Electric Cars - A general discussion platform

[guesser]

That requires you to have sufficient thermal mass or a place to store the heat in the meantime, of course, but it's doable.

We have (resistive) electric central heating in the shape of a GEC Nightstor. It heats up a fridge-freezer sized pile of bricks on Economy 7, then circulates air through the bricks and a heat exchanger all day to supply the radiators.

Whether you could capture remotely enough of the energy from a heat pump not to lose the gains over resistive heating though I don't know.

[daveejhitchins]

Well . . . 2 years down the line and my thoughts haven't changed e.g. they-won't-work!

Causing fights at motorway service stations requiring supervision being put in place, banned from some ferries and anybody want to take a punt on multi-story car parks? Hmmmmm!

Dave H.

[HHH]

Yep I'm with you Dave, they have 0 appeal, infrastructure is nowhere near, and I can't imagine owning a Tesla, they are horrible, soulless and thrown together but still ludicrously expensive. I do rather like the Porsche Taycan, unfortunately the likelihood is I'll never be able to afford one.

The whole, ooh you did something we don't like we're going to disable xyz in your vehicle next time you connect up to charge also repels me. Don't suppose you can take your Tesla, etc to the local specialist for a service either to avoid the crazy pricing monopoly?

Smart meters save you money, how? I use the amount of electricity I use to do what a need to do regardless of what the lcd waste of space says on its display, condemned to the back of a cupboard a long time ago.

I do run my washing machine in the early hours using the delay button, but I've have no idea if my current electricity tariff offers any sort of reduced rate during a certain window, I've looked through pages of documentation from them and unless I've missed it the information isn't there. If they truly want people to do such things, then make it plain and obvious.

My current vehicle offers a range of around 500 miles for just 8 minutes of "charging" diesel is marvellous stuff and still offers pretty much the same range even when the temperature drops significantly, it is also readily available throughout the country.

Apparently hydrogen is dangerous? Some footage I've seen of battery vehicles on fire is utterly alarming even the fire brigade struggle to put out the blaze. What if your EV decided to do such things while on charge at home? Doesn't bear thinking about.

If this is all about being green lithium isn't extracted from unicorn tears and I have seen stated rightly or wrongly that an EV from a production and destruction point of view doesn't look that great. There are many cars that have left a large stain being made produced, but are still going with 250k+ on the clock (not uncommon), so vs their lifespan may begin to turn a corner?

This is an interesting? video depicting one reality of living with an EV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwevvreoNjE

Anyway rant over just my take on such things

[daveejhitchins]

This is an interesting? video depicting one reality of living with an EV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwevvreoNjE

Love that video Dave H. - EVs . . . Won't Work!

[tnash]

I've nothing against EVs except I live on a terraced street with bonnet-to-boot on-street parking. It's very rare and very lucky if I'm able to park directly outside my house and rven then there's a pathway and a verge between. How will we be expected to charge them? We can't have a cats cradle of cables running from each house to its car! And I haven't seen any plans for a kerbside point every 2 metres either.

[Rasp]

I have been watching this youtube channel for a while and its put me off electric cars for EVer.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceexI4n2GZ4

[HHH]

So after watching that I would suggest ABC isn't "Always be charging" but more "Always Bloody Charging"

[DutchAcorn]

It's now four years since I owned a car running on dead dinosaurs and I'd never go back to one if I can help it. Charging infrastructure in Europe is generally ok, but mostly irrelevant because I charge overnight. Which means I never have to worry about an empty petrol tank.

I live in the Netherlands and we've been on holiday with the EV to the south of France, Germany, Austria and Denmark. The trip is broken up in sections between charging stations which I was surprised to find that for me it makes the trip more relaxing. Of course it helps that it's a Tesla, it's rare to have to wait at a Tesla Supercharger, the car tells you how busy the stations are and I have never had one that did not work.

I used to love my BMW 3 and my Mini but I've had my share of technical issues with them. There's just too much mechanical stuff, fluids and hoses in petrol cars. No issues with my EVs yet. And I also don't miss all these maintenance checks that my petrol cars needed.

Of course there are cases where an EV is not practical, I don't think I'd get one if I could not charge overnight or at work or if you need a 30 minute detour every day because there is some ferry that won't take EVs. I believe these cases will become edge cases as EVs become more commonplace.