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Electric Car Sighted on Highway - Who Makes It?
moophus managed
to spot an interesting vehicle on the roads: "Spotted: one electric vehicle
on the highways of Atlanta, Georgia. Sighted around 6:30pm EDT, going south on
I-85, traveling ~60mph (had a cool hum). It was a single seater, three
wheeled wonder. Can anyone identify make, model? Any details on this
bugger, like: range, efficiency, top speed, acceleration, cost, and cell type?
I could only get several pictures which didn't turn out too well, since I had to gamma correct two of them.
Another interesting thing that I've heard about electric cars: they have purposely
put in noise makers in the wheels (like those plastic tri-cycles back in the
day) because they just ran too quiet to be safe. Is this true?" The
pictures didn't turn out too badly, as you can definitely make out
much of the shape of this thing. It's more like a motorcycle than a car, but
it still looks interesting enough. Hopefully more vehicles like this will be
making their way on to the markets (and the roads) sometime soon.
BTW...
crafty use of the marquee tag on their site
I was shopping for a car back in November and noticed this at a Ford dealer here in San Diego (Pearson Ford on El Cajon Blvd, but interestingly their alternative fuel vehicle page makes no mention of the Think). I've seen at least one of them on I-805 going to and from work also. The Think website says they will be available in 2002.
One of the images on the Google image search page mentioned previously is supposed to be an electric vehicle but it ain't. The Smart car (made by some involvement of Daimler and sold only in Europe) is gas-powered but is very much the same size and shame as the Think city.
Another odd thing about the Think city is that the body panels seem to be mostly plastic. The same dealership had the opensided golfcard model, which they call the Think neighbor.
Heh. My Ram is hardly efficient. It's got a 400 and gets about 7 MPG on whatever I pour down the tank.
But the point is well taken, and when I slap a Slant-6 and A-833 four speed with overdrive manual transmission in there, I'll be running about 25 MPG. Not bad for a brand-new full-size pickup truck, let alone one that is 25 years old.
As for the fuel flexibility, that's the beauty of older cars. Stick an oxygen sensor into the exhaust system and a meter under the hood. Make sure your carb has a soldered brass float, not a plastic one. Replace your fuel pump with an aftermarket hi-perf pump, and the little 1" long sections of hose on your fuel filter. Pour in the methanol, tune and time for best meter readings, and take her cruising. Ideally, you should get a cam ground for the new fuel and play with your ignition timing curves, but they both burn similarly enough to gasoline that the engines run perfectly happily and cleaner than the law requires 'em to.
On a similar note, I have a 1974 Dodge Dart with a 383.Very nice! I've also got a 1970 Dodge Dart and a 1974 Valiant Brougham. They're both 4-door. The Dart is a little granny car with that great front end. Since its motor isn't original, I think I'll put the big block from my truck in there so that I can have a bit of a sleeper. The Valiant is like a miniature New Yorker, born of the oil crisis: smallest car Chrysler made at the time, but with a gorgeous crushed velour and leather interior. Oh, and shag carpeting; it was the 70s.
With no catalytic converter, and no emissions equipment whatsoever, it passed the IM inspection with better marks than my wife's poorly tuned toyota tercel.Yup. Few of the tree-huggers who promote catalytic converters know that it reduces gas mileage which causes more gas to be burned and therefore more pollutants to be released. They also don't understand the basic chemistry behind it, and how it is that cataclysmic converters help to cause acid rain. But they're all happy, sitting around in healing circles, playing folk guitar and slapping themselves on the back for being good people.
What a crime. Think of how nice the exhaust from a modern fuel-injected multivalve car, running without a catalytic converter, would be.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.