well, this would be good for those short term hire cars, like go-get and so on,
I wonder how long it will be till the price drops?
also, I think the biggest issue atm is that all the plug in's feed off the grid, which means using a charge station at work (and how many work places will have that, let only free) or at home, which means timing it to charge on off peak, what they need is some sort of solar powered charge station, or a portable panel or something (like a solar panel sunshade that keeps the sun out, and charges the car)
what they need is some sort of solar powered charge station, or a portable panel or something (like a solar panel sunshade that keeps the sun out, and charges the car)
solar only releases about 300watt of energy per m3,
to go 100kph on a tarmac road uses 20kw of energy.
it would take you 66 hours of charging to supply 1 hours worth of highway driving.
which is under 40kms per day, or 30 odd hours of charging,
now, the sun doesn't always shine, but you can count on at least 8hours most days(the time that your at work, and therefore using a sunshade), which means that a solar sunshade would cut cost your charging costs at worst by a 1/4,
it also means that you could with ease turn on the A/C of the car 10-15 mins before you knock off, cooling your car down before you get there, for free, no charging fees, no need to sweat while the car cools down! bonus
only half, but how cool would it be in the middle of summer to walk into your car after work, and have it all nice and cool, and to not cost* anything,
capt lat is just a little too dismissive for my liking
only way these are going to take off is when oil prices become unaffordable, and a mass buy up of electric cars will bring mass production cost of batteries down. Not good for the electric car now oil prices are heading down in the low $80 a barrel
while the cost of production might drop, the cost of the raw materials required to create those batteries will skyrocket, more than they currently are
that said, with the increase of value, better mining of those materials might reduce costs but overall the cost increases will more than likely outweighs the production savings
So 30 hours of charging at $0.32 kWH (my pre-carbon tax prime electriricty rate) = $9.6. That's close to the weekly cost of my SUV in 95unleaded, but we do ~40K a year not 14.
with 30 hours charge and a daily commute I'd need two cars though. One charging today which I drive tomorrow while charging the car I drove today. So that's double the insurance, rego and maintenance.
Also, the people that support these cars aren't going to support the mining to bring down the costs. Look at the hassle LYC is having with its rare earth Malaysian mine.
LOL as fucking if, who the hell is going to buy this car? Especially the way the electricity is going up and stuff. Tell 'em they're dreamin'
So 30 hours of charging at $0.32 kWH (my pre-carbon tax prime electriricty rate) = $9.6. That's close to the weekly cost of my SUV in 95unleaded, but we do ~40K a year not 14.
with 30 hours charge and a daily commute I'd need two cars though. One charging today which I drive tomorrow while charging the car I drove today. So that's double the insurance, rego and maintenance.
Also, the people that support these cars aren't going to support the mining to bring down the costs. Look at the hassle LYC is having with its rare earth Malaysian mine.
er, you might have gotten mixed up a little, the 30 hours to charge was based on a solar panel, nothing more, and was a little tongue in cheek
my understanding is that on average it will take 8 hours to fully charge from a standard household power point (so based on you sleeping for 6 hours, and being at work for 8 hours, the car should be ready to go most of the time
these cars are not without their faults, they have a limited one day range (the range that the car can reasonably be used in one day) which is about a 100km, (that is with A/C on, and highway, which is the biggest drain) but when you think about how often you really drive, they make sense for some people
for a two car house hold, this car could easily take the role of one of those cars,
for the commuter, who might drive into work, the trip in might only be 30km, (so a 60k round trip) in stop go traffic, you could buy a smallish car, or a hybrid, the leaf is going to be cheaper than both options to run, and in the case of a two car household, the second car could be a ICE powered car for longer trips
In reference to my SUV i meant $9.60 a day * 7 days a week = roughly how much it costs to fill my SUV each week.
But it all doesn't matter because i was off in lala land in regards to figures provided earlier.
I would happily have an affordable electric car for our 2nd car. My wife drives it to work on Saturday and occasional shop runs during the week or when we have visitors or go out and leave the kids with someone else.
compare this to a bmw 1, or a small audi, then it makes much more sense,
even comparing it to a prius it isn't a bad price, and it is a shed load cheaper/better than the criminal price for the volt (add 10k)
(at least we get the top spec leaf here)
also, just reading up on it a little more, the model we are getting here has a solar panel on the spoiler, that panel charges the lead acid battery in the car (ie like a normal car battery) and that battery runs the A/C, lights, brakes, steering etc,
the cars powerpack charges the lead acid as needed (like a normal cars alternator), so running the a/c before getting into the car has already been thought of!
(there is a whole carwings program app thingy that lets you do that sort of stuff with a smart phone, so even shopping you could turn on the a/c as you pay at the checkout, then by the time you get to the car, nice and cool, or in weather like this, before jumping into the shower, crank the heater so the car is warm for your drive in)
hah if you look into it its more expensive to run than a car on c16 race fuel. The charger draws from 1.4KW to 3.3KW from your electricity which equals to having a split system aircon running at full power at maximum cooling/heating for 8 hours a day. Imagine your bill.
charge at offpeak, it works out alot cheaper than other $50k cars,
add cheaper rego costs (at least in QLD anyway), cheaper service costs, and less oil use
infact the only thing it losses out on in tyre costs (as it is heavy, it will go thru tyres faster than other like sized cars!)
so the more you look at it, the better this is as a second car option, as a primary car it has a limited market but it work,
also, on the wiki page there is a comparison chart showing the different cost in different countries, and when you account for the fact we have the top spec, (the chart shows the base model price in each country) we are getting a fair deal
i dont think anyone has mentioned anything about it being green or not, so where did that come from, (you are right, I view it as relocating your pollution, not at all a solution to the green problem)
I differ on your view, I think now is the time to get this sort of thing started,
look at the first hybrids they drive weird (well, the insight didn't, and the crz doesn't, but others did), now drive a newer one, miles apart, and they have sorted out alot of teething issues, and safety issue in that time
if we wait until we go nuclear, or solar farmed with some sort of storage that can release on demand or someother non fossil fuel based power generation then we will make mass scale mistakes,
saying we should wait would have been like karl benz not making cars until there where petrol stations set up, it just wouldn't have worked
I also think it's too early but at this price it's attractive to wealthy, early adopters - so if there's a market for that (which there clearly is) then go for it.
In the meanwhile it's nice to have an alternative to fossil fuels.
We can carry on with our push to diversify our sources of electricity and electricity is all you need for these vehicles, regardless of the energy source, so it's inevitable that if batteries continue to develop (a challenge) then these vehicles will become mainstream one day.
electricity production in this country is pretty behind other places, solar is ideal at first glance, but currently we dont (here at least) have a viable method of storing that energy to be released at a better time, (there is a mountain in england where that pump water into a massive dam on the top, then when they need power, it is released into turbines making power to cover peak needs, and in a very short timeframe, (coal, gas, and nuclear take some time to increase and decrease the power levels they make) a system like that would be sweet, but costly
I dont think this car is really for the early adopters, this is a better product than has been on offer in other markets for a number of years, just because we haven't had them in this country, doesn't mean the EV is new,
shit, the Gwizz, has been on sale in the UK for over 10 years, tesla for 4 years and there has been a mini e, and countless not heard of brands that have developed and sold EV for some years now, we have just been sheltered from it (or not developed enough for it)
I'm not saying there aren't issues, but there aren't as many problems as people might think, Robert Llewellyn did a doco, and has done a few bits here and there on ownership (he has had EV's for a number of years) and he can cover the pros and cons quite well, in fact one of his answers when asked about road trips is he rents a petrol car, because it works out cheaper to do that twice a year, than it is to own a car that runs on petrol all year (that is in the UK tho, and they get raped on fuel costs)
I was hoping this would be affordable. Missus drives 30ks to work each way, and thats about all the driving we do. EV would be perfect for us. $52 is too much for us. 30-35 i could justify.
Electricity prices in NSW are fixed by a tribunal and are about to rise by 11-20% depending on which "provider" you are with. For most people in Sydney their current rates would be:
First 7,500 kWh/year 22.6c
Excess at 32.01c kWh
Daily service charge: 52.8c
If you have an offpeak meter you can get offpeak at 9.02c
You can also pay more by electing various green measures, so you can get 100% accredit "GreenPower" for additional +6c/kWh
So yeah, it's expensive here and is getting significantly more so.
electricity production in this country is pretty behind other places, ...
I wouldn't say we're "behind" - it's just economies of scale, really.
We can do those damn storage and so on, we have suitable sites for it, it's just what's the point for so little total demand? (Compared with Europe or elsewhere).
Most recently on PV power projects check out Verve Energy and GE joint venture at in WA called 'Greenough River Solar Farm'. It's a 10MW station near Geraldton with 150,000 PV panels.
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