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The World's Fastest Electric Car
Roland Piquepaille writes "In this review, Forbes.com looks at the fastest electric vehicle in the world, the tzero roadster built by AC Propulsion Inc. 'The tzero does 0 to 60 mph in 3.6 seconds, according to the company, and it does it on only 200 horsepower.' The company says it starts faster than a Ferrari F355. It also has a limited range of 280 to 300 miles at 60 mph on a single charge. The company expects a price somewhere between a Porsche and a Ferrari, but Forbes says it carries a $220,000 sticker price. This overview contains more details and links. It also includes a rendering of the Tzero. Please note that the Forbes article has a very different focus from the one mentioned in a previous Slashdot reference."
Yeah, it's a dupe. This was posted last month.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
The picture on the website says 100 miles at 60mph and 0-60 in 4.1 seconds (still not slow).
100 miles at 60mph is nothing special nor is it anything good.
The difference between a traditional electric car and one of those new-fangled hybrid cars is the power source only. What is really amazing about this car is that a 110lb electric engine produces 200 hp and that easly makes the transtion between electic, hybrid, and hydrogen cars. I am still scatching my head about diesel engines being included.
The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
The World's Fastest Electric Car - don't let the price shock you.
..does it run Linux?
What about the world's fastest SOLAR-electric car?
The Nuna II, just won the World Solar Challenge, travelling 3000 kilometers in just 31 hours, averaging around 97 km/h.
karma police: arrest this man, he talks in maths; he buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio. [radiohead]
World's fastest stopper. 60 to 0 in 0 seconds flat.
Anyone who golfs knows what kind of punch an electric golf cart has from a stand still shouldn't be surprised by this. Nothing beats waiting for your playing partner to get one foot in the cart and then flooring it. He gets bended backwards over the seat like a pretzel. Pisses at your and struggling with a sore back, he shanks it the rest of the round. Fun with inertia!
A commie car that only lonely fat geeky men still living in their mother's basement would want. Despite "geek chic" of the late 90's, and the numerous McMansions that engineers/programmers bought, they are still the people we like to pick on. We picked on them in grade school, high school, college, and we pick on them now. We rule because we love money, and sold our souls to the 80 work week long ago. How dare they suggest that something that it is free is better than an $800 product. Some egghead professor at Yale said something, but we'll paraphrase for our pinstripe crowd: "He...said...Yes..."
Oh wait - this is from another Linux article from Forbes... sorry.
if it's like a laptop, you will have to change de battery after 1-2 years!! and how costly is a car battery??
.. it's damn ugly :), though taste is no matter for discussion!
I fuse with Mercer every single day...
What about the Tengo?
It gets 0-60 in about 4 seconds, and a top speed of 130MPH. That is certainly better than 3.6 and 60.
"Remember, there never were pineapple-almond cookies here."
Just wait until they come out with the Electric White Pumber's Van, the electric version of the fastest car on Earth.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
</sarcasm>
today is spelling optional day.
Failing that, you might want to put a semi-attractive person of the opposite sex in the passenger seat (non-inflatable is more convincing).
Not trolling... I just honestly don't know.
How are electrical cars more energy efficent than gas powered ones? We get the majority of our electricity from burning fossil fuels.
If we all convert over to electrical cars, will be not just burning more oil and coal in our power plants?
Where the energy-saving step that I am missing?
Davak
Why is it so damned ugly!
For $220,000! Somebody should direct them to a decent Italian design house!
-- "To ask a question is to show ignorance; Not to ask a question means you'll remain ignorant."
Give me a call when they can win the 24 hrs at Le Mans.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
How much coal, oil, gas is required on a large scale to make all of that extra electricity that would be required? Seems to be close to a zero sum proposition.
But only for the outrageously rich, as everything else. Meaning it will only be bought by those few outspoken movie stars always figthing for the environment.
What is the point of this if not enough people can afford it to make a difference on the environment? 100 people buying the car isnt going to save the Earth from polluted gas guzzlers. A uselss political statement is all it is.
The cup of tea I'm drinking produces no emissions but there were plenty emitted during its production.
...couldn't they have introduced this BEFORE we went to war for all of that oil?
If those new-fangled reactors get more widespread, we can at least defer any pollution concerns for a few decades.
Smooth design! Everybody will be doing flips and twists just to get into a genuine American tzero roadster.
I admire the USA perseverance in a severe fine-taste-vacuum.
So I'm a taste-spoiled Italian. Mod me down buddy.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
Also, is the electric car most efficient (in terms of miles per.. um, Watt I guess) at 60 mph? Or was that speed chosen because it's what gas-powered cars use?
Inquiring minds want to know!
[ReidNews]
Perhaps he did, perhaps not... Olds. made a 98 as well as an 88, but I don't recall one with the Delta moniker.
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
I have a problem getting into a car that is so likely to become airborne that the manufactuer put in an altimeter.
Metric??? I thought femtomiles per cubic week were the units of the future...
"73% of quotes on the Internet are made up" -Ben Franklin
This vehicle is strictly a concept car. Not too many will be sold at this price. The real front in the auto wars is the hybrids. Toyota is taking the lead on this. The US automakers are being left in the dust in this market segment. Check out this article. When hybrids go mainstream, it will be like the 70's when the US automakers were so far behind in quality.
www.mikesmind.com - www.daddyworkathome.com - www.freetofarm.org - www.tenfoottable.com
Or at least that's what they said in 2000. For somewhere around $80k.
In other words, the prototypes are way cool but don't hold your breath. And be cautious about putting a deposit down.
This is certanley not the most attractive car around! They tried to make it hot with the colors and the racer seats, but it still looks like a suped up go-kart.
WURD!!
..the only reason that 200hp can push the car to 60 in ~4 seconds is because the thing is the size of a matchbox (look at the Gallery pics, the car is about as big as a gas pump :D). I suffered with an MR2 MkII for a couple of years, this thing looks 2/3 the size...good thing it only has an hour range, my legs couldn't take much more.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
I don't think it's as fast as this: http://www.wurts.net/electrifiedmotorsports/
It comes with an optional 20kW gas generator in a little streamlined trailer for "continuous highway cruising"...doesn't that sort of defeat the whole purpose of the excercise?
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
Electric motors, unlike internal combustion engines, can generate maximum torque at zero RPM. This translates directly into excellent off-line acceleration, impressive 0-60 times, and all-round high performance. Around-town driving in an electric car should give the impression that there's a much bigger engine due to our preconceptions based on internal combusion (thus, the comment "only 200 hp"). Top speed, however, will seem stunted in comparison to that available from an internal combustion engine because they generally produce increasing torque with increasing RPM (especially below 2000 RPM).
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
The substantial storage capacity of electric car battery packs would also give benefits for the electrical grid (which should be high on our list of priorities after 8/14/2003). See the papers at acpropulsion.com about vehicle-to-grid ancillary services.
And no, I have no relationship with these guys, I just think they're clever and have a damned good idea.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Draining precious battery power to keep our fat American arses from melting to the seats is a major reason why Electric cars are but a fantasy in the US.
I believe your right. I might have been 14 when we got rid of that car. I am thinking that it was a 1980 model. I know that we had it before the '82 Prelude. I know that my Dad wasn't too happy with the car, I remember going up to New England and having to plug in the car overnight. However we did have another Olds and I think that was the 98 I was thinking about. That car had the biggest trunk, it was great for sneaking in extra people at the drive-in (yea there was still one of those around; it was in bad shape).
The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
Road&Track, 7/03 Road Test.
13.3mpg tested mileage, with a 29.1 gallon tank - I'm guessing they did a separate "run to dry" range test, mileage*capacity gives 387 miles. All for..$62.57! (29.1gals Shell Formula 94@$2.15/gal, hampton bays NY)
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
San Dimas High School Football rules!
Excellent! Party on dudes!
The exotic sports car you wanted, with less maintenance than you expected. Want a 100 grand price cut with that?
You're not old until regret takes the place of your dreams.
The tzero has a top speed of over 100 MPH with the Li-ion batteries. The vehicle speed is RPM limited by the single-speed axle, so the Ferrari would have an unfair advantage over a full 1/4 mile track.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Ohio State just broke the record hitting a speed of 256.894 MPH on October 18.
I remember reading this story in Wired some years ago about electric vehicle drag racing. The article talks about the National Electric Drag Racing Association (NEDRA), among other things.
Some of these cars are what you think of when you think of drag racing; some of them aren't, like this street legal 1972 Datsun 1200 "White Zombie" mentioned in the Wired story. Some people build electric motorcycles too; check out the KillaCycle .
Go and watch this [quicktime].
George II -- Spreading Freedom and American values, one bomb at a time.
It's solar panels generate some 2200 W or, for the metrically impaired, 3 horsepower as compared to the 200 hp in the Forbes article.
karma police: arrest this man, he talks in maths; he buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio. [radiohead]
The "Fastest" Electric car (which just broke the US speed record at 257mph is the Buckeye Bullet designed and built by students at Ohio State. Read more here: http://www.thelantern.com/news/533082.html
> The company expects a price somewhere between a Porsche and a Ferrari, but Forbes says it carries a $220,000 sticker price.
1 - A combustion engine is *hugely* more expensive than an electric one. The worst electric engine runs circles around the best internal combustion one whan it comes to efficiency. There's no need for advanced science here.
2 - Batteries are important since they have the most poor performance compared to gasoline, but heck! Even if that car was filled with the most expensive batteries around, how much would they cost?
3 - The current regulators have to drive an awful amount of Amperes, ok, but they are relatively cheap.
I still wonder what can make a $ 15,000 car cost more than $200,000. The brand? Of course not in this case; so what?
A good gasoline engine is 30% thermodynamically efficient. A good diesel engine is around 43%. There's a reason why trucks pulling 80,000+ lbs. over long distances are diesel-powered rather than gasoline-powered : diesel gives better miles per gallon than gasoline.
Biodiesel : domestic, renewable, clean, and in the fuel tank of my bone stock 2002 New Beetle TDI
especially from a dead standstill, which i imagine this car excels at. it's very handy if you're in a snarl of idiots (i commute on Long Island) and see an opening ahead - you can squirt forward quick, going from 5 to 40, and get out of whatever situation you're in. it's not aggresive driving, there's no cutting off or unneccsarily tight passes...it's "tactical" driving, keeping an eye ahead and looking for ways to move up without creating more trouble.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
Why is there an altimeter? Because this car is so fast, it'll fly. Literally :)
is it possible for a sloar powered car to go faster than the speed of light? if so, how long would it last?
Nathan Friedly
I visited Warwick Castle in England last year, and in the Mill there is an electic car... from before 1900!
i ll.asp
Warwick Castle-
http://www.warwick-castle.co.uk/castle/m
Is it me, or did the internal combustion engine somehow stop research in this area for a long time?
46. The Hobo smiles, his eyes glaze over, and he burps. "Beware the man who has lived longer than the Wasteland."
Put 100 megawatts of power into a transmission grid and I doubt much more than 50 or 60 megawatts come out the other end.
And if we change over to electric cars we'd need a lot more generating capacity - probably at least 10-20 times as much. Where is that going to go? I doubt the CA GrapeNuts would allow that to happen...
And I thought your mom would be a good lay...
sometimes we're wrong.
If you though exploding phones and laptops was an issue. Just imagine a few of the cells going off while driving...or just parked. Brings a whole new meaning to car bomb. "No officer, I swear. I'm not with a terrorist orginization"
Life is not for the lazy.
Once again, full electric vehicles are shown to be just not practical. I realize this is not a normal daily driver electric vehicle, but for $220000 you'd be better off buying a normal performance car. With 20 years of gas you'd still spend much less money.
Personally, I'm waiting to see how Hybrid vehicles evolve. What I really want to see is a Diesel/Electric hybrid. Small Diesel powered cars need to make a comeback in the US.
This post is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
If it were faster than an F40 or an F50, then yeah, it'd be fast.
F355s are poser cars, not fast cars.
That's all I have to say.
Why are electric cars always so ugly? I understand that they design them to be functional and put asethetics on the back burner, but would it really be so hard to make it nice-looking? Do they think that someone who has $220,000 to spend is going to want a car that looks like that when there are so many more beautiful cars for that price that will offer nearly the same acceleration and a much higher top speed?
Up until recently, hybrids suffered this same fate (It's gotten better recently with cars like the Civic hybrid, though). Look at the Insight, for god's sake. Sure, I'd like to drive a hybrid or electric car, but I don't want to go into my garage and frown every time I look at it.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
When I was a nipper, they said electric cars would be the transport of the future.
.5 * m * v ** 2}. Assuming the energy stored varies linearly with mass {reasonable IMHO - amount of energy stored per mole of reagents would be a constant for a given chemical reaction}, it's not strictly a losing battle, but it's certainly a nil-nil draw. Every kilo you add to the battery is another kilo you ned to lug about. Unless you have a reaction product you can dump as you go .....
A quarter of a century on and they're still being touted as the transport of the future.
They probably always will be being touted as the transport of the future.
Nobody has ever made a battery-powered water heater, nobody ever will, and there's a very good reason for that. Energy density has pretty much maxed-out. Crucially, so has motor efficiency. You already can convert over 90% of the energy stored in a battery to kinetic energy. Regenerative braking is standard now - so the energy you expended while accelerating can be recovered when you slow down. There basically are no more efficiency gains to be made.
Electric cars are also at least as polluting as any other fuel, because the energy has to be generated somehow. The charging and discharging process is less than 100% efficient; so some more {anywhere from a little to as much again, depending on the battery tech used} energy is expended charging and discharging a battery than would be expended if whatever kind of engine had turned the generator had been used to turn the car's wheels.
The greater the mass of the battery, so the more energy is required to accelerate it to a given speed. {KE =
That's not to say that electric vehicles don't have a place: they do. And that place is anywhere where electrical power can be delivered to the vehicle without relying on a local battery to store it {at least, not a full journey's worth}.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Nope, ha ha. I got fp
Check out the manufacturer's website
The car has a speed limiter to keep it under 90 mph.
They don't say what the car weighs. No air conditioning, the windows don't go up & down, they must be removed like a T-top.
Reserve your place in line with a $2,000 deposit.
I would think that you could drive a generator with a gas-fired turbine, keep the electric motors on the wheels and get much more efficiency than most cars while allowing you to use the current energy storage infrastructure (IE: gas stations.) I can't imagine that a turbine would be much heavier than the huge batteries these things require. Transitioning to diesel, hydrogen or propane wouldn't be all that hard, either.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
...and he has a bunch of friends out there
http://www.nedra.com/records.html
"cubic week" only applies to the 4th dimension.
Apparently you contribfulated your inter-dimension frutagal system... again.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Learn about torque. Electric motors generate tons of it at any speed. Gas engines don't. Most people havent a clue what horsepower actually is. these days its a well abused marketing term. Sort of like claiming mhz in a computer processor defines how fast it computes.
-
My antique Acura gets ~28mpg, range ~300 miles -- same range as this car. Doesnt sound limiting to me!
I believe this isn't the fastest.
There was an electric car powered by 1000's of sub-C NiMH batteries called White Lightning II and it hit the mark at just a tad above 245MPH.
here's a linkie http://www.dwra.net/settingrecords.htm
If you could recharge the batteries in under 15 minutes, then that would be excellent. I can fill my 32 gallon tank in about 5-10 minutes (depending on how busy the pump is), and go about 380 miles on it. Maybe less if I don't stick to the "beaten path" (read: pavement).
-- Liberalism is a mental disorder.
IMO, I think this vehicle is overpriced. Most electric motors will out-accelerate equivalent gas-powered ones. Here are some links to other fun electric vehicles that the common man can actually afford:
An electric crotch-rocket style motorcycle for $6800 at Electric Motorsport
An electric dirt-bike for $4699 at Electric moto
And economies of scale won't help much. We already make lots of laptop batteries. Maybe they could create (much) larger automotive Li-ion batteries -- fewer batteries, fewer chargers, less complex wiring.
But while it's an exciting car, I don't know if it's an important car.
Behold the riant ape! Beware, his crooked thumbs!
weight is MORE important than hp. hp can overcome weight, but that doesn't help handling.
it's surprising how many people don't consider the weight of a vehicle when comparing them. eg, the guy at work who thinks his 3100lbs 175hp altima is way faster than my ~2200lbs 127hp escort gt.
...take one of these???
I live in Quebec, and every article I read about electric cars mentioned that using them during winter is an issue. I never heard of one that did not have its performances and independence badly reduced because of cold temperatures.
Does that one still work at -20C or -30C ?
The google news article is here and a picture of the vehicle is here.
All of the technologies that are needed for powerful electric cars are relatively new, but they are all present. IGBT transistors, digital controllers, and simple-yet-powerful induction motors are all relatively new but are deployed in production hybrid cars. The big hole (still) is the actual cost of the batteries, as you point out.
The efficiency argument you make is a canard, for reasons that others have hashed out elsewhere in the thread.
But
Like flat-panel screens, electric cars will have their day, and we won't go back.
Can't have people returning dead batteries on their dime.
What makes that limited? My car has a range of about 250 miles in the city, 300 or so on the highway. Admittedly, it is an SUV. But I don't hear anyone complaining about the limited range of SUVs...
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Finally, electric cars have everything required to run over pedestrians! No more ugly parts jamming the radiator and intake valve! Enough low rev torque to drive over even the fattest of people! Giant lead-acid battery design creates even more havoc as you rack up points! Incredible acceleration and steering leave no witnesses!
Unfortunately, GTAIII lacks the detail necessary to pull it off. I suppose I'll have to wait for GTAIV, with realistic caustic and deforming effects.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/03/12/202124 6&mode=flat&tid=126
Time to recycle an old sig.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Sure it gets to 60 quick, but GM has the record I think with an EV1...it did 183.
Hmm, that would be quite enough power for a small SUV to get decent acceleration.
Finally, the fuel-efficient crowd have my attention.
Scale that up and let me know when Lincoln puts out an electric Navigator.
BTW, 200 HP is more than the vast majority of the small sedans on the road.
The TZero is rather old news, here's a video I took of it autocrossing (and doing a pretty darn good job all things considered) back in 2000: http://www.zfilms.org/Stories/AVArchive/2000/tzero .zip (5MB zipped WMV file)
Why not just fit cars with pantographs and roads with overhead wires?
We wouldn't need to worry about making and using poisonous batteries! All that is necessary is to train drivers to drive carefully and to train pedestrians to not touch the live wire. (Using 25 kV wires might not be safe on the roads, so we might have to use 1 kV or less to prevent loss of life.)
There are some problems, such as heightening all the overbridges so that a double-decker bus, plus the wires, can fit under the bridge, and fitting tall pantographs to cars, but this can be overcame.
Electric cars would then have a very long range!
-1 Redundant.
2 22 3&mode=thread&tid=126
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/19/195
Posted just over a month ago.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
It is odd to me that Forbes seemed to complain that the TZero ONLY has 280-300 miles in range on a single charge.
My first car, which had a 16 gallon tank only did about 300 miles before it needed a refill. I think many of today's SUV's have a similar range. Yeah for a serious road-trip it becomes a problem because you can't just stop at a gas station, but I don't think this little roadster is a long-haul kind of vehicle anyways.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
What consumer would buy this thing? Think about the target market for a second.
Hmmm, let me think for a second...
But uggly electric car or gorgeous looking Ferrari. No thanks, I'll keep my Ferrari. I'll make up for the lost karma in my next life!
Black holes occur when God divides by zero.
The Toyota Prius is NOT designed to get the maximum efficiency. It's designed to get TDI-like efficiency with "all the trimmings" -- it's a quiet, moderately zippy family car with a lot of goodies that would have been factory options a decade ago. The Toyota engineers chose not to go for maximum efficiency (like the Honda Insight), but rather for the efficiency of a jellybean car (like the Geo Metro) in a quiet, comfortable, safe four-door.
if you gave a ferrari a gear ratio where it's top speed was 130 in 6th.. to equivilate top speeds.. well the ferrari would be doing 0-60 in the low 3's.. with proper tires..
p.s. a lotus essege will out 0-60 a 355 and get 40+mpg..
it's called power to weight.. nothing new..
Today's Washington Post reports that the major automakers are abandoning their electric car research programs, putting all their eggs into development of hybrids and hydrogen fuel cells.
Well lets start with the zero emissions. It is a lie - there are emissions at the plant where the electricity is generated and where the batteries are manufactured (AND disposed). Every car crash of one of these new Li battery chemistries could become a mini super fund site.
And now efficiency - in the real world we generate electricity at a certain thermal efficiency loss then we transport it to ones house at a loss then the battery is charged with a certain loss and then stored with a loss and discharged with a loss. The real efficiency is
P*k1*k2*k3*k4*k5 = D
or
Pk=D
Where O is the original power and the kx s are the efficiencies of each transformation or storage (all less than zero) and D is the delivered power. The second equation shows that the kx s all combined into one coefficient. In all the electric/hybrid car stories no one ever states these numbers because they suck.
And lastly remember energy density:
I appreciate the wishful thinking of the hydrogen folks, but ask any hazardous material team about how dangerous hydrogen is - it has an invisible flame front - is explosive over a huge range of air/H2 concentrations, rots it's metal containment system. Besides, having a volume energy density that is about 1/4th that of gasoline.
Gasoline 9000 Wh/l
LNG 7216 Wh/l
Propane 6600 Wh/l
Ethanol 6100 WH/l
Liquid H2 2600 Wh/l
Lithium 250 Wh/l
Flywheel 210 Wh/l
Liquid N2 65 Wh/l
Lead Acid 40 Wh/l
Compr Air 17 Wh/l
Hydrogen 2.7 Wh/l
Come on folks you are smarter than this!
#1: "Only go 280 to 300 miles"
ONLY? My 2001 Sentra goes about 300 miles before I need to refill it. My sunny LA commute is 28 miles a day, so I only need to fill up every two weeks -- and that's for a daily driver. This car is a niche performance vehicle...after all, who drives their Ferrari to work and back every day (unless they have a serious ego problem)? Let's face it, an electric car with this kind of range is the holy grail of electric cars, assuming the cost can be brought down. The Ford Ranger electric pickup the article mentions as being discontinued barely had enough range to get me to work and back ONCE. I know this, because I did the research before deciding not to buy one.
#2: "Its Spartan interior looks like a science project, in which most of the controls apart from the CD player are gadgets to monitor the battery and tiny 110-lb. motor. Drivers get an analog current meter, voltmeter, altimeter, and battery-voltage display with LED lights that measures temperature and charging limits."
As opposed to those high-end exotic production cars which have "gadgets" to monitor the oil pressure, oil temperature, coolant temperature and fuel level. They're called gauges. You read them to figure out how the unseen mechanicals are doing. Just like every other car.
Honestly, I'm never reading a forbes article again. Their bias against alternative (read disruptive) technologies is just too evident to waste my time on.
The problem is that your basic assumptions about gas engines are completely incorrect. From a consistent work/power aspect they are quite shit. Take a look at this dyno graph:
Ferrari 360
The line with the hump in the middle is the torque, the line that goes mostly from bottom left to top right is the horsepower. You'll notice that at idle, the Ferrari makes about 60 horsepower. Not much, huh?
The beauty of electric motors is that they have a constant power output at any speed. If this electric car were tested on the dyno, the graph would be a FLAT LINE at 200HP. The electric car's secret is that it's able to gain speed very early (before the gas engine has time to realise it needs to start working).
Your MR2's peak power output would be the electric car's *constant* power output, even at zero rpms when launching.
.... and won't be for at least a couple of decades. Battery electric vehicles on the other hand are ready and have been for over a century. BEVs were popular before the gasoline engine took over.
Here are some problems with hydrogen:
1) Where does it come from? There aren't any hydrogen wells, you have to make it.
2) What do you make it out of? Right now nearly all of our hydrogen is made from non-renewable fossil fuels. (This is my guess as to why the Bush administration is pushing hydrogen fuel cell cars.)
3) Yes, you can make it out of water, but to do that takes TONS of electricity. How do we make the electricity?
4) What does a hydrogen fuel tank look like? Hydrogen is difficult to store. Cryogenics are probably not feasible on a small scale, pressure tanks are bombs waiting to go off, and metal hydrides have a low energy density, esp. when compared to gasoline. This means that a fuel cell electric vehicle will have range similar to a battery electric vehicle.
5) Hydrogen fuel cells are expensive and delicate - not yet ready to be stuffed into millions of American cars.
I have seen at least one concept for creating and storing hydrogen for use in small vehicles (boron hydride and water, http://www.millenniumcell.com. But it requires infrastructure we don't have yet.
OK, on the other hand, batteries:
1) are very well understood technology
2) are cheap, safe, and easy to store
3) are made out of recycleable materials
4) can use the electric grid infrastructure for refueling
5) can use unused night-time capacity for charging, eliminating the need to build more power plants
The Achilles heel of the battery electric vehicle is range. They have less range than gas cars, true. But the vast majority of car trips are less than the round-trip range of even the cheesiest home-built BEV.
As is so often the case, it's a perception problem. Americans don't want to buy a car that isn't capable of driving across the country. But most families have two cars - why not make one of them a BEV? Or, if you only want one car, then own the BEV and rent the gasser when you need to travel out of the city.
Gas and diesel powered cars can do things that BEVs can't. We can't get rid of them today, because we still need vehicles that can carry huge loads or go long distances at high speeds or travel to places with no electricity. But the vast majority of passenger-miles travelled in the USA could easily be fueled by 100% American electrons.
Consider the microwave oven. It can't bake bread, it can't brown meats, it can't roast turkeys. Why would anyone want such a useless appliance?
Well, because most of the rest of America's food-heating needs can be met by the microwave, more cheaply and convieniently than by the conventional oven.
I bet that you have a microwave in your house.
Why don't you have a battery electric vehicle in your garage?
Because you think it's range is impractical, and even if you wanted one, you'd find that you can't buy one!
Yeah. All plastic. Nice...
My BigFoot power wheel looked 10x better then this short bus looking thing!
If people can settle down on a method of disposing of the waste, special nuclear reactors would be very effective at producing hydrogen.
They'd do it by boiling the water into a near-plasma, where the hydrogen and oxygen ions become separated. The hydrogen ions would then be separated from the oxygen ions.
I would imagine that such reactors would produce less nuclear waste over a given amount of time than electricity generating reactors, because the useful life of a given amount of fissile material would be greatly extended.
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The world's fastest electric car is actually Ohio State University's Buckeye Bullet.
What, is it made of Ruffles?
This is not the fastest electric car (and I am not talking about dropping it from an airplane). There's a British group whose car did 149 MPH on its first test.
Horsepower is important, but not the only thing to consider. A "200hp engine" means that the maximum horsepower is 200. The power of an internal combustion engine varies greatly with rpm. So, at some specific rpm, the engine outputs 200hp.
The power of an electric motor (not sure what kind is in the car), does not vary as much with rpm. It's maximum is still 200hp, but it is also able to produce more power than the internal combustion engine throughout most of the operating range.
So the electric motor produces more power than the internal combustion engine throughout most of the operating range, allowing it to do more work in the same amount of time.
If its not killing wildlife, destroying natural resources, or polluting the environment - I don't want it!
Pan the TZero - and pass the white Rhino ribs!
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
I took plenty of physics. Torque is a measure of the ultimate work your engine can do, how much of a load it can move. HP is the measure of power, how fast the engine can apply the torque. High-HP high-rev engines are usually relatively low torque, so they won't accelerate a lot of mass (that's why sports cars bog down so much when you have a full load), but they'll get it moving very quickly; Formula 1 cars are running 7-800 bhp, but less than 250 ft-lbs of torque. They accelerate at ungodly rates, but are hyper-sensitive to changes in the car's mass. Yeah, the shape of the torque curve is a huge factor as well, and the monster low-end from electric motors is great for pushing big cars up to speed...but for small-car peformance, where you keep the revs high enough to not worry about low-end figures, and the torque numbers are comparable, 200hp is 200hp.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
"Please note that the Forbes article has a very different focus from the one mentioned in a previous Slashdot reference."
What about this article, or perhaps this one?
The tzero does 0 to 60 mph in 3.6 seconds. The VFR will do it in 3.0 seconds
It also has a limited range of 280 to 300 miles at 60 mph on a single charge. I get about 200 miles at 75+.
The company expects a price somewhere between a Porsche and a Ferrari, but Forbes says it carries a $220,000 sticker price. The VFR was $11,000 new, out the door, all taxes, fees, and other California bullshit included.
Now if this were a useful car, something with 4 doors and a trunk and a roof, I'd be impressed.
Too big to fail? Does that make me to small to succeed?
Maybe they "can" (as you put it) achieve under 2% loss in certain situations, but the US national average is about 14%.
This is one of the main arguments for distributed power.
The most important point is that cars produce ground level ozone. Power plants even the dirty nasty coal ones grandfathered in have smoke stacks so we don't have to breath the foulness. It just rains down as acid rain. Electric cars in conjunction with cleaner energy (wind, solar, natural Gas, nuclear, hydroelectric) will have a profound impact on the health of Americans.
Hydrogen is currently a more practical transport of this energy due to the speed of refueling compared to recharging battery packs. The Hydrogen/Gasoline combustion engine in the BMW 745 will be in production shortly and fuel cells will be practical once their size and cost come down. (Additional flame bait: If we spent the $200 billion we are going to spend in IRAQ on building out infrastructure for hydrogen refueling we could finally tell OPEC to go to hell.)
Well I know of several electric cars that go faster, provided they are dropped from an airplane.
"AC Propulsion's tzero roadster is a reason to not give up on the electric vehicle."
"And we're happy here, but we live in fear, we've seen a lot of temples crumble..." - Concrete Blonde
The electric drive motors of a car like this, but instead of a big battery, have a highly efficient gas turbine engine that runs a generator, and have it run the electric motors.
.
You have the GT run at a constant RPM, and a smaller battery that is used for saving the regenerated electricty from stopping ( dynamic braking ). It also provides the startup power to get the turbine up to speed before it lights off
Volia! Much longer range than the regular electric car, and much more efficient than a standard IC engine.
Check out http://www.nedra.com, a drag racing association for electric cars.
The fastest electric car on the list can do the quarter mile from a dead stop in less than 9 seconds. To give you perspective, the Ferrari Enzo is the fastest production automobile Road and Track ever tested, and it does the quarter mile from a dead stop in 11.8 seconds.
The tzero may be quick, but it's not the fastest electric car.
The Ferrari has met US crash requirements. The T-Zero has not, and would weigh a lot more than it's sub-2000 pound weight if it had the required door intrusion bars, crush areas, etc. By the time it gets certified, it'll be a lot heavier and slower than the demo version being touted in the article. I predict it will end up slower than the Ferrari.
Ferrari, Porsche, etc. could easily build a car that outperfomed the TZero, if they weren't required to follow any guidelines about occupant safety. Porsche had a race car whose frame, suspension, driver's compartment and body weighed less than 100 lbs (the 904? I think). Of course it was the late 60's-early when race sanctioning bodies weren't too concerned about safety. Add the drivetrain of a 2003 GT3, and you'd have a 450+ HP, sub 1000 pound car. Of course, you'd also have major damage and possibly injury in the event of even a small fender bender, but it'd be as street legal as the T-Zero, and out-perform it in nearly every category. It's just a show car, the production version is a long way away.
In a race from say LA to New York (3200ish miles): Ferrari - 53ish hours at 60MPH (well under legal limit), plus over 6 hours to fill up 12 times, 60 hours total worst case.
T-Zero - 32 hours at 100 MPH (top speed), plus 42 hours of charging (at 4 hours/charge), 74 total hours best case.
The T-Zero loses every race over 300 miles over about any car.
This sentence no verb.
I am not an expert on this, and sfbanutt touched on this down below, but as I scanned the posts I don't think anyone has explicitly cited this as an energy-saving step:
Traditional cars are like blast furnaces on wheels. You hit the gas and accelerate, then when you stop all that speed is converted into waste heat by your brake pads. Incredible losses.
Regenerative electrical cars use the motor as a generator on deceleration. This exerts a braking force and allows the car to recapture some of the energy. Ideally you dump it right back into the batteries. Other methods involve spinning up a flywheel as you decel, keeping the energy in a mechanical (rotational kinetic) form.
Name one country that is moving towards minimum renewable energy targets? And what the hell does that really mean? There are plenty of programs developing more efficient energy usage in the US, does that count?
I can think of quite a few faster vehicles. Most record holders of the national electric drag racing association would blow this car's doors off. If you want to get technical, there are electric airplanes that are faster, and the new ion propelled european satellite is quite a bit faster.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
As long as electric cars look like electric cars, they will never ever catch on. I don't care if the damn thing can go back in time, if it looks like some kind of science fair project it's not going to win the hearts of consumers.
because I have been enjoined by this Holy Office to abandon the false opinion which maintains that the Sun is the centre
As I recall, c. 1973 Suez was a problem. Since then a number of oil fields have been torched and many countries are at the mercey of OPEC, Venezuala, middle east unrest and sabotage of pipelines etc., For freedom in troubled times, we could do with freedom from imported fossil fuels. Hydro, geothermal, wind, nuclear and other sources tend not to be portable but batteries and fuel cells certainly are. Faced with the possibility of petroleum based fuel shortages - some of us have lived through similar already and seen corporations loose millions /$
I tend to think we should be open to new possibilities. Otherwise we may as well go back to the plough?
Cheers.
My hyperlinks aren't worth the paper they're printed on.
I doubt most people are aware of this, but the current worlds fastest electric car record is currently held (as of 20 Oct 2003) by a team from Ohio State. Below is the copy of an email one of the faculty here at BYU sent, since he was actually there when it happened:
COLUMBUS - Ohio State University's Buckeye Bullet electric car today
broke the record for the fastest speed by an electric vehicle, with a
speed of 257 miles per hour at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. The
former national record was 251.3 mph.
The vehicle, which was designed, built and managed by a team of
engineering students at the university's Center for Automotive
Research-Intelligent Transportation (CAR-IT) traveled to Bonneville this
week to attempt to break the record for the fastest speed achieved by an
electric car. It is the team's third trip to Utah to make a run at the
record.
To break the national speed record, the Buckeye Bullet completed two
certified runs reaching speeds averaging 257 miles per hour. For the
first of the two runs, the car was clocked at 271 miles per hour.
The streamlined vehicle is 30 feet long, two feet wide and stands less
than three feet tall; the 500 horsepower electric motor is powered by
more than 12,000 nickel-metal hydride batteries.
The Buckeye Bullet team includes 12 graduate and undergraduate students
with majors in a variety of engineering disciplines. In addition to
setting a new land speed record, the project to build the car has also
created some top-notch engineering students. The exciting and
innovative project has offered students hands-on experience along with
classroom time.
To build the Buckeye Bullet, OSU students collaborated with both faculty
and industry. In addition to the College of Engineering and Center for
Automotive Research, a number of businesses have sponsored the car.
Team members will return to campus late Sunday. The car, which will be
transported in a trailer, will return early next week.
http://www.osti.gov/fcvt/deer2000/eberharpa.pdf
http://www.raqc.org/high emitter work group/Feb. 4/svimpactonaq020402.PDF
Quick summary: Gasoline emissions contain smaller particulate matter than diesel emissions, which carries a greater risk of causing cancer (easier to absorb into the lungs).
Gasoline engines produce more toxic emissions than diesel engines.
Diesel engines pollute MUCH less than gasoline engines (some study results in the links above).
Diesel engines not only have much better efficiency than current gasoline engines, but also hold the capacity for even greater efficiency as technology improves (even more than direct injection gasoline engine technology).
---
I grew up with diesel engines (farming, heavy machinery), and can't stand the blatantly incorrect assumption people currently hold against diesel engines: That diesel engines pollute more than gasoline engines. It is absolutely wrong, and people need to inform themselves so the spread of disinformation STOPS.
The world runs on diesel. Busses, trains, tractor-trailers, heavy machinery used to grow and harvest the food you eat, the equipment that people use to build cities... The USA does it's heavy lifting with diesel, as does the rest of the industrialized world.
Sure, fastest off the line, but how about pit stops? "The tzero can only go 280 to 300 miles at 60 mph without recharging--even if it can recharge on any 120- or 240-V power socket. And if you accelerate it like an Italian exotic, or even take it on a hilly route, that range can decrease by up to about 20%." Fine. My car goes 200 to 300 miles on a charge (a tank of gas). If I'm going that far or farther, I'm glad to stop and get out, if only to stretch my legs while filling up. Doing so takes me 5 minutes or less. That's enough for me, and I'm on my way: places to go, etc. So how long will it take this thing to recharge to a "full tank"? If it's going to take an hour to get back on the road, it doesn't matter how fast it accelerates.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
The Horsepower and Torque numbers tell the real story - plus the last report where they were bragging about beating gas engined sports cars, but only in a 1/8th mile drag. If you gear it to take advantage of the torque for acceleration, you will out accelerate machines with less raw power, but taller gearing. You're using the gearbox for torque amplification, and that peters out once you run out of revs.
About a dozen years ago I raced motorcycles. An obsolete one at that. If I geared down for acceleration I could keep pace with a (then) modern Suzuki GSX/R on my aged KZ650. At least until I ran out of revs and they pulled away, where I was hitting red-line at 118. If I regeared for higher speed, they'd pull away under acceleration. Racing was finding the balance and relying on the rider not the power. (Mid pack finishes in 750SS and Formula 1 - not bad for a 12 year old bike at the time)
The T-Zero is playing the Acceleration game for publicity. The numbers look nice, but I can get better range, speed, etc., from a well tuned gas burner for 1/10th the price. Hell, but 1/10th the price I can get a new Prius and be Eco_friendly and out run the T-Zero on a long straight!
Never attribute to malice what can as easily be the result of incompetence...
see subject
Frankly, I'd have no problem driving a car to work that only had a 100 mile range if I could negate the fact that once a month, and emergency comes up at a remote location and I have to drive 120 miles with virtually no forwarning.
:-)
In addition, I don't want to have to own a SECOND car, if I decide to go skiing on Saturday and have to drive 90 miles uphill on the Interstate to get into the mountains... and then expect to be able to get back... or not be stranded if an avalanche on the road blocks traffic 5 miles short of my destination.
*shrugs*
If the electric car can be recharged in 20 minutes, it might do, since a "filling station" infrastructure could be built, but to be perfectly honest, if it takes hours to charge, I'd be stuck spending the afternoon on the mountain at the base of an avalanche field if the car takes 8 hours to recharge.
Stewey
There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't.
This will be a lot more dramatic than a cell phone when the batteries explode. I can't wait.
As far as clean and effecient fuels for transportation go, can anyone comment on natural gas in comparison to electricity?
"he drew his sword Ringil that glittered like ice... and he wounded Morgoth with seven wounds..."
So why would the range be a problem? A car like that is not meant for long distance travel anyway - a couple of hours on bendy roads can be fun, but extended driving in something without power-steering is exhausting.
Kill'em! Kill'em all!
How else can your average person afford a 250+HP mid-engined sports car, sure second-hand Elise is getting cheaper now but they are overkill for the average driver.
Kill'em! Kill'em all!
You want to centralize the dirty stuff in one object
:-)
Kinda like Windows, huh? Concentrate all the flaws in one company, then when the revolution comes we only have to blow up one place.
Seriously, your analogy with OOP is grossly inadequate. Consider:
1) The most clean and efficient fossil fuel to electricity conversion plants available today are "neighborhood" size fuel cell plants. Combined cycle efficiency up to 80%, near zero emissions. Still too expensive for you & me, but prices are bound to come down with mass production.
2) Likewise, wind, solar, wave, geothermal, and other renewable generation technologies are efficient, and much less intrusive on the landscape, at "neighborhood" sizes. Hydroelectric and nuclear are the only ones left where large power plants make sense on efficiency grounds, at the cost of their associated environmental problems.
3) As you may have noticed lately, the electric distribution grid is severely overstretched, and due to NIMBY new high voltage lines are getting almost as hard to get approved as nuclear power stations. The obvious answer is to generate the power closer to where it's needed.
4) Do you know just how long the planning, approval, and construction cycles are for large power plants? Market forces (assisted by judicious selective taxation and subsidies) can create a million small new-technology power plants MUCH faster than you can build a single centralized Gigawatt monster.
And yes, the analogies to the open source movement are striking. Free Power Foundation, anyone?
- nic
Be faithful to your obsessions. Identify them and be faithful to them, let them guide you like a sleepwalker. JG Ballard
The real point is that gas-turbine cars have been built, and they were very smooth and quiet. Regardless of what a particular system may create in decibels, it can be and has been done better than the screamers with which you are familiar.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Building more power plants is one thing, but upgrading the tranmission grid for all of the US, right down to the local stepdown transformers in every nieghborhood is a hidden cost of going electric.
And what happens if and when there is another power outage like the east coast blackout a few months ago? Not only are we all sitting in the dark, but can't find a place to plug in our cars?
I'm not saying these are reasons the electric car can never become mainstream, just things most people don't think about.
-M@