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Converting your classic to Electric power.....
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ukdave2002



Joined: 23 Nov 2007
Posts: 4100
Location: South Cheshire

PostPosted: Wed Sep 19, 2018 1:28 pm    Post subject: Converting your classic to Electric power..... Reply with quote

I was at an event at the weekend where Edd China was giving at the Footman James Manchester classic car show.

He talked about how electrically powered cars have progressed in recent times, and suggested that converting our classics to battery power, will be the way we protect our hobby in the future?
I glanced round the audience who looked nonplussed, I think we were all expecting something a tad more traditional from Edd!

Even if one wanted to convert to battery power (I personally wouldn't) I can't see it being straight forward; weight changes torque changes, power changes would potentially necessitate brake, suspension and chassis mods.....under current DVLA regs, we would have now created a substantially altered vehicle.....

Thoughts?

Dave
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Rick
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Joined: 27 Apr 2005
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Location: UK

PostPosted: Wed Sep 19, 2018 2:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

It wouldn't appeal to me to be honest, I know that Jaguar are building converted E-Types, but will it catch on amongst the rest of us? I think so long as petrol is available, most people will keep things as they are. After all, steam vehicles are still running around powered by coal.

RJ
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peter scott



Joined: 18 Dec 2007
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Location: Edinburgh

PostPosted: Wed Sep 19, 2018 2:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

There is a company offering to electrify Morris Minors.
http://londonelectriccars.com/

Like you guys I would not be very interested. I'm waiting for the roll out of hydrogen fuel cells.
https://www.toyota.co.uk/new-cars/new-mirai/landing

Peter
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mikeC



Joined: 31 Jul 2009
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 19, 2018 4:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

My view of electric vehicles is that they are just a passing fad. As soon as another form of motive power comes along, the electric option will fade away. So far there is no evidence to show that electric is any more fuel efficient or good for the environment than anything else we've got. Maybe we should be looking at wood-burning steam cars?
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Penman



Joined: 23 Nov 2007
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 19, 2018 5:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

hI
mikeC wrote:
Maybe we should be looking at wood-burning steam cars?


I now have this picture in my mind of people driving around with axes or billhooks in their cars and stopping every so often and cutting down the nearest sapling in order to get a few miles further along the road, and a new rural crime wave of "hedge rustling".
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peter scott



Joined: 18 Dec 2007
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 19, 2018 5:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hydrogen cars are pretty good because you can generate it with wind, solar, tidal or whatever is available night or day.

The range and performance is very similar to petrol cars and filling the tank takes about the same time.

Peter
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Ray White



Joined: 02 Dec 2014
Posts: 6286
Location: Derby

PostPosted: Wed Sep 19, 2018 9:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Birmingham recently had a visit from Theresa May who promised the Motor Industry a multi million pound investment package to develop and produce electric cars. The plan is to have totally zero emission vehicles by 2040. (The target seems to have slipped by 10 years) but is it realistic, or even desirable?

My grump is that fully electric cars - which, by the way, have been around for over 100 years - have to be charged up at frequent intervals and there are two problems that come to mind immediately. Firstly, we will need thousands of charging points and there is a huge cost involved in providing them. Secondly, battery technology has stalled. A fast charge will take 30 minutes and have the effect of severely reducing battery life; or a normal charge taking up to 12 hours which is inconvenient.

All the evidence is pointing to public resistance with regard to fully electric vehicles. What people are happy with is the hybrid principle which combines a normal petrol engine with self charging batteries operating electric motors. Diesel is finished thanks to stories of people dying in their thousands from pollution (which I doubt) .

My own car is a Lexus hybrid. It is an intelligent 4x4 with a 3.5 litre petrol engine and a self charging electrical system that automatically switches over to drive by electric motors around town. The idea of having to hang about waiting ages for the car to be charged up does not appeal.

The infrastructure is virtually non existent yet the Government seems intent on putting the cart before the horse. I have heard people propose charging points attached to lamp posts. Perhaps in an ideal world but in the world that we actually inhabit I can see these being a target for vandals.

I was interested to see that Toyota are producing a hydrogen fuel cell electric car. They see it as the way forward ...where as Jaguar/Land Rover are pushing ahead with the plug in electric system. Shocked

Someone needs to explain to the Government Department responsible for wasting public money that fast charging a battery of any kind is very bad for it. Each fast charge (30 mins.) causes degradation and before long the battery will need replacing. The cost is enormous. Whereas anyone can replace their 12 volt battery at relatively little cost; these high voltage ones require a specialist and are very expensive.

Hybrid vehicles, on the other hand, have no such worries. They have both a low and a high voltage battery but their charging system is unfamiliar to many. For example there is no separate alternator or starter motor as everything is controlled by the electric power plant.

I suspect that the British Government are chasing a rainbow with their push for us all to be driving " electric" cars, just as they are with "driverless" ones. The whole project will probably turn into a giant white elephant (just like HS2) and be overtaken by the market. Japanese companies who have been producing hybrid cars for years and have sold millions of them have their finger on the pulse. The future is Hydrogen/electric and Toyota are taking an early lead.

Here is the Worlds first mass produced hydrogen fuel cell vehicle.....

https://www.toyota.co.uk/new-cars/new-mirai/meet-mirai#1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


I can't think of a single case where Government intervention has been successful

Have they learned nothing from the past?
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peter scott



Joined: 18 Dec 2007
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 19, 2018 10:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Toyota are not the only manufacturer making hydrogen cars.
The HyFive Project is a scheme designed to bring hydrogen-fuelled vehicles to Europe, with Honda, Toyota, Daimler, BMW and Hyundai all supporting this initiative.

Peter
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Ray White



Joined: 02 Dec 2014
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 19, 2018 11:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

It kind of reminds me of the VHS vs Beta Max scenario. Shocked
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MVPeters



Joined: 28 Aug 2008
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Location: Northern MA, USA

PostPosted: Thu Sep 20, 2018 12:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ray White wrote:
It kind of reminds me of the VHS vs Beta Max scenario. Shocked


I have about 700 original movies on BETAMAX US NTSC tapes.

Suggestions what to do with them are welcome - on diskette, please.
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Ray White



Joined: 02 Dec 2014
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Location: Derby

PostPosted: Thu Sep 20, 2018 12:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Does anyone remember the "ADAM family computer". It used cassette tapes and was going to transform our lives. Rolling Eyes

Mine would probably be worth a fortune now,,,to a museum. Razz
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MikeEdwards



Joined: 25 May 2011
Posts: 2466
Location: South Cheshire

PostPosted: Thu Sep 20, 2018 10:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ray White wrote:
Does anyone remember the "ADAM family computer". It used cassette tapes and was going to transform our lives. Rolling Eyes

Mine would probably be worth a fortune now,,,to a museum. Razz


Made by "Coleco", IIRC. Sadly a lot of these things are of minority interest only - a chap I used to work with had quite a lot of such things that he'd collected, and I think he donated a lot of them to the museum at Bletchley. I'm not sure how pleased they were. I've still got my UK101 in the loft somewhere. I recall an early attempt at a standard, known as "MSX", which tried to remove the incompatibilities between the different makes (and models, sometimes) of home computer that couldn't share software. The biggest trouble is that it was, perhaps inevitably, quite a low standard, so it didn't get as much of a following as the instigators would have liked.

As for the deadline dates, I suspect the intention of those is to focus development. All the time people talk about how it would be nice to use something other than ICE to power vehicles, it remains an interesting thing to mess around with, but as soon as various countries start to impose deadlines, then it focusses attention on having to get something working by then. A deadline can be moved if necessary. It also focusses attention on charging technology, with stuff like inductive charging panels in roads being discussed.

My own concern with electric vehicles is where the power will come from. Every year, around this time, we get stories in the papers about how we can expect rolling power cuts because we don't have the capacity to generate enough electricity, so it seems strange that we'd then add a lot more potential load in the form of electric cars. And the green argument - that electric cars are much kinder to the environment - is all very nice, but all it does is shift the unpleasantness to the power station. So those people who drive electric cars can be smug about not causing any emissions, because they can forget about what happens in order to get the power to them.

But any discussion of this stuff wanders disturbingly close to a political discussion, and I don't "do" politics.
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Ray White



Joined: 02 Dec 2014
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Location: Derby

PostPosted: Thu Sep 20, 2018 11:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

If we look at the options that Veteran, Vintage and Classic car owners are faced with the electric option is not really practical or desirable. I think it would be an automotive version of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. We already have a practical answer if petrol becomes scarce and that is LPG. It really is a shame that this low emission fuel is dismissed in favour of zero for all vehicles. It would be possible for the average mechanically minded owner to do their own conversion and quite a good business opportunity would arise for making various LPG tanks to replace petrol tanks. ( I may be wrong, but I think it is only fuel injected vehicles that require a qualified person to do the conversion.)

As an aside, I remember my Dad telling me about a friend of his who converted his Opel to all electric during WW2. He replaced the engine with a big electric motor and placed batteries from behind the front seats through to the boot. Apparently it had a range of 40 miles which got him from his home to work and back.( I don't recall how he coped with charging the batteries.)
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peter scott



Joined: 18 Dec 2007
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Location: Edinburgh

PostPosted: Thu Sep 20, 2018 11:22 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

MikeEdwards wrote:


My own concern with electric vehicles is where the power will come from.


The point is that we only have one power source and that is our sun. To date we have been largely using fossil fuels that have stored the sun's energy for us but it is generally agreed that continuing to use this source will drastically alter our climate.

The alternatives are nuclear energy or electrical energy derived directly from wind, wave, tidal or photo-voltaic. Electricity is very convenient for translating one form of energy to another and transmission but it is not so convenient to store as other forms.

We are well aware of the problems with nuclear fission and we are still waiting for fusion so the only sources left to us are the "tree hugger" ones.

If we agree that battery storage is less satisfactory than running vehicles on fossil fuels then the obvious answer is to store the energy as hydrogen. It may not be terribly efficient since a proportion is required to pressurise it for convenient storage but at least we know how to generate it and it has all the advantages of fossil fuel and because we can store it we can exploit the "tree hugger" sources whenever they are available. They don't have to available just when we need them.

Peter
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roverdriver



Joined: 18 Oct 2008
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 21, 2018 8:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Why would one even think about such a change?

If one wishes to consider environmental damage, then the mining of rare earths for the electric motor components and for batteries etc., is horribly destructive of land as well as the risk to the lives of the miner (many of whom are minors)

The financial cost of a change would far outweigh the slight advantages even if looked at with the proverbial rose-coloured. The so-called renewable energy that is strongly touted, with the exception of hydro-electricity, is created by non-renewable equipment that depends on those same rare earths.

While fossil fuels are not going to last forever, more are being discovered all of the time, plus new ways of extracting them to make them available. The planet will not run out of coal, gas or oil for very many decades to come. Changing all of the world's road vehicles to electric, even if it was feasable, has been calculated to reduce the earth's temperature by 0.0001 of a degree.
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