Say it quickly: “ee-up”. That Volkswagen feels happy to call its smallest electric car after the Yorkshire phrase for “hello” shows that Germans do truly have a sense of humour. We jest, of course – Yorkshiremen and women don’t say “ee up”, they say “ay up” – as Volkswagen’s press sheet for this car wryly points out.
Yorkshire greetings aside, the e-Up! poses a question: should you go electric? It’s been difficult to make a like-for-like choice between petrol, diesel and electric models, as most electric cars to date have tended to be standalone – the Nissan Leaf, BMW i3, Tesla Model S are all electric-only models. You can’t have a petrol version.
However, a few ranges are starting to appear which offer like-for-like choice – and Volkswagen has recently added electric versions of both Up! and Golf to its range. Bar some badges and wheel trims, you really won’t be able to spot the difference between them and their internal combustion-powered counterparts, so they could be the perfect option for electric car fans who don’t want to shout about their propulsion choice.
But taking the electric plunge will take some getting your head around, especially when it comes to price. At £19,270 – and that’s after the £5,000 UK government rebate – the e-Up! is one pricey small car. By way of comparison, the higher trim level version of the petrol Up! – on which the e-Up! is based (and that’s enough of the unwarranted exclamation mark after its name, by the way) – starts at £11,760 in five-door form, and although Volkswagen would point out there’s a host of extra kit that comes with the electric version, you’re still looking at the chunky end of a seven grand premium just to go battery powered. Perhaps more troubling for VW will be the fact that the larger, stand-alone Renault Zoe kicks off at a little over £14k.
So even before you’ve got in the driver’s seat, the e-Up is, er, up against it. Is it really worth so much cash?
Electric benefits
To save that seven grand you’re going to have to be doing an incredible amount of driving over the car’s life – at current prices, 10,000 miles in a petrol Up is likely to cost you about £1,000 in fuel.
Either that, or be extremely committed to the green cause, which isn’t entirely clear cut – electric cars aren’t truly zero emission because their electricity is most likely produced by a gas or coal power station.
From our perspective then, where the e-Up is going to make most sense is in the experience it provides. If it provides something better, extra or different over a petrol Up, then you shouldn’t rule it out.
And after jumping into the car and heading off down the road, there are some obvious benefits: the most obvious being performance. We love the 3-cylinder petrol engines in the regular Up, but they’re never what you’d call fast. And while the e-Up is still no race-car, step out of the petrol version and it does feel like a rocket.
In part that’s to do with the characteristics of the electric motor, which can deliver its full quota of torque from zero rpm. So it rips off the line and zips into gaps. In the context of city driving, which where we’d expect most e-Ups to spend their lives, it makes for a really great ally. It’s relaxing and easy in traffic – and really quite zippy and fun if you get the bit between your teeth.
Surprised at the interest in its new plug-in XC90, Volvo could roll out more [plug-in] hybrids than planned
Plug-in hybrid tech could have more of a role to play than first expected as Volvo looks to increase UK sales from 45,000 to 60,000 in the next four years.
Volvo UK managing director Nick Connor told Auto Express that the company has been caught by surprise at the level of interest in the 390bhp T8 hybrid version of the new XC90.
“We were planning on a three-five per cent take rate of this model,” he said. “But our current rate on sold orders is over 20 per cent. We underestimated it.”
The hybrid is not due to arrive here until late this year, but demand has been so high that it is now sold out until well into 2016.
Connor added that all new Volvos launched from now will be available with hybrid tech. And the low-emissions versions could be available at all price points, rather than just at the top end of the range, as with the XC90.
A spokesperson explained:
“As with XC90 the intention is that it is kept at the upper end of each model, but if it was to be something that grows considerably, we could do it across every model.”
We love electric cars. They’re almost always pleasant to drive, and the amount of power available at low speeds makes them incredibly fun to use. More importantly however, they help reduce harm to the environment, contribute to a more sustainable level of energy usage, and create a cleaner urban environment.
The Nissan Leaf is a spacious city car, the dinky Smart ForTwo is perfect for slinking around city streets, and the Renault Zoe is the cheapest car to run according to our Driver Power survey. The Tesla Model S is an incredible car and beats many conventional fuel-burners, with its 0-60mph time of 3.1 seconds and top speed of 155mph.
Still need convincing? Here are eight reasons to buy an electric car this year:
1. Electric cars are quiet
One of the most striking features of an electric car is the silence with which it operates. We’re accustomed to the noise generated by an internal combustion engine, but pulling away from the lights in a Ford Focus Electric makes no noise at all. The result is a very calming driving experience, as well as a quieter environment.
2. Electric cars are fast
An electric drivetrain enables a car to use almost all of its power immediately. A petrol or diesel car won’t be able to use all of its power until the engine is turning at a specific speed – an electric motor is always generating as much power as it can. The effect? A quick car – the Tesla accelerates faster than an Audi R8.
3. Electric cars are reliable
There aren’t many moving parts in an electric car. Those parts that do move are relatively simple and robust – electric motors are clean, safe technology. Fossil fuel cars, meanwhile, rely on combustible fuel and a plethora of perishable, metallic components that wear out and need replacing.
4. Electric cars are cheap
They might not be as cheap as their gas-guzzling counterparts, but they’re not far off. The Tesla Model S is obviously a bit of an anomaly, as – despite its supreme value – it’s a very high-end product. But electric cars start at well under £20,000 and finance options are available, making them easily attainable to most drivers and families.
5. Electric cars are good for the planet
It’s barely worth mentioning, but electric cars are vastly better for the environment than their petrol or diesel counterparts. The generation of electricity depends partly on fossil fuels, but the percentage is falling and it’s still a more efficient process than burning petrol on an individual basis.
6. Electric cars are good for your town
“The environment” includes your personal one. Towns and cities, especially congested ones like London, suffer from pollution caused by conventional vehicles. Pollution warnings are becoming common in the capital – everyone’s life would improve if petrol and (especially) diesel cars were replaced with electric vehicles.
7. Electric cars are cheap to run
The Renault Zoe is the cheapest car to run according to Carbuyer and Auto Express readers who contributed to the Driver Power survey. You can expect to pay a couple of pence per mile, and sophisticated charging systems enable you to charge your car when electricity demand is at its lowest nationally (and therefore prices are at their lowest). What’s more, a lack of maintenance overheads and a wide variety of incentives and discounts make owning an electric car a clever financial move.
8. Electric cars are probably the way of the future
Fossil fuels are a finite resource. The way we depend on them for transport is going to have to change, and the best option we have at the moment is electricity. They’re likely to become the norm in the next few decades, so the question isn’t so much whether you should buy an electric car – it’s when.
There is a one-in-ten chance of the world being 6C warmer than it is today by 2100 which would lead to cataclysmic changes in the global climate with unimaginable consequences for human civilisation, leading climate researchers have warned in an “Earth Statement”.
The risk of hitting the highest upper estimate for global warming based on current levels of carbon dioxide emissions is now so high that it is equivalent to tolerating the risk of 10,000 fatal aircraft crashes a day, according to the 17 “Earth League” scientists and economists who have signed the joint statement.
The experts have drawn up a three-page summary of the action needed to be agreed on at the UN meeting in Paris this December, which is widely seen as the last chance for the world’s political leaders to agree on a binding treaty to prevent the global climate from slipping into a dangerously precarious state.
Scientists calculate that the world has already warmed by an average of about 0.85C over the past 120 years and that a further increase of no more than 2C is the lowest that could be tolerated without running the risk of dangerous climate “tipping points” leading to further, accelerated warming.
“We should aim to stay as far below [2C] as possible, since even 2C warming will cause significant damage and disruption. However, we are currently on a path to around 4C warming by 2100, which would create unmanageable environmental challenges,” says the statement.
“If we do not act now, there is even a 1 in 10 risk of going beyond 6C by 2100. We would surely not accept such a high risk of disaster in other realms of society. As a comparison, such a 1 in 10 probability is the equivalent of tolerating about 10,000 airplane crashes every day worldwide,” it says.
Nottingham could become a pioneer of fume-free electric transport thanks to recent innovations and grants.
A low-emission zone in Nottingham city centre is at the heart of proposals to encourage electric cars and improve the urban environment.
Under the plan, which would also mean the creation of a city-wide electric charger network, there could be fines for vehicles entering the city centre and failing to meet emission thresholds.
But there is no need for private drivers to panic.
A Nottingham City Council official confirmed to the Post that the targets would be buses, taxis, heavy goods vehicles and large goods vehicles.
“How we measure emissions is still up for consideration,” she said. “We will be looking at how other cities deal with it.”
The proposals will be part of Nottingham’s bid for a chunk of the £35 million the Government is making available through its Go Ultra Low initiative.
Nottingham is one of 12 cities selected to make a detailed bid and up to four winners will be named in the autumn.
Features of the city council plan include…
A low-emission zone in the city centre and a city-wide network of electric vehicle charging points.
A scheme to encourage local businesses to use low-emission vehicles, including grants.
Incentives for the public to rent electric cars in the City Car Cub fleet – an alternative to car ownership.
Councillor Jane Urquhart, portfolio holder for transport and planning at the council, said:
“After getting over this hurdle, the city council now has the chance to develop its electric vehicle vision further.
“At the heart of this is providing a comprehensive network of charging points for both residents and businesses to use.
“Making the city centre a low-emission zone would improve air quality and make the environment there much better.
“The introduction of electric City Cycles and Car Club vehicles will give people access to low-emission vehicles and we propose to develop a demonstration site so that residents and businesses can see that switching to low-carbon transport is easier than they might think.
“The city council will work with local energy suppliers to see how locally-generated electricity can be used to power our electric transport vision.”
The Go Ultra Low bid comes at a time when quiet, clean, electric-powered travel is getting a higher local profile.
Greater Nottingham’s second and third tram routes will open this summer, improving public transport in the western and southern suburbs.
At least one private hire firm is running all-electric cabs – DG Cars has added Nissan Leaf cabs to a fleet that also includes more than 90 hybrid vehicles.
“Nottingham is aspiring to be one of the greenest cities in the UK,” director Ian Pole said at the time of the purchase, “and this is the way we feel the transport industry should be going.”
Aside from trams and electric cars, Nottingham is making headlines with electric buses.
In the Linkbus service the city already has the largest electric bus fleet in Europe.
Now it is set to have the UK’s first all-electric park-and-ride service (see panel).
One of the inhibitors to the growth of electric car ownership has been the patchy provision of top-up charging points.
If Nottingham gets a share of the Go Ultra Low cash, part of it will be used to create charging units at both the Victoria and Broadmarsh centres, Eastcroft Depot, park-and-ride sites, city council and hospital car parks, Car Club bays and Nottingham and Bulwell stations.
The ideas is that a reliable network could incentivise business and private buyers to think electric when it is time to replace their vehicles.
There would be investment in electric bikes and in more electric vehicles in the Car Club project.
The city and county councils say they are committed to getting more ULEVs (ultra low-emission vehicles) in their fleets.
“Nottingham is in the process of setting up its own local energy company,” said a city council spokesman, “and as part of these arrangements we will work in partnership with local energy partners and suppliers to explore local energy generation and consider the potential impacts on grid capacity and any necessary mitigation to cope with local supply to support an electric transport system.”
He said the proposals, taken as a whole,
“would show a plan to encourage smarter travel options, making electric vehicles easier to use for domestic and business purposes”.
At the AA, Paul Watters said:
“The internal combustion engine is going to be here for a long time as a mainstream power source.
“The cost of purchase of electric vehicles will still be a factor for many people, even after the £5,000 grant.”
The Government is guaranteeing conditional £5,000 grants towards the private purchase of the first 50,000 plug-in cars.
Britain is switching on to the electric revolution, with four of the top 10 cars in a recent high-profile ownership satisfaction survey being electric or hybrid.
The Auto Express Driver Power survey, which saw 61,000 responses from car owners, was topped by the third-generation Lexus IS 300h with an outstanding satisfaction score of 93.96%.
Lexus also scored sixth overall with its NX 300h – an impressive result for such a new car.
Renault’s Zoe all-electric car pipped the NX to fifth place, though, and classified as the best electric car ahead of the Nissan Leaf, which placed eighth overall.
It is the first time that all-electric cars have finished in the Driver Power top 10, and the first time that a hybrid has won the overall honours.
Second place was taken by the first-generation Skoda Yeti, with the brilliant and recently introduced Hyundai i10 completing the podium.
The current Seat Leon was fourth and won its class, while there were strong results for the Jaguar XJ, Mini three-door hatchback and, against all expectations, the MG3, which came 10th overall.
Steve Fowler, editor-in-chief of Auto Express, said:
“Car buyers are attracted by the low running costs of hybrid and electric cars, but Driver Power 2015 shows that the whole ownership experience for these cars is pretty enjoyable too.”
Number plate changes in March and September always raise car sales in the UK and that was no different last month.
Just as we predicted, expecting a record high 5,000-7,000 plug-in car registrations, the UK landed at 6,114 electric car registrations in March!
This is over 400% more than in March 2014 and the registrations bar jumped off our graph scale!
Plug-in Car Registrations in UK – March 2015 (Image: Inside EVs)
Market share for plug-ins exceeded 1.2% of all new car registrations.
The big winner is Mitsubishi, which said that 55% of all plug-ins sold in the UK in March (3,300) were Outlander PHEVs!
“Mitsubishi Motors (UK) confirmed earlier this month that exactly a year after its launch, the Outlander PHEV has now overtaken every other plug-in hybrid and pure-electric vehicle, including the Nissan Leaf and the Toyota Auris and Yaris hybrids. The Outlander PHEV accounted for 55% of the plug-in car market in the month of March[2].”
“For Mitsubishi, 2014 has been an incredible year of dramatic growth across the Mitsubishi range. We have made impressive and sustainable progress, and as confirmed last week, we are delighted to have broken records with the launch of the UK’s best-selling hybrid vehicle. There is a great feeling across the Mitsubishi network – FY14/15 has been a very special year.”
Nissan can be happy too, as 1,254 LEAFs were delivered.
Plug-in hybrids had 4,209 registrations, while pure electric had 1,905.
ZOE rated 1st for running costs of all 200 entrants
Ease of driving commended with 2nd place overall finish
ZOE rated best EV – five places ahead of nearest electric rival
The 100% electric Renault ZOE supermini has been highly commended by owners in the Auto Express Driver Power 2015 survey out today finishing an impressive fifth overall out of 200 vehicles and rated as the best electric vehicle to own.
Finishing five places above its nearest all-electric competitor, with a score of 92.87 per cent, the ZOE was also rated the best vehicle in this year’s survey for low running costs as well as second overall for ease of driving. ZOE, in its debut survey year, was ranked second, out of 43 vehicles, in the competitive supermini category.
The ZOE also scored well for In-car technology and performance with owners rating the car ninth and fifteenth respectively out of the 200 entrants.
Commenting on the ZOE’s performance in the survey, Ben Fletcher, Renault UK Electric Vehicle Product Manager, said:
“The Renault ZOE offers the recognized benefits of all-electric vehicles in an ultra-stylish and highly-affordable package. It’s no wonder that owners are so delighted with their cars.”
Steve Fowler, Auto Express Editor-in-chief said:
“Breaking into the Driver Power top five is a significant achievement for the Renault ZOE. Owners of electric cars clearly love their vehicles – and the ZOE, in particular, has a winning formula of low running costs and decent performance, plus it’s very easy to drive, too.”
The Auto Express Driver Power survey had its largest response ever in 2015 with 61,113 car owners, up 20 per cent on 2014, completing the comprehensive survey about their vehicle ownership experience.
The Renault ZOE has won numerous awards since going on sale in 2013 including being named What Car? Magazine’s ‘Best Electric Car for under £20,000’ for the last two consecutive years.
ZOE is one of three all-electric Renault models including the innovative Twizy urban vehicle and the Kangoo Z.E. Van. ZOE can be purchased in two ways, either outright, from £18,443, or from £13,443 with a battery lease from £25 per month (including the Government Plug-In Car Grant) and can charge its batteries in as little as 30 minutes.
A new longer-range version of ZOE, with a new Renault-developed motor, was announced at this year’s Geneva Motor Show which will bring a best-in-class official range of 149 miles when it joins the ZOE line-up in May.
Sales in the UK of Renault’s electric models were up 90 per cent in 2014 to 1,286 vehicles and continued this strong growth in the first three months of 2015 with sales up 148 per cent to 401 vehicles.
POMONA, Calif. — The future of American energy, according to one widely held view, will include solar panels and wind turbines continuing to proliferate, churning out ever more electricity and eventually eclipsing fossil fuels to help offset the forces of climate change.
With the cost of renewable technologies falling sharply, that vision is starting to take shape, especially in areas with abundant sunshine or steady wind. Here in California, the state is making such quick progress toward its goal of getting 33 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020 that Gov. Jerry Brown raised the ante earlier this year, setting a target of 50 percent by 2030.
The shift sounds simple in theory — plug more solar and wind into the mix, and unplug more coal- or gas-burning power plants, sparing the world millions of tons of greenhouse gases.
But the reality is more complex. Because of the variable nature of these renewable sources — no electricity is generated when the sun goes down or the air is still — they add strains to the system of transmitting and distributing power.
A solar panel being installed at a home in Camarillo, Calif. The state aims to get 50 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2030. (Image: J.E. Flores/NYT)
Batteries have long been seen as one of the main ways to work more renewables into the electrical grid, by storing electricity during times of excess generation and releasing it when needed. Now, spurred by mandates in California and other states to deploy storage, by the rise of rooftop solar systems, and by falling prices as Tesla Motors and other companies make plans to produce vast numbers of lithium-ion cells, batteries are set to play a significant part in the nation’s power supply.
“We can see the role of batteries playing out in different locations around the grid,” said Ravi Manghani, an analyst with GTM Media and author of a recent forecast for the energy storage industry over the next five years. “We expect that every year, we’re going to see on average 100 to 250 percent growth,” he added. “And most of that will be in batteries.”
Challenges remain, however. Despite plummeting prices, large battery systems generally are not yet economical for helping to integrate renewables on a broad scale. Instead, utilities and other companies are using them for different purposes.
“Let’s call it a stretch goal,” Imre Gyuk, who directs a Department of Energy program that has sponsored demonstration projects for energy storage, said of plans for vast deployment of batteries for integrating renewables. Costs still have to come down more, he said, and not just for the cells, but for the control equipment as well.
There are several ways that the electrical grid can cope with more renewables — by large consumers of electricity agreeing to have their power reduced at critical times, for example, a concept called demand response. And there are other ways to store electricity, such as pumping water, compressing air, spinning flywheels, or even making ice.
Battery systems, which feature racks of cells wired together, and are capable of storing large amounts of power and releasing it over an hour or longer, have some advantages over other storage methods. They can supply power nearly instantaneously and handle continual cycling between charging and discharging. And as the manufacturing of batteries and control systems scales up, it will be easier and cheaper to deploy “plug and play” systems, rather than designs that are unique to each situation.
A large battery storage project in Notrees, Tex., illustrates the current economics. Built in 2013 for about $44 million by Duke Energy Renewables (with the Department of Energy contributing half of the amount), the project consists of thousands of lead-acid battery cells near a large wind farm.
Greg Wolf, the president of Duke Energy Renewables, said the company found it hard to sell large electricity users so-called firmed wind, in which stored power from the battery is used to supplement the wind turbines to provide assured blocks of electricity at certain times.
“There was little interest from customers willing to pay for that,” Mr. Wolf said. “That has not evolved as much as some folks, including ourselves, thought.”
Instead, he said, the grid operator in Texas was interested in the Notrees battery as a fast-response source to regulate the frequency of the electrical current, which keeps the grid stable.
Maintaining a reliable grid is a high-wire act for operators, who struggle to keep a balance between the supply of electricity from generation sources and demand for it from customers. Batteries are especially valuable because they can respond quickly, adding more power to the system in a second or less.
Fossil-fuel plants that are often kept on standby for this purpose can take a few minutes or more to reach a level where they can provide the same service, Dr. Gyuk said. And all the while, fossil-fuel plants are emitting greenhouse gases.
Here at a Southern California Edison laboratory in the shadow of the San Gabriel Mountains, scientists and engineers are doing some of the fundamental work to help make widespread battery storage happen.
Accompanied by the steady thrum of electric current, batteries — lithium-ion cells like those used in electric cars and other types — sit in rows of sealed testing chambers. The batteries are undergoing continuous charge-discharge cycles in heat and cold, dripping humidity and desert dryness, to simulate the conditions they may face when deployed on the electrical grid.
“We’re trying to better understand their performance,” said Loic A. Gaillac, who manages the utility’s advanced energy storage group. “Ultimately, we want to get a sense of what degradation you see on the system and how long they last in the field.”
In 2013, California mandated that by 2020, Southern California Edison and the state’s two other large investor-owned utilities add a huge amount of storage — about 1.3 gigawatts, or more than 10 times the amount of storage deployed worldwide in 2011.
“We felt there were enough opportunities now where storage could be cost effective,” said Carla Peterman, a member of the California Public Utilities Commission, which oversees implementation of the mandate. “But we still recognized that this was a nascent industry.”
Mark E. Irwin, Southern California Edison’s director of technology energy storage, said that for now, the utility is most likely to use batteries to relieve its distribution system of peak loads that would otherwise require expensive improvement of wires and other equipment.
California has also set a priority to develop distributed generation, in particular moving away from large centralized solar farms and toward residential or neighborhood-scale solar power. Batteries will no doubt play a greater role in this, Mr. Irwin said.
“It will make it easier for people to put renewable systems out on the local grid,” he said.
“But in the meantime, storage has to find a way to first walk,” he added. Helping to defer upgrading costs, he said, is one way to get storage started.
“It’s the first business case,” Mr. Irwin said. “But it won’t be the last.”
