Slashdot Mirror

But wait: http://www.allcarselectric.com/news/1063329_aptera-answers-our-questions-shares-no-new-information At least Tesla is still making the roadster, but wait: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/06/tesla-stop-production-electric-roadster-focus-model-s-sedan.php At least there's the Corbin Sparrow or the Sinclair C5 or ??? http://jalopnik.com/5809904/whats-historys-most-awesome-failed-electric-car I'm an electrical engineer and this is depressing. Oh yeah, and there are still no batteries good enough!

Except your friend didn't. According to the web site you already need to have something to start with... an existing car. It's a nice little niche product but nothing like what Green Vehicles is trying to do.

It's unlikely you can build a prototype of a next gen electric car for $500k, but this was more like an electric motorbike with a roof. Try comparing the photo of the prototype BMW 'Clever' shown off 2006 running on natural gas, and the Green Vehicles from the summary. Similar concept, and BMW did this with the research support of Bath University being thrown at it. And it still failed achieve production. It was an epic and brave undertaking, but seriously underfunded.

Phillip.

This was Tesla's plan for a while now, and the article says nothing about their business model failing. The cannot use the government funds they were given to develop a sports car, it must be used for the Model S. Also they based the Roadster on the Elise Chassis, and Lotus has quit making them. This isn't reddit or I'd down vote for the horrific summary. There is lots of info in their IPO filing, and elsewhere..

Also the basis of the business model for the Roadster was to smash the image of the electric car being a hippie-green eco-shitbox, which most electric car's to date have been. That was a resounding success.

http://www.teslamotors.com/about/press/releases/tesla-gets-loan-approval-us-department-energy
http://www.allcarselectric.com/news/1042150_tesla-roadster-production-to-end-in-2011-new-version-expected-in-2013

#740..

Yeah, this has nothing to do with all the government funds Nissan has received in the last few years. About 2 years ago they got a big infusion.

It's just a backhanded way to track you and Nissan can just say "oopsie, didn't mean to do that." Just wait till all that data gets mined. I imagine the bigwigs are jizzing their pants (which will provide great lube for when they jam it up your ass).

Just recently they've had government testing of their new car battery prototype, as well as testing by the independent firm Dekra.

http://www.allcarselectric.com/blog/1058119_its-official-dbm-energys-electric-car-battery-is-real

http://green.autoblog.com/2011/04/05/dbm-energy-record-breaking-kolibri-battery-passes-government-tests/

This is reassuring as their claims are seemed so extreme:

"Mr. Hoffmann also cites estimates that the mass-production cost of a 98.8 kWh version of the pack would range from 800 to 1,000 euros, or from about $1,100 to $1,400, which is thousands below current costs."

http://rumors.automobilemag.com/cars-computers-best-buy-sell-electric-vehicles-45795.html

So... Tesla waited 2 years before doing this when it could have set the record straight the moment it happened?

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2008/12/tesla-cries-fou/#more
http://www.allcarselectric.com/blog/1057580_tesla-sues-top-gear-for-libel-against-all-electric-roadster

The Californian startup claims that it had no other recourse, issuing a statement that it reluctantly took legal action after its repeated attempts to contact the makers of Top Gear and the BBC, over the course of months, were ignored.

First, they tried setting the record straight 2 years ago. Then they attempted to contact Top Gear and BBC probably to avoid a legal mess and were ignored. So of course after two years of this they finally had to go through the legal system to the record straight.

Yes, they are actually better than any gasoline car out there, and on par with modern hybrids, even assuming you don't use much renewable energy to charge it.

Taking into account the standard electricity generation mix in Europe the researchers concluded that to be more environmentally friendly than an EV a gasoline car would need to have a fuel efficiency of more than 59 miles per U.S. gallon.

Hook it up to solar panels exclusively, and you've got yourself a lean, green, driving machine.

From the parent comment: "I'm pretty sure it's not trivial to turn a dead, degraded cell into a shiny new one."

True. I really, really dislike it when stories about energy generation and distribution fail to include all the issues and costs. I found two articles about degradation of lithium cells:

Abstract: Highly reversible lithium metal secondary battery using a room temperature ionic liquid/lithium salt mixture and a surface-coated cathode active material Quote: "... the degradation of the LiCoO2 cathode-solid polymer electrolyte interface is dominant."

PDF file of the full paper: Building a Battery by Vapor Deposition Quote: "... aging for LiCoO2 cathodes cycled above 75C is associated with a trigonal to cubic transformation."

Reading those quotes seems to indicate that degraded batteries could be renewed, but only by taking them completely apart, re-processing the lithium, and building an entirely new battery.

Misleading: Quote from the story: "The company responsible for the battery pack, DBM Energy, claims a battery pack efficiency of 97 percent..." Most of the inefficiency is in converting line power to the DC at high current necessary for the battery. Another area of inefficiency is in the transmission lines from the power station to the car. Talking about only one inefficiency is misleading to those who don't understand the technology.

(Stolen from a comment in: http://www.allcarselectric.com/blog/1050863_electric-car-drives-375-miles-at-55-mph-recharges-in-6-minutes )

Translated from this page: http://adacemobility.wordpress.com/2010/10/26/das-wunder-von-berlin/#more-744
"Technical Data Audi A2 DBM *
* Subject
Empty weight (including driver) 1260 kg
Perm. Total weight 1600 kg
Battery lithium-iron-polymer (260 Ah/380 V) cell voltage of 3.8 volts
Battery weight about 300 kg
Charging time about 4 hours due to mains phase current in the household (380)
battery requires 6 minutes (future solution)
Life time 2500 charge cycles (without loss of capacity)
= Service life target: 500,000 km
Top speed 160 km / h
5-speed sequential gearbox (race gear: shifting without the clutch)
E-motor 300 Nm torque"

And even then, what can be automated here can be automated there where the workforce that runs the machines are cheaper (read: exploited).

This is true to a point. It is not the case where the cost of transporting the finished goods to the West is high, where the goods are perishable (e.g. foods), or where the robots themselves require skilled highly educated engineers to maintain and operate. If the cost of labour were the only factor, then we would've already seen most of the automated Japanese manufacturing industry shift to China. Instead, to give Nissan as an example, there are new highly automated factories opening up in Japan, Europe and the U.S. (Third Factory For 2011 Nissan Leaf Production Is Smart Move In EV Production War).

1) Unless you work for Nissan how do you know how much the Leaf is going to cost? From my web research it looks like the costs could be very similar

"All Nissan will say right now is that the car will be priced affordably, and in the range of a well-equipped C-class sedan. A well equipped C-class vehilce runs in the $28,000 to $35,000 range, without the $7500 tax credit the car will be expected to enjoy. If they are factoring that in, consider $35,500 to $42,500." http://www.allcarselectric.com/blog/1033846_2011-nissan-leaf-price

So if Nissan is including the $7500 tax credit in it's "C Class pricing" then it's going to be very similar in price to the Volt.

2) I've never seen gasoline gel in a tank. I've seen diesel do that though.

Gerson Lehrman Group, a New York consulting firm, estimates that even if 500,000 cars powered by lithium ion batteries were produced in 2015, they would use less than 10 percent of last year's global lithium output. And global output continues to climb.

And there is the fact that salt water has lithium. In fact, some startups are trying to extract it now. If the price goes high enough, it will be practical to extract lithium from the ocean.

If the fuel line is pinched, for example, flooring it would cause devastating detonation, EXCEPT in "by wire".

WRONGO. Two technologies exist to prevent this, one is a knock sensor (before it becomes devastating, it is stopped) and the other is tip-in retard.

It is exceedingly easy to test the Throttle Positioning Sensor in modern vehicles.

And yet, a bad TPS could actually cause a similar problem in a car without throttle by wire. If there is a bad spot on the TPS, then it can see the throttle as being in a different location than it actually is. Mostly, of course, this just results in stalling, which causes different kinds of accidents. It almost got me in an accident in my '93 Impreza. They want over two hundred bucks for that fucking potentiometer...

In fact, your ECU probably tests idle throttle position every time you turn the key on for a while without staring the engine.

No, it doesn't. All it can do in that situation is to test if it is present, which it does by checking for the idle switch (when present) and checking TPS voltage to see if it looks like the position might actually be at idle. OBD-II cars constantly check the TPS, but they can't [usually] detect problems that are not catastrophic. By 'constantly' that means they also sanity check whenever you engage WOT, because most cars also have a WOT switch.

The ECU will also log 'implausible signal' for TPS that get an out of range reading, or inconsistent reading throughout the range.

On a vehicle with drive by wire, sure. That's because the pedal has one pot on it, and the TPS is either attached to a servo-driven butterfly, or it's part of the servo feedback itself. On other vehicles, this code is may not be set even if the TPS is obviously bad, because it's non-trivial to find out if it's causing a problem. Anything other than jitter or a big obvious bad spot will probably escape detection.

The simple truth is that in a drive by wire scenario, you are not controlling the engine. Just another reason why having a reciprocating engine attached mechanically to your wheels is an idea whose time has long since passed. Where the fuck are all the plug-in series hybrids?

And also don't forget that China and India are getting into the car phase driving demand even higher. I don't think they will be able to afford Volts any time soon.

That's alright Indian car manufacturer Tata already has EVs.

Falcon