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."

Comments

Forbes missed a good point - go figure

[ericspinder]

...hybrids, diesels and hydrogen cars now seem like more viable alternatives to electric cars, whose customers have complained about their golf-cart powerplant noise and limited range.

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.

Ad Campaign...

[bcolflesh]

The World's Fastest Electric Car - don't let the price shock you.

Talking about electric cars

[photonic]

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.

Golf Carts

[Fastball]

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!

Re:Where's the energy saving?

[Peyna]

Power plants are incredibly more efficient at producing electricity than your car engine.

Re:hmm.

[mrtroy]

Whose average commute is longer than 100 miles?

And when you are sitting in traffic, do you need to go 0-60 in 4.1 seconds? :P

Why can cars with a relatively low range not be used for commuting to and from work?

maybe a bit too light....

[Lord_Slepnir]

Drivers get an analog current meter, voltmeter, altimeter

I have a problem getting into a car that is so likely to become airborne that the manufactuer put in an altimeter.

Re:hmm.

[icejai]

If you read the article you would know that the range of 100 miles was the range of the vehicle with some older battery. With a 'new li-ion' one, the range was increased to 280 to 300 miles.

Re:How much oil to make the electricity?

[horza]

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.

With every country but the USA moving to minimum renewable energy targets, it's an increasingly attractive proposition. Plus you can generate your own electricity if you wish, using renewable sources. I won't rehash all the benefits of centralising the cleaning of fumes in a power station as opposed to millions of portable generators, as already discussed dozens of times on Slashdot, so even in todays infrastructure it still makes sense (especially countries like France where over 80% of energy is nuclear).

Phillip.

It's in a bunch of places

[Spamalamadingdong]

How are electrical cars more energy efficent than gas powered ones?

Among other things, electric cars don't sit in traffic with their engines idling but doing no work. They also have no throttling losses from operating at part load.

We get the majority of our electricity from burning fossil fuels.

If you have e.g. a Ford Ranger which uses 300 watt-hours/mile at the wheels while getting 25 miles per gallon at cruise, it is operating at about 21% efficiency. A typical old-technology coal-fired steam turbine gets 30-35% efficiency, a gas-fired combined-cycle turbine plant can beat 50% handily, and other technologies can probably hit 60% or more. If these are used along with co-generation to supply heat for other uses, total utilization of the fuel can probably exceed 80%. That's four times what the truck can get on its own.

If we all convert over to electrical cars, will be not just burning more oil and coal in our power plants?

But given the higher efficiency, we'll be burning less overall. We'll also have the option of supplying cars from nuclear, wind, hydropower or solar; anything that makes electricity is the same as far as the car is concerned.

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.