Electric - It shouldn't need my 12 year old to tell you..

[OldDuffer]

Electric cars. It shouldn't need my 12 year old to tell you why it's a con...

The weak point... cells.

Unfortunately cells are not like mobile phones / wide-screen TVs / Laptops etc, they don't get twice as fast for half the price, half the weight and half the size every 2-3 years. Save for some improved chemistry they haven't truly improved for 85 years. The efficiency is still abysmal. Sorry, like any other cell they're good for 3-4 years, tops. Usually far, far less. See this yourself in your mobile. Go on tell me, how long do your mobile cells last before a charge is doing half what it did? So let me have this right, you want a car based on that?

Technical improvements my arse.

Now that die-sel in anything under three tons is getting its rightful kicking from the same taxation-system that created it, they're going to create another white-elephant, in electric.

(Rant) So when:

1) Our electric cars have three year old batteries that did 200 miles range new, but are soon sh*t for 50.
2) A new set of cells run to three times the used value of the cars they sit in.
3) They weigh a ton so don't stop.
4) The electricity cost used for 200 miles now does 50, but makes a big lump of toxic metals hot. lest we forget it still costs the same as it did to charge for 200 miles. Fine when a mobile phone battery gets old & tired, it just gets hot and you waste Milliwatts. In a car? Do you want that electricity bill?
5) With a shagged-cell to drag about (and stop) it’ll cost heaps to run.

What then?

(Rant off)

Lest we forget a need for road-pricing because the govenment feeds on fuel-duty, and it won't be getting any from electric. Our grid won't cope, it'll need beefing-up, so we'll wind-up, paying more for electricity anyway.

This whole fallacy ignores even basic school-boy physics. Electric power is an engineering fallacy put together by guardian reading morons that should have been left in a sandpit with a Tonka toy thus giving the rest of us a decent education. Clearly on them, theirs was wasted.

FFS, my 12 year old can tell you why it can't work. Worse, I understand that for something that is supposed to be green, but is far from it, you get tax-breaks to buy one?!

That Tesla thing is being sold by a snake-oil salesman, only you gotta admire his verve. It’s got comic appeal, and he seems to be getting away with it... handsomely.

For now.

It shouldn't need my 12 year old to tell you why it's a con...

On the other hand, CNG works and relative to EV it's clean

Edited by OldDuffer on Wednesday 13th September 11:03

[OldDuffer]

I’m a design engineer. I work primarily on consumer white goods like washing machines. My last projects were hairdryers and toothbrushes. I’m working on a tympanic thermometer as we speak.

The technology for rechargeable cells is much the same, no matter where you look. Where did I get the figure of 50 miles from? It was rhetorical as woiuld your own figure on the run-time of your 4-5 year old mobile phone compared to how it was when new.

Yet, I think you get my point.
Now do you want me to bang on about fast-charging?

You’ll going to kill it. Fine, when it costs a tenner in your mobile, you forgive this for the convenience. Why would you what to fast-charge a cell costing £10,000?

A 4-5 year old Tesla on its 4-5 year old cells? In real world conditions, whatever its range new, if it’s doing 40% of what it did new, you’re doing very, very well indeed. It won’t be much longer before you’re down to nothing. And the bill to charge it will have increased.

That is not conjecture, you mobile will be no different, that is fact.

Edited by OldDuffer on Wednesday 13th September 11:35

[OldDuffer]

So let me get on message here. At the altar for electric cars, and the new religion, the Laws of Physics are different. All you need is faith.

1) Articulated lorries, coaches etc by virtue of bigger tyres etc etc all with the help of Mr. Musk's clever design parameters will soon be stopping in the same distance (or less) of lightweight hatchbacks and sports cars. All they need is Mr Musk's help. The inertia and squaring rules of kinetic energy have been beaten. You see, increase the weight in an electric car, as long as you double the brakes, and double the tyre sizes etc the effect on stopping distances remains linear.
All the other car manufacturers and development engineers are simpletons. So we ask, nay we demand an answer, why have they not discovered this before? Lives could have been saved.

2) If you're unfortunate enough to hit that motorway bridge support on the cusp of severe-injury speeds, with the length of your crumple-zone not being any longer than the aforementioned lightweight hatchback or sports car, don't worry. You'll actaully going to be better off. You see, despite the significant weight differential, you'll lose all that extra energy in the same space far more easily. Why is this so? Because this is an electric car. Better still, it is made by a bloke called Elon. The effect on your body to deal with the extra energy dissipation going on around you is also linear. Lest we forget, because of the previous stated 'tech' it stopped before it hit our 'bridge support' anyway. We can take comfort here, see what we did there? So best beloved, you're gong to be fine. All you need is faith.

3) Tesla HAS reinvented the battery and defeated the laws of physics, and chemistry. The jews have been waiting, now he is here. Musk is the Messiah.


it’s a standard workaround. Car batteries are spec’ed at double the amperage required to start the car they are in. Even on a cold Feb morn, few cars actually need even 40AH to start, yet they’ll have a 60AH or 80AH battery. Hence they still start a car, (just) at five years old. All you need is faith. Under the new religion this fact can be ignored, therefore and brace yourselves:

==============

In effect, they chuck a 50% bigger battery on so when 50% of it degrades you still feel like its charging to 100%

==============

This is heresy . The faithful must close their minds to blasphemy.

Some fool on here wrote:

=====

Tesla just overspec the battery and adjust its lifespan by over-the-air updates.

=====

Don’t listen. Also forget that you’ve rarely seen a car battery last more than five years, and forget any experience you’ve had with mobile phones, Tesla HAS reinvented the battery and defeated the laws of physics, and chemistry.
It’s all in the mystical ’tech’ and has nothing to do with software management of cells.

How dare anyone suggest such a thing?

So that’s all right then. I can go now, electric cars if sold by Mr Musk are not snake-oil. i stand corrected and humbly apologise, it is me that is the halfwit. it was me that was the unbelliever. Me that was incapable of thinking coherently. I beg your forgiveness, and I thought 'you' were gullible. Nay, like you, I now have the faith. He has risen.

As monks to the monastery of Musk let us prostrate ourselves at the altar before our icon, anoint it with exquisite bullshot. Bring on the national anthem.

All hail. Carry on.

Edited by OldDuffer on Friday 15th September 10:32

Edited by OldDuffer on Friday 15th September 10:38

[OldDuffer]

Incidentally, if you've after some of the Musk mystique and perhaps you too want some of that Musk 'tech' and perhaps you drive a petrol version of a deisel car? Simple, next battery, put the deisel spec battery in there. It'll won't usually cost you more than £10-15 over the 'petrol' spec cells but will have 30-40% more grunt. When it's 3-4 years old, and the petrol spec is long gone, that'll be the diffenrece between you car starting and not.

Or do what I do, shunt a 019 in there anyway.

Ho hum.

Edited by OldDuffer on Friday 15th September 10:52

Edited by OldDuffer on Friday 15th September 10:54

[OldDuffer]

Perhaps put more eloquently than me, but yes. We're going to have to try a whole lot harder to find EV the solution the 'faithful' would have it be.

Mr Musk is con-man hiding behind his own very skilled hype.

Edited by OldDuffer on Friday 15th September 11:17

[OldDuffer]

What gets me is that over their own experiences of this technology, and come on, few can have escaped car batteries? Even less could have escaped diminishing run-times with their phones. You need no more background to be conversant with cell technology as it stands today.

Some smoke and mirrors in combination with flashy faux-tech and they buy it. They refuse to see any parallel, even when pointed out. Somehow in an EV, a battery gets better. With little exception, all have me as the halfwit here.


Yes, I’m the halfwit? I’m the troll?

I did wonder how the EV thing is gaining such a pace. I saw in a motorway service station a Tesla on charge, its owner let it run thru’ a 5 minute lighting sequence having it looking more festive than any Xmas tree. I’m not sure why a car should do this, but this started to answer my question. I had it that others could see a reality. Clearly not.

Enough shizzle on it and it's sold.


By a political will, we’re going into a technological blind-alley.

The battery HAS been re-invented.

You do wonder how they ever remember to breathe?

Get this? I humoured him, but one post even asked me where I go for my information? It leads you to question, why do we ever bother educating these people?

I gotta say though, Mr. Mush is brilliant, if not for the reasons his disciples would see. The 5 min lighting trick clearly sells cars. Love the bloke.

Edited by OldDuffer on Friday 15th September 12:30

[OldDuffer]

PixelpeepS3 said:

Using your mobile phone example.

1994: Motorola MicroTAC Elite The user could talk for 45 minutes from a fully charged battery.

2014 - Motorola Moto X (2nd Gen) talk time 14:45h

You wanna talk efficiency ?!

Sadly this is a spurious argument, phones have gained the above er.. efficiencies because today they need far less power, (we've got more masts, so hte masts do more of the work) and we've develped ways to have our receivers switched-off most of the time. Pre-smart phones were lasting a week on charge. Smartphones are back using more power again.

PixelpeepS3 said:

EVs convert about 59%–62% of the electrical energy from the grid to power at the wheels.
Conventional gasoline vehicles only convert about 17%–21% of the energy stored in gasoline to power at the wheels.

I say the rant is from you rather than your 12 year old.

EV's are not the permanent fix but they are certainly better than what we are using now for a fair few of us...

i'm saving £700 odd a month - car will pay for itself in 3.8 years purely on the commute alone then even if i get £5k for it when i sell it it has worked out pretty darn good

This argument has anyone left dead in the water. You win. It's not an engineering argument, but one that avoids taxation. You win handsomely. And the self-same reason CNG works too - assuming home-fuel. Except that CNG is infinitely cheaper. The car alone, (if you can find one), can be got for £1500, and the kit to fuel it, about £4500. On your miles, pay-back in one year.

On this point, for however long our government lets it continue, EV is a winner, your argument is a winner.

So, were my point were about taxation, I lose, EV wins

You came at me first. The others, I'll come back to.

Edited by OldDuffer on Friday 15th September 14:13

[OldDuffer]

pherlopolus said:

I'm just going to wait 5 years and let you see it for yourself.

Oh, I don't doubt you. We need not wait five years. The skewed fuel duty system in this country WILL make the electric car. EV wins by defualt much as die-sel has done until now, and for similar reasons. My whole point is trashed by the fact that if buyers save enough duty, who cares?

Our friend PixelpeepS3 has goen EV for self-interest. And we should blame him? He'd be a fool not to be doing this.

Edited by OldDuffer on Friday 15th September 14:46

[OldDuffer]

Can I get back on with my rant, pretty please?

Edited by OldDuffer on Saturday 16th September 05:51

[OldDuffer]

Max_Torque said:

It's surprising how these self confessed experts, telling us that EV's won't work, it's all a Government conspiracy, or EV's are more polluting that ICE's, or whatever form of blinkered claptrap they have come up with, can't even get their units right, and don't know the difference between power and energy..........

I sit here looking at my utilities bill. There is a reason why my electricity is billed nearer 5 times the price of my gas. Billed at 0.14p per KWh and my gas sits at 0.03p per KWh . By my Maths precisely 4.6 times more expensive. This tells its own story.

You can all bang on about wonderous advances in cells and the motors, and how we no longer use plain simple lead-acid and NiCads all day. How the new Messiah has reinvented the battery etc etc

It all may be true, so for the sake of unreasonable debate, we’ll assume you’re right. And besides, you might be.

But… making the power to generate it, then generating it, moving the stuff, and storing it, only to convert it into motive power will always to be the most wasteful and convoluted way to run a car. With each step the environmental damage in its wake has to be vast. There is a reason why my electricity is billed at 0.14p per KWh and my gas a mere 0.03p. All that costs money too.

Of course an ICE car has similar losses, however KW for KW, well to the miles travelled, electricity has to less efficient. The goo d thing about my utilities bill is that the real market cost of power is not masked by fuel-duty, taxation, the cost of one car over another etc etc, it’s in black and white. There it is, in utilities bills.

For many things there is no alternative, we’ve not mastered the gas powered TV yet, but generally speaking, electricity is a lousy way to use energy. few are worse.

Even off-peak it’s still 0.07p a Kw/h. So, you can throw all the wizardry you like at this, put your wondrous battery tech where the sun don’t shine, and still the numbers won’t be going away.

Now a gallon of petrol holds 43 kWh, and to get those 43kWh into you tank by the time it was refined, moved and pumped puts the total kWh to get it there far higher. While I have no figures, common-sense would say that 43KWh in the from of electricity, or to use the American GGE (gas gallon equiv.) measure, has the cost of putting 43kWh into your battery at infinitely more. Even if when you’ve finally got your 43kWh into your cells and can make more efficient use of it, in terms of miles covered, what it costs to get it there, means, all told, it can’t be efficient.

EV only looks efficient when you hide the back-story. Something EVs are very good at doing. Look at your own bills.

These wonderous cells I love. The problems really have been solved. So I ask, why is electricity so pricey?

Last night i pumped my car with CNG, and as I trundled down the road, in I might add, a proper car, much as I’ve been doing for the last 18 years, I pondered you lot.

I smiled.

However I will lose this argument. Because it will never be a raw engineeing or fuel-cost debate. Or even an environmental one. Whatever the vailidity of my argument or yorus, your facts, mine? It'll be trashed, decided and beaten by taxation, and that skews it to EV by a big margin. It will screw the environment just the same. So get your EV, and avoid some taxation whilst it lasts.

The argument is both lost and won, it simply depends on which end of the telescope you happen ot be looking.

Edited by OldDuffer on Saturday 16th September 08:11

[OldDuffer]

Please correct me on my cells and battery errors. I'm interested. I assume again batteries are different in cars. It seems, in a car batteries are not made-up from grouped secondary cells, known as a battery of 'cells', then I truly have it all wrong. May I ask? What is the battery made up with? Mayhaps, Digestive biscuits?

Er, your numbers don't factor your high set-up cost.

New, you're at least £20,000 over me. Worse, you can't do the miles to recoup your costs. Real world range for a Leaf is 100, at best 120. My range on a good day is 230, at worst 180. On that bad day, at 181 I flick to petrol. Whereas, 80 miles before me, you just stop.
I pay £3.20 for my range, which agreed is more than you, but I fill in just over 3 hours, and my set-up was only about £1200 more than the price you'll pay for a battery.

Where you might be getting near me is that the Leaf seems to depreciate faster than almost any other car on the road, so if yours is a used example, you may get nearer my set-up costs. Then, you start cooking... only you can't do the miles. And, buying new seems like suicide?

Question? My car is an old classic, it owes me £1500. If anything it has appreciated in my ownership, but because basically it was never worth much in the first place, depreciation is not really a factor. I use an old scuba compressor to fill, that was £1200. But average Joe would need to pay more than that.

Why do these Nissans depreciate so much? a Nissan Leaf loses more in a year of ownership than twice the cost of my whole set-up! I confess, EV is vastly simpler than my arrangement, so what frightens the market for a used one?

[OldDuffer]

AW111 said:

OD : not everyone wants to drive a second hand banger. Comparing one to anything new is meaningless in this discussion.

Agreed and fair. Only you'll not easily buy a new NG car, and you can buy a used EV, so to get to like-for-like, I made that leap. And I thought it enables the EV lobby to have level playing field. Especially as a used EV is also worth sod all. This keeps the point purely about the fuel.

I'm not sure where I've been dishonest either. Are EVs worth a alot used? Is it range? I confess range for me works like this. On hot days I get less range because NG is very dependent on temperature for its volume, hence after a fill, if I drive way immediatly rather than let the filled gas cool in my tank, I'lll have less gas, masked by higher pressure in my tank. Thus if I'm knowingly about to drive on or over the limit of my range I am better to do a top-up fill just before I set out to get that last bit of gas in my tank. This now the main body of gas has cooled and has reduced the pressure in my tank. If I don't go for that second top-up fill, I can lose 25 miles in range very easily. Especially on a hot day. NG will have 10% more volume at only marginally higher temperatures and compression makes it lots warmer, hence the above. Most tiimes I don't bother, only when I need it, but on those occassions, I let it cool and then work as above. On a cold Feb day, 230 miles is usual. On an Aug day, more likely 190. Then its petrol. My usuage pattern means I seldom use petrol. Not so different to LPG, they are very similar.

As for my fill-time, that is wholly dependent on the grunt of my compressor, and for that I've no toy. It's the proper job. Compressors are cheap enough, why would I buy a toy? And I don't have to slow-fill, with the right amount of grunt, there's places I can go (Crewe CNG & DIRFT) and have seen it happen. My car was filled in 10 secs. They do large vans in about 30secs, 7 tonners in under a minute. However there are comprssors that require 6-7 hours to fill my same tank. Only why you'd have one, beats me.

As for the ranges quoted for a Leaf, I understand this too is dependent on temperature and spurious other stuff. But 120ish is the outer limit ? I understand, you don't flick a switch to carry on, you get the bus. Your usuage pattern must be narrowly defined.

Please also define how i am confused (and dishonest) by batteries in EV cars that are not made up of cells and where I am off kilter?

I can see, I am off kiler on one point, EV will happen, is happening, because taxation is behind it. Without taxation support it is not appreciably superior to any other, but it does have support. Hence my origianl point, my approach is leftfield and made extemely difficult for all but a finite few, whereas by default rahter than any real merit, EV wins. At one time this taxation position was given solely to LPG, then in part to Die-sel, now its EVs' turn.

Edited by OldDuffer on Monday 18th September 10:55

[OldDuffer]

RizzoTheRat said:

I think the point is you're referring to "batteries" as a single thing. Batteries are a way of chemically storing electrical energy. As an analogy an engine is a device for converting chemical energy in to kinetic energy. Stephenson's Rocket and an A380 are both powered by engines, but they have very different characteristics and limitations, just as a lead acid battery has significantly different performance to a modern Li-Ion.

Eh, I was accused of confusing cells and batteries. Not the materials they contain? Correct?

In my mind, and when I went to school a battery was 'effectively' the plural of cell. Or to put it another way, we can say a car has 'cells' or it has a battery. Or in some cases a car may have more than one battery, hence it has 'batteries'... in the plural? Hence it has two or more sets of cells. A 'battery' is already the plural. The collective.

So, and I quote "a lead acid battery has significantly different performance to a modern Li-Ion." may be true, but what has, along with Stephenson's Rocket got to do with the definition of a cell over a battery? Or indeed 'cells' or 'batteries'?

Hence when i refer to a car's 'cells' I am accurate, because it has grouped-cells in a battery. Whereas if I refer to its battery, it may have several batteries. To be pedantic I would be incorect. So simply referring to the car's 'cells' I can't be wrong.

Incidentally if it's 1.5V or under it is NOT a battery. That is impossible. There are morons out there that would call it othewise.

Is it me, or has no other heard the term 'gun battery'. A group of guns?

Others went to school. Someone help me here?

Edited by OldDuffer on Monday 18th September 11:37

[OldDuffer]

InitialDave said:

No, you were accused of that, too, but you're choosing to focus on what is effectively grammatical minutiae in order to avoid confronting fundamental things you don't understand, yet have based your arguments on.

Also, the taxation thing: Engineering is not just a purely technical endeavour. You also have to take into account, and optimise for, things like legislation and taxation policies.

Ah, I finally understand... the taxation thing: Engineering is not just a purely technical endeavour.

Exactly my point. It has to use flawed thinking to skew for it.

And the following is a lie. Because I've misunderstood the amazing new cell technology, (sorry battery tech) and I'm the fool here, and a Nissan really, really does do 530 miles on a charge, and takes seconds to charge, not 45 mins or 8/10 hours at home:

===========================

And finally, not only will a CNG van go far further between fill ups than an electric model – the Caddy claims a 390-mile range (530 miles if it’s a long-wheelbase Caddy Maxi), while the longest-lasting electric small van, the 2017 Renault Kangoo ZE 33, is officially rated to just 170 miles – it takes only a few minutes to top up the tanks.

===========================

http://www.parkers.co.uk/vans/news-and-advice/2017...

I lay prostrate at your feet. You'll have to read it to see how, but the new Renault Kangoo ZE 33 has a 530 mile range, with its fabled battery tech. EV wins.

BTW my brother owns a UK RHD Caddy (short body) CNG and beinga 2007 model, he gets about 310 (on a cold day) out of his.

[OldDuffer]

I propose a bet. Money-where-mouth is. Any of you battery tech advocates want to take me on?

A 'range-over-time-taken to cover it contest. First one to do 700 miles, on EV or CNG in one vehilcle. £5000 to the winner?
You in a Leaf or any other EV. Me in my old wreck or using my brother's Caddy. We can pass charging points if you like. Legal speeds. Two passengers from opposing sides to assure fair play.

Come on, no mouth and trousers, money-where-mouth is? You've wonderous battery tech and my complete misunderstanding of it on your side. I'm the idiot here.


All that Mush bull, you're going to have me for breakfast. Serious about your tech against mine? We can lodge stakes with a solicitor or similar. Serious? I am. Completely.

Come now, take me on.

Edited by OldDuffer on Monday 18th September 15:57

[OldDuffer]

Because i don't undertand any of the points you've made, and you're not follow-the-mantra morons, it's me.

I reckon I'm safe by about 300 miles, but I could be proved wrong. I'll see you at a 1000 miles before you get to 500 and be a nearer a day ahead too.
But to be sure, we'll keep the bet as it is.

We'll empty my tank of petrol save a pint to start my car. Sorry I will need some.



I am the halfwit here, not you. Be certain of it. I don't understand these cells at all. these wonderous cells are going to cut me up. You'd enjoy taking my money wouldn't you? I'll even allow you to look smug as you take it.

Come on, take me on.

[OldDuffer]

I'm not angry, I'm excited. Excited by the conviction you all seem to have for the new religion. This wonderous tech is going to see my a%^e kicked. It's all because it's not a NiCad battery anymore see. I'm jsut too dim to see it, whereas you are the enlightened. I have just not seen the light.

Don't be selfish. Share it with me.

Edited by OldDuffer on Monday 18th September 16:27

[OldDuffer]

schmunk said:

Here is proof that every poster on PistonHeads is in thrall to the Electric Vehicle industry.

No no. Thank me later.

[OldDuffer]

Gary C said:

OD Why are you being such a prick.

I'm no blind fan of EV but your coming across as a closed minded knob.

Time to lock this thread and start a real discussion.

It's a habit of mine.

I'm sure it won't be long before this thread does get closed. Would be interesting to see.

They were coming in thick and fast, falling over to side with the other at my complete ignorance. My inabilty to grasp the subleties of the new sacred text. Even how I define cells in batteries. Already one their number quickly sits on the fence, and side-steps money-and-mouth.

A distance tiem race where miles on petrol/LPG or die-sel are void. I htink it's a great idea.

So we'll see.

Edited by OldDuffer on Monday 18th September 18:11

[OldDuffer]

Gary C said:

OD Why are you being such a prick.

I'm no blind fan of EV but your coming across as a closed minded knob.

Time to lock this thread and start a real discussion.

It's a habit of mine.

I'm sure it won't be long before this thread does get closed. Would be interesting to see.

They were coming in thick and fast, falling over to side with the other at my complete ignorance. My inabilty to grasp the subleties of the new sacred text. Even how I define cells in batteries. Already one their number quickly sits on the fence, and side-steps money-and-mouth.

A set distance-time race where miles on petrol/LPG or die-sel are void. I think it's a great idea.

So we'll see.

Edited by OldDuffer on Monday 18th September 18:12