Fifty to One !
Page 32
Page 35
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
By "Azote
NO; the title Yrs nothing to do with betting; it represents the number of battery-electric vehicles that couid have been on the roads, compared with pre-war numbers, if the price had been right..
Briefly, the price of an electric vehicle is twice that of its petrolengined competitor. That is why never more than 1,000 of them have been made in a year. Please note the word " made." Thpy are not " manufac
• tured," as the conditions of the industry do not yet permit of production on that scale. This will be evident when it is remembered that there are 18 makers, according to the trade paper ,r Electric Vehicles," and it is certain, from the catalogues issued by the makers, that they do not confine themselves individually to single• model.
From these conditions we arrive at an average of 50 vehicles per maker per annum, and possibly five.yehicles per model, When it is remembered that private-carmakers of medium output produce 2,000 examples of a model,, and mass-production concerns 10 times that number, it is abundantly clear why electric vehicles are so expensive.
When reference is made to electric vehicles, the immediate response is "Oh! but they're so slow and the batteries are so heavy." That, of course, is generalizing, with the petrol vehicle in mind as a basis; but that is not the attitude to take towards 'the electric. Further consideration will expose the positive factors. Why concentrate on finding reasons to render• their use impossible? Why not look for the opposite reasons, that is, how they can be made possible? It will be well worth while.
Limitations Not Always Important The general impression is that because an electric vehicle will not do 40 or more m.p.h., and because it will not do • 200 to 250 miles without replenishing fuel . (cuf rent) it is " no good " and " can't compete." It does not occur to superficial observers that there are vehicles which do not need to travel at more than 20 m.p.h.; that it would not .benefit anYbody if they did; it would' only be wasting tithe, money and energy. Nor do. those same people realize that these vehicles do not need to travel more than 30 miles on a single charge. It would be of little va:lue, to mest of them if they coald do so. It would surprise those observers to know that an electric van can and does do its day's work in the same time that it takes the petrol van to do the same day's work; that it goes on its daily round of •milk or. bread deliveries to individual households, coming back at night to the garage where ifs batteries
are automatically charged while it is standing idle during the night. It is ready for the driver to step into in the morning, without any uncertainty of starting in any kind of weather. The explanation of the equality of an electric with a petrol vehicle on the time basis is that only 30 per cent: of the total time of this type of delivery duty is running time, and that acceleration is much higher with the electric machine.
Household Delivery
a Big Fieldr , The-e are many thousands of delivery vehicles the work of which comes-' within the performance called for, and which the battery-electric can any out. Within the range cf pay-loads generally required in the household deliveries referred to above, the . S.M.M. and T. gives the following figures for 1938:—
Vehicles Up to 12 cwt. pay-load... 69,770 12 cwt. to 1 ton ... ... 67,422 Total ... ... 137,192 That gives an approximate idea of the market for vans, some' 98 per cent. of which is in the hands of the petrol vehicle manufacturers. So far as the battery-electric system is concerned, that percentage might quite conceivably be reversed.
It has already been suggested that the cost of an electric van is the deterrent to all except those who have an excess. of cash capital available for thern double expenditure.
Are there any other reasons militating against electrics? On the contrary. every other factor is to their advantage.; cost of current is less than that of petrol; taxation, tyres, lubricating oil, repairs, garage space and insurance are all in their favour. Depreciation has a favourable aspect, in spite of the doubled cost of the electric van, inasmuch as its life is 10 years against the three or so years of a petrol van. That is the experience of large operators of both types of van.
Another and very important advantage of electrics, particularly in the case of such household deliveries as are made in the early morning while many people are still bed, is silence of operation, contrasted with the multitudinous noises of the petrol engine; carburetter hiss, engine exhaust, gear clashing, etc. There is evidence that this superiority is already influencing in favour of electrics the choice cif new tfansport vehicles for this class of work. Public opinion is being listened to inure than it was in such matters, and that attitude will have a growing influence in the future, even if legislation does not take a hand in the matter.
• Besides the light goods type of vehicle there exists another market in the private-car field. Here particularly, the " can't be done " brigade point to the slowness in the rate of progression and the short distance before battery charging becomes necessary.
Below are given some figures which negative the general assumption of the impossibility of electric private cars.. In the first place, let us admit the limitations of a7battery-electric car and say that it cannot compete with petrol on tlA open road as regards speed, nor will its need for frequent battery recharging 'permit it 4-to operate at all successfully in the same circumstances.' Raving said that, let us see where it can successfully compete with a`ny petrol vehicle, not excepting the highpower American cars,
Reports of tests made in America to determine the effect of the relationship between the highest possible speed and the average speed actually attainable over a period in different .traffiC concentrations, recorded that over a distance of 40 miles a car maintained an average speed of 38 m.p.h. on an. open road, but in what we should refer to as a built-up area the speed was reduced to 25 m.p.h.
Tests made from time to time in. our cities show that the average speed before arriving at the open country is less. than the above speed.
Further, recent tests on an electric vehicle indicate that, in built-up areas, there is no car, no matter how powerful, that can run away from an electric, and in these conditions a correctly constructed electric is in every way a competitor to a petrol vehicle without claiming the additional advantages automatically belonging to electric power. „ Many Business and Private Uses Investigations into the purchasing power of the public, as applied to private cars, has 'elicited the fact that there are over 100,000 families in this country (Awning more than one car.
In such circumstances an electric 'car is an ideal vehicle to carry, out the duties that do not require high speed and long distance capabilities.
A man residing at up to 20 miles from his place of busines in a city has at ideal application for a batteryelectric two-seater drop-head coupe. The car stands in his garage at home ready to step into after breakfast, having charged its batteries automatically during the night. There is nothing more to. do than go to business and come home again in the evening, plugging the battery-charging terminal to the charger fixed in the garage. Simplicity of operation is incomparable with any other, possible system. A similar car is an ideal vehicle for the business man's wife for her shopping, social and golf requirements in the way of transport facilities.
A doctor is another prospective satisfied owner of such an elegant and convenient vehicle. His duty is similar to that of the householddelivery requirements, which include stopping and starting_ to a much greater extent than ordinary usage calls for. For this class of use the electric is superior to petrol.
This type of car provides the necessary room for the housing of batteries of sufficient capacity to,obtain a speed of 30 to 35 m.p.h. and a• distance of 45 to 55 miles per battery charge.
To obtain the necessary speeds, voltages much above the usual ones on electrics are desirable. FTOm 60 to 72 'Volts are normal ; there is no reason why much higher voltages should not be used, as they are in other countries. From 120 to 150 volts are suitable for the private-car requirements, dependent upon the actual speed and distance selected as being desirable.
Advantages of High Voltage
With high voltages the ampere-hour capacity of the battery can' be reduced as compared with what is usual. It will be found that 40 m.p.h. and 50 miles per charge can be obtained from a battery with a voltage of 150 and an ampere-hour capacity of pa. This envisages a properly designed vehicle, not one in which certain petrol-car components are •merelY assembled. It also takes account of the use of light materials such as aluminium, magnesium, plastics, etc. It is necessary to take every pound of weight possible out of the chassis and transfer it
to the battery with a view to increasing capacity in relation to either speed or distance or some combination of the two. This, of course, has its limits, that of the gross weight being the Ultimate control.
The percentage that the battery weight is of the gross vehicle weight is then the guiding factor within the limitation given above. Somewhere in the region of 30 to 35 per cent, is a usual percentage of to-day's vans. The figure required for the two-seater car is in the region of 55 to 60 per cent.
It will be found that interchangeability of many of the main components of the two vehicles—van and car—can be managed by careful design, so as to gain • the manufacturing advantages of volume production of the pieces individually.
Mass Production the Answer Mass pitcluction is the answer to the problem of the electric vehicle. That condition of manufacture will automatically reduce the double-the-petrol price now existing.
A factor which will further reduce the selling price will be the possibility of hiring the battery instead of ibuying it, thus transferring the interest of the saved capital to the runningexpenses. account. It is important to remark that this addition to the running expense's does not Idestroy the advanta.ge of lower running costs that electricity holds-over petrol.'
When When it is recognized that out of an electric-van price of £320, £100 is included for the battery and £50 for the charger, it will be appreciated what the transfer of such amounts will mean on the selling price; the same pro
cedure will be adopted for the charger as for the battery.
The cumulative effects of volume production and the transfer of capitalaccount sums to running expenses will have the effect of Arriving at such a selling price on the new basis as will indubitably attract . much of the business now in the hands of the petrolvehicle concerns.
It would appear that the market for electrics will be in the region of 250,000 vehicles; to-day there are Only 5,000; the 50 to 1 of our title.
Nearly half these vehicles will br private cars, and as such not strict], of interest to readers of " The Commercial Motor," but the argument as tp the need' for volume production and the combination of both private and goods vehicles to attain to this volume, is put forward as the excuse for dealing with it here.
Who Will be Enterprising?
What interests will take up the matter on this basis? Will it be the existi,pg battery-electric industry? Will it be the greater electrical industry as a side line, as to which there are already some interesting indications, or will the petrol people take a hand in the job? . The possibilities are so much aPpre. ciated in several quarters in which the facts and figures discussed aboVe have been investigated, that schemes are under consideration for eFploiting the situation which has been exposed as a result of a study of the prospects pf the development of vehicles of the battery-electric type, for the limited yet considerable duties suitable to its potentialities.