Wanted Big Lithium Batt Charger

My eldest John (Q) in Macclesfield has won first prize for his suggestion in an Eon energy innovation competition. The prize ... the use of a Mitsubishi electric car for 3 months FOC.
It has a 330 v Lithium battery and comes with a 5 m mains charging lead.
Volt /AH 12-0.9.
Emissions 0 grams/Km, Road Tax £0. Max Torque 180 NM (133 1b.ft at 0 -2000 RPM.
49 kw (66 BHP)
Read more about the car on the Mitsubishi web site.

http://www.mitsubishi-cars.co.uk/imiev/technology.aspx

Ok as a freebie prize but at a whisker under £24,000 or £239 a month on lease I think I'll stick with my Merc.

Congratulations to your son Paul. What was his suggestion?

I wouldn't mind a leccy car to play with. Well done to him

Allan Patrick wrote:Congratulations to your son Paul. What was his suggestion?

I wouldn't mind a leccy car to play with. Well done to him

I have an old Tamiya hornet in the garage somewhere, you can play with that if you want - and it doesn't need a small nuclear power station to recharge it either

Further News
Q Junior MK1 is awaiting his flat Property Manager agreeing with EON the installion of a charging point outside. EON are pushing to get this completed in time for the pre-arranged start date in early November.
If he comes to see us here, he'll have to stay overnight whilst it recharges enough to get back to Macclesfield.
Apparently, if you did want to lease hire one it is :-

i-MiEV Automatic (Electric)
6 months
initial payment
followed by
£239+VAT
per month
for 59 months

If this prize doesn't work out they will offer him an alternative.

Any suggestions ???

Aston Martin Vanquish or a Bugatti Veyron

Now approved, hire due to start 4 Nov.
Proviso:- The charging point to be dismantled at the end of the hire.

Maybe Eon will publicise and share the suggestion.

Well it arrived today and it's going out to Holmes Chapel tonight. (and hopefully back to Macclesfield later using the onboard satnav !)


I.ON Innovation Community have published the result :-
Our first prize winner is John Quinn, for his idea, "Lease Electric Vehicles through Employee Benefit Schemes." John will receive a free 3 month lease of a Mitsubishi i-MiEV electric car and home charging point.

Like the trailer

Meet Q Junior

https://youtu.be/9Sxca7DAlKE

Blimey Paul the apple didn't fall far from the tree with your son, the two of you are like peas in a pod.

Are you sure it wasn't a pic taken 40yrs ago of you

I like the car especially the colour & camera system, all that's lacking is 4 wheel drive & 300hp+ to power it

Nice one Paul, bet your made up with that

M

More adventures with the car

http://www.evdrive.wordpress.com

Blimeys - not exactly economical, green or practical is it.
"The first charge took 5.25 hours. As I have Smart Meters fitted it was interesting to see that the power drawn during the charging process stayed pretty much constant at over 3kW for the first few hours but during the last hour or so the power tapered off to about half the peak figure. I understand that this is typical for charging batteries of the type present in the i-MiEV. At the end of the charge the car estimated that a range of 54 miles is available. I’m going to keep a track of miles obtained for each charge and see whether this changes or not depending on different conditions.

IT depends how you define economical really. Based on an Electricty cost of 20p per kWh (most tarriffs will be cheaper than that too), then it costs about 3kw*5hrs = 15kWh * 20p = £3 to charge the vehicle. With that it seems that the typical range is about 60 miles or so.

Compare that to my car, which can do 60 miles on 4.5 litres of diesel if I drive normally, and that costs £1.40x4.5 = about £6.30 to do the same distance. So the leccy vehicle is less than half the "fuel" costs.

I'd put money on the fact that the electricity generated at a power station, is a damn sight more efficiently generated (and therefore "green") than the burning of diesel in my car, meaning that the "fuel" for the leccy car is more green than diesel as it uses a lot less per mile driven.

As for practical, then how is a car that can be fully charged overnight, lasts long enough to drive a good 95% of all journeys that most people make, and is comfortable, has room for luggage and passengers, not be practicable?

Andy

At the moment the charge lasts 7.5 hours and costs about £2 according to his demand gadget attached to his meter.

If it was plugged in via a white meter then £1 for 65+ miles -not bad

And No Road fund Tax to pay (my 1.9 TD costs £3 per week just in tax) No murderous emmission checks at the MOT either)

But there are NO charging points out there, well there's rumoured to be one going in at the garage at M56/A55 junction using a 3phase supply an charges in 55 minutes

There was a big splurge on the Welsh news last night that the Welsh Government are going ahead to get adequate charging points installed because they have stated they see electric cars as being the future and want to enable these things to happen.

I think leccy cars are very much in their infancy. 100+ years ago 'petrol' cars were at a stage when they were far far too expensive for the average person, fuel had to be ordered or bought from the chemist, roads were not tarmac, reliability was - er - not good and spares you made yourself or at the local blacksmith if you wanted it quickly. A toy for rich geeks. A horse and cart could do better and didn't need a red flag carried in front

To my mind electric vehicles are in a similar type of position. A different mindset is needed to refuelling and the capabilities and restrictions of electric power compared to conventional but then, twenty years ago, who would have wanted a mobile phone? It was the size of a breeze block, weighed more, cost the earth, dropped calls and needed a big charger

I would happily have one!

The 3 months free hire finished last Friday 3rd Feb when E.ON collected the car and dismantled the charging point.
He has used the car nearly every day commuting to work. (Macclesfield to Congleton) 9miles.
Also trips out in evenings and at weekends.

It has cost about £1.50 per 60 miles to run.
His week in Germany at work revealed charging points all over the works car park with many electric cars.
Generally, electric cars are a reality there.

The biggest snag here is that there are hardly any charging points out there and much more investment is needed to make electric cars a working reality.

Maybe you didn't see the latest part of the blog where John was able to comment with some authority about the rather distorted report produced by Top Gear about the cars they tested.
So here's the link again and it still being added too.
http://www.evdrive.wordpress.com

John Q has now logged each charge/discharge graphically.
Best results were obtained by a full charge from almost flat.
Recharging when partially charged was less succesful.
The results also show the corresponding Predicted Miles of the i-miev dashboard display.


Red Bar Miles Left
Blue Bar Miles
Black Bar Predicted Miles

(more about this on on the evdrive page)