Electric Vehicles: What have you spotted?

[Gibbo2286]

Surely not as a Taxi, with an 80 mile per charge range ?

Definitely - I was surprised too. Seems there's possibly a fleet!

http://www.falkirkherald.co.uk/news/fal ... -1-4369701

Ha, funny, I had just been looking at the pictures of the chargers in Fallkirk on plugshare.com and I recognise the background of the photo in the story as the Rapid charger at the Fallkirk Stadium. Good luck getting in there to charge your Taxi when there is a big game on...

If he's saying 100-120 miles it must be a 30kWh model, although 120 is still pretty optimistic even for those. I guess Taxi's don't drive as far as we think each day! I suppose even if he did 200 miles in a day he would only have to stop once in the day for a 30 minute charge, which might be a good time for lunch and a toilet break, as unlike ICE cars, people can't drive all day long without stopping for amenities...

Once again I see the claim that seems to be made in every puff piece about electric cars:

Derek drives a Nissan Leaf and expects it to cost him two pence a mile to run compared to between 10 and 13 pence for a diesel car.

I'd really like to know where all these news stories keep getting 2 pence a mile from - I've done the sums on my Ion (which is more economical per mile than a Leaf) and the only way you can get 2 pence a mile today from ANY electric car is either a) charge it exclusively on the night rate of an Economy 7 tariff (which is about 7p/kWh at night) and never during the day at the higher rate, or b) Blag at least half your charging from the free public charger network in Scotland. The latter is certainly possible, if inconvenient, if you have a suitable charger nearby however relying on such free public charging to make your sums work is shortsighted as free charging will eventually go away. (And has to, to make EV's sustainable in bulk)

I base my commuting costs on a daytime charge of 13p/kWh at home and approximately 4p/mile in summer. In winter I expect it to go up to 5-6p/mile through heater use, although that's still a lot cheaper than the 28p/mile of the V6 or the 10-13p of a Diesel. If I really wanted to cut my costs further I could switch to Economy 7 to halve it again, or in the short term at least, blag more from public chargers... As it is now I don't go out of my way to use public chargers but I have used the nearby Rapid charger a couple of times to get me topped up really quickly for going a long distance a second time in the same day without enough charging time in between for a standard charge.

Statistics Simon, distorted for effect like the '40,000 premature deaths caused by diesels', nobody seems to ask where the figures come from or what proof there is.

[Mandrake]

I need to get a plug in kWh meter to monitor the cars charging to be exact but here are my back of the envelope calculations for my Ion:

16kWh battery, if we assume a 25% loss for the charging process (primarily charger losses, and a small amount of resistance loss in the battery) which is pretty conservative, (it should be a lot less than this) then fully charging the battery would consume 20kWh. At 13p/kWh that is £2.60 to charge it from nothing to full at home.

Although I have never run it right down to be sure (bad idea unless I want to be flat-bedded home!) then with my particular mix of speeds (some 50-70 on the motorway but largely 30mph) and combining actual miles covered and estimated range left when the battery is mostly discharged I can manage about 70 miles on a full charge, therefore 3.7p/mile. In winter I expect (based on other owners experience) to lose about 15 miles of range from heavy heater use, dropping that down to 55 miles, that then raises the cost to about 4.7p/mile. (Battery efficiency drops a bit in really cold weather too, which would push it over 5p/mile)

It also means that I do about 4.4 miles / kWh as measured from the battery (the way it's usually measured on EV's) or 3.5 miles / kWh if you measure it right back to the mains socket including charging losses. You don't see many Leaf's doing 4.4 miles / kWh unless the driver is hypermiling - my figure is from normal commuter driving with no real attention to driving economically other than trying to optimise regeneration and not driving like an idiot.

So 2p/mile is pure fantasy unless you're charging on Economy 7 or blagging half your electricity for free. 4p/mile is still very nice though - but why exaggerate it and say 2p/mile when there are no facts to back it up?! It will just lead to disappointment if people take the claims at face value when considering an EV.

Had a quick look to try to find actual pence per mile figures for the Leaf and found this:

http://www.nextgreencar.com/cost-calcul ... ssan/leaf/

4.7p/mile - this agrees very well with my 3.7p/mile for my Ion, given that the Ion as a smaller car is known to be more efficient per mile than a Leaf. So I'd say this 4.7p/mile is spot on, especially if it includes some heater use. Not 2p/mile that's for sure!

[elma]

Is it possible that running it as a taxi some of the electricity can be offset against income tax? If this were the case it would lower the cost of running to below the actual cost.

[Mandrake]

Electricity is already only taxed at 5% VAT - not much of a saving if you claimed it back.

[NewcastleFalcon]

Phoenix Taxis in Blyth run a fleet of Leafs and one Tesla.

http://www.phoenixtaxis.net/electric-taxi.html

Video a bit out of date, but if anyone can get EV running costs down to 2p a mile,Taxi fleet operators will. The vid did mention a relationship with Nissan, just down the road over the water, and with the provider of the chargers at their HQ. If you can organise your charging life via Nissan dealers, you can also free charge there with your Leaf or e-NV200.

Regards Neil

On the snooker front one red and one blue today to continue my break, and an EV charging point at the car park by Tommy on the front at Seaham. Tommy got an airing on POTD on November 11th. His formal name is 1101 and represents the war weary reaction of an ordinary soldier in the first minute following cessation of hostilities in WW1. It is an absolute masterpiece in my view.

"Tommy" or 1101

© Copyright Oliver Dixon and
licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

[NewcastleFalcon]

More a billiards day than a snooker day one red one white. Strangely enough I think 2 local whites have been handed back, and both repeat leaf customers have plumped for red. I do believe that these are the standard no "add-on cost" colours for a Leaf 2017.

On another more nostalic front, two Willy's Jeeps appeared at the T-Junction just after the Leafs. In contrast, for those who like that sort of thing, they both roared off in a noisy sort of fashion leaving a subtle whiff of burning oil!

regards Neil

[myglaren]

Two Teslas - one entering Birtley and the other pulled out in front of me on a roundabout and slalomed off at a hell of a pace through busy traffic - pillock!

I don't take that much notice of other cars other than to note there presence and determine possible threats so probably miss dozens of spots.

[myglaren]

And there's another one (Tesla) just parked over the road from me.

[Zelandeth]

Leaf spotted today northbound on the M1 between I think it was J3 and J4.

...Trundling along at exactly 50mph in the middle lane, completely oblivious to what the traffic was doing around him and the trouble being caused. Especially the coach who was stuck behind him, and eventually opted to take the risk of "passing on the left" to get by him.

This car turned out to be the cause of a good ten minutes of heavy traffic as he was effectively being a rolling roadblock reducing the M1 to a single lane.

[CitroJim]

Ahh! You spotted one of the founder members of CLOC - the Centre Lane Owner's Club...

I find it has a lot of members

[daviemck2006]

There was a berlingo electronique at our local car auction on monday night. I was nearly bidding on it to do pizza and kebabs with.

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[myglaren]

There was a berlingo electronique at our local car auction on monday night. I was nearly bidding on it to do pizza and kebabs with.

You want a Vauxhall for that - they make good ovens, allegedly

[daviemck2006]

There was a berlingo electronique at our local car auction on monday night. I was nearly bidding on it to do pizza and kebabs with.

You want a Vauxhall for that - they make good ovens, allegedly

Yes there was 4 zafira ovens there lol

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[NewcastleFalcon]

I may well have lost my virginity

I am fairly certain, but I always imagined it would be a red one.

But mine was white! Do they even come in white?

Happened on the road between Northumberlandia and Blagdon this afternoon.

One of these

https://file.kbb.com/kbb/vehicleimage/e ... evox02.png

Regards Neil

Ps it definitely was. Questioned it when I saw an obvious grill on some pictures but the 2016 version as per the link was the exact car.

[myglaren]

Only a white Leaf and a white Zoe for me today - could have missed ever so many though.