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Electric Cars as Fast as Ferraris
Ubergrunt writes "A Welsh engineering company has made a motor to be used on electric cars that will make them as fast as a Ferrari. "The motor is revolutionary in that it contains no bulky permanent magnets. Instead it relies on transmitting electric pulses across up to seven rotors, arranged in different phases. These are "fired up" in turn, much like the pistons of an internal combustion engine. There are no gears - the motor provides enough torque at one revolution per minute to put a vehicle into motion - and it spins at up to 2,500rpm.
"Size for size, we can provide 400% more torque than any type of motor currently available," says managing director John Bryant."
It's Welsh. Welch is when you go back on your word. Curiously, the Welsh find this word offensive, but it's a different word and not to be confused with Welsh!
and close down this so fast that nobody will notice
Yeah, I'd like to see that actually bear fruition. Chances are it will either be snubbed by the automotive industry, or will be so damn expensive they won't have a working version in commercial vehicles for 40 years.
How about a car which:
Part of the problem is that the people who promote electric cars are the kind of people who couldn't market any kind of car at all. Their products tend to look like glorified electric wheelchairs, and about as usefull.
I want to see advocates of electric power push the advantages of the technology, not reasons why we should put up with its limitations.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Sure, a higher power/weight electric engine capable of operation over a wide spectre of speeds is useful. It is not, however, the thing an electric car needs the most to be competitive.
It's *already* the case that an electric motor is equally strong, or stronger, than a equally heavy internal combustion engine.
The problem for electric motors is *energy*storage*, typically batteries. With todays tech 400kgs of batteries can store *maybe* a tenth of the energy in a tank of petrol weighing a tent of that, meaning it's 100 times less effective for storing energy.
To add insult to injusry the 40kg petrol-tank can trivially be refilled in a minute or two, while the battery-pack weighing ten times as much and storing a tenth of the energy, needs hours at best to approach full.
How about a car which:
* Uses absolutely no energy when stopped in heavy traffic
I don't think this is a realistic requirement. Real drivers will have their headlights on (daytime running lights are pretty much standard everywhere now), not to mention the radio, the Air Conditioning, and GPS navigation system. The A/C is the real killer there, but all of those things combined will suck the life out of any battery faster than you can say "zero emission baby!"
Also, I just want to point out that I don't think electric cars are the silver bullet panacea that they are being marketed as. It still takes x Newtons of energy to move y kilograms of mass over a distance of z kilometers. Utilising electric energy to perform the work isn't somehow "free." That electricity still has to come from somewhere. And if that source happens to be the existing power grid (i.e., you plug you car in while you're at home, or parked somewhere), then that power is still most likely coming from fossil fuels. It doesn't buy you anything.
I'm proud to live in a jurisdiction that is actually quite forward-thinking in this respect. Ontario derives less than half (42%) of its electricity from fossil fuel sources. But more than a quarter of our power is nuclear, and the US is still pretty resistant to dipping their toes back into that pool. California, for example, only uses nuclear for about 13% of their power, relying on fossil fuels (coal and natural gas) for almost 62% of their power (source).
For laughs, I looked up some info on Texas. I found that Texas derives only 7% of its electricity from "green" sources (I'm including nuclear in that number), with the remaining coming from coal, natural gas, petroleum (61%), and "dual fired" (what's that? Is that "green?") (32%). Source.
So until we address the root problems (most energy is still derived from fossil fuels, rampant overconsumption is a way of life in North America), all we're doing is moving the pollution from the highways to the power plants. We're not saving anything, it's not helping the environment, we shouldn't be patting ourselves on the back for buying an electric car... we should pat ourselves on the back for taking the bus, carpooling, telecommuniting, or just plain driving less.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
http://www.vectrixusa.com/index2.html
250 parts vs 2500 for a comparable gas vehicle.
I own a $1200 electric vehicle that is possibly the first practical electric transportation:
http://www.egovehicles.com/
It's a blast to ride and saves tons of time and money on the many short trips we all take that are too far to walk...grab a burger, drop off a video, pick up a case of beer, etc. 25 mile range on 5-10 cents worth of juice. You've got a 2-HP motor that can carry 400+ pounds up some pretty steep hills. That's pretty efficient.
It's also a reliable commuter. You can make unbelievable time on this during rush hour. Using back streets, sidewalks, alleys, parking lots, and other cut-throughs, traffic is never a problem. And if you can recharge it at work, your total range can be quite excellent.
IMO, the battery weight can actually be an asset. Putting the batteries low in the design deck, the Ego2 is super-maneuverable, even at 1 or 2 MPH, because of the low C-of-G.
Also, I was loading it into my wife's nice leather-interior SUV the other day, thinking, "I could NEVER do this with a gas vehicle." No leaks, no fumes, no grease, no hot muffler.
For a college campus, inner-city, small town, beach community, resort area, the Ego2 is hard to beat. If there was any sanity in the world, they'd be selling 3 million of these a year.
Couldn't you just hire a car for the long distance trips? You might find that it's more cost effective overall if you can make 95% of your usage significantly cheaper.
Thinking outside the square can help in more every-day ways as well: For many people taking a taxi instead of owning a car actually works out cheaper in the long run. You have to factor in depreciation, maintenance, registration and insurance. That's going to add up to at least $2000 a year, before you even drive anywhere.