrastructure will, even in the tardy UK, be catching up with real demand. There will always be climate change deniers and if after a short while the carrot doesn't get results, the stick will follow.
Plastic carrier bags are being replaced voluntarily by the public bringing their own bags (plastic or others) to re-use, so the 5p charge has worked. The supermarkets have agreed that blck food trays have no real justification and they are being replaced with just as effective alternatives. It's called nudge politics, - more carrot than stick.
Given that the enemy in energy is the creation of more CO2, (unless some here are denying that it is anything to do with climate change, - the equivalent of "we've had enough of experts" as per Mr Goves famous utterance on an off-topic matter), any optional creation of CO2 from a fuel that also has it's own non-renewable energy aquisition footprint, is just making any obligation to control levels of emissions even more difficult to achieve.
Most of my travel choices are reasonably green. The majority is by foot, some by bus, rail for longer journeys, and my car, a diesel is just over half the CO2 output of the equivalent petrol version, but as I do less than 3000 miles per year in it where there is normally no other public transport available, there is hardly much of an impact compared with some road users.
HSTEd
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Autotrader says that the following cars are the best selling in the UK
1. Ford Fiesta, which as a starting price of £15,995
2. Ford Focus, which has a starting price of £18,545
3. Volkswagen Golf, which has a starting price of about £19,065
4. Vauxhall Corsa, which has a starting price of £11,735
5. Nissan Qashqai, which has a starting price of £19,995
6. Mercedes A-Class, which has a starting price of £22,195
7. Volkswagen Polo, which has a starting price of £15,735.
8. New Mini, which has a starting price of £16,195.
9. Ford Kuga, which has a starting price of £23,375
10. Toyota Yaris, which has a starting price of £12,995
Apart from the FOod Kuga, which I've never even heard of and the Merc, they are all below £20,000, and even they are not that much above it.
The only way electric cars currently get anywhere near being below £20,000 is with a Government grant, (Citreon C-zero, Smart EQ Fortwo and Renault ZOE) and they are closer in capability to things like a Volkswagen Up! which is even cheaper than the ones listed.
Somethign more comparable is a Nissan Leaf at £28k with the government grant, so £31.5k!
Unless you can deliver a "full spec" electric car for less than £20,000 - and that will have to be without the government grant because the grant is not viable in a world where electric cars are dominant, you've got no chance.
And profit margins on many IC cars are healthy enough that they will tend to dip their prices to stay ahead of you as that occurs.
Even the vaunted "mass market" Tesla Model 3 is well over £36.5k even with the grant.
Really?
The battery alone for a 300 mile range will cost a substantial fraction of the cost of an equivalent IC car......
And where will the many many gigawatts of generating plant to support this huge fleet of electric cars come from?
There is nothing like the capacity in the planning pipeline for this, and five years is not a long time in electricity generating circles.
WHat stick?
There is not an electric car that can actually compete for the vast majority of people with their high perceived cost of capital, at the present time.
Plastic carrier bags have not been removed voluntarily.
The change occurred because the state commanded it and imposed punitive charges to force compliance.
Just more of the creeping authoritarianism inherent in nudge politics.
Harpers Tate
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You describe the situation as it is now and appear to have concluded that it will not change materially.
It is not many years ago that your mobile phone was a huge brick containing an expensive and inefficient NiCd or NiMH battery pack that suffered memory effects and short usable life. Alternatives (Li-Ion) either weren't yet invented or were stupidly expensive. Ditto your laptop. And way off-topic, it's not many years ago that a flat screen TV was small and cost thousands.
Anyone who genuinely believes that things will not proceed beyond where they are now - and quickly - is, I'd say, very naive. On the contrary - it is almost always the case that anything technological becomes cheaper (either actually, or at least in real terms) and better as time elapses. Why would road transport be an exception? Next-generation battery technology may well have a very different chemistry and very different performance characteristics.
I don't think anyone suggests or believes that by 2021 the country (or the world, even) will be drowning in EVs parked up charging. I do think it likely that by, say, 2030, they will be far more mainstream than they are; that charging will be quicker and possibly more efficient; that ranges will be greater; and, yes, that prices will be "mainstream".
HSTEd
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Inside five-six years?
Was it five to six years ago?
Don't think TV sizes have actually increase much in the last five years, given that we have started to reach the limit of practical size for most houses.
And Li-Ion was definitely invented five years ago.
Hell Tesla was making Model S type cars 7 years ago.
But that isn't what he is saying.
He is saying we are five or six years away from the bulk of new cars being electric, which is almost certainly not going to happen.
And if it did happen the grid would collapse because there is no way it could possibly deal with the demand increase.
I’d say 1-2 years. As I may have mentioned umpteen times, next year sees the launch of the VW ID, equivalent to a mid range Golf, cost around 25k (same as a mid range Golf), range around 250 miles.
Ok so the range is about half that of a Golf Diesel, but I’d be surprised if more than 1% of Golf drivers ever need more than 250 miles in one go. I certainly don’t (having done a 500 mile return trip this weekend).
Other manufacturers are close behind.
HSTEd
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Assuming it can deliver what it says it can, at the price it says it can.
An explosion in electric car sales next year just collapses the grid.
Bizarrely, how we get about has changed relatively little over time compared to other areas of life where technology has completely changed things. We currently have cars, trains, jet planes and pedal bikes, as we did 50 years ago.
The thing that’s been bothering me slightly with the whole electric vehicle thing is that it seems like it may well price people on low incomes out of driving.
If you take as an example a family living in somewhere with fairly low wages - perhaps North or West Devon in my neck of the woods. Currently they could purchase, insure and tax an old banger that will take them on their one or two holidays a year to a holiday park in Cornwall/Dorset etc. And also use the car to get to work in places that aren’t easy to reach on public transport, or provide lifts for their children to make sure they see their friends, for less than £1500 on the road reasonably easily.
This won’t be the case in the future as by the time electric vehicles get to fifteen years old they’ll be useless due to the deteriorating batteries and complicated expensive to repair and replace electrical systems.
You could go online now and buy a car for £300 that would last you for a couple of years if you know what you’re looking for.
I use the above examples as I know plenty of people that are in this situation, and the prospect of them being able to spend £20,000 on a nice modern electric car is a long long way away from their reality (and at the moment mine too).
I’m not knocking the technology because I think it’s great, but I do worry about the people that will be left behind.
If you take as an example a family living in somewhere with fairly low wages - perhaps North or West Devon in my neck of the woods. Currently they could purchase, insure and tax an old banger that will take them on their one or two holidays a year to a holiday park in Cornwall/Dorset etc. And also use the car to get to work in places that aren’t easy to reach on public transport, or provide lifts for their children to make sure they see their friends, for less than £1500 on the road reasonably easily.
This won’t be the case in the future as by the time electric vehicles get to fifteen years old they’ll be useless due to the deteriorating batteries and complicated expensive to repair and replace electrical systems.
You could go online now and buy a car for £300 that would last you for a couple of years if you know what you’re looking for.
I use the above examples as I know plenty of people that are in this situation, and the prospect of them being able to spend £20,000 on a nice modern electric car is a long long way away from their reality (and at the moment mine too).
I’m not knocking the technology because I think it’s great, but I do worry about the people that will be left behind.
Struner
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I agree with you there.
Part of the answer could be a sophisticated network of minibusses I suppose
Part of the answer could be a sophisticated network of minibusses I suppose
It would have to be very sophisticated...
Some of these rural places are really struggling as it is. And it’s not a simple case of saying “Live somewhere better”, because in many cases they’ve grown up in those communities and don’t have the funds to move to somewhere like Exeter where the wages are a bit higher (relatively speaking) and there’s more facilities/public transport etc.
I know that fossil fuel powered cars are damaging to the environment, but for many people there’s literally no alternative, and it feels like as usual it’s those on the bottom rungs of the ladder that’ll be the ones that find the gap between them and those that have the funds widen even further.
There won’t be an explosion of sales; it will take a few years - as this thread has shown, old habits die hard. Not that many people buy new cars for themselves anyway - a majority of new cars are bought by fleet / Business buyers, and a good proportion of the ‘personal’ buyers are buying through PCP.
One key indicator will be when people who now own EVs and hybrids replace them - will they switch back to ICE or keep electric? I know quite a few people with battery EVs now, and not one of them intends to switch back.
Even if every new car buyer switched to EVs tomorrow, it’s going to be 15-20 years before the existing stock of ICE cars would be off the road. By then the whole personal transport market is likely to have developed: the way cars are owned (or leased), road pricing, and the whole concept of Mobility as a service.
You’re probably right about that. It was just the mention of “The Stick” in one of the earlier posts upthread that slightly set my alarm bells ringing.
I’m going to have a vehicle change in the next year (I currently have a large van), it’s going to be a three grand (the most I can afford at the moment) diesel estate for me this time around. It’ll probably do twice the miles to the gallon that I’m getting at the moment, but I need something big for work and I’m completely priced out of the EV market at the moment.
Struner
Member
You mean all of the IC cars? But on the other hand, most councils/regional authorities, or whatever they are called at the time, may have banned them from the more densily populated places - as it is a different way of looking at it.
And there’s plenty in the same boat.
I’ll be changing my car next year or the year after. I will almost certainly go electric, and probably be looking to alternative ownership, ie some sort of leasing. I can’t afford £20k up front (or even half that), but when taking the reduced cost of running the car in tax, servicing and juice I probably can afford it monthly. I reckon I’ll save an average of £150/month on running it, and I can put that towards lease costs.
Oh gosh not all ICE cars. We’ll have some around for much longer!
But do look around; there’s not many on the roads more than 20 years old. (“S” prefix or earlier). Less than 1% of cars in regular use I reckon.
One of my best friends is going up to Bristol to order a new Tesla this week, they’ve already got an i3, and the Tesla is a replacement for his Mitsubishi hybrid that’s 5 years old now, and he wants to get shot of it while it’s still worth something.
The EV technology is moving forward so fast now that his 5 year old Mitsubishi seems like old hat already...
I love his i3 so much. It’s an excellent car. I couldn’t fit my painting stuff in it though.
I love his i3 so much. It’s an excellent car. I couldn’t fit my painting stuff in it though.
I was surprised to see a good friend of mine unload 2 giant cricket kit bags out the boot of his i3 the other week; it seemed to have more space than I expected. Although if it wasn’t for the batteries, he’d have been wheelie-ing it down the road.
HSTEd
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Then you get screwed when the Government is inevitably forced to start taxing EVs just as heavily as conventional vehicles?
That £20+bn to the exchequer every year will need replacing.
Not as much as it would be if IC cars continue unabated, - EVs don't cause as much damage to health, after all, 'Car Tax' is a pollution tax.
Struner
Member
A friend of mine said to his wife “why dont we get a Smart”? Whereupon she - always the more practical 
- said: wont hold a crate of beer 
As for myself: No, an EV won’t drive me out of a train
Just thinking of getting myself a Gator EV, traditional lead acid batteries as in forklift trucks, to get to the shop in the next village - 5 km, or the station there - 6 km.
& an ebike for the better weather of course.
(For most of last week the stay-inside-index was well over the limit here, so no biking...
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- said: wont hold a crate of beer As for myself: No, an EV won’t drive me out of a train
Just thinking of getting myself a Gator EV, traditional lead acid batteries as in forklift trucks, to get to the shop in the next village - 5 km, or the station there - 6 km.
& an ebike for the better weather of course.
(For most of last week the stay-inside-index was well over the limit here, so no biking...
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