Articles and Posts relating to Electric Vehicles or any kind
Drones are never far from the news at the moment and with the CES (Consumer Electronics Show) currently in progress in Law Vegas, there has already been some big announcements in this area.
But none quite so big as the EHANG 184 Autonomous Flying Vehicle. Stay tuned for more CES announcements. You can watch the official video below for more about the EHANG 184 and it’s founders ideology of safe aerial transportation.
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Its my last broadcast of the year and I so talk about my top 5 gadgets of the year. Listen to the stream to hear what I thought of the following :-
These are all products I’ve reviewed in the past, so you can click on each of them to take you to it’s relevant feature.
We’re not just on air and online, we’re also in print in this month’s On Our Doorstep, where we talk in depth about the latest so called ‘Hoverboard’ craze. There’s lots of other interesting articles again this month, so click the link below and dig in.
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This week we chatted about the Self balancing two wheeled board’s that are currently very popular. You might know them as Hoverboards, Segways, Balance Boards, Monorovers etc. This is because the device is being manufactured by ‘copycat’ companies in the Far East and is being marketed under a whole host of different names in the UK alone.
It takes a bit of time to get used to riding the board, but once you get it, you are away. It’s great for smooth surfaces, not so good on bumpy ones.
Listen in to the audio stream to find out all about it. Lots of video shortly.
Thanks you a million times to Charles Claughton for the loan of the board, he is indeed a star!
There has been a slew of announcements from Volkswagen Group today, but the the real news for us is the announcement of the Porsche Mission E electric sports sedan!
Back in April, I spoke to notable people at Porsche (notably Mark Webber) at the WEC at Silverstone about the potential of Porsche launching a fully electric sports car, at the time everyone was understandably tightlipped even going so far as to say that they couldn’t see it happening. Well, it has happened, in the form of the four seater Porsche Mission E.
Obviously there is a direct comparison to the Tesla Model S P90D with it’s Ludicrous Mode and super fast charging and it seems that Porsche have specifically targetted these areas with Mission E.
The Mission E has all wheel drive dual electric motor drive producing 600HP accelerating the car from 0-60mph in less than 3.5 seconds. The technology for this vehicle has been inherited from the awesome Le Mans class Porsche 919 LMP1 giving exceptional energy recuperation.
Charging the vehicle can be just as rapid as Porsche have chosen an 800 volt ‘Porsche Turbo Charging System’ which can replenish the battery to 80% in just 15 minutes! The car also supports 400 volt home charging and even inductive charging meaning parking over an inductive charging plate will begin replenishing the cars power plant. Fully charged, the Mission E gives up to 310 miles range, which is again in Model S territory.
The interior is future-proofed by the inclusion of 3d eye tracking displays and holographic controls with race bucket seats for all four passengers.
This is a massive announcement from the world’s most popular sports car manufacturer and we can now look forward to the eventual production model and the technology finding its’ way down the VW Group food chain to the other brands in the group.
I love the fact that Porsche are so incredibly active in the EV and Hybrid market. It’s a very exciting time for car manufacturers at the moment. As I’ve said before, we are seeing a gold rush in the electric vehicle market, driving it forward faster than ever and this can only benefit ‘us’, the drivers in fuel efficiency, performance and most importantly – safety.
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With the summer suddenly returning last week, it was lovely to have another electric bike to review. I’ve reviewed the Granite Pro from Batribike last year, so it was really exciting to get to check out their newest addition to the ‘stable’ in the shape of the MTB style Storm.
Listen in to the stream to find out all about this amazing e-bike and keep an eye on the website for a full review coming soon.
Thanks to Sue from Batribike for personally delivering the bike to me!!
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This week we stay with hybrid cars, but this time we look at the Audi A3 etron. First things first, this car looks spectacular! I have never seen such a bright red in my entire life and the big alloy wheels enhance the look even more. It’s certainly a head turner.
The A3 etron comes with a 1.4 litre turbo charged engine outputting 150 bhp, however yet again it sits alongside an electric motor which when combined in ‘Sports Mode’ increases the performance to just of 200 bhp and will get you to 60 is 7.6 seconds. When you are feeling less ‘eager’ to get around town, you can elect for pure electric which is the default mode at start up or 3 forms of hybrid mode, normal, battery save and battery charge.
The battery can be charged from a very cleverly hidden port on the front grill and on electric alone will take you around 30 miles per charge. You aren’t going to want to be taking long journeys on electric alone as the car is designed for hybrid use, it’s probably better to let it decide which forms of power it uses as it will drop to electric in slow traffic and moderate speed.
If you are feeling excitable, then pulling the gear stick backwards enables Sports Mode, the gear information changes from D1,D2,D3 etc on the dashboard to S1,S2,S3 to indicate sports use. Be very careful in this mode at it transforms the car to very high performance. The car is however very good at governing acceleration I I didn’t notice any wheel spin in sport mode, although we did notice some in pure electric (this is possibly down to the higher torque of the electric motor).
A full review of the A3 etron will be coming soon, in the meantime grab a listen to the attached audio from Mondays show.
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This week we move back to hybrid cars with the Volvo V60 D6 Twin Engine Plug in Hybrid vehicle. The D6 is unique as it is a Diesel – Electric Hybrid rather than the standard Petrol Electric that we are used to.
This is a very powerful snappy car, at full ‘Power’ mode it is outputting a combined 280bhp and you certainly feel it. Along with beautiful ride, upholstery and fuel efficiency, I can see this being very popular in the company car sector.
We will be reviewing it in greater detail soon online, but in the meantime, listen in the the stream from Monday 13th July.
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Great fun was had this week as I was out on about testing one of my favourite forms of transport! Yes, I was testing an super electric bike from those clever people at KTM.
I even brought the bike into the studio to show everyone and nearly managed to run over a musician in the green room.
The KTM eStreet P is a really nice electric bike which makes great use of pedal assistance with the 250w motor giving you up to 400% assistance. I’m really impressed with the bike and I will be reviewing it in full later this week. For now listen in to the stream and find out about this very nice eBike.
Massive thanks to Louise Johnson at KTM Industries UK for all her help in getting the bike to me.
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This morning, I chatted to Mark about the new breed of cars currently hitting the markplace around the world, namely PHEV’s or Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles. I’ve already reviewed the e-Golf a few months ago, however the GTE takes the electric technology from the e-Golf and combines it with the performance on the Golf GTi. It’s quite a vehicle to drive.
From a distance you might be fooled by the Volkswagen Golf GTE, it shares its DNA with the legendary Golf GTI, but can also be driven in zero emission mode like the all electric e-Golf. It’s design and equipment has been adapted directly from the Golf GTI with the red hints altered to ‘eco friendly’ blue. The front grill mounted VW badge doubles at the access cover for the charge port.
The engine or ‘engines’ are supplied as a 1.4 litre 150hp turbo charged fuel injected petrol engine and a 102hp electric motor providing a combined power output of 204hp in GTE mode. Essentially you have two independent drive systems that provide almost silent operation and zero emission with speeds up to 86mph in electric mode, morphing to a 146 mpg fuel sipping hatchback in hybrid mode to the insane 0-60 in 7.6 seconds hot hatch with maximum speed limited to 137mph.
When you switch into GTE mode, there is a noticeable change in engine sound which at first caught me off guard and speculating how it was achieved? After a little light reading, I discovered that VW are employing a ‘method’ similar to the BMW i8 supercar. Electronic engine sounds is played into the cockpit of the car via integrated sound system, fooling the senses that you are driving a big V8. It really does fool you, as coupled with the sudden full boost unleashed via the turbo charger, you are catapulted from a completely silent standstill to a roaring power house in an instant.
This is one of the new range of ‘Plug-in Hybrids’ which are current coming to market. There is a very good reason for plug-in hybrids though. Originally hybrids were designed to be charged by the main internal combustion engine and regenerative braking systems and was only really used to bring the car up speeds above town use. With the advent of Plug-in Hybrids, the on board battery is now larger and able to power the car for reasonable distances before requiring recharge. In the Golf GTE’s case, the battery will allow for about 30 miles before recharge. You might think this isn’t much, but the average car journey to place of work in the UK is 9.9 miles, so on average you could drive to work and home without using the petrol engine at all. I tried this and the car was reporting 300 miles per gallon! It certainly gives you a good idea of how much cheaper an electric car is to run. In ‘optimal’ driving conditions, VW reckon you should get 146 miles per gallon! Charging the car takes 2 and half hours via a normal 220v electrical supply.
If you are considering a hybrid, you couldn’t go far wrong with the Golf GTE. It combines ‘hot hatch’ performance with zero emission short distance driving. The price is in line with the Golf GTI, so you would be looking at paying around £33,000.
