Category Archives: Electric Cars

News and reviews of the latest electric cars (full electrics and plug-in hybrids).

2020 Seat el-Born electric car revealed: price, specs and release date

March 12, 2019el-Born, Electric Cars, News, Reviews and Comment, SeatRepost

Concept previews Seat’s first electric car: a five-door family hatchback that will challenge the Nissan Leaf and Renault Zoe…

Look just beneath the surface of this el-Born concept car’s funky, futuristic styling and you’ll glimpse Seat’s first electric car. Based on the same underpinnings as Volkswagen’s upcoming ID electric hatchback, the el-Born will lead to a production model with about the same footprint as the current Leon family hatchback.

2020 Seat el-Born range and charging

Powered by a 201bhp electric motor, the el-Born has an official range of 261 miles on the new WLTP test cycle – far greater than electric rivals such as the Renault Zoe and Nissan Leaf, which offer 186 and 168 miles respectively on the same test. The el-Born should also be nippy; it can cover the 0-62mph sprint in 7.5sec.

Charging the el-Born to 80% capacity takes as little as 47 minutes using the latest 100kW rapid chargers, but that time will increase dramatically if you use a standard wall-mounted charger. A heat pump can extend battery life by as much as 37 miles in conditions where cold can quickly sap an electric car’s range.

Seat is traditionally seen as the VW Group’s sporty brand – something that’s emphasised by the el-Born’s wide, low stance, with its wheels pushed to the very edges of the car. Design features include a closed-off grille (no air intake is needed to cool an engine). There are intakes lower down, though, to increase the car’s aerodynamic efficiency and send air to the battery pack. The el-Born concept sits on 20in wheels that help to channel cooling air to the brakes.

2020 Seat el-Born interior

Inside, the el-Born features a 10.0in touchscreen infotainment system that’s angled towards the driver, plus a digital instrument cluster. The absence of an engine up front has also allowed Seat to maximise room inside the car and provide lots of storage space, including under the centre console between the front seats, although boot capacity is still unknown.

The el-Born is capable of controlling its own acceleration, braking and steering in certain situations, such as on the motorway, and its advanced driver assistance systems include a self-parking function.

Jaguar i-Pace wins UK Car of the Year 2019 award

March 11, 2019Electric Cars, I-PACE, Jaguar Land Rover, News, Reviews and CommentRepost

The electric Jaguar i-Pace is the 2019 UK Car of the Year, after a closely fought battle with three other manufacturers.

Having been named the Best Executive car when the category winners were announced in February, the Jaguar was pitted against the 11 other triumphant new cars to fight it out for the top accolade of overall winner.

It is the third time in six years of the UK Car of the Year Awards that the overall victor has been battery-powered. John Challen, director of the UK Car of the Year Awards, said:

“As manufacturers take electric vehicles more seriously, Jaguar is leading the pack with the i-Pace, which offers fantastic range and performance as well as a stylish and spacious interior for driver and passengers.

“The UK Car of the Year Awards judges are always keen to recognise innovation and that is certainly the case in 2019.”

Collecting the UK Car of the Year Awards 2019 trophy, Rawdon Glover, Jaguar Land Rover MD, said:

“This latest major award for the i-Pace is something we can all be extremely proud of. This car was conceived, designed and engineered in Britain, so to have a selection of the nation’s leading automotive journalists vote it as the overall UK Car of the Year against some stiff competition is a special moment for us.”

While the World Goes Electric, Some Germans Desperately Fight for their Diesel

March 10, 2019Electric Cars, Energy and Climate Change, News, Reviews and Comment, Pollution, SalesRepost

Germany is divided about the future of its most important industry: while some automakers pursue electric vehicles, a noisy group of diesel-energy enthusiasts are expressing their frustration through protests.

These have gone on every weekend so far this year, since the first on January 11th.

The first protest took place in Stuttgart — the hometown of Daimler, Bosch, and Porsche — and was organized by Ioannis Sakkaros, who works as a mechatronics technician for Porsche. Since then, hundreds of protesters wearing yellow vests have gathered each weekend to rally against court-mandated driving bans for older diesel cars. The bans were put in place in response to excessive air pollution.

At a rally on February 9th in Munich, where BMW’s headquarters is located, dozens of people chanted a pro-diesel rhyme together, and cheered on speakers who accused “eco-fascists” and “green ideologists” of wanting to destroy the car industry. A man earned applause from the crowd for calling electric vehicles “hazardous waste.”

The debate about the future of cars — diesel or electric — is emotional for many Germans, as the auto industry and its dependent companies employ 1.8 million people, hundreds of thousands of whom work directly with internal combustion engines. But new carbon emission limits and pending bans on diesel and gasoline cars in major markets threaten their livelihoods. German cars are big business, bringing in almost $500 billion annually. And a successful switch to electromobility will cost 114,000 jobs in Germany by 2035, according to predictions from the Institute for Employment Research. After all, electric motors require significantly fewer components and less maintenance than internal combustion engines — which means an annual economic loss that will grow to reach $22 billion in 2035.

“The diesel is only the beginning,” Michael Haberland, who organized the protest in Munich, tells The Verge. “The gasoline engine is next.” Haberland is president of Mobil in Deutschland, a motor club. He feels the European emission limits for air pollution, which are responsible for driving bans, are nonsense. “Are we all supposed to drive electric vehicles now?” he asks. “They just don’t work. The diesel engine, on the other hand, has been a success story for more than 125 years.”

First Ultra Low Emissions Zone drives up EV values at auction

March 9, 2019Electric Cars, Electric Vans, News, Reviews and Comment, SalesRepost

The introduction of the UK’s first Ultra Low Emissions Zone in April is pushing up prices of EVs at auction.

Shoreham Vehicle Auctions (SVA) said it had seen a “significant rise” in demand for EVs in recent months with the market witnessing stronger residual values on both cars and vans.

Alex Wright, managing director of SVA, said: “The second half of 2018 saw a strong demand for used EVs and that has continued into 2019, which has resulted in ever stronger prices.

“For example, the Nissan e-NV200 van has appreciated in value year-on-year by around £1,000.

“Part of this rise in value is because of the increasing awareness across London and the south east of the pending introduction of the UK’s first Ultra Low Emissions Zone in April.”

SVA teamed up with the Energy Saving Trust to launch the first ever used electric vehicle training course for car and van dealer sales staff in May 2018. One of its main jobs was to dispel many of the myths surrounding EVs to help educate dealers on which customers will benefit most from buying and running an electric car.

“We have helped support an increase in knowledge of EVs within the market and many progressive dealers have a good understanding of EVs, customer suitability and battery types,” explained Wright.

Here’s Why Grid-Down Preppers Should Buy Electric Cars: Video

Are EVs right for preppers?

The end is near. Will you survive if you own an electric car? For preppers, the end is always right around the corner. Therefore, you should be ready to bug out in the post-collapse world.

Would you better off in an electric car in such a situation. Or is gas the answer? Maybe some other means of transport entirely? Like, say a bicycle.

With the rise of Rivian and its rugged R1T and R1S electric off-roaders, there’s seem to be a new interest in electric vehicles among preppers and for good reason. Most noteworthy, EVs don’t rely on gasoline, which in a grid-down scenario, becomes scarce immediately. Additionally, EVs can be charged by the sun.

Electric Cars Are About To Absolutely Demolish Gasmobiles

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

We have other, much longer, much more detailed articles coming about this, and I have to recommend those over this one. But there’s also something useful about a short, simple message.

Kia Niro EVWhile editing Nicolas Zart’s review of the Kia Niro EV, one line jumped out at me and triggered this story.

“From Oct 2014 (first Soul EV launch) to Jan 2019, a little less than four years, the range has advanced from 93 miles to 239 miles (2.6×), and the battery energy density increased by +25%, while battery weight increased only 1.6x (640 lb to 1008 lb),” Steven Kosowski, Kia’s Long Range Strategy & Planning Manager, said.

This is something that those of us who have been following electric cars for years understand well, and understand is key to electric vehicles being disruptive tech, but we also get a little complacent to the progress and what is around the corner.

If you have a 71 mile BMW i3 (like we do), or a 84 mile Nissan LEAF, or a 62 mile Mitsubishi i-MiEV, you think about range quite a bit. You may not be plagued with range anxiety — that’s actually quite rare for people who actually own electric cars — but you plan a lot and are sure to charge often. Seeing range for the new versions of the i3, LEAF, and similar electric cars jump to 110 miles, 130 miles, 150 miles, etc. is a clear indicator the technology is improving fast and becoming much more acceptable for mainstream buyers.

Ground-breaking electric Chevrolet Volt runs out of juice

March 6, 2019Ampera, Electric Cars, News, Reviews and Comment, VauxhallRepost

DETROIT — As their company was swirling around the financial drain in the early 2000s, General Motors executives came up with an idea to counter its gas-guzzling image and point the way to transportation of the future: An electric car with a gas-engine backup that could travel anywhere.

At Detroit’s auto show in 2007, they unveiled the Chevrolet Volt concept car, not knowing yet whether they had the technology to pull off a major breakthrough in battery-powered vehicles.

It took nearly four more years, but the first Volt — a longer-range version of a plug-in hybrid — rolled off the assembly line late in 2010. GM had hopes that customers would be ready for a car that could go 38 miles on electricity before a small internal combustion generator kicked in.

Vauxhall Ampera in Milton Keynes Central railway station multi-storey (Image: T. Larkum) — Vauxhall Ampera (rebadged Chevrolet Volt) (Image: T. Larkum)

They weren’t. On Tuesday, the last Volt was built with little ceremony at a Detroit factory that’s now slated to close. Sales averaged less than 20,000 per year, not enough to sustain the costly undertaking.

The Volt wasn’t the first electric car, but it was the first to conquer anxiety over range at a reasonable cost. GM’s limited-range EV1 came out in the 1990s, and Tesla put out its 200-plus-mile Roadster in 2008 for more than $100,000.

The Volt was among the first plug-in hybrids, many of which can go only 20 or so miles on electricity and haven’t gained much popularity among consumers.

Yet the Volt did serve a purpose. It led to advances in lithium-ion batteries similar to those that power smart phones and computers. But such advances ultimately led to the Volt’s demise as GM and other manufacturers developed fully electric vehicles that can go 200 more miles per charge.

“While it was a financial loser, it did what was intended,” said retired GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz, who shepherded the Volt into production. “We viewed it as a stepping stone to full electrics, which were totally out of reach due to the then-astronomical cost of lithium-ion batteries.”

Nissan LEAF Plus first drive review: more of a good thing

March 5, 2019Electric Cars, Leaf, News, Reviews and Comment, NissanRepost

Last week we were invited to San Diego to drive the new Nissan Leaf Plus, the updated version of the Leaf with a new 62kWh battery pack, which will start sales in March.

We spent the day driving it all through the county on a variety of roads, and came away impressed if not surprised by this iteration on an already-solid package.

The main practical upshot of the Leaf Plus’s larger battery is that the car has increased range, power and quick charge ability.

Nissan has managed to fit a larger battery in about the same volume by eliminating dead space in the battery pack. They employ a new battery module design with less space between cells and adopted laser welding to reduce the size of connections between cells and squeeze more energy into the space they have available. They’ve also added another parallel module to modify the input/output current of the pack in an attempt to reduce heat generation.

…

Performance

As soon as we got onto the freeway, the Nissan Leaf Plus impressed. The main place where increased power output from the larger battery is noticeable is in high-speed acceleration. Electric cars typically only have one gear and suffer from a drop-off in power delivery at higher speeds. The easiest way for manufacturers to solve this problem is to attach a larger battery. The Leaf Plus has done this, and that allows it to pull more at higher speeds, offering better highway-merging and lane-change acceleration.

Even in “ECO” mode, I felt that the Leaf Plus offered good acceleration at all legal highway speeds. When I discovered that I had accidentally been driving in ECO mode for the first 10 miles or so of the review (and then, naturally, turned it off right away), I found that the car was even snappier.

The increased power resulted in some torque steer. On front-wheel drive cars with a lot of torque (thus, many electric cars), torque steer is the sensation that a car is pulling to one side or the other, particularly under hard acceleration. It can be a bit surprising to drivers who experience it for the first time, so this is something to be aware of in this vehicle.

One thing I appreciate about the Leaf is that Nissan has not artificially slowed down the throttle response of their car in any noticeable way. When I speak of throttle response, I mean the time delay between pressing the pedal and the car surging forward. In many electric cars, manufacturers seem hesitant to allow drivers full access to their car’s instant torque, so they slow down the throttle pedal response just a little bit. This is presumably done for safety or comfort reasons, as a driver who isn’t used to this could end up driving in a “jerky” manner. Personally, I think manufacturers just do it so they don’t make their gas cars look bad.

Electric Vehicles Benefit All Utility Ratepayers

March 4, 2019Electric Cars, News, Reviews and Comment, SalesRepost

As electric-vehicle sales mount, observers are finding benefits to society—especially to electric ratepayers—that sometimes surpass the benefits to the EV buyers.

Our very own Tesla Model S – for a while anyway (Image: T. Larkum) — Tesla Model S (Image: T. Larkum)

“These vehicles use a different kind of fuel and plug into our electricity system, and the good news about that is that there are a number of cost-benefit studies that are showing this can be really beneficial to all rate payers, not just the drivers of the vehicles,”

said Matt Stanberry, the managing director of the advanced transportation program for the trade group Advanced Energy Economy.

“As you increase electricity sales for charging the vehicles, it has the effect of driving down rates for all ratepayers because it spreads the fixed cost of the system out across a larger volume of sales.”

That sounds like the opposite of the scenario feared several years ago in which rooftop solar would enable homeowners to abandon the grid, concentrating fixed costs on the shrinking population that remains.

Recent studies have analyzed the impact of EVs in five Northeastern States and in California and found hundreds of dollars per car in annual benefits to three groups: to EV owners in saved fuel and maintenance costs, to electric ratepayers in reduced fixed costs, and to society in reduced carbon emissions.

New electric Peugeot e-208 revealed with 211-mile range

March 4, 2019e-208, Electric Cars, News, Reviews and Comment, PeugeotRepost

All-electric Peugeot e-208 supermini set to upstage the Renault Zoe with 211-mile range and 134bhp electric powertrain

Peugeot has revealed the sharp new second-generation 208 ahead of the Geneva Motor Show, and while regular petrol powered versions of the firm’s latest supermini are due to remain the big sellers, an all-electric version dubbed e-208 is the headline grabbing news.

It’s Peugeot’s first ever all-electric production car, and when the e-208 arrives on roads this summer it’ll go into direct competition with the latest iteration of the Renault Zoe. It uses a variant of the new 208’s CMP platform dubbed e-CMP, which allows the electric supermini to roll off the same production line as its petrol and diesel powered siblings. It’s one of a handful of cars the PSA Group is preparing on the new architecture.

Peugeot claims that the electric version of the platform allows neat integration of the battery pack under the rear portion of the floor, meaning that bootspace in the e-208 is no different to that of its petrol and diesel siblings. However, no bootspace figure has been revealed.

On board is a battery 50kWh in size, which sends power to a 100kW (134bhp in old money) electric motor driving the front wheels. Peugeot claims a maximum range of 211 miles on a single charge, rated under WLTP rules.

It’ll take 20+ hours to recharge on a household three-pin plug, while using a dedicated home charging point will top the batteries up in approximately eight hours. Peugeot says an 80 per cent recharge is possible in 30 minutes using a roadside 100kW rapid charger.