Are Electric Vehicles that Green?

[Gone West]

19 minutes ago, Jeremy Harris said:

 

 

 

• • POWER AND PERFORMANCE

    Rear wheels are driven by a powerful electric motor for better steering feel. The Honda e accelerates and decelerates, with regenerative braking, and is all controlled by the Single Pedal Control.

 

I find their advertising confusing.

 

[joe90]

I stand corrected ?. I would want a brake pedal!.

[ProDave]

2 very distinctive styles.  The Honda looks (to me) a dated design and over cluttered with far too many displays.

 

By contrast the Tesla looks pared to the bone minimalism, not even any visbile door handles.

[Gone West]

17 minutes ago, ProDave said:

The Honda looks (to me) a dated design and over cluttered with far too many displays.

They call it a retro design.

[Jeremy Harris]

3 hours ago, ProDave said:

 

By contrast the Tesla looks pared to the bone minimalism, not even any visbile door handles.

 

There are no internal door handles.  There are very carefully disguised buttons at the very top of the door pull, that when pressed unlatch the doors.  Likewise there are no door handles that protrude outside the car, and no locks.  As you walk up to the car it either senses your 'phone or an optional keyless entry remote, so that when you depress one end of the flush door handle the car unlocks and the door unlatches electrically.  To start the car you just press the brake pedal, and select forward or reverse with the steering column lever.  There is no handbrake - that's done automatically when needed.

 

In practice, pretty much all the stuff you need to do when driving can be done from the steering wheel.  The right steering column lever controls forward, park and reverse, plus it activates cruise control and autopilot.  Cruise and autopilot speed can be adjusted using the right scroll wheel on the steering wheel.  The left column stalk controls the indicators and manual dip switch (although that's not needed, as the auto dip works fine).  This stick also has a button to activate the wipers, if the auto wiper function doesn't detect light rain, plus the screen washers.  The left steering wheel scroll wheel controls the volume of the audio, and also has options to select mode, station, track or whatever by clicking it left or right, or muting the audio by pushing the scroll wheel in.  The right scroll wheel also activates voice recognition when pressed, so to open the glovebox (there's no catch for that either) you just press the right scroll wheel and say "open glovebox".

 

About the only thing I use the touch screen for when actually driving  is adjusting the temperature, and this is no harder than doing the same with a switch.

[joe90]

26 minutes ago, Jeremy Harris said:

manual dip switch (although that's not needed, as the auto dip works fine).

friend of mine had auto dip on his car but I noticed that it only dipped after the car coming the other way had been blinded, it cannot see other headlights coming round a bend that a (good) driver would spot and dip before it came into view.!

[Jeremy Harris]

3 hours ago, joe90 said:

friend of mine had auto dip on his car but I noticed that it only dipped after the car coming the other way had been blinded, it cannot see other headlights coming round a bend that a (good) driver would spot and dip before it came into view.!

 

One advantage of the autopilot sensors is that the forward looking radar will usually "see" things a fair bit before the driver does.  I suspect that auto dip is just using the same autopilot sensing systems as used to detect and classify other vehicles, cyclists, pedestrians, road markings etc.  It has a big advantage over us mere humans, in that it can "see" stuff that we can't, plus it looks all around the car all the time, so knows how close the car is to the edge of the road, how close it is to the centre white line, etc, as well as detecting things way off in the distance.

 

This is an old video, showing how the sensing systems inside the car "see" things (this isn't displayed to the driver).  Things have markedly improved in the past year, since this video was released, but it does give an idea as to what is being detected and classified by the car all the time.  The impressive thing is just how many features the car simultaneously manages to detect and track:

 

 

[Markblox]

4 hours ago, Stones said:

 

 

And then there's Cobalt. Kids in the DRC digging up with their bare hands, and little to no environmental protection?

 

Takes the shine of EV's IMHO.

 

 

 

 

Most of the Colbalt mined in the world is used in the refining of fuel to remove sulphur and is then burnt so has a one use life. A fact not publicised by the oil industry when spreading FUD about batteries.

[Markblox]

3 hours ago, joe90 said:

I stand corrected ?. I would want a brake pedal!.

Look at the picture, two pedals, just one used most of the time. The go pedal just uses regen motor braking when lifted and doesn't actual activate the brakes.

[SteamyTea]

3 hours ago, Jeremy Harris said:

I suspect that auto dip is just using the same autopilot sensing systems

So it can dip the lights unexpectedly?

 

Having had a high beam light blow on my motorbike, when crank on a tight bend, I know how scary it can be to loose visibility with no warning.

40 years on, and after having my lens changed to shiny acrylic ones, I notice that my eyes don't react as quick as they used to.

I am not sure if this is just an ageing thing, or a side effect of new lenses implanted in my eyeballs.  It was not a problem before the operations, but then I saw jack shit at night anyway.

Edited January 2, 2020 by SteamyTea

[Jeremy Harris]

16 hours ago, PeterStarck said:

 

I find their advertising confusing.

 

 

So do I, but then it seems that a lot of car advertising can be a bit confusing, like the Toyota/Lexus "self-charging" nonsense.  The one-pedal-driving thing is not often that well described by any of the manufacturers, but feels just like driving a car that has lots of engine braking, enough to bring the car to a halt in the case of some implementations of it.  My last Prius would use regenerative braking down to 5mph, then expect you to use the brakes.  The BMW i3 would use the brakes a bit, without you touching the brake pedal, at low speeds, with the accelerator lifted.  The Model 3 seems to do the same, but goes one stage further and applies the brakes hard as soon as the car has stopped, rather like putting the handbrake on.  I'm not sure what Honda have done with their implementation of one-pedal-driving, but would guess that it's may be similar to that in the Tesla, now (Tesla only recently added the full one-pedal-driving feature, as an over-the-air update to the software).

 

11 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

So it can dip the lights unexpectedly?

 

Having had a high beam light blow on my motorbike, when crank on a tight bend, I know how scary it can be to loose visibility with no warning.

40 years on, and after having my lens changed to shiny acrylic ones, I notice that my eyes don't react as quick as they used to.

I am not sure if this is just an ageing thing, or a side effect of new lenses implanted in my eyeballs.  It was not a problem before the operations, but then I saw jack shit at night anyway.

 

It doesn't seem to, but the lights are pretty good even when dipped, so it's not much of an issue.  It seems that the lights on cars generally have improved a lot in recent years.  My 2013 Prius had LED headlights, that were bright enough, but had an unpleasant blue tinge.  The i3 had better LED headlights, probably about the same as the Prius in terms of brightness, but a more even colour, and without the very sharp edge cut-off.  The Tesla seems to have LED lights that are better still, slightly brighter in the area where you need it, without the very sharp edge cut-off of the Prius lights.  My only criticism of them would be that they seem to be set a little bit high when dipped.

 

[joe90]

12 hours ago, Markblox said:

Look at the picture, two pedals, just one used most of the time. The go pedal just uses regen motor braking when lifted and doesn't actual activate the brakes.

I was referring to Jeremy’s comment about his i3 and one pedalndriving,  there is no picture of this .

Edited January 3, 2020 by joe90

[Jeremy Harris]

1 hour ago, joe90 said:

I was referring to Jeremy’s comment about his i3 and one pedalndriving,  there is no picture of this .

 

 

The Honda E has the same layout as the i3, the pedals look just like those on an automatic car.  Unlike a friends 1930's era Rover that I drove to a show for him years ago.  That had the accelerator pedal in the middle and the brake pedal on the right.  Took some getting used to, but luckily there were three of us driving his cars in convoy to a show, so we kept the speed down.

[ProDave]

Do EV's have the same standard "automatic" gear shift, i.e. Park, Reverse, Neutral, Drive.... ?

[AliG]

Usually yes. Tesla uses Mercedes column mounted shifter. 

[Markblox]

10 hours ago, ProDave said:

Do EV's have the same standard "automatic" gear shift, i.e. Park, Reverse, Neutral, Drive.... ?

They are all a bit different but for the model 3 the right side stalk is used. If you move it down, the screen will show you have gone into forward drive. You must have your foot on the brake pedal first and to go back you just move the stalk up. Then just ease the accelerator pedal and you move forwards. Once moving, move the same stalk down once for cruise control and quickly twice for Autopilot. If arriving at traffic lights for example and coming to a standstill by easing off on the throttle the car will hold by itself, even on a hill. Once the lights go green, just put your foot down and your off. When arriving at your destination just press the end of the stalk and the car will turn off and put the electric hand brake on. A double tap on the stalk will also unlock the doors ir they were locked. Open the door and walk off and the car will lock itself.

[Ed Davies]

Do EVs count as automatics for driving test/licensing purposes?

[Jeremy Harris]

16 minutes ago, Ed Davies said:

Do EVs count as automatics for driving test/licensing purposes?

 

 

AFAIK, yes, as they have no clutch or gear lever.

[Gone West]

16 minutes ago, Ed Davies said:

Do EVs count as automatics for driving test/licensing purposes?

I guess so judging by this:-

"Paul Tomlin, owner and operator of Green Driving School in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffs, was one of the first to make the switch and has been using an electric Nissan Leaf to teach automatic learners since 2011."

[Jeremy Harris]

As an aside, Tesla have done another update, which has actually made the voice commands work reasonably well.  Some are a wee bit American, though.  For example, the voice command "my butt is cold" turns on the driver's side seat heater...

 

 

[Stones]

On 02/01/2020 at 20:46, Markblox said:

Most of the Colbalt mined in the world is used in the refining of fuel to remove sulphur and is then burnt so has a one use life. A fact not publicised by the oil industry when spreading FUD about batteries.

 

Granted, but the stuff is used in batteries.  As I said Lithium and Cobalt production (from what I've read) doesn't appear that 'green'.  As we switch to EV's, demand for batteries (and all their constituent parts) will only increase. I do wonder what the environmental impact of satisfying that demand will be. Yes we reduce emissions at point of use, but at what cost?

[SteamyTea]

2 hours ago, Stones said:

As I said Lithium and Cobalt production (from what I've read) doesn't appear that 'green'.

I don't think cast iron, steel and aluminium production are either.

You can easily look at metal prices, here is Cobalt.

https://www.dailymetalprice.com/metalpricecharts.php?c=co&u=lb&d=0

 

 

[daiking]

I thought this was q. Interesting

 

https://jalopnik.com/this-tesla-model-x-has-driven-over-400-000-miles-here-1841761190
 

Recently sold on the website Only Used Teslais what is believed to be the highest-mileage Tesla Model X in the world—a 2016 “90D” rental car/shuttle with over 400,000 miles on the odometer. The company that owned it, Tesloop, gave me the vehicle’s full maintenance records, so let’s look at every part that had to be swapped for this electric crossover to reach 400,000 miles in this condition.