What difference does a windy day make, (unless it is too windy to safely drive on the roads at all)?
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UK switching to electric vehicles discussion
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cactustwirly
Established Member
Increased air resistance, it has a massive effect on the range of an EV apparently
Your 200 mile range goes down to less than 150 on a cold and windy day
15 miles costs less than 30p for me when charged at home overnight.
Very cold weather will increase consumption by about 30%, so the 15 miles will cost 40p.
cactustwirly
Established Member
So your car does 15miles per kWh?
No. My overnight electricity costs 7.5p per kWh.
On a VERY cold day, like when we had -6 recently. There aren't many days where it's sub-zero and the impact when it's 5 or 10 degrees over, say, 15-20, is small.
Plus, I am not so sure you're in a position to educate EV owners on how their vehicles work.
Oh and ICE vehicles don't perform that great in super cold weather either. I wonder many people do the school run, drive to the station, or go shopping with the engine never getting hot, and the extra wear and tear on components as a result?
The wind only increases the air resistance when it is going against the direction of travel. So unless the car is only ever driven in the opposite direction of the wind, it broadly balances out. You added temperature to my question on wind effects, so that is irrelevant for your answer.
“Apparently”
it’s the laws of physics!
If you drive into a headwind, you need to expend more energy for a given speed.
If you drive with a tailwind, you need to expend less energy for a given speed.
It’s not something peculiar to EVs - it applies to petrol & diesel too. My record fuel consumption in my old car (78mpg) was travelling at a constant 60 on the M6 / M1 southbound with a fierce nor’ westerly wind. Same journey on the way north I averaged 40mpg.
My Dad reckoned that due to the wind he used half a tank more on the return journey from North Dorset to Carlisle, wind can certainly affect fuel consumption, hence why aerodynamics in motor vehicles are important.
Wind resistance affects the fuel efficiency of cars. However, for road cars in the UK, there is practically no difference in the effects from wind between electric vehicles and ones with a diesel or petrol engine. If anything, electric cars are generally heavier, so they will be slightly less affected by the ambient wind.
At the normal speeds for UK road traffic, aerodynamics don't have much of an effect. Its a bit more significant if you are cruising at 150mph on an Autobahn, but if you are doing that, fuel economy is probably not your prime focus.
They certainly do have an affect. Cruising at 70mph uses a lot more fuel than at 50mph.
I meant to write "changes in the aerodynamics from the ambient wind"
matacaster
On Moderation
I can't understand why people who are comparatively well off and able to buy or PCP a new electric car seem to think that their local council or govt should pony up for car chargers all over the place. Poorer people may never be able to afford the purchase price of an electric car yet are expected by some to contribute to richer people's toys. If you can afford £30k-£90k for an EV pay for extra tax to pay for public chargers yourself. EV buyers also expect cheap electric... Why? I have nothing against EVs, but what about all the pollution caused by the production of ANY new vehicle, it surely outweighs the amount of pollution keeping an old banger on the road for a few more years. The motor manufacturers, as ever, want their cake and eat it. They couldn't make them more cheaply they said, yet Tesla knocked £6k off the new prices when they wanted to clear stick at the end of last year to attempt to meet stock market expectations.
And they pay back the cost of the chargers from people paying to use the chargers?
ABB125
Established Member
That's because it's uphill going north. Simple physics (and geography!)...
(Of course, with an electric car, you can recapture (lots of) the energy you expended going north when you come back down to the south. Not so with a petrol/diesel car.)
If a car is travelling on level ground at 60mph groundspeed with a 20mph headwind, the total aerodynamic resistance is the equivalent of travelling at 80mph in still air.* Similarly, if it is in a tail wind of 20mph, then at 60mph, the resistance is the equivalent of 40mph in still air.* Thus a return journey with a constant wind direction and speed will balance aerodynamic losses equivalent to that with still air.
This would be the same for IC and electric propulsion, except that the power curve for an IC engine is not as linear wrt speed whereas for an electric drive is is far more so.
* the slight difference in ground effect air resistance would differ between the actual aerodynamic design of vehicles.
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That old trope.
No, it doesn't. It's not just carbo, it's NOx, particulates etc which actually kill people.
And if you accept the old banger has to go for scrap at some point, better to replace with an EV than another polluting ICE.
I scrapped our Renault when we bought an EV,and I will scrap my 208 when I buy another EV later this year. Good riddance.
Cheshire Rover
Member
The charge points are already an issue, perhaps not the SuperTelsa jobs but I run about 10 of the lower powered commercial units (well known brand) at work and already I'm having to have the firmware upgraded because newer models can't connect to them. The VW ID4 was one that had problems.
Interestingly in my Dad's case it was going south that used more fuel!That's because it's uphill going north. Simple physics (and geography!)...
(Of course, with an electric car, you can recapture (lots of) the energy you expended going north when you come back down to the south. Not so with a petrol/diesel car.)
Err I think youve been misled. Replacing servicable ICEs with EVs prematurely massively increases pollution and by implication deaths its just that those people live next to the coal fired power station in China rather than in the London ULEZ.
SWT_USER
Member
I'm taking delivery of a VW ID3 in the next month or so, have a home charger installed and looking forward to seeing how we get on with it as our only vehicle.
Hoping it is a good time to sell a ULEZ compliant 2010 Ford Focus, we live right on the border of the expanded zone.
Hoping it is a good time to sell a ULEZ compliant 2010 Ford Focus, we live right on the border of the expanded zone.
So you think it's better to replace an old banger ICE with another ICE than an EV? The embedded emissions in both are very similar, but one continues to pollute for it's lifetime and the other doesn't.
Sorry thats not correct the embedded emissions are much higher in an EV than a comparable ICE, primarily because of the mining and refining of the contents of the battery pack. I will replace a 12 year old vehicle in the next 0 to 24 months if I lived in a city and didnt do long journeys Id consider an EV. Ill probably plump for a low cost ICE, Dacia, Skoda etc because they are so much better value. Ive run 2 Nissan Leaf Co cars for about 40k miles before I retired.
Chargers aren't free (sometimes they are initially, but not forever) so councils are installing them as a revenue stream - helping residents by having another income stream beyond council tax etc.
This is why there are so many businesses seeking to install charging points, and management companies looking to give them to people in flats with communal car parking.
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I must admit that since posting here and talking about EV pricing and the costs coming down, I hadn't really been looking at normal ICE vehicles.
It was mentioned in a recent video, which spoke of MG increasing its prices this year (due to inflation). And now it's around £26k instead of £25k.
But for a B-segment car, I just saw how much the Ford Focus is.. a common family car that I've owned many (albeit of the ST and RS variety) over the years.
The base model now starts at £27060! You get a 1L EcoBoost 125PS petrol engine with that.
Suddenly I think I need to re-evaluate some of my previous thoughts as I hadn't realised just how expensive 'ordinary' cars are now. On that basis, the MG4 is even better value still - even with the price hike.
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johncrossley
Established Member
But power stations tend not to be right next to people's houses, unlike roads. The emissions are expelled high up in the air, causing global warming but far from the ground where people live.
There's a big misunderstanding about this. Most of the weight of the battery pack is steel, aluminium and copper which you will find in any car. There's only a few tens of kilos of lithium and graphite in the battery, and even smaller amounts of other minerals such as cobalt.
And your argument also ignores the environmental impact of extracting oil (either from a well or very destructive and polluting oil sand mining), transporting it, refining it and transporting the final fuel to point of delivery, which goes on for the life of the car. And the oil industry doesn't like to talk about the cobalt used in refining... Once the EV is built, it essentially creates no more pollution ever.
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And increasingly electricity is being generated from wind, water and sun rather than burning fossil fuel. Even if all power generation were coal fired, the EV would still produce less pollution than a petrol car, as it's so much more efficient.
Cobalt is gradually being phased out of batteries, with many new cars having none at all.
Plus, how often are we firing up our coal power stations these days? More and more electricity generated is green every year, and coal has been virtually eliminated and used only in emergencies.. and the 'switch off and save' schemes may adapt to make them unnecessary entirely.
Just need to do the same for natural gas next.
Plus, how often are we firing up our coal power stations these days? More and more electricity generated is green every year, and coal has been virtually eliminated and used only in emergencies.. and the 'switch off and save' schemes may adapt to make them unnecessary entirely.
Just need to do the same for natural gas next.
StKeverne1497
Member
Coal has seen pretty regular (if low level) use over the last year, probably averaging 2% over the year with peaks no higher than 5%. This is all by-eye from these graphs but the data is there to download if you know where to look. Combined cycle gas has continued to be by far the largest single contributor to our electricity. (if you get a 404 on that website - gridwatch.co.uk - for some link, it's probably been mis-typed in the web page you came from, but most are fairly easy to work out). Another favourite website of mine is gridwatch.templar.co.uk which is very nice to look at and has some good, though perhaps a little out-of-date, mouse-over text. They also offer downloads of historic data if you wish to perform your own analysis.
reddragon
Established Member
To say nothing for the trillions we spend on subsidising fossil fuels and dealing with those harmed by traffic pollution . . .