Post by Wyvern on Aug 4, 2009 13:05:58 GMT
Although there is some debate as to whether the electric car is the answer to the environmental concerns facing the automobile industry, until now there hasn't really been a vehicle that could do what conventional cars do. Hybrids, such as the Toyota Prius, the Honda Insight and the Chevrolet Volt (coming to Europe as the Opel Ampara, and presumably to the UK as a Vauxhall) address some of the concerns, but are a flawed solution - many hybrids have higher emissions than small conventional diesel engines when running in conventional mode, and although manufacturers have started to address concerns about the replacement and recycling/disposal of battery packs, there are still worries about the environmental damage caused by mining the necessary metals and the carbon cost of mining, refining and turning that metal into batteries in the first place.
However, at the consumer end, a car that runs solely on batteries and can be charged up at the plug might seem like a useful idea; it doesn't put toxins into the atmosphere at street level, where people have to walk through them, and if the electricity comes from renewable resources, that solves the problem, doesn't it?
Ignoring the elephant in the room - that most power in the UK comes from gas and coal fired power stations, and much of the remainder from nuclear with only a tiny percentage from renewable sources - the answer to that question is still a resounding 'no', simply because until now there has been no electric car that can do what a typical family car can do: Fit mum, dad, granny and a couple of kids in, shove the luggage in the boot and run down to the seaside for a weekend.
At the moment, at the cheap (but not as cheap as you'd expect) end of the market you have the G-Wiz, which isn't a car at all, but a quadricycle. It can carry four people, but only if the ones in the back have been involved in some hideous accident and lost both their legs. At the other end of the scale, you have a few more options - the Tesla Roadster, the Lightning GT, the Liv Inizio by EV Innovations and several other gloriously impractical all-electric sports cars.
It's as if there was nothing between the Perodua Kelisa and the Lamborghini Murcielago, the Bentley Brooklands and the Porsche Carrera GT.
Enter Nissan with their solution - a five seater, medium sized hatchback with an anticipated range of 100 miles. Prices haven't been announced yet, but the vehicle is expected to be much in the range of a typical C-segment cars such as the Ford Focus and the Vauxhall Astra (though Nissan's press release did specify 'well equipped', so I suspect we're looking at the higher end of the segment). Charging from a standard socket will take around 8 hours and the electric motor will put out 80kW, which equates to around 107bhp, an a top speed of around 80mph - pretty typical for a conventional compact car with a small engine. In other words, Nissan has come up with a typical family car that just happens to have a battery instead of a petrol tank.
There are a few stumbling blocks as I see it. The first is the range. 100 miles is more than enough for a typical commute, town driving and short hops, but if you need to travel over 50 miles each way - and that really isn't far - you will need to recharge before you come home. Nissan says an 80% charge is possible in 30 minutes with a quick charger - not an unreasonable time to spend in, say, a motorway service station - but where will you find a quick charger? If there's no infrastructure, you won't be able to use this car for taking the family on holiday or travelling between cities. Still, it's a massive improvement on the range of the G-Wiz (40 - 50 miles) and Nissan say they're working on the infrastructure.
The next is the look of the thing.
The looks are less about styling and more about reducing drag and creating an optimum shape to allow the car to run as efficiently as possibly. However, Nissan also say that the frontal styling includes an upright V-shaped design featuring long, up-slanting light-emitting diode (LED) headlights that employ a blue internal reflective design that announces, "This car is special." Time will tell on that one, but I can't help thinking it's a bit Marmite.
And then there's the name.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you... the Nissan LEAF.
No, really. Apparently, The "LEAF" name is a significant statement about the car itself. Just as leaves purify the air in nature, so Nissan LEAF purifies mobility by taking emissions out of the driving experience.
All very Zen.
Still, it might not be the solution, but I still think electric cars are a solution, at least in the short term. None of it is truly environmentally friendly until we find realistic alternatives to fossil fuels for the generation of electricity (after all, if you swap a petrol or diesel car for an electric one that draws its power from an oil-fired power station, leaving aside complex issues about fractional distillation, you're ultimately still running your car on the same stuff...), but at least this takes care of the consumer end.
However, at the consumer end, a car that runs solely on batteries and can be charged up at the plug might seem like a useful idea; it doesn't put toxins into the atmosphere at street level, where people have to walk through them, and if the electricity comes from renewable resources, that solves the problem, doesn't it?
Ignoring the elephant in the room - that most power in the UK comes from gas and coal fired power stations, and much of the remainder from nuclear with only a tiny percentage from renewable sources - the answer to that question is still a resounding 'no', simply because until now there has been no electric car that can do what a typical family car can do: Fit mum, dad, granny and a couple of kids in, shove the luggage in the boot and run down to the seaside for a weekend.
At the moment, at the cheap (but not as cheap as you'd expect) end of the market you have the G-Wiz, which isn't a car at all, but a quadricycle. It can carry four people, but only if the ones in the back have been involved in some hideous accident and lost both their legs. At the other end of the scale, you have a few more options - the Tesla Roadster, the Lightning GT, the Liv Inizio by EV Innovations and several other gloriously impractical all-electric sports cars.
It's as if there was nothing between the Perodua Kelisa and the Lamborghini Murcielago, the Bentley Brooklands and the Porsche Carrera GT.
Enter Nissan with their solution - a five seater, medium sized hatchback with an anticipated range of 100 miles. Prices haven't been announced yet, but the vehicle is expected to be much in the range of a typical C-segment cars such as the Ford Focus and the Vauxhall Astra (though Nissan's press release did specify 'well equipped', so I suspect we're looking at the higher end of the segment). Charging from a standard socket will take around 8 hours and the electric motor will put out 80kW, which equates to around 107bhp, an a top speed of around 80mph - pretty typical for a conventional compact car with a small engine. In other words, Nissan has come up with a typical family car that just happens to have a battery instead of a petrol tank.
There are a few stumbling blocks as I see it. The first is the range. 100 miles is more than enough for a typical commute, town driving and short hops, but if you need to travel over 50 miles each way - and that really isn't far - you will need to recharge before you come home. Nissan says an 80% charge is possible in 30 minutes with a quick charger - not an unreasonable time to spend in, say, a motorway service station - but where will you find a quick charger? If there's no infrastructure, you won't be able to use this car for taking the family on holiday or travelling between cities. Still, it's a massive improvement on the range of the G-Wiz (40 - 50 miles) and Nissan say they're working on the infrastructure.
The next is the look of the thing.
The looks are less about styling and more about reducing drag and creating an optimum shape to allow the car to run as efficiently as possibly. However, Nissan also say that the frontal styling includes an upright V-shaped design featuring long, up-slanting light-emitting diode (LED) headlights that employ a blue internal reflective design that announces, "This car is special." Time will tell on that one, but I can't help thinking it's a bit Marmite.
And then there's the name.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you... the Nissan LEAF.
No, really. Apparently, The "LEAF" name is a significant statement about the car itself. Just as leaves purify the air in nature, so Nissan LEAF purifies mobility by taking emissions out of the driving experience.
All very Zen.
Still, it might not be the solution, but I still think electric cars are a solution, at least in the short term. None of it is truly environmentally friendly until we find realistic alternatives to fossil fuels for the generation of electricity (after all, if you swap a petrol or diesel car for an electric one that draws its power from an oil-fired power station, leaving aside complex issues about fractional distillation, you're ultimately still running your car on the same stuff...), but at least this takes care of the consumer end.
