Would you have an electric car if you had the money for a new car and were in the market for one?

[Pirahna]

Apparently EV's were 80% of new car sales in Norway last year, a place not known for its warm climate.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/23/01/0 ... rand-again

[Count Steer]

Apparently EV's were 80% of new car sales in Norway last year, a place not known for its warm climate.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/23/01/0 ... rand-again

Norway are a bit of a special case. They aim to be carbon neutral by 2030. (They also have lots of luvverly cheap hydroelectric power and appear to ignore all that carbon that they export. At least they kept control of their resources and didn't spaff it all away like some places did...)

Speaking of batteries and cold weather....went to start t'hybrid yesterday...1300 miles on it....battery is flat.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Speaking of batteries and cold weather....went to start t'hybrid yesterday...1300 miles on it....battery is flat.

It may amuse people to know that Teslas - and indeed all other EVs/Hybrids pretty much - are not immune to good old fashioned flat batteries, just like an ICE car. They usually still have a 'conventional' 12V lead acid battery to run all the other stuff which isn't the drivetrain.

[ChrisW]

Speaking of batteries and cold weather....went to start t'hybrid yesterday...1300 miles on it....battery is flat.

I sympathise - my car got a new battery as a slightly early Christmas present.

[Count Steer]

Speaking of batteries and cold weather....went to start t'hybrid yesterday...1300 miles on it....battery is flat.

It may amuse people to know that Teslas - and indeed all other EVs/Hybrids pretty much - are not immune to good old fashioned flat batteries, just like an ICE car. They usually still have a 'conventional' 12V lead acid battery to run all the other stuff which isn't the drivetrain.

Yep. If I can find it (haven't ever opened the bonnet) I'll stick the charger on it and see what happens. Wasn't enough juice in it to start the engine...it struggled to fold out the mirrors. I did use it during the v cold weather so wasn't expecting problems now it has warmed up. May be a 'bathtub curve' battery failure.

[Cousin Jack]

Apparently EV's were 80% of new car sales in Norway last year, a place not known for its warm climate.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/23/01/0 ... rand-again

Lots of Tesas in Norway. Also massive hydro schemes, and probably cheap leccy. Lots of charge points too, compared to the population. Norwegian government is spending billions on road infrastructure, I suspect the charging infrastructure will be matched.

[Mr. Dazzle]

I would guess there are pretty tasty tax incentives for EV's in Norway. I've not looked, but it seems like the kinda thing they'd do.

Norway can/wants to afford it of course. They've got one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world despite being nowhere even close to the largest economy.

[Mussels]

I would guess there are pretty tasty tax incentives for EV's in Norway. I've not looked, but it seems like the kinda thing they'd do.

Norway can/wants to afford it of course. They've got one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world despite being nowhere even close to the largest economy.

I think they have recently ditched most of the financial incentives, also recently the main charger provider has switched from a flat monthly fee to charging per kwh. They may not be quite so popular anymore.

[Count Steer]

Speaking of batteries and cold weather....went to start t'hybrid yesterday...1300 miles on it....battery is flat.

It may amuse people to know that Teslas - and indeed all other EVs/Hybrids pretty much - are not immune to good old fashioned flat batteries, just like an ICE car. They usually still have a 'conventional' 12V lead acid battery to run all the other stuff which isn't the drivetrain.

Yep. If I can find it (haven't ever opened the bonnet) I'll stick the charger on it and see what happens. Wasn't enough juice in it to start the engine...it struggled to fold out the mirrors. I did use it during the v cold weather so wasn't expecting problems now it has warmed up. May be a 'bathtub curve' battery failure.

Well, that was a little 'technical adventure'. I thought I'd stick the battery charger on it. Ha! The 12v battery is under the rear seat and although I could unlock the drivers door with the physical key, I couldn't open the rear door. In the end I manoeuvred the other car close enough to the front end to get jump leads connected. (There's a jump lead connection point in the fuse box under the bonnet). Taadaaa! Let it charge a few minutes, then went out for an anti-eco drive trying to keep the engine running as much as possible, so went quite heavy on the throttle. Seems fine and will see what happens tomorrow.

I suspect that, although it's quite good at looking after the lithium pack, lots of short journeys mainly on electric and the 12V lead acid jobby gradually gets run down.

Just glad it didn't happen somewhere, off the drive, in a monsoon.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Teslas can/could get themselves into a sort of death loop - the 12V is charged from the big battery of course, but if the 12V gets too low it can't power the electronics which tell it how to charge from the big battery. You also then can't charge the big battery because the electronics are down

Hope they've fixed that design flaw!

[Count Steer]

Teslas can/could get themselves into a sort of death loop - the 12V is charged from the big battery of course, but if the 12V gets too low it can't power the electronics which tell it how to charge from the big battery. You also then can't charge the big battery because the electronics are down

Hope they've fixed that design flaw!

That's pretty much what happened. The 12V boots the electronics, no electronics, no nuffink.

(First time I tried to start it there was enough power to deliver a string of error messages/warnings...which finished off whatever juice was left. ).

[Cousin Jack]

If it is like mine on the Lexus, the lead acid battery is a leisure battery, not an automotive one. Mine doesn't do much except sort out all the big contactors that join up the lithium battery. That does all the work like starting the engine. The bad news is that the leisure battery will not be in stock and will take several days to obtain. DAMHIK.

[Pirahna]

The latest craze, extreme regen braking

https://news.sky.com/video/four-people- ... f-12778864

The bloke driving has been arrested for the attempted murder of his family.

[Count Steer]

If it is like mine on the Lexus, the lead acid battery is a leisure battery, not an automotive one. Mine doesn't do much except sort out all the big contactors that join up the lithium battery. That does all the work like starting the engine. The bad news is that the leisure battery will not be in stock and will take several days to obtain. DAMHIK.

Well, so far it seems OK (but, if it ain't one thing it's another, now the wife's HP mini-tower seems to have died ). If it happens again, I'll do the jump leads thing again, drive it to the dealers, chuck them the keys and say 'sort it'. It's only a few months old.

[Horse]

https://all-car-news.com/en/british-par ... g-garages/

Dangerous situations
Electric cars do not have a heavy gasoline or diesel engine “under the hood,” but a compact, lightweight electric motor. But because of a hefty battery pack, EVs are often bulky. An electric car sometimes weighs as much as 500 pounds more than a similar model with a traditional powertrain. This can create dangerous situations, according to the British Parking Association.

Ford Cortina
Indeed, according to the British Parking Association, there are some 6,000 multi-story parking garages in the United Kingdom, most of which were built to guidelines based on the weight of popular cars from the 1970s. What was the most popular model in the United Kingdom at the time? A Ford Cortina Mk 3.

Electric cars heavy
The differences between modern cars and the Ford Cortina of old are huge. The Cortina is a likeable but slow bolide, which, moreover, would not yet achieve a 1-star in a Euro NCAP crash test. But it is not heavy, and modern cars are. An average EV – such as a Tesla Model 3 (1,819 kg) – weighs almost twice as much as a Cortina (960 kg). Cars with regular powertrains have also gained considerably. A new Volkswagen Golf easily weighs 1,400 kilograms. Moreover, more and more people are opting for a large, heavy SUV. So it’s not just electric cars that the BPA should be concerned about.

Checks
Chris Whapples, structural engineer and member of the BPA: “When you see the weight of electric cars coming out of the factory, you begin to wonder if the existing standards are adequate. We haven’t had an incident yet, but I suspect it’s only a matter of time. We encourage owners of older parking garages to check.”

[Mr. Dazzle]

Is this like that thing when they say "when they built the library they forgot the weight of the books"?

It does raise an eyebrow though yes. I wonder how many fewer cars you get in a carpark now though, sure they all weigh twice as much but if you can only fit half as many in.....

[Horse]

I wonder how many fewer cars you get in a carpark now though, sure they all weigh twice as much but if you can only fit half as many in.....

Few years back I went to a meeting at the AA's Fanum House in Basingstoke. 1972's brutalist concrete at its best.

Two of us drove into the multistorey car park, reversed into spaces almost opposite, looked at each other, laughed, drove out.

In the spaces - but not possible to open the doors!




Similar in a hospital car park in Southampton:

20230105_090604.jpg (1.56 MiB) Viewed 1118 times

[Mr. Dazzle]

Yeah it's definitely noticeable in a lots of place. There's a pretty new multi level here in MK which opened a couple of years ago, the spaces are massive and they have foot wide white lines between each one. The street spaces outside the same car park are properly "breath in when you open the car door"

[Slenver]

I once went all Alan Partridge and actually wrote to complain about the parking spaces in my station car park. I had a Citroen DS3 at the time, so a very small car by modern standards, but it still required choosing a spot in between two similarly small cars in order to physically fit, and then you couldn't squeeze out until the wingmirrors had folded in. All the big cars parked at the back in alternate spaces.

In fairness, the station man did reply and agreed it was ridiculous but that the spaces were managed by NCP and they were sticking to 1970s specs.

Like everyone, I'm happy to moan about increasing car sizes/weights/move to SUVs etc, but there's no point living in denial and just forcing people to take up two spaces.

[gremlin]

Interesting figures re new car sales in 2022. Pretty bad if you're in the business of making or selling, but EVs are increasing their slice of the market. The comments re the ambitious targets vs. the reality of charging points is worth noting:

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-64165689

On another point, I've been watching the downhill trajectory of the Tesla share price over the last six months. I do wonder if it's a case of the Emperor's new clothes finally being seen for what they are*. Musk is seemingly becoming a toxic individual, notwithstanding his perceived distraction with Twitter. Add into the mix that VW, Ford, GM, etc are now well and truly on the EV bandwagon and that future earnings and lower than expected production are going hit investors, the sheen may be wearing off.

*Not the cars per se, but the valuation of the company.