Exactly. Even if the Leaf had been run from full on the show they would have still run it flat. This is a total non-story.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark
Printable View
Exactly. Even if the Leaf had been run from full on the show they would have still run it flat. This is a total non-story.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark
And the biggest bit I picked up was that where ever they were when he was down to about a dozenish miles of range that the nearest official charging point, as picked up by the Nissan's Sat-Nav was about 35 & then 75 miles away.
The local council office wasn't any help in finding once closer either.
He also said that he really quite liked the car - well built, comfortable, well equipped etc but until the range / durability / lifetime of the batteries used improved then there were other cars that were "better."
In fact James May commented on driving efficiently because recharging will take so long. I don't remember any specific complaints about the range on full charge. I do wonder if Nissan actually watched the feature.
Yes, the point was that it took ages to recharge, but if they'd been like normal people and actually fully charged the cars then they wouldn't have run out so soon. Even Fifth Gear managed to have an electric car segment without being bellendtastic and they also showed how long it took to charge the car.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark
Yoink! I am shamelessly stealing the phrase 'bellendtastic'.Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel
From the Top Gear website:Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel
Transmission
So yes, when we set off, we knew we would have to recharge at some point, because that was an experience we wanted to devote part of the film to. Now granted, James and Jeremy’s stopover – which included brass rubbings, adult scrabble and tattoos – was more knockabout than an average motorist would experience, but the consumer points coming out of the film were quite clear:
1) Electric cars are still very expensive.
2) The recharging infrastructure is patchy.
3) The range readout varies enormously, unlike the information given by a petrol gauge.
4) The Leaf is a very good car per se, and there’s nothing wrong with electric motors, but the battery, in our view, remains the Achilles’ heel of the whole package.
I think that that's all fairly reasonable.
Misrepresentation is a a false statement of fact; that was never done. Nissan may have come out of it looking badly, but the big picture point that as it stands owning an electric car is not as viable as it could be is still perfectly valid.
Why didn't they just drive into a wall, die and then claim that electric cars are unsafe?Quote:
Originally Posted by Rollo
I know where you're coming from, but to set out with only 40% power is moronic
Why go out in a car which takes AAAAAAGES to refuel with only 40% charge?Quote:
However, Nissan has responded by saying that a telematics device sent to the car company showed that the battery was only 40 per cent charged when Clarkson set off on his journey.
I'm guessing you missed this Daniel.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark
It's called hooning.Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptainRaiden
Supercars aren't competing in the Harrods Grand Prix aiming for lap times.
Errr, that was the point of the electric car test. Captain Slow - aptly enough - made the point of having an electric car will make you change the way you drive.Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel
I fail to see why people don't get it. Why would anyone in their right mind set out on a short journey that the car would be able to do on one charge with only 40% of power knowing full well that they'd have to stop and charge for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours in the middle. It's daft and whilst it might satisfy people with single digit IQ's, the BBC should be doing a bit better when doing what would appear to most people to be a factual real world review. What kind of moron takes an electric car on an x mile drive when it's got less juice than is needed to get to the destination or a refuelling point? It is idiotic and was done purely to paint electric vehicles in a needlessly bad light.
Sadly Fifth Gear did a MUCH better job of it, all without doing anything which you or I would do.
[youtube]2lNPWwPopRQ[/youtube]
Sigh.... Point missed entirely.
Not to be funny, but everyone knows that electric cars take ages to recharge, it says it on the spec sheets. Did someone really need to intentionally go out in a car that was low on juice to illustrate that?Quote:
Originally Posted by henners88
I'm sorry, but you're missing the point, when you see a test like that most people will assume that it's a real world test and it wasn't.
Consider this as a comparison: driving a petrol car for 10 miles, with 7 miles of juice will require a re-filling. This takes a few minutes at the nearest petrol station, of which there are many. Driving an electric car for 10 miles with 7 miles of charge will require hours of recharging. I think that this was the point they were trying to illustrate. Driving on full charge would not make this problem arise and so, they could not bring it to the viewers' attention. In the real world, human error must be considered.
An extra 60% of charge would have only got them an extra 66 miles. Regardless of misleading video(which I don't think is actually as big an issue as is being made out) that's a **** range. It's a shame that Top Gear have done something which has taken away from the fact that electric cars are still not viable for the majority of the UK. 30% 10% or 100% the fact is that a 110 miles range (when driven carefully) is shocking. Likewise an 11 hour charge is shocking. And the price is shocking, especially for that basic spec Pug.
Incidentally the Times didn't run with the anti-TG story, instead they did a piece about replacing the battery and how much it costs.....only it's difficult to find out because Nissan don't really like to share that information. Now which is worse, showing an electric car running out of juice or not telling people the truth when they spend £30,000 on one of your cars?
I think starting from a 40% charge actually demonstrates the real world far better. How many of us have a full tank right now? As it goes, I'm on the red as I have no intention of driving until tomorrow, but, if I had an emergency and I needed the car, I could replenish my fuel supply in a few seconds, whereas the electric...well, nuff said. It simply is not viable, and TG highlighted that. If thats not consumer advice I don't know what is.
So if you had an electric car and you were planning to go on a trip on a Saturday which was lets say 70% of the range of the car, you'd happily go out with 40% charge and not bother charging it on Friday night? :confused:Quote:
Originally Posted by Sonic
If you watch the Fifth Gear clip, Robert Llewellyn tells you what real world electric car owners do when it comes to driving distances......
They realise that they're idiots and bought electric too soon, so sell the car at a hugely depreciated price and buy a diesel?Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel
Electric doesn't work in most real world situations, it's as simple as that.
Nope. But what about the unplanned trips Daniel? You come home with let's say 15% in the tank and plug in for the commute tomorrow. You then have to go out unexpectedly 2 hours later. The car has 30% odd charge and is not enough for the journey.Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel
This is the real world, and the electric car is not ready for it. TG have (with their usual humour) pointed this out.
Why not watch the Fifth gear clip before saying something silly.Quote:
Originally Posted by barryfullalove
In a city like London most people could get away quite happily with an electric car. Heck I've got a commute which is 40 miles each way and in theory I could run an electric car. Now of course I won't because of the cost and the fact that it's simply not cost effective now. But as always someone needs to be the first and technology always gets better and better. Heck in the early days cars were worse than horse drawn carriages, but look at things now.
I've always maintained that the future is battery change stations where they just swap a new pack in rather than charging them which takes ages. The technology for battery change stations is around now, all that's needed is enough cars to justify the stations and of course standardisation of batteries. How many of you would really say no to an electric car if you could just swap the battery pack out like this?
Better Place Unveils an Electric Car Battery Swap Station | Autopia | Wired.com
[youtube]KKA4GhVn0a4[/youtube]
I'm not saying that electric isn't the future, I'm saying that it isn't the present. Without a bigger range, a better battery life and cheaper cost it isn't going to work. And to my mind speccing out a car and charging £30k isn't the way to improve, that would be better done by having low spec cars and working on range/battery life first.
And I won't watch anything with Robert whatshischops since he had a rant about TG doing something about hydrogen cars. It wasn't the point he was making but the fact that he came across like a really unpleasant guy. He looked like a twat...on coke, and for that reason I dislike him and anything he's in.
I certainly do agree that the electric car is viable should certain conditions be met
approx. 250 mile range on a full charge. You could get away with less but this is a realistic minimum to not have to worry about range.
A battery lease model, you don't actually own the batteries but lease them such that would allow them to be swapped in a reasonably quick manner for fully charged ones.
Where swapping is not possible allow for quick charging in no more than 20 minutes.
The fact that the developed world already has an excellent electricity distribution system which should mean setting things up is a simpler job than setting up petrol distribution was but still a massive undertaking.
All sounds peachy until you ask yourself where the juice is gonna come from? The national grid is hardly blessed with a huge surplus of power, so if we all switch to e cars, where is the power for millions of cars on charge each night?
Just because he had a rant everything he says is irrelevant? :dozey: He was also right, because Top Gear said that the Hydrogen car was the future and said that the Tesla was too expensive when hydrogen cars are so expensive now that virtually no one can afford them.Quote:
Originally Posted by barryfullalove
He might be carrying on like a tit, but tell me the fault in his reasoning
[youtube]LPi8EhT_fYA[/youtube]
The fact of the matter is that if Top Gear had done what you and I would have done and plugged the car in the night before, they would have got to their destination. That is the long and short of it. I agree that electric cars aren't for everyone at the moment and it'll be a long time till they are for everyone, but there's no need to artificially set a car up for a fall......
Well I'm a firm believer in nucular (sic). Nuclear would easily satisfy the demand.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sonic
A very good point indeed. We are already facing a very serious energy crisis as it is which successive governments have failed to face up to instead indulging in platitudes about renewables and efficiency and ignoring the fundamental issues.
Agreed. Sadly the stigma of nuclear power has put people off. If Fukushima killed 100 times the amount of people it will kill with slightly elevated levels of cancer it'd probably still be better than coal power generation. People seem to wilfully ignore the fact that burning coal releases FAR more radioactivity than nuclear power generation does.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark
I agree, but who's gonna pay?Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel
I'm not sure I understand that question?Quote:
Originally Posted by Sonic
Well, we have several nuke plants due for decommissioning. As I understand it, there are plans to replace those, but many more would be needed to power all the cars on the road. Getting the finance in place to pay for the replacement plants is tricky enough so where will the money come from to pay for the additional plants?Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel
Again the answer is so easy that I'm not sure I understand the question.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sonic
Of course it'll be you or I that pays the bill. Do you honestly think that the price of petrol/dismal is going to go down anytime soon or we will suddenly discover infinite reserves of it to power our cars for many generations to come? Whilst I certainly won't be buying an electric car anytime soon, there will come a day when a petrol or diesel car is simply too expensive to run as anything more than a weekend plaything. The thing with nuclear is that if people weren't such dimwits, we'd have built more plants already and we'd be reaping the rewards of nuclear which is less airborne pollution, cheaper electricity and less radiation being released into the atmosphere.
Not at all. I just said that I don't like watching stuff with him in it because he's a knobend.Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel
Then they would have picked a destination 115 miles away. Because the point of the film was not to actually tear down electric cars per se, it was to highlight the fact that they aren't practical because of a lack of charging points and a lengthy charging time. It's a shame that there has been so much drama about the 'misleading' nature of the film, rather than the media talking about actual point.Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel
and then it would have been a fair test :) I'm sorry, but there's a reason why the media are making a bit of a fuss and why Nissan are kicking up a stink too.Quote:
Originally Posted by barryfullalove
I definitely agree that electric cars aren't ready for widespread use right now, but a lot of people do seem to use them with a minimum of fuss, they seem very much a commute/shopping car, rather than something you can do distances in.
Tbh Caroline could happily use an electric car, her drive to work is only about a mile and the shops are only 5 miles away. But then of course with such small distances and not much traffic, she can afford to run a thirsty car and we're not talking loads of money. But then due to such small distances the saving of having an electric car would be very small! :D
Nissan should keep their mouths shut, the fewer people that know their car costs £30k and can only do 110 miles at a time the better. This is a non-event, the media shouldn't even be covering this. TG didn't lie, they slightly misled, yet this story gets more exposure in newspapers than far more important stuff, that's not right.Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel
The leaf is a technological showcase it's not for the mass market......Quote:
Originally Posted by barryfullalove
In the film they didn't say where they'd started from or what the charge level was. We joined them when the batteries were running down. The charge levels at the start of the test are completely irrelevant.
POW! discussion over. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark
So Top Gear driving the car around till it ran out of charge is OK? :confused:Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark
I'm sorry, but they manufactured the whole deal with the car running out of charge.Quote:
But Nissan executive vice president Andy Palmer, in an interview with the U.K. newspaper The Times, said “Top Gear” made the whole thing up. Data from the car, automatically sent to Nissan, showed the car had only a 40 percent charge on its battery when Clarkson began his trip, although the car had been delivered to “Top Gear” with a full charge. Palmer also pointed out that the data showed the Leaf had been driven in circles around Lincoln until the battery went dead.
To intentionally run the battery down to the point where if you set off for your destination you certainly wouldn't reach a charging point is stupid. I'm sorry but that's not real world use, it's the way an idiot would use the car.
I disagree :pQuote:
Originally Posted by henners88
Lets have Top Gear testing supercars and showing how they need to replace the tyres after one heavy track session at a grand all round. How about showing how uncomfortable it is trying to get in and out of one.Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel
Instead of testing the new McLaren around the Top Gear track why didn't they show how good it is for going to the supermarket with the wife and kids and doing the week's shopping?
All vehicles have disadvantages, Top Gear always focuses on the disadvantages of certain ones they (or rather Clarkson) dislike. Electric cars are one, motorbikes are another.
Electric cars currently don't have that great a range although that is expected to increase, but it is more than enough for town use. Why have every review of an electric car marred by a 'ran out of charge' gag?