Older Electric vehicles

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Discussion

rswift

Original Poster:

1,179 posts

174 months

Saturday 4th January 2014
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I remember a while ago Citroen had a version of their Berlingo van, I found this enthusiasts website whilst I was looking it up

http://www.berlingo-e.co.uk

Are there any other older electric cars around or in use that anyone knows of ?

c2mike

419 posts

148 months

98elise

26,376 posts

160 months

Sunday 5th January 2014
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Electric cars have been around as long as cars. Jay Leno has a few turn of the centrury ones. They still run, and need no maintenance according to him.

rswift

Original Poster:

1,179 posts

174 months

Sunday 5th January 2014
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scarble

5,277 posts

156 months

Sunday 5th January 2014
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I think it was AMC (the American one) did one with electric KERS. Might have been a Gremlin.
They fell over in 88 so..

Carparticus

1,038 posts

201 months

Sunday 5th January 2014
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98elise said:
Electric cars have been around as long as cars. Jay Leno has a few turn of the centrury ones. They still run, and need no maintenance according to him.
Electric cars have been around commercially since 1880’s and predate internal combustion engined cars …

Roll forward 120 years and there was an attempt in the late 1990s to commercialise EV’s with the likes to Toyota producing the RAV 4 EV. A friend of mine ran a RAV4 EV in RHD in the UK, imported from Japan. Its still on its original 1998 NimH battery pack and still gets around 80-100 miles per charge depending on use. But almost no one over here knows about them.

Today I drive around in an EV that costs about £160 per 10,000 miles of use, or less than that if I top it up via solar.

But is a solar charged EV a new idea ? No… !

Check out this amazing UK film clip from 1960 showing a 1912 Baker Electric (one of the ones Jay Leno regularly shows off) which is topped up using an array of “new fangled solar cells”! They had only been commercially available for 3 or 4 years at that time, were only about 4-5% efficient. The cost per unit area was 10,000 more than today’s mass produced panels that are variously 15-20% efficient.


1960 Solar charged Electric car :-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CNY0d4EF-s



Update: Heres Jay Leno using his 1909 Baker Electric in California :-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRwEXaHTwsY


Edited by Carparticus on Tuesday 7th January 15:15

scarble

5,277 posts

156 months

Sunday 5th January 2014
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Your friend should do a write up on that RAV, the reliability of it should be espoused and the general public educated.

I bet it's dog slow though. Would be interested to know how the battery performs compared to new but I doubt it's possible to get the data. Anyway, Wiki gives 18 seconds to 60 "depending on state-of-charge". Not sure if that's slow for an RAV wink

Uses inductive charging too? As in.. no plug?

AnotherClarkey

3,589 posts

188 months

Sunday 5th January 2014
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There are some electric charging bays in one of the car parks at LAX - there are generally 2 or 3 of the old RAV 4 electrics getting some juice there.

scubadude

2,618 posts

196 months

Tuesday 7th January 2014
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scarble said:
Your friend should do a write up on that RAV, the reliability of it should be espoused and the general public educated.

I bet it's dog slow though. Would be interested to know how the battery performs compared to new but I doubt it's possible to get the data. Anyway, Wiki gives 18 seconds to 60 "depending on state-of-charge". Not sure if that's slow for an RAV wink

Uses inductive charging too? As in.. no plug?
The Rav4 isn't very quick as standard, my parents have a IC Rav that age and its an excellent car other than the barn door aerodynamics, slow is relative, they never take it over about 45mph so an EV wouldn't be an issue.

Carparticus

1,038 posts

201 months

Tuesday 7th January 2014
quotequote all
scarble said:
Your friend should do a write up on that RAV, the reliability of it should be espoused and the general public educated.

I bet it's dog slow though. Would be interested to know how the battery performs compared to new but I doubt it's possible to get the data. Anyway, Wiki gives 18 seconds to 60 "depending on state-of-charge". Not sure if that's slow for an RAV wink

Uses inductive charging too? As in.. no plug?






OK .. SOME FACTOIDS ABOUT THE 1999 RAV4 EV.. and its 2012 revision.


Like all EV's its brisk off the line, but tails off due to brick like shape, 1,900kg, and lowish power motor. But 0-50 mph is about 12s. Top is limited to 87mph I think.

His car has nearly 60k on it at present. Original 27kwh NimH pack is original, and still provides 80/85+ miles in normal everyday use with A/C on. There's a thriving US retrofit market in replacement Nimh packs, or better still Lithium upgrade for around £8k, extending the life for 125-150k miles before its dropped a mere 20% in capacity - IE, still perfectly usable. He reckons its still got its original brake discs too because regen means they dont get used much.

It doesn't have the inductive charge port, but I've included a photo of one anyway.

Because the car originated in Japan it amazingly has an early Chademo style 50kw DC charge port on the side, but he's never used it in the UK and relies on home charging at 7kw or 3kw.

Apparently 1250 were made and sold mainly in California and Japan (RHD). Dozens have been purchased on ebay and imported into the EU. RHD examples are rare, and going up in value typically £25k-30k now.

Toyota trialed these on the island of Jersey, so range anxiety wouldn't have been a problem !! Apparently half a dozen were used by the Jersey Police force, and a couple were available for rent through Europecar hire on the island. All were on lease, and eventually returned to Toyota.

Watch the excellent film "Who Killed The Electric Car .." to know what happened to the Nimh packs .. killed by an Oil company who bought all the patents and buried the tech. Nice ehh ?!



Theres also a brand new 2012 Rav4 EV from Toyota, this time using Tesla tech, a 42kwh Lithium pack, 100-110 mile typical range, and 0-60 in 6.5seconds. These typically sell 2nd hand for under £30k in the USA and even with import duties would make for an interesting UK purchase, and an excellent alternative to the BMW i3 !!





Some pics of his old Rav4 EV, and some webpics of the 2012 version :-



































The 2012 Rav4 EV (USA..)











Edited by Carparticus on Tuesday 7th January 19:44

scarble

5,277 posts

156 months

Tuesday 7th January 2014
quotequote all
Thanks for sharing, very interesting reading and quite impressive.
I find 6.5 to 60 completely unbelievable though tongue out
Saying that.. reviews give a Toyota-quoted 7s, which is not bad at all for a mini-suv, let alone an electric one and I believe faster than an i3?
Which is really impressive when, according to Autocar, the i3 is faster than the M3 wink
I wonder how many of those you can do on a battery hehe

Carparticus

1,038 posts

201 months

Tuesday 7th January 2014
quotequote all
scarble said:

I find 6.5 to 60 completely unbelievable though


.. completely unbelievable ??!!



Below are a couple of road tests. Bear in mind the Rav4 EV has normal and 'sport' mode. Sport sees a 25% jump in torque to 273 lb ft, available from zero RPM.


Edmunds measured 7.2 seconds in sport mode, and 8.6 seconds in normal.

http://www.edmunds.com/toyota/rav4-ev/2012/




These guys did a two way average and got 6.7 and 7.1 seconds, average = 6.9seconds. Watch the excitable American tester from 5m55s onwards comment on how quick it feels ;-)

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xxrkur_2013-toyot...



Whether its 6.5 or 7.0 seconds its fairly brisk for an 1,800 kg SUV !!