Battery powered conversions. I'm getting warmer.

[w3526602]

Hi,

At last I've found it, THE or maybe it should be A magazine article I've been seeking ... an ELECTRIC Triumph Herald. Most importantly, it appears to run on a "series" of regular car starter batteries.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/green-motoring/9997563/Convert-your-classic-car-to-battery-power.html

More anon, my ladies have arrived. Doh! No sense of timing!

602

[Theshed]

I have read similar articles, I think the same company did a LandRover conversion ?
I have read that second-hand EV batteries, particularly Tesla, still have a good life in them when deemed not fit for everyday use.
I wonder how they decide which is better for an older vehicle. Lead Acid or Li-ion. Is it the battery or fitment that decides. 

[NoBeardNoTopKnot]

This debate is going to go round and round and round. And there doesn't appear to be a decent answer. A used Tesla battery may well work, but come on... Drag your 7-8 year old mobile-phone out of the back of the drawer, and yes it'll work. When it was new you got nearer a week out of one charge, it cost you 20p tops. Now the previous amount of electricity runs it for 3-4 hours use, a day if you're lucky.

Electricity has tripled in cost. 3-4 hours use, a day if you're lucky, is now 60p.

Fine for a mobile-phone. Maybe 60p is tolerable. Maybe. Do that with you Tesla battery, £5 is now x 3 = £15. £10 is now x 3 = £30. You don't get the prior 200 miles range, you see 50. If you're lucky. The battery is cheap for a reason.
It still costs the same to charge for yoru 50 miles as it ever did for 200. In fact more, see below.

And it still costs you a heap to put that battery in there. That bit won't have got cheaper.
Lest we forget, it'll take more electricity to get to a full charge as the battery ages.

Now, be very clear. My numbers are WAY, WAYYYYYY off. And I'm sure someone will be infinitely more accurate than me.

However - the basis of this logic, the physics, chemistry and economics will remain. Used EVs are cheap for a reason. That phone is now where it is because you love it dearly.

And this debate will go round and round...

[Wittsend]

... and round.

How many milk floats do you see these days

Lead/acid batteries - I think not 

[Richard]

Picnic floats however

And the Telegraph article dates from 2013. I can't find a Dragon EV, only a Dragon Charging, so I guess the company choose a different revenue model...

Richard

[NoBeardNoTopKnot]

... and round.

How many milk floats do you see these days

Lead/acid batteries - I think not 

I'd dearly love to call both you the fools on this one. Only I can't. We'd all be better off if you and I were wrong.


Instead we are subject to an airhead "Technology will save us" argument. And it seems to come loudest from a particular socio-economic cohort.

There must be countless millions of old rechargeable appliances in our homes. Shavers, garden-equipment, power-tools, blah, least of all phones. None of it works after 5-6 years, none of it. The cohort that bangs on about EVs changes their car as often as they do their phone. Next time you hear someone bang on about this, tell them to reach into their pocket and pull out even a 5 year old phone, let be a 10 year old one.

And when they don't, and try to explain why it's new, and have not recycled the last one, tell them to "Shut the &%^$£ up."

[Old Hywel]

How old is my hand-me-down iPhone 5?

[NoBeardNoTopKnot]

How old is my hand-me-down iPhone 5?

And a mortgage amount of money says the battery goes into landfill, and that you're not the type to run a Telsa.

I'd stake my life you've got it hooked up to the charger more than it'd be viable to do were it a car.

[Craig T]

I still use an iPhone 6s, works well for me although I have changed the battery a few times over the years as they fail as described above.

I used to work for a company that made hybrid powered Optare buses. We bought buses without the engine and gearbox sub frame, fitted an electric motor, put a 1.9 Diesel engine in it driving a large alternator then put a bunch of Odyssey PC-1700 batteries under the floor.

The performance was poor to be honest. I can't remember now how many batteries we had but it was over 300 volts so quite a few. The batteries were the main problem with them. They needed pretty sophisticated management kit to ensure they all got the same charge. If you had one weak battery in the pack it would drag the others down to the same level absorbing all the charge and dissipating the rest as heat. We had temperature sensors on each battery and software managed them to cut off charge to overheating batteries.

Needless to say when the grant ran out for developing environmentally friendly vehicles, the company folded. I did manage to get a couple of good Odyssey PC-1700 batteries though to compensate for the final pay check they never delivered and three years of national insurance payments they "forgot" to make...

Craig.

[w3526602]

Hi

TODAY(Friday) at 1200hrs. TV Chanel 129. CAR SOS will be restoring an MGB ... their first battery powered conversion.


Can anybody here post this under a new and more meaningful title, pretty please?

602 (Technowimp)

[William]

While I don't have a beef with EVs per se (apart from the environmental cost of the extraction, smelting and refining of lithium and copper; the extra weight; extra demand on electricity generation etc) I don't understand why the techno-blob killed off hydrogen (Bamford apart) and LPG, a relatively mature technology which demonstrated promise for decades 

[Wittsend]

This is one solution that could kill many birds with one stone.



What's not to like ?
It's very Triumph Heraldish but not made by them.
Electricity and water don't mix, but that never stoped anybody.
It would get round the ULEZ and London congestion charges and parking problems.

There is now a developed and established market for electric conversions of classic cars.

      

[Richard]

I don't understand why the techno-blob killed off hydrogen (Bamford apart) and LPG, a relatively mature technology which demonstrated promise for decades 

I too have never understood the taboo on LPG.
Richard

[William]

What's not to like ?

Lol. Funnily enough this crossed my mind a few weeks ago. Problem is the majority of people caught by the extension would have to drive a very long way west or east to actually access the river...

[NoBeardNoTopKnot]

I truly believe EVs have a place. What I can't stand is the stench of hypocrisy.

How on earth in all that's holy can an EV Herald be green, or even greener? It just isn't.
A 1960s Herald is about as green as it'll get. It's environmental impact now done, with. Can anyone explain how using yet more of this earth's resources to power a classic-ca - something that will rarely be driven - is green?

It'll still stink, except not via an exhaust pipe.

It'll do a few thousand miles and in roughly 5-6 years, the batteries will need doing again? If you want your Herald green, it's about as green as it gets BEFORE the conversion - which - by the way - isn't green. Just the best of a bad job.

How will buying more stuff and watching it degrade ever make it greener?