Thread: An Electric Defender.

Originally Posted by Lotz-A-Landies

Mike

What I am arguing is your initial comment about the 80KM range, and the discounting of the concept off hand. There are numerous uses for vehicles like Defenders where various power plants are valid.

What I would like to see is the option for the Defender buyer to make the purchase option that suits their own personal or industry's need.

• Diesel is not the ideal power choice of people in the USA.
• Likewise petrol is too expensive to be a viable choice for the UK and Europe.
• There is a case for hybrid power and also for fuel cell hydrogen or even steam.
• 100% electric remains an option in some limited situations and should not so easily be denigrated.

After all Land Rover was only ever designed as a stop gap post war measure that almost by accident developed into what it has become.

E.u and U.S use of diesel v petrol comes down to tax or lack of on those fuels. Im sure many more europeans would love to be driving V8 petrol powered vehicles of a bigger size but the price being more than double than americans pay has resulted in a majority of diesels and what we call a small car or the yanks call a compact being called a "family car" in europe.
And electric/hybrid is a VERY limited option with a far shorter life than your average car let alone a defender. Over its whole life cycle it actually causes more environmental impact than a similar sized petrol or diesel car.

Ok....couple of comments here.

Firstly I hear often that electric cars charged by fossil fuel plants are simply moving the pollution.......this is not quite true.
The electric vehicle is far more energy efficient than internal combustion and the fossil fuelled plants are big high efficiency units running at peak efficiency instead of small units runnin up and down usually in an inefficient range.
Charging electric via fossil fuel DOES reduce the energy and emissions as well as moving them out of cities etc where they affect more people.
Also not all energy is fossil fuelled and there are myriad ways of topping up with clean power.

Secondly, while hub motors would be fantastic, and with a decent controller they would give all the benefits of traction control and more, I think any future for an electric Defender lies in bein an optional power train alongside conventional ones.
Going for a single larger motor mounted directly to the transfer would greatly simplify this.
Not all people want or could use an electric Deefer....but there are LOADS of places they would be fantastic!
Mines are a prime example, how many diesel Landcruisers are being used there now?
Farmers as mentioned earlier.
Certain specialist vehicles such as SES accident rescue vehicles...operating from a local base with limited distances.
Poser commuters of course.
Fishermen, towing a boat from base to ramp and back they rarely clock up large mileages.
First response fire tenders in large factories etc.
Weekend offroaders.

With some development the range could easily be 150 not 80...

Then there is the hybrid option, 50-60km range and a small diesel genset.
That could go anywhere.
Silent approach to your hunting grounds?
Bird watching, safari, wildlife tour?
Anything in fact that a pure electric can do with a long range option.


The other point I'd like to make is hydrogen.......nearly all of the world's hydrogen is made by catalytic cracking of natural gas....releasing huge amounts of CO2.....so reducing carbon em missions by using hydrogen is ridiculous in the extreme at the moment.

Batteries....experience with current electric vehicles has shown the batteries have a longer life than previously predicted.
As for the province in China....this can be done without poisoning a whole area...but then we wouldn't have the batteries do cheap. So we just get china to poison a chunk of itself and nobody cares.
The alternative is more expensive batteries to meet the costs of doing it cleanly.

Unfortunately Carr nut we all live on the same planet so the excess pollution in china will affect us all eventually. E.g did you know it's estimated 80%of the mercury fallout in the u.s was emitted from plants in china. But don't you worry about that you obviously have your own air supply
Further the hybrid will become a second hand orphan .In 7-15years, my "normal " small car may need a new engine at $2-4k ( that uses the same or less fuel than the neighbour trendy hybrid) whereas the hybrid will need new batteries, maybe a new engine, a new electric motor or MOTORS and a specialist mechanic/auto electrician to rebuild the thing so the 2 +motors can integrate. This will mean a 12 year old golf or corrolla mazda3 that was $10,000 less than a hybrid will be worth more as there is less to go wrong. This will also lead to a shorter life overall as who is going to buy a second hand car whose costs of parts to keep it running are 2-3 times that of similar sized/ litres per km better driving opposition?
Capping a Hot Spot

I agree with you on the pollution...I think we SHOULD be paying more for our batteries (including the ones in our laptops and phones and everything you can think of now...) so that they are made in a safer manner.
The sad fact though is that the majority of people just don't care if a chunk if China is blitzed so long as their new phone is ten dollars cheaper...
The point I was making is that it is possible to produce those batteries without the industrial scale pollution....it's just a lot more expensive to do it.

As for the secondhand cars needing major work.......the mechanics of an electric are very simple, and an overhaul on an electric motor is far cheaper than an internal combustion one.
The batteries will indeed need replacement at some point, although costs are coming down in that field (although that could change if China gets some pollution regs one day...) and batteries in existing vehicles are lasting longer than predicted.
The thing that will trouble many of these cars is the controller if spares are not supported.
However.......not many new vehicle buyers worry about something that will happen at the end of the design life of thr vehicle and certainly well after they have sold it, especially the mine and other operators who will turn them over regularly.

Like I said, they would be a niche vehicle but damn good in that niche.

I agree with you on the pollution front but the point your missing is not just total life costs but depreciation.
As I said once second hand car buyers get scared by the extra costs of a hybrid that is not covered by factory warranty they will be harder to sell and their trade in price will drop . So the new car buyer will get burnt by several thousand when their co-worker on the same package gets $4-5 k extra trading in their golf GTD which cost the same as their Prius.
The other thing people are ignoring is the rare earth materials used for the battery packs are in very short supply and at the rate of growth predicted could be depleted before oil

Existing tech can get efficiencies up around the 70% mark, (most large power stations are running at 60% plus efficiency)

it's not inconceivable to get vehicles up around the 50% plus efficiently mark (small turbine with a Stirling stage after that and electrolysis scavenger for the hot water left over)

compared to the weight of a battery bank (or the immensely expensive hydrogen storage problems), a system using conventional tech is feasible, and it doesn't need any special materials, just a company prepared to put up the money.

The great things about water is it is a fantastic thermal storage medium, breaks down to the most flammable elements we know of, it's explosive when it turns to a gas and is very cheap/available. Paired up with a multi fuel turbine and multi fuel reheat stirling stage, a system of thermostats and tanks could be made to put water through it's entire thermo/chemical cycle, not unlike we currently do in power stations (except for the electrolysis bit.)

the electrolysis stage takes advantage of the cooling water being hot, which means it takes less energy to break the atomic bonds and liberate the otherwise wasted heat. it may only gain a percent or two, but that is the point; scavenging as much as possible. It may not gain anything except to keep the first stages in the 'zone' they work best at.

would love to have the time and machinery to build a test rig, it's been a daydream of mine for about 7 years.

Originally Posted by frantic

E.u and U.S use of diesel v petrol comes down to tax or lack of on those fuels. Im sure many more europeans would love to be driving V8 petrol powered vehicles of a bigger size but the price being more than double than americans pay has resulted in a majority of diesels and what we call a small car or the yanks call a compact being called a "family car" in europe.
And electric/hybrid is a VERY limited option with a far shorter life than your average car let alone a defender. Over its whole life cycle it actually causes more environmental impact than a similar sized petrol or diesel car.

But the Tax and emission Regs/GWP is exactly why we are discussing alternative power sources.

If it were not for those, the manufacturers would be using the cheapest fuel source available and that would be petrol or diesel. It is only because of tax costs we are even having the discussion, because without that impetus automotive manufacturers wouldn't care less about what, rightly or wrongly, has always been considered the lunatic fringe developing alternative power sources.