RE: British firm launches 'innovative' EV Defender
Discussion
Evanivitch said:
hidetheelephants said:
I agree, but my main objection is that it can't be described as green throwing away serviceable axles and building new ones that are just as dynamically compromised.
Absolutely zero market for Defence spare parts, none, nada, zilch.It's akin to Fortesque flooding YouTube with videos of electric mining trucks when 99.9999% of their vast carbon emissions emanate from the abnormally carbon rich iron ore they dig out but to sell capital raising bonds and refinance them at the best rate they need to show the buying pension funds pictures of some electric trucks that can be prit sticked into their 'we care about stuff' investor reports.
The key being that over a long period of time all these micro farces, PR stunts and mugging off of punters slowly add up globally to deliver actual change at a macro level.
Theoretically, electric with torque vectoring should be absolutely spectacular off road. The ability to apply and remove drive within timeframes a combustion engine couldn't even dream of should make for something genuinely capable.
However... that bit costs a lot to develop and get right and my guess is they didn't (and never will) have the money in the pot to do it properly.
Shame, because IMO a Defender is solely about off road ability. Let's be honest, they're pretty atrocious to drive on the road, perhaps with the exception of the current model, which I have no experience of.
My other concern would be corrosion. Defenders love to rust almost everywhere, whether you can see it or not. This last few months I've done a load of welding on my neighbour's lad's H plate, which is always needing something removing and a new one reattaching. Fortunately parts are plentiful. Unless this is a nut and bolt restoration, we might still have issues with our 'new' car.
So potentially we have a 100ish mile range, little to no off-road ability, possibly a ton of corrosion or a giant refurb cost, and awful to drive on road. Did I miss anything?
I'd be very curious to read a road test of a real, finished car, rather than a press release.
However... that bit costs a lot to develop and get right and my guess is they didn't (and never will) have the money in the pot to do it properly.
Shame, because IMO a Defender is solely about off road ability. Let's be honest, they're pretty atrocious to drive on the road, perhaps with the exception of the current model, which I have no experience of.
My other concern would be corrosion. Defenders love to rust almost everywhere, whether you can see it or not. This last few months I've done a load of welding on my neighbour's lad's H plate, which is always needing something removing and a new one reattaching. Fortunately parts are plentiful. Unless this is a nut and bolt restoration, we might still have issues with our 'new' car.
So potentially we have a 100ish mile range, little to no off-road ability, possibly a ton of corrosion or a giant refurb cost, and awful to drive on road. Did I miss anything?
I'd be very curious to read a road test of a real, finished car, rather than a press release.
Yup. Every generation of LR product has just been better off road and since the turn of the century that has been driven by better and better electronics. The first Range Rover was superior to the Land Rover, the Disco was better both in and off road, the P38 better on and off again, the L322 onwards really became an electronics game and the full EV Range Rover is likely to improve again because of the sheer step change in control the electric motor will deliver over ICE. It requires a very specific set of circumstances for the old Defender to be the better tool over more modern offerings which simply cover an ever wider range of scenarios and requiring less and less skill.
Operators are rarely Von Trapping these sorts of vehicles but using them to bridge modest distances off tarmac where there is still some form of track or simple terrain so the ability to climb a tree, jumps a canyon is non essential as is the need to cover the length of the M40 averaging 100mph. With the limited range of something like this the use case is very much going to be on and around local estates and that sort of thing.
Operators are rarely Von Trapping these sorts of vehicles but using them to bridge modest distances off tarmac where there is still some form of track or simple terrain so the ability to climb a tree, jumps a canyon is non essential as is the need to cover the length of the M40 averaging 100mph. With the limited range of something like this the use case is very much going to be on and around local estates and that sort of thing.
philrs03 said:
That’s what I was trying to get at, I’m sure there would be a way to get somewhere close to the performance of mechanical locking diffs, transfer boxes etc. but industry seems a very long way off that. Having driven an electric bike off road, and done a fair chunk of off-roading in different environments, I just can’t think of a single instance where an electric power train would be useful. Outside of work, even my new defender (which is absolutely epic in all the situations I’ve put it in) there has been a couple of situations (slippery wet mud) where I’ve felt the electronic aids, even in that, have been a hinderance! For me, the minimum viable standard for off road electronic aids is the new defender. That’s a very, very high bar to meet. In my tiny mind, the only way to lure people into an old shape electric defender (for people like me that are happy to put up with vehicular austerity for the sake of performance!) it has to perform identically or better than its high tech little brother. I can’t see this achieving that.
Yeah, the electronics would need to be very specialised. As you say there's not much that sheer bits of metal and meat do now that electric motors would be able to match in testing off road scenarios and in the hands of a skilled operator. For a newcomer, the electronics do leap them up the learning curve. But anyway, it's hard to fathom why they've put the motors in the wheels of this land rover....Edited by philrs03 on Saturday 20th April 10:07
rodericb said:
But anyway, it's hard to fathom why they've put the motors in the wheels of this land rover....
It's just a PR showcase to how to use axial motors to convert other machinery and which allows for more battery space than the current go to of mounting the motor into the legacy gearbox. It's not specifically aimed at Pikes Peak, Le Mans or the Darrien Gap just to show a solution to getting something like forestry machinery or site equipment currently using an ICE over to EV if the need arises. Axial motors are an interesting area as recent developments are making them much more versatile and this is opening up new opportunities in various transport segments.
DonkeyApple said:
rodericb said:
But anyway, it's hard to fathom why they've put the motors in the wheels of this land rover....
It's just a PR showcase to how to use axial motors to convert other machinery and which allows for more battery space than the current go to of mounting the motor into the legacy gearbox. It's not specifically aimed at Pikes Peak, Le Mans or the Darrien Gap just to show a solution to getting something like forestry machinery or site equipment currently using an ICE over to EV if the need arises. Axial motors are an interesting area as recent developments are making them much more versatile and this is opening up new opportunities in various transport segments.
philrs03 said:
EV’s in all forms are currently, at best (and trying to be polite), not overly practical even on deliberate road journeys. On site or in any kind of rural practical environment, total, total non starter. Infrastructure, range, unknown time out on the area and remote locations Aren't exactly things the EV bandwagon can be rolled out for.
And yet is is happening, is going to continue, companies are changing to allow better fits and capital investors want to see it happening in order to part with their cash. Machinery that doesn't yet fit the usage scenarios will have to remain ICE until battery tech improves sufficiently. The key is that the general switch is very slow but corporates wishing to profit from the switch still need to pay out their stalls early enough to get on other firm's radars. And the companies needing to slowly switch to EV will just be doing so with either the most publicly visible equipment and the stuff that can switch today. The U.K. has a huge advantage over other developed nations due to being very small, very affluent and with relatively short working days in general along with electricity ubiquity.
DonkeyApple said:
And yet is is happening, is going to continue, companies are changing to allow better fits and capital investors want to see it happening in order to part with their cash. Machinery that doesn't yet fit the usage scenarios will have to remain ICE until battery tech improves sufficiently. The key is that the general switch is very slow but corporates wishing to profit from the switch still need to pay out their stalls early enough to get on other firm's radars. And the companies needing to slowly switch to EV will just be doing so with either the most publicly visible equipment and the stuff that can switch today.
The U.K. has a huge advantage over other developed nations due to being very small, very affluent and with relatively short working days in general along with electricity ubiquity.
Yep, agree. Although I’d say in this instance just because it IS happening, it doesn’t mean it’s in anyway ever going to bring a practical solution. I’m still very dubious about the climate saving credentials of 10,000 strong child labour cobalt mines in the DRC. The U.K. has a huge advantage over other developed nations due to being very small, very affluent and with relatively short working days in general along with electricity ubiquity.
philrs03 said:
Yep, agree. Although I’d say in this instance just because it IS happening, it doesn’t mean it’s in anyway ever going to bring a practical solution. I’m still very dubious about the climate saving credentials of 10,000 strong child labour cobalt mines in the DRC.
Those kids are looking proper f
ked now the battery industry is moving away from using Co as rapidly as it is. 
Once the Western consumer is no longer seeing EVs with cobalt batteries they'll just stop giving a crap about the kids as they always do and their working conditions are going to plummet back to where they were 20 years ago.
Places like DrC look likely to fall into Russian hands once the Chinese pull out and the French are getting kicked out of the whole of West Africa by the Russians so those kids are screwed without Western sensibilities restricting the illegal mines and coercing the legal ones to behave suitably.
DonkeyApple said:
Those kids are looking proper fked now the battery industry is moving away from using Co as rapidly as it is.
Won't their jobs be ok because they'll still be digging out for petroleum refining, as they have been for the last seven decades?ked now the battery industry is moving away from using Co as rapidly as it is. Not quite jobs for life but at least another three decades of ICE, which thinking about it may be their lifespan?
J__Wood said:
DonkeyApple said:
Those kids are looking proper fked now the battery industry is moving away from using Co as rapidly as it is.
Won't their jobs be ok because they'll still be digging out for petroleum refining, as they have been for the last seven decades?ked now the battery industry is moving away from using Co as rapidly as it is. Not quite jobs for life but at least another three decades of ICE, which thinking about it may be their lifespan?
DonkeyApple said:
Those kids are looking proper fked now the battery industry is moving away from using Co as rapidly as it is.
Once the Western consumer is no longer seeing EVs with cobalt batteries they'll just stop giving a crap about the kids as they always do and their working conditions are going to plummet back to where they were 20 years ago.
Places like DrC look likely to fall into Russian hands once the Chinese pull out and the French are getting kicked out of the whole of West Africa by the Russians so those kids are screwed without Western sensibilities restricting the illegal mines and coercing the legal ones to behave suitably.
Absolutely, couldn’t agree more. I’ve spend a chunk of time in that part of the world. The Chinese have run the mining operations in the precious metals and gem belts of west/central Africa for years and years. It’s a shame people don’t actually bother to research anything beyond what our hideously corrupt media force down their throats. ked now the battery industry is moving away from using Co as rapidly as it is. Once the Western consumer is no longer seeing EVs with cobalt batteries they'll just stop giving a crap about the kids as they always do and their working conditions are going to plummet back to where they were 20 years ago.
Places like DrC look likely to fall into Russian hands once the Chinese pull out and the French are getting kicked out of the whole of West Africa by the Russians so those kids are screwed without Western sensibilities restricting the illegal mines and coercing the legal ones to behave suitably.
philrs03 said:
EV’s in all forms are currently, at best (and trying to be polite), not overly practical even on deliberate road journeys. On site or in any kind of rural practical environment, total, total non starter. Infrastructure, range, unknown time out on the area and remote locations Aren't exactly things the EV bandwagon can be rolled out for.
How many miles do you think the average farm/estate/ahoot wagon does? Answer, not a lot. The UK is tiny, a 100 mile range in a "rural" estate is massive.If instead you're looking for a vehicle for towing to market then you're probably using a Disco anyway.
DonkeyApple said:
silva bika said:
Their website lists Thierry Bolloré as one of the directors. He was the MD at JLR who killed the electric XJ that was tested, tooled and ready for production, and generally set the company back several years. Should be a useful addition at Bedeo then.
The electric XJ could only have gone ahead on the back of the plan by Land Rover to offer an electric estate car. Once LR established there was no real consumer demand for that then the XJ was still born. It was always a passenger never the pilot. t a Land Rover estate car would be the biggest PH circle jerk ever DonkeyApple said:
Anything not V8 petrol is fair game to be honest. Anything else ever fitted in them is just different degrees of crap.
Even the V8 petrol (in factory form at least) was pretty crap at everything apart from making a pleasant noise! I had a 110 V8 for a good few years and once was forced to use it to make a last minute dash to Glasgow airport from Aberdeenshire. Running almost flat out roaring along at 85 it managed to drain the entire 19 gallon tank in that one 145 mile trip. 8 mpg and 114 bhp - what a combination! Evanivitch said:
How many miles do you think the average farm/estate/ahoot wagon does? Answer, not a lot. The UK is tiny, a 100 mile range in a "rural" estate is massive.
If instead you're looking for a vehicle for towing to market then you're probably using a Disco anyway.
One estate I shoot on, in Cambridgeshire is 23,000 Acres…. The estate managers and land agents spend from 0700-2000 driving around the estate almost constantly, every day. Anyone with any knowledge at all of how much admin there is in terms of running around when managing an estate will concur. Plus, the nature of the role is unpredictable. There are hundreds of “what if’s” on a farm/estate (monthly), of which a high percentage require an on the spot solution, usually involving a vehicle. You’d have to be clinically insane to mandate your estate staff to drive electric vehicles. Just the time lost in a day faffing about charging the thing would make the whole excersise cost prohibitive! If instead you're looking for a vehicle for towing to market then you're probably using a Disco anyway.
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