“I’m not sure what this says – a 2012 Tesla Model S can charge at 120kW, or 170 miles in 30 minutes, so the average commuter would need to charge for about 7 minutes per day”

A >8C charge rate would be highly damaging on a battery, especially if done every day. Remember that 120kW power is only a 1.5 to 2C charge rate for the Tesla and its larger battery pack.

But even if you could charge in 7 mins daily, that is still a huge step from taking 2 minutes a month to ‘recharge’ an ICE when there are 20 million cars needing to do the same thing. Just imagine we would need maybe 80 times as many charging points as we have petrol pumps. That’s a heck of an infrastructure jump, and is still based on an unrealistic 8C charge rate. A 3C charge rate would be more realistic, but would then mean needing 200 times as many charge points as petrol pumps. Plus, I always queue for fuel these days and often just drive by to avoid waiting. With 200 charging points, the same size of queues would form, but needing a daily charge would then mean I have to wait. Consumer demand would push that up to 400 to 500 times as many charge points as petrol pumps. My local Tesco has 8 pumps, so they’d need to replace those with 4,000 charge points to serve the same customers but with EVs … err… I’d suggest that’s a tad unrealistic.

In my experience, lights and wipers don’t seem to have any effect on range, unlike the heater and a/c. I appreciate that the power used by these devices is small in comparison, but could be expected knock a couple of miles off the range.

Does anyone know how the 12V battery is charged? If it is charging constantly from the 400V battery, I would expect the range to be affected by the use of lights, wipers, heated rear window, etc.. However, if it is charged only during the main battery charging process, range would be unaffected by use of accessories.

Thanks Trevor for the info on the home charger,can’t seem to navigate my way around the posts easily sometimes ,so I thought I would just catch you here.
I see the price is around the £400 I was originally quoted when I first ordered one way back.
I wonder what is so complicated about producing a 10Amp Li-on charger these days,unless the Elephant in the room is still the Zoe battery ?
If inverters came way down in price it might be worth looking again at 12v Solar charging,in the heat of the glorious summer to come.Sorry if I am on the wrong thread,will get the run of it all soon I hope,when broadband and 3g reach this part of the world.Anyone seen Nikola Tesla?

2016, ICE obsolete!! I doubt it. I really really doubt it. The reason is not due to what may or may not happen to battery tech and its price, but the simple rough-and-tumble of market capitalism. Put simply, trucks will still need liquid fuel, and so where there is liquid fuel there are people that want to sell more of the stuff. They’ll just drop the price, if it isn’t selling. That old fall-back, supply and demand.

Trucks need 1000 mile range at 8 mpg, that’s 5000kWh of calorific value, or call it 2000kWh of battery-equivalent energy. 100x today’s battery packs… not likely, even at $100/kWh the engineering of putting that much battery into a vehicle seems on the ‘daunting’ side. That’s before we even look at an electrical infrastructure capable of delivering to the couple of million such trucks that would all need charging. So heavy trucks will stay on fossil fuels for a long while, probably for ever, and there will be a supply of cars made available to also benefit from using that fuel.

OK, so what of the cars. There are factories the size of small towns that produce mind boggling numbers of engines. Again, the inertia of closing these down is simply not going to happen very quickly. Yes, they might well become ‘undesirable’ if the alternative tech takes off, but for many years this will simply translate into reduces prices so as to sell the stock. The factories will lose profit over the years and eventually become non-viable, but this size of operation isn’t going to be closed down in the space of a few years. A decade, yes, because that’ll be the period of the ‘business-plan’ for the factory.

There have been a few periods before this one where folks have really pushed BEVs and sages have read their crystal balls and tea leaves, and all to nought. I don’t see much difference this time, except for the sheer scale of Government incentives this time around. Once those incentives die back, I can’t really see what’ll be so different. If there is a sudden tech change, like an aluminium battery that can give 3x the capacity of Li at half the cost, well, that might change the picture. But it has to be an order of magnitude improvement on current tech for a sudden change to happen, IMHO.

Until recently I’ve had no problem playing music via Bluetooth phone (galaxy nexus) as well as making calls etc. But now the connection for music is lost whilst the phone still works fine.
When I check the connection settings I can see rlink tries to connect for music for a while and then gives up. I know I can use a USB stick instead, but ….
Anyone any ideas how to fix? Big rest with secondary battery disconnection perhaps?

Perhaps the Winter may not be the time for a lot of Ecar sales,or any car sales,?
As far as the Zoe is concerned I have seen a fall in battery capacity of about 15% ie a range of 80 miles.The car is in a garage but I assume the outside temp is not good for Li-on batteries.

My dealer actually ordered the 10A charger for the Zoe twice and waited for a delivery from Paris,sending the first charger back as you rightly say it was for a Kangoo and came with the wrong plug for the Zoe.
This was in spite of the fact that I told him that the then head of Renault Electric had told me a year earlier that this charger would never be released for a Zoe.
I believe they are concerned’ that although it may only draw 10A from the 13A socket in your kitchen,someone may also plug the 2kw kettle in and perhaps blow the trip,(Depends on the house wiring and ring main etc)
People were also warned about not using extension cables and coiling the cable.Relatively speaking 10A is a lot although my Zoe draws 100A from the battery when going up a small hill.
Still there is a lot to be said for simple home charging over complicated and often faulty street chargers,maybe that’s a factor in Siemens recent decision?

Oh dear, Donald, you do appear to be depressed, a touch of the New Year blues I guess. Yes, the manageable summer mileage has taken a hammering. I have yet to drive mine with scant regard for economy, that could be an eye-opener.

Without a functioning wall charger I am relying on the “shouldn’t use it” cable, thank goodness I bought one! British Gas are supposedly offering a four year warranty with three years parts and labour but in truth they do nothing. That’s right, nothing. All they do is pass on Chargemaster’s phone number. Surely this is illegal, the retailer is responsible? After waiting 24 hours for a call-back from CM I phoned again and got someone who actually listened to me – I fear I gave him an earful about BG but I do have an appointment for someone to come and sort the charger.

I continue to be thoroughly puzzled by the onboard computer’s figures. I trust the battery gauge but that computer’s another matter. On the last charge I used 64% of battery, it tells me that’s 11kW gone and I averaged 4.4 m/kWh. I actually went 50 miles. None of those figures compute! Unless I have a 16kW battery that can do 105 miles on a good summer day and that would be a miracle. Maybe I’m getting a touch of the New Year blues too – and remember, I paid dear for the car and am probably stuck with it.

You worry about your poor Vectra sitting neglected. What about my poor Bandit that’s only gone 30 miles with me before the weather broke. Its cover doesn’t stay on, either. Shucks.

• This reply was modified 12 years, 3 months ago by  pauledg.