The Chocolate Fireguard as designed by Mercedes Benz

Interesting to hear your honest experience with the car. It's a personal thing I know but it would be nice to know what the residual value of your car is when you sell it. Obviously governments around the world are pushing for all electric, mind you I seem to remember something similar with Diesel.

I was reading the other day that the world's supply of Lithium is running out fast and the recovery technique from used batteries isn't very cost effective. I had a look at the new EPace at the Jag club last Autumn but I wasn't impressed. Short range and expensive.

Nice to hear honest reviews.

I must say sorry to Keith for hijacking his thread. I have heard similar dissatisfaction with so-called traffic sign recognition from other manufacturers (probably buy in the same software) and some cars now having three forward cameras whereas others only have one. The biggest issue with sign recognition or GPS recognition is the 'smart motorway network' - also applies to adaptive speed control. I'm unaware of any system that automatically adjusts to those overhead sign changes. At least in the USA they seem capabe of using their 'lemon laws' and class action suits when manufacturers pull fast ones. Here we just roll over.

Martin, I'm not saying people should adapt to my car. I'm saying that quiet cars should be viewed as a bonus and people should adjust to that (driver and pedestrian) and pay attention to where they're walking.

RMA. I'm not so sure about lithium running out - there's supposed to be huge deposits in S America. the biggest concern has been the child labour over cobalt mining. Once again tesla 'claims' to have very good recycling systems and has some of the lowest cobalt in it's newest chemistry as well as some of the highest overall efficiencies - claimed at 97% in the newest round of permenant magnet motors.

Residual value is poor on any expensive car. I'll probably lose £40K over 3 years but would have done so if I'd bought any £100K car.  Heck, i lost 40% in 3 years on my GT86 - it was just less as a sum. You can avoid some of that buy buying secondhand

I also considered the I-pace and in reality range is less important unless you do long trips.. average commutes and shopping etc will be fine from home charging but, yes, Tesla beats that on range, cost of fuel and speed of charge. Oddly my wife panics over range- refills her 4x4 when it's near half full. We recently went to jaguar showroom and she is lusting after the e-pace (wouldn't let me play with the f-type though - called it silly)

Edited By pgk pgk on 29/04/2019 11:05:15

The one thing that bugs me about the model 3 is from a recent video of the extent and cost of damage repairs. Other than that, they seem to be an excellent vehicle.

From about 11 minutes into this video.

**LINK**

**LINK**

I will be looking at a few more vids to see if this is typical and look out for what the situation might be like in the UK.

Problem, as I see it, for buying a second hand BEV is the way it may have been charged by the previous owner(s).

Continual fast charging is known to degrade the battery faster (than gentle charge rates to only 80% capacity), as is continual discharging to a low state of charge or continual charging to 100% capacity. Do owners of leased vehicles care about that - I doubt it.

I have decided to buy a new BEV if/when I win £50,000 on the lottery or premium bonds (current prices). Until then, they are out of my sensible price range.

Not done it yet,

I've heard these horror stories too and met one Tesla owner who needed a crash repair and it took months. The only personlal experience I had was some warranty parts - a cracked backing piece on the turn signal arm but obviosuly driveable. They changed the whole steering wheel/levers system for that one bit of plastic. it was one week for parts and fixed while I waited. I was aware of crash delays when i bought it but I'm privileged to have my '94 200sx to drive if it happens (or the wife's 4x4)

Go for the big win on the lottery and take a look at the new aston-martin electric they plan to start building 2021 (or the tesla roadster if you want 600 mile range)

It is interesting to see pgk’s charging details, 35 amps per hour on a domestic power supply that’s about 7.5KWh and for only 21miles

Some time ago I wondered where all the power was going to come from and how it was going to get distributed, and did some rough estimates. The New Zealand Transport Agency publish annual spreadsheets of all the vehicles registered here. They have very comprehensive details of each vehicle including the engine size and power.

Taking 2018 as an example (the stats for 2016 and 2017 produce similar results)

There were 214,000 vehicles of all sizes, scooters to HGV’s registered in NZ in 2018, of which 164,000 were powered. The average power of the vehicles was 128Kw. If the average annual mileage is assumed to be 16,000km (10,000 miles) at, say, an average speed of 50km/hr then the average usage is 320hrs/year. Those vehicles aren't going to be driven at full power so let’s say they are driven at 20% of their max power.

Had all the vehicles been electric that would have been 164000 vehicles, 128Kw at 20% for 320hrs = 1,343,488 MWh of power consumed per annum. With 8760 hours in a year that would require a 153MWh power station running 24x7

New Zealand currently has 5 million vehicles and the government has stated that they are expecting 80% of all the vehicles to be electric by 2050. So 4000000/164000 x 153MWh = 3,732GWh of additional power generation plus the transmission line infrastructure to move the power to where it’s needed.

The real concern is what is all this going to do to consumer power prices in order to pay for the build the required infrastructure? In the UK the problem must be 10 times that of New Zealand? Then again pgk's figures seem to indicate the numbers could well be higher if it takes 7.5KWh for 21 miles 10,000 miles would need an annual consumption of 3600KWh for one vehicle.

Edited By Doubletop on 29/04/2019 11:54:04

Edited By Doubletop on 29/04/2019 11:55:01

Edited By Doubletop on 29/04/2019 11:55:30

Regarding the original post, I think a lot of these features are included in the car package when they probably aren't fully functional or reliable because the car maker needs to recoup some of the on-going investment and keep the cash flow going. They are usually included with one of the other packages, so you get it whether you want it or not. It's annoying I know, I've had similar problems with built-in sat navs! Trying to deal with the main UK importer of the company is usually a waste of time from my experience.

The speed recognition system, which I don't have, relies on a camera/s which have to be calibrated from time to time especially after a replacement screen. I have cameras for other functions.

The thread has evolved into a discussion about car technology which is good. I don't know much about electric vehicles but I don't think they are the long term answer. You get nothing for nothing in this world, and it seems to me to be shifting the pollution problem to somewhere else. I would like to see more activity in developing Hydrogen fuel cells which a couple of companies seem to be offering now.

Someone mentioned rear view cameras. I have that and find it very useful, particularly when pedestrians walk behind the car into an otherwise blind spot, even though you are slowly reversing showing a couple of reversing lights! Mine shows a message when it first come on to remind me not to rely on the cameras alone when reversing!

Something a little more mass market.

My son had a mk1 Leaf with the 80 mile battery, holidays in Devon took 3 recharging stops of around an hour, so that's 6 hours instead of 3 to get there with 2 kids. My idea of a nightmare.

BTW at 30+mph I found it as noisy inside as any normal IC car.

I agree that hydrogen sound like the better option. Unfortunately as I understand it manufacture either means hydrolysis of natural gas (so just as polluting) or electrolysis- which wastes a lot of the electric power. There is news on the horizon of much more efficient catalysts for electrolysis and potentially solar farms in desert locations could be used for generation... it's not so hard to transport liquid hydrogen by tanker.

Really it's a heads-up for more renewables infrastructure. I have my own criticisms of tesla but they do lead the way in some good ideas - for instance their assembly plant in Rotterdam is totally powered by their own solar arrays on the roof and that's in hand at the main plant in Freemont.

Fusion is still a daydream away and nuclear sounds simple until one decomissions it. Really the simple answer is we need to stop making and selling stuff for the sake of it and transporting stuff all over the globe for capitalism and we also need to stop jetting off for all-inclusive sex and booze jollies as an annual 'right'. I was gob-smacked to hear we import 70% of our apples - something we can easily and cheaply grow here (and I threw several cwt away last year cos there's no central place to give them away to and everyone locally has their own)

Hydrogen is produced either by steam stripping methane, which produces lots of carbon dioxide and needs energy supply to produce the steam, or by electrolysis which requires lots of electricity. Using hydrogen to power your car either just shifts the problem elsewhere, or requires lots of electricity which we don't have. Its one advantage is that you could use surplus wind power generated in the middle of the night to make hydrogen which you can then store. They have been doing this is Germany, in fact pumping the hydrogen into the gas main, but are now experimenting with turning the hydrogen into methane, not quite sure why, perhaps there is a limit to how much hydrogen you are allowed to put in the gas main.

Having said that experiments are underway into converting methane to hydrogen and solid carbon. This involves bubbling methane through molten tin, and so must need energy input **LINK**

This must consume more methane per useful energy in gas than just burning the methane direct as it is throwing away the potential of burning the carbon, I have no idea how much energy you need to put in to do the split

The issue that bothers me with electric vehicles is the battery life and replacement costs, particularly as they are now talking of fast charging with 120 kw, that will certainly strain household electric supply infrastructure and who knows what it will do to the utilities infrastructure if we all charge at peak times, probably in the evenings. There will probably be solutions but I don’t see it at the moment. Dave W

You won't be home charging at 120KW unless you have 3-phase.

fastest charging rate currently is on the model3 @ a peak of 250KW. The Porsche Taycan concept supposedly could manage a theoretical 300KW (but for how many charges is moot and no infrastructure that can do it)

The Tesla Semi (that's mercan for an artic) will be built to last 1 million miles and they aim for ordinary cars to be free of major problems for that length too, soon. They're supposedly good for 300K miles at the moment with 8yr battery warranty. there are americans who like road trips who have cranked over 150K milles on theirs and still going well.

Tesla not looking too good in the commercial sector

**LINK**

**LINK**

That one is the real biggie.

I'd suggest this is something that the private sector, with its resource-hungry myriad competitive solutions, is not going to be able to solve - not on its own, any road up.

You won’t all charge at the same peak time in the early evening. Smart meters will sort that one out. Switch the charger off or pay an immensely steep rate for the privilege.

I very much doubt that domestic supplies would support 40kW per phase - most single phase domestic supplies are limited to 100Amps (24KW, or thereabout) or less.

Well, I'm not any kind of electrical engineer, but I think it's pretty obvious that the whole distribution system's going to need orders-of-magnitude enhancement - down to household level - for electric vehicles to be universally practical, with enormous economic and safety implications.

We're gonna hafta rewire the country.

Edited By Mick B1 on 30/04/2019 10:40:00

Whilst I have nothing against electric vehicles, I think the politicos are jumping on the bandwagon to save us all from death by climate change, or tax us out of existence.

On another news group, I received the following last week. No date given, but from the poster I would think it is up to date.

______________________________________________________
Subject: more CO2 emissions than diesel ones

Electric vehicles in Germany account for more CO2 emissions than diesel
ones, according to a study by German scientists. When CO2 emissions
linked to the production of batteries and the German energy mix - in
which coal still plays an important role - are taken into consideration,
electric vehicles emit 11% to 28% more than their diesel counterparts,
according to the study, presented on Wednesday at the Ifo Institute in
Munich.

Mining and processing the lithium, cobalt and manganese used for
batteries consume a great deal of energy. A Tesla Model 3 battery, for
example, represents between 11 and 15 tonnes of CO2. Given a lifetime of
10 years and an annual travel distance of 15,000 kilometres, this
translates into 73 to 98 grams of CO2 per kilometre, scientists
Christoph Buchal, Hans-Dieter Karl and Hans-Werner Sinn noted in their
study.

The CO2 given off to produce the electricity that powers such vehicles
also needs to be factored in, they say.

When all these factors are considered, each Tesla emits 156 to 180 grams
of CO2 per kilometre, which is more than a comparable diesel vehicle
produced by the German company Mercedes, for example.

The German researchers therefore take issue with the fact that European
officials view electric vehicles as zero-emission ones. They note
further that the EU target of 59 grams of CO2 per km by 2030 corresponds
to a “technically unrealistic” consumption of 2.2 litres of diesel or
2.6 litres of gas per 100 kms.

These new limits pressure German and other European car manufacturers
into switching massively to electric vehicles whereas, the researchers
feel, it would have been preferable to opt for methane engines, “whose
emissions are one-third less than those of diesel motors.”

Oscar Schneider
The Brussels Times

I suppose it all depends on which side of the fence you sit whether you believe the hype or not.

Dave
The Emerald Isle

Not sure it will strain household supply that much. People will adapt to different ways of doing things. Once a week I'm used to the idea that I must find my way to a petrol station and refuel. Sometimes this can be done en-route as part of another journey, sometimes I have to go out of my way. Qiute often I sit in a queue at the supermarket to save a few pence per litre.

Struck me that my driving needs, rarely more than 100 miles per day, could easily be done with an electric car recharged slowly overnight. My car spends most of its time stopped , usually where it wouldn't be difficult to provide trickle charging.

I think my pattern of mostly short range commute/local travel is typical of the majority of road users. It's long distance travellers who need high-speed charging, and - if it gets difficult - people will avoid it. I have several friends who commute along the M4 corridor, South Wales to Reading in a couple of cases. What none of them do is commute all the way into London by car; it's expensive, time-consuming and exhausting. Instead they leave their cars at the station and go in by train. At the point I retired, my employer was encouraging people to work from home: the internet makes this possible for many 'thinking' jobs. Electric cars and other technologies will change how we behave, people like me not much, others more painfully. Whilst I'd much rather stay at home watching telly than catch a tram to the nearest Music Hall, we lost something when the Music Halls closed...

It will be 'interesting' to see how much change there is to motoring in my lifetime. At the moment the cost of Petrol is governed mostly by tax and supply. Excess production still causes prices to drop. But, because fossil fuels are getting more difficult to find and extract, and because demand for them is rising steadily worldwide, it is unlikely that fuel will stay cheap for much longer. I doubt pump prices will double over the next 5 years, but the cost could be much higher by 2028. £5 per litre could change your mind about towing a caravan. £10 per litre would have many of us waiting at bus-stops again! In that scenario owning a battery powered car that can be charged cheaply by wind or solar might suddenly become very attractive.

Dave

What is one to do? This is the latest band wagon which our masters have jumped on but it is definitely not clear if electric cars etc. will save the planet, it's obvious to anyone with half a brain that the electricity has to be generated somehow & isn't free with no environmental impact, unfortunately it has been proven time & time again said masters are not the brightest.

Tony

Fwiw most of the newer Mercedes models have a hold function that can be used when stopping at lights etc, this means you can release the brake pedal and the brakes stay on, without using the handbrake. Only trouble is the brake lights then go out, just like when using the handbrake, and the arsehole behind sems to think you are about to pull away.

Re electrical supply infrastructure: over the last 20 years the telecoms network has undergone an equivalent massive re-engineering. It used to be just one phone circuit per 40 houses, then as everyone wanted to be permanently connected they provided vastly more circuits and new technology to handle it now with fibre to the cabinet if not the home.
Electricity supply can do the same thing by taking high voltage DC closer to the home (DC doesn't waste capacity by taking the power down to zero 100 times a second) and getting more power produced locally.
So far today I have spent 80 minutes in the car to get to the office - completely unnecessary trip really but I'm still required to be present 3 days a week to foster team spirit or something.

The solution: reduce the population drastically by removing all safety features from cars so the idiots all remove themselves and their gas guzzling machines for recycling of course (soylium green sandwich anyone?)