Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

NigeWick

My example is if I visit my brother, 65 miles each way.  EV with a "book" range of 200 miles, so real-world range around 150 miles as I will rarely have optimal climate conditions, I still want to drive at motorway speeds, and I still want the comfort of the radio on, heating / cooling etc.
That round trip of 130 miles is now coming perilously close to the real world range limit of 150 miles, so is quite realistically going to force a cafe-charging stop that would not otherwise have been the case. 
This has therefore added time that I would rather not spend.

Why not charge at the other end so the car is ready for the return journey, rather than stopping en route? I had a 30kWh Nissan Leaf and just planned my journies around its capabilities. Only range anxiety I ever had was coming across a diversion caused by road works one Sunday when returning from a visit to family. Fortunately, always carry a map and was able to sort out a route that was shorter than the diversion.

Martyn1981

Nice to see a big rental chain going in big on BEV's.

Hertz Orders 100,000 Teslas in Rental-Market Shake-Up

Hertz Global Holdings Inc., barely four months out of bankruptcy, placed an order for 100,000 Teslas in the first step of an ambitious plan to electrify its rental-car fleet, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

It’s the single-largest purchase ever for electric vehicles and represents about $4.2 billion of revenue for Tesla Inc., according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. While car-rental companies typically demand big discounts from automakers, the size of the order implies that Hertz is paying close to list prices. 

Grumpy_chap

Martyn1981 said:

Nice to see a big rental chain going in big on BEV's.

Hertz Orders 100,000 Teslas in Rental-Market Shake-Up

I think I like this, but the devil is in the detail.

Hiring an EV is not so straightforward as home charging point is needed also and / or knowledge of public chargers - I would not spend time researching all that for a week or so.

Maybe the target market is EV owners needing a temporary vehicle for whatever reason

JKenH

Grumpy_chap said:

Martyn1981 said:

Nice to see a big rental chain going in big on BEV's.

Hertz Orders 100,000 Teslas in Rental-Market Shake-Up

I think I like this, but the devil is in the detail.

Hiring an EV is not so straightforward as home charging point is needed also and / or knowledge of public chargers - I would not spend time researching all that for a week or so.

Maybe the target market is EV owners needing a temporary vehicle for whatever reason

It will be interesting to see how this works out in practice because if the users don’t have home chargers it will place extra strain on the public charging network, superchargers in particular. I have recently seen comments in a couple of videos from Tesla owners in the UK that have highlighted how busy the supercharger network has become with queues at some locations at peak times.

Verdigris

I suppose it might be a way for the BEV-curious to have a more extended experience than a dealership test drive before committing to buying.

michaels

Grumpy_chap said:

Martyn1981 said:

Nice to see a big rental chain going in big on BEV's.

Hertz Orders 100,000 Teslas in Rental-Market Shake-Up

I think I like this, but the devil is in the detail.

Hiring an EV is not so straightforward as home charging point is needed also and / or knowledge of public chargers - I would not spend time researching all that for a week or so.

Maybe the target market is EV owners needing a temporary vehicle for whatever reason

20% of the fleet within 14 months doesn't sound like only selected customers to me, it sounds like a core part of the fleet - eg people will need to be able to use superchargers rather than petrol pumps.

Grumpy_chap

Entirely unclear and poor reporting by BBC in the article about recycling plastic - the table at the end says giving up your car saves no more CO2 than switching to EV.

Seems impossible that is correct.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59039155

Verdigris

The only thing I can think of is that they are assuming you use more public transport,if you go car-less, which has some carbon footprint, now, although should reduce in time.

michaels

I also thought perhaps it excludes embedded CO2 so only the energy from specific journeys, not the car manufacture.  Public transport is difficult to assess too - if the trains run anyway then the carbon budget for each additional passenger is next to zero but if you divide total carbon form a train journey by total passengers then you obviously get a higher answer.

Solarchaser

Grumpy_chap said:

Martyn1981 said:

Nice to see a big rental chain going in big on BEV's.

Hertz Orders 100,000 Teslas in Rental-Market Shake-Up

I think I like this, but the devil is in the detail.

Hiring an EV is not so straightforward as home charging point is needed also and / or knowledge of public chargers - I would not spend time researching all that for a week or so.

Maybe the target market is EV owners needing a temporary vehicle for whatever reason

I'm not sure what the numbers would be like, but I'd assume (always dangerous) that a large majority are for those not at home.

I'd normally hire a car when in lower England or Ireland if I'd flown in, and the same in most of Europe,  and so "home" charging would not be available. 

You can usually prepay for fuel or return it full (or pay through the nose if you arrive late and have to drop it 1/4tank🥵) and so again all assumption,  id think you could either pay upfront for supercharger kwh's or since superchargers recognise the car (no cards or apps to swipe etc) you would just be charged an agreed rate per kwh used at the end of the hire.

It's not the same thing, but in Dublin the m50 toll is something you have to pay upfront if you are hiring a car in Ireland, so there is a system in place for this kind of thing.