Ibex with electronicals...

[Bowie69]

Well, I'm not sure I saw this coming, but good on them, I reckon:

https://www.fwi.co.uk/machinery/4x4s/british-start-up-to-build-uks-first-farm-focused-electric-4x4

Farm vehicles tend to so low miles in a day, always close to the home charge point, so I guess this makes a lot of sense.

 

Thoughts?

 

[Retroanaconda]

Can’t see many farmers splashing that when they can get a diesel pickup for less than half which will do the same job and much much more. A few more years development and use etc. required to bring the price down I think.

Good to see some innovation though, and I am sure it will find some buyers. The main challenge is that a lot of commercial operators run 4x4s in their fleet for towing purposes - myself included - which is an area EV’s can’t compete in yet. It won’t be long though I am sure. 

[Maverik]

Interesting stuff, but they're going into direct competition with the Grenadier imho. For that price tag too. Get in 10-15k less and they might be able to compete.

Really interesting actually and quite proud its another team of Brits pulling there fingers out and trying to find a good tech solution. I'm not sure I believe building vehicles on the old Defender components base is all that sustainable long term, but then again in this new world of recycling maybe that's not a bad solution as it very much drives an industry to continually look at refurbishment rather than build new, that can't be a bad thing.

EV conversion kits seem to start around the 30K area, which frankly is horrific. Again my personal opinion - we are a long way from making EV's a thing, we've just not got the power storage capability anywhere near where it needs to be, I'm quite the advocate for fuel cell tech as an interim, and come 100years we'll have sorted out the electrical storage issue and then EV's will become the norm.

 

Mav

[miketomcat]

Foers were muttering about electric last year. I didn't realize it was going to be out sourced. The good thing is if anyone is going fix the towing issue then foers/munro will because it's a big part of foers ethos. I have asked if it will retro fit older models just I case we're all forced to go electric.

Mike

[Bowie69]

They state in the article it will have 3.5t towing, which I guess answers that one!

I don't think we will all be forced to go electric, much more likely it will eventually just make common sense.

[miketomcat]

The range is the bit that needs to be fixed towing.

Forced, as in have to buy a leaf etc because I can't afford anything else and can't keep the ibex on the road. I believe there is issues around charging a vehicle without a contract at public charge points. At least if I had an ibex with Munro electrics there's a better chance of charging than a DIY electrification.

Mike

[elbekko]

A 52 kWh battery is tiny though, that's barely more than today's SUV hybrids have.

[David Sparkes]

3 hours ago, miketomcat said:

... I believe there is issues around charging a vehicle without a contract at public charge points. ...

There is a learning curve around charging, but also the offerings have changed over the past 3 / 4 years.
I have had my EV since 2018 and quickly settled on using the Instavolt network. The big advantage is payment via the standard Debit or Credit card. The value is always small compared to paying for drinks, food, etc, so you don't need to use a PIN.
There may be other networks that use your standard card, but I don't know of them, Instavolt works for me.

If I'm planning a trip that exceeds the range of the vehicle I go on Zapmap, apply the filter that just shows the Instavolt network, then plot a route that incorporates suitable points. I have NEVER had a failure to charge on this network, whereas Ecotricity, found at many motorway service stations, are notorious for failing to charge the vehicle.

From North Derbyshire the limits of my travels have been Southend on Sea, Bath, Heathrow, Northumberland, and Dumfries. All these require at least one mid journey charge. Clearly, since March 2020 my journeys have been curtailed.

Regards.

[Mo Murphy]

How long did those recharges take, David ?

Mo

[David Sparkes]

17 minutes ago, Mo Murphy said:

How long did those recharges take, David ?

30 to 40 minutes.
It depends on my estimate of how much charge I need to get to the next 'charge point' (which might be journeys end). The car contains a GoM (Guess o Meter) which judges, based on past use, the range available. Having preplanned the routes I know that I have 75 miles to the next point (say). If the GoM says 100 miles then I'm good to go. Like I said, it's been a learning curve, and my experience means I'm more confident now than I was originally.

The break can also depend on the size of lunch that I have packed!!

Regards.

[Bowie69]

4 hours ago, elbekko said:

A 52 kWh battery is tiny though, that's barely more than today's SUV hybrids have.

Agreed it is not huge, though they do say 52Kwh and up, with the option to add more later down the line.

The mini-E is just 39Kwh, the LEAF is 40Kwh, the new Audi e-tron is just 72Kwh, and that manages ~200miles on a charge. 52Kwh isn't huge, but it is bigger than the hybrids around. 

As I said in original post, mileage done by a lot of farm vehicles is often quite small, and localised around the home charging station, so shouldn't present too many problems. Other huge differences are the load capacities, e-tron, for example, is ~600Kg payload, 1800Kg towing at 12% gradient. This Ibex would be 1.5t payload, and 3.5t towing. Hopefully they can sort out the range, whilst doing that.

There's something to be said about the purchase price, but given that the running costs should be so much less from a 'fuel' perspective, and let's face it, an Ibex is hardly a paradigm of technology to go wrong, it may even break even over the 10 years or so, compared to a Ford Ranger.

[miketomcat]

Bare in mind how many farmers run around in 50k disco 4's and that farm vehicles are tax deductible. Also I believe there is only one ibex in the 30 year history that has been scrapped and that one was stolen. So you buy it once then replace the battery in X number of years.

Mike

[TSD]

I'm curious to know - If I took one or two scrap Nissan Leafs and electrified my Ibex, would Instavolt (or anyone else) allow me to connect to their chargers? Between the complications of smart chargers, competing networks, and the pretty small diy market, it seems a question worth asking.

I have no idea of the situation now, or how it will pan out in the future, but while a simple ev conversion Land Rover might be useful, even with lowish maxium speed and low range, it would be drastically much less useful if it could only be charged at home.

e.g. drop the internals of a Leaf into my Ibex (which one? ). Very roughly, there's enough power to get Series equivalent performance. There's a load of unnecessary weight, so maybe the range is less than 100 miles. That's still enough to be a useful utility truck, for trips to the dump, parts getter etc.

For me at least,that's potentially enough to be a useable greenlaning toy - 100 miles nominal range would get me to the far side of Salisbury Plain with a fair margin, but not if I can't charge up before heading home again.

 

 

Edited December 21, 2020 by TSD
cant type

[landroversforever]

1 hour ago, Bowie69 said:

Agreed it is not huge, though they do say 52Kwh and up, with the option to add more later down the line.

The mini-E is just 39Kwh, the LEAF is 40Kwh, the new Audi e-tron is just 72Kwh, and that manages ~200miles on a charge. 52Kwh isn't huge, but it is bigger than the hybrids around. 

As I said in original post, mileage done by a lot of farm vehicles is often quite small, and localised around the home charging station, so shouldn't present too many problems. Other huge differences are the load capacities, e-tron, for example, is ~600Kg payload, 1800Kg towing at 12% gradient. This Ibex would be 1.5t payload, and 3.5t towing. Hopefully they can sort out the range, whilst doing that.

There's something to be said about the purchase price, but given that the running costs should be so much less from a 'fuel' perspective, and let's face it, an Ibex is hardly a paradigm of technology to go wrong, it may even break even over the 10 years or so, compared to a Ford Ranger.

Trouble with the battery comparison is that all of those are a whole lot more slippery shaped than an Ibex, also dragging less in the way of mechanicals about too I'd guess. I'd love to know what even the best case range would be towing 3500kg. I seem to remember the Tesla converted 110 is limited to 2400kg towing I think.

On the cost point of view, I'm interested to see what ends up happening to electricity prices once more vehicles are using it. Or if they do some kind of mileage based road tax model.

[SteveG]

To answer your question, yes you would be able to charge it on public chargers. They’ve even just reverse engineered the CCS charger, so you can fast charge 50-125kwh dc charge at public chargers that support this. So 80% charge in about 25-60 minutes. Depending on the rate.

‘Timing wise, it’s probably wise to wait 2-4 years, as there’s so many EV’s coming to market in the next 12 months that availability of battery packs, AC Motors, inverters etc will increase from accident damaged cars and prices will come done.

The packs and motors are getting more efficient every year too, the latest 60kw packs seem to be able to give a theoretical 225 mile range for a ~2000kg vehicle, and 80kw about 315 miles. So realistic 170-250 mile range.

[Ed Poore]

3 hours ago, TSD said:

complications of smart charger

I think you overestimate the complications of a "smart" charger...

It's basically a contactor, some resistors and all the smart bit is a microcontroller that monitors the power being consumed so they know how much to charge you!

[TSD]

I'm not in the slightest worried by the electronics (though I've never looked into what's actually being done presently) - it's mostly the legal, financial and commercial concerns that made me wonder how much monitoring and/or authentication was done, now and in the future.

If I owned a carpark full of expensive electric hosepipes, I'd be a little concerned about knowing what they were being plugged into (especially old land rovers held together by gaffer tape and wishful thinking!).

If I ran a government, I'd be looking at public chargers as a likely place to recover the lost fuel duty from the infernal combustion engines. While doing that, why not refuse to charge untaxed, uninsured, stolen or scrapped vehicles?

Not strictly ralated to charging, but Tesla (and others) talk about removing options that weren't paid for by the current vehicle owner. John Deere wants to prevent owners repairing their own machinery. It seems to me that the whole market is moving toward a rental type model, rather than ownership, and keeping the charging networks close to the manufacturers would be an obvious step on that path.

Just because you're paranoid...

 

 

 

 

[FridgeFreezer]

You'll (probably) always be able to charge (slowly) from a domestic socket, but given the complexities of the high-end BMS and the manufacturer lockdowns it's easy to imagine trouble ahead if they win the "lock it all down" argument.

Personally I hope that the whole EV swap scene gains enough momentum that the regulators end up allowing it - after all, it's hard to object to folks modifying old motors if the result is zero emissions, and for a change you'd have the green groups on your side too.

 

Rich Rebuilds has hit many of the issues - he's a bit of a muppet sometimes (I wouldn't fancy a lift in his "repaired" BMW i8) but his videos are an interesting insight on EV's for those of us who might want to actually retain our spanners.

 

[Tanuki]

I can see the attractiveness of this for a vehicle for regular less-than-50-mile journeys - taking shooting-parties to their pegs and to haul bales out to stock on the hill - particularly if it can be discounted for tax-purposes against various 'zero-emissions' eco-grants the government seems to be throwing-around at the moment.

Recharging shouldn't be a problem for commercial operators: any serious farm'/estate will have three-phase as standard, which will happily supply 100KVA of fast-charge goodness [if yours can't, take it up with your DNO]

The tax-equations will be the really-important issues here.