Clubjazz - Honda Jazz & HR-V Forums
Other Hondas & General Topics => Honda & Other Honda Models => Topic started by: peteo48 on January 05, 2017, 03:33:52 PM
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Been mulling over electric cars for some time now. A range of reasons are involved not least of which is curiosity but I guess the two main reasons are the reduction of tailpipe emissions (bad for health of the population generally) and also cheap running costs.
My motoring habits mean I very rarely do a round trip of more than 70 miles so the range is not a huge factor for me. The savings would be road tax and petrol which, in my case, might mean saving around £40 to £50 per month.
Currently EVs are pretty expensive so any running cost saving would be more than cancelled out by the purchase price but the second hand market is a different matter. The Nissan Leaf, for example, depreciates like a stone so becomes quite viable on the second hand market.
Whilst watching various videos about EV's I read that there is an Electric version of the Honda Fit so I wonder why they haven't considered marketing this in the UK?
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The Honda Fit EV has been and gone http://www.plugincars.com/honda-fit-ev (http://www.plugincars.com/honda-fit-ev). Possibly for resons touched on at [url]http://www.torquenews.com/3618/three-reasons-not-buy-honda-fit-ev-range[/url.] One of the comments I noted was that the nominal 80 mile range dropped to 50 miles in winter. So, if you are looking for a round trip capability of 70 miles you might need something which claims double that range on a good day.
A better option may be a plug-in hybrid once they become a little more affordable. A few months ago I studied the new Kia Niro. The battery is only good for a few miles but a plug in version is promised which could mean that the engine doesn't need to start for the short trips.
Honda could easily produce a much better hybrid Jazz than the one which was sold here from 2011 to 2015. A higher capacity lithium battery instead of a lead one combined with a more powerful motor-generator shouldn't be difficult to engineer (particularly if combined with a 3 cylinder lightly turbo'd engine). We have to wait and see. However, the April 2017 VED changes remove the low car tax incentives except for pure electric vehicles and that's likely to reduce potential sales.
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The Plug in Hybrid option is very attractive as you say John. As luck would have it I am literally 5 minutes walk from a Mitsubishi main dealer and the Outlander seems a very capable vehicle. It's electric range would cover 90% of all the journeys I do.
But it's a big car and pretty pricey at the present time.
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In California the Mk2 Fit EV was on lease for $199 down & $199 pm (plus taxes minus rebates all quite complex) but they had very few available. Depreciation/battery cost/disposal of EV vehicles is a huge problem hence why they all seem to be on lease, it will be interesting to see what BMW i3 & i8 sell for after leases expire.
In reality we all need to do 150+ mile journeys now and then, so pure EV also looks problematic, ideally you could go to your supplier and swap it for a few days at low cost when needed, (if Enterprise/CityCarClub or Avis/ZipCar could convert my street's 50 parked cars into 15 mixed PayG vehicles I would be v.happy or maybe Honda should stop selling cars and just provide them as a service).
The new compact Honda hybrid unit looks great but Honda's poor sales volume in the EU may put us below some viability threshold. The current Japanese version of the Jazz hybrid i-DCD, will run as an EV car on demand or as it decides but there is no plug-in option. Unlike the Mk2 IMA which had a pancake motor between the IC engine and CVT gearbox, it can decouple from the IC engine so doesn't have to keep turning that over. It likes to pull away in all electric mode, and bump start the petrol engine when needed. The motor/generator is connected to the 1-3-5-7 shaft of the gearbox which is a dual clutch affair with the E motor keeping things moving during shifts to provide a very smooth experience. The E motor has a wider rpm range than the IC motor so power can be delivered like this: E1 / E1&IC2 / E3&IC3 / E3&IC4 / E5&IC5 etc. or separately as directed.
http://world.honda.com/Fit-Jazz/hybrid/page02.html (http://world.honda.com/Fit-Jazz/hybrid/page02.html)
http://world.honda.com/automobile-technology/i-DCD/topic2/ (http://world.honda.com/automobile-technology/i-DCD/topic2/)
The Japanese hybrid range is quite appealing, the HR-V (Vezel) AWD with electric rear wheels is a highlight, but I'd prefer a Jade or Shuttle.
(http://world.honda.com/Fit-Jazz/hybrid/image/img01.jpg)(http://i64.tinypic.com/142vq69.png)
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TG
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But it's a big car and pretty pricey at the present time.
That's why the Kia Niro may be worth watching out for. It's a step down in price and size from the Outlander and claims to have been designed as a hybrid rather than having a hybrid system added to an existing model: http://www.kia.com/uk/new-cars/all-new-niro (http://www.kia.com/uk/new-cars/all-new-niro)/
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I've been doing loads of research and I think I am going to wait before plunging down the electric route. The technology is advancing all the time and there are just that handful of slightly longer journeys - often to places with no rapid chargers available - to cause problems.
Tesla seem to have it sorted if you have a spare £60 grand lying around!
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I've been doing loads of research and I think I am going to wait before plunging down the electric route. The technology is advancing all the time and there are just that handful of slightly longer journeys - often to places with no rapid chargers available - to cause problems.
Tesla seem to have it sorted if you have a spare £60 grand lying around!
one of the big problems in America for Tesla is that there are real big queues at the quick charging points, Tesla used to offer free charging with their cars but not any more - and who else is going to build charging points unless they can make their money back real quick by 'charging' a lot of money, seems to me that charging is going to be a real bottleneck. A normal petrol pump can handle at least 12 cars an hour, if you have 10 pumps that is 120 cars an hour, an electric charger = 1 car every 2 hours if you are lucky and don't need a full charge and if you are the only one on the charger (if you have to share a charger with someone else the output per plug is halved, and charging time effectively doubles LOL). One problem seems to be that the rich people who payed over $100K for their Tesla car are making full use of the free charging stations and even though they are only a couple of miles from home they would rather take up a charger designed for long distance drivers than to pay a few dollars to charge their car at home, human nature at its best.
Most people are going to want to charge mainly at night, and all that solar power just ain't gonna be available, as for wind turbines the wind normally drops at night when the sun goes to sleep as well (the sun is also the engine that drives the wind, and wind turbines can only operate in the 'goldilocks zone' of wind speeds, not too little and not too much, so when you get high winds they have to feather the blades to stop them turning too fast and setting the generator on fire - some spectacular wind turbine fires on youtube) - electricity is also a bugger to store, you need to make it when you need it - somebody ain't thought this through very well, they are trying to get everyone to buy very expensive short range cars when we barely have any excess power available in UK during winter now if we get anything like cold weather. (you have to remember politicians demonised petrol and pushed Diesel for all they were worth, they also pushed 'bio-diesel' as the way to save the planet, which meant thousands of square miles of rainforest being chopped down to grow palm oil plants to supply Europe ---- they cannot be trusted with anything even slightly technical, and to make matters worse they are often advised by people with vested interests who cannot be said to offer impartial advice in any way).
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I know nothing about electric cars. However, by hearsay I have heard of a family that have bought? a Renault Zoe. This is what I have been told. They have a maximum distance of 80 miles available on one charge. The batteries have to be hired at £70 per month, while this might obviate the horrendous cost ( alleged) of new batteries, I can get my Jazz to give me over 200 miles on less than 5 gallons of petrol. If they want to travel a distance it is either hire a car or use a second car they have bought for the purpose.
So depreciation has already been covered, so has enormous outlay new. I read somewhere, might even have been posted by a member of a relatively new Prius that needed new batteries and was virtually unsaleable even with new batteries presumably being available. Surely given a reasonable asking price, and batteries are available it would still be a saleable vehicle if the future is electric.
We are told that renewables are the answer and yet wind turbines are dependent on the right wind and the other day in one of the nationals a wave power scheme has collapsed after only a short while. What I have difficulty with is NOBODY ever seems to count the cost of producing, money and energy, the turbines in the first place. Just up the road from us are three very big ones. One is very close to the main road and in the recent past a turbine not so far away had it's blades fall of. Bicycles, which we are being told to buy and ride, they still need a lot of energy to make. I am sorry if I am being contentious but who do we believe, our political masters ALL seem to have a vested interest.
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Some very good points made above. A couple of things I have come across in my "research" if you can call it that. Robert Llewellyn (Crichton in Red Dwarf) is a big EV fan and actually runs a channel sponsored by Ecotricity called "Fully Charged." In one of these programmes he was talking about peaks and troughs in the national grid and there is, obviously, a very big trough during night time hours when demand is low. This is when most EVs would be being charged - evening out demand like this enables wind turbines to remain "on" - currently they often have to be switched off during day time hours as they can produce surges when conventional power is at it's height. Another side issue was the amount of electricity consumed by oil refineries - a large one consumes as much electricity as Coventry.
On the CO2 thing - you have to be cautious in claiming too much for EVs. In India, for example, where most electricity comes from coal, an EV is as dirty as a petrol car. In the UK, where we have a mix including, crucially, nuclear it is less dirty but not totally clean as some would have you believe.
One area where EVs do score very highly though is in the total lack of tailpipe emissions, including nitrous oxide, which people breathe in at pavement level causing lung disease and possibly contributing to dementia.
On balance I think they are a good thing especially for urban use. Less good if you make regular longer trips. That said, the next generation of EVs have higher ranges.
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On balance I think they are a good thing especially for urban use. Less good if you make regular longer trips. That said, the next generation of EVs have higher ranges.
The number of Nissan e-NV200 I've seen in London has ballooned in 2016, the congestion charge is a minimal inconvenience to business so it must the the operating cost and operational profile plus attractive lease deals that appeals. It's about time the regions also started getting tougher about air quality in cities. Electric should make sense for trade fleets where operating range and charging location can be controlled and predicted. Some enlightened London boroughs had their commercial fleets on LPG in the 70's - EV fleets should be an easy sell. The 20% / £8k rebate should help matters.
(https://www.nissan-cdn.net/content/dam/Nissan/gb/vehicles/e-nv200-van/me0/1_carryover/overview/e-nv200-overview-side-view1.jpg.ximg.l_12_m.smart.jpg)
4.2m³ / 2 Euro pallets / 770kg
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TG
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Diesel vehicles will soon be banned from many city centres in UK, and London will probably be the first, so these companies are only planning ahead. Here is a good article which actually says that rather than cars it will be vans and other commercial vehicles that will be the biggest sector for EV.
https://www.opencanada.org/features/uncertain-future-electric-cars/ (https://www.opencanada.org/features/uncertain-future-electric-cars/)
Nuclear and coal / gas power can be relied on overnight, but renewables like solar and wind are pants, but it makes no sense at all to me to use gas in power stations, generating electricity at low efficiency when the same gas, when burned in a domestic boiler or used directly by industry can be used at well over 90% efficiency. The thing about using tidal power is that the peak output keeps moving and electricity is not easy to store.
The thing about refineries using a lot of power is a bit of a red herring, we don't just get fuel from oil, we get hundreds of other things including plastics, and medicines http://listverse.com/2012/12/23/10-everyday-things-that-started-life-as-oil/ (http://listverse.com/2012/12/23/10-everyday-things-that-started-life-as-oil/) so if the refineries stop running we lose lots of things we need, also the energy contained in the fuel that comes out of refinery dwarfs the power input by a massive amount (which is the opposite of making hydrogen where you get out much less than you put in). Diesel can be burned very efficiently and cleanly in boilers and other heaters.
This fact "Robert Llewellyn (Crichton in Red Dwarf) is a big EV fan and actually runs a channel sponsored by Ecotricity called "Fully Charged." - leave me baffled, as a trained shoemaker and actor / comedian what does he know about the intricacies of EV and power generation and supply ? He is basically a celebrity spouting his own personal opinions - and to make it worse he is doing it on a TV show sponsored by an electricity supply company, they are hardly un-biased are they ?
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I take the view that EV of any kind is a non starter until they fix the following:
1. Range
2. Time to recharge
Once they make those comparable to an ICE vehicle, lets be generous and say 250 mile range & 10 minute recharge from empty to full.
Until then, It's a case of popping your head in the news every five years or so and seeing how it's going.
I think it'll happen - just not for a while longer yest.
It'll happen a lot faster if more will is applied like if for example, the fossil fuels ran out. I'd expect you'd be surprised how fast it would happen then, but just now there's not enough desire.
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The range will certainly improve as it already has but I think a viable range is, as you say, 250miles but being able to do that all the year round at night with the aircon on is essential.
Until that is achieved then sales will stay down and prices will not come down.
As for charging time I don't know if battery technology will ever approach a 10min charge time, similar to a fuel stop. I think EV's will always be short range vehicles but with my current usage I could get by with one as long as I could charge over night if staying at a hotel for example.
If you take things to a logical conclusion and all cars are electric then could the national electricity supply cope and what would be the effect of extra electricity production on pollution, would it be the same as it is now so nothing has been achieved?
Vic.
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I think a mix of conventional cars and EVs may well emerge. It all depends on your individual circumstances. If I had an EV I would hardly ever need to use a public charge point because I do so few long journeys so home charging would do me. Any longer trips - and I tend to do one a year - could be covered by a hire car.
On the other hand, a friend of mine - an early adopter of technology generally - has a Nissan Leaf and it fits his lifestyle completely. He does about 10,000 miles per annum so his savings on fuel are substantial. He rarely does a journey of more than 50 miles (round trip) and has a mutual arrangement with his daughter where they swap cars when he goes on a UK holiday (she has a Kia Sportage and a gaggle of kids). He is semi retired and works from home and is able to charge during the day using his solar panels reducing but not eliminating the cost of electricity to him personally.
But the pace of change is likely to accelerate over the next few years.
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There is more to running cost than fuel, electric cars suffer much worse depreciation than conventional cars, and once the novelty factor has worn off, sales may slow.
Also considering the huge premium electric cars command, the saving of around £1000 a year in fuel is not really a good payback.
http://gas2.org/2016/03/17/used-electric-cars-consumer-reports/ (http://gas2.org/2016/03/17/used-electric-cars-consumer-reports/)
http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/14410937.Man_warns_of_electric_vehicle_depreciation_after_losing___15_000_on_Nissan_Leaf_in_18_months/ (http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/14410937.Man_warns_of_electric_vehicle_depreciation_after_losing___15_000_on_Nissan_Leaf_in_18_months/)
https://www.masterresource.org/electric-vehicles/energy-usage-cost-gasoline-vs-electric/ (https://www.masterresource.org/electric-vehicles/energy-usage-cost-gasoline-vs-electric/)
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There is more to running cost than fuel, electric cars suffer much worse depreciation than conventional cars, and once the novelty factor has worn off, sales may slow.
Also considering the huge premium electric cars command, the saving of around £1000 a year in fuel is not really a good payback.
The depreciation is massive in the first few years that is absolutely true. The new price is heavily discounted with government grants and once those disappear from the equation the depreciation looks much worse. Another factor is the pace of change. Taking the Nissan Leaf the 24 kw battery looks old hat now the 30 kw has come in and, in 2018, a 40 kw battery giving a 200 mile range is predicted. People don't want to be caught with something that will be obsolete.
A lot of EVs are leased for this very reason I suppose.
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If we want to seriously reduce emissions then there's a need to reduce all the travelling: eg (i) Get homes and jobs closer together, (ii) reduce the cost of moving homes to be nearer work, (iii) rationalising freight haulage to avoid goods being carried from the source at A to distribution depot at B and then taken back to A for sale, etc. Government policies could help with encouraging change if there's the political will.
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Hopefully a Tesla 3 will be joining our family fleet sometime this year, been on the waiting list since it opened. Have been tempted by rival marques but it's a bit of an Apple vs others choice at this stage. (And the primary driver would never stoop to a Chevrolet!)
(http://blog.caranddriver.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Opel-Ampera-e-rear-626x382.jpg)
Chevrolet Bolt / Opel Ampera-E: 60kW, "200 miles", RHD unlikely.
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TG
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The internet has caused an explosion in parcel freight which has no doubt increased the amount of emissions from road vehicles. Also you now have the spread of dormitory towns from London, with people traveling large distances to work and back. Many years ago no one lived very far from their place of work, but personal transport changed all that. A Nissan leaf would not have got me to work and back on a single charge in my last job, so I would have needed to charge at home and at work.
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I would had loved a Fit EV in the UK but any Electric offering from Honda in the UK would be of interest for me.
I changed jobs last year and only live 5 miles from work, and even using the Jazz isn't very economical as the engine probably doesn't even get to temperature by the time I get to work or home lol
So been looking into getting an EV but nothing takes my fancy.
A few of my friends got the Leaf on Lease about 18 months ago and they managed to get it for about £150/ month but no such deals now- you're looking in the region of £230-250/month and you can get a lot of decent cars with that amount of monthly payments.
What i'm really keen on now after another friend has got, is these plug in Hybrids.
My best mate got a Audi A3 Etron and its just simply beautiful! Think its something like 89mpg and can just run on electric most of the time. When you want more power or whatever, switch it to duel and the speed is pretty amazing!
However, the prices of these is what is letting it down for me, simply cant afford +£25k for one, even second hand :(
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Today I heard that an old colleague had died - his funeral is next week and it's 44 miles from my house. Train is a nightmare with 3 stops and nearly 2 hours - you can get to Euston as quick.
At 88 miles it's outside of the range of the 24kw Leaf so you'd have to do a fast charge - no problem there is a charger at Chester services except when you go on to Zap Map you find it's out of order!
You could get a charge but you would have to do a lengthy detour.
Kind of brings it home to you that the current crop of EV's are a bit of a risk (unless you can afford a Tesla) if it's your only vehicle. The Plug In Hybrid is a decent compromise but, as Garyman says, very expensive new and not many cropping up second hand.
I think a EV is an excellent second car as things stand but there are charger deserts out there which could leave you stranded.
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At my previous company a few people opted for the Mitsubishi PHEV 'truck' as their company car, having spoken to them after a few months it was a case of 15 to 20 miles on the battery and then 30 mpg for anything longer. To me these outrageous claims of 140+ mpg for a heavy vehicle like this or 135 mpg for the BMW i8 sports car are nothing more than misleading advertising of the worst kind. When are some real world tests gonna be brought in to stop this kind of rubbish. It's a bit like the old wild west at the moment with EV, there needs to be some rules put in place to be able to limit the wild claims that are being made. There are plenty of impressionable non-technical people out there.
The daily telegraph test got just over 20 miles on the battery, and an average of 33 mpg over 500 miles. The claimed range is 585 miles with full battery and full 10 gallon tank, telegraph got 350 miles - the battery adds 500lbs to vehicle weight, a dead weight when it has run out of juice. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/car-manufacturers/mitsubishi/10940771/Mitsubishi-Outlander-PHEV-review.html (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/car-manufacturers/mitsubishi/10940771/Mitsubishi-Outlander-PHEV-review.html)
If you add the cost of leasing the batteries to the purchase cost and massive depreciation of say a Nissan leaf you would need to have rocks in your head to think it was a good deal. Anyone who uses a car for a mixture of uses needs to think carefully, especially considering the patchy coverage of charging points and the time your car needs to be hooked up to one if you want to venture too far from home.
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At my previous company a few people opted for the Mitsubishi PHEV 'truck' as their company car, having spoken to them after a few months it was a case of 15 to 20 miles on the battery and then 30 mpg for anything longer. To me these outrageous claims of 140+ mpg for a heavy vehicle like this or 135 mpg for the BMW i8 sports car are nothing more than misleading advertising of the worst kind. When are some real world tests gonna be brought in to stop this kind of rubbish. It's a bit like the old wild west at the moment with EV, there needs to be some rules put in place to be able to limit the wild claims that are being made.
As we all know most "official" mpg figures are very untrustworthy but these mpg claims for PHEVs are indeed spurious.
On another note, Nissan quote the European figures for the Leaf indicating 124 range for the 24 kw battery and 155 for the 30 kw one. The US EPA figures are much more accurate showing the 24 kw at 84 and the 30 kw at 110 (give or take). The EPA figures are attainable with care from what I have gleaned from various forums. Indeed it is impossible, literally impossible, to get 124 miles out of a 24 kw Leaf. I read somewhere that you would have to drive at 30 mph on a completely dry road with a reasonable ambient temperature to get close.
Why do Nissan (and other makers) use these figures? The potential consumer remorse can only be damaging.
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From Autoexpress today.
http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-news/detroit-motor-show/98244/new-samsung-electric-car-battery-gets-310-mile-range-from-20?_mout=1&utm_campaign=autoexpress_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&tpid=205595330961 (http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-news/detroit-motor-show/98244/new-samsung-electric-car-battery-gets-310-mile-range-from-20?_mout=1&utm_campaign=autoexpress_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&tpid=205595330961)
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The limit on fast battery charging has been battery temperature rise, the second one has been having enough current available from the supply point. Samsung may have raised battery voltage (tesla use 600 volts I think) tesla quick charge uses 120Kw output which from your 230v UK supply is almost 500 amps, most houses get an 80 amp supply coming in from street.
A quote from Tesla tester, Only having covered just over 200 miles we’ve got through the battery reserves faster than the computer predicted, but that’s no surprise at motorway speeds – the 312-mile range is calculated at a constant 55mph. Incidentally, a very patient American man holds the Model S world record, after eking out 550 miles from a single charge, travelling at 18mph. Restoring the car to full capacity from a 7.5kW (30 amps at 230V) home charging box (installed by companies including British Gas for around £100) takes 12-14 hours, while with a 13 A household plug (really only a last resort) you’re looking at 30 hours to replenish the cells. The model he was testing - model S P100D costs £54,000
There also needs to be standardisation of charging voltage and plugs etc as tesla chargers can only charge teslas so straight away we have two different charge stations required. And I would guess that Tesla is not keen for any other make of car to be able to use their points, this may happen with other car makers too. Imagine if every garage forecourt with a finite space had to have pumps for Petrol 95 and 97, Diesel, hydrogen and LPG this would probably mean less of each pump even though some would only be used occasionally if you add different chargers for a number of electric cars it means a fragmentation that means queues and nobody is happy.
In charging any battery charging efficiency also has to taken into account, in other words you have to put more in than you can ever get back out (charging a battery is a chemical reaction, and the heat given off is wasted energy that is not stored) this is normally 80 to 85% so you are paying for 20% that you can never get back.
http://www.theenergycollective.com/schalk-cloete/2383486/electric-cars-massive-hype-limited-value (http://www.theenergycollective.com/schalk-cloete/2383486/electric-cars-massive-hype-limited-value)
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seems Germans not taking electric cars seriously, or hydrogen either.
http://notrickszone.com/2017/01/21/the-startling-debacle-of-germanys-electric-cars-auto-industry-faces-demise-in-10-years/comment-page-1/#comment-1158710 (http://notrickszone.com/2017/01/21/the-startling-debacle-of-germanys-electric-cars-auto-industry-faces-demise-in-10-years/comment-page-1/#comment-1158710)
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At my previous company a few people opted for the Mitsubishi PHEV 'truck' as their company car, having spoken to them after a few months it was a case of 15 to 20 miles on the battery and then 30 mpg for anything longer. To me these outrageous claims of 140+ mpg for a heavy vehicle like this or 135 mpg for the BMW i8 sports car are nothing more than misleading advertising of the worst kind. When are some real world tests gonna be brought in to stop this kind of rubbish. It's a bit like the old wild west at the moment with EV, there needs to be some rules put in place to be able to limit the wild claims that are being made. There are plenty of impressionable non-technical people out there.
The daily telegraph test got just over 20 miles on the battery, and an average of 33 mpg over 500 miles. The claimed range is 585 miles with full battery and full 10 gallon tank, telegraph got 350 miles - the battery adds 500lbs to vehicle weight, a dead weight when it has run out of juice. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/car-manufacturers/mitsubishi/10940771/Mitsubishi-Outlander-PHEV-review.html (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/car-manufacturers/mitsubishi/10940771/Mitsubishi-Outlander-PHEV-review.html)
If you add the cost of leasing the batteries to the purchase cost and massive depreciation of say a Nissan leaf you would need to have rocks in your head to think it was a good deal. Anyone who uses a car for a mixture of uses needs to think carefully, especially considering the patchy coverage of charging points and the time your car needs to be hooked up to one if you want to venture too far from home.
My local ambulance service use these as paramedic response vehicles, presumably to replace their diesel-powered Volvo V50s. Once the electric juice has been used though up they'll be returning the kind of fuel economy you'd expect of a four cylinder petrol-engined SUV.
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My local ambulance service use these as paramedic response vehicles, presumably to replace their diesel-powered Volvo V50s. Once the electric juice has been used though up they'll be returning the kind of fuel economy you'd expect of a four cylinder petrol-engined SUV.
I would hope they also invested in some rapid (125A) chargers to recharge them between call-outs as the normal chargers take 3+ hours.
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The Jazz maybe one of the first Honda models to get an electric powertrain:
http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/honda-get-plug-hybrid-and-electric-models-2020 (http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/honda-get-plug-hybrid-and-electric-models-2020)
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Honda have the technology but weren't overwhelmed by the hybrid Mk 2 Jazz UK sales statistics. I often wonder how well a more powerful IMA motor /generator coupled to Honda's 3 cylinder engine 1 litre and a lithium battery would work although the current hybrid Mk 3 (not sold in Europe) uses a 1.5 litre Atkinson cycle engine and a DCT gearbox. Honda also sold about 1,000 Jazz EVs in the US in 2013-14 which must have provided some useful long-term data.
The underlying problem with all the hybrids / EVs is that they are good for pottering around town or a shorter commute but give much less benefit on longer journeys.
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Spent 4 months in Durban driving a Nissan Leaf. What a pleasure. Totally silent, amazing accelleration. At the end of a day driving around, I had covered 95km. Plugging it in to the household supply (single phase 230 volts) showed that it reached 100% charge in just over 4 hours
It is a small car and with 4 up the performance drops off considerably. The accelleration is sluggish but up hills it is acceptable. There is a regular run from Durban (a the coast) to Pietermaritzburg (600m) which is only 67km but on a highway all the time. The Leaf could easily manage 130km/hr all the way and had by then used 42% of its power. Allowing it to rest for 30 mins brought the power back to 70% and on the way back down to Durban it only used 16%, going at the same speed until the highway ended
Honda SA say there are no plans yet for a Jazz electric. But I see that the local Opel dealer has an Opel electric car on display and is taking down names