Actually, on a per-capita basis, you lot are far ahead, but as you say, these things take time, and we Yanks are a bit slow to adopt things that are good for us if it means even the tiniest amount of inconvenience, or even minor changes to our lifestyles.

  I think I heard more about electric cars a few years ago when gas was about $4, gas prices are now less than $2 and I haven't heard much about the electrics.  The city may own a few electric cars and we have Ford and Chevy offering what ever you like.
Carl2

I was wondering if we could get from John O' Groats to Lands End in an electric car these days, for those that might not know the journey is from one end of our island to the other.





[spoiler]Yes we can[/spoiler]

Nice! Setting a new world record, not once but TWICE, and doing it in less than 3 days (I'm guessing that bit) is impressive. But they drove the whole way on the wrong side of the road!  

Cars run more economically on the left hand side, it has to do with the orbit of the moon. 

  I've been able to learn quite a bit about the lithium batteries used and I've started looking at the electric motors, DC, AC, the different windings.
I should think one type of motor would have characteristics that would make it the best choice.  I'd say the DC motor is probably the simplest and therefore used and possibly I'm making a big thing of nothing. 
  It would be nice if one of the manufactures would offer a video and say this is an electric car and this is what it is all about, here are some of the problems faced and this is some of the decisions we have made.
Carl2

Quote from: Carl2 on April 24, 2016, 12:12:14 PM
It would be nice if one of the manufactures would offer a video and say this is an electric car and this is what it is all about, here are some of the problems faced and this is some of the decisions we have made.
Carl2

That's what I thought when I started this thread, indeed that's what this thread is about, lets get to the pros and cons and debunk the outdated opinions that many people still have.

At least that is my hope 

There is another electric car that seems quite popular over here "Kia Soul EV".

Fancy a test drive ?

Now let's have a little look at the VW E Golf

 I was unable to get info on the golf without filling in forms. I did run across an insurance premium doubling on an electric  car. 
" However, when our insurance recently came up for renewal the premium almost doubled from around £300 to more than £600. When asked why, the broker said many insurers won't insure electric vehicles because they are an "unknown quantity".
  There is also this which I heard before
"Some electric car buyers lease their batteries, and if you have it might already be covered by the lease firm, so you may be covering it twice."
So is the insurance company also covering your batteries?
I found a site that will give a price, 21,4955  After $7,500 Federal Tax Credit. Range 83 miles, 3 driving modes, 3 braking modes, 115 hp elec motor, charges on 240 V.  Here is the site, I'd say Volkswagen make a good car.
http://www.vw.com/models/e-golf/
Carl2

You make a valid point Carl2, insurance on electric cars does tend to be higher, I did a bit of research on it and believe it's to cover the cost of the batteries should they get damaged in an accident.

There are now insurance companies that specialise in EV's, I'm not going to link direct to any but a quick google should find them.

Moving to an electric car could mean shopping around for the best insurance quote.

Here is a bit of info that might help:
https://www.zap-map.com/electric-vehicles/electric-vehicle-insurance/

  In my reading I did see something about body work for an electric car would cost more,  After looking at the Golf and the vid it would seem they are just putting the body on a different frame so I'm a bit unsure.
It will probably take the Insurance companies 5 to 10 years to get enough info on electric vehicles to get an accurate rate for these cars.
  There is something appealing about the simplicity of the under the hood,  the motor with all the seals, alternator, water pump, radiators are gone.  I wonder what they do with power assist brakes and steering and air conditioning.
Carl2

Quote from: Carl2 on April 27, 2016, 12:36:16 PM
  There is something appealing about the simplicity of the under the hood,  the motor with all the seals, alternator, water pump, radiators are gone. 

Yes agreed, less things to go wrong, appeals to me too.

Quote from: Carl2 on April 27, 2016, 12:36:16 PM
I wonder what they do with power assist brakes and steering and air conditioning.

The air conditioning seems to be done with the cars environmental control, it's one area that they are still perfecting, making it more efficient to extend the cars range. They have spoken quite a lot about it in the previous videos in this thread.

Power assist brakes and steering, yes I was wondering the same thing, how exactly is it done on electric cars 

I can at least provide something useful with regard to the braking system, in that with most EV/hybrid vehicles there is what's called "regenerative braking", which uses the drive motor as a generator to return some of the kinetic energy of the vehicle to the battery as electrical energy. This process generates a "load" in the motor/generator, adding a considerable amount of rolling resistance, helping the vehicle to slow down.

There may also be pump-driven assist units for both the braking and steering systems, just like petrol powered vehicles, though they likely use electric motors to drive said pumps (whether hydraulic for power steering, or vacuum for braking systems {though there are likely more efficient options than using vacuum pumps for power brakes}). I've not looked under the hood of an EV yet (though I've done so with hybrids of a couple of different brands), so I don't quite know with any degree of certainty what tech is utilized.

  I think we have all become used to the power brake and steering assist and it is something that we expect.  The Golf did show that it had 3 choices for the amount of braking which is nice, one of the vids mentioned the car will coast along which is about what my car does.
I do know that placing a direct short across the motor terminals will provide max braking, if the motor terminals are connected to the battery it will provide a moderate braking and if left open the motor just coasts along.
   Air conditioning is another matter, my latest air conditioner for the home has so many modes, bells and whistles as they say but it will not
just act as a fan and bring in cooler outside air into the warmer house, I think there is a small 2 cubic inch opening that can open to bring in fresh air.  I hope they do a better job with the Elec car and they do have semiconductor material that will move heat from one surface to another using electricity.
Carl2

To me this is coming down to having the right infrastructure in place, by that I mean Rapid Charging Stations and generating enough electricity in the grid to charge all these cars.

I think its a challenge but one that can be met over time.

This is what's going on in Canada right now.