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Electrifying our History

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McCabe-Thiele (Ted):
A friend of mine recently purchased a used BMW i3 (old model) its all electric with a small built in range extender that runs on petrol  - sounds a sensible idea he can top up his battery on the move using the petrol driven generator. It's a shame that this idea has not gained more popularity as it cuts out range anxiety - BMW have now dropped this optional extra.

Downside is that when the battery gives up the car is scrap like most EV s on the market at the moment - hybrids have a similar issue - I doubt any of the current all electric cars can have a life span exceeding 12 years - makes a 50 year old Honda look good.

andy120t:
 A quick look on Auto trader shows BMWi3's with 80/90k miles at around £13k. Ouch. That's a lot of money.

Lobo:
Recently saw a documentary of Hydrogen (ie Fuel Cell) cars versus battery, and the conclusion was resoundingly in favour of batteries given the efficiencies of energy ‘production’ at source, to transmission / transport, to vehicle storage, to motive conversion at the drive wheels.  (Ken, I don’t think reciprocating hydrogen units feature in envisaged autos?)

My wife has an i3 with Range Extender - it’s perfect for us, and typically only use it’s REx once or twice a year as we’ve no other major car. (the 50 yo Kombi too nail biting for 1000km trips 😂). Day to day running is essentially free due home solar. (I fully expect it to keep on going, sure the battery will degrade with time, but even at 20 years and (eg) half the original range it’d still suit our needs. (At 4 yo there is no noticeable drop off))

The point however is, that it charges at abouts 6kW/h, (ie 40kph)… using 2014 technology.
ONLY 8 years later… and the Teslas are now capable of 300km in 5 minutes. Holy moley. Yes you need their DC supercharger, and yes you have to prewarn the battery so that it can pre-condition itself - but these are just steps in the endless path to electrical storage efficiencies.
Efficient (ha!) ICEs and plentiful fuel infrastructures took 10s of years to mature, so why do folk not anticipate and allow the same of battery technologies?

Personally, I can’t envisage ever buying another ICE, the ownership is as stark as an old Nokia versus a smart phone, or, a sophisticated and needy pocket watch versus a Swatch watch.

Aerospace industries are researching electrical propulsion for flight; and indeed there are commercial aircraft now flying; one outfit at Popham operates an electric 2 seat light trainer.

I honestly don’t see any choice but electric for the future, given politics, green agendas, efficiencies, lack of plausible alternatives.  Just give it (a little) time.

Below, and only to make you jealous (!) a typical days home solar production. The car is being charged towards the end of the day; the surplus energy (grey) is sold back to the supplier at about 60% of what they provide it at. The UK is woefully behind here; we get financial incentives to install solar, and financial rewards for selling excess back - which I believe has stopped in England?

SteveD CB500K0:
Love that picture Lobo.

I ordered solar PV in August but don’t expect installation until at least Feb/Mar as the panels are on long lead times due to demand ( and the fact that they come from China )

6 panels on my south-facing terraced house for a total of just under 4kW. Should be ample for my usage profile.

2.9kW battery mounted on the wall in the attic.

You are correct. No subsidies here.

Electric car charging would be an issue for me as we only have kerbside parking out the front. Garages round the back but I’d have dig up the communally-owned tarmac to get power out there.

If anyone else is interested, we could have a solar PV thread to swap experiences. Save joining a solar PV forum!

Steve


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Sesman:
Batteries, that’s interesting Steve. I assume you mean 2kwhr?.

I presume the installers are going to install some kind of changeover device to isolate your house from the grid when the mains fails? I’m curious because under normal operation the solar generation will export what you are not using. If the mains fails all the stored energy, other than what you are using, will be exported. The typical quiescent load for a gas heated home is around 300w. If they isolate you from the mains you will get around 4/5 hours of ride through providing enough power for some lighting and your central heating pump….I like that idea.

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