RE: MINI Cooper E

[tstain]

kambites said:

I think an internal combustion powered car is about 20% efficient under normal driving conditions.

vag common rail tdi are allegedly 45% efficient.

Edited by tstain on Wednesday 17th December 00:55

[mikEsprit]

I think electric cars will replace high blood pressure as 'the silent killer.'

[nickpan]

mikEsprit said:

I think electric cars will replace high blood pressure as 'the silent killer.'

That cracked me up - good one.


Great article by the way - My BIGGEST concern was lack of engine noise...but if this mini sounds like something from Top Gun...i'm happy and ready to embrace the future.

[kambites]

tstain said:

kambites said:

I think an internal combustion powered car is about 20% efficient under normal driving conditions.

vag common rail tdi are allegedly 45% efficient.

Edited by tstain on Wednesday 17th December 00:55

The figure is 45% peak efficiency - that's at peak torque with wide open throttle. I don't think any car ever manages to get even half its theoretical peak efficiency under real driving conditions, because as soon as you back off the throttle, the efficiency plummets.

As I understand it, that's the fundamental difference - electric motors are something like 95% efficient all the time; internal combustion engines vary from rather under 50% down to well under 10% depending on the load they are under. Hence diesel electric trains - it's more efficient to have an internal combustion engine running at (somewhere near) peak efficiency driving a generator which drives an electric motor, than to have the engine directly driving the wheels.

Pure electric or ICE/electric hybrid drive systems are a fundamentally better solution, the problem is we don't really have the technology to make the efficiency benefits outweigh the extra weight.

Edited by kambites on Wednesday 17th December 08:24

[croyde]

What every article about the electric car fails to mention is how are you supposed to charge them overnight when the majority of city dwellers park on the street and hardly ever outside their own homes.

Plus this new Mini E is built in the UK then SHIPPED to Germany for the electric motor to be fitted. How green is that.

[gumsie]

nickpan said:

mikEsprit said:

I think electric cars will replace high blood pressure as 'the silent killer.'

That cracked me up - good one.


Great article by the way - My BIGGEST concern was lack of engine noise...but if this mini sounds like something from Top Gun...i'm happy and ready to embrace the future.

You know what, that's an astonishingly good point. I drive a Cooper Clubman D for work. GOD what a noisy uncomfortable blighter it is! For pleasure I have a CL500, (not silent-but very quiet). Now it had been two or so weeks since I'd driven it and I get in put the stereo on and drive off.
Approaching the junctions I was amazed to find how much difference it makes when you can't hear the road or the engine. You get used to it of course but It'd only take one misjudgement.........

The only good thing about leccy cars is they should all be able to be sold with a V8 soundtrack. Who knows maybe you could connect your car to your computer and use iTunes to change it's exhaust note from a V8 to a V12.

[dele]

Its a good concept but they really need to stop saying its saving the planet because where does that electricity come from?

But its brilliant for city commuters

[annodomini2]

kambites said:

... electric motors are something like 95% efficient all the time...

70-95%

With an average across a wide range of motors in the mid 80's.

It varies from motor to motor depending on type, the way in which torque is produced and the controller used.

[meggerman]

lets face it,

apart from a serious 1% of the population (and this wont change as its just how people think) the rest of us arent 'that' bothered i.e care enough to even pick up a piece of litter outside there own house.

we all want it for reduced driving cost, i.e plug it in at home and save money.

I will guarentee this will never reduce our motoring costs, if it does then a new cost wether it toll booths, GPS tracking, parking levies will be introduced.

so whats the point ? cars are already polluting tiny ammounts, progress is great but without cheaper costs you gain nothing and lose 600miles range (on some cars) and those that have a electric type range impreza, evo`s, flat 6, v8 engines lose the noise/vibration raw feel of driving a car thats so...errr electric.

ohh nad for that jet fighter noise, fold down the seats on a meganesport or other 2.0T hatchback = same thing

Edited by meggerman on Wednesday 17th December 11:22

[J111]

croyde said:

What every article about the electric car fails to mention is how are you supposed to charge them overnight when the majority of city dwellers park on the street and hardly ever outside their own homes.

Businesses build charge points in their car parks, use their electricity, and charge a small fee on top of the energy costs to repay the government backed loan for the infrastructure. This has been tried a few times, its most significant failing is that you need a critical mass of electrical vehicles to make charging points worthwhile, and you need charging points before people will buy the vehicles.

I'm not suggesting this is sensible or necessary, but the issue could be forced by introducing a business car park levy, avoided by providing a certain %age of spaces with electrical connections.

croyde said:

Plus this new Mini E is built in the UK then SHIPPED to Germany for the electric motor to be fitted. How green is that.

They're building them in penny numbers, production ill rationalise as the rate increases.

[Yugguy]

electric cars are bks until the batteries get smaller.

[slowDC5]

That's all well and fine but how much is it going to cost?

If the upfront cost is more than would be spent on a petrol version and 3-4 years of running costs then why bother?

[roland82]

lance1a said:

I drove one of the US cars (no 3) the other day. Apart from the weird on-off feeling and that the braking force of the motor takes getting used to, it goes really well! It is very quiet, but whines a bit under load. It is a bit of a pig to move about in small areas, like parking it on a hoist due to the previously mentioned on-off nature, but should be easy to get used to. These cars are not for sale to anyone, and will be leased only to temp owners, who will be from a select few. 10 000 buyers/drivers had signed up for the car in the US before almost any info on them was available.
95MPH restricted speed, and about 240 mile range at normal speeds.

Are they only leasing them because of the massive cost or because the batteries need burying after so much use? [like the tesla]

I was scratching around to find an actually price for this and the Honda clarity but its hard to find.

While range is so low these cars have a big problem.

[Warick Hunt]

The difference in efficiency between electric or petrol driven cars is insigificant on the grand scale. Most people already understand the pointlessness of electric car and are not interested in them unless there is a big saving in costs, which there isnt. Electric cars will never catch on until an alternative power source is found (not bloody Hydrogen), that wont be anytime soon. Until then electric will be just a gimick, long live the V8.

[c_seven]

I think cars like this could be the answer, i bet few of us actually enjoy our commute to work so why not have something low cost and green for everyday, as doing this will save some fuel to power our weekend toys for when we actually want to DRIVE. The lack of noise did bother me but i was thinking the other day that i used to like that whooshing noise bumper cars make and with 100% torque from 0 revs i bet there a giggle. Plus all the arguments about size and weight are only temporary, the technology will improve. As far as the power stations argument goes i think this is actually a benefit, the greenies are not going away and electric cars will move the onus onto the power companies who have the money to develop more eco-friendly power rather than the government penalising us with fiscal measures.

[lance1a]

Gm has the best idea with the new Volt, they sell you the car but lease you the battery, ostensibly so you can upgrade it from time to time, but it also ties the customer to the marque.

[fastgerman.com]

Well written article! I actually feel like I could have been in the passenger seat.

It's all about hydrogen though as Honda are doing.

[eddie1980]

3hours at 48A

Yesh, most domestic supplies are 60/100A so if your on a 60A feed dont what ever you do try charging the car and Boiling the kettle!!

[RobCrezz]

fastgerman.com said:

It's all about hydrogen though as Honda are doing.

I agree, electric motors will be the future, but the electric will come from hydrogen fuel cells.
Batterys are just too heavy and take too long to charge.

[NiallOswald]

An interesting and well-written article. I'll just point out that saying 'a direct current of 380 volts' doesn't make a lot of sense. Current is measured in amps, oddly enough 380v is a measure of voltage

AlpineWhite said:

The wider public will probably miss the fact that they're plugging it into the end of a coal power station anyway.

An electric car* running on mains electricity uses approximately 1/4 the energy of a typical petrol-powered car (by virtue of higher efficiency and lower energy demand due mainly to the use of regenerative braking) which corresponds to approx 100g/km of CO2 with our current electricity generation mix (i.e. mostly fossil fuels). The flipside of your point is that if electricity generation gets cleaner, so does the car.

• G-Wiz, Tesla or anything in between - they're pretty much all in the region of 10-20 kWh/100km and our current electricity mix produces about 500g/kWh giving 50-100g/km which compares pretty well to the current average of ~180g/km for new cars.

BigLepton said:

Do you have any sources to back that up? It's not that I don't believe you, it's just there is a lot of assumption and green propaganda floating around and I'd like to see some actual figures rather than general theories.

If you want numbers, try here - http://www.withouthotair.com/download.html Chapters 3, 20 and 'technical chapter A' deal with cars.

SystemParanoia said:

No idea why theyre using Lithium-ion batteries when Lithium-polomer batteries are atleast x3 times lighter, and possible as powerful?

just look at the R/C racing scene, its been transformed by these batteries

I think you're confused here. Lithium Polymer batteries are a type of lithium-ion batteries. The energy density (Wh/kg, Wh/L) is slightly better than traditional 'prismatic' cells as used in laptop batteries. Lithium-ion/LiPo batteries *do* offer around 3 times the energy density of NiMh which is what the Prius uses, and RC cars used previously.

The main reason that Tesla, ACP etc are using banks of laptop cells is that because of the volumes in that market, the small cells have been optimised and are available cheaply in volume. Ideally you'd use 100 big 3.8v cells to give 380v (think of the volume of inert packaging compared to the volume of active material), not 5000 small cells, but there's no volume market (yet) for them so they're not available at sensible prices.

Unsurprisingly there's a lot of research effort going into improving battery technology with anywhere from 3- to 10-fold improvements in capacity predicted.