Electric Cars Need More Staying Power

In the 100 plus years in the history of motor cars there has probably never been a period of such uncertainty regarding how to power our vehicles.
Fossil fuels, i.e. petrol and diesel, are under attack from the environmental lobby because of their history of carbon gas emission levels, the oil industry  however has responded well to current demands for cleaner fuels and also in improving the mpg attainable.
The new non-fossil fuel systems being introduced e.g. gas and electric, have not proved their worth yet, and unless you’re only doing a 10 mile or so round trip, are of no real use.
This week there is a prediction that the electric bubble will burst due to its slow progress in maturing into a serious source of power for anything but local journeys, plus the whole support infrastructure for either re-charging points or battery exchange/charging will take some time to be fully set-up nationwide.
As mentioned earlier the development of far more economical running of petrol and diesel engines is now a big factor against buying a hybrid version of either petrol/elect or diesel/elect hybrids, whose electric motor side of the combination equates to rarely more than 50 miles range and for that will cost anything between £4k and £8k more to buy such a model.
Common diesels cars these days are far more economical than they were, emit less carbon gas emissions and are more environment friendly.
It is more the norm these days to attain an average of 50mpg, even 60mpg and not uncommon in some smaller diesel cars to obtain over 70mpg. In fuel terms over the last 10 years if you take the over 70mpg as an example you would only require 1 gallon of diesel today for every 2 of petrol previously. That is a great reduction nationally in our dependency on oil imports.
An excellent example of fuel frugality was illustrated in a recent test run using a Volvo S80DRIVe with a 1560cc diesel engine.
Volvo set up the run from their HQ at Marlow, Buckinghamshire, to Malpensa airport Milan, a distance of 814.63 miles; the challenge – to drive there on a single tank of diesel. Volvo’s official consumption figures for the S80 indicated it should have a range of 888.46 miles, if the combined mpg figure of 57.7 was correct.
Suffice to say that with careful driving and using cruise control the S80  arrived with a quarter tank of fuel remaining, enough to complete another 175 miles, which would indicate a total drivable distance of over 1000 miles.
With the possibility of further diesel and petrol engine improvement no wonder the viability of the electric car is being questioned; gas cars are another matter altogether.

Bill Williams

www.thecarhub.net