I was watching one of them 999 shows on sky sorry can't remember the name, there was an electric car that had a crash and the ambulance and police said they can't do anything as the car could be live :shock: they had to wait for the fire crew to turn up before they could get the guy out to see if he was ok

One of my customers an indian chap has a battery tesla car.. very smart. The whole car shell is the battery. Takes him less than 2 minutes to connect and disconnect the lead as he has a charging point on his garage wall ...so less time than standing at a petrol pump. Says its not much different to remembering to fill up with petrol. Possibly the only downside is if you suddenly find you have to do along journey...but he has topped up at motorway service stations..

Well well, so LOndoners are already onto it. �1000 a conversion . Wow that means the electric cars COULD really take off , and if they do, the NG definitely wont be ready to deal with the demand .

Bit worrying the point about the emergency services feeling worried about dealing with an 'electric ' crash . Hopefully it was a one off particularly awkwardly damaged car.

Hydrogen is starting to take off in a few places but not the UK because of no infrastructure.

As you quite rightly say, battery and super-capacitor technology just doesn't entirely add up, although using mega-battery and mega-capacitors at the recharging station would help.

BMW (I think?) are bringing out a battery/hydrogen hybrid car which makes more sense, the fuel cell can be smaller and cheaper because it doesn't need to cope with large surge requirements. Much better than petrol/battery hybrids as only one engine(motor) needed and its carbon free.

BMW are also bringing out a wireless charging plate you park your car over for an option on their electric cars iirc.

There is a small chance we could even return to carbon technology in effectively a closed loop, great advances are being made in splitting carbon dioxide. I've not checked the energy density compared to water.

my new car

I hope that timber is from sustainable forests

I think the bottom line is that batteries are simply not good enough for an all-battery car. The energy density - after over 150 years of battery development - remains at about 1 to 2% that of a tank of fuel. There seems little realistic prospect of a 'breakthrough' which will change this in the near future.

Add to this the fact that they take ages to charge, and they become even less attractive.

In this country, it is worth remembering that well over half the population do not live in houses with garages or even carports or space where a car can be plugged in overnight, and park on the street This means a search for a charging point near your home will be necessary, and given that many have difficulty in even parking near their homes, this makes them a no-no for over half the population.

None of this has been lost to the punters. Despite a �5,000 bribe to buy them, and freedom from congestion charges and road tax, the take up outside London is miniscule.

The use of smaller batteries (or supercapacitors) in hybrids seems a better idea. They can take advantage of electric power in slow-moving city traffic where petrol or diesel is inefficient, and greatly improve overall power consumption. These are more complicated than a conventional car which must reduce their reliability to some extent, but ultimately they are fossil fuelled.

I think there are two problems in a crash situation. One is an electric shock, but the other is the possibility of the battery packs going up in flames. Lithium batteries have a tendency to do this if they are short-circuited, (or overcharged) and are equipped with electronics to prevent this. In a crash situation, however, it is possible that this will be damaged and will not work. Once ignited, they burn very fiercely and adding water to exposed lithium metal actually helps the fire due to the release of lithium and further heat being produced.

Hydrogen filling stations are as rare as hen's teeth, but I noticed one - I think it's on the M1 near Sheffield - that uses a wind turbine to provide the power to electrolyse water to produce the hydrogen! Possibly a bit of a gimmick, I don't suppose it can produce enough to supply many cars but as there are so few hydrogen vehicles around I suppose that doesn't matter much.

This all sounds very expensive ! I might go for the same as Assassin in due course. Thanks for all the info everyone.

The council had an electric vehicle at least 12 yrs ago, probably a lot more. It had a battery in the boot of the van.

My son did a trial for a couple of days on one only about 6 weeks ago. He liked it, and aske d if I could get a charging point put on my drive (as it's possible to have them put anywhere and he doesn't have a drive) I didn't much see the point of that, as it would lead to more stress if it needs charging in a morning before work etc. One would have to be highly organised to deal with all this. Charge morning or night for the next day.
Anyway, I declined his suggestion as all I could envisage was my electricity bills soaring out of all recognition. Someone has to pay for it !

Well, milk floats were electric when such things existed. I think the idea was that they were quiet when milk was delivered in the early morning. Sadly, the milk crates then were made of steel wire, and with glass bottles in them they made a noise that would waken the dead!

Does anyone recall these?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv3LNNwSx6M

I was brought up in South Wales and recall these monsters used to transport tar by road from a local tar manufacturing plant. They were modified to carry a large tank of the stuff, and the waste steam went through pipes in the tank to keep the tar liquid. They were capable of a fair turn of speed, too, as I recall.

How much current is drawn through charging an electric car?

Here some ideas on clean energy, hope you like them ...

They're awesome!

love it

Wirral council had a go down by Pacific Road..they installed the slots in the road for scaletrix