Electric Cars:what's available?

[myglaren]

Have we had Ugly Oli yet?

[NewcastleFalcon]

Have we had Ugly Oli yet?

Only on the French concept cars thread, that's the first moving pictures of it Steve!

Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

Take the time to give it a watch with an open mind, its a yes from me, not really bothered what it looks like, it undoubtedly turns heads and I like it for that. It's a very different concept and direction altogether, from the type of EV's which have evolved first in the 2010 to 2022 period of transition, and in particular the over expensive, over heavy, over inefficient bricks for the well-heeled only phase.

See how now a 40 kWh battery gets an "only" in front of it. As I mentioned before my classic leaf has a 24kWh battery quite ancient now, but over the last 3 years we have done 30,000 miles in it all over our normal 3-counties range, and it has been a pleasure to own and drive, and once past the green novice phase, charging up becomes just normal and there are plenty of alternatives all now well-known within our usual stomping ground.

Regards Neil

[CitroJim]

Reading your top three is even scarier Chris The epic stupidity of some truly know no bounds...

Interesting stuff Chris. Always used to enjoy Barry Cade's Garage Casebook in Car Mechanics Magazine back in the 70's/80's.

Back in the day when Car Mechanics was a good read! I used to love reading Barry Cade's tales too... The magazines of the day aimed at the TV and radio service people (me at the time) used to carry similar columns and were equally good reading... In addition, Television magazine always had their monthly puzzler - a really tricky fault that had stumped many. It would have you thinking about it to the point you were desperate for the next edition to come out to see if you were right in your diagnosis...

One memory of Car Mechanics along that time were the pages and pages of readers problems and queries subdivided into distinct sections for each make of car.... Austin, Ford, Vauxhall, Morris, Triumph, Standard and so on. And one small section at the end headed 'Foreign'...

How times have changed...

[NewcastleFalcon]

Seeing as the Nissan Ariya has now made its debut in real life on the FCF Electric Vehicle Spotting thread on the roads of Bedlington, home of the famous terrier, it’s well and truly available.

For the 1000th reply it would have been nice to report that Nissan's EV2 (my words) ie only its second 100% electric car model after the pioneering Leaf, the Nissan Ariya had started rolling off the production line at Sunderland, and was selling like hot cakes.

Much heralded, but it will only arrive in the British Isles should anyone have a reservation for one, in a large car transporter vessel all the way from Japan.

And with that I lose any passing interest in the Vehicle, its a crossover SUV EV midway between the QashQai and the X-Trail....could anything be less interesting or less needed?, and they want to sell it for well over £40,000.

Wonder if anyone has done a review of it? Oh no, loads have and most think its great!

More up to date reviews have probably now been done, but the Journos who do them, probably have no concept of what is affordable, and how such vehicles and their Identikit rivals, are not really what is needed to progress Electric motoring.

We could try Ginny



Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

Scotland's embryonic car industry revival starts with Munro Mk 1 mentioned by Dormouse here

viewtopic.php?p=738112#p738112

Well is had a lot of very positive "press" worldwide including the Electric Viking in the vlogosphere with his positive take on it. Small scale hand-made obviously doesn't translate into economies of scale, nor does plans for a factory ramping up production to 2500 a year but good luck to them and they stand a decent chance of finding a market for their production plans with the well-heeled looking for a plaything who "like the look". With a price point starting from around £60,000 they might well undercut other offerings in that market, and generating demand from what has been a very positive reception may not be problem. Controlling costs and making a profit to sustain and build further growth may be more difficult. Probably should have gone for Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) batteries, less energy less energy dense but like the vehicle long lasting, reliable and safe and less expensive than the Nickel Manganese Cobalt chemistry chosen.

Just an aside, in the days when 0-60 times were some sort of measure to judge the relative merits of sports cars and fast hatches from the 80's and 90's, few would get anywhere near our Munro Mk 1. The couldn't really be less aerodynamic Munro Mk 1 achieves 4.9 seconds for the now 0-62mph measure.



Regards Neil

[Dormouse]

Tesla have issued a video of one of its Semi Rigs doing a 500 mile journey on one charge saying that if it wasn't for the hills on the route it would have been nearer 600 miles.
Eh! There can't be many places in the world with flat roads for 600 miles. Real World performance is what most of us experience.






There is a lot of negativity online about Tesla trucks. I just can't sort out how much is purely aimed at Elon Musk and how much will be true.

[MJJ_ZX6RR]

Tesla have issued a video of one of its Semi Rigs doing a 500 mile journey on one charge saying that if it wasn't for the hills on the route it would have been nearer 600 miles.
Eh! There can't be many places in the world with flat roads for 600 miles. Real World performance is what most of us experience.

There is a lot of negativity online about Tesla trucks. I just can't sort out how much is purely aimed at Elon Musk and how much will be true.

I am very keen to see how the world of electric HGVs pans out. I passed my HGV test 4 months ago, and have been driving 44t artics since. This follows a long and varied career managing teams of people engineering electric cars, so I would consider myself to be reasonably knowledgable of the technology, opportunities and challenges.

The breadth of use cases for HGVs is vast. As trucks are limited to anywhere between 52 & 56mph, and drivers have a very rigid set of legislations about how much driving can be done in a day, 500 miles is plenty for almost all HGV shifts. The key will be charging, as in my experience, trucks are very often worked 24x7 in two shifts so need to be able to replenish that 500 miles between shifts.

The challenge Tesla face - in my view at least - is of reputation and trust. HGVs are often expected to last 1.5 million miles or so, and any downtime/breakdown during their life is hugely impactful on a haulier's bottom line. Would you be keen to be an early adopter of a new brand in that scenario I wonder.

Speaking as a driver though, an electric powertrain in an HGV makes so much sense. Overcoming inertia to get 44 tons moving from a stop needs mountains of torque. Maintaining speed at weight up even the shallowest of hills needs torque. Motors are great at this. Conversely, harvesting energy through regeneration when stopping, or descending hills gives you vast amounts of free energy to get you going again.

Exciting times. Unfortunately, the retail price of these electric trucks is generally 3 times that of their diesel equivalent, so the payback period is long. Anything that stops you putting £1,000 of diesel a week on the company fuel card has got to be attractive though.

Martin.

[NewcastleFalcon]

Tesla have issued a video of one of its Semi Rigs doing a 500 mile journey on one charge saying that if it wasn't for the hills on the route it would have been nearer 600 miles.
Eh! There can't be many places in the world with flat roads for 600 miles. Real World performance is what most of us experience.

There is a lot of negativity online about Tesla trucks. I just can't sort out how much is purely aimed at Elon Musk and how much will be true.

I am very keen to see how the world of electric HGVs pans out. I passed my HGV test 4 months ago, and have been driving 44t artics since. This follows a long and varied career managing teams of people engineering electric cars, so I would consider myself to be reasonably knowledgable of the technology, opportunities and challenges.

The breadth of use cases for HGVs is vast. As trucks are limited to anywhere between 52 & 56mph, and drivers have a very rigid set of legislations about how much driving can be done in a day, 500 miles is plenty for almost all HGV shifts. The key will be charging, as in my experience, trucks are very often worked 24x7 in two shifts so need to be able to replenish that 500 miles between shifts.

The challenge Tesla face - in my view at least - is of reputation and trust. HGVs are often expected to last 1.5 million miles or so, and any downtime/breakdown during their life is hugely impactful on a haulier's bottom line. Would you be keen to be an early adopter of a new brand in that scenario I wonder.

Speaking as a driver though, an electric powertrain in an HGV makes so much sense. Overcoming inertia to get 44 tons moving from a stop needs mountains of torque. Maintaining speed at weight up even the shallowest of hills needs torque. Motors are great at this. Conversely, harvesting energy through regeneration when stopping, or descending hills gives you vast amounts of free energy to get you going again.

Exciting times. Unfortunately, the retail price of these electric trucks is generally 3 times that of their diesel equivalent, so the payback period is long. Anything that stops you putting £1,000 of diesel a week on the company fuel card has got to be attractive though.

Martin.

Welcome to the thread and what a cracking post! There are plenty other manufacturers joining in in the HGV sector but nothing that excites as much as TESLA's long promised "Semi".

I set up a thread "Public and Commercial Transport" to mop up new developments in that sector but there is always overlap in threads but I will put a link to your post and that of Dormouse in that thread as well.

Look forward to your joining in with other contributions, and posting up any news stories you come across.

Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

Bit of info on todays EV Spot of the Day. Well if you want one you have to pay for it, me I don't, and am quite happy with a second hand Leaf which has got me most places I want to go in comfort and economically for the past 3 years and 30,000 miles. I will never be in the market to pay £5K or £9K for a package of superfluous add-ons.

https://www.volvocars.com/uk/cars/c40-electric/

https://www.volvocars.com/uk/cars/c40-electric/

Regards Neil

[myglaren]

A lot of £s for very little it seems.

[NewcastleFalcon]

THis video probably covers your question

I wonder how much they have in common with Polestars.

Quite a lot built on the same platform


Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

Will Nissan's EV Kei car make it out of Japan While my go to vlogger the Electric Viking has severe doubts about the the Japanese car industry, its huge indebtedness, and continuing heavy dependency on ICE sales to declining markets for ICE sales ie China and the USA, it would be a little bit mad if Nissan didn't seek to create a bigger market than Japan for the Kei car it has developed as its entry level EV.

No plans as yet, and by the time Nissan decides whether it will or not, the Sakura's potential market may have been taken by others. Worth churning a few out at Sunderland I would have thought.



Regards Neil

[Ross_K]

No plans as yet, and by the time Nissan decides whether it will or not, the Sakura's potential market may have been taken by others. Worth churning a few out at Sunderland I would have thought.

It could definitely make for an interesting BMW i3 competitor

[myglaren]