It’s too soon to start writing the obituary of the beloved internal-combustion engine which has served our motoring needs for more than a century.
But, like the small breeze that heralds the eventual hurricane, the electric car age is slowly beginning to waft in. In the next couple of years the Nissan Leaf and BMW i3 will go on sale as the first all-electric cars you can buy in South Africa, giving owners the prospect, for the first time, of being able to watch the ever-rising crude-oil price without breaking into a sweat.
Battery-powered cars have been around for a long time as concepts and part of limited fleets, but what’s kept them from becoming our regular transport is their very limited range.
New high-tech batteries are better at improving this aspect, which is what’s prompted BMW and Nissan to enter the electric-car retail market, but for now they’re still a long way off matching the range of a regular petrol or diesel car.
LOTS TO LIKE
I’ve just spent a week test driving BMW’s electrically-powered 1 Series, and while there’s lots to like about the car, two major drawbacks are the tiny boot (due to space taken up by the batteries), and the limited range. BMW claims 160km is possible between re-charges but my test car managed only about 110km. This should serve most people’s home-work-home shuttling needs but it restricts the car to a pure commuter. A second car will be required for longer trips.
There won’t actually be an electric 1 Series in production. The car I drove is a test mule for the powertrain that will be in the soon-to-be-launched BMW i3, which will be larger than a 1 Series and priced at around R460 000.
GET-UP-AND-GO
The get-up-and-go is provided by a 125kW/250Nm electric motor fed by a lithium-ion battery pack, and from a performance point of view the electric 1 Series shunts along nicely. An electric motor makes its maximum torque instantly, without needing to be revved, and this gives the automatic car instant acceleration that’s ideal for city driving (and great for preventing arrogant taxi drivers from stealing gaps).
Out on the open road the electric Beemer sails along effortlessly, with punchy overtaking pace, although its top speed’s restricted to 150km/h. What’s eerie is how quietly the car glides along, and the electric drivetrain’s as silent as a Sanral e-tag centre. This leads to some amusing scenarios in parking lots where pedestrians are startled by the sudden appearance of your unheard car.
You hardly ever have to use the brakes, so effective is the braking torque of the electric motor when you take your foot off the throttle. It takes a little practice to learn to drive like this, as lifting off the accelerator too early can have you coming up well short of your intended stopping point. Because the throttle response is so instant, creeping forward again can be a little tricky, especially when parking.
Otherwise, the car doesn’t ride or handle very differently to a regular 1 Series.
The batteries make it heavier but it’s not a difference you feel in normal driving. In a twisty mountain pass where more agility is called for, things may be different.
The big selling point of an electric car is the low running cost. Even at Eskom’s high tariffs it should cost around R25-R30 to fully charge an electric vehicle, costing about a third of what you’d spend on a very fuel-efficient petrol or diesel car over the same 110km distance.
As for “filling it up”, it’s a simple matter of plugging the car into a standard wall socket overnight, and you’re ready to drive to work the next morning. Or, if you need a quick boost, it will take just half an hour to charge to around 80 percent at a special fast-charging point, of which 50 will be set up around South Africa by September as part of Government’s recently-announced Green Cars initiative.
The zero-emissions aspect of battery-powered cars is a fallacy as the electricity’s generated in air-polluting coal plants, so any future “green” car strategy needs to go hand in hand with cleaner power stations.
As for Eskom’s fragile power supply, the initial handful of electric cars coming to SA shouldn’t cause any blackouts, but the long-term question is whether the utility will be able to handle large fleets plugged into its grid. This may be more long-term than we think. Some research suggests that even in the technologically fast-adopting United States electric cars will only make up around one percent of vehicle sales in 25 years’ time, and in SA the trend could take a lot longer.
VERDICT
The electric car age is upon us, but it’s coming in with a trickle, not a bang. This battery-powered BMW proves that such a car can have low running costs and be practical, even pleasant, to drive. But range anxiety is still the big factor and, until we have batteries that can at least double (and preferably quadruple) the mileage between plug-ins, there won’t be any mad consumer rush to buy electric vehicles.
A few more “Eurekas” need to be shouted in battery research labs until that day comes. - Star Motoring
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