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However, the charging circuit can't handle that amperage.

True in Nissan's case, as they have a laughably tiny 3kW charger on board, but nonsense in the general case. The wall box in your garage is not actually a charger, nor is it a significant limiting factor for recharge power.

We've been doing this for a decade. The hardware exists, is cost-effective, and it works. As others have noted in this thread, what remains is primarily a distributed command and control infrastructure problem.

There is already a 50-150kW inverter on board (for traction motor drive) and the very essence of AC Propulsion's "reductive" charging patent is to reconfigure this inverter for use in a bi-directional recharge circuit. This equates to single-phase charging at ~20 kW and 3-phase charging at ~50 kW with little marginal cost of the traction inverter.

Also, these guys have been advertising this as a feature of their system for near a decade. The only problem is that (last time I asked) they want $50k a pop for their motor controller.

That's one of the big things that AC Propulsion have been going on about for years; Vehicle-to-Grid as a part of widespread EV ownership. The idea is that when you get home from work, you'll plug your car in and it will partially power your house while you're doing all your cooking, watching your bigass TV with the aircon on, etc. Then once the power demand peak has passed later in the evening, it will charge using offpeak power (which is cheaper at night anyway because cooler ambient temperature = more efficient power generation).

Of course, there are two major, major problems with this plan. The first being that batteries are expensive and have a limited cycle life that usually degrades fast with increasing average cycle depth. IIRC, sealed lead acid batteries can take 40,000 charge cycles when only discharged by 10-20%, but when taken down to 80% discharge that drops to more like 500-600 cycles. The second problem is that we rely on our cars to be available at any stage. If your kid finds her way into the medicine cabinet at 2am you want to get in the car and drive her to hospital NOW, not find out is that your car's flat and it'll take an hour for the ambulance to arrive.

The owner of one of the prototype Tzero's from AC Propulsion (the predecessor to the Tesla roadster) has just such a setup, a matching trailer for long road trips. Here is a picture, not too bad looking and they made it steerable so that it can even go backward through a slalom course!

I don't know, this doesn't seem so bad to me.

You hit it on the head! The article says the Scion XB conversion has 50,000 mile projected battery life and 120-150 mile range. In round numbers, 400 full cycles. So: each full 35kWH battery cycle incurs the average cost of replacing about a dozen of the 5,088 Li-Ion cells in the battery pack; every 3kWH sent back to the grid averages one cell's replacement cost. AC Propulsion doesn't say what the battery replacement cost will be, but given the $55,000 price tag for EV conversion it's likely to be more than the utility will pay for Vehicle to Grid power storage.

If battery storage was an economically viable means for levelling electric power demands the utilities would buy their own batteries, cutting out the customer-as-middleman. If there's no business case with their massive wholesale buying power, it certainly makes no sense for customers who pay retail prices for replacement EV battery packs.

From the press release mentioned by an earlier poster:

"The benefits of V2G for the grid are compelling, but drivers get something too. PJM pays millions of dollars to generating stations for their help in balancing the grid. Once vehicles assume that role on a significant scale, their drivers will get paid too. That is why FERC Commissioner Jon Wellinghoff likes to call the cars CashBack Vehicles - plug them in and get cash back."

AC Propulsion, who built the car, has been working on this technology for quite a long time. Their press release is at http://www.acpropulsion.com/releases/10-24-2007.htm. They also have a solar powered, unmanned aircraft, an electric sports car that long precedes the T-Zero, and good taste in car bodies since they've used the Sportech and xB for their major projects.

First, efficiency of generating electricity (work done/energy produced) is 60% tops.

This is roughly correct for state of the art gas-fired plants. Efficiently numbers like the above don't even make sense, though, for the large (and growing) fraction of our power mix that is nuclear, and the growing portion that is wind-powered.

Then there is attenuation loss while its delivered to the consumer.

The power grid is over 90% efficient overall. Locally generated energy (say, from PV panels on your roof) is even better in this regard.

Then it has to be stored in batteries which lose energy over time.

It's starting to sound like you're outside your area of expertise. IAAEVE (I am an electric vehicle engineer.) Are you?

Electric engine has THEORETICAL top efficiency of around 45%.

This is total BS. Are you spreading misinformation deliberately or do you actually believe this? AC Propulsion's AC-150 drive system is about 90% efficient over a typical driving cycle. Follow the link to a spec sheet with the detailed efficiency map. Tesla Motors' propulsion system is based heavily on ACP's, and will be roughly the same in terms of efficiency.

The theoretical efficiency of gasoline engine (which I don't remember at the moment) is 2-3 times that.

The BS is flying thick, now. I don't know what you mean by "theoretical efficiency", but it's clear that you don't, either. Gasoline engines in the real-world cars I drive are around 15-18% efficient. (Did you really think they were 3 * 45 or 135% efficient?)

So for every calory [sic] of heat we burn (and release into atmoshere) with a gasoline engine we'd get 2-3 as much work.

Somehow you managed to get your conclusion in the right ballpark, but you have it backwards. Most modern EV propulsion systems are at least 3x as efficient as gasoline cars in a real-world, fair, wells-to-wheels energy comparison, making them about equivalent to 120-140 miles per gallon. You can do your own homework on this -- it's well documented. Tesla Motors' website has some interesting whitepapers and other material on the subject that's pretty easy to understand.

These cars will just end up burning more coal and release massive amount of greenhouse gases. But hey, it's cool to be green.

Spreading FUD when you don't know what you're talking about isn't cool at all. Even from coal, EVs are substantially more efficient and clean. This. Is. Well. Documented. And coal is just part of the power mix. Electricity is the ultimate flex fuel. And EV charging is biased towards off-peak times, when baseline (e.g. nuclear) energy is a larger part of the grid mix.

AC Propulsion built exactly that kind of thing for the Toyota RAV4 electric car. They used a motorcycle engine and drove a generator. They had to mess with the computer a little bit to charge while driving.

My friend with an electric RAV4 wanted to buy it, but the AC Propulsion lawyers eventually decided that the liability was potentially infinite, so they withdrew their offer. Still, it would give you the benefit of a hybrid car for the long trips, while not making you carry the gas engine around when you didn't need it around town.

Thad

You can get an advanced propulsion system from AcPropulsion. Get a used sportscar over there and pay someone to do a retrofit for you. Do your homework on the best vehicle to do a retrofit with you can get there and start a business! These guys even came up with the range solution, a small trailer with a generator. Around town, battery only, want to go on a trip, attach the trailer, plug it into the car, fire up the generator, poof, same range as any other vehicle.

Check out this press release.

AC Propulsion said that they could do it indefinitely, but their pilots got worn out.

Thad Beier

Not only did I submit this story with no type-o's, last night, but I also made reference to the previous solar powered flight that lasted 2 nights, which this submission implies never happened before.

Though the previous one also did gliding/non-powered flight part of the time. Still, up for 48 hours.

Nice to hear an informed opinion. Biofuels will have their place, and I hope that farmers can finally make a few bucks on corn and soybeans. However, we need to think in terms of "quads", or quadrillions of barrels of oil. That means we need to stop focusing on low-potential technologies like burning sewage waste, and focus on the big wins. Google's right on the mark here, since converting 50% of transportation energy to the grid would push the needle tons in the right direction. At 2X the well-to-wheel efficiency, the grid and plug-in-hybrids represent a cheap and easy way to make a real dent in the energy problem http://www.teslamotors.com/learn_more/foreign_oil. php. Given recent major battery advances like A123 Systems http://www.a123systems.com/, plug-in-hybrids finally make both green sense and financial sense. So, why hasn't Toyota started shipping them? Conspiracy theories abound...

For those who like details, A123 batteries kill Tesla's argument that smaller batteries just die faster, and don't save money. Small A123 batteries will last longer than your car, and never need to be replaced. They also have way lower series resistance, and can push one of those tiny 300HP induction motors http://acpropulsion.com/ with as much current than they can take. There's simply no reason that a modern plug-in Prius couldn't leave a Porche in the dust (ok, accept for those small hard tires, and crummy handling). By plugging into the grid, we give ourselves the freedom to produce energy however makes the most sense, whether solar, hydro, nuclear, gas, wind, or (God forbid) coal, oil sands, and oil shale. And if this sounds like an add for A123, it turns out that they're simply the first to market among many who will shortly sell competing batteries. Google continues to show some real vision!

Apparently AC propulsion systems AC-150 unit includes a 50kg 50kw continuous output motor, capable of 150kw peak output. http://www.acpropulsion.com/products/ac_150.htm. I believe you are looking at the wrong kind of motor. The whole package including 20kw bidirectional charger and motor controller is less than 100kg.

I thinking the same thing.

For example there is AC Propulsion's eBox or what I really want a Telsa Roadster, which they claim gets an equivalent 135mpg.

100mpg is certainly do-able with off-shelf technology.

A company called AC Propulsion has already made a solar powered plane that has flown for longer than two days. The plane uses regular solar cells and batteries, using the solar cells to charge the batteries so that it can fly on the stored power during the night.

During the day, the plane used thermals to try to maintain altitude on as little power as possible. Thermals are, of course, derived from solar power as well.

As battery and solar cell technology continues to improve, this challenge has gone from being impossible to hard to doable, and it will soon become easy.

Thad Beier

A company called AC Propulsion has already made a solar powered plane that has flown for longer than two days. The plane uses regular solar cells and batteries, using the solar cells to charge the batteries so that it can fly on the stored power during the night.

During the day, the plane used thermals to try to maintain altitude on as little power as possible. Thermals are, of course, derived from solar power as well.

As battery and solar cell technology continues to improve, this challenge has gone from being impossible to hard to doable, and it will soon become easy.

Thad Beier

it's a tiny fraction of the HP in a Prius' petrol engine (~75HP) - even when you don't take into account conversion inefficiencies & storage losses.

I have been watching the EV conversion market for a long time. I have amassed a few quality web sites links for advise on converting a car to EV and some of them sell the parts. The arguments about moving the pollution from tail pipe to smoke stack are just arguments. As long as you don t expect an EV to totally replace an ICE car and want to save energy and money on your daily commute, an EV is great way to go.

Most EVers have one EV car for the daily drive and one ICE or hybrid for longer trips. All of the EVers I have read about get a kick out of sneeking up on friends with their silent cars and out running sports cars from a standing start at the light. Electric motors can provide max torq at any RPM. ICE motors only supply max torq at a very narrow range of RPMs.

The only reason I don t build one myself is the lack cash to buy a host car and materials to convert it. If I had the cash, I would go with an AC based system with nickel metal hydride batteries and maybe some ultra-caps for enhanced acceleration and regenerative braking. AC systems do the best job at regenerative breaking even without ultra-caps. DC systems require special circuits and the motors requre an extra set of brushes for regenerative breaking or reverse.

The sites listed here have complete guides and step-by-step pictures of their examples conversions. The hardest part is understanding how to size the motor you need and the battery pack to run it and where/how to mount the pack. Otherwise anybody that can change a waterpump or alternator can do one of these. It just takes longer and lots of planning.
AC drive systems for electric vehicles
Electro Automotive Catalog
Electro Automotive Electric Car Conversions
High End AC Drive Systems and Power Electronics for Electric Vehicles
AC Propulsion Home
EVA-DC - Build an EV Choosing a Car

Here's a paper from AC Propulsion that explains why fuel cells are the technology that never will be. The smart money got out of fuel cells years ago.

Perspectives on Fuel Cell and Battery Electric Vehicles

http://www.acpropulsion.com/Products/Range_extendi ng_trailers.htm

Tesla is using AC Propulsion's electronics and battery strategies.

Initially the trailer was used with Alan Cocconi's (the AC in ACP) converted electric Honda CRX.

> That 250 mile range estimate is probably at significantly lower speeds.

"The LiIon tzero will drive 250 miles in left lane traffic, in LA that means 75-80 mph.
Alan Cocconi (AC Propulsion founder and chief engineer) drove it to San Diego and back
without charging. On any type of standardized drive cycle it will go over 300 miles." link

> If I remember right, electric motor efficiency and power typically increase with load,
> but fall off with speed

"Efficiency: 90% average, 80% at peak power" torque chart

> 1000 pounds of batteries...are equivalent to about 1.5 gallons of gas (6.3 pounds/gal).
> Divide that by an efficiency of around 30% and you've got a 32:1 energy density ratio
> in favor of gasoline.

Internal combustion vehicles are about 15% tank-to-wheel energy-efficient. link
An all-electric vehicle is about 44% tank-to-wheels energy-efficient. link
The car's web site puts its efficiency at 2.2km/MJ, vs. 0.6km/MJ for the gas cars (see here).

So an electric vehicle needs to carry about 30% the energy of a gas vehicle.

Another way to look at this is to compare to the Lotus Elise, which consensus is saying is the closest regular car on the market. The Elise gets 25mpg, and so would need 10 gallons -- 63 pounds -- to travel 250 miles, giving us a ratio of 16-to-1 in required weight.

The fuel tanks on this Peterbilt model range from 40 to 150 gallons, with an apparent midpoint of 83 gallons, giving us 525 pounds of gas or 8320 pounds of batteries. The suspensions seem to cluster around 40,000 pounds, suggesting that batteries would need to replace about 20% of the max weight capacity of a truck in order to get the same mileage as a tank of gas (although that's not taking into account weight savings in the engine and similar components).

That's a lot -- it's probably 25-30% of the freight capacity of the truck. Batteries are dense, though, so it'll take up little of the truck's volume, potentially making the result feasible for cargo that is more limited by volume than by weight. Still, I think it offers a good argument that long-haul trucking is likely to stay a liquid-fuelled activity for the forseeable future.

tzero has an attachable "range extender" for their pure electric sportscar, precisely for long trips. It turns an electric into a hybrid when needed, so that during the commuting week, you can be pure electric, weekends or vacation time, bolt this thing on and go driving like normal. Here is an url for the unit.

http://www.acpropulsion.com/Products/Range_extendi ng_trailers.htm

You could take the same idea and build a bolt on unit yourself. Being in alaska I am sure there are any number of generator outfits you have access to. As to the electric ride, kits are out there on the web to convert normal cars or pickups. So, build a kit, get a trailer, slam a small diesel genny in the trailer, make a nice plug...load up the rest of your gear.. go for a long drive..seems doable...

So, there's one answer from a near-zealot. snort. Been reported here in several other electric vehicle discussions. Anyway, it might not be perfect, but nothing else is either. It's a cinch that the days of cheap fuel are over,(cheap in cost to the wallet, I once paid 12 cents a gallon when I was a teenager, double HA!, cheap in cost to the environment and people's health, etc) barring some tremendous breakthrough and the hundred buck backyard Mr. Fusion.

I guess all the folks who tow trailers never park? I tow various trailers of various sizes all the time, including normal US highway speeds, never seems to have been much of an issue once you learn to drive with one. The genny trailer is only for long trips beyond the range of the original charge, it isn't for day to day commuter driving downtown.

There is no one size fits all vehicle out there, it doesn't exist, even with a normal straight fueled ICE engine vehicle. The electric car is designed for light duty day to day reasonable distance commutng, or inner city delivery purposes with small trucks, etc. The hybrid trailer is a way to extend the range for trips, and who knows, maybe they will be rentable so you don't have to buy one. Here is one developed already:

http://www.acpropulsion.com/Products/Range_extendi ng_trailers.htm

  It is one potential form of the evolution of the car, that's all. If you think it sucks, just don't buy one when they come out! It's that easy. In the meantime, like all other human tech advances, the backyard guys and the innovators are quietly advancing the tech, there are already a lot of electric vehices out there and they aren't going away, the numbers increase daily and once a critical mass of people interested in them gets large enough they will be manufactured in larger numbers. Whether you "approve" of it or not. Just like what happened with the personal computer.

Uhh, no, they can be much simpler to make, and would probably be more robust. I honestly don't know where you are coming from but I am an older life long blue collar guy. Electric motors are WAY more reliable than most fueld engines.

The tow behind trailer for long range trips? Already being built and be on the market shortly, because it's a good idea, the article was covered here on slashdot at least once that I recall, so it is you who are kidding yourself that this isn't possible. There's a company in california (ACPropulsion) makes very expensive (and fairly fast)exotic sportscar model electric vehicles, they have the trailer for extended range trips, but I thought of the idea independently of hearing about them, but to refresh maybe your memory here is a link to their site, so far they have cars, electric planes they are working on and now the "instant hybrid" trailer:

http://www.acpropulsion.com/Products/Range_extendi ng_trailers.htm

Go see the movie in the article if you want to argue more about it, those are the points they are making, very similar. The elev\ctric car was killed *on purpose* because it is disruptive technology and a threat to established big money. There are a number of smaller companies heavily into it now (go ahead, google around for it), eventually you'll see mid sized then the big companies-eventually, and it might be *soon* eventually. Because that is in the future and speculative we'll have to wait and see who is right, cool? I predict it will happen, you don't, we'll check back in a few years or so...

http://www.acpropulsion.com/tzero_pages/tzero_html _home.htm

There's a tradeoff between acceleration and range, so you will meet people who've seen anemic electric cars.

Since the range is a problem... manufacturers haven't been working on performance-oriented electric vehicles.

Why, sure they have! The only issue is that, because of the range problems, they're only working on vehicles competing in the "rich-guy's occasionally-driven toy" market (i.e., the market populated by exotics like the Lotus Elise and Enzo Ferrari -- not stuff suitable for daily driving, like the Corvette). Here are some examples:

• AC Propulsion Tzero
• Wrightspeed X1 (based on the Ariel Atom)
• Tesla Roadster (based on the Lotus Elise) [note: the company website has no useful information]
• Venturi Fetish [warning: Flash]

Here's a proposal for an EV infrastructure - http://www.acpropulsion.com/Veh_Grid_Power/Veh_gri d_power.htm
Not sure if it works in fast charge/discharge cycles though.

SixD

P.S. I am in no way associated with the company linked above.

The TZero name is already taken. Anyway, I'd much rather have this TZero.

This is not new at all, AC Propulsion made the T-Zero years ago, and its faster 0-80 than every exotic car, they have video footage taken independantly to prove it.
http://acpropulsion.com/

So what you're telling me is, you want a TZero. Or am I missing something?

While looking at AC Propulsion's website (through the Wikipedia article), I was looking at the FAQ, and it reminded me of something.

One of the questions on the FAQ (http://www.acpropulsion.com/tzero_pages/tzero_FAQ s.htm) was:
How long does the battery pack last? What does it cost to replace?
Pack life is on the order of two to three years, or 15,000 to 20,000 miles. At current prices, a set of new batteries costs about $3,000 from Optima.

Okay, so taking replacing the batteries for $3000 every 20,000 miles gives you a cost of $0.15 per mile. I filled up this morning and had gotten about 400 miles off of the tank (estimates only, the receipt is in the car). The cost ended up being about $0.10 per mile.

So even ignoring the cost of electricity, it would still be more expensive for me to have a car that I have to replace the batteries on every 20,000 miles. There are other costs involved with maintenance and such, but I doubt that the battery replacement is the only cost as well.

I really, really want an electric car for commuting to work, but I can't go there until it comes a bit closer.

This car is powered by an AC Propulsion AC-150 power train http://www.acpropulsion.com/Products/AC_150.htm. That's what makes it fast. Notice that the powertrain was not made by them. The engine is a slightly modified VW 1.9L TDI diesel. The car's chassis is a K1 Attack with carbon fiber body panels which were donated.

There is really almost no design in this thing, these are all off the shelf parts that you could buy today, and put togeather tomorrow. Plus you would be safe in this car.

The down side is that you would half to sink a lot of money into this car to buy all of the components, this would be somewhere on the order of ~$140,000. That's really why there are not 1000's of these things on the road.

Well....what exactly is the 0-60 mph of the Honda Accord?

Maybe you should look here before asking questions whose answers are so easy to find.

The only commercially available vehicle that is what you describe is the T-Zero. 0-60 in 4.1, 13.2 second quarter mile, all-electric. They sell an ugly little generator trailer you can pull behind your T-Zero if you want to look like a retard, too. Last I looked at their site much they had some nice videos of a T-Zero beating some Carerra (maybe a 4) and a C5 Corvette Z06 or something.

Yeah...but, it looks like CRAP. Can't they make these 'green' cars look nice and sporty?

check out this one before you say that again..

There are two possible technolgies. Firstly, flow batteries. Secondly, a generator trailer for the times you need to take trips longer than the range of the batteries. Check out http://www.acpropulsion.com/ for info on the second solution.

This crowd make use of a 20kW charger, so your assumptions aren't out of the realm of possibility.

I have done a simple calc on battery capacity to work out how many Li-ion cells it would take to get me a useful commuting range (100km) in my Mazda MX-5. My commute is 70km round trip. Turns out it would require about 90kg of 18650 type cells. This is based on a current fuel comsumption of about 8 litres/100km with an average fuel to powertrain efficiency of 15%, and not including regen braking. All very doable really, except the battery pack alone would be about US10k.

And even in this kind of hybrid regenerative braking can result in a net loss of fuel economy if you are primarily driving it at constant speed on the highway, because you don't do much braking in the first place.

Now, I'm not overly familiar with the Prius' electric motor system, but I do know that AC-electric drive motors have regeneration built in by nature of their design. While a DC electric car has to have a separate generator to recharge their batteries, AC cars such as the EV1, ACPropulsion's system, and Siemen's systems (as sold by Metric Mind) all have regen without any extra hardware.

I heard from someone who had an EV1 at an EV club meeting. They took it on a 200+ mile round trip. Going uphill they had to stop & charge at ~60miles, but coming home they got a free ride down the hill...

The prius gains more from ENGINE BRAKING than physical regenerative brakes. When you are coasting, your turning the genny.

I had the pleasure of "Borrowing" one for 1 month. I got about 55 mpg with it, mostly highway. The owner currently gets 45. 45? thats 12 more mpg than my 5.7 liter 300+ hp formula gets when I drive it on the freeway.

The main differance you state is true. Performance changes everything. When I am heavy on the throttle (under my normal driving there's a 68.4% chance I will stomp on it at any given moment...) then the fuel economy drops to about 12 mpg. Still pretty good.

But here comes the kicker.... and proving your point....

When he drives like a normal person, he gets 45. If you drive a geo like a normal person why do you only get 25-30? They are underpowered.

a geo that claims to get 45 on the freeway, might do so if it is flat, but if you carry me and my prius owning friend up the pass to go hiking, it would not be so great as it would be floored the whole time up the pass, where as my car on cruise would be sitting @ ~ 20-30% throttle, and the prius would do fine, till the batteries go down, then it turns into a weight hauller using almost full throttle to maintain speed.

What do I want out of a car? I want my cake and to eat it too. I want one of these!
http://www.acpropulsion.com/tzero_pages/tzero_home .htm

I am very Price:performance oriented, which is why I drive an F-body (hopeing for a new 'Vette in '07.) But I would love to have the "normal driving " fuel economy of my prius friend with the same performance as my car.

batteries lasting the lifetime of the car has a _lot_ to do with Depth of Discharge (DoD). Battery chemistry has a lot to do with how low you can discharge a battery before you start to lose performance. For example, you don't want to discharge a lead-acid battery past 20% (even a "deep-discharge" PbA), or the capacity goes to shit real quick. Nickel-metal Hydride batteries don't like to be discharged past 50%, iirc. Hence, the Prius computer starts the engine whenever it detects that the battery level is less than a certain level - 60% or 80%, i think.

Lithium Ion batteries don't like to be fully charged (this is why some apple i-pod batteries only last a year before their performance craps out - people consistently plug 'em in until they're fully charged), not really sure on the specifics of Nickel-Cadmium, other than that the guy I met with a nickel-cadmium Electric Dodge Caravan said that he doesn't have any problems with discharging it all the way. Usual precaution about overcharging appliecs to NiCd, PbA, and LiIon...

The plug-in-hybrid project replaces the battery pack with a bigger one, and has electronics to tell the Toyota computer that it's consistently 90% full, until it gets down to a certain level. This allows for more electric-only city miles.

AC Propulsion's tZero now has a lithium-ion battery pack, which is good for 300+ miles. It originally had a cheap lead-acid pack, which was good for up to 100 miles/trip. I think they had 15,000 or 20,000 miles on it when they switched to the new battery pack.

Alternative Source Car that is what you are looking for.

you'll probably need some additional energy to power the communication equipment. A solar-powered plane would already have solar cells for that.

you'll probably need some additional energy to power the communication equipment. A solar-powered plane would already have solar cells for that.

...

Worst of all, GM long ago stopped listening to its customers, and that's just plain bad Car-Ma! ;-)

The turning point occurred in the late 90's, when a group of visionary engineers, under the tutelage of then CEO Robert Stempel, attempted to "reinvent the corporation." Among their achievements, they built, on the relatively small shoestring budget of $350 million, the world's most advanced and efficient automobile -- the EV1. The EV1 assembly line in East Lansing, Michigan established new benchmarks in low volume custom manufacturing -- a key technology for the future, then and now dominated by Toyota Corporation.

But Stempel and his lieutenants were soon ousted by a corporate coup when GM's earnings took a downturn during a recession, and the Beancounters took over once again.

In 1997, GM showed off a hybrid electric version of the EV1 at the Los Angeles Auto Show -- just as Honda and Toyota were introducing their hybrids to the world. But the Beancounters at GM Corporate quietly tucked away their hybrid, never to be seen again, and openly derided the Japanese offerings for selling "below cost" -- forgetting the painful lessons that America has had to learn in so many other electronic-related technologies. ... (source)

but you can get a tzero by ac propulsion that does pretty good performance wise if you are looking for some sportscar. Instead of MPG look at cost per mile instead with whatever you pay for electric now for charging.

http://www.acpropulsion.com/tzero_pages/tzero_home .htm

Most of the downsides of Hybrids can also be applied to the downsides of any electric vehicle. The envo-friendly people dont understand that when you push for electric vehicles you are only "moving" the pollution from one source to the other.

large powerplants are significantly more efficient than small gasoline engines. See this /. comment about the efficiency of modern steam turbines (author says up to 60%). Most Internal Combustion Engines (ICE) are around 20-25% efficient. So even if you replace an ICE with a BEV (battery electric vehicle) and burn the gas that the ICE would've used in a turbine power plant, you're still doubling the efficiency of the fleet.

Never mind the fact that it's significantly easier to clean up 1 powerplant than 100,000 tailpipes...

But, they dont care, as long as the pollution isnt around "them"... which creates the need for more electric plants, but they dont have any place to put the electric plants since no one wants a nuclear facility in their backyard... or coal burning, or, etc, etc.

There's plenty of spare capacity at night. My Aunt in Phoenix already has a nuclear facility in her backyard (Palo Verde). She's got a dual rate plan, and pays $.04/KWh after 9pm. If I had an electric vehicle that was relatively inefficient, and used 500Wh/mile (charging inefficiencies included), it'd still only cost me $.02 to go 1 mile, as long as I charge up at night.

As you can see, everyone wants all the benefits, but none of the downsides. What are we going to do with these millions of batteries when they need to be disposed?

Lead-Acid batteries are relatively easy to recycle. Do some research, and you'll find that the benefits of electric vehicles far outway the downsides.

AC Propulsion's website has some good articles on the superiority of electric vehicles...

some links:

CARB's Fuel Cell Detour on the Road to Zero Emission Vehicles (pdf) (complete)
Perspectives on Fuel Cell and Battery Electric Vehicles (problems w/ fuel cells)
Letter to California Air Resource Board [CARB] against watering down the ZEV mandate (by requiring advanced technology batteries.. Later they watered it down even more by giving in to the fuel cell bait & switch)

They have to keep the charade going. Fuel Cells were the "switch" in the "bait & switch" con Automakers played to get out of California's Zero Emission Vehicle mandate. The California Air Resource Board wanted automakers to sell Batery Electric Vehicles (BEV). GM was going all-out to meet the mandate, but then GM's visionary engineers got kicked out, and then they spent some $600 million lobbying against ZEV.

"We can't do BEV 'cause the batteries aren't good enough and people won't want a car that they can't instant-refill. But Hydrogen! Hydrogen is just like gasoline, except it's clean! Never mind that there's no efficient or economical way to get hydrogen, advances in 30 or 40 years will make it possible!"

Of course, now that ZEV is DeaD, battery technology has advanced to the point where an "instant" re-charge is possible...

See Perspectives on Fuel Cell and Battery Electric Vehicles, and this mailing list post on GM's coming demise ("good riddance").

CARB's Fuel Cell Detour on the Road to Zero Emission Vehicles

AC Propulsion: http://www.acpropulsion.com/

If you want to race on a paved surface, I'm sure you can find some takers. For some other great electric race vids, check these links: http://chicagotalk.net/forums/showthread.php?t=105 3

"How are those vehicles being recharged?"

Plug it in. The TZero has a gas generator trailer that can increase range on even the cheap batteries have a range of 700 miles. Many people opt for home solar arrays also to provide "off grid" power.

"What is FLA?"

Flooded Lead Acid. IE: Cheap batteries. A 144volt system (standard highend for DC systems) in FLA batteries will likely be close to $1200.

"Is there an easy way to compare mileage w/ electric vehicles?"

The most accurate calculation is BTUs, but that requires plenty of math. I'm lazy and found someone else who had already done the math. DC systems get arround .4kWh/mile and ACs get about .2kWh/mile. My last electric bill was $0.085/kWh which means running a DC electric 30miles would be about $1.02 vs a Gas 30mpg vehicle at about $3.00. Going to an AC system like the one AC Propulsion offers would drop that down to $0.51 per 30 miles.

"What do the $250k T-Zero's offer that the $25k model don't?"

The $25k option is just the motor, charger, control circuitry, regenerative breaking, contactor, etc. No car, no batteries, no tranny, no frame, etc. They can make a tranny for you, but it's about $5-6k. You'd still have to provide either a donor car, or build a tube frame of your own.

"What's the battery lifetime on these?"

Lead Acid (el cheapo) you'll get 3-5 years. LiIons I've heard can last for up to 10years.

-Rick

No doubt, this thing's got to be more expensive. I mean, I could afford it and perhaps a lake to put it in, and I could sell what electricity I don't use (it's supposed to supply a town of 200,000) and recoup my money. Plus, it would be much more fun to be able to say to some Ferrari jerkoff that I *own* the nuclear power plant that powers (and unbeknownst to him provided the funds for) the electric car that just dusted his precious ride. Heh.

Seriously, even if this thing cost ten times as much it wouldn't be far out of the grasp of people on the low end of the wealthy spectrum, and someone like Bill Gates could reasonably afford to provide electricity and desalinated water to all of the third world.

I'm afraid there's simply no way that this is going to cost less than 500 times the price they've quoted, not because it's unfeasible even with huge mass production (heck, maybe it is possible), or because it's unsafe, or because people are afraid of it--but because under pressure of the Oil Companies the US will invade whoever has one.