On Nov 23, 2010 I wrote Why I can't have an electric car, on the subject of Electricity and Rants.

I want an electric car.

I've been watching Fully Charged by Robert Llewellyn, and it's crystallised my desire for an electric car. I need a different car; I am thoroughly, thoroughly sick of how much mine costs to fix when it goes wrong, and I'm tired of my car not having things like a slot to plug my phone in.

So, new car. And I'd love an electric car. Because they're cool.

Now, most of the marketing and arguments for electric cars are about the environment. "Look, they're zero-emission! Look, petrol takes this many kilowatt-hours of electricity to produce! Save a whale! Drive electric!" And...I don't care. The hell with the environment. I don't care. Maybe I should, but I don't. I want an electric car because they're cool.

Maybe -- perhaps even probably -- you don't think they're cool. Fine, no problem, move along. Buy a Gumpert Apollo. Or a Prius. I don't want a hybrid (don't care about the environment, remember?).

I don't care about almost any of the reasons that are given for electric cars being rubbish; don't care about resale value, don't care (all that much) about purchase cost, don't care about running costs, and, as mentioned, don't care about saving whales. I'm a young* technology professional with disposable income who's interested in electric cars because they're cool, not a bead-wearing hippie who wants to upgrade the 2CV to a Prius to impress the other people in the commune. I want one. And I can't have one. Why?

Range. An electric car will do a hundred miles. That's not enough.

Yes, yes, the average length of a journey in the UK is 8 miles or whatever. Yes, most of my drives are about 5 miles. Yes, an electric car is perfect for these. I agree, entirely.

But I live 60 miles from my daughter, who I pick up once a fortnight, and 120 miles from my parents, who I see once every six weeks. There is no electric car on the market which will reliably do 120 miles when driven normally. They'll do 80, or 100. Or they'll do 120 if driven really, really carefully, and even then it's doubtful. This kills the idea stone cold dead, and it's not gonna change in the next few years as far as I can tell.

Sidebar 1: when I say "no electric car on the market"...there are no electric cars on the market, right now. Leaving aside pure city cars like the G-Wiz, which do about 40 miles and are not designed for any sort of long journey, you can't actually buy an electric car right now. The Nissan Leaf isn't out until March 2011. The BMW Mini-E is only in a private trial in the south-east. The Mitsubishi i-MiEV isn't out until January 2011. I can't actually buy an electric car, even if I wanted to.

Sidebar 2: there is an electric car which has the range that I need. The Tesla Roadster. That'll do 245 miles on a charge, and even if Tesla are completely full of crap about that spec it's still way, way more than I need. We'll ignore that it's left-hand-drive, we'll ignore that you can't buy a UK one as far as I can tell, and settle on the problem: I can't have a Tesla because they cost ninety grand. Yes, I said above that I don't care about cost, but I care a bit. I don't have 90k. I'm not John Carmack. No Tesla for me. End of sidebar.

Maybe in the future a "fast charge" will take 10 minutes rather than 30, and there'll be a fast-charge station somewhere in between my house and my parents'. Maybe in the future the Better Place people will convince car manufacturers to co-operate and build switchable batteries and then put battery swap stations on every road. Maybe there'll be some huge leap forward in technology and we'll get five times the life out of a battery (this'll be good for my laptop, too, I have to say). But right now I just can't see how I can get an electric car. The average length of a journey is irrelevant. If you need to ever, ever drive over the range of your electric car then your electric car's useless, right now. Five years from now I hope it'll all be different. But it looks to me like I need to get some different car and then the next time I change, get an electric.

If you think I'm wrong, I'd love to hear why. Speak up.

Jo Shields

Save for a Vauxhall Ampera, aka Chevy Volt? 30 mile plug-in battery range, plus several hundred miles on petrol reserve?

sil

That's not an electric car. I don't care if they say yes it is an electric car and the petrol just charges the battery, it uses petrol. If I have to stop and fill it up in a Shell garage I might as well buy an MX-5 :-)

Having just looked at http://www.plugincars.com/cars, I was dead on right: there's not even anything *planned* that will go over 100 miles, except for the Tesla Roadster (too expensive) and the Tesla Model S (which might be too expensive, might be left-hand-drive only, and doesn't exist yet anyway). The Model S is probably my best hope, mind.

John Lenton

You are aware that you're in (probably) one of the best countries to actually build your own, right?

John Lenton

You are aware that you're in (probably) one of the best countries to actually build your own, right?

John Lenton

p.s. your comment thing could do with remembering the user details and providing feedback that it's doing stuff when it's doing stuff... and probably disable the submit button also :)

Robert Llewellyn

I think you might be right, but just check your journeys for a while. Set your mile counter to zero every time you get in the car, check how far you drive in one day. Then think about all the journeys you COULD do in an electric car with a 100 mile range. I would suggest it's the majority. Then work out if you could go to see your daughter/parents on a train, or maybe rent a gas car for the weekend, or join a car club which is cheaper and use it when you want. I can well understand that this may not be possible or desirable for you personally, but it certainly could work for many 1,000's of people. By the way, I was driving a right hand drive, european spec Tesla the other day, they have sold about 1,000 in Europe, a few 100 in the UK. I agree, far to expensive for most folk.

I know I could not rely on an electric car alone with the work I currently do, I have to drive 180 miles to go to work tomorrow. I do use a Prius, I would love to use an all electric car but I realise I'm going to have to wait a while to have no reliance on fossils to get me around.

Chris Woollard

Whatever you do. Do no buy a G-Wiz if you value your life.

Paul

Says here http://bit.ly/i0S7IN you could rent an MX-5 for £100 a day. That's what, less 2 tanks of petrol? Dunno how much you currently spend on petrol a month, but I bet it is more than £100.

So, does taking Robert's idea of renting a gas car for occasion use sound fun if you can basically drive a different, cool car each time you go on long trips. Okay, maybe you don't want to spurge that much each time, but you get my drift.

I've wondered if our family can get down to one car, cos running 2 is just so expensive but with 3 kids it is just too damn convenient to have 2 right now. But one of those cars could be an electric as the further it would normally be expected to do is 20 miles.

Alex Willmer

Very cogently and entertainingly put sir - particularly on "I want an electric car because they're cool." Ditto on everything except I'm okay with 100 miles and I care a little bit about the environmental side.

There have been concepts of, and DIY made range extenders - essentially a generator in a trailer - but again, I don't know of any plans to actually sell or rent them any time soon.

If I hear anything of interest I'll let you know, Alex

sil

The killer with renting a car, Paul, Rob, and others, is that car rental places have lame opening hours. I would like to rent a car to pick up at, say, 6pm Friday, and give it back at, say, 8pm Sunday. Car rental places aren't open at those times. So I end up having to pick it up Friday during the day (taking time off work) and drop it off on Monday (taking time off work) and getting charged for three days. Which is rather a lot of money -- £300 every fortnight is £600 per month. Can't afford that!

Alan Pope

http://www.europcar.co.uk/EBE/module/render/weDeliver

"Hiring a car from Europcar is now even more convenient. To save you time and hassle, we're offering a brand new improved service: free delivery and collection when you hire a car for 2 days or more (the 2nd hire day starts at 24 ½ hours). "

trovster

I wrote about wanting to own an electric car a couple of weeks ago ( http://www.trovster.com/blog/2010/10/the-futures-bright-the-futures-electric/ ), after speaking with friends and suggesting their next vehicle would be electric - not hybrid. I've got a year left to pay on my petrol car, so someone has twelve months to release an electric car I *want* to drive (although, I could easily use the car I've got for another three years).

An electric car would suit me, my commute is around 8 miles, and I occasionally travel 45 miles (each way) to see family, so the current range issue isn't much of an issue for me at present. That being said, a hybrid would give me more flexibility, allowing for the longer journeys - whenever & wherever they occur - but I like the idea of renting, although it would be more expensive.

I've got a question for you; why do you want to avoid hybrid? Is it because of how they work (I don't know their intricacies).

sil

Alan: ooh, delivery. I like that. They only deliver and collect within opening hours, and I can't find anything about what their opening hours *are*, but that looks promising.

trovster: I'm not interested in a hybrid because I don't think they're cool. I'm fascinated by the idea of a car powered by electricity. A petrol car with some batteries in it doesn't tickle the same fascination neurons.

sil

And, indeed, I've just checked. Europcar are not open on Sundays. At all. At least none of the Birmingham branches are not open on Sundays. So that screws that idea.

Alan Pope

Why do you need them open on Sunday. Surely drop off at 09:00 on Saturday (there are no times before 09:00 on Saturday - [FACT]) and pick up on Monday at 09:00 is two days rental?

Paul

Yeah, hiring a car is not the easiest thing in the world, especially at airports. But I'm sure you can find some local flexible options. I hired a van for the weekend at a local company and as they were closed Sat afternoon and all day Sunday I got the van for the whole weekend. Just dropped the van off on the Sunday and left the keys in the office.

Total cost was just £43

Mattj

Something like streetcar would be ideal for this- if you lived in where they actually had any cars. Which as with many things appears to be almost entirely London centric.

sil

Alan: 'cos I pick up my daughter on Friday night at about 6pm and take her home again on Sunday night at about 6pm. I could go Friday night until Monday morning, and pay for three days, I suppose; doing that twice a month is perhaps doable, since it's about £80 a time. Interesting. I'll maybe take a look at that.

Alan Pope

If I lived near you, I'd let you borrow my car for the two trips to pick up / drop off.

Sadly I don't. Maybe someone else does. Maybe a car-lending scheme exists to do that?

If it doesn't, it should. Make it so.

Nirbheek Chauhan

Why don't you buy the 100 mile car and buy two batteries for the car? Switch them out when one of them is discharged. That will effectively double the range. I don't know how much a battery for one of these costs (or how easy it would be to switch the battery out), but it'll probably be in your price range.

sil

Nirbheek: because electric cars don't have user-switchable batteries. See the Better Place link in the main writeup for people who are working on that.

Danilo

You don't care about the environment? Don't worry, environment doesn't care about you either. (And the fact that majority of today's electricity is still produced by coal power plants[citation needed] kind of makes the point moot anyway; oh, citation found: http://www.worldcoal.org/coal/uses-of-coal/coal-electricity/)

Anyway, I don't want an electric car. I do want Tesla Model S. *That* is cool. Maybe we can buy one together. I get to use it the first year. You can get the second one.

Peter Oliver

I used to use Europcar's delivery service all the time (with work). They just drop the car off at some point and post the keys through your letter box. Afterwards, you just leave the keys under your doormat (no, really). They only charge rental on the period for which you want to drive the car, plus IIRC a tenner for delivery (although we probably got some kind of corporate discount). A day is any 24 hour period, not a calendar day.

sil

Danilo: yes indeed. Part of the reason I'm not worried about the environment is precisely that I don't want to get into arguments about how the electricity is generated: I think electric cars are cool because it's a car powered by electricity (I mean, that's excellent! wow!), not because they save the planet :)

The Model S is not out yet, my man. Also, fifty grand. But they do seem like a great idea...

Eric Pritchett

The Tesla Model S will have 300 miles per charge when it comes out. http://www.teslamotors.com/models

plumpy

What about car sharing? Where do you live? In the US, most big cities have Zipcar, which you can pick up at anytime from many locations (there are at least five parking lots with Zipcars within three blocks of my house). I know they have Zipcar in London. If you don't live in London, perhaps there is a similar car sharing service near you?

sil

plumpy: there are car sharing services in big cities. I don't live in the city, though. I'm trying to move there, but I'm not there yet :(

driedplum

hu... so you want an electric car but aren't interested by the advantage they bring and are annoyed by their shortcomings ? Why do you really want it then? bragging?

You know you could as well just buy a regular car and put an "electric car" sticker on it?

sil

driedplum: because electric cars are interesting and cool. If you don't find the idea of a car driven by electricity exciting then I have no problem with that. I do, however.

foo

I want an open source electric car :(

i het its gonna happen before we think

i see many people taking pics of small e-cars

ook

I'm just gonna say that while silent electric engine with a lot of torque is cool, half a ton of dangerous chemicals under your ass isn't. If they design an electric car with only real electronic components for storing energy (capacitors?), I might buy it. But until then, I'll keep driving oil burners, be it drilled oil or vegetable oil.

Would an electric car with a pair of gas microturbine generators still be cool? I only ask because Jaguar dropped a concept for one on the 2010 Paris motor show. Well out of your price range even if they were building them, I'm sure, but is it a reasonably cool direction?

sil

fj: I have no idea. What's a gas microturbine generator? How do I even get gas into it? Natural gas?

I'm not sure of the specifics, and as far as gas goes, heck, they might've meant petrol for all I know (car magazines – not so good for tech). But a microturbine is a ridiculously small jet engine that can run on just about anything that burns, such as the last week's stale chip oil. They're generators because instead of running the wheels directly they pump electricity into the motors and/or batteries.

Nacho

fj: Unless they build supercapacitors out of paper, current capacitors usually use toxic and corrosive electrolytes. They don't hazardously explode or burn like a lithium battery does though.

Martin

You are right.

I remember us almost coming to blows about your right to drive a petrol car FOREVER in 2005. Props to you for actaully thinking about this a lot sooner than most of us would. I expect nothing less, of course ;)

scrap gold

If ever there was an area in which to do the exact opposite of that which government and the media urge you to do, that area is the purchasing of gold.

Phil

try the chevy volt....it has extended range up to about 500 miles

Andrew Bissell

You are absolutely correct that the Tesla Roadster is expensive, but your other view about it need correction:

There is a right hand drive model

You buy it from a Tesla Store in London (they deliver it further afield)

It will go a reliable 150 miles under all conditions (heavy foot, rain, cold, snow, heater on, ....) and it can be driven over the 244 if you really nurse it on a nice day.

So, money aside (never really aside is it?) you could have an electric car today that would do what you need.

Tesla Motors is launching a larger (read family or executive) car called the Model S that is about half the price of the Tesla Roadster for a nearly equivalent range (230 miles nominal range for $67,500 before incentives) and comes in two variants (160 miles nominal for $57,500 and 300 miles nominal for $77,500).

The UK pricing isn't available yet and it will be 2013 before you an buy a right hand drive model, however things are on a path to cost reduction with good range.

Note that the battery accounts for more than half of the price of the vehicle in the 300 mile range case. This gives huge scope for future cost reduction because:

1. Tesla report that they are buying battery cells for under $200/kWh now - which means the 300 mile battery costs Tesla about $20,000 but sells (as part of the car) for about $40,000 so plenty of profit margin, allowing price cuts later

2. Battery cell costs are eroding by about 18% per year - this is an established long-term trend

We can also expect the less expensive cars, like the Nissan LEAF to get longer range batteries in future models while not rising in price.

Andrew

Andrew Bissell

I should also mention the BYD e6. It is supposed to launch in Europe in 2012. Its supposed to have a 186 mile nominal range. Its supposed to sell for $35,000 (before incentives or tax) in the US. Its made by one of world's largest battery makers (used for instance in iPhone), which is also one of the medium sized car manufacturers in China. Quality is reportedly low by European standards and BYD are likely working on this. Crash testing will be the acid test. I think that it points the way that cost reduction is very feasible.