New plug-in hybrid Audi Q7 e-tron will cost a lot to buy, but not a lot to run
Verdict 4 stars
Like any plug-in hybrid, you’ll need regular access to a charge point to realise the efficiency claims of the Audi Q7 e-tron. That said, it’s unlikely to consume considerably more fuel than a standard 3.0-litre TDI even without charging the batteries. It still drives well and gets the same exquisitely finished cabin, meaning the only real sticking point is the price. For many, however, the lure of rock-bottom running costs in such a practical and well-engineered package will be too hard to ignore.
This is the plug-in hybrid Audi Q7 e-tron. Everyone’s at it: from pioneers Nissan to latecomers like Volvo, almost every manufacturer has an electric or hybrid model in its range.
Audi Q7 e-tron PHEV
It comes as no surprise, then, that Audi’s e-tron family is expanding. The popular A3 e-tron appeared only late last year, and there’s already an electric R8 supercar in the pipeline.
But the latest model to bear Audi’s plug-in moniker is the big and brash Q7 SUV. Using a 254bhp 3.0-litre TDI diesel engine mated to a 94kW electric motor, total power for the Q7 e-tron stands at 368bhp. It’s got a sizeable 700Nm of torque, too – which comes in handy when you’re lugging around 202kg of lithium-ion batteries.
From the outside, you’ll struggle to tell this apart from a standard Q7. Our car came with loud e-tron stickers down the side, but (sadly) these aren’t an option on customer cars. There are some subtle badges on the wings and bootlid, but aside from the additional filler cap it’s business as usual.
Cambridge, England — IN January, researchers at King’s College London announced that pollution levels on Oxford Street, in central London, had exceeded limits set for the entire year in just the first four days of 2015.
Similarly alarming numbers have been recorded for other streets in the city — and yet the mayor, Boris Johnson, has delayed implementation of stricter air-quality measures until 2020.
Car exhaust (Image: BBC)
What’s happening in London is being played out in cities worldwide, as efforts to curtail the onslaught of air pollution are stymied by short-term vested interests, with potentially disastrous results.
This is an excellent article – not just for its content, but for its technical tour-de-force.
On the Greenland Ice Sheet — The midnight sun still gleamed at 1 a.m. across the brilliant expanse of the Greenland ice sheet. Brandon Overstreet, a doctoral candidate in hydrology at the University of Wyoming, picked his way across the frozen landscape, clipped his climbing harness to an anchor in the ice and crept toward the edge of a river that rushed downstream toward an enormous sinkhole.
If he fell in, “the death rate is 100 percent,”
said Mr. Overstreet’s friend and fellow researcher, Lincoln Pitcher.
But Mr. Overstreet’s task, to collect critical data from the river, is essential to understanding one of the most consequential impacts of global warming. The scientific data he and a team of six other researchers collect here could yield groundbreaking information on the rate at which the melting of the Greenland ice sheet, one of the biggest and fastest-melting chunks of ice on Earth, will drive up sea levels in the coming decades. The full melting of Greenland’s ice sheet could increase sea levels by about 20 feet.
WASHINGTON — President Obama announced on Friday that he had rejected the request from a Canadian company to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline, ending a seven-year review that had become a symbol of the debate over his climate policies.
Mr. Obama’s denial of the proposed 1,179-mile pipeline, which would have carried 800,000 barrels a day of carbon-heavy petroleum from the Canadian oil sands to the Gulf Coast, comes as he seeks to build an ambitious legacy on climate change.
“America is now a global leader when it comes to taking serious action to fight climate change,” Mr. Obama said in remarks from the White House. “And, frankly, approving this project would have undercut that global leadership.”
20 electric Renault ZOE superminis added to Co-wheels fleet
New Renault ZOEs drive growth of Co-wheels to over 50 UK locations
100% electric vehicle perfect for car sharing club model
ZOE is the most affordable car to hire from Co-wheels
Car sharing club chooses Renault ZOE (Image: Renault)
A 20-strong fleet of 100 per cent electric Renault ZOEs has enabled the only independently owned national car sharing club to expand its social enterprise-focused operation to over 50 UK locations.
Co-wheels has introduced the innovative Renault ZOE to a number of new sites in Scotland this year, the most recent being in Aberdeen, Dumfries and Dundee. The club, which provides low emission, hybrid and electric cars on a pay-as-you-go basis for organisations and communities, has further locations for EVs in the pipeline with the ZOE confirmed as its electric car of choice.
The club chose the Renault ZOE against other electric cars due to the value it represents and also its driveability. Co-wheels are finding the five-door hatchback very easy to use and ideal for members who have never driven an electric car before. All of the club’s ZOEs have been bought outright or funded via Government grants.
Co-wheels customers can hire a Renault ZOE for only £3.75 an hour or £22.50 for 24 hours. As part of the club’s drive to encourage electric car use, Co-wheels does not make an additional charge for mileage – making the ZOE its most affordable car to hire.
Pierre Fox, Director, Co-wheels, said:
“Feedback to the Renault ZOE has been excellent, customers liking how simple it is to drive and finding the controls to be very straightforward. It’s the ideal size too, and is the perfect vehicle for our car sharing model with 90 per cent of customers’ journeys being local.
“Using the ZOE also fits with us operating as a social enterprise with a commitment to improving society and the environment. We aim to help our members save money, reduce car ownership and create a cleaner environment by making lower impact transport options available, and because we have received grants for some of the cars, we are able to pass this saving onto our customers.
“Everyone who has driven one of our ZOEs has been very positive about the experience, so much so that when it comes to adding more electric cars at new or existing locations, it will be our preferred choice of vehicle.”
Ben Fletcher, Renault UK’s Electric Vehicle Product Manager, said:
“Co-wheels’ decision to use the Renault ZOE as its number one electric car perfectly illustrates how more and more drivers are finding the versatile hatchback ideal for their requirements and how Renault is rapidly increasing its share of the growing EV sector. We’re very pleased that the ZOE is proving so popular with Co-wheels customers and is helping them to lower their motoring costs and also do their bit to help preserve their local environment.”
The Renault ZOE is an all-electric, five-door family hatchback available in three trim levels that comes with a very high level of standard specification, despite its competitive price-tag, which starts from £13,445 after the Government Plug-in Car Grant. Standard specification includes items such as climate control and sat-nav.
ZOE is available with a number of features that make for seamless electric vehicle ownership including remote monitoring of the battery and pre-heating the cabin via your smartphone. ZOE also benefits from the patented Chameleon™ Charger that allows it to make the most of the widest range of power supplies and also keep charging times to a minimum – charging from zero to 80 per cent full in as little as 30 minutes. The official NEDC range is 149 miles – Renault estimates that in real-world driving conditions that this equates to around 106 miles in summer and 71 miles in winter. Retail ZOE customers also enjoy the free installation of a fast-charging 7kW wall box at home, giving a standard charge time from 0-100 per cent of just 3-4 hours.
Awarded the titles of What Car? 2015 ‘Best Electric Car for less than £20,000’ and ‘Best Electric Vehicle’ in the Auto Express Driver Power 2015 survey, the Renault ZOE is an affordable route to zero emissions in-use motoring.
In addition to the ZOE supermini, the Renault Z.E range also includes the Twizy urban runaround, an innovative open-sided two-seater vehicle, and the Kangoo Van Z.E that is perfectly suited to many commercial applications with its choice of four bodystyles and 106-mile range (NEDC).
In a UK electric car market up 54.5 per cent September year-to-date, sales of Renault electric vehicles in the UK were up by 92.4 per cent, to 1,316 vehicles, compared to the same period last year – dramatically outpacing the overall EV market of 54.4%. Renault Group UK sales for September YTD – comprising Renault cars, vans and Dacia vehicles – were up 17.4 per cent to 97,257 vehicles on the same period in 2014, again, significantly outpacing the overall market growth of 8.2 per cent.
Oil Mountain (Image: D. Bacon/Shutterstock/Economist)
With the bulk of quarterly earnings reports in the energy industry yet to be announced, there are already $6.5 billion worth of asset write-downs, according to Bloomberg. And that could be just the tip of the iceberg. A Barclays’ assessment last week predicted $20 billion in impairment charges from just six companies.
Write-downs occur when the expected future cash flow from an asset falls sufficiently that a company has to report that the asset has lost some of its value. With oil prices half of what they were from mid-2014, oil and gas fields around the world are no longer worth what they used to be. Some oil fields that were previously expected to produce in the future may no longer even make sense to develop given current oil prices. As a result, investors should expect billions of dollars in further write-downs in the coming weeks.
Persistently low oil prices are putting a lot of pressure on the dividend policies of oil and gas producers. The Wall Street Journal reported that four oil majors – BP, Royal Dutch Shell, ExxonMobil, and Chevron – have a combined cash flow deficit of $20 billion for the first half of 2015. In other words, these big players are not earning enough revenues to cover expenditures, share buybacks, and dividends. With such a large cash flow deficit, something has to give. All four are focusing on slashing spending in order to preserve their promises to shareholders, with dividends especially seen as untouchable.
A few months back I beat my previous record of driving our ZOE 300 miles in a day by taking it from Northampton to Falmouth and back in a weekend. The occasion was a friend’s 50th birthday party (which I confess took place just a month after mine).
Just about to finish at Cherwell (Image: T. Larkum)
I took notes of the various charging stops (timings, energy usage, etc.) but rather than give a blow-by-blow account I’ve put all the details in the table below. The consumption figures are from the ZOE’s dashboard, mpkWh is miles achieved per kWh used, and total kWh used. The charge percentage figures were before charging, each charge took this back to 99%.
Time
Location
Map Key
Distance
Charge
Consumption
1245
Northampton
A
1345-1420
Cherwell Services M40
B
32.0
59%
1440-1540
Kidlington (family visit)
C
10.5
4.88 mpkWh
1700-1750
Leigh Delamere Services M4
D
69.1
29%
4.49 mpkWh, 15 kWh
1915
Tiverton Services M5
E
70.0
28%
4.18 mpkWh, 16 kWh
2010
Exeter Services M5
F
Failed to charge
2115-2150
Cullompton Services M5
G
38
58%
3.58 mpkWh, 10 kWh
2340
Cornwall Services A30
H
83.6, 8 left
10%
4.24 mpkWh, 19 kWh
0100
Falmouth
I
29.8
55%
4.10 mpkWh, 7 kWh
The Key letters in the table for each location relate to the map below.
Google Maps view of the route and stopping points (Image: T. Larkum)
On the whole the journey went pretty well. Although charging points are increasingly busy – for example, an orange BMW i3 was leaving the Cherwell charger just as we arrived – we never had to queue for a charge. However, reliability and availability are still an issue. To start with, the charges at Leigh Delamere and Tiverton started on the third and fourth attempts respectively.
Charging at Leigh Delamere (Image: T. Larkum)
As many EV drivers are aware, the south-west is a charging desert with very few opportunities for rapid charging after you come off the end of the M5. I knew in advance that it would be a stretch to get from Exeter all the way to the Cornwall Services at Victoria without a charge (73 miles) so when planning the route was only nervous about this part.
Topping up at Tiverton (Image: T. Larkum)
Unfortunately, it turned out to be worse than expected. We tried the charger at Exeter only to find it broken. Since I knew that going on was not an option we had to turn back and return up the M5 to Cullompton Services. We charged there fine, but of course we now had an even longer distance to get to Cornwall Services (84 miles).
Setting out I was pretty confident that we would be fine – I can generally coax 90-95 miles from the ZOE when needed. However, the weather deteriorated and we were soon driving into heavy rain, and driving on wet roads. Over the first half of the route it was very difficult to keep the consumption/mpkWh figure up high enough to be confident of arriving.
A miserable Cornwall Services late at night (Image: T. Larkum)
However, once past the half way point it started to improve – perhaps we had actually been climbing in altitude too and gone over a peak, and we actually arrived at Cornwall Services without incident. Having said that, we had gone 83.6 miles and the range predicter was showing just 8 miles left and was beeping in panic. It was a welcome sight to turn into the services after midnight despite it being cold, dark, wet and closed.
The view from our hotel window in Falmouth, ZOE in foreground (Image: T. Larkum)
The last leg of the journey was uneventful and we arrived at our hotel at 1am, with at least an hour of the journey time down to the broken charger at Exeter. Overall we had had 5 successful charges out of 6 attempted.
Cornwall Services looking better in daylight (Image: T. Larkum)
We had a good weekend in Falmouth and the party went well. We had a nice room at The Greenbank Hotel with a lovely view over Falmouth Harbour. Unfortunately neither Falmouth nor the hotel had facilities for charging so we had to explore the town on foot to conserve the charge for getting back to Cornwall Services on the return journey.
An extra stop at Sedgemoor (Image: T. Larkum)
The journey home was straightforward, the only issue being a broken charge point at Leigh Delamere East Services, forcing us to cross over to use the westbound services. Returning home is always easier than outbound trips since you know that there’s a working chargepoint at your destination, so you don’t need to charge once you’re within reach of it. We could have managed with four stops to charge, but in fact stopped an extra time (at Sedgemoor) for a toilet break having been stuck in traffic and made use of that with an extra charge.
The dashboard display on arriving home (Image: T. Larkum)
On getting back home we found we had driven 619.3 miles between Friday lunchtime and Sunday evening.
When the global economy is doing well, the amount of stuff that is imported and exported around the world goes up, and when the global economy is in recession, the amount of stuff that is imported and exported around the world goes down.
It is just basic economics. Governments around the world have become very adept at manipulating other measures of economic activity such as GDP, but the trade numbers are more difficult to fudge. Today, China accounts for more global trade than anyone else on the entire planet, and we have just learned that Chinese exports and Chinese imports are both collapsing right now. But this is just part of a larger trend. As I discussed the other day, British banking giant HSBC has reported that total global trade is down 8.4 percent so far in 2015, and global GDP expressed in U.S. dollars is down 3.4 percent. The only other times global trade has plummeted this much has been during other global recessions, and it appears that this new downturn is only just beginning.
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