Talk:Electric car/Archive 5

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Article size and history section

I trimmed the history section and some of the trim was reverted, which I reverted back noting wp:article size. If you have concerns or suggestions please list them here. All of the history should be available in the main history article. Thx, Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 14:54, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Careful here, it's not the markup size that counts (some referencing styles literally double the size of the article). What counts is text size, so I ran the text tool on the article:

Document statistics: (See here for details.)

   * File size: 57 kB
   * Prose size (including all HTML code): 63 kB
   * References (including all HTML code): 79 kB
   * Prose size (text only): 42 kB (6736 words) "readable prose size"
   * References (text only): 13 kB

The normal rule of thumb is that readable prose size should be less than 50k, and we're comfortably under that. So you're pruning an article that isn't too big.- Wolfkeeper 17:11, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

O.K. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 18:09, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Good points. EV history is a crucial element of this article and should remain as a substantial section. Ebikeguy (talk) 18:14, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

The article is not too long but I'd say the prototype/racing/enthusiasts bit is where I would trim it. Or you could explode history and the gallery into a separate article. That might work.Greglocock (talk) 23:13, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

History is already a separate long article. I was thinking of taking the gallery photos and spreading them through the article and deleting the gallery. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 01:35, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

More bosterism in the lead

"electric cars are expected to cause a revolution in the auto industry". Not really. Not in the next 10 years anyway. Typical predictions for EV market share in the next ten years are that less than 1% of the fleet will be EV by then eg http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/sep2009/gb20090917_962378.htm - Scarcely a revolution. Why do the editors of this article think that it needs to be a marketing tool for EVs?Greglocock (talk) 01:17, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

That article is dated. It mentions price as an isstue but, the Leaf's pricing has caught everyone by surprise after the article was printed. According to wp:lead the intro should contain the most interesting info.

"...explain why the subject is interesting or notable, and summarize the most important points—including any notable controversies..."

What is your definition of a revolution? Here is an example where it is used in the automotive industry[1]. You have Ford, Nissan, and the U.S. President predicting major change ahead. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 02:01, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

A clause like that should be clarified. Who expects the cars to cause a revolution? What kind of revolution? A reference is great, but a blanket statement like that does not seem encylopedic to me. Ebikeguy (talk) 20:29, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

They didn't use the word revolution in the references, so I watered it down a bit.- Wolfkeeper 20:37, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Mind if we change your language to "have a significant impact"? Ebikeguy (talk) 22:30, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Seems fine.- Wolfkeeper 22:51, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I have the following links to back up further the major impact statement. I'm wondering if I should add them, don't add them, or do something else. What do you think?

Japan: 50% of cars to be either hybrids or electric vehicles by 2020 - http://green.autoblog.com/2010/04/20/japanese-ministry-of-economy-wants-hybrids-and-electrics-to-acco/
Chrysler: Half of all cars to electric by 2020 - http://green.autoblog.com/2008/09/29/chrysler-half-of-all-cars-electric-by-2020/
China Vies to Be World’s Leader in Electric Cars - http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/02/business/global/02electric.html
France: installation of charging sockets obligatory in office parking lots by 2015, and new apartment blocks with parking lots will have to include charging stations starting in 2012 - http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125439947906756021.html?mod=rss_whats_news_us

Thanks, Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 23:38, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Those look great to me! Thanks for digging. Ebikeguy (talk) 19:22, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Editorial suggestions

Our readers are probably interested in the following aspects of electric cars:

how cheap they are to run, compared with fossil-fuel cars (including hybrids)
how clean they are
1. in terms of "tail-pipe emissions"
2. in terms of lowering total pollution
they are quieter
performance issues, like torque, gears, acceleration, etc.

Other exciting developments would be campaigns by private citizens, organizations, governments and companies to promote electric cars.

There is also legislation in the US to "count" electric car production as "zero-emission" in terms of quotas (like first 200,000 cars produced?) - and the related issue of "pollution at the generating plant vs. pollution at the tailpipe".

If it were up to me, I would start with how they work, how clean they are (with a sidebar on electricity generation at the power station, with "centralized" emmissions), and how much they cost to run.

Is it really 1 or 2 cents per mile, compared to 20 cents or more for internal combustion?

Then I'd write about performance and noise.

They are much quieter and many have higher acceleration or torque

The balance of the article would be about government and other programs to promote them, along with any resistance.

Did GM really buy back and destroy a bunch of electric cars?

Just my 2 cents, not planning any radical unilateral changes any time soon. --Uncle Ed (talk) 17:36, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Agree. :-) Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 18:51, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

An encyclopedia article is supposed to cover all aspects of the topic, not necessarily to be useful to the readers.- Wolfkeeper 20:39, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Chevy Volt

There is this little company called GM that is making a car called the Volt. GEE?????? Maybe they should be on the list of highway electric cars??????? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.192.40.227 (talk) 02:20, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Our questionable friend raises a good point. The list of manufacturers should only include those from whom you can actually buy an electric car. Not GM, for example. Greglocock (talk) 03:04, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

I guess the Volt is an electric car, it's moved by an electric motor. But it's also a plug-in hybrid (and thus a battery electric vehicle) and a series hybrid. Perhaps this article could have a section on #Extending range that mentions "various approaches to extending range are fast DC charge, battery swap, on-board generator (thus a series hybrid like the Chevrolet Volt, etc.)". Tricky how to fit it in. -- Skierpage (talk) 01:23, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

If people want to learn about hybrid, they should go to the hybrid article. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 20:15, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

History spread throughout, I propose a "CARB Era" section

Hi, in revising the #Charging section I've noticed problems with this article. The section talks about late 1990s-early 2000s innovations like Magne Charge, lists random abandoned inductive charging approaches, etc. But that's all historical and not relevant to 2011 vehicles on the verge of mass production. Similarly, other article sections talk about NiMH batteries, RAV4 EV lifespan, etc.

I think the #History section needs a subsection for the "CARB era", it's clearly separable form the current #"1990s to present: Revival of mass interest" which is misleading in its omission of the watering down of the ZEV mandate and large manufacturers ending EV production. This subsection would

summarize the shifting mandates from the California Air Resources Board
point out the regulations and standards that CARB adopted that are still with us today: the level 1/2/3 charging terminology, SAE J1772 connector, electrical code for vehicles, etc.
list the vehicles and concept cars produced primarily to meet the mandate
mention the infrastructure developed like public charging stations and Magne Charge

Over time we can move and condense other remarks about 1990-2002 EVs in this section. (We should be cautious about jumping the gun — the Tesla Roadster remains the only highway-speed BEV in the USA.)

I hope to create such a subsection shortly. But surely it already exists somewhere in Wikipedia? I'm surprised there's no detailed mention of CARB's work and the automakers' response in the California Air Resources Board article. Who Killed the Electric Car? mentions the 1990 ZEV mandate but I can't find an actual description of it.

-- Skierpage (talk) 01:01, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

D'oh!, History of the electric vehicle#1990s to present: Revival of mass interest has more history. I'll look to move information there and I think the history section here should be greatly slimmed down, and I maintain both need a "CARB era" subsection. -- Skierpage (talk) 04:11, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

My personal opinion is that the history section is to big and more should be moved to the main history article. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 20:17, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Dr Wolfgang Lohbeck ‘Transport Thinker’ for Greenpeace Germany condemns electric cars in BBC Radio Interview

BBC Radio 4 ‘Electric Ride’ Programme 3 of 4. Broadcast 3 July 2010.

In which Peter Curran and his producer drove 4500 miles across Europe in a Th!nk electric car.

Interview in Hannover with Dr Wolfgang Lohbeck ‘Transport Thinker’ for Greenpeace Germany.

Q. Are you throwing your hands up in the air with joy to see us pull up in a battery powered vehicle?

A. Not really! This was my sort of behaviour maybe a year of two ago, when I was like many other people was very optimistic or euphoric about cars running on no gasoline, but looking into the issues, of course, shows you a lot of problems.

Q. Why do you think then that battery powered vehicles are not really the future?

A. I can’t charge my car from a wind turbine, I have to charge it from the socket, so this consumes almost double the energy and it produces one and a half to double the CO2 today. This may change over time when the grid de-carbonises. This may be better in twenty years.

Q. You mean double the energy an internal combustion engine would use?

A. Yes, double the energy. I think the ideology of electrifying all these stupid heavyweight cars is the wrong way, and that’s what the car producers, especially the German ones, want to achieve.

Q. What’s the alternative in that case?

A. Smaller cars, smaller consumption, lower performance, until these sort of cars are really affordable for normal people, and this is now the point: These cars won’t be affordable for anybody, and I think we are here to discuss mass mobility, and not some singular issues for some ecologists, who can afford to buy a car which costs three times the price, which has a range of only – let’s call it limited. So Why?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/electric-ride/map/ http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.greenpeace.de%2Fauthor%2Fwlohbeck%2F&sl=de&tl=en http://www.autoweek.com/article/20100517/FREE/100519881

Dr Wolfgang Lohbeck was a part of the Greenpeace Germany team that jointly developed and promoted hydrocarbon refrigerant technology to replace CFCs in the early 1990s with a former East German company, in the face of strong opposition from industry. http://www.greenpeace.org/china/en/press/release/f-gas-news

This wikipedia article appears to be far from neutral and balanced - In the Greenpeace Blog (Google translation) Lohbeck critisizes:

But first to the obviously highly controversial comparison of CO2 levels of e-cars with conventional cars. Again and again it is stated, also already had electric cars CO2-efficient than conventional cars. This is clearly wrong.

All comparisons that come to this conclusion based on comparisons between "apples and oranges" - that is, between small electric "city-mobile" and ordinary cars, for example, the compact class. They are - by the omission of important parameters - some of them openly manipulative.

This wikipedia article is better than it used to be when I first made referenced contribution from the EPA and US Dept. of Energy about grid efficiency, about 18 months ago I think it was, it was simply repeatedly deleted, in favour of a reference that used a 1970s American V8 as comparison to current electric cars.

If you are interested in electric cars you should be an environmentalist and not just interested in the cars for their own sake. If you are an environmentalist you have to be interested in efficiency - Because real efficiency reduces CO2 emissions, which is the single most important environmental issue today. This Article still does not live up to the policies and aspirations of Wikipedia.

85.119.112.154 (talk) 14:28, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

People are here for different reasons. I don't care too much about CO2 emissions, I care more about city pollution. If the Germans care so much about CO2 they should stop burning coal and go nuclear. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 17:47, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

One point is that the grids of different countries use different amounts of CO2. In the UK we use a lot of natural gas, and that's relatively low carbon, and we're using more and more wind in the UK, something the UK is well placed to exploit. In France, they use a lot of nuclear, and so on. The perspective of a German would be different again- IRC their grid is high carbon. But the point he makes about decarbonising grids is quite important, there are advantages to using electric cars, because they can use any convenient mix of energy sources.- Wolfkeeper 14:30, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Dropped Categories?

Why were many categories just dropped from this article? The categories which were dropped seemed entirely appropriate to me. Thanks, Ebikeguy (talk) 17:12, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

The article was heavily overcategorized. Electric car is categorized as a main article in the Category:Electric cars, which is a subcategory of Category:Electric vehicles and Category:Green automobiles. Category:Green automobiles is a subcategory of Category:Green vehicles. Category:Green vehicles is a subcategory of Category:Sustainable transport, which is a subcategory of Category:Sustainable technologies. Per WP:CAT you don't include parent categories if more precise subcategory exists and these parent categories were dropped. Beagel (talk) 17:24, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Reason for deletion of material

First paragraph removed due to proof of concept http://www.ubcecc.com/blog/. 650KM without a charge. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.81.42.53 (talk) 11:01, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

"Concepts" are okay for some other section perhaps. This pertains to cars available. All concepts are wonderful and do everything that is wanted. Trouble is getting them manufactured and getting people to buy them without huge subsidies from the government.

Also, blogs are not considered WP:RELY sources for this encyclopedia. Student7 (talk) 13:18, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Battery capability

Battery costs seem odd. The Tesla has a cost of merely $12,000 "prepurchased" (how else does one buy a car or accessories?) for a 200-mile charge battery, yet "the government" consisting of mostly left-wing bureaucrats and under tremendous pressure from Congress to say the electic car is wonderful, says (instead) that a battery capable of 100 miles would cost $33,000. What gives? Nearly everyone, outside of the blue sky people writing WP:PR blurbs, knows that battery costs (which BTW are rolled up into oil-in-the-air production in the US since that is where energy to produce anything, including batteries, comes from) are the blocking factor to the electric car. This section is written very unevenly. The two ideas need contrasting in the beginning of the subsection, or reconciliation, if indeed, reconciliation is possible.

(And to put a fine point on the previous statement - electric cars with extremely expensive batteries put more pollution in the air than normal piston engine cars. And puts it in up front!). Student7 (talk) 01:40, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

The $12,00 is not for the entire car but only for the battery pack. According to Tesla Roadster, the base price of the entire car is $101,000 - and I'm not sure if that includes the batteries or not. Bouncing around the web, $12,000 seems about right for a high quality battery pack for a pure electric. And sadly, that battery pack will need a complete replacement every 5-8 years, depending on usage. But I do agree that 'pre-purchase' is a poor choice of expression.

Re your 'oil-in-the air' comment. One inherent advantage of electric power is that the electricity can come from anywhere. Today it might be from coal and oil (ie dirty) but tomorrow it could be from wind, solar, nuclear or processed cow farts (ie clean) - even if the exact same car is being used. Where fossil fuel cars will just continue to burn liquid fuels at the same level of pollution (or even worse) until that particular car is junked. But this is offset against toxic metals used in batteries. Its a complex question and the usual answers consist of more hyperbole than reason. I've yet to see an unbiased answer from any source. Wikipedia can only provide facts as we find them and leave the final choice up to the reader. Cheers. Stepho (talk) 08:49, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but by the time your Tesla is either dead and not worth the price of a new pack - or demanding a new one - we'll still largely be getting our power from oil, coal and gas. There will have been a small shift towards renewables (...and nuclear, which itself requires a big fossil investment unless the equipment used to mine, extract, refine, enrich and transport the uranium is itself nuke/renewable electric powered... which it ain't), but these sorts of things - proposing, getting permission, getting funding, planning, clearing the ground, and actually building the new generation plant of choice (whichever it is) takes an epically long time. This is why there are thoughts of electricity shortages in various countries, including my own, because various old nuke plants are going offline, there's insecurity in the fossil supply and pricing, our renewable stock is laughable, and there still aren't any solid plans to either massively refurbish/rebuild the existing nukes, or build whole new ones. Never mind providing sufficient (and, if possible, clean) power for electric vehicles, we're going to be facing a shortfall vs the existing demands. Switching over to CFL bulbs, LED televisions, reducing your heating one degree and filling your roof and walls with insulation isn't going to cover even the half of it. We're probably going to end up flash-building even more fossil-fired plants, and running them harder and longer than ever before, long before we can actually start shutting them down. Now is not the time, if you want to run a fully "clean" car, unless you have your own reasonably large scale domestic renewable microgeneration setup. Get a small-capacity, lightweight turbodiesel instead. One with a self-regenerating particulate filter. And run it on low sulphur fuel or selfmade waste-veg-oil biodiesel. 193.63.174.10 (talk) 14:37, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Battery longevity/range section bias...

I can't help feeling that part is cherry picking the good stuff. Let's see:

Mentioned: The daily and overall lifetime range of NiMH/Lithium batteries. The fact that a celebrity's ancient electric car is still on it's original set of cells.

Not mentioned: The limited "shelf life" (or temporal lifespan) of said modern cells, particularly lithium-ion, which with careful use for normal tasks may last 5 years before losing significant capacity. 10 if they're treated in a truly excellent manner. However by this point, neither of them will be giving you better than 33~50% of the range when first bought, if not indeed 25% or less, potentially rendering the vehicle impractically outlet-tethered. This effect may be seen in any existing consumer application of this battery technology. You may be able to get a great range out of them (or a great many hours of off-AC use for non-vehicle types), but even if you don't, they will still die within a decade.

Also not mentioned: The Baker's "Edison Cells" (aka Nickel-Iron... an early type of NiMH, without the H?) having what we would now class as unusably poor energy storage and output power per weight/volume, and probably per unit cost.

Put the stated "in excess of ICE" lifetime range, and the century-spanning temporal longevity together, and you get a false picture of batteries that never fade or wear, AND can carry you several times around the world, which - at the time of writing, at least - simply isn't true.

Can we have a bit of balance? 193.63.174.10 (talk) 14:29, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Highway capable cars

The minimum speed for the highway is around 70km/h (ref= http://wiki.answers.com/Q/The_minimum_speed_on_Interstate_highways_is ) thus more cars could possibly be added, and the text needs changing —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.182.34.226 (talk) 09:03, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

I assume you mean highways in the USA. Why would this have any bearing on electric cars in Australia, UK, Germany, France, China, etc? Here in Australia, we have highways posted at 70, 80,90,100,110 km/h. Any driver going significantly slower than other cars can be booked by the police for creating a traffic hazard. In practical terms, anything that can't get to 100km/h doesn't belong on a highway in any developed country. Stepho (talk)

What nonsense. I'm living on a continent where almost all goods vehicles are fitted with electronic speed limiters set to NINETY kilometres per hour, and there are even a couple of countries where the blanket limit is 100 (not including Iceland where the highest is 90). Are you suggesting all of those should be banned from the highways? What of all the expressways in the USA that still haven't had their limits raised from the old economy 55mph? Classic cars and bikes (or modern small bikes) that may be capable of 65+ mph but risk engine damage at that speed - yet can happily cruise in the slow lane with the trucks (and occasionally overtake when said goods vehicles slow for inclines). Or cars towing trailers that are typically legally-limited to 100k or less? Never mind the large mobile cranes and the like which can travel far more easily and safely on highways/motorways/etc but simply aren't built to achieve much more than 70km/h. In fact, IIRC, a lot of them are apparently built to just-about manage 62k on the steepest inclines typically found on the german autobahn - the only highway-class road I could name (outside of the USA) with a significant "lower" speed limit... 60km/h. Yes, on the same road where you can legally do 300+ if you are able and so wish. It's no more of a proportionate difference than a car driver keeping to a 60km/h limit and encountering cyclists travelling at 12k... Same as the less severe ones (I think a peak of 30mph?) in some British tunnels, it's not meant to keep you moving quickly, just to discourage the truly slow moving vehicles (tractors, tanks, milk floats, etc) from taking a route where they may cause a serious danger or traffic congestion, as even the mobile cranes have to pull out into the "fast lane" to pass them. (Said cranes, having crested the incline at a bare 38mph causing brief congestion as every truck passes them at 50, and everyone who was passing the trucks at 60 moves into the "fast" lane, can then go on to reach about 45 on the flat... which isn't so bad)

Plus, I live in a country with a reasonably relaxed attitude to highway speed (Britain, official limit: 70mph. Typical outside-lane speed on the faster sections: 85-100mph (indicated)) and have this morning commuted to work along such a road on a motorcycle capable of about 65mph (105km/h), or about 70 on the clock. I spent almost the entire trip in the centre lane of three, drafting a delivery van (also flat-out, I presume) and busily passing all manner of slower traffic and being passed by faster ones. The onus is on the individual driver to assess what's in front of them and respond intelligently to avoid smashing into them - or to ensure there's a safe gap behind if they pull out. Regardless of your vehicle's top speed and your driving pace, you should be able to proceed at least as safely on the highway as a 2-lane, 2-way surface street, so long as you're not a moron. Suggesting nothing that goes less than 62mph should be allowed on is giving a moral victory to the unobservant morons who will use it as an excuse to not pay attention... and have an accident anyway. At higher speed.

Plus I've read a police procedure book with very detailed limits in it, which sort of reveals why we ourselves have no lower limit. There are certain classes of vehicle that are allowed to travel on motorways... but are legally limited to 40, 20 or even 18mph. Presumably the latter two with police escort, but the ruling still stands. There's nothing that necessarily says it is a high-speed road. Merely one on which it's a lot easier to travel at a high speed, with relatively few (or no) junctions, crossings, traffic lights, pedestrians, etc to get in the way. There's nothing though which precludes major congestion or accidents, which end up causing even that 18mph Abnormal Load to slow down or stop. You have to look out for those, don't you?

So, in light of the German rule above, I'd probably stick with the 70km/h convention. Maybe 60km/h, or splitting the difference, 40mph. That's a reasonable dividing line between, say, a moped and a low-powered light motorcycle (which conveniently is also the divider between what "we" prohibit from and allow onto our "highways"), perfectly acceptable for a slightly congested urban highway which may have a variable or permanent limit as low as that (or even be stop-start), and too fast to safely sustain around tight urban areas. A 50cc 'ped, or superlight bike (e.g. Honda Cub) will struggle to reach or beat 40, and many may be legally limited to 30~60km/h (19~37mph). A 70 or 90cc variant of the same Cub can easily achieve it, and may push on a little past 50mph. We are a bit more lenient than some europeans though; their limit is 125 or even 150cc. Presumably because, though my own "125" (ie, 124cc) can reach a perfectly good cruise speed, it's a moderately highly tuned one (10hp). There are some city types which are detuned for long life and put out 8hp or even less - or 149cc delivery trikes with heavy bodies - which WILL lead to you getting in the way of trucks, and the insanity of a 2-lane autostrada is no place for a truck to try overtaking.

bla bla bla :)

However I should probably bear in mind that both the preceding contributions were from countries where the V8 is still king, power for the sake of it is the almighty goal, have both had limit-free roads at some point in the last 20 years, and look on anything with less than a 2-litre engine (or 600cc on a bike) with disgust. Never mind that 45hp from a dinky 3- or 4-pot is enough to punt you along (inside a 4-seater car) at 90mph (145km/h). That source for the "70km/h" lower limit is pretty shaky btw, nothing that you could cite as encyclopaedically reliable. It's basically Yahoo Answers in a pretty shell. I'd like something from the DMV chapter and verse. The only USA roads I can immediately call to mind with official lower limits are a few of the "old" turnpikes, who tend towards 25~40mph. Yknow, so grandad doesn't completely fall asleep at the wheel of his Oldsmobile Cutlass, and there aren't too many chancers racing their unmodified model T's up there flat-out.

I'd like to go test how well they enforce it too. A ticket for going too slowly would be something to frame as a talking point.193.63.174.10 (talk) 12:57, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Further alternative - why not just do the extra research to find out which vehicles are officially allowed (or at least marketed as such) on their local highway-type roads? That would be the most valid. Rather than some blanket, arbitary definition of sustainable / maximum speed which may not properly true anywhere. 193.63.174.10 (talk) 12:57, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

I've been thinking about your points for the last few days but to my mind, the phrase 'highway capable' means that the vehicle can keep up with the general flow on the highway - regardless of legalities in a particular country. If the general flow is 80/90/100 km/h (depending on country and which particular highway), then the electric vehicle should also be capable of that. Or we could go in the other direction - China allows farm tractors to crawl along the side of the highway, so any electric vehicle that can do 10 km/h would be classified as 'highway capable'. But I think that the argument is actually irrelevant and that we should replace the phrase 'highway capable' with something more like 'high speed vehicles' or 'cars capable of 100 km/h or more' or something similar. After all, the emphasis is on moderately high, sustained speed, rather than legalities. Cheers. Stepho (talk) 22:57, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

WWF IZES report

I question this report if they are seriously making comparisons as listed: "...a mid-size EV would emit roughly 200 g(CO2)/km (11 oz(CO2)/mi), compared with an average of 170 g(CO2)/km (9.7 oz(CO2)/mi) for a gasoline powered compact car."

They are trying to compare a mid-sized EV with a compact car. It smells like a tendentious article. Rmosler | ● 01:21, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Carbon vs. Fossil Fuels

Regarding the recent edit changing fossil fuels to carbon fuels, range-wise the new language is not accurate in that the range of battery-powered cars is equal to or greater than that of certain carbon-fuel powered cars, specifically those fueled by ethanol. Ebikeguy (talk) 17:30, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

The weight of the batteries is much greater than that of a fuel tank, for the Tesla (which uses very lightweight, expensive, batteries) it's over 20% of the kerb mass, and NMh batteries are about twice as heavy as that for the same range. The Tesla also uses numerous tricks to reduce weight, and uses energy saving tyres. The range for most electric vehicles is much lower.Planetscared (talk) 20:00, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

In a purpose designed ethanol engine about the same range is given as for gasoline; ethanol has higher octane and you can use a higher compression ratio than with gasoline, and this gives better efficiency that makes up for the slightly lower specific energy of ethanol.Planetscared (talk) 20:03, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Slightly lower? 30MJ/kg vs. 46.4MJ/kg. That is 35% lower! Yes, you can get power output up a bit in a purpose-built ethanol engine, but not that much! That said, I thought your edits clarified things nicely. Ebikeguy (talk) 23:23, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

It's not power (although ethanol is good for that as well), it's efficiency. You can run ethanol through a diesel cycle, or, with care, run it at similar pressures in a normal 4 stroke cycle, but with a compression ratio of 19.5(!) You can't do that with petroleum. Doing either really does claw back the lost energy- petroleum fueled 4 stroke engines are pretty shitty in terms of efficiency.Planetscared (talk) 23:49, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Lithium ion battery is still way, way down on the list compared to ethanol [[2]] Towel401 (talk) 15:52, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

It would be immensely helpful if the comparison of both, well-to-wheels efficiency and approximate tank-to-wheels efficiency numbers ( based on average grid power source mix ) with ICE, FCEV and BEV vehicles were included in here. There are various sources claiming wildly different ranges obviously, but Wikipedia should at least have references and range figures. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.87.58.49 (talk) 20:31, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

But that is the crux of our problem - there is no valid standard to make such a comparison. If you want to 'prove' that electric cars are not economical, then you choose the most inefficient source of electricity (say, oil powered generating stations) and include every single input to it (oil used to power the ships that brought the oil, oil used in the gulf wars to keep that source open, oil used to power the distillation plants, oil used to power the trucks that deliver the oil to your friendly local service station, etc). If you want to 'prove' that electric cars are economical then you assume hydroelectric power and do not include the oil used to power the furnace used to create the electric wires that help you recharge your electric vehicle. One of the key benefits of electric vehicles is that the electricity can come from many sources - not necessarily oil based. Any number we give for an average grid power source will be wrong depending on your location (eg France with nuclear power) and is likely to change over time as new power stations are built. Stepho (talk) 21:55, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Intro layout and number of pics

How many pics do you prefer for the intro? 1, 2, or 3? Does the "Sustainable energy" infobox belong in the intro? I moved the infobox towards the end of the article, and put 3 pics in the intro. Thx, Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 18:18, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

As per wiki style one is enough. Let me try another that might be more representative.-Mariordo (talk) 23:44, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

where does it say one is enough? Does it say two isn't better? Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 20:48, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

According to WP:Style "Start an article with a right-aligned lead image or infobox" - one not several (see here) though you can use the stack-up to put/merge together several pics (there are several articles with stack-ups in the lead), but the same section explains "images should be inside the major section containing the content to which they relate." As it is now, the three pics do not related directly to the lead. If you are willing to have a serious discussion about the image in the lead (instead of pilling three pics) let me know. I believe the image I tried before shows three EVs, so it is quite illustrative. Also I could produce a collage of four EVs currently in production (similar the collage in Flexible-fuel vehicle). My choice will be the Tesla Roadster, the REVAi, the Th!nk, and the Nissan Leaf.-Mariordo (talk) 02:19, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

The pics definitely are related the lead, not sure what you mean by "directly". They are directly related as much as they should to be. Can we here from others? Do you prefer 1, 2, 3, or a collage of pics? Thanks, Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 03:17, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

A collage of four pic to avoid future waring for each editor favorite EV. On a second thought the four I would chose reflect top sellers (+1K Tesla, ~3K each REVA or Th!ink - but considering if the EV is highway capable I would go for the Th!nk, and 5K i MiEV) and as fourth the Nissan Leaf, as already is sold out (orders for +20K).-Mariordo (talk) 03:34, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

I'd be tempted to remove all of those pictures from the intro. None of them illuminate what an electric car actually is - they are examples rather than representative of EVs. In an article on pickups, sports card, trucks, the photo in the intro shows what makes that type of vehicle distinctly different to the other types. But when I look at most of the photos on this article I just see a bunch of cars. After all, does a picture of the Tesla Roadster show what a typical EV looks like? How about the RAV4 EV, Chevy Volt or the Kilowatt? A photo of an electric motor or battery pack would be much more appropriate. Stepho (talk) 05:03, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good. Perhaps a schematic or similar depiction of an electric car with batteries and a motor. Here are some examples:

http://sexyeditor.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/imiev-schematic.jpg

http://www.silicongarden.bc.ca/images/gas-electric-v6.gif

Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 05:26, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

(1) Example collage, but using four Evs (left) or (2) Three electric cars recharging in Norway, a Th!nk City, a REVAi, and a Tesla Roadster (right)

I agree that a a schematic would be great, but it would take quite an effort, any volunteers? Alternatively I propose a readily solution, using the pic in the right which shows three EVs recharging (illustrative of EVs) or a collage like the one in the left side of the stack (similar to the one use for FFVs, shown as an example, that I can easily create).-Mariordo (talk) 04:23, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

The collage looks like just a bunch of cars - nothing obvious that they are electric. The image of the recharging station is along the correct path but in that particular image the recharging cables disappear when shown as an thumbnail. Perhaps one of the images from these commons categories might work:

Electric vehicle parts [3]
Electric-automobile parts [4]
Electric vehicle charging outlets [5]
In-wheel motor [6]
Traction batteries [7]
Electric vehicle charging stations [8] Stepho (talk) 05:39, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm o.k. with the tesla charging. From commons these are also o.k.:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mitsubishi_i_MiEV_power-plug.jpg

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Reva_charging.jpg

It will be fairly temporary. As soon as Leaf's are out, will have good pics of that one. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 08:10, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

You are on the right track but you need to choose an image that even at 200px absolutely screams 'ELECTRIC!', rather than just 'here's a car and if you look real, real close you might see something in the corner that whispers electric'. Thin cables tend to disappear into the background (although the Reva's yellow cable isn't too bad).

Stepho (talk) 09:18, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

The Reva charging is perfect, very illustrative. Let's go ahead and change it.-Mariordo (talk) 13:49, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't call it perfect, but o.k. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 14:16, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

The article is much cleaner now. Excellent. Stepho (talk) 06:23, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Use of car-carriers to increase range

Car shuttle train

The car shuttle train concept as proposed by Rinspeed^[1] can eliminate the problem of the limited range of EC-battery powered electric cars (it is possible though to bridge a great distance by implementing several charging stops but since each charging takes 8-12 hours, it is definitly a problem if time is of the essence). This, as it allows a car to drive unto a train to bridge a greater distance, and immediatelly drive off upon reaching a destination (car is recharged on the train). Booking of a train ride would be done wirelessly, and is thus possible even when allready on the road.

Please include in the article Thanks, 91.182.239.109 (talk) 12:46, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like a hair-brained scheme! Towel401 (talk) 01:31, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

The Reva as main image of an electric car?

Not only is the Reva not a good example of a highway capable electric car, it also doesn't represent very well the future of electric cars in terms of the clear agenda of automakers to make cars that appeal to wider public ownership. With this in mind, could we consider move up an image of the Nissan Leaf or a Tesla car please, or similar? AprilHare (talk) 22:07, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

I would prefer the nissan leaf and multiple images, but see above discussion. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 23:52, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

I think the lead image should be an ELECTRIC car, and not just a generic car design that happens to be electric. As such the Riva photo is good since it is obviously an electric car doing what it has to do. If you just want a picture of a car that happens to be electric then I don't think you should play favorites, and should use the top selling electric vehicle worldwide, whatever that is. Greglocock (talk) 01:34, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

The image was chosen a short time ago to show the electric nature of electric cars (ie an electric motor, a battery, a recharging cable, etc) instead of just showing an image of a car (which will always be a fight over your favourite vs my favourite vs Joe Bloggs favourite). This consensus was reached in the #Intro layout and number of pics above. I don't care which particular car (if any) is in the image but I strongly disagree with just displaying any car by itself. Stepho (talk) 01:56, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Dr Wolfgang Lohbeck ‘Transport Thinker’ for Greenpeace Germany condemns electric cars in BBC Radio Interview

BBC Radio 4 ‘Electric Ride’ Programme 3 of 4. Broadcast 3 July 2010.

In which Peter Curran and his producer drove 4500 miles across Europe in a Th!nk electric car.

Interview in Hannover with Dr Wolfgang Lohbeck ‘Transport Thinker’ for Greenpeace Germany.

Q. Are you throwing your hands up in the air with joy to see us pull up in a battery powered vehicle?

A. Not really! This was my sort of behaviour maybe a year of two ago, when I was like many other people was very optimistic or euphoric about cars running on no gasoline, but looking into the issues, of course, shows you a lot of problems.

Q. Why do you think then that battery powered vehicles are not really the future?

A. I can’t charge my car from a wind turbine, I have to charge it from the socket, so this consumes almost double the energy and it produces one and a half to double the CO2 today. This may change over time when the grid de-carbonises. This may be better in twenty years.

Q. You mean double the energy an internal combustion engine would use?

A. Yes, double the energy. I think the ideology of electrifying all these stupid heavyweight cars is the wrong way, and that’s what the car producers, especially the German ones, want to achieve.

Q. What’s the alternative in that case?

A. Smaller cars, smaller consumption, lower performance, until these sort of cars are really affordable for normal people, and this is now the point: These cars won’t be affordable for anybody, and I think we are here to discuss mass mobility, and not some singular issues for some ecologists, who can afford to buy a car which costs three times the price, which has a range of only – let’s call it limited. So Why?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/electric-ride/map/

LINKED PAGE REMOVED http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.greenpeace.de%2Fauthor%2Fwlohbeck%2F&sl=de&tl=en

http://www.autoweek.com/article/20100517/FREE/100519881

Dr Wolfgang Lohbeck was a part of the Greenpeace Germany team that jointly developed and promoted hydrocarbon refrigerant technology to replace CFCs in the early 1990s with a former East German company, in the face of strong opposition from industry. http://www.greenpeace.org/china/en/press/release/f-gas-news

This wikipedia article appears to be far from neutral and balanced - In the Greenpeace Blog (Google translation) Lohbeck critisizes:

But first to the obviously highly controversial comparison of CO2 levels of e-cars with conventional cars. Again and again it is stated, also already had electric cars CO2-efficient than conventional cars. This is clearly wrong.

All comparisons that come to this conclusion based on comparisons between "apples and oranges" - that is, between small electric "city-mobile" and ordinary cars, for example, the compact class. They are - by the omission of important parameters - some of them openly manipulative.

This wikipedia article is better than it used to be when I first made referenced contribution from the EPA and US Dept. of Energy about grid efficiency, about 18 months ago I think it was, it was simply repeatedly deleted, in favour of a reference that used a 1970s American V8 as comparison to current electric cars.

If you are interested in electric cars you should be an environmentalist and not just interested in the cars for their own sake. If you are an environmentalist you have to be interested in efficiency - Because real efficiency reduces CO2 emissions, which is the single most important environmental issue today. This Article still does not live up to the policies and aspirations of Wikipedia.

85.119.112.154 (talk) 14:28, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

People are here for different reasons. I don't care too much about CO2 emissions, I care more about city pollution. If the Germans care so much about CO2 they should stop burning coal and go nuclear. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 17:47, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

One point is that the grids of different countries use different amounts of CO2. In the UK we use a lot of natural gas, and that's relatively low carbon, and we're using more and more wind in the UK, something the UK is well placed to exploit. In France, they use a lot of nuclear, and so on. The perspective of a German would be different again- IRC their grid is highcarbon. But the point he makes about decarbonising grids is quite important, there are advantages to using electric cars, because they can use any convenient mix of energy sources.- Wolfkeeper 14:30, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

I have re-instated this thread on the discussion page because it is the only thread, that is anti-electric car. All the others I have read here are pro. Wikipedia articles are supposed to be balanced with a neutral point of view. This is not the case with this article. When talking about energy efficiency, claiming 80% 'on board efficiencies' for electric cars, compared to (questionable figures, not what the US DOE says), of 15% for petrol or 20% for diesel is deliberately misleading, as the largest loss for an EV powered from the grid, (which most are) is the massive efficiency loss of up to 70%, during electricity production and transmission to the outlet socket. The US DOE reference I posted for this a long time ago has been deleted... because it doesn't fit the slant of the article, which seems to be by EV enthusiasts for EV enthusiasts, with references mostly from EV vendors and enthusiasts. As Dr Lohbeck says, "They are - by the omission of important parameters - some of them openly manipulative." 85.119.112.154 (talk) 20:43, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Putting aside your contention that the article is not balanced (for the moment), this talk page is not the place to post an interview transcript. If you feel that the interview would add important information to the article, add the information to the article and cite the interview. I won't revert your edit, but your transcript should be replaced with a link to the interview, and your comments should be rephrased such that they represent concrete proposals regarding to editing the article. Ebikeguy (talk) 20:57, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I think the efficiency section can be deleted. Generally people don't care about that. They care about how much is it going to cost me from point A to point B. Environmentalist will be concerned with the different pollution aspects. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 21:17, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Respectfully, I disagree. Efficiency is directly related to green house gas emission, if electricity is generated through use of fossil fuels. I note that the transcript contains no data to support the efficiency claims in the interview. Ebikeguy (talk) 21:24, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

While i agree that the efficiency section does detract from the positive message that some editors of this article wish to present, the fact is that the inefficiency of the generation and distribution process compensate almost exactly for the increased efficieny of the car itself. Hence the greenpeace bloke's comments. EVS are promoted by governements manufacturers and others as a green solution, yet for most countries they are not at present and won't be in the forseeable future.Greglocock (talk) 00:11, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Efficiency is not directly related to green house gas emissions. What matters is how the electricity is generated, such as hydro, solar, nuclear, etc... Efficiency doesn't make a difference when it comes from coal in a practical sense. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 00:49, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Again, I must respectfully disagree. Generating a given amount of energy in a dirty coal plant releases a given amount of greenhouse gasses. The efficiency of the electrical devices using that energy will determine how much useful work is accomplished using that given amount of energy. Therefore, the efficiency of the electrical devices powered by that coal plant does determine, to a significant extent, the amount of greenhouse gasses released by that coal plant. Yes, we can consider the efficiency of the coal plant at full load vs. the efficiency of the coal plant at partial load, but the relationship between efficiency and GHG emissions remains significant, if not directly proportional. Ebikeguy (talk) 04:06, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

O.K. how about this: Efficiency does matter. It is X. X is not going to change, so why worry about it? And X efficiency produced from coal is just as CO2 emitting as driving a gas powered car. So we can pretend it matters, but since efficiency is not going to get better or worse, then it doesn't matter. What matters is how the electricity is generated, that does effect pollution and that does change drastically. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 04:50, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

We need to get good efficiency numbers to help us create valid energy numbers when comparing EVs to ICEs.

I'm the re-poster. The reason I put the info into the discussion and not the article, is that when I have put valid referenced info into the article, it has been almost immediately deleted. Repeatedly. The Wikipedia policy is NPOV, and balance when there is a controversy. I am seeking to persuade contributors to the article to follow that policy. Most anti-electric car info, is from people with a bias in favour of the established car industry. The PR of the car industry can be Orwellian. This info is from someone with unimpeachable eco credentials. If electric cars don't have good environmental credentials overall, because their fuel is fossil at the power station, and overall they're not more efficient, then what is the point of them, with all of their practical drawbacks against ICEs? Aren't EV enthusiasts just like any other vehicle enthusiast then? Adopting or appearing to have adopted, a less than completely honest, 'ends justifies the means' attitude, and being found out, greatly damages the credibility of every one who wants to be rid of the current bloated status symbols on wheels, and their massive CO2 pollution costs.

Efficiency matters because it means less CO2 when fossil fuel is used, however it is used. It matters with renewables because it requires less of them! As fuels are currently priced, renewables are 'more expensive' because the environmental impact costs of fossil fuel is ignored in its price.

Translated Greenpeace.de articles.

Electric cars - no savior from the climate crisis

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&tl=en&u=http://www.greenpeace.de/themen/verkehr/nachrichten/artikel/elektroautos_keine_retter_aus_der_klimakrise/ansicht/bild/

Electric cars - not at all CO2-free

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&tl=en&u=http://www.greenpeace.de/themen/verkehr/nachrichten/artikel/elektroautos_ganz_und_gar_nicht_co2_frei/ansicht/bild/

Electric cars are not a contribution to climate protection. Greenpeace: coal and nuclear power electric cars to make polluters

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&tl=en&u=http://www.greenpeace.de/themen/verkehr/presseerklaerungen/artikel/elektroautos_sind_kein_beitrag_zum_klimaschutz/ansicht/bild/

The SMILE-principle - Small, Intelligent, Light, Efficient : 1 Help for the climate

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&tl=en&u=http://www.greenpeace.de/themen/verkehr/smile/artikel/das_smile_prinzip_1_hilfe_fuer_das_klima/ansicht/audio/ .87.113.71.45 (talk) 16:30, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

If you find a reliable, English language source for this content, then edit the article to include it. It is my understanding that Google translations are not acceptable per Wikipedia policy. Ebikeguy (talk) 18:13, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

WP (English) prefers English sources whenever possible (makes it easier for English-only readers to verify it) but allows non-English sources if necessary. I (an amateur) think the Dr is wrong but I do think his professional, published statements should be in the article. I will add to this discussion tonight when I have time to flesh out my arguments. Stepho (talk) 02:39, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Methinks this Autoweek article on the good Dr would serve nicely, although it does shed light on the fact that he is the ONLY expert in Greenpeace who seems to hold an anti-EV view. I'm not interested in editing the article to insert this reference, but if anyone else is, have at it! Ebikeguy (talk) 02:48, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that English links helps a lot. Both the original German link (which readers can pass through a translator themselves) and your English link together should be good. What the Dr is highlighting is that the onboard efficiency of an electric vehicle is not directl;y comaprible to the onbaord efficiency of a combustion engine. For an ICE, you have the power source (engine), transmission and final drive. In an electric vehicle, the power source is located remotely that hasn't been included in the efficiency and another transmission. The power source may be carbon heavy (coal, oil), carbon light (solar, nuclear) or anything in between. The transmission includes the power lines, the household charger (socket or inefficient electromagnetic paddles), the batteries (which dissipate a lot of heat) and the motor controller (also gets hot). As the Dr points out, all of these lose some of the power that was generated at the power station. What the Dr leaves out is that the power station (assuming coal, oil or gas powered) is much more efficient than a typical ICE. Hopefully the gains of the more efficient power station outweigh the loss of the remote transmission - not always a given. He also leaves out solar, thermal, wind and nuclear stations which essential have no carbon pollution (nuclear obviously haing a different pollution problem). Also, better power stations allow aparticular vehicle to get better in its own lifetime. I think his points are important because the separation of the power source and the final drive is what really makes electric vehicles better (as shown by diesel electric trains and diesel electric earth moving equipment). For electric cars, the power source (power station) can be made as efficient as possible without worrying about weight, wide rev ranges and response times. Stepho (talk) 01:20, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Blue cars are safer

An anonymous editor has twice added a paragraph stating that blues cars are safer and therefore owners should choose blue cars. It was deleted by another editor the first time and by myself the second time. It has many problems.

It is unreferenced. As the saying goes, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs.
Even if statistics show a link between colour and accident rates, it doesn't neccessary means one is caused by the other. It is possible that the colour blue is more visible to other drivers or that it calms other drivers (ie the colour actually helps avoid accidents). Or it might be that the colour blue is chosen by more careful, less exuberant drivers - ie boring (ie safe) drivers choose boring colours while boy racers (ie accident prone) choose go-fast red.
Even if blue is shown to actually be safer, it belongs in one of the automobile articles that apply to all cars. It is not a feature specific to electric cars. Stepho (talk) 16:20, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

"Range"

This section is offensively unreferenced. The first sentence is a buzzword that appears to be a deliberate scare, and completely lacks balance. The reference doesn't support the claim at all, I read it and it says that because one editor ran out of power once, clearly everyone should be permanently scared about this. That's not balanced, it's not notable and I'm pretty unconvinced that this is a reliable source.

A reliable source is a book or a article in a widely respected journal, not some opinion piece in a dubious journal based on single person's experience.Rememberway (talk) 22:03, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

I like your new language. If you are happy to leave it as is, I certainly am as well. Ebikeguy (talk) 04:02, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Nissan Leaf First to be sold?

This statement conflicts with the following statement about iMiEV and the references are pretty questionable. More research required! "Retail customer deliveries of the Nissan Leaf in Japan and the United States began in December 2010, allowing the Leaf to become the first modern all electric car to be produced for the mass market from a major manufacturer,[33][34][35] though initial availability is restricted to a few launch markets and in limited quantities. As of January 2011 other electric automobiles and city cars available in some markets included the Th!nk City, REVAi, Buddy, Citroën C1 ev'ie, and several neighborhood electric vehicles."

"Sales of the Mitsubishi i MiEV to the public began in Japan in April 2010, in Hong Kong in May 2010 and in Australia in July 2010."

60.234.134.120 (talk) 06:00, 6 February 2011 (UTC)2011/02/6 MartyD

You are right. That claim though repeated in several reliable sources comes from Nissan PR (and probaly truth only in the US). In order to keep NPOV I will remove that claim from the history section and from the Leaf article.--Mariordo (talk) 14:55, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Improving the lead

Based on the previous comment about the dubious claim regarding the Nissan Leaf, this complaint remind me that this article has so many problems of lack of NPOV, undue weight, etc, that I decided to began the housekeeping by improving the lead. Please feel free to comment here and propose any changes. I believe my first take is a bit too long. Also, as a reference, see Plug-in electric vehicle for a more detailed description of advantages and disadvantages, which were lacking in the lead. Some of the content in that article can be brought here to update and expand the existing content.--Mariordo (talk) 17:09, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Lifespan

It's great that the article has a section on 'lifespan'; battery life will be a significant factor in electric cars, as the cost of replacing batteries is likely to be significant. What is missing from the article, however, is some indication of a ball-park figure for lifespan. Are we talking 2-3 years or 5-10 years? What proportion of the cost is the battery pack -- 20%, 50% or 70%? Suchinformation would be highly informative as a predictor of the obstacles facing widespread adoption. Mrstonky (talk) 02:58, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't think there's any official statement about that, but I believe I've read a post on Tesla blogs talking about this. As far as I remember, they were offering a 12k USD replacement option at purchase or 30k USD at a later time. Keep in mind we're talking about a car which is very high in performance. I think we all have to keep an eye on the issue, there likely won't be any official statement about that for a while due to the lack of information which is not trade secret.
MaxDZ8 talk 14:09, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Safety

"...there is apparently no available information..." -- it's quite scary how little thought appears to have gone into the dangers posed by battery chemicals in a major road accident. Does ANYBODY have any information that can enlighten? Mrstonky (talk) 02:58, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

These aren't lead acid batteries. Safer than gasoline. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 11:17, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Price

The price given in the article for the Renault Fluence ($20k) is ridiculously low. The actual price for the electric Fluence on sale now in Israel is $44k.http://www.evwind.es/noticias.php?id_not=11744. The edit lock currently prevents correction of glaring errors such as this.

I don't know about any edit lock, but please make valid comparisons. The US price does not include the battery. Tim PF (talk) 16:46, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

I deleted text in the price section about some people unwilling to pay extra for electric car. I feel it is not very relevant for a couple of reasons:

Electric cars are sold out.
With rising costs of gas this becomes less notable.

What do you think? Thx, Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 18:39, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I personally think that you are imposing your own personal view rather than building an encyclopaedic view. Wikipedia is best without speculation and with well referenced facts. Your involvement has been extensive - sometimes it is better to provide some space to let others have a say otherwise inferences may be drawn suggesting a degree of ownership of the article and concerns that there may be commercial agendas in play. Velella ^{Velella Talk} 19:20, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Which part do you suggest is speculation? I normally have references for all article text. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 19:30, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I think the part Daniel removed is entirely relevant to this article. If price is not important then why have the section at all, and if it is relevant than a referenced discussion of what people think of the price belongs there. In practice price is big part of the EV equation. However I don't agree with Velella about removing the prediction of the future price of batteries, that is relevant as well. This article is not supposed to be a puff piece promoting EVs it is supposed to be an NPOV encyclopedic article. Greglocock (talk) 00:03, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

In general I agree. I too am very concerned that it is turning into a piece of puffery and, in general, puffery for a particular make and brand. Hence I find statement such as "the price is predicted to......" unacceptable. This is just someone's opinion not matter how well referenced - thus , in my view, it is speculation. I am generally content with the most recent edit Velella ^{Velella Talk} 08:47, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Couldn't find: "the price is predicted to.....", please advise. Thanks, Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 22:24, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

How about

the cost should come down to $6,000 in three years, according to Reddy of SemaConnect.

? Velella ^{Velella Talk} 22:40, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Predications (whether by ourselves or from an external reference) are generally not trust worthy. A statistically significant trend (from a reference that deals in stats or at least shows the historical data) is the best that would be acceptable and even then it would still need some justification for gazing into crystal balls. On the subject of whether pricing belongs here at all, I personally would have bought an electric car except that the price was AU$10,000 (aprox US$10,000) more than the equivalent petrol version (apparently the US has heavy subsidies to tempt the buyer while Australia lets the market show the manufacturers true cost). $10,000 makes a significant difference to the number of buyers. But either way, leave the article alone until we have decided which way we went to go on this talk page - better to be slightly wrong for a few days than continual flip flopping. Cheers. Stepho (talk)

Weight and safety

Studies are quoted finding that heavier cars are safer for their occupants in the case of a crash. While they quote arguments related to the mass of the car as such and related energy considerations (rather than sturdier construction), I get the impression that they are basically comparing like with like, cars of generally similar construction but different weight. Are there any studies on otherwise lightly-built cars which are heavier because of their contents (e.g., batteries)? Is a car made safer by loading it to its maximum capacity? Pol098 (talk) 13:00, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

The physics works the same either way. If you take two cars of identical contruction, and then add half a tonne of batteries to one of them, in a head on collision the heavy car will be safer than the light one. Not fair is it? However, i'd rather be in a car that had 500 kg of structure, that weighed 1500 kgf, than a car in which the structure weighed 200 kgf so they could squeeze 500 kg of batteries in, that also weighed 1500 kgf all up. Greglocock (talk) 04:11, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Greglocock is basically saying the same as I said in the first paragraph (we'd expect structural strength to matter, as well as mass), so I've got to agree! If mass is far more important than structural strength (i.e., weight invested in a stronger structure) we have an interesting conclusion: if you want to travel as safely as possible, load your car to its maximum capacity!

The question remains: are there any comparative studies of the safety in crashes of cars of heavy weight but light construction vs heavier construction? Pol098 (talk) 10:48, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure that the above is correct. My car weighs about a tonne, with a GVW of ~1500 kg, so half a tonne of batteries will max it out, with no room left for even a driver, although removing the infernal combustion engine will give room for some payload. Now the crumple zones and the front structure is designed to cope with that 1½ tonnes, and adding a big mass of batteries without upgrading that will make a significant difference to a head-on impact to both vehicles. Tim PF (talk) 22:26, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Good oh, do the maths, let me know how it goes. I simulated crashes between two populations of cars, one population heavier than the other, with all sorts of different energy abosrbing structures in each car. In every case the occupants of the heavier car saw smaller accelerations than the occupant of the lighter car in each collision. Newton was right. F=ma. F is equal for the two cars. The astonishing thing is that if you look at IIHS data for near identical models in which one variant is heavier than the other, the heavier variant has a lower fatality rate on the road.Greglocock (talk) 22:50, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

What do the stats say about the occupants of the other vehicle in the crash? Having more mass on your side improves your odds at the expense of the other vehicle (Newton also talks about equal and opposite reactions, so that force from F=ma has to go somewhere). But either way, this is original research. We need some references. Stepho (talk) 23:35, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

The refs are in the article. Might be an idea to read the article and the refs before commenting on OR. or you can just pontificate. Greglocock (talk) 03:31, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Awwww, but pontificating is so much fun :) Time to read a bit ... Stepho (talk) 03:44, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Checking the three references (or at least the executive summaries): two agreed with me (86, 88) and the third was a dead link (87). The sentence in the article about 'other cars' in a crash also agreed with me but it is marked as 'citation needed' (ie not trustworthy for this discussion but I will probably put the other two references on it). To quote ref 88, http://www.nhtsa.gov/cars/rules/regrev/evaluate/pdf/809662.pdf: "heavier vehicles tended to be more aggressive in crashes, increasing risk to occupants of the vehicles they collided with". But back to the original question asked, increased mass (regardless of its distribution as batteries, structure, etc) helps - at the cost of the other object in the crash. But I have no doubt that crumple zones and a strong, reinforced passenger cell (ie the main cabin) also help. Stepho (talk) 04:37, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

That's basically where I started from when I started the thread, commonsensical thinking, both mass and sturdiness matter. But how much does each matter? Would I be safer on a 2-ton motorbike with a beefy engine or in a lightweight but strong titanium capsule built just to fit me, with a lawnmower engine? There seem to be no studies. Pol098 (talk) 15:05, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Ah, that is a subtly different question. OK, yes it would be possible to design a lighter car that was safer than a given heavy car. In general you are safer in a modern car than a somewhat heavier older car, but I don't know the tradeoff between age and weight there. Various people (UCS, RMI etc) have claimed that a safe lightweight car for use in existing traffic is a relatively cheap proposition, but have never actually built such a vehicle. Greglocock (talk) 23:03, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Greg. We know that a heavier car is safer than a lighter car (for its own occupants at least) and we know that crumple zones also make it safer but which one makes a bigger difference is not known to me. Sheer weight carries the penalty of using more fuel (a big no-no in today's world), so manufacturers tend to lighter cars with crumple zones. For your example of a motorbike, the weight makes no difference to safety because the rider separates from the bike in serious accidents. A heavier bike might itself survive better than a light bike but the rider of both bikes will still fly at the same speed and suffer similar injuries. For the same reason (rider separation during serious accidents), crumple zones on bikes are unnecessary (and are hard to add anyway). Stepho (talk) 02:01, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Supporting Stepho's POV, here are the specific results for the Nissan Leaf and the Chevy Volt.--Mariordo (talk) 11:55, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Additions from Schneider Electric

I have reverted the whole of today's addition of material from this paper by Schneider Electric, as the additions themselves are not acknowledged, and there was only one vague badly formed reference in total. In addition, much was added via copy and paste without sufficient regard for the wiki mark-up coding, which therefore sees many original paragraphs, or even bullet points, merged into one, missing non-breaking spaces, unit conversions and other formatting transgressions. There is also a duplicated "Charging modes" sub-section.

In other words, it is a bit of a mess. I am also concerned that it makes the article a little unbalanced, since it may now contain too much from this one company (see WP:COI). I may be wrong, but I think it needs discussion before re-adding. Tim PF (talk) 22:24, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Those edits were made by User talk:Vollet Philippe. At http://www.patsnap.com/patents/view/EP1043820B1.html, it says that his electrical invention was assigned to SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC INDUSTRIES SAS, so I assume he is related to that company. His edits are direct copy/pastes from various documents at http://www.schneider-electric.com . OTRS (see above) says that Schneider has given permission for its materials to be copied to WP, so its no longer a copy violation problem. His relationship to the company is not necessarily bad in itself (he obviously has training and knowledge in this field) but Schneider is likely to benefit by more people using electric cars, which present s a potential conflict of interest. Again, this is not necessarily bad in itself (ie by helping us he also helps his company) but his additions are loaded with propaganda style phrases that have no references to back them up (not even referring to his own site, which doesn't fit WP's criteria for references anyway). And as Tim pointed out above, the wholesale copy/paste nature of his additions don't match the style of the rest of the article. While I agree with most of his sentiments (we need to get off oil), WP requires facts and references, not unreferenced propaganda statements. Stepho (talk) 23:27, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I forgot to mention that the main PDF referenced above is Ricaud, Claude; Vollet, Philippe (2010). "Connection system on the recharging spot – a key element for electric vehicles" (PDF). Schneider Electric., and its "About the authors" box gives:

Claude Ricaud is Innovation Director of the Power Business Unit at Schneider Electric. He also manages the Charging Infrastructure Task Force in the company.
Philippe Vollet is the Electric Vehicle Marketing Director of the Power Business Unit at Schneider Electric.

Just in case Vollet Philippe (talk · contribs) is the same Philippe Vollet listed above, I have added a {{welcome-COI}} to his talk page, and a note that he should join in this discussion before making further edits (oops, just noticed that Stepho did that already; oh, well).

I would also make the following further observations.

The additions were all made to the "Charging" section, which has a {{main}} tag pointing to charging station. Moving all but a précis of that section into either charging station or a new electric vehicle charging article may be useful, both to balance this article and to save duplication.
There may be useful information that could be added from Schneider Electric's website, and I note its OTRS details here "{{ConfirmationOTRS| source=http://www.schneider-electric.com/| license=cc| otrs=2011041510009131}}".
Any additions should reference the above citation and other references per WP:V, WP:NPOV, etc., be properly formatted (not just a vanilla copy and paste), and probably not added by anyone who may have a conflict of interest.

That should do for the moment. Tim PF (talk) 09:38, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Energy efficiency

I ended up here after a bit of a roundabout trip, and I'm happy to see the topic I'm looking for is covered. Unfortunately, it leaves me asking the exact same questions I came looking to find.

The MPGe of a Volt in electric mode is about 95 mpg. That compares to a traditional gasoline version of the Cruize at about 40 to 45 mph. So basically the Volt goes twice as far as the Cruize for the same amount of energy.

But why only twice as far? As this article notes, the energy efficiency of a gasoline drivetrain is around 15%. So, then, if the Volt goes twice as far on the same amount of energy, then it's overall efficiency has to be around 30%. Right? Wrong, apparently, as the article claims the efficiency is closer to 80%. It does go on to mention another 20% external inefficiency, but does not note whether or not this is part of MPGe (and neither does the article on MPGe).

So I'm confused... if the real-world efficiency is 30%, and the drivetrain is 80%, where's the other 50% of my energy going?

Maury Markowitz (talk) 16:51, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, I like the approach but you have been misled by the gummint. mpge is a political number not a useful one. Here's how I'd do the sums. typical range of a volt in EV mode is X. This is Y kWh of battery. On the same speed time profile in gas burning mode it gets Z mpg. The calorific value of gas is C kWh/gallon. Therefore the energy consumption is Y/X kWh/mile in EV mode and C/Z kWh/mile in gas mode. Then you can look at the difference and scratch your head. Greglocock (talk) 23:17, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Lol!

MPGe is meant to include the fuel used at the power station to make that electricity. That power station might be solar, hydro, oil, coal, nuclear or thousands of hamsters on excercise wheels. They take the total across the whole country of how much fuel was used and the total amount of electricity generated, allow for some transmission losses, allow for losses pumping into your battery, allow for some losses pulling out of your battery and of course allow for some losses at the polling booth (as Greg said, there is lots of politics involved and heavy lobbying from the oil industry). They are trying to include the entire cost of generating electricity, not just how efficiently the electric motor works. Yet they never seem to calculate the entire cost of petrol (drilling, transporting, refining, distributing, fighting wars, etc). Stepho talk 00:01, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Are you sure about this? I ask, because according to that logic, the MPGe in Quebec (where it's mostly hydro) would be different than New York (which isn't). How is that possibly useful? Are there documents on this formula? Maury Markowitz (talk) 01:44, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

MPGe as used by EPA is just tank/battery to weels, no upstream energy consumption is included. Check the article miles per gallon gasoline equivalent. In physics, you can have well to wheels, tank to wheels, etc.--Mariordo (talk) 01:49, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Are you interested in the engineering efficiency of EV vs gas propulsion, or the more general perspective Stepho is describing? MPGE may help with the latter. I'm happy to help with the engineering side. C=43 MJ/kg, US gallon is about 3.2 kg, and 1 kWh is 3.6 MJ. So in EV mode the Volt is at 0.286 kWh/mile (a disgraceful figure btw) and in gas mode at 40 mpg it is at 43/3.6/40*3.2 if I have my sums right, =0.955 kWh/mile. SO that is 3.3 times more efficient in EV mode, or if you like the gas engine is 30% as efficient as the electric motor, which seems about right. (i've just reworked all the figures based on 10 kWh battery use, 35 mile EV range, and 40 mpg in gas mode). Greglocock (talk) 01:55, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Sorry Greg, somehow I missed this. So then, reversing the numbers, the electric drivetrain would be ~45% efficient, end-to-end? That still seems low, but not horribly low. This is precisely the sort of figure I was looking for. Maury Markowitz (talk) 23:13, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

How do you get 45%? That would be horribly low, in my opinion. Greglocock (talk) 03:07, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Well it's the same number's - if the gasoline drivetrain is 10 to 15% efficiency, and the electric drivetrain is 3 times better (as above), then that implies the electric drivetrain is well under 50%. Am I missing something obvious here? Maury Markowitz (talk) 12:04, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Careful here. Drivetrain losses are losses. That means you have to knock off a certain percentage. If electric drivetrains are 3x mroe efficient then you knock off a third of that percentage. The most inefficient bit by far of an electric car is a fossil fuelled powerstation; but windpower/hydro to wheels is very efficient; you're looking at 70-80% maybe. -Rememberway (talk) 16:30, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

(undent) We're talking drivetrain losses only. If you consider the numbers that Greg posts -- which I believe are spot-on -- then it's way less than 70-80%. Roughly half that in the case of the Volt. So I'm trying to figure out where that 50% is going. Maury Markowitz (talk) 11:15, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm interested purely on the "in vehicle engineering efficiency", which I believe would be "battery to wheel". According the current article that should be on the order of 80%, but my calculation above suggests its closer to 30%. Maury Markowitz (talk) 10:55, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

You can't tell from those figures, because the electric system and driveline is in series with the engine. To work out the electrical and driveline efficiency you need to know the CdA, weight and rolling resistance of the vehicle, and then build a simulation for the drive cycle in question. I have done this for other vehicles, it is non trivial (3 Mb spreadsheet). However, it would be fairly easy to compare the mpg for a Cruze with a Volt in gas mode, compensate for the weight difference, and so on to see how it compars with a conventional car. Greglocock (talk) 22:19, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

"To work out the electrical and driveline efficiency you need to know the CdA, weight and rolling resistance of the vehicle, and then build a simulation for the drive cycle in question." Is that really true? To understand vehicle efficiency in terms of kWh/distance, you certainly need to know those things, and I have also written programs that use them to calculate acceleration, etc. However, calculating driveline efficiency is concerned with input energy versus output energy used to propel the vehicle. As such, I think that we can calculate system efficiency as the product of component efficiencies, while taking line loss into consideration. This can be verified via dyno testing. On the other hand, if all we have in terms of data is kWh/distance data, then Greglocock is absolutely correct. Cd, frontal area and rolling resistance can be used with kWh/distance data to back-calculate driveline efficiency, assuming you know the power at the motor output shaft. Ebikeguy (talk) 22:44, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

30% << 80%

We're not talking about something that can be explained by a 10% difference in Cd between the Cruize and the Volt. HALF the power is disappearing.

(Sorry, see comment above) Maury Markowitz (talk) 23:06, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Oops, I was thinking about well-to-wheels. I retract my comments. Stepho talk 03:16, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

180,000 ICE car fires annually

Climateprogress.org reports that there has not yet been a real-world BEV fire. On the other hand there are 180,000 ICE car fires annually. Here is the article. Can someone please add it here as appropriate? -- Ssilvers (talk) 07:41, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

He complains about context but doesn't provide any of his own. 180,000 fires sounds a lot but is that spread over 360,000 cars (ie 50% burn rate) or 180,000,000 (ie 0.1% burn rate). The lifetime of the car applies too - if cars typically lasted a 100 years then it would be almost inevitable that a high percentage eventually get destroyed in some cataclysmic end, as oppose to our current crop that simple wear out in 5-10 years and get crushed. Also, what demographic do those fires mostly go with. I suspect (but have no proof) that most fires are associated with young guys crashing cars. Young guys love fast, noisy cars but commercially available EV's don't fall into that demographic, so the small number of fires (zero) may have more to do with who's driving the cars than the technology. Of course, not having 30 litres of petrol in the car is likely to help keep fires down but putting 100-300V and reactive chemicals in a car would have a down side too. But now I'm getting seriously into original research too :) Stepho talk 09:07, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Electric vehicles in China

This was recently added to the article "A total of 5,579 electric vehicles were sold in China during 2011" [9]. Does "vehicles" include electric bicycles? I ask because on my last trip to China (Jan 2011) I saw hundreds on electric bicycles just in the few cities that I visited. I suspect that the number given includes only road-going cars and trucks - not bicycles, electric forklifts or electric trains.

I checked the reference given and it said its own reference was [10] . I ran that through google translate and it says 'electric cars' where the English version said 'electric vehicles'. But I also got Google translate to translate 'vehicle' and 'car' to Chinese and it showed the same Chinese characters for both and these characters where also used in the original Chinese article, so the answer is not clear cut. Stepho talk 09:38, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Stepho, if you check the article electric bike, there are RS reporting that China already had more than 120 million e-bikes, and from the context of the Chinese article, we can conclude they are talking about four-wheel vehicles. However, to avoid any OR, I use the wording of the English article. The Chinese translation by Google Translator, as you correctly mentions, can be car, automobile or vehicle. Shall we make the clarification (four-wheel vehicles, considering commercial vehicles are included) or it would be OR? --Mariordo (talk) 00:05, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out the e-bike article - it matches my experience in China. Since the word 'vehicles' also includes bikes, it would be misleading to leave it in. And since we have deduced that they mean only larger vehicles (ie not bikes), I think it better to say 'cars' (assuming trucks and buses are not included in the figures) or to at least point out that bikes are not included. Stepho talk 01:24, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Proposing new image for the lead

Considering that the current image in the lead was selected here by consensus (see the original discussion here), I would like to proposed the image at the right. This image not only is of a superior quality, but also is more representative, as the Leaf is the best-selling electric car in the world, and shows a similar motive than the pic with the REVAi, which is not so representative now. Please express your ideas below and even propose alternatives.

Support: Fits the spirit of the original discussion and the other reasons explained above.--Mariordo (talk) 03:25, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

New image: Nissan Leaf charging (trimmed)

Old image: Reva/G-Wiz charging

I'm not particularly for or against the new picture but I'd like to mention a few points. The old picture was zoomed in on the car and its charging pole - the new picture is zoomed out, making the car and the charging equipment small (perhaps the new picture can be cropped). Both pictures have a lot of background clutter. The old picture is of an older and less popular vehicle - the new picture is of a newer and more popular vehicle. Current popularity isn't always a good criteria for selecting pictures but if it keeps it relevant to the readers then I won't object unless it turns into a "most popular electric car of the month" competition. Cheers. Stepho talk 04:30, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

As per Stepho suggestion, I crooped the Nissan Leaf image, and stacked both for comparison purposes.--Mariordo (talk) 05:20, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps a picture (below) that does not have as much background "clutter"? It even has a "green" (painted) recahrging station area! The image can also be cropped to eliminate the overexposed light from the wall light mounted near the ceiling. Just a suggestion! CZmarlin (talk) 06:14, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

The i-MiEV picture is a passable picture of a charging station, but dreadful of an electric car. I would support the cropped Leaf picture for the time being, as it is much more representative of an electric car than the G-Wiz type, although we may be able to source a better Leaf picture. OwainDavies ^(about)_(talk) edited at 07:59, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Whoa - need sunglasses to view that green pic :) Thank you Mario for cropping the pic. I feel bad for pointing out more bad points but that pole in the middle still seems to distract the eye too much. I did a quick search of images at Category:Electric_vehicle_charging_stations and found a nice pic of multiple vehicles of different brands being charged on the street. It still has a lot of clutter but the red cables, the green signs in a row, the left/right symmetry (cars on the left, charging stations on the right) and the curb drawing the eye to the centre makes it aesthetically pleasing as well as highlighting the electric nature of the cars. Stepho talk 08:38, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Good points Stepho, and there is no doubt the San Francisco picture has a much better image composition, unfortunately, all the cars shown are converted Prius PHEVs (see the other pics from these series at Flickr here - the pics were taken in 2008), so, I don't think this picture properly despict electric cars.--Mariordo (talk) 20:07, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Doh - how did I miss that! So close and yet so far :( Stepho talk 22:08, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Considering the ideal image composition sketched in this discussion, this image and this one, after some cropping, might be better options. Both belong to the same series as the Nissan Leaf pic shown above. If there is consensus, I can request the author (I did for the one above) to consider a change of license to upload it in the Commons.--Mariordo (talk) 05:00, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

To tell the truth, neither of those images inspire me either. The beauty of the original image was how the charging cable was highlighted. This was also true of the triple PHEV picture (unfortunately unusable). In all the other pictures the black charging cable is just part of the background. Stepho talk 22:34, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

new image 1: cropped to two EVs

New image 2: cropped to one EV

Old image: Reva/G-Wiz charging

Wikipedia is not the Leaf Fanboy Site. Leave the photo. 50.131.41.41 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 02:01, 31 January 2012 (UTC).

Based on the previous discussion, what do yo think about this one? - What about zooming in to just the EV in the front keeping the charging cord? --Mariordo (talk) 06:00, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Suitably cropped with just the right-hand car, the charging cable, the sign post (cropped just above the red section) and charging post, it looks good. Nice, close, no distractions and a brightly coloured prominent cable. By the way, "oplaadpunt" on the red sign means "charging point". Stepho talk 06:30, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Done. New image 2 shows the pic as suggested by Stepho-wrs. I like it, but the resolution is much better in the Reva pic. Please comment below.--Mariordo (talk) 20:28, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm actually leaning toward the original photo at this point. The cord and charger is in the foreground without blocking the view of the car, and the vehicle is (I assume?) a purpose-built electric car rather than a retrofitted gasser like the Smart.

That said, I'm sure a nicely composed photo of a Nissan Leaf, Chevrolet Volt, or other sleeker new model charging up will turn up before too long. IFCAR (talk) 22:42, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

The new image works well but the original image does a very good job at screaming "Electric Car!" (re: IFCAR's points). I slightly prefer the original image but I won't object to either of them. Stepho talk 04:14, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

I like the Reva G-Wiz image for a few reasons. Firstly for its qualities as a picture - no clutter etcetera. Secondly, since it depicts a purpose-built electric car. Thirdly, because it is somewhat obsolete: this means that WP doesn't have to decide what is the currently most representative electric car, instead using a very neutral image. I like change, but here I come down firmly on the side of stasis. ⊂| Mr.choppers |⊃ (talk) 09:07, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Proposing new image for the lead

Considering that the current image in the lead was selected here by consensus (see the original discussion here), I would like to proposed the image at the right. This image not only is of a superior quality, but also is more representative, as the Leaf is the best-selling electric car in the world, and shows a similar motive than the pic with the REVAi, which is not so representative now. Please express your ideas below and even propose alternatives.

Support: Fits the spirit of the original discussion and the other reasons explained above.--Mariordo (talk) 03:25, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

New image: Nissan Leaf charging (trimmed)

Old image: Reva/G-Wiz charging

I'm not particularly for or against the new picture but I'd like to mention a few points. The old picture was zoomed in on the car and its charging pole - the new picture is zoomed out, making the car and the charging equipment small (perhaps the new picture can be cropped). Both pictures have a lot of background clutter. The old picture is of an older and less popular vehicle - the new picture is of a newer and more popular vehicle. Current popularity isn't always a good criteria for selecting pictures but if it keeps it relevant to the readers then I won't object unless it turns into a "most popular electric car of the month" competition. Cheers. Stepho talk 04:30, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

As per Stepho suggestion, I crooped the Nissan Leaf image, and stacked both for comparison purposes.--Mariordo (talk) 05:20, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps a picture (below) that does not have as much background "clutter"? It even has a "green" (painted) recahrging station area! The image can also be cropped to eliminate the overexposed light from the wall light mounted near the ceiling. Just a suggestion! CZmarlin (talk) 06:14, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

The i-MiEV picture is a passable picture of a charging station, but dreadful of an electric car. I would support the cropped Leaf picture for the time being, as it is much more representative of an electric car than the G-Wiz type, although we may be able to source a better Leaf picture. OwainDavies ^(about)_(talk) edited at 07:59, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Whoa - need sunglasses to view that green pic :) Thank you Mario for cropping the pic. I feel bad for pointing out more bad points but that pole in the middle still seems to distract the eye too much. I did a quick search of images at Category:Electric_vehicle_charging_stations and found a nice pic of multiple vehicles of different brands being charged on the street. It still has a lot of clutter but the red cables, the green signs in a row, the left/right symmetry (cars on the left, charging stations on the right) and the curb drawing the eye to the centre makes it aesthetically pleasing as well as highlighting the electric nature of the cars. Stepho talk 08:38, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Good points Stepho, and there is no doubt the San Francisco picture has a much better image composition, unfortunately, all the cars shown are converted Prius PHEVs (see the other pics from these series at Flickr here - the pics were taken in 2008), so, I don't think this picture properly despict electric cars.--Mariordo (talk) 20:07, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Doh - how did I miss that! So close and yet so far :( Stepho talk 22:08, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Considering the ideal image composition sketched in this discussion, this image and this one, after some cropping, might be better options. Both belong to the same series as the Nissan Leaf pic shown above. If there is consensus, I can request the author (I did for the one above) to consider a change of license to upload it in the Commons.--Mariordo (talk) 05:00, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

To tell the truth, neither of those images inspire me either. The beauty of the original image was how the charging cable was highlighted. This was also true of the triple PHEV picture (unfortunately unusable). In all the other pictures the black charging cable is just part of the background. Stepho talk 22:34, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

new image 1: cropped to two EVs

New image 2: cropped to one EV

Old image: Reva/G-Wiz charging

Wikipedia is not the Leaf Fanboy Site. Leave the photo. 50.131.41.41 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 02:01, 31 January 2012 (UTC).

Based on the previous discussion, what do yo think about this one? - What about zooming in to just the EV in the front keeping the charging cord? --Mariordo (talk) 06:00, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Suitably cropped with just the right-hand car, the charging cable, the sign post (cropped just above the red section) and charging post, it looks good. Nice, close, no distractions and a brightly coloured prominent cable. By the way, "oplaadpunt" on the red sign means "charging point". Stepho talk 06:30, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Done. New image 2 shows the pic as suggested by Stepho-wrs. I like it, but the resolution is much better in the Reva pic. Please comment below.--Mariordo (talk) 20:28, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm actually leaning toward the original photo at this point. The cord and charger is in the foreground without blocking the view of the car, and the vehicle is (I assume?) a purpose-built electric car rather than a retrofitted gasser like the Smart.

That said, I'm sure a nicely composed photo of a Nissan Leaf, Chevrolet Volt, or other sleeker new model charging up will turn up before too long. IFCAR (talk) 22:42, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

The new image works well but the original image does a very good job at screaming "Electric Car!" (re: IFCAR's points). I slightly prefer the original image but I won't object to either of them. Stepho talk 04:14, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

I like the Reva G-Wiz image for a few reasons. Firstly for its qualities as a picture - no clutter etcetera. Secondly, since it depicts a purpose-built electric car. Thirdly, because it is somewhat obsolete: this means that WP doesn't have to decide what is the currently most representative electric car, instead using a very neutral image. I like change, but here I come down firmly on the side of stasis. ⊂| Mr.choppers |⊃ (talk) 09:07, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

^ Rinspeed car shuttle train concept

[1] Rinspeed car shuttle train concept

[1]