Tzero Electric Car: 0-60 in 3.7 Seconds

Grrrr by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 12:41 · Score: 0, Insightful

This NYTimes registration bullshit. Anyone else post an alternative link?

Re:Grrrr by GodWasAnAlien · 2003-09-19 12:48 · Score: 1, Offtopic

Can we put these articles in some "Registration required" catagory, so I can turn them off?

Getting a "Please register/login to read" message seems simalar to getting some "goatsie" page when you expect something informative.
Re:Grrrr by Strudelkugel · 2003-09-19 12:50 · Score: 5, Informative

Much better link, with more details and pictures.
Resistance to /. effect unknown.

--
Imagine how much harder physics would be if electrons had feelings! -Feynman, maybe
Re:Grrrr by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 12:53 · Score: 0, Informative

Christ. Stop bitching about the NY Times registration thing. You only have to do it once. Once you're registered, Mozilla, K-Melon, Firebird, Opera, Safari, Omni or whatever else is out there would handle the rest by filling in your user info when you click an NYT link (which cookie expires once a week). You just have to click "OK" to view the articles from that point on.

That wasn't hard, was it?

Afraid to give out your email? No problem. Use Mailinator. Make up a moniker, register, log in, authenticate, and you're done.

It's strikes me odd when people would dedicate their Friday nights to compiling kernels and fucking around with Linux config files, but when it comes to a simple task of registering for a stupid news site, it becomes a problem. Cut it out.
Re:Grrrr by focitrixilous+P · 2003-09-19 13:06 · Score: 1

resistance to slashdot nitpicking? Low. The page title is AutoSpeed - The <i> tzero </i> Electric Sport car Whoa. Haven't seen an html tag in the title of the page in a long time... wait no, I haven't seen one. Site seems to be holding up for now.

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SAILING MISHAP
Re:Grrrr by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 13:08 · Score: 1, Informative

It's strikes me odd when people would dedicate their Friday nights to compiling kernels and fucking around with Linux config files, but when it comes to a simple task of registering for a stupid news site, it becomes a problem.

Dear Anonymous Coward,

You're an idiot. The point if that people fuck around with their kernel and config files on Friday nights because they *want to*. Spending time on the NYT registration is added aggravation nobody wants, therefore it's a waste of time.
Re:Grrrr by ee_moss · 2003-09-19 13:15 · Score: 2, Informative

For those of you who missed earlier posts of this info,

NY Times
username: slashdot.com
password: slashdot.com
Re:Grrrr by Anonvmous+Coward · 2003-09-19 13:28 · Score: 1

"Taken from this site, it will randomly create a registration login for you. No personal data filled out. Amazing."

At some point, people just have to stop and say "is registration really all that unresonable?"
Re:Grrrr by bhtooefr · 2003-09-19 13:38 · Score: 3, Informative

That's outdated though - the NYT article has the laptop battery version, whereas your link has the older lead-acid version.
Re:Grrrr by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 13:42 · Score: 0

Spending time on the NYT registration is added aggravation nobody wants, therefore it's a waste of time.

Added aggravation? It takes less than a minute. The time it took you to respond to my post could have been put to better use.. LIKE REGISTERING ON NYT
Re:Grrrr by bhtooefr · 2003-09-19 13:43 · Score: 2, Informative

Then again, I remember some guy signed up slashdot124 pass:slashdot as a North Korean. Want to use that?
Re:Grrrr by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 13:49 · Score: 1, Informative

OT? Some guy was bitching about having to sign up for NYT. I provided a username and password. How is that OT?
Re:Grrrr by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 15:14 · Score: 0

Off Topic?? You think an informative post such as this would either be skipped or modded up. Surely there is a much better use for your moderator points jackass.

Perhaps you work for the NY Times....

Re:no comments? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 12:43 · Score: 0

LOVE!

60...sure... by TiMac · 2003-09-19 12:43 · Score: 0, Funny

But to get to 80 MPH you need at LEAST 1.21 Gigawatts!

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Re:60...sure... by infonick · 2003-09-19 14:10 · Score: 1

we can do it! all you need is a permit for science experiments and a notice from the future telling you when lightning will strike your local town hall!. just make sure you make that right turn before the movie theater...

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You are confusing me with someone who cares.
Re:60...sure... by dcstimm · 2003-09-19 14:57 · Score: 2, Informative

thats 88 MPH you IDIOT!

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keanmarine.com

What they don't tell you is... by Nuclear+Elephant · 2003-09-19 12:44 · Score: 5, Funny

They could only measure 0-60 because at 4 seconds, the li-ion batteries are all dead.

Re:What they don't tell you is... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 12:47 · Score: 0

Not really. If they had megnetic drive on the wheels, the car whould probably use very little power, believe it or not.

Of course, I can't read the article because it is a shitty NYT link. What's that username and password again?
Re:What they don't tell you is... by WhiteBandit · 2003-09-19 13:10 · Score: 3, Informative

Random NYTimes Registration Generator
Re:What they don't tell you is... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 13:21 · Score: 0

jesus, looks like this site is short on sense of humor to mod you as a troll.

go get laid, nerds.
Re:What they don't tell you is... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 14:44 · Score: 0

BBZZZZTTT!!! Check the web site.

The Li-ION tzero has a 300 mile range (at 60 mph).

- David
Re:What they don't tell you is... by Illbay · 2003-09-19 15:50 · Score: 3, Funny

So if you don't run the car for at least the full 4 seconds every time, does it eventually only get up to about 30 mph because of that "battery memory" problem?

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Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
Re:What they don't tell you is... by gone.fishing · 2003-09-20 01:03 · Score: 1

I doubt your question was serious (and I do see the humor) but I want to give a serious answer.

The answer is; "No." The battery memory problem is an issue only with NiCad batteries where dendrites build up around the cathode increasing resistance causing the battery to seem to loose capacity. Li-Ion and Ni-MiH batteries simply do not have this problem.

These newer batteries can still have problems that cause them to lose capacity (they can still "die") but it is not as frequent or as fast as the memory problem associated with NiCad.
Re:What they don't tell you is... by Illbay · 2003-09-20 03:52 · Score: 1

My question wasn't serious.

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Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.

good news for environment by civilengineer · 2003-09-19 12:45 · Score: 4, Informative

One of the main reasons electric car sales are not picking up is that they are percieved to be slow pickup vehicles. Looks like this wont be an issue any longer.

The car, priced at $220,000, is available only directly from AC Propulsion and has not yet met federal safety regulations.

and that's one more problem

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New year Resolution: Don't change sig this year

Re:good news for environment by Nuclear+Elephant · 2003-09-19 12:47 · Score: 1

But the other reason is having to stop and recharge for an hour during the morning commute. Hydrogen-based vehicles are the future, electric was a nice thought.
Re:good news for environment by MourningStar · 2003-09-19 12:50 · Score: 5, Informative

You can also get the Tango from http://www.commutercars.com It's only 80K and it runs off DC motors with a range of 100+ miles and 0-60 in under 4 seconds. For those that don't have NYT, the home page for the Tzero is http://www.acpropulsion.com/tzero_pages/tzero_home .htm
Re:good news for environment by StewedSquirrel · 2003-09-19 12:52 · Score: 5, Informative

Hydrogen-based vehicles ARE electric vehicles.

The atomic bonds of H2 gas are just much more efficient at storing electricity than those weak ion based things we call "batteries".

The "Fuel Cell" is just an electric power source that is much more efficient output/weight.

Stewey

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There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't.
Re:good news for environment by Breakfast+Pants · 2003-09-19 13:00 · Score: 0

Shut the fuck up. The media portrays it as though fuel cells run on water. Or at least as though fuel cells must be an "alternative energy source." The media is always right. Quit bringing your science here; it's not wanted.

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WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
Re:good news for environment by RoLi · 2003-09-19 13:03 · Score: 1

This must be a joke.
The batteries will cause many times the waste and energy when manufactured than they will be able to "safe" in their whole lifetime.
The hard, cold and terrible truth is that the only real way to reduce emmissions is to use fewer and smaller cars.
Re:good news for environment by Nuclear+Elephant · 2003-09-19 13:04 · Score: 1

The big difference between a proverbial "electric" vehicle and a hydrogen vehicle, as you've pointed out, is the energy storage approach, and that is a HUGE advantage. Anything that runs on batteries in lieu of hydrogen is yesterday's prototype. Not to say conversion wouldn't be easy.
Re:good news for environment by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 13:18 · Score: 0

mod parent up.

too many people look at miles per gallon while entirely failing to recognize the manufacturing costs of goods.

we must reduce consumption and use if we are to have any hope of changing our impact on the environment.
Re:good news for environment by earthforce_1 · 2003-09-19 13:37 · Score: 5, Insightful

Actually, the main reasons electric cars are not more popular are:

1) Lengthy refuelling time
2) Limited cruising range
3) Cost is not competitive - either the vehicle is prohibitively expensive (as in this case) or the batteries need to be replaced after a relatively small number of charge cycles, and the cost of electricity to charge the vehicle is not competitive with gasoline or diesel.

Solve all of these problems at the same time, and you will be wealthier than Billy G. (And less resented for your wealth) I won't hold my breath though, barring some revolution in battery technology, I put my best hopes for an alternative energy vehicle in fuel cells.

It has long been possible to get good acceleration out of an electric car, I remember a 1970's popular science article describing an electric vehicle with regular lead acid batteries that used an energy storage flywheel that recovered braking energy and fed it back into the transmission when you hit the accelerator for quick takeoffs. While you were idling at a stoplight, the battery would gradually be topping up the flywheel velocity, ready for a jackrabbit getaway on the green light.

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My rights don't need management.
Re:good news for environment by SixDimensionalArray · 2003-09-19 13:55 · Score: 1

I actually met the CEO of AC Propulsion for a class I took in college, called Cars and Culture. The point isn't that they are trying to sell the car to individuals - AC Propulsion makes the technology that big companies such as Volkswagen use to power their new electric vehicles.

Personally, I believe building an electric speed-demon is a great idea because electrics are cost-prohibitive but do perform so well. The idea is, sell an expensive car to a rich person and maybe they'll buy it since it's unique, doesn't pollute the environment and GLH (goes like hell).

OTOH, those who like the smell of diesel and a big beefy V-12 might not be so happy with a quiet, smooth electric.

-6d
Re:good news for environment by Quikah · 2003-09-19 14:06 · Score: 1

Looks like the wheels would fall off going 0-60 in 4 seconds in the Tango.

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Q.
Re:good news for environment by utexaspunk · 2003-09-19 14:14 · Score: 1

okay, for starters, How hard is it to make a hyperlink to the site you're talking about?

you want to know why this thing will never sell? it looks stupid, and, imagine getting broadsided by H2 in this. no, don't imagine- here
Re:good news for environment by CaseyB · 2003-09-19 14:21 · Score: 1

One of the main reasons electric car sales are not picking up is that they are percieved to be slow pickup vehicles. Looks like this wont be an issue any longer.
Right, now they know that a single-seat electric car made entirely of exotic ultra-lightweight materials can have good pickup. Still some work to do before the same can be said of an electric "normal" car.
Re:good news for environment by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 14:47 · Score: 0

For more on fast EV's check http://nedra.com/

The National Electric Drag Racing Association is an NHRA sanctioned drag racing group soley for EV's. Most of 'em are hobbyist built, and some give the tzero a run for it's money. I attended their event in Woodburn OR a couple weeks back and watched 5 or so vehicles turn in 11 second 1/4 mile times (or so). Check the world records page on the NEDRA site.

- David
Re:good news for environment by chriso11 · 2003-09-19 15:22 · Score: 1

Let's see...

No need to change oil.
No gasoline fumes leaking into the air when refueling
The batteries can be recycled
No toxic coolent to flush

Actually, I would still give the edge to the elctric car

--
No, I don't trust in god. He'll have to pay up front, like everybody else.
Re:good news for environment by afidel · 2003-09-19 15:36 · Score: 3, Interesting

Or, just give people what they want but make it more friendly for the environment. For instance the Union of Concerned Scientists crafted the UCS Guardian which is a Ford Explorer made green. It gets up to 35mpg, is safer than normal SUV's, and the increased cost is minimal (about $2,300 more than the normal Explorer which will be made back two times over the life of the vehicle in gasoline savings).

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There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Re:good news for environment by Wellspring · 2003-09-19 15:45 · Score: 1

Hell yeah.

I used to be an EE major in school. I learned very quickly that electric gives you magic acceleration. A hard-core performance electric (rather than those dinky solar or euro-trash bimbo boxes) is what the industry needs to get people thinking in the right direction. Granted, IMHO, batteries still aren't quite there yet, but we're not so far off now.

Sorry, channelling serious testosterone right now. This is totally what they need to be making right now. Have they considered a Dymaxian configuration (two front drive wheels, one rear steering wheel)? You'd save plenty of weight, still seat two, be a little more aerodynamic, and look like a vicious predator.

Either way, excellent car!
Re:good news for environment by Jeremi · 2003-09-19 16:41 · Score: 2, Informative

you want to know why this thing will never sell? it looks stupid, and, imagine getting broadsided by H2 in this. no, don't imagine-

Personally, I think it looks pretty cool, but that's a matter of opinion. As for getting broadsided, so what? Getting broadsided by an H2 while on a motorcycle would be even worse, and yet plenty of people buy and drive motorcycles.

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I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Re:good news for environment by Spellbinder · 2003-09-19 16:59 · Score: 1

i think those aren't really problems
but the car and oil industry don't see the need to push electric cars yet
i think they buy/make a lot of inventions in this range but hold it back for later when there is no more fuel

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stop supporting microsoft with pirating their software!!!!!
Re:good news for environment by jimi1283 · 2003-09-19 17:04 · Score: 0

Well at least 1 of those points is losing validity... according to the webpage of the manufacturer, the car can be charged from dead to full power in about an hour. Check out the link posted above. The best is the video of the electric car out drag-racing a 96 corvette.

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because what hunting rifle has a bayonet lug
Re:good news for environment by sunspot42 · 2003-09-19 17:18 · Score: 4, Insightful

>1) Lengthy refuelling time

There's a fairly simple solution to that problem, and it's the same one we use for portable electronics - when the batteries are dead, swap them out for a new set. It would require standardized battery designs and altering the general layout of cars slightly. Essentially a hatch to the battery compartment would be placed somewhere on the car - probably at the rear of the trunk in most sedan-style vehicles - that would pop open to reveal several perhaps circular bays, each containing cylindrical battery (think giant AA battery). You'd slide in some kind of counterweighted gadget - like a giant socket wrench - twist it to unlock the battery from its bay and lock it into the changer, then pull it out and swap it for a fresh battery. The bigger the car, the more cells it would take. There might even be a couple different sizes of cells (but not too many). You wouldn't "own" the batteries, and they wouldn't be a permanent part of your car. The batteries would belong to whoever runs the service stations - you'd just be buying the energy, and perhaps paying a large deposit on the batteries which would be refunded (or transferred) when you swapped 'em for a new set.

Storage of all those batteries would take up a lot of space, but it could be placed beneath the "battery stations" in the same way gas tanks are placed beneath gas stations, with dumbwaiter-like devices used to ferry batteries back and forth. And the fixed stations could afford to employ far more efficient, faster, heavier (and hence more costly) chargers than you could ever shoehorn into a car.

Battery technology isn't there yet, but thanks to advances in the computer and portable electronics industries, it's not outrageous to imagine a time when batteries will become efficient enough to make such a system possible.
Re:good news for environment by null-sRc · 2003-09-19 17:31 · Score: 1

right .. good for the environment...

with only 6800 batteries...???

last time i checked batteries aren't #1 on the environment's wish list...

then again, im not a chemist so maybe this works out better?

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-judging another only defines yourself
Re:good news for environment by TexVex · 2003-09-19 18:29 · Score: 1

Actually, rotary engines can burn a variety of fuels including hydrogen, and operate by internal combustion.

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Fun with Anagarams! LADS HOST, SHALT DOS. HAS DOLTS. AD SLOTHS, HATS SOLD. ASS HO, LTD.
Re:good news for environment by nateb · 2003-09-19 18:50 · Score: 1

I probably would be better to have a "docking bay" that you drive into. Drive into side A, unlatch batteries, plug in power cord from overhead, drive over to side B, latch onto batteries, drive away.

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-- Nate
Re:good news for environment by anethema · 2003-09-19 19:18 · Score: 2, Informative

Thats not why electric cars can have such quick starts. Its one of the benifets of the electric motor. An electric motor has 100% of its available torque from a dead stop. But the same amount of torque at any speed. Thats why their top speeds generally arent tooo high, unless you do fancy transmission stuff (doesnt really need to be fancy just needs to be there haha.) But its that torque thing that allows such amazing 0-60 times from low horsepower.

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It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
Re:good news for environment by Tailhook · 2003-09-19 20:16 · Score: 2, Informative

1) Lengthy refuelling time
2) Limited cruising range
3) Cost is not competitive

4) Isolated repair resources
5) Environment still damaged

It's going to be a couple years before Midas can do a $99 break job on a machine with regenerative breaking. Physics dictates that the materials will wear and stuff will fail. Bubba the wrecker driver is NOT going to know what to do with a bugged electric drivetrain or a composite chassis. If you wish to go here, you had better be resourceful enough to cope with this.

This is no environmental panacea either. Still need roads, tires, auto parts stores, junk yards, etcetera. Still have to manufacture the things. Large volumes of fun chemicals are involved with battery and composite manufacturing. Never mind the resources used to make the electrical power...

This is cool, but keep in mind that it's only an alternative power supply. The rest of the story is a bit bigger.

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Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Re:good news for environment by Spy+Hunter · 2003-09-19 20:17 · Score: 2, Insightful

You're forgetting something: there are so many batteries, and they are so heavy, that they make up a significant portion of the weight of the entire car. Ever lifted a regular car battery? They are *really* heavy, and they're not even enough to power a car a half a mile. Us push-button Americans aren't going to be getting out of our cars to lug packs and packs of heavy batteries around. You would definitely need full-service stations for this. So it would cost more, plus it would probably take longer. Also, usually the batteries are in a very hard to access place (like underneath the passenger compartment or something) because they take up so much room. You'd have to give up your entire trunk just to store the batteries in an accessible place.
A super-breakthrough in battery technology that reduced both the size and weight of batteries by a factor of 10 might make this system reasonable. But at that point, your car could go 2000 miles on a single charge by putting 10 times the batteries in, which would take the same room and weigh the same as the batteries of today. At that point, it's better to just recharge the car overnight instead of worrying about swapping batteries.

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main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
Re:good news for environment by Moofie · 2003-09-19 20:18 · Score: 1

Yeah, get back to me when you have to drop $8000 on a new battery pack next year.

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Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Re:good news for environment by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 20:19 · Score: 0

Broadsiding the H2 with the shuttle transporter might be interesting. Oh the Shuttle uses that funny h2 stuff... is there a point? There is always a bigger vehicle...

Oh, your trying to "waste" as much fuel as possible, oops silly me, sorry ;(
Re:good news for environment by Moofie · 2003-09-19 20:20 · Score: 1

Yeah, just so long as nothing happens to the batteries to cause the hideously toxic contents to leak out. You know, like an AUTOMOBILE ACCIDENT.

See, one thing that a lot of people forget about is the production hazards of these 'green' technologies. Photovoltaic cells have a lot of extremely toxic by products. So does your motherboard. This is an issue that is not getting enough attention.

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Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Re:good news for environment by Flingles · 2003-09-19 20:30 · Score: 1

They already do this with gas bottles at servo's. You take ur unfilled one and swap it for a filled one... But I'd imagine you would own your own set of batteries, and change them at your house, like current rechargables. Unless of course ur talking hydrogen fuel cells.

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Karma: -2^0.5 . Mainly due to the imbibing of dihydrogen monoxide
Re:good news for environment by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 20:31 · Score: 0

A simple solution is to have the power module configured with the desired number of cells and then drive through like a car wash, i.e. on tracks that push in the new pack in the front while the old one get's delivered out the back.
You want the mass of the power pack to be low and underneath the passengers. That way in an accident you won't be the thing absorbing their momentum.

With new technology you could order up the desired config via the internet before you even get to the exchange station, thus ensuring faster responses. No reason why you couldn't get the exchange down to less than a minute. Plust there should be no need to get out of the car...

The nice thing about going electric is that eventually enough eCars would make if viable to offer direct energy transfer on the most busy routes. Probably even allowing automatic driving as well. Think about how useful it would be if you didn't have to drive during rush hour, instead just hooking up to an eLane and reading slashdot on the way to work...
Re:good news for environment by ces · 2003-09-19 23:53 · Score: 2, Insightful

you want to know why this thing will never sell? it looks stupid, and, imagine getting broadsided by H2 in this. no, don't imagine- here

Just about anything other than another HUGE SUV is not going to do to well after being broadsided by a speeding H2. In any case it is probably safer in a crash than either a motorcycle or bicycle.

I tell ya' we need $10/gallon gas just so we can get these SUV monstrosities off the road.

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Happy Fun Ball is for external use only.
Re:good news for environment by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-20 00:17 · Score: 0

and they are so inefficient...
Re:good news for environment by hanssprudel · 2003-09-20 00:29 · Score: 1

Hydrogen based car != hydrogen fuel cell car

There are cars that are based on hydrogen combustion to directly power the wheels, as opposed to fuel cells which first create electicity.
Re:good news for environment by tmortn · 2003-09-20 00:37 · Score: 1

ummmmm not quite right. You can run hydrogen into your average normal car engine with minor modifications and the necesarry fuel delivery equipment. This has in fact been done. Problems are storing enough fuel and creation of some bad exhaust fumes due to the extreme heat of the combustion... creates NOS I belive actually. Fuel cell's reap the benifit of the energy in the H2 O2 reaction by means of a non combustive reaction resulting in electricity instead of an explosion giving heat and expanding gases.

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I don't ask you to be me. I only ask you not expect me to be you.
Re:good news for environment by buck-yar · 2003-09-20 01:47 · Score: 1

Unless the power being used in the cars was produced by a nuclear reactor (or other clean source), we are just passing the pollution up the chain.
Re:good news for environment by thrillseeker · 2003-09-20 02:33 · Score: 2, Insightful

Unless the power being used in the cars was produced by a nuclear reactor (or other clean source), we are just passing the pollution up the chain.
But that's one of the values of using hydrogen in either a fuel cell or a combustion engine.
In a gasoline or diesel engine, it takes a tremendous amount of effort to produce an exhaust that is clean - indeed, we don't do it completely because it would be prohibitively expensive- no one can go around breathing actual car exhaust for long.
In a hydrogen powered vehicle, the pollution is not generated in a billion locations around the world (that is, in the cars). Instead, it is generated in the production facilities.
Localizing the pollution allows a much easier control and clean-up of it - building large and very effective filters at a handful of locations is much easier to accomplish and maintain than doing so at the numerous end points. Additionally, there are techniques of producing hydrogen from clean sources - Iceland is examining becoming an exporter of the fuel by producing it using their geothermal energy, for example. There are also many studies of producing other non-polluting hydrogen generation sources.
But, there are not enough people insisting that this happen and so we plod along with the idea that "it's not yet perfect so let's not bother".
Re:good news for environment by Garak · 2003-09-20 03:12 · Score: 1

I think the soulution to the problem would be to have the battery drop out from under the car. Remeber these batteries are goind to be as large as 1000lbs!!

Not so easy to change but if lowered itself below and then you could roll the car ahead onto another is might work. Maybe it could say connected untill it was over the new battery via flexiable cables. So it would have power to move ahead and raise the other battery.

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God, root, what is the difference?
Re:good news for environment by Garak · 2003-09-20 03:16 · Score: 1

Its not physics that limits the life of breakes and other car parts its the manufactures.

They purposely build cars to fail after 7 years so you will buy a new one!

You could build systems that will last 20 years+, but you only see this kind of stuff on big trucks and pro gear.

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God, root, what is the difference?
Re:good news for environment by Locutus · 2003-09-20 03:38 · Score: 1

yes and it's a very wrong perception. The 2000-2003 model Prius didn't help that either. O-60 in something like 13 seconds but that was mostly because Toyota doesn't let the power get to the motor. The 2004 Prius does it in 10 seconds.

What will turn that perception around is when the hybrid car makers build a car that lets all the power get dumped to the motor. Let them burn rubber for a minute or two and feel what electric power feels like. They'll get lower than average MPG the next few miles but big deal. It'll still be more efficient than the straight ICE cars but have some of the FEEL of a pure electric. It'll be the turning point for hybrid sales IMHO.

The new Prius is 1/10th the cost too but it's really not the same. Too bad those batteries are so expensive. Not too unlike what fuel cells cars will be.

LoB

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"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Re:good news for environment by tmortn · 2003-09-20 03:50 · Score: 1

Not a problem of it not being perfect.. it just isn't practical yet. Cost of the catalyst in the fuel cells and its durability plus being able to store sufficient hydrogen and delivery systems.. IE do we go for a liquid infrastructure or gas ? Straight Hydrogen or in an intermediary we reform the gas from easily?

Even some question of our ability to generate the hydrogen to begin with. Current power generation is insufficient. If your not sure why then imagine California power companies having to produce all the power to generate enough hydrogen to fuel cars in addition to its current needs that it can't supply.

In a sense you have to replace all the HP currently located under hoods in every driveway with the equivalent power generation equipment... in terms of daily use, not total possible power output... people have to buy new cars and gov't or industries have to build huge new power generation stations which also comes out of peoples pockets one way or another.

Switching to a hydrogen economy has many real obstacles to overcome. We are moving in that direction but Oil is entrenched at the foundation of the worlds economy and has more than 100 years of industry build up behind it... When Oil toppled Coal it brought something to the table Coal did't have. The ability to run more capable and mobile internal combustion engines to coals external combustion engines ( steam ). Hydrogen is trying to supplant Oil but it offers nothing but compromises in comparison with its only advantage being the ability to generate it vrs Oil's limited supply. Granted that is the ace in the hole but the pressure to find a new source of energy just hasn't gotten strong enough yet. Sooner or later that will change and be it hydrogen or some other form of energy source oil will be replaced.

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I don't ask you to be me. I only ask you not expect me to be you.
Re:good news for environment by The+Lord+of+Chaos · 2003-09-20 04:08 · Score: 1

There's a fairly simple solution to that problem,
That's not simple at all. Besides weight problem already mentioned, the problem I see is that batteries degrade. When a driver swaps his discharged battery for a charged battery, the service station has no way to tell what condition the driver's batteries are in. The service center could be getting a worthless (unchargeable) battery while he's giving you a brand new one for the cost of the charge in the battery. Heck the drivers could exchange new batteries for old ones on the black market for a healthy profit while all the service centers are going out of business.
Re:good news for environment by MourningStar · 2003-09-20 06:17 · Score: 1

Its not hard to hyperlink, but gimme a break it was my first post. Another car that looks promising is the Electrum Spyder Of course this is only a prototype but the production price is an etimated 35K.
Re:good news for environment by zlexiss · 2003-09-20 13:24 · Score: 1

"It's going to be a couple years before Midas can do a $99 break job on a machine with regenerative breaking."

First off, unless you were trying out a pun, it's a _brake_ job.

And Midas will never replace any regenerative brakes. The regenerative brake is also known as the electric motor - you're just using the drivetrain to run it as a generator.

If anything, regenerative braking _saves_ the brake pads since they aren't being used as often.
Re:good news for environment by chriso11 · 2003-09-21 09:11 · Score: 1

A red herring.

Gasoline, brake fluid, transmission fluid, coolent, and other fluids in automobiles are are hardly friendly to the environment. And, internal combustion automobiles also have, *gasp* lead acid batteries!

I agree that there is a need to work to minimize any leakage, but I don't think that the accidental leakage from an accident would be reason to stop development of hybrid and electric vehicles.

--
No, I don't trust in god. He'll have to pay up front, like everybody else.
Re:good news for environment by sunspot42 · 2003-09-21 16:15 · Score: 1

>Us push-button Americans aren't going to be getting out of our
>cars to lug packs and packs of heavy batteries around.

As I noted in my post, the mechanism for pulling batteries out and swapping them with fresh models would have to be counterweighted in some way. I'm thinking about something that would look like a giant-sized version of a dentist's x-ray machine. Of course, there are other options as well - the batteries could drop out the bottom of the car onto a hydraulic platform, be carried underground, and replaced by another set that came up using the same hydraulic lift.

>You'd have to give up your entire trunk just to store the
>batteries in an accessible place.

Maybe. But you might be able to make up for it by placing cargo space at the front of the car. Or mount the batteries beneath the car the way gas tanks are today, and swap using an automated hydraulic system. Really, none of these problems are insurmountable. They simply require rethinking the overall design of the car, not necessarily giving up functionality or convenience. Electric cars are fundamentally different from gasoline-powered cars, and come with their own unique design requirements. But I don't think those requirements are any "better" or "worse" - only different.
Re:good news for environment by sunspot42 · 2003-09-21 16:23 · Score: 1

>That's not simple at all. Besides weight problem already mentioned,
>the problem I see is that batteries degrade. When a driver swaps his
>discharged battery for a charged battery, the service station has no
>way to tell what condition the driver's batteries are in.

And how many drivers carry some kind of kit with them today to test the quality of the gasoline they're getting at a service station? This strikes me as a non-issue - the same kind of regulations and enforcement that ensure drivers aren't buying watered down gasoline today would have to be put into place to ensure batteries were properly conditioned and in good working order before being handed over to customers.

>The service center could be getting a worthless (unchargeable) battery
>while he's giving you a brand new one for the cost of the charge in the
>battery. Heck the drivers could exchange new batteries for old ones
>on the black market for a healthy profit while all the service centers
>are going out of business.

Again, this strikes me as a non-issue. If we can make printer cartridges that self-destruct, we should be able to make batteries with enough internal smarts to monitor and report their own condition, their immediate history, whether or not that customer was authorized to trade in that battery (or had absconded with some batteries he purchased earlier) and to refuse to be charged by non-authorized parties. Since drivers would constantly be exchanging new batteries for old ones instead of recharging the vehicles themselves, there would be a constant mix of newer and older batteries in use in the market. Nobody would hold on to batteries or charge them themselves. The batteries themselves would be designed to make that virtually impossible, and anyhow, the service stations' chargers would be far superior to anything most consumers could afford to purchase themselves.
Re:good news for environment by Moofie · 2003-09-21 18:00 · Score: 1

I certainly wouldn't advocate stopping development on that basis. I would absolutely argue that battery powered electric cars are not the free-energy panacea that their proponents would like us to believe they are.

I believe that battery powered cars will be more expensive to operate, and only slightly (if at all) less harmful to the environment than internal combustion engines, particularly advanced technologies like VW's TDI engines running on biodiesel (which, again, is not perfect; only really pretty darn good).

In the medium to long term, I hope we can use h2 fuel cells charged by clean nuclear plants to be the primary fuel source. But chemical batteries are teh sux.

--
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!

big wup by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 12:46 · Score: 0, Troll

Big feckin' deal, top speed isn't even over 100. With low gearing like that, 3.7 seconds isn't that impressive.

Re:big wup by smeg168 · 2003-09-19 14:09 · Score: 1

first of all there is no gearing being an electric motor torque is avaiable at any rpm the engine is capable of, if they were to add another gear you could get well above that given the areodynamics and build quility is up to snuff. also even with low gearing on a traditional car 3.7 sec is hard to get given the time it takes to change gears, cuase you would have to do it often with a close ratio gearbox, which is why they are used more for technical courses than drag raceing.
Re:big wup by moertle · 2003-09-19 15:00 · Score: 0

top speed isn't even over 100

Because I drive 100+ mph all the time. They tried to take away my license, fine me, throw me in jail... but damn it driving less than 100 mph is for grannies and whimps.

--
I hold a patent on sigs...
Re:big wup by Big+Torque · 2003-09-19 15:16 · Score: 1

OK lesson time the wheel is the gear. Big wheel slower starts faster top end. Small wheel fast start slow top end. The thing that will stop the top end in the end will be the total power out put of the electric motor (the amp rating of the batteries and the motor. All electric cars have great flat torque curves, electric motors are great at this kind of thing. What made people think of electric cars as slow was the 3+ tons of lead acid batteries of yesteryear. This is no longer needs to be the case and new electric cars are often quite quick.
Re:big wup by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 15:38 · Score: 0

And just how often are you going to realistically need to drive over 100 there, Mario "feckin'" Andretti?

Seriously, give your head a shake - every car on the road today is capable of at least 120 MPH - how many of them ever get up that fast? What possible reason could you have for wanting to be able to go that fast, even "just in case it's an emergency"...
Re:big wup by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 15:52 · Score: 0

Gotta love it. "3.7 seconds is not that impressive" he says. Meanwhile, mr, AC probably drives a honda civic that can do 120 mph, so long as its off a cliff. Shithead.
Re:big wup by smeg168 · 2003-09-20 05:05 · Score: 1

well the wheel and
http://www.autospeed.com.au/cms/article.html? &A=09 41&P=4
a modified civic gear box are the grears, and unless more gears are incorporated what will stop the electric motor will be the peak operating rpm, which is pretty damn high compared a comporable gas engine at 13000, there are race engines that get this high but it is extremely expensive. the electric motor has potential to go higher and still be single geared but that is something for a bigger budget reaearch center to work on.
Re:big wup by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-20 05:33 · Score: 0

how about fun?
dangerous speed is determined by road conditions, if it is a 3 lane interstate that doesnt curve for 50+ miles and there is no one on it I fail to see the danger of going 120+, as long as your shit is mechanically sound.

How it all started by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 12:46 · Score: 0, Redundant

Laptop batteries.
Imagine a cluster of these....

Another article... by DrEldarion · 2003-09-19 12:46 · Score: 5, Informative

Here's an article that you don't have to register to see.

http://www.evworld.com/archives/reports/tzero_race .html

Why are electric cars always so damned ugly?

-- Dr. Eldarion --

Re:Another article... by GuyMannDude · 2003-09-19 12:51 · Score: 0, Flamebait

Why are electric cars always so damned ugly?

Because they are built for people who care about fuel efficiency, performance and the environment. Not those fuckin' yuppies who use their car as a status symbol and want something pretty to show off to their neighbors, coworkers, and friends.

--
watch this
Re:Another article... by The+Ape+With+No+Name · 2003-09-19 12:51 · Score: 1

Why are electric cars always so damned ugly?

Because they are visioneering not engineering. Of course, if you really look at things like the Space Shuttle, they are quite ugly but they get the job done. In the case of this car, it is nothing more than what the creator seems to "think" a electric sports car looks like. Look at the Honda Insight. What an ugly fucker that was. But the Prius, well it it certainly isn't a Pininfarina design but it doesn't look like some Logan's Run bullshit. I think Honda is going to roll out some hybrid Civics that will be look like a normal civic. I wonder if, other than the decaling, we will be able to tell?

--
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
Re:Another article... by DrEldarion · 2003-09-19 12:56 · Score: 4, Insightful

... but why can't they be fuel efficient, have good performance, be good on the environment, and NOT BE UGLY?

-- Dr. Eldarion --
Re:Another article... by rmohr02 · 2003-09-19 13:03 · Score: 5, Funny

Why are electric cars always so damned ugly?
Well, if you're the type of person who has "6,800 lithium-ion laptop batteries lying around", you probably don't concern yourself with how your car looks.
Re:Another article... by daviddennis · 2003-09-19 13:04 · Score: 1

I saw a Civic Hybrid on the road yesterday. It looked like it had a tapered rear which vaguely resembled other high-efficiency vehicles, but I suspect that's a change that was carried on to all Civics.

I wouldn't have known it wasn't a normal Civic if it didn't say it was a hybrid.

D
Re:Another article... by chimpo13 · 2003-09-19 13:07 · Score: 0, Flamebait

Of course, if you really look at things like the Space Shuttle, they are quite ugly but they get the job done.

By "gets the job done" do you mean, "it's only killed a couple crews"?

--
riding round the world on an old motorcycle
Re:Another article... by ForestGrump · 2003-09-19 13:13 · Score: 1

Actually I don't think so.
Its just the hybrid civic that has the tapereed end.

and for the stuff you can't directly see...
The under body has pannels to help control air flow, the suspension is stiffer, tires are harder, and trunk space is lost to battery storage.

-Grump.

--
Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
Re:Another article... by segmond · 2003-09-19 13:19 · Score: 1

Not to put down your post, but that article is dated 2000 when the Tzero did 0 to 60 in 4.1 seconds, it now does it in 3.7, and let me tell you, that is mighty impressive to drop .4 seconds in 0-60, that must be at least 1 second drop in the quarter mile, so I am sure the horsepower has increased by 50-75... they never mentioned that in the old article, I wonder if they new article mentions any horsepower dynos.

--
------ Curiosity killed the cat. {satisfaction brought it back | it didn't die ignorant | lack of it is killing mankind
Re:Another article... by Rew190 · 2003-09-19 14:12 · Score: 2, Funny

Yeah, but dude... 200 grand a pop, here.
Re:Another article... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 14:13 · Score: 0

they are ugly and different because it would be unprofitable for Standard Oil to have a sleek, comfortable and environmentally friendly car.
Re:Another article... by littlerubberfeet · 2003-09-19 14:21 · Score: 1

I think the both of you are wrong...

The Honda Hybrid has the tapered end and the covered back wheels, like on a late-model Caprice. The Hybrid Civic is a regular Civic chassis with a hybrid engine (1.2 Liters, batteries and a generator). The same engine is found in the Honda Hybrid. Get the hybrid civic, its cheaper...but don't add ricer mods to the engine, it is quite dangerous. Honda has yet to change the exterior design of any of their civics to line up with the Honda Hybrid.

--
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
Re:Another article... by Fulcrum+of+Evil · 2003-09-19 14:26 · Score: 1

By "gets the job done" do you mean, "it's only killed a couple crews"?

Well, that's what happens when you skimp on the safety. Of course, if the shuttle breaks down in LEO, you can't very well pull over and call a tow truck.

--
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Re:Another article... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 14:50 · Score: 0

Ugly is in the eye of the beholder, isn't it?

Is http://www.commutercars.com/ the Tango ugly? *I* find it oddly shaped, and haven't seen it enough times to figure out whether it's ugly or not.

Ditto the Sparrow which looked like it was an escapee from Toon Town.

- David
Re:Another article... by chimpo13 · 2003-09-19 16:06 · Score: 1

I'm sure the Russians, or I guess now the Chinese, will help out.

"Uh, hi, this is President Bush, and uh.. well, our shuttle ran out of gas. If you bring the crew back, we'll give you whatever you want".

The Russians would just want money. I don't think the Chinese want anything from us that they don't already have.

--
riding round the world on an old motorcycle
Re:Another article... by Jaysyn · 2003-09-19 17:29 · Score: 1

The Civic Hybrid looks an awful lot like a CRX with a bodykit to me.

Jaysyn

--
There is a war going on for your mind.
Re:Another article... by null-sRc · 2003-09-19 17:36 · Score: 1

... or your girlfriend for that matter...

what girlfriend?

*bitter*

--
-judging another only defines yourself
Re:Another article... by some2 · 2003-09-19 18:15 · Score: 1

The honda civic hybrid looks basically the same as the normal civic, and starts at about $20k.

MPG:
CVT.... 48/47mpg
Manual. 46/51mpg
Gas.... 13/12mpg

When using gas, you're getting 13.2/11.9mpg. Thus, don't plan on a lot of quick accelleration (as when you're at WOT) or you will be eating gas at nearly the same rate as a hummer.
Re:Another article... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 20:20 · Score: 0

Because they are visioneering not engineering...
I would have modded you up if you hadn't used the (so-called) word "visioneering." Unfortunately, this leaves me with little choice but to become your mortal enemy for eternity.
Nevertheless, I hope this this incident will not lead to any hard feelings between us.
Re:Another article... by Moofie · 2003-09-19 20:28 · Score: 1

Twelve miles per gallon, from a CIVIC? You're nuts. Twice that is reasonable.

--
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Re:Another article... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-20 10:02 · Score: 0

Apparently you haven't RTFA. They've built this particular car as a sports car. Looks count in that market.

And yes, even Insights and Prius-es are used as status symbols by yuppies to show off to their eco-friends. Most environmentalism is all about showing how much more moral and concerned you are than the next guy.
Re:Another article... by The+Ape+With+No+Name · 2003-09-21 04:57 · Score: 1

Heh. If you had modded me down, i would have had more respect, because it was a bit of a troll.

--
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
Re:Another article... by Dr.+Smeegee · 2003-09-23 01:55 · Score: 1

I have lamented that point myself. That car would be attractive if they had only continued the arc of the roof line with glass to form a little hatchback.

Which is not to say I am unimpressed! Heck of a cool car.

Wow, under $100! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 12:47 · Score: 0

Check it out! The 6800 laptop battery!

Re:Wow, under $100! by infonick · 2003-09-19 14:04 · Score: 1

oh ya. get the usb adapter and have a usb-powered car that can do 60mph in under 4 seconds.

anyone know where i can get a (*does some math*) an 80 meter usb extention? that way i can run this baby up and down my street for a total of 60 seconds each way!

--

You are confusing me with someone who cares.

If i had that many spares... by segment · 2003-09-19 12:48 · Score: 0, Troll

I would just sell them all and get a car I don't have to build... What do you figure 6800 x 100.00 a battery... Can you say McLarenF1? $10 a battery (10x6800)... thats a Porsche. Some people have too much time on their hands like me

--
MoFscker

Re:If i had that many spares... by molarmass192 · 2003-09-19 13:00 · Score: 2, Informative

Insane as it is, McLaren F1s go for a over $1M at auction, $680,000 ain't gonna cut it. However, you can get a not too shabby Saleen S7 that easily does over 200MPH (top speed not listed) for that kinda dough!

--

Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
Re:If i had that many spares... by afidel · 2003-09-19 13:11 · Score: 1

Or for only $150K you could get a Hennessey Venom 600 which can do 0-60 in 3.7 and has a top speed of 205mph.

--
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Re:If i had that many spares... by onomatomania · 2003-09-19 13:46 · Score: 1

The Bugatti Veyron 16/4 has got both of those beat for acceleration, and it's a steal at 750,000 Euros. (It's estimated to hit 0-60 in 3.0 seconds or less.)
Re:If i had that many spares... by afidel · 2003-09-19 13:57 · Score: 1

I was just giving something with matching performance, the newer 800TT model recorded a 2.405 0-60 with one of the Road and Track editors at the wheel on a slightly wet track! And it's only slightly more expensive at $177K =)

--
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.

100% of torque at 0 rpm. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 12:48 · Score: 5, Funny

Good engine good.

Here's another article with picture . very nice. by zymano · 2003-09-19 12:49 · Score: 5, Informative

Electric Tzero

January 29, 2000 -- AC Propulsion' s tzero out-accelerated a Ferrari F355, a new Corvette, and a Porsche Carrera 4 in a series of impromptu 1/8 mile drag races held last weekend at Moffett Field in Mountain View, California, and at Calstart' s northern facility at the former Alameda Naval Air Station. The tzero was driven to the Bay Area from southern California last week. That journey spanned more than the geographic distance between those two areas, it spanned two cultures as well. Hot rodding, coming from the garages of Los Angeles, and high tech, growing from a garage in Palo Alto, are combined in the tzero.

The tzero is a silicon hot rod. It starts with the hot rodder's holy grail, horsepower - 200 of them. But the tzero harnesses the power with 120 IGBTs, equal to 7200 square millimeters of silicon-based control. The result is acceleration to 60 mph in 4.1 seconds, efficiency equivalent to 70 mpg, and emissions equal to zero. The tzero is an electric car.

The trip to Silicon Valley was planned to demonstrate the tzero to entrepreneurs and investors interested in the concept of a high-performance, environmentally-sensible, silicon-intensive automobile. As word of the tzero visit spread, the planned demonstrations took on an edge when a Ferrari-owner challenged the tzero to a race.

The race became reality when both Moffett Field and Calstart made their facilities available for the politically correct contest of speed. Saturday, January 22 dawned bright and sunny and an eager group of exotic car owners, high-tech gurus, venture capital investors and electric car enthusiasts gathered along the 4000-foot north taxiway at Moffett Field. Cones were set to mark the start and finish lines, and the tzero, with AC Propulsion vice-president Alec Brooks at the wheel, pulled up to the start line and sat silently. The Ferrari made glorious sounds as Rick Schick, a race car driver assigned to drive the Ferrari for the event paced the high-strung Italian thoroughbred up and down the track, warming its complex internals with nervous blips of the throttle and heating the tires with sudden burnouts. Finally the race was on. Immediately the crowd saw what it had not expected to see. The tzero leapt ahead at the start. The Ferrari' s 32-valve, 4-cam V8 engine screamed its delicious song in vain effort against the mute power of the tzero' s 120-IGBT-fed 3-phase induction motor. The spectators gasped at the sight of the tzero driving away from the automotive icon from Modena. At the end it was tzero by eight car lengths.

A Corvette C5, the newest example of American V8 muscle from Chevrolet stepped up to defend the honor of combustion power. Considered opinion had the Corvette, with its large displacement, high torque V8, putting up a good fight in the short 1/8 mile sprint. But against the tzero, the result was the same, proving in equally convincing fashion that American brawn fares no better than European sophistication against the tzero' s combination of light weight, high-current lead-acid batteries, and electric propulsion.

More races were run.

Different drivers wheeled the tzero. The result stayed the same. A Miata driver, unfamiliar with high power levels, got into the tzero and immediately blew away the Ferrari. She wants a tzero now. The Ferrari owner took a turn and was astounded by the continuous surge of smooth power. A newspaper reporter who arrived in an Escort allowed himself to be talked into driving the tzero and he beat the Ferrari. An investor from Sweden, after one victorious run in the tzero decided make a second run when challenged by his friend and investing partner who was proudly driving a brand new Porsche Carrera Cabriolet. By now everyone was surprised when the tzero lagged behind. Was the tzero battery dead? Was it collusion between two friends? Neither actually. The tzero inadvertently ran the whole race with its hand brake on, and the Porsche won by seven car lengths.

Yes but? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 12:49 · Score: 0, Insightful

Does this kind of technology be used for something else than useless short bust? Electric engines for cars are going nowhere with this kind of experiment. It's like 8000hp Funny Car Drag Racers, completely useless for daily driving technology.

Re:Yes but? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 13:52 · Score: 0

It has a range of 300 miles at 60MPH, fuckwit. That's certianly not what I'd call a short burst.

Except for it's rediclious price, it would fufil the daily driving needs for 99.9% of the drivers in the world.

80 mph in a Delorian by atomic-penguin · 2003-09-19 12:49 · Score: 1, Funny

But if you went 80 mph you would travel back in time. Unless your flux capacitor was broken then you might travel into the future.

--
/^([Ss]ame [Bb]at (time, |channel.)){2}$/

Shortest post on /.? by atrus · 2003-09-19 12:49 · Score: 0

Does this qualify as the shortest story on /.? It does sound like a very expensive sports car, at over $100 per battery pack...

(Excuse the offtopicness, but I don't feel like registering so I can read the story. Google News doesn't seem to carry it yet either.)

Re:Shortest post on /.? by flikx · 2003-09-19 15:19 · Score: 0, Offtopic

You register an account on slashdot, but you can't do the same for the New York Times? (A much more reputable organization than slashdot no less!)

--
One future, two choices. Oppose them or let them destroy us.

Laptop batteries aren't that reliable.... by puppetman · 2003-09-19 12:50 · Score: 5, Insightful

We have 12 laptops in the office, and in 3 years, all the batteries but one have died (they're Dells, and the Dell warranty doesn't cover the battery); and they aren't cheap to replace.

To replace all 6800 batteries every 2-4 years would be an expensive proposition (unless they can come up with a more reliable battery).

Re:Laptop batteries aren't that reliable.... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 14:08 · Score: 0

Are you fockin kiddn me?

Da damn car is like $220,000.00.

You're worried about da damned battries? Gaddowdahere.

fockin colleg students. no fockin brains.
Re:Laptop batteries aren't that reliable.... by Arcturax · 2003-09-19 16:02 · Score: 1

Well obviously they hope to get investers interested so that a single battery pack is built instead of 6800 laptop batteries. The pack may last a lot longer as well.

--

--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
Re:Laptop batteries aren't that reliable.... by aliens · 2003-09-19 16:08 · Score: 1

Have you been using them while plugged into an outlet without taking out the battery? I've seen more people kill their batteries by doing that than I can count.

User - "My battery lasts 20minutes!"

Me - "Have you been removing the battery before docking it?"

User - "Whhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaa?"

Me - *sigh* "Fill out this expense report"

--
-- taking over the world, we are.
Re:Laptop batteries aren't that reliable.... by Dun+Malg · 2003-09-19 17:29 · Score: 1

Have you been using them while plugged into an outlet without taking out the battery? I've seen more people kill their batteries by doing that than I can count.
If you take the battery out every time you plug the laptop into the wall, how is it supposed to recharge. Seems like YOUR way gives me one use of the battry and that's all.

--
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Re:Laptop batteries aren't that reliable.... by leshert · 2003-09-20 13:06 · Score: 1

Read that again:

Have you been using them while plugged into an outlet without taking out the battery??

The OP is claiming that actually using the laptop while you have both a battery in, and the AC adapter plugged in, drains the battery. Still not sure I believe this--I've never seen a recommendation against it before, but it's at least possible he's correct.
Re:Laptop batteries aren't that reliable.... by aliens · 2003-09-22 10:33 · Score: 1

It doesn't take 8-10(more) hours to charge a battery. Doing this day in and day out will kill the battery's life. It's this that ruins the battery. Leaving it in for 2 hours is fine while using is fine.

--
-- taking over the world, we are.

Jiga who? by niko9 · 2003-09-19 12:51 · Score: 1

Would that be roughly about 1.2 Jigawatts?

Re:Jiga who? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 13:15 · Score: 0

1.21 jigawatts actually. :)
Re:Jiga who? by boolean0 · 2003-09-19 14:05 · Score: 1

jiga watt?
Re:Jiga who? by dmorelli · 2003-09-19 14:57 · Score: 1

You knuckleheads.
It was 1.21 gigawatts.

RTFA by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 12:52 · Score: 3, Informative

At the end of a hard drive, including five scorching zero-to-60 runs, the car had traveled 57 miles and used only 9,900 of the 50,000 watt-hours in its batteries, costing less than the price of two gallons of gasoline.

Re:RTFA by Nuclear+Elephant · 2003-09-19 12:55 · Score: 3, Interesting

So that gives you just over 300 miles a "tank" before you have to stop and recharge...which AFAIK takes significantly longer than pumping gas...unless you were able to do what the first post suggested and harness the power of lightning (or plutonium) to get your 1.21 gigawatts.
Re:RTFA by jgordon7 · 2003-09-19 13:28 · Score: 3, Insightful

Right but do you have a Gas pump in your garage, so that you have a full tank every morning?

Now for long trips yes stopping to refuel is more of a hassle, but for daily commutes and going shopping it works very well.
Re:RTFA by Nuclear+Elephant · 2003-09-19 13:40 · Score: 2, Funny

Of course not, that would be ridiculous. We keep ours in the living room.
Re:RTFA by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 13:46 · Score: 2, Funny

It has a towable gasoline generator. The thing could go forever. Don't even have to check the oil. Except on the generator, of course.
Re:RTFA by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 15:45 · Score: 0

How many miles do YOU drive in a day? 300 miles is a long distance, and I would say a car like this (obviously with a better price) would service a significant portion of the car using world handily.
Re:RTFA by blibbleblobble · 2003-09-19 23:41 · Score: 3, Interesting

"So that gives you just over 300 miles a "tank" before you have to stop and recharge."

At 27 miles per gallon equivalent

We have petrol cars which are more efficient than this, but I don't believe that anything capable of accelerating that fast does 27mpg.
Re:RTFA by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-20 03:08 · Score: 0

That sounds great, but does the "fuel guage" work like my laptop?

100%...90%...80%...5%...Shutting down.

Sorry, but I need to know approximately how far my car can *really* go, without a guage that seems to fall of a cliff about halfway through.
Re:RTFA by Rick.C · 2003-09-20 05:41 · Score: 1

the car had traveled 57 miles ... costing less than the price of two gallons of gasoline
So it costs as much to run as a car that gets 26MPG?
And it's tiny. I would have expected about half of that cost.
Maybe they're using imperial gallons, which is what? 1/12th of a hogshead or something?

--
You were 80% angel, 10% demon. The rest was hard to explain. - Over The Rhine
"Math in a song is good."-Linford
Re:RTFA by jamesjw · 2003-09-20 06:36 · Score: 1

Right but do you have a Gas pump in your garage, so that you have a full tank every morning?
Now for long trips yes stopping to refuel is more of a hassle, but for daily commutes and going shopping it works very well.

This is all good and well until you leave your lights on and your batteries go flat, yer out in the middle of nowhere - you better make sure you have a 110 or 220 volt inverter cause I havent seen too many cars that can jump lead ya with a mains socket built in :)

-- Jim.

--
-- If at first you don't succeed, lie!
Re:RTFA by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-20 16:51 · Score: 0

How many miles do YOU drive in a day?
301.

Re:Electric Car by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 12:52 · Score: 0

Do electric cars dream of electric sheep? Yes, they dream of ewe!

Re:Finally! by kevin_conaway · 2003-09-19 12:53 · Score: 1, Funny

you mean rednecks and those technically savvy? yeah thats a huge group there ;)

Re:Finally! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 12:54 · Score: 3, Funny

Sorry for the troll.

Yay, I love watching 500 laps of people driving in a circle. Woo-hoo. I prefer rallying. If NASCAR cars had passengers, it'd go like this:

"Left. Straight. Left. Straight. Right. NO NO, I WAS KIDDING!"

Yeah, so it's a fast car... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 12:57 · Score: 0

... but four Weber DCNF40s beat 120 Motorola IGBTs where it counts. You may have the faster car, but I'm the guy who gets to drive home in a Ferrari.

not so good news for environment by GISGEOLOGYGEEK · 2003-09-19 12:58 · Score: 1, Interesting

where do you think the hydrogen comes from? What about the oil, coal, natural gas, and nuclear fuel that will have to be consumed to produce the hydrogen?

What about the huge greenhouse gas potential created by the constant release of hydrogen into the atmosphere? - It is notoriously difficult to keep hydrogen bottled up, to the point where it can seep right through metal bottles.

It is the future but it will not be the perfect answer you may think it is.

Recall that in the 1950's nuclear energy was advertised to be not only clean and safe, but as a source of unlimited free energy.

--
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"

Re:not so good news for environment by shepd · 2003-09-19 13:38 · Score: 1, Troll

>What about the huge greenhouse gas potential created by the constant release of hydrogen into the atmosphere?

What the HELL are you talking about?

Saying CO2 is causing greenhouse gasses is bad enough.

Hydrogen? That's just plain old bullshit.

>Recall that in the 1950's nuclear energy was advertised to be not only clean and safe, but as a source of unlimited free energy.

And it still is. Nothing has changed. The nuclear power plants that went loco were poorly managed to the point of insanity.

Find me a CANDU reactor that's a danger, and I'll show you a liar.

BTW: All the world's plutonium output from those CANDU reactors will fit in a few football fields, IIRC. And that's all of it. If it keeps you eco-bullshitters happy, I bet Canada will give you the north pole for it.

--
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
Re:not so good news for environment by Frymaster · 2003-09-19 14:11 · Score: 1

if you think candu is immune to human failure you aren't living in ontario. read this:
http://www.nbenrenb.elements.nb.ca/environews%20fi les/media/mediaarchives/97/sevshuts.htm
my favourite quote:
an internal report concluded that the province's utility company was so badly managed that it had compromised the safety of its entire nuclear power system.
any technology too dangerous to be operated by people is bad tech.

--
2 1337 4 u!
Re:not so good news for environment by shepd · 2003-09-19 14:24 · Score: 1

>an internal report concluded that the province's utility company was so badly managed that it had compromised the safety of its entire nuclear power system.

LOL. You still haven't shown me any evidence it is dangerous.

If a "compromise in safety" results in 0 deaths, and 0 injuries, well, that's a price I'm willing to pay.

In fact, I bet more people have been injured/died finding "clean" alternatives than have been hurt in a CANDU power plant (excluding common office injuries, like stapling one's balls to the desk).

Here's the truth about that shutdown, also from a somewhat-biased source (I guess they cancel each other out?).

The truth is, they are increasing performance:

a phased recovery of "12/16/20" whereby in Phase 1, the utility will focus its resources on resolving the identified issues and improving the performance of the 12 existing units (Bruce B, Pickering B, and Darlington)
build and establish the managerial and technical infrastructure to sustain the expected level of performance

The truth also is, you've eaten media hype and lies up hook, line, and sinker (this time unbiased, notice the quotation marks):

The report, publicly released on August 13, 1997, despite finding that "all of the plants were being operated in a manner that meets defined regulations and accepted standards related to nuclear safety", was highly critical of Ontario Hydro's managerial and operational procedures.

--
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
Re:not so good news for environment by Waffle+Iron · 2003-09-19 14:31 · Score: 1

Find me a CANDU reactor that's a danger, and I'll show you a liar.
Oh, the reactor is probably fine. The danger comes when a suicide terrorist commando squad attacks the spent fuel storage pond.
BTW: All the world's plutonium output from those CANDU reactors will fit in a few football fields, IIRC.
Right. But you forgot to mention that these football fields are going to require a high-tech cooling system 24x7 for the forseeable future so that they don't melt into pools of plutonium-laced magma.
Re:not so good news for environment by GISGEOLOGYGEEK · 2003-09-19 14:35 · Score: 0

Whether or not you believe that greenhouse gases are a problem,

Your ignorant assumptions are showing, Hydrogen is a greenhouse gas:

http://www.ghgonline.org/otherhydrogen.htm

All nuclear reactors produce highly radioactive waste that will remain highly radioactive for thousands of years. The cost of storing the waste will be far more than the benefits of the cheap electricity ... that is if you actually believe nuclear energy is cheap (i'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you do realize it aint free)

Here's some more reading to enlighten you:

http://www.gracelinks.org/nuke/nuclearwaste/

hmmm so its not clean, not safe, risky, and very dangerous.

CANDU reactors are much more safe for sure, since the highly radioactive waste they produce that has to be stored for thousands of years only contains traces of plutonium. Enriched unranium for bombs can still be made from a CANDU. Sprinkle that on your cornflakes.

Now what about the costs of securing nuclear waste against terrorists? dirty bombs anyone?

How do you save a nuclear plant from a 9/11 type attack and still keep the costs of the electricity affordable? A hit by a plane would be the ultimate dirty bomb.

What about the tens of billions it costs to shut down an old nuclear plant? They can only operate for 20 to 30 years before they must close permanently. Well since nuclear energy is free, we'll let you pay for that.

Anything run by humans has the chance of being managed poorly, your ignorance on this subject is an example of how complacency and then disasters happen.

--
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
Re:not so good news for environment by shepd · 2003-09-19 14:41 · Score: 1

>Right. But you forgot to mention that these football fields are going to require a high-tech cooling system 24x7 for the forseeable future so that they don't melt into pools of plutonium-laced magma.

No I didn't. That's not necessary at all.

Why not read up on it?

In fact, immediately upon removal from the reactor core, a used CANDU fuel bundle generates about 10% of the heat that it produced in the core, but this figure drops to about 1% only a day after removal, and less than 0.1% after a year has passed. The average heat generation of a fuel bundle at this point (one year) is about 60 W -- comparable to a household lightbulb.

If "the forseeable future" is 1 year after use, again, we can handle it. After that, well, I suppose the fuel rod _could_ melt a little ice within a few inches of it... But why wouldn't you just encase it in concrete anyways? You don't want that stuff so easy to get at anyways!

>The danger comes when a suicide terrorist commando squad attacks the spent fuel storage pond.

And the same danger comes when a terrorist flies a plane into the bottom of the CN tower.

No sense in worrying about things that aren't preventable. Oh wait, they won't happen here because, in general, the world doesn't hate 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
Re:not so good news for environment by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 14:53 · Score: 0

The danger comes when a suicide terrorist commando squad attacks the spent fuel storage pond.

Like there is no danger of a terrorist flying a Cessna into, say, an oil refinery. Or an oil tank near a large city (Like Across the Hudson from New York City).
Re:not so good news for environment by shepd · 2003-09-19 14:54 · Score: 1

How many times do I have to link this baby? It's so BORING.

>All nuclear reactors produce highly radioactive waste that will remain highly radioactive for thousands of years. The cost of storing the waste will be far more than the benefits of the cheap electricity ... that is if you actually believe nuclear energy is cheap (i'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you do realize it aint free)

WRONG. A dry storage facility costs next to NOTHING to run.

Here's some help.

>hmmm so its not clean, not safe, risky, and very dangerous.

Again, why don't you check out my link? It's just as verified. In fact, if you want some real info, run my link by some scientists. I think they'll agree, your site is scaremongering, end of the world, dogma-type info.

>CANDU reactors are much more safe for sure, since the highly radioactive waste they produce that has to be stored for thousands of years only contains traces of plutonium. Enriched unranium for bombs can still be made from a CANDU. Sprinkle that on your cornflakes.

Yes, and sulphur makes a great bomb also. Should we ban that element?

You aren't making any sense. Thousands of years?

Unshielded, the radiation dose measured at a distance of 30 cm from a used CANDU fuel bundle, one year following discharge, would be about 50 - 60 Sv/h (5000 - 6000 rem/h) [1], which is lethal after a few minutes' exposure. The radiation level drops to about 1 Sv/h after 50 years, 0.3 Sv/h after 100 years, and less than 0.001 Sv/h (100 mrem/h) after 500 years. At this time the major hazard from the used fuel is no longer one of external exposure; for example, by these estimates, spending an hour about a foot away from a 500-year-old CANDU fuel bundle would result in radiation dose about 1/4 of the average annual background exposure

If I were an ant, I'd be worried. But I'm not. I'm a human, and standing a few miles away from unshielded fresh waste is safe RIGHT NOW. In 500 years I can pick it up with my hands. Where's the thousands of years come in???

>How do you save a nuclear plant from a 9/11 type attack and still keep the costs of the electricity affordable? A hit by a plane would be the ultimate dirty bomb.

LOL. Canada has that one locked up. We simply don't get the CSIS to fund and train the terrorists in the first place. Also, we don't provide them with weapons.

Last but not least, we don't piss off the rest of the world.

Pretty simple, really.

>What about the tens of billions it costs to shut down an old nuclear plant?

Dude, that's seriously insane talk. That's Ontario's entire GDP for a few months. You're talking about the impossible, yet we sucessfully shut down Bruce without turning Ontario into a Labour camp.

>Anything run by humans has the chance of being managed poorly, your ignorance on this subject is an example of how complacency and then disasters happen.

You have to be the MOST ignorant person on slashdot on this topic. You REALLY, REALLY, REALLY need to validate those arguments. Especially the claim that shutting down a nuclear power plant would require Ontarians to work for months without even buying food, just for the government to shut down a power plant. I find that difficult to believe, because I live and work there, and my taxes are high, but they aren't _that_ high.

--
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
Re:not so good news for environment by GISGEOLOGYGEEK · 2003-09-19 14:55 · Score: 0

P.S.

Here's a list of how safe reactors are, not counting the many submarine accidents.

http://www.calpoly.edu/~cm/studpage/sleap/Incide nt .htm ... also know that the 'lnsanly managed' three mile island disaster would have been easily prevented but for one single indicator light on a control board that had burnt out!

Insanly good management won't save you from that.

--
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
Re:not so good news for environment by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 14:55 · Score: 0

Right. But you forgot to mention that these football fields are going to require a high-tech cooling system 24x7 for the forseeable future so that they don't melt into pools of plutonium-laced magma.

FUD.
Re:not so good news for environment by jjhlk · 2003-09-19 15:03 · Score: 1

Chemicals bad!
Re:not so good news for environment by GISGEOLOGYGEEK · 2003-09-19 15:26 · Score: 0

Actually I am Canadian, I know we dont train the terrorists, but that doesn't make us immune to terrorism. Think that radiation from an attacked US nuclear plant won't reach you? And recall that in the US there are 103 nuclear plants, none of which use the 'safe' and 'clean' CANDU system. Try shutting down a nuclear plant permanently .. meaning forever at the end of the plant's lifespan, leaving the land habitable, and the waste 'safely' stored. NOT the shut down for refueling, maintenance or for this years xmas party. Here's the projected cost in the U.K. http://www.antenna.nl/wise/394/3840.html $27billion US Now, about those safe storage methods you mentioned. Perhaps a CANDU isnt so bad, recall there are hundreds of facilities around the world that are not CANDU reactors and produce much more dangerous waste. Cost of nuclear waste storage in the US: $58 billion US to store US waste at Yucca mountain nevada, $4 Billion spent on studies already - Yucca Mountain, your dry storage method http://www.enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/05/05092 002/reu_47170.asp Wow, i bet your allowance would more than pay for that. Of course they still don't know if the 7 volcanos in the region will remain quite during the thousands of years needed. But they have at least studied how the waste would be brought to the surface by such an eruption utilizing the natural fissures in the mountain.

--
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
Re:not so good news for environment by GISGEOLOGYGEEK · 2003-09-19 15:29 · Score: 0

Sorry for the poor formatting, it should have looked like this:

Actually I am Canadian, I know we dont train the terrorists, but that doesn't make us immune to terrorism. Think that radiation from an attacked US nuclear plant won't reach you?

And recall that in the US there are 103 nuclear plants, none of which use the 'safe' and 'clean' CANDU system.

Try shutting down a nuclear plant permanently .. meaning forever at the end of the plant's lifespan, leaving the land habitable, and the waste 'safely' stored. NOT the shut down for refueling, maintenance or for this years xmas party.

Here's the projected cost in the U.K. http://www.antenna.nl/wise/394/3840.html

$27billion US

Now, about those safe storage methods you mentioned. Perhaps a CANDU isnt so bad, recall there are hundreds of facilities around the world that are not CANDU reactors and produce much more dangerous waste.

Cost of nuclear waste storage in the US:

$58 billion US to store US waste at Yucca mountain nevada, $4 Billion spent on studies already - Yucca Mountain, your dry storage method

http://www.enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/05/050 92 002/reu_47170.asp

Wow, i bet your allowance would more than pay for that. Of course they still don't know if the 7 volcanos in the region will remain quite during the thousands of years needed. But they have at least studied how the waste would be brought to the surface by such an eruption utilizing the natural fissures in the mountain.

--
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
Re:not so good news for environment by Waffle+Iron · 2003-09-19 15:32 · Score: 1

The average heat generation of a fuel bundle at this point (one year) is about 60 W -- comparable to a household lightbulb.
The article you referenced also said that there are 1 million fuel bundles in Canada. That's 60 megawatts of heat. If you actually stacked that much thermal power into a "hockey rink, 3 meters deep" and properly shielded it, it would indeed melt if not cooled.
I didn't claim that it couldn't be passively cooled, I just pointed out that it would have to be spread out quite a bit more than the highly dense packing you imply when talking about "football fields".
And the same danger comes when a terrorist flies a plane into the bottom of the CN tower.
No, the fallout of a tall building falling is localized to within a few blocks. See recent events.
No sense in worrying about things that aren't preventable.
But it is preventable; just don't build the power plant.
Oh wait, they won't happen here because, in general, the world doesn't hate us. :-)
Maybe nobody in the world hates you now, but will that always be true over the next 50 years? Will your country never have internal strife either?
Re:not so good news for environment by GISGEOLOGYGEEK · 2003-09-19 15:52 · Score: 0

before he answers the strife question ...

what happens when Quebec finally decides to leave Canada, but under force?

what happens when the US runs out of energy or water and some goof even worse the Dubya is in charge and wants our tar sands (more oil there then in Saudi Arabia) or wants our water (search google for the US ideas on damming the full rocky mountain trench in BC to supply them with water)

and, more realisticly, Canada lost some of our all loved status (at least in the middle east) when we helped invade afghanistan. You'll recall our notable mention in one of the Osama recordings.

Try travelling the world a bit, you'll find that outside of Europe or Australia, most people don't know where Canada is (heck even a lot of people in the US don't know) and often assume we are part of the US.

And recall again that attacks on US nuclear plants will affect us too.

--
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
Re:not so good news for environment by Jeremi · 2003-09-19 16:36 · Score: 1

And it still is. Nothing has changed. The nuclear power plants that went loco were poorly managed to the point of insanity.

What's changed is this: now instead of just "insanely poor management", we have people who would deliberately try to use nuclear materials to cause as much damage as possible. That means that nuclear energy can only be used in "trusted/secure" environments, which limits its usefulness quite a bit.

--

I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Re:not so good news for environment by petecarlson · 2003-09-19 20:08 · Score: 1

The fact that there were no injuries or deaths from the result of an accident or incident is mute. In an industry with a statisticaly insignifigant accident rate, such as commercial aviation in the US, you have to look at the maximum potental harm in order to run an effective safety program. An engine failure on the ground and an engine failure on takeoff can be caused by the exact same human error but in one case people die and in the other we replace an engine. If we want to collect any stasticaly signifigant data, we have to treat the incident in the same manner as we treat the accident.
Re:not so good news for environment by guardian-ct · 2003-09-20 04:31 · Score: 1

So, there hasn't been an incident in a modern non-Russian reactor since 1979, and the three mile incident wasn't as much of a disaster as it was an "oops"? 24 years incident free seems safe to me.

BTW, whoever wrote that page misspelled Kiev. ~cm stands for Construction Management, which is something CalPoly teaches. No information on whether any part of the larger presentation of which "Incident.htm" is just a part was ever meant to be published, or even reviewed by anyone.

It appears to me that this list was part of a student presentation. Why are you using an ungraded student presentation as if it were an authoritative source of information?
Re:not so good news for environment by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-20 05:14 · Score: 0

Actually you *are* part of the US, culturally speaking. You just don't like to admit it. I've lived in both countries. Canada is almost identical to the US except that it's harder to buy stuff, and colder. The Quebecois pretentions to "French-ness" is even more laughable. They speak French with an American accent, but still call it French. At least the French laugh at them.
Re:not so good news for environment by GISGEOLOGYGEEK · 2003-09-20 07:22 · Score: 1

You see, that would be the typical american assessment since you wouldnt take the time to see the truth. Here in Canada, we love the money you drop here as tourists but wow you are some the rudest, most arrogant people around when you are visiting someone else's country! Sure there are many similarities, but many differences too. For example Canada knew the instability and trouble and murder that would be caused by attacking Iraq under false pretense. Yes Hussein was a dictator that needed to be taken out of power, but at least they had stability. Today hundreds of women are being kidnapped and raped because there is no real threat of arrest. Canada didnt believe the lies about WMD's, and connections to 9/11 (to which Dubya admitted the other day that there is no connection). We wanted Hussein out of power, but for the right reasons, which would not have just made us another enemy in the world. You know, like the way we helped make South Africa free and are working on the same in Zimbabwe. Now who is it that can't handle the mess they made in Iraq and is asking for UN help .. for whom they didnt have the time of day before the war?

--
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
Re:not so good news for environment by shepd · 2003-09-20 20:55 · Score: 1

>The fact that there were no injuries or deaths from the result of an accident or incident is mute.

Well, it's moot, but I'm not going to argue grammar, because that's lame. :-)

Anyways, if you want to hit my car, never hurt me, and pay to fix it all the time, you can come over and do that anytime. I won't even phone the cops. Why?

In my opinion, no harm, no foul.

>In an industry with a statisticaly insignifigant accident rate, such as commercial aviation in the US, you have to look at the maximum potental harm in order to run an effective safety program. An engine failure on the ground and an engine failure on takeoff can be caused by the exact same human error but in one case people die and in the other we replace an engine.

Yeah, well, like I've said, I'm not interested in doomsday scenarios. If I was, I wouldn't care too much about nukes considering an asteroid is gonna kill us all in no time flat.

--
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

Girlfriend's car is still faster... by Dr_Auknix · 2003-09-19 12:59 · Score: 1

Running 11.1 seconds @ 128mph in the 1/4 mile from a tiny 306 smallblock ford, I don't see how this car is impressive. Furthermore, as of a couple years ago the quickest Electric powered car ran 8's in the 1/4. What do the torque and horsepower curves look like for an electric motor ? Flat torque curve ? RPM limitations ?

Re:Girlfriend's car is still faster... by maydog · 2003-09-19 13:17 · Score: 1

An electric motor can maintain maximum torque throughout its entire RPM range and many can rev up past 10,000RPM - thats why they can have incredible acceleration.
Re:Girlfriend's car is still faster... by zakezuke · 2003-09-19 13:18 · Score: 2, Informative

What do the torque and horsepower curves look like for an electric motor ? Flat torque curve ? RPM limitations ?

http://www.autospeed.com.au/cms/article.html?&A= 09 41&P=4

Motor type AC Induction w/copper rotor bars, 4 poles
Peak torque 246nm (181 ft-lb)
Peak power (at 326V DC input) 177kW (237hp)
Base speed at 330V 5,000 rpm
Maximum speed 12,000 rpm
Peak current 687 A rms
Mass, include plenum and blower 50 kg
Dimensions (less fins, termination, plenum) 213mm dia by 257 mm long
Dimensions of motor incl cooling plenum 305mm dia by 305 mm long
Maximum winding temperature 180 deg C

http://www.acpropulsion.com/tzero_pages/tzero_FA Qs .htm

What is the range of the tzero? -100miles possible
How can the tzero be so fast with 'only' 200 hp? - power to weight ratio + no gears
midrange acceleration - 30 to 50 mph 1.4
Does the tzero have air conditioning? - side windows off and the wind in your hair
How long does the battery pack last? What does it cost to replace? - two to three years, or 15,000 to 20,000 miles $3,000 from Optima

--
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
Re:Girlfriend's car is still faster... by SaDan · 2003-09-19 13:22 · Score: 1

Most electric motors generate a completely flat torque curve (max torque at all times). RPMs are not a limitation, but a design consideration (what RPM would you like your motor to run?).

Electric cars are pretty sweet, but the logistics of keeping them charged just haven't been worked out yet. Hybrid cars are going to have to suffice for now.

And I'd still take the Corvette over that electric car.
Re:Girlfriend's car is still faster... by mabhatter654 · 2003-09-19 13:24 · Score: 1

Electric motors have considerably lower rotational inertia..just motor, gearbox, wheel no crankcase, flywheels, transmision, or axles. Electric motors also have most of their torque at stall speed which ramps up to full at about half the rated amps. In reality, there wouldn't be any doubt about electrics at all if you could just get a decent battery. After all, carrying aroung 500-1200 LBS of extra batteries has pretty much shot electric cars in the foot as far as performance!
Re:Girlfriend's car is still faster... by Usquebaugh · 2003-09-19 13:34 · Score: 1

Tiny 306, yeah right. Tiny is sub 1,000cc.
Re:Girlfriend's car is still faster... by Dr_Auknix · 2003-09-19 13:39 · Score: 1

It stands to reason then that your power curve is going to raise at probably a 45 degree angle until your rotating mechanisms fail, Of course heat and frictional losses will built up so in reality it wouldn't look quite like this would it. 1 ft/lb @ 100rpm is generating exactly 1/2 the horsepower that 1 ft/;b @ 200rpm would.
Re:Girlfriend's car is still faster... by eatdave13 · 2003-09-19 13:40 · Score: 2, Insightful

If you mean like this:

..|..../ ..|.../ H.|../ P.|./ ..|/____ ....RP M

Then no.

If you mean like this:

..| ..|------- H.| P.| ..|_______ .....RPM

Then yes.

This car is a 1-speed with a top speed of 100MPH, so RPM limitations aren't really a worry. With a transmission, top speed could probably hit 200 pretty easy.

Oh, by the way, the lameness filter sucks a big fat wang. I really don't like it at all. Jesus, how many characters per line does this post need to have? What a stupid filter. Oh, and what use is a code tag if you can't put whitespace in it? Oh, and you also have a bug in it. There's no space between RP and M in the first graph.

--
"Verbing weirds language." -- Calvin
Re:Girlfriend's car is still faster... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 13:42 · Score: 0

Hey, by american v8 standards, 306 is a tiny engine.

a 1,000cc engine would be a motorcycle engine. The smallest engine I know of in 4cyl for a car is 1200cc.
Re:Girlfriend's car is still faster... by AceM2 · 2003-09-19 14:18 · Score: 1

306 cubic inches is ~5,012cc I believe.. Since when do americans measure car engines in CCs anyway ;p
Re:Girlfriend's car is still faster... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 14:54 · Score: 0

Now, that's a good point.

Check the NEDRA web site for the National Electric Drag Racing official World Records for EV Drag Racing. Notice the tzero isn't listed.

http://nedra.com/

- David
Re:Girlfriend's car is still faster... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 16:05 · Score: 0

What does your girlfriend drive, a honda civic? My custom WRX does 9.2 seconds in the 1/4 mile from an even tinyer 2 litre 4 cylinder (albeit with a nicer garret bolted on).

Anyway the comparison is exactly the point. Your girlfriends car would have been blown away by the TZero and it would still have gotten 70mpg while your ford smallblock would need to drive to the next gas station to fill up.
Re:Girlfriend's car is still faster... by Usquebaugh · 2003-09-20 07:17 · Score: 1

Bollocks.

I drive a Dodge Ram 5.9 V8 306 is like 5.0 L Even in the US 5.0L is not a tiny engine.

The smallest mini had an 850cc. I'm sure the Geo Metro is sub 1litre as well.
Re:Girlfriend's car is still faster... by Dr_Auknix · 2003-09-28 11:30 · Score: 1

Not compared to your average NHRA motors (pick any class) It's less than 1/2 the size of pro-stock mountain motors.
Re:Girlfriend's car is still faster... by Dr_Auknix · 2003-09-28 11:36 · Score: 1

Girlfriend's car gets around 26mpg. Not too bad for a Relic carburator. The t-zero would not run close to low 11's. Beating a porsche by a few carlengths puts the car into the higher 12's with a good driver. Also it would be foolish to believe your 9.2 second penis implant should even be believed considering you posted anonymously. The quickest STREET Subaru was bored out to 2.5 Litres.

That would cost you HOW much? by JessLeah · 2003-09-19 12:59 · Score: 0, Interesting

Even the "cheap" laptop batteries sold on eBay go for around $50 per. (This is assuming that you need (new or new-ish) batteries that will actually hold a charge.) Factor in $10 per for shipping and "handling" (read: "extra profit" for the seller) and that's $60 * 6800 == $408,000.

Oy, what a deal! ;)

--
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin

Re:That would cost you HOW much? by Patrick · 2003-09-19 14:00 · Score: 2, Informative

and that's $60 * 6800 == $408,000.
RTFA. The entire car retails for $220K, and presumably some of that goes into buying the ugly body, paying for all that R&D, and so on.
They claim the battery has 50,000 Wh. My Dell battery has 66 Wh, so it would only take 758 such batteries (about $80K before any discounts) to power the tzero. Maybe the 6800 batteries figure actually refers to individual cells?
If nothing else, they must see some sort of economies of scale. Those 6800 batteries (or cells) don't all need casing, status LEDs, individual charging circuitry, and so on.
Still a little pricy to maintain when all that lithium dies after a year or two!
Re:That would cost you HOW much? by zlexiss · 2003-09-20 13:36 · Score: 1

"They claim the battery has 50,000 Wh. My Dell battery has 66 Wh, so it would only take 758 such batteries (about $80K before any discounts) to power the tzero. Maybe the 6800 batteries figure actually refers to individual cells?"

They're hooking up sets of the batteries in series to increase voltage. In series, the Wh don't add, they stay the same. So, maybe they're hooking up 8 sets of 850 batteries to get 50 kWh @ 12V each = 96V total pack voltage.
Re:That would cost you HOW much? by Second+Vampyre · 2003-09-21 22:48 · Score: 0

FYI. The operator == is a comparison operator, not assignment as you seem to think. Read "==" as "compared to" and "=" as (shockingly) "equals". And why not just go all out and write your entire post in a programming language? Oh, that would be stupid? OK.

1/4 mile performance? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 13:02 · Score: 1, Insightful

What is the 1/4 mile time and trap speed for this car? The article neglects to provide this info, stating only that the electric car will perform better than a few high priced sports cars. Most car enthusiasts could car less about 0-60 times. The 1/4 mile times are a better measure of a car's straight-line performance.

I find it difficult to believe that this car could actually outperform many sports cars in the 1/4, considering that the car's top speed is only about 100 mph. Even a completely stock Dodge Neon SRT4 (about $20,000) will trap over 100 mph in the 1/4. A chipped VW GTI 1.8T (also about $20,000) will perform about as well.

Re:1/4 mile performance? by littlerubberfeet · 2003-09-19 14:33 · Score: 1

hmmm.The GTI 1.8T is quite a bit over 20,000. The one I drove priced at 35,000...But the owner dropped the back end by 2.5 inches and chipped it. It was a nice car, especially with the 6 speed manual tranny. This AC is right...It is easy to outdo most electric cars with a low-polluting 4 banger. Especially considering how much pollution is produced by the manufacture of 6800 laptop batteries. To set everyone straight, 6800 laptop batteries are NOT shoved in that car. They are probably using large cylindrical lithium-ion cells measuring 4 inches in diameter by 8 inches long per battery. I saw them on some industrial site. UPS uses something similar in their backup power supplies. Laptop batteries are expensive bc you are paying for the plastic, some circuitry, the brand name, and 4 shiny contact points. Industrial cells are relativly dirt cheap.

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Re:1/4 mile performance? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 16:30 · Score: 0

Most car enthusiasts could car less about 0-60 times.

This is just whiner BS from a guy who drives a Ford Escort with a fart exhaust and a whale tail wing on the back. The proof is at the stoplight drags, where that little electric bugger will bury all takers. There's no way you're going to get a full quarter mile at the stoplight. This thing has street cred, which you so desperately lack.
Re:1/4 mile performance? by Soulslayer · 2003-09-20 00:47 · Score: 1

The 60ft times on most electric cars (particularly the Series DC motor based ones) compeletly annihilate the gas cars. The electric gets up to top speed faster, but tends to wind up at a slower overall speed than the gas cars (right now anyway) meaning that the gas car catches up in the latter portion of the quarter mile. The current EV 1/4 record is an electric dragster in 8.801 seconds at 137.65 mph.

For a complete listing of EV record holders see the following list:

NEDRA Records

The T-Zero tops out at 100mph because it is a single speed vehicle. At 100mph the motor is spinning close to its RPM failure limit.

--

Once more unto the breach dear friends...

I hope the brakes work better than in the novel by jerryasher · 2003-09-19 13:02 · Score: 0, Offtopic

For the crew of the Leonora Christine, travelling close to the speed of light on a 30-light-year journey, subjective time slows down. Then buffeting by an interstellar dust cloud damages the ship's deceleration system and it achieves light speed, tau zero itself.

WARNING: Spoilers below

Go faster!

TZero by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 13:04 · Score: 0

Wow, I was waiting for a sports EV to come out, better yet, a Japanese sports EV (low maintaince & high perfromance). I am sicked of Bush's evil Petrolum ass-kissing economy policies. TZero, good try, but, sorry, a regretable styling, no one will drive a ugly sports car. new Prius( ) is better...

Batteries by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 13:06 · Score: 0

For everyone that thinks the batteries will be too expensive, they say you can get a new set for $3,000. That isn't that bad. Plus, it also says that they last "15,000 to 20,000 miles", which sounds pretty good to me.

http://www.acpropulsion.com/tzero_pages/tzero_FAQs .htm

Re:Batteries by RedWizzard · 2003-09-19 13:45 · Score: 1

That's for the older (and heavier and slower) lead acid batteries.
Re:Batteries by BigFootApe · 2003-09-19 14:01 · Score: 1

they last "15,000 to 20,000 miles", which sounds pretty good to me.

No, that sucks. Your tires will probably last longer (and be cheaper too).

One question answered, another created by Atario · 2003-09-19 13:07 · Score: 1

Answered: So that's why the price of laptop batteries spiked!

Created: Is it pronounced "tee zero" or "t'serro"?

--
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt

Re:One question answered, another created by DaChesserCat · 2003-09-20 08:49 · Score: 2, Informative

First off, the batteries are not "laptop" batteries per se. They are 18650 lithium ion cells, like these. While this ad shows them as "3.7 volts" and "1300-1400 mAh," the nominal voltage is considered 3.6 volts; let's split the difference and call them 1350 mAh. That means (3.6v x 1.350 Ah = ) 4.86 Wh / battery. A two-pack is $12.99, which mean ($12.99 / 9.72 Wh = ) $1.34 / Wh. At that rate, 50 kWh (which the article states is the car's capacity) costs about $67,000.

Their tZero gets at least 5 miles / kWh (according to other sources), which means at least 250 miles / charge (the EV1 got closer to 6 miles / kWh).

Note: many laptop battery packs (especially the third-party, aftermarket ones) are simply plastic enclosures with these replacement Li-Ion batteries in them. Hence the comment about "laptop batteries."

Still too pricey for making my own Battery Electric Vehicle (the batteries alone are more than I spent on my last three cars, combined), but we're DEFINITELY getting there. A year ago, the best deal I could find was over $11 / Wh.

If you've got RealPlayer installed on your machine, EVWorld.com has an interview with one of the car's builders, providing some more technical detail.

--
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1/8 mile? by omeomi · 2003-09-19 13:08 · Score: 2, Informative

Anybody else notice that the races were 1/8 mile, instead of the normal 1/4 mile? Fast to accelerate, but low top speeds? And aren't most Ferrarri's V10s, not V8s?

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Re:1/8 mile? by gmhowell · 2003-09-19 13:14 · Score: 2, Informative

The car is a fucking joke. Thanks for pointing out that we are talking about 1/8 drags, which are going to strongly favor the car that can't top 100 mph, and that makes peak torque at 0 rpm. Guess what care those two points describe?

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Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Re:1/8 mile? by m00by · 2003-09-19 13:23 · Score: 1

I thought they were usually v-12's (ferrari) =D
Re:1/8 mile? by omeomi · 2003-09-19 13:31 · Score: 1

Ah, sorry...that's what I meant. The Dodge Viper is a V10...Ferrari and Lamborghini make V12s...And Volkswagen is coming out with a V16 under the Bugatti name :-)

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ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
Re:1/8 mile? by eatdave13 · 2003-09-19 13:42 · Score: 1

Meh, make it a 2 speed instead of a 1 speed and it'll smoke the 1/4 too.

--
"Verbing weirds language." -- Calvin
Re:1/8 mile? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 13:59 · Score: 0

>>The car is a fucking joke

Yeah, because trying to build an alternative that doesn't burn oil is such a horrible idea.
Re:1/8 mile? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 14:19 · Score: 0

the bugatti veyron will be a W16, not a V16...
Re:1/8 mile? by gmhowell · 2003-09-19 14:21 · Score: 1

Perhaps. But there's also the weight and parasitic drag to factor in at that point. One of the reasons this car is so 'quick' is that it is lightweight. 200hp just isn't that much. Throwing a couple hundred pounds of transmission into the mix is going to drop times. Sure, top end might be higher, but what's the 60 ft time going to be like?

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Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Re:1/8 mile? by gmhowell · 2003-09-19 14:30 · Score: 1

Yeah, because trying to build an alternative that doesn't burn oil is such a horrible idea.

That's right, because there was absolutely zero oil (or coal) burned to charge up those batteries. The car is a little toy. What does it add to the equation that the Honda Insight doesn't do better?

IHBT, IHL, HAND.

--
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Re:1/8 mile? by littlerubberfeet · 2003-09-19 14:37 · Score: 1

Yes, most ferarris are V12 EFI cars. The Enzo is. However, the Modina, Ferarri's cheaper class racer (spelling, sorry) and the 335 and some others are V8s.

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Re:1/8 mile? by omeomi · 2003-09-19 16:18 · Score: 1

I guess my point was that they're trying to prove that it's faster than a ferrari and a corvette, but if it's a V8, they certainly didn't choose the fastest ferrari out there...and I don't think they even mentioned which corvette it was.

I guess it's cool that they've built a car that's more expensive than a ferrari, looks dumber, but accellerates faster in 1/8 mile increments, but it seems like a bit of a lost cause to try and prove that electric cars are every bit as powerfull as gas ones...batteries are just too expensive, and while you can get a lot of torque from a DC motor, they just fall short.

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ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
Re:1/8 mile? by omeomi · 2003-09-19 16:24 · Score: 1

Ah, sorry...I guess that makes sense for much the same reason that you don't see many inline 8s...

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ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
Re:1/8 mile? by littlerubberfeet · 2003-09-19 16:53 · Score: 1

Amen to that

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Re:1/8 mile? by FredFnord · 2003-09-19 16:53 · Score: 1

They called 'em 'straight eights', and yes, there were some, shall we say, problems with evenness of cooling.

-fred

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Re:1/8 mile? by f00duvoodu · 2003-09-19 17:08 · Score: 2, Informative

The ferrari 355 is the cheap ferrari model. Its a v8 meant for those who dont have the money or dont want to spend it on the better ferrari's. The 355 is a $150,000 model. While its stats dont seem to bad to the eye
1/4 mile - 13.0 @ 109mph
Max. Speed - 183 mph
0-60 mph - 4.6 sec
0-100 mph - 11.3 sec
Engine Type - V8 mid mounted
Displacement - 3496 cc
Horsepower - 380 bhp @ 8250 rpm
Torque - 268 lb-ft @ 6000 rpm

the main thing with the 355 is it corners thats what its better at helps with a mid-engine layout

now lets look at more pricey but better model ferrari f50 GT price for this baby $1,430,000 id say a bit more expensive.
1/4 mile - 11.2 sec @ 129 mph
Max. Speed - 236 mph
0-60 mph - 3.3 sec
0-100 mph - 6.7 sec
Engine Type - V12
Displacement - 4700 cc
Horsepower - 680 bhp @ 10500 rpm
Torque - 383 lb-ft @ 8000 rpm

one thing though with the f50 GT only three were made so... lets look at something different but dang this is a nice ferrari(besides that price ouch)

instead of just picking another f50 i decided for something at a lower price so heres the ferrari 360 GT at a price of $389,500
1/4 mile - 12.0 sec @ 115 mph
Max. Speed - 180 mph
0-60 mph - 3.5 sec
0-100 mph - 8.9 sec
Engine Type - V8
Displacement - 3586 cc
Horsepower - 430 bhp @ 8500 rpm
Torque - 289 lb-ft @ 5000 rpm

now when you start going against some better ferraris that electric car dont do so good... basically they got lucky that a better model wasnt there...
Re:1/8 mile? by eatdave13 · 2003-09-19 22:21 · Score: 1

You've got somewhat of a point there, but then again, it doesn't have to be a couple hundred pounds of transmission.

Then again, we're talking about an electric motor here. You can do away with a lot of the parts in a normal transmission. Plus, you could make it a 3 speed and give it even more power right off the line.

--
"Verbing weirds language." -- Calvin
Re:1/8 mile? by Soulslayer · 2003-09-20 00:23 · Score: 1

If you want to see 1/4 mile electric beasts go visit the National Electric Drag Racing Association.

BTW The NEDRA rules have been officially incorporated into the NHRA's rulebook and electric cars can set records at any NHRA sanctioned track/event.

Of course video speaks louder than words (please don't attack me for the format types, I didn't make the dang things):

DC Electric Mazda RX-7 conversion beats a Viper RT/10

VIper just barely beats a home brew 1972 Datsun 1200 EV conversion

Various drag races. Some EV vs EV some EV vs ICE. The black electric dragster (near lane) vs white suped up gas pony car (far lane) about 1/5 of the way through the video is rather amusing. I'm sure the driver of the gas car was not pleased at getting beaten so thoroughly.

--

Once more unto the breach dear friends...
Re:1/8 mile? by omeomi · 2003-09-20 00:39 · Score: 1

basically they got lucky that a better model wasnt there... Somehow I'm doubting it was luck...

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ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
Re:1/8 mile? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-20 04:54 · Score: 0

Less fuel is used to charge the car than burned by an equivalent ICE. But you conveniently ignored that.

BTW, you haven't been trolled. You're just ignorant.
Re:1/8 mile? by m00by · 2003-09-22 15:08 · Score: 1

actually, the VW is a W16 :) like two V8's side by side, smushed together :) those germans, what will they think of next =D

wow... by voxlobster · 2003-09-19 13:08 · Score: 1

and people wonder why electric cars aren't feasible.

New Limited Edition Scotty Model by tds67 · 2003-09-19 13:08 · Score: 5, Funny

However, with the single-gear Tzero's engine limited to just over 100 m.p.h. at 13,300 r.p.m.'s, it will never win an oval-track race against those supercars.

Unless of course you purchase the Scotty model, which comes with a guy in a red shirt (who surprisingly doesn't die) who rides shotgun, takes requests/orders from the driver to improve performance, whines about how the (di)lithium crystal batteries won't take the stress, then after a few tense seconds gets the car going 30 m.p.h. faster than it's rated to go.

Re:New Limited Edition Scotty Model by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-20 00:04 · Score: 0

OMG!!! LOL!! This is teh funny! A Star Trek reference was so appropriate here.
...what's that? oh man, my mom needs her feet filed smooth again, you know what I'm talking about. Peace.

so? by gmhowell · 2003-09-19 13:10 · Score: 3, Insightful

Okay, so it can hang with Lambo's and Ferrari's. Can it handle something really quick? And before you nabobs twitter about safety, I notice that the Tzero doesn't meat crash specs either. And if you crash the bike, it won't leave you drenched in acid (yeah, yeah, Lithium Ion gel, whatever). Did I mention that you can buy about 20 of them for the price of the Tzero? The bike will also go 80 mph faster than the electric car. And you can fill it in less than 9 hours (3 at a 220 station:)

Nifty toy.

--
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon

Re:so? by afidel · 2003-09-19 13:31 · Score: 1

Hmm, Hennessey Venom 800TT is a CAR that is considerably faster accelerating (0-60 in 2.4) and faster (top speed of 230mph) then that bike. Of course the motorcycle is a bit cheaper (Full package including donor Viper GT-R is $177K). And in an accident I can guarentee you I would MUCH rather be in the Venom than on the bike =)

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Re:so? by buffer-overflowed · 2003-09-19 13:36 · Score: 1

That's a commercially available bike, not custom, not limited run, not luxury expensive. They could make them faster but they don't, too many newbies buying them and killing themselves. Buy $177K of custom motorcycle and see how fast you can go. George should be able to go into that more.

--
The key to the enjoyment of pop music is to replace any instance of "love" with "C.H.U.D."
Re:so? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 13:52 · Score: 0

meat crash?
Re:so? by gmhowell · 2003-09-19 14:13 · Score: 1

Cycle World recently tested a bike put together by some nuts who got hold of a surplus Alison jet engine:)

I had completely forgotten about the warranty when mentioning the bike.

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Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Re:so? by gmhowell · 2003-09-19 14:17 · Score: 1

My mistake, not Alison. GE?? Rolls??

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Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Re:so? by Blethrow · 2003-09-19 14:18 · Score: 1

That really depends on the type of crash, and the relative protective gear employed. Superbike racers regularly go down at triple digit speeds, skitter across the asphalt for a couple hundred feet, and hop right up only bruised and maybe a little friction burned. On the other hand, Joe squidboy wearing no gear and dropping his brand new GSXR750 when he panics entering a turn may loose much of his skin.

If you are properly prepared to ride your bike, many of the hazards are significantly reduced and the major one left is sudden deceleration, which would cause you to have a very bad day in a car as well.

Of course in everyday riding, the biggest danger faced by bikes is oblivious car drivers. Death to SUV-driving, cell-phone-talking soccer moms.
Re:so? by afidel · 2003-09-19 14:25 · Score: 1

Death to SUV-driving, cell-phone-talking soccer moms.

Snarfed for Usenet sig =)

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There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Re:so? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 14:28 · Score: 0

Wow, that *was* quick! www.hayabusa.org shows up as a solid black page and loads in about a tenth of a second. Must be the lightning-fast ActiveX-only crap.
Re:so? by littlerubberfeet · 2003-09-19 14:42 · Score: 1

Rolls bought out Allison...I think it was an old Alli turboshaft...

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Re:so? by Guppy06 · 2003-09-19 15:17 · Score: 1

"And if you crash the bike, it won't leave you drenched in acid"

Most motorcyclists I've seen would be lucky to have skin left to be drenched after a crash. Unless you're counting the bits of skin strewn across a few hundred feet of asphault.
Re:so? by dukerobillard · 2003-09-19 15:25 · Score: 1

That's because they dress stupidity. Motorcycle racers, wearing good quality leathers, routinely hit the pavenment at well over 100mph with no road rash whatsoever. I've done it once or twice myself.
Re:so? by gmhowell · 2003-09-19 15:32 · Score: 1

Most motorcyclists I've seen would be lucky to have skin left to be drenched after a crash. Unless you're counting the bits of skin strewn across a few hundred feet of asphault.

Then most motorcyclists you've seen haven't been properly dressed. Do you judge all automobile accidents based on what you've seen of unbelted drivers?

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Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Re:so? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 15:52 · Score: 0

Crotch rockets are for fags. Get a real bike.
Re:so? by TheLink · 2003-09-19 18:49 · Score: 1

Sure the gear helps but the main thing smart superbike racers race in places where:
1) There aren't any lamp posts to wrap their guts around.
2) There aren't any fire hydrants to smash their skulls in on.
3) There aren't any parked trailers to split them in two.
4) There aren't any dangerous obstacles that would cause their merry road "skittering" to come to a very messy end.

Street racers don't get to skitter for hundreds of feet on normal roads.

Street racers should wear leathers and helmets so that their faces and bodies are identifiable to their kinsfolk after they smack into stuff at 100mph, and they don't have to scrape bits of DNA off the tarmac.
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Re:so? by Wordplay · 2003-09-19 19:05 · Score: 1

I have a Hayabusa. I've also owned sports cars. Totally different experience.

Anyways, the 'busa gets half the fuel-efficiency of this thing. I get 35mpg or so cruising, and it's (reasonably) a one-person vehicle. This gets 70mpg, and can carry two as comfortable as it can carry one. Also, I dunno what the tire costs on the TZero are, but on the Hayabusa, they're ~$300 every 3000 to 5000 miles. Lots of rubber there wearing off too...that has to have some environment impact. Big sportbikes just really aren't that efficient.
Re:so? by f00duvoodu · 2003-09-19 19:48 · Score: 1

bet ya this bike tomahawk will beat those bikes and well the ferrari's, porche's, tzero,sheesh all exotics...,
Re:so? by Soulslayer · 2003-09-19 23:58 · Score: 1

No, but how about this?

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Once more unto the breach dear friends...
Re:so? by Jon+Abbott · 2003-09-20 01:02 · Score: 1

Yeah, I was going to say something along these lines... My Honda Magna can do 0-60 in 3.6 seconds, and it's a 750cc V-4 cruiser... The Magna seats two fairly comfortably as well. I was also able to afford the Magna with a college income (not much), which is something I could not say about the Tzero.

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Re:so? by gmhowell · 2003-09-20 07:33 · Score: 1

And melt your nuts off, cost six figures, and not be able to turn.

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Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon

I've always found that line voltage works better by kfg · 2003-09-19 13:12 · Score: 4, Funny

It's cheap, reliable, readily available, doesn't require batteries, thus saving money, weight and complexity.

I haven't been able to thoroughly test my prototype though. It keeps losing power suddenly every time I get 100 feet from my house.

If I can just work out that one little bug. . .

KFG

I have to agree by zymano · 2003-09-19 13:14 · Score: 1

Cars are all about getting girls and impressing friends. Electrics are ok for going to grocery store but not cruising.

What would "FAST AND THE FURIOUS" look like with only electric cars ? Vin diesel in a golf cart ?

Re:I have to agree by flikx · 2003-09-19 15:15 · Score: 1

Yes, but it would be a riced out golf cart. I would actually pay to watch that.

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One future, two choices. Oppose them or let them destroy us.

I just love... by Anonvmous+Coward · 2003-09-19 13:14 · Score: 1

...how succint the article was.

this is a lame comparison by mOoZik · 2003-09-19 13:18 · Score: 1

First of all, a 0-60 time is not what determines the desirability or performance of a car. A regular Porsche (not the heavier/slower AWD they tested against), the new Ferrari 360 (the replacement for the 10 yr. old 355 they tested it against), and a new corvette will whip this car in the 1/4 mile and in cornering, top speed, RANGE, and every thing else. Also, the first two cars mentioned above range from 90K-120K, with the corvette coming in at 40K. The tZero is many times more expensive, and of course, looks crappy, both inside and out, and has a range of only 100 miles. Taking all these factors into consideration, the tZero is nothing to be excited about. It does so well in the 0-60 due to its light weight and also due to its responsive electronic propulsion. So even though the 0-60 may beat that of a few cars (and lose to many more), this is still a pretty unimpressive car.

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A blog like any other.

Re:this is a lame comparison by borgboy · 2003-09-19 13:43 · Score: 2, Interesting

The point of the exercise was to demonstrate the fallacy in the popular opinion that electric drive vehicles are lacking in power. With a transmission, stiff, balanced frame, and all wheel drive, this technology demo could become exciting. Of course any of those cars could beat it in oval track or rally.

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meh.
Re:this is a lame comparison by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 14:11 · Score: 0

Yes, but with how many of those other cars would you be comfortable if the exhaust pipe were vented into the passenger compartment?

Hey, cool... by NewWaveNet · 2003-09-19 13:23 · Score: 3, Informative

the company's website

most are V-8s. A few are V-12s by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 13:25 · Score: 1, Informative

Ferrari makes no V-10s for the street. I don't believe they ever have.

accident? by mOoZik · 2003-09-19 13:26 · Score: 2, Interesting

what happens when you get in an accident with a car that has batteries pretty much surrounding the driver/passenger. do you end up swimming in lead and acid?

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Re:accident? by FooAtWFU · 2003-09-19 13:35 · Score: 1

No, in this case you would end up swimming in lithium ions. Except lithium is not a liquid.

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Re:accident? by mOoZik · 2003-09-19 13:54 · Score: 1

Actually, according to their site, it uses lead acid:
"Battery type Optima 'Yellow-Top' recombinant lead Acid, 50 Ah at C/3. This is a production battery, and replacements are readily availble at reasonable cost."
http://www.acpropulsion.com/tzero_pages/tzero_Feat ures.htm
Their site also gives a 0-60 of 4.1 and not 3.7 as the article does.

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A blog like any other.
Re:accident? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-20 00:55 · Score: 0

That's an advantage! The tranquilizing effect of lithium prevents the driver and the passengers from panicking after the crash, so they can calmly dial 911 and tell the friendly emergency person that they would like to be escorted to a hospital to have their guts put back in.

Coal by Fubar411 · 2003-09-19 13:27 · Score: 1

I've heard it said that the US is to coal what the Middle East is to oil. And looking around Kansas City, we have a ton of coal. I guess people just don't want to be driving around with steam engines anymore, so electric (not a hybrid) is still a priority.

Re:Another article... alicedoe vs NYT by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 13:31 · Score: 0

You can sign up at the NY Times with:

Username: alicedoe

Password: alicedoe

It seems that her brothers john and bob are already readers of the NYT, but she doesn't know their passwords...

Re:Finally! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 13:31 · Score: 0

Yes, he's a high tech redneck... gets stoned and watched star trek

Re:good news for environment-What? by Lord+Kano · 2003-09-19 13:31 · Score: 1

Where do you think that the electricity to charge this car is going to come from?

In the US, most likely from a coal or nuclear power plant.

This whole electric/hybrid hype is idiocy, until we change the source of our energy, how we use it is immaterial.

LK

--
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano

I want to see it race by OverlordQ · 2003-09-19 13:33 · Score: 1

I want to see it race the E55 AMG, and if it beats that, then I'd be amazed. I'd still get the E55 though. Sure the tzero get's excellent mpg and emissions are zilch, but the E55 isn't exactly lacking in the rest of the package either.

--
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.

Re:I want to see it race by bmajik · 2003-09-19 14:44 · Score: 1

uh, all the other cars that it already beat are faster than the E55 AMG.

Mercedes doesn't make performance vehicles. AMG modified mercedes make them acceptable.

For every car that mercedes makes - even the AMG specials, BMW makes one that is faster, cheaper, and handles better.

--
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
Re:I want to see it race by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 16:04 · Score: 0

haha, whatever you say buddy...thats like comparing the E55 AMG (4.5 sec) to an M3 which is 1/2 the size. oh wait, the M3 does 60 in 4.8! gonna pull out the little Z8 against it? i personally own a measly CLK320 (6.9 sec) which can be compared to the 325Ci (since its the smallest engine offered whereas 430s are also avail on clk) but even the 330Ci is still slower. and handling is subjective :-P
Re:I want to see it race by ChrisMaple · 2003-09-19 16:50 · Score: 1

Look, two symbols of the democrat party: a jackass and a thief.

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Re:Friday night and.... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 13:36 · Score: 0

You mean you *had* a GF. LUCKY BASTARD!

Doesn't Work by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 13:36 · Score: 0

that didn't work in earlier posts and still doesn't now...

Re:Doesn't Work by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 17:10 · Score: 0

weird. I wonder when someone logs in using that login if the ny times blocks other users from using that login name/password to access the site?
Re:Doesn't Work by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 17:38 · Score: 0

no, i just change the passwords whenever I happen to see one posted

"Little Tzero Coupe" by R33MSpec · 2003-09-19 13:37 · Score: 1

(sung the tune of Little Deuce Coupe by The Beach Boys)

Well I'm not braggin' babe so don't put me down But I've got the fastest set of electric wheels in town When something comes up to me he don't even try Cause if I had a set of wings man I know she could fly She's my little tzero coupe You don't know what I got (My little tzero coupe) (You don't know what I got)

Um by autopr0n · 2003-09-19 13:37 · Score: 1, Funny

By your definition, all cars are 'electrical' because they use energy from some electrostatic force. The only 'non-electric' car would be some kind of atomic car, or a wind car or something like that.

--
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.

Re:Um by CaseyB · 2003-09-19 14:13 · Score: 1

Huh? You're making no sense whatsoever.
Fuel cell and "conventional battery" cars are very closely related. They both use electric motors to move, which are powered by chemical reactions that produce an electric charge. The only difference is the nature of the chemical reaction.
Can you explain what bizarre thinking leads you to believe that internal combustion engines are "electric cars" by that definition?
Re:Um by Dashing+Leech · 2003-09-19 14:22 · Score: 1

By your definition, all cars are 'electrical'
I don't think so. Though they didn't make it clear, both battery powered and fuel cell powered vehicles use the exact same propulsion systems (electric motors). It's just the source of the electricity that is (slightly) different.
Internal combustion engines, on the other hand, are a completely different kettle of fish. (Actually, I doubt a kettle of fish would get you very far.)
Re:Um by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 14:52 · Score: 0

Um, nope...

an ICE car (internal combustion engine) uses purely mechanical force.

A fuel cell, on the other hand, produces ELECTRICITY from the reaction that takes H2 + O to create H2O + ENERGY, the electricity is used to spin an ELECTRIC motor, which then creates the mechanical force to move the car.

- David
Re:Um by pboulang · 2003-09-19 17:57 · Score: 1

Internal combustion engines, on the other hand, are a completely different kettle of fish. (Actually, I doubt a kettle of fish would get you very far.)
Hmmmm, maybe if it were a steam engine. . . makes a tasty snack, too.

--
This comment is guaranteed*
*not guaranteed
Re:Um by Eunuchswear · 2003-09-20 03:21 · Score: 1

an ICE car (internal combustion engine) uses purely mechanical force.

Ah, in your alternate universe you load compressed springs into the tank instead of an inflamible liquid?

Here we use chemical energy, that's to say the electromagnetic force, to produce heat, that causes a gas to expand, that produces mechanical force.

Less direct, but easier to manage than carting all those compressed springs around.

--
Watch this Heartland Institute video

Your first pronunciation is correct by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 13:38 · Score: 0

nt

Laptop batteries are consumables by sjbe · 2003-09-19 13:40 · Score: 1

We have 12 laptops in the office, and in 3 years, all the batteries but one have died...

You are aware that rechargable batteries have a limited lifetime, right? I concur that it is annoying but you should only expect your laptop batteries to last a year or two. After that they lose their ability to recharge and need to be replaced. It's an expense to plan for. It's no different than the batteries for your car which need to be replaced regularly. (every 3-4 years for those) They wear out and need to be replaced.

Re:Laptop batteries are consumables by sjbe · 2003-09-19 13:57 · Score: 1

Hmm. I shouldn't post before reading comments carefully. You were saying the same thing I was. Duh. I'll just shut up now.

Someone has to do it... by ThisIsFred · 2003-09-19 13:43 · Score: 4, Insightful

...So I might as well bring up the negative points.

* It may do 0-60 in 4 seconds, but so can lots of vehicles if you do hairy modifications to the engine and drivetrain. The car is tiny and light, obviously, since it needs only 200 horsepower to produce those figures.

* Note the careful wording: "...Efficiency *to* 70 mpg." That tells me they are taking an average and counting when the motors are off while cruising.

* Good luck getting a charge when you run out of juice in the middle of nowhere. At least the AAA can bring you a 5 gallon container of petrol with a conventional vehicle.

* A 100 mile cruising range is less than one half of the range of a typical passenger car with an ICE, and that's taking into account that the motors can be shut off some of the time. What is the actual cruise range on the hilly terrain in my part of the country? 50 miles?

* The vehicle shown has less interior room than the Corvette (arguably one of the most uncomfortable cars to ride in) and is miniscule. Put the Corvette's engine in that chassis, sans the batteries, and you'll probably get sub-3 second 0-60 time, if the wheels can get a decent grip.

* Totally electric cars are less efficient in the winter, when power is drawn for heating.

* The emissions aren't "near zero," it's just that the extra pollution would be emitted from power generation facilities. Those power generators may be more efficient, but an increase in output (to supply these vehicles) is going to introduce tons (literally) more pollutants into small areas of the planet.

* The battery system is totally impractical, and a chemical nightmare after a collision.

Can we move the focus off of electric vehicles, and concentrate on better power generation and storage technology?

--
Fred

"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS

Re:Someone has to do it... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 14:30 · Score: 0

So I guess no one should try to get rid of the internal combustion engine then?
Re:Someone has to do it... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 14:31 · Score: 1, Informative

"Good luck getting a charge when you run out of juice in the middle of nowhere. At least the AAA can bring you a 5 gallon container of petrol with a conventional vehicle."

Good thing there's an on-board, gas-powered charger then, eh?

http://www.acpropulsion.com/tzero_pages/DSC00467 .J PG
Re:Someone has to do it... by CaseyB · 2003-09-19 14:32 · Score: 1

* It may do 0-60 in 4 seconds, but so can lots of vehicles if you do hairy modifications to the engine and drivetrain. The car is tiny and light, obviously, since it needs only 200 horsepower to produce those figures.
Which makes the fact that they compared it to supercars designed to go 200mph extremely stupid.
Why didn't they run it against something like the Caterham Superlight? Because it would get it's ass kicked in the same 0-60 test, for around one quarter the price. Oh, and you can carry twice as many people in the Caterham.
Re:Someone has to do it... by OrenWolf · 2003-09-19 14:36 · Score: 1

...So I might as well bring up the negative points.
Perhaps you can start by doing a little RTFA??
* It may do 0-60 in 4 seconds, but so can lots of vehicles if you do hairy modifications to the engine and drivetrain. The car is tiny and light, obviously, since it needs only 200 horsepower to produce those figures.
The point, I believe, is that this is an *electric* car. how many cars can churn out those numbers with zero emissions and a MPG rating anywehre near this thing?
* Note the careful wording: "...Efficiency *to* 70 mpg." That tells me they are taking an average and counting when the motors are off while cruising.
Actually, they're counting the regenerative properties of the vehicle, to be sure - unless you believe that the car recharging itself is somehow a gimmick?
* Good luck getting a charge when you run out of juice in the middle of nowhere. At least the AAA can bring you a 5 gallon container of petrol with a conventional vehicle.
Your only reasonable point in this entire post.
* A 100 mile cruising range is less than one half of the range of a typical passenger car with an ICE, and that's taking into account that the motors can be shut off some of the time. What is the actual cruise range on the hilly terrain in my part of the country? 50 miles?
RTFA! the car has a 300 mile range, for starters, and secondly, "While it goes into negative territory on uphill acceleration, it flies the other way on downhills, charging the batteries. Mr. Cocconi said that because of the up-and-down nature of mountain roads, and relatively slow speeds, this is where the car is most efficient." - in other words, you would get better mileage on your hilly mountain road.
* The vehicle shown has less interior room than the Corvette (arguably one of the most uncomfortable cars to ride in) and is miniscule. Put the Corvette's engine in that chassis, sans the batteries, and you'll probably get sub-3 second 0-60 time, if the wheels can get a decent grip.
Perhaps! But the point here is, could you do it with a 300 mile travel distance, with as good price/performance fuel wise, and with as little emissions?
Obviously not.
Re:Someone has to do it... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 14:45 · Score: 0

Can we move the focus off of electric vehicles, and concentrate on better power generation and storage technology?

Yea, fuck the future. Wha da they know?
Re:Someone has to do it... by mistered · 2003-09-19 14:53 · Score: 1

That tells me they are taking an average and counting when the motors are off while cruising.
That's not how electric cars work. The motor is typically connected directly to the drive wheels. When the car is stopped, the motor's not drawing any power. There's no concept of "idle" like in a conventional car.

--
Enjoy your job, make lots of money, work within the law. Choose any two.
Re:Someone has to do it... by evilviper · 2003-09-19 14:55 · Score: 3, Informative

Good luck getting a charge when you run out of juice in the middle of nowhere. At least the AAA can bring you a 5 gallon container of petrol with a conventional vehicle.

Terrible point... One of Electricity's advantages is how very flexible it is these days. If you thing you are going to run out of power, then you just need to bring along some sort of generator. A small gas-powered generator would do the job if you think gas is going to be available.

With cars that run on gasoline, you NEED to have a gas station nearby. With electric, you could just as well pull out a solar panel, and get a charge in the middle of nowhere.

Not to mention that you could just plug-in to any homes that might be around. There might not be a gas station for 200 miles, but just about anywhere you are, you can see power-lines along the roadside.

A 100 mile cruising range is less than one half of the range of a typical passenger car

Yes, 100 miles isn't as much as normal cars, but that's only important if you need it. Most people drive much less than 100 miles each day. The only thing higher capacity gets you, is the ability to get gas half as often.

The emissions aren't "near zero," it's just that the extra pollution would be emitted from power generation facilities.

But power generation can be near-zero pollution, just because much of it isn't, is not a reason to say that electric cars cause a lot of pollution. Even with the most ineffecient power generation, electric cars are far, far more effecient than gasoline-powered cars.

Can we move the focus off of electric vehicles, and concentrate on better power generation and storage technology?

Electric cars are the ideal vehicles, it's just that no car companies are spending much money on R&D. Technologies like flywheels promise to hold an incredible deal of electrical energy, while being very light, just as fuel-cells do. Electric cars really are the only logical next step, although more effeciency with gas-powered cars in a good step in the interim.

--
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Re:Someone has to do it... by ThisIsFred · 2003-09-19 15:03 · Score: 1

RTFA! the car has a 300 mile range, for starters, and secondly, "While it goes into negative territory on uphill acceleration, it flies the other way on downhills, charging the batteries.

I don't care what the article says, the Tzero website page gives the figures "100 miles" at "60 mph," which is typical highway driving. I seriously doubt you can conserve that much and still drive safely (i.e. maintaining speed with traffic.) I could get another 50 miles of range out of my car if I stuck it in neutral and coasted as much as possible, but that would probably make a whole lot of people really, really pissed off.

As far as price/performance fuel wise: $200,000 buys a lot of petrol! But, that's really not a fair argument, since the infrastructure is currently built around ICE vehicles.

Emissions? The emissions are simply appearing elsewhere, near power plants. I thought I addressed this point in my first post.

Something needs to bridge the gap while we improve electrical generation storage technology. The cost is just too much. I've wondered about this before, and I'll babble about it again. Where are the hybrid gas/electric kits for existing cars? That would be a great project!

--
Fred

"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS
Re:Someone has to do it... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 15:34 · Score: 0

Some answers:

It may do 0-60 in 4 seconds

* The car does 0-60 in a short amount of time because it has a fixed torque. There is no power peak - the motor has a full 200hp output at *any* speed (then presumably a rev limiter kicks in when it gets to 100mph). Usually you have to get a gasoline car engine up to 5000 to 6000 rpm before you get anything close to full power. This is why the electric can beat just about anything at road-legal speeds.

Put the Corvette's engine in that chassis

If you made this car as heavy as a 200hp gasoline car - the electric would STILL win a short drag race by a huge margin because the gasoline car only has something like 80hp available to pull from idle (far from it's peak output). Strong and steady vs a peaked output. Also, there are differences between the two systems: last time I read up on electric vehicles, batteries were the heaviest part of the entire system. You need batteries, motor & a switch. With gas you need a fuel tank, fuel pump, engine, transmission, radiator & fan, water pump, exhaust system & muffler, etc. The drivetrain is a lot more complicated.

[the range factor]

* 300 miles is quite a long range anyway (hell, ny car only gets 200 miles on a full tank), so here's their intermediate answer to the range problem - a trailer that contains a generator that is fueled by regular gasoline. I think it's a cute solution. One of the first electric ideas I heard of a long time ago was to imagine if there were a completely standard size / shape of batteries slung underneath the car. Instead of charging, you simply drive into a gas (or, I guess battery) station. The spent one is detatched and dropped from the bottom of the car via an underground mechanism, and a robot attaches a fresh one. You don't even have to get out of the car.

Efficiency *to* 70 mpg

* Any car to date can be driven badly and get bad efficiency. For example, GM engineers once emptied a Camaro's entire gallon gas tank in about 30 minutes going full throttle at 150MPH on the test track - obtaining less than 6 mpg. The same car had a federal emissions sticker rating it at 29mpg highway. So of *course* it depends on how you drive it. Gasoline cars achieve their best efficiency driving straight at a constant speed. Electric cars probably achieve their best in stop/go environments at lower speeds. You should pick the best tools for the job at hand.

Good luck getting a charge when you run out of juice in the middle of nowhere

* That's what the trailer (mentioned above) is supposed to prevent.

actual cruise range on the hilly terrain

* I don't know.

electric cars are less efficient in the winter

* Again, I don't know. I do, however, drive less when it's snowy out here in Colorado (except when skiing).

The emissions aren't "near zero"

But they *could* be. Electric vehicles have the potential to be the best solution to the overall problem of personal transportation. This changes the focus onto *how* that electricity is generated. In other words: renewable resources like hydroelectric, wind farms, solar. I'd even include nuclear fusion there too given it's potential efficiency and low waste output. However, people are stupid and don't want any of the above near where they live.

The battery system is totally impractical, and a chemical nightmare after a collision

* They're a chemical nightmare anyway in terms of disposal - should be recycled properly, etc. In terms of safety - you're already driving a vehicle laden with highly flamable gasoline. You've just become used to it and forgotten that gas likes to *catch fire* in an accident. Which would you honestly prefer: "don't touch that gell slowly oozing out from the broken side of the car, it might cause a minor chemical burn if you don't wipe it off within a few second
Re:Someone has to do it... by FredFnord · 2003-09-19 17:09 · Score: 1

> I don't care what the article says, the Tzero website page gives the figures "100 miles" at "60 mph,"
> which is typical highway driving.

That's for their older model, which used lead-acid batteries. (And consequently weighed a zillion times more and could store less power). The whole POINT of the article was that they had something new.

As for the emissions, if you're concerned enough to buy an electric vehicle, and have $200k sitting around for one, you are probably concerned enough to set up a bunch of solar cells on top of your house. It's really not that hard, and far, far less expensive. And if you live in a reasonably sunny area, you can cover all your home and car power needs for most of the year with it.

And THAT is a true zero-emissions vehicle.

-fred
(the original)

--
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Re:Someone has to do it... by Archimonde · 2003-09-19 20:11 · Score: 1

With electric, you could just as well pull out a solar panel, and get a charge in the middle of nowhere.
Why not put the solar panels permanently on the car?
That way car can regenerate when parked and/or while driving.

--
Trolls are like broken clocks. They show the truth two times a day. The rest of the day they talk nonsense.
Re:Someone has to do it... by Moofie · 2003-09-19 20:35 · Score: 1

Pull out a solar panel...right.

Unless it's the size of, say, a parking lot, you're going to wait a good long time for your car to charge back up.

Like it or not, the gas station infrastructure is pretty darn reliable. I don't think there's any way to charge these battery packs in less than a few hours, so that's a pretty serious limitation. You can't wave your hands and make that go away.

--
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Re:Someone has to do it... by pipingguy · 2003-09-19 20:49 · Score: 1

Good luck getting a charge when you run out of juice in the middle of nowhere. At least the AAA can bring you a 5 gallon container of petrol with a conventional vehicle.

Haven't you ever wondered where all those energizer bunnies went after the commercials went out of fashion?

I mean, THINK, man!
Re:Someone has to do it... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 21:24 · Score: 0

Emissions? The emissions are simply appearing elsewhere, near power plants. I thought I addressed this point in my first post.

Yeah, like a true jackass, you did. And with a piss-poor argument, too. Fucking oil baron.
Re:Someone has to do it... by evilviper · 2003-09-20 01:44 · Score: 1

Unless it's the size of, say, a parking lot, you're going to wait a good long time for your car to charge back up.

I wasn't really talking about getting a full-charge, just enough to get you a few more miles to your destination.

Besides, no matter how good and long of a time you sit around in your gas-powered car, it's never going to charge itself back up.

Like it or not, the gas station infrastructure is pretty darn reliable.

Completely and utterly besides the point.

I don't think there's any way to charge these battery packs in less than a few hours

Well, "a few" is rather vague. No, it can't be instantly recharged, but so what? I don't know anyone who uses their car 24hours/day, and therefore needs to recarge it instantly.

Besides that, recharging time is continuing to drop.

--
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Re:Someone has to do it... by evilviper · 2003-09-20 01:53 · Score: 1

Why not put the solar panels permanently on the car?

Are you asking me? If so, you should be directing that question at the manufacturers instead. I can't think of a very good reason not to do so.

--
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Re:Someone has to do it... by Dwebb · 2003-09-20 10:39 · Score: 1

The car does 0-60 in a short amount of time because it has a fixed torque. There is no power peak - the motor has a full 200hp output at *any* speed (then presumably a rev limiter kicks in when it gets to 100mph). Usually you have to get a gasoline car engine up to 5000 to 6000 rpm before you get anything close to full power.

Your point is good, but you're confusing torque and power. The torque curve is indeed very flat (non-peaky) all the way from 0 RPM to redline, which means the power curve is linear and increasing all the way up to redline. Thus the power curve has a peak: at (or very near) the redline.

Power = Torque x RPM / 5250

Note that this means power at low speeds is low. It's also low with an ICE, but with an ICE you can rev the engine toward the peak power and pop the clutch, which means you can probably beat the electric car off the line if you don't spin the wheels.

Bottom line: An electric car can win races with a moderate amount of torque because the torque curve is flat, the RPM redline (and thus the peak power) is very high, and there's no shifting needed.

(I own a couple of rotary-powered cars, which exhibit similar characteristics, but unfortunately not so wonderfully extreme as the electric motor.)

Range more impressive by Teahouse · 2003-09-19 13:43 · Score: 4, Interesting

The fact that they can get 300 miles out of a charge is more impressive than the fact that it accelerates like a ferrari. The real impressive new piece of tech on the car is their regenerative braking, which turns off to avoid skidding. This is a well thought out EV. My only wish is that they made one more in my price range.

--
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright

Great! by El · 2003-09-19 13:48 · Score: 1

If they could just give this car six times the range at one eleventh the cost... then it would be competive with my new Honda Civic Hybrid for commuting to work. Maybe if I was into drag racing it would make more sense to pay more for a car than I payed for my house... but personally, I'd rather have a house.

--

"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney

Re:Here's another article with picture . very nice by GigsVT · 2003-09-19 13:54 · Score: 5, Interesting

emissions equal to zero

How much emission does manufacturing 6800 lithium-ion batteries produce?

--
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.

Don't be silly by RadagastTheMagician · 2003-09-19 14:01 · Score: 2, Informative

It says it costs about $3000 to replace the batteries, and it should be done every 20,000 miles.

http://www.acpropulsion.com/tzero_pages/tzero_FA Qs .htm

not bad for a $220,000 sports car that gets 70mpg equivalent.

Re:Don't be silly by kcbrown · 2003-09-19 15:01 · Score: 5, Informative

It says it costs about $3000 to replace the batteries, and it should be done every 20,000 miles.

Of course, that $3000 buys 1500 gallons of gasoline at $2/gallon, and if you're averaging 20 mpg you can go 30,000 miles.
So the gas car still wins, and we haven't even factored in the cost of the electricity to recharge the Tzero.
The Tzero might do significantly better in Europe, but that depends a great deal on how much electricity costs there.

--
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
Re:Don't be silly by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 15:21 · Score: 0

The Tzero might do significantly better in Europe, but that depends a great deal on how much electricity costs there.

I'll give you a hint: a LOT more.
Re:Don't be silly by Quixote · 2003-09-19 15:26 · Score: 1

Er... $3K per 20K miles works out to $0.15/mile. Assuming gas prices of $2.00/gal, this works out to 13.3mpg, just looking at the cost. Of course, emissions are zero, which is a plus. But 13mpg is not that great a deal, especially since it doesn't include the cost of the electricity required to charge the batteries.
Re:Don't be silly by Raptor+CK · 2003-09-19 16:09 · Score: 1

That gives us... 15 cents per mile?

It's more expensive to own and maintain than an SUV, but it's environmentally friendly. Notice that I haven't even accounted for the cost to recharge the vehicle.

Unless we start seeing a sizable decrease in battery cost or an increase in longevity, an electric car isn't about to sell.

Of course, I doubt too many people who are buying a $220,000 sports car are concerned with the maintenance and mileage.

--
Raptor
"Procrastination is great. It gives me a lot more time to do things that I'm never going to do."
Re:Don't be silly by nempo · 2003-09-19 16:50 · Score: 1

Some numbers maybe, trollman.

--
--- No, english is not my mother tongue.
Re:Don't be silly by TheLink · 2003-09-19 17:57 · Score: 1

The car is for the rich. How much do the rich spend to maintain their Ferraris every 20K miles? Clutch burns, gearbox etc. 3000 bucks won't get you much maintenance on a Ferrari or other 0-100 in 4 sec car.

You have to remember for normal cars there's also car maintenance. Lube, transmission fluid, radiator, radiator pump etc. Normal car engines + drive trains are messy things.

Electric motor + battery setups are easier to maintain. Of course since tons of people have experience with normal cars, perhaps maintenance is not that big a deal (except that I haven't been able to find a decent car mechanic in my area).

I'm personally hoping for a fuel cell + electric motor car to become reality soon. That way refuelling is much faster, and you get a heck a lot of range, good fuel efficiency, and lots of acceleration. As someone says many people buy horsepower, but they drive torque and electric motors cars provide great drivability. Of course you still need battery packs for the regenerative braking, unless you do the fancy capacitor stuff (which could be viable). I figure you'd only a tenth or twentieth or so of those 6800 batteries for regenerative braking. 300 miles with 6800 batteries, I figure 15 miles (340 batteries) worth of regen braking is plenty, and shouldn't take up very much space.

It won't be as good maintenance-wise as a pure battery motor car but should be ok (unless you screw up the catalysts etc).

Should be better than the hybrids :).
--
- Too many replies beneath your current threshold
Re:Don't be silly by Ziller · 2003-09-19 18:49 · Score: 2, Insightful

The Tzero might do significantly better in Europe, but that depends a great deal on how much electricity costs there.

I'd say it depends more on the price of gas, which here in Finland is something close to 4USD per gallon.

On the other hand, here the car itself would probably cost double due to taxation.

--
One skilled in battle take a stand in the ground of no defeat, and so does not lose the enemy's defeat.
Re:Don't be silly by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 20:03 · Score: 0

$3000 for 6800 batteries, that's 50c per laptop battery. Why am I paying $98 to replace mine?
Re:Don't be silly by vadim_t · 2003-09-20 00:48 · Score: 1

Ah, but you're only taking into account the batteries. What about the rest?

From what I've seen, cars with gasoline motors break very often. An electric car should be very simple in comparison, and require less maintenance. Does anybody have numbers of how often has an electric car to be repaired, and about how difficult it is and how much it costs?
Re:Don't be silly by atcurtis · 2003-09-20 03:22 · Score: 2, Interesting

In the UK, US$3000 would buy about 660 US gallons of fuel... at 20 mp(US)g would be about 13000 miles.

However, many cars in the UK can do about 36mp(UK)g which would be about 43mp(US)g.

Conclusion:

If the average car in Europe were as inefficient as cars in the US, then the Electric car would be cheaper to operate within Europe.

or

If the average car in the US were as efficient as cars in Europe, emissions would be down greatly and much more research would be required to make Electric cars economical. Especilly if one conciders that electricity in California is much more expensive than Europe.

More research is required in fuel cells - my hopes are on methanol based fuel cells, since methanol can be manufactured cheaply by biological processes.

--
-- The universe began. Life started on a billion worlds...
-- Except on one where stupidity was there first.
Re:Don't be silly by rossdee · 2003-09-20 04:10 · Score: 1

"However, many cars in the UK can do about 36mp(UK)g which would be about 43mp(US)g."

The US gallon is smaller than the gallon. 36 mp(UK) gallon would be about 28.2 mp (US) gallon.
Re:Don't be silly by atcurtis · 2003-09-20 19:38 · Score: 1

Oops, got that one the wrong way around.

--
-- The universe began. Life started on a billion worlds...
-- Except on one where stupidity was there first.
Re:Don't be silly by nadaou · 2003-09-21 00:37 · Score: 1

Hello, this is the first stab at a prototype, not the exact future economics of the energy industry.

Cut em some slack. The technology is in its infancy and still has lots of room to grow. Contrast that to the I.C.E., which matured ages ago & hasn't really done anything new in my lifetime anyway.

I think it is amazing that at this early stage they are nearing the point of breaking even on some of these points with the very mature automobile industry's best efforts.

All the "is isn't ready *now* so it must be useless and doomed to failure" talk around here really gets my gnu.

--
~.~
I'm a peripheral visionary.

price/performance point by Leadmagnet · 2003-09-19 14:09 · Score: 0

When it is as fast to accelerate / has the same top speed / same warrenty / can go the same distance on one "tank" / and costs the same as a new 2004 Nissan Maxima then I and most people will buy it.

--
http://www.leadmagnet.50megs.com

Hybird trailer range extender by chhamilton · 2003-09-19 14:11 · Score: 5, Interesting

Not only is the tZero a sporty little electric car with amazing acceleration, it can also achieve reasonable mileage and range using their hybrid range extended trailer. There are links in the AC Propulsion white papers section regarding the range extending trailer. Also, a link to a PDF

With this thing attached the car it gets a combined 40 MPG (highway driving at 100kph/60mph) and a range of around 380 miles. Not bad for a sports car. Another cool feature of the trailer is that it has a linked steering system; it's not a freewheeling trailer, rather the trailer wheels move with the car steering. This makes things like backing up (parallel parking and the like) much easier for those without experience towing a trailer.

Neat little car.

Re:Hybird trailer range extender by EngMedic · 2003-09-19 17:46 · Score: 1

I get 40 mpg and 300 mile range on my 92 honda civic. so why do i want to drop 200 K on something that has the range of a 11 year old car that cost 9K?

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filter: +3. Hey, look! all the trolls went away!
Re:Hybird trailer range extender by Wordplay · 2003-09-19 19:01 · Score: 1

Are those numbers for the older lead-acid batteries or for the newer lithium batteries? The older model has 100mi range, and the newer version has a 300mi range. I'm guessing the specs they printed up are for the older model.

HOW long is your commute? by Ungrounded+Lightning · 2003-09-19 14:12 · Score: 3, Insightful

If they could just give this car six times the range at one eleventh the cost... then it would be competive with my new Honda Civic Hybrid for commuting to work.

The car goes 300 miles on a charge. You have an 1,800 mile round-trip commute???

--
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way

Re:HOW long is your commute? by yerricde · 2003-09-20 00:00 · Score: 1

Home to school to home was 400 miles (Fort Wayne, Indiana, to Terre Haute and back) while I was in college. Having a vehicle with a range of only 300 miles would have been sh*t for the parents who took me to school and back.

--
Will I retire or break 10K?

Re:good news for environment-What? by HangingChad · 2003-09-19 14:15 · Score: 1

In the US, most likely from a coal or nuclear power plant.

That would be true but on the other side of that coin we're not dependent on a bunch of psychopathic goat herders at the ass end of the world for coal.

And with an electric vehicle there is also the possibility of using alternative energy sources for charging. Solar, wind turbine, small project hydro. Those systems get better every day and in areas where electricity is 12-16 cents a Kwhr the break even point can be very attractive.

But you are correct that until we can utilize alternate energy on a broader scale the only real benefit is being able to relax our dependence on foreign oil.

--
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage

The sound? by softspokenrevolution · 2003-09-19 14:19 · Score: 1

Isn't half of the attraction of these sports cars, the big throaty sounds that they pour forth from their engines. Expressing the neanderthal grunts and maons that we would like to while showing off style and sophistication (okay, money, lots of money).

I don't think the spread of electric/hybrid cars has been due to the lack of sportiness, but a general lack of push from the media, from the companies (who are making all their money of SUVs), or from the government, I mean, after all which would you rather have, the $18,000 Hummer (thanks to an $80,000 tax rebate, okay so you have to have money to pull it in the first place), as opposed to the $21,000 hybrid ($19,000 or so after your $2,000 tax rebate).

Re:The sound? by DarkLox · 2003-09-19 14:25 · Score: 1

I think a lot of the appeal of hybrid cars has been lost (or never found in the first place..) due to their unsightly looks. Of all the hybrid or pure electric cars, how many of them would you WANT to drive? I noticed that the civic hybrid is pretty the only "normal" looking hybrid on the road, while a hummer (for example) has appeal. In addition...and for the sake of equality, lets say that both a hummer and a hybrid cost 18k each. Now, time for repairs....obviously repairing an engine is much cheaper than replacing sensitive electrical pieces....or replacing more parts in the motor because it has to be integrated with the gasoline portion...boy, I can only imagine a transmission bill on that.

--
Momma told me that sigs are for the devil

So like swap power packs - dude! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 14:23 · Score: 2, Funny

So like with my RC cars when the juice runs out I swap to my alternate pack which is just finished being topped up...

Am I real stupid or something, how come they don't do the same thing with electric cars? What would it take to setup a consortium of power pack companies with enough stations to make it happen? Heck you could even just rent the packs hence lowering the initial price of the cars. Since the power packs are not "part of the car" then they can also innovate faster. I suppose one could even have "ice packs" or "fuel cell packs" for "special" uses.

Re:So like swap power packs - dude! by zeno_2 · 2003-09-19 17:49 · Score: 2, Funny

I bought an RC10T electric R/C truck, and I absolutely hated batteries.

I then bought a T-MAXX, and having a gas truck is much much better.. I hope its not the same way with normal cars...
Re:So like swap power packs - dude! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 19:55 · Score: 0

Never figured out how to do the hot swap eh!

Those drive through quick changers are a bit tricky for non-rally crowd.

Too bad cuz hopping off the slot for a free ride via eJuice rips man.

GridRyder II - eat my plasma stream.

Re:I've always found that line voltage works bette by Compuser · 2003-09-19 14:28 · Score: 1

You'd have a trolley bus.

Where do you live? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 14:34 · Score: 0

If you regularly exceed 100mph on public roads (especially in the US), I'd love to know who your lawyer is and what state you live in. :)

Re:Where do you live? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 14:37 · Score: 0

If you regularly exceed 100mph on public roads (especially in the US), I'd love to know who your lawyer is and what state you live in. :)

California on the US 101 between LA and ventura. Dont diss it till you've tried it!
Re:Where do you live? by Organized+Konfusion · 2003-09-19 21:17 · Score: 1

In the UK.

On the M1, M4, A6 Leicester - Loughborough, A30 Exter - Bodmin, M11, M5, M6, M42 when the roadworks are not there.
Re:Where do you live? by smeg168 · 2003-09-20 05:09 · Score: 1

florida, our interstates (well I75 in particular) consist of 100+ miles of striaght road, late at night if you dont go 100+ Its a shame.

Wrong by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 14:38 · Score: 0

I'm no science major, but could not the energy released by hydrocarbon octane chains be considered electromagnetic?

There are believed to be four basic forces in the universe:

Gravitational
Electromagnetic
Strong Nuclear
Weak Nuclear

If you're powering a car by some other force, I'd be very interested to hear about it!

Re:wrong by Soulslayer · 2003-09-20 00:37 · Score: 1

Well, they are winning (at least in drag racing). Against a lot of ICE vehicles. Not necessarily against the funny cars and top fuel dragsters, but against a large section of the rest of the field.

The problem is not that they aren't winning. The problem is that there are not enough electric cars racing to make them very visible. Until there are hundreds of EV dragsters with full sponsorship (so that they can actually go to events around the country instead of just setting records at their local track) instead of dozens with little or no sponsorship the visibility will never get high enough.

All the misinformation about EVs out there and a century of being used to the ICE makes it all the more difficult to interest the public as well.

--

Once more unto the breach dear friends...
Re:wrong by evenprime · 2003-09-20 04:38 · Score: 1

I agree that NEDRA drags are the motorsport where EV and HEV cars have done the best so far. Results elsewhere have been fairly mediocre. To put things into perspective:

The results of the final leg of the 2002 Midnight Sun to Red Sea Rally are here. The prius was in Class B (1400-1600cc engines in new cars) along with two other cars - the Toyota Corolla RSi and the Proton Satria . Nik Berg's Prius Rally Car finished 15th [not 14th, sorry about the previous misinformation] overall out of the 17 cars that finished the race. The two vehicles it beat were Keith Callinan's V-8 Holden Monero (picture here) in Class G and Tom Hayes' Volvo 122S (picture here here) in Class E, both of which are for cars 1971 or older. Unfortunately, the Prius finished last in Class B.

According to this reprint from the Atlanta Journal Constitution, The Panoz Q9 (a hybrid modification of a GTR-1) finished third in the GT1 Class. Unfortunately, that makes it the last in the GT1 class, and only number 12th overall in a field of 14 cars that finished the race. The results are here

Jeri Unser's ER3 climbed Pike's Peak in 14:33.12. The fastest climb that year was 11:34.70. (The results are here here.) 44 of the 57 cars that entered the race actually completed the hill climb. The ER3 placed 40th, beating a 2003 Nissan Z33, a 2001 Chevy Monte Carlo, a 1997 Subaru Impreza , and a 2003 Mitsubishi Lance. The ER3 *did* set a new record in its class, but was the only vehicle in that class. Unfortunately, both of the semi-trucks in the race(a kenworth and a freightliner) were faster.

In NEDRA Drag Racing, the current world record for the quarter mile is 8.801. It was set by Dennis Berube's Current Eliminator IV. That car is running about 250-275 hp. That time is *really* good for, especially for a car with that little horsepower.

The problem is that there are not enough electric cars racing to make them very visible. Until there are hundreds of EV dragsters with full sponsorship (so that they can actually go to events around the country instead of just setting records at their local track) instead of dozens with little or no sponsorship the visibility will never get high enough.

I think it will be hard for hobbiest to front the money to do this. It won't work unless we have big corporate sponsors...It would be cool if the Big Three would try an HEV in NASCAR....maybe skipping a pitstop would be enough to win a race. *THAT* would open some eyes.

All the misinformation about EVs out there and a century of being used to the ICE makes it all the more difficult to interest the public as well.

I agree. Unfortunately, I don't think we'll change that until we have EV/HEV cars that finish in the top 10% in a race instead of the bottom 15% of the field when they race.

--

"Weapons should be hardy rather than decorative" - Miyamoto Musashi
I think that goes for OS's too

Re:I've always found that line voltage works bette by kfg · 2003-09-19 14:38 · Score: 1

Bummer. I was kinda aiming for a trolley Maserati 300S.

KFG

Re:Finally! by dreadnougat · 2003-09-19 14:38 · Score: 1

nascar: rednecks driving in circles

Great news by hcetSJ · 2003-09-19 14:41 · Score: 4, Interesting

Despite the clear unfeasibility of this car in particular, I think it's good to see AC Propulsion making some waves and getting its name out. I was on my university's FutureTruck team (we called it the Hybrid Electric Vehicle team--the page is way out of date), and the team used an AC Propulsion motor the year before I was there (if I remember correctly...could be wrong here).

The FutureTruck competition is highly sponsored (read: "Ford"), and produces good research, but also good, experienced electrical and mechanical engineers (I'm neither, which lead to my quitting the team--oh well) who have faced the design challenges of a real vehicle. Anyway, we can sit here and pick apart why the Tzero isn't worthwhile, but the fact is that it's a concept car, pretty much, and it shows that it is possible to get great performance out of batteries.

--

This side up.

NYTimes by lithod02 · 2003-09-19 14:44 · Score: 0, Offtopic

WTF ! Why do people post stories that are on password protected sites? Even if you do have to create and account to read them. Stupid......

Organized Racing will bring acceptance by Neil+Watson · 2003-09-19 14:49 · Score: 1

If organized racing of electric, or even hybrid, cars were to take place there would be two great benifits:

Education of the public. People would get to see this cars in action. They would be less alien. People might consider buying that Prius or Insight afterall.
Racing can offer huge technology advancements. Fuel injection, ABS breaks, and traction control are all examples of technology born, or at least prooven in racing.

--
UNIX/Linux Consulting

Re:Organized Racing will bring acceptance by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 15:03 · Score: 0

Yes, that's why the EV nuts of the world created NEDRA, the National Electric Drag Racing Association at http://nedra.com/

- David
Re:Organized Racing will bring acceptance by geekoid · 2003-09-19 15:54 · Score: 1

ABS breaks -- actually, this comes from and was proven in aircrafts.

--
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

Solar by ZorbaTHut · 2003-09-19 14:58 · Score: 1

I wonder how much it would cost to plate it with solar panels, and what kind of efficiency boosts you'd get. And how long it would take to get a full charge, of course.

--
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.

Re:Solar by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-20 03:00 · Score: 0

Not much ...

If you want to crunch some numbers, over at Real Goods (http://realgoods.com/) they have a wide selection of solar panels, and give the power capacities under ideal conditions. Also while you're there notice that most solar panels are rigid and would work where aerodynamics are needed (e.g. on a car), but for one - Uni-Solar's flexible panels.

Notice looking there that most of them produce something like 300 watts in a 4' x 8' (I'm doing this by memory and might have the dimensions off) solar panel. 300 watts.

Considering that a full size EV car is going to carry in the neighborhood of 20 kilowatt-hours of electricity, 300 watts doesn't contribute much to that and would require 15 hours of recharge time under ideal conditions.

- David

you can build your own electric sports car... by vudufixit · 2003-09-19 15:01 · Score: 1

Or watch a helluv a lot of DVDs between charges!

Both are VERY HEAVY though by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 15:01 · Score: 1, Insightful

Whether you use batteries or fuel cells both are extremely heavy, not to mention EXPENSIVE.

Fuel cells have that many weak points at the moment that they are not practical. Their most notable problem is their requirement of "pure" fuel. This makes storage and especially refueling tricky.

But at the end of the day, batteries suck. They have a very short life (3 - 7 years) at which point they become an extremly toxic environmental hazard (just like their manufacturing wastes) and have to be replaced, which costs a great deal of money ($2000 +).

Re:Finally! by cowlum1 · 2003-09-19 15:02 · Score: 1

Im not getting defesnive of nascar or anything.

Infact I dont find it very interesting. However I still found this article rather informing and quite fun
It covers the basics of Nascar that a outsider would never spot..

nascar basics

good read if your into motorsports.
Rally for me too..

--

some peoples moderation does not include weed

slashdotters by rebelcool · 2003-09-19 15:15 · Score: 1

have always amazed me with their blind shortsighted cynicism. Everything started off as a mostly useless concept at some point. The first car henry ford built wasn't exactly 'worthwhile' either, puttered around at 10 mph and spooked horses with its incredible racket. And it had no brakes and was mostly unsteerable.

A few years later, a million model T's had rolled off the assembly line.

Keep working hard, and let the dumb nerds complain themselves into lonely unrecognized obscurity.

--

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Idiot moderator: the car is named after the novel by jerryasher · 2003-09-19 15:17 · Score: 1

Idiot moderator, the car is named Tau Zero.

Google for Tau Zero and tell me why the car was named Tau Zero, and then tell me my post was offtopic.

You should have read more closely by Tau+Zero · 2003-09-19 15:24 · Score: 3, Informative

Unfortunately for your critique, it's addressed to the old version of the tzero (the one with lead-acid batteries, not lithium batteries). You made a number of other mis-statements which you could have corrected with a visit to the manufacturer's web site. (Disclaimer: I am in no way associated with AC Propulsion, and I think their vehicular product is a toy for people with too much money. If they can get some of that money, more power to them [150 kilowatts at a time].)

* It may do 0-60 in 4 seconds, but so can lots of vehicles if you do hairy modifications to the engine and drivetrain. The car is tiny and light, obviously, since it needs only 200 horsepower to produce those figures.

2450 pounds is not light in my book, though the lithium-ion version is reported to weigh a bit under 2000 pounds. The sparkling performance is due in no small part to maximum torque being available from zero speed, a characteristic of many types of electric motors.

* Note the careful wording: "...Efficiency *to* 70 mpg." That tells me they are taking an average and counting when the motors are off while cruising.

You count the time your engine isn't working on a downslope when calculating your gas mileage, and your car gets its best mileage when putting along on the cruise control too. Not that the tzero's motor shuts off; the tzero doesn't have gears or even a clutch, so the motor is spinning whenever the car is moving.

* Good luck getting a charge when you run out of juice in the middle of nowhere. At least the AAA can bring you a 5 gallon container of petrol with a conventional vehicle.

If these vehicles were common you'd have charging stations everywhere, and you could always accept a partial charge from another vehicle. You know, like siphoning gas only without the risk of fire? (AC Propulsion used to list this as one of the features of their technology, but they've either removed it from their web site or made it very hard to find. It is implicit in the ability to generate AC to back-feed the grid; see the link named "Vehicle-to-Grid Demonstration Project: Grid Regulation Ancillary Service with a Battery Electric Vehicle".)

* A 100 mile cruising range is less than one half of the range of a typical passenger car with an ICE

That's for lead-acid batteries. The lithium-ion version has a range of about 300 miles.

* Totally electric cars are less efficient in the winter, when power is drawn for heating.

That's what hybrids are for. If you are using the hybrid battery in "depletion mode", you just switch over to engine power after you use the battery's non-surge capacity. If you run short distances between charges, that might be never.

* The emissions aren't "near zero," it's just that the extra pollution would be emitted from power generation facilities. Those power generators may be more efficient, but an increase in output (to supply these vehicles) is going to introduce tons (literally) more pollutants into small areas of the planet.

Figures? The typical ICE vehicle runs around 20% efficiency or less on average. If the tzero is powered by combined-cycle powerplants burning natural gas at 50% efficiency and has 40% losses in transmission, batteries and conversion, that's still 30% net efficiency. Plus, the waste heat of the combined-cycle plant can be harnessed to do useful things; you can't do that with the heat coming out of the radiator, exhaust or brakes of the ICE car. And with electric cars and microturbines as co-generating heating plants, the net efficiency of the system can go over 80%.

You can also hook the tzero up to a wind plant or solar panels. 500 watts of solar panels would give you about 12 miles a day. The I

--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.

Re:You should have read more closely by zlexiss · 2003-09-20 13:29 · Score: 1

"You can also hook the tzero up to a wind plant"

Hey, so what if I put a windmill on the car to charge the batteries while I was driving?

(just kidding, former EV builder repeating an often-asked question)

Some Numbers For Crunching by monoqlith · 2003-09-19 15:25 · Score: 1

Number of Lithium Ion Batteries: $6800 Cost to replace each one: $100 Time it takes for Batteries to Accelerate Car from 0 - 60: 3.7 seconds.

Actual every-day worth of car: Tzero.

Torque curves - Google to the rescue by David+Ishee · 2003-09-19 15:30 · Score: 1

http://www.engin.umich.edu/labs/csdl/ME350/motors/ ac/induction/
http://www2.latech.edu/~dalea/instruction/motorac. pdf

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You missed the point by Tau+Zero · 2003-09-19 15:36 · Score: 2, Interesting

As far as price/performance fuel wise: $200,000 buys a lot of petrol!

The tzero is a hand-built car at a hand-built price. I can buy a lot of Mack Truck for the price of a Testarossa, but my ride won't be nearly as classy.

What the tzero lets people do is make a statement with their money. I think that most anybody who spends that much money on a vehicle just to make a statement is silly, but the same technology often winds up being used in mass-production vehicles at a tenth the price.

Some things you might have noticed had you been paying attention:

Power electronics are cheap and follow a Moore's Law-like curve.
Lithium batteries are the up and coming technology, and are also getting cheaper at a dizzying rate.
Induction motors are dumb, cheap affairs of laminated steel and copper which are rugged and extremely cheap in quantity.

The conclusion is left as an exercise for the reader.

Where are the hybrid gas/electric kits for existing cars? That would be a great project!

The first really insightful thing you've added to this discussion! I can't say for sure, but I'll wager a pitcher of beer that the engineering hassles of a dual-powered vehicle are not appealing to the kind of person who wants to be "green", and the costs defeat the purpose for people merely trying to save money. To be truly practical you'd need the efficiencies of mass production, and they appear to be coming.

--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.

Use Debian! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 15:49 · Score: 0

RPM limitations ? I always knew RPMS were braindamaged.

San Dimas High Football Rules! by miguel_at_menino.com · 2003-09-19 15:59 · Score: 0, Offtopic

The founders of AC Propulsion, based in San Dimas in the suburbs east of Los Angeles, seem to think that the lithium-ion batteries have led them to the holy grail of electric motoring: range and performance in one package.
San Dimas High Football Rules!

Re:San Dimas High Football Rules! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 17:43 · Score: 0

Awesome! That's where like Bill and Ted are from!

WTF? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 16:01 · Score: 0

Who the fuck moderated this retarded comment up to "insightful"? Why the fuck are slashdotters so steadfastly against electric cars that they will mod up bullshit posts like the above?

Here is a hint for you, fuckwad, the TZero is to electric cars as the McLaren F1 is to a honda civic. As a technology demonstration, the TZero demonstrates unequivocably that GM and Ford are spouting bullshit when they say electric cars are impractical. Sure this one costs a lot, but it's purpose is to blow away archaic gas powered "exotics", not for commuting (although with the equivalent of 70mpg and nearly 300 mile range it does that well too). Scale the technology down into a reasonably fast and more reasonably priced car then you could have a real winner.

I guess when it comes to real cutting edge technology, slashdotters these days are more "I prefer the power of DOS" even when presented with the beauty and elegance of OS X.

It's not what it's cracked up to be by Tau+Zero · 2003-09-19 16:01 · Score: 1

I found it disconcerting that the car itself is rated at 70 MPG equivalent, while it only gets 35-40 MPG on trailer power. AC Propulsion does not publish hard specs on the efficiency, but my calculations showed that it consumed on the order of 0.64 pounds of fuel per horsepower-hour. A typical car at cruise gets 0.40-0.50, medium-speed diesels hit 0.32, and marine diesels can get 0.260 lbs/hp/hour, or about 50% thermal efficiency. I think they lose a lot by running a tiny engine at 6000 RPM; a Geo Metro engine and transaxle would probably do a lot better.

--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.

Re:Idiot moderator: the car is named after the nov by divide+overflow · 2003-09-19 16:10 · Score: 1

Idiot moderator, the car is named Tau Zero.
Google for Tau Zero and tell me why the car was named Tau Zero, and then tell me my post was offtopic.

OR you could be informative rather than petulant and explain that in general relativity "tau zero" means the condition where the value of tau--the proper time, or time experienced by a system (or person) traveling in a straight, constant-speed path along the vector (x, y, z) over coordinate time t--is equal to zero. Of course, that condition is achieved precisely when that speed is c , the speed of light. In effect, "tau zero" is a shorthand way of saying "when travelling at the speed of light and time stops."

88 mph for time travel, not 80. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 16:11 · Score: 0

It was 88, not 80.

Re:88 mph for time travel, not 80. by atomic-penguin · 2003-09-21 14:09 · Score: 0

Actually, I am using the new and improved flux capacitor 2000. Mine only requires 80 mph. I forgot of course I would need lightning to strike the local clock tower if said flux capacitor 2000 is not working.

Thanks to all of those who corrected me. Esp. the two who said I was an idiot and clod. For someone who is so quick to label they should have read the rest of this thread. Someone already corrected me, so we don't need two more comments that say the same thing. Now, who is really the clod here?

Q. How many /.ers does it take to change a lightbulb?
A. 10: 1 to moderate, 3 to meta-moderate, 5 anon-coward to post offtopic comments, and 1 to post the message about changing the lightbulb this morning.

--
/^([Ss]ame [Bb]at (time, |channel.)){2}$/

Second gear? by foldedspace · 2003-09-19 16:12 · Score: 2, Insightful

Why on Earth don't they put in a second gear? The speed freaks could stop whining about the top speed being a lousy 100 MPH, like they spend more than 1 hour a year at that speed.

I'm guessing about the effeciency of it all but, don't you also get more range for the normal drivers with a second gear?

Re:Second gear? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 18:10 · Score: 0

Speak for yourself pal...

My morning and evening sprints of 5 minutes each @ 120 MPH add up to OVER 30 hours of high speed driving...

Luckily my commute includes an atypically long stretch of no side street / un-populated / un-monitored road.
Re:Second gear? by ozzee · 2003-09-19 18:13 · Score: 1

Why on Earth don't they put in a second gear? The speed freaks could stop whining about the top speed being a lousy 100 MPH, like they spend more than 1 hour a year at that speed.
Have you driven on the freeways in Germany ?
I did spend over an hour at 180kmph with a little iddy bitty rental. I had the pleasure of being passed countless times by the black benz smear ... and I'm not even a speed freak !
Re:Second gear? by Foske · 2003-09-19 20:00 · Score: 1

If a normal petrol engine wouldn't need a gearbox, it would be about 40 % more efficient... that's why...

No by FredFnord · 2003-09-19 16:32 · Score: 1

The process of burning is the process of changing combinations of atoms (molecules) from a high energy state to a lower energy state. Thus, you're playing with the weak nuclear force, if I understand correctly, at least if you're playing with covalent bonds. Ionic are less clear to me.

BTW, I believe that electromagnetism and weak nuclear forces have been unified into the 'electroweak'. Which sounds really dumb, if you ask me. When they unify the electromagnetic, the weak nuclear force, and the strong nuclear force, are we going to call it the 'electroweakstrong'?

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Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.

Re:No by Eunuchswear · 2003-09-20 03:17 · Score: 1

The process of burning is the process of changing combinations of atoms (molecules) from a high energy state to a lower energy state. Thus, you're playing with the weak nuclear force,

Ding! Sorry, no score, same player play again.

All chemical (molecular) reactions are electromagnetic.

That's where the idea of "smart matter" comes from (make fake "chemicals" by manipulating electrons with no "atomic" nucleus).

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Watch this Heartland Institute video

Actually they modified the original Tzero to use by mehokie · 2003-09-19 16:37 · Score: 1

lithium-ion batteries. That was what the entire NYT article was about. That is also what is on the acpropulsion.com main page. The optima batteries were in the previous design. http://www.acpropulsion.com

Re:with transmission...200 easy by ChrisMaple · 2003-09-19 16:39 · Score: 1

Not likely. Required power to overcome aerodynamic drag is proportional to the cube of speed.

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parallel charging? by Doc+Ruby · 2003-09-19 16:40 · Score: 1

Why can't we charge Li++ subcells in parallel? Eg, take the 7000 batteries in the Tzero's cell bank, and charge 3500 on one 220V outlet, and the other 3500 on another 220V outlet. If the juice to the two outlets has enough power to drive both at full voltage, won't the banks recharge in half the time it takes to recharge a 7000 cell bank off one 220V outlet? Why don't we do this now with laptop and mobile phone batteries?

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make install -not war

Re:parallel charging? by guardian-ct · 2003-09-20 05:34 · Score: 1

Charging speed limitations are a combination of more factors than just the amount of power available. One of them is the temperature limit. Speed charging a battery faster than it is rated for could damage the battery, or reduce the life.

Also, no one outside of Tzero (maybe a few other EVs) owners and battery manufacturers needs to recharge 7000 cells at once.

I suspect the Tzero's internal charging system is fairly complex. Based on info from the Lead-Acid version of Tzero, the recharger is rated at 20 kW. That's around 90.9 amps at 220V.
Re:parallel charging? by Doc+Ruby · 2003-09-25 11:53 · Score: 1

I'm pointing out that they could charge all the subcells in PARALLEL, rather than what is apparently SERIAL charging of the entire bank. An absurd case is where a bank takes 1h to charge, so I take one half of it to my neighbor's house and charge it, while I charge my half. Voila - the bank is charged in .5h. Why can't they just use two outlets in my garage? Why don't they do this with notebooks and phones, to cut the charge time? If it's already parallel, why not subdivide again, for even faster times? Ultimately, it *is* the amount of power available in the mains, and there seems to be enough.

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make install -not war
Re:parallel charging? by guardian-ct · 2003-09-26 02:25 · Score: 1

When you charge a bunch of serially connected subcells, you are charging them all at the same time, since the current flows through all of them. So, if it takes 1 hour to serially charge a group of 8 cells, it will still take 1 hour to charge a single cell, assuming the same rate of charge (current).

Your "absurd case" isn't correct. It's not just the power in the mains that's a problem. It's also the "take half the battery bank to neighbor's house." 91 Amps isn't a small amount of current at 220 either.

They may do this parallel charging with some phone batteries, I've noticed that some of the charging connections have more pins than the connection from the battery to the phone itself. Phone batteries usually have only one or two subcells.

Check the voltage of the battery. If it's NiMH or NiCd, divide by 1.2 or so, and find out how many cells are in series.

There's a possibility that Tzero is doing multiple parallel banks. I can't tell, I don't own one, and don't have the owner's manual either. I think they mention connecting it to 240 volt power, in which case, they are sort of using two 120 volt connections at once.

Needs VTEC by xRelisH · 2003-09-19 16:52 · Score: 1

I bet if that car had a couple VTEC stickers and perhaps Type R somewhere on the hood, it could do 0-60 in half that time.

Re:Um (Chemistry smackdown time) by Blethrow · 2003-09-19 17:06 · Score: 2, Interesting

The 'bizarre thinking' here is that the energy released in a hydrogen fuel cell comes from the difference in the amount of energy stored in a hydrogen-oxygen bond versus a hydrogen-hydrogen bond. The hydrogen gets oxidized to water, and when you balance the books that extra energy went somewhere, in this case it went to providing an electrical potential to drive your electric motor. In an internal combustion engine, you're oxidizing carbon-hydrogen bonds to carbon dioxide and water, and again the products have lower energy bonds. That extra energy in this case goes into producing heat, which drives pistons. In the case of a battery, virtually the same thing is going on in that one chemical in getting 'reduced' by electrons flowing through the circuit from some other source chemical, which is getting oxidized by loosing electrons. In all three cases it's about electrons going from a high energy configuration to a low energy configuration, and giving up the difference in some harnessble manner.

And the weak force has nothing to do with it.

ANAL TIME by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 17:09 · Score: 0

whats that I say?

ITS ANAL TIME!!!

Your cousins name is furnace, he's a fucking dwarf!

Love, your Daddy,
Trollburger

Re:Friday night and.... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 17:20 · Score: 0

thanks man, that really helped.
g'nite

Fuck the New York Times by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 17:23 · Score: 0

Stop posting links that require registration to read!

Re:Another article... alicedoe vs NYT by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 17:41 · Score: 0

the password is not "alicedoe", as I have changed it

Too bad by EskimoDave · 2003-09-19 17:44 · Score: 1

The car was made 3 years ago... Way to keep with the times.

wrong by evenprime · 2003-09-19 17:50 · Score: 1

If organized racing of electric, or even hybrid, cars were to take place...Education of the public

Unfortunately, it is already happening, and the public has not noticed. Nik Berg's Prius Rally Car finished 14th in the 5000 mile Midnight Sun to Red Sea Rally. The Panoz Q9 hybrid finished 12th at LemManns. Jerry Unser beat several normal cars when she did the Pikes Peak Hill Climb with an electric. NEDRA has been drag racing electrics since 1998, and the NHRA now has rules for electric drag racing. Guess what? The public doesn't know and/or doesn't care. Until EVs and HEVs are consistantly *WINNING*, the public won't notice. I wish it were not that way, but it is.

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"Weapons should be hardy rather than decorative" - Miyamoto Musashi
I think that goes for OS's too

NY times account deleted by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 18:03 · Score: 0

Damn, looks like NY times finally deleted the bullshit/bullshit account. LOL.

Re:NY times account deleted by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 18:18 · Score: 0

I believe I changed the password on that one days ago

Re:good news for environment-What? by Lord+Kano · 2003-09-19 18:21 · Score: 1

That would be true but on the other side of that coin we're not dependent on a bunch of psychopathic goat herders at the ass end of the world for coal.

I have no tolerance for any type of racial or religious discrimination. If that's what you think this is about, please feel free to ignore anything else that I have to say.

And with an electric vehicle there is also the possibility of using alternative energy sources for charging. Solar, wind turbine, small project hydro.

No, don't delude yourself. In the current state of the world, none of those is a viable energy source.

But you are correct that until we can utilize alternate energy on a broader scale the only real benefit is being able to relax our dependence on foreign oil.

Foreign oil is good for us IMHO, it is our need for foreign oil that has kept us out of trouble with a large portion of the middle east. That however isn't the topic of this conversation.

LK

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"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano

Finally a 200 horsepower electric. by Wolfier · 2003-09-19 18:25 · Score: 2, Insightful

Now make it US $25000, the price point of most compacts that makes similar power (B20B, H22A, K20A, 1.8T)

Then we'll talk.

Re:Finally a 200 horsepower electric. by Wolfier · 2003-09-19 18:32 · Score: 1

That B20B is meant to be B18C~

Question: What happened to the 1984 Lectra by zakezuke · 2003-09-19 18:33 · Score: 2, Informative

For those who don't remember, the 1984 Lectra had a solar-charged battery bank, 4 wheel independent electric motor drive, and claimed that it could be charged in as little as 20-30min with house current, and assuming this book I have is accurate [50 years of cars Troubador press] a crusing range of 350-500 miles (though I assume this is in good weather daytime)

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There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.

Re:Here's another article with picture . very nice by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 18:36 · Score: 1, Insightful

How much emissions will it take to repeatedly recharge the batteries? Support Nuclear power!

Re:Here's another article with picture . very nice by Bagheera · 2003-09-19 18:40 · Score: 3, Interesting

I notice the races were all 1/8 mile rather than the standard 1/4 mile we're used to in drag racing. Could that be because the electric motor's torque curve tapers off at higher speed/RPM where the high strung exotics shine?

Electric motors have max torque at 0 RPM, which is great for off the line acceleration. The Porsche is producing maximum grunt much higher in the rev range, which will show further down the track.

Off the line, it's no surprise the electric could win. I'd be much more interested in it's performance at higher speeds and how it handles under extremes of cornering. Little sports cars handle well because they don't weigh anything. Battery packs are still heavy if you want any usable range.

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Never attribute to malice what can as easily be the result of incompetence...

I've been a passenger in this car before! by eaglebtc · 2003-09-19 18:51 · Score: 1

There's a man at my church who drives one of these things regularly; he's one of the engineers that works on the car. He took me for a test drive about two years ago; lemme tell ya...it's a SWEET ride. The car absolutely screams; he regularly races (and beats) Corvettes, Vipers, Lamborghinis, Ferraris, and all those other exotic sports cars. If I recall correctly, its first (and only) gear will take the car all the way to 90mph (12,000rpm peak).

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Homestarrunner.net -- It's Dot Com!

Re:I've been a passenger in this car before! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-20 16:23 · Score: 0

Erm, does he beat them in anything other then the 1/4 mile? You know like in real races on real race courses? Where you have to turn and hit speeds over 90mph?

Re:Here's another article with picture . very nice by Wordplay · 2003-09-19 18:56 · Score: 1

Probably it's because the car tops out at 100mph. It's a single-gear system. At 1/4 mile, any of the gas-powered supercars would have pulled well ahead of it when it hit the top of its gearing.

CORN by flagweb · 2003-09-19 19:12 · Score: 1

If you own a diesel you already own a car that will run on an alternative fuel.

Bio-diesel

It can be made from corn or from re-cycled vegitiable oil (read: used fast food fryer oil).

For more info check out Grasolean.com.

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Ernie Dambach

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Ernie Dambach
"It is no small thing to celebrate a simple life -Tolkien

Energy Required by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-19 19:28 · Score: 0

You need cheap energy and there are a few existing ways to get this. - Nuclear (bad because it scares people and blows up the moon) - Hydro (bad because it displaces people and umm, wastes water. Yeah, that's it) - Burning coal (bad because it's dirty) The batteries of an electrically-powered car have to be recharged somehow. Where will the energy come from? A hydrogen powered car needs H2, where will the hydrogen come from?

Re:Energy Required by Meowing · 2003-09-20 01:01 · Score: 1

A hydrogen powered car needs H2, where will the hydrogen come from?
You can get the fuel (perhaps as methanol) from just about any organic source, including sewage and garbage. Natural gas is the convenient way to get hydrogen and methanol right now, but it's certainly not the only source.

Re:Another article... Hybrid Humvee by BiggerIsBetter · 2003-09-19 19:45 · Score: 1

I'm not saying the Humvee isn't ugly, but at least it's practical...

http://evworld.com/archives/conferences/evs14/humv ee.html

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Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.

Go figure... by twoslice · 2003-09-19 20:03 · Score: 0

Laptops are starting using combustible gas to provide more power and cars are now starting to use Lithium Ion batteries to provide...well, more power!

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From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...

Re. The emissions aren't "near zero," i by haggar · 2003-09-19 21:01 · Score: 1

The emissions aren't "near zero," it's just that the extra pollution would be emitted from power generation facilities. Those power generators may be more efficient, but an increase in output (to supply these vehicles) is going to introduce tons (literally) more pollutants into small areas of the planet.

Will this blatant misinformation (injected by the arab lobby) please stop being spread already?
Electric energy can be produced in many ways, which are environmnet friendly, or at least, friendlier than burning gasoline. Hydro plants and nuclear plants come to mind, as some of the most frequently used sources of energy - both are much more friendly to the environment than gasoline.

Of course, you have also coal powerplants, unfortunately, but that doesn't mean you MUST have them. In the US and China, there is a disproportionately high amount of coal plants, but even there, large porportion of electrical energy is produced by nuclear plants and hydroplants.

Not to mention that the so-called renewable sources of energy, like eolic generator fields and solar plants are slowly but incessantly taking hold in some european countries (including the UK).

So, yes, electric energy is already now cleaner than petrol, and the trend is to becoming better.

You might not like it (vested interest? just bought a big fuel-guzzler?) but the facts are clear: electric cars are the only real alternative to polluting petrol-burning vehicles. The other alternative is bycicles, but I know they are not popular in US (which is a shame, but that's another topic).

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Sigged!

Nope, it's the range and cost by Moderation+abuser · 2003-09-19 21:08 · Score: 1

200 miles, 150 miles at 70mph with a 2 minute refill is the minimum people have come to expect.

Electric motors are known to have a nice linear torque curve. Getting good performance out of an electric car is more a problem of energy storage, it's the range that's unacceptable.

I'd have an electric vehicle in a second if it could do 250 miles at 70mph and was comparable purchase price to an internal combustion vehicle.

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Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.

Re:with transmission...200 easy by eatdave13 · 2003-09-19 22:24 · Score: 1

I guess it depends. Does it only go 100 MPH because it runs out of power, or because the motor can't spin any faster? From the article talking about how the power was there even when it was almost topped out it sounds like the latter.

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"Verbing weirds language." -- Calvin

I've had this car as wallpaper for about 2 years, by leonbrooks · 2003-09-19 22:42 · Score: 1

...so I hope it's better than that by now.

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Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing

PASSWORD by Psychotic_Wrath · 2003-09-19 22:47 · Score: 1

if your too dang lazy to register yourself just use this login i made Username: ireadslashdot Password: ireadslashdot

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Doctors do Massage in Longview WA now, who knew?

why electric?? by iamhassi · 2003-09-19 23:11 · Score: 1

What the... considering all the power grid failures we've been having the LAST thing I thought I'd see on /. is how great electric cars are. That's all we need, a few thousand people sucking down more juice when our electrical system can't handle the current load.

At least when the power was out you still had a car that could get you to a shelter, if it was some electric car with a 50-mile range you'd be SOL.

Electric is wonderful for the golf course, but by the time they can offer decently sized electric vehicles that get 300-500 miles per charge we'll all be driving 70mpg hybrids or fuel cell cars. Electric died before there was even a market, why don't these people invest their time in technology that actually has a future?

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my karma will be here long after I'm gone

Re:why electric?? by inventor · 2003-09-20 06:08 · Score: 1

Electric cars were "KILLED" off by the Oil Co's. they had this "Throwaway" stuff called later, Gasoline. Proof? When Henry Ford built his automobile, he wanted to use "Lamp" oil, only he couldn't get any. a shortage existed. so he went to the Taylor shop down the street and bought 2 gallons of used coat cleaner for 4 cents. the taylor got it for free from huge leaking vats at the refinery. just pull up the horse and tank wagon. the second thing Henry Ford invented was a fuel filter. the fuzz from cleaning the coats clogged the carb jets.
If we didn't use gasoline, it would most likely be dumped or used for something else.

The 1905 Baker Electric Car had 4 horsepower, went 15 mph, for 30 miles. not bad for 1905.

Today, a company called Silver Volt has a car that goes 450 miles on a charge at 70 mph,. and can recharge 85% in 48 minutes so you can travel another 400 miles.

With the Searl SEG you don't need the recharge.

See: www.searleffect.com for more information.

Inventor.
Re:why electric?? by iamhassi · 2003-09-22 20:55 · Score: 1

Actually the Silver Volt is a hybrid
And isn't Searl the same site that claims anti-gravity?
So if I'm understanding what you've said there's a huge conspiracy to keep electric cars expensive with poor range? Yeah, right. If AC Propulsion could make a electric car that got 400 miles per charge for 20 grand and still achieved 60 in 3.7 seconds wouldn't they already be doing that?

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my karma will be here long after I'm gone

Re:with transmission...200 easy by Soulslayer · 2003-09-20 00:41 · Score: 1

It's the latter. The T-Zero only has one gear. At the cost of a little bit of weight they could put an actual transmission in and it could easily have a higher top end.

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Once more unto the breach dear friends...

Why it just wont work by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-20 00:46 · Score: 0

Fine its got the 0-60 you may even make it safe one day...i have no doubt that my northstar cadiliac would get its ass kicked on take off.......But do this.. Add heated leather seats Fully automatic AC system power Everything and lets see Just how long that battery will last....i dont mind killing a few plankton for comfort.

Re:good news for environment-What? by angel'o'sphere · 2003-09-20 00:59 · Score: 1, Informative

Where do you think that the electricity to charge this car is going to come from?
In the US, most likely from a coal or nuclear power plant.
This whole electric/hybrid hype is idiocy, until we change the source of our energy, how we use it is immaterial.

Well, seems you should take a course in phyics or something.

A combustion engine yielding 100kW (about 120 horese powers) driving your car with a speed of 60 miles, likely uses up about 7 liters gasoline per hour(or per 100km distance).

Driving a electric car, filled with power from a coal plant or a nuclear plant, uses only half a liter of oil/gasoline or teh equivalent amount of coal.

Electric engines are about 10 to 20 times more efficient than combustion engines. That means at the point of usage, that is in your car, you produce only a tenth of the amount of environmental damaging stuff than with a combustion engine. And further more: you can handel the environmental damaging stuff in a plant far better than all over the land where it is distributed by combustion engines.

angel'o'sphere

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.

Re:Um (Chemistry smackdown time) by CaseyB · 2003-09-20 01:52 · Score: 1

The original poster's point was that both fuel cell and battery-powered cars use electric motors, and carry an onboard source of electricity.

I still don't understand how you can't see that an internal combustion engine is fundamentally different from that model. Here's a hint: look for electric motors.

Re:Here's another article with picture . very nice by Doug+Loss · 2003-09-20 02:08 · Score: 2, Informative

Don't forget that battery life isn't infinite, and that used-up batteries must be disposed of as toxic waste...

Battery durabilty is a solvable problem by Beryllium+Sphere(tm) · 2003-09-20 02:21 · Score: 1

Toyota offers an 8-year 100K mile warranty on the battery pack in the Prius hybrid car. That's NiMH, which usually is thought of as only good for a few hundred cycles. In real life, Yellow Cab has a Prius doing taxi duty in Vancouver BC which has passed 150K miles with the original battery pack. Toyota did bench testing to a simulated 120K miles, and has been buying up high-mileage Prius batteries for study and reporting no significant degradation.

A pure electric vehicle can't economically do what the Prius does. The onboard computers never allow the battery pack to go below about 60% charge (Toyota spent a lot of money figuring out the exact number and they're not sharing it). They also prevent overcharging, and usually stop the charge cycle at about 80%.

Remember the engineer who answered the "half full or half empty?" question by saying "twice as big as it needs to be"? Toyota bought that durability by making the battery pack five times larger than the absolute minimum. That's affordable on the Prius because the battery only needs to store enough energy to load-level the gas engine and recapture energy from the regenerative brakes. Pure electric cars can barely afford the weight and volume of battery packs with small capacity margins. Big margins would be out of the question.

Germany by phoenix123 · 2003-09-20 02:45 · Score: 1

The German Autobahn is unlimited at numerous sections. You can actually drive as fast as your car can go, as fast your bravery and the traffic situation can sustain. This covers about 30-40% of all Autobahn-km and there are sections where the road is virtually a free racing track because of very low traffic. (Especially the newly built Autobahns in rural parts of former east Germany, most notably the infamous "A20" 150km north of Berlin)

This is commonly seen as the German equivalent to "keep and bear arms", at least in risk vs. fun/freedom ratio. Except it's not written in the constitution and does not protect our civil liberties :)

Propaganda aside, the government regularly tries but fails on public outrage to generally limit Autobahn-speeds so we hope this will be here for some time to come...

Electricity in Germany: by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-20 02:50 · Score: 0

1 kWh sets you back 0,31 or roughly 0,35US-$.

Re:Here's another article with picture . very nice by Jeff+DeMaagd · 2003-09-20 03:19 · Score: 1

100MPH is all most cars really need, and IMO the power is where it counts.

Beyond 100MPH for a car meant for highway is pretty much in the range of felonious speeding anyway (assuming there is a felony range for speeding), rather than just civil infraction if you go 5-15 over.

I agree one sub-thread up that "zero emissions" still doesn't address the the problem of manufacture and disposal of batteries, and doesn't address how the electricity gets there. With every source of electricity so far, there is a negative environmental impact even if no smog chemicals are made.

Simple range extender. by Ungrounded+Lightning · 2003-09-20 03:44 · Score: 3, Interesting

Home to school to home was 400 miles (Fort Wayne, Indiana, to Terre Haute and back) while I was in college. Having a vehicle with a range of only 300 miles would have been sh*t for the parents who took me to school and back.

The only downside to electric cars of this sort is the charging time. But for long trips there's a simple way around that.

An automobile needs high horsepower for accelleration. But for cruise it requires very little. On the straight-and-level it depends mainly on air and rolling friction, and 18 horses might suffice for even a moderately large sedan, significantly less for a streamlined sports car.

The electric car described has stored battery power enough to both accellerate from stop repeatedly and climb mountains, and uses regenerative braking to salvage much of the gravitational potential and momentum when going downhill and stopping. So the problem for range extension is just to replace the average straight-and-level cruising losses.

Refueling mid-trip is out, due to charging time. But (if I recall the article correctly) the charging circuit is capable of charging the car at about twice the average consumption on a long trip.

So one solution for longer trips is obvious: A small trailer, about the size of a motorcycle sidecar, containing a gasoline generator and a fuel tank. The generator tops off the batteries while the batteries provide the accelleration and climbing power (so you don't hold up traffic in the mountains, as "eco-friendly" gasoline cars do).

The article talks of charging the car from an oven-style home outlet. Let's be pessimistic and say it's not a standard 30-amp oven but more like 50 amps (at 240 volts). That's 12 KW, about 16.09 HP (plus generator losses). So figure about a 20-25 horse engine (so 17 horses is near the peak of its efficiency curve and you can run it at that long-term), a bit less (since the efficiency of the SYSTEM might be better if you reduce the weight of the engine a bit and run it a tad fast), or even QUITE a bit less (since you don't have to charge at a rate that lets you run 70 MPH for 24/7, but can start out charged and finish up mostly drained).

It's not just a speculation: Follow some of the links you see when googling "tzero charging time" and you'll see such a trailer hanging behind another model of electric car.

If the car is set up for it you can reduce the weight of the trailer by leaving off the starting battery and starting the engine from the battery in the car. (Leave off the starter motor, too, using the generator as a motor for startup.) The car's computer can direct the trailer engine to only run when required, eliminating the idling losses and running it at the peak of its efficiency curve, and arranging proper warmup after start before putting load on the engine.

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Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way

Tzero - my next car for the summer by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-20 04:10 · Score: 0

I've had a Toyota Prius for a couple years and it's the best car I've ever had. Now I've decided to get a Tzero for the summer. I am going to place the order with ACPropulsion next week and can't wait to get that baby.

Don't under-sell regular car batteries by Tau+Zero · 2003-09-20 04:25 · Score: 1

Ever lifted a regular car battery? They are *really* heavy, and they're not even enough to power a car a half a mile.

A typical car uses between 200 and 300 watt-hours per mile at cruise, while a typical car-battery sized deep-cycle battery holds about a kilowatt-hour. (The car battery probably holds about the same, but can only discharge it all a few times before being destroyed by the physical changes. That's the difference between deep-cycle cells and starting batteries.) So, the car's battery can hold enough energy to push it for several miles.

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Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.

I'd do it for free by SHEENmaster · 2003-09-20 04:27 · Score: 1

Just to take a peak at the regerative systems.

Locking people into getting repairs fromt he manufacturer has been a major influence on automotive design for years, why should this be any different?

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You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.

Benefits amount to more than fuel saved by Tau+Zero · 2003-09-20 04:39 · Score: 1

The people at AC propulsion have developed a business model for making the batteries pay for themselves. See Vehicle-to-Grid Demonstration Project: Grid Regulation Ancillary Service with a Battery Electric Vehicle.

If the batteries are paying their own way by e.g. buffering power fluctuations on the grid (and preventing events like 8/14), the cost of driving the electric car becomes the cost of electricity. Compared to gasoline, electricity is pretty cheap (10-20 KWH of electricity for a buck depending on the time of day rate, compared to 5-10 KWH worth of gasoline for a buck at typical efficiencies and pump prices).

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Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.

SUVs should be banned by Zot · 2003-09-20 05:08 · Score: 1

Suburban Ussault Vehicles are a danger to everyone. I don't care about how much gas they use. They are a menace on the roads. They are too big. It is impossible to drive a normal car anywhere near them without problems. They take up too much room. They barely fit into parking spots. Last weekend I parked my car at the store, and when I came out there was an SUV on either side of my car. They both barely fit inbetween the lines. Of course they were parked badly, but that is not a surprise given how huge they are. It was impossible for me to get into my car. I had to get the store's PA guy to get the dumb SUV drivers to move their vehicles.

Re:I've always found that line voltage works bette by Chalex · 2003-09-20 05:12 · Score: 1

You mean, like trolleybuses? http://users.skynet.be/bk263873/Trolleybus5.html

Nitro Caps? by NFN_NLN · 2003-09-20 05:17 · Score: 1

Does this mean I can use my spare 1F Caps as electric car nitros?

Because you're by fred911 · 2003-09-20 05:24 · Score: 1

such weAk dicks you fail make a stance on *anything* that maters. Besides, we know how everyone feels about the french.

". Oh wait, they won't happen here because, in general, the world doesn't hate us. :-) "

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09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B - D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2

Re:Here's another article with picture . very nice by Bagheera · 2003-09-20 05:31 · Score: 1

Makes sense. I don't remember seeing a spec for the transmission (if any) on the cars website.

Though this thing brings back memories from the mid 80's of the ESR (Electric Sports Racer) showing up t Laguna Seca for an SCCA event and running as an experimental with the DSR's.

Essentially it was a DSR chassis, with a fairly hefty electric and a lot of batteries. Motor was hooked to a VW 4 speed transaxle.

Interesting machine. Barely had the range to complete a single 30 minute race session, after which the car's paddock mates got the dubious pleasure of listening to an 8 Kw Honda GenSet running for the next three hours recharging the car's batteries. It was also somewhat hobbled by the sheer weight of its battery packs. Compared to the DSR's (Most of which ran motorcycle engines of one form or another) it was at a considerable disadvantage in power and weight.

Wes definately eerie hearing it go by at more then adequate speed with only a faint hum and a whoosh of air.

As a racing class it died a forgotten death. But it showed almost 20 years ago that there was more than a little interest in high performance electrics.

Who knows. With modern battery technology, it might have taken off.

--
Never attribute to malice what can as easily be the result of incompetence...

Re:good news for environment-What? by Lord+Kano · 2003-09-20 06:25 · Score: 1

A combustion engine yielding 100kW (about 120 horese powers) driving your car with a speed of 60 miles, likely uses up about 7 liters gasoline per hour(or per 100km distance).

Sorry, I'm from the U.S., I don't think in metric terms.

Driving a electric car, filled with power from a coal plant or a nuclear plant, uses only half a liter of oil/gasoline or teh equivalent amount of coal.

Perhaps in terms of just the energy used at runtime, but there are other concerns that are often ignored. Batteries are grossly inefficient, if you use 100kwh to charge a battery, you'll be lucky to get 75% of it back when you use the battery.

Energy is lost through transmission. Everytime it passes through a transformer, energy is lost, when you charge the batteries, energy is lost, when you retrieve energy from the batteries, some is lost.

Electric engines are about 10 to 20 times more efficient than combustion engines. That means at the point of usage, that is in your car, you produce only a tenth of the amount of environmental damaging stuff than with a combustion engine. And further more: you can handel the environmental damaging stuff in a plant far better than all over the land where it is distributed by combustion engines.

Your arguement falls apart one we look at the "big picture" instead of just the point of usage.

Regardless of if we produce it in concentrated areas or spread out across the landscape, CO2 is still CO2, you can't change that. SO2 is still SO2. Same for SO, and the myriad hydrocarbons that are produced when we burn fossil fuels.

The arguement can be made that it is easier to deal with environmental pollutants when they're distributed over a greater distance. There is a limited amount of space around a powerplant, that limited space can only contain so many trees to process CO2. Over a larger area, there can be more natural mechanisms to deal with pollutants.

LK

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"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano

Forklift by endoboy · 2003-09-20 06:43 · Score: 1

'nuf said

Purple? by Takehiko · 2003-09-20 06:52 · Score: 1

Does it come in SGI purple??? Oh wait, that was the Tezro...

No way by burbilog · 2003-09-20 08:55 · Score: 1

>1) Lengthy refuelling time There's a fairly simple solution to that problem, and it's the same one we use for portable electronics - when the batteries are dead, swap them out for a new set.

There is no way to determine quality of the new battery set. If you visit rural area and swap there you have serious chances to run into dying set that could hold only half of the normal amount...

Of couse, if you swap them only in your home it's not a problem, but then you can't drive far away. Otherwise you need recharging stations and quality problem. Who will be last unfortunate owner of the battery set when it goes belly up?..

Re:No way by sunspot42 · 2003-09-21 16:26 · Score: 1

>If you visit rural area and swap there you have serious
>chances to run into dying set that could hold only half
>of the normal amount...

Huh? Why would batteries out there be any worse than batteries in the city? The same state agencies would regulate them, in the same way gas stations are regulated today. They'd be getting the same supply of batteries as every other service station in the country, so there's certainly no reason for their batteries to be any worse than anyone else's. And it would be trivial to put a system into place to track all batteries in use, their condition at last charge, who purchased them, how many recharges they have left before being decommissioned/recycled, etc.

Re:Here's another article with picture . very nice by smithmc · 2003-09-20 12:18 · Score: 1

How much emission does manufacturing 6800 lithium-ion batteries produce?

Not to mention the emissions produced in charging all those batteries, over and over and over... Electric cars are no more of a panacea than hydrogen cars; the energy still comes from somewhere.

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Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!

Really? by FredFnord · 2003-09-20 13:08 · Score: 1

So if I, for example, strip an electron off of one molecule and it bops onto another one in a reaction, that is affected in no way by the weak nuclear force?

Well, you live and learn, I guess. Here I thought the weak nuclear force was what was keeping that electron in that particular molecule to begin with.

-fred

--
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Re:Really? by Eunuchswear · 2003-09-20 22:50 · Score: 1

The name "electron" gives you no clue?

Maybe you'd better check out what the weak force is.

Not many W or Z bosons involved in chemical reactions.

--
Watch this Heartland Institute video

Racing burns gas like crazy by zlexiss · 2003-09-20 13:19 · Score: 1

Please tell me how I can get anywhere close to 27 mpg doing the kind of driving they were doing. When I autocross, speeds ranging 15-60mph, I'm probably getting 15-20mpg. Road racing brings it to about 10 mpg (this is a V6 Firebird) with speed ranging from 40-100mph on the course.

Let's do the math for the 250 mile drive, assuming it used all 50 kW-h of juice. Conversions are from http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/unitsindex.html

50kW-h x 3,412 BTU/kW-h = 170,600 BTU
1 gal gas = 124,000 BTU

So, 250 miles on 1.37 gal gas = 181 mpg. Not too shabby, eh?

"At 27 miles per gallon equivalent
We have petrol cars which are more efficient than this, but I don't believe that anything capable of accelerating that fast does 27mpg."

Re:Finally! by AntiOrganic · 2003-09-20 16:06 · Score: 1

Going to NASCAR races for the cars going in circles is like going to NHL games for the clean, friendly sportsmanship.

Re:Here's another article with picture . very nice by StormKrow · 2003-09-20 23:26 · Score: 1

Which is why you should never let a Swede drive your car...hehe. you'll have to get the brakes fixed.

--
Who cares about the ozone layer?...thanks to CFC's I can write my name......IN CHEESE!!!

Re:Here's another article with picture . very nice by nadaou · 2003-09-21 00:14 · Score: 1

These are Li-Ion batteries, not NiMH or NiCd. Lithium isn't nearly as bad as either cadmium or nickel, and is not, as far as I am aware, considered "toxic waste" by solid waste disposal guidelines.

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~.~
I'm a peripheral visionary.

Re:Here's another article with picture . very nice by nadaou · 2003-09-21 00:25 · Score: 1

How much emission does manufacturing 6800 lithium-ion batteries produce?

Considerably less than you create if you try to produce the same amount of car kinetics with a gasoline powered engine. Not only is the electric version more efficient, you also are running the powerplant (& if it is a fossil fueled one) at a much higher efficency than what a car runs at. The power company loses money if their system isn't running at peak operating efficiency.. and power companies don't like that.

You also control emmissions at a point source, which makes it much easier to monitor & clean with large & expensive pollution scrubbing devices which would be impractable to attach to a car.

Even with power-line losses, the electric model is cleaner. Just not as practical, yet. As this article demonstrates though, the situation is improving all the time.

--
~.~
I'm a peripheral visionary.

Matrix by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-21 05:46 · Score: 0

check out the MatrixWiki Matrix Wiki !

Re:Here's another article with picture . very nice by GigsVT · 2003-09-21 09:16 · Score: 1

Nickel is toxic? Since when?

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I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.

RTFA! by Phreakiture · 2003-09-22 01:47 · Score: 1

You would know better if you RTFA!

--
www.wavefront-av.com

Re:Here's another article with picture . very nice by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-22 04:03 · Score: 0

My guess; about the same as processing millions of liters of gas and oil (ever been by an oil refinery?).

How to take your EV 'cross country... by UncleRoger · 2003-09-22 19:15 · Score: 1

They could only measure 0-60 because at 4 seconds, the li-ion batteries are all dead.

Take a look at this article in EV World. Note the picture at the top. See that little yellow trailer behind the TZero?

I met Alan Cocconi once, back in 1995. There was a big EV rally in Yosemite valley because they were introducing electric buses to tote the tourists around. There were a lot of EV folks and a bunch of the big names in EV's were set up to show off their work, including AC propulsion. Alan had just arrived (a little late, iirc) in his electric Honda CRX, having come from Washington DC.

How did he make it from WashDC to Yosemite Valley, California? He had a little trailer attached to the back with a well-tuned little engine. It burned gas to produce electricity -- much as the hybrids apparently do today. If he was travelling across the country, he used the trailer. If he was going to the grocery store, he left it at home. It would appear he has the same setup for the TZero.

There are some common misconceptions about EV's and people's usage of cars. Most people think that a car needs a range of hundreds of miles. Not true, most of the time. Daily commutes are usually under 80 miles total, and if you "fill up" each night, a range of 80-100 miles is plenty. Of course, if filling up meant going out in the rain to put gas in your car, that would be a royal pain. But with an EV, it means plugging an extension cord in in your garage. Piece o' cake.

The next kneejerk exclamation is "what about when I want to go farther, like to Disneyland?" Well, you can use a set up like Alan's trailer, or to quote an EV owner from a number of years ago, "The best range extender for an electric vehicle is a rental car." Another option, and popular with EV folk, is to have a second, gasoline-powered vehicle for longer trips.

So, while amusing, your comment is not really based in reality, now is it?

--
Stupid people will be persecuted to the fullest extent allowed by law.

TZero Clarifications-From the NYT Reporter by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-23 18:15 · Score: 0

Ok, I'm reading several interesting points here and since I've got some time, I'll clarify a few things.
*First - newsworthy to the Times in this was the fact that this car makes due with 6800 simple LI ION cells - about the size of a C battery. These cells cost Dell or Apple about a dollar apiece -- not $60 or $70 as some here have suggested. They cost about $2.90 a piece for ACProp because ACP didn't buy them in the same bulk as Dell. Were the TZero to become a regular production vehicle, or its propulsion system to power another car, it's reasonable to expect that they would get the dollar a cell rate.
*Also newsworthy to the Times in this was the range - up to 300 miles on a charge is huge. Auto industry people I spoke to were amazed.
*ACP does make an Auxilliary power unit trailer for these cars -- or others -- and with them you can go forever. It's got a little Suzuki motor in it, and gets great low emissions efficiency.
*Electric cars are far more fuel efficient than gas or hybrid if you're considering things like the energy to refine oil, deliver it to stations and to drill for it. The amount of smokestack emissions from charging an EV is miniscule compared to a tailpipe.
*Quarter Mile -- around 12 secs at 100MPH. Sorry I didn't put that in.
ACP said they would consider a second or third gear and could expect 150MPH from that easily - or more. Though it would be scary.
*Also to consider-these batteries are so light, cheap and plentiful, it's reasonable to expect that you might see them powering hybrids in the near future -- including ones that can be charged at home to drive the car, say 30 miles, and then later run on the gas motor when necessary. Part of the whole ACP project was to test the validity of these batteries for this sort of use. These LI IONS charge fast, they're stable, they've been tested in millions of computers, and they have fantastic charge/discharge rates.
*The car ain't some little golf cart. It was a little techno tour de force. I was impressed with how solid it felt and staggered by its performance. From 50-70 (just over a second), it's about as fast as anything short of a funnycar. When you hit the damn gas, the power is instant across the whole rev band. Full torque, no downshifts. It felt like I was surfing on that mountain road not having to use the brakes or a gearshift.
*I'm not writing ad copy for ACProp. They have many mountains to climb before this takes off, or before they even get the OK from a Toyota or Honda for an "official" powerplant transplant. Still, I was impressed with their expertise and professionalism. If anyone can make any sort of an electric car rebirth happen, it's them.
*The TZero is obviously not for everyone. Its implications, however, might be.
Chris Dixon
NYT
(drop me a line if you want: jahsurf@aol.com)

Re:Here's another article with picture . very nice by nadaou · 2003-09-24 00:46 · Score: 1

Since Sudbury, Ontario.

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~.~
I'm a peripheral visionary.

Re:Here's another article with picture . very nice by GigsVT · 2003-09-24 01:10 · Score: 1

Sudbury had more to do with harmful mining techniques, than the nickel itself.

Their main problem was that they cut down all the trees to smelt the metal in open fires.

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I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.

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