electric revolution has fallen flat ... so dont buy electric

[BigD]

I think a hybrid gives you the best of both worlds as you can still use the car to go longer distances if you want.

[thinfourth]

Having driven Simon's A3, I can vouch for its performance, and usual Audi levels of quality.

So it broke down twice and then lied completely about what it was up to

[pete]

Detroit LEADING the electric revolution.

No-one has ever thought of an electric Elise, well now there is one.

http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-c ... s-pictures

[Dominic]

Detroit LEADING the electric revolution.

No-one has ever thought of an electric Elise, well now there is one.

http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-c ... s-pictures

Tesla?

[pete]

Detroit LEADING the electric revolution.

No-one has ever thought of an electric Elise, well now there is one.

http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-c ... s-pictures

Tesla?

Never heard of it.

[j2 lot]

Detroit Electric originally used the Lotus Europa chassis and body before the Elise version. They must have been working on getting it to production for close to 10 years - not sure why when the Tesla version has been and gone.

[cjm]

With 4/5% spare power capacity over winter will we not have a few energy/electricity issue pretty quickly if everyone started running about in an electric car?

[graeme]

I've had an Audi A3 e-tron on a lease for about 6 months now....

<snip>

I've had a go. It's not a good car.





It's a BRILLIANT car. Utterly brilliant. 1.4 turbo with electric torques... far pokier than the numbers suggest. Whirring away silently in electric mode is just spooky. Booting it off a roundabout is impressive. Handling is not noticable different to any other similar car I can think of.

As a business lease for short commutes, I think it was a genius purchase. As a personal purchase, it makes no sense, or I would very much enjoy owning one.

If you can get a test drive in one of these, I really recommend it. I hope it takes off, production numbers increase and price drops. I can't wait till it makes financial sense for me (probably in Passat GTE form).

[robin]

With 4/5% spare power capacity over winter will we not have a few energy/electricity issue pretty quickly if everyone started running about in an electric car?

I doubt it. The grid delivers about 45GW; 5% of that is 2.25GW. That would charge 5million cars at 5KW-ish each (5KW would recharge a LEAF in 5-7 hours). With some coordination to shift recharge cycles into the quiet hours there would be 3-5 times that available.

But you are right that if the entire UK fleet shifted to electric there would be a bit more of a struggle to power it.

Cheers,
Robin

[pshanks76]

There was an electric car parked under my office a few weeks back that could persuade me to go green...

[thinfourth]

It is not as bad as you think

Most folk will charge overnight as that is when they are asleep

Most folk drive 21 miles a day

A leaf averages about 4 miles per kwh

so 5.5 kwh per night

So not a huge amount of power in the grand scheme of things

And in the middle of the night when power consumption is low

[j2 lot]

Tesla have come in for a bit of criticism for reliability/ build quality, although owners still appear to love them:

http://www.greencarreports.com/news/110 ... ports-says

[Sanjøy]

Panels on the roof charging your Tesla home battery system during the day, charges your P85 at night. Grow your own veg and you're off grid.

[chrisdb]

Anyone have a view/experience of the i3? Looks pretty nifty with the range extender option.

I commute about 60 miles a day (30 each way). Need to do sums to see if it would make much of a difference against 40mpg Golf.

[Scotty C]

Brian Laing on here has one of the very first ones.