Buying an electric car
Last updated Wednesday 30 April 2008
Electric cars save cash for city drivers
Electric cars produce no exhaust fumes, minimal pollution and a third of the CO2 emissions of petrol engines. On top of that they're tax free, immune to congestion charges, and a full 'tank' of fuel costs no more than a pint of milk.
So what's the snag? Currently, limited range and recharging opportunities, and a lack of driving pizzazz. But could the next generation of electric vehicles change all that?
Read more below
Saves 950kg of CO2 a year
80 Bloomers are doing this
CO2 reduction 
Cheapness 
Popularity 
Cost £12,130
In this article:
- How does it work?
- How will it make a difference?
- What's stopping me?
- What's the debate?
- How do I do it?
How does it work?
Pub Fact
- 25% of all journeys made in the UK are less than two miles
- There are over 33 million cars in Britain
- There are at least 1,500 electric cars in the UK already
- Transport accounts for 22% of emissions in the UK
- Greenhouse gas emissions from private and commercial transport in Ireland have risen 140% since 1990, the largest increase in Europe
Electric cars use a battery and electric motor to power the vehicle and are charged via a standard mains socket in your home, or at an increasing number of free outdoor charging bays. The average electric car does 60 miles on a single charge with a top speed of 40mph - while higher performance sports cars can do 150 miles and 130mph. There are currently over 100 electricity pumps in the UK - the majority of which are in London. But 250 new points are expected to be added this year across Britain. Read the Treehugger article.
How will it make a difference?
- An electric car run on conventional electricity from a coal-fired generator produces a third of the emissions of a conventional petrol car (64g of CO2 per km compared to 176g CO2 per km) and just over half the emissions of a diesel or hybrid car (104g CO2/km)
- You can save thousands of pounds a year in running costs
- If you're thinking electric car plus green electricity tariff equals carbon neutral transport, you might need to recalculate. green energy
What's stopping me?
"Max speed, 40mph?"
Electric cars are currently best suited to city driving because the average speed of traffic in London, for example, is notoriously just 10mph: 2mph slower than an Edwardian horse-drawn carriage.
"I've heard they aren't safe"
Electric cars are classified as 'quadricycles' by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, so are subject to less stringent safety tests than cars. But one report estimates they are three times less likely than petrol cars to be involved in accidents. Insurers certainly think so - electric cars qualify for the lowest insurance category, group one, because (reckons the AA) their likelihood of getting into dangerous situations is much lower than that of conventional, high-speed cars.
"Won't the battery go flat as soon as I get out of my road?"
Current models manage an average of about 60 miles on a single charge so we can make our average daily commute of 17 miles more than three times between recharges, but out-of-town journeys are of course trickier. Upgrading to more expensive lithium-ion batteries can increase range significantly.
"I'd love to help the planet, but I can't afford such fancy new technology"
Actually, electric cars range in price between £8,900 and £17,000 and, based on the UK average of 10,000 miles a year, you could save £800 a year on fuel, £300 in car tax, up to £2,000 from congestion charges and free parking in London, and get cheap insurance too. On the other hand, the current generation of electric vehicles are unlikely to rack up that sort of mileage due to their limited range.
Fuel and maintenance costs are also about a third of the typical petrol car: about 6.5p per mile as opposed to 20p. Even with the cost of replacement batteries - about £1,500 every three to four years - electric motoring still costs only about 11p per mile.
What's the debate?
Electric vehicles are exhaust free but critics say that they simply shift the point at which the emissions and pollution is generated to the power station. This is true (in fact, electricity generation accounts for a third of the UK's climate impact) but power stations are more efficient at generating energy than cars, so emission reductions still hold. You may be tempted to switch your electricity tariff to green energy to reduce your driving emissions to near zero - but think twice before making the jump.
New research published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology in 2008 levels another, less serious, accusation at electric cars: they use more water than fossil fuelled cars. Vehicles running off electricity use about 17 times more water per mile than petrol vehicles because electricity production in power plants requires the withdrawal (and return) of surface water from nearby lakes and rivers. It's worth bearing in mind, however, that one million electric cars account for just 0.3% of the miles driven by light duty vehicles in the US. Read the article.
How do I do it?
- Choose the best electric vehicle for you - car, scooter or motorcycle
- Fit an electricity socket in your garage or driveway. All sockets must have an on/off switch and be fitted with surge protection - and the local distribution board must be fitted with a circuit breaker
- Find your nearest public electricity pump: for London see Newride and for the rest of the UK see EST or EV Network
- Switch to a green energy supplier
- Plug in to recharge over night, when electricity is supplied mainly by low-carbon nuclear power
- If in London, apply for immunity to the Congestion Charge
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I think the emissions figures published for an electric vehicle with only coal supplying the electricity is incorrect.
In the UK the current grid mix results in emissions of between 550 and 600 gCO2/kWh.
This is lower than a purely coal based electricity supply system.
A typical car energy consumption would be about:
20kWh/100km
This would give a electric vehicle emissions figure of around
120 gCO2e/km.
Which is comparable with a small UK car. If you increased the amount of coal used, the figures would get worse (above 120 gCO2/km).
The only way of making electric cars worthwhile is by making the electricity supply green and cleaner. This is exactly what the renewables industry are saying we need to do. Electric cars are great, but we need to sort out the energy supply as well.
The item above suggests that electric power stations are more efficient than some cars, if only this were true. A typical coal fired station is about 30% efficient at source, by the time we recive the electricity, we must also add on the losses in the transmission system such as heating loss in the cables due to current flow and Ohms law, losses in the transformers due magnetisation losses and heating in the copper wire of the coils of the transformers. This must take the efficiency of the whole system down below 30%.
Conversely, a diesel car, especially in the small engine class, is considered to be low carbon. Most diesel engines have efficiencies above 30%, including the big ones, so I would suggest that a switch to an electric car would not be a good use of your green investment.
Bought a Vectrix electric motorcycle in July 08 and love it! I use it to commute each day and ride as much as possible when doing errands. My students love to see it plugged in.
A great idea in theory - one which I would openly embrace but for the fact that no major car company (save for GM/Honda/Toyota ever so briefly in the 90's) have committed to producing a true full electric car that would be considered worth driving.
The G-Wiz, and others like it are a joke - the prospect of Hydrogen being viable is fantasy propaganda - check out 'Who killed the electric car?' for an (admittedly biased but factual) insight into how car companies operate.
© MMIX
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