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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."
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.
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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.
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...)
Only problem that's simply a Smart. A great city car that goes fast enough for the highway. I've rented one before and they're great, been around a few years aleady and use gas.
In Australia, in 2005 is the completion date of a solar power tower, they, sbp of Germany are building.
:-)
In short, the sun heats the air at the 7km diameter base 'glasshouse'.
This hotair rises, up the 1km tunnel, spinning turbines as it moves.
it's cool. (and hot)
Here another article I found.
So with more advances like this, we will get in the right direction !
Economic forecast prevent a
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!"
Believe it or not, that is a minature of the 1921 Rumpler, a name that anyone familiar with the aircraft of WWI will recognize. After the war Dr. Rumpler applied aircraft knowledge to automobiles, but was usually too far ahead of his time and so largely ignored. Witness the Benz Tropfenwagen GP car of the early 20s. Fully streamlined, independently sprung, with mid-mounted motor and radiators, the very model for the modern GP car. The FIAT of the same year became the model for the next 10 years of GP car though, for although it was revolutionary, it was also evolutionary, and thus in an idiom other designers could understand, copy and develop.
1921 Rumpler
1923 Benz Tropfenwagen
KFG
1. Electric motors are cheaper to make than most things you have in your car (engine, transmission, axle, shocks, etc..). This is especially try if they are mass produced.
2. So everytime you change a tire you change the rims too?
Of course, the other thing is the reason I drive an SUV - can it carry a heavy load of stageprops, camping gear or musical gear? An electric SUV (meaning something with good covered load space and good handling when loaded) would be great. I routinely cart around racks of lighting equipment, heavy stage flats, etc. I don't need speed, nor a great deal of power - but I do need space and a bit more power than the minimum for a passenger car.
For that matter, I drive an SUV because it gets better gas mileage than the other option - a van. An electric van would be nice as well.
The reason I mention all this is because I see large natural gas trucks, electric and hybrid tiny cars and nothing in between. For anybody with a need other than a huge commercial truck (garbage trucks, etc) or moving a body or two around, gas IC seems to be the only option, both now and in the near future.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
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?
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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.
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The facts seem to agree. All the words are true. It's just those pesky numbers that are a lie. Try 80.65%. That's adding the imported energy to the non-hydro energy. Of the energy you produce, it's a respectable 87.57%. But still not 99.9%.
Darn numbers.
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Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Ford's hybrid strategy actually makes sense. Instead of putting expensive hybrid powertrains in cheap and already effecient small cars, they're focusing their efforts on SUVs and large cars. The Escape (SUV) will have a hybrid powertrain in the next year or so, and the upcomming Futura (and I'm assuming it's relatives like the Mazda6, upcomming crossovers, etc.) will have one as well.
Also the reason the hybrid Escape was pushed back was because Ford decided to do te engineering by itself from scratch (originally it was more of a publicity stunt and they were going to source a Toyota or Honda powertrain).
And I assure you Ford designed powertrains run with the best of them. There's no reason to think their hybrid system won't be equal to or superior to what's coming from Honda/Toyota, especially since they have more engineering resources at their disposal and are pairing it to a newer an better gasoline engine family.
GM seems to be aiming even higher by commiting themselves to hybrid full size pickups and SUVs in the next few years. That would make for MAJOR fuel savings. Of course it would be nice of them to have a car hybrid strategy as well...
Further, "re-charging" the fuel tank can be done in 2 minutes, while the batteries take ... who knows, certainly hours.
There's no reason why the battery couldn't be something that you remove from the car and replace with a charged one at the 'gas' station.
Instead of storing fuel, the 'gas' station would be storing charged batteries (well, they'd probably be charging them). I envision a conveyer belt type of system where the empty batteries enter on one side and the full ones come out the other.
All it requires is a paradigm shift.
Yeah, except now you're dumping a vast amount of really hot air 1km in the atmosphere where it's not meant to be! What's that going to screw up?
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".
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...
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
Why isn't this being persued as actively as fuel cells?
There are different pollutants emitted when alcohols are burned, and some of these may be as bad as those currently emitted. Examples include CHO and C2H4O radicals.
The Denver area uses alcohol fuel additives in the Winter to help lower smog. However, Larry Anderson (a research chemist in the Denver area) several years ago collected data that showed the INCREASE of these oxygenated pollutants only during the months the alcohol was added to the fuel.
My info is a bit dated, I admit, and I don't have specific info on more recent measurements or correlations. Suffice it to say that new solutions may bring new problems.
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?)
Nah. The alcohol is likely be denatured or have other additives (detergents and similar compounds like current hydrocarbon fuels) that would render it poisonous.
Forgive my ignorance, but how is there an issue with the flamibility of alcohol, that's different from the flamibility issues with regular gas?
There's not an appreciable difference in the flammability of hydrocarbon fuels vs. alcohol. The parent poster needs to consult a chemistry book, or a gas station with all those "Caution Flammable" signs around.
Gasoline Flash Point: -41 C
Ethanol Flash Point: 12 C
Computational Chemistry products and services.
The Big Two (can't be Big Three anymore since Toyota took over #3 - or because Chrysler has been gutted by Daimler execs, take your pick), namely GM & Ford, definately have great engineering talent on hand. Definately some of the best in the world.
The problem is the bean counters cripple the engineers at every possible fscking turn. And their line workers are, let's face it, not the best, which means they have to design the vehicle around what Billy-Joe-Bob is able to do - according to the latest UAW contract of course.
There's no way you could possible ASK Billy-Joe-Bob to get some additional training or even query him as to what he thinks he's capable of, the union would have a clusterfsck if that happened. Crap, my brother has worked in the automotive field for 20 years now, each time he walks in the door he fixes whatever's not working properly, then get axed shortly thereafter, all because he dared to step on some senior union worker's toes by fixing something that the doofus couldn't get working for six months or more. Seniority over abilities = poor quality.
Let's face it, GM/Ford's hybrid powertrains are predicted, at best, to offer 20% gains in fuel economy. So the SUV that gets 10mpg now is going to get 12mpg. What a fscking amazing accomplishment. And despite the incredible profit margins on SUVs, what do you want to bet that they're not going to cut into those margins one bit, which means these overpriced vehicles are going to be even MORE overpriced. Which likely means they're going to turn into another EV1 fiasco.
PS - I grew up in the Detroit area and left there 15 years ago due to this nonsense. Like the area, generally like the people (the widespread racism is very ugly), but the job market there is seriously fscked up.
Why not use lighter material?
Sure, it will add some cost, but hey, "environment friendly" stuff cost more as it is and if the added cost isn't too rediculous it might just fly.
A few years ago, I had a Porsche 928S4 which was all in aluminium. The reduced weight was however offset by the huge engine and other re-inforced racing parts. However, that got me thinking why not use material kind of what was used on that one in order to make an appealing exterior while keeping wight down?
Looks weigh in as 1/2 of the reason for me picking a specific car. On the up-side, BMW (my current favorite) mentioned it their magazine last year that they'd have a hydro-electric model out this year or the next. The main problem for them wasn't switching their cars over to electric propulsion, but the infrastructure surrounding such a switch. To solve this they said they'd entered an agreement with a major fuel company, allowing them to put charging stations at a lot of petrol stations.
BMW in my view is a lot like Porsche, the car innovators of our time. Both companies sell their cars on looks and technical marvel with slogans like "a driver's car" and I seriously doubt BMW would put out a model having the dog-ugly looks which other makers seem to believe the customers crave for. It just seems to go against their philosophy.
In a society that believes in nothing, fear becomes the only agenda ~ Bill Durodié
Alcohol isn't as chemically energy-packed for combustion. Still, I'd rather grow my fuel than dig for it. Maybe then Iowa would get rid of its crop subsidies, and rather than selling gasohol, they'd sell alcohol on a separate pump. Only one thing has me worried: the hobo with the 5-gallon can that fills up on cheap booze, pays, then walks off to pursue some indulgence. Okay, that, or the clever college student that figures out how to make a siphon/liquor bong and goes around sipping people's tanks.
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!