James is buying an electric car

They'll come around. Jeremy was very anti-flappypaddle gearbox when they first came out, complaining that car makers should leave the manual gear box well alone. Once the tech matured, they were smitten with faster-than-you-can-think gear changing. Same with launch control, and really just about any new technology.

Once there's a solid line up of astonishingly high-performance mature-tech EVs for them to fling around the track on a regular basis, they'll be all goo-gah over them like they were the GTR.
 
Damn, wished it would have been a Tesla. :p
 
That American Girl said:
Hmm, of all the three it would be him to be the first to give it a shot. I mean, in London it could work, but anywhere else for now..we'll have to see. ;)
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Well he does mention somewhat reluctantly that he also has another car for the long range trips... his Ferrari, presumably to drive to the Top Gear Studio for example.
And the i3 does seem to suit someone who owned or owns a Fiat Panda and lives in Hammersmith, it has a sort of futuristic Fiat Panda styling going on. He could leave his i8 on the street and drive it to his garage where his Ferrari is instead of riding a folding bicycle.
 
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Of the three of them I can see James having one. Glad he still has his Ferrari though!
 
so after years of poo-poohing them, he now jumps in one and buys it. :rolleyes:

:lol:
 
Note that he's getting the "range-extended" version, which sounds very much like the engine configuration of the iEagleThrust / Fisker Karma: an electric motor with a conventional-fuel motor to charge up the batteries.

Also, remember that the TG crew didn't come down all that hard on the Leaf / miEV ; Clarkson admitted he liked the comfort and build quality of the Leaf, he just wasn't thrilled about the battery life.
 
I think all electric cars aren't the future, but rather, hybrid cars that utilize regenerative charging of the battery. The means of delivering electricity (power lines and whatnot) is not as efficient as gas delivery and charging times are still too long to be practical.

Internal combustion is inherently inefficient with all the heat waste. However, with technologies like regenerative braking and F1 energy recovery systems, we could be looking at a massively efficient petrol engine in the future.
 
I think now that there are hybrid hypercars and Clarkson is totally in love with the McLaren P1, they won't laugh at him so much. This is a much better car than his Fiat Panda right?
 
controlspecimen said:
I think now that there are hybrid hypercars and Clarkson is totally in love with the McLaren P1, they won't laugh at him so much. This is a much better car than his Fiat Panda right?
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The "hybrid" system in newer hypercars are more like electric superchargers than electric drive systems. Sure they can run them on electric alone, but I almost fell off my chair laughing when Jay Leno was demonstrating that with his car on his website. A little under a minute on pure electric and the engine kicked back in to recharge! 10km/6mi according to factory numbers, I guess he was running A/C cause that should be a little over a minute at highway speeds.
Yeah, "hybrid".
Let's just hope the politicians don't catch on to their escapades any time soon though, they will certainly stop it.
 
controlspecimen said:
I think now that there are hybrid hypercars and Clarkson is totally in love with the McLaren P1, they won't laugh at him so much. This is a much better car than his Fiat Panda right?
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It could very well be. We're talking about some significant improvements in battery technology since the G-Wiz, and even since the intro of the Nissan Leaf.
 
James has now also bought an electric bike!

Twitter:
@JackLilleyLtd: Here's James May collecting his Electric Orange Street Triple from us, with his Daytona 675R P/X also pictured. http://t.co/m0FXAvEjT3
 
pretty sure "electric orange" is just the name of the color! :lol:

you even see the exhausts...
 
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