RE: Mercedes SLS AMG Electric Drive: Driven

[jonby]

Dovile said:

performance + cool looks + london congestion charge exemption = mmmmmm.

Or spend 230k on the new black series SLS, for cooler looks & better performance

Am sure the 170k saving (plus not having to pay to charge the electric vehicle) would pay for fuel over say 5 yrs, congestion charge and planting enough trees to offset the emissions !!!

I accept the tech has to start somewhere and will only get better & cheaper (as I'm sure it will) by starting with cars such as these

But in the meantime, I don't see who would want this car at this price. Plus, for me the future is small petrol engined cars & perhaps self charging electric vehicles, but not pure electric in it's current form

OF course hopefully with me still be allowed to run my V12 ! :-)

Edited by jonby on Friday 1st March 18:15

[kambites]

405dogvan said:

OK, the wrong sort of pointless then...

Don't assume that everyone else wants the same thing that you do.

[W124]

People will buy it because it has no competition. It's new... That will be enough. You can really show off in this thing and it's a strange/original enough experience to cut through the jaded palate of Harris. Which is the point. Personally I think Chris is dead right to focus on what a car driven by four individual motors can achieve handling/balance wise. That's a new thing. Progress. I once tried to follow a Tesla at road speed. It silently just took off. I'd have this over the new hypercars in a heartbeat. It makes them seem totally outdated. Sooner or later, one manufacturer is going to catch the tipping point with electric cars in it's particular market and they will clean up. Hence the money being thrown at it. The environmental arguments either way have no bearing.

[leeson660]

I personally have absolutely no interest in this or any electric car. Withstanding the fact that I think the environmental argument for less emissions is negated by the cost to the environment of producing / disposing / charging these battery powered cars, they are to me just very very dull. In many ways I think they are yet another step backwards. Not too dissimilar to high powered diesels, no doubt about their impressive performance but they leave me completely cold.

Just my opinion

[FisiP1]

As much as everyone with a beard who spends their time reading books about the history of motorsport in the 1960s and such will moan about this, I see it as possibly the coolest car in the world right now.

Its so different, I bet it'd get an incredible response from the general public too.

[bp1000]

So I think merc pulled something decent here

I don't know wether this is the future or wether this is an automotive laser disc. I'm more likely to think its the latter.

The electricity still needs generating and when/if electric cars become more mainstream I guarantee the gov won't be 1 step behind. It's only a matter of time before the electricity to power cars is taxed and proprietary sockets are installed with meters which feed off your utility bills.

How convenient is it to push a more economical fuel, forcing the hand and then tax it when there is no going back.

I personally find hybrids and electric cars a complete joke. I don't have time to figure out on balance petrol v electricity but either way that electricity is coming mainly from dirty fuel.

[Talksteer]

bp1000 said:

The electricity still needs generating and when/if electric cars become more mainstream I guarantee the gov won't be 1 step behind. It's only a matter of time before the electricity to power cars is taxed and proprietary sockets are installed with meters which feed off your utility bills.

How convenient is it to push a more economical fuel, forcing the hand and then tax it when there is no going back.

I personally find hybrids and electric cars a complete joke. I don't have time to figure out on balance petrol v electricity but either way that electricity is coming mainly from dirty fuel.

Trying to tax electricity for automotive use is a total non-starter. It would be a very easy to tax to evade and would be evaded in such large numbers as to make enforcement difficult and most importantly unfair.

In the UK electric vehicles do come out as better for the environment on a mile by mile basis as most of our electricity is produced using combined cycle gas turbines which are around 60% efficient (and we have some nuclear). If we lived in France on a CO2 basis it would be a no brainer as they are 80% nuclear. Also those power plants emit their emissions up a stack in the countryside not at street level in a city so there is advantages for local pollution.

Also I would not use this car as a basis of what a purpose built electric car could achieve. The Tesla Model S is 100kg lighter with a battery which has 40% more capacity despite being a very much larger car. The Tesla Model S is only about 5-10% heavier than a petrol car of equivalent size and performance.

[405dogvan]

kambites said:

405dogvan said:

OK, the wrong sort of pointless then...

Don't assume that everyone else wants the same thing that you do.

I don't - but that's got nothing to do with the fact that electric cars are not practical due to the reasons we've already stated.

They are, at best, technical experiments but more realistically they're political bargaining chips or tax dodges...

People don't really want those things, do they?

[McWigglebum3rd]

405dogvan said:

I don't - but that's got nothing to do with the fact that electric cars are not practical due to the reasons we've already stated.

They are, at best, technical experiments but more realistically they're political bargaining chips or tax dodges...

People don't really want those things, do they?

I do

I really don't like having to go to the petrol station on a weekly basis

What you see as impractical i see as hugely practical


Would your dishwasher be better if you had to take it back to the shop once a week to get the soap refilled?

[Mr Gear]

jonby said:

Or spend 230k on the new black series SLS, for cooler looks & better performance

Am sure the 170k saving (plus not having to pay to charge the electric vehicle) would pay for fuel over say 5 yrs, congestion charge and planting enough trees to offset the emissions !!!

I accept the tech has to start somewhere and will only get better & cheaper (as I'm sure it will) by starting with cars such as these

But in the meantime, I don't see who would want this car at this price. Plus, for me the future is small petrol engined cars & perhaps self charging electric vehicles, but not pure electric in it's current form

OF course hopefully with me still be allowed to run my V12 ! :-)

Edited by jonby on Friday 1st March 18:15

If money were no object, I'd rather have the electric version. It's a far more special, important and unique car.

[405dogvan]

McWigglebum3rd said:

I do

I really don't like having to go to the petrol station on a weekly basis

What you see as impractical i see as hugely practical


Would your dishwasher be better if you had to take it back to the shop once a week to get the soap refilled?

I don't own a dishwasher because I'm not prone to buying things which aren't actually useful to me - see also electric cars

Otherwise that is quite possibly the stupidest analogy ever used - even on the Internet!

Would you find a trip to the garage more palatable if it enables you to drive more than 100 miles each day - or is your entire world within a 50 mile radius of you (in which case a bicycle would also be a solution!!)

Would a handful of laps at a trackday before needing to recharge the thing be OK too - that said, you'd have to trailer it there and back to even do that...

Electric Cars are NOT a practical replacement for the IC engine and probably never will be - unless we invent cold fusion and even then, electricity may not be the best way of harnessing that

In the event oil supplies peak and prices start to soar (anywhere in the next 35 years) electricity will be competing for that same oil and so not a solution to the problem at all. Why can't people grasp that simple idea - do you actually think that electricity just comes out of the socket 'clean and free'??

Battery tech hasn't really changed (in energy density terms) for decades either - and 600kgs of batteries more than offsets every weight reduction technology we've created in 100 years of the car!!

[405dogvan]

Mr Gear said:

If money were no object, I'd rather have the electric version. It's a far more special, important and unique car.

you can tell everyone walking past you when you run out of charge that yours is the superior car when the other cars drive past, still as full tilt

[Mr Gear]

405dogvan said:

Mr Gear said:

If money were no object, I'd rather have the electric version. It's a far more special, important and unique car.

you can tell everyone walking past you when you run out of charge that yours is the superior car when the other cars drive past, still as full tilt

Why would that happen? I've never run out of petrol even though my present vehicles only carry a finite amount.

I assume this would have some sort of battery gauge fitted. At £400k, I'd kinda expect this to be a feature. As long as I look at that every so often, I don't see the problem.

[McWigglebum3rd]

405dogvan said:

is your entire world within a 50 mile radius of you (in which case a bicycle would also be a solution!!)!

My daily driver has never been more then 25 miles from my house

There is no public transport where i live

Why will a car that i need to take to the petrol station be more useful to me?

[405dogvan]

McWigglebum3rd said:

My daily driver has never been more then 25 miles from my house

I don't think an E Cell SLS is a 'daily driver' sort of car tho so you're really confusing things/making a straw man army

My point is the electric cars are not a replacement for IC cars - there are places where they're useful (tho arguably people could walk for most of those cases) but manufacturers are pulling a fast-one (in this case, literally) if they think people will buy the idea they're an "alternative" in all but a handful of situations.

and as performance cars *chuckles*

Edited by 405dogvan on Sunday 3rd March 14:52

[McWigglebum3rd]

405dogvan said:

McWigglebum3rd said:

My daily driver has never been more then 25 miles from my house

I don't think an E Cell SLS is a 'daily driver' sort of car tho so you're really confusing things/making a straw man army

My point is the electric cars are not a replacement for IC cars - there are places where they're useful (tho arguably people could walk for most of those cases) but manufacturers are pulling a fast-one (in this case, literally) if they think people will buy the idea they're an "alternative" in all but a handful of situations.

So I ask again

Why can't my daily driver be an electric car?

I do 43 miles a day going to work and back in a Nissan micra

Do you suggest i should walk 43 miles a day?

[kambites]

405dogvan said:

I don't - but that's got nothing to do with the fact that electric cars are not practical due to the reasons we've already stated.

Perhaps not, but if practicality is what you're after I suggest you stop reading about supercars and yearn for a Kia Ceed. Supercars are not meant to be practical - they're extravagant technical showcases and displays of wealth.

405dogvan said:

People don't really want those things, do they?

Yes, they do.

[ShayneJ]

Slightly OT but if cars like this are so quiet how many peds and cyclists
are going to be launched/killed because they did not hear it coming?

I find the thought of cars without engine noise an alien concept.
electric traction should stick to locomotives and trams.

i want to see real investment into alternative fuel sources
for IC engines LPG, hydrogen etc.

[McWigglebum4th]

ShayneJ said:

Slightly OT but if cars like this are so quiet how many peds and cyclists
are going to be launched/killed because they did not hear it coming?
.

only the stupid ones

[Talksteer]

405dogvan said:

Electric Cars are NOT a practical replacement for the IC engine and probably never will be - unless we invent cold fusion and even then, electricity may not be the best way of harnessing that

In the event oil supplies peak and prices start to soar (anywhere in the next 35 years) electricity will be competing for that same oil and so not a solution to the problem at all. Why can't people grasp that simple idea - do you actually think that electricity just comes out of the socket 'clean and free'??

Battery tech hasn't really changed (in energy density terms) for decades either - and 600kgs of batteries more than offsets every weight reduction technology we've created in 100 years of the car!!

So much wrong there technically.

1: Cold fusion, are you high?

2: Electric cars will replace petrol ones the debate is when. The disruptive technologies are:

• Self driving vehicles, these will be coming much soon then people think, the technology is pretty much proven and the application likely to be cheap once mass produced. If your vehicle is self driving why own it? Self driven taxis would be miles cheaper then owning your own car and much more flexible (you don't have too park it). The range anxiety also becomes irrelevant as the controllers will simply send you a vehicle with enough charge to complete your journey.
• There are a number of other battery technologies which have near term applications. Lithium sulphur and nano-wire batteries both have energy densities 2-4 time higher than lithium ion types (plus there is substantial improvements in packaging even existing batteries. Lithium air would make a mockery of internal combustion engines.

3: On most existing grids electric vehicles still come out better on a well to wheels model, and there are plenty of ways of generating electricity without burning increasingly scarce fuels not least nuclear which is proven and near unlimitedly scalable unlike renewables.

4: Battery technology clearly has greatly improved, lithium ion batteries have only been commercially available for less than 20 years and improvements in chemistry, packaging and durability continue even if the fundamental principles remain the same.