Electric Car

Some years ago, we purchased a 2001 Citroen Berlingo Electrique van to use for short journeys. Citroen produced a number of these vans between 1998 and 2005, but have stopped production. The van has a range of 50 to 60 miles, depending on your right foot, and a top speed of 60mph. If you would like to read more on the Berlingo, click here for another owners website.

After about three years of use some of the batteries started to fail. This was a common problem with this model. Another owner in Kenmare had two further Berlingo Electriques so we sold ours to him to cannibalise for parts.

Electric vehicles (EVs) have zero emissions, though of course there would be emissions associated with the production of their electricity. Even with conventional power generation, the power cycle is a lot more efficient than the internal combustion engine, which only manages to deliver an average of between 7% and 15% of the energy in its fuel tank into driving force on the car’s wheels. However, by charging electric cars at night, this facilitates the introduction of more wind energy to the grid, because there is a need to sell their production 24/7 – not just during the daytime.

Many car manufacturers produced some sort of prototype EVs, though they were only sold to fleet users and not for general sale. It seems that they prefer the complexity of hybrids and hydrogen fuel cells to the electric motor, which apparently needs too little maintenance. To read more on how General Motors insisted in scrapping its entire fleet of top-of-the-range EVs, see “Who Killed the Electric Car”

Youtube video

This is a youtube video that was prepared when Quentin was running in the 2007 General Election for the Green Party. But aside from the shameless political plug, it gives an idea of how the car runs. Click on the arrow to play the video…

Our second car is a 2003 Toyota Prius. Toyota has announced a new model which will have plug-in capability, which they claim combines the benefits of EVs and regular cars. See the launch below. EVs now are coming on the market from Mitsubishi and Nissan, with Renault soon to follow. So it looks like the EV day has finally dawned!