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Post by Jo on Jan 15, 2022 8:31:37 GMT
I think that I am right in thinking that most of you change your car every 5 or less years, and that is not going to change with an ev car. ... Jem I buy a new car and run it into the ground so do most model engineers (and 'real' engineers) that I know. Mine will only be scrapped when it fails the MOT in an uneconomical way which means a failure of greater than three times the value of the car (Pug is worth £300, annual ownership costs = £500). In the old work days it used to be a pose factor to have a new car but there was so many company cars that even for them it was difficult to show off, the assumption was a new car = a company car = a tax liability. Amongst us engineers I cannot think of anyone who had a car under 5 years, old most were over 10. There was the odd one (yes real engineers also have the 'odd one' as well  ) who kept buying another car every year but they were few and far between. Still looking out for that small electric car/van that I can put a 5" tender loco in the back and do 300 miles in, so I know what to buy when Pug finally fails her MOT. Jo |
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Post by steamer5 on Jan 15, 2022 8:36:16 GMT
Hi Jo,
On our recent travels saw a Tesla towing a caravan.....van probably 14 footer..... so they can tow stuff! Would of been interesting to talk to the owner to see what sort of miles they get.
Cheers Kerrin
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cplmickey
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Post by cplmickey on Jan 15, 2022 9:01:21 GMT
I suspect many current cars are scrapped because some miscellaneous component has failed, but the repair cost is more than the car is worth.Wilf I got rid of my last 2 cars due to engine problems, admittedly neither was actually scrapped. My MG ZR blew the head gasket for the second time (despite having a modified gasket fitted when repaired first time) and left me stranded in the middle of a 4 lane motorway roundabout. My Ford Focus had damage to a piston and valve (actual cause unknown) which caused it to drop into "limp" mode 200 miles from home (these things always seem to happen at the worst time don't they). I did get it repaired but it was never the same again so I got rid. Both cars had done about 160k miles. Ian |
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jem
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Post by jem on Jan 15, 2022 17:54:50 GMT
Oh dear, yes I was wrong, I shouldn't have suggested that modal engineers might not keep there cars for less than 5 years, but there are a lot more none engineers who most likely don't keep there cars more than 5 years, the manufacturers say thank goodness.
Jem
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Post by coniston on Jan 15, 2022 22:11:14 GMT
Has anyone seen or heard about the NIO electric cars? Chinese manufactured and doing high volume (over 100,000 sold in 2021). The unique bit about them is the battery swap. Basically you never own the battery but rent it and get it swapped out when it needs recharging, so no home charging required at all. They are selling in Norway and have done a deal with Royal Dutch Shell to build battery swap /charging stations across Europe. From the prices I saw (about £120/month) including 6 charges works out about third the price of petrol based on their range figures. This to me seems to overcome the biggest fear about EV's, that of range anxiety. www.nio.com/Chris |
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Post by Roger on Jan 15, 2022 22:35:21 GMT
Has anyone seen or heard about the NIO electric cars? Chinese manufactured and doing high volume (over 100,000 sold in 2021). The unique bit about them is the battery swap. Basically you never own the battery but rent it and get it swapped out when it needs recharging, so no home charging required at all. They are selling in Norway and have done a deal with Royal Dutch Shell to build battery swap /charging stations across Europe. From the prices I saw (about £120/month) including 6 charges works out about third the price of petrol based on their range figures. This to me seems to overcome the biggest fear about EV's, that of range anxiety. www.nio.com/Chris Tesla toyed with this concept for some time, before concluding that it was a dead end. As batteries are rapidly improving, the charge times are set to fall rapidly. It looks like you can charge it at home, like all other EVs, which makes perfect sense. To be honest, if you charge at home, you might never use a battery swap station at all. There's a huge issue with the battery swap concept, in that it's manufacturer specific. Worse than that, every car made by that manufacturer has to have a battery with the same form factor. Are they realistically going to install these complex and expensive swap stations at service areas? I doubt it. Most people will just charge them on 3rd party chargers like everyone else. I think they'll drop this concept pretty soon, once people see that it's not really being supported. The achilles heel for making EVs economically is the cost of the battery pack. Making it more complex by having it changeable adds to the cost at a time when it needs to head in the other direction. Making a battery as a separate item means that the car has to be structurally stronger, adding weight which reduces range. Tesla's solution is to radically redesign the battery cells to have lower internal resistance and easier to make in huge volumes by being much bigger. The battery is to be integrated into the structure of the car to save weight and increase range. Renault also have a monthly charge for a battery, but that isn't replacable on the road like NEO. The NEO seems like a decent product though, but ultimately it's not going to be possible to achieve the same profit margins that Tesla will with their approach. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. If charging took hours, and if a large number of manufacturers agreed on a standard battery module, and they were all prepared to chip in to build a network, then this might have worked. However, I think it's doomed to be a short lived novelty, just like Hydrogen cars. |
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cplmickey
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Post by cplmickey on Jan 16, 2022 16:39:18 GMT
Has anyone seen or heard about the NIO electric cars? Chinese manufactured and doing high volume (over 100,000 sold in 2021). The unique bit about them is the battery swap. Basically you never own the battery but rent it and get it swapped out when it needs recharging, so no home charging required at all. They are selling in Norway and have done a deal with Royal Dutch Shell to build battery swap /charging stations across Europe. From the prices I saw (about £120/month) including 6 charges works out about third the price of petrol based on their range figures. This to me seems to overcome the biggest fear about EV's, that of range anxiety. www.nio.com/Chris That sounds horrendous depending on the range. If I go down to Lynton for a weekend working party I can easily cover 500 miles and sometimes more so I'm guessing I would need to arrange a battery swap as part of my journey rather than a simple plug in recharge at a service station. All that at a weekend and in an unfamiliar area of the country. I definitely wouldn't go down that route. To my mind that also increases range anxiety too as you would always need to be able to swap the battery before it ran out altogether - sounds like a nightmare to me. Ian |
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Post by Roger on Jan 16, 2022 17:14:31 GMT
Has anyone seen or heard about the NIO electric cars? Chinese manufactured and doing high volume (over 100,000 sold in 2021). The unique bit about them is the battery swap. Basically you never own the battery but rent it and get it swapped out when it needs recharging, so no home charging required at all. They are selling in Norway and have done a deal with Royal Dutch Shell to build battery swap /charging stations across Europe. From the prices I saw (about £120/month) including 6 charges works out about third the price of petrol based on their range figures. This to me seems to overcome the biggest fear about EV's, that of range anxiety. www.nio.com/Chris That sounds horrendous depending on the range. If I go down to Lynton for a weekend working party I can easily cover 500 miles and sometimes more so I'm guessing I would need to arrange a battery swap as part of my journey rather than a simple plug in recharge at a service station. All that at a weekend and in an unfamiliar area of the country. I definitely wouldn't go down that route. To my mind that also increases range anxiety too as you would always need to be able to swap the battery before it ran out altogether - sounds like a nightmare to me. Ian You can recharge these too, by the look of it. If you can charge at home and at your destination, then most of the issues for any EV vanish. Looking at how battery charging times are reducing, I don't think range is going to be even a talking point in the not too distant future. A ten minute stop, every 150 miles is probably all you'll need to travel an unlimited mileage. Ultimately you're bladder limited, and what you can get away with keeping the family out of the coffee shop. I'm really looking forward to see how the Tesla 4680 cell performs, because I think this is going to massively reduce charging times. Tesla haven't really hammered this point home, probably because they don't want everyone to hold out for them rather than take cars with the current 2170 cells. My guess is that they'll software limit the 4680 cells to be marginally better than the 2170 cells, but gradually release their true potential through 'over the air' updates as they transition to every vehicle using them. These are business decisions, not technical ones, in my opinion. |
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Post by miken on Jan 17, 2022 11:39:02 GMT
Just driven into town. At one point I was in front of a Tesla hearse!
Ideal application of electric power I think.
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Post by Roger on Jan 17, 2022 12:56:41 GMT
Just driven into town. At one point I was in front of a Tesla hearse! Ideal application of electric power I think. Serene, and they probably only bed to charge it one a month! |
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Post by chris vine on Jan 17, 2022 13:51:37 GMT
I saw a review of new Mercedes electric cars recently. I couldn't help noticing the odd air intakes at either side, low down on the front (spoiler). www.mercedes-benz.co.uk/passengercars/mercedes-benz-cars/models/eqs/saloon-v297/explore/numbers.module.htmlHave I got this wrong, or have the styling department taken over the asylum? I can't see that those are really air intakes, they are not anywhere you would put small coolers for motor/batteries. Do they really duct air to the brakes (when almost all the braking is regenerative anyway)? Then, to really make the point, they put little scoops to scoop air into them. Surely that must be rather damaging to smooth airflow and efficiency. Have I got this all wrong?? I have just noticed that the Tesla models 3 and S have something similar, although much more aerodynamic looking. All very strange... Chris. |
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Post by Roger on Jan 17, 2022 13:57:14 GMT
I saw a review of new Mercedes electric cars recently. I couldn't help noticing the odd air intakes at either side, low down on the front (spoiler). www.mercedes-benz.co.uk/passengercars/mercedes-benz-cars/models/eqs/saloon-v297/explore/numbers.module.htmlHave I got this wrong, or have the styling department taken over the asylum? I can't see that those are really air intakes, they are not anywhere you would put small coolers for motor/batteries. Do they really duct air to the brakes (when almost all the braking is regenerative anyway)? Then, to really make the point, they put little scoops to scoop air into them. Surely that must be rather damaging to smooth airflow and efficiency. Have I got this all wrong?? I have just noticed that the Tesla models 3 and S have something similar, although much more aerodynamic looking. All very strange... Chris. I suspect that Mercedes are alluding to the look of an F1 car wing with that offering. I'm afraid I don't know enough about aerodynamics to comment on that aspect of it. Needless to say, the aerodynamics is a vital component of the design, necessary to achieve the range they need. |
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Post by uuu on Jan 17, 2022 16:06:31 GMT
My Fiat has quite a big radiator under the bonnet. OK, it and the grille are not as big as a petrol car, but there all the same. The air-con will need cooling, so that's part of it. There may also be liquid cooling for some parts of the motor/control gear/charger assembly. Perhaps.  And silly scoops at the side (which are dummies). Wilf |
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Post by Roger on Jan 17, 2022 17:09:46 GMT
My Fiat has quite a big radiator under the bonnet. OK, it and the grille are not as big as a petrol car, but there all the same. The air-con will need cooling, so that's part of it. There may also be liquid cooling for some parts of the motor/control gear/charger assembly. Perhaps. And silly scoops at the side (which are dummies). Wilf Good point, and Tesla definitely has liquid cooling for the battery pack. There's a kind of ribbon arrangement for those that zig zags between each row of cells. |
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Post by chris vine on Jan 17, 2022 18:34:42 GMT
I have a mate up the road, with a Tesla Model 3. I will have to look at it and see if there is anything connected to the little side scoops...
Chris.
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Post by andyhigham on Jan 17, 2022 20:19:42 GMT
I have a Mitsubishi hybrid
The cooling system is to say the least complicated. 3 radiators, engine, a/c and motor cooling. A water heater to warm the engine and cabin when travelling on electric power. An electric water pump for the motor cooling, another electric water pump for the engine/water heater. A thermostatic valve for the engine/water heater. The a/c is also used to heat or cool the batteries
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Post by coniston on Jan 17, 2022 22:42:20 GMT
I have a Mitsubishi hybrid The cooling system is to say the least complicated. 3 radiators, engine, a/c and motor cooling. A water heater to warm the engine and cabin when travelling on electric power. An electric water pump for the motor cooling, another electric water pump for the engine/water heater. A thermostatic valve for the engine/water heater. The a/c is also used to heat or cool the batteries Yes but IC cars have had 3 radiators for years (engine, AC, intercooler) and also oil cooler for auto gearbox making 4!!!!. Electric water pumps, power steering pumps and other ancillaries equally have been around on IC cars and vans for at least 20 years. Auxiliary fuel operated heaters have been around on cars for over 40 years to supplement engine heat in cold weather, in particular more modern diesel engine cars which don't produce so much waste heat have had to use them to meet windscreen de-icing test for type approval. Nothing new for hybrids or EV's |
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Post by doubletop on Jan 18, 2022 8:57:03 GMT
Hi Jo, On our recent travels saw a Tesla towing a caravan.....van probably 14 footer..... so they can tow stuff! Would of been interesting to talk to the owner to see what sort of miles they get. Cheers Kerrin Only in NZ would somebody graft a towbar onto a Tesla. But it wouldn't have been a caravan just a disguised auxilary power supply.  Pete |
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uuu
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Post by uuu on Jan 18, 2022 12:18:26 GMT
They do say that cold conditions reduce the range of EV cars, and I now have some experience of this. I went out last night in 0 to 2 degree temperatures - just 10 miles each way, with a three hour gap in between. I used about 1.6 times the amount of battery that I'd expect, so 32 miles-worth rather than 20.
I didn't "pre-condition" the car before either leg of the trip, although I'm not sure if this is just a comfort thing for warming the cabin, or if it warms the battery too. Not enough detail in the instructions.
Some other features that rely on the forward-facing camera were also unreliable - I've had it take a mile or two to clear before, but on this occasion it kept cutting in and out. So apologies to anyone I dazzled with full beam before I realized the auto-dip was not working.
Wilf
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cplmickey
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Post by cplmickey on Jan 19, 2022 9:22:16 GMT
They do say that cold conditions reduce the range of EV cars Wilf This is true for all cars though to a greater or lesser extent. For example during the summer my Focus diesel was giving me around 72mpg but at the moment in this frosty weather I get around 62mpg, a drop of almost 14%. This happens every winter and next summer it'll be back up in the 70's. I believe some of that drop is down to the additive they put in diesel in the winter to prevent it thickening up too much but clearly cold air and using lights, heater etc more than usual will all contribute. Ian |
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) who kept buying another car every year but they were few and far between. 
