Is electric really the answer

[Mark Blanchard]

$29,000 to replace car batteries in a Chevy Volt.  

[Rambo]

I could buy 3 good M100 Elan's or a LE Evora for that price FFS 😲

[exeterjeep]

I wonder if the quote was accepted, or if the car has now destined for the scrap yard. Can't tell how old the car is.

I wonder what Lotus Evija, Electre batteries will cost?

[pete]

Or McLaren p1

[Mark Blanchard]

That's the problem, when the batteries die after 7 years of use, the battery replacement costs more than the value of the car, so the car is scrap.

Also a mate of mine works in the car battery industry, he said the batteries will degrade over time and the car's range will go down.

So a car has a range of 300 miles when new, 5 years late it's got a range of 180 miles.

There is talk of future battery tech improving and lasting longer.  But this is not the case at the moment.

[Bibs]

This is why I leased mine and didn't buy it! I'm not far off of the end of the lease and asked about renewing but the price doubles even though it'll be an older car, prices have gone through the roof! 

[ChrisJ]

On leases - my Mazda6 is £187/month. Same car, spec. lease co etc. is now £439/month, as you say, gone through the roof

[ramjet]

If an EV’s battery is VIN locked, that would knock the idea of despicable battery packs on the head, wouldn’t it?

[Kimbers]

1 hour ago, Mark Blanchard said:

That's the problem, when the batteries die after 7 years of use, the battery replacement costs more than the value of the car, so the car is scrap.

Also a mate of mine works in the car battery industry, he said the batteries will degrade over time and the car's range will go down.

So a car has a range of 300 miles when new, 5 years late it's got a range of 180 miles.

There is talk of future battery tech improving and lasting longer.  But this is not the case at the moment.

Signs people don't read Tonys posts

I posted a while ago about this in a large post (prob the reason you didn't read it @Mark Blanchard ) 

The Nissan Leaf was the first "Major Production EV" and these are now 7-12 years old. To say you won't find a 10-12 year old one with any useable mileage is an understatement.

There are numerous professional reports published about these issues, which many have been supressed to further progress certain agenda's but heres the crux of the matter and a really good report:

https://www.nimblefins.co.uk/study-real-life-nissan-leaf-battery-deterioration

Owners who complained were told it still "worked" and hadn't failed and it was the "State of Health" warranty, not full warranty which covers failure of the parts (8 year) so 5 years 60k miles only. 
Car was valued at £6-8000 (7-5 years old), Battery Pack was £8700.
Even if you could get them to agree there is an 18 month backlog of for battery packs. 

There is no doubt in my mind that Electric by way of batteries is a stop gap. Hydrogen, IMHO is the only way to go. Not only on usability but on the Infrastructure and power generation front. We already have part of the infrastructure (garages, services etc). They will need updated storage due to the pressure needed to store Hydrogen, but you would use it like a fuel pump and it takes as long as fuel to fill up instead of 45 mins for electric (minimum). But currently this agenda is being driven by big companies and governments, the latter of which don't know their arse from their elbows when talking automotive technology and usability and just pump out those "Buzz words". 

[Painterdave]

Just need to keep it in the tank as its so fine it seeps out 

[ChrisJ]

Just picked up this today, Kia Niro HEV - best of both worlds carries it's charger around with it. Around town it drops in and out of EV mode very smoothly.

[exeterjeep]

6 hours ago, Kimbers said:

There is no doubt in my mind that Electric by way of batteries is a stop gap. Hydrogen, IMHO is the only way to go.

BMW starts hydrogen fuel cell vehicle production Munich

https://www.am-online.com/news/manufacturer/2022/09/02/bmw-starts-hydrogen-fuel-cell-vehicle-production-munich

says...

The premium German car maker has revealed that it is initially building a small fleet of iX5 Hydrogen SUVs to be used for global testing and demonstration purposes, following tests of the X5-based i Hydrogen Next prototype.

[ChrisJ]

Only 14 hydrogen filling stations i the UK - been the same number for at least 2 years.

Hydrogen Stations in UK United Kingdom Map and List (glpautogas.info)

 

[TAR]

2 hours ago, ChrisJ said:

Kia Niro HEV

Is it just me or does the back end look a little bit odd?

I guess it could just be the angle of the camera?

 

[ChrisJ]

There's another car behind it that sort of merges in with it.

[MPx]

11 hours ago, Mark Blanchard said:

That's the problem, when the batteries die after 7 years of use,...

9 hours ago, Kimbers said:

I posted a while ago about this in a large post 

 

You may of course be proven right...but I suspect you're out of date by a few years.  There are endless posts online by the gloom and doom anti electric types, about batteries losing range, batteries failing after 7 or 8 years, the way you have to manage your charging between 20 and 80% or you kill battery life, etc, etc.   Like nearly all of us I have very limited personal experience.  We've had our i3 for just over 4 years.  When new it did something just over 130 miles in the summer on a full charge and about 100 in winter.  At over 4 years old it does just over 130 miles in summer and about 100 in winter.  ie Absolutely no change whatsoever.  Our typical charging regime is : use the car for a few days typically battery goes down to 40 or 50% then charge to 100%.  Once or twice a month the car will get used on (say) an 80 or 90 mile round trip - down to 20% or less.  Then charge it back to 100%.  That's it.  Nothing clever.  Well the only "clever" bit is using a timer to make the charge start at the start of our cheap overnight rate.  I'm still open minded about whether the car will be worthless at 8 or 10 years because the battery degrades badly.  It may happen, but current signs are that we will be fine for much longer.  Even if it does die and becomes worthless at 10, it will have cost me less than £3k/year depreciation.  That seems reasonable in automotive terms.  Honest - I'm really not worried about the batteries at all.

[Rambo]

Hi Mike. Interesting on your comments re. your car battery because it reflects my experience with bike batteries.

Do you find that it takes longer to charge back up from the 40/50% to full capacity? Two years down the line my gut feel is it's taking longer but I haven't actually measured it.

My thoughts about these e cars...... is anyone going to purchase a 2nd hand car at 7-10 years old when still on the original battery? That would be a punt too far for me 🤔

Edited September 3, 2022 by Rambo
sp.

[comem47]

as Bibs said lease....it's their problem

[AK70]

Battery degradation is not a real problem, at least for Tesla. Like your Iphone leave it plugged in if you don’t drive and the software manages the battery…

But I still enjoy my Lotus more 😉

[Rambo]

The only electric vehicle I'll be getting, other than my bike, will be a mobility scooter. Lotus BRG with yellow wheels and go faster stripes 😉

[MPx]

9 hours ago, Rambo said:

Hi Mike. Interesting on your comments re. your car battery because it reflects my experience with bike batteries.

Do you find that it takes longer to charge back up from the 40/50% to full capacity? Two years down the line my gut feel is it's taking longer but I haven't actually measured it.

My thoughts about these e cars...... is anyone going to purchase a 2nd hand car at 7-10 years old when still on the original battery? That would be a punt too far for me 🤔

Interesting thought Mark.  I have no idea!  I plug it in when it needs a charge and unplug it the next morning when its done.  There may be something in what you say as it sometimes doesn't finish until later than I expect (notifies us on our phones)...but I'm only likely to actually investigate if its not ready when I want it for some reason!  Not happened yet.

[pete]

is this the first electric classic car

https://www.pistonheads.com/buy/listing/13817697

[scotty435]

Yes it probably could be.

[Barrykearley]

Can’t help but feel that this has been overlooked

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/REVAi

[RobinB5]

Hydrogen is really attractive from an energy density perspective (by mass), not so much by volume. Compared to petrol, you get about 3 times more energy but you need ~1000 times more volume to store the same amount of energy. Even when in liquid form, you'd still need ~4 times the volume. However the overall efficiency of hydrogen fuel cell energy conversion (tank to wheels) is about twice that of internal combustion systems. It's all rather complex to balance these competing factors, especially when you consider all the other stuff such as need or not of a battery, the emissions, efficiency of 'well to tank', infrastructure costs, sustainability etc.  Either way, cryogenic hydrogen propulsion will be making its way into the aerospace industry, motivated by emissions and benefiting from propulsion efficiency I believe.