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

[Yambo]

I doubt there needs to be a particularly long power cut to cripple an electric ambulance service.

Red Herring IMO.

There doesn't have to be a particularly long power cut to cripple any kind of ambulance service. Even something as simple as getting fuel from the pumps requires electricity. The dispatch systems won't work without power. You can't charge all your machines which go "bing!".

Not to mention the fact Hospitals use an awful lot of electricity themselves. Which is why we have UPSs and a generally very reliable electricity grid.

If electricity is that critical then I guess they'll have a generator on hand that kicks in automatically when there's a power cut. We have lots of power cuts here so all the hotels, a lot of the restaurants and some households have a back-up generator. I thought about getting one myself but I don't really need it. Surely hospitals will have back up generators (ICE powered of course . . . )

It used to be the case that fuel pumps had a manual system as well as electric pumps. I've used them.

But I wasn't talking about power cuts, I was just musing about charging time as opposed to refueling time.

[Horse]

Given the delays in handover times when dropping off at A&E the solution is simple, just jack the ambos in to a fast charger when they rock up at the hospital.

I was thinking similar. Seems an obvious solution.

So obvious that ...

LAS are working with hospitals in the capital, including Guys and St Thomas’ Hospital and Kings College Hospital, to provide high-powered electric vehicle charging ports so crews can charge their vehicles at hospitals.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Thus also solving any power cut concerns. Any big hospital has a UPS system for such eventualities.

I actually helped make a bunch of the hardware for one of the London hopsital ones. They replaced loads of massive lead acid batteries with ultra high speed glass/carbon flywheels. We called them the Mach 3 flywheels, cause that's how fast the edges went. Well...they ran in a vacuum, but you see what I mean.

Batteries/flywheels can do uninterrupted power for sort of 15-20 mins while the diesel generators fire up.

[Horse]

Thus also solving any power cut concerns. Aultra high speed glass/carbon flywheels. We called them the Mach 3 flywheels,

Off on a temporary tangent. Did they have a heavy outer ring? Just thinking that a flywheel needs mass to be effective?

[Mr. Dazzle]

It's needs kinetic energy in this context (energy storage)...traditional obtained by spinning a heavy thing slowly, but it's actually more effective to spin a light thing fast. V squared innit.

Just much more technically challenging!

[Taipan]

Given the delays in handover times when dropping off at A&E the solution is simple, just jack the ambos in to a fast charger when they rock up at the hospital.

Or stop wasting time with slow handovers. Open back doors, Reverse at speed. Hit brakes...

[Horse]

Given the delays in handover times when dropping off at A&E the solution is simple, just jack the ambos in to a fast charger when they rock up at the hospital.

Hit brakes...

Regen braking - puts power in the battery

Win-Win!

[Dodgy]

I'm in the market right now and I would have an electric car......if I liked any of them. I've had a really good look and i just don't. I think maybe it needs another 4-5 yrs to get enough choice

So I think the next ICE car will be the last one of those we'll buy. Although I'm struggling to find man of those I like, it's wall to wall boring grey SUVs

[Taipan]

Happened across an Aussie reel where they talk about real world ranges as found by What Car magazine. This is an issue that comes up often. Do car manufacturers lie as badly about ice ranges?

Another interesting point they make, is if the range is that much less than the manufacturers claims, then they are recharging more, which is another knock of the EVs green credentials.

As a household I'd guess at 90% of our trips being local and range wouldn't really be an issue for us and I would like a leccy bike and car, but I cant see that happening for some time yet and i get a sense of relief that I didnt buy the Tesla i was intending too. I just get the feeling the whole EV thing is hype, smoke and mirrors. But, as someone that developed LOA (late onset asthma) it would certainly suit me if every car in London was a EV as the immediate air would be lot cleaner, whatever the bigger picture is...

[Mr. Dazzle]

Do car manufacturers lie as badly about ice ranges?

Of course they do, everyone knows they do and they expect it. It's just that it's quoted in terms of MPG, rather than range.

[Horse]

Do car manufacturers lie as badly about ice ranges?

Of course they do, everyone knows they do and they expect it. It's just that it's quoted in terms of MPG, rather than range.

Is there a standard EV test, like the ICE rolling road 'urban cycle'?

[Mr. Dazzle]

Yeah there are WLTP tests for the official range/economy just like with ICE engines.

The real numbers typically aren't rolling roaded AFAIK. Lots of rolling road testing happens of course, but IIRC your official numbers have to come from a real "full test" car, I'm not sure.

https://evdb.nz/wltp

[Felix]

Do car manufacturers lie as badly about ice ranges?

Of course they do, everyone knows they do and they expect it. It's just that it's quoted in terms of MPG, rather than range.

85mpg one say say i should get on a run with the wifes DS3. Sitting at 70 returned 59 tops. I am more than happy with that as the last car was 36 ish.

[Taipan]

Do car manufacturers lie as badly about ice ranges?

Of course they do, everyone knows they do and they expect it. It's just that it's quoted in terms of MPG, rather than range.

Up to 40% off according to that test. To my mind that's pretty scandalous!

[Mr. Dazzle]

It's because "range" is actually quite a complicated term.

When i filled my diesel car up last week the dash said I had ~550 miles in the tank. I drove 40 miles to work and it then said I had 750 miles. I "gained" 200 miles of range while also driving 40...how does that work? Is that scandalous. If it had been the other way around, and the range had dropped from 700 to 500 (because I'd gone from motorway to urban, rather than vice versa) would I have grounds to complain?

Of course, its because the efficiency of the car changes enormously depending on the type of driving I'm doing. So it is with EVs, but to a smaller degree.

Trying to say a car has a "range of X" is almost a meaningless question. It depends massively on how you use it. But we're now in the place where people expect a single value from an EV manufacturer and equally want to say "aha! Gotcha!" when that enormously simplified value is wrong.

My car does a genuine 70mpg on the motorway. If the manufacture said it does that all the time you'd cry BS, and rightly so. Why do you expect different from another fuel/technology?

[Horse]

Do car manufacturers lie as badly about ice ranges?

Of course they do, everyone knows they do and they expect it. It's just that it's quoted in terms of MPG, rather than range.

Up to 40% off according to that test. To my mind that's pretty scandalous!

'Up to'? Hmm terrible. Scandalous even. Is that what you're saying? Agreed? OK, let's continue

One British company, Emissions Analytics, has tested over 800 vehicles over the last decade covering a wide range of makes, models and engine types. Its Equa Index also enables the company to forecast fuel economy for cars it hasn’t yet tested.

The company’s tests have found that the average car’s fuel economy is 25% lower than official NEDC numbers, with some vehicles as much as 40% below the laboratory figure.

Oh deary deary me ...

[Yorick]

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[hawkati]

Just found this thread...electric? Yes please. Why? A mate travels the country most days, around 270 miles a day. ... and has a tesla p85d variant. It's quite old now and has done about 175000 miles.
His contention is that range anxiety is suffered by people who don't have electric cars. He will stop once a day for half an hour which gives him 80% charge.

More to the point it has 720bhp. It's fucking insane. We have an arrangement where if I'm anywhere near Huddersfield he drinks and I drive so I've played with this thing enough times to know that without any shadow of doubt I'd seriously enjoy having one.

[Slenver]

Up to 40% off according to that test. To my mind that's pretty scandalous!

It's not scandalous though, and nobody's to blame, especially not the manufacturers as it's nothing to do with them. The test is a standard European one that they are legally obliged to do. Sure, it's not very accurate in the real world, same as the equivalent ICE economy one often isn't.

It's an imperfect world

The question really is whether the real-world range is enough for what you/whoever need it for.

[Mr. Dazzle]

It's certainly a PR challenge for the manufacturers though.

EVs are just well...different...than ICE cars in a lot of ways. Much of "stuff everybody knows" is just different, not necessarily better or worse, just different.

Range is a really obvious one. Everyone knows that cars get better economy "on a run". Except they don't. Piston engines get better economy on a run, it's a characteristic of that engine type, not cars in general.

And so on.