Slashdot Mirror
Aircraft Maker Will Produce Electric Cars in 2006
clarkie.mg writes "French aircraft maker Dassault has announced that they will team up with Hydro-Quebec to produce an electric car, available as of 2006. Hydro-Quebec will provide the lithium-metal-polymer (LMP) battery and the wheel motor propulsion system. The car will be built in partnership with a car specialist and sold in association with a large automaker not yet found."
See, this is what I hate.
Why can't car companies make an electric car that doesn't look like a bad futuristic science fiction movie? I mean, why do they have to make it sooo ugly that people will only buy it on the principle of fuel economy?
I imagine, if car companies made models of cars that looked *exactly* the same as their gas counterparts, and only marginally more expensive, that people would be willing to start making the switch. Appearances are important when choosing a car, to some people. They want things that are sexy. Not cars that will prevent them from getting laid for the next 5-7 years.
Not like the average slashdotter thinks along those lines, eh? ;)
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
duke nukem forever is due out only two quarters from now. pre-orders are available, see our website.
Electric cars still require electricity which is produced by fossil fuel burning power plants. This doesn't help pollution, it just passes it.
Looks like electric is finally starting to get a foot hold. Sure there have been others, and there are already hybrid cars, but to see Hydro Companies hopping in with both feet is good. Now if only they could make a car that looked good, and GET THE CONSUMERS TO GIVE A SHIT, they would be on to something.
That really is my homepage, no kidding.
There is not much info in the articles. But, the stats on the batteries is interesting. Even though a lithium polymer battery has a higher energy density, the cycle life may be a big drawback.
Fight Spammers!
a lithium-metal-polymer (LMP) battery hey. Isn't that the same one in Apple's iPod?
An 18 month lasting car! Wonder how popular that'll be heheh
Now all they have to do is make more than a few hundred of them, and convince people other than government agencies to buy them.
Good luck.
OK, after reading the blurbs about the batteries and the wheel-motors, it looks good to me. Lithium Ion batteries look like a better match, but that's just the current (pun not intentional) version versus the current version of the other battery, the new technology will surely improve given time.
:( I'd really like these newer batteries to put inside my chair :) The wheel-motors would be nice, too, I'm sure, but the batteries are a must-have.
My personal take on this is - when can I get the same technology in a power wheelchair? My Jazzy 1113's nice, but those sealed lead-acid batteries just suck. Very much short-range
Lemon curry?
An aircraft maker gets together with a government-owned power supply utility company. They hatch a half-baked plan about an electric car that they hope a big car company will want to sell for them. Sure...why not? I wish them luck.
I think the boss of the aircraft company has been inhaling too much jet fumes and the other guy's been standing too close to the hydro-electrict turbines with no protective gear.
I wonder how much it will cost when you get a flat on one of those.
So, is this one step closer to those flying cars that were promised to us eons ago?
I mean, the only flying car I've seen is K.I.T.T. from Knight Rider (brilliant series btw), but then again, the car didn't really fly and from what I've heard, they had to replace parts every time they did a "Turbo Boost"
This is the sig that says NI (again)
Electric Cars are the way of the future, there is no way that we will be able to continue along the lines of using fossil fuels to pollute our environment in the quantities that are endemic in our society!
Using electric cars is the logical next step in our society, synthetic alchohol fuels are a good idea as well, but the problem with those is the flammability issue.
With the benefit of electric cars, fuel can be transferred instantly along power lines, nuclear plants can be used to generate almost unlimited amounts of electricity to fuel our cars.
In order to follow our information society forward in progress electrically fuelled cars is the only choice!
Post apocalyptic gaming goodness
I don't know if I'm reading this right but 400+ lbs of torque, that's a lot. But then again it's an electric car I heard they have a lot of torque. And low horsepower, so it can accelerate up to 60mph faster than most other cars, but then it gets their and you can't go any faster. I'd buy an electric car if it wasn't for that.
:-D.)
And the looks, the looks suck too. Although I would deal with the looks for an electric car with a high top speed (at LEAST 100mph, 120-150 would be VERY nice.) It'd be worth it, drive up to a dodge viper, in something that looks like a 4 year old drew (and then threw up on, and then the dog ate it, and then crapped out the drawin), and drag race them (and win
If nothing else, an aircraft maker ought to know about fuel efficiency and aerodynamics! It'll be nice to have a new brand on the market, too, one that doesn't have the same ties to oil companies.
The only electric car I can think of to be put into serious production in recent times was the (Ford owned) Th!nk, and it was canned a few years ago. Batteries are simply too heavy/expensive and charging takes too much time.
Also FYI hydrogen cars make even less sense and will untill we have an abundant source of cheap, clean energy (see: fission, fusion). What many so-called environmentalists fail to grasp is that the greater part of our electricity does and will come from fossil fuels (especially so long as they oppose nuclear energy) and the many conversions involved in hydrogen powered vehicles make them incredibly ineffecient and not worth the effort. There is a huge loss in effeciency turning fossil fuels into electricity at the generating plant, another signifigant loss transmitting it over power lines to the fueling station, another huge loss using that electricity to extract hydrogen from water, and finally another huge loss turning that hydrogen back into electricity with a fuel cell to power the car. Just burn the damn' fuel in the damn' car in the first place!!!
On the upside hybrid cars, even if they don't make sense now in terms of costs (all are sold at a loss by manufacturers, and even still at a price that outweighs any potential fuel savings for most people), they will in the future as costs come down. That in addition to the fact that there are will be be performance gains as well (electric motors make maximum torque at 1 rpm, while small gas motors tend to be peaky). Hybrids can also get by with much smaller/lighter batteries which are cheaper and less of an environmental concern (batteries are very toxic, but again don't tell the "environmentalists").
Finally, I have to wonder what Hydro Quebec (a public utility) is doing getting into the car business? Last I heard they were building a huge gas fired plant near Montreal since their hydro production cannot keep up with demand just in the provice of Quebec (in the short term they say). Of course there was a huge public ooutcry over the fact that they would be building a "dirty" gas plant (and opposed, I guess, to destroying another few million square kilimetres of pristine winderness for "clean" hydro... another example of envoronmentalists reasoning I can't get my head around...)
...Aircraft Maker Produce Cars 2006 and fill in the blanks with "Aircraft Maker Will Produce Flying Cars In 2006"? I was really excited for a minute :-/
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.
There are already a few of those around London, they're called TH!NK (or something like this).
It's really a problem. Those batteries are VERY expensive and currently their lifetime is limited to 2-3 years at most. After that they will be either dead or at least down to half capacity.
I think this is only affordable if they did some R&D to optimize LIon lifetime.
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
Why is it that the car they're actually producing is no where near as cool looking as the car from the development site . I know most of the arguments pro and cons of electric cars are of a technical nature, but let's not forget that humans often buys with their eyes. A slick looking electric car would probably sell better than one that looks like a moris minor.
umm, so how's an "LMP" lithium cell any different from the standard not-too-safe LiCoO2-cell? If i remember correctly, the reason why people still use lead-acid cells in their cars is because lithium-ion cells explode after thermal runaway (happens in 150 Celsius, usually after the cell is internally short-circuited).
The carmakers should use Saphion for cars, since the cells are made from LiFePO4. There was an Inquirer article about lithium cells, cant be arsed to search for it tho.
This being slashdot, I expect the usual nonsense about "But electric cars just get energy from gas-burning power plants . . ." will start up immediately.
Here are some facts that I don't think anyone disputes. Absorb these, and then continue with the ranting.
Fact 1: Electric motors are more efficient than internal combustion engines. Run a gas engine at X watts for 20 minutes. Run an electric motor at X watts for 20 minutes. Afterwards, the gas engine will be hotter than the electric motor. Yes, it depends on the load, blah, blah, blah, but in the loads typically encountered by cars, the internal combustion engine loses.
Fact 2: The energy density of batteries has quadrupled in the last 10 years, mostly pushed by laptop and cellphone battery technology. Lead acid batteries have about 35 Wh/kg, while different variants of lithium batteries are in the range of 100 Wh/kg to 150 Wh/kg. Note that the cost of a lithium pack is substantially higher than that of a lead acid pack of the same capacity.
But don't worry, zealots! There are still lots of other things to debate! Does every family of four really need TWO cars with more than 100 mile range? Was Carl Pope of the Sierra Club being blackmailed when he endorsed hybrid SUV's in the latest issue of Green Car Journal? Would you cry if someone gave you a lithium-ion-powered Tzero for Christmas or other nugatory tradition? Can putting a 500 W solar panel on a car that consumes 15 kW at highway speeds make any difference? Will people ever stop suggesting that putting generators on the wheels of electric cars is a good idea? Am I really as much of a tool as I seem?
Have at it, boys!
1.) Think centralized pollution control. What is easier, cleaning a million little exhaust streams, or one big one? Any kind of electric plant is better than a bunch of gas powered cars.
2.) Electricity keeps getting cleaner. Every electric car on the road can take advantage of cleaner electricity before it is developed.
Typical anti-environmentalist FUD.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
If electric cars take off, we can make use of all that surplus off-peak power that comes from wind, tidal, etc.. For instance the UK could make 200% of power needs from offshore wind, but that would leave loads of unused off-peak capacity going to waste.
The problem with pure electric (as opposed to petro-electric, etc) has always been the batteries, and the recharge time. I have always thought that you should be able to change a battery for a fully charged one at a pump station, so you in effect "lease" rather than own batteries. Gives the oil companies something to sell & keeps them happy too..
Its got to happen..
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
Electric car? Aren't we supposed to have flying cars by now? I mean, come on. An aircraft maker should be making flying cars, not electric ones!
using namespace slashdot;
troll::post();
Aircraft maker... cars... finally! After many decades of empty promises, my flying car is here! Now if only they could get to work on those flying cars they promised.
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
GM starts producing their own electric "freedom cars" in response to the French. ;)
Now Bill Mahr and the other rich liberals will have a new conversation piece to drive around.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Anyone know of what the actual cost of operating an electric car is? Say on average how much it would cost to drive 200 miles on an electric charge versus how much the same distance would cost if you were using gas?
slashdot, news for crazed liberal socialist zealots
cars are supposed to be percieved as an extension... a status symbol, cool, fast cars are great for picking up chicks. I doubt I'd be able to pick up many chicks in this erkel car, expecially with a LiMP battery, even that name is uncool.
No accounting for taste (I end up saying that a lot, usually defensively ;)), but I mind the oddball look of the Honda Insight less than I do that of (last year's) Prius; the current Prius is a little better. Of course, the Insight isn't a practical car for mountain driving with gear and a few passengers, but hey -- I didn't buy one ;)
I am looking forward to the (hyped / announced, then pushed back) Hybrid Escape from Ford; I happen to like the shape / size of the Escape, at least from the outside. (I have not been inside one, though I have been inside the identical-cousin Mazda Tribute.) I had been planning to wait on a car purchase until the Escape Hybrid had been out for a year, then look for a deal on a used lease-return model. However, the old car started dying too fast, so I bought my Subaru wagon.
Also interesting is the (also upcoming) Ford Freestyle; I hope they make a hybrid version of this as well. It actually looks even more like the thing I've been waiting for, which is to say a domestic (and therefore, hopefully, cheap to repair) answer to the Subaru Outback wagon. I bet they'll offer it in automatic-transmission only, though. (Bastards!)
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
I much prefer this version, which uses a combo in-wheel system and a constant RPM diesel engine for power. (Last seen on /. as Dutch Invention Uses Electric Engines For Wheels) First off your "recharging station" is anywhere that sells diesel, and the wheel brakes generating charging current as well as the constant RPM makes for a damn small, quiet, and efficient system.
I'm aware the article mentions hybrids, which definately means this version of the "wheel motor" can be used in the exact same situation, however it seems from the web sites this car is planned as a pure electric with special "charging stations", which IMHO will never take off without government mandates.
Jonah Hex
Horror & SciFi Erotic Nudes
The wheels will be too heavy and add kinetic energy of the rorating mass. It will require more breaking power and will be slower to react on the controlls. I say, put one sufficiently large electric motor where it can be cooled and distribute that power the traditional way. This looks very nice in theory but drivers will no like this concept. A normal wheel is heavy as it is. Permanent magnets can not be made light and they will require volume. The magnet height along magnetic lines acts like a source and the air gap as a resistance. Those things add up to a heavy fragile (alt. inefficient) design. You'll crash that engine the first time you run over a curb at 30 mph (or forget low-profile tires).
A single electric motor inside the car can be isolated from road vibrations and shock. The motor can optimized with fewer requirements and a traditional clutch can isolate the wheels form the kinetic rotation energy of motor (when required).
Electric car adoption really comes down to the price of oil. Nobody will buy an electric car that is more expensive to run than a combustion engine, and no company will heavily invest in the development of an electric car if it won't turn profit.
So really it comes down to oil and how much is left. It won't be environmental concerns or government involvement that will ultimately push electric cars into mass-scale production, but consumers and their pocketbooks.
Still, these articles are reassuring that nutballs like this are wrong.
Corporations: your universal scapegoat for all society's ills.
So, the difference is (assuming the lower figure for gas) like 12700 for gasoline vs 121 (the current figure for LMP). 100 times -- that is a lot of difference! Increasing the energy density for batteries up to 180 (and that is projected) ain't going to change the picture much.
Further, "re-charging" the fuel tank can be done in 2 minutes, while the batteries take ... who knows, certainly hours. Further, the fuel tank can
be refilled practically infinitely many times,
while the batteries are good after only so
many re-chargings.
Probably Daimler-Chrysler.
Dont be surprised if they throw in a free-os Linux CD with every free-energy car that they sell as well.
Also included with every electric car will be a $100 voucher for accessories of your choice, from AutoZone.
Or you could just grow corn and burn that to produce energy and store it by electrolysis of zinc oxide, or smelt the zinc oxide directly with heat from the burning corn stalks.
M Le xperiments/Chapter2/2-Expt8/p2.html
Anybody know how to fabricate an air cathode?
Something a little better than this maybe:
http://www.charlesedisonfund.org/Experiments/HT
Car and Driver tests the Ford Focus ZTW this month. The ZTW is a Partial Zero-Emission Vehicle (PZEV). C/D says "To qualify as a PZEV, a vehicle must meet Super Ultra Low-Emission Vehicle standards (SULEV) at the tailpipe; virtually eliminate all fuel system evaporative emissions; and guarantee that these systems won't degrade over 15 years or 150,000 miles. Compared with federal emissions standards in effect through 2003, SULEV cuts hydrocarbon emissions by 97 percent, carbon monoxcide by 76 percent, and oxides of nitrogen (NOx) by 97 percent."
C/D then contines latter in the article (not yet online) with this bit:
"If your Earth First! neighbors remain unconvinced that any internal-combustion engine can ever approach the godliness of a pure electric drivetrain, run these stats by them: Compared with a battery driven car juiced up by energy generated on California's electric grid, this Focus produces a scant 0.001 gram per mile more hydrocarbons and other smog forming gases, but it emits 88 percent less NOx."
That is what I never get about purely electric vehicles, it is just a displacement of pollution. Hybrids and clean burning internal-combustion engines make a lot more sense for the time being.
Off topic, but you might want to check out other models as well. They actually look quite good to me. Takara (japan's toy company) made these electric cars with the same product concept and spirit as their 20-year-old "choro-Q series.
I think they look awesome, though it's not really practical. If I live in a 10mil castle with golf course, I would buy one of these rather than ugly golf carts and drive around for a whole day in amusement. All men are boys after all.
The U.S does this too, more or less... not 500 km certinly. Very far away from a city in Nevada or what-have-you.
The problem these days isn't as much the "not in my backyard" issue as the "not THROUGH my back yard" issue. It's very difficult to get the nuclear waste from, say, New York to Nevada, because it has to go through ten other states, each of which must approve the transport. If the train has an accident while in a certain state, well, that's it. The buck stops there.
It's hard to understand how very separate the States are if you live another country. Even as an American ex-patriate in Canada, I have a hard time keeping a handle on it.
Ford Thunderbird
Knight Rider
KITT was a Pontiac Firebird with T-tops, not a Ford Thunderbird.
(images shamelessly stolen from whatever Google's image search engine could find; don't blame me if the sites go down)
electric car polute a great deal!
it polute to generate and distribute the electricity
it polute to create the infrastructure
it polute to wait for it to be ready
The hybrid car cut the polution in half and more, use the existing infrastructure and is ready now.
Sometimes people just live up to the stereotypes - if the subject and attitudes were not so deadly serious it would be worth a chuckle.
As most disparagers on this page start in their own little selfish buble - so I will start there.
If you live in the rest of the world - gas isnt so cheap you can piss it away boy-racing a Humvee around the city for no real reason. Gas prices usually reflect the local and global damage it does - that way people buy more efficient cars.
In the EU this sort of 'small car' is popular cos its easy to park and manouver on our overcrowded streets. If more people drove electric cars you or your kids are less likely to suffer from asthma etc.
Burning fossil fuels to create energy is not pollution free - agreed, but is less harmful than thousands of I.C.Es pumping CO1, lead (in some places - still), SO2, ozone and all sorts of other filth directly into your childs face (or yours if you are short).
It is more efficient to filter emissions from a single large source than a million smaller ones, it is easier to monitor and maintain and often outside of popululation centres. Not pollution free - but preferable.
Once you take the rest of the world who isnt hooked on fossil fuels like Darl McBride and his crack, like British Columbia (mostly hydro), Iceland (mostly geotherm) and in some places you CAN get to the holy grail of emmision free transport.
Batteries can be recycled, or at least disposed of responsibly and with less seepage from say - oil or other liquid waste. Take into account the spillage, tranport, infrastucture and human suffering caused by the oil industry and the business of manufacturing and recycling the batteries look quite attractive.
Also your beloved presidente would not have to kiss Saudi ass or invade any more oil rich countries.
Sooner or later, the American fetish for cheap oil will be its downfall - not terrrrism, North Korea, liberalism or the European taste for mariuana.
And when it happens, I will rejoice in the ironic justice of it all.
This perpetual motion machine Lisa made is a joke, it just keeps getting faster and faster. - Homer
If only they would build a water powered boat I would be a buyer.
I stand corrected. Sorry bout that. :)
"Derp de derp."
Using electric cars is the logical next step in our society, synthetic alchohol fuels are a good idea as well, but the problem with those is the flammability issue.
Forgive my ignorance, but how is there an issue with the flamibility of alcohol, that's different from the flamibility issues with regular gas? As I understand it, Alcohols are infinitly renewable, significantly less polluting, and can be used in most vehicles with only minor alterations (valve settings and different material for the head gasket or something.). Why isn't this being persued as actively as fuel cells? The only reason I can think of is that High schoolers would be able to pull up to the gas station and get their resources for the kegger that weekend, (and how is that any different than now anyway?) Just a thought..
And as long as we're talking about electric cars, here's the obligatory Tesla refference: Tesla Electric Car #1
"Operating systems suck: you're better off using only the BIOS" --trainsaw.com
The GM hybrid system that will be available soon will increase MPG by 10%. So a 12MPG truck turns into a 13.2MPG truck. Big fuel savings there /rolls eyes. Remember, this is the company whose CEO said that hybrids make no sense. This will work just like the EV1. They'll build a few vehicles, then scrap the program when they claim no one wants one (even though there's a long waiting list which GM will say doesn't exist).
A mistake that many electric car designers have made over the years is to fail to recognize that the electric car is not simply an internal combustion engined car with the engine replaced by an electric motor.
I'd say the designers are pretty well aware of this. However the budgets aren't infinite, and they're trying to make use of existing technology and parts as much as possible.
Only GM has created a fuel cell powered concept car from the ground up. This seems to be a nice article about the skateboard concept.
My wife showed me an article about a two-seater diesel powered Mercedes apparently now available in Europe and apparently coming to North America in a couple of years. If I did the arithmetic correctly, it gets about a hundred miles per gallon. If you run it on bio-diesel, the greenhouse gas problem goes away. It seems to cost about the same as a Toyota Echo.
Why the heck would I bother with an electric (or air powered) car?
Favorite quote; "There are liars, there are damn liars and then there are battery chemists".
"...400+ lbs of torque, that's a lot...drive up to a dodge viper...and drag race them (and win :-D.)"
Yeah, it would, but you wouldn't win.
Gen II Vipers have over 450 ft/lbs of torque and Gen III Vipers, the current model, has over 500.
A Viper with a competent driver would eat your electric car alive, then throw up on it, then crap it back out.
Tal
"Study your math, kids. Key to the universe." -The Archangel Gabriel
On the Geneva fair, an number of nice hybrid concept cars were introduced. Have a look at them:
Alessandro Volta
Honda IMAS
Lexus RX 400h
SMART. Why the hell hasn't DC rolled out electric SMARTs yet? Their little roadster or a worked coupe would make a pretty sweet little EV.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
Seriously, though, this looks not unlike a typical small commuter car that you might see in Europe every day. The accenting on the headlights is the only thing that stands out.
How long before the petrol lobbyists get governments to make electric cars illegal?...
It will probably go the way of the GM and Ford electric cars or the ceramic engine...
I wonder if this particular manufacterer cares for speedlimits ;-)?
See ya! Jan
The rim hits the ground.
The magnet gets powdered.
Goodbye, wheel. Whole rim with the magnet needs to be replaced.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
...this French company actually teamed up with a German one. :)
Last I heard they were building a huge gas fired plant near Montreal since their hydro production cannot keep up with demand just in the provice of Quebec
I lived in Montreal for three years and the first thing I learned is that "hydro" is just Canadian slang for electricity -- it doesn't mean that it was actually produced by hydroelectric dams, although a lot of it is.
Hello there, I'm an electric car.
I can't go very fast, or very far.
And if you drive me, people will think you're gay
ONE OF US! ONE OF US!
solution?
a universal battery design that gets slid in and out of the car every X miles at a station. an automated process like a car wash, pull in, it pulls the car to the correct point, and slides a new battery in from the side, forcing the old one out.. you are automatically billed based on the charge remaining, and the # of cycles you've charged at home since the last station swap. (against the cost of replacement only) and you drive on.
the batteries are the property of the station, not the car owner. If you've not pulled into a station for 300 cycles, you pretty much pay for the batteries all at once.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
they destroyed them all..
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
expel it?
...they promised me flying cars!
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
There is a lot of discussion about the relative benefits of different technologies wrt energy efficiency and pollution. FWIW I think a constant-speed diesel plus electric motors is best for now (why do you think railways have used this for decades?) but that is in many ways beside the point.
There are two ways to reduce the impact of transportation:
a) clean up the "supply" - e.g. make more efficient cars, buses
b) reduce the demand
There's a hell of a lot more that can be done with (b). Basically, stop building cities that presume everyone wants to drive, and make public transit and biking/walking/skateboarding/etc a viable choice for more people, and you will make an order of magnitude improvement. As an added bonus, getting people to actually walk farther than from the parking lot to the building might do something to ameliorate the obesity crisis in car-dominated societies.
Ah, but that isn't a cool "tech" solution!
(Before the rabid car-promoters start foaming at the mouth: I am suggesting a decrease in reliance on cars, not the abolition of cars.)
The Smart Fortwo cars are great when it's hard to find a place
for parking.
If you're looking for a fuel efficient car, you may also want
to have a look at the VW Lupo 3L TDI, which seats four and
only uses 3 litres per 100 km.
I think that refining the internal combustion engines exhaust system to filter out C02 is the solution. Electric cars?
No way. Just more problems - battery disposal for one.
Honda'sZLEV is going for -0- emmissions gas cars. So, if would figure that if we could find a way to filter out the C02 from the exhaust then we are on our way to solving the greenhouse emissions problem.
Also, we got ourselves into this mess by using non-renewable sources of hydrocarbons - millions of year old oil from the ground. If we used a renewable source (e.g., hemp-oil/whatever) then the C02 emissions would be balanced with the C02 'locking' that occurs when a plant uses C02 from the air to grow. Burn a gallon of oil plant a crop that uses C02 to grow -- LAW::Energy can be neither created nor destroyed. It is conserved.
As we now know the ultimate solution will only occur within a balance of use and renewability. No idea introduced today is going to work for a very, very long time and by then it might be too late to do anything anyway -- Ocean Coveyor Belt
"Twenty-two states in the United States have introduced legislation. VT, HI, ND, MT, MN, IL, VA, NM, CA, AR, KY, MD, WV have passed legislation for support, research, or cultivation." -- Here
Oh, by the way the Whitehouse wants your oil. -SB
Ha, for a real babe magnet you need a bumper stickers which say "do my own laundry", "cook more than hamburgers", and "make more than minimum wage."
France is strongly committed to nuclear power, produces about 50% of its electricity with nuclear power, and has just about the most developed (and EXPENSIVE) nuclear fuel recycling system in the world. At least air pollution would be lower.
So this would be a half-nuclear powered car in France. As oppossed to the US, where it would be half coal-powered...not a big improvement in air pollution or any other environmental way.
Frankly, many times more people have probably died from coal mining and smog inhalation than have ever died in nuclear accidents. Not that that couldn't change with a couple big ones....
braddock gaskill
Correction: I just looked it up and was impressed to find that France is now producing _77%_ of it's electricity with nuclear power! And almost all of the rest (14%) with hydro.
Compared to the US which is 71% fossil fuel, 20% nuclear.
So the environmental advantages of electric cars depends entirely on where you live.
braddock gaskill
Hydro-Quebec had those up and running when I was in high school. I saw a couple of documentaries and in one of them they made a torque demonstration. They clamped the wheel down, and turned the motor on, proceding to totally deform the tire. This is just to show the amount of torque that the motor assembly could produce even when not turning.
They also had an intrepid fitted with 4 motors on all wheels, and were doing quarter mile runs with all 4 wheels smoking to test performance. What's great about these is the potential for very intelligent AWD systems where you control wheel slip by controlling torque output of each motor instead of using limited slip differentials.
Smart fuel economy is around 60mpg (combined city/country) - although not the absolute best, that's still pretty good. I was in Italy last year and they were absolutely everywhere, definitely the single most popular car. I'd say every tenth car that I saw in Rome was a Smart. Understandable when you see the size of the streets they have to drive down! Not so many in the north of the country however.
I think at least for now the way to go is with hybrid drivetrains.
You have these advantage with hybrid drivetrains:
1. You don't have to worry about limited range and long waits for charging the battery.
2. You don't need a new refuelling infrastructure (charging stations on a large scale for electric cars, hydrogen fuelling stations for hydrogen-powered/fuel cell cars).
3. Emissions are very low to start with, and new advances the gasoline engine technology (direct injection, improved cylinder shutdown systems) will reduce it to very close to zero anyway.
4. You don't need a massive bank of batteries hogging the interior space of a car. This will be even more true as we develop something equivalent to a lithium-ion battery but with ability to withstand millions of recharging cycles.
That electricity has to be distributed a long way. And in the case of the electric car, you have to carry it along with you for the last part of the journey, as you are operating cordlessly.
Thus the heavy batteries that make electric cars problematic and have short range.
Create a gas car with the good aerodynamics, tiny size, lousy narrow tires, poor acceleration(*), limited top speed and 80 mile range of an electric car. Now compare that to your electric car. Electric is no longer the slam dunk it appears to be, especially when you consider how damaging to the environment the production of LIon batteries is, and how you have to replace them every 40,000 miles (400 discharge cycles at 80 miles per cycle).
(*) poor acceleration. I know better than most how fast an electric car can be. They can accelerate very rapidly. However, what they don't mention is that if you do that, you get even worse than an 80 mile range. As such, in pratice, electric cars are designed to be used most efficiently and usefully under moderate acceleration and not the type of conditions T-Zero would imply.
But GM eventually revoked the leases, took back the cars and announced that electric vehicles were a dead technology. They were instead going to focus on the long term goal of building hydrogen cars. This coincided with George Bush and Dick Cheney announcing similar long term US government hydrogen power research goals. Look at the funny monkey. It's no secret that Bush & Cheney have strong ties to the oil industry. This is about maintaining the foreign-oil-consuming status quo, dressed up to look like hydrogen fuel progressive thinking.
Hydrogen power sounds nice, but there are some huge fundamental problems. We have better solutions that work now, and the government is opposing them instead of advocating them, because oil is king. If logic ruled, we'd redirect a good chunk of the money we're spending to fight terrorism and wage war in the Middle East and spend it on alternative energy research and development instead. The US should be a clean energy exporter. As long as we're addicted to Middle East oil, we will continue to have problems with balance of trade, terrorism, and a growing imperialism that fosters resentment in the rest of the world.
Meanwhile, the far thinking Japanese car companies are making a good profit selling efficient and ecologically sound hybrid cars in the US. The free market system works, even when it's the victim of government intervention. Much as I dislike partial solutions, I've got to admit that hybrid cars make sense now, and are a good stepping stone to more efficient fuel cell cars in the near future. My next car may be a Toyota Prius. And given the US market pressures, there is a lot of work going into making large hybrid SUVs.
I'm much less excited about the Dessault aircraft plant building electric cars than I am about Toyota automobile manufacturing building a four place aircraft. And Honda is building a good aircraft engine, instead of the 1940's era tractor engines still used on light planes. In one stroke, Cessna, Piper and Beech will be completely irrelevant in that relatively small market. After that, maybe the persistent dream of the flying car will finally become a reality.
>> My ultraviolent Linux switch video.
Hydro-Quebec will provide the lithium-metal-polymer (LMP) battery
Hydro-Quebec is a remarkably competent organization. If anyone can do it without outside meddling, they can (maybe it's a language/cultural thing). The power they generate supplies much of the northeast and they operate one of the few liquid hydrogen production facilities in North America. But maybe I'm mistaken on that last statement (electrolysis at Hydrogenal).
Quebec has abundant power, yet another reason for the US to invade Canada. Err, Quebec.
This site has a green-sounding name, but the facts look correct.
Disclosure: I have worked on G and LH2 design projects in the past and am in Montreal.
How does one change a flat tire on the wheel-motor? Seems the whell would be pretty heavy?
Also, it seems a bad idea to put all the critical drivetrain in the wheel while all the streets of Montreal (where the head office of Hydro-Quebec resides) are filled with potholes.
IMHO, these problems are more fundamental than the power source and the aesthetics of the vehicle.
Also, aren't large Li-Ion batteries dangerous, as they might explode if overheated? A cell phone battery is quite small, but for a car, that would be very dangerous, no?
--- Worst tagline ever.
Wouldn't all the calcium spread on Quebec roads in the winter damage the whell-motor? Anybody who's seen the undercarriage of a five year old car in Quebec will immediately understand my question.
Let's hope all the critical parts are made of corrosion-free materials. Including the fasteners.
--- Worst tagline ever.
Electric cars can definately move quick, check out NEDRA, the National Electric Drag Race Association. Also, there's the increasingly popular Tzero from AC Propulsion that has 100+ mile range, 0-60 in 4.1s, and turns the 1/4 mile in 13.2. And it's street legal.
78 mpg on diesel or bio-diesel. Not very stylish, but built on proven technology. Diesel is avail everywhere.
http://www.lupousa.com/
It was proposed during the 70s to build a tidal dam across the severn estuary between England and Wales. This was rejected for economic reasons, but also met opposition from environmental groups concerend about fish migration. This dam would have produced 12% of the UK's electricity requirements, 8.6GW. Environmentalists are opposed to stuff like this. Source.
IMHO electric cars are a bad idea at the moment. I read a while back, I don't have the source, that the transmission of electricity from the burning of coal to the output from a charged battery is only something like 30%, wheras burning petrol or diesel is far more efficeint. However, if we become more reliant on renewable sources, then I guess this could be a good thing. Honda's Hybrid offerings are good, theres no doubt about that. But if you bought a diesel car you'd probably be producing fewer emissions as they are so efficient. I have a 10 year old diesel Ford Fiesta that gets ~55mpg on the motoway and ~35mpg around the town. The newest diesel offerings such as the Citroen C2 are even more efficient and unlike electric vehicles, they actually look good!
It seems that Honda is making an airplane
Ironic, eh?
"Electric vehicles (EV) operating exclusively on electric power are totally emission-free " If I have to plug the damn thing in I draw on the Nuclear power that is supplied to my house. Depending on where the consumer's electricity is generated, this could create more emissions from coal burning and oil burning energy providers.
>6 infrastructure to recycle batteries hydro's capacity to generate and distribute all the electricity required for X households to recharge their car batteries all night
I work at a large utility in a large city. We own the grid. Trust me when I say that, by and large, if people are going to be recharging their cars in off peak hours it WONT BE A PROBLEM. Half the customer service shit we deal with is trying to get more customers to use off peak power, and shift the load away from peak times during the day.
There's plenty of capacity after hours. Take my word for it.
Don't knock HTML email. It makes my life easier, since I
1.60 is the ~ average nationwide price, certainly no argument that more expensive only makes an EV more attractive.
.07288 acording to
.07288 for 2.92 ( rounded ) per fill up and you have an approximate range of 130 miles. If you commute 10,000 miles that will consume 10,000/3.5 = 2857 kw/hr which will cost $208.
I think you may be surprised by how many people crowd the range limitation.
What makes it worse is that range tends to be more along the lines of a best case. Stop and go traffic tends to knock down EV range considerably to more like 60-70. At the top end you see claims of 120-150 miles. The problem is these range estimates tend to be a best case scenario with new batteries. Somehow I doubt that after a year or so of stop and go urban commute you will see anything ressembling that range. That 120-150 is like the ipods 12 hours. In addition another added little issue most automanufactures don't mention regarding those range estimates is the effect of using periphial power drains... stuff like the Radio, A/C, power steering etc... In a gas system there is little effect on range with these items. In an electric car they can sap 20% of your range in a hurry. Check the power req's on a nice sound system or more importantly an A/C system.
In a car you have a constant source of electric power and in most cases are throwing excess generation capacity away. In a pure EV you only have so much juice and everything just opens the drain wider. As you pull more juice you tend to make the system more inefficient as well ( more heat buildup due to resistence etc... ).
General upkeep costs more ? Look 24 200+ amp hour sealed lead acid golf cart battaries will run you $1500 plus and have to be replaced every 2-3 years. More exotic battery types tend to have a lower number of deep cycles not more ( meaning they have to be replaced more often not less ) and cost more. The liquid polymer technology has both a longer life span and higher energy density but is exorbant in price.
An oil change every 3 months is $80 bucks a year. A yearly break service is less than $100, call it $200 for a good break job with fresh pads all round and tires after 50,000 miles for $400. Just for shits and giggles lets toss in a Full Tune up at $200 a year as well. Your talking $880 a year for a dealership type general maintenence schedule and it will be two years before you catch just the cheapest battery replacement charge.
And its not like the electric will not have some ascociated cost as well. For one breaks will cost just as much if not more ( batteries are HEAVY ) in addition the breaking systems will have added complexity with energy regeneration. Electric motors are highly unsuited for stop and go or highly unconsistent usage meaning you will likely be swapping out your motor or at least the magnents every 1-2 years or at best along with your batteries. This degradation of the motor will also have an effect on your range.
In addition if you didn't know, wiring harnesses get replaced for tune ups for a very good reason, their resistence increases over time.. another efficiency and range sapping consideration. I will bet most anything a new set of wires for an EV will cost more than a new set of Spark Plug wires and the install will cost more as well.
Tires for the same reason as brakes will cost as much or more. Suspension as well.
Now, I of course have not yet reached the difference in cost of energy. Gas vrs. electricity. Now one thing missing in EV discussion is a unit of measure for ready comparison so lets create one. Miles per gallon and miles per Kw/hr or mph and mpkh.
Assuming a typical cruise consumption of 20kw ( or ~ 26 Hp ) at 65 mph then 20kw/hr gives you a range of 65 miles. 65/20 = 3.5mpkh. A kw/hr in los angeles cost
http://www.ladwp.com/ladwp/cms/ladwp001710.jsp
Lets say you have a 40kw/hr capacity EV. Filling it up costs ~40 *
A car getting 40mpg at $2 a gallon will cost 500 d
I don't ask you to be me. I only ask you not expect me to be you.
This is how the article should have been posted:
This one company who knows nothing about cars will team up with another company that knows nothing about cars to produce a car that major auto manufacturers have tried and failed at. They paid a design firm too much and now no one is willing to attempt to sell their vehicle. Laugh at how ugly it is.
Kurdt
I'm not anti-social. Just pro-technology.