TV News: Project Update 03/10/17 Part-2

TV News: Project Update 03/10/17 (Part-2)

Continuing on from my last blog post we had even further developments with our project today. 

After speaking more with Jo, she seemed quite supportive of our idea, but brought up a few points that we took on board.

Firstly we needed to be non biased. Although we have some good contacts there is potential for them to be biased so we need to shape our questions to cover the positives and negatives of electric cars. 

Secondly although Cailan has been good at finding facts for us, we need to ensure that they are cited and taken from a reputable source. 

Thirdly we needed to have some more contributors/expersts that we could talk to (not necessarily to interview on camera but to quote) so that we can have some more expertise and reduce the risk of biased information.  

So that's exactly what we did, we rang around and managed to find an engineer who we interviewed over the phone, and who gave us permission to quote him. Bellow is what the minuets of the interview. 

Bo Harper phone interview:

1.       Is it harder to maintain an electric car?

   

  From an engineers perspective, if you know how they work, electric cars are no harder to service and maintain than petrol cars.

                                                                                                         

2.       Is it cheaper/easier to MOT electric?

   

  MOT prices have been set in stone for a number of years no matter if the vehicle is petrol or electric. Meaning electric cars wont save you any money in that area unless a new one comes with so many years worth of MOT pre paid for. Although you don't have to perform an emissions test, this is the only difference when MOT'ing an electric car, meaning they aren't really that much easier to MOT.

3.       Do you find many issues that are exclusive to electric cars, or are they more reliable than petrol cars? (this is where things got interesting).

  

  Since electric cars are far more technical than petrol cars there are more things to go wrong. To start with since the batteries have to power the whole motor and car, you are dealing with a much higher voltage than batteries in petrol cars. This means there is greater risk associated, it only takes one fault to cause a fire or malfunction. Also due to their intricate design it can be harder to identify the problem if something does go wrong. It only takes one battery cell for the whole car to fail.  

4.       Are they cheaper/more efficient to run long term?

   Well obviously you don't have to pay for petrol or road tax, but electric cars are still quite expensive to buy outright. You then have to factor in instillation costs for a charging station at your house and the cost of charging to your electric bill.

5.       Would you personally own an electric car at this stage?

   No, I personally don't think the technology is there yet. Electric cars have a decent range for commuting but longer journeys could be a problem. I certainly wouldn't want to take one on holiday without prior knowledge of where charging ports were (if there even were any), they would also take 30+ minuets to charge, and if there are people queuing to use a charging point you have to multiply that figure several times over.

   Also like I said earlier, there's just a lot that can go wrong with them and it could be hard to find someone with the knowledge to fix it.

   

  This was a very useful interview and helped us obtain a balanced view for our news piece. 

  I also phoned AJ who we plan to interview on Thursday, so I could find out a bit more about him and his background/knowledge in the topic, helping me to form better questions.

  

  Meanwhile Cailan got in contact with Tesla to inquire about filming one of their show cars at Bluewater. Annoyingly however we were ping-ponged between the store, the press office, head office etc. None of them seemed very helpful.

  Alex then called Hyundi to inquire about their electric cars, but the didn't prove very helpful. And Andrew updated the kent film office on our plans.