Electric cars

[edwin_m]

From https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...or-hydrogen-trains.161526/page-2#post-3435269

I'd happily buy a hybrid if I could get one with a manual transmission, but that seems to be beyond the ken of the car industry.

Oh well, at least no one's peddling electric motorbikes yet...

In a hybrid the wheels are driven by electric motors so there's no need for a changeable gearbox. If someone produced one with a gear lever then it would be no more than a software simulation of the effect of a manual gearbox.

Which is interesting because it must mean if you do your test on an electric vehicle it counts as an automatic so you aren't licensed to drive manual transmissions. Most people would want their kids to have the flexibility to drive anything, so that's another reason for families to have an electric as a second car or not at all.

There's no need to peddle electric motorbikes. They have motors.

 

[Dent]

If someone produced one with a gear lever then it would be no more than a software simulation of the effect of a manual gearbox.

Why on earth would anyone develop such a thing, and what purpose would it serve?

 

[hexagon789]

From https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...or-hydrogen-trains.161526/page-2#post-3435269


In a hybrid the wheels are driven by electric motors so there's no need for a changeable gearbox. If someone produced one with a gear lever then it would be no more than a software simulation of the effect of a manual gearbox.

Which is interesting because it must mean if you do your test on an electric vehicle it counts as an automatic so you aren't licensed to drive manual transmissions. Most people would want their kids to have the flexibility to drive anything, so that's another reason for families to have an electric as a second car or not at all.

There's no need to peddle electric motorbikes. They have motors.

Presumably it could be done, just electrically affect the different gear ratios?

 

[Cowley]

I got a lift in my friends BMW i3 electric car thingy the other day. We went onto a bit of dual carriageway on the way to Exmouth and he put his foot down. Well I couldn’t believe how quick it was for a city type car. I read up on it later and it does 50 - 75mph in only about half a second less than a BMW M4!
Lovely inside too. A very impressive machine I thought.

 

[Domh245]

In a hybrid the wheels are driven by electric motors so there's no need for a changeable gearbox. If someone produced one with a gear lever then it would be no more than a software simulation of the effect of a manual gearbox.

Wheels driven exclusively by the electric motors isn't particularly common (and is known as a P4 hybrid). I'm most aware of it through the the various Le Mans Prototypes (hybrids) which are typically ICE driven rear wheels with electric motors driving the front wheels, but in terms of road vehicles, it's only really seen in high end vehicles, like the NSX and i8, where it provides some level of All Wheel Drive. Most hybrid architectures have the motor on the 'driving' side of the transmission, either in series with the engine (P2) or parallel to (PS) the engine, but in either case usually requiring a number of clutches and control systems to optimise when the electric motor is used and when the ICE is used. Needless to say that this means that manual gearboxes aren't really practical for most hybrid vehicles - indeed the only cases where you could feasibly get a manual gearbox are for the P1 architecture (electric motor permanently coupled to and in line with the crankshaft), and P0 architecture (belt connected motor on the ancillaries side of the engine, allowing you to slightly boost the engine but mainly remove ancillary loads such as air con and power steering), neither of which are as efficient as the more common P2 and PS architectures, although P0 is cheap and easy.

But coming back to the original point, as alluded to in other posts electric motors have so much low end torque, and generally so much more powerful than ICEs that you don't necessarily need a gearbox. All Formula e cars have moved away from the 5 speed gearboxes that they had in the first season to 1 (2/9 powertrains), 2 (5/9 powertrains), or 3 (2/9 powertrains) speed gearboxes. For the two speed teams, they have one gear for getting off the line, and then one for everything else apart from the tightest hairpins where you come to a near halt.

 

[Busaholic]

I got a lift in my friends BMW i3 electric car thingy the other day. We went onto a bit of dual carriageway on the way to Exmouth and he put his foot down. Well I couldn’t believe how quick it was for a city type car. I read up on it later and it does 50 - 75mph in only about half a second less than a BMW M4!
Lovely inside too. A very impressive machine I thought.

Do you have many public charging points up there in Devon? I haven't been specifically looking, but I'm aware of very few in Cornwall, unless they're a well-kept secret.

 

[Cowley]

Do you have many public charging points up there in Devon? I haven't been specifically looking, but I'm aware of very few in Cornwall, unless they're a well-kept secret.

I’m not completely sure but I don’t think there’s that many. They live on the edge of Dartmoor and it’ll easily do a days pottering around and get home again on a single charge, and that’s including 40 miles of dual carriageway running if they’re going to Exeter.
They’ve got a Hybrid Mitsubishi for longer journeys which is older and you can see how much better the technology is now five years after they bought that one.

 

[Harpers Tate]

https://www.zap-map.com/live/ will show you public chargers. Filter by vehicle type or connector type. The pins with a purple element to them are rapids - ~30 minutes empty to full (depending on the car, battery size etc). These are the ones to look for if needing a top-up on a long trip. However, a slower charger is fine if you are (for example) parking up and visiting a destination for a few hours, or staying over. And don't forget (esp. in the latter context) you can charge most (all?) types from a 13a outlet overnight so as long as you have a co-operative "host"...........

 

[Mordac]

I know the electric motors don't need a gearbox. But a hybrid (as opposed to a full electric) is only being driven by the motors sometimes. What I would want is one where I could have a manual gear box when working on internal combustion, not on electric! I drove a hybrid Ford Fusion (the name's different, but it's just a Mondeo), on a US roadtrip last summer, and it was mostly a great experience, the electric was great for low speed torque, and the petrol engine was a very good 2.0. But I really wanted to be able to downshift when overtaking on single-carriageway roads, and to engine break on mountain roads.

EDIT:

There's no need to peddle electric motorbikes. They have motors.

*groan*

 

[Harpers Tate]

I suspect attempting to integrate electric and ICE whilst retaining a manual gearbox is difficult, possibly almost impossible. For the two things you specifically describe, a full electric is in fact way better for both applications than a manual (or automatic) ICE.

Honda's Insight (used to?) have its electric motor on the same driveshaft as the ICE, before the gearbox. So it truly did assist simply the ICE to turn over; provide more torque or power from regenerated electricity. AFAIK, the ICE was never disengaged; not sure if it even has (had?) stop/start.

 

[Mordac]

I suspect attempting to integrate electric and ICE whilst retaining a manual gearbox is difficult, possibly almost impossible. For the two things you specifically describe, a full electric is in fact way better for both applications than a manual (or automatic) ICE.

Honda's Insight (used to?) have its electric motor on the same driveshaft as the ICE, before the gearbox. So it truly did assist simply the ICE to turn over; provide more torque or power from regenerated electricity. AFAIK, the ICE was never disengaged; not sure if it even has (had?) stop/start.

I don't argue with that. But I won't get a full electric until they can do a sub-5 minute charge at a reasonable price. Certainly not for driving across America!

 

[Domh245]

What I would want is one where I could have a manual gear box when working on internal combustion, not on electric! I drive a hybrid Ford Fusion (the name's different, but it's just a Mondeo), on a US roadtrip last summer, and it was mostly a great experience, the electric was great for low speed torque, and the petrol engine was a very good 2.0. But I really wanted to be able to downshift when overtaking on single-carriageway roads, and to engine break on mountain roads.

The practicalities of doing that with most types of hybrid architecture are just too expensive to make it viable. However, if you don't mind flappy paddles instead of a gearstick then the high end hybrids will allow you to shift up and down at your leisure. That said though, the overtaking example you gave seems a little odd to me - in my experience of driving automatics if you put the accelerator down hard enough it'll downshift to get the engine right into the power band and give you the maximum acceleration. It won't be as quick as it may be in a manual, but you just have to account for that in the way you drive, hanging back further from the car that you're overtaking so that you can get a run up and force the car to shift down before you pull out.

 

[ac6000cw]

That said though, the overtaking example you gave seems a little odd to me - in my experience of driving automatics if you put the accelerator down hard enough it'll downshift to get the engine right into the power band and give you the maximum acceleration. It won't be as quick as it may be in a manual, but you just have to account for that in the way you drive, hanging back further from the car that you're overtaking so that you can get a run up and force the car to shift down before you pull out.

I agree - although I've never owned one, I've driven thousands of miles in the US and Canada in automatics and they will always 'kickdown' if you floor the accelerator (with varying degrees of delay and smoothness!). The cars I've had on the last couple of trips also seemed to have automatic 'hill descent' downshifting to provide engine braking, once they'd worked out it had been going downhill for a while.

 

[AM9]

I agree - although I've never owned one, I've driven thousands of miles in the US and Canada in automatics and they will always 'kickdown' if you floor the accelerator (with varying degrees of delay and smoothness!). The cars I've had on the last couple of trips also seemed to have automatic 'hill descent' downshifting to provide engine braking, once they'd worked out it had been going downhill for a while.

My car does that here (without changing gear - it has a CVT). In cruise it will maintain 30mph -1+3 down hills that most need to keep touching the brakes almost continuously. Following vehicles often close up then brake repeatedly whilst I maintain a fixed speed.

 

[Harpers Tate]

I don't argue with that. But I won't get a full electric until they can do a sub-5 minute charge at a reasonable price. Certainly not for driving across America!

Sub 5 minutes; no, not yet. But then, most (no, I didn't say all) of the time it's irrelevant. You just think differently about it. You plan to charge in parallel with some other activity. For example, if I'm planning to visit a town for 3 hours, and that town has a charger, then it takes but a few seconds to connect and disconnect, and zero meaningful other minutes, and when I'm done, it's full again. Or on a long trip, a 30 minute fill up, whilst having a snack and drink. It's important to stop thinking of filling up as a discrete activity - again most of the time.

Reasonable price (you mean for the "fuel" or the car)? - mine cost £25k to buy and from £0 per mile to fill up.

I wouldn't contemplate anything less than a Tesla (etc) for USA highway trekking in an EV.

 

[ComUtoR]

Reasonable price (you mean for the "fuel" or the car)? - mine cost £25k to buy and from £0 per mile to fill up.

How do you charge your for £0 ?

Ecotricity
https://www.ecotricity.co.uk/for-the-road/ev-faqs/general-faqs

It costs 30p per unit of energy at our pumps, or 15p per unit for Ecotricity customers.

Polar+
https://polar-network.com/

£7.85pcm subscription

Polar Instant
https://www.polarinstant.com/faq

Many charging points are free to use and some will be chargeable. Details of charges are shown for each charge point on the map on this web site and on the app. When charges are made they are determined by the site owner to cover the cost of the electricity, data communications costs, maintenance, call centre and other operating costs. Typically about £1.20 per hour for a 13 amp socket and £1.70 for a Type 2 socket. Minimum charges are for one hour. Then part hours are charged pro rata for the time plugged in. As of 1st December 2015 all charges are subject to a £1.20 admin fee which is deducted from you balance once the charge is complete.

ChargeYourCar
http://www.chargeyourcar.org.uk/news/charge-your-car-to-adjust-pricing-on-may-1st-2017/

From 1st May 2017, Charge Your Car will apply a £1 connection fee to successful charges on public charge points in England and Wales that do not have a tariff applied to them. This will be invoiced monthly along with any tariffed charge sessions outstanding on your account.

A cheaper tariff is now active at 70627 at Selmeston Service Station, Polegate. Use of the Rapid Charger is now priced at £0.30 p/kWh with a minimum charge of £1.50 (5kW).

A cheaper tariff is now active at 70113 at Discovery Park, Sandwich. Use of the Rapid Charger is now priced at £0.25 p/kWh with a minimum charge of £1.50.

Plugging it at home also incurs a charge; based on your electricity tariff prices.

I almost bought a Tesla but there is so much about them that I just don't like. I have looked at the new Jaguar iPace but even with them I am still very hesitant about getting an EV.

 

[Mordac]

The practicalities of doing that with most types of hybrid architecture are just too expensive to make it viable. However, if you don't mind flappy paddles instead of a gearstick then the high end hybrids will allow you to shift up and down at your leisure. That said though, the overtaking example you gave seems a little odd to me - in my experience of driving automatics if you put the accelerator down hard enough it'll downshift to get the engine right into the power band and give you the maximum acceleration. It won't be as quick as it may be in a manual, but you just have to account for that in the way you drive, hanging back further from the car that you're overtaking so that you can get a run up and force the car to shift down before you pull out.

I didn't know flappy paddles were available. That would indeed make things much better. It's a shame they're still only on higher end models, but these things tend to trickle down over time.

It's true that if you floor it, you'll get a response eventually, but my experience is that it takes a lot longer than the instant response you get when you downshift manually. As a result, I never felt very confident overtaking with that car, and you miss opportunities to do so which would be available with a manual.

I agree - although I've never owned one, I've driven thousands of miles in the US and Canada in automatics and they will always 'kickdown' if you floor the accelerator (with varying degrees of delay and smoothness!). The cars I've had on the last couple of trips also seemed to have automatic 'hill descent' downshifting to provide engine braking, once they'd worked out it had been going downhill for a while.

Again, the key is "once they'd work out." With a manual, you just shift down when you want to.

As someone who enjoys highway driving, the whole experience is much less enjoyable IMO.

Sub 5 minutes; no, not yet. But then, most (no, I didn't say all) of the time it's irrelevant. You just think differently about it. You plan to charge in parallel with some other activity. For example, if I'm planning to visit a town for 3 hours, and that town has a charger, then it takes but a few seconds to connect and disconnect, and zero meaningful other minutes, and when I'm done, it's full again. Or on a long trip, a 30 minute fill up, whilst having a snack and drink. It's important to stop thinking of filling up as a discrete activity - again most of the time.

Reasonable price (you mean for the "fuel" or the car)? - mine cost £25k to buy and from £0 per mile to fill up.

I wouldn't contemplate anything less than a Tesla (etc) for USA highway trekking in an EV.

I definitely mean the price of the car, although like ComUtoR I'm not sure how you can "fill up" for free. That said, I wouldn't contemplate an EV at all for USA highway trekking, as I said, until the charging time is improved. Don't get me wrong, I'm not deliberately trying to be a curmudgeon. If the charging times go down, I'm happy to give them a try.

I suppose I should highlight that while some of my concern is for my own convenience, it's not exclusively that. With my Operations Research hat on, I'm very concern for the throughput rate of service stations which charging times remain so high. If a significant proportion of cars become electric, then you're going to need to increase the capacity of service stations by a significant degree, otherwise you're going to be facing massive congestion. My research work is in this area, even though I'm an economist by trade, so this is something that worries me.

 

[Warwick]

I suspect attempting to integrate electric and ICE whilst retaining a manual gearbox is difficult, possibly almost impossible. For the two things you specifically describe, a full electric is in fact way better for both applications than a manual (or automatic) ICE.

Honda's Insight (used to?) have its electric motor on the same driveshaft as the ICE, before the gearbox. So it truly did assist simply the ICE to turn over; provide more torque or power from regenerated electricity. AFAIK, the ICE was never disengaged; not sure if it even has (had?) stop/start.

There was an article in last Saturday's Torygraph describing how a man converted a Morris Minor to electric drive but through the gearbox so it is a four speed manual electric.

 

[Harpers Tate]

How do you charge your for £0 ?

.....I'm not sure how you can "fill up" for free.......

There is a free rapid (30 minutes*) charger - completely free, no card, no scheme, no nothing, just plug in and charge - about nine miles from here.
There is another in another location a similar distance from here.
The last time I went to visit the place I used to live (65 miles away) I parked in a public car park for £1 and there was a fast (250 minutes*) charger, completely free, no card, no scheme, no nothing, just plug in and charge - and left the car there while I visited. Actual time cost/lost - a few seconds plugging and unplugging.
In a nearby town, there is a free unencumbered fast (250 minutes*) charger in a municipal car park where it costs £1.50 for two hours but you can stay for 2 hours free if you are charging. In that case one might even argue that 2 hours charge costs minus £1.50.

Those are just a few examples of the many unencumbered ones available.

A couple of weeks ago, I drove ~40 miles to Ikea in Leeds. Plugged in when I got there. Free rapid (30 minutes*) charger (**). Called at Costco in Leeds and then headed back to that nearby town, plugged in while I went into town for some shopping and lunch. Left full, free, having travelled ~80 miles for zero fuel cost.

I do in fact have Polar Plus (which opens up a vast further array, many of which are free to Plus users). I genuinely don't pay for it. By which I mean - I took out an EV package energy deal with my supplier where (a) my tariff costs went DOWN from the previous tariff AND (b) they include Polar Plus membership.

============================
* How long it would take to charge my car at this location from completely empty, used to compare what is meant by "rapid" and "fast". Actual times vary depending on how "full" the battery is when you start.
** In fact the rapid charger at Ikea is supposed to be chargeable (via a mobile app) and then Ikea give a refund when you shop and show the e-receipt. However on this occasion the machine was operating on free vend - just plug and go. Either way, it would be a free charge as the purpose of my visit was to shop there.

 

[Harpers Tate]

....I wouldn't contemplate an EV at all for USA highway trekking, as I said, until the charging time is improved. Don't get me wrong, I'm not deliberately trying to be a curmudgeon. If the charging times go down, I'm happy to give them a try.......

I see entirely why you'd say that. I'll only counter it by saying that it (in part, probably) comes from the ICE mindset that filling up is a separate activity that you do when you need to, and you stand and watch while it does it. We've all been doing that for eons and its a mindset it takes some effort to break.

The upmarket EVs (such as Teslas) will go upwards of 300 miles - or 5 hours (say) on a charge. The adjusted mindset one needs to adopt is to acknowledge that in all probability one will need to stop anyway on a journey in excess of 300 miles; and that what you do is charge whilst you were going to be stopped anyway - having a leak, a cuppa, snack, lunch, whatever; and that in so doing, the 30 minutes or more you spend charging is not a lost 30 minutes; you charge in parallel with another activity. The other thing you do is take every such opportunity. You almost never stop and park at a location with an available charger, and don't use it. Because a top-up will save time at the next stop......

It's a different mindset and yes, without doubt, there WILL be occasions when the recharge time is a real time cost; but it's not truly lost time, MOST of the time.

 

[edwin_m]

There is a free rapid (30 minutes*) charger - completely free, no card, no scheme, no nothing, just plug in and charge - about nine miles from here.
There is another in another location a similar distance from here.
The last time I went to visit the place I used to live (65 miles away) I parked in a public car park for £1 and there was a fast (250 minutes*) charger, completely free, no card, no scheme, no nothing, just plug in and charge - and left the car there while I visited. Actual time cost/lost - a few seconds plugging and unplugging.
In a nearby town, there is a free unencumbered fast (250 minutes*) charger in a municipal car park where it costs £1.50 for two hours but you can stay for 2 hours free if you are charging. In that case one might even argue that 2 hours charge costs minus £1.50.

Those are just a few examples of the many unencumbered ones available.

A couple of weeks ago, I drove ~40 miles to Ikea in Leeds. Plugged in when I got there. Free rapid (30 minutes*) charger (**). Called at Costco in Leeds and then headed back to that nearby town, plugged in while I went into town for some shopping and lunch. Left full, free, having travelled ~80 miles for zero fuel cost.

I do in fact have Polar Plus (which opens up a vast further array, many of which are free to Plus users). I genuinely don't pay for it. By which I mean - I took out an EV package energy deal with my supplier where (a) my tariff costs went DOWN from the previous tariff AND (b) they include Polar Plus membership.

============================
* How long it would take to charge my car at this location from completely empty, used to compare what is meant by "rapid" and "fast". Actual times vary depending on how "full" the battery is when you start.
** In fact the rapid charger at Ikea is supposed to be chargeable (via a mobile app) and then Ikea give a refund when you shop and show the e-receipt. However on this occasion the machine was operating on free vend - just plug and go. Either way, it would be a free charge as the purpose of my visit was to shop there.

Free chargers are provided to encourage EV use but I can't see them remaining free if and when EVs go mainstream. And nor should they, as an EV is better than an IC car but still has pollution, congestion, noise and safety detriments that wouldn't occur if the occupants used public transport. 13 amps for 10 hours (an overnight plug-in) would cost about £3 in utilty charges, plus installation and maintenance costs, and I imagine the faster chargers dispense a similar amount of energy in less time.

 

[Harpers Tate]

Long term, I can see free chargers remaining in place in locations that want to attract business by such provision, but that's all. Major shopping malls, for example. However unless and until the Government starts to miss the revenue from reduced fossil fuel sales, the lack of extortionate taxes on electricity at domestic rates (5% VAT, no duty) means that running costs, even if not free, are still likely to remain a fraction of those of an ICE.

 

[edwin_m]

Long term, I can see free chargers remaining in place in locations that want to attract business by such provision, but that's all. Major shopping malls, for example. However unless and until the Government starts to miss the revenue from reduced fossil fuel sales, the lack of extortionate taxes on electricity at domestic rates (5% VAT, no duty) means that running costs, even if not free, are still likely to remain a fraction of those of an ICE.

The government may have a big problem looming with the loss of revenue from fuel taxes. Although there may be fewer costs arising from dealing with pollution (not that we're spending much on that today), maintaining the roads will still cost the same or possibly more as a batter car is likely to be heavier than an fossil fuel equivalent. This may bring road charging back onto the agenda.

 

[Mordac]

A relatively simply solution would be to increase Vehicle Excise Duty to get the same revenue. Or introduce the Vignette system

 

[edwin_m]

A relatively simply solution would be to increase Vehicle Excise Duty to get the same revenue. Or introduce the Vignette system

Replacing a mileage-dependent charge by a fixed charge is pretty retrograde in terms of minimising the downsides of car use.

 

[MotCO]

I would be happier with a hybrid rather than an plug-in electric car for the simple reason that when I visit my son who lives 300 miles away, there is no off-road parking so how can I charge the car without trailing a wire across the pavement? 300 miles is at the maximum range so a mid-journey top-up would be required, which is fine since I do take breaks, but the charge on arrival would probably be low.

Also, I would like to be patriotic and buy a British hybrid car, but are there any (excluding Nissan and Toyota British built cars)? Most seem to be Japanese or far eastern - Ford, Vauxhall and many European brands seem to be in danger of being left behind.

 

[Bald Rick]

The government may have a big problem looming with the loss of revenue from fuel taxes. Although there may be fewer costs arising from dealing with pollution (not that we're spending much on that today), maintaining the roads will still cost the same or possibly more as a batter car is likely to be heavier than an fossil fuel equivalent. This may bring road charging back onto the agenda.

Whichever way you look at it, it will end up being road user charging based on distance and time of day / week.

 

[Dent]

There was an article in last Saturday's Torygraph describing how a man converted a Morris Minor to electric drive but through the gearbox so it is a four speed manual electric.

It is obviously possible to put a gearbox in the system, but it is not necessary, and there is no good reason to.

 

[ComUtoR]

Free chargers are provided to encourage EV use but I can't see them remaining free if and when EVs go mainstream.

I have many other issues about EV than just charging but I do see an opportunity for them to remain 'free' What I can see is that charging companies link up with business and provide charge points in company car parks and even schools. Commuting contributes a large portion of road traffic and getting those cars converted to EVs could be a game changer. It would ameliorate the charging anxiety too. From a business perspective it also has a few advantages.

Jaguar is going down the same route as Tesla and will be providing their own charge points but I do not feel that that is the best option going forward for the industry.

 

[AM9]

... Jaguar is going down the same route as Tesla and will be providing their own charge points but I do not feel that that is the best option going forward for the industry.

I think that it's quite possible that the EU will mandate one or two charging standards as soon as the take-up reaches a certain point. The mechanical as well as electrical interface should provide for universal accessibility. The current situation is really a consequence of marketing strategies. Of course the UK will have to comply with any genuine standards however our leaving the EU ends up.