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More on the Tango Electric Car
jj00 writes "Here is an interesting story about a father-son built car in Spokane, Washington. What is most surprising is its top speed (130 MPH) and its weight (about the same as a Camry), and it runs on batteries!"
...how long do the batteries last?
Bash script for FP whores
"Golf cart on steroids!"
Hrm, how about Shiny, Fast, Red Coffin.
I'm all for electric cars, and I understand that the creators wanted something to cut through traffic, but I don't think I'd really want to move one of these things through traffic next to insane soccer moms in their H2s.
Looking at the car, one can't help but wonder about its safety.
"It has jet-pilot seat belts and a racing-regulation roll cage; it weighs more than 3,000 pounds, about the same as a Toyota Camry, including 1,100 pounds of Yellow Top batteries under the floorboards as ballast, so it's not tippy on turns."
If they put air bags in the thing, it'd compress you quite well. They need pictures of the inside of the car as well. I would not like to see this car in an accident. Even the "bumper" if you would call it that, is virtually non-existant.
So you have enough room for a passenger in the back? A comfortable passenger or tightly squeezed passenger?
"A narrow car could or even travel between lanes, like a motorcycle." could it? sure. could it legally? uhh
But it looks in the photos to have a terrible center of gravity problem.. looks like it would roll quite easily.
Funny the article mentioned splitting lanes such as motorcycles... with the roads filling up more and more with SUV's, even the motorcyclists are ending up with more and more rapped knuckles from the SUV mirrors. Somehow I don't think its too practical for anybody to try to split lanes.
And yes, the parking looks like a dream.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
I love it. It's small, efficient, fast, and has plenty range to get me around town. I'm first in line to get the 20 grand "peoples model."
I rather doubt I'd do 130 in it, though. But having 1100 pounds of batteries under the floorboards it great for stability. But in terms of crash safety, something this small and dense (Just shy of a ton with NO batteries) looks like it would get crushed by it's own intertia in a crash with a structure.
At any rate, it doesn't mesh very well with oil companies or automakers, and they will probably pay out the ass to make it fail. GE offered to do a small test run, then rescinded and sued California over the 10% ZEV requirement. I mean, for almost all practical purposes around town this could replace our Camry. Except for long-distance trips or visits to the hardware store, it will do just as well. But it doesn't feed oil companies nearly as much money, and automakers make a bigger profit selling Stupid Useless Vehicles (to most who buy them).
I would have to agree that, for most people, it is indeed un-American to drive an SUV. Most of you don't need the damn thing, and by getting 8 MPG you just give middle-eastern oil theocracies more economic weapons to hold at our throats.
It gets 80 miles per charge and has a pretty respectable top speed, but if it's just a small father-son venture then what wider scale impact will it have on cars?
If you recall, there was another Father and Son venture from Spokane, They wrote a little game called Myst.
BTW, the Car uses off the shelf parts. 80K for a prototype, could easily come down in price. And then add the electric tax credit on top of it. And the proposed usage in HOV lanes, Seems like a winner.
I'm all for the future. Science is my friend, and when it cooks, I'll eat. When it drives, I'll ride shotgun. If buying one of these means putting one more penny in Science's piggy-bank, one more penny towards getting us to a sci-fi future, then damn, I'll do it.
If I become crippled after a T-collision with an SUV, then god-damn, I sure as hell hope that my loss leads to further sentiments against large, gas guzzling tanks being driven by teenagers who neither sport, nor utilize their monster's two billion goddamn cubic feet of space for anything other than subwoofers and amps. Let SUVs and pickups be for the people who need 'em. Anyone who can't prove that the only things they pack into their cavernous cargo-beds aren't their egos and pretenses shouldn't be driving ten-ton war-chariots.
Ah, the SUV school of auto safety. "Fuck the other guy, I'm going to make it through this accident!" Of course, that flies in the face of all the studies and crash tests done that show that crumple zones work well to absorb the kinetic energy of a crash. As well, more weight means less maneuverabilty. In other words, you're less likely to be able to avoid an accident.
Indy cars also weigh less than half of this glorified golf cart. As well, the ability to handle a crash at 200mph is more about sacrificing the body of the car to protect the driver than it is about being heavier than the wall.
Properly designed crumple zones, good safety restraints, strong brakes, good tires, and a stable suspension do more to protect the driver than weight. In fact, more weight impacts three of the above items.
If the car handles that well with this wide a track, imagine how it would handle with the track of a normal auto. It would also improve safety. It's not going to be legal to park them nose to the curb any time soon because it's clear that they are a car and not a motorcycle (at that weight, there can be absolutely no doubt whatsoever what class they will be in.) You don't need to make the car any longer (though another foot wouldn't hurt it and would buy you a more reclined position) but you certainly need to make it look less goofy. I suggest a lower, wider stance, and a trunk. Or at least looking more like a station wagon and less like a vending machine.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I recall this was worked out in an issue of Discover...
Using fossil fuels in your car directly is at most 26 or so % efficient. Fossil fuels at a plant are turned into electric at ~40% efficiency, to battery charge at ~90%, and to motion at ~85%, totalling around 30% efficiency. So even with the losses in all the intervening steps, you will at worst break even and more likely still keep some pollutants out of the air. Of course, if it comes from a renewable source then it's already pollution-free. If it comes from Nu-Ku-Ler, then you're responsible for a few grams of radioactive waste out of around 2 cubic meters per year.
There is also the fact that most fossil fuel plants are built where people are not there to inhale the fumes, while cars discharge their fumes exactly where people are: on the road.
From the car's website:
The average round-trip commute in the U.S. is 20 miles according to the 2000 report from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
For that average commute of 20 miles and up to 24 miles per charge, the total cost per mile of the Tango is approximately 30% lower than that of a Honda Insight. This includes battery replacement, maintenance, and the cost of electricity at $.05 per kWh (as in the Northwest). The Honda Insight has an EPA rating of 56 mpg city and 57 highway. Please see the Cost-per-Mile Spreadsheet for details. This spreadsheet shows how the Tango compares with other vehicles, both Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) driven and hybrid. It includes gasoline and recommended dealer maintenance costs for the gasoline cars and electricity, maintenance, and battery replacement costs for the Tango.
In California where electricity rates are nearly $.15 per kWh, the total cost per mile for the Tango becomes roughly equal to that of the Insight. Electricity cost per mile runs from 0.9 cents to 2.6 cents as cost per kWh goes from 5 cents to 15 cents.
You know, with talk of electric cars, I wonder what's going to happen in a medium-speed crash with lots of batteries in a car. Sulfuric acid everywhere?
My apologies, but you divided the 0.114KWh/mile by the $0.15/KWh. This actually does not cancel the KWh units, so the $0.76/mile is actually an error. A 7.3 KWh power plant would cost $1.095 to recharge at $0.15/KWh. If it travels 64 miles, then it would be $0.0171/mile to run. Should this be reasonable, well, it would be $0.513/gallon. Wow, electric cars work.
I'll take a tzero thanks.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
True - and there's a considerable energy loss between production and ussage.
But, centralized powerplants do have one huge advantage: You're able to remove most of the polution using modern technology. A modern fossil-based powerplant is today able to reduce polluion (NOx, CO2) by 90-95%, which a normal gas-engine isn't.
I like mass transit. I lived for several years in Seoul, Korea. In Seoul, the subways are a godsend. You can get anywhere in the city in about half or quarter the time it takes to ride a bus or drive. And the subways aren't for the poor as they would be in America. They are the best option for most long-distance travel in Seoul.
The busses are awesome as well. The busses that actually go places run every 5 or 10 minutes. You don't have to schedule yourself around the busses' schedule.
You can pick up a taxi for cheap short trips anywhere in the city. These are great to provide the "last mile" to your destination, if you don't have time to walk it.
The problem is that nowhere in America do we even get close to the population density of Seoul. Here in Seattle and the Puget Sound area (Tacoma to Everett), the population density is closer to Middle of Nowhere, New Mexico than Seoul. We can't afford to build subways under our city. We can't afford to run busses every five or ten minutes. There cannot be enough taxi drivers to make it useful for short, quick trips. And even if we could, it wouldn't be much more efficient than driving.
So the problem is about mobility. In Seoul, you can go anywhere you want in a reasonable amount of time without a car. With a car, you can't get there any faster or cheaper.
In Seattle, you *can't* go anywhere in a reasonable amount of time *unless* you have a car.
That's where this Tango comes in. It is exactly what we Americans would use. I would buy one for its fuel cost efficiency alone. I really don't care too much for safety, as long as it is more safe than a motorcycle (which is pretty damn safe). It provides me with the ability to go pretty much anywhere I want anytime I want, which the busses don't, and walking or biking can't. I can give a lift to a friend, or put some goods in the back. That's why I drive a Hyundai Accent. That's why I would get one of these.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
The segway I didn't understand. This, I do understand.
I would like to see a hybrid electric car that is built for 1 person and a little luggage.
It would have a 40hp electric motor with a small battery pack with just enough power to accelerate to a top speed of about 70mph a few times.
Cruising down the highway and recharging the battery pack would be done with a 10hp rotary engine connected to a generator that powered the electric motor and recharged the battery. I think that it could go 500 miles on a 5 gallon tank.
If done right the thing should cost less than $5,000 to mass produce.
Let's just face the reality that people want to drive to work alone and come up with ways to expedite that. Maybe even have a special half lane for motorcycles and these electric cars and half cost parking for them in the city cause 2 of them would fit in one parking space.