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Electric Car Bests Ferrari F550 In 0-60mph
Mind Mage writes: "It finally seems that electric cars are becoming worthy of consideration for performance automotive enthusiasts. Here's a link to an L.A. Times article describing AC Propulsion's new electric 'sports car.' The T-zero does 0-60 in 4.1 seconds and pulls .88G on skid pad tests. The manufacturer's web side has some Quick Time movies of the T-zero drag racing a Porsche 911-4, a Corvette, and the F550. I wonder how many 1/8 mile drag runs the T-zero can sustain before having to recharge the battery?" Electric car racing isn't new, but seems to be making faster strides than ye olde (and formidable) internal combustion engine.
NO.NO.NO.
You misunderstand. I don't want to REPLACE my engine. I want an ADDITIONAL 30hp.
I'm suggesting a motor that straps onto the driveshaft to assist the dinosaur burner. That way you jump from 170 to 200 for a somewhat average vehicle. No, it's not an incredible jump. But it would save a lot of that energy used to stop a vehicle into energy used to accelerate it. The main benefit is fuel economy, with some secondary performance enhancements to boot.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
NO.NO.NO.
You misunderstand. I don't want to REPLACE my engine. I want an ADDITIONAL 30hp.
I'm suggesting a motor that straps onto the driveshaft to assist the dinosaur burner. That way you jump from 170 to 200 for a somewhat average vehicle. No, it's not an incredible jump. But it would save a lot of that energy used to stop a vehicle into energy used to accelerate it. The main benefit is fuel economy, with some secondary performance enhancements to boot.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Alpina B10 Bi-Turbo (modified BMW E34 5 series)
http://www.bmwm5.com
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
Sheldon seems to be just another well meaning yet deluded fool in thinking that 'out-of-sight, out-of-mind' will suffice to allow Canadian citizens all manner of 'guilt free driving'.
too bad really, because the sooner we start taking this situation seriously, the sooner we can start solving the problems.
::I will not moderate my opinions for your stinking karma
Don't get too excited. All an electric car does is moves the power generation from the inside of your car to a powerplant outside your city, which probably produces more pollution by burning coal. Better car performance is cool, but this doesn't have any environmental benefits.
/., ten posers have to remind us that 'it doesn't have any environmental benefits.' Well, if the the damn NC Department of Education would adopt electric buses, I wouldn't have to choke every morning when the school bus comes to pick up my neighbor's child (anyone else here notice how buses are the dirtiest, nastiest vehicles on the roads next to logging trucks?). For me, that would be an 'environmental benefit.' Maybe we could have just the one stand of trees around the power plant in a city killed by noxious fumes instead of all of them.
Oh, shut the FUCK UP. Every time an electric car article comes up on
And how about noise, jackass. Every electric I've ever heard ran at a quiet hum, compared to the rattle put out by the average unmaintained fossil fuel spewing junk heap that most people drive around in.
And what about future possibilities? The future promise cheaper, more efficient PV cells that could be integrated into an electric car so that there will be an advantage to letting my PV covered vehicle sit in that hot parking lot all day. I may only get half a charge before quitting time, but it would be a free fill-up. How would a convential vehicle take advantage of all that 0-emissions sunlight?
So take your tired arguments and go find someone who hasn't heard it. Maybe they'll listen to you.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
The biggest problems come from the smaller (relatively) oil companies that do the actual exploration/drilling/etc. They are not large enough to be diversified, and they must keep the "oil dependency" in order to survive. Ask George W. about it.
I'm not a fan of large corporations, but the big guys are well aware of the limited supply, and are putting a lot of money into other systems/fuels. They win either way, and so they're relatively neutral in the fight. We need to watch out for the 2nd tier corporations and their buddies. They're less well known, and consequently are able to avoid public scrutiny, while they pay off politicians and buy barrelfulls of lobbyists.
A witty saying is worth nothing - Voltaire
Yeah, until another dam is required, at which point another river is blocked and several more square miles of land are put underwater, etc
Hydro is nice and it doesn't pollute, but it has its drawbacks, make no mistake. Also, individual cars can still be more or less efficient in their use and storage of electricity (but wouldn't be as bad as gas)
--
Vidi, Vici, Veni
I know it's not the purist's car, being a hybrid and all, but on the other hand, an Electric car's fuel is either smelly coal or dirty plutonium/uranium, for the most part.
Acceleration: Dunno, but it's probably reasonable ^^
Top speed: It'll do at least freeway speeds!
Good looking: Yes! It looks like a streamlined old school Honda Civic!
Reasonable range: Yes! 10.6 gallons, 60mpg == 600 m, ~100,000km range!)
Recharge time: Braking regenerative charging, as well as fuel assisted...
Reasonable price tag: Yes! $24k
Your 'only' tradeoff is that there is a gas tank, and that you get the 'burden' of having to visit the pump every 100,000km...
Geek dating!
GPL Deconstructed
This news is wonderful, however the oil companies will not like it one bit. You bet that Shell, BP, Texaco, Mobil and so on are all lobbying for various taxes to be imposed even as we speak, and considering all sorts of strategies to undermine the Electric car as a serious proposition.
You couldn't be more right. I heard that back when L.A. was just a town, the city board recognized that it would be a megatropolis in the future, and were deciding what to invest in: public transit systems (trams, trains, etc) or building lots of highways. There were oil tycoons on the board and other executive positions, so you can guess which one we got.
Now, we have 2 hour waits to drive 20 miles on the 405, and air quality went to shit (although it has improved dramatically of late, and we are now cleaner than a lot of other big cities.)
It's a damn shame that in this country, decisions are made base on lobbyers (sp?) and not based on whats right.
--
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
Actually that's not true -- some if not all of these companies are starting to move in the direction of alternative energy sources already. Recent BP ads refer to the company not as "British Petroleum", but as "Beyond Petroleum", the implication being that the writing is on the wall, oil supplies are being exhausted, and they're preparing for a day when their major product will be Something Else. This is a Good Thing.
As noted repeatedly in this thread, by myself & others, this is a red herring. Pollution is displaced, yes, but it is displaced to a place where it is far easier to manage. There are a host of reasons why it's better to draw power from a centralized plant rather than millions of dirty little engines, and the sooner we can get to such a point, the better.
Maybe, I'm not sure. This is just speculation on my part, but my instinct is that the environment can probably as a rule better withstand a low level shock everywhere than an intense shock at certain localized points.
That is, if the level of say CO2 goes up everywhere by some small amount, say half a percent, then the global plant population can probably absorb that without too much trouble. On the other hand, if all of that is dumped into a 50% increase in, say, New Jersey, with basically no increase anywhere else, then I suspect New Jersey is basically screwed. (Anyone that has driven down the NJ Turnpike near Newark can verify this has already happened... :). If that point of acute damage to one place is then followed by a low level increase as in scenario one, the damaged area probably won't be able to handle the load as it would have otherwise.
But like I say, this is all speculation on my part, and I welcome sources that can back up or refute the hypothesis.
In any event, I don't think that would be a very big problem if electric cars were to catch on. The pollution is getting centralized, but probably not to the point that it would cause that much of a shock, especially considering previous points about power plant scrubbers and what have you. Given the choice between 150 million nasty gasoline cars and the same number of electic ones complemented with a few thousand power plants, I'd eagerly take the latter.
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
The car itself weighs 2400lbs ... which while light, isn't a mind bogglingly low weight. The Honda S2000 weighs 2600lbs for example.
Having an engine that can't be shifted isn't exactly what I'd call an advantage, unless you think that your car would work better in 4th gear all the time.
The reason it IS so fast is the powerband of the electric motor. Unlike petrol based engines that have a nice rounded powerband, electric motors reach their peak torque quickly. Not only that, but they hold that torque across the powerband. The other reason is that the drivetrain is more efficient than what'd you find on a typical petrol powered car.
Compared to an equal sized car with similar "paper" numbers, this car IS amazingly fast. The closest thing you can probably come to it on paper is the S2000, which makes 200hp and only weighs 200lbs more. It reaches 60 nearly 2 seconds faster.
The fact that the car can only be driven 100 miles at 60mph is rather prominately stated on their website. It's not like they try and hide that fact from you.
Range: No EV is going to deliver great range. They don't need to either, because you can't recharge them in a reasonable amount of time (5 minutes). What does this mean? No cross country trips. So you're "stuck" driving it around town. How many people in this country actually drive more than 100 miles in a day, around town. You'll find that people who do WON'T be driving this car (real-estate agents, for example). As a person who drives a LOT every day, a 100 mile range isn't unreasonable.
People also need to stop thinking about electric cars compared to normal gas cars. Just because you can go 2 weeks without stopping by a gas station doesn't mean you need an EV to do the same.
0.88g on the skidpad is also rather respectable. It isn't very good compared to the F550, but it's right there with most other cars in the "sport" class.
The reason why this car is a big deal is that it helps eliminate the stereotype that electric cars are slugs. If you want an EV that can give a Diablo a run for it's money you can have one.
my goddamned chrysler K-car does .88 on the skidpad.
:::
Vaginux.
:::
Vaginux.
"eat me".
you have got to be kidding.
:)
:)
driveline losses for 2wd systems are typically 10-20%, most people just say 15%. if you dont beleive, me, go have your car dyno'd.
furthermore, the transmission/clutch assembly is not where all the losses occur, putting 30hp at the front of the driveshaft would still subject you to the losses of the driveshaft, coupllings, and more importantly the differential. Why do you think performance vehicles have temperature senders for differential fluids ? Because they turn some of your hard earned power into heat (and tiny metal filings
even in a perfect system, 30hp to the tires themselves would be a useless vehicle. even motorcycles deliver more power to the road.
this car is interesting because they're actually getting respectable performance out of it. im examining this site to see where they're "cheating". if they could make a 3500 pound electric vehicle that ran under 8 seconds for 0-60, seated 4, and had a 100mile range, then that'd be something. that'd be your average lame sedan. afaik, No one has made that car yet. once you start going to electrics, you need small, light, cheap, flimsy vehicles.
I'll never drive anything that looks/handles/performs like a geo metro just because it runs on batteries. They can't even make laptops run a long time on batteries
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
That would work, if you never wanted to get at the batteries after installing the interior. :)
The body on the car isn't there just to make it look like a car; it's covering the batteries too. They made a mention on their site about how that it isn't a pain to replace any of the batteries should it ever be required.
You can't hide all 1200lbs of that right at the wheels though, even if you tried. For what it's worth they distributed the batteries to produce something like a 45/55 weight ratio, if I recall correctly.
My current car pulls 0.87g's on the skidpad. It is definately enough force to throw you around the car through a turn.
But even with that aside, electric cars themselves create quite a lot of polution. Electric cars are filled with batteries which contain highly toxic and dangerous pollutants (heavy metals). These batteries have to be replaced every 2-3 years, and are also prone to leak (significant even for small leaks). My understanding is that the single battery in current cars causes significant pollution already.
I would be very interested to see an impartial and complete rundown of the environmental impact of electric vs. gasoline cars. (Combined with stats on buses, trains, hybrids, bicycles, and other transportations would be even more interesting) Mostly I've just seen highly partial statistics, and statistics in regards to pollution seem particularly easily manipulated. Very possibly electric cars could be the most environmentally safe, but I'm not convinced of that yet.
No, they're extras are not free - you just don't notice their impact. Who would notice even 10% worse gas milage? When the gets empty, we fill it up.
Very likely they wouldn't be noticed on an electric, as long as it has a decent range. When the cells run try, we'll charge 'em up and not think that we went 10 kms less between charges.
Don't get too excited. All an electric car does is moves the power generation from the inside of your car to a powerplant outside your city, which probably produces more pollution by burning coal. Better car performance is cool, but this doesn't have any environmental benefits.
Please don't spread completely incorrect assumptions like this around here. You're wrong. Let's say you have a 100MW coal-fired generating station. The average output of a good-sized car engine is about 200kW or so (that might be a little bit on the high side). If you think that 500 large car engines running flat out are a better bet than a properly running plant with a turbine, I have a bridge to sell you. Not only from an emissions standpoint - but there's lubricants, replacement parts, lifetimes - that plant is probably good for 50 years - how many 1950's engines you going to run flat out for 50 years? This translates into bigtime savings in emissions and environmental pollution elsewhere. And that's coal - some of the messiest. There's lots of surplus hydro power in Canada - but you gotta get it from us Canucks. Keep suckin back the juice so my taxes will go down! :)
ELECTRIC CARS HAVE LOTS OF ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFITS. The problem is getting a battery technology that lasts long enough to be cost effective, or getting fuel cells to have the outputs required to make them cost effective. A properly designed electric motor will run as long as it's OWNER if it's kept within it's temperature specs - and you can overclock motors, too :) - compare that with your average ICE GM product.
I suppose you drive a SUV and think it's safer, too. (Sorry, couldn't resist. That was uncalled for :).
..don't panic
I hope not either, because you're not entirely correct. Moving to electric vehicles does have the problem of simply displacing the pollution to a centralized point, but generally that plant is going to be cleaner than personal vehicles could ever be. Even if it is a coal plant, there will be scrubbers that do a better job of cleaning up the by-products than can generally be done on cars.
When moving to electric vehicles & centralized power production, economies of scale are on your side. The dirtiest engines today are, perhaps surprisingly, the smallest ones out there: lawnmowers. People don't tend to think about how much air pollution the Lawn Boy makes, but they're really nasty. For a lot of reasons, larger engines tend to be more fuel efficient, cleaner burning, and more economical overall. We stand a lot to gain by moving as far in that direction as possible.
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
However, electric transmission and storage is still grossly inefficient. Unless your electric power comes from nuclear or hydroelectric, it is probably dirtier for the environment to power cars electrically than with gasoline. There is another choice, however, alcohol burns cleaner, is a renewable energy source, and it's production takes carbon out of the atmosphere unlike burning fossil fuels. It is relatively easy to retrofit gasoline powered cars to run on either ethanol or methanol.
Electric cars also require large amounts of batteries, which are made of toxic materials. Manufacture of electric cars is probably a net negative for the environment as long as we don't have a clean battery technology.
As for converting electric production to sustainable alternatives, the tree-huggers need to rethink their positions on nuclear power.
The real problem is how many miles you can go on your battery. 120 - 130 (Which seems to be about average currently) miles isn't enough for many commuters.
As for the issue of moving the pollution elsewhere, if you'd freaking let them build a nuclear reactor in your back yard it wouldn't be a problem, would it? All that ecowhining and they still won't allow the most pollution free plants in their areas. The breeder plants don't even generate much nuclear waste.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
A skidpad test isn't a measure of how quickly it breaks -- they will provide a braking distance from 60-0 (or 70-0) if they want to demonstrate that. The skidpad is a measure of how hard the car can throw you against the door in a turn.
For example, the car grips the road enough to produce pull 0.88g's in a turn.
It's very VERY rare to that number at/above 1g.
and when you're an atheist, these things matter
--
Vidi, Vici, Veni
The reason most companies are persuing electrics right now is that fuel cells are still WAAY to expensive to mass produce. There have been some sinificant advances in fuel cell technology over the last decade, bringing the price down from millions per unit to maybe a quarter million dollars. However, I don't see Ford selling many cars at $250k a pop. The price has to get down to $50k before you can even think about making cars based off of it; the only reason you can get away with that price in the mass market is if the car will last 10 years and cost you pennies to maintain.
Insight: 2 engines. Duh. That's why it's called a hybrid. It's actually quite a good idea, and I personally think it'll be the next "wave" of vehicles we'll see on our roads. It has none of the problems associated with a fully electric vehicle, but is 2x more efficient than anything else out there.
Honda is losing money on those cars because the batteries are EXPENSIVE, and they wanted to sell the car at a price people would actually buy it at. For them, it's a technology demonstration...a proof of concept -- a "we were the first, all your base are belong to us" type move.
I agree it would be interesting to see a total over-all environmental impact comparison.
The polution from the batteries depends largely on what type they are. Lithium Ion are quite nasty, NiCad a little less and NiMH less still. The good thing is that batteries can be recycled - gas can't.
Batteries have come a long, long way in the last while. Capacities increase while weight and size decrease. It's especially obvious with electric remote control aircraft where they're put through some tough use. High current 2400MaH NiCads that weight 2oz in a sub-C package are common, as are 3000MaH NiMH cells.
"overtake petrol based cars in terms of miles/gallon " ... using the PEF (petroleum equivalency factor) adopted by the US federal government in june 2000, my corbin sparrow gets over 500mpg (160watts/mile plugged into their formula). The "lameless filter" barfed on the details. See http://www.ott.doe.gov/legislation.shtml#rules
Before I found that site, I'd worked out the following from various web sources:1 US gal of gas (unclear octane rating) 125,000 BTU;`1 kWh 3,413 BTU Thus yielding 36.64 kWh/gal.
Which allowing some generous rounding up to 200watts per mile, yielded a somewhat more conservative 180mpg.
Using today's electric rates and gas prices, it's more like 100mpg if we use a $ for $ comparison.
How much better does it have to be?
The same person who's got enough money to have a porche for every day of the week. Let's face it, a car like this isn't meant to be something you drive around town day in and day out.
Bikes can be fast. Bikes are usually a lot cheaper than cars. Hell, if you get something like a Ninja you can roast most anything on the road. But you have to like bikes. And you have to be willing to tolerate the extra hazard of driving one -- the extra hazard being severe injury/death in a highway accident. You also have to be willing to tolerate the loss of creature comforts a car provides.
For example, us drivers in hydroelectric rich British Columbia (Motto: Keeping California's Lights Burning) would be able to enjoy guilt-free driving right now.
I'm proponent of alternative engergy sources, and high performance automobiles.
Efficiency is certainly an issue, but electric cars do just move polution from the roadways to the power plants.
In the example you provided--hydroelectic power plant--is definatley a low polution power plant. However, it is not without serious consequences.
If you don't beleive me, try to go salmon fishing on the Columbia River. Sockeye salmon have been on the endangered species list for almost 10 years. Steelhead for the past few. Why would, over the course of only 50 years or so, the Columbia river go from being one of the biggest sources of Salmon to having hardly any? You're so-called guilt free hydro-electic dams.
The only low-impact electric power plants are Wind and Solar, to varring degrees. Niether of which are providing the amount of power that hydroelectrical plants are. So if you are advocating electric cars, you're advocating coal plants, killing salmon and nuclear plants. Suddently doesn't sound like a great idea anymore.
Does that concept even apply here though? What are you saying -- the amount of lead acid burned for every certain number of miles? God I hope that's a small number -- way smaller than gasoline consumption, 1000x times better even.
It's a problem of comparing the proverbial apples & oranges. What's needed are metrics that are more generally applicable. Perhaps a measure of energy units (joules?) consumed per unit distance, with maybe a local & global factorization that accounts for how much the vehicle itself consumes (the gas tank, the battery, etc) and how much went into supplying the vehicle (the oil refinery, the power plant, transportation costs, etc). Only then can reasonable comparisons be made.
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
Having an engine that can't be shifted isn't exactly what I'd call an advantage, unless you think that your car would work better in 4th gear all the time.
... which while light, isn't a mind bogglingly low weight. The Honda S2000 weighs 2600lbs for example
No, but on a 0-60 test, not having to shift saves noticeable amounts of time.
The car itself weighs 2400lbs
You're right, it's not. My bad. I couldn't find a weight on the car listed anywhere.
0.88g on the skidpad is also rather respectable. It isn't very good compared to the F550, but it's right there with most other cars in the "sport" class.
I still say it sucks. They are charging more than a Porsche for a kit car. Looking at my most recent R&T other cars in its class:
Acura NSX 0.92g
BMW M3 0.91g
BMW Z8 0.92g
Corvette Z06 1.0g
Corvette C05 Convertible 0.92g
Dodge Viper 0.98g
Ferrari F355 Spider 0.93g
Ford SVT Mustang Cobra R 0.99g
Honda S2000 0.90g
Lamborghini Diablo 6.0 0.99g
Lotus Esprit V8 0.90g
Mazda Miata 0.92g
Panoz Esperante 0.92g
Porsche 911 Turbo 0.96g
Toyota MR2 Spider 0.91
Granted, skid pad ratings are hard to compare...but it still isn't anywhere close to other cars in its price class. It isn't even close to cars that are in one-quarter its price class (Toyota MR2 and Mazda Miata).
Please tell me this is a joke.
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
If the car can do 0-60 in 4.1 seconds, that's enough power. I think it would be really cool to be able to do that quietly without using gas. Just make the car look cool and there'd be no image problem as far as I'm concerned.
--
Vidi, Vici, Veni
I'd settle for a retro-fit electric motor that fit around my drive-shaft. Control from the brake could provide regenerative braking, and return extra excelleration at startup. The electric motor could run till the cells are nearly depleted, and leave the rest to the old dinosour burner. Solar cells could provide additional energy, though charge times would require all day to get an apprecialbe amount of energy. This would give a large portion of the benefits of EV, at a fraction of the cost.
How feasible would it be to add a 30HP electric motor to the driveshaft (basically, convert the drive shaft into a rotor), and throw in a few batteries to capture braking energy? Rotational speed of the driveshaft is a factor, I know, but I believe that can be compensated for.
Note: 30HP on the driveshaft would equal much more than 30HP as advertised by most car companies. Companies generally rate their engines at the engines output, and not the transmissions. Putting 30HP directly into the driveshaft avoids losses through the transmission.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
> In the example you provided--hydroelectic power
> plant--is definatley a low polution power
> plant. However, it is not without serious
> consequences.
Absolutely.
> So if you are advocating electric cars,
> you're advocating coal plants, killing salmon
> and nuclear plants. Suddently doesn't
> sound like a great idea anymore.
No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying electric cars are better than the alternatives, especially when combined with less damaging forms of power generation.
Oil spills kill those same salmon, even those that receive less memorable attention then the Exxon Valdeez.
Those same salmon are also extremely sensitive to fluctuations in temperature when young, and guess what the greenhouse gases causing by internal combustion engines are doing? Yup, almost litterally cooking them in their own streams.
Nobody should be using coal any more, for anything. The effects are just too damaging. Heck, those things give off more ambient radiation than a true nuclear plant (Carbon-14).
Sorry,
But many of your points (but not all) are flawed.
My BSME Thesis project was a city transit bus fuel economy study, so I think I know what I'm talking about. Big diesel engines are the most fuel efficient engines on the road (best power to fuel consumption ratio). Yes, of course big engines spew more pollution than small ones, but what you're not taking into account is the pollution per person. There's a reason why 40 people can fit on a bus.
To make your comparison fair, compare the pollution created by a single bus with 30-40 average commuter vehicles.
All powertrains are a comprimise. In the USA, our EPA doesn't like the particulate matter pollution created by Diesel engines, while in Europe, Governments don't mind a little particulate matter because they feel that NOx and HCs are bigger problems.
The idea that electric vehicles can be bigger polluters is no hoax. If coal is burned to power the generators that charge car batteries, you can be sure that it would be a problem in countries that don't have stringent air quality standards. In Europe, the situation is much more complicated, because you could be pulling power off of the grid from any country at a given time. Maybe your electric car is being powered by Windmills in Holland, Nuclear Power Plants in France, or Coal burning plants in Italy.
The bottom line is ALL powertrains are polluters if you count the pollution created during the manufacturing process, disposal, or daily operation.
The selection of a powertrain is a complicated comprimise between performance, drivability, noise/NVH (you had a valid point), complexity, various pollutions, profit, logistics, and sale price. Fuel Cells, Flywheels, ultra capacitors, and batteries could prove to be the next big-big thing, but unfortunately each needs to improve it's performance/cost ratio.
Your rant shows you care, but unfortunately the world isn't that simple.
Actually, hydroelectric dams produce lots of pollution, in the form of methane (a greenhouse gas) produced when vegetation washed into the stagnant dam water rots. See a blurb about this here. The report was produced by the World Comission on Dams, and I think this graphic does an admirable job of illustrating some of the pluses and minuses of hydroelectric energy. It's not perfectly clean, although it certainly has advantages.
1. Yes, it does. So does building cities, roads, factories for computers, laying cable for networks to read Slashdot, etc.
The benefit of hydroelectric power is that the damage is localized so at least the ecology can try to adapt around it. Polution from power plants like gas and coal are everywhere and it's systemic, there's no escaping it.
2. I believe The Three Gorges dam will cause the earth to wobble a bit differently, it's just that big. But tell me how the shifting of the techtonic plates, ocean tides and artic ice flows aren't already causing a wobble.
The less impact we have the better. Unfortunately, most of the populus of the world doesn't seem to care at the moment.
In the end, it looks like electromagnetism has the ability to produce more instantaneous force than ye olde combustion engine.
Well DUH... Have you fallen off the stupid bus or were you just trying to troll?
The AC induction motor has an extraordinarly steep (almost vertical) speed-torque curve when it's near full speed. Now take into account that variable frequency drives (VFDs) keep the Volts/Hertz ratio in check at all times and you find that the AC induction motor, when being driven by a VFD, is "always" at full speed and is therefore always capable of delivering rated torque. An internal combustion engine can't even come close to this kind of performance.
The speed/torque curve of most internal combustion engines looks like an upside-down 'u' -- i.e. your maximum torque is somewhere in the middle of its speed range. You need gearing to keep the engine in this maximum torque range or you're just wasting fuel and heating things up. They are also mechanically complex and require more maintenance compared to an AC induction motor. Internal combustion engines burn gasoline which has one of the highest energy densities of any available consumer fuel around which is why they're everywhere.
Inverters (variable frequency drives) are solid-state, capable of regenerating the energy from the motor slowing down to brake and are relatively efficient so long as you don't mind a bit of a whine from the IGBTs or FETs switching. An AC induction motor is extraordinarily efficient (the shitty little 3HP one (which could probably fling my little Jeep around at a good clip) sitting beside me here is 87% efficient. What's the most efficient readily-available internal combustion engine? 50%? 60%?
The AC induction motor is simply amazing from almost every perspective. No brushes, almost zero maintenance (greasing only really), great efficiency and decent size/power ratios. Electromagnetism has always been way more capable than the internal combustion engine when it comes to producing instantaneous force. It's only recently that battery and hybrid technology has been developed to take advantage of them in automotive use.
This is especially true for older remote hydro-electric stations (dams), where over 95% of the energy is lost in transit. Meaning that 95% of the energy goes to heating 100s of miles of hydro cables and towers.
Transmission line losses are NOT 95%. What are you smoking? The figures I've heard bantered about are more like 5-10%. You are incorrect, and I don't want to see this modded up.
Not to commit the same crime, my Standard Handbook for Electrical Engineers (13th edition) quotes the figure at about 8% of the total output of a large power system. (18-107). PLEASE think before you post such a completely ignorant figure in the future, and I really hope the moderators don't mod that up, because it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Centralized power distribution is the most efficient way to generate power. Period. Yes, it makes a mess in the location you do it in (coal, dam, whatever). Welcome to the price of a modern society.
..don't panic
Another reason, which I'll mention here even though it's already been mentioned several times on this topic, is that this kind of car really doesn't offer any environmental benefit. Sure, the car spits out air instead of exhaust, but you need a generator to power the air compressor that refills it, so where does that electricity come from?
The only "alternative" fuel powered cars that produce zero total emissions are solar powered cars, which are pretty useless in most parts of the world, and even then are very weather dependant. Batteries, compressed air, fuel cells, all of these solutions produce secondary emissions, and so can't really be considered environmentally friendly.
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www.scorbett.ca
> Geothermal, like wind power is limited in power Tell that to Iceland, where every house is heated by geothermal power.
Forgive me then, my standard reference texts and EE degree are worthless and I obviously bow down to the l33t knowledge of the "Natual Library" books. How stupid am I to go to my reference shelf!
You're being incredibly dense and ignorant. Power losses have been low ever since people figured out Ohm's law and that heating is a function of current, and that's why transmission lines run at 100's of kilovolts at low amperages - so you don't heat the lines up an lose power through thermal inefficiency. I have no idea about the turbine losses, but I can look those up, too. The actual transmission line losses factor in about 8%, which is more than acceptable, otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation - electricity would cost too much.
100's of miles isn't actually that much loss, please read some basic physics and electric theory and you can figure out why.
..don't panic
Well, using their figure of 1 hour at 240VAC@100A, which is 24 kwh, and my local (British Columbia) electricity cost of $0.06/kwh, that comes to $1.44 per 100 miles.
With gas prices at $0.80 a LITRE here (roughly 4L to the gallon), and a super-efficient 56mpg car, that translates to close to $6.40 per 100 miles.
Assuming you commute to work and put roughly 10,000 miles a year on your car, that works out to about $500 per year.
Assuming a lifetime of about 200,000 miles for either type of car, you save: $10,000 over the life of the car in my region in fuel costs alone. (Maintainance costs are a whole other argument. I think fewer parts and less drivetrain complexity equates to cheaper maintainance, but the batteries could offset that, so I'll call it a wash for this exercise.)
Yes, the inaccuracy of the variables I chose are probably pretty high, but at least this gives you SOME idea of when an EV becomes economically attractive.
User #47 claims "similar to having longer chiminies -- merely moves the pollution elsewhere". This is neither supported by logic nor measurements. As for the former, fixed plants can easily have much better pollution controls and more efficient burning, use of engine waste heat, etc. (and a large fraction of fixed plants use cleaner fuel). Mobile generators use gas or diesel, don't have the space or weight budget for extensive emission controls, nor do they have any practical use for most of the waste heat. Depending on the power sources being compared, EV's are measured to produce 97% or less of the pollution of conventional engines. If you are making comparisons, you might want to make consistent ones. Gas doesn't spring up fully refined in your pump, it has to be refined (which takes a considerable amount of energy and produces considerable pollution) and then shipped (more pollution, more energy) and finally pumped. See http://www.ott.doe.gov/legislation.shtml#rules for the fed/DOE comparison on pure efficiency grounds. Bottom line: wellhead to pump .83 total vs. .924 for electric transmission in the US and .328 for electric generation aggregate (which is biased towards older plants, because there are so many more older ones). State of the art plants are, I'm told, pushing 40%. According to a different fed site, http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/atv.shtml a conventional combustion engine is about 13% efficient in moving a car down the road (it details where the losses are).
For a more complete, albeit more opinionated analysis, http://www.evadc.org/papers.html
...I would just want: Reasonable acceleration/top speed. A good looking (if small) car. Reasonable range (say 300-500 Km on a single charge) Reasonable re-charge time from a normal home circuit (over night perhaps). A reasonable price tag. I don't think I can get all of that just yet.
BlackNova Traders
I'm in no way arguing that electric cars with current battery technology make any sense whatsoever - you're right, you probably could make a good case for them being net polluters, not the other way around. If you look at electric motors alone, which near 90% efficient, and in most cases, don't HAVE a transmission to cause losses. The problem is the energy storage, and the solution to that is a fuel cell - which we can't produce cost-effectively, yet.
I can dig some numbers out from my machines reference on high-output electric motors themselves, but they're extremely effificent. The losses are in the energy storage mechanism.
..don't panic
Hydroelectric, wind, solar, geothermal
Let's see... Hydroelectric power floods huge areas of land and also creates mercury pollution (don't remember by which bio-chemical process)
Wind power is limited (You can't generate power for a whole country) and cause pollution by noise.
Solar power, although it looks "clean" also creates a lot of pollution because the solar cells are made of toxic chemicals.
Geothermal, like wind power is limited in power.
So far, there's no magical energy source. It would be nice to have a clean mass-to-energy converter (E=mc^2), but right now, there are lots of technical problems (like finding a source of anti-matter!) so it's not going to happen in a near future.
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
Or catalyzed from hydrocarbon fuels, which is how they want to make it for cars. Then you wouldn't need to electrolyze water for hydrogen, and you wouldn't have to store hydrogen in large quantities. A cat-cracker/fuel cell combo is potentially much more efficient than an internal combustion engine. Plus it can run on chemically simpler fuels -- gasoline for internal combustion engines has lots of additives and compromises so that it burns properly.
-- ;-)
Kuro5hin.org: where the good times never end.
Power drain problems; you can limit the "engine's" drain, but you STILL pay for it in range, and a lot more than you would in a gas-burner, especially when you're talking about heat. Heat in a gas-burner is essentially free, you can run your heater all day long without any hit on your range.
Fuel cells; Burn either methanol, or hydrogen. Methanol still releases CO2, and potentially other hazardous stuff (An ideal consumption of hydrocarbon like methanol, or methane, or octane for that matter, yeilds CO2 and H2O, ideally, but differing mixtures, temperatures yeilds Nitrogen Oxides, and Carbon Monoxide, and sulfur content in todays crappy gasoline mixtures yeilds Sulfur Oxides, so, any burning of fossil fuels, whether it's Methanol in a fuel cell, or gasoline in an internal combustion engine, is going to yeild results that are environmentally undesirable. True, fuel cells have a better potential to control things like sulfur content and inclusion of nitrogen oxides, but they can't eliminate them, and currently, fuel cells are even less efficient.
Hydrogen is never going to be a staple fuel for powering cars. For one, you have the same problems as you would with raw electricity. Hydrogen has to be generated from water, probably seawater, and that generally requires energy input. Electricity. Hydrogen is very difficult to transport, and very unsafe, and even store- hydrogen molecules are so small that it actually leeches through the metal walls of compressed gas cylinders over time. Hydrogen is one of the most explosive substances there is. Even burning hydrogen can yeild some nasty noxious substances. Under ideal circumstances, you get water as a product, but you'll also end up with carbon and nitrogen compounds of hydrogen as well. Cyanide, Ammonia, things like that. Small amounts to be sure, but multiply that by hundreds of millions of cars, and you have another unsavory environmental dilemma.
Ideally, all the problems with hydrogen can be worked out:
generation: genetically engineer a plant that collects sunlight, and splits seawater, collect and refine the minerals for industry, package the pure oxygen and hydrogen in some inert manner, store them together in the fuel cell (eliminating atmospheric contaminants in the burn so you dont end up with Cyanide and Ammonia) -
Now, figure out what happens to our climate with all of that steam our cities are suddenly releasing into the atmosphere, and maybe THEN we'll have a solution.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
While I'm the first to agree this is cool, and shows off the strides that have been made in electric car systems, it's hardly more than a showcase for top systems rather than the real systems that are required for everyday use, which are still somewhat lacking when it comes to things like efficiency.
What we really need is for electric cars to overtake petrol based cars in terms of miles/gallon - without this there is absolutely no chance of them ever taking off as anything other than a curiosity for people with money and an environmental conscience. And given that the giant fuel companies are hardly likely to welcome such developments, it may take significant benefits to allow people to make the change.
Still, it's good to see that the state of the art is progressing so quickly - these developments will eventually filter down to affordable systems and bring electric cars onto the streets for normal people sooner.
The real Paul Vallee is slashdot userid 2192, and, what do you mean it's not cool to point out your low userid?
What's it like working at NASA?
The ultimate dream car:o tos.html
p ecs.htm
http://www.geocities.com/MotorCity/Garage/8837/ph
And the specs to go along with it:
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Theater/7389/s
The dragracer is an important ideographic image in American culture. He is defined by his sleek car and fast speeds, but he is also defined by the clouds of smoke that trail behind him as he burns rubber. Will a "clean" electric car cast the same fiery clouds of masculine brimstone in his wake? Will manufacturers be able to overcome the perceived impotence of electric vehicles?
Well, the "burning" of tires comes from the friction between the tires and ground. But more important is the sound of gas vs. electric cars. I consider myself a bit of an enthusiast, and the sound of a car's exhaust can make or break a driving experience. Car manufacturers put considerable import on the exhaust sound. Ferrari certainly doesn't hide this fact; there was an article in C&D a year or two ago about it. I'd be more than willing to bet that manufacturers are willing to sacrifice a few horsepower to get the sound of their exhaust just right.
-- "Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage." -Naomi Littlebear
As to electric cars being cleaner than ptrol powered cars, I do not think they are especially. This is similar to having longer chiminies - it merely moves the pollution elsewhere, in this case to power stations and the venting that takes place there.
This means that countries such as Norway and Canada, which have to suffer the pollution produced in Britain and America respectively, will suffer even more from its dead effects. Electric cars mean that Londoners and Manhattanites will live in cleaner environments while the true countryside suffers a little more.
However, my attitude to this is 'So What?' The lives of millions and their living conditions is a lot more important than the continued existance of some obscure far away plant or animal. I only wish the statist environmentalists could see that.
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Hope I didn't shatter anyone's illusions :)
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
is that there is not enough electricity around to power even a fraction of the cars in this country, even assuming that all the electricity from the power plants in U.S. will go exclusively to fuel these cars.
And since there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of people who like living next door to a nuclear reactor (one of the cheapest and most efficient sources of power we can build with current technology - not to mention safest, despite Chernobyl and Three Mile island), there isn't much chance of electric cars taking off in the near future.
I wonder why there's not more buzz about it
The primary concern of using hyrdogen to power cars is the pressure that it needs to be stored at (NOT, as many people believe, that the gas itself is flamable). So this car has the dangerous high pressure tanks, without the huge amount of energy (equaling driving range) in the form of hydrogen. Sounds like a winner to me!
basically it's an air compressed car that goes at about 60mph top speed that can go for about 120 miles between charges. To charge it you basically plug it in an electrical outlet, and the compressor compresses the air to fill the tank.
No air conditioning, no heater!?!?? I'll give you a hint as to why it doesn't sell more: it gets hot down here in Texas, and it gets cold up there in Michigan. Any questions?
What's your damage, Heather?
I suppose you drive a SUV and think it's safer, too. (Sorry, couldn't resist. That was uncalled for :).
As long as your chastising people for not referencing any proof -- why not provide some proof that SUV's are not safer?
"And like that
The comparison to a Ferrari is particularly ironic, imho. The Ferrari, as a massively expensive sports car, is not just a high-performance vehicle. It's also a status symbol. An expensive entrenched status symbol.
It won't be enough for electric cars to perform better than internal-combustion cars. We've had cleaner alternatives to gasoline for years now, and most have flopped. Part of that has to do with the economics of scale and the relative abundance of petroleum on our planet (more available and cheaper than milk), but part of that also has to do with image.
The dragracer is an important ideographic image in American culture. He is defined by his sleek car and fast speeds, but he is also defined by the clouds of smoke that trail behind him as he burns rubber. Will a "clean" electric car cast the same fiery clouds of masculine brimstone in his wake? Will manufacturers be able to overcome the perceived impotence of electric vehicles?
The trend has sadly been away from fuel efficiency. SUVs and diesel trucks hog the roads. Unless electric cars are fundamentally cheaper or better performance-wise, they will flop for sure. And it'll be years before the prices come down out of the stratosphere.
GAH! of all the short sighted environmentalist wankery, I swear! If you check out their web page, you'll see that they blithely boast of how efficient and 'green' their vehicle is. But if you stop and think this stuff through for a moment... Where does the electricity come from? it comes from oil and gas burning power stations. The handful of such power stations in California put out nearly 4 times the amount of pollutants than all of the cars and trucks and trains combined, and that's every day. Couple this with the 70% transmition loss (which is radiated away as heat on the lines, btw), and we are talking something on the order of 100's of times less efficient than my Honda Civic.
I shouldn't even have to mention the horrifying production process of these batteries, or the contamination we'll see after accidents, either on the road or in some redneck's front yard! You thought dumping motor oil was bad? holy goddam hell!
::I will not moderate my opinions for your stinking karma
Shifting doesn't take much time at all. In a drag from 0-60 you'll have to shift once (most manufacturers gear their cars to top out at 60mph in 2nd for a reason ;)). I would give you an extra 0.1 seconds for the difference, at best. I say 0.1 seconds, because that appears to be the difference that I've seen between manual transmissions and CVT's in the 0-60.
;) I would argue that they probably made a sacrafice between raw handling and ride quality.
... I'm sure it would compare to the amount spent on batteries for solar powered racers).
I don't know where you got some of your skidpad ratings from, but some of them look somewhat "off". For example, Edmunds lists an '00 Miata at 0.89g.
Most of those cars you listed don't have skidpads that are spectacular compared to the Tzero. Notable exceptions include the Dialbo, Cobra, Viper, Porche, and the Z06. IMO, anything in the neighborhood of 0.90 is doing pretty good.
And you're right -- it is hard to compare skidpad ratings. Different tires can make a dramatic difference, for instance. Lowered suspention, different shocks/springs, too make a diff. But I'm sure you'd argue that for $70k that you shouldn't need to do any of that.
Yeah, it's an expensive car. I'll never own one. I'll never buy a porche either. Hell, I can't figure out why people spend 50k on an SUV that they use to drive back and forth to work.
But seriously, you don't spend that kind of money on any car for "practicality", value, or performance in it's class -- Ferrari would be out of business if that were true; most of their cars can be outperformed/matched by less expensive vehicles. You do it to stroke your ego.
The other thing that doesn't seem to be taken into account is how much more expensive it is to make an EV compared to a similarly spec'd gas powered auto. You think NiMH batteries are expensive at $20 for 4? Try buying 1200lbs of 'em (I'll admit that I can't tell how much the batteries alone would cost, but they're not cheap
Like most companies who make electric cars, AC Propulsion fails to mention that they future may not be in electric cars.
It is widely circulated in some circles that electric plants emit more pollution generating the electricity required to drive an electric car, than a gas-powered car would emit, given similar circumstances.
I'm not an expert in this field, but have friends in the industry, not working on electric motors, but Hydrogen cars. I am told that the only things they emit is water. For some reason, though, the major car companies are only pursuing electrics... Did you know that for every electric car Honda sells, they lose around $3,000? That's because it has 2 engines, one gas and one electric. Neato, eh?
Other forms of batteries tend to be considerably more expensive, aren't they? I'm very reluctant to say that things should be more expensive because it's good for the environment -- when you take in the larger picture, it's often not true. If those batteries are quite expensive -- as all the better batteries seem to be -- it's very probably because there's a lot of resources going into their creation. A lot of water used, mining required, etc. None of those things are good for the environment.
I think the transportation problem really needs to be looked at as an infrastructure problem, not a car problem. The best solution will not only be good and environmentally sound, but cheap too. And I don't even think it needs to be high-tech.
You should build some power plants using this prinicple and make a fortune on free energy!
Any electric car that gets its power from a solar cell is a "solar-powered car," even if those solar cells are in a large array on top of a mountain hundreds of miles away.
The Bible is not my book, and Christianity is not my religion.
As far as I am concerned, the ultimate vehicle would be a Stirling-electric hybrid. A Stirling engine is capable of 50% thermal efficiency. As it is an external comustion engine, it can burn almost any fuel, solid, liquid, or gas. Unlike a fuel cell, there is no particular requirement for ultra-high purity in the fuel. Unlike a diesel or gasoline internal combustion engine, a Stirling engine works better in very cold weather. As a Stirling engine does not burn fuel under compression, it does not make NO2, and if the burner is adjusted correctly (could be automatic), does not make CO, either.
This is really the best of both worlds. The slow starting nature of a Stirling engine is no problem whatsoever in a vehicle that depends for acceleration on battery power, and the range limitations of batteries are addressed by constant re-charging by the Stirling engine (Which should have output needed to cruise at 55 with flat batteries, but no more) and by regenerative braking.
So, why haven't the Hybrid-EVs used a stirling engine yet?
Any ideas?
Dog is my co-pilot.
A fuel cell is a great solution, and the progress is going quickly. Of course, you still have to deal with carrying fuel, which either means storing hydrogen (another whole problem) or carrying a converter to strip hydrogen off of methanol/gasoline/whatever.
:). Hydrogen has miserable energy density per unit _volume_ compared to gasoline or methanol at practical storage densities, and is a bugger to work with (you need a containement vessel that can take hundreds of atmospheres, and hydrogen gas will do fun things like diffusing through the walls of your pipes and fuel cell if they're made of the wrong materials).
Actually, if I understand correctly, several varieties of fuel cell can reprocess simple hydrocarbons like methanol internally (just need the right catalytic electrode material and the right operating environment).
I'd also argue that even carrying a converter would be less hassle than trying to use hydrogen
Methanol is a well-behaved liquid (a bit corrosive over the long term, but less so than water).
If you want a purely-electric solution, keep your eye on ultracapacitors. They're still pretty expensive, but they're already starting to beat the energy density of batteries.
Unfortunately, this isn't saying much. The energy density of batteries is orders of magnitude lower than the energy density of most fuel-burning schemes.
Nuclear. The world's cleanest power source, and the only one which can account for the whereabouts of 100% of its emissions.
Of course the real issue is power supply.
A battery can only hold 1% per weight of petrol.
So while trains don't have that problem. Cars do. I can't get to the site at the moment, but I suspect that eventhough they may bet petrol cars, the batteries probably don't last as long a tank of gas
But it is imporving, And one day, EV will be better performers than gas, there is only so much you can do with a gas engine. No matter how many new systems you can make, it dosn't change the fact that 80% of the energy is lost in heat and noise, and while that figue may decrese quite a bit. electric motors only waste about 20%, and thats probably improving aswell.
However, that CO2 is largely tapped off and used for production of products such as soft drinks which would otherwise require CO2 produced from fossil fuels.
Also, the plants that are used for the fermentation remove large amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere while they are growing, so alcohol production does not release large amounts of carbon that has been stored deep inside the earth like burning fossil fuels like coal to produce electricity does.
These batteries have to be replaced every 2-3 years, and are also prone to leak (significant even for small leaks
FWIW, I spoke with a Honda PR guy (yeah, I know), and he said the battery pack in the Insight is designed to last for the service life of the car (8-10 years).
They're sealed lead-acid batteries, so they don't leak unless (a) you fuck something up in the electrical connections, or (b) you crack one of the battery's housings. Even then, you only get sulphuric acid (H2SO4) leaking.
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Every time the subject of electric vehicles comes up on /., someone always spouts off nonsense about how EVs are not as good for the environment as a modern gas car. So I'd better post this link and ask people to read it first. It's entitled "Debunking the Myth of EVs and Smokestacks" by Chip Gribben of Electric Vehicle Association of Greater Washington, D.C. To sum up a few points:
1) ICE cars use gasoline (duh) while EV's are fuel neutral. As long as it can be converted to electricity, the EV will run on it. This includes coal, oil, natural gas, solar, hydro, nuclear, etc.
2) Emissions controls on power plants are much more sophisticated than the automotive catalytic converter. Also, they are constantly monitored to make sure they are working properly. Not every place does emissions checks on cars and even then it's only once a year.
3) Power plants are much more efficient at using fuel than car engines. The theoretical maximum efficiency of a heat engine is 40%. It is much easier for a large stationary PP to get close to that number. An ICE car? Forget it. Not even close.
If you know about electric cars, then you know that with the constant torque and an opportunity to store and dump enormous amounts of power in a short amount of time, it's far easier to build a fast electric car than it is to build a fast gasoline car.
Since you can put a motor on each wheel too, you can have an AWD dragster without a big transmission weight penalty.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Never mind local hooligans and misdeed doers swinging by in the middle of the night and cutting the cable. [No charged car in the morning.] Or the neighbor who borrows your charge plug when you are not around, running up *your* bill.
Right now it is only really secure and practical in a private home with a private garage.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Several posts have mentioned that electric cars just move polution. They argue what used to be generated in cars will be created at power plants. This is true, but wrong.
The fact is, there will be LESS polution generated at the power plants. Besides being more efficient at converting fuels to power, not every power plant is poluting. For example, us drivers in hydroelectric rich British Columbia (Motto: Keeping California's Lights Burning) would be able to enjoy guilt-free driving right now.
The worst case is that some polution will still be generated at the plants, but at last there will be much less of it. More importantly, the the power is produced in centralized locations. This means if the power plants become 5% more efficient all of the EXISTING vehicles create less polution.
Not to mention that as more power plants shift away from nasty sources of energy like coal, every electric cars on the road will become truely polution-free almost overnight.
What they're really comparing is a super-lightweight car using a 200 horsepower engine that doesn't need to be shifed against an F550. And then we're supposed to be surprised by the results?
Anyone familiar with the Lotus Elise shouldn't be, since this sounds like pretty much the same idea with about 25% more power on tap minus the time lost due to shifting.
Frankly, I'd be surprised if it didn't go as fast as it does.
They don't really mention that you can only drive 100 miles ("with careful driving") and that running a quarter-mile uses up 20% of the battery. So if you want to get a few runs in at the track I guess you'll be towing your car there rather than driving it.
I'm also surprised at the rather weak skidpad rating of 0.88g. I wonder why that is.
The tzero is actually pretty light -- 2400lbs. Half of that is batteries.
By comparison, the Honda S2000 weighs roughly 2600lbs, and the car I drive weights 3100lbs.
I just found out how much the batteries cost -- it wasn't nearly as expensive as I thought. The whole set costs $3000. I was thinking it'd be along the lines of 10k.
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Check this out
h tml
;)
http://www.electrifyingtimes.com/guynegre.html
and
http://www.zeropollution.com/zeropollution/index.
basically it's an air compressed car that goes at about 60mph top speed that can go for about 120 miles between charges. To charge it you basically plug it in an electrical outlet, and the compressor compresses the air to fill the tank.
It's also interesting that, due to some carbon filters, the exhaust air is cleaner than the air that goes in
I wonder why there's not more buzz about it, it seems really cool for short range movements, I know if I had one I would surely use it for the work/home commute...
-- the cake is a lie
Electric Motors are superior to piston engines -- weight, tourque curve, reliability...vastly superior.
Unfortunately, the energy density of batteries is only a fraction of the energy density of gasoline, drastically increasing the vehicles' weight (and thus lowering performance). Thus, after 60 mph or so the ferrari just takes off.
here's a link to more info. It's using Optima batteries...I hate to pee on the story but that "one hour" charge time requires a 240VAC@100A ac line...I don't think I'll be doing that at my house!!
Still, a little over three hours at something like 30 amps isn't too bad.
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