Delivery of the Vehicle
16 Dec 2011The Liberty E-Range arrived today!
Rather surprisingly the vehicle turned up on a large transporter which wouldn’t fit in my street, weather conditions were also inhospitable as you can tell from the picture.
Despite these conditions being ill suited for a familiarising myself with a high performance vehicle I couldn’t resist a quick spin.
I took the vehicle on a very quick drive around the block before parking it in the drive and trying out the Pod Point which I have had for a few days now. Operating and charging the vehicle all seem fairly straight forward though I will reserve my opinions on handling and performance until I get a chance to drive the vehicle properly this weekend.
Charger Installation
20 Nov 2011Pod Point Charger has been installed today complete with wall mounted holster for the J1772 connector as shown in the image.
NPower did an excellent job of discretely hiding the chunky cable which feeds the Pod Point directly from my consumer unit. Rather conveniently the Pod Point has an integrated RCD device complete with digital meter making it quick and easy for me to track my energy usage once the car arrives.
Interestingly the location of this charger was dictated by a nearby street lamp, due to health and safety requirements the user must not be able to touch a separately earth bonded point (such as a lamp post) while the car is on charge. The Pod Point also has its own earth buried in my lawn.
Overall the installation is very neat it’s just a shame that the Pod Points position was dictated by the lamp post, this is likely to make parking the Liberty E-Range a little trickier than I had hoped.
Refuelling our cars is as much a part of daily life as nipping out for a pint of milk. Charging electric vehicles differs to refuelling in several very important respects.
Although not often necessary most people charge their electric vehicles daily some even choose to charge at multiple locations throughout the day. This is very different to conventional vehicles which are normally refuelled every few days, in my case every 7-10 days.
The time it takes to charge an electric vehicle depends on the amount of electric power available. From a normal 13A outlet (as found in your home) charging times can vary between 6 and 24 hours depending on the battery size. A small electric vehicle takes approximately 6-8 hours to fully charge from a domestic supply. Charging times are long so an accessible socket for home charging is an essential you can’t do without.
High power or rapid chargers do exist and some vehicles such as the Nissan Leaf support this charging method. Vehicles can be recharged to 80% within 30mins and near 100% within an hour or so. Rapid chargers are expected to become common at public places like shopping centres.
Clearly the old “Splash and Dash” approach to refuelling is much faster than charging however petrol and diesel are both considerably more expensive than electricity. Even a large electric vehicle such as the Liberty E-range costs less than 4p per mile to run compared to approximately 20p per mile for a conventional vehicle.
Unlike conventional vehicles you won’t be heading for your nearest filling station, electric vehicles are normally charged at home, work or public charging points. Availability of public charging points varies enourmously depending on where you live. Fortunately the North East has a large number of charging points which are operated and managed by Switch EV. Armed with an RFID card I will never me more than a few minutes away from a charge.
The differences between refuelling and recharging cause a phenomenon know as range anxiety. This often irrational fear of being stranded by a flat battery has been shown to decrease once drivers become familiar with their vehicles. Going full circle this causes drivers to leave vehicles on charge more often and for longer than necessary. Range anxiety remains a hot topic in the electric vehicle industry, this and other options for rapidly changing batteries / electrolyte will be discussed in future posts.
Some Thoughts on Servicing
3 Nov 2011The car is a few days away, so in the mean time I am going to discuss some of the things which make electric vehicles different.
With my runabout heading to the garage for a new clutch this weekend I have spent some time thinking about servicing. How do electric cars differ from conventional cars? And how will this affect those who provide us with parts and servicing?
Pure electric vehicles do not have an engine so no need for air filters, engine oil filters, engine oil, spark plugs etc.. Quite often electric cars also have no clutch and a single ratio gearbox therefore, many electric vehicles are very simple from a mechanical perspective. This means servicing requirements are considerably lower.
An annual service would most probably include a basic check of brakes, chassis, cooling, batteries and tires. Theoretically servicing should be cheaper, great news for you, bad news for your garage!
Garages and dealerships will need to develop new business models to maintain the current levels of employment within the sector. The slow response of major car manufacturers to adopt such electric vehicle technology is a clear indication that many of them fear falling revenues. Consumers might tolerate higher purchase prices in order to reduce running costs making low spares and servicing revenues easier to stomach.
The good news is this won’t happen quickly. Every indication is that a mixture of conventional, hybrid, electric and even fuel cell vehicles will fill our roads for many years to come. This time should allow manufacturers, dealerships and garages to adapt gradually.
Charger Survey
2 Nov 2011I have had an email from Npower today. Npower are conducting an electrical survey for the installation of a PodPoint charger in my Garage.
The Podpoint provides a safe, quick and easy to use charging point with charging lead included. The connector is known as a J1772 connector it looks like a gun and can be locked to the vehicle during charging. This connector is used on many other electric cars including the Nissan Leaf.
For safety the vehicle will not start when the charging lead is plugged in. This is a very important feature which stops the vehicle being driven off while still connected to the lead. Having witnessed such an incident first hand I am thankful for this feature.
I will upload a picture of the pod point once it has been installed.
Signing for the Car
1 Nov 2011On Monday I visited Future Transport Systems in Newcastle. Future Transport Systems are a low carbon transport consultancy responsible for managing the trial. Future Transport Solutions asked me to sign legal agreements associated with the trial and take two surveys.
The surveys asked about my expectations and opinions of electric vehicles. What is and isn’t important to me as a driver and potential owner of such a vehicle? Having worked on the development of electric vehicles and spent many hours behind the wheel of various prototypes some of my answers probably differed wildly from those expressed by a typical participant.
As with most drivers the idea of avoiding pricy oil along with hefty taxation is very appealing. While from a moral perspective I have an ambition to reduce my carbon footprint financial savings remain more attractive.
Electric vehicles do not produce tail pipe emissions but still have a negative impact on the environment. Not all electricity used to recharge electric vehicles is generated from clean sources. Emissions associated with the manufacturing of electric vehicles are far higher due to the use of rare minerals which are difficult to find, extract and process. Despite this we can still achieve a large reduction in our carbon emissions by using such technology.
For those of you who are interested I will be hooking up an electricity monitor to track both my running costs and carbon emissions. Look out for updates in the future posts when I will compare the results to three other cars which I drive on a regular basis.
It will be fascinating to see if my opinions change after living with the vehicle for six months particularly over the winter.
About this blog
Share my experiences of driving the Liberty E-Range as part of the Switch EV Electric Vehicle Demonstration Project. Will living with an electric vehicle match the expectations I gained during my time designing and developing them?
Photostream
Categories
- Before getting the car (5)
- Charging the car (4)
- Driving the car (1)
- Energy use (1)
- First impressions (1)
- Industry (1)
- Running costs (2)
Archives
- Alexandra Prescott: HI A very intresting blog - just one small thing Fortunately the North East has a large number [...]
- Wes: Looks a bit low on the back end... What you hiding in there? [...]
- Alan: I can just see you now driving away with your charger still in! [...]