It's Gone!

Last Thursday I finally passed the iOn on to the next person at work to have it and I have to say I was a little bit sad to see it go. I had become quite attached the the little "bean on wheels". So I'm back in the old fossil burner with it's complicated gears, clutch and smelly exhaust. I've only stalled it twelve or so times so far and I still can't get out of the habit of pressing the break in when I start it up. But there are several questions left to answer (several of which have been asked by my far too clever friend Gilli who has a proper "geet posh and that" website here: http://www.gillianharrison.moonfruit.com/ ) which I will now attempt to answer:


1) Would I buy a Peugeot iOn? Simple answer - no. Forgetting that it is an electric car for a moment, just looking at it as a car it isn't really all that good. It made me seasick on the country roads, it's hard to control in high winds, the interior is plastic-y and although it isn't unpleasant, for the money you are paying Peugeot should be splashing out a little bit and making it plush not just bearable. As an electric car the iOn doesn't really fit my needs either. It's range of just over 70 miles just isn't quite long enough as proved on the fateful range anxiety night with my brother and the tortoise light night with Chris. If it had the 30 extra miles the Nissan Leaf has I think it might be a different story but that is the answer to a different question.

2) Under what circumstances do I think an iOn would work? It would be a brilliant second car for a family or for say, a retired couple. Take my parents for example, they have two cars: a "big" Mazda which is my dad's car that they use the most and they have a little Nissan Note which my mam uses for basically knocking about town. If they have to go any great distance they use the Mazda. Now does my mam ever drive more than 70 miles in a day in the Note? Very rarely I would say, so the iOn would be great for her. She'd save a fortune on fuel, tax and possibly maintenance costs. My dad made an observation though that if people like them bought an electric car it would make sense to try and use it as much as possible and use the petrol/diesel car as little as possible to save as much money as you could. If you do this though you could find yourself just wondering why you need that big fossil burner sitting on the drive depreciating. It may come to the point that you just get rid of it and if you need/want to go for a long drive you could hire a car or join a car club and get use of one. You see how it doesn't take long to start changing the way you look at your personal transport?

3) Would I buy an electric car of any sort? Hmm, that is a harder question to answer. I would seriously consider it but I would have to do some very careful maths to see if I actually would be any better off. The main barrier is the simple price of the cars at the moment. They are so very expensive. I'm also not sure if they fit my particular lifestyle very well. There are two things I wish I could try. Firstly I'd like to see if the extra 30 miles you get on a Leaf makes a difference. It would have on the evening mentioned above but overall does it make much difference? Secondly I didn't have a fast charger with the iOn so I was unable to take it for a proper long ride because I'd be interesting how the "drive for 70 miles, stop, plug it in, have a coffee, drive for another 56 miles (80% of 70), stop, plug it in, have a coffee..." type trip would have been like. My instinct says that my next car should be a diesel but as I say I wouldn't discount electric out of hand, especially if and when the prices come down.

4) Do I think electric cars are the "answer"? No I don't. But hang on...I think they can be part of the answer. For some reason we humans like to think of these things as either/or scenarios all the time when really there should be choice and plurality. For some reason people think we need to plump for electric, hydrogen or "no change". No change isn't an option as much as the oil lobby would like us to believe it is, but having said that we will never get rid of all the petrol/diesel cars off our roads because some people will always want them for the same reason people want classic cars now. And there's nothing wrong with that. Equally hydrogen is coming but it will cost the nation a fortune one way or another to set up the infrastructure for it. I also question how quickly you will be able to convince the public how safe and easy it is to be putting hydrogen into their cars. I'm sure people like Top Gear will be more than happy to show pictures of the Hindenburg while they test the first mass produced hydrogen car and then pretend the car blew up. That's what you're up against. In my mind the future should be hydrogen fuel cell cars for the people for which they work, electric cars for the other people for which they work and petrol cars for others who want them. I bet we don't get it though. Call me a pessimist but I bet we are made to choose. And I bet we go for the stupidest option.

4) Any other observations? I'd love to try a Leaf for a month. Nissan? Hmm? And I find the Vauxhall/Opel Ampera / Chevrolet Volt an interesting concept. For those of you not in the know they are GM's upcoming "extended range" electric cars. They have a battery with a 30 or 40 mile range and they also have a 1.3L petrol engine in the front but this doesn't drive the wheels directly, it kicks in and works purely as a generator supplying the motors when the battery runs out. At first I thought that it sounded like a brilliant idea but on reflection I wonder do you really need to be crying the weight of that big heavy lump of an engine and the petrol to power it all the time? Why not just use that space for more batteries? Again, I'd love to see just how it works in real life.

Anyway, that's it. It's been fun and very interesting. Please comment as much as you like on anything I've said and I need ideas for what I'm going to use this blog for now. It'd be a shame just to leave it! I never did change anything about the way it looked did I? I'm such a lazy git!