RE: Ferrari Says 'No' To Electric Cars...

[PaulK]

Well I think Ferrari are right at the moment, electric cars are not an alternative for the majority of people i.e who have to travel more than around 50 real world miles. I personally think they are way to expensive and the battery technology is just not there. If it ever does get to the situation were you can charge one get 300 miles or so and recharge in an hour then I may be interested until then there should be enough fuel in the world for my V8 Cerbera

[thinfourth2]

PaulK said:

Well I think Ferrari are right at the moment, electric cars are not an alternative for the majority of people

Lets be honest a Ferrari isn't really a viable alternative for the majority of people either

[Mr Gear]

PaulK said:

Well I think Ferrari are right at the moment, electric cars are not an alternative for the majority of people i.e who have to travel more than around 50 real world miles. I personally think they are way to expensive and the battery technology is just not there. If it ever does get to the situation were you can charge one get 300 miles or so and recharge in an hour then I may be interested until then there should be enough fuel in the world for my V8 Cerbera

For the price of a brand-new Ferrari, you could have two Teslas. They will do 300+ miles. Wanna buy one?

Standard Tesla does 313 miles: http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10384984-54.html

[thinfourth2]

Mr Gear said:

For the price of a brand-new Ferrari, you could have two Teslas. They will do 300+ miles. Wanna buy one?

Standard Tesla does 313 miles: http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10384984-54.html

no thanks not possible it only has a range of 50 miles

Mr clarkson told me

[rockymount]

kotafey said :

|

Mmmmmm... it looks quite tasty in salad green. Not sure I've ever seen one in that colour

Yep, I understand it’s from their Spring Onion 2012 colour range, where there will also be Rosso Red Tomato, Nero Black Bean and a Giallo Yellow Bell Pepper colours – not sure about a “You’ve Been Tangoed” Sicilian Mandarin Orange though !

I’d have also thought Ferrari would have gone for Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS) first before they start looking at Hydrogen and other highly flammable gas (e.g. Ferrari passenger methane recovery anyone? ) systems. I mean when you consider a Ferrari Enzo can decelerate from 100 to 0 mph in a stonking 4 secs !!! http://www.roadandtrack.com/tests/comparison/power...

there’s an awful lot of energy (and brown stuff) recovery to be had

[myhandle]

I am a huge, huge fan of Ferrari's V8s and V12s. It would be a great shame for them to abandon these engines.
That said, I do not have a problem with electric sports cars made by other brands. Just this morning I drove a Tesla Roadster S. It is really good fun. It handles well, is nicely finished, and is genuinely fun to drive - no ifs or buts here, it is a fun car to drive.
A good garage would contain a 430 Scuderia for track days, a 599 for long distance journeys, and a Tesla Roadster S for short trips near home. It really is that impressive - if you try one you will soon see what I mean.

[Gorbyrev]

thinfourth2 said:

yes but that makes a "vrooom" noise and it has been scientifically proved that anything that makes a "vrooom" noise cannot be enviormentally friendly

Very true - but you never know, we might sneak one past. Come to think of it aren't there plans to but compulsory "vroom" in electrics to reduce the hazard of silent vehicle vs pedestrian?

[Gorbyrev]

Mr Gear said:

In all seriousness, I posed this question to a GM fuel cell engineer, and he said "Hydrogen internal combustion engines are a great way to waste hydrogen."

Fuel cells are 10x more efficient at turning hydrogen into motive power, which is why BMW and Mazda have gone quiet on the subject and are working on electric cars instead, knowing they can substitute a fuel cell for a battery should the technology ever truly come on-line.

Didn't know that - thanks for the info. What are the efficiency figures for a fuel cell anyway?

[Mr Gear]

Gorbyrev said:

Didn't know that - thanks for the info. What are the efficiency figures for a fuel cell anyway?

I don't know the answer to that, but someone else might.

Wiki says: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell#Theoretical...

[thinfourth2]

Gorbyrev said:

Very true - but you never know, we might sneak one past. Come to think of it aren't there plans to but compulsory "vroom" in electrics to reduce the hazard of silent vehicle vs pedestrian?

Yes electric cars the answer to getting rid of traffic noise and some EU halfbrain has decided the things have to make a noise

Just fk off i don't want synthetic V12s coming from a chav in his EV motablilty shopping trolley. The only noise i want to hear is the hollow thump as darwin removes another headphone wearing idiot from the genepool

[XitUp]

Gorbyrev said:

One to add to the PH sticky. Hydrogen cars may be electric if they use hydrogen to power a fuel cell that powers an electric motor. However, you can use hydrogen as a straight combustible fuel as BMW and Mazda have done. About 70% of the combustible energy of standard unleaded as I remember with all the flexibility of current technology for tuning, forced induction etc. A hydrogen M5 might still have a twin turbo V8 for example. The exciting developments are ones that are developing the technology to take hydrogen straight from the atmosphere. So hydrogen infrastructure could support electric and internal combustion powerplants.

Edited by Gorbyrev on Friday 19th August 09:49

5.7mj/ltr compared to 34 for petrol. A little bit less than 70%.
Why do you think the Hydrogen 7 series only gets about a third of the mpg the petrol one does while making less power.

McTaffity said:

XitUp said:

1. Hydrogen fuel cell cars ARE electric cars.
2. Where does the hydrogen come from?
3. Have you seen how inefficient they are?


Please PH, can we have a sticky thread explaining all this to the simple people that can be linked into any thread that mentions electric cars?

1. Yes, they both have an electric motor, but you do understand that the technology is fundamentally different, and when people talk about Fuel Cells and Electric cars they are talking about two different things?
2. Er... it's the most common material in the Universe. A much better question in this case would be where does the electricity for a conventional electric car come from? The technology to extract Hydrogen may not be perfect at the moment, but nor is battery design. Also, Hydrogen is the way to go long, long term (it's never going to run out), so let's concentrate on that now.
3. As opposed to what? A conventional electric car? (See how I've put "conventional" before "electric car"? - that's for your benefit).

I'm all for having a "sticky thread explaining all this to the simple people that can be linked into any thread that mentions electric cars" as long as you promise to read it.

1. Yes, I understand the technology is different. Fuel cell cars still have batteries.
2. LoL, it is indeed the most common element in the universe. Sadly, most of it on earth is tied up to Os. Which to you propose, splitting water (very inefficient) or a big pipeline to the sun?
3. Yes.

As others have said, this isn't a dig at you. It's a dig at the same old argument that we have to go over in every thread that mentions an electric car. Thanks for listening.

[JuniorJet]

This is what makes Ferrari the "best" car company in the world.

The attitude.

/suck on this


If you think about it, electric powered cars have no CO2... but how do you think they make the majority of electricity in the world? *cough* big smokey power plants *cough*

Also have you ever left a lithium battery for a while and noticed how it doesn't hold it's charge after a while?

This is NOT the way forward.

Edited by JuniorJet on Friday 19th August 19:13

[XitUp]

But electricity CAN come from other sources. Petrol can not.

Battery tech improves over time.

[bobberz]

thinfourth2 said:

Gorbyrev said:

Very true - but you never know, we might sneak one past. Come to think of it aren't there plans to but compulsory "vroom" in electrics to reduce the hazard of silent vehicle vs pedestrian?

Yes electric cars the answer to getting rid of traffic noise and some EU halfbrain has decided the things have to make a noise

Just fk off i don't want synthetic V12s coming from a chav in his EV motablilty shopping trolley. The only noise i want to hear is the hollow thump as darwin removes another headphone wearing idiot from the genepool

Even if all cars were electric, the roads wouldn't be much quiter anyway. All the Civics/Accords/Camrys/Corollas are pretty much as quiet as an electric car, it's the tyre/road noise that you hear.
Even worse in the US when everybody has lifted Jeeps with 36" tyres, and/or Escalades and the like rolling on 24" wheels with low profile run flats.

[paranoid airbag]

JuniorJet said:

If you think about it, electric powered cars have no CO2... but how do you think they make the majority of electricity in the world? *cough* big smokey power plants *cough*

Also have you ever left a lithium battery for a while and noticed how it doesn't hold it's charge after a while?

Edited by JuniorJet on Friday 19th August 19:13

:sigh: this has been dealt with many, many times, both here and elsewhere. If you want to find out how EV's compare to normal cars when taking the current performance of the national grid into account, search the internet/this forum/do your own damn calculations if necessary, it's not hard. If you want to sound clever, find something to say that Clarkson hasn't.

btw, petrol tanks also self-discharge over time, as will any form of stored energy over time.

[johnpeat]

paranoid airbag said:

:sigh: this has been dealt with many, many times, both here and elsewhere. If you want to find out how EV's compare to normal cars when taking the current performance of the national grid into account, search the internet/this forum/do your own damn calculations if necessary, it's not hard. If you want to sound clever, find something to say that Clarkson hasn't.

His point is a fair one - that describing an electric car as 'zero CO2 emitting' is a lie - whether it results in more or less is academic to that, the power it uses is almost certainly generated in a way which emits CO2 (in a way far, far less controlled than it is in cars!!)

paranoid airbag said:

btw, petrol tanks also self-discharge over time, as will any form of stored energy over time.

The whole issue of batteries in electric cars is a smokescreen - manufacturers claim they 'don't know' how long they'll last (bullst) or how much they'll cost to replace (they could tell you how much it would cost now but you'd st yourself).

Electric car batteries are IDENTICAL to laptop batteries - same technology, just a few hundred times more of it. Laptop batteries have appallingly short lives - a well used one which isn't overheated (e.g. used on the mains too much) might last 3 years tho it will noticably lose charge in as little as 1 year. Cheaper batteries/those used "on the mains" too much can be dead in 12 months...

400 new laptop batteries installed in a car in a way which isn't easy to access/remove them is NOT going to be a cheap fix - and I'm not sure your Nissan Leaf will be too appealing when it's range is halfed in 1-2 years time either.

[XitUp]

Just use Mac Book batteries, they last for ever.

[thinfourth2]

johnpeat said:

400 new laptop batteries installed in a car in a way which isn't easy to access/remove them is NOT going to be a cheap fix - and I'm not sure your Nissan Leaf will be too appealing when it's range is halfed in 1-2 years time either.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/8674273/Electric-car-owners-may-face-19000-battery-charge.html

£19,000 every few years

fk that

[XitUp]

Don't they have a ten year warranty on the battery?
Wouldn't you trade in the old battery as it can be recycled?

[thinfourth2]

Its in the torygraph so it must be true

Clarkson said it also so it must be true

The Leaf will be completely worthless in 3 years time

I'd still love a leaf as a daily driver