New petrol and diesel car sales will be 'banned from 2030'

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Et voila! This is indeed the case, and now Norway’s EV stats are amazing: more than 1 in 2 new cars sold is full EV; most users never visit petrol stations (too many convenient charge points elsewhere)
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Lee, you’re in a different league. How many times do I have to say, take a few weeks off work and sail it down to Cannes.

My berth in Monaco is vacant if you want to use it. I won’t let it go because of the wait to get another. Shame to see it wasted.
Oh yah Robbie, for sure, totes all about that Cannes life, see you on the waves soon dahling x
 
Is that because they’re EVs or because they’re small family cars and city cars?
No it is because imho electric car makers seem to think they have to make their cars look futuristic which only succeeds in making them look dated the minute they leave the showroom.
 
Norway has lots of electric cars due to huge tax incentives on electric cars and penal taxes on ICE cars.

for example, Tesla Model 3, circa 400k NKR; CLA 180, circa 500k NKR

without that distortion, the switch would not have happened
 
Norway has lots of electric cars due to huge tax incentives on electric cars and penal taxes on ICE cars.


Add to that the fact that Norway is by some measures the wealthiest country in the world and by capita double the UK. I think they can better afford EV's.
 
Norway has lots of electric cars due to huge tax incentives on electric cars and penal taxes on ICE cars.

for example, Tesla Model 3, circa 400k NKR; CLA 180, circa 500k NKR

without that distortion, the switch would not have happened

Hydropower regularly accounts for more than 95 per cent of total Norwegian power production, with the small remainder made up by thermal and, only recently, wind. At the end of 2016, Norway's inland waters powered over 31 GW installed capacity, producing 144 TWh of clean power. It makes perfect sense to develop a transport system based on electricity. It also helps that during the North sea oil and gas boom unlike the UK , Norway did not piss away that fortuitous wealth but created a international investment fund for the whole country which undoubtedly contributed to setting up a charging infrastructure.


Norway
 
I agree with all of the above, but if Norway can do it, so will other countries (probably with Germany in the lead). And economies of scale will make EV tech cheaper over time (think flat screen TVs). The Norwegians have kindly put their sovereign wealth to use in being early adopters and thus kick-start the EV industry ready for the rest of us.

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Question, there are currently all electric, plug in hybrid and ice hybrids, A plug in hybrid needs to be plugged in? or can a long journey charge a plug in? If a plug in hybrid could be charged on a longish journey 50+ miles or so, motorway driving on the ICE charge the batteries for use in towns. Probably too simple and not possible.
 
The original hybrids used the ICE to charge the battery which could be used in"assist mode " or as sole motive power albeit with a very limited range. Initially there was no facility to charge the battery via plug in cable- posssibly due the limited battery capacity it was hardly worth it. As battery capacity increased most hybrids began to be fitted with a plug in facility for charging in addition to the ICE. Probably pays to check the battery capacity of any prospective plug in hybrid purchase to gauge just much all electric motoring from "the grid" rather than "the pump" you can potentially do.
 
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As battery capacity increased most hybrids began to be fitted with a plug in facility for charging in addition to the ICE.
Here's a challenge for you.

What exactly is a Volvo 'Recharge' hybrid?


You have to hunt quite a bit to figure what is likely to be going on. (Note that word 'likely').

Looks like a hybrid where the battery is charged via plugin or from energy capture during braking /'slowing down'. But not from the ICE.

I think that the industry really needs to come up with something turgid and mundane like a 'class 1' hybrid, or 'class 2' hybrid so that there is an unambiguous designation thta can be put on the spec sheet.
 

They seem to avoid using the term 'mild hybrid' on that page - whereas gthe page I linked had quite a few references.

Back in the days of CD there was the 'AAD', 'DDD' nomenclature to indicate how the material had been recorded, mixed, and mastered.

I think something like that is needed for hybrids. We could do with it for drive systems in cars as well to unambiguously replace the likes of 4WD and AWD.
 
It really is a bit of a quagmire I think. The options manufacturers have are many and varied, and there’s no consistency at all it seems. Our C350e for example, is labelled as a PHEV, it has options which allow for driving (almost) purely on battery, braking regen, no braking regen, charging of battery from ICE (a really bad idea!), Sport mode where you don’t even get stop/start (which seems very odd to me), a mode where it doesn’t use battery but isn’t sport mode..... plus assorted modifications to those. How on earth would you concisely describe that mess!

Basically it has 4 modes that control the hybrid drivetrain plus 4 modes that control the whole car, and they interact to a greater or lesser extent. I did mess with it a bit when it was new, but now mostly just leave it in ‘hybrid’ and ‘comfort’ (the defaults at switch on, funny enough). I’ll switch it to EV mode to squeeze the last 10% out of the battery if I reckon I can make a given trip all-electic by doing that (in Hybrid it tries to retain about 20% so it can give a bit of performance boost) and occasionally I’ll drop it into Sport if I see an overtake coming up that warrants the extra urgency.
 
I did mess with it a bit when it was new, but now mostly just leave it
That statement I suspect covers what happens to quite a lot of 'brochure' features that modern cars have.

I have come across quite a few people who got excited about the self steering parking assistance features - but never actually used it in anger. I have a jaded suspicion that there are a lot of cars sold where steering wheel paddles, launch control and various sport modes just never get used.
 
That statement I suspect covers what happens to quite a lot of 'brochure' features that modern cars have.

I have come across quite a few people who got excited about the self steering parking assistance features - but never actually used it in anger. I have a jaded suspicion that there are a lot of cars sold where steering wheel paddles, launch control and various sport modes just never get used.
Yep, quite agree. Never once used the parking assist on ours. Used the ’individual’ chassis settings when running in, just to force the ICE to run but not since. Mostly just marketing **** IMO.
 
My layman’s view of battery-assisted motion systems (rightly or wrongly) is:
1. Stop-start, simply a stronger starter system that can allow frequent ICE switch-off and restart
2. Mild hybrid: adds regen charging of the battery and electric motor assist to acceleration, but not much else
3. Hybrid: which is as above but runs the ICE less often and can drive in full EV mode for a short time (the new Yaris hybrid claims up to a couple of km and also claims to be in EV mode up to 80% of the time, only using the ICE when under load. Toyota now calls this ‘self-charging hybrid’).
4. PHEV: as above but bigger battery so can achieve significant EV range (now up to 30+ real-world miles on some newer models?)
5. EV; large battery, no ICE
 
I’m sure it’s been posted before but I really like this explainer of the Toyota hybrid system. It seems an ingenious solution to boosting ICE efficiency without significant vehicle weight gain and whilst maintaining superb reliability. It’s hard to believe Toyota’s system is now over 20 years old! The latest incarnation claims to be able to achieve over 100mpg in the Yaris (though more like 60-70 in the real world).

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Linked to my post #467 about diffusion of innovation, studies are now showing that EV batteries are expected to reduce in cost enough to put EVs below the price of ICE cars within only a few years. This is expected the result in a rapid take-up.
Battery technology is also evolving, with fast-charging solid-state batteries expected within 10 years.

Electric vehicles close to ‘tipping point’ of mass adoption
 
I genuinely hope it's true that EV's will be a comparable price to IC cars in the near future. I won't be holding my breath though.

Comparison is not always straight forward because many EV's are models in their own right but lets say I wanted a small shopping car for which an EV would be ideal. One comparison that can be made is the Vauxhall Corsa which is available with either power source. If I wanted one now a pre-registered Corsa E can be had for £23,500 and there are hundreds of them available. while a pre-registered 1.2 SE petrol is £11,500. They look the same to me but even if those two cars are not identical in trim and features it suggests EV's have a very long way to go yet. The running costs would offset some of the difference if enough miles were covered but this is a shopping car that might only do 3000 miles per year at most so pay back could take 20 years. When An EV shopping car can be had for £11,500 they will sell them in huge numbers.
 

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