London - Edinburgh by Electric Car BBC

Hintza

Anyone else struck by how awful that journey appears to have been?

Cost of £10 at household rates (no fuel duty and reduced VAT) sounds expensive and is only cheap in real terms because of current legislation. No mention of costs at the charging points.

Average speed of 6mph (overall). Filmed doing 45mph on the motorway :eek:

10 hours for a full charge.

Can't have the heating on in January to increase range.

Is it just me or this as useful in real life as a chocolate teapot?

Was the old stagecoach not faster?

candycow

If you factor in the overnight stay he must have had to charge the car, the refreshments and meals en route etc, it would have been significantly more expensive than the £50 tank of fuel they quoted as being the alternative.

TheMiner

Whilst I agree with OP to a certain extent, I don't think it is a good example of the benfits of an electric car. I could foresee a future where we have one (petrol/diesel) for long journeys and an electric one for 'round the town'.

I can definitely see the benefits of using one for my work run (when I don't cycle) and charging at home is a damn site more attractive than stopping to fill up (as long as the chavs round our way leave the car alone at night). Problem for me is still the prohibitive cost as can't justify having two cars (we need one to visit the missus's folks 150 miles away - petrol is still cheaper and more convenient than using the train)

iolanthe07

Hearing the report of this on the 'Today' programme this morning made me think that the case for electric cars has been put back years. Apparently it had to be brought back from Edinburgh on a transporter!

namnavog

Why use a prototype? Another guy (David Peilow) in a Tesla decided to do the journey in one day - just to prove it is easily possible with an electric car you can actually buy. Try a google for "London Edinburgh Mini Tesla".

puddy

why dont they just put charging points in each petrol station, surely thats possible

he also says on another blog that the charging time is likely to come down to 80%charged in 20 minutes in the near future, thats much more reasonable

puddy

namnavog wrote: »

Why use a prototype? Another guy (David Peilow) in a Tesla decided to do the journey in one day - just to prove it is easily possible with an electric car you can actually buy. Try a google for "London Edinburgh Mini Tesla".

i thought i read that the tesla cost 88k and is not on the governments list of tax exempt cars

LandyAndy

What is the point of using an electric car for a journey for which it is not intended?

A ridiculous and money wasting exercise to answer a question no one asked.

Inactive

LandyAndy wrote: »

What is the point of using an electric car for a journey for which it is not intended?

A ridiculous and money wasting exercise to answer a question no one asked.

Indeed, some jumped up BBC boffin thought that it would make for a good programme.

benjus

I use a car club which has an electric car in central London.

It's quite fun for driving around the city, but takes AGES to charge, so if you plan on driving beyond its range it's just not worth it.

I can't really see how they work for car clubs either, as once a member has returned it it's out of action for about 10 hours before then can rent it out again. Presumably it's mostly a gimmick.

Lum

puddy wrote: »

he also says on another blog that the charging time is likely to come down to 80%charged in 20 minutes in the near future, thats much more reasonable

I dread to think of the idea of having to spend 20 minutes hanging around some of the skanky BP stations, eg. on the A14, you know the ones that stink of a mixture of diesel and urine, have a shop about the size of a small garden shed staffed by some hardcase who acts like he'll stab you if you enter your PIN wrong* and for some reason they have used needle bins in the toilets.

*probably because it'll screw up his card swiping device