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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!"
your question:
...how long do the batteries last?
from the article:
About 80 miles per charge.
I like this car. If the first prototype didn't cost 80 grand I'd be jumping on it.
"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.
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? Don't take this the wrong way, I'm all for any kind of advancement in electric car mass production, but if this is just a two person personal project then there may not be much point in it.
Of course, I might just be missing the point completely and this is just a cool hack and not something practical.
Bash script for FP whores
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 think the grand parent was aksing what is the lifespan of the batteries, not how far the charge will take you. In fact, I would like to know as that is the real problem.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
(The Smart is the Mercedes-built minicar you can see zipping around European cities).
Practical, easy to park, and completely disappointing sales.
Why? Most cars are not bought because they are economical or easy to park. They are bought because they are the meanest, biggest, fastest machines the limited budget will buy. Cars are as much, or more about conspicuous consumption as they are about getting from point A to point B.
It's a nice idea, but won't quite work as a "mine's bigger than your's" concept.
Perhaps they can steal some ideas from how Smarts are sold here: mainly rented out, plastered with advertising, since people love look at them, but hate the idea of doing the morning commute in them.
Make cities smaller, walk more.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Here in Texas, we believe in burning good old fashioned fossil fuels, and preferably lots of them. Electric cars have no place in our state. Houston is the #1 most polluted city in the USA, and we don't intend to give up the title without a fight.
We suggest you take your electric car back to California where it came from and come back with a proper Texas sized pickup truck or SUV.
Yours truly,
Fmr Guvner of Texas George Walker Bush
Check out their website at http://www.commutercars.com . Under the gallery section, they've got a video of it in action. Pretty neat-o.
Notably absent from the article is any mention of the energy efficiency of this beast. At one-and-a-half-tons, it hauls around a lot of mass for a single seater.
We seem to assume that because we can't see or smell it that electricity is 'free energy.' Electricity is not free; electrical energy generation and storage are horribly inefficient and not particularly environmentally friendly. Radioactive waste, diverted watersheds, burnt fossil fuels, or lead-acid batteries are friendly neither to your pocket book nor to your planet.
That said, I do acknowledge that the creators' original intent was to use fuel cells which may prove to be a superior energy delivery system. However, even if I subtract out 1000 lbs for the
batteries, the car is still very heavy for its capacity. Even worse than the new Mini, which weighs more than double the original.
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.
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.
I think it would depend on how you charge them. Stuffing an 80% charge into them in 10 minutes probably wouldn't do any favors for future cycles, nor will driving them to the point of death (deep discharge). If you treat them right, I read that most lead-acid batteries will last 2 or 3 years in an EV situation.
Alternatively, they could have used Ni-Mh or NiCads, which will last 5 times longer and have a considerably higher energy density and therefore range. If lead-acid batteries will take the car 80 miles, Ni-Mh's or Nicads would probably take it from LA to San Diego on one charge.
The only major problem I see with that choice is all that lead floating around. But the production of the fancy battery types is not exactly environmentally friendly anyway. Well ok, the other problem is the 80 mile range. That works out to a 10 minute stop every hour to hour-and-a-half or so, if stations are placed optimally. Such frequent breaks could easily help traffic safety.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
From the article William Garrison, UC Berkeley professor emeritus and co-author of "Tomorrow's Transportation." "People want variety . . . They don't want people telling them what to do. We wealthy people with bleeding hearts say we need mass transit for the poor. The hell with that. The poor need money. If they had money, they wouldn't take transit."
I'm sorry Mr Garrison, but people do want variety. I'm all for effective electric cars, but we should allow our already working mass transit systems be developed to be equally or more convenient to use at the same time. In paris, you don't need a train time table: the trains are always two minutes apart. In Australia, tramstops have little touchscreen kiosks which allow you to plan your route, buy a ticket and even optimise your time.
I want my big SUV to go out bushbashing and hauling lumber in a trailer, I want to be able to rent/buy a small electric two seater so that don't get quashed in a road accident that would have killed a motorcyclist when I go shopping on my own and I want to be able to buy a ticket to a train that runs on time so I can read manuals or highlight meeting minutes or just plain sleep on my way to my tech job in the city where parking is a pain in the ass anyway.
Did anyone else scroll back up to check if the author was a woman?
Don't call me chauvanist - any Real Man? would have written:
Is lifespan that much of a problem?
Electric cars have 3 main problems 1) the distance or how far on a charge. Norm appears to be ~60, but 80 is much more useful. 2) Ability to charge anywhere. Some cars carry their own convertor, but then you have to carry all this equipment. Ideally, it is at your house and at work. 3) the battery replacement. This is a non-trivial costs. For the GM electric car, IIRC, it was 10K every 4-5 years. Not something to be taken lightly.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
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 guess there's a lot for me to understand. Its not a crash with another Tango that scares me, its the crash with the Ford Excursion that scares me... and its not the fact he just hits me, its that not only does he hit me, he then proceeds to drive OVER me. The law of inertia would make this scenario inevitable. I don't know if this car's roll bar was designed to dissipate the energy of a ton of mass heading my way. But then, thats true with any car - its just that if you are physically bigger, you have a higher probability of simply getting pushed out of the way in lieu of being run over.
I know. Call me paranoid. I am this way because I already drive a small car and am I intimidated by these monsters I see all over the road? Hell yes!
My only advantage is I get about 40 miles per gallon.. but the disadvantage is I probably will not survive any substantial accident, due to my much smaller size/mass.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
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?
WhilstI would dearly love to end our reliance on fossil fuels (and as a side benefit other than the environment, America could come home and stop trying to rule the world to ensure its own fuel supply), the electric car won't take off because it has an image problem.
People don't want to buy a car because it's good for the environment, they don't buy it for its fuel efficiency, and they don't buy it because it'll seat half a basketball team. They buy a car mostly because they are a status symbol way of getting from A to B. So, to sell electric cars, here's a small list of how to make them DESIRABLE:
1. Make it FAST. 0-60MPH in 4 seconds minimum. (Doesn't matter if you actually USE that acceleration, it's street cred poser value, for the most part the "mine's bigger than yours" syndrome)
2. Make it STYLISH. Not your usual avant garde electric enviro-car. Take a look at rally cars and real sports cars for inspiration. Get Porsche or Ferrari to build one.
3. Get them seen in public, not as show cars, but being used to do things better than their petrol counterparts. Rally driving, motor racing etc. Give them performance in spades, ultra-low C of G, and watch them out-turn regular cars.
4. Get the racing fraternity (all types) to hold competitions. I mean REAL F1 or TOCA type competitions that use cars you'd be able to buy. Not the solar/electric challenge type competition that most people only see as the dead donkey story at the end of the news.
5. Finally, make them rechargeable through simple means ie. domestic power plugs or some other common infrastructure ALREADY IN PLACE. Chicken and egg scenarios are doomed from the get go.
Do those things, and you will sell electric cars. Until then, it's never going to take off.
Visceral Psyche Films
-- Who holds back electric car?
-- We do! We do!
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
"You are probably one of those people who think motorcycles are to dangerous."
You're probably one of those people who hasn't seen the statistics lately. Do you know what the police and emergency services call motorcycle drivers? Donors. And don't give me this `it's only unsafe because of nasty car drivers`. So what? Danger is danger no matter who's fault it is.
Why do they hope to ask $20000 for the mass produced model when one could find much cheaper gasoline mass produced cars?
Electric engines are much simpler, smaller and cheaper than combustion ones and electric cars transmission systems can be much more simplified, thus cheaper. A good set of batteries cannot stand the huge amount of money saved by -not- using a combustion engine.
Plus, current sockets aren't widely available like gas stations.
I like that car, as did most people cited in the article, but they need a killer price to actually make people want to buy it now.
While the cost per mile of the Tango is impressive compared to theo ther cars on the list the TCO of the tango if driven long distances drops considerably. If your commute involves any freeway driving at all the TCO for the tango is downright horrible. If you've got a 64 mile commute (32 there, 32 back) your battery is only going to hold out for about 16,000 miles or about 250 commutes. That isn't even a year before your battery pack needs to be replaced. Over 100,000 miles the Tango costs you more to operate than a Hummer H2 if you live somewhere like California with low power rates easily topping 15/KWh.
The sweet spot for the Tango seems to be the "average" 20 mile commuter. This sweet spot quickly erodes if you're able to carpool or if you need to transport more than one person anywhere. The 2.6 per mile for the Tango is nice if you're alone but if the 3 per mile in a Prius gets four people to work or school you're getting way more for the penny.
The Tango is a neat idea but like many other electric offerings it makes too many sacrifices to utility. The gasoline or diesel hybrids have TCO ratings as low as the Tango and much lower than the average multipassenger electric. Getting one person somewhere for the same cost as a car that can get four people there isn't very useful nor economical.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
what about hydroelectic cars? No batteries to replace. Unlimited range. All you need is lots and lots of fresh, clean water!
No, seriously, this car is cool and everything but I'm far more excited by fuel cell vehicles. There are already production models with a > 200 mile range. Now if the government would just give us one of the tiny hydrogen convertors on those UFO's they have stashed away...
I'll take a tzero thanks.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
why do I imagine... "requres 10,000 Double A NiCad batteries (not Included)"???
Cost per Mile (ICE vs Tango)
You'll get maximum mileage from your batteries if you only drive the car 20-24 miles per charge; the chart indicates you'd get ~80,000 miles from the batteries. If you max out and drive 80 miles per charge (the maximum range), you'd cut that total down to ~16,000 miles.
At that point, the car really loses it cost effectiveness, as each battery pack costs $2,500. Driving it 80 miles per charge would probably make it as expensive to drive as the Hummer H2. Still, can you imagine what an improvement in battery technology could do for a car like this? It would push the TCO (total cost of ownership) of the car way down............
Did you actually read the article or just look at the pretty pictures?
The weight of the lead acid batteries provide more than sufficient roll stability "...including 1,100 pounds of Yellow Top batteries under the floorboards as ballast, so it's not tippy on turns." FTFA!
Go permanent? In your dreams and my worst nightmares.
These vehicles do nothing to solve pollution, to get energy you need to have it stored somewhere. Either in a liquid fuel or in a battery. Batteries need charging and so you need electricity, to produce electricity you need to burn stuff, start off some nuclear reaction or use loads of wind power.
:)
All you're doing really is relocating the pollution elsewhere or changing the form of the pollution.
Also the batteries and motors will have a limited life and will need replacing. A diesel engine can last around 200,000 miles, I don't think an electric motor will last that long. These cars do nothing to solve the waste that is used tyres, millions of tyres are used each year and there's no simple way of recycling them.
So guys, stop wasting your time and invent the teleporter!
...with emphasis on fresh, and clean :(
Ah, to live in an area, where fresh water can be found, free of algae, leeches, cans, tires, snakes, gators, etc, and where the mean travel distance is less than 60 miles.
Although gas is cheaper than milk and water around here, and at least motorbikes are still reasonably gasoline/cost efficient, I'm really looking forward to some affordable long-range alternate fuel method.
SEALED, VIBRATION RESISTANT, AND LEAK PROOF, EVEN WHEN BROKEN
In an OPTIMA battery, the lead plates and separator are wound and tightly compressed into a cell tube so they can't move, shed, or break, even in severe shock and vibration applications. In independent SAE tests, the OPTIMA kept working after being subjected to vibrations up to 5G for 12 hours. As in all AGM TECHNOLOGY BATTERIES, there is no "free acid" that can leak out or spill and the OPTIMA can be operated effectively in any position -- even upside down -- without any risk of leaking and because it is sealed, no corrosion can form on the posts, connectors, or cables.
At DC Battery, we have been shown tests in which the a bullet is fired into an Optima leaving a huge hole in the center. Even with the battery's interior exposed, there was no leakage and when placed into a vehicle, it performed perfectly.
Hardly "completely disappointing sales".
They're all over the place in London, Paris, Madrid, Milan.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Both the Tango's website and their battery suppliers (Ovonics) offer info on this. If you use them to 80% depth of discharge (DoD) they'll last 450 cycles. If you use them to 20% DoD, 4000 cycles.
BTW, 20% DoD is 20 miles, precisely the average round-trip commute in the US (U of T survey).
According to Tango's creators, 20% DoD leads to a per-mile cost that is around HALF that of the Honda Insight. (Assumes 5 cents per kWH, WA prices. At 15 cents/kWH CA prices, the cost-per-mile equals the Insight.) Ok, that may prove optimistic IRL, but given the dimensions, it has a decent chance of coming true.
I think we are due for another 70s oil crisis and I will happily contend with my tank a month and 10 bucks a fill up attitude.
FUCK everybody who has an SUV!!!
This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
I worked out in a previous comment that, despite the inefficiency of coal power, you will still at least break even: 40% efficiency at the plant, 90% converting to battery charge, and 85% efficient running the motor works out to just over 30% net efficiency, while most ICE's are at most 26% efficient.
:(
The cost of solar and wind power systems is continuing to decrease; I've been researching installing a solar system at my house for 2.4 Kw. After rebates, it's only $4000. To be eligible for tying into the grid, it will as you said require a true sine wave inverter, and a 2.5 Kw version goes for around $2200 (A same-power modified sine wave goes for half that). And most solar systems come with a bank of batteries to provide power through night/clouds, and it would charge a car without hesitation (Although to save a little from inverter losses, you might want to set up a dedicated 12VDC circuit).
However, the proles are indeed stupid, ignorant sheep