European Governments Spending Fortunes on Electric Car Projects.

Saab Ed

Spains government had backed a plan to sell 2000 electric cars this year but so far they've only managed 16 .....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-10931064


...so I went looking for info on who's doing what and found this interesting article.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1960423,00.html?iid=sphere-inline-sidebar

Cabaal

Spain choosing a car marker that hardly anybody has heard of certainly wouldn't have helped things,

Prabhu Deva

Its probably a mispelling of REVA - the crowd that makes the dreaded Gee Whizz. I saw a 10 reg Gee Whizz going around Mallow yesterday, cant imagine how a car with such a short range would be useful to anyone around here. The opel ampera will be out soon, that looks a lot more promising. Lithium ion batteries are just sh1te really as your range gets reduced by 5-20% each year.

_Conrad_

Electric cars are a bit of a joke, people are wasting so much time and energy making them, and they're still useless, the batteries are highly polluting, don't last very long and need loads of electricity to charge up, and most electricity is still produced using fossil fuels. Other lines of enquiry need to be followed.

About the only electric drive car that's half decent in terms of being useable is that honda fcx clarity thing which usues hydrogen to generate electricity

Prabhu Deva

_Conrad_ wrote: »

Electric cars are a bit of a joke, people are wasting so much time and energy making them, and they're still useless, the batteries are highly polluting, don't last very long and need loads of electricity to charge up, and most electricity is still produced using fossil fuels. Other lines of enquiry need to be followed.

About the only electric drive car that's half decent in terms of being useable is that honda fcx clarity thing which usues hydrogen to generate electricity

The batteries wouldn't be a problem if they would only stop using lithium ion. As in ordinary lithium ion cells. Newer batteries last much longer but for some unknown reason any new electric or hybrid car out there still seems to use these ordinary lithium ion batteries.

Its early days yet and first generation products are never that great but things are improving fast. At least you can now buy lithium iron phosphate batteries and they are starting to be used. Generating electricity from fossil fuels and using that in a car is still significantly more efficient than burning it directly in a car, particularly if you can capture the waste heat and use it for co-generation or space heating

btw the FCX clarity also uses highly polluting batteries that don't last very long. to make things worse the fuel cell doesn't last that long either and is very expensive to replace

billbond4

I dont know why governments are wasting their money backing electric cars.
They should be funding research into Hydrogen powered cars, none of this waiting around lark for the car to charge.
And in fairness if everyone in Ireland tomorrow bought an electric car,our carbon emissions would probably remain the same, as where does 80% of our electricity come from? good old fossil fuels, and thats not going to change dramatically anytime soon as there wont be any nuclear power stations built

Prabhu Deva

billbond4 wrote: »

I dont know why governments are wasting their money backing electric cars.
They should be funding research into Hydrogen powered cars, none of this waiting around lark for the car to charge.
And in fairness if everyone in Ireland tomorrow bought an electric car,our carbon emissions would probably remain the same, as where does 80% of our electricity come from? good old fossil fuels, and thats not going to change dramatically anytime soon as there wont be any nuclear power stations built

if everyone bought a hydrogen powered car tomorrow our carbon emissions would probably go through the roof.

electricity to hydrogen conversion is only about 40% efficient. better off using a battery, even a bad battery is better than this

billbond4

Still no waiting around for your car to charge at the side of the road

bijapos

I've no idea why they don't do more for electric commercials. The choice is still bad. They would not suit everyone but a business acquantaince would take 5 of them they do the same route every day about 70-85km. He has tried a couple of Transit sized ones but was told they are not putting the same resources into them as passenger cars.

Prabhu Deva

billbond4 wrote: »

Still no waiting around for your car to charge at the side of the road

then get a plug in hybrid. probably a better solution in the short term while battery technology improves.

ordinary hybrids aren't worth a toss.

Prabhu Deva

bijapos wrote: »

I've no idea why they don't do more for electric commercials. The choice is still bad. They would not suit everyone but a business acquantaince would take 5 of them they do the same route every day about 70-85km. He has tried a couple of Transit sized ones but was told they are not putting the same resources into them as passenger cars.

there's an electric version of all the Peugeot vans made by some English company. but they cost 50k. biggest problem is the expensive batteries

axer

billbond4 wrote: »

Still no waiting around for your car to charge at the side of the road

There will be solutions for this such as swapping batteries or turbo charging the batteries. Every other option out there is gonna take a lot of time to work but it looks like the electric car will be the most efficent option.

Saab Ed

Prabhu Deva wrote: »

then get a plug in hybrid. probably a better solution in the short term while battery technology improves.
.

Or buy a diesel

shedweller

I used to think EV's were the best thing since sliced bread but their limitations are well known. I will say though, that what GM/Opel are doing with their Volt/ Ampera strikes a very good balance.

You get an EV with a petrol engine generator to provide power to the batteries when they drain. But on most commutes you will hardly use the generator at all as the battery will not have run down. Charge it when you get home and you are good to go the next day. If you forget, its not the end of the world. You just use petrol instead.

I can't wait till they come out here and i will seriously consider buying one.