Just got a new car!

[mayfly]

This is not something that I do every day, but I did it today!  I got a new car!

Old car (series 4 VW Golf) is in the foreground, and the new car (Series 7 VW eGolf) is in the background.

Although the new car is filled with techno-gadgets (that I'm not a fan of), it has one advantage over the old car:  it uses electricity instead of gas. 

Yep! Electric Car! Call me a tree-hugger, eco-weenie, or whatnot.  But this new car is seriously quick.  Stepping on the go-fast pedal is almost like grabbing a big handful of throttle on your typical sport-bike:  it hauls!  :headbang:

 

[BigSteve22]

Call me a tree-hugger, eco-weenie.....

Consider it done! And congratulations on the new car! Much like a guitar, the only person that has to be happy is you! Enjoy it, and be safe.  :glasses9:

 

[PhilHill]

Hearty Congratulations on your new Battery powered Jitney. I tell you , this here new fangled E-Lectricity is going to revolutionize the World. I hear tell they even have Eeelectric powered Geetars now! Kin ya even imagine such a thing!  :headbang:

 

[Cagey]

Congrats on the new car! I haven't ridden in one yet, but I've heard the acceleration on those is pretty exciting, what with DC motors being so torquey. What I'd wonder about up there, as well as here in Michigan, is what effect the cold has on the batteries, and how much faster you'd discharge the thing having to run a heater much of the time. Electric heat is a real power drain.

 

[rgand]

Congratulations, THEW. When I was building machinery, I learned that electric motors develop full torque at all rpm. I've driven electric forklifts and they will snap your head back. Your car should be a hoot to drive.

 

[stratamania]

Congratulations on the new car.

I've not driven a VW electric but did have chance to try a Tesla, what struck me was how quiet it was and being aware of just tyre noise.  Do you plan to get some sort of solar panel set up for charging?

 

[Rick]

As a bicyclist (commute to work) I call the EV's the silent vehicles of death.

 

[PhilHill]

Ouch, but hey, a little spoke truing and it'll be fine. :laughing7:

 

[mayfly]

Not to worry - mine makes an engine noise (with a loudspeaker behind the bumper - I'm not kidding) to warn other road users. 

- having said that in my motorcycling days even an illegally loud exhaust (Hindle pipe and carbon fibre can - ROAR!) didn't prevent people/cars/bikes/whatever from crossing in front of me.

 

[mayfly]

Congratulations on the new car.

I've not driven a VW electric but did have chance to try a Tesla, what struck me was how quiet it was and being aware of just tyre noise.  Do you plan to get some sort of solar panel set up for charging?

No man - I've just got a level 2 charger on the house.  In my neck of the woods power is pretty cheap and pretty green (all hydro), so I can blast around town and be cheap and green at the same time!  :icon_thumright:

 

[stratamania]

Congratulations on the new car.

I've not driven a VW electric but did have chance to try a Tesla, what struck me was how quiet it was and being aware of just tyre noise.  Do you plan to get some sort of solar panel set up for charging?

No man - I've just got a level 2 charger on the house.  In my neck of the woods power is pretty cheap and pretty green (all hydro), so I can blast around town and be cheap and green at the same time!  :icon_thumright:

Very good, I might look into electric the next time I need to renew a car dependent on where I may be having to travel at the time.

 

[Rick]

How loud is that speaker?  Can it annoy the neighbors?

 

[mayfly]

How loud is that speaker?  Can it annoy the neighbors?

Sadly, no. 

Update - it would be cool if I could play my guitar through it...

 

[bagman67]

Trevor, you disappoint me.  A man with your electrical engineering chops could most definitely figure out how to get a weatherproofed EVM12L loudspeaker under the hood of that Golf and then blast away.

 

[DangerousR6]

I congratulate you on the car, it's always fun buying a new vehicle, and I'm a yuuuuuuuuuuuuuge VW fan. My first car was a VW Bug, just not a fan of electric, unfortunately it's well know that it cost more in energy to produce the batteries than the vehicle will ever save. And there's enough fossil fuel still in the ground to power us for hundreds of years. Yes, I'm not a tree hugger, sorry..

But if you're happy, I'm happy for you... :icon_thumright:

 

[BigSteve22]

Update - it would be cool if I could play my guitar through it...

What would be really cool, is if you could rig up some kind of modeler to make your VW sound like a Ferrari coming down the street! 

 

[mayfly]

I hear ya Doug!  A year ago I was thinking the same thing - the electric car would use up more carbon to build it than you would save running it.

But then I got serious and started reading literature.  I was looking for scientific research and raw battery production costs - didn't trust anything that the eco-weenies said.  Didn't trust anything that an oil company said either mind you.  I went directly for battery costs using my electronics experience and contacts.  When I got down to the bottom line, the numbers were:

• Gas car (golf): 5.6 tonnes of CO2 to produce
• Electric car (egolf): 7.5 tonnes of CO2 to produce (about 1.3 times the gas car)

that delta is all battery.  So yea - the battery takes carbon to make for sure.

Then I looked at the numbers to refine fuel, the numbers to make electricity in my part of the world, etc etc. and I looked at the consumption of fuel over the lifetime of the car (I used 10 years).  I had info from what it took to run the old car to help me there.  In the end, the egolf would use less than one third of the carbon that the gas one would, including what it took to make it.  This is for my use case, which is pretty low mileage (about 10,000 km/year); the spread would be greater for folks who drive more.

So, that sold me.  That and the thing is a little freaking rocket 

 

[DangerousR6]

Update - it would be cool if I could play my guitar through it...

What would be really cool, is if you could rig up some kind of modeler to make your VW sound like a Ferrari coming down the street! 

:laughing11:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NIAXUIQU-w[/youtube]

 

[DangerousR6]

I hear ya Doug!  A year ago I was thinking the same thing - the electric car would use up more carbon to build it than you would save running it.

But then I got serious and started reading literature.  I was looking for scientific research and raw battery production costs - didn't trust anything that the eco-weenies said.  Didn't trust anything that an oil company said either mind you.  I went directly for battery costs using my electronics experience and contacts.  When I got down to the bottom line, the numbers were:

• Gas car (golf): 5.6 tonnes of CO2 to produce
• Electric car (egolf): 7.5 tonnes of CO2 to produce (about 1.3 times the gas car)

that delta is all battery.  So yea - the battery takes carbon to make for sure.

Then I looked at the numbers to refine fuel, the numbers to make electricity in my part of the world, etc etc. and I looked at the consumption of fuel over the lifetime of the car (I used 10 years).  I had info from what it took to run the old car to help me there.  In the end, the egolf would use less than one third of he carbon that the gas one would, including what it took to make it.  This is for my use case, which is pretty low mileage (about 10,000 km/year); the spread would be greater for folks who drive more.

So, that sold me.  That and the thing is a little freaking rocket 

:icon_thumright:
Yes, the positive about electric power is that it's instantaneous...

If you get a chance check out Richard Hammonds show called "Big", first episode is about the VW plant in Germany...

 

[vetteman]

You should have the car play 'Flight of the Valkyries' all the time like you are an attack :glasses9: helicopter in Apocalypse Now!  Then those pesky bicyclists would get the heck out of the way!  :glasses9: