Archive for the ‘Electric & Hybrid Cars’ Category

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Fancy An Electric Car? The Government Will Give You £5,000 Towards The Cost

Monday, August 2nd, 2010

Anyone planning to buy an electric car between January 2011 and March 2012 will be able to apply for a grant of 25% off the cost of their purchase, up to a maximum of £5,000.

The scheme, which was first announced by Labour, has been confirmed by the coalition government and £43m – enough for at least 8,600 grants – has been guaranteed for it.

Electric cars (and vans) are now here – there’s no longer any doubt about it. It will be a while until many people own them, but the technology has been established and is developing fast. It will happen. The government is keen to encourage this as electric vehicles have zero tailpipe emissions (although obviously that electricity has to be generated somewhere).

Although electric vehicles are only suitable for short-range use at present, this will gradually improve (think how good mobile phone and laptop batteries are these days) and range-extender electric cars already offer much greater potential for long distance use.

(Range-extender electric cars are electric cars with onboard petrol-powered generators which can be used to power the engine when the batteries run out, thus enabling you to continue driving as far as you need).

Tags: electric cars, government grants, range-extender electric cars
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Shared Electric Cars For A Fiver A Month – Interested?

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010
A picture of a Liselec shared-use electric car in La Rochelle, France

Just walk up, unlock and unplug the car and drive away. When you're finished with it, drop it off at a charging point, lock it up and walk away. All for €5.50 per month.

Car sharing schemes where users have an access card and a PIN to start the engine aren’t new – but I hadn’t seen one in action until recently.

To add a bit of extra interest, this was an electric car scheme – all the cars were Peugeot 106s or Citroen Saxos that had been converted to electric power for urban use.

For around a fiver per month, users in this city get unlimited access to 50 electric cars, which are parked in 7 allocated parking locations (with charging points) around the city. If you’re starting to get interested, then sorry – this isn’t the UK I’m talking about.

The location of this scheme is La Rochelle, in France. The scheme seems to be called Liselec and users get 24/7 free access to any of the cars via an access card (for unlocking) and a PIN code (to start the motor). The subscription is €5.50 per month and there don’t seem to be any strings attached. It sounds like a neat idea for city dwellers who don’t leave the city that often – why own a car (and have to find parking for it) when you can use someone else’s, with guaranteed parking?

Would you be interested in such a scheme in the UK – do you know of any similar schemes already running?

Tags: Citroen Saxo, electric cars, France, La Rochelle, Liselec, Peugeot 106, shared cars, Yelomobile
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Electric Car Reality Moves Closer (in cities, at least)

Friday, September 11th, 2009

The reality of normal people using electric cars full time is moving a little closer, in nine of our cities at least. An £11m plan has just been announced to develop a network of electric vehicle recharging points in nine UK cities: Birmingham, Coventry, Glasgow, London, Middlesbrough, Milton Keynes, Newcastle, Oxford and Sunderland (read more about it here).

At the same time comes news that Renault is unveiling no fewer than four electric vehicle concepts at next week’s Frankfurt Motor Show, heralding the launch of the company’s Zero Emission product range. This is a clear sign that the French manufacturer is committing to electric in a big way. These may only be concepts, but you can be fairly confident that some real production vehicles will be follow them in the not-too-distance future.

Car hire companies are planning to get in on the act, too. Europcar has just signed an agreement with Renault to roll out its Zero Emission range of electric vehicles from 2011. Europcar will also implement the necessary recharging infrastructure at its branches.

Renault’s research shows that 80% of people in Europe currently travel less than 60km per day – ideal for current electric cars, which typically have ranges of up to 100 miles on a full charge. Despite this, most of us occasionally undertake much longer journeys in our cars, giving rise to the need for extended range or easy and rapid recharging/refuelling.

For this reason, I still believe the future will be hybrid more than pure electric, but pure electric vehicles will definitely have a place. I suspect that electric vehicles may provide the basis for a new generation of hybrids, where the electric system is primary and the internal combustion engine is small, secondary, and primarily used for charging.

Tags: electric cars, Europcar, Frankfurt Motor Show, Renault, Zero Emission
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Mitsubishi iMiEV Electric Car – In-Depth Review

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009

Update: As expected, PSA Peugeot Citroen has just announced that it will be making an electric vehicle based on the Mitsubishi iMiev. Production is expected to start in 2010 with a launch by the end of next year.

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The Mitsubishi iMiEV is one of the first 4/5-seater fully-electric vehicles from a mainstream manufacturer. Originally a petrol-engined car, the electric version is just about to go on sale. Five thousand are earmarked for the UK market (only 50,000 are being made) and they will be priced at between £20,000 and £25,000.

It is a lot of money – but new technology always costs more. Think back to the first mobile phone or computer you owned and compare them to what’s available now.

Anyway, if you are interested in electric cars, the review in The Register is detailed, readable and balanced. There are plenty of pictures, too, so it is well worth a read.

Click here for the review, or check out some of my previous articles on electric cars here, here and here.

Tags: car review, Mitsubishi iMiEV
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Who Unplugged My Electric Car?

Thursday, July 23rd, 2009

This interesting diary in The Telegraph captures the real-world problems facing early users of electric cars.

David Millward, the Telegraph’s Transport Editor is trialling an electric Smart car in London. His main problem is ‘range anxiety’ – the fear of running out of power away from a charging point.

However, he is mostly impressed – although it would be nice not to have to worry about strangers unplugging your car when charging in public places.

It’s well worth a read if you are interested in electric cars and the reality of using current models – click here for the full article.

Tags: electric car, electric Smart car, Smart car, Telegraph
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Electric Cars Are Go – A Review of What The Press Said

Monday, April 20th, 2009

Electric cars have been in the news recently, thanks to a new £250m government plan to subsidise the purchase of new cars by up to £5,000 per car. The move is aimed at stimulating the car industry and helping us to reduce our transport-related emissions – but how realistic is it?

I’ve gathered together a mixture of links from the mainstream and specialist motoring press that include a couple of electric car reviews and a discussion of the issues at hand:

I think that electric vehicles are reaching a turning point – within a few years they really will be viable for a significant minority of people. From then on, it’s just a question of time. Watch this space.

Tags: electric cars, government subsidy
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Charging Problems Could Double Opel Ampera’s CO2 Emissions

Wednesday, March 25th, 2009

As I pointed out in my post ‘Electric Cars – Could the Electric Companies Cope?’, one of the obvious problems with electric cars is how we would charge them.

Most of our towns and cities are full of old housing with inconveniently located on-street parking – meaning that running a cable from your house to your car would be nigh-on impossible.

This practical point could have a big effect. GM has admitted that the CO2 emissions of its forthcoming Ampera extended-range electric car could double in the UK as a result of owners not being able to charge their vehicles outside their houses.

(The Ampera has an on-board petrol generator to provide electricity to power the vehicle when the batteries run flat. This would have to run more if cars weren’t hooked up to the mains to charge.)

Here’s a link to the relevant Autocar article – it’s well worth a read.

Tags: electric cars, GM Volt, Opel Ampera
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Electric Cars – Could the Electric Companies Cope?

Thursday, March 19th, 2009

One of the classic objections to electric cars is that “all that extra electricity would have to come from somewhere”. In other words, there are two potential problems:

  1. Electric cars don’t reduce pollution, they simply transfer it from cars to power stations.
  2. Our existing power generation and supply network would not be up to the job of charging millions of electric cars every night.

Both of these concerns are undoubtedly valid, but both might also be exaggerated in their significance. Here’s why:

  1. It’s generally accepted that it is more feasible to make a few, more environmentally-friendly power stations than it is to make millions of lower emission cars.
  2. In the US, many power companies believe that the demand generated by charging a few million electric vehicles overnight would actually help them – by evening out the load and generating economies of scale (i.e. more electricity = cheaper electricity).

It’s certainly long been the case in the UK that electricity is cheaper at night – because it’s going spare. Anyone who has had Economy 7 in their homes will be familiar with this, as will (I suspect) large-scale industrial users.

In addition, the take up of electric vehicles is inevitably going to be gradual, so demand for recharging power will likewise increase gradually, allowing power companies to work out the best way of responding to it.

More of a practical problem might be charging points and the power supplies that would need to be wired up to them.

Where I live, parking is on-street, unallocated and on the opposite side of the road to my house – so I couldn’t possibly run a wire out to my vehicle, even on the rare occasions I manage to park close to my house. This situation is pretty common with older housing in all of our towns and cities – not to mention blocks of flats.

The biggest problem, of course, is what happens if you need to charge before you get home again?

That’s why I think cars like the GM Volt – all-electric but with an on-board petrol generator to charge batteries on the move – are the answer at the moment.

I’m afraid that you won’t catch me buying a vehicle that I can’t refuel anywhere in Europe in under 10 minutes – whatever the environmental benefits might be.

Tags: electric cars, PHEV, power generation
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