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Electric Plugin Hybrid Cars Environment Friendly City Switch

CliveS

A government grant should be given to drivers of vehicles who switch off their ICE and run on battery only power inside cities.

Vehicles without this switch including vans should not receive a grant,

To discuss is how to automatically switch the ICE off as the vehicle crosses the line into the zero pollution zone. 

At the moment there are cameras at these access points which could signal switch off and switch on when departing.

Hybrid electric car manufacturers could surely fit cars/vans with the necessary auto switch.   

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  • Not sure how practical that is - as far as I know PHEVs have a relatively short fully electric range - often only a few tens of miles (as the additional weight of the engine limits the amount of battery it can carry), so the ICE will be needed to cut in automatically when the battery becomes low - whether your in a low emission zone or not. So while some people could run without the ICE for 100% of the time inside the LEV, many others could only manage 80% or 60% or 40% or less (say those who do a decent daily mileage within the zone or visit multiple zones in the same day). Even those that mostly manage 100% could be caught out occasionally (e.g. during cold weather where the heating drains the battery faster than usual). So where could you draw a line between grant and no grant? Or have some massive administrative system to  pro-rata things?

    I see PHEVs are a short term thing anyway - they're only a quick fix to give additional range to EVs - and are a bit of a botch - having to carry the additional weight of a useless engine around in electric mode and the extra weight of the batteries in IC mode - it's never going to be an efficient solution. As better batteries and more charge points appear, range anxiety is becoming a thing of the past anyway, so I see PHEVs fading away over the next decade or so. Not much point in building a huge system that would be obsolete soon after it was completed.

       - Andy.

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  • Not sure how practical that is - as far as I know PHEVs have a relatively short fully electric range - often only a few tens of miles (as the additional weight of the engine limits the amount of battery it can carry), so the ICE will be needed to cut in automatically when the battery becomes low - whether your in a low emission zone or not. So while some people could run without the ICE for 100% of the time inside the LEV, many others could only manage 80% or 60% or 40% or less (say those who do a decent daily mileage within the zone or visit multiple zones in the same day). Even those that mostly manage 100% could be caught out occasionally (e.g. during cold weather where the heating drains the battery faster than usual). So where could you draw a line between grant and no grant? Or have some massive administrative system to  pro-rata things?

    I see PHEVs are a short term thing anyway - they're only a quick fix to give additional range to EVs - and are a bit of a botch - having to carry the additional weight of a useless engine around in electric mode and the extra weight of the batteries in IC mode - it's never going to be an efficient solution. As better batteries and more charge points appear, range anxiety is becoming a thing of the past anyway, so I see PHEVs fading away over the next decade or so. Not much point in building a huge system that would be obsolete soon after it was completed.

       - Andy.

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