Adventures in an all electric vehicle.

[daleyd]

Ming is thinking of stealing the charge cable...

I’ve heard people tell me worse things would happen when I bought an ev…

 

[addjunkie]

I understand that at the refinery's crackled crude is where it is decided to convert it to diesel , petrol or other refined chemicals it's very variable not a set percentage .

EV ships , EV & electronic blade sail ships and small unit nuclear powered commercial ships are a lot closer to being the norm than you think . The race began about 14 years ago , I gather some are in production & use .

Google “walker wing sails”…..MV Ashington…..80s

Nuclear powered ships are common as ice breakers…..and black boats, that no one knows about, so not exactly new.

 

[optima21]

View attachment 401963

was it a silent movie

 

[roofman]

Just purchased a 1.5 litre four inch wide necked sports drinking bottle from Tesco for such eventualities @ £ 6.50 .
I now have three such bottles in my car ...managing to fill two in one day .

Have you considered a 25L Jerry can incase you get caught in a 10 min traffic jam

 

[Bornfree]

Have you considered a 25L Jerry can incase you get caught in a 10 min traffic jam

Just buy a land rover the gaps in the doors are large enough to aim through.

 

[dobbslc]

Or an old Transit so you can just slash through what's left of the floor.

 

[redlig]

No moreso than a manhole cover.

So we need more hazards ?
Are the cables just going to appear or will the resulting excavations be of such a high standard that the resulting trench be as undetectable as the normal street repairs are?

 

[Maker]

Screenshot from Google street view, of the exact charging point I saw. On a paved street, the resulting trench is undetectable.

 

[Robotstar5]

I've told this tale before - you can buy milk, water, orange juice in plastic gallon containers in the US . . .

Long distance truck drivers get paid by the mile, so they don't want to stop after consuming the contents . . . so refill them on the go.

Now you don't want to be carrying too many gallons of the stuff in-case you make a mistake in selecting which one . . so you chuck 'em out the window into the freeway verges . . .

Along comes maintenance worker, towing many gang mowers in his open to the elements tractor . . .

Apparently, it doesn't mature well in the sunshine

Driver Tizer as it's known here

 

[dobbslc]

Truckers Tizer here.

 

[redlig]

Screenshot from Google street view, of the exact charging point I saw. On a paved street, the resulting trench is undetectable.

View attachment 402010

I look forward to seeing the Tarmac version.

 

[atomant48]

Screenshot from Google street view, of the exact charging point I saw. On a paved street, the resulting trench is undetectable.

View attachment 402010

Just had a look at the Trojan website. Great to see these kind of innovative solutions to a genuine problem. Bloody expensive those things though ! The price would be about right if it came with free electricity. I guess like everything once they get going the unit cost comes down. Clever though.

Makes me realise though when thinking about parking at the curb - Tesla charging ports are obviously designed for left hand drive ! I’ve always wondered why they don’t put one on both sides (cost??) it would make it so much easier / flexible to plug in !

 

[GRW]

Some EV adopters on this thread are pretty defensive. OK, it's pretty common to feel the need & want to justify their choice, & what they spent a lot of money on.
But then we also see a sort of sniffy dismissal of those who aren't enamoured by EV's as though we are some sort of luddite or neanderthal (or just plain stupid).

I'd like to point out, that being put off an EV by the negatives (factor in the buy cost, its useful life, reliability, repair costs, range, the hassle & very slow speed of recharging etc etc), and add in the fact that there are vehicles available (& have been for the last 3-decades at least) that don't have these drawbacks..... doesn't make a person a conspiracy theorist, anti-technology or dumb.

E.g. @premmington Works on cars including hybrids & EV's, gets to see & understands the inner workings at a far deeper level than quite probably any other poster - and his assessment, his (very) informed decision... is that they aren't a suitable replacement for his ICE car.

@sako243 gets told he can pay to import a hugely expensive EV to tow loads with, when he can use an ICE with no range or fuelling issues for a tiny fraction of the cost and risks.

It might just be that instead of being backward, outdated & thick, we might just be the smart ones huh?

 

[Agrismith]

In a non pointless form, sorry non pickup form?

Only pickup I've seen (and in fact owned) that seems sensible is the Sandringham 6x6 because you can actually fit a builders bag of sand in the back without being overweight. You can also fit 8x4 sheets flat in the bed without having to have them stick out.

Most pickups in the UK can carry a builders bag legally bar the ranger raptor. A builders bag only ways 600-800kg and to be classed as plg have to legally be able to carry 1t. As for sheet goods you can easily carry them just not flat in the bed. I have carried all manner of things sat on 2 bits of 2x4 lent against the cab. The only thing land rovers do any different to a pickup is their off-road performance. But then it's only really the 90's that have any great advantage.

As for the electrical system not being up for the job we also have to consider that we may be adding electric chargers to all new builds but we are also adding electric heating and water heating. We are massively increasing the demand on the system. Now I don't know or care if we have the production capacity but that is only half the problem. The infrastructure is old, and in a lot of cases poorly installed. Public infrastructure in the UK is pretty dire apart from new fibre being installed. This everything water sewage gas electric the roads the railways, everything is old and tired and we are constantly adding more strain with little upgrade works. Especially at the bottom of the system. We get power cuts from time to time and it's not the plant stopping. It will be a junction somewhere in the village failing and having spent a lot of time digging up the roads I know that the cables are quite well degraded,infact it is rare to find an underground cable that would actually pass an inspection due to the degradation of the insulation but if we reported everything we found we would never actually get any work done. Now they are very good and very quick to repair these things so at the moment we have little problem mostly as we have options, their is both gas and electric to heat the house and petrol or diesel to power our cars. And diversification is often considered key to survival in many areas. So shouldn't we leave options open. The more different fuel source their are especially domestically produced the better we are going to be.

 

[Maker]

I look forward to seeing the Tarmac version.

It's gonna look better than an armoured cable draped across the pavement.

 

[DAPPH]

There are issues with no current solution, but which may have be resolved in the future, issues which may never have a solution and issues which don’t actually exist but are perceived to be a problem.

The hard part is working your way through which is which.

I've got friend in the Europeam space agency who is a team leader in such things ... A very very interesting guy indeed.

 

[DAPPH]

Have you considered a 25L Jerry can incase you get caught in a 10 min traffic jam

NO . I innocently empty the full ones at the next P place .

 

[sako243]

Most pickups in the UK can carry a builders bag legally bar the ranger raptor. A builders bag only ways 600-800kg and to be classed as plg have to legally be able to carry 1t. As for sheet goods you can easily carry them just not flat in the bed. I have carried all manner of things sat on 2 bits of 2x4 lent against the cab. The only thing land rovers do any different to a pickup is their off-road performance. But then it's only really the 90's that have any great advantage.

Quite often not when you've got a trailer on the back. The most common pickup around here seems to be an Isuzu Dmax and that payload drops to at least half if you have a trailer on the back.

Its all personal preferences at the end of the day and I've not found pickups, particularly double cab to be particularly useful plus they tend to have atrocious steering locks.

It is a valid point about a LR offroad and in my instance I probably use the LRs offroad more in my garden than most do ever. Although I very strongly disagree with your point about it being the 90s having the advantage, having been driving Land Rovers offroad ever since I could drive over a lot of countries and different terrains I can honestly hand on heart say there's never been a "real-world" (excluding comps here) situation where a 90 has done better than a 110. Until I switched out to stupidly wide tyres (they were a good deal) my 110 would out turn 95% of the 90s you met, now it matches them (yes you could improve a 90 in a similar way). However there have been countless situations where the extra wheelbase of the 110 provides far greater stability and keeps traction for longer. Just real world experience I've found the situations where a 90 would do better to be rather contrived and you don't tend to come across them very often.

 

[GRW]

The most common pickup around here seems to be an Isuzu Dmax and that payload drops to at least half if you have a trailer on the back.

I towed with a D-Max a lot at the last gig. Tows very well (at least the 2.5L twin turbo does), lots of poke... buy what you say about payload is bang on.

D-Max is just under (allegedly) the 2050kg mark (so it's legal at 60/70mph, not limited to 50/60mph like Transit size vans etc).
Rated to tow 3.5tonnes..... but - the Gross Train Weight of a D-Max is just 6000kg!
So a 3500kg rated trailer, add the 2040kg fir the truck and up to 100kg gir the driver & a couple of bits in the cab... that's 5640kg - so all you can stick on the bed is 360kg (or of course less if you have tools and or passengers).

The D-Max has a motor that can haul way more than 6-tonnes.... but not the chassis rating to exploit it.
Really, we'd have been better off with a big 3-litre twin rear axle Iveco Panel Van with a 3500kg tow rating.

 

[willie.macleod]

E.g. @premmington Works on cars including hybrids & EV's, gets to see & understands the inner workings at a far deeper level than quite probably any other poster - and his assessment, his (very) informed decision... is that they aren't a suitable replacement for his ICE car.

It might just be that instead of being backward, outdated & thick, we might just be the smart ones huh?

Might I refer you to BMWs less than stellar track record with their M60, M52 and N57 internal combustion engines in certain circumstances? BMW (and other high end manufacturers as well including JLR) having serious propulsion issues is hardly a new thing. At least BMW EVs have some value when their electronics break. Other EV manufacturers have done quite a good job of keeping their electronics, batteries and motors working for the lifetime of the vehicles, hybrids are by their nature more complex and likely to have more issues. Also, just because one poster has decided that their use doesn't suit an electric vehicle does not mean that the rest of us have to follow.

I run a petrol, two diesels and an electric. Thankfully although I am qualified to work on and have access to all the correct HV tools & equipment I have significantly less work to do on my electric vehicle than anything else even though it is the vehicle of choice for my wife. In the last month I have replaced clutch hydraulics, an exhaust and am trying to get time for vanos solenoid replacements and an oil change - we will see these jobs becoming less routine as time marches on. I am conscious that the next generation of mechanics need to be able to tackle braking systems, battery cell replacement, electrical troubleshooting, tyres, aircon servicing and the like rather replacing turbos, injectors and the like. I think EVs will be good for one man band mobile mechanics with low overheads and good for the customer who will spend less money with main dealerships.