Electric cars.

You cannot really blame any of this on electric cars per se. The poor infrastucture, poor organistion by the authorities national and local, bad weather, the inability of many drivers to cope with the road conditions and lack of charging points is not down to the cars, electric, diesel or petrol.

 

Random musing here. My son and I were debating electricity cars the other day. I asked him why he thinks EVs are the same shape as ICE cars.

It got us thinking that the car manufacturers missed a trick. They had almost a blank canvas, but instead they basically electrified an old design.

Why does an EV have a large bonnet? In an ICE car, it just makes so much sense to put the big hot lump of metal that is the engine up front. Better for cooling, closer to the driven wheels etc.

From what I can gather, in an EV, the motors are small. The bulk of the weight is the battery, which I believe is in the floor. So why a big bonnet? The only reason I can think of is that's what people expect a car to look like.

But taking it a step further, why must we choose between no car, or a massive lump capable of in excess of a hundred miles per hour, carrying 5 people and their luggage in comfort? Why can't we have a paradigm shift to smaller, more localised use. In Asia they have the tuc tucs. Tiny vehicles with no luxuries and feeble engines, purely functional for city use. Why can't we have little electric cars for those that just nip to the shops or across town to see their friends? We could still have motorway worthy EVs, but it would be great if there was choice.

 

Modern vehicles are born of wind tunnels and crash protection. You need a bonnet area to absorb an impact. hence the reason even rear-engined cars (Porsche springs to mind) have a bonnet. It also makes for extra storage space in their case.
This is what is under the bonnet of a typical EV.

 

There is a choice and the Honda e is one of them. A small car, turning circle better than a black cab, limited range, cameras for mirrors and reversing. Just a pity it is so expensive.

 

But you can't get away from the fact that a gallon of fuel is easier to fill up with than charging a battery.

 

That's my point. It still looks like a typical family car.

In the UK, personal transport goes from motorbike, then the next thing up is a family car. There seems to be nothing in between. If someone wants something like a car because they don't want to be exposed to the weather, but only really wants to tootle around locally, I don't see why we can't have tiny little cars, with the electric equivalent of something like a 250 cc engine and a top speed of around 50 mph. Like the bubble cars that Britain used to have. No good for large families or hurtling down the motorway, but for those that don't need that, I don't see much choice.

 

Sinclair C5??

 

I dont think anyone knows what Clive intended it to be, apart from a failure.

 

The Sinclair C5 was just a disaster. It came out when I was a kid. Even then, way before I could drive (and therefore understood the driver's perspective) I recognised it as a stupid idea. It was too low down, lower than the bonnet of many vehicles. They tried to mitigate this by putting a tiny flag on it.

However, it wasn't quite the total flop that many believe (it was just mostly a flop). Some industrial complex I think in Germany bought up a load of them that hadn't sold (most of them I think). Their site was huge and they figured it was a good way for the workers to get around on site rather than walking or driving.

 

Probably better off with a segway.