The ideal car for large electric helis?

[Angelos]

Nissan Leaf as Home Generator: Great for Japan, But Will It Work in the U.S.? - CBS News

-Angelos

[ghost2212]

I'd never really considered this idea until now, It could definitely work for people have a flying field relatively close to home. The Leaf has a 75 mile range so if you lived more than about 30 miles from the flying field you would have to be careful not to drain the battery so much that you couldn't get home. Where this could really be useful is on hybrid models I think where the battery's would still be more than enough to charge well at the field and then start the engine and it doesn't matter that you've flattened the battery as it will then charger back up again.

If another step forward in battery technology is taken then electric cars could then be used as a viable source of power at the field then. However if this did happen then it's likely that the batteries in the heli would also take a massive leap forward meaning charging might not even be neccesary at the flying field.

For the time being though electric car's are still too impractical for the majority of people in day to day use I would think.

[pgkevet]

And what's the cycle life on the leaf's power packs?
But useful in a powercut

[RcRotaryMadness]

..should be able to charge multiple 12S packs off that baby!

[Angelos]

I looked at electric cars about a year ago mostly out of curiosity; no real interest to buy. My commuting distance is short and well withing the capabilities of the car but at £20K+ it is like buying an similar size petrol car pre-paying 8 years worth of fuel. By the time you break even you will probably need new batteries and the cycle starts again. But if you are in London I believe you don't pay congestion charge and you get free parking so it becomes a lot more appealing.

As for charging the helis I don't really consider the Nissan Leaf a viable solution. With the money you'll spend on the car you could buy dozens of packs to fly all day long. But I like the idea of using the car batteries as a generator and this is why I posted it. You know... if it was a hybrid with its own little built in generator it could probably work!

-Angelos

[ghost2212]

I looked at electric cars about a year ago mostly out of curiosity; no real interest to buy. My commuting distance is short and well withing the capabilities of the car but at £20K+ it is like buying an similar size petrol car pre-paying 8 years worth of fuel. By the time you break even you will probably need new batteries and the cycle starts again. But if you are in London I believe you don't pay congestion charge and you get free parking so it becomes a lot more appealing.

As for charging the helis I don't really consider the Nissan Leaf a viable solution. With the money you'll spend on the car you could buy dozens of packs to fly all day long. But I like the idea of using the car batteries as a generator and this is why I posted it. You know... if it was a hybrid with its own little built in generator it could probably work!

-Angelos

Then again for the price of the car you could easily buy yourself a decent generator to run the house electrics on....

[450man]

Well I have a Nissan Leaf and have done over 15,000 miles over the past 2 years. I also have a Vauxhall Ampera and done over 10,000 miles in that. There is a lot of misunderstanding when it comes to electric cars, the tech and living with one. Most of the info in the public domain is from the media and the media see EVs as a bit of a joke and so they make a joke out of them. The real facts just get dropped or lost as a result.

For those interested I would like to clear a few myths that are commonly touted when people think of EVs (electric vehicals).

Firstly the batteries. It is true that they do gradually deteriorate over time much as lipos do, but the idea that they will need replacing in 5-10 years is a total myth. The Nissan Leaf has been out now for 2 years in the UK and longer in the USA and Japan and the current evidence is that they do not deteriorate anything like as much as was first thought they would. My car is 2 years and 15,000 miles old and I have seen absolutely no reduction in range. Some have done but mainly in locations with extreme heat such as Arizona.

The Nissan Leaf battery is not one battery... it is made up of cells and blocks and the battery would never need to be replaced completely. If the range does reduce to a level which is unacceptable then only those blocks that are down on performance would need to be replaced.

The figures I have heard about cost of battery replacement are simply rediculous. As mentioned, only a few blocks are ever likely to need replacing (if any) and how much are they? Well, the battery is guaranteed for 5 years and so the cost would be what they will be in 5 years time... not now. Like all technology the cost is high in the early years and it drops many fold as the tech develops and as the economies of scale allow price reductions as the sales volumes increase. Could you say how much anything will be in 5 years? By that time it is very likely that battery tech will have moved on significantly and costs will come down.

It was mentioned about hybrids and how they are likely to be more suitable for most people right now given the 70 - 80 mile range of the Leaf. In many ways that is true as having a totally electric car right now is difficult because of the limited range. Having said that I have driven the Leaf to Scotland from Cornwall, to Amsterdam, to Manchester, Newcastle etc. However, the fact is that the vast majority of journeys made in the UK are under 10 miles and the vast majority (80%+) of cars do less than 30 miles a day. Given those figures an electric car is suitable for most journeys, and most days. The real issue comes when you want to go further than the range and this is where a second car would help. Having an EV as your everyday car and a petrol/diesel car for longer trips makes good sense right now. If you only want one car then a plug in hybrid, such as the Ampera or Volt, is perfect. It is a good EV and can run on petrol for the longer trips. Obviously if you are a travelling saleman and do 300 miles a day then an EV is not for you right now!

Price... a Nissan Leaf is about the same price as a similar specced Ford Focus... about £20k... so the idea that it is more expensive is just not true anymore. Add to that the savings you would make on your daily commute or family runarounds, shopping etc... and it makes great financial sense. I pay about £2.50 in electricity for that 80 miles... a similar distance in the average similar new car would be at least £8 and probably more. There is no car tax, no London congestion charge and low insurance and servicing costs. There is a huge misunderstanding that buying an EV costs more... it simply does not have to and it is massively cheaper to run.

Finally there is a misunderstanding about emissions. Electric cars are not zero emission in spite of what people say. It is true, there are no emissions at the tailpipe but they are shifted to the power station. On the surface this seems like not much of a benefit but it is a massive improvement if you look at it properly. Coal and gas power stations are much better at controlling emissions than the average car and they are much more efficient too. Not only that but MPG figures generally do not allow for the transportation and processing of the petrol/diesel. Those figures are just the MPG at the car. If you take the so called "well to wheel" emissions and efficiency into account the fact is that using electricity is hugely better for the environment. The icing on the cake is that the grid is getting cleaner and cleaner every year as more renewables come online and you can do as I do and charge from your own solar panels if you have them... totally for free!

So, from my personal experience I know the facts but I will not pretend that EVs are there yet and nor are they for everyone. They require a change of attitude and change of the way you live with your personal transport. They require that you have off-road parking with an electric point to charge at home and/or work. The batteries have to get a way lot better. But the evidence is they will. The prices have to fall a lot still to get to the £10K price point but that is happening too with the Leaf at about £20k and the new Zoe at about £17. There is even a small town EV called the Twizy at about £8k. Sure, there are some expensive EVs too with the Tesla Model S at about £50K but even that is a comparable car to the Jag XK or BMW 5 Series and is of a similar price bracket. There are 2 BMWs, a Volvo V60, a Land Rover, a Mitsubishi 4x4 and a whole load of others in the pipeline and not all of them are rediculously priced. Prices are definitely dropping.

If anyone is interested in discussing this further you are very welcome to ask me questions and I promise you I will answer honestly... unlike Top Gear... which BTW is sponsored by a oil company so they will never give you proper, honest facts about EVs... enjoyable entertainment I agree. I watch it myself for entertainment. But don't believe anything they say about anything... especially EVs!

[450man]

I looked at electric cars about a year ago mostly out of curiosity; no real interest to buy. My commuting distance is short and well withing the capabilities of the car but at £20K+ it is like buying an similar size petrol car pre-paying 8 years worth of fuel. By the time you break even you will probably need new batteries and the cycle starts again. But if you are in London I believe you don't pay congestion charge and you get free parking so it becomes a lot more appealing.

As for charging the helis I don't really consider the Nissan Leaf a viable solution. With the money you'll spend on the car you could buy dozens of packs to fly all day long. But I like the idea of using the car batteries as a generator and this is why I posted it. You know... if it was a hybrid with its own little built in generator it could probably work!

-Angelos

If you could charge Lipos from the car then by far the better way would be doing it with a Leaf rather than a hybrid with generator. I have an Ampera which is exactly that... it has its own on-board petrol generator that it uses to generate eletricity when the battery is flat (about 40 miles) but it is always more expensive to generate electricity from petrol than from the grid. It is less clean too. So I never use the on-board generator to charge the Ampera batteries. I am much better off plugging in to the mains.

Unfortunately though, at the moment, there is no easy way to get 240V or even higher current 12V from either car but that may change. There are moves to use EV as a backup supply for your home in the event of power cuts but that won't happen in the near future but it could happen in the next few years.

[cjcj1949]

I've got a Prius and like the 50mpg. If you use the Prius 12V battery to charge lipos the 12V battery is kept charged by the High voltage NimHs. When the 12V battery needs charging the engine will start but only for as long as needed. People seem to think that saving the planet is a big joke. That's not why I bought my car, more because I wanted a part electric. Hybrid does have a lot of advantages and plug in hybrid even more. There's no danger to the planet, but quite a lot of danger to our way of life from the planet. There is a big time lag in all this, and even if we can stop increasing greenhouse gases things will still get worse for ten or twenty years. The advanced countries will cope though. I'd put all the denyers in a car in the sun until they understand that greenhouse is a very simple effect.