There has been a lot of hype about electric cars lately. I for one would love to have one, but the range and recharge are the main factors against using one. To recharge a car in 30 minutes after 650 km is going to take some massive power infrastructure to deliver the recharging power. Take for example a Ford Focus electric. It has a 160 km range and has a 30 kWh battery. Now, you cannot reliably run the batteries down to 100% flat, but for now ignore this fact. To recharge 80% of 30 kWh in 30 minutes (a charge of 24 kWh) will take 48 kW of input power (plus losses, say 50 kW). Now the average household installation is maybe 5 kW capacity, so you are going to need some massive power cables going into your house, office or wherever you intend to charge the car. This is industrial power usage. And this is for a Ford Focus with a 160 km range - nowhere near the 650 km range quoted above. Even if you use half the power to cover your travel distance, the figures are currently out by a factor of at least 5.

Electric cars are fine for around town, but sadly in the country they will have very limited value. And one final thing - electric cars are quiet - I love the idea, but in the city you are going to have a lot of pedestrians run down because they don't hear the car coming, and even moreso, in the country, the effect on wildlife will be horrific. Having a noisy, rattly old diesel charging along is a much better way to alert kangaroos, but even that doesn't work all the time...

Co-incidenlty this afternoon we discussed electric cars. Zoe, Leaf, i4 and Tesla 3. My requirement is for a vehicle that can do at least 500kms give that my minimum return trip to next town is > 250 kms. The Zoe has 400km on a standard test that cars are matched against. Its an unrealistic test as per kms/l on petrol cars. All it is is a relative comparison. In reality the Zoe will go 300km but when its cold only expect 200kms. The others also have similar stats. Still a few years away yet. Wifes car is 5 years old with 78,000kms. Maybe a replacement in another 5 years is an EV. My Ranger only tows the van. Not used for anything else much.

If we all have electric cars ,does that mean we will have  no more wars ? cheers

-- Edited by Recoup on Monday 3rd of September 2018 11:41:31 AM