Electric vehicles and snow storms

[AndyCook]

I wonder how electric vehicles would cope with the current snow storms and strandings.
They would quickly run out of power trying to keep people warm when stranded on motorways overnight.
And the talk of autonomous vehicles, they would be pretty useless in snow, all sensors covered in snow etc

 

[StarCruiser]

A very good point there Andy. A friend of mine has just got a Mercedes plug in hybrid as he lives about 1.5 miles from his work. The car has a 10 mile range on batteries alone from a full charge. Thursday morning it registered that he had used 6 miles Worth getting to work, no snow to speak of just -4. Batteries don’t like the cold and some if not all of these cars have heating cycles to warm them up including I believe the batteries.

They’ll be rather like a Dalek encountering stairs.

Bit of info in amongst the family stuff in this video

of a Tesla and a Leaf. Although it seems positive, coupled with the OP scenario, this paints a pretty bleak picture for any purely electric car. At least you can carry fuel to a petrol or diesel car that’s empty.

 

[frank rabbets]

That's the big advantage with fossil fuel cars. Free heating.

 

[moggy1968]

I wonder how electric vehicles would cope with the current snow storms and strandings.
They would quickly run out of power trying to keep people warm when stranded on motorways overnight.
And the talk of autonomous vehicles, they would be pretty useless in snow, all sensors covered in snow etc

They’ll die.
Still, every cloud

 

[Paddler Ed]

Volvo BLIS didn't like snow on the exterior mirrors - you did have to do more than just put the heated rear window on (which also did the mirrors) to prep the car for driving in the snow...

 

[Shayne]

Yeah but it's ok because they have dash lights to inform that your well and truly stuck perhaps fatally unless one them awful people who don't care about the planet saves you in an old oil burner .

 

[moggy1968]

‘So why do you have to drive that big polluting thing?’
‘No, feck off you can’t have a lift in the snow!’
I had someone ask me once why I needed a car like that in Portsmouth. I had to explain, in very simple terms, that every now and again I did actually go further than Portsmouth!

 

[Dave_S]

I had similar thoughts regarding both electric vehicles and autonomous/semi autonomous vehicles - hell, if a Tesla can't distinguish the side of a semi trailer from the sky, what chance would it have in a snow storm? Give me an old school diesel with minimal electronics any time... ;-)

 

[Towpack]

Give me an old school diesel with minimal electronics any time... ;-)

Amen to that.

 

[Bob]

It's horses for courses, electric and autonomous cars are a good idea in the city, and even on motorways, but out in the sticks like me, there's too much going on. Tesla are genuinely impressive, but unless they introduce a utility version with ATs, towbar, and a good loadspace that could do the kind of work mine does, I'm sticking with diesel power...

More importantly, I can fix mine easily, or do a field repair to keep it going if absolutely necessary... not so with electric

 

[chapel gate]

iv thought the same with electric cars and intense cold, no one could charge there lithium ion batteries at work this last couple of weeks. they will have there place but as ive said before I don't think the diesel will die.
coal has supposed to of long gone, but probable a quarter of our village still heat there house with it, us and my parents included.

 

[clivehorridge]

iv thought the same with electric cars and intense cold, no one could charge there lithium ion batteries at work this last couple of weeks. they will have there place but as ive said before I don't think the diesel will die.
coal has supposed to of long gone, but probable a quarter of our village still heat there house with it, us and my parents included.

I remember as a youth in the 60s, all fossil fuels, coal oil and gas was going to run out before the end of that century, but were still pulling oil and gas from the planet.

Of course it is limited (not renewable) but with Diesel engines running on veg oil, then the fossil fuel remaining time is not so much of an issue.

Nobody’s talking seriously about where the leccy will come from for leccy cars, except the half-thought-out nuclear brigade, so the good old faithful diesel will survive a bit longer than some others, I predict.

 

[Towpack]

Hydrogen fuel cell power is the answer. Far more money and research is needed to make the tech more affordable and widely available instead of all these ‘stop gap’ hybrid and battery powered vehicles.

 

[uHu]

Hydrogen fuel cell power is the answer. Far more money and research is needed to make the tech more affordable and widely available instead of all these ‘stop gap’ hybrid and battery powered vehicles.

You need electricity to produce the hydrogen, and with the losses, that takes more electricity than if feeding it directly to the electric car. Hydrogen fuel cell cars are nice tho' as it solves the problem with huge batteries and filling/charging time.

Fuel cell + one motor for each wheel sounds good, even if you ned 6 wheels on your UTE. Very easy to make portals... We'll probably have to wait another 50 yrs tho.

 

[Towpack]

You need electricity to produce the hydrogen, and with the losses, that takes more electricity than if feeding it directly to the electric car.

Only for production by electrolysis, there are several other methods. Besides, virtually unlimited emission free electricity is available from nuclear production which will have to be adopted on a larger scale sooner or later, like it or not. Hydrogen cell is the only clean and viable answer to electric vehicle power. JMO

 

[Shayne]

Without even bothering to read the link this is why the EU needs to "save the planet"

http://euanmearns.com/primary-energy-in-the-european-union-and-usa-compared/

 

[AndyCook]

Without even bothering to read the link this is why the EU needs to "save the planet"

http://euanmearns.com/primary-energy-in-the-european-union-and-usa-compared/

My wife and I used to work in Euan's company

 

[chapel gate]

I remember as a youth in the 60s, all fossil fuels, coal oil and gas was going to run out before the end of that century, but were still pulling oil and gas from the planet.

Of course it is limited (not renewable) but with Diesel engines running on veg oil, then the fossil fuel remaining time is not so much of an issue.

Nobody’s talking seriously about where the leccy will come from for leccy cars, except the half-thought-out nuclear brigade, so the good old faithful diesel will survive a bit longer than some others, I predict.

The more people turn away from diesel. The more will be left for us.