Category Archives: Electric Cars

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

Honda E Advance 2020 review

February 9, 2020e, Electric Cars, Honda, News, Reviews and CommentRepost

An eminently likeable and capable small car with good dynamics but a limited range and an ambitious price

What is it?

A theme common to many electric cars is that their weight and architecture lead to them feeling lead-footed and brittle. The Honda E has circumnavigated that issue. So, whatever else comes of this sub-supermini hatchback, attractive but not quite as pretty as the concept that preceded it, one of its plus points will be the way it drives.

Its new platform provides allround independent suspension with a MacPherson strut at each corner; dynamically, Honda has targeted much larger cars. For rolling comfort, smoothness and refinement, the E succeeds where others have not.

There is a catch, of course. This is a compact car – 3.9m long – that can be so only because it has a small energy store. While almost every manufacturer strives to fit a capacity of 60kWh or more (the Nissan Leaf e+ has 62kWh), the E has a liquid-cooled battery pack of just 35.5kWh between its axles. Resulting range, in 151bhp form, is a WLTP-certified 125 miles on 17in wheels or 137 miles on 16in wheels. And on our cold test day, it managed even less than that.

The E comes in two flavours: the regular 134bhp model and the 151bhp Advance tested here, which respectively cost a not-insignificant £26,160 and £28,660 after the plugin grant. Both can be slow-charged at a rate of up to 6.6kW or DC rapid-charged at up to 100kW, although a 50kW fill will be almost as quick – 31 minutes from 0-80%, rather than 30. It’s like flying from Birmingham to Newcastle: no sooner than you’re up to speed, it’s time to wind down again.

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How Soon Will Electric Vehicles Kill The Gasoline Car?

February 8, 2020Electric Cars, News, Reviews and Comment, Opinion, SalesRepost

When I talk about exponential growth in clean transportation—or say anything optimistic about climate change—the pessimists baulk.

C’mon, they say, the overwhelming majority of our electricity comes from fossil fuels. Demand for oil is still growing. Electric vehicles (EVs) are a miniscule percentage of cars sold. What good can a few wealthy Tesla owners possibly do for the environment?

To pessimists, the EV revolution seems underwhelming. That’s because they underestimate the power of exponential growth.

Optimists don’t demand instant results from innovation. Rather, they recognize how sudden technological transformation can be. Societies won’t register the full potential of EVs until moments before they sweep gasoline cars into the dustbin of history.

What Exponential Growth Really Means

People say that innovations like the Internet, smartphone and social media grew “exponentially” because they radically changed our lives within a few years of appearing. But what do we mean by “exponential”? The late physics professor Al Bartlett used to demonstrate the shocking power of exponential growth very clearly.

Imagine a glass with one bacterium that divides into two bacteria every minute. In one hour, that doubling process fills the glass. If you started the process at 11 am, at what time would the glass be half full?

Many people assume 11:30 am. In reality, the glass is only half full at 11:59 am. At 11:58, it’s 25% full, and at 11:55, it’s only 3% full! 97% seems like business as usual, with no tipping point in sight. The progress seems unimpressive until the moment the bacteria become ubiquitous. The same is likely true of electric vehicles.

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Nissan supplies discounted Leaf EVs to Uber in London

February 7, 2020Electric Cars, Energy and Climate Change, News, Reviews and Comment, Pollution, SalesRepost

Mobility service plans for all 45,000 of its London drivers to use electric vehicles by 2025

Nissan will supply 2000 Leaf EVs to Uber in London, as part of the mobility service’s goal to make its fleet in the capital fully electric by 2025.

Supplied in entry-level 40kWh guise, the Sunderland-built Leaf offers Uber drivers 168 miles of range per charge. Nissan is supplying the electric hatch to the ride-hailing firm at a ‘dedicated transaction price’, offering drivers around £4500 off the car’s £26,345 list price, depending on the number of miles they have driven.

The company has added a 15p ‘Clean Air Fee’ to all journeys made in London, which will be used to help its employees pay for the new Nissan models.

Uber hopes that all 45,000 Uber cars operating in London will be fully electric by 2025, and has so far raised £80 million to “support drivers transitioning to electric vehicles”. After switching into an EV, the Clean Air Fee will go towards the driver’s ongoing operating costs.

Uber’s ‘Clean Air Plan’ to reduce emissions came into effect in January 2019. The company claims 900,000 trips across the capital have been made in electric vehicles since then – a 350% increase over 2018 – and that more than 500 drivers per week are using fully electric cars.

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Thinking Of Going Green? Cost And Other Realities Of Electric Vehicles

February 6, 2020Electric Cars, News, Reviews and Comment, SalesRepost

Owning a new compact electric vehicle, based on more than five years and 75,000 miles of driving, is only slightly more expensive – about $600 annually – than its gas-powered counterpart, and the experience of actually having a plug-in car eases a common fear: range anxiety.

Those are the highlights of new research that examined electric vehicle ownership released on Monday by the AAA automotive group.

“Although 40 million Americans have shown interest in buying electric for their next car, actual adoption is happening at a much slower rate,” Greg Brannon, AAA’s director of automotive engineering and industry relations, said in a statement. “AAA wanted to understand what kind of impact the experience of owning an electric vehicle has on perception of these cars and maybe more importantly, if given the chance would consumers choose to go green again.”

The analysis was based on a survey conducted in late 2019 by the AAA of 1,090 plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) owners , 71% of whom had not previously owned an electric car.

From the report:

—prior to owning an electric vehicle, most owners (91%) said that they had at least one concern, like insufficient range and finding a place to charge, but post purchase, many of these worries disappeared. (Previous AAA research found that the top two reasons why Americans shy away from electric vehicles are: not enough places to charge and the fear that they will run out of charge while driving.)

— the majority (96%) of respondents say they would buy or lease another electric vehicle the next time they were in the market for a new car.

– two in five (43%) owners said they drive more now than when they owned a gas-powered car.

— three quarters (78%) indicated that they also had a gas-powered car in the household, but reported doing most of their driving (87%) in their electric vehicle.

It’s Time to Go Green!

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Electric car sales are rising, but so are emissions. What’s going on?

February 5, 2020Electric Cars, Energy and Climate Change, News, Reviews and Comment, Pollution, SalesRepost

More of us are buying electric cars than ever before, but our emissions are still going up. Falling diesel and rising SUV sales are to blame

Here’s a misleading statistic: UK electric car sales doubled in 2019. According to market insights firm LMC Automotive, battery electric vehicles made up 1.6 per cent of UK sales in 2019, about double the year before. But this doesn’t mean the UK’s automotive emissions are heading in the right direction. The reality is far more murky.

Last year, the average carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of cars sold in the UK rose for the third year in a row. And for every electric car purchased in 2019, we bought 37 SUVs. Our growing interest in bigger, heavier vehicles, plus the sudden decline in diesel car sales, has pulled the UK further away from its looming transport emissions targets.

It’s a big step backwards, at exactly the wrong moment. The average CO2 emissions per kilometre for UK cars now stands at 127.9 grams – well past the EU’s new target of 95g of CO2 per kilometre for new cars. If auto manufacturers don’t hit the target, they’ll be hit with big fines.

“It’s going to be a tough couple of years,” says Al Bedwell, head of powertrain forecast at LMC. “At the moment the gap between where CO2 is now and where it needs to be at the end of next year, for some car makers, is pretty big. So there’s a real dilemma.” Car brands may need to start selling electric vehicles at a loss in order to meet the goals, he says. “There is definitely a risk that some of them will miss the target and will end up paying quite big fines to the commission.”

It’s Time to Go Green!

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Norway cracks down: Is “self-charging” a misleading way to pitch hybrids

February 4, 2020Electric Cars, News, Reviews and Comment, SalesRepost

The phrase “self-charging” has been quite the lightning rod among electric-vehicle enthusiasts—especially in Norway.

Toyota’s Lexus luxury brand has continued—there, and in the UK and elsewhere in Europe—to run an ad campaign describing its hybrids as such.

In this era of wireless charging for our personal devices and on its way to more cars themselves (in BMW plug-in hybrids, for instance)—or with solar becoming increasingly feasible—some of Lexus’ explanations about being charged when you’re ready and never needing to be plugged in are potentially confusing at the least.

What is a Lexus self-charging hybrid?

Despite wide-ranging pushback on social media—some of it suggesting, tongue-in-cheek, that the models must employ some sort of perpetual motion machine—Lexus has continued the campaign with its recent NX and UX hybrids.

Last month, Norway’s national Consumer Authority has stepped in about the campaign and presentation—finding that it is misleading to declare that the cars “produce their own electricity.”

The government agency, in a statement, found that [translated] it’s misleading to say that the electrical power in the hybrid battery is free, since the electricity produced by the car has gasoline consumption as a necessary condition. It issued specific advertising to be removed by December 20, and while it appears that mentions of free charging have been purged, as of January 25 Lexus is still advertising its hybrids on its Norwegian site as self-charging.

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Renault Zoe Wins 2019 EV Model Trophy In Germany, BMW Wins Manufacturer Trophy

February 3, 2020E300e PHEV, Electric Cars, Mercedes, Model 3, News, Reviews and Comment, Renault, Tesla, ZOERepost

The German plug-in electric passenger vehicle market ended the year on fire, with registrations more than doubling in December, to 11,328 registrations.

Plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) were up 198% year over year (YoY), pulling the market up significantly and balancing the 2019 BEV/PHEV share to 58% BEV (fully electric) vs. 42% PHEV (51% / 49% in December).

The PEV share climbed to 4% in December, with BEVs alone hitting 2%, while the final plug-in vehicle (PEV) share for 2019 ended at a record 3% (1.8% BEVs).

Looking at December best sellers, the Mercedes E300e/de twins three-peated the monthly leadership, with 964 units narrowly beating the high tide Tesla Model 3 (926 units). In addition, the Renault Zoe returned to the podium, with 780 units, signaling the return of the French hatchback.

Just off the podium we have the forever young VW e-Golf, with 764 units registered, while the BMW i3 closes this top 5 thanks to 630 registrations, just barely beating the #6 Smart Fortwo EV (623 units) to the finish line.

It’s Time to Go Green!

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Funding for on-street chargepoints doubled to help charge up electric vehicle revolution

February 2, 2020Charging, Electric Cars, News, Reviews and CommentRepost

Residential street chargepoint funding doubled and plans increasing access to real-time information released.

Charging and driving an electric vehicle will be easier, cheaper and more convenient in the future, thanks to double the funding for more chargepoints on residential streets next year and new plans to make sure drivers can easily access real-time information about places to charge their electric car.

Slow Charging the ZOE at Highgate (Image: T. Larkum)

The Transport Secretary today (21 January 2020) announced that government funding will be doubled to £10 million for the installation of chargepoints on residential streets next year. This could fund up to another 3,600 chargepoints across the country and make charging at home and overnight easier for those without an off-street parking space.

The government is also looking at how to make information about all public chargepoints including locations and power ratings openly available in a standard format for the first time. The Department for Transport will look at how real-time information could be published, showing whether chargepoints are in working order and currently in use, which could then be used by developers and incorporated into sat navs and route mapping apps

Ensuring that charging an electric vehicle is a convenient and simple process is crucial to meeting the government’s ambitions of phasing out petrol and diesel cars.

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What Car? Names Renault ZOE Best Small Electric Car 7th Time In A Row

February 1, 2020Electric Cars, News, Reviews and Comment, Renault, ZOERepost

The seventh consecutive win for ZOE in the “Best Small Electric Car” category.

Renault ZOE once again has won the What Car? Awards in the”Best Small Electric Car” category. It’s already the seventh consecutive win for ZOE!

In 2020, the next-generation ZOE with a 52 kWh battery and many improvements was unmatched according to What Car? (see review above), which has been evaluating cars for over 40 years.

In the UK, the new ZOE starts at £25,670 OTR including the Plug-in Car Grant, and comes with a free 7 kW (single-phase) charging wallbox (plus a standard installation).

It’s Time to Go Green!

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Hybrid XCeed and Ceed now available in UK

January 31, 2020Ceed PHEV, Electric Cars, Kia, XCeed PHEVRepost

Kia UK has now opened the order books for the plug-in hybrid versions of the XCeed and Ceed Sportswagon.

The XCeed PHEV will start from £30,695, the Ceed Sportswagon PHEV from £29,995 and deliveries are scheduled to start in April.

After Kia presented the two vehicles in September last year, the South Korean company is now releasing more concrete data on the two hybrid models. Most of the key data remain unchanged, with a 1.6-litre petrol engine, a 44.5 kW electric motor and an 8.9 kWh battery. The same drivetrain as the Kia Niro PHEV (or Hyundai Ioniq PHEV for that matter) is used in both compact PHEV models. The biggest difference is that the two Ceed derivatives have a lower standard consumption level, with provisional measurements showing a purely electrical range of up to 60 kilometres, although the official rating has yet to be released on both the fuel economy and CO2 emissions.

It’s Time to Go Green!

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