Zero emissions vehicles

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Grandad
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Zero emissions vehicles

Post by Grandad »

The taxi company we use have a fleet of Toyota Prius Hybrid cars and quite often when running on the battery we glide along almost silently.
My son is a Car Sales Exec at the local Hyundai Dealership. To run me to the eye clinic and take us to lunch yesterday he brought a Hyundai Ionic electric. This was my first experience of an all electric car and I was very impressed in particular with the acceleration. This is a good size family saloon.
9816


He tells me that they have a new model to be launched shortly which is hydrogen powered. Looks like we will see a gradual demise of the IC engine over future years as batteries and power units continue to be further developed.


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LovelyLadyLux
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Re: Zero emissions vehicles

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

Am thinking "IC" means 'internal combustion' which means 'gas.'

Few months ago I was lurking at the car dealerships (Toyota) and they told me that in the next couple of years all the cars brought in will be electric or something other than gas. There is a huge push here for electric cars but there is also equal concern that the present electric grid that we have would not accommodate charging X number of electric cars if everybody actually owned one. Nor are there very many places around here where you can charge your car which they said would be an overnight deal if you car was run down.

I have a Prius V which is a hybrid and I can drive around quite quietly vs some cars that really roar.

My concern and maybe it is an airy fairy concern easily addressed is the distances here. It is nothing to drive 100km just doing daily errands around here and if you are driving city to city or village to village you can be talking well into the thousands of kilometers.

The push is to safe the environment and I think that is a good thing but I'm also aware that IF we don't get going on upgrading the electric grid we're not going to be easily running electric cars here.
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Re: Zero emissions vehicles

Post by Grandad »

I agree LLL, there is still a long way to go before zero emissions cars can be a truly viable alternative to IC gas engines. The car my son used yesterday has a range on full charge of only about 130 miles (213 km) but the newest model does just over 200 miles. Charging times are:
30 minutes to 80% of full charge at a 50kw rapid charge point.
4hrs 25min to 100% at a 7kw pod point
12 hrs to 95% using a domestic power outlet

With that in mind, all electric cars can be little more than town cars at the present time. All manufacturers now have a hybrid in their range and in my opinion that is the style that should be much further developed with more emphasis on the electric drive and the IC engine being more of an emergency backup.

Most small gas cars now have a power unit of 1litre or less because they are so efficient, and most are only 3 cylinder. I think a small IC unit of 600/700cc could be sufficient as a backup with a further developed electric capability of 300 to 400 miles.

But who am I to advise on car design......can't even drive any more :lol: :lol:
:gg:
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Re: Zero emissions vehicles

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

What I'm driving now is a 2018 Prius V Hybrid. I wanted fuel efficiency, needed it to be able to go quite a few hundred kilometers/miles on a single tank of gas and protecting the environment as much as possible was a consideration as well. The car dealership guys told me that in the next few years the only NEW cars are going to be electric.

That is all well and good except we don't have the infrastructure here to support a 100,000 cars all being plugged in overnight and that was part of the specs on the few electric cars they had on the lot. Even living on the Island (we're long) takes you considerable distances into complete wilderness and if all you had to rely on was electric that just is NOT good enough to live here. There are times when we end up going a few days at a time without any electricity and I'm sure when it comes back on it really spikes usage up.
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Re: Zero emissions vehicles

Post by Ruby Slippers »

LLL, you mention power cuts for sometimes a couple of days. May I ask - how on earth do you manage with fridges and freezers that need constant power?
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Re: Zero emissions vehicles

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

If the electric goes off the most common practice especially with freezers is not to open them but after 3 days it gets iffy if meat is still ok.

Usually the electricity goes off in the winter so food from the fridge will go outside and stay cold there. Or, I have a couple of big Thermos brand coolers (but rectangle shaped boxes that you can put your frozen food into and then dump ice on top.

It all gets pretty tricky here once the power goes off.
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Re: Zero emissions vehicles

Post by Mad Dilys »

What are the running costs per mile petrol v electric?
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Re: Zero emissions vehicles

Post by Grandad »

Mad Dilys wrote:What are the running costs per mile petrol v electric?
MD, comparison is difficult but taking the car that my son used and working on 120 mile range on full charge: My tariff is £0.13/kwh so if it takes 12 hours to 80% charge from a domestic socket, that would equate to around £5.85 for a full charge. A similar size petrol car would use around 2.5 to 3 gallons at about £6 per gallon so the savings are considerable. The downside is the initial cost, that car costs about £28,000 and that is with a £3,500 government VAT incentive. And when needed, batteries are VERY expensive. This car is zero emissions.

There is also the problem of, as yet, insufficient rapid charge points at service stations......so, way to go yet.

I have no idea of a comparison for a hybrid like LLL's but that car runs mostly on petrol with the batteries being charged so that you can switch to battery when you have a good charge but I would guess they run at least 80% on petrol (or diesel) This car is reduced emissions.
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Re: Zero emissions vehicles

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

With the Prius V it costs about $50 to fill the tank. Our gas is $1.40 - $1.46/litre right now. I get 45 - 50 miles to a gallon (tank is 10 gallons) as it is all augmented with the battery. That is about as precise as I can get as I've never truly figured it all out.
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