After seeing Top Gear on sunday, some might be surprised that it has made me [B]more [/B]interested in a leccy car than previously.
The Nissan Leaf sounded interesting, but the lack of an alternative power source (e.g. a backup engine) puts me off. It’s true that 90% of my journeys are from home and involve less than 70 miles round trip back to home, and I can charge in my garage. The problem I see, is what can I do on the 10% of journeys where the range is beyond how far it can go? One percent of my journeys can involve driving 12 hours. So that’s making me think I either need two cars, the second being for the 10% long-range trips. Or I’d need to go hybrid.
The problem I (think I) have with hybrids is that when you hit 30mph, don’t they switch to their petrol/diesel engine, because it’s at a speed where it would be running quite efficiently? For 90% of my journeys I wouldn’t want that to happen. I’d want to be all-electric because I know that I’d be able to make it home very easily without needing to use the combustion engine. Is it possible with these hybrids to stop the engine cutting in?
Ideally I’d want something like the Nissan Leaf, size/equipment/power wise, but with an engine that I’d use only when the electric range isn’t going to cut it.
EV all the way. If you were driving one of the first gas cars or even alcohol powered cars. Would you have said the same? Wish I could pull my horse behind it in case it quits. We don’t think of that, because the gasoline car or petrol car has become dependable. However, we don’t have to re-invent the car. Dependable building principles learned along the way insure the we can make a successful full time EV car from the start. Given, some will be more successful than others, like now in the petroleum age we live in now. However, jump on board with EV’s, don’t look back, and help support the growth of a new tech age. Leave your corded phone behind for crying out loud. We adopted the (Mobile Phone) where would be be with out it. Batteries will become better everyday. I don’t know how old you are, but think back a few years, what was your biggest hard drive you had in your computer? I remember when they where testing one Gig and I still had 250 mb. one. It was said they couldn’t go more than that, due to heat build up, that the computers hard drive and mother board and CPU Chip would melt itself going faster, with faster CPU’s. We’ve come along way in a short time. The gas engine, still the same. It sucks, it blows, we cough!
[QUOTE=flyinev;9387]EV all the way. If you were driving one of the first gas cars or even alcohol powered cars. Would you have said the same? Wish I could pull my horse behind it in case it quits.[/QUOTE]Thanks for the reply. It’s all very well saying go for it, bite the bullet, they’re great. It doesn’t answer my question though, of whether I can make a hybrid NOT use it’s engine when I know that I can stick with electric for that entire trip and not run out of range. A pure EV doesn’t suit 100% of my needs, only 90% of them, and that’s not enough. Whereas if I can use a hybrid in all-electric mode for the 90% of my journeys that are short range (and not have the engine cut-in at 30mph), and for the other long range 10% I’d use it in auto-mode where I do allow the engine to cut-in at 30mph (and if I run out of charge, then the engine is used all the time).
I still don’t know if you can stop the engine cutting in though. I guess I could simply not have any gas/petrol in the car while I’m in short-range mode and only put some in when I know I’m doing a long journey. That could work.
EDIT: Looking into this more, it seems like a hybrid has a really low range on battery only. Nothing anywhere near a full EV’s range.
Seems like the perfect EV / Hybrid combination doesn’t exist yet.
Making the decision for a pure EV takes a lot of thinking about your personal circumstances. We went ev, but will have a gasser for that 10% of trips which are long.
We use the EV every chance we get, and figure that we will cut our gas usage by 70%.
Even in San Diego, which has relatively good infrastructure and is the right size for an EV, folks are very hesitant to go purely EV. I think the answer will be a car that is primarily EV, but has a tiny engine that drives a generator when the battery gets low. Don’t know of any out there yet.
[QUOTE=DD990;9383]After seeing Top Gear on sunday, some might be surprised that it has made me [B]more [/B]interested in a leccy car than previously.
The Nissan Leaf sounded interesting, but the lack of an alternative power source (e.g. a backup engine) puts me off. It’s true that 90% of my journeys are from home and involve less than 70 miles round trip back to home, and I can charge in my garage. The problem I see, is what can I do on the 10% of journeys where the range is beyond how far it can go? One percent of my journeys can involve driving 12 hours. So that’s making me think I either need two cars, the second being for the 10% long-range trips. Or I’d need to go hybrid.
The problem I (think I) have with hybrids is that when you hit 30mph, don’t they switch to their petrol/diesel engine, because it’s at a speed where it would be running quite efficiently? For 90% of my journeys I wouldn’t want that to happen. I’d want to be all-electric because I know that I’d be able to make it home very easily without needing to use the combustion engine. Is it possible with these hybrids to stop the engine cutting in?
Ideally I’d want something like the Nissan Leaf, size/equipment/power wise, but with an engine that I’d use only when the electric range isn’t going to cut it.[/QUOTE]
back in 2008, I converted a 1987 650cc motorcycle to electric. the problem was range, plus I didn’t want more than 4 12 volt batteries to carry. since lithiums are pricey, I chose agm batteries. to get range, I built a genset and installed it in frame. the fuel consumption is 100 kilometers per liter. fuel tank holds 11 liters. range on battery only is 40km. seen at this site, Alan Clayton’s 1987 Suzuki LS650 Savage perhaps building a genset would help in your application.
Pure gas is still more economical. You never make your money back from a hybrid fuel savings. Same for an electric.
And I like to have heat in my car when I drive in the winter.Electrics have electric heater that really cut down your range.
I think the most important plus point of hybrid vehicle over the electric vehicle is hybrid vehicle have the alternate option for fuel in case of any emergency. If the car battery did not get charged well then, and it’s not that much popular till now have a various charging sources.