The New Nissan Leaf and other fully electric cars, are they the future?

[Big Fat Fatty]

I have seen them advertised on TV and thought i would read up on them a little

www.nissan-zeroemission.com/EN/LEAF/specs.html

can they really replace traditional liquid fueled vehicles?

what are your thoughts on this?

 

[HDi fun]

It's more political than technical at this point. We're not yet ready for the transition to vehicles of this type.

 

[dpsubaru]

i really hope not but, as HDi says, a lot of political motivation to drive this forward - trying to cut greehouse emissions etc.... actually its all a front to increase spending again after the econimic disaster of the past few years. Hike the road tax, petrol costs etc... so much on conventional vehicles that people buy this rubbish instead.

 

[Big Fat Fatty]

it was the price of this thing that got me, £23k! with a £5k incentive from the Govt
but with a range of only a hundred miles or so it can't work out more economical than a regular four cylinder car can it?

 

[obi_waynne]

Statistically most cars only do short journeys and 100 mile radius is not a big problem. With increasing charging points and the petrol generator driven models range is not much of a factor.

I have to say though that an all electric powered car is soul-less. I'm sure they will probably catch on but it will make for a pretty dull drive where there is no noise other than road noise.

 

[T9 man]

It's more political than technical at this point. We're not yet ready for the transition to vehicles of this type.

A big

to that!

 

[bigbadjoe]

I will not own one. Enyone that knows me will tell you that I dont believe in global warming. It is a myth made up to scare people and for the Government to rape us of all our hard earned cash.

We are in the middle of a ressesion. If the government really wanted to, they could say, ''right guys, we are on the brink of becoming the new Eithiopia, lets scrap this global warming crap and save everyone a bit of money, As we (the U.K) only contribuite to >0.1% of polution on this planet.''

But they wont, because it genarates a lot of income.

Anyone see the tabloyeds the other day? The ''Green Team'' genarated over 80,000 tons of C02 flying around the world grading other countrys green quidentials. Like flock. Its a joke.

 

[dpsubaru]

Well said bbj!!

 

[Big Fat Fatty]

indeed, very well said Joe

i thought of something last night as well, do you have to have a garage or at least a drive way to own a leaf, how long is the charger cable on this thing? i couldn't park it outside my house cause its on the street and i couldn't trail a 30ft cable across the road for 8 hours every night

 

[HDi fun]

indeed, very well said Joe

i thought of something last night as well, do you have to have a garage or at least a drive way to own a leaf, how long is the charger cable on this thing? i couldn't park it outside my house cause its on the street and i couldn't trail a 30ft cable across the road for 8 hours every night

It's thing such as this that the green hammers seem to forget. How would my father in law deal with a plug in car when he has to park up to 1/4 mile from his house and is never nearer than about 150 yards?

 

[Jakeymd]

I can't remember where i saw it but it was on the internet anyway. A new idea. It was kind of like a conventional filling station, but instead of popping in some fuel, batteries were stored under ground and your empty battery is lowered out of your car and into the underground battery charging station. Then a new one is brought up, fully charged, or even partially charged if you can't afford it (just like with petrol) and slotted into your car. And will take no longer than filling up your car with petrol. I thought it was a brilliant idea, until i started to think about it.
It would restrict everyone to having a universal battery, and you don't know what nincompoop has had it before you (as we all know batteries can be damaged) And as battery technology changed, all the universal batteries would have to be changed thoughout the world. Not very environmentally friendly i'm sure.
What are your thoughts?

 

[HDi fun]

I can't remember where i saw it but it was on the internet anyway. A new idea. It was kind of like a conventional filling station, but instead of popping in some fuel, batteries were stored under ground and your empty battery is lowered out of your car and into the underground battery charging station. Then a new one is brought up, fully charged, or even partially charged if you can't afford it (just like with petrol) and slotted into your car. And will take no longer than filling up your car with petrol. I thought it was a brilliant idea, until i started to think about it.
It would restrict everyone to having a universal battery, and you don't know what nincompoop has had it before you (as we all know batteries can be damaged) And as battery technology changed, all the universal batteries would have to be changed thoughout the world. Not very environmentally friendly i'm sure.
What are your thoughts?

Storing electricity is still the biggest problem. It takes loads of space and it weighs heavily. Perhaps if there was a way to synthesize petrol/diesel/LPG using grid supplied electrical energy this would be easier in the meantime.

 

[bigbadjoe]

I still think the government is missing a BIG point here.

How Clean is Electirc?

Answer - Not verry. What makes power? Usually Coal or Oil. Coal, how much pollution does that make taking it out of the ground? Oil, how much pollution.....actually, just ask BP that question.

The batterys used arn't your everyday duracell. They are mined from a specific hard rock, witch causes pollution to drill.

Eco my arse. We are robbing Peter to pay Paul.

And why???

To make more money. There is no rule as yet, if I was to sorn my car, leave it running 24hrs a day on the drive and pay no tax. Road tax should be going towards fixing pot holes and stuff, something the local council really need to look into, as there are a couple on my road that are about half a foot deep and two foot wide.

 

[Yugguy]

electric cars are rubbish.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12138420

It's taken him 4 days to get from London to Edinburgh, it's a realistic test in thathe can only recharge at publically available charge points. Trouble is, he needs to charge for hours at a time, so his average speed, if you include this, is 6 miles and hour. In other words, electric cars are about as fast as walking.

 

[misenthrop]

Cars with petrol generators are the answer. A petrol generator is loads more efficient than a Petrol engine in terms of power generated.

I think electric cars lack character though and I really don't want to see them catch on. If everyone in the UK switched to electric cars how much would our electricity costs go up?

 

[HDi fun]

It is clearly more efficient to burn fossil fuels in a large generating station than it is to burn them under the bonnet of a car.

But this has not been thought out enough yet.

If it was economic to have us all switch to electric cars what the bloody hell is going to happen to all the liquid fuelled ones we have now? Land fill?

Marvellous! That's really gonna do wonders for the environment. As someone who's passionate about food I don't want to see the remaining arable land devastated and have to eat intensively farmed meat and poultry.

There is no simple solution and I'm not really into the climate change thing but one fact remains - fossil fuels are limited resources, no matter how we use them.

When I can get an electric car which can cover 600-700 miles on an overnight charge, with usable performance then I'll start paying attention.