Electric vehicles-Conversions

[Hell Razor5543]

I know that the Royal Berkshire Hospital has charging points for the EV staff cars, as I have seen them.

[NewcastleFalcon]

Anyone familiar with Glasgow?

Kennedy Cars..Coatbridge Road have 3 French Electrics for sale.....

http://www.kennedycars.co.uk/used-cars/ ... site-visit

In their own words, and typing!

1 OWNER ONLY 8000 MILES , NO FUEL RUNNING COSTS ,VERY SCARCE BE QUICK THESE DONT LAST LONG Black Cloth interior, Metallic SILVER, £4,495

Interesting cars, but awful cliche in sales pitch!

Regards Neil

[CitroJim]

'THESE DON'T LAST LONG' can be wrongly interpreted too!!!

[Gibbo2286]

A couple of news stories today might interest:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-39350054

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-co ... e-39343519

[Peter.N.]

Its all happening - probably.

Peter

[Mandrake]

So Citroen have just unveiled a "new" BEV Berlingo yesterday:

http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-c ... -ambitions

Is it just me or is it a bit underwhelming ?

The motor is 66hp and 148lb-ft of torque - the same horsepower and just a smidgen more torque than the watermelon sized motor in my 1150Kg Ion. It should accelerate nice and zippily at low speeds due to the healthy torque but I can't see it having much in the way of beans at 70mph and above due to the limited horsepower. Battery is 22.5kWh - slightly less than the 2011 Nissan Leaf, which has been superseded by by the 30kWh model, and if rumours are true, will be replaced with a 60kWh model by the end of the year.

Claimed range is a highly optimistic 106 miles - with 22.5kWh and in panel van format I strongly doubt that the real world mileage will be more than 70-80 miles per charge. (EG similar to a 1st generation Leaf)

Kudos to Citroen for doing something but I still feel like they haven't put their heart into it and that it is more a compliance vehicle. A more powerful motor and bigger battery pack was really needed to make it a more practical car. Five years ago this car might have done well but it is already behind the times out of the gate in 2017.

I also find it odd to see that the charging port is a Type 1 port like that on my Ion. Type 1 ports are only used on cars originating in Japan and the USA (since that is their standard public charging connector) meaning that the basic design of the car is probably Japanese in origin or at least made in collaboration with a Japanese manufacturer like Mitsubishi. All purely EU based EV's nowadays come with the Type 2 Menekes connector - which is what you find on all EU/UK charging points.

You can connect a Type 1 car to those Type 2 charging points easily enough using a Type 1 to Type 2 cable such as the one I just bought for my Ion, but it's a big clue that some of the EV underpinnings of the car are Japanese...perhaps a stopgap model while they develop a true in-house design ? (The article actually hints at that)

Could it even be the same motor as the Ion ? I notice on Peugeot service box that there are two versions of the motor for the Ion - one 180N/m (mine) and one 196N/m. Both 47kW/66hp.

196N/m is awfully close to the 148lb-ft of torque claimed, and the HP is identical so I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that it has an evolution of the motor used in the Ion/C-Zero slapped in a van with a bigger battery...!

[Gibbo2286]

My brother worked for LDV vans, they had an electric van designed and ready to start production when TATA walked away and left them in the lurch.
The managers wanted to continue but to do so they needed to do a management buy out and asked the government for a £5 million bridging loan.............the government (Mandelson) said no, EU rules, so the whole business folded.
I'm not sure what happened to it after that, my brother died before it all finalised.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... nistration

Seems it didn't all die, it went to China:

https://www.motoringresearch.com/car-ne ... -tuned-mpv

[Mandrake]

Seems it didn't all die, it went to China:

https://www.motoringresearch.com/car-ne ... -tuned-mpv

Now that's more like it!

A full size panel van with a 75kWh battery and a realistic 215 mile range on a charge.

Compared to this the small EV Berlingo and Nissan e-NV200 both with real world 70'ish miles range look like toys that were state of the art at least 5 years ago.

[Hell Razor5543]

It is fairly obvious why the Chinese would have either bought or developed such a design. Have you seen the levels of smog in Chinese cities?

[Mandrake]

Yes good point. It makes a lot of sense for the Chinese to go electric due to their massive pollution problems.

Also China is the 3rd biggest miner of Lithium ores in the world so have a supply of raw materials for making batteries right on their doorstep, which they probably see as preferable to paying the middle east for oil!

[NewcastleFalcon]

Well the introductory post to this thread as well as including a nice pic of a Triumph Spitfire did also mention the "Allied" Conversions.

Maybe the time is also right to gather together a bit of an information/knowledge on electric vehicles focusing on conversions and what could be a developing second hand market which could offer big savings on depreciation of brand new vehicles but maybe without a decent support infrastructure for ongoing maintenance and problem solving.

Two examples from me to kick it off

What I would term a very interesting conversion by a North Carolina High School!


Another one I have come across, which led to crop of ex-Glasgow Council converted Peugeot Partners and Experts by Allied coming onto the second-hand market is referred to in these two forums.

Battery Vehicle Society
http://www.batteryvehiclesociety.org.uk ... f=3&t=3921
SpeakEV
https://speakev.com/threads/allied-e-ex ... ems.13883/

Regards Neil

Well those Peugeot Partner Tepees from Kennedy's in Glasgow I posted up, are examples of the the original Allied Conversions of which the chap from Kennedy's reckons they have sold 20. Plenty of useful help over on Speak EV which you probably would need if you took one on. Still its a very practical useful sized vehicle, and definitely no battery lease!

Regards Neil

[white exec]

I know the Prius always was more about marketing and promoting the idea of electric traction, and getting in on the ZE act, than about serious electric transport. It's essentially a petrol-powered car, not even capable of kerbside charging.

Interesting, this morning to see several being "attended to" in my local Toyota workshops. One (a taxi) was having a new battery pack fitted, which sits under the rear seats and extends towards the boot floor.



Was just possible for one person to lift the pack, which I see is made by Panasonic. The surprise was, it's NiMH! Partsman said price of the replacement battery was pack was €1300. I read that Toyota are guaranteeing them for 8 years/100,000 miles.

In a corner of the workshop was another Prius, completely burnt out at the rear end. Did wonder...
_____________

The reports above about BEV Taxi and LDV is really good news, and shows just how fast things are developing. I was saying more than a year ago that we'd find the Chinese as leaders in all this, not least because they are heftily motivated by their need to solve the air problem. Thank goodness!

[elma]

Damn shame, I've a soft spot for LDV and Mahindra. They are the 2 vehicles I've used that were just thrown together from old spare parts and both of them were amazing fun.

[lexi]

Wife has just told me that Glasgow City Council and all it's arms length companies have had EV for a few years now. She drives a diesel VW van all kitted out in Police colours. EV's she say have basically been a flop. They tried them and they have now sat around or been sold. They need vehicles that can drive 24hrs a day...........non stop. She also said that there are loads of charge points around Glasgow which mostly sit unused day and night.

[Gibbo2286]

LDV built a great range of vehicles, builder's trucks, school and police minibuses, ambulances etc.
Take a look now all the cop's minibuses are Mercs and all the ambulances Renaults, Mandelson knew how to look after his EU mates