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Cars (all fuels and electric)

If you cannot charge at home, I would say an EV is as good as useless from a practical point of view.

There are 3 cheap charging points within 150 metres of my house and another 10 in a two street radius. Makes my car anything but useless…

EGTF, LFTF

I can’t charge at home, but was planning to charge at work, which with a 12 mile commute and a 100kWh battery would have been fine…

Even without that, i would have to visit a supercharger once a week, these days I do that every 2-3 weeks, and I can arrange it so that I do the food shopping while the car charges which works out well.

There are now public chargers popping up in the vicinity, but this is still a bit rubbish. Blocked, not working, and in general too slow to wait and otherwise a 10 minute walk, so I don’t use them.

But overall, it’s working for me.

Now, a colleague of mine bought a smaller car with much less range and relying on local charging points. He has to use them 2 times a week and it is a pain for him, he wishes he hadn’t done it (and no, he cannot afford a car with longer range).

So it’s not working for him.

As so often in life, it depends on what people want and need, and the local situation.

Biggin Hill

Airborne_Again wrote:

Electric roads. You may say that it’s unfeasible but at least there are working proofs of concept.

Yes, but how about instead of roads we use steel tracks and steel wheels to minimise friction and gain further efficiency. Then have the trucks lined up on these tracks with minimal distance from each other, so as to further minimise air resistance…

Oh yeah right, there is this technology already, called trains

Sorry, Airborne_Again, I have zero intention of making fun of you, but I always shake my head at any “wheeled trucks on electrified roads” concept because freight trains are just so much better at doing the same job. If I were Chancellor, I would just build railways everywhere and then have cargo distribution centers where smaller electric trucks can transport goods “the last mile” from the nearest cargo rail station to the supermarkets or other destination.

Low-hours pilot
EDVM Hildesheim, Germany

Every time I read posts about EVs, there are always a few things that seem to stand out.
Most people that have an EV have at least one other car which is usually an ICE.
Most have somewhere they can plug it in at their house.
Most are pretty “tech” minded and love that stuff in the car.

When I look at the car usage of my GF/partner & I, and ignore my having a “fun car”, I could probably do 90% of all our driving journeys with a basic EV. But the thing is Im pretty sure that when we get around to selling her 2010 diesel BMW (which wont be anytime soon, because it has only done 90k km) we wont be spending 30+k on a car so it wont be an EV.

skydriller wrote:

Every time I read posts about EVs, there are always a few things that seem to stand out.
Most people that have an EV have at least one other car which is usually an ICE.
Most have somewhere they can plug it in at their house.
Most are pretty “tech” minded and love that stuff in the car.

When it is time to replace my (well, our) car, I will almost certainly get an EV. I expect that I will occasionally need an ICE but I will rent a car for that purpose. It would be much cheaper than having a second car around.

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

Conversely, have you tried renting an EV? Whats it like these days?

I tried in both Sweden & Denmark back in 2019, and for the same rate as a Renault Zoe, I could get a 3(4)-Series BMW convertible or Merc Estate…ridiculously expensive!!

Last Edited by skydriller at 23 Jan 13:52

MedEwok wrote:

If I were Chancellor, I would just build railways everywhere and then have cargo distribution centers where smaller electric trucks can transport goods “the last mile” from the nearest cargo rail station to the supermarkets or other destination.

You’re not the first one to think of that concept, nor of a similar setup at shipping ports receiving incoming goods – which are very often in coastal urban areas. From those ports you use electric trucks (or natural gas powered trucks) to transport the containers to freight trains, as is mostly done now by short range Diesel trucks driving slowly through dense traffic and making lots of unpleasant smoke/soot.

Last Edited by Silvaire at 23 Jan 15:07

Airborne_Again wrote:

I will almost certainly get an EV. I expect that I will occasionally need an ICE but I will rent a car for that purpose. It would be much cheaper than having a second car around.

I rent a few times a year to avoid buying car number 4… which would otherwise be a full sized pickup truck. We have a large truck rental business nearby with an equally large parking lot where I can leave a car for the rental period. $20 per day plus $0.15 per mile, which seems to end up being about $40 whenever I need to move something large.

I don’t see going though the same routine just to have a fully capable car but for those who don’t travel much it could make sense – as long as the parking situation for the EV is secure. Messing around with second drivers to pick up and drop off rental vehicles gets tiresome very quickly, and taking buses or taxis to get a car is ridiculous.

Last Edited by Silvaire at 23 Jan 15:10

Graham wrote:

If you’re doing that then your thermostat has failed open

You obviously have never driven a car in real cold weather, and never in an old car by the looks of it. As I said, cars pre 80’ish were bad all over. Volvo and Saab were probably the only ones with adequate heating in sub -20 deg (with a carboard in front, or better, with a special made and nicer looking thing). During the 80-90-early 2000, cars were generally very good. But then came these super efficient turbo-diesels with intercooling using less than 0.5 l per 10 km, later these super efficient turbo-gasoline engines with intercooler using the same amount of fuel (a bit more, but not much).

The overall thermodynamic picture is that 40% is used as useful work. 30 % goes out with the exhaust. 10% is intercooler heat, too cold to be used to anything useful. 5-10 % is lost in radiating heat and lubrication, and only about 15 % is liquid cooling. So, for the 0.5 l of fuel, you only have 15% at max, to be used to heat the compartment. That is 75 ml of fuel. Theoretically, you could probably made it work, if that fuel was used directly for heating, but it isn’t, not even closely. It is degraded to low quality, low temperature (90 deg) liquid flowing trough a radiator.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

LeSving wrote:

You obviously have never driven a car in real cold weather, and never in an old car by the looks of it. As I said, cars pre 80’ish were bad all over.

I’m remembering running to the warmth of a ‘69 Pontiac Bonneville as a little boy, on a visit to Buffalo NY circa 1973. Have you ever been to Buffalo NY in January? A warm car is a good thing there and they had them then, and before, and after

Last Edited by Silvaire at 23 Jan 17:50
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