Ed Evans Speaks Out
Why we aren’t all buying electric cars
ELECTRIC VEHICLES are still a long way from arriving in any meaningful way, as is the infrastructure needed to support both pure electric and hybrid cars. The 30 miles or so that a hybrid Range Rover travels on one electrical charge may be enough for some people’s daily commute to work but, do we really want to unravel the cables and plug the car into the mains every day?
Hybrids aside – and I see them as only a stepping stone to the real thing – JLR have made a realistic move into the pure electric car scene. It’s a world previously inhabited only by small saloons and dominated by Tesla with its 350-mile range electric SUV costing around the price of a decently spec’d diesel Range Rover. The new Jaguar ipace carries four-wheel drive pure electric technology that will find its way under future Land Rover models. Despite weighing in at two tonnes, partly due to the weight of the underfloor batteries, ipace has a range of around 300 miles, and the instant torque of the electric motors gives a sizzling a 0-60 mph time of under five seconds.
But until there’s a revolution in the way we fuel our cars, electric cars remain impractical for longdistance travel. The ipace’s range is actually 150 miles because, you have to get back again before the batteries run down, unless you can locate and, no doubt, eventually queue for, a public rapid charger (one and a half hours), or find a mains socket (ten hours). Otherwise, the electric car concept is heading for the buffers: the need for a realistic charging network is urgent.
Which leaves us with good old diesel and petrol engines and, in our case of Land Rovers, predominantly diesels. Rest assured, diesels still put out less CO2 than petrols, they use far less fuel, and particulates and nitrous oxide emissions fall continually throughout the production years, with the latest Euro 6 engines being the cleanest ever. But we have a responsibility to keep our diesels in good order. Worn engines and defective injectors, faulty EGR systems and blocked particulate filters are a health hazard and the resulting smokey exhausts give our movement a bad image. Good maintenance and timely engine overhauls pay for themselves in reliability, lower fuel bills and MOT passes.
TECHNICAL EDITOR
ED EVANS
lrmtechnical@gmail.com