Having read your article in this month's Audi Driver magazine, I see you really are against the Plug-in Incentive scheme
Not entirely - see my comments about i3 REX in same article.
or at least you're against giving funds to those who you judge to be wealthy enough to be able to afford the current crop of EVs. What I fail to understand though is how using at least 1 hour of electric to power a pre-heater will be of benefit
We are talking about 300Ws verses 15,000 to 30,000W for an EV or PHEV charge excluding "pre-conditioning" and AC DC losses.
when by your own admission it only achieves a slightly quicker warm-up time for your car.
That's the whole point: if Electricity is cleaner (and it's a big IF), then using a very small amount to get a very efficient ICE up to temperature in Winter makes sense and reduces start up emissions by up to 30% according to Swedish tests.
Most of the funding would be taken up by installers anyway who inflate their charges.
No need for expensive EV installation as it's 13A so you just plug it into a garage wall socket.
I've bought an e-tron - I take delivery in September. I have taken advantage of the grant of £5000 available from the government and I'll also be having another £700 off them for the installation of a home charging point too. Is it wrong of me to do this, when it's available?
Good for you - enjoy it! We have freedom of choice. But should we pay those that can afford £25k+ cars to make very little difference to emissions both locally or globally when we are broke?
From your Fuelly info, I see that you're getting just under 70mpg in your A2 and that's laudable
Hardly - that's the worst I've ever acheived! & haven't used Fuelly for years (2013) - mostly a busy winter in a car that had done well over 180,000 miles at the time and summer with roof box.
But compare that with the brand new A3 TDI on same route without winter tyres or roof box. The A2 got an average of 96 mpg over summer 2015 with 220,000 on clock. Check RABs Fuelly.
but easily achieved in an e-tron - I was getting around the 80mpg mark over the time I had the test car, and I had it a good couple of days.
Hmmm, are you counting the total energy consumed or like NEDC just using petrol consumed?
For short trips (EV only) a PHEV can claim unbelievable MPG, but reality is a 2 Tonne Outlandish Phib gets 28 mpg not 149 mpg on a business commute according to UK car mags. That means CO2 and NH3 (source of acrid fumes and Acid rain - which is rising in London according to DEFRA due increase in hybrid taxi uptake) worse than ICE cars.
If one were to charge a Nissan Leaf with a Honda petrol generator it gets more like 35 to 40 mpg.
Add in UK generation emissions (just under 500g/kWh CO2) which excludes 8 to 15% grid power losses, 20 to 30% AC to DC conversion losses, back up diesel generators because we've shut so many power stations down........
I still like EVs - especially the better than diesel torque, but the energy density vrs traditional fuels is awful. This means excess weight all the time. More so in a PHEV as it's a compromise: either an EV with a heavy petrol back up unit or a petrol with a dead battery.
Are EVs the future? Probably not, at least in their current incarnation. Until battery tech gets better and the methods of producing the electric to charge them becomes more sustainable, then they'll not be widely seen as being better than the fossil fuel alternatives.
Absolutely agree.
However, there always needs to be a transition and the e-tron is just that. It's the first properly clever and forward thinking mainstream Audi model released since the A2 and that's why I've bought one.
Fair enough - I'm more cynical - I think it's a "me too" compliance car like the e Golf and GTE and sadly the over priced XL1.
I'll still be keeping my A2 - it's probably the 'greener' vehicle if you use the 'it's greener to use an old car than build a new one' argument, but then if that were true, we'd all be tootling around in Model T Fords!
Given the amount of engine rebuilds, poor combustion efficiency, poor power to weight let alone lack of aerodyamics I doubt Model T would be my first choice!
