Talk:Electric car/Archive 6

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Weight and Safety

This issue has apparantly been raised repeatedly including here- archive 4 but the article still reads with a passage that is controversial at best and most likely plain wrong. It is understood that in collisions between two similarly constructed vehicles with one weighing 2,000lbs and the other 3,000lbs, the heavier vehicle's occupants fare better. Obviously studies exist to support this conclusion, yet we would have to have blinders on to believe unnecessary weight adds safety. Studies also exist which show heavier cars slide off the road in icy or wet conditions, or cannot be stopped to avoid impacts or collisions while lighter vehicles avoid such momentum based mishaps. It would be disingenuous to consider for instance a Chevrolet Volt with its 3700lb weight to be structurally identical to any of its mid-size counterparts of the same weight, and not the 3100lb structure of the Chevrolet Cruze it's based upon, with 600 lbs in the trunk(actually the Volt houses its batteries in a center tunnel). As many electric cars place the battery packs in the rear, which places occupants between the additional mass and the potential object of impact, we have no statistics to comprehensively claim the additional weight of batteries alone make these cars safer. I believe the passage as it stands is misleading, probably falling into original research, and should be either corrected with some of the above caveats included or deleted altogether. Most people have driven a car with themselves as the lone occupant and then driven the same car with 3 or 4 passengers. Did you feel much safer with the additional time and distance it took to come to a stop, the way the vehicle handled more sluggishly? Batvette (talk) 10:54, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Physics says that when two objects collide they rebound with equal changes in momentum. Change_in_momentum is MASS times the change_in_velocity. Which means that the lighter vehicle is going to have a larger change in velocity, which translates into larger acceleration. In layman's terms, the lighter vehicle gets a bigger whack. So, physics and studies show that when a heavy vehicle hits a lighter vehicle, the lighter vehicle will get the worse of it - all other things equal. The flip side is that larger vehicles are more likely to cause more accidents due to higher centre of gravity (flips easier), higher seating position (driver tends to not see the small car at the stop light in front of him), larger mass (harder to brake to a stop). Larger vehicles also tend to have sturdier construction, negating the 'all other things equal part' and transferring even more energy to the light car.  Stepho  talk  11:30, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Then it seems you agree that as written the passage is misleading as it does not contain the "flip side" you acknowledge and "all things being equal" should not apply to a 3,000 lb vehicle with a structure typical of 3,000 lb vehicles, and a 3,000 lb vehicle with a structure of a 2,000 lb vehicle carrying 1,000 lb of batteries. Vehicle safety is far more complex than simple physics and the references provided do not directly support the claims made in the passage-making it original research. Batvette (talk) 16:30, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Weight and Safety

This issue has apparantly been raised repeatedly including here- archive 4 but the article still reads with a passage that is controversial at best and most likely plain wrong. It is understood that in collisions between two similarly constructed vehicles with one weighing 2,000lbs and the other 3,000lbs, the heavier vehicle's occupants fare better. Obviously studies exist to support this conclusion, yet we would have to have blinders on to believe unnecessary weight adds safety. Studies also exist which show heavier cars slide off the road in icy or wet conditions, or cannot be stopped to avoid impacts or collisions while lighter vehicles avoid such momentum based mishaps. It would be disingenuous to consider for instance a Chevrolet Volt with its 3700lb weight to be structurally identical to any of its mid-size counterparts of the same weight, and not the 3100lb structure of the Chevrolet Cruze it's based upon, with 600 lbs in the trunk(actually the Volt houses its batteries in a center tunnel). As many electric cars place the battery packs in the rear, which places occupants between the additional mass and the potential object of impact, we have no statistics to comprehensively claim the additional weight of batteries alone make these cars safer. I believe the passage as it stands is misleading, probably falling into original research, and should be either corrected with some of the above caveats included or deleted altogether. Most people have driven a car with themselves as the lone occupant and then driven the same car with 3 or 4 passengers. Did you feel much safer with the additional time and distance it took to come to a stop, the way the vehicle handled more sluggishly? Batvette (talk) 10:54, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Physics says that when two objects collide they rebound with equal changes in momentum. Change_in_momentum is MASS times the change_in_velocity. Which means that the lighter vehicle is going to have a larger change in velocity, which translates into larger acceleration. In layman's terms, the lighter vehicle gets a bigger whack. So, physics and studies show that when a heavy vehicle hits a lighter vehicle, the lighter vehicle will get the worse of it - all other things equal. The flip side is that larger vehicles are more likely to cause more accidents due to higher centre of gravity (flips easier), higher seating position (driver tends to not see the small car at the stop light in front of him), larger mass (harder to brake to a stop). Larger vehicles also tend to have sturdier construction, negating the 'all other things equal part' and transferring even more energy to the light car.  Stepho  talk  11:30, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Then it seems you agree that as written the passage is misleading as it does not contain the "flip side" you acknowledge and "all things being equal" should not apply to a 3,000 lb vehicle with a structure typical of 3,000 lb vehicles, and a 3,000 lb vehicle with a structure of a 2,000 lb vehicle carrying 1,000 lb of batteries. Vehicle safety is far more complex than simple physics and the references provided do not directly support the claims made in the passage-making it original research. Batvette (talk) 16:30, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Cost of batteries

The following sentence "In 2010 the U.S. government estimated that a battery with a 100 miles (160 km) range would cost about US$33,000. Concerns remain about durability and longevity of the battery" references a dead link. I only tagged it as dead, since I'm sure someone could find the reference. The cost estimate to which it refers seems either wrong or outdated, however. There are several electric cars with a far greater range than 100 miles that sell for less than $33,000, which is supposed to be the cost of the battery alone. Are there any objections to me just deleting this sentence? --Icowrich (talk) 05:28, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

which electric cars cost less than 33000 unsubsidised with ranges far greater than 100 miles? Greglocock (talk) 10:03, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

bad reason why electric cars are better than gas. A electromagnetic vehicle, if correctly built by a more intelligent species, could probably get you cross country for free. No more flying, if need be across europe and the americas on a couple of charges. --76.100.60.164 (talk) 01:27, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Since we're making wishes, can I have world peace and a pony? Oh well, back to the real world...  Stepho  talk  04:19, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

bad ref

" The study concluded that there are no regions in the U.S. where plug-in electric vehicles will have higher greenhouse gas emissions than the average new gasoline engine vehicle, and the area with the dirtiest power supply produces equivalent to a gasoline-powered car rated 33 mpg_‑US (7.1 L/100 km; 40 mpg_‑imp)."

That is a bogus comparison, because the capabilities (payload 4wd etc) of the average EV car are significantly less than the average gasoline car. I do not think such a silly study should be included. If the summary in the article misrepresents the ref then it should be corrected Greglocock (talk) 02:55, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Here are the conclusions of the ref, I do not find the above summary is satisfactory in any shape or form.

nclusion To meet the challenge of climate change and reduce our nation’s dependence on oil, continuing to run our cars and trucks predominantly on oil-based fuels is not an option. On the other hand, electric vehicles—coupled with clean and sustainable electricity—are important parts of the solution. Driving on electricity is a reality; it provides global warming benefits today and throughout the United States. Nearly half of Americans live in regions where driving an electric vehicle means lower global warming emissions than driving even the best hybrid gasoline vehicle available. Over the lifetime of an EV, the owner can save more than 6,000 gallons of gasoline—a significant contribution to U.S. energy security. But our nation’s reliance on coal-powered electricity limits electric vehicles from delivering their full potential. Only by making improvements to our electricity grid—by decreasing the use of coal and increasing the use of clean and renewable sources of electricity—will electric vehicles deliver their greatest global warming and air pollution benefits. Initiatives to clean up the electricity grid are occurring around the country, but additional efforts are needed both at the state and national level to ensure continued progress. Of course, cleaning up the nation’s electricity production won’t deliver large reductions in the transportation sector’s emissions and oil consumption unless electric vehicles become a market success. While they are now coming onto the market in a much bigger way than ever before, EVs still face many hurdles, including higher up-front costs than gasoline vehicles. Lower fueling costs for EVs, however, provide an important incentive for purchasing them, and our cost analysis of 50 cities across the country shows that EV owners can start saving money immediately on fuel costs by using electricity in place of gasoline. Meanwhile, utilities’ leaders and government policy makers have important roles to play: they must ensure electricity rate plans motivate EV ownership, and they must encourage charging behavior that supports lower emissions and a robust electricity grid. To prevent the worst consequences of global warming, the automotive industry must deliver viable alternatives to the oil-fueled internal-combustion engine— i.e., vehicles boasting zero or near-zero emissions. Such alternative technologies must become market successes in the next 10 to 15 years if they are to comprise the majority of vehicles on the road by 2050—a critical element to reaching an 80 percent reduction in global warming emissions by that year. EVs promise to be one of those technologies, but their success is not assured. To turn the nascent EV market into a mainstream phenomenon over the coming years, continued investments are needed for improving EVs’ performance and 56 costs, incentivizing consumers and manufacturers, expanding accessible charging infrastructure, and reducing barriers to low-cost home charging.

Greglocock (talk) 03:17, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

As you can check here from EPA, the Nissan Leaf has a W-to-W total GHG emissions of 120 g/mi (SFO zipcode 94101), while the average new vehicle emits 500 g/mi (much more than a 30 mpg car), and for the average energy mix, the Leaf produces 230 g/mi. As you can see (check other zips, Denver - 80201- is 330 g/mi, the worst in the UCS report) this is not bogus. If you can wait one day, I will show in the PEV article, and later in this one, a table including the best and worst emissions for the Leaf, iMiEV, Focus EV, CODA and Volt, the five series production PEVs rated by EPA. I will post it first in the PEV article (work in progress now), and reproduce it here to continue the discussion.--Mariordo (talk) 04:09, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

PS: And by the way, I was careful not to include any of the advocacy stuff, clearly the report conclusions has plenty.--Mariordo (talk) 04:14, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

That is not, directly, the problem. The article states that the report concludes ... and yet the conclusion of the report states NO SUCH THING. That is the problem. Greglocock (talk) 05:16, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Then go ahead and change the wording, such as, ...the study found, ... the analysis shows... Clearly any study reached several conclusions, you are taking the meaning of the word literally. And by the way, this is a sample of the table based on EPA emission estimates.--Mariordo (talk) 05:24, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

The following table compares well-to-wheels greenhouse gas emissions estimated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for all series production plug-in electric vehicles available in the U.S. by April 2012. For comparison purpose, emissions for the average gasoline-powered car and the most fuel efficient hybrid-electric car are also included. Total emissions include the emissions associated with the production of electricity used to charge the vehicle, and for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, it also includes emissions associated with the production of gasoline and tailpipe emissions.

Comparison of EPA's full life cycle assessment of greenhouse gas emissions for the 2012 plug-in electric cars available in the U.S. market by April 2012 (Emissions as estimated by the U.S. Department of Energy and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's fueleconomy.gov website for model year 2012)
Vehicle	Operating mode	EPA rated combined fuel economy	Clean electric grid California (San Francisco)	U.S. national average electric mix	Dirty electric grid Rocky Mountains (Denver)
Mitsubishi i-MiEV	All-electric	112 mpg-e (30 kW-hrs/100 miles)	100 g/mi (62 g/km)	200 g/mi (124 g/km)	290 g/mi (180 g/km)
Ford Focus Electric	All-electric	105 mpg-e (32 kW-hrs/100 miles)	110 g/mi (68 g/km)	210 g/mi (131 g/km)	310 g/mi (192 g/km)
Nissan Leaf	All-electric	99 mpg-e (34 kW-hrs/100 miles)	120 g/mi (75 g/km)	230 g/mi (143 g/km)	330 g/mi (205 g/km)
Chevrolet Volt	Electricity only	94 mpg-e (36 kW-hrs/100 miles)	190 g/mi (118 g/km)	260 g/mi (162 g/km)	330 g/mi (205 g/km)
	Gasoline only	37 mpg	Tailpipe only: 87 g/mi (54 g/km)
Toyota Prius	Gasoline-electric hybrid	50 mpg	Total emissions: 222 g/mi (138 g/km) Upstream: 178 g/mi (111 g/km) and tailpipe: 44 g/mi (27 g/km)
Average U.S. new car	Gasoline only	Total emissions: 500 g/mi (311 g/km)

References for section

Purchase price

I found these statements curious:

American and British car buyers seem to be unwilling to pay more for an electric car... A survey taken by Nielsen for the Financial Times in 2010 showed that 65 percent of Americans and 76 percent of Britons are not willing to pay more for an electric car above the price of a conventional car.

This seems suspicious to me. This paragraph is talking about purchase price. The economics of electric vehicles involve paying more up front in exchange for lower operating costs (excluding battery replacement). I'm sure there are plenty of people who would pay more for an electric car if lower operating costs compensated for the price. So I tried the check the sources. The first two don't support the claim, the second is not a reliable source, and the third is unavailable. Kendall-K1 (talk) 02:16, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Can you be more precise in your complain. The article clearly separates content about purchase price and operating costs in two different sections, and indeed they do not compensate the premium you pay for an electric car. Check here for more details in the plug-in electric vehicle article, here and here.--Mariordo (talk) 02:24, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure I can be any more precise but I'll try. This statement:

American and British car buyers seem to be unwilling to pay more for an electric car

is not supported by the given sources. I suggest taking it out.

• The ibtimes citation supports: the battery costs are quite high (I moved the citation to the proper content it support). This ref is a bit dated (Set 2010), if you want I can look for more recent sources, surely there are plenty. Nobody questions that EVs and PEVs are more expensive to buy because of the cost of the batteries.

• Who kill the electric car site is not a reliable source, this is a site representing an advocacy group. I removed the ref.
• I move the text you point it and merge with the Nielsen/FT content, and expanded it to reflect what the FT article actually says.

This statement:

A survey taken by Nielsen for the Financial Times in 2010 showed that 65 percent of Americans and 76 percent of Britons are not willing to pay more for an electric car above the price of a conventional car.

is supported by an online source that is no longer available. I'd like to be able to verify it. Specifically, I'd like to verify that the survey is talking about purchase price, not total cost of ownership over some period of time/miles. Kendall-K1 (talk) 16:05, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

• The FT source is indeed available but only to registered users and subscribers (but still considered a reliable source). I do have access, and these results refer to buying the car, but to respect FT copyrights I will point to you to other sites summarizing/showing part of the relevant content. Check here and through Google here. I hope the ce + edits fulfill your concerns.--Mariordo (talk) 02:13, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

That's perfect, thanks! The extra JD Power material is a neat summary. Kendall-K1 (talk) 11:06, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Battery-less electric cars

Nowhere in the article is it mentioned that in theory, electric cars can be made without using any batteries whatsoever. This is useful as these pack a great amount of weight, need to be replaced after a few years and make up the bulk of the cost. Rather than using a battery, a range extender (ie microturbine, IC engine or Stirling engine) can be used. Especially microturbines (which are ?% more efficient than IC engines, ie regarding incineration) are very useful, as they are very light, and (as any range extender) allow to use energy dense fuels (more energy can be taken along compared to batteries). The only downsides of a fully battery-less system like this is that it may then be even more efficient to just use a microturbine powered by the fuel (as in the system proposed the microturbine needs to operate all the time anyway), and reducing output power (by reducing the fuel consumption) is also a problem. A intermediate system may thus be more efficient still, having only a small buffer (so storing say energy to drive a few hundred meters upto 1 km, rather than storing energy for say 100 - 500 km). This could be done by placing a (ultra)capacitor in between the microturbine (now fitted with a dynamo or alternator) and the electrical motor. Note that although one may perceive this setup as not that environmentally friendly (compared to electric vehicles which drive purely on their battery capacity), it actually is allot more environmentally friendly than most internal combustion and hybrid cars. This as: less batteries are required (environmentally polluting to produce), microturbines burn fuel more cleanly than IC engines, and finally, the fuel itself can be ie biofuel or a emissionless fuel (nitrous oxide, hydrogen, ...). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.182.6.232 (talk) 13:06, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Picture changed

To give more credit to EVs, I changed te picture to a picture of a charging Nissan Leaf. This picture is already used on the Electric Vehicles page and on the Dutch Wikipedia page on Electric cars. The picture depicts a typical EV (a smaller-sized city-car) with a neutral appearance. It clearly depicts the 'electric' part of the car (the car is charging via an electricity cable running from the car) and shows that charging stations are becoming more and more common.

There was some discussion about this in 2009, and I believe this picture meets al the criteria stated in this discussion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.98.16.41 (talk) 16:20, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Your change has a few problems:

• Your new picture looks like any old car parked next to a parking meter. Whereas the old picture had a bright yellow cable that just screams electric car!
• You ignored the comment that was meant to warn people to discuss any changes on the talk page first.
• You removed the comment that was meant to warn people to discuss any changes on the talk page first.
• New talk page topics go at the bottom of the page and should be signed by placing 4 tildes (~~~~) at the end.

I reverted your change. We've searched very hard to find a picture of a newer car but that yellow cable screams electric car so well that no better picture has been found yet. We're not against change but the change should be for the better.  Stepho  talk  08:47, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

As a reference, see previous discussion about changing the lead image here, and the initial discussion here. I still believe that a more modern and notable electric car (such as the Nissan Leaf) should be in the lead, but Steph-wrs has a very good point regarding the picture cannot be just any image, but one highlighting the fact that the vehicle is an electric car.--Mariordo (talk) 17:27, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Silly claims from UCS

While UCS is often rather silly, it seems unnecessary to attribute ridiculous statements like "The study found that there are no regions in the U.S. where plug-in electric vehicles will have higher greenhouse gas emissions than the average new gasoline engine vehicle" to them. The average gasoline powered vehicle in the USA is somewhere between a truck and an SUV, both of which are far more capable in almost every sense than a typical EV. The reference {cite web|url=http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/clean_vehicles/electric-car-global-warming-emissions-report.pdf%7Ctitle=State of Charge: Electric Vehicles’ Global Warming Emissions and Fuel-Cost Savings across the United States|author=Don Anair and Amine Mahmassani|publisher=Union of Concerned Scientists|date=April 2012|accessdate=2012-04-16}} pp. 16-20. contains nothing relevant to emissions. Greglocock (talk) 04:44, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Ah, the ludicrous statement is made on p11 of that report. Oh well, if you put in the /correct/ ref then I suppose it can go back into this article and make it a posterboy for stupidity. Big clue, not every statement that is reffed is sensible, and that one is just risible. Greglocock (talk) 05:07, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining in detail your concern here. If you have done that before rushing to remove the content you might have realized that a wording change is enough to attend the issue you raise. If you had read carefully the rest of the summary of the UCS study, you might have realized that the scope of the study is electric cars versus hybrid and conventional gasoline-powered cars, with the Nissan Leaf as the baseline car. As made explicit in page 5 of the study, the comparison is against compact and midsize vehicles with average fuel economy of 27 and 26 mpg. Also in page 5, the study says "...even when charging an EV with electricity made only from coal (the dirtiest electricity source), the EV has better emissions than the average new compact gasoline vehicle." (the underline is mine). Also in page 11, mentioned by you, just before the conclusion is taking about the Hyundai Elantra and Ford Fiesta, and the average compact or midsize gasoline vehicles. So, the fact that the study authors used electric car and electric vehicle (EV) as synonyms as well as sucompact, compact or midsize vehicles when talking about passenger cars, can be fixed just by the proper wording, just like the rest of the summary of the UCS study. Based on pp. 5, I will change it to:

The study found that there are no regions in the U.S. where plug-in electric cars will have higher greenhouse gas emissions than the average new compact gasoline engine automobile, and the area with the dirtiest power supply produces CO₂ emissions equivalent to a gasoline-powered car rated 33 mpg_‑US (7.1 L/100 km; 40 mpg_‑imp).

If you still have any doubts, please check the entire comparison table in this other Wiki article here, under the heading "Well-to-wheel GHG emissions in the U.S." As you can see the dirtiest region (Denver) produces WTW emissions equivalent to 33 mpg-US, while the Chevrolet Cruze is rated 30 mpg. I really hope this settles the issue.--Mariordo (talk) 03:37, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

PS: and by the way, the EPA study, summarized right after the UCS study, just reconfirms these "silly/ridiculous" conclusions.--Mariordo (talk) 03:47, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

You misrepresent the actual sequence of events. I read the article, found the ludicrous claim, checked the ref as given in the article, and it was not there, so the ludicrous claim was unsupported, so I killed it. You then flounced in and replaced it /without checking the ref/. And here we are. The ludicrous claim was ludicrous as written, because, as is typical with POV-pushing lazy wiki editors, they ripped the quote from a report without giving context. Greglocock (talk) 06:18, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Omni wheel

If electric cars had omni wheel activation. Like if you built an omni wheel with rubber that can slide sideways, i bet people would by it. The omni-wheel is like a metal hubcap, or rotary axel with small vertical wheels lining the exterior or outside. If there is a way to lock the wheels in place at times, it would work. This would be the next step up to car evolution as opposed to the ridiculous science fiction hover car theory. You could even make traction with a type of rubber tubing. The tubes themselves would be connected to a pipe line inside the rim to blow the tires 10 or 20 small tires up, simultaneously. The electric function would be a locking mechanism which prevents sliding. This would be called a latch that pulls the many small tires down or turns them via the collapsing function of a brake around a rim or it would naturally just go sideways because of the car's heavy weight and the small electic motors inside the wheel or something that commands it eg the chain clock or tank wheel effect. If one wheel turns sideways via motor, all of them turn basically. The only engineering pheat i would see is to make the whole bar rotate, therefore not omni-directional but maybe trilinear or bilinear. --Asfd777 (talk) 15:17, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

-People would by it because of urban environments, i don't even know how to parallel park yet. On top of that parallel parking is a waste of time and effort...or what if youre stuck in a traffic jam and need to change lanes? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Asfd777 (talk • contribs) 15:35, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

function

The electic motor rotating the bar would also rotate it vertically as well as horizontally. The small electric motor would have two gears, one straight on two wheels. It would help the main motor which runs the car except. It could be incorporated via hybrid cars as well. Actually it would be defined as hybrid. It can be mass produced, sure. Or until electro-magnetism arrives. A simple clock gear function of bilinear properties. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Asfd777 (talk • contribs) 16:07, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Omni wheels are fine for low speed applications like wheel chairs and forklifts but have low efficiency in high speed applications like cars. They also have trouble with road compliance (gripping the road) and passenger comfort because their don't flex and bounce like pneumatic tyres.

Even though your idea might use electric motors as a part of their function, their could be applied to a pure electric, a hybrid or a pure hydrocarbon car (using the electric motors only for sideways motion). Which means it doesn't really belong here.

However, this is original research. OR is banned for Wikipedia articles. An interesting idea but one that can't be used on WP at the moment. But once you are rich and famous from your invention and the magazines report on it, then WP will be happy to report on it too :)  Stepho  talk  04:24, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Charging

Perhaps the wireless charging of electric vehicles in regular car parkings can be mentioned. See Pavol Bauer's documents at http://www.d-incert.nl/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Pavol-Bauer-Groningen-Presentatie.pdf Besides wireless stationary charging, it's also possible to charge a car while driving, on the road, hence allowing the use of a smaller battery. However, efficiency of this is not very great at present. A last option is charging vehicles with retractible power plugs retracted from parking spaces.

See also Toyohashi University of Technology EVER EVER — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.182.22.182 (talk) 14:58, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

91.182.189.103 (talk) 14:19, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Regen brake %age

There may be some confusion over this. For an individual low speed gentle braking event a regen system can capture around 70% of the braking energy and return approx 90% of that to drive the vehicle, giving a loop efficiency of 60%.

BUT that is the best case scenario, and for real life cases where the mechanical brakes are also used either because more than (say) 0.3g is required, and/or the battery is unable to accept charge fast enough, the overall %age of brake energy recovered is only 20% or so.

Greglocock (talk) 04:13, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Splitting "Risk of fire" section

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

The risk of fire section has become to long (too many incidents) and as per WP:Split, the article's readable prose size is already too long (81 kB - 13309 words), making it a good candidate for splitting. As a background, the Electric vehicle warning sounds was splitted from the Nissan Leaf article for size reasons and to develop the topic in more detail. Also, and for the Boeing 787 battery incidents, the specific Boeing 787 Dreamliner battery problems was created. For those who support the proposal, please indicate if the most adequate name for the splitted article would be (1) Plug-in electric vehicle fire incidents or (2) Electric car fire incidents. Right now both are redirects to the section under discussion.--Mariordo (talk) 03:20, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

• Support split. As per the reasons explained in my proposal. Nowadays the term electric car is commonly use including plug-in hybids, but to avoid confusion I prefer a more specific term that formally includes both BEVs and PHEVs, so I support naming the new article option (1) Plug-in electric vehicle fire incidents.--Mariordo (talk) 03:23, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

• Support split. I don't know about the wiki standards on entry length, but the entry is too long for my attention span as it stands, and will be troublesome to download when the ISPs are clogged. I have NOT carefully read the entry from cover to cover so hesitate to opine on which subsection should be the next one to get its own standalone entry, but from a post-Sunday-breakfast skim through the text and a glance at the various headings, the "fire risk" section does indeed look like the obvious candidate, leaving just a ten (approx) line summary and a redirect instruction at its head in this main article. Regards Charles01 (talk) 06:11, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

• Support split per above discussion. I support naming the new article option (1) Plug-in electric vehicle fire incidents.-- Johnfos (talk) 00:15, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Article really too big

The page size tool gives a text size of 84 kB.

The guideline at WP:Article size says that anything above 60 kB probably should be divided. The article is significantly above that. The article also "feels" really too big.

In particular the 'currently available car' section seems very bloated considering there's a specific article for that. I think most of that material should be moved out of this article into that one.GliderMaven (talk) 21:51, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Good idea. If that section really is a duplicate then it should be summarised and linked. Greglocock (talk) 23:16, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

I also agree that the article is too long. First, the low hanging fruit. The previous section is a discussion (still open because only 3 editors have participated) has a proposal to significantly trim the article by splitting a section into a stand alone article. So please, participate in that discussion so we can close it.

Regarding the 'currently available car' section, the article "Currently available electric cars" actually is only a list, so the content is completely different, and clearly NOT a duplicate. The article "Electric car use by country" is the one with a similar content. The section here is a summary of the country sections for the top selling countries. If you think these summaries are too much, then the easiest thing to do will be to remove the country specific content for Japan, the US, China, France, Norway, the Netherlands, Germany and the UK (four of these countries already have separate articles: US, UK, Japan and Norway). I think the three first paragraphs are more general and should be kept (this content is not available in the Electric car use by country article).--Mariordo (talk) 00:07, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Since lately there is not much participation in the discussion on this page, I decided to be bold and do some trimming. I will also close the split discussion (after the trimming), and create the new branched article.--Mariordo (talk) 22:44, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

The Lead section of this article was also excessive and I have rearranged the article do that none of the content was lost and the integrity of the article remains.--Soulparadox (talk) 23:04, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

why are Miles mentioned?

why is such a backward measurement such as miles used when world wide kilometers are the norm?

And here I was thinking wiki was kept up to date!

America! get with it and keep up with the rest of the world!!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.147.241.43 (talk) 00:11, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Electric car

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Electric car's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "NorwaySales092013":

• From Plug-in hybrid: "Tesla Model S moser alle salgsrekorder" (in Norwegian). Norsk Elbilforening. 2013-10-02. Retrieved 2013-10-05. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |trans_title= ignored (|trans-title= suggested) (help)
• From Chevrolet Volt: "Tesla Model S moser alle salgsrekorder". Norsk Elbilforening (in Norwegian). 2013-10-02. Retrieved 2013-10-09. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |trans_title= ignored (|trans-title= suggested) (help)
• From Plug-in electric vehicles in Norway: "Ladbare biler i Norge" (in Norwegian). Grønn bil. October 2013. Retrieved 2013-10-09. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |trans_title= ignored (|trans-title= suggested) (help) Click on the bar graph "Salgstall pr. 2013" (Sales figures 2013) for registrations for each year (including new and used imports).

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 17:00, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Number of electric vehicles in China

The article says 80% of China's 39,800 electric vehicles are for public transport (buses and taxis?). But http://www.economist.com/node/16117106 (May 2010 reference from Electric bicycle) says 120 million e-bikes are on the road. Shall we assume that the 39,800 electric vehicles does not include e-bikes? Should we clarify this in the article?  Stepho  talk  03:16, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

what is most notable for intro

Per wp:lead the intro should contain was is most notable about the subject. I deleted info about first inventor, it is in the history section. I believe people come to the electric car article to learn about current information and most are less interested about history details. What do you think? There was also an revert comment that Norway is more notable. I disagree. Norway is a tiny car market compared to the U.S. Also this is a English language wikipedia and should cater to english language speakers and interest. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 06:57, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

I disagree with you about history, as people are often interested in the background information that pertains not only to new technologies and inventions, but also new artists/artworks. I do not possess the expertise to comment on Norway vs the U.S., but I don't understand the point about English language speakers, as it appears to follow on from the Norway matter. Are you suggesting that Norway-related content is less important because English is not the official language in Norway? If so, I must disagree once again.--Soulparadox (talk) 07:28, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

@Daniel, beware that English WP uses English conventions (spelling, grammar, decimal points, etc) but is not restricted to what interests readers from English speaking countries. Many readers have English as a second language.  Stepho  talk  08:16, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

As per the MOS, the lead should present a summary of the article content. Also, notability is what counts regardless of the language spoken in the country where the facts take place. Furthermore, the edit I reversed was an isolated fact without context (200% could be a climb from 1 to 3) and not presented in the article. After I reverted Daniel I updated the U.S. section to provide this context with the actual figures (I rv Daniel again because he removed this update without a justification). Finally, I believe it is more relevant and reflects the conten of the article, to mention in the lead that 100 years ago electric cars were relevant and leaving no doubt that this is the beginning of a second era of EVs (instead of the % increase in sales of any particular country).--Mariordo (talk) 10:09, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

I decided to move passage on the current market section to an own section, so the intro doesn't get lost in all those details. Electric car#Current market overview. Cheers, Horst-schlaemma (talk) 13:33, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Horst-schlaemma, I do not want to do another reversal, but did you notice there is a huge section in the end of the body of the article about models available, market/sales by country, ...? What you did duplicated content within the body of the article. The content you moved was supposed to be a summary of the "Currently available electric cars" section which I agree could be trimmed (in the lead, that is. The list of cars in the lead is a good candidate passage to be trimmed). So please remove the new section you created and just leave a trimmed summary in the lead (the top selling models?) or let's decide in this discussion the content of the lead. Cheers.--Mariordo (talk) 17:47, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

The lead now is looking much better. I will add a short synthesis regarding sales/market conditions using content from the corresponding sections without much detail (as before), so the lead covers a summary of the entire article. Please fell free to improve.--Mariordo (talk) 16:16, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Lead picture

One more try. I think the pictures shown below clearly show these are electric vehicles, and as a plus, they are showing more modern highway-capable all-electric cars, two of them, the top selling EVS: Nissan Leaf and i-MiEV, with a Smart fortwo ED in the middle. I adding a trimmed and retouched version (minor color and contrast adjustment). Please state below if you support using this pic instead of the one with the REVAi, and which of the two options.--Mariordo (talk) 02:48, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Original version

Trimmed version

• I support changing for the trimmed version, but fine with the original too.--Mariordo (talk) 02:48, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Existing image

The new image has prominent charging stations with cables going to the car but it would be nicer if the cables were more prominent to avoid it looking like just a row of cars next to a row of utility boxes. I still have a preference for the existing image (see right) but I am not strongly against the suggested image.  Stepho  talk  04:34, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

One more try

I just transferred this pic from Flickr. I think it looks like a lot to the existing image (the charging cord highlighted) but it shows a more modern, highway capable electric car. I also made this trimmed, retouched version. Please state below if you support/opposition to using this pic instead of the one with the REVAi (not classified as highway-capable in some countries), and which of the two options.--Mariordo (talk) 00:52, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Original version (1)

Trimmed and retouched version (2)

Another trimmed option of a former candidate for the lead (3)

• I support changing for the trimmed version (2), but fine with the original too (1).--Mariordo (talk) 00:52, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

• The new pics are good but the background is a bit cluttered, distracting the viewer from the car and the cable. The old pic has a simple clarity to it, especially with the bold electric cable. But the new pics aren't too bad, so I'll happily follow the majority.  Stepho  talk  01:39, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

What do you think about this one? (The image quality is superior, the angle not so good but shows two EVs. It can be trimmed a bit to reduce background noise).--Mariordo (talk) 02:46, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Option (4)

Either one of these pictures is good enough to replace the REVAi shot. While I am not personally convinced that simply moving emissions from cars to power plants is the best way to help save the planet to which we are tied, I think that the Ride and Drive pictures (top) make for the best pro-EV illustrations. To be brief, I support any of the illustrations offered here, with a private preference for option 4.  Mr.choppers | ✎  07:30, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Once again, I'm not strongly against it but I do feel the background is a bit cluttered. Are you taking these pics yourself? Perhaps you can experiment with a shallow/medium depth of field that makes the background slightly out of focus. Or possibly to use a camera angle that puts the tops of the other cars below the top of the electric car (ie hiding the other cars).  Stepho  talk  12:34, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Suggest a picture of a mainstream, highway-capable car

If I may be frank, the very small EV currently featured merely reinforces the negative perception that these vehicles are not in the same league as internal-combustion engine powered ones. I suggest a photo with a Nissan Leaf and/or a Tesla Model S. As it is you have to scroll down pretty far into the article to see anything like a modern, normal sized electric vehicle. Thanks! Jusdafax 05:26, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Option 4.1 (trimmed)

As I said above, most of the pictures we have of electric cars look just like any other car. We need a picture that immediately tells the reader that this is an electric car. Which means the car has to either show its batteries and/or electric motor or it has to show the charging cable in some obvious manner. I agree that the G-Wiz picture is the worst car to select but so far it has also been the best picture from a photographic point of view - ie clear, no background clutter, very obvious bright yellow cable. Two images have been presented above. They have a modern and more desirable electric car, the charging cable is very obvious and they are quite clear. However, the background is cluttered. For me it's a coin toss whether to go for the image with an ugly car or the image with lots of clutter. Perhaps slightly tighter cropping of the set of 3 photos will make the background clutter more acceptable. But once again I'd like to emphasise that we don't want a picture that looks like any other non-electric car.  Stepho  talk  23:22, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

My main concern always has been that the G-Wiz is not representative of current electric cars. I trimmed option 4 from the previous discussion to give it a try. Unfortunately the Commons does not have a good quality pic of the Leaf (in the terms described by Stepho), nor the i MiEV. The only other optiosn available are the Tesla Roadster, though it is out of production, but at least is more modern than the G-Wiz, and the Bolloré Bluecar. Below I am adding a gallery of candidates pics for those two cars (sorry, no yellow or orange charging cables), and the Nissan Leaf (just because is the top selling BEV).--Mariordo (talk) 02:31, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

• 
  A1
• 
  A2
• 
  A3
• 
  A4

• 
  B1
• 
  B2
• 
  B3
• 
  B4

• 
  C1
• 
  C2
• 
  C3
• 
  C4

• Thanks for this. The bottom row, second from left picture would be my own choice for the lead photo in this article. As the top-selling EV, the Nissan Leaf is a very good call. I would have chosen the bottom row, far left, but it is the lead photo at Battery electric vehicle and I think we should avoid obvious duplication as possible. Thanks for responding to my concerns... I have nothing against the G-Wiz, but I feel the mainstream modern era of EV's should be the focus of this article. Hopefully we can get a consensus here and replace the photo asap. Jusdafax 00:18, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

My preference is the Leaf on the wild - C1 (as stated above), followed by the Smart ED (option 4.1 trimmed), and third the Tesla Roadster in A1.--Mariordo (talk) 02:00, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

C1, bottom left is a great shot. The more I look at it, the more I wonder if duplication with the other article is not such a bad thing. The auto show Leaf is quite formal. Jusdafax 04:26, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

A1 has a nice artistic quality about it but the casual reader may or may not recognise the cable as a charging cable. A2 and A3 look like cars with diagnostic cables attached in a workshop. A4 somehow reminds me of a harpooned seal. The B series is, um, grey, nothing really stands out and looks like it is roped to the bollard to stop the wind blowing it away. C1 is nice except for the cluttered background and that bollard is real distracting. C2 is uninteresting. C3 isn't bad. C4 doesn't look like a car.

On the more positive side, 'Option 4.1 (trimmed)' has had the background clutter removed, is a modern electric car, is bright and colourful, has a prominent and easy to recognise charging cable and comes in twin packs (ie emphasises popularity).

'Original version (1)' with tight trimming to include only the car, the cable and the grey charging station (with the red sign) also gets most of the same points as Option 4.1.

My preference would be 'Option 4.1 (trimmed)', closely followed by 'Original version (1)' with closer trimming, followed waaaay behind by A1 or C3.  Stepho  talk  23:44, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Oops, that should have said "without the red sign".  Stepho  talk  07:25, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Reinthal has tried a couple of times to put a photo of the Tesla S in the intro - in spite of admitting to know about this discussion and the criteria we want (ie a photo that is distinctly electric and not indistinguishable from any other recent car). I've decided to force the issue by using Electric_car_charging_Amsterdam.jpg on the grounds that it fulfils our criteria, no-one has been strongly against it and that the discussion has stalled. I'm not too worried if we want to discuss it again and replace my choice. It it stays, then it could still use some tight trimming.  Stepho  talk  07:25, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Why has nobody tried searching Flickr for additional CC-BY-SA images. In a few seconds, I found a photo of a Tesla Roadster charging. Perhaps not mainstream, but certainly usable. Or Jurvetson's Model S charging (not a great angle). Surely there are others. Mindmatrix 09:28, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Your suggested picture is generally fine but I'd like to raise two points. First, the black recharging cable doesn't look any different to a petrol/gasoline pump line - it even plugs into where the fuel tank inlet is on normal cars. And two, what is mainstream when comparing a 2-seat sports car to a 2-seat city car?  Stepho  talk  09:44, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

A Tesla Model S connected to a high speed Supercharger station at the Harris Ranch on Interstate 5 in California's Central Valley. The charging is free for Model S owners.

• Fellow editors, I have boldly replaced the G-Wiz photo with one of a Tesla Model S that I took myself. I made sure that the photo shows the Tesla charging and that the charging cable is clearly shown to be just that... there is no gasoline nozzle, and the port is located in the Tesla tail light. I hope you will all agree that this photo improves the article and shows the state of the art in modern electric vehicles. Jusdafax 06:03, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

But the previous image wasn't of the G-Wiz, it was of the Smart electric drive, which is far more common around the world than the currently US-only Tesla Model S. Also, the electric charging cable looks at first glance to be a hose from a fuel pump. The image really must scream ELECTRIC CAR, and not simply be a picture of a car that just happens to be electric.  Stepho  talk  11:01, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Well, there's no fuel nozzle on the hose at first glance, and the hose goes into the tail light so to be brief, I strongly disagree with you that this photo isn't what we want. The Tesla is a huge success story; newly profitable, revolutionary, and highway-ready. I call on the community to decide which picture should be at the top of the article. Opinions, anyone? Jusdafax 09:58, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

To a casual reader, there is a big thick black hose going into the general rear of the car - just like they are used to seeing for a hose from a petrol pump. Little details like whether there is a nozzle or whether it goes into the corner of the tail-light will not be noticed unless they look real close. The requirement to look real close to know the main point of the image kind of goes against what we want in a lead image. Whereas the Smart Electric Car image has a bright yellow, thin, coiled cable going into the car - unusual and striking and bringing attention to the fact that this is an ELECTRIC car, not a petrol car.

Your other point about the choice of Tesla being better than the Smart Electric Car is merely subjective. The Smart Electric Car has been sold in many countries throughout Europe and many other parts of the world since 2009. It was based on the petrol powered Smart Fortwo, which has sold quite well in these markets since 1998. In both forms it has been profitable, revolutionary, highway ready and easily recognisable to all - except possibly Americans. Whereas the Tesla is not sold or as well-known outside of America. Either car would be suitable as a lead image but that yellow coiled cable makes all the difference.  Stepho  talk  13:01, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

I disagree. Six months into this discussion we still have a mini car as the lead photo. Sure wish we had some other eyes on this. Jusdafax 01:09, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

If you can find a good picture that doesn't look like an ordinary car then I'd be happy to use it. But it must instantly make the reader think ELECTRIC. Your picture looks like a car being filled with petrol/gasoline - the exact opposite of an electric. Also, be aware that people in some countries are happy with small cars and consider American full-size cars to be fat, bloated things. Thus, full-size cars can also reinforce a negative image of inefficiency to some people as much as small cars reinforce other negative images to you. Both sizes have advantages and disadvantages and it becomes a matter of preference depending on your culture, background and intended use.  Stepho  talk  06:02, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

• You have had it your way a long time now. Why not share, or is it always going to be your vision of what the article's picture has to be? I see other support for a bigger car in the photo. Why do you get a supervote all on your own? Jusdafax 06:12, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Why do you get a supervote that your cultural preferences decide the lead picture when it does not adequately represent the subject matter? I don't care whether it is full-sized or micro-sized, whether it is European or America, whether it is old or new. Give us more picture choices and we would be happy to consider them - but common sense demands that the pictures scream ELECTRIC!  Stepho  talk  06:27, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Since the beginning of these discussion, I have supported that the lead should have a representative series production highway-capable electric car, such as the Leaf (71K sold), the i-MiEV (< 30K sold) or the Model S (> 13K sold), with the former two available in many countries in most continents. The Smart ED is among the top ten (> 3K), but is a highway-capable mini car, not precisely representative of the more than 150K sold worldwide or the modern electric car. However, Stepho's point is quite valid, the yellow charging cord leaves no doubt the car is electric. I had recently the opportunity to take pictures of the Leaf charging from several angles, with good lighting ( the best shots are here, and most are already in the commons - please check it out to see if anyone screams electric and never mind about the Leaf's yellow color:). This opportunity made me realize that you cannot make a Leaf scream Electric from any angle, because the key is the yellow cord, and from all the EV images available in the Commons, it seems that only in London and the Netherlands this color of cord is used in public charges, and unfortunatelly the only images available are of a REVAi and Smart EDs (there are some with an orange cord, but the cars as PHEVs not BEVs). So, if we are to have a mainstream BEV in the lead the yellow cord criteria should be relaxed (I was recently at London for several weeks, and I was surprise by the lack of EVs, in three weeks I only saw several GWiz/REVAis and an i-MiEV, so the yellow cord is really difficult to shoot with a more representative car). Also, the lack of participation in this discussion makes it difficult to bring other criteria to the discussion and worst, get any real consensus. Lately this has been a discussion among three editors. Does anyone from the Netherlands can provide us with the perfect lead image? Cheers.--Mariordo (talk) 02:23, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

• 
  Another option? Clearly not fueling gasoline?
• 
  Clearly that fueling gasoline, but the quality is not so good
• 
  Check the series of this Leaf charging here
• 
  A close up of the Leaf charging, any better?

The first Tesla Model S picture may not look like a petrol pump, but the majority of the car is obscured. The second Model S picture is clearly too far away to tell anything. The Nissan Leaf taxi looks too much like a taxi. It needs to look like an ordinary car. These photos clearly do not meet Wikipedia's quality standards.--Gg53000 (talk) 01:51, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

It is important to distinguish the Smart electric drive from an ordinary Smart Fortwo. If there is no clear difference (besides the orange twisty cord), they may mistake it for an ordinary Smart, as it looks like an ordinary car. What do you guys think about this?--Gg53000 (talk) 16:43, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

How about this? It has a good angle. Anybody looks, it's plugged into an outlet on a wall. It's a perfectly stable car. And, may I add, the Tesla Model S is sold worldwide, not just in America. Does anyone have any comments?--Gg53000 (talk) 01:48, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Oppose. The current picture is way easier to grasp and recognize and of higher quality. Don't think we'd even need a new one. Better focus on improving the text's quality, there's loads to do still. -- Cheers Horst-schlaemma (talk) 14:18, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

One more try

Candidate pic for lead/infobox

This one is a good quality picture, and shows an electric car that looks like an ordinary car (the Smart ED is not representative of the current batch of series production EV). The charging cord clearly shows is charging not refueling. I like it as it is, but it can be trimmed a bit to focus the image in the car and the charging stations.Renault Zoe is the fourth top selling all-electric car, more representative than the Smart ED. The Any comments? --Mariordo (talk) 22:07, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Blacklisted Links Found on Electric car

Cyberbot II has detected links on Electric car which have been added to the blacklist, either globally or locally. Links tend to be blacklisted because they have a history of being spammed or are highly inappropriate for Wikipedia. The addition will be logged at one of these locations: local or global If you believe the specific link should be exempt from the blacklist, you may request that it is white-listed. Alternatively, you may request that the link is removed from or altered on the blacklist locally or globally. When requesting whitelisting, be sure to supply the link to be whitelisted and wrap the link in nowiki tags. Please do not remove the tag until the issue is resolved. You may set the invisible parameter to "true" whilst requests to white-list are being processed. Should you require any help with this process, please ask at the help desk.

Below is a list of links that were found on the main page:

• http://batteryuniversity.com/partone-5A.htm

  Triggered by \bbatteryuniversity\.com\b on the global blacklist

If you would like me to provide more information on the talk page, contact User:Cyberpower678 and ask him to program me with more info.

From your friendly hard working bot.—cyberbot II ^Notify_Online 14:34, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

• Fixed. An alternative RS requested.--Mariordo (talk) 21:10, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Electric car - Fuel Cell Cars are Electric Cars

A.monteiro2007 (talk) 15:42, 24 September 2014 (UTC)Electric Cars, according to the first paragraph, are cars propelled by electric motors, which seems inquestionable. So, this category should include fuel cell electric cars. The problem with this article is that it seems to me to be polarized in a way as if only battery cars were electric cars (although mentions to other types are made). One way to solve the problem would be to rename this article to "Battery electric car"; but there is already a section whith this name under "Battery electric vehicle". The other way is to rewrite the whole article taking into account the different types of electric cars, not only the battery ones. The importance of this point to me is because there are today two types of electric cars that will probably be the future: battery and fuel cell electric cars. Articles in the internet about fuel cell vehicles (FCV) tend to ignore battery cars and viceversa. Wikipedia should not take onde of the sides and have an article about electric cars ignoring fuel cell cars.

This is a bit of a grey area. At one extreme we have the pure battery car, with a big battery and an electric motor connected to the wheels. At the other end we have the electric transmission with an ordinary petrol engine driving a generator, which then powers an electric motor connected to the wheels (and no traction battery to confuse the issue). Taken to extremes, any car with an electric starter can be driven for a few metres on electricity but not many people would call that an electric vehicle :) And of course there are the hybrids (eg Prius) which can drive purely on electric power for short distances but still have a petrol engine. Anyway, fuel cell vehicles fall in the middle with an electric generator powered by hydrogen and oxygen. All of these have an electric motor. My take is to look at what is being consumed because the average driver doesn't care about the internal mechanism, only about what he has to fill it up with. A pure battery electric consumes only electricity (derived from a wall socket), hence it is an electric vehicle. A typical hybrid consumes petrol to make electricity, hence it is not an electric vehicle. And a fuel cell vehicle consumes hydrogen to make electricity, hence it is not an electric vehicle. Of course, others may have a different opinion.  Stepho  talk  01:49, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

I fully agree with Stepho. My addition is that this article is about pure (100%)/all-electric vehicles (BEVs), and particularly light duty highway vehicles: automobiles, vans, SUVs and CUVs (see electric vehicle to add to the confusion). Those that need a plug to charge the battery are plug-in electric vehicles (BEVs + PHEVs). Among PHEVs you have the range-extender like the Volt, that most of the time run as a BEV, and the normal paralel plug-in hybrids, like the PiP. And fuel cell unfortunately are presented in two separate articles hydrogen vehicle (not all use a fuel-cell and fuel cell vehicles, usually using hydrogen as fuel to produce electricity. There is in practice a lot of overlapping among the technologies, adding FCEVs here will only add to the confusion. Next you could argue that ERRVs like the Volt should be discussed in this article too. So we better leave with the 100% electric vehicles that need a plug to charge.-Mariordo (talk) 03:26, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

First practical electric car by Thomas Parker?

In the section History it is mentioned that Thomas Parker build the first practical electric car in 1884. This statement is at least disputable because of the following reasons.

• The webside - www.electricvehiclesnews.com - where the picture for the "first electric car" is from, doesn't mention that the image shows the 1884 electric car but one of his early electric cars. The website further says that Parker claimed to have had an electrically powered vehicle running as early as 1884

• Source 15 Electric car History is not available

• Source 16 World's first electric car built by Victorian inventor in 1884 from The Telegraph is unclear. There is the same picture aswell used by electricvehiclesnews, but now claiming that it is from 1884. The indication it could be 1884 because the foto was kept by his great-grandson is no proof.

• At the website www.historywebsite.co.uk is the same image again but here dated as 1895. http://www.historywebsite.co.uk/Museum/Transport/Cars/Chronology.htm

With conflicting statements it is maybe more sensible to say that Parker was among the first people who developed electric cars instead of claiming he was the first.Mulhollant (talk) 00:06, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

I have fixed reference source 15 using archive.org . It says "History was made when the first production electric car was built in London in 1884 by Thomas Parker". Notethat is says production electric car.  Stepho  talk  05:57, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

It is a source, but just another source that claims something instead of delivering a proof. An evidence would be a dated photo of what is called a production electric car, a newspaper entry or original technical material. If it is a fact, where is something that can support it? Further does the site do not show an electric vehicle of Parker at all, the image that is currently used to show his "first electric car" may show Parker and one of his cars but there is no source mentioned here that can identify it as a car of 1884. The description of the image is very dubious.Mulhollant (talk) 17:16, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Total cost of ownership (TCO)

Perhaps someone would like to integrate this document into the TCO section:

http://www.wri.org/sites/default/files/seeingisbelieving_working_paper.pdf

The article itself has a creative commons license.   Thanks, Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 22:25, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Here is a relevant chart from the report: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4ijp-kf8RV0N3psQUtibnMwdkE/view?usp=sharing   Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 17:12, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm confused. In the wikipedia article on mpge it states that "The energy obtainable from burning one US gallon is 115,000 BTU (34 kWh)". This comports with the figure used in the table comparing mpg costs of all-electric vs. hybrid vehicles. But this is the energy CONTAINED in the fossil fuel, not the energy delivered to the pavement. So the table is wrong. The table is saying that it costs more to obtain the energy to drive the car from electricity than it does from gasoline, but that figure assumes all the gasoline energy is converted to useful work, which it isn't. Yes? In any case, this table seems to suggest that obtaining the useful work from the power grid is more expensive than obtaining it from gasoline. (174.131.5.205 (talk) 14:01, 12 January 2015 (UTC))

Electric car article is not your personal wiki

I'm sorry, but your ignorance of fast charging capabilities of various electric cars, and of various countries fast charging infrastructure, including the fast charge capabilities of the Nissan Leaf, Mitsubishi i-MiEV, Tesla model S and several other electric cars that support it, is no excuse for your arbitrarily removing content.

There are fundamental reasons why electric car batteries can be charged at up to about 80% in about half an hour or so, given sufficient power, and while not all batteries, cars, or chargers can do this, depending exactly on how they're designed; several different major electric cars can do so and fast chargers are not that uncommon, and they have become more common over the last few years, and there is every reason to think they will continue to be installed on major roads.

The electric car article is not owned by you, and that's a general principle of Wikipedia.GliderMaven (talk) 01:21, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Sorry but you are not supporting your edit with a valid reliable source, plus you are editing the lead directly. Please do a proper edit in the body to demonstrate that lack of infrastructure is not a problem supported by reliable sources, and thereafter change the edit. I can produce several recent RSs to support that infrastructure is still poor in coverage with the exception of Tesla, and other than Estonia, no other country has deploy what is considered an adequate charging infrastructure. I am moving this discussion to the corresponding talk, where it belongs, so other users can participate in the discussion. You seem like an experienced editor to use personal attacks and to add content without a RS, you know that is original research. Remember also that we have to keep a NPOV.--Mariordo (talk) 01:26, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

This is not a historical article about what electric car infrastructure has already been installed. The point of the article is to emphasise the important points about electric cars, and many of them, not just Tesla at all, support it, and fast chargers are already not uncommon, I'm within 9 miles of one right now, and I don't live anywhere like Estonia.

The point of the article is about the capabilities of electric cars. Fast charging is often considered rather important, because it means that electric cars can be used on long journeys, where it's necessary.GliderMaven (talk) 01:43, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Please stop assuming that you get to decide what is and is not important about electric cars. That fast charging (mainly but not exclusively for long distant travel) is important for Tesla, as well as other electric cars such as the Nissan Leaf, is not in fact in any way controversial, and is considered to be a notable feature.GliderMaven (talk) 01:53, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

I fully agree that fast charging is very important. But you changed the lead to say that "in some locations lack of charging" is hindering widespread adoption, which is completely different from the key role that fast charging infrastructure deployment plays. Also, you said that "several cars support fast charging that can give up to 80% charge in around half an hour which may be used on longer routes where fast chargers may be found." which of course is also important, but only Tesla Motors has deployed so far a decent infrastructure for their cars. The fact that there is a lack of charging infrastructure, except for Estonia, remains, which is what that paragraph is about. IMHO your edit can be interpreted as misleading and lacking a NPOV. Finally, I brough the discussion here precisely to give a chance for other editors to participate. I will go with the consensus as mandated by WP policies. Cheers.--Mariordo (talk) 02:13, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Fast charging isn't some little thing you can only get in Estonia and only for Tesla. For example the UK had, in July 2014, 239 CHAdeMO 50kW chargers. If you want to browse the current map, go to zap map. The CHaDeMO chargers are used for Nissan Leaf, which is one of the most common electric cars. They commonly have a 24kWh battery. Meanwhile, Tesla currently cover the whole of the UK mainland, in that you can drive anywhere on the mainland using only fast chargers (not that you normally would normally do that, there's plenty of other chargers around as well) as well as huge areas of Europe. There's a huge amount more going on here than Estonia.GliderMaven (talk) 03:21, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

I am not an expert on the topic, so I am unable to comment on the charging matter, but I commend both of the contributors in this thread, as controlling behavior by copyeditors in regard to particular pages is contrary to the ethos of Wikipedia, but the use of the Talk page is the forum for corresponding discussions, which is where @Mariordo: has brought the disagreement. I communicated with an academic expert on the general topic—not charging specifically—a couple of years ago, so I am wondering if it would be worthwhile engaging him about the fast-charging matter. What do you both think? Regards,--Soulparadox (talk) 15:31, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Not unless he has references like this: Speedy charging driving a global boom in electric cars, or even better ones from refereed journals.GliderMaven (talk) 21:21, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Discussion moved from Mariordo's talk

Hello.

• I added some information about Europe, because even if Europe is not a "country", this geographical zone is similar to the USA for example. Thus it was relevant to mention the sales in Europe and the efforts of Renault to promote the electric cars, being leader in the "US of Europe".
• In absolute, making a difference between the Kangoo ZE and a personal car is artificial and thus irrelevant. The Kango ZE has no reason to be put "outside" the list of cars. Its sizes are the sizes of a car, and are different from these of a van. It has many configurations, and some are similar to the Kangoo personal car, so some Kangoo ZE are surely used as personal cars by some people. Categories of cars are made for marketing purpose mainly. In the context of electric cars, the Kangoo ZE has no reason to be put outside of the "cars" list. The Kangoo ZE is a car, NOT a van, even if it is put in the LCV category. The Renault Trafic or the Renault Master are vans, not the Kangoo. Even a Clio or a Fiesta can be sold as LCV. Yet, there are both cars, not vans.
• the "Nissan e-NV200 pax van" that is a Renault Trafic van is even put in the "cars" list, but the Kango ZE that is a car is put in the "vans" list. Inconsistent...

You can take what I explained into account... Have a nice day. 83.157.24.224 (talk) 18:01, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Thx for the explanation. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and as such, its policies mandate that we support the edits with reliable sources, keep a neutral point of view, and original research is not allowed. I respect your opinion, but articles related to automobiles have to follow the definitions and standards of the automotive industry. Therefore, despite any good arguments, motor vehicles are classified in passenger cars, light-duty vehicles (vans go here), heavy duty-vehicles (buses and trucks), etc. I am indeed aware that the Kangoo Ze, and also the Zoe, and other models, are sold in Europe as both light-duty commercial vehicles and passenger versions, though the latter are usually very small compared to total sales (you can check the exact Renault figures here) Regarding Europe, most articles present the information by country, but also this article, electric car use by country and plug-in electric vehicle present a summary of the situation in Europe as a continent. In fact, in one of this articles the content is growing so much that I plan in a couple of months tops, to do a split and create a new article about Plug-in electric vehicles in Europe. Cheers.--Mariordo (talk) 01:24, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Article's section "Lithium availability"

I intend to revise the article's section on Lithium availability. I think those few sentences are suggestive, as they treat rare earth elements, heavy metals and lithium as equivalent. The point of view is also U.S.-centric and the text does not mention which are those unstable countries hostile to U.S. As over half of worldwide lithium reserves are located in Chile (see table in Lithium#Terrestrial), this is quite a stretch. Also, I intent to expand on lithium-recycling (not mentioned at all), and it seems to me, that the analogy of dependence on foreign oil is not appropriate. Since I am by no means an expert on this subject I will have to do some reading (LCA for Li-batteries) before I come back, but I thought I would post this "remark" first and maybe receive some feedback. Thx, -- Rfassbind -talk 01:40, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Sounds good, just FUD and requests for special treatment by USAn companies, no doubt.Greglocock (talk) 03:00, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Article semiprotected for 3 days

Due to the back and forth edit warring, I have semiprotected for 3 days. I have also asked the IP editor to discuss the safety issues here on the talk page.

Other editors, please do not use the semiprotection as an excuse to avoid open and good faith discussions on the issue the anonymous IP has raised. Remember we assume good faith about all contributors. Thanks! Georgewilliamherbert (talk)

GliderMaven (talk) 18:46, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Vehicle-to-grid: uploading and grid buffering

The claim that battery cycling capability would need to be dramatically increased for V-to-G connections to be feasible is incorrect. Charging and discharging rates under such a plan would be well within the capabilities of the batteries in question and would not cause excessive wear and tear. Any claims to the contrary need to be supported with RS.

Not sure who added this off-hand.GliderMaven (talk) 18:46, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Need for diy section

Due to the increasing use of EV conversion kits and homemade/shop models this page needs a Section highlighting the modern Diy conversion/home made model being done all over the world. otherwise this article will no longer be relevant or neutral.

Not sure who added this off-hand.GliderMaven (talk) 18:46, 8 June 2015 (UTC)