Renting electric car

[davidgreen72]

can any one tell me about renting a electric car on the island and the cost, where i can rent and how far they can travel?

 

[tim]

I see electric cars all the time around St. Barth so their range must be pretty good, and they have no problems climbing the hills. I have rarely seen some parked by the side of the road, but I don't know if that's because they ran out of battery power. I googled "electric car St. Barth" to see that Avis rents them on the island. Perhaps there are others as well.

 

[cassidain]

can any one tell me about renting a electric car on the island and the cost, where i can rent and how far they can travel?

Why would one want to drive an electric car on St-Barth? The power production plant is woefully antiquated and overburdened and is powered by imported liquid (I think?) fuels. Why not just put the imported liquid fuel in your gas tank and save one inefficient power conversion?

 

[elgreaux]

The power plant is no longer overburdened, there are 5 new generators producing plenty of extra power for the next few years while more modern motors are added... I guess you didn't read my article called Public Nuisance in the St Barth Fluffy... oh I mean St Barth Weekly this week...

 

[cassidain]

No I missed that. It's still inefficient use of liquid fuels n'est-ce pas?

 

[davidgreen72]

sorry to say we do not have a license...

 

[davidgreen72]

I found this online www.barthloc.com
In Gustavia, but we are staying in St Jean

 

[tim]

Avis is in St. Jean, but it's easy enough to get to Gustavia as well. I don't think a license is required to drive the electric cars.

 

[lloyd]

A big issue is where and how to plug one in
If you don't own,best to see if your hotel or villa is set up for it

 

[windybeach]

Everybody should drive them , small roads ,small cars ,no pollution ,no noise ,thats luxury live ......... but here people are sooooo smart that soon come all roads will be blocked with big wide jeeps and BMW's .
And Cassidain the solution does exist since a while ,look at this : http://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/Solar.png

St.Barth is still in stone age ,sorry .

 

[cassidain]

No noise? Check.
Small? Fine by me. Jeep Wrangler looks a bit absurd in St-Barth to me, but to each his/her own.
No pollution? Where exactly does the electricity come from to charge the battery and what pollution free fuel is used to produce the electricity and what loss in conversion is there?

Remember, SBH doesn't have geothermal or solar or wind or nuclear or hydroelectric or coal or natural gas that can't be used directly to power a car. They burn an imported carburant to produce electricity to the best of my knowledge.

 

[MIke R]

you are 100% right.. in some cases electric cars simply re direct the wastefulness.....to a lesser degree here at home where the electricity used can have a hydroelectric/nuclear source thus helping to reduce our addiction to middle east petrochemical products, but for sure in a place like St Barts, its just more of the same, under a different umbrella....

 

[Petri]

Iand they have no problems climbing the hills.

Most people don't understand what torque means. Climbing the hills requires torque and that's what the electric motors have. The clueless people want bhp and AWD.

The "green" is totally different story. I doubt any electric car in St. Barth is green, they certainly aren't in most parts of the US or Europe. The green advantage of electric cars come from the fact that electric can be produced centrally in a green way (wind, hydro, thermal, nuclear) but in most places it isn't. The actual electric cars are barely green today but that's just part of the development process. (Hydrogen is the best IMHO)

 

[JEK]

Depends. If production exceeds consumption, as it does on most days, storing some of that normally wasted electricity in a battery somewhere might be a good idea. The big boys are looking at big ways to do that on the grid.

This Wiki has some thought provoking technologies that may make us change our views on electric cars.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_energy_storage

Electric Vehicles
Main article: Electric vehicle
Companies are researching the possible use of Electric Vehicles for meeting peak demand. A parked and plugged-in EV could sell the electricity from the battery during peak loads and charge either during night (at home) or during off-peak.[6]
When plug-in hybrid and/or electric cars are mass-produced[7][8] these mobile energy sinks could be used for their energy storage capabilities. Vehicle-to-grid technology can be employed, turning each vehicle with its 20 to 50 kW·h battery pack into a distributed load-balancing device or emergency power source. This represents 2 to 5 days per vehicle of average household requirements of 10 kW·h per day, assuming annual consumption of 3650 kW·h. This quantity of energy is equivalent to between 40 and 300 miles (64 and 480 km) of range in such vehicles consuming 0.5 to 0.16 kW·h per mile. These figures can be achieved even in home-made electric vehicle conversions. Some electric utilities plan to use old plug-in vehicle batteries (sometimes resulting in a giant battery) to store electricity[9][10] However, a large disadvantage of using vehicle to grid energy storage is the fact that each storage cycle stresses the battery with one complete charge-discharge cycle. Current lithium ion batteries break down with the number of cycles.

 

[RickyG]

I think those electric cars are cute. In a way, they remind me of a modern version of the moke....no doors, no windows. I thought about getting one, but my thought was that hotels may not have a hook up? I also wonder if villa owners are interested in hammering their elec. bill?
I can't get too hyped about my eco impact regarding electric cars on the island.....99% of us arrive on a "big ol jet airliner"....and a little putt putt.

 

[Voosh]

We've come a ways as a species. No doubt. Still screw it up all the time.

Can't stop trying, though.

 

[KevinS]

Then there was the SBH story from last year, where someone went to a nightclub and plugged his car in to a receptacle on the house next door.

My recollection is that EDF requests that you charge your electric car after 8:30PM.

 

[Peter NJ]

you dont need a license?? strange no?

 

[cassidain]

Depends. If production exceeds consumption, as it does on most days, storing some of that normally wasted electricity in a battery somewhere might be a good idea. The big boys are looking at big ways to do that on the grid.

This Wiki has some thought provoking technologies that may make us change our views on electric cars.

All of this may be fine but scraping together stray electrons is not, in the foreseeable future, going to make even a dent in the vast demand for liquid fuels...not in St-Barth and not anywhere.

 

[Yan1ck]

I rented one of these electric cars from Barth'Loc. They're great fun to drive around and have a more than acceptable range. I drove from Lurin to Anse de Grand Fond and back to St. Jean in one go.

- You DON'T need a license to drive one of these. I did find this kind of odd as they do go up to 60-70 kilometers per hour (downhill), which is really fast in a car the size of a golf cart with no doors...

- When plugged in, it takes about 3-4 hours to fully recharge the battery.

- When in Gustavia (shopping/eating etc...) you can drive up to Barth'loc and park/recharge your car there. There's always a parking spot, even when it's really busy. Really useful.

- When it rains, prepare to get wet.

- DON'T drive these things up really steep hills. I attempted to drive this thing up the hill to Villa La Maison when we just had a downpour. The car got stuck halfway and had loads of wheelspin (with resulting smoke). If you're planning on going up steep hills, you either need a lot of momentum or you need to go up the hill in reverse!!

- Don't deter this from driving one though! I brought this little car everywhere. Flamands/Gouverneur, Saline, Grand Fond, St. Jean, Gustavia etc...

If you want any further info, just ask!

Cheers, Yanick.

Also, attached are some pictures.