Motoring Car of the Year 2011 - Nissan Leaf

[Ormorof]

Nissan Leaf wins COTY 2011 - Autocar.co.uk

first electric car to win it

 

[rynnor]

Shows how meaningless just judging a car on short term performance is - theres a lack of places to charge it, the batteries are hideously expensive and have a short life deteriorating from when you buy it, it costs far more than anything comparable even with 5k back from the public purse, if it breaks down very few know how to fix it (so have fun with the AA etc), batteries hate the cold etc. etc.

Its a car for people with too much money and a second car ready.

 

[Raven]

Have to say I agree. Electric cars in their current form are terrible. The battery life isn't anywhere near long enough to make them better for the environment than petrol. The cost (both financially and environmentally) to get the materials for the battery are huge, the cost of disposing of the battery after its short life span are huge and you are unlikely to find anywhere that isn't a "specialist" who will fix it at a reasonable price.

Utter waste of time designed for people who think they are saving the planet.

Besides which it looks shit.

 

[Wazzerphuk]

Hydrogen fuel cells are the future, electric cars are a total waste of time, they're a complete false solution to the problem of cutting emissions. We still have to generate the electricity for them so they're almost as bad.

 

[rynnor]

Hydrogen fuel cells are the future, electric cars are a total waste of time, they're a complete false solution to the problem of cutting emissions. We still have to generate the electricity for them so they're almost as bad.

I agree with you too an extent but even hydrogen isnt a great replacement for fossil fuels - its incredibly hard to store without it leaking away through even the best seals we can produce - not fun to leave your car for a week n come back to find half your fuel has leaked away...

Its clear that electric cars are not the solution - the best indicator for this is the investment of oil companies - they only back unviable projects that are no threat like biofuels and battery power.

We need a serious breakthrough to come up with a completely novel energy storage system or go for nuclear powered cars

 

[Ch3tan]

Nissan Leaf wins COTY 2011 - Autocar.co.uk

first electric car to win it

It won a pointless award for a pointless car.... yay \o/

 

[TdC]

I agree with you too an extent but even hydrogen isnt a great replacement for fossil fuels - its incredibly hard to store without it leaking away through even the best seals we can produce - not fun to leave your car for a week n come back to find half your fuel has leaked away...

h2o electrolysis on board the auto-mobile. it works!

 

[Ormorof]

its not exactly meant to be a "petrol car killer", its meant as a city car for short trips as a second car

and it pushes the focus of being "bad for the environment" from car makers to power suppliers, if they make a car that doesnt release any CO2 while its driving, the onus should then be on power companies to provide electricity in a way that reduces CO2 as much as possible (ie nuclear/wind/solar whatever)

the lack of places to charge depends on where you are, many EU countries theres already set up "fast charge" points, however the problem that i can see arising is compatability at charging stations as the range on these cars gets longer.

 

[Ch3tan]

its not exactly meant to be a "petrol car killer", its meant as a city car for short trips as a second car

and it pushes the focus of being "bad for the environment" from car makers to power suppliers, if they make a car that doesnt release any CO2 while its driving, the onus should then be on power companies to provide electricity in a way that reduces CO2 as much as possible (ie nuclear/wind/solar whatever)

the lack of places to charge depends on where you are, many EU countries theres already set up "fast charge" points, however the problem that i can see arising is compatability at charging stations as the range on these cars gets longer.

That is the biggest load of bollocks I have read for a long time. The cost of the car environmentally does not stop and start with the fuel type.

 

[Ormorof]

no of course not, the raw materials used, transport of said materials etc, but it has a big impact

 

[rynnor]

its not exactly meant to be a "petrol car killer", its meant as a city car for short trips as a second car

Theres your major problem - theres no way it can be anything other than bad for the environment when its just a toy car - it also exacerbates parking issues if people get pointless 2nd cars.

 

[Bodhi]

If you want to save the environment my suggestion would be to buy yourself a nice old BMW, and save all that CO2 made making a new car by simply running an old one.

For instance mine will quite happily do 38 MPG on a run, but will also go for 0-60 in 6.3 seconds and go on to 145mph, all in complete comfort. Sounds much better than some wanky wind up duracell powered thing.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Yey! Another green bullcrap thing to add on the list of endless green bullcrap things.

I wish this green thing would fade away already, think the people have been milked enough with it.

 

[Ch3tan]

no of course not, the raw materials used, transport of said materials etc, but it has a big impact

No it does not have a big impact. At all. That is the point. It creates more harm, and has been pointed out, is a dead end as far as a replacement fuel goes.

Bodhi is correct. And trust me, that is not a regular occurrence ;p

 

[old.Tohtori]

If you reaslly want to "save" the enviroment(which is bullcrap as you're only trying to save your own arse, with little effect), you would sell your car and get a bike.

No, NO! You can get up 2 hours earlier to make it to work in time if you're REAAALLY that special and saving the enviroment.

Microwave, gas stove. Those gotta go too.

TV? Uses electricity and you don't need it. Read a paper. No wait, not paper, hear it from a friend!

Lights? Bah, you can use candles. Just remember to use non-gas, non-fuel, non-wood lighting equipment.

Starting to sound uncomfortable yet?

How about shampoo and conditioner bottles? You're using wooden bottles ofcourse? No? Plastic?! Forshaaaaaame!!! You stop showering right now and send that water over to africa.

Oh i could go on

Hypocritical motherf*ckers.

 

[Bodhi]

Seriousy folks this isn't difficult to figure out. Look at it financially. 13k on a japanese peace bicycle, or...

2k on a 328i
2k in the bank in case it goes wrong
400 quid on a set of winter tyres
500 quid extra on a year's insurance
1k a year extra on fuel

You would have to keep the Nissan Bumleaf for about 127 years for it to work out cheaper, and the BM is an all round better way of getting from a to b.

Just not when it's snowing. And you have summer tyres on.

 

[inactionman]

It gets even worse when you look into the energy investment required to make so called green electric/hybrid cars! They actually take far more energy to manufacture than they allegedly save over a normal car. The only reason they don't cost more than a normal car is because of government subsidies.

Then you have to replace the batteries every 5 or so years (and these are one of the highest areas of energy cost to produce), plus the batteries weigh a ton, cutting efficiency.

An interesting development will be when they replace the batteries with supercapacitors, as they both weigh a lot less and charge a lot faster. The only problem is that ultra high density capacitors have this unfortunate tendancy to explode (and quite messily as they generate a fair amount of EMP in the process), but they are working on it.

The coolest tech I've seen in this area involves transmitting the power wirelessly using magnetic resonance. They'd initially use it for charging, but there's no reason why you couldn't eventually embed them at the sides of the roads, allowing you to drop the on-board power storage to a much smaller battery or ideally a supercapacitor. They are only looking at doing it for domestic appliances currently, but it should scale up.

 

[Ctuchik]

Shows how meaningless just judging a car on short term performance is - theres a lack of places to charge it, the batteries are hideously expensive and have a short life deteriorating from when you buy it, it costs far more than anything comparable even with 5k back from the public purse, if it breaks down very few know how to fix it (so have fun with the AA etc), batteries hate the cold etc. etc.

Its a car for people with too much money and a second car ready.

not to mention its WAY more hazardous to the environment then a V8 is as the power plants that produce the electricity isn't calculated in the "footprint"...