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Electric cars - Towing?

Grey13

Grey13

Branson on BBC Breakfast. By 2025 he would like all cars to be electric driven. I know that the main limiting factor with electric cars is battery power and that yes modern developments have improved it, but I am pretty sure, not enough for a car towing a van! I also know that a fellow South African Mr Musk, has done a lot of work on this (Tesla) but to date battery technology will not cope. Another point: can you imagine, busy bank holiday weekend - what the charging stations will look like at services? IMO All over-enthusiastic and far too early!

Will it be another - Everyone must buy diesel then 10 years later - everyone must get rid of diesel story.
 
If you read an earlier thread in the past 2 weeks on Outlander PHEV I posted a link to an article that shows how many large hybrids there are and also those in the pipeline too. These will/are capable of towing sizeable vans. But I agreee battery technology is a limiting factor for pure electric.
 
Was there some research into Hydrogen cells, what happened to that?
The only waste was water.
Think of all that pollution coursed as they charged the bank holiday traffic.
 
Yes as far back as mid 1980s I did some work with a Canadian (Ballard) who advocated hydrogen fuel cell and also tanks of hydrogen but adsorbed onto hydrides. Honda have a hydrogen fuel cell model but the limatstions are refuelling infrastructure. And either Honda or Toyota have a big development programme for hydrogen vehicles including how best to develop fuelling infrastructure.
 
Grey13 said:
Branson on BBC Breakfast. By 2025 he would like all cars to be electric driven. I know that the main limiting factor with electric cars is battery power and that yes modern developments have improved it, but I am pretty sure, not enough for a car towing a van! I also know that a fellow South African Mr Musk, has done a lot of work on this (Tesla) but to date battery technology will not cope. Another point: can you imagine, busy bank holiday weekend - what the charging stations will look like at services? IMO All over-enthusiastic and far too early!

Will it be another - Everyone must buy diesel then 10 years later - everyone must get rid of diesel story.
Click to expand...

Hello Grey,

I think you are being overly pessimistic. As OtherClive has pointed out there are already a modest selection of lager vehicles which offer towing prospects. And that number will continue to grow.

Presently there may be an issue with the number of charging points available at peak time, but just think about the number of times you pull into a fuel station and have to wait for a pump to become available. Now granted the wait for a charging point to become available may be longer, but it is the same principle. The number of public charging points will never be as many as the vehicles that might use them. Instead its more than likely you will have a private charge point at home, so you'll start your journey fully charged.

There is a vast amount of research being put into batteries, Preliminary results are suggesting there are alternative formulations that offer the prospect of even higher energy densities, which means grater range for the same physical size of battery, and lower self heating issues which is one of the limiting factors on how fast you can charge a battery. There are real prospects that future generation of batteries may be fully recharged in about 10 to 15Min, compared to the 40 to 60min of present systems.

Ev's are not going to be the universal solution, but there is little doubt they are going to become the biggest motoring sector in the UK by 2050 if not before.
 
I read an article in a caravannig magazine a couple of months ago about an experience with towing a caravan across Europe with a Tesla. The bottom line was, yes, with some restrictions it can be done. If I find the article when I'm back home (we're in Tuscany at the moment) I may be able to add some more details.
 
Lutz said:
I read an article in a caravannig magazine a couple of months ago about an experience with towing a caravan across Europe with a Tesla. The bottom line was, yes, with some restrictions it can be done. If I find the article when I'm back home (we're in Tuscany at the moment) I may be able to add some more details.
Click to expand...

I saw one of the large Tesla's really nail it yesterday as it left the 30mph zone, and its acceleration was amazing, and apart from tyre noise the absence of engine/exhaust noise was quite strange. In fact unless you were watching it you just would not have been aware of its presence. But I'd rather the growl of a petrol V8.
 
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