Electric cars.

Hi,

It's -2.5C here this morning with a hard frost. I wonder how this cold weather effects electric cars; headlights on; heater full on; mirror defrosting full on; heated seats; heated steering wheel; infotainment etc all drawing current from the battery; on the news a guy in Kent returning home usually an hour and an half now stranded in snow miles from home at eight and a half hours; his vehicle unknown; of course petrol & diesel cars can run out of fuel in such circumstances but what happens when an EV runs out of battery power stranded in a long queue of traffic; fuel can be added to a tank quickly but charge is more difficult to add to a battery or am I wrong.

This is interesting;

Hydrogen-Powered Passenger Trains Are Now Running in Germany | Smart News| Smithsonian Magazine

Will the government get most of the motorists into EV's then in a few years dump EV's in favour of newly developed hydrogen powered cars? Just thinking aloud after all the government favoured diesel a few years ago and now diesel is the enemy.

Kind regards, Colin.

 

My son and I were discussing electric cars the other day and a thought suddenly occurred to me. I will have to read up on this. But we were wondering how the brakes work on EVs. I know about regenerative braking, but that's not enough for an actual emergency stop so I presume they still have disk brakes. But if that's the case, I wonder given that on a conventional car, the brakes are supported by a servo powered by the engine, I wonder if it's the same on an EV. This is not a pondering against EVs, just the sudden realisation that it's probably a bit more to it than simply swapping an ICE for a battery and motor.

Also on a conventional car, the heating is kind of free in a way, because it's just the heat from the engine. The engine has to be cooled regardless (as an aside, that's one of the reasons ICE cars are so inefficient, much of the energy from the fuel is lost as heat). Turning your heating on simply redirects coolant into the heater matrix. I presume electric cars need electric heaters.

 

The way most things seem to be "progressing " these days I tend to think my next vehicle will be a horse and cart.

 

Hi,

Good point about the brakes @Clueless 1 v2 I wonder if the brakes will lock on if the battery runs all the way down to prevent the car being driven rather like trailer brakes on an artic which won't release until the air hose is connected. What effect will all this battery drain have on the mileage between charges.

In Huddersfield pete we're a bit posher than reverting to horse and cart; cycles are the in thing at the moment the council detesting car owners excluding cars from the town center by creating cycle areas only even our main Huddersfield to Waterloo road is to get a massive makeover I believe reducing width for vehicles whilst adding a cycle lane; they do say those in charge who wear a tie it reduces blood flow to the brain. My wife and I never go nearer the town center than the ring road;

Plan in for £210m Huddersfield town centre regeneration

Notice the amount of new car parking? The local timber merchants will be doing well supplying all the shuttering for the shops that have already closed and will close. Global warming; let the pedestrians and cyclists have Huddersfield Town center; we travel by car so it's out of bounds to us.

Not long ago there was lots of news about the government banning sales of new gas boilers these to be replaced by heat pumps; just one question; how do Councillors and MP's ever manage to tie their shoelaces.

Electric motors are very efficient; the company I worked for were granted Queens Award To Industry for the development of a new kind of steel for use in their "World Series" motors; I must be one of very few who have handled over one million electric motors during my 24 years with the company the motors ranging from small I could pick up in one hand to giants needing a fork-truck. I like electric motors but I detest batteries. A couple of days ago I did a bit of leaf blowing using my 18V Makita cordless blower; I left the blower in the rear extension which is unheated and perishing; I've just brought up the Makita charger to charge the battery but although the charger lights up I can't hear the fan running so I don't know if it's actually charging; I'd never leave any battery on charge unattended for safety reasons.

Our Skoda Yeti rules.

Kind regards, Colin.

 

Better cycling infrastructure is not only essential, it's fair too.

Essential because we simply can not continue putting ever increasing numbers of cars on the roads (I say this as a driver, and occasional cyclist). In many places the roads are already full.

When I lived in Sheffield, I lived 2 miles from work. Easy walking distance. Except I drove. Why? Because walking meant passing through a rough area where trouble happened daily. I had a few scares myself when I walked that way. Cycling was even worse. Riding those roads was like asking to die. Public transport just didn't work. Most times the bus was already full before it get to my area. That only leaves driving. This is a common theme in the UK.

There is concern that reducing traffic in town centres reduces trade. There is case study after case study from forward thinking European countries that proves the exact opposite.

 

On a day like today I'd rather sit in a warm car for half an hour in a traffic jam than die of frost bite on a bike.
A bike wouldn't be much use to me these days.

Cycling along a country lane in the summer, yeah, I get, but not for most of the year.

 

This is a common argument against cycling infrastructure, usually made by people who don't want to ride a bike.

That's fair enough. Nobody is suggesting everyone should cycle everywhere, but there are plenty of people who do want to ride their bikes but don't feel safe to do so because too many drivers quite frankly, would not pass a driving test if they did one today.

 

My personal thoughts, but there is no place on the roads for bikes in this age, too much heavy traffic.
If people want to ride bikes they need to be kept separate from the traffic as they appear to do in a lot of other countries, just sticking a white line 4 ft from the kerb and drawing a bike in the "lane" does not constitute a bike lane, it just makes the road more narrow and more dangerous for all concerned, and mostly the bloke on the bike.

How HGV drivers get on with dealing with bikes is a miracle, the have to crawl along behind them for miles sometimes creating massive tailbacks that are unnecessary, one bike holding up half a mile of traffic is not unusual.

There are aggressive drivers on the road, but they are mostly aggressive with all traffic, not just bikes, there are good bike riders but there are an awful lot that think no rules of the road apply to them, the pavement one minute and the road the next are probably the worst along with the weekend lycra mob that go out in gangs and completely block the roads, mostly at weekends.

 

Of all the times I've been late for work over the years, I've founding myself apologising having been stuck behind a tractor, being stuck in stationary traffic after an accident ahead, stuck behind a level crossing, delayed by problems with my car. I can't recall ever getting stuck behind a cyclist.

I do agree we need better cycling infrastructure, but not for the reasons most people think. I think we need it because driving standards and attitudes in the UK are terrible. If we all followed the rules and guidelines, we'd all be able to share the roads without problems. But it seems that will never happen.

Quite apart from general observations on the road, I see things in the media regularly giving tips on how to drive in certain conditions, or headlines like 'this little known rule could land you a fine'. I have a look to see if it's some ground breaking new info that's useful, and it's just stuff I thought you had to know to get your license. There was a debate on Facebook recently about when to use fog lights. One guy linked to the actual law, but people still argued. Another I saw was about speeding. Some were saying it's safer to speed than to stare at the speedo. They are probably correct, but when I was a learner I was taught to keep the instruments in my peripheral vision while keeping my eyes on the road, giving the instruments an occasional glance while taking note of the engine sound and general feel of the car, taking into from all the many subtle signals.

Guess what's in the media today? How to drive in winter. I'm pretty certain it was in my theory test where I had to demonstrate a basic understanding of physics, that a particular mass at a particular speed will need more braking distance if the roads are frozen.

I think if every driver booked a retest today, we could see a good 25% reduction in the number of cars on the road by January.

 

Hi,

Back to the plot. Out of curiosity I've just been doing a bit of web browsing nosy as to EV charging.

Electric car charging – how it works and how much it costs | RAC Drive

Charging at home is obviously best option and cheapest but for how long before the government insist on special electric meters for EV charging in order to rip off the motorists further; free road tax incentive will as expected soon be a thing of the past; our diesel Yeti road tax is fixed at £30 per year but it wouldn't surprise me for the Tories to change this.

Statistics can be changed to suit any situation; in the meantime with bus and cycles preferred in Huddersfield keep putting up the shop shutters; I'll never forget having to cycle uphill to be at the pit for 6am in all weather for a year at the age of 15 until I could ride a motorcycle; I've not been on a cycle since.

How about introducing a cycle test and cycle insurance; not all cyclists are angels many shouldn't be in charge of a wheelie bin.

Kind regards, Colin.

 

One of the benefits of an EV in traffic/snow is that if it is sitting stationary it isn't using any power (other than the little used for cabin heat) unlike an ICE where the engine is running all the time (unless the jam is so bad you switch the engine off to wait). I saw my dream EV the other day. A Munro 4x4. It can do 16 hours of off-road work for a full charge.
One of the things they say about EVs is that if you wish to retain energy, you use the heated seats instead of cabin heating. It keeps you just as warm with a considerable saving in energy.

 

Batteries and cold weather don't get on well at all. Essentially they can produce less current, because chemistry runs more slowly at low temperatures. This applies to all batteries.