You Really Want Electric Cars?

woof woof said:
Perhaps it's some earth humour which has gone over my head.
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not really he is like me controversial because he say things people dont like to hear mate.
 
Mr Bump said:
not really he is like me controversial because he say things people dont like to hear mate.
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That may well be and forgive me for saying... but I think it's worth taking a moment to think how things will be received and perceived and besides all that there's always the chance that a mod could be right on the edge right now and just itching to pull a trigger...
 
Not saying anything about 2-strokes!
 
LCPete said:
Good point actually I probably shouldn’t say anything about diesels :banana: as I run an old LC:oops: :$
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I'm guessing that my Diesel probably gets close to the same MPG as your Elsie on a decent run too!
 
woof woof said:
Who's he?

You're not going to insult him are you?

Actually maybe he's not a person, maybe he's a medical condition.
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Maybe Rudolf Diesel had 2 strokes and that accounted for his disappearance from the boat? ;)
 
Nod said:
I'm guessing that my Diesel probably gets close to the same MPG as your Elsie on a decent run too!
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I actually get 50 to the gallon which is pretty good for a 38 year old bike though I’m never in a big rush to get anywhere, do open her up in 3rd gear though the acceleration and noise is addictive :banana:
 
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Electric vehicles will probably to be as safe or safer than Ice vehicles considering the new technology and safety systems in them. One thing is true with Lithium batteries when they fail they fail spectacularly! The only thing is we heard about the failures compared to really hearing about all the ICE vehicles that have caught fire.

I follow a couple of YouTubers who bought an old motor home in the US. Within a few days of ownership it went up in flames spectacularly. They were driving the motor home when it caught fire too.

View: https://youtu.be/loiARpb_cOU
 
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rob-nikon said:
Electric vehicles will probably to be as safe or safer than Ice vehicles considering the new technology and safety systems in them. One thing is true with Lithium batteries when they fail they fail spectacularly! The only thing is we heard about the failures compared to really hearing about all the ICE vehicles that have caught fire.

I follow a couple of YouTubers who bought an old motor home in the US. Within a few days of ownership it went up in flames spectacularly. They were driving the motor home when it caught fire too.

View: https://youtu.be/loiARpb_cOU
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It was probably the lithium battery in his phone that started it :LOL:
 
My mate was telling me yesterday about the new ev he’s ordered, how it’s so much better for the planet etc, “Saving the planet” says I, “ why does it need to be so big? 5 seats, there’s only 2 of you, why the electric windows, central locking, heated seats etc, performance you‘ll never exploit, make it smaller, lighter, slower with manual everything and then it might help save the planet, but only keeping it 2 or 3 years and buying a new unnecessary car doesn’t” He went off in the huff, wonder why? Oh and I didn’t get an answer.
 
mj4456 said:
My mate was telling me yesterday about the new ev he’s ordered, how it’s so much better for the planet etc, “Saving the planet” says I, “ why does it need to be so big? 5 seats, there’s only 2 of you, why the electric windows, central locking, heated seats etc, performance you‘ll never exploit, make it smaller, lighter, slower with manual everything and then it might help save the planet, but only keeping it 2 or 3 years and buying a new unnecessary car doesn’t” He went off in the huff, wonder why? Oh and I didn’t get an answer.
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And who would buy one? I haven't had a car without a/c, SatNav or electric windows in 15 years. I have heated seats, but only because they're leather, didn't have them in my last car as I had cloth seats. It's what the market expects, so the first manufacturer to drop all these "luxuries" will have a car they can't sell....
 
Jelster said:
...so the first manufacturer to drop all these "luxuries" will have a car they can't sell....
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I think that will depend on the market and the marketing.

Who could have predicted the enormous success of Citroen's 2CV, if they assumed that all cars had to offer the same facilities as the then current Rover? Selling a product depends on identifying what a group of customers want and what they're prepared to pay.
 
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The 2CV only survived as long as it did because of its appeal to the greenies. The irony being that it couldn't be made to be anything close to green enough to satisfy regulations 30 or so years ago...

EVs with a decent range almost have to be fairly large to carry enough batteries to give them the range.
 
Bobsyeruncle said:
It also depends on the company being able to make a profit....
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Didn’t Amazon trade for many years without making a profit? Not manufacturing of course but I bet there’s an example. Something like Tesla maybe?
 
Nod said:
The 2CV only survived as long as it did because of its appeal to the greenies.
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Far from it, the car was a lot of fun to drive, although I suspect it's image of appeal to leftie beret wearing greenies was because it was cheap and slow, and visually very non-mainstream.
 
sphexx said:
Didn’t Amazon trade for many years without making a profit? Not manufacturing of course but I bet there’s an example. Something like Tesla maybe?
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Probably, but their ultimate aim wouldn't be to not make a profit....
 
ancient_mariner said:
Far from it, the car was a lot of fun to drive, although I suspect it's image of appeal to leftie beret wearing greenies was because it was cheap and slow, and visually very non-mainstream.
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It was as much fun to drive as an enema! The only good thing about it was that you could remove the rear seat and have a sofa on the beach.
 
Nod said:
It was as much fun to drive as an enema! The only good thing about it was that you could remove the rear seat and have a sofa on the beach.
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Correction, the only good thing about them is that you could get out and walk, which would have been preferable (I admit to being negative when it comes to French cars).
 
Jelster said:
And who would buy one? I haven't had a car without a/c, SatNav or electric windows in 15 years. I have heated seats, but only because they're leather, didn't have them in my last car as I had cloth seats. It's what the market expects, so the first manufacturer to drop all these "luxuries" will have a car they can't sell....
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It is what the market expects because that's what they have been told to expect by the manufacturers.

The market can be told to expect other things...
 
Jelster said:
Correction, the only good thing about them is that you could get out and walk, which would have been preferable (I admit to being negative when it comes to French cars).
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I've driven many French designs and they were remarkably practical compared to their British competitors.

The 2CV was certainly quirky by British standards but immensely practical and incredibly easy to maintain. Citroen was a company that often streaked ahead of the pack with designs like the Traction Avant and the DS19.

Citroen Traction Avant at Sidmouth Conservative Club P1210475.JPG
 
Nod said:
It was as much fun to drive as an enema! The only good thing about it was that you could remove the rear seat and have a sofa on the beach.
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We all like different things. :) I wouldn't want to drive one for hundreds of miles in a single day, but it was fine up to around 3-4 hours.
 
simon ess said:
I used to know a chap who was obsessed with them. He had three.
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They had that relaxed flat engine rhythm, like the old Beetles had.
 
ancient_mariner said:
We all like different things. :) I wouldn't want to drive one for hundreds of miles in a single day, but it was fine up to around 3-4 hours.
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About 20 miles then! :P
More seriously, 40 miles in a hit was my limit in one and I was much younger when I had mine!

simon ess said:
I used to know a chap who was obsessed with them. He had three.
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After I got rid of mine, Dad bought a basket case Mehari which we resurrected - I suppose that was another plus point for them - the engine can be removed by one person.
 
Nod said:
More seriously, 40 miles in a hit was my limit in one and I was much younger when I had mine!
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One Christmas our CX broke down and we had nothing else but the deux cheveaux. Loaded it with children, presents and luggage and drove us about 120 miles down to the outlaws for Christmas & back. It was actually OK most of the time except when confronted with very large lorries - the air spilling off the front of the lorry at around 60mph could actually be enough to stop the car overtaking unless the speed difference was =>10mph i.e. on the 72mph top speed that took a couple of miles to reach.

We had 2 - a bright yellow one (the canary) that got bent and a blue & yellow one (the budgie) that was loaned to a friend before finally rotting beyond repair.

If someone could do an electric version I might be tempted provided it had a real 200 mile range.
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
I've driven many French designs and they were remarkably practical compared to their British competitors.

The 2CV was certainly quirky by British standards but immensely practical and incredibly easy to maintain. Citroen was a company that often streaked ahead of the pack with designs like the Traction Avant and the DS19.

View attachment 356512
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I had a citroen BX as a company car years ago, and it was bloody awful. The Mk3 Cavalier it replaced was brilliant by comparison. Having been an apprentice mechanic at a Simca/Peugeot dealership, I had plenty of experience with their whacky examples. I just dislike most of the current French cars, and my experience of the cockpits of them are harsh plastics and uncomfortable seats.

I consider myself a bit of a petrolhead, and struggle to have any affinity with French cars in general (the Alpine 110 excluded). Just my opinion.
 
Jelster said:
I had a citroen BX as a company car years ago, and it was bloody awful. The Mk3 Cavalier it replaced was brilliant by comparison. Having been an apprentice mechanic at a Simca/Peugeot dealership, I had plenty of experience with their whacky examples. I just dislike most of the current French cars, and my experience of the cockpits of them are harsh plastics and uncomfortable seats.

I consider myself a bit of a petrolhead, and struggle to have any affinity with French cars in general (the Alpine 110 excluded). Just my opinion.
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I had a Peugeot 405 Mi16 as a company car in the early 90's.
It was fun to drive....:police:
 
Bobsyeruncle said:
I had a Peugeot 405 Mi16 as a company car in the early 90's.
It was fun to drive....:police:
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I ran a 306. The first one literally blew up after a month and a half!

The second one ran without problems for six years, doing 500 - 1000 miles a week. Comfortable for a relatively small car. I replaced it with a Renault Scenic and ran that with only one small problem for another six years, doing the same mileage as before.

As the saying goes: your mileage may vary.
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
I ran a 306. The first one literally blew up after a month and a half!

The second one ran without problems for six years, doing 500 - 1000 miles a week. Comfortable for a relatively small car. I replaced it with a Renault Scenic and ran that with only one small problem for another six years, doing the same mileage as before.

As the saying goes: your mileage may vary.
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We've owned a Renault Scenic, 2 Renault Clio's and a Renault 5 and had no issues with any of them but they were mainly my wife's cars and didn't do massive mileage.
The only issue with the Mi16 was the clutch that went at around 100k miles...
The most unreliable car I've owned was a Jaguar X type.
 
Over more than 30 years I've had:

Talbot/Sumca Alpine (not the sports car)
2 X 2CV
3 X CX
BX diesel estate
2 X Peugeot 406
Peugeot 306 estate.

It was the last 3 cars that really made me not want another French car, particularly the 306, even though it was comfy and super economical.

Nod said:
Find a suitable donor and these people might be able to help. Not sure how well the suspension would cope with the extra weight of the batteries.
www.electricclassiccars.co.uk

Electric Classic Cars | The World's Largest Converter of Classic Cars

Welcome to Electric Classic Cars™, the world's largest converter of classic cars to electric.
www.electricclassiccars.co.uk www.electricclassiccars.co.uk
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It would need to be a properly designed new build, rather than a retrofit.
 
One of my favourite cars we’ve had was the Renault 19 16v that had over 100K miles on it when we got it was an excellent car that was great to drive only had minor issues with it
 
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