Would you have an electric car if you had the money for a new car and were in the market for one?

[cheb]

And the Walker Wingsail, originally aimed at cargo vessels, but more recently aimed at yachts.

[Noggin]

There's also the E-ship 1 built for, and operated by, Enercon. It has Flettner rotors at the four corners of the boat.

quite apart from it being a million 100% fugly, I think I'd be a little nervous to go on that in case of inclement weather!!!

[slowsider]

Looks like a dead dog.

[Count Steer]

There's also the E-ship 1 built for, and operated by, Enercon. It has Flettner rotors at the four corners of the boat.

Well, I read the blurb and still don't have a clue why they've done it - other than it's a bit more efficient? 9 diesel engines generate 6.3MW (so it's basically a diesel ship, the exhaust gases boils water/make steam which makes the Flettner rotors spin which help push the boat along - which is a bit like picking yourself up by your socks!). Where does the cold exhaust gas go? Isn't it still churning out CO2 from 9 diesel engines? What happens to the 6.3MW? I assume they drive the props? The Wiki entry:

The E-Ship 1 was equipped with nine Mitsubishi marine diesel engines with a total output of 3.5 MW. The ship's exhaust gas boilers are connected to a Siemens downstream steam turbine, which in turn drives four Enercon-developed Flettner rotors. These rotors, resembling four large cylinders mounted on the ship's deck, are 27 meters tall and 4 meters in diameter. The speed and direction of rotation varies up to 300RPM depending on the prevailing wind speed and direction relative to the ship. Due to technical problems the Mitsubishi diesel generators were replaced by Caterpillar diesel generators in 2013. The new Caterpillar generators generate a total power of 6.3 MW.

[cheb]

They judge the efficiency to be worth it. Their turbines are very closely controlled, any small gains in power output are taken by pitching the blades in or out and by yawing the head. From what I've seen something is being twitched every couple of minutes on average.

[Docca]

A few weeks in and I’m mostly loving the experience.

I don’t like the variability in charging stations ( and the need for multiple accounts) but that’s the only real gripe.

One station charged me £6 to fill from 25 to 95% on superfast ( shell recharge)

Another ( ‘Genie’) for about the same cost £14.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Our salary sacrifice EV scheme goes live at work next week. Nominally that means I can buy a car at >40% discount, although I still need to wait and see what's on there. I'm only gonna get something if it makes sense, not just for the sake of it.

[the_priest]

My brother is loving having his Zoe at the moment as he charges at home and does mainly short city runs to and from parishes or visits. He did do a trip to EuroDisney Paris and back, but described that as utterly terrible.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Yeah the parks in the US are much better

[Horse]

Zoe

Colleague had one. He lives close to the office so got it to use instead of his Jag.

The 'filler cap' cover froze shut, he couldn't charge it!

[Tomcat]

Not gonna wade through n pages of willy waving. To the OP, no. They still haven't evolved to the stage where they are better than ICE cars. They cost a fricking fortune to buy, the ultimate life of the battery remains unproven, and the range is still poor with too few means of recharging. In future maybe, but they'll need to do something about battery technology rather than just refining a 200 year old technology of shuffling electrons round a chemical cell.

[Count Steer]

Looking at Which? reports, the £ benefits of electric cars over time aren't particularly large (premium price takes a while to pay off, servicing doesn't seem cheaper, resale value with old batteries in is a bit ?). Given the current energy price rise it must look pretty marginal.

It probably won't be long before you hear 'Do you remember when it only cost £90 to fill up with petrol?'

I think I'll just get a new petrol car before the 2022 rule kicks in that new cars must be fitted with a device that stops you exceeding the speed limit.

[Mr. Dazzle]

The new EV scheme at work looks pretty good - although that's not really the 'fault' of EVs per se. You can buy a car using salary sacrifice, so you spend the money before you pay income tax or NI on it. You can do that for ICE cars too. With either method you pay a 'benefit in kind' tax, based on the value of the car and a percentage rate set by the vehicles emissions. For EVs that pecentage is currently 1%, rising to 2% next year.

What that essentially means is that I can now lease an EV with tax, insurance etc. all included for effectively a ~40% discount.

I had a look at a Porsche Taycan just for a laugh. £800pcm for a 400bhp Porsche, including all tax, servicing etc. That's a pretty good deal, I'm almost tempted £350pcm for something like a Tesla is more realistic.

Sadly every car is on at least 18 weeks lead at the moment, more like 24 more the majority!

[Count Steer]

I found the company car scheme attractive when I was doing lots of business mileage. Less so when not, but generally we usually had one company and one private (and bikes!) between us and picked the best company scheme at any particular time.

It can be a shock when you come out of a scheme and need a car but have no 'car equity' for trade in although we had the option to buy after a lease completed. It was often worth doing and then selling at a profit.

[millemille]

I test drove a Citroen Despatch electric van on Tuesday, 75 miles or so of mixed roads.

Awesome!

In ECO mode with regen braking turned on a real world range of 230 miles on mixed roads and around 175 on continuous motorway driving at 65mph.

I can make that work so a new one will be ordered shortly.

[Couchy]

Not gonna wade through n pages of willy waving. To the OP, no. They still haven't evolved to the stage where they are better than ICE cars. They cost a fricking fortune to buy, the ultimate life of the battery remains unproven, and the range is still poor with too few means of recharging. In future maybe, but they'll need to do something about battery technology rather than just refining a 200 year old technology of shuffling electrons round a chemical cell.

If you’re used to leasing a new car for work doing 15-20k miles a year and changing every 2-3 years they are just as good if not better. Cost wise is on a par ICE or EV. They take a bit of planning but with 250 mile range they work well.
They def work well for this use, if you want a cheap second hand car or regularly do long journeys with lots of people or a caravan they don’t.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Well, I read the blurb and still don't have a clue why they've done it - other than it's a bit more efficient? 9 diesel engines generate 6.3MW

snip

Sorry...only just seen your question.

If I'm reading it right, the 6.3MW of diesel power (about 9000bhp) are the ship's main "go". They drive propellers as normal.

In a normal ship, that'd be it. You've goy your 6.3MW and you're away. However 6.3MW of diesel produces a load of waste heat, more than 6.3MW in fact! Mostly in the form of hot exhaust gas and hot coolant. What they're trying to do is recover that waste heat and make it do something useful. You can just recover energy from the otherwise wasted exhaust and use it to make more power for the propellers. That's been a thing for a long long time in various different formats - Turbo Compounding for example, which dates back to at least WW2.

What the E ship is doing is a bit more clever. They use that waste heat to drive the rotors, which then catch the wind. The thinking is that the boost you get from the wind is more than you'd get from just using the waste heat to make more propeller power. Say you recover 1MW of power, which you then use to turn those rotors. If the rotors 'catch' the equivalent of more than 1MW you're quids in right?

It might sound like you're cheating physics - how can driving the rotors with 1MW get more than 1MW of go? - but of course the extra 'free' energy comes from the movement of the wind. If you'd just used the 1MW to make more propeller power that's the most you're ever gonna get.

[Count Steer]

Well, I read the blurb and still don't have a clue why they've done it - other than it's a bit more efficient? 9 diesel engines generate 6.3MW

snip

Sorry...only just seen your question.

If I'm reading it right, the 6.3MW of diesel power (about 9000bhp) are the ship's main "go". They drive propellers as normal.

In a normal ship, that'd be it. You've goy your 6.3MW and you're away. However 6.3MW of diesel produces a load of waste heat, more than 6.3MW in fact! Mostly in the form of hot exhaust gas and hot coolant. What they're trying to do is recover that waste heat and make it do something useful. You can just recover energy from the otherwise wasted exhaust and use it to make more power for the propellers. That's been a thing for a long long time in various different formats - Turbo Compounding for example, which dates back to at least WW2.

What the E ship is doing is a bit more clever. They use that waste heat to drive the rotors, which then catch the wind. The thinking is that the boost you get from the wind is more than you'd get from just using the waste heat to make more propeller power. Say you recover 1MW of power, which you then use to turn those rotors. If the rotors 'catch' the equivalent of more than 1MW you're quids in right?

It might sound like you're cheating physics - how can driving the rotors with 1MW get more than 1MW of go? - but of course the extra 'free' energy comes from the movement of the wind. If you'd just used the 1MW to make more propeller power that's the most you're ever gonna get.

Thanks.

I was assuming that there was some action/reaction type of drive from the rotors arrangement hence my comment about 'picking yourself up by your socks'.

It was also that the rotors don't seem very 'wind-catchy' IYSWIM. But I know that if you have a free-rotating cylinder with a flat spiral around it will rotate in a breeze. There's something like that on a building as you go north on the M25 somewhere around the Heathrow section.

Given the size, weight and power/fuel consumption and carbon output of ships they seem to be a prime candidate for new tech, even on-board carbon capture.

[Fruity]

I've gone for a petrol car this time round, on a four year lease. I'm doing fewer miles than in previous years - my previous four cars have been diesels.I

I think by the time my next lease is up, the position will be clearer around hybrid electric cars and/or hydrogen fuel cells. I don't think plug-in electric vehicles have a mainstream future in this country, for a variety of reasons.

[Mussels]

I looked at the salary sacrifice scheme to see if it was worth asking my company about. Leasing a Tesla 3 is about the same price as leasing a Jag XF but with the tax perk it looks about the same total cost as buying a 3 year old XF and keeping it for 3 years.
I chose Tesla as it seems to cope with higher speeds (60-70mph lol) much better than European EVs so is a more realistic choice as my only car. Unfortunately the 3 is a bit small, bigger ones are over twice the monthly price and I'm not willing to put up with a badly built car for the sake of virtue signalling.
We're nearly there but expect when the deals look ok the 1-2% BIK benefit will be cancelled.