RE: Why Audi Sport won't build an RS1 | PH Meets
Discussion
Gio G said:
I purchased my little S1 knowing they were not going to make another. To put 4WD into the current platform would be expensive to do, just like the existing S1. It is not perfect, but I love mine..
G
Love mine too! In typical German style Audi played down the power output of these as they seem to output about 245-250bhp as stock.G
The thing that really made the car for me though is disabling the 'straight line running' setting through VCDS. It addresses the inert feeling the steering has and makes the driving experience much more interactive which has always been the main criticism of the car.
fido said:
I'm happy with 250'ish bhp - except for the turbo lag. It's not huge but if they could hybridise the S1 - maybe an electric motor just for the rear wheels or an electrified turbo (probaably easier to package) - that would make it more fun to drive.
Yeah I like this idea. Electric to rear for short bursts when the car needs it and to fill in turbo lag could work well.I also absolutely love my current S1, it’s just my daily for bombing about to work and back, but it’s a lot of fun for a small car. I’d definitely welcome a new S1.
corden said:
Bladedancer said:
15 years will be enough for manufacturers to go full electric.
Is it going to be enough for the national grid to prep for everyone coming home at 5:30pm and plugging in their electric cars? I sincerely doubt that.
And yes, I know it won't be a binary switch that overnight everyone will go electric. But look at how many new cars are registered in the UK each year and the fateful date they will all be electric. At the moment UK has a tiny margin of power reserve.
In all that eco prancing the politicians are doing, feeling all good about themselves being green and whatnot, I doubt they are seriously considering implications of their decisions or investments in the infrastructure required to support their ideas.
But we'll see. Who knows, perhaps the politicians will surprise me by being competent for once. But based on past experiences (or even recent ones like handling of Brexit) I'm not holding my breath.
I am interested in this a lot. The national grid will surely have to up its game, but I don't think it's necessarily as bad as you've suggested. Very few people will actually be charging a fully depleted battery at 5:30pm. Many will need just a smallish top-up at some point before 7am. That's 13.5 hours to top up a smallish amount in a large number of cars. This is surely a lot less of an issue than everyone turning on kettles at half time in an England World Cup game - and the grid doesn't fall over then (a specific one-off scenario I know). Having a much higher rate of consumption throughout the night but at a relatively steady rate may not be that much of an issue comparatively.Is it going to be enough for the national grid to prep for everyone coming home at 5:30pm and plugging in their electric cars? I sincerely doubt that.
And yes, I know it won't be a binary switch that overnight everyone will go electric. But look at how many new cars are registered in the UK each year and the fateful date they will all be electric. At the moment UK has a tiny margin of power reserve.
In all that eco prancing the politicians are doing, feeling all good about themselves being green and whatnot, I doubt they are seriously considering implications of their decisions or investments in the infrastructure required to support their ideas.
But we'll see. Who knows, perhaps the politicians will surprise me by being competent for once. But based on past experiences (or even recent ones like handling of Brexit) I'm not holding my breath.
There are also trials of vehicle to grid charging, and the thought of being paid to return energy to the grid from your car battery - particularly at peak time (like in the evening when solar is nil and wind may be limited) could actually help further stabilise the grid (although again, I don't want my battery constantly being depleted and charged reducing its useable life).
I think there are options. And in tech terms, 15 years is an age. In 2005 we'd never even heard of a smart phone...
Car to grid charging is fun concept, nothing more. You'll have to take that energy out anyway when you want to go to work in the morning. It doesn't matter the car's battery isn't depleted. I never said "charge from zero". Topup for 30 minutes or an hour still puts the same strain on the grid and yes, you can trickle charge like with a Tesla, but this is still, this is not trickle charging an AA or a tool's Li-Ion battery. This will still be a chunky amount of power being used.
Average UK household energy consumption is around 11.5 kWh/day. I used average yearly figure of 4200 kWh from www.ukpower.co.uk and just divided it by 365 days. For people with gas heating it will be vaguely ok because greatest usage fluctuation throughout a year is from heating. That figure should be fairly representative as I've used just under 3900 kWh last year.
Let's take Tesla's charger. The 240V one says it'll use 3.7 to 17.2kW, with Model S using 11.5 kW by default. This is a big kettle. A very, very big kettle.
So to use your analogy (yes I know we're sticking to one use-case but since you brought it up...) a kettle is what, 1.2kW (1/10th of the charger)? It'll boil water in 2 minutes, so it will be around 0.04kWh. Say a top-up for your Tesla is 1 hour. That will be 11.5kWh.
And don't forget people will be charging their cars while boiling their kettles, using their ovens, electric heaters etc etc.
It's the extra load that will be the issue.
See, the problem is two-fold.
One - you have to generate the energy. UK isn't brilliant at this and it *could* help itself with solar power etc. but both government and power companies don't see that as ecologically sound way of helping the grid but as a cash cow. This is why we have a "feed in tariff", which is robbing you blind, instead of a delta bill (what you used minus what you've fed back into the grid) like some other countries.
Two - you have to send the energy. The network has to be physically able to cope with severe increase in consumption - the wires have to be able to schunt them electrons around. I'm gonna skip issued like ancient wiring in some houses because that should be replaced regardless, but I wonder if things like sub-stations will be capable of taking this load.
Scale is the main factor here. in 2019 around 2.3 million new cars were sold in UK. Assume each year that many new electric cars will need to be charged, perhaps even just a small 30 min, 1 hour top-up, every evening. Can you see how much extra juice will be needed for that?
Dunno. Maybe my physics and maths are so rusty I'm talking bs over here and we'll all be fine
Ahonen said:
Bladedancer said:
Is it going to be enough for the national grid to prep for everyone coming home at 5:30pm and plugging in their electric cars? I sincerely doubt that.
And yes, I know it won't be a binary switch that overnight everyone will go electric. But look at how many new cars are registered in the UK each year and the fateful date they will all be electric. At the moment UK has a tiny margin of power reserve.
Absolutely. I was idly looking at how much electric cars cost to charge the other day and happened on the EDF website. It reckoned that to charge an electric car enough to do 8000 miles a year our annual household electricity usage would more than double. I do 15k miles a year and Mrs Ahonen does closer to 20k. That's a huge increase in usage! We'd be looking at using four times as much electricity as we do now. Now I fully appreciate that the UK's usage wouldn't increase by this amount as a whole for multiple reasons, but I can't see that we're really going to be anywhere near ready for this potential explosion in usage. And yes, I know it won't be a binary switch that overnight everyone will go electric. But look at how many new cars are registered in the UK each year and the fateful date they will all be electric. At the moment UK has a tiny margin of power reserve.
TX.
I think the comments about infrastructure are interesting when it comes to electric cars and charging facilites. Having worked on a large battery energy storage project, and in a position to understand the UK's HV & LV networks I would say large battery banks would stabablise these charging peaks.
Build battery storage in predominantly residential areas, pull charge during the day when loading is low and then when 6pm hits these can be discharged. Okay, loadings on cables will all stay the same (albeit higher than current standards) but the demand can be supplemented with previously stored charge.
That's a sidetrack though, a facelifted S1 would be interesting. I certainly think Audi are getting back to interesting car design given the release of the new A3. That's a bonnie car. Although ploughing the money in to developing an RS1? I don't see them going through with it.
Build battery storage in predominantly residential areas, pull charge during the day when loading is low and then when 6pm hits these can be discharged. Okay, loadings on cables will all stay the same (albeit higher than current standards) but the demand can be supplemented with previously stored charge.
That's a sidetrack though, a facelifted S1 would be interesting. I certainly think Audi are getting back to interesting car design given the release of the new A3. That's a bonnie car. Although ploughing the money in to developing an RS1? I don't see them going through with it.
BBenzzz said:
I think the comments about infrastructure are interesting when it comes to electric cars and charging facilites. Having worked on a large battery energy storage project, and in a position to understand the UK's HV & LV networks I would say large battery banks would stabablise these charging peaks.
Build battery storage in predominantly residential areas, pull charge during the day when loading is low and then when 6pm hits these can be discharged. Okay, loadings on cables will all stay the same (albeit higher than current standards) but the demand can be supplemented with previously stored charge.
This is one of the ways to cope, yes. My point wasn't "it can't be done" but "I'm not sure politicians will make it happen in the next 15 (12 if they want to be overzealous) years".Build battery storage in predominantly residential areas, pull charge during the day when loading is low and then when 6pm hits these can be discharged. Okay, loadings on cables will all stay the same (albeit higher than current standards) but the demand can be supplemented with previously stored charge.
It is a massive undertaking to refurb the energy network, beef up transfer lines, enetry production and build these storage facilities (if that's the way they want to go) etc etc. whatever else is needed to make it work. Looking at things like crossrail, HS2, Heathrow expansion etc I'm not hopeful it'll be done in time.
But perhaps this 2035 ban is just political prancing to cash in on the fad of the moment.
Bladedancer said:
This is one of the ways to cope, yes. My point wasn't "it can't be done" but "I'm not sure politicians will make it happen in the next 15 (12 if they want to be overzealous) years".
It is a massive undertaking to refurb the energy network, beef up transfer lines, enetry production and build these storage facilities (if that's the way they want to go) etc etc. whatever else is needed to make it work. Looking at things like crossrail, HS2, Heathrow expansion etc I'm not hopeful it'll be done in time.
But perhaps this 2035 ban is just political prancing to cash in on the fad of the moment.
Got you, I didn't consider your outlook on whether the timescales put in place by the government will be the bottleneck rather than the actual practicality of reinforcing the network.It is a massive undertaking to refurb the energy network, beef up transfer lines, enetry production and build these storage facilities (if that's the way they want to go) etc etc. whatever else is needed to make it work. Looking at things like crossrail, HS2, Heathrow expansion etc I'm not hopeful it'll be done in time.
But perhaps this 2035 ban is just political prancing to cash in on the fad of the moment.
I suppose its one of these things, with enough time there's no doubt it will be possible to be near 100% EV on the roads but the expectations from government that this will be by 2035 are unreasonable..
Rome wasn't built in a day and all that!
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