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Electric Car Capable of 180mph
niclas_b writes "This electric car is pretty cool. It's not cheap and maybe not very practical. But very cool nevertheless." Might as well throw in a link to their homepage as well.
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Gee, That baby looks fun to park!
There's more in the world than just the US... think the superhighways in Germany or Italy for instance.
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
Maybe it was Total Recall, not sure.
Who mediates your information?
>Speed limit is 55 or 65 mph in the US...
Speed most people drive is 85 or 95 mph in the US.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
440kw == nearly 1000 hp, that's quite a lot of power. There aren't many vehicles that can seat 8 and do the quarter mile (0-400 meters in this case) in 14.5 seconds!
Interesting demo, but it doesn't seem terribly practical cost-wise.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
First I was impressed by the fact that it could go 180mph... but carry 8 passengers as well?! That's crazy (I wonder what speed it could reach w/ 8 people?)
I mean, I'm sorry. Seriously. The specifications are interesting, it looks like a great tech advance. But did they have to make it look so silly? Even a 1978 Monte Carlo is better looking than this beast.
- Current capacity, Voltage: 88 Ah, 3.75V
- Amount of energy/Voltage: 55 kWh / 315 V
- Batteries weight 600 kg
Aha! So now I know what the mobile phone manufacturers use as the reference when announcing the battery lifetime of these cool new 3G phones :)
With that said, you are obviously very bitter at Slashdot and it's members, as you are most probably Bill Gates. (Although one would hope that he would at least use the horrific spell-checker that MS built into Word before posting here. Yeesh. Grammar Grammar Grammar.)
As for the above story, about Kaz, why in the world would you buy a "passenger vehicle" with 8 wheels, that, by the websites admission, has all the sensibilities of a bus and a truck.
Am I missing something?
We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.
Speed limit where I live is 70.
Do you have over 1600 [slashdot.org] comments? Why Not?
Cuz I have a life...
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Bababooey to you!
the world doesn't just consist of the US... ever heard of the autobahn?
But if you are gonna make me, I'll take one of these - once pricing gets a bit reasonable. In the meantime, please let me get some sleep.
Why Bullshit?
The article says the car is built using modern materials...perhaps extensive use of carbon fibre has made it lighter? That certainly helps F1 cars achieve a decent power to weight ratio.
The BBC featured this car on one of their scientific programs awhile ago, perhaps it's too cutting edge (and so not commercial enough) for other news vendors?
As for the range, perhaps the makers are using ideal conditions or are tuning the system for cruising at an economical speed, just like many current car manufacturers do (hence the 'chipping' industry).
I guess a vehicle like this may not be suitable for long distances in the US, but for shorter trips (I hate to suggest the school run!) this could be ideal...good luck to them.
While I was going to make some insightful comments about continual growth of electric cars lately, this 'product' is just plain laughable.
In my opinion, something that is more important to the future of electric cars (and a testament to their potential) is the Toyota Prius Rally Car. It recently just finished a 5,000 mile 3 week rally. Didn't finish first, but finished (which, as any rally fan will tell you is a challenge in-and-of itself). At least Toyota's accomplishments are tangible.
And seriously, whats with the 8 wheel design?
"However," replied the universe, "The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation."
Parallel parking that thing is gonna be a bitch. :)
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
What else would you expect from people who masturbate to tentacle rape pr0n?
Because it's not in the KAZ article itself, pictures of the car are available here:
http://web.sfc.keio.ac.jp/~hiros/kaz/pict.html
To make a pun demonstrates the highest understanding of a language
don't remember which news channels it was on, but there were a few (at least two that I recall) stories on the car in the past few days.
March 10 Story about the car
The Spirit of Oklahoma electric car can go over 200mph. Granted, it's a formula race car built for speed and definitely can't carry 8 passengers, but it is faster...
Here are it's specs.
Yes! Put him in his place! :p
What we see depends on mainly what we look for. -- John Lubbock Now search for that bug slave!
check out the 3rd or 4th picture on this page. add a TV, ps2, and a mini-fridge and it's a quick, comfy miami to seattle trip :-)
1. How can 75PS make a car drive 311 km/h? (Specially with a weight of roundabout 3 tons)
2. How far will the car go when driving max speed of 311 km/h? (Does this mean driving 20 Minutes, and then the batteries are empty?)
I have no autobahn, you insensitive clod.
Six Wheel Drive!
I agree with that. Even the electric drag racers don't go that fast, and they're specifically built for acceleration and speed.
Running Performance 14.5 sec. (0-400m)
A quarter mile in only 14.5 seconds? Or am I reading that wrong?
Max Speed 311.67 km/h
Top speed, 193 MPH
Gross weight 2980 kg
Gross weight, 6,569 pounds!!!!! WHAT! That's 3 tons!
There's gas powered cars that weigh 1/4th that, have 15 second quarter miles (400km), and a top speed of 150 MPH (241 km/h). Is this some kind of cruel joke? Can't they put that engine and battery into a smaller frame and get an electric car good enough to compete in an actual race? That thing looks like a long minivan... If there was a cheaper version, with a MUCH better shape, I'm sure alot of people would buy it.
which is why you'll never buy one of these... which is why you shouldn't bother posting about how impractical it is f00l!
How far will it go on $15 and 2 minutes per week of refueling labor?
It's 75 in Tennessee.
Most everyone does 85 anyway.
Of course, our roads aren't pothole ridden gravel bullshit like a whole lot of other states, so we can drive those speeds without worrying too much.
No, we don't have some huge number of deaths state-wide due to speeding either. No higher than any other state, anyway.
Drinking and Driving still kills more people than speed.
...that's a really fast electric *RV*. Not an electric car. THIS is a really fast electric *CAR*:
o me .htm
http://www.acpropulsion.com/tzero_pages/tzero_h
-----------------------
To understand recursion, one must first understand recursion.
I'm sick of all these battery cars. When are we going to see a Nuclear Car? What's that? Fuel's too expensive? Bah, I'm sure the price will come down once they get mass-produced. No where to store the waste? What about Yucca? (Or the moon! Our large waste disposal site in the sky). Those are the only downsides to this limitless energy source that I see! Enough with these battery powered cars, it's time for the nuclear ones!
Karma: Not Particularly Funny.
I was considering buying an electric car, but I couldn't find an extension cord long enough for it to be practical.
Electric drag racers are meant to run in the 1/4 mile and don't concern themselves with how fast they eventually can get. For all we know, this could take 1 to 100 km to reach it's top speed of 180 km/hr. But with 440kw (over 1000 hp) it won't take 100 km.
And for the parent thread... 180 mph isn't that high. My 7 year old car does 146 mph and only 146 mph because it has an electronic governer prohibiting it from going any faster. Look at most (if not all) of the AMG Mercedes Benz, they are all with a top speed of around 180. Porsches have been doing it for generations. Most low end cars can make it to at least 120 mph. for something with 440kw of power, 180 mph shouldn't be too hard.
"Tread softly because you tread on my dreams"
The mother of the Pontiac Aztek has been found! The dad is the new Cadillac.
man again? he died last week too!
Most electric cars have a fairly low drag coeffecient in order to extend their insignificant range. The only issue is finding one that is both statically and dynamically stable in flight (to prevent tumbling) and an adequately high cliff. I'm even less impressed with the 1/4 mile time.
>It's not cheap and maybe not very practical.
>But very cool nevertheless.
That just about sums up every electric car produced so far. What makes this one different?
Well, it does have 8 wheels and seats 8 people. More of an Electric Limo. Probably the perfect thing for the insanely rich environmentalist on the go with seven friends.
It's Slashdot's evil twin... SlashNOT
And that's why you can't buy a car in America that does more than 65. Twat.
It's cool that they put everything (motor / reduction / brakes) in the wheel, but i fail to see the point of it... to be honest:
the reason you buy high quality name brand wheels is because (beside the "looks cool" and "got $$ buring holes everywhere") it gives a lower up-sprung weight. which means that the car does much better in the ride quality, easier to tune the shocks / suspensions, etc. by the way, different brake rotors would allow the same thing -- but people usually go for bigger rotors for the stopping power, and try to make sure the wheel themselves are as light as possible.
this is kinda important when you want your car to be performance oriented, as these guys are certainly trying to demonstrate -- but this combination of technology will ultimately yield a car that "can go 180mph but the ride really suck", or "if you want reasonable ride quality, then our entire million(s) dollar technology won't work"... self-defeating by my standards, anyway. =)
gotta say, though... damn... 600kg of batteries; that's over 1300 lb. some small cars (say, lotus elise) weight about that much...
My life in the land of the rising sun.
Speed never killed anyone. It's how they decided to stop that caused the problem. <rimshot /> But seriously, most "speed-related deaths" statistics you'll find are artificially inflated. The way the statistics are counted is that if anybody involved was speeding (ie, going at least 1 mph over the limit), then it's categorized as speed-related. That's ignoring any of the true factors, like being alcohol-related, or caused by that little brat in the backseat that wouldn't sit down, or the driver was just an idiot (reading the morning paper while driving counts as idiocy).
Maybe you should look to see who I was responding too before you accuse me of being americocentric. Browsing at +1 makes you look like a fool.
Karma whore conversion factor!
That's 590 horsepower total, kids.
But seriously, this bad boy must have some serious traction logic to deal with its long, ugly body and that much power distributed among eight (8) wheels. Too bad the power distro system's not detailed further.
Yeah, but you ever notice how drunk drivers never seem to hurt themselves or any of the other drunks out on the roads at 2 AM when the bars close, but only sober drivers? I think everyone should be driving drunk and we'd see a large decrease in the number of auto deaths.
That is such a classic. I'm stealing it to read at the next poetry reading...
jred
I'm not a mechanic but I play one in my garage...
1) Create groundbreaking alternative powered, low/zero emission vehicle.
2) Make that vehicle as ugly as present automotive styling will possibly allow.
3) When asked by congress/consumor groups/environmentalists why it is that these low emissions vehicles are not more predomonate on our roads say, "Well, we make really good electric cars, but consumors aren't buying them, so it's not our fault."
4) Continue making gas guzzling SUVs with insane profit margins.
Just like veggitarians railing against the evils of industrial meat production, low emission vehicle pundents forget a simple fact- America has a 50 year old, unwavering love affair with the gas powered automobile. From garage tinkering to weekend track events, NOPI competitions, car shows, drag strips and urban crusing zones, the car is not just 'Practical' transportation, it is a fetish.
The only way LEV/ZEV cars are going to work is if they better virtually every aspect of the modern automobile. That's practicality, performance, visceral appeal, style, safety and comfort. While it might be fast, would you be caught dead in this ugly bloody thing? I wouldn't.
Actually, that is not a lot of battery weight. In fact, it's rather puzzling. Gross weight of the car is 6570 lbs and battery weight is 1323 lbs. That's a 5247 pound car, which is a hellacious amount of weight to lug around for an EV. That vehicle, WITHOUT BATTERIES, weighs more than my wife's Mercedes 450SEL and weighs more than her Toyota Landcruiser with a Chev 350 conversion. Even without batteries, it weighs a half a ton more than my 1965 GMC pickup truck.
I'd like to know how much of the 5247 lbs is in the motors. Traditionally, EVs use one motor. The implication in the KAZ pages is that they used 8, which would help explain the extremely high "dry" vehicle weight.
So let's assume that this thing's engine has almost same performance capabilities as an internal combustion engine.
According to the specifications, the car weighs 2980 kg (~1355 lbs). This puts the car right in the same weight class as F1, and makes it half of what a Honda Civic weighs. You call this heavy?
(Side Note: It would be unfair to compare this car to a limo, because unlike a limo, this car has been designed from the ground up. Since limos are modified in an "unintended" manner, they require a great deal of reinforcement, which adds a significant weight penalty. Presumably, this car doesn't suffer from this problem.)
If you're comparing this car directly to ICE cars (a faulty comparison, yes), then it has good odds of being able to make 300 km@100km/h. (186 mi@~60mph)
And for those of you that might argue that a car putting out 1000 HP couldn't possibly go that far, keep in mind that the 440 kW (1000 HP) statistic refers to the MAXIMUM horsepower.
dude, this is slashdot... nobody reads the parent posts, therefore, don't assume they know who you're replying to.
Where are you getting your specs? This is what I see: http://web.sfc.keio.ac.jp/~hiros/kaz/spec.html (2980 kg for the entire car)
I keep looking at the photographs and can't shake the feeling that what we are really seeing is the class project for realistic computer graphics. The car is just too glossy and perfect looking, even inside.
Maybe I'm just getting paranoid, because of this Beetle
It certainly seems that an electric car ought to be able to achieve bursts of very high power output using some really large capacitors. Has this been done in any projects? I think it would be neat for the next electric civic or whatever to have a "turbo boost" button, that lets it peel off for 30 seconds or so.
-S
They've tempted you with a non-Internal combustion vehicle. Now that you're interested and go "Oh yes, I finally can just plug into my house and Pay the electric company for my power and not the gas station".. Then they unveil it. OH MY GOD THAT THING IS UGLY... and they tell us thats the only way you'll ever have a fast electric car.. a big heavy ugly ass machine. Thus the sabotage of zero-emission vehicles is complete. On a side note.. if we all just plug our cars into our house to charge it... electric companies then will have to produce more electricity.. then burning more of what ever fuel they use. Thus creating more polution.. or possibly some other environmental effect or danger even if your electric company doesn't produce from fossil fuels right..?
Who makes you Sig?
First of all, this is obviously a concept car. If you read the article and take a look at their homepage the idea comes forward.
As someone else allready stated, the weight is huge and 8 wheels is strange for a passenger car. However, on their homepage it is made clear that they created a standard chassis on which a bus, truck or passenger car can be build. Further more, it's interesting to see their concept as it shows that perhaps the future of automotive transportation lies in a totally different concept than currently used.
You can compare it to toyota's electric car or the lotus elise but those cars are made with todays concept of building cars. The engine built in the wheel is a refreshing thought as it surely leaves alot of room for a developer to design the card without compromising for motor compartments etc.
Off course it does raise questions like what would be the price of a new wheel and such but somehow i don't think the audience for this type of car will be impressed by it's maintenance costs.
Besides that, i think it's a refreshing design. But that's pure personal prefference.
Speaking of performance electrics, don't forget NEDRA. Their current champion, "Current Eliminator IV", uses Dragster - 336V of batteries and did a standing quarter-mile in 8.801 seconds. I wonder what it sounded like - a two-tonne bumble-bee on crack..?
I second the previous comments about the need to keep wheel mass low - low sprung weight is a definite goal of performance cars. It's hard to call this thing a car, it's more like a bus, since it seats 8 and weighs 3 tonnes...
(this is not a
number of batteries this car needs are enormous. Sure, you can put it in an elise (probably not, but just work with me) but you'll have enough charge to get up to 30mph before it dies.
:-)
Maybe I'm missing something here, but there is an Electric Lotus Elise. It has quite reasonable acceleration performance (but is speed limited to 150kph/90mph I think). There's some details here but a lot more links are listed on google.
I'd be tempted but I've already got a Lotus.
Simon
A weight of 2980kg is 6556 lbs.
A honda civic 4 door sedan weighs 1142kg (2513 lbs). This guy is 2.6 times heavier than that honda. The classic SUV, Ford Explorer, clocks in at 80% of this electric car's weight with 2364kg (5200 lbs).
So the electric car definitely has some mass to it. But for being the size of a limo it still doesn't do too badly.
According to the specifications, the car weighs 2980 kg (~1355 lbs).
That's where you started to go wrong - you divided instead of multiplied (delete comment about geek's understanding of "the birds and the bees").
2980kg is 6556 lbs, which is quite heavy for a car.
Sorry to inform you that people with an actual sense for both the metric system and the US-Imperial system are better off. Done a reality check lately? 2980kg is basically 3 metric tons, which is the weight of the 6 fastest F1 cars combined (give or take a few). As well, last time I checked, the horsepower was something like 1.36 kW.
Thanks for getting us into a measurement system debate again again!
Hurricane Application Group, Dept of Meteorology Control, Ministry of Proactive Defense
I work in Emergency Medical Services and there is a hard, fast rule in EMS. Your chances of surviving an otherwise unsurvivable accident are inversely proportional to your societal worth.
STOP ROCK VIDEO
It's true that the EV's that are offered to us by most car makers seem to be designed to make us not want to buy them. They probably don't want us to buy them because they make a lot of profits from the much more complex mechanical systems and many car makers have quite a bit of money invested in the oil market. It's as simple as that. It's against their interest to make good EV's. Hybrid and fuel-cell vehicles and threatening enough to them but at least you still have to deal with complex systems and buy fuel.. things that aren't factors with EV's.
However I've seen some really nice homemade and conversion cars. My favorite are classic and muscle cars that have been rebuilt and converted to electric. I've seen some of those that can do 90mph with a range of about 200 miles per charge and the ability to be recharged in 15-30 minutes. An even better trick I've seen is rack mounted batteries. Pop the hood and a special arm (manual usually but could be robotic) is used to remove the spent pack and a new pack is inserted while the spent pack goes to be charged. It's refueling in the style of portable kerosene tanks or like renting a tape from Blockbuster except with batteries.
For refueling stations electric should be a major boon. Charge a membership fee for the right to exchange battery packs and set up solar/wind to recharge spent packs and you have little ongoing costs.. it's all upfront costs which shouldn't be anymore than starting a gas station. Also as fuel doesn't need to be hauled in to the station you can put the stations in remote locations and make them fully self-service.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Even the worst electric plants are more effecient than the ebst internal combustion engines at producing and transporting the resulting energy. Even counting the loss of transferring the energy into batteries.. hauling the batteries around in the car.. converting the electricity into making the car go.. the electric is still more effecient. The main downside of electrics however is that it's harder to store at the same space efficency... meaning that batteries need to be a lot bigger that a tank of gas to get the same range. Batteries are getting better but they still can't squeeze as much into the same space. They can also be slow to charge unless you have the money to spend on a fast charger and batteries able to stand being charged that fast. However common EV's can more than provide enough range for the average person to drive to work.. go to lunch.. go back to work.. make a few stops on the way home.. and get home. The cost of fuel is typically way cheaper than gasoline even if you just plug into an outlet in your home and of course you have the option of using solar and wind to recharge your vehicle which of couse costs you nothing other than the upfront cost of installing your system. Insurance is usually cheaper for EV's also as they are usually very safe to drive as they have no parts that can explode and the batteries absorb impact during a crash.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
What's really funny is that you notonly take the time to write these posts, you make sure you can find them later by putting jumbles like tsarkon in the subject. You must really enjoy reading your shit over and over again. We should all bow before your 1337 skilz
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Meanwhile, the direct injection electronically controlled turbo diesel just goes on getting more and more efficient, and cleaner. And smaller. And lighter. And more reliable.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
I'm surprised that no-one has pointed out that one of these motors, kicking out around 75hp, would power a small family car just fine. Using only one motor and a transaxle would probably let you fill the existing engine compartment and fuel tank areas with NiMH batteries, giving a Ford Fiesta/Escort sized car (small/mid family car) with reasonable around-town performance. You could also stick the 75hp motor and batteries in a Nissan Micra-sized car, for a small car that goes like hell... The standard, non-cat, carbie Micras have about 55-60hp, and the new shape ones are all about 50-55hp. 75hp and *no* noxious emissions would be pretty damn useful in something that weighs 550kg wet.
It looks almost like it was designed as a lemosine or something, for carting around rich environmentalist actors :)
That this can go 190 miles an hour isn't really that impressive, especialy given that it probably has motors on all 8(?!) of it's wheels.
There are actualy a lot of niche electric cars for sale that will go pretty fast. Perhaps slashdot could look them up and do a comprehensive story.
Oh wait, that would require real work, nevermind...
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
fuck thats a long ass post
GENERATION O98346: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig and remove a random number from the generation. T
Example. If the limit is 40mph, it's pissing with rain, fog, ice and someone crashes while doing 25mph where the conditions would realistically determine 10mph or 15mph, it is still marked as a speed related incident, despite the fact that the limit for the stretch of road is 40mph.
Deleted
I mean, it's a 400kW vehicle. Why electric? 400kW is 400kW whether it's petrol or batteries. You still have to generate and store the energy so you're still throwing similar amounts of C02 into the atmosphere when you use it.
So, at 400kW, I don't see the point of the thing. BioDiesel or methanol fuel cell based, I could see the point of.
Deleted
Here's the Google Cache, for when it dies
free ipod? yeah.
I hate to think what would a 3-ton vehicle would do in a collision at 300+ kph. Maybe all the extra passengers will cushion the impact.
I could use that car's battery for my laptop :D
Traction distribution system....
One motor per wheel... In-hub design.
Each motor is 55kW
a Slashdot account?
That was classic intercourse!
Basically anything that makes a car ride more fun is bad for you.
Yeah, but you ever notice how drunk drivers never seem to hurt themselves or any of the other drunks out on the roads at 2 AM when the bars close, but only sober drivers? I think everyone should be driving drunk and we'd see a large decrease in the number of auto deaths.
The larger the energy producer (converter, actually) the more efficient the process can be.
Automobile engines are responsible for horrendous amounts of pollution. If all that power were produced in one place much better emission controls could be put on them. Of course if the power was generated by nuclear,hydro, wind, solar, etc, greenhouse gasses would not be an issue.
Michael
That's range. 300 Km when running at a constant 100 Km/h speed. I wonder how much range it has under normal conditions (going 100-120 in the highway, 0-60 in the city). 150-200 Km perhaps? That's not good enough :-(
My dad's Passat 1.9TDI does 1000 Km under normal conditions, with just 55 litres of diesel. I know. I've measured it.
I've read a few IEEE articles on EVs in the past, and range seems to be their major problem right now. Also, Lithium batteries tend to die every couple of years and need to be replaced (too expensive).
In my mind the practicality of these vehicles, independent of cost, revolves around the range versus recharge cycle. If it takes more than a few minutes to do a recharge, and the range is less than a thousand miles, then they're just not good enough for a general-purpose vehicle.
This is why hybrids are interesting ... recharge
cycle is a tank fill.
What I'm waiting for is someone to look at making a hybrid where the engine is always on, always producing power, but the generator is producing a bit more power than the thing normally will need and charging a capacitor stack rather than batteries. That gives you acceleration (for awhile) but is much lighter and cheaper than batteries and since the engine is operating efficiently all the time, and requires quite a bit less power than if it were producing motive power directly (eg a few hundred cc ought to do a pretty good job) it should still be more efficient.
jim frost
jimf@frostbytes.com
Oh yeah. Let's just stomp that sumbich flat.
Pretty cool ride but I don't see the use unless they can start making CHEAP EFFICIENT solar systems. Of course, I should probably just ask Santa for a pony because I am more likely to get that down my chimney that effective solar power with oil and coal so CLEAN.
If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem
if the car is that on the fotosh tml
http://web.sfc.keio.ac.jp/~hiros/kaz/pict.
it wouldnt get 180MILES/h even if it had a rocket engine. thats 288km/h and thats the average speed of formula 1 racing cars... so
Torque 465.05 nm / 343.0 ft lbs @ combined rpm
heh... that's more torque than most truck engines, actually =).
i guess this really confirms the rumor that the electric motor on the prius is so powerful (torque-wise) that they had to tone it down a bit to get reasonable (as in, slow-ish 8-10s) acceleration times (and reasonable fuel economy -- after all it's supposed to be a gas-sipping car). and remember, that torque is available at any rpm.
I would not be surprised that an eletric-motor assisted car would do better than a straight int.comb. engine car (if you can save the weight on the batteries, say, use ultra-caps or something)... This is true *especially* in acceleration, which in any race that involves actually turning, would be one of the, if not the most important stat (while braking into a turn, your engine is still redlined and charging up the capacitors for that speedy exit)
My life in the land of the rising sun.
How fast will it go when you push it off a cliff?
"And seriously, whats with the 8 wheel design?"
There are probably 5,000 pounds of batteries and dual titanium I-beams (RAMMING SPEED!!) running the length of the chassis to support them.
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
Is it me, or does this car look like a modern version of the land rover from Lost in Space?
It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.
I think the Air car has a better chance of working, not only due to cost, but the licensing model as well. They will grow through selling the factories, not the cars. Check the website to see how many licenses have been sold.
None in North america, 40 in China alone. http://www.theaircar.com
"Three words, Sully - Eight Wheel Drive!"
OK - I get superb cornering in my front wheel drive, four wheels on the ground Neon. So does the Skip Barber racing school. 8?
Why 8? You have to be adding all the inefficiencies of all the wheels when you add wheels. Granted some of us can't live without a dualie or full-time all-wheel drive, but we're also willing to live with the slight inefficiency.
Maybe it's still more efficient than an 8-wheel or maybe a 4-wheel IC engine and traditional transmission and transfer cases, but it can't be more efficient than a 4-wheel electric with a motor on two wheels, and I can't imagine steering all those wheels is a trivial problem for engineering the steering.
(Footnote - go read up on the transfer of Paul MacCready's electric car to GM ("We can't put a motor on each wheel. What if one fails? The thing'll do donuts!" Never mind that many IC motor mount failures will collapse the nearby wheel assembly to the same effect...)
Geez - the guys at Pep Boys battery & tire dept. will drool and throw a rod when they see this thing limping in once a year...
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
The Oil and Natural resources companies buy the patent murder the inventors and get a hand shake from the govt for almost ruining there fuel tax.
But, isn't that a good way of marking accidents?
If the accident was caused by the speed, mark it as a speed related accident (even if the speed was lower than the limit).
If it was caused by alcohol, mark it as alcohol related (even if the speed was higher than the speed limit).
Then the statistic would really mean something.
I don't have one
That's like carrying a bomb in a briefcase on a plane because it's so statistically rare that anyone actually does has a bomb, given the set of all flights. Wouldn't it be twice as unlikely for there to be TWO bombs on the plane? you're scott free!
Actually, they're two statistically independent events, and one doesn't reduce the likelihood of the other happening. So, go ahead, drive drunk... that'll thin out the gene pool a bit of people who think that drinking and driving saves lives.
Bring a bomb on a plane, too... you might make the news.
Who mediates your information?
1 tonne is 10% larger then 1 ton.
180 is not just the top speed in mph, it's the maximum range, too.
What exactly is the point of a car that can only drive for one hour [1] before being refuelled/recharged?
Why do boffins create such useless vehicles? Why are boffins obsessed with all-electric cars when dual-fuel is patently the more practical option? This kind of coverage of environmentally friendly vehicles is making these new vehicles a laughing stock. If boffins stopped harping on about all-electric and started publicising dual-fuel, maybe people would actually make the switch.
You can't save the environment with all-electric cars if people won't buy them.
[1] Only in Germany, obviously
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
The politicians don't/can't/won't understand the stats.
The result is that we now have thousands of Gatsos all over the place to stop *speeding* because the politicians think speed related accidents are actually *speeding* related accidents. The problem is that it turns out that while speed is a significant contributer to accidents and deaths, *speeding* isn't.
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Speed never killed anyone.
That is simply not true.
my religion lies somewhere between buddhism and super monkey ball - pamphlet?
1 kg = 2.2 lbs
Guns are like umbrellas and condoms. Better to have one and not need it, than need it and not have one.
Both are or can be made in a renewable fashion.
There's no net pollution. CO2 produced by burning the fuel is taken up by the plants producing the oil or the mechanism creating the methanol.
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Did you hear about the unfortunate guy who fastened a JPL surplus ion drive to his electric car?
A modified GM EV1 did 183 mph in 1994.
m
http://www.gmev.com/power/power_per_body_top.ht
(video, too.)
That is one sweet looking car. I just watched "Freejack" on the weekend and I'm reminded of the cars in that movie. If I were to be wealthy to the point of being carted everywhere in a limo, this would be my choice.
-no broken link
Key features include:
- rapid escape from external violence
- ability to keep moving with some of the eight wheels broken
- stable cornering
- enviromentally friendly
looks like they are going after a certain sector of the market place.
Later
I wonder if the air tank explodes when damaged?
try to make ends meet, you're a slave to money, then you die
while it would be nearly impossible to justify the cost of this for a family even with any cost savings from fuel (that is opening up another can of assumptions though), I wonder what this baby's towing capacity is. Shipping companies might find a more refined version of this very affordable and actually worth the money. Note that refined assumes that as a production vehicle with a bit of shake down time under its belt and about 10-20% lower cost. Existing semi's cost a pretty penny as it is, so perhaps this technology could see useful application sooner than foretold by many.
I seek not only to follow in the footsteps of the men of old, I seek the things they sought.
I'm I the only one who thought that on first seeing the car.
Might as well throw in a link to their homepage as well.
Yep. Killing one site at a time just isn't enough for old Slashdot now, is it?
www.timcoleman.com is a total waste of your time. Never go there.
I have YET to see an alternative fuel vehicle car that was attractive. Even into the late 80's when this was just starting to be an issue, even then the cars weren't attractive by the current standards! Well, I take that back, the Civic is allright, but it's still not my cup of tea.
I would suggest that companies like Toyota (Prius) and Honda (Insight, Civic) should build an attractive model car if they plan to sell many hybrids/alternative fuel cars.
Sorry for the offtopic post, but this is important.
See this story from yesterday for more details. Pets Warehouse has recovered from the Slashdot Effect and is back up. Click the link, click the link, click the link! Don't let Robert Novak, Slashdot enemy-of-the-month, earn one more dollar from his website!!!
Also, e-mail them and tell them what you think! Call them at 1-800-991-3299 from a payphone: they'll have to pay for the 1-800 call *and* for the payphone usage!
Show them the POWER of Slashdot!!!
Ok, the reason I think electric cars haven't taken off is because these cars *look* like electric cars. Perhaps if one of these cars looked like a normal sedan (without the back wheel halfway covered up) rather than a space pod, more people would be attracted to it, especially if the performance compares to or exceeds competing all-gas sedans.
'When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.' -HST
this car looks a lot like the CatBus(tm) from Miyazaki's "My Neighbor Totoro"?
if only they could design themselves a server that can handle a comparable rate of hits...
> Might as well throw in a link to their homepage as well. that's plain cruel! is this car really so bad?
Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.
H.G. Wells, "The Outline of History"
And you can put your order in today! Sure it looks geeky, but just imagine the look on the faces of every ricer, porsche, ferrari and viper driver as you leave them behind at the stoplight! More info here.
STFU about slashdot bias.
There's a bowl of putrid brown over here ... can someone get a mop or something??? Actually, it's pretty funny. I'm guessing someone at /. dumped their girlfriend, and this is the result.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
http://www.compactpower.com/racer.html
Anyone try maneuvering a 22 ft, 3.3 ton, 8 wheeled tuna boat in downtown Tokyo, much less finding a parking place? Sheesh, forget about Tokyo, how 'bout Boulder or Berkeley? The parking places are all designed to fit Volvos (and not the wagons!).
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
If people were going too fast for conditions, that it's speed related?
You could mark it as an ID-10-T error as well, I suppose, but that approach makes sense. Excessive speed in the wrong situation greatly increases the probability of an acident leading to fatalities.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
This is just a Saturn that didn't make the casting call for "Fast and the Furious". ;)
I had to add a few more thoughts.
I forgot to factor in a few things like the cost of charging stations, time to charge and so on..
Don't think for a minute a high efficency 440v charger that can charge a 55KWh array of batteries in a hour is going to be cheep..
There's the other problem.. If I run my batteries low I get to twiddle my thumbs for an hour while it charges.
I'm sure some sharp people will be willing to invest in special parking lots for electric cars.. Pay a premium for haveing the chargers avaliable.. I'm sure they will be more than willing to tack on an extra 20-30% to the cost of charging you car.. It is a bussness after all.. They won't sell it to you at cost.
If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur. --Red Adair
Over 20 feet long. Six and a half feet wide. Over 6000 pounds. Seats 8. Don't people around here regularly slag on people who buy vehicles like this? Now we're gonna have soccer moms driving by themselves to the tennis club in even bigger vehicles than the good ol' Ford Excretion? I ask you, what the hell is the point of this thing?
Yes, I've seen the other posts about how this could be used for limos, commuter vans, etc. Do you really think that market is large enough to support a vehicle like this? As soon as Joe SUV Driver sees this behemoth, he's gonna want it. There goes the neighborhood.
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
One of the images indicates that the 2980kg weight includes eight passengers. Assuming 80kg per passenger, that's 640kg right there, leaving 2340kg. Two and a half metric tons isn't so bad for an eight-passenger vehicle.
The concept car has me thinking of applications for it's use. I am thinking this technology could be used in mass transit and shipping near(er) term.
Think about a larger, longer version of these things as a replacement for a bus. Assuming they would not cost too much, they could be a bus replacement for city transit. It's a medium haul, and they get moving pretty quickly. They would have zero emissions, better handling, and probably be safer than existing buses. Even if the battery life is short, it could do a run and charge up for the evening rush hour.
Trucks! These things could easily be modified to trucks as well. (Hell it really feels like a truck anyway.) We could use these things to transport cargo that could zip goods from west coast to east is amazing time. This could change the way the term "hot-shot" is used for parts replacment. I am not trying to draw a parallel to the Segway, but cities, roads, and infrastructure could be re-designed around this vehicle.
Now I realize this is a concept vehicle. I also want those of you out here that just dismiss the vehicle as being impractable to see beyond the low drag shape, and strange looks, and se this vehicle as a ground up designed alternative to automobiles.
what? what I thought we were in the trust tree in the nest, were we not?
While I was going to make some insightful comments about continual growth of electric cars lately, this 'product' is just plain laughable.
[...]
And seriously, whats with the 8 wheel design?
That was my first thought too, but on closer inspection, this looks less like a car and more like a small bus with a nicer-than-usual interior. Under that category (luxury chartered bus), it could easily work.
I like the name...there's just something about "Kaz" that rings a bell. Now, if it could only rip rocks...
Mordor...a magical, mythical land where women are more rare than dragons--but where every man would rather find a dragon
I wonder how the batteries and motors would perform @ -10 F. Not to mention trying to handle that much weight and torque on slippery roads.
Yes, the car can do 180mph but can the webserver handle 180hpm (hits per minute)?
[alk]
The pictures I saw looked like the car was photographed at night with a flash, and that pic was pasted into a day scene in front of a mansion.
I think the teardrop-shaped car you recall seeing was designed by Buckminster Fuller, who called it the Dymaxion car.
The electric car has other capabilities. Like toning down mid-eastern conflicts and putting a few select Texans in the poorhouse.
...they overclocked it!
You know what this means, right? Every couple of years, the cars can go twice as fast. Imagine how much the internal storage will grow!
Damn digital's cool.
As far as the stop & go of city traffic and its subsequent negative effect on the cars range... could a flywheel be implemented to recapture some of the otherwise lost energy? I'm remembering the Slashdot article about the subways that were implementing flywheels for a similar purpose.
Um, "shitty ass 1/4 mile"? I think you're misinterpreting that figure. That's "0 - 400m"... Namely, a quarter mile sprint from a dead stop. That's pretty impressive, ranking this up there with the best of them. Check here for comparison, look at the "soft launch" column.
Well, with all that weight in the base of the car, and 8 wheels, this vehicle is much less likely to roll over than those wonder gas-guzzling SUVs. :D
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
Camille Jenatzy's "La Jamais Contente", powered by 2 Fulmen batteries, in 1899 at Achres, France. (picture)
Now, don't get me wrong here. I don't hate gay people, I just think they're not "people" in the true sense of the word. Just as Hitler and Ryan believe that Jews are lower forms of life, I see homosexuals as not really on the same field as me, in terms of evolution. You see, they're fucking stupid. Reproduction only works when an egg meets jizz. When jizz meets shit, nothing happens.
On a side note: I know that I have been quoted in the past as saying that when two men get together they can produce shit-babies. The shit-baby is the result of semen entering fecal matter and bringing it to life. I normally call someone a shit-baby to imply that they only have two dads, like that whore in the shitty 80's TV show. For purposes of this diatribe, we will pretend that I have never held the view that shit-babies are possible. Thank you.
As I was saying, gay people are fucking stupid. They don't understand that one of the basic reasons to live, is to create miniture versions of yourself. I am looking forward with glee to the day that I can have five or ten little versions of me running around. They will do my bidding, after an appropriate level of training. Eventually they will rise up and murder me because, after proper training to be me, they will not allow themselves to be yoked and held down by a tyrant. But the ride to that ultimate death will be an enjoyable one. Ah, I have gotten off the subject. Homosexuals are stupid. They are below me just as gas station attendants, people working in the mall, lawyers, nurses, anyone associated with the New York Mets organization, network administrators, and a slew of other "life" forms are. I close this message to all Muslims with the following quote, courtesy of Sally Jesse Raphael, "Suck my big, fat, black cock you skinny little white whore."
*
You: What's a dick4?
Me: Fucking your mom. HA HA HA!
I've heard that there is a growing trend in Japan to make cars more homey and luxurious, like little living rooms, as mentioned here and here for example. Partly because they spend so much time in their cars due to heavy traffic. The pictures and diagrams really brought this home. Check out the size of that mother, and look at the flat-floor diagram, with the wide seat sideways and the others arranged around it. I could easily imagine adding a coffee table and a lamp.
How long do you think it will take for some ricers to put an oversized muffler on this thing even though there is no exhaust?
80 kg passengers are some pretty hefty people, hehehe..
;P
Hell, this thing would still weigh a good deal more than any of even the biggest SUVs.
Not saying it's not cool, but needs to go on a diet..
Shit adds up at the bottom...
I doubt the motors are more than 20% of the entire vehicle weight. Modern rare-earth electric motors are fairly light and efficient for their output power.
Older EV designs did generally use a single motor, but with current motor technology using a motor in each wheel is supposed to save weight and be more efficent than a single big motor.
Happy Fun Ball is for external use only.
Just call me snaggletooth.
Nah, but am I the only tweaker that was like yeah, see meth isn't all that bad as long as you only inject while on the open freeway and stick to smoking the glass pipe while driving in town.
Osty, I don't know where you live, but here in the USA if there's a six-car pileup and five drivers were speeding and the other one was drinking, the accident was alcohol related, by default. And the driver who had been drinking, depending on blood alcohol level and where this wreck occured, will most likely be prosecuted as having caused the accident. The fact is, most accidents are caused by Driving Under the Influence of Stupidity, and there are probably as many MADD mothers guilty of that as there are moderate drinkers... perhaps more, because moderate drinkers here know they are potential scapegoats and drive even more carefully after a nip or two.
The issue with fuel cells now is producing hydrogen.
1) Producing hydrogen uses more energy than you get out of the fuel cell. (Nothing in energy transfer is 100% though, so it doesnt truly matter)
2) Most electricity in the US is produced by coal and fossil fuel burning. Producing enough hydrogen for people's cars would cause more pollution than if everyone just drove petroleum burning cars.
http://homepower.com
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
I read an article on all-wheel steering about 20 years ago. It talked about experimental vehicles which switched steering algorithms depending on what speed you were travelling. At low speeds steering changed the orientation of the front and rear wheels in opposite directions. At highway speeds all the wheels changed direction at once. That could take some getting used to.
(us of a story)
when they made the speed limits, they understood fairly well how even the comparitively unsafe and unweildy (see: less manuverable) vehicles of the past could be safely operated at higher speeds, but due to energy efficiency concerns they tossed out 65 mph as standard.
sssooooo slow.....
if you believe its for your safety, your a fucking moron, just like the rest of them. what'd your mother tell you about listening to your government's lies?
Depends how tall you are. That'd be a little on the skinny side for a 6'4" guy (like me) - I weigh 85 kg - but I still have trouble keeping 36 inch waist pants up. My brother is 6Ft 6 and weights 115 kg - and he's one of the fittest people I know - plays loads of basketball and has arms & legs like a bloody tree.
A new spin off of the NHRA, NEDRA is the National Electric Drag Racing Association.
Nothing like an electric motorcycle hitting 152 mph in 9.4 seconds on the quarter mile.
Also amusing to see an old Mazda RX7 nearly stand pure vertical on its rear bumper on launch. They added wheelie bars to the car the next year.
Or perhaps you'd rather drive a nice 100 mile range electric sports car that can beat a Corvette off the line.
Electric vehicles are advancing rather impressively on the small scale with little or no R&D funding. Which makes the total lack of interest displayed by the major auto manufacturers all the more disheartening.
Once more unto the breach dear friends...
You are a taxi driver. Your cab is yellow and black, and has been in
use for only seven years. One of its windshield wipers is broken, and
the carburetor needs adjusting. The tank holds 20 gallons, but at the
moment is only three-quarters full. How old is the taxi driver?"
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