Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Electric cars - a question.

Interesting stuff above. I’ve subsequently discovered that the electric mini is t privately owned or paid for. It’s a publicity vehicle for a well established Mini restoration firm in the midlands. No doubt if they put their prices up a fraction the cost of the electric mini will be catered for by their customers.

Living in a semi rural location with dreadful public services I’m not likely to own an EV anytime soon and my sister in law lives in the Valleys. Rows and rows of tightly packed terraced houses - can’t imagine wires trailing across the pavements being too popular with the Priam and invalid buggy armies down there

The Skoda vid was interesting.

Back in 2014 the advice that came with my Tesla was to use the heated seats/steering wheel to keep warm if range was a concern as they are run from a standard 12v battery whereas the heating/a-c affects range just like it does on a petrol car.

With M3s and MYs that have an air source heat pump and an octavalve HVAC management control the advice has evolved, now the advice is to set the temperature you want and the car will use hot air, heated seat and steering wheel to maintain a comfortable temperature. I have to say it works very well indeed. At the moment, with an ambient temperature of 5C I have the climate set at 18C and on short, less than 5 mile, trips the car is using 285 to 325wh/mile.

Nothing new .... hydrogen fuel cell Austin A40 from 1970 ... had 180 mile range in spite of the primitive tech.




K

So there really is nothing new then.

I can imagine coming out in the morning to find the local asbo's fiddeling with the valves

Mind you getting those around corners was scary enough without the 200kgs of tanks on the roof so maybe it's a better thing the youff's will have emptied them!

Corners Alistair?

I'm in the Nav seat (just - tight squeeze into bucket seats!).
Last year's Rallye Day at Prescott.

My very first car ... same colours as well ... but mine was the Countryman with the split tailgate ... what an excellent car it was too ... needed the bodywork kept up with (as did all cars of that age) but took everything I could throw at it ... and teenage/twenties me could throw plenty! 🙂 .... Rust In Peace JEY 190

K

logic slowly turning....

The heating in old ice cars comes for free as it is waste energy from the cooling system.
Seat heating used extra energy from the 12V system as AC does.
Later - with more efficient (diesel) engines - electric heaters came into play as there was not enough waste energy left for heating. So it became a mixture of waste heat and extra energy with AC and seat heating on top.
E-cars have no waste energy left in winter. So any heating is done on extra cost. Just as Peter describes we are all trying to find the most energy effective solution.
It depends very much on the parameters of use (distance, temp, plug in time,...).
Letˋs see what turns out to be best...

Tesla seems to manage energy well, electrical and heat.

The battery and motors are connected to a cooling system, but so is the heat pump, the cabin heater, the main car computer and 800w audio system.
The car can be heated from the heat pump, but also by the computer choosing to run the rear motor in a way it gets hot, and then it uses the heat to heat anything that needs heating. The Octavalve (a Tesla patented device) manages heat collection and distribution and ensures no heat energy is wasted. If there is waste cabin heat the car will heat up the battery, to 70C so there is a 500kg mass at 70c which can then be harvested. All rather clever, to be honest.
Tis tells the full story..
https://metrology.news/ct-scanning-looks-inside-tesla-model-y-octovalve/#:~:text=The%20Octovalve%20is%20a%20highly,very%20compact%20and%20lightweight%20system.

Probably H2

Heat is a useful by product of Hydrogen fuel cells.

I have just been reading up on the advances in Hydrogen fuel cell technology and the generation of "Green Hydrogen" using standby renewable electricity: solar, wind, hydro, geo, etc. Huge advances are being made and an Italian based multinational company, Enapter, is ramping up in Germany to produce 10 thousand hydrogen generators a month. At the moment hydrogen generators and fuel cell technology is predominantly used as standby power or in remote areas but an entire tourist village in Thailand is using solar and hydrogen power.

Enapter, by the way, received the Earthshot prize from the Royal Foundation set up by Prince William.

It has been predicted that by 2050 Green Hydrogen will not only be an important energy source but the costs will be significantly reduced.

For me BEV is an intermediate step but will start to be replaced by Hydrogen fuel cell technology in the foreseeable future. Mind you by 2050, at 105 years old, I probably won't care much.