EV are they worth it?

[Avocet]

Suppose you are right (but you are not) and ICE has 50% efficiency.

No they don't. If you're very lucky, you might just get 40% out of a good diesel.

Electricity price is 300% of hydrocarbons.

WHAT???!!! You're just making **** up now, aren't you?!

The effective efficiency of EV is only 33%.

Perhaps you need to look up what "efficiency" means?

All this is before we consider the societal cost of EVs in burning down ships and car parks.

In your warped little conspiracy theorist mind, maybe...

 

[ReganAndCarter]

Few days ago, a friend needed a hire car for business trip from Bristol to Leeds. When he turned up to collect it, the hybrid he booked wasn't available, so they foisted an EV on him. Trip was a total nightmare because of it, one reason being he wasn't supplied with a fast charger. Said one wait for a motorway charger and the time to charge took 1 hour. The return journey that should have taken 3 hours, took 5 because of waiting around for chargers to become free and then wait to charge. If these things are so impractical for a journey of little more than 200 miles, they're no use at all for a long trip. I would rather stick knitting needles in my eyeballs than own a tree-hugging, milk-floating electric liability.

 

[flameport]

Bristol to Leeds is 200 miles, easily within the range of most electric cars available today.
There are over 100 rapid charging sites between Bristol and Leeds, with plenty more in both of those cities and even more in places along that route such as Birmingham and Sheffield.

 

[ericmark]

At £9000 the Ant I may consider electric. At 150 mile range ample for a second car, but would still need a proper car for long trips.

 

[ericmark]

Perhaps you need to look up what "efficiency" means?

If I want to go 100 miles, that is 22 stone moved 100 miles, on the basis of my e-bike using a 12 Ah 48 volt battery to do 25 miles, then using that as a base line so it needs approx 2.3 kWh to do 100 miles.

So we multiply by 5 as car can carry 5 people, and we get 11.5 kWh if we take that as a base line then the electric car and the diesel car are both well down the scale for efficiency, we are looking more like 10% efficient.

We know the problem, one is wind resistance I am limited to 16 MPH, and the other is weight, one is driving around in a vehicle weighing a ton plus, much is down to crash resistance which adds a huge amount of weight, but at least with petrol and diesel we can look up with easy how many miles per gallon, and so work out miles per £. We know the fuel with a massive amount of tax added will cost around £1.40 to £1.60 per litre where ever we fill up, and it will take between 5 to 20 minutes to fill up depending on how many waiting at the pumps.

OK the Ant "25.05 kWh lithium iron phosphate battery pack, 251 km CLTC cruising range" or 6.2 miles per KWh so at £0.30 = £1.86 per mile, but the big problem is it could also cost £3 per kWh if using a fast charger enroute so jumps to £18.6 per mile. All petrol stations have a sign we know how much it will cost, my local EV charging point has nothing to say what it will cost until one down loads the app, and I can't how ever many pounds I have in my pocket buy one single kWh I have to have a bank account to use it.

 

[flameport]

or 6.2 miles per KWh so at £0.30 = £1.86 per mile, but the big problem is it could also cost £3 per kWh if using a fast charger enroute so jumps to £18.6 per mile.

That is 100% fiction and lies.

If it really was 6.2 miles per kWh (most vehicles are around 4), then at £0.30 per kWh it is 5p per mile.
The most expensive commonly available rapid chargers today are Instavolt, who charge 85p per kWh, or just under 14p per mile.

For a more realistic vehicle at 4 miles/kWh, it's 7.5p per mile for charging at home on full price electricity, or 21.25p per mile if using the most expensive public charging.

 

[ericmark]

Thank you for correcting my maths, and reinforcing what I had said about the huge diffrence in fuel (electric) prices, which explains why some people claim they are so expensive to run, and others say they are cheap.

 

[ReganAndCarter]

There are over 100 rapid charging sites between Bristol and Leeds, with plenty more in both of those cities and even more in places along that route such as Birmingham and Sheffield.

Only useful if you have the rapid charger cable.

 

[robinbanks]

Nope. When converting hydrocarbons to electricity, then converting electricity to motive power, suffers from a double whammy of efficiency loss. A direct conversion of hydrocarbons to motive power suffers only a single efficiency loss.

To some extent I can't believe I'm still being suckered into trying to fix stupid but here goes

An ICE engine has an optimal set of running conditions for making peak power; getting the most motive energy out of the fuel input. Problem is, you can't run them like that all the time because there are hills, and standing traffic and pillocks operating the throttle too much following by having to jump on the brakes (which doesn't put more diesel back in your fuel tank)

What about, instead, having a process that runs under fixed optimal conditions generating a fuel that can be converted to motion with great efficiency

Take that problematic varying "your diesel engine is seldom peak efficient" and run it at peak efficiency (in a power station, where its emissions can be cleaned up before they go up your nose) and use it to charge a battery, then use the battery to drive a car.

It's like a toilet cistern. Even if your water pressure is poor or fluctuates you can still get the occasional whoosh you need to get the job done by having a storage mechanism in between generation and use.

Directly using generation is not automatically the most efficient route

 

[Avocet]

Bristol to Leeds is 200 miles, easily within the range of most electric cars available today.
There are over 100 rapid charging sites between Bristol and Leeds, with plenty more in both of those cities and even more in places along that route such as Birmingham and Sheffield.

Indeed. I went from the North West corner of Cumbria to the Kent coast the other week. Over 400 miles. Only two charging stops, totaling about 45 minutes. Both made whilst I would have stopped in an ICE anyway. (Comfort breaks and dinner).

 

[Avocet]

Only useful if you have the rapid charger cable.

Plenty of chargers have tethered cables. All the DC ones do.

 

[Avocet]

To some extent I can't believe I'm still being suckered into trying to fix stupid but here goes

An ICE engine has an optimal set of running conditions for making peak power; getting the most motive energy out of the fuel input. Problem is, you can't run them like that all the time because there are hills, and standing traffic and pillocks operating the throttle too much following by having to jump on the brakes (which doesn't put more diesel back in your fuel tank)

What about, instead, having a process that runs under fixed optimal conditions generating a fuel that can be converted to motion with great efficiency

Take that problematic varying "your diesel engine is seldom peak efficient" and run it at peak efficiency (in a power station, where its emissions can be cleaned up before they go up your nose) and use it to charge a battery, then use the battery to drive a car.

It's like a toilet cistern. Even if your water pressure is poor or fluctuates you can still get the occasional whoosh you need to get the job done by having a storage mechanism in between generation and use.

Directly using generation is not automatically the most efficient route

Quite! All I would add, is that very little of the UK's electricity is generated by oil in any case.

 

[Avocet]

If I want to go 100 miles, that is 22 stone moved 100 miles, on the basis of my e-bike using a 12 Ah 48 volt battery to do 25 miles, then using that as a base line so it needs approx 2.3 kWh to do 100 miles.

So we multiply by 5 as car can carry 5 people, and we get 11.5 kWh if we take that as a base line then the electric car and the diesel car are both well down the scale for efficiency, we are looking more like 10% efficient.

I'm not sure I understand that argument? If we are talking about efficiency in the conventional engineering sense, as being the the ratio between the useful energy output and the energy input, how does your statement above, work? I can see the "energy input" is 2.3kWh for the bike and you're claiming 11.5 kWh for the car, but what is the energy output in each case? (As an aside, your 11.5 kWh for the 5 seater car figure is, I think, very optimistic. I'd need just under 30 kWh to do 100 miles, but I accept I have a pretty heavy right foot!

The first step, I think, is to make sure we're all talking the same language when we talk about "efficiency".

We know the problem, one is wind resistance I am limited to 16 MPH, and the other is weight, one is driving around in a vehicle weighing a ton plus, much is down to crash resistance which adds a huge amount of weight, but at least with petrol and diesel we can look up with easy how many miles per gallon, and so work out miles per £. We know the fuel with a massive amount of tax added will cost around £1.40 to £1.60 per litre where ever we fill up, and it will take between 5 to 20 minutes to fill up depending on how many waiting at the pumps.

OK the Ant "25.05 kWh lithium iron phosphate battery pack, 251 km CLTC cruising range" or 6.2 miles per KWh so at £0.30 = £1.86 per mile, but the big problem is it could also cost £3 per kWh if using a fast charger enroute so jumps to £18.6 per mile. All petrol stations have a sign View attachment 318890 we know how much it will cost, my local EV charging point has nothing to say what it will cost until one down loads the app, and I can't how ever many pounds I have in my pocket buy one single kWh I have to have a bank account to use it.

I'd urge you to take the claimed energy consumption figure for the Ant with the same pinch of salt that you'd take the manufacturer's claimed fuel economy figures for an ICE car. You'd have to drive it like a mobility scooter to get those figures, I imagine! Mine has averaged 3.4 miles to the kWh since I got it (that's over about 20,000 miles). As I've already said, though, that's quite "thirsty" by EV standards. Flameport's figure of 4 is more reasonable.

My "night" tariff is 14p per kWh, so that works out at about just over 4p per mile - happy days! however, the most expensive fast chargers (which I try to avoid!) at 85p per kWh, work out at about 25p per mile (which is indeed, more expensive than petrol or diesel). That said, it's a three-and-a-half hundred horsepower car, so if I compare like-with-like, it's not too far off what a similarly powered petrol car would cost per mile. In reality, of course, I fill the car at home, at night, so the first 250-300 miles of every journey is at 4p per mile. In reality, of course, that means the whole of most journeys are at 4p per mile.

 

[Avocet]

Few days ago, a friend needed a hire car for business trip from Bristol to Leeds. When he turned up to collect it, the hybrid he booked wasn't available, so they foisted an EV on him. Trip was a total nightmare because of it, one reason being he wasn't supplied with a fast charger. Said one wait for a motorway charger and the time to charge took 1 hour. The return journey that should have taken 3 hours, took 5 because of waiting around for chargers to become free and then wait to charge. If these things are so impractical for a journey of little more than 200 miles, they're no use at all for a long trip. I would rather stick knitting needles in my eyeballs than own a tree-hugging, milk-floating electric liability.

I've never queued for a charger. I tend to avoid motorway service station chargers because I know they're likely to be busy, just like I tend not to fill up with diesel on the motorway because I know it will be very expensive. The car would have had a sat-nav with all the charging stations in it. Sure, as a hire car, he may not have been able to work out how to use it, but there are also 3rd party apps that you can download to your phone at no cost (like ZapMap), that will do the same thing.

When I first got the EV, I made a few mistakes, because there's no denying, it does require some different thinking to using an ICE. I think the horror stories you see about people having to queue for ages and then taking hours to charge, are largely either rookies who haven't worked out how to get the best out of the car yet, or YouTubers who are deliberately looking for bad news stories about EVs to get themselves some more hits on their channels.

 

[ReganAndCarter]

I've never queued for a charger. I tend to avoid motorway service station chargers because I know they're likely to be busy, just like I tend not to fill up with diesel on the motorway because I know it will be very expensive. The car would have had a sat-nav with all the charging stations in it. Sure, as a hire car, he may not have been able to work out how to use it, but there are also 3rd party apps that you can download to your phone at no cost (like ZapMap), that will do the same thing.

When I first got the EV, I made a few mistakes, because there's no denying, it does require some different thinking to using an ICE. I think the horror stories you see about people having to queue for ages and then taking hours to charge, are largely either rookies who haven't worked out how to get the best out of the car yet, or YouTubers who are deliberately looking for bad news stories about EVs to get themselves some more hits on their channels.

I'm sure if you are used to EVs, with some careful planning and experience you could mitigate SOME of the hassle and inconvenience. However, bearing in mind the silly prices of these things, the sometimes rapid depreciation and used values uncertainty (not forgetting Tesla screwing their owners by suddenly slashing list prices by thousands), plus all the extra and potential pitfalls, aggro, extra planning, over reliance on technology, etc, etc - they still don't make any sense. Not in their current form. I still can't work out why EV owners rushed to make their lives more complicated and expensive for no discernable gains. But everyone's different.

And if EVs are so good, governments wouldn't have to legislate us into owning them.