All posts by Repost

Electric vehicle charging points ‘not needed’ according to developer

June 8, 2019Charging, Electric Cars, News, Reviews and CommentRepost

BRADFORD Council’s policy of requiring new homes to include electric car charging points is being tested by a developer.

In recent years the authority has made it a condition of all housing applications that include car parking to have a charging point.

But now a developer has submitted a planning application to remove that condition from a development of houses in Shipley, saying the charging points are not needed, as none of the new residents have electric cars.

In 2016 Bradford Council granted planning permission to Oak Tree Developments for the demolition of the Bradford Hebrew Congregation Synagogue on Springhurst Road and the construction of 14 houses in its place.

One of the conditions of the approval was that a plan for electric vehicle charging points in each of the homes be approved by the Council before the homes were completed.

Planning officers said the condition was necessary “to ensure the development is constructed in an appropriate sustainable manner which takes into consideration air quality with in the District.”

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With the homes now built, Oak Tree has submitted an application to the Council calling for this condition to be removed from its planning approval.

Values of used pure electric vehicles surge 11%

June 7, 2019Electric Cars, News, Reviews and Comment, SalesRepost

Values of used pure electric cars surged 11 over the past year with growing demand and limited supplies hitting the market.

The performance is in marked contrast to the overall used car market which rose just 1.5%.

Whilst internal combustion engines (ICEs) are stumbling, their electric powered counterparts are thriving.

Nissan Leaf collection in St Albans (Image: T. Larkum)

With an average sticker price of £21,560 in April, used alternatively fuelled vehicles (AFVs) grew at a rate of 4.7%, up from last month’s 3.7% and, indeed, the highest rate of growth since August 2018. But the star of the show is pure electric; at £23,361, the highest price to date, EVs are growing at a double-digit rate (11%), according to the latest Auto Trader Retail Price Index.

The surging prices of low-emission vehicles can be attributed to supply and demand. On Auto Trader, the UK’s largest automotive digital marketplace, AFVs currently account for just 1% of stock listed, whilst petrol and diesel account for 52% and 47% respectively.

Octopus Energy and IONITY partner to bring ultra-rapid EV charging network to the UK

June 6, 2019Charging, Electric Cars, Ionity, News, Reviews and CommentRepost

Octopus Energy and EV charging firm IONITY have announced a partnership which sees the latter’s ultra-rapid charging technology installed in the UK for the first time.

The deal will see Octopus supply IONITY’s 350kW, high power charging (HPC) stations with 100% renewable electricity.

It comes just two months after Octopus Energy launched its Electric Juice service, designed to offer EV charging networks with guaranteed renewable power.

The first ‘Electric Juice station’ is to be installed in Maidstone on the M20, and more sites are planned to open in the coming weeks. More than 40 stations are planned to be installed across the UK by 2020.

Zoisa Walton, director at Octopus Energy for Business, said that the company was committed to bringing a “fundamental change” to the country’s electric vehicle landscape.

“By improving the affordability, practicality, convenience and green credentials of e-mobility options, IONITY and Octopus Energy are making EV ownership more accessible. Both companies are intent on providing for the future, with forward-thinking plans and technology – pushing boundaries to deliver the fastest, cleanest, most affordable charging power on the market,” she said.

Has the country that invented the car fallen behind on tech?

June 5, 2019Audi, BMW, Electric Cars, Mercedes, News, Reviews and Comment, Opinion, Porsche, VolkswagenRepost

The relief was palpable from Berlin to Munich when Germany – announced its latest GDP figures.

After months of gloom, modest growth of 0.4pc in the first quarter was heralded as a sign Europe’s largest economy might weather the global slowdown better than most experts predict.

For the first time in six months, Germany is growing again, and the figures follow last week’s announcement that exports rose unexpectedly by 1.5pc in March.

That such lean figures are seen as something to celebrate is a clear indication of how Europe’s industrial powerhouse has slowed – and behind the numbers lurk unpalatable truths.

That there is any growth is down to the service sector and a construction boom fuelled by housing shortages.

The manufacturing sector that is the engine of the German economy, in particular its fabled car industry, is in trouble. Automotive orders fell 5.3pc in the first quarter. In mechanical engineering, the outlook is more bleak, with orders down 7.3pc.

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But its growth strategy is built around industrial exports, and that has left it exposed. The car industry – the jewel in Germany’s economic crown – has been through a torrid time since the emissions scandal in 2015, when Volkswagen admitted it had installed software in millions of cars to help cheat emissions tests.

This year EU regulators accused BMW, Mercedes-Benz owner Daimler and VW of colluding to block the development and introduction of clean air technology, raising the spectre of multi-billion euro fines.

Already facing expensive recalls, carmakers have run into the growing wave of diesel bans as cities struggle to bring air quality within EU limits. In Germany alone, Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Stuttgart and Frankfurt have outlawed older diesel cars.

VW announced investment in a new battery cell production plant this week but German carmakers lag far behind US and Chinese rivals in battery technology. The country that invented the car is rapidly falling behind.

Horns of plenty: concerns raised about electric car alert systems

June 4, 2019Electric Cars, News, Reviews and CommentRepost

EV engine might be silent, but an EV traffic jam could be deafening

Scientists are sounding the alarm about potential hazards associated with tones, whirs, beeps, or other sonic-alert systems by which electric and hybrid-electric vehicles generate artificial noises to announce their presence.

These warning signals — technically referred to as acoustic vehicle alerting systems (AVAS) — are being instituted in Europe and the US, and are designed to alert pedestrians, especially those who are blind or vision-impaired, to the ultra-quiet vehicles.

They operate whenever the vehicle is moving below a certain speed, generally between 20 and 30 kilometers per hour. At higher speeds, even the quietest vehicles generate enough tyre noise for warning signals not to be needed.

It sounds like a good idea, but there’s a downside.

“A lot of people are not very happy about these sounds,” says Klaus Genuit, a psycho-acoustic expert and founder of HEAD acoustics GmbH, a German company that provides sound and vibration analysis to a number of clients, including the automobile industry.

Overall, he reported at a recent meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, in Louisville, Kentucky, “more than 50% of people complain of traffic noise. Electric cars could be a good tool to reduce traffic noise, but if we add traffic warning signals, it could become worse.”

One of the biggest problems, he says, is that in designing these signals, researchers are working under the implicit assumption that only one car will be emitting them at any given time.

But in an urban setting, with a lot of slow-moving vehicles, that simply isn’t realistic. Instead, Genuit says, there could be many cars creating a cacophony of different sounds that might clash unpleasantly.

Are Electric Vehicles Really Better For The Environment?

June 3, 2019Electric Cars, Energy and Climate Change, News, Reviews and Comment, PollutionRepost

Since the first modern electric vehicles (EV) took to the roads in the 2000s, critics have been quick to question the ‘clean’ label attached to them

From manufacturing concerns to battery power sources as well as overall autonomy, EVs have been under scrutiny from sceptics. With the amount of debate and misinformation troubling the waters, the facts behind the efficiency of electric vehicles have become somewhat clouded – so just how clean are these vehicles?

Battery Production

An argument that is routinely put forward to contrast the clean image of electric cars is the pollution behind the manufacturing process of their batteries. There is indeed a range of rare earth metals that make up the composition of the battery, and their extraction and manipulation can contribute to carbon emissions. However, as a 2018 International Council on Clean Transportation (ICTT) report illustrates, the country in which the batteries are being produced as well as the battery composition has a much higher level of impact on emissions.

A comparative study between EVs and internal combustion engine vehicle (ICEV) in China corroborates the ICTT report, indicating that infrastructure and efficient manufacturing techniques are the keys to reducing emissions during production. Chinese EV battery manufacturers produce up to 60% more CO2 during fabrication than ICEV engine production, but could cut their emissions by up to 66% if they adopted American or European manufacturing techniques. As such, the pollution created through the extraction process and production of batteries remains on par or slightly higher than the manufacturing process of petrol or diesel-based engines.

The urgency of the shift to electric cars isn’t just about climate change

June 2, 2019Electric Cars, Energy and Climate Change, News, Reviews and Comment, Pollution, Renault, VolkswagenRepost

Vehicle emissions regulations are meant to promote clean air and reduce carbon dioxide in order to combat climate change.

In Europe, aggressive new rules are also a direct response to a massive diesel-emissions scandal, accelerating the shift to electric vehicles, said Renault CEO Thierry Bolloré.

The tightening of emissions limits has created huge tension in the automotive industry, Bolloré said in Paris at Viva Technology, a flagship European tech conference this week. In 2017, the European Commission proposed reducing CO2 emissions for new cars and vans by 30% in 2030, compared with levels in 2021. The aggressive rules are seen, in part, as an attempt to regain credibility after regulators failed to prevent Volkswagen and other automakers from cheating existing standards.

Bolloré said he was surprised by the backlash on emissions rules following the “dieselgate” scandal: Volkswagen admitted in 2015 that software was used to cheat on pollution tests for as many as 11 million of its diesel vehicles. Later, a host of other automakers, including Renault, were reported to have made diesel vehicles that produced more pollution than tests seemed to indicate.

“It’s not fully rational,” Bolloré said of the regulatory response, which is reshaping the industry. He added that it’s giving a boost to electric vehicle development, and that the French car giant he runs is already making a “modest” amount of money from its electric-vehicle business. (Bolloré also credited Tesla’s efforts to build mass-market electric cars as a kind of revolution for the industry, but noted that the company is having a hard time making money.)

Electric MG ZS EV now available to order

May 31, 2019Electric Cars, MG, News, Reviews and Comment, ZS EVRepost

New MG ZS EV will arrive in September with 170-mile range

Orders have opened for the MG ZS EV, MG’s first electric car. Currently on display at the London Motor and Tech Show, it’s set to arrive in the UK on 1 September. Senior officials at the firm have promised that the new model won’t suffer the long delivery times that affected early sales of its rivals, which include the Hyundai Kona Electric and the Nissan Leaf.

The new electric SUV will be the first of several new MG models arriving in the next two years, as the brand expands its model line-up. When it arrives, the ZS EV will be aiming to tempt buyers away from more expensive rivals, with an estimated starting price of around £24,000 after the current £3,500 Government grant is applied.

Originally unveiled at the 2018 Guangzhou Motor Show, the ZS EV will be sold alongside the conventional petrol ZS in the UK.

The ZS EV will have a 44.5kWh water-cooled battery and a single electric motor powering the front wheels, that together produce 148bhp. The car should get from 0-62mph in around eight seconds. The final UK version of the ZS EV will retain these power and performance figures, but stricter WLTP testing is likely to reduce the official driving range to around 170 miles.

MG has confirmed that the ZS EV will feature rapid-charging capability, allowing it to be recharged to 80% in 43 minutes. To recharge to 100% on a domestic charger, you’ll need to spare six and a half hours.

Peugeot positions e-208 as tough rival to fuel-powered siblings

May 30, 2019e-208, Electric Cars, News, Reviews and Comment, PeugeotRepost

Peugeot hopes to draw buyers to the brand’s first mass-market full-electric vehicle — the e-208 — with a long-term battery warranty and lease rates that are comparable to internal combustion versions.

The favorable terms are part of Peugeot’s ambitions to have the e-208 account for 15 percent of its new small hatchback’s global volume.

Last year, Peugeot sold about 230,000 208s in Europe and 295,000 globally. Europe is expected to be the No. 1 market for the EV, which goes on sale at the end of 2019 (gasoline and diesel versions of the new-generation 208 will go on sale this spring). IHS Markit forecasts that Peugeot will produce about 350,000 208s in 2020, with the e-208 making up a significant portion of that extra volume.

Sales prices for the 208 will be announced this spring, but Peugeot is already promoting a 48-month, 60,000-km, 299 euro-a-month lease for the e-208, with a down payment of 2,400 euros. The company says the terms compare favorably to gasoline versions (269 euros a month) and diesel versions (289 euros a month) of the 208 when the cost of fuel is taken into consideration.

“When you add usage costs, the electric version is actually less expensive,” Sylvain Chereau, Peugeot’s EV director, told Automotive News Europe. “TCO (total cost of ownership) is the central message to our customers.” Volkswagen is promoting a similar plan for its ID range of electric vehicles, with the first model expected to go on sale in 2020.

Electric dreams? What you need to know about Tesla’s Model 3

May 29, 2019Electric Cars, Model 3, TeslaRepost

The electric car will be available in the UK soon. We look at costs and how it compares with rivals

Launched with the intention of being Tesla’s first mass-market electric car, the new Model 3 is smaller and simpler than the other vehicles in the Californian carmaker’s stable. And according to Tesla, the new saloon is the “more affordable” of the range – though with a starting price at just under £39,000, many would query that claim.

The order book for the Model 3 officially opened at the start of May – though reservations had begun prior to that – with three versions of the car on sale, the most expensive coming in at £56,000. But change the colour from the standard black and you will have to shell out more.

Compared with the Model S, Tesla’s flagship car, the Model 3 has slower acceleration from 0 to 60mph, a shorter range and less than 100 customisable configurations compared with more than 1,500 in the bigger car.

Interest in going electric is growing fast: research from Close Brothers Motor Finance suggests 15% more motorists are looking to buy an electric car with their next purchase compared with two years ago. And while Tesla is clearly confident about the future of the new car, expecting to ship between 360,000 and 400,000 vehicles worldwide this year, is it really an affordable option for Britons?