Electric Cars.

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[ceejay]

returning from Scotland in February we were passed on the M6 (lakes area) by what I assumed was an I Pace test car, emblazoned as it was in logo,s stating its the new I Pace and the future, now given I was at a steady 70ish, it passed at quite a "pace" I commented to my wife that I hoped he had a full charge otherwise we may see him later on shoulder, it was dark, raining and cold out, sure enough some 30 mins later we passed him in the inside lane at a somewhat reduced speed, I dont mean 60/65 I mean 45/50 now I don't know why I just assumed he was saving energy,

hmmm

cj

[Erfolg]

It is almost certainly correct that the differences in servicing of an electric vehicle and that of an IC will probably quite similar.

Many aspects remain quite similar, such as suspension components, brakes, stability controls, traction control and probably the need for a differential of some form.

It is tempting to say, ah, yes we have lost an engine and gearbox. Now we have a simple electric motor. We could even have regenerative braking all seen as a gain. The reality will be different, either there will be the need for a control system to control the motor, even a gear box, if electronics prove an issue in providing adequate torque at low revs. The regenerative brakes again come with their own control requirements, which almost certainly will be backed up with friction type braking. There will be a battery management system. I do not see serving disappearing any time soon, different yes, at lower cost? I would not bank on it.

As for costs of replacement electronics, could be pricey where high currents are involved.

As for the battery packs lasting forever, or even a few years, I knew one person (no longer in touch with them) who had a battery issue with I believe to be a Prius, who was quoted a good few thousand pounds to remove, supply a new battery and reconnect. At the time I was not interested, beyond, OMG, it will be few years before I am interested.

As with so much, time will tell.

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[Erfolg]

Perhaps he actually needed or wanted to be somewhere else, other than sat in a service station? Or could it have been the climb up to Shap had sapped all of electrons, all the free ones were not about, and the struggle to the next service area for some free ones required some caution.

As for snapped timing belts or chains, I would not expect that many just accept this as something that can happen.

The point really comes down to servicing will almost certainly be required, and that some of the electrical bits will be pricey. Will servicing be cheaper than IC cars, given that the most expensive single item on my cars service is the engine oil, which is a small fraction of the total bill, the rest being filters such as pollen, various other non engine related items, I would not count on it. But I do get a free wash and interior valet.

Edited By Erfolg on 20/04/2018 16:57:08

[ken anderson.]

just announced that Nissan are going to lay off workers in the next 12 months....

ken Anderson...ne...1 motoring dept.

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[Frank Skilbeck]

Posted by ken anderson. on 20/04/2018 16:58:32:

just announced that Nissan are going to lay off workers in the next 12 months....

ken Anderson...ne...1 motoring dept.

Nissan make the Juke, Qashqai, Note and Leaf and Infiniti Q30 in Sunderland.

JLR have announced they are not renewing contract workers contracts too.

[Erfolg]

Ceejay? I know Killington and Tebay or the other way round. In many ways it matters little, there are a few hills to climb.

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[IDD15]

Re servicing:

Our Nissan Micra is £129 for a limited service and £169 for its full service. The Leaf is £85 for all services at the same Nissan dealership.

Re Regen Braking

This is not a separate system, the motor provides the regenerative breaking by becoming a generator. Instead of the motor taking power from the battery the rotating magnet generates power which is then fed back via the motor controller to the battery.

A benefit of this is you don't have to clean your alloys very often and brake pads last a very long time. As evidenced by the taxi company previously reported.

Re Transmission

Most EV's appear to use a single gear from the motor to step down motor speed to wheels. No other gears are generally required. An electric motor produces 100% torque at standstill (0 revs) hence why current EV's generally have good 0-60 times. Hence standing start comparisons with flash ICE cars tend to be a favourite party piece on motoring telly programs.

Motor/transmission parts count for the Leaf is probably very similar to the Tesla. There are various Leaf cutaway diagrams and YouTube Leaf strip downs on the web where you can verify this. There again it is on the web...

Very interesting the IPace video where they interview the JLR engineers and show off the motor. A 95% efficency for the motor across a 5:1 speed range is very impressive, and its so small. JLR have put a LOT of money into this.

Pip pip

idd

[Don Fry]

Who are JLR.

[Martin Harris - Moderator]

From info gleaned in the previous posts, I'd imagine they are referring to Jaguar Land Rover.

[Erfolg]

IDDD15, the sad part about engineering is that nothing comes free. Other than with the perpetual motion advocates. I understood that the torque was high when not moving, dropping in an inverse relationship as the rotational speed increased. But, hey, being an ex clunky, we know nothing, other than our sparky brethren, would often provide a big motor with a lot of control gear. Even then much of the gain was elusive.

Again with regenerative breaking, all you need is a motor, nothing in-between to control the current towards the battery. Or does the bit in the middle come free.

It is easy to paint a picture where all is gains, in reality there is kit and losses and much of the gains postulated are not worth a bag of cold chips.

If electric vehicles come to dominate, due to their inherent superiority, that will be great. if it is purely down to politics and grants, that is not so good news. At present I think I can hear a can being kicked down the road to become some one elses problem.

To much is being sold on lower cost. Where this is being done by avoiding the taxes that other road users are required to pay, it is another thing. Get rid of IC vehicles and I would put money on taxes rising on electric vehicles, in one way, or another, to match or surpass the existing taxes.

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[IDD15]

Posted by Erfolg on 20/04/2018 20:24:16:

IDDD15, the sad part about engineering is that nothing comes free. Other than with the perpetual motion advocates. I understood that the torque was high when not moving, dropping in an inverse relationship as the rotational speed increased. But, hey, being an ex clunky, we know nothing, other than our sparky brethren, would often provide a big motor with a lot of control gear. Even then much of the gain was elusive.

Don't patronise me Erflog because I dared to inject some informed facts into this "discussion".

Again with regenerative breaking, all you need is a motor, nothing in-between to control the current towards the battery. Or does the bit in the middle come free.

As I said in my post (if you had bothered to read it properly) the motor controller takes care of this. It probably requires the controller to be fitted with three additional MOSFET components and there will be additional software required to integrate the regen braking , conventional friction breaking system and battery charger . Nissan have done an excellent job of this on the Leaf and the braking method/force is seamless in operation.

It is easy to paint a picture where all is gains, in reality there is kit and losses and much of the gains postulated are not worth a bag of cold chips.

Regenerative braking is hugely important for electric vehicles in order to maximise their range. You are forever banging on about EV range so to liken this to a bag of cold chips is quite frankly insulting.

If electric vehicles come to dominate, due to their inherent superiority, that will be great. if it is purely down to politics and grants, that is not so good news. At present I think I can hear a can being kicked down the road to become some one elses problem.

To much is being sold on lower cost. Where this is being done by avoiding the taxes that other road users are required to pay, it is another thing. Get rid of IC vehicles and I would put money on taxes rising on electric vehicles, in one way, or another, to match or surpass the existing taxes.

I do not think any existing EV driver who has contributed to this thread would dispute that the taxes will change in the future.

idd

[Erfolg]

Percy, you know that you have been subsidised if you drive an electric vehicle, at present. You know if you buy petrol that it is not only the cost of the actual petrol that is paid, it is mostly additional taxes, which is then subjected to vat. To be on an equal footing, all electric vehicles would and surely in the fullness of time will be required to pay a substantially higher price for recharging, also subject to tax, for environmental damage due to being recharged.

It is part of the UK road fund to also pay a sum of money on an annual basis to use a vehicle on the road, if IC. This set of charges are structured to extract a certain amount of tax on an annual basis. There is no justifiable reason for the present disparity to be allowed to continue into perpetuity.

Again those who purchase cars in this instance which have a set of characteristics, are required to pay a one of charge on the basis that the vehicle is deemed to damage the environment. It will come as no surprise that some reason will be devised to cover some groups of electric vehicles.

At present those who are driving electric vehicles are privileged, do you really believe that this situation will be allowed to continue?

If you consider my previous post, I am suggesting that taxes on electric vehicle will be increased to a broadly similar level that IC vehicles are now required to pay. If taxes are not forthcoming from us, their will not be any government or local authority services. That is no NHS, Education, National Defence, Pension Payments, or Bin collections, street lighting, before you start on services such as Social Services, Unemployment benefits, housing subsidies and many many more. In reality when so much of the tax is paid by the so called rich, there are a number of issues, they stop bothering to make money, move abroad, stop investing and so on. The reality is the rest of us will have to pay to taxes to drive about, be it IC or electric, it is sadly unavoidable.

There is an irony though for me, I have driven down a road today, where there is a new solar panel driving a sign that measures speed (in this case set at 20 mph smiley face), in addition a new set of white lines on a road whose surface that has recently rapidly deteriorated, with additional signage to warn of a variety of issues (pretty much imagined as unique to the location). Perhaps the amount of tax required could be reduced by a mass cull of the traffic department, leaving just those who maintain the road infrastructure, although I do not see it happening any time soon.

[Erfolg]

IDDD15

Seems I have struck a nerve.

It is a fact, that there is a cost in managing electrical energy, and any one who has been involved in projects knows that the promises are very rarely realised, at the levels suggested, that electrical and instrumentation, is not low cost, particularly where higher energy levels are involved, that even the reliability throws up some unexpected issues. Yet many projects could not be delivered without the technology. But it comes at a cost, measured in many forms.

IMO it will take some time before, every day issues such as torrential rain, very low temperatures, will not be an issue for mass produced electrical vehicles.

And yes, I have spent, in the past, something approaching years dealing with Instrumentation, power systems, that have required far more space than had been allocated, that spurious signals have interfered with particularly instrumentation and a lot of effort to get these systems to deliver anything close to what supporters and contractual stipulations had been entered into. The same is also true of the mechanical side.

As for patronising, as an ex engineer, I feel very much patronised for indicating how the real world of delivering differs from the spin of the PR specialists and arm chair engineers.

[Tim A]

I'm with Erfolg on this one, here in New Zealand our tax system is of course very similar to the UK because most of our Laws and Taxation system are based on the UK system. Consequently when we purchase petrol for our Internal Combustion vehicles a large part of which is deemed to be road tax. A large portion of this tax goes towards repair, maintenance and improvement of the roading network.

If they don't at some stage tax EV's who is going to pay for the above? Politically at the moment it is not in the Governments interest to raise a road tax on EV's, if they did imagine the hew and cry from the those with vested interests in promoting EV's as the future i.e.. Politicians, Manufactures, Electricity Suppliers and the Green Sector.

Don't get me wrong I am not against Electric Vehicles per se, but I believe in the basic premise of user pays and if EV's are not taxed then that is basically unfair to those who do.

Don't get me started on why our Government is spending large amounts of our tax dollars on building underutilized cycleways!!

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[IDD15]

Erf

You paint a very dismal picture of what we electrical and mechanical engineers can achieve. I infer from your post that like me you have been involved in many difficult projects, typically for one off specialised installations. To make comparisons to what is required for a mass market consumer item, which is what a car is, is not valid. Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) have built 200 prototypes for the iPace. Prototype to operational test rig in one has been the norm for me.

Re: Torrential Rain & Cold

After 6800 miles I am happy to report my Leaf has not skipped an electron despite the worst of the British weather including the Beast from the East. I cannot speak for other brands and countries.

Re: Electrical interference,

Don't think I've had any of that and I've driven close to some pretty big windmills in Scotland. However the Bluetooth link between my Nokia phone and the car can be a bit flakey at times.

Whilst I fully appreciate your caution re PR and "Elon Musk" spin your mind seems to have become very closed, which I find surprising from a fellow engineer.

idd

PS Re Earlier Milk float discussion

I am pleased to report a local milkman is now using a Nissan electric van for his round. Result, what goes around comes around!

[Frank Skilbeck]

On the subject of regenerative charging, my non-hybrId diesel car has this where when you come off the throttle it then charges the battery, everything to get the emissions as low as possible and fuel economy up, which at 48 mpg in a large car with a 185 bhp engine isn't bad. But you do wonder about all the complication.

[Erfolg]

IDD15

Although most of my actual engineering life has been mainly one offs, I can see some of the issues for the mass market vehicle builders. For them a single fault common to all models is potentially a major financial and reputational hit.

Perhaps my main concern is the rose tinted view that all the incremental improvements deliver a gross saving, there being no offsets that result in a net.

My other concern, and it is not just applicable to electric vehicles, is that not all the innovations deliver a long term gain for the consumer. An instance was my wives TR7, which developed a dashboard display issue, I cannot remember specifically what. In that case it was a plastic film printed circuit. This could not be repaired by replacement, just tedious painting the tracks with a conductive material Other memories, were with respect to a project I was part of. In then what was my new role, many years later I asked about a specific piece of kit that I had specified. I was very disappointed to be told that it was great, until the electronic package failed. Repairs were unsuccessful, parts unobtainable, resulting in the drive and electronics being stripped out and another (different) system installed. Although most disappointing and ego deflating, this pales into insignificance to a multimillion pound plant, that was beset by electrical control issues, which together with other issues resulted in the plants closure, thank god I had nothing to do with it.

In most respects motor vehicles are relatively simple, from an electronic point of view and you would expect that great care is taken to separate power systems from electronic systems or components. For instance crossing at 90 degrees and never running parallel in close proximity. At the design stage everything seems hunky dory. Yet years down the road many cars do seem to succumb according to some sources to electrical issues resulting in a road side breakdown. Or in the case of my now long gone Porsche and wives Vauxhall would not start in the morning. It was from these thoughts that one time returning from Cumbria, going over Shap, I did think about the absolute drenching that would be taking place under the bonnet, as we ploughed through torrential rain. Whilst I observed that my usual +50 to the gallon, was dropping into the low 20s, as the tyres pumped gallons of water out of the way. Now I think an all electric car will be challenged even more, in similar circumstances. I also would have concerns with respect to salted roads and cables carrying currents and the longer term consequences.

IMO it is far to early to understand how the electrical car market will develop. At present it appears to me that it is primarily the grants and tax arrangements that tempts quite a small number of people to try electric cars. The vehicle producers are both responding to governmental pressure and edging their bets.

Yet if government and environmentalists were serious or without a idealogical driver, the immediate concern would be the diesel buses and small delivery vans in the cities, as again, figures indicate these are the major road vehicle polluters. Yet I find it hard to believe that wood burning stoves in London (and presumably else where) are also significant polluters of cities as has been reported.

[Trevor Crook]

Yes, it seems daft to power a local delivery van with diesel these days, very unsuitable for short journeys with the dpf. Yet Royal Mail have thousands of them. Certainly a case for gradually replacing the fleet with EVs and charging at the depot.

Regarding servicing, I would agree with Erfolg that the cost of corrective maintenance on an EV will be at least as expensive as an i.c. car. However, the cost of routine maintenance should be a fair bit cheaper, as supported by IDD15's experience. Presumably no lubricants or filters will need changing, bar the pollen filter. The brake friction surfaces should last much longer, although corrosion on the less used discs could be an issue - some i.c. cars suffer from this on their lightly used rear brakes.

It will be interesting to see how the taxation system evolves. The subsidy on EVs is designed to encourage their uptake, when sales are sufficiently bouyant this will be phased out. Similarly, VED will be applied. But in the next few years I'd expect EVs to reach price parity with i.c. cars, so the loss of subsidies won't matter. How will they recover fuel duty? Easy to do at charging stations, but extra taxation on domestic supplies would be unfair on non-motorists. I can see solar panels and storage batteries becoming very popular for suitable dwellings.

[Erfolg]

Trevor being flippant, they will colour code the electrons, then HM Customs and excise will check your battery.

Being less flippant, I can see that a way will be deviced that only specific plugs, will be allowed to charge electric vehicles, via a dedicated charge spur, which will be metered at a suitable rate.

In reality i have no idea, beyond the idea, that as we discuss there will be civil servants who are investigating methods now, along with legislation to criminalise those who attempt to avoid the regulations etc.

I am less convinced that that maintenance will be less onerous, I also suspect that there will be requirements that only "Suitably Trained and Qualified persons " will be allowed to work on specific aspects of the power systems, in due course.

There is a bit in todays paper which is suggesting due to the torque characteristics of electric motors, that their will be benefit from a gearbox, to deal with high speed, where the motors torque is low, yet a steep hill etc demands higher torque output. Although it was at pains to point out, there are a number of differing concepts being investigated and in use at present. There are so many announcements at present, there is little clear direction. How many have substance requires a degree of investigation and study that I for one cannot be bothered.