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19th May 1978, Page 38
19th May 1978
Page 38
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Page 38, 19th May 1978 — WHAT'! NEW?
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

by Brian Chalmers-Hunt

SIX British manufacturers are building electric vehicles and there are over 40,000 electric vehicles in daily use in the United Kingdom. Several thousand more operate on the Continent and no less than 13,000 in Japan.

Some of the vehicles have been in use for over 16 years and operating costs are reported to be relatively low.

The main drawback is that most of them are slow although the Chrysler Corporation (UK), Chloride Group Ltd and the National Freight Corporation have developed a 35cwt urban delivery van, the Silent Karrier that does 40mph and can run 40 miles before its batteries need recharging.

During September 1977 Volkswagen introduced its electric-powered commercial transporter — in microbus, van or flatbed form; 75 vehicles were produced by the end of 1977. The VW electric vehicle is powered by 1,9001b lead-acid battery. has a maximum speed of 44mph and a single-charge range of 31;50 miles.

The Japanese I am told, have developed several extended range electric vans and buses. Toyota and Nissan have models that use hybrid batteries — lead-acid batteries for rapid acceleration and zinc air batteries for longer distance work. According to the Japanese engineers, by fitting a hybrid battery the operating range of electric vehicles can be more than doubled without substantially increasing their weight.

By the late 1980s more than 10,000 new electric vehicles could be brought into service every year if improvements in operating range and performance continue.

The Chloride Group has been progressing well with its 2-ton payload Silent Karrier electric van programme. The first preproduction batch of 16 vans were assembled on the Dunstable production line with very few problems.

Chloride is developing its well established tubular electrode construction traction

battery to give an improved en ergy density (16.4Whilb at thE 5-hour rate) with only a sligh reduction in battery life Chloride says that the nev battery now gives operators fuel-cost saving over diesel a current UK prices together witt. maintenance costs less than hal. those of an equivalent diese van,

There are plans for a furthei 50 Silent Karriers to be pro. duced by late 1978 in response to favourable comments from fleet operators.

The short-term developments in the lead-acid battery and improvements to the transmission should increase the operating range to 60 miles, but in the longer term the use of sodium-sulphur batteries will be developed, these will increase the operating range to 150 miles and could well cover 85 per cent of 2-ton van operations in the UK.

The joint venture company, Chloride Silent Power, owned by the Chloride Group and the Electricity Council, is reported to be making steady progress towards making the sodiumsulphur battery commercially viable. Although not all the problems have been solved the present battery is five times lighter than lead acid battery of equivalent capacity, but the volume is only three times less because of the need for thermal insulation.

Problems which still have to be resolved include obtaining a reliable cycle life equivalent to that of the lead acid traction battery — this is usually about 1,500 cycles. Also the 'system will not accommodate very high rates of charge owing to the intrinsic relatively high resistances of the ceramic electrolyte separating the reactive elements. Finally, for economic reasons the battery should be contained in a single box, and this creates problems for the electric vehicle designers who have to work within the confines of a standard internal combustion engine-powered massproduced chassis.

It could well be five years before mass production of this ityle of battery could begin.

Lucas Batteries Ltd has based ts extensive electric vehicle )rogramme on the GM Bed'ord range of light vans. This is Jiving a compact one-ton payoad vehicle with approximately )ne ton of battery weight. The ran has a relatively high perfor-nance and maximum speed of )ver 50mph.

The latest version will have a transversely mounted motor with a low friction chain drive to the rear wheels, A minimum working range of 70 miles is predicted for the vehicle which has a high ratio of battery weight to gross vehicle weight — 8-28.5 per cent for a batery energy density of 17.3 Wh /lb at the 5-hour rate.

Special batteries have been developed from the existing flat plate lead acid battery range to provide a battery pack life of several thousand miles. The 216 volt battery pack is located centrally under the floor with quick removal facilities for servicing or renewing the pack. Effective control of hydrogen produced when the batteries are being recharged is being developed. Endurance testing, product proving and reliability trials are also taking place.

Test vehicles have been operated in a wide range of different environments. The Post Office, London Heathrow Airport, the Central Electricity Generating Board, a newspaper publication, and a large dairy have all used them.

Another batch of test vehicles are to be put into service with several operators in London, and a special electric vehicle service unit at the Lucas Service Centre at Acton will attend to the London electric vehicle fleet.

Development work on the Hobbs /A.VS variable kinetic drive-type converter system for electric vehicles is continued by Advanced Vehicle System Ltd. This is a system designed to permit a simplified control without the need for sophisticated electronics but using a highefficiency development of a proven torque converter principle.

A major vehicle manufacturer should shortly be offering the VKD transaxle as an option in a small European car. This will mean that the transmission should be available to the electric vehicle industry in the near future.

The professional approach of the two main UK electric van developers should lead to mass • production on an economic level thereby lowering the relatively high initial purchase cost.

Funds for the programmes are derived from the major battery manufacturers, and to help bridge the gap between development and the user the Government sponsored a "London goes Electric" scheme beginning in November 1977.

The objective is to provide a total of £400,000 to be used to subsidise at the rate of approximately £5,000 per vehicle covering a total of 62 vehicles. These are to be operated in the London area by commercial businesses and public bodies in groups of not less than three. The total fleet will include 25 Chloride Silent Karriers, 25 Lucas Bedford CF vans and 12 Crompton Electricar 1.5-ton payload vans. The Crompton vans have been developed from the existing production range where on average 2,000 electric milk delivery vans are produced every year.

Greater London administers a scheme which ensures that operators are able to lease electric vans at the same rate as they would be able to lease diesel or petrol vans. The objective is to induce operators to take part in the scheme, and to date the response has been such that there are more applications than vehicles planned.

The Electricity Council is evaluating approximately 60 Enfield electric city cars in service. They are in continuous use for such purposes as carrying meter reading personnel. Trials are continually run using different batteries but some problems were experienced with short cycle life. It was found that high-energy density lead platetypes of battery are essential for this type of small passenger vehicle.


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