We had the answer many years ago. Hardly anyone bought one…

A modern version would be ace – a small capacity 4 cylinder motorbike engine would make them go faster than you’d want to drive them and acceleration would be stunning.

Conveniently located? Could be an interesting bit of incentivising for the lazy there (assuming you don’t just get the entitled parking normal cars in them as I’d imagine happening in the UK).

e-bikes cover a lot of that ground (including lack of requirement for a licence!) I reckon the weather issue is a bigger one than most people make out, so presumably you want something faster (and requiring a licence)?

Had my first go on an e-bike a few days ago, from what I’ve read about them on here I suspect the power delivery wasn’t typical for what most people are discussing – it was a belt drive single speed, relatively high geared so your legs wouldn’t be spinning madly at 15mph. Pedalling seemed to just be a means of turning the motor on, with very little effort required to whizz off, it was quite strange! Exactly the sort of thing I can imagine being ideal for commuting without having to put much effort in.

Cycling would be great if you could roll onto a long distance or local train, stick your bike in a slot and then enjoy the trip, and hop off the other end for a few minutes of easy cycling to get to the door.

A huge number of current car journeys are not long distance and could potentially be replaced by cycling. If Copenhagen can achieve 36%, I bet UK cities have scope to get a lot more people cycling.

e-bikes cover a lot of that ground (including lack of requirement for a licence!) I reckon the weather issue is a bigger one than most people make out, so presumably you want something faster (and requiring a licence)?

My wife would be a good example of needing what I’m proposing. She actually has an Ebike at the moment she has been using to go to a new job. It’s about 2.5 miles away but about 100m difference in height at a location where parking is a nightmare. She is no cyclist and has no wish to be a cyclist but an E bike has ticked all the boxes. She goes to work in a nice dress and hair straightened ready to walk straight into a meeting. It’s currently a perfect situation. But……just thinking ahead to the winter parking will still be a nightmare and on a rank winters day with rain teeming down I just don’t think she would be prepared to get suited and booted at work and full waterproofs still don’t really cut it. An electric covered moped might just keep her out of a car.

Get her some studded tyres for the snow and ice days.

In other news Porsche has to recall their diesel Cayennes on the orders of the German trnasport ministry. More significantly he’s withdrawn type approval for the vehicles as they’ve found a cheat programme in the software.

Crush’em I say. 8)

a link in a foreign language so don’t click if you don’t read French.

And here’s Zoé earlier doing her best to crash the French grid and failing:

I just don’t think she would be prepared to get suited and booted at work and full waterproofs still don’t really cut it.

Serious suggestion – cape?

Serious suggestion – cape?

I’m up for all suggestions! Cape’s not a bad shout actually. Bike is a sit up and beg dutch bike style thing with guards and skirt guards, alfine and chain guard. I reckon a cape, maybe over trousers and short wellies (with her work shoes at work) should make her pretty weather proof in full office clobber.

I’d be prepared to look skanky but she has standards! It would be interesting to see what the lovely ladies of Copenhagen and Amsterdam wear in the winter but they don’t have to cope with the splash for passing cars in quite the same way.

edit – the dutch do do rain gear

I’d just say on the wet days wear normal trousers and some wellies. Doesn’t sound like she’d be out that long so wellies would probably work. Capes are good and not sweaty.

I used to commute 33km by bike and had to be in a management meeting at 8:00. The only strategy that worked on rainy days was a complete set of dry clothes and a towel in an Ortlieb pannier. And arriving in time for a sponge off and change.

At that distance I’d agree. But for 2.5km on an ebike it’d be different.

Me too. The 30km and a shower variant.

I think in addition to just the change to electricity, there needs to be an equally seismic shift in the physical device used to move around in ( as already discussed here ) that is away from the heavy box car at the moment.

I cant help but think that some super-light transport is going to have to be the future too. Over the years we have bundled 100’s of Kgs onto cars … perhaps its time to strip them right back to be super thin skin framework efforts. Lower weight, less power required.

Worth noting that because EVs have bi-directional powertrains (able to recapture KE) vehicle mass is actually not that important if you are considering minimising energy consumption! In fact, minimising DRAG (aerodynamic and rolling friction) is far, far more important.

In conjunction to that, as current chemical energy storage (batteries) have a low energy density, by the time you’ve added enough to them to get a sensible range, you automatically have a high power capability (so you can easily accelerate and deccelerate a heavy car). This really is why a Tesla is so fast, ie, it by the time they’ve stuffed in a massive battery to get long range, the huge power bit comes almost for free! (ok, a small amount of extra cost in power silicon and conductors/cables, but certainly no biggy at low manufacturing volumes)

molgrips – Member
Cycling would be great if you could roll onto a long distance or local train, stick your bike in a slot and then enjoy the trip, and hop off the other end for a few minutes of easy cycling to get to the door.

It’s not quite that good though yet is it?
It was once. We used to be able to put our bikes in the guards van of the train. There was a small charge, but it was dead handy.

The irony was it was the same for a bicycle as for a motorbike if I remember right.

It would be interesting to see what the lovely ladies of Copenhagen and Amsterdam wear in the winter

Here you go:
http://www.copenhagencyclechic.com/2010/11/cycle-chic-guide-10-cycling-in-winter.html?m=1

Much has been made of the idea of having ‘filling stations’ for EV’s, like we have for IC vehicles, but the problem on busy routes like the M4/M5/A30, which I use a lot, is that with so many vehicles probably travelling a fair distance and needing charging, it’s not unlikely that with even fast charging taking thirty minutes or so the entire car park would need charging facilities installed to cope with the demand at busy periods.
It been mentioned the possibility of having quick-swap battery packs, but most EV’s have the batteries spread right across the floor pan of the car, they’re basically a shit-load of 18650 batteries as used in bigger flashlights all connected together, to spread the weight evenly along the car.
Data that Tesla accidentally leaked seems to indicate that the Tesla 3 that’s being released today will be able to do 316 miles on a full charge, which is pretty good for a car smaller than the P and X series cars, but still a lot less than the 500+ miles I can get from a full tank in my Octavia.
However, this popped up on Flipboard yesterday: https://thenextweb.com/tech/2017/07/28/scientists-are-creating-a-cell-phone-battery-that-charges-instantly/#.tnw_c05LRa0c
This could be the game-changer in the next five-ten years.

Charging an 85kWh battery from flat in 10ms would need a 30GW charger I think. Did I get my orders of magnitude right?
I see a problem with that.

Even assuming it’s half full and you want to do it in 10 minutes is 250kW. That’s the peak power of a 100-200 property housing estate (more like 200 on a modern estate with gas heat and no EVs).

Charging an 85kWh battery from flat in 10ms would need a 30GW charger I think. Did I get my orders of magnitude right?

No, it would need one point twenty one jiggawatts.

No, it would need one point twenty one jiggawatts.

😀

Though to be fair you would make a hell of a saving on roads.

Teslas clearly need more power than DeLoreans

igm – Member

Teslas clearly need more power than DeLoreans

Pretty much everything needs more power than a delorean, they made 130bhp at the crank. You know how it took basically forever in the film to reach 88mph, and it felt a bit daft? The manual Delorean, even without the weight of the time travel kit, ran a quarter mile in 16.5 seconds at 85mph.

The reason you need lots of petrol stations is because:

1) You CAN’T fill up at home

and

2) Because of 1, you wait till it’s pretty much empty before you fill it up

With an EV, neither of those is true. Every time i unlock my car in the morning it’s “full”, so for most people who drive a small number of miles per day, no need to fill up away from home.
I’ve done nearly 10kmiles in my i3 since last September, and so far i’ve never used a charger that wasn’t bolted to the side of my garage!

Seriously, you only need to use an external charger if you’re doing a single day journey beyond the range of your EV, which is rapidly approaching 200miles for typical EVs (300 if you can afford a Tesla).

So, i ask you, count the number of days you have driven more than 200 miles in the last year? of course, some people will do this, but i bet for the vast majority of you, it’ll be less than 5 days a year or similar tiny number…….

maxtorque

So, i ask you,

Well, you asked for it…….

Maxtorque is about right. For the same reason fast chargers are rarely needed.
The motorway journeys, holiday trip, etc is an issue but we need not to come up with a 365 day solution for a 5 day issue.
Travelling salesmen will of course need a 365 day solution.

and so far i’ve never used a charger that wasn’t bolted to the side of my garage!

Count the number of garages in the following photo:-

The solution needs to have a broader appeal that Mr&Mrs Jones of Surbiton in their middle class detached Barratt home with off street parking and garage.

Convert – that will be sorted. Not a worry long term.

I’m doing a lot less driving than I used to, but have driven to somewhere over 100 miles away 10 times this year so far that I can remember. Because it’s not 200 miles in a day, it’s anywhere over 100 miles away which will require you to need an external charger (only a couple of those trips were there and back in a day). I suspect there are plenty of trips being taken to places over 100 miles away.

Nor does the relatively limited proportion of journeys of that length reduce the need for external recharging stations. My two most recent trips were to North Wales and the Lakes and in both cases encountered car parks which were completely full. I’m betting that the vast majority of people parking there had travelled over 100 miles to get there.

How?

So convert – we are all aware of the problems. What should the solutions be?

Seriously, you only need to use an external charger if you’re doing a single day journey beyond the range of your EV, which is rapidly approaching 200miles for typical EVs

Nissan claim “up to” 155 miles for the Leaf.

Others say 90 miles real world range in winter.

https://www.topgear.com/car-reviews/nissan/leaf/tekna-5dr-auto/first-drive-0

So with a 40 mile commute I’d be dangerously close to empty without finding somewhere to charge it every day. Certainly every second day would need a charge.

irc

Nissan claim “up to” 155 miles for the Leaf.

Others say 90 miles real world range in winter.

Does that include driving enthusiastically? I heard somewhere that if you’re really caning it you can drop a Tesla’s range down to 25/30 miles.

Does that include driving enthusiastically?

Well if a 9mph average counts then yes.

Another way to look at the refueling situation is I do 10k miles per year. Charging a Leaf after (a generous) 100 miles would mean a charge 100 times per year. or once every 3.6 days.

I can run my Octavia to 400 miles before getting fuel so 25 fuel ups a year.

I’m guessing a charge up might take much longer than a fuel up. A lot of inconvenience for buying a more expensive car which is only cheaper to run because the fuel (for now) has minimal tax on it.

As I’ve said before the only way battery cars will work is with swappable batteries, and that means all manufacturers agreeing on what the power cell should look like and where it should fit in the car.

I’m not convinced electric is the future

That might be the only way they’ll fit into our current usage patterns. But if we can think just slightly differently we might start to get somewhere.

FunkyDunc – Member

As I’ve said before the only way battery cars will work is with swappable batteries,

Or if the real world range meets or exceeds what you can safely/reasonably drive in a day.

aracer – Member

igm » Convert – that will be sorted.

How?[/quote]

Good question.

That was why I spent Wednesday in the BEIS conference centre, that’s why I will be with the Energy Systems Catapult and Nissan on Tuesday.

Charge at work, charge in every car park, filling stations, battery swaps, street lights with charge sockets – all been talked about, not all practical.

Part of it depends on where you put the meter and the intelligent bit of the charger control – I favour in car, some others favour on street.

In short, it’s not a short answer, but it will keep me employed for a few years yet.

Moly has an interesting point.

I think I already pointed out how current EVs (see what I did there) look like ICE cars with the tank and engine swapped for batteries and motor. Bit like early mobiles looked like landlines without a wire.

Now look at mobiles. Cars will change to a similar degree.

irc – you’re thinking about fuelling your EV like you do your ICE. Provided we go with slow charging for the vast majority of charges it won’t be a problem the vast majority of the time. Strangely fast charging will be more of an inconvenience.