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Electric Car Faster Than A Ferrari or Porsche
jumpeel writes "CNN's Business 2.0 has photos and video of a Silicon Valley-made electric car with a 0-60 acceleration rate that's faster than a Ferrari Spider and a Porsche Carrera. From the article: 'In fact, it's second only to the French-made Bugatti Veyron, a 1,000-horsepower, 16-cylinder beast that hits 60 mph half a second faster and goes for $1.25 million.' The X1 is built by Ian Wright whose valley startup WrightSpeed intends to make a 'a small-production roadster that car fanatics and weekend warriors will happily take home for about $100,000 --a quarter ton of batteries included. The X1 crushed the Ferrari in an eighth-mile sprint and then in the quarter-mile, winning by two car lengths.'"
matts: bikes go faster than cars...a bike at 60 mph is a lot faster than a car at 60 mph
<matts> kritical: um no...
<kritical> matts: um yes
<kritical> my sisters sport car at 60 mph goes faster than my dads explorer at 60 mph
<kritical> a bike at 60 mph will blow by a car at 60 mph
source
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
a Silicon Valley-made electric car with a 0-60 acceleration rate that's faster than a Ferrari Spider and a Porsche Carrera.
Any engineer worth his salt can tell you that electric motors put out a hell of a lot more torque than gasoline engines. Gasoline engines are restricted by the tolerances of their mechanical parts, even if the engine is capable of producing more horsepower under load. That's why raw horsepower figures are often a poor indicator of a vehicle's acceleration.
Diesel Locomotives were making use of this fact long before the electric sports car showed up. By transferring the power from the Diesel Engine to an electric transmission, modern locomotives are able to smoothly apply power curves of well over 300KW without any of the slippage or rough starts associated with the Steam Engine.
Honestly, this entire story isn't anything new. The TZero was trouncing expensive sports cars long before the X-1 was introduced. The only difference I can see here is that the owner of the X-1 appears to be looking to build a replacement for Formula-1's rather than creating a slightly more practical Porche type of vehicle.
More info on TZero (The article has links to the TZero outaccelerating several fancy sports cars.)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
That's not a new car - that's the Ariel Atom with an electric motor in it. http://www.arielmotor.co.uk/
The problem with electric cars was never performance, it's range. And this car doesn't solve that problem, although the range isn't that bad either (100 miles). Being an open car, it's not exactly a daily driver though.
Also, if you look at the pictures this is actually just an electric Ariel Atom, which is also faster than a 360 Spider or Carrera GT.
Don't get me wrong -- this is cool. It's just not nearly as revolutionary as the article writer thinks it is, and it certainly won't "save the planet--fast!"
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Maybe I'm just crazy... but I'm sick and tired of hearing about new and grand vehicles that could potentially reduce our dependency on foreign oil, or make the environment clean or run a bajillion miles to the gallon... I don't really care about the theoretical, research side or first builds that cost more than a single family house... I'd like to be able to find such a vehicle reasonably priced at my local car lot in sufficient shapes and sizes that I drive off with one without feeling crammed into a matchbox and as if I just shelled out far more than I could afford.
Wake me when they are affordable and widely available will you?
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
...the looks, it looks ok, but it is nothing compared to the Bugatti and the bugatti is faster; also I'll never be able to afford either.
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
The chassis on that looks exactly like the Ariel Atom. The Atom is a very slick, road-legal, car fitted with a Civic Type-R engine that's then supercharged. It produces more power-to-weight than an Enzo, I believe. They're also very cheap (It think the basic model is around £20k here). That'll also do 0-60 in 2.5 seconds (faster than the Ferrari).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC_Propulsion_tzero
The original lead acid version was even earlier than 2003.
Deleted
It's not really fair to compare a formula 1 design electric vehicle to a 'standard' ferrari car. The way I read the summary, I imagined something more of a 'every day driving' car..what are you supposed to do when it rains?
Electric Car: "I'm an electric car, I can't go very fast, or very far.. and if you drive me, people will think you're gaaayyyyy...."
There's a Starman, waiting in the sky / He'd like to come and meet us, but he hasn't got the time.
They're comparing this vehicle to complete passenger cars (although ultimate luxury sports cars). It would be more appropriate to compare it to something like a 7, or an Ariel Atom, which is faster than the Veyron 0-60 anyway.
Don't get me wrong, I love electric cars, and plan to convert my own some day, but don't compare apples-to-oranges, article.
-JesseNothing says "unprofessional job" like wrinkles in your duct tape.
100 mine range and 4.5 hour recharge. I would own one, if the price was reasonable. I work a few miles from home and if I get the new job I am going for, it will be a about 30 miles back and forth to work. This car would be great. Come home, plug it in and voila, all charged. Imagine being able to have a small solar array in your backhard to charge it with too. Not bad for people that drive excessively far for work.
Click Click Bloody Click PANCAKES!
I've got a vehicle that quick. It'll do 0-60 in 3.5, I've gotten 50MPG cruising on the highway at 80MPH (admittedly with a little tailwind), it goes about 200 miles on a tank of gas, and it cost me $2000 used.
It's a 600cc sportbike.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
It may be speedy, but is this car going to be of any practical use, or is it simply going to be a novelty item, used for racing or showing off your newest toy to the other bajillionaires?
Also, as an obligatory point... Where are they getting the electicity to run this thing? Most of the US still get's it's power from Gas run power plants. It's good to see improvement in the tech though, so when we do have other methods of power generation we'll be ablt to take full advantage of them.
Go ahead and call me unreliable; reliable is just a synonym for predictable.
I wonder at what point we're polluting more by plugging an electric sports car in and sucking energy from the power plant than we are just filling up our reasonably fuel efficient gasoline vehicles? It would be sweet though to have an electric that races comparably with any other sports car.
Also, while I would love to have an electric or hybrid car, such vehicles are currently ignoring tow capacity despite an electric motor's distinct advantage at producing low end torque. I'd love to have an electric I can use to tow the boat. And yes I realize that I'd be using an electric to tow a gas guzzler but the boat only goes out on weekends. I drive my car every day.
For ACP's machine.
Deleted
The solution allows at least 350 highway miles per charge and can be fully recharged in 5 minutes or less.
As far as I know, no current or on the horizon electric-only system can do this. Hydrogen / fuel cell are close, but that is something that just cannot be done with chemical batteries in the mass market (I have heard of research into areas of fast charging, but I know I don't want to have to stand near an electric supply that is transferring at over 6 MW (10 gallons in 3 minutes of gasoline is just over 6.3 MW equivalent energy transfer).
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
But the pragmatist in me goes, "Yeah, but they can make it burn a VW Golf in the quarter-mile for under $10,000?" Because that is the Goose that lays the Golden Egg, my friends.
After all, it was an electric car that, for the first time, beat the 100 kilometer-per-hour speed record. And that was at a time (early 20th century) when cars were much heavier and bulkier than what is possible now.
Most people seem to have forgotten that, prior to WWI, and the improvement to the internal combustion engine, there was a lot of debate between which engine was the best. Internal combustion won, because it offered longer range, not necessarily better performances.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Meh. It's cute, but as soon as you add airbags, side impact beams, rollover protection, 1500 watts of stereo with a subwoofer, make it pass US crash rules, etc. it will weigh 3000 lbs and have a range of 50 feet.
Umm, eletric motors provide instant torque with equals massive acceleration from 0. It takes a combustion engine time move to high rpms.
The best work truck you can get right now is a Dodge "Contractor" model with a 6 cyl cummings diesel and four electric motors. Instant torque combined with the long haul power of a diesel. It gets 24mpg and has an internal 20Kw generator that can power four 3000 sq ft homes. It can run on Biodiesel too. Now THAT is a hybrid.
Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
Most people can't afford a $40,000 car, let alone something that's 2.5x as much. Plus, people feel that their car is less powerful if it's completely silent. Just look back to electic motorcycles, they had to add artificial noise-makers so people would accept them.
The vast majority of that vehicle appears to be the Ariel Atom... a car which, with engine, can be had for $30k US. I'm sure you could get it for $20k if you wanted to do your own engine... and I don't imagine it would take $80k to get numbers nearing these... though the gadjetry looks nifty.
Electric engines have a huge amount of torque, which helps you get off the line faster. I would be impressed if this car could do this, and still be usable later.
It impresses no one if you race someone at a light, then have to pull in to a station for a recharge.
Plus, it looks like this thing is just an Ariel Atom... which I believe already beats those other cars anyway
This is great for street car times, but for sheer speed it totally sucks. A typical top fuel dragster can do 300 miles an hour in under 5 seconds. Is there an electric version of that? When they have an electric car that can tie an 8000-hp nitro drag car, then electric cars will finally have combustion engines on the run. Otherwise, it's still combustion whipping everyone at the strip.
stuff |
Who fuckin' gives a shit? I'm a so called "nerd" (well, I don't call myself that, but some other people do) and I like electronic devices, but '68 supercharged V8 Chevrolet Camaro will give me a hard on while these fucking toycars (no matter how fast they are) give me nothing.
"A car that could save the planet--fast"
m l
BAHAHAHAH...
"II. Electric Vehicles
Electric vehicles are incapable of replacing more than a small fraction (5 or maybe 10%) of the 700 million internal combustion engine powered cars on the road due to the limits of battery technology. Dr. Walter Youngquist explains:
. . . a gallon of gasoline weighing about 8 pounds has the same energy as one ton of conventional lead-acid storage batteries. Fifteen gallons of gasoline in a car's tank are the energy equal of 15 tons of storage batteries. Even if much improved storage batteries were devised, they cannot compete with gasoline or diesel fuel in energy density. Also, storage batteries become almost useless in very cold weather, storage capacity is limited, and batteries need to be replaced after a few years use at large cost. There is no battery pack which can effectively move heavy farm machinery over miles of farm fields, and no electric battery system seems even remotely able to propel a Boeing 747 14 hours nonstop at 600 miles an hour . . .
Some promising research into new battery technlogies using lithium is being performed, but even the scientists at the forefront of this research admit, "We've got a long way to go."
Assumming these problems away, the construction of an average car also consumes 120,000 gallons of fresh water. Unfortunately, the world is in the midst of a severe water crisis that is only going to get worse in the years to come. Scientists are already warning us to get ready for massive "water wars."
Thus, the only way for us to replace our current fleet of gas-guzzling SUVs with fuel-efficient hybrids or electric vehicles is to seize control of the world's reserves of both oil and fresh water and then divert those resources away from the billions of people who already rely on them.
Even if were willing to undertake such an endeavor, the problem will still not be solved due to a phenomenon known as "Jevon's Paradox," whereby increases in energy efficiency are obliterated by corresponding increases in energy consumption.
The US economy is a good example of Jevon's Paradox in action. Since 1970, we have managed to cut in half the amount of oil necessary to generate a dollar of GDP. At the same time, however, our total level of oil consumption has risen by about fifty percent while our level of natural gas and coal consumption have risen by even more. Thus, despite massive increases in the energy efficiency over the last 35 years, we are more dependent on oil than ever. This trend is unlikely to be abated in a market economy, where the whole point is to make as much money (consume as much energy) as possible." - http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/SecondPage.ht
I still think it would be easier to pick up chicks with the Bugatti...
is its power cord?
I think you're being a bit unrealistic here. What you describe is the typical characteristics of a gas powered vehicle. However, how many people need to drive for 6 hours and then refuel in 5 minutes (so they can drive another 6 hours)?
Most people drive less than 100 miles a day commuting and have all night to recharge. This car meets these specs just fine.
If you're driving cross country, rent a gas car.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
No sound, no buy.
I can see them sticking a speaker which would play back some real sounds, something like what they did on this thing, but that's not gonna do it.
Gee. Don't you just plug it on top of your ZipZap remote and wait for the LED to turn green?
And what does your post have to do with the article? Get over yourself. Just because something was posted to /. does not mean it has to apply to you. Although impractical for most people, it is still cool and news for news.
*cue "but it's not cool or news for nerds" comment by asshole parent...*
...WHY can't we have a normal mass production vehicle at average and affordable prices? I'm getting really fucking tired of being chastised for my oil addiction while having no other choice. Not everyone can afford an expensive hybrid SUV like the Expedition and I certainly don't want an ugly, underpowered shitmobile like the Prius.
I think you could solve the charge problem by having multiple battery packs.
Then it's just a matter of how fast you can change the battery.
Still have a range problem though, and there's also the cost.
-- Should you believe authority without question?
As long as it crushes the spirit of VW's target demographic* that's fine by me.
* 25 year old pasty white geekboys dressed in black with "WARDRIVER" window stickers
Can you imagine something like F1 racing but with electric cars? Much less noise and rapid battery changing instead of refueling.
I suspect you'd have to put speakers in the cars to make the Neeeeeeeeeeeeeeowwwwww noises or it just wouldn't be acceptible.
Dont forget the tango that came out in 2004, electric and does 0-60 in 4 seconds. Also kinda neat that it came out in Spokane Washington and not backed by a bunch of Silicon Valley money men.
Mmmm. The Bugatti Veyron. You want one. Your dog wants one. If I had the money to blow on a car, this is the ultimate. Even Jeremey Clarkson, who gets to drive all the nice cars he likes, said it was the best ever. (He says that a lot, but this time he meant it.)
Get your own free personal location tracker
This isn't an apples to apples comparison. The stock supercharged Ariel Atom on which this car is based will also smoke a Ferrari or Porsche. Go find the BBC Top Gear video on the Ariel Motors website. I bet the stock Ariel Atom will also beat this electric version - adding hundreds of pounds to a 1100lb car wrecks handling, and sure doesn't help straight line acceleration.
I'm not sure how 500+ pounds of lithium ion batteries counts as saving the world fast. How does one dispose of that much battery weight when the batteries no longer charge? I know the recycling limits in my area are usually for LiIon batteries not more than 1 pound at a time. Can the battery be divided into .002 % fractions when dead to be recycled?
Otherwise you have a rather tremendous pollution problem when it comes time for new ones...
I think many people would be willing to buy a car with a long recharge as long as the range was higher. Particularly for people who own a commuter car and a driving car. A 360 mile range would take care of nearly the longest of daily commutes (probably 98%) combined with forgetting to plug it in one night.
But you really need to have a hard shell around it, and all the usual safety features that people like.
And one strategy for 'fast charging' is to have lightweight batteries that you can easily swap out. I've read about people working on that solution.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
This PROVES that you do not need fossil fuels to power your automobile. Within a few months, vehicles like this will come to market, and the worldwide demand for oil should plummet. Gasoline will cost five cents per gallon, AFTER government taxes of 38 cents per gallon. (Because the gasoline companies will pay YOU to take their gas.)
Who's the fastest now?
The 5 minute charge seems to just be a requirement left over from mandatory trips to the gas station. Most people, I think, would be Ok with 4.5 hours-just plug it in when you get home and it is ready for use in the morning. I'd even be willing to go with a shorter range than the standard 300+ miles per tank (e.g. 100 miles for a commuting-only vehicle).
science is a religion
Bel Air that ran a 14 second 1/4 miles using tool batteries. I think Wee Man is the secret.
Look, these electric cars are neat for R&D, but this is like reporting that someone has cured aging in a single celled creature for a million dollars. I will be moderatly impressed when someone makes a Honda Civic (i.e. a standard small car that is still functional) with a heater, AC, and radio that has a crash survivability of any other honda civic. The car needs at least a 300 mile range when traveling at 70 mph with heater, radio, and headlights on, or it needs to be able to be charged in under 10 minutes at a gas station and have at least a 100 mile range.
In Europe there might be a small market for small insta-death on crash cars with ranges under 100 miles if they were reasonably priced. Even then, if someone is willing to throw safty to the wind and save the environment, they would already be driving a motorcycle. In the US though, until you can match a Honda civic in terms of capability, you are wasting your breath. In the US you could get away with a moderaly expensive civic sized car IF it was functional (heater, radio, doesn't kill everyone if another car taps it). Until there cars start to get within the same range of distance, performance, and safety (notice the AND, it needs them all) , this sort of stuff is just a novalty car for few very rich folks looking to add another car to their collection of cars they don't ever use.
Personally, I would be much more impressed with cheaper hybrids with bigger batteries and the ability to plug in. If you could get a car to run for the first 20 miles on the grid, then have it kick over to a gas powered engine, that would do a LOT for the environment. Then imagine if you could plug this car in or if it had a few cheap solar panals on the roof that would charge the car while you were at work. We desperatly need stuff that thinks about practicality first, the zero emissions second. Making 20 miles of a drive pollution free (besides what the grid pumps out) would go a LONG ways to cleaning up the air.
I used to go 450 miles 10-12 times a year during college. That was the primary source of mileage on that car. In this case, a lack of range would leave me stalled out in the hinterlands of upper Michigan (and no, not the glove bit, the pointy thing above the glove) or southern Wisconsin, often in below-freezing weather. It's kind of a deal-breaker.
Pretty much, the car needs to be able to drive across a state in less than a day. Even states like Pennsylvania.
I don't really care about the theoretical, research side or first builds that cost more than a single family house...
Been to Silicon Valley lately? You'll need 7 of these cars to equal the price of your average single family house.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
"Come home, plug it in and voila, all charged. Imagine being able to have a small solar array in your backhard to charge it with too."
This has been my point when discueesing electric powered vehicles. IF you can plug it into a renewable source (such as solar) and get it to charge in a reasonable time frame (and with a system that doesn't cost you a fortune), then you've got something. But I live in an area where the vast majority of our electricity comes from petroleum powered generators. If I'm charging my car only using house current, am I not in the end actually the cause of a net greater use of fossil fuel? Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?
My daily commute is 60 miles round trip and so is of most people. If this car would cost $20K or so I would definitely buy it. If it can be recharged overnight in 4 or 5 hours it is good enough for today.
Modern hybrid cars give marginally better savings than small gasoline powered cars. Examples? Prius goes about 50MPG and probably even less on freeway. New Corolla goes 41MPG on freeway. Even my 10 yars old Corolla does 36MPG. Given that Prius costs almost double what Corolla does it does not tranlate to savings at the end. This was confirmed by multitude of consumer magazines.
So if someone can come up with the reasonably priced electric car that can compete, more power to them.
News for nerds... if you're not nerdy enough then you're digging in the wrong place.
That sounds messy...
Let's see it go around corners faster than a Ferarri.
:-)
Once in the '80s some solar car race teams came in my store. I tried to joke with them about how the steam-engine solar car had come through hours earlier but they didn't buy it
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Wel, yes actually, sex is messy.
But, you'll find out about that someday I'm sure...
Given that few fossil fuel powered electric plants in the United States actually use petroleum-based products.
Instead they use coal, which is far more readily available in the United States than petroleum is. In fact I believe we are entirely self sufficient as far as coal goes and may even be exporting significant amounts of it.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Have any links? Even if they just sell to contractors, it isn't all that difficult to become a contractor. Lots of people have done it just to build their own home.
science is a religion
ok forget charging the battery yourself have someone else charge it how about that? you know how you turn in a spent propane tank? imagine a few stations where they have a few sets of standard battery packs that drop out of the frame and they replace it with an already charged one, should take 5 min max. they could opperate like a franchise at every few exits of the free way once they get popular. you would have to pay a subscription or somethinglike that to cover the cost of replaceing totaly spent packs and you could still charge it at home, although i cant remember when the last time i drove 100 miles in a day was. also if you can affor a 100k car then you can affor a seccond gas car for those times when you really need it. i would seriously love one of these electric cars though.
This is the future, and we get it.
The batteries are consumable, and therefore not considered under the new Product Service Plan. However, the PSP covers power surges, so if your new electric car gets zapped by lightning or electricly malfunctions -- we fully cover you for it. Dead batteries could be a sign of power surge, so be sure that you have our tech run a power surge test if the batteries in your new super-fast electric car are dead.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
The Independent: Reverend Spooner Arrested in Friar Tuck Incident - ISIHAC, Historical Headlines
Electric motors have much higher torque at low speeds than gas motors. If your electric motor is powerful enough to get your car to highway speeds, its acceleration coming from a stop is going to dwarf a gas sports car's. In fact, electric vehicle designers generally have to limit the car's acceleration, because, unless you've got racing car tires (like this one seems to), you don't have enough traction for the torque.
A much bigger challenge for an electric versus gas would be 60-90, highest top speed, or a drag race long enough to max out the cars' speeds. 0-60 is the standard test primarily because it's what gas cars are worst at, so you can compare them without a lot of tricky driving.
Ok, I think this is pretty impressive for an electric drive package (not the car itself...the gas Atom is definitely faster than this electric conversion), but to say it's the second fastest car in the world is ignorant. They compared it to two cars that are in the low 4 second times for 0-60 (actually, I'll bet it could only beat a Carrera GT on driver error). The Ferrari Enzo and McLaren F-1 both come come in on the order of half a second faster. This is just for "production cars." And as fun as the Atom looks to drive, you aren't going to beat either of those for top speed without complete aerodynamics package.
Regarding diesel locamotives. Another benefit of the electric propulsion in addition to smooth power transfer is significantly reduced mechanical complexity. Instead of a transmission and drivetrain running to each of the traction wheels (I believe there's usually 8-12 wheels seperated by up to 50 feet), you run the engine directly to the generator then run power cables to motors at each wheel. This allows these trains an added benefit in dealing with heat from braking. Under normal conditions trains brake by running the motors as generators. The power generated is dissipated out the radiator, I believe by eddy currents.
something that irks me about adoption of new technologies that are potentially superior in every way is that emerging tech is often looked over or is regarded as inferior because something that's only becoming practically acceptable (electric cars) to the mainstream has to compete with a something that's been around since the turn of the century (gasoline cars). i'm sure that if companies were to invest as much money into R&D for electric vehicles and given enough time, they'll surpass what we currently know and hold dear to our hearts with internal combustion. the only negative i see with electric cars is that they just don't sound as good as internal combustion...
The solution to the short range of the vehicle is to have a battery changing station network. You drive your car over the changer and it reaches up, plucks your battery out and replaces it with a fresh one.
You wouldn't own the battery, you would just have an agreement with the chnaging station.
But did they name it "The SS More Powerful than Superman, Batman and the Incredible Hulk Combined" ?
The power to weight ratio of electric motors is much better than gasoline. The stored energy to weight ratio of batteries is still much worse than a tank of gasoline. So if you want to build a car with excellent acceleration but don't care much how far it can go on a single tank/charge then electric is definitely the way to go.
This power to weight ratio also makes electric motors attractive for helicopters - they simply can't get off the ground unless they exceed a thrust to weight ratio of 1:1. The length of the flight is very limited, though, so it's only used in toy helicopters.
Take a look at this cute 6.9 gram electric helicopter!
Rockets are similar: they have a fantastic power to weight ratio compared to jet engines but need more total propellant because they also have to carry the oxidizer. If you want maximum acceleration and don't care too much about range use a rocket, even if you are inside the atomosphere and don't really need to carry the oxidizer.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
Most people do not realize, that electric vehicles were in "common" use 100 years ago, and invented long before that.
This is why 100 years ago, they assumed now we would have flying cars. But actually, we have barely moved forward.
*electric bill for $400 arrives* Ah fuck.
"I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
I read somewhere about nickel-zinc batteries being capable of quick recharges. Basically, if I remember correctly, n-z batteries use a "slurry" or nickel and zinc that is put inside the cell. The idea was that recharging stations could suck out the old slurry and put new, charged slurry back in a relatively short amount of time. The hope was to use it on fleet vehicles. I'm not sure what the range would be, however.
I don't buy cars for "most people". I buy cars to suit MY performance requirements. And I, like the gp, require 300+ mile range and rapid refueling.
And that's what will get my money. If you want to buy something else, great!
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
I used to make roughly the same trip (I'm guessing you went to either Northern or Tech?). Obviously, a car with such limited range wouldn't work out. But now that I'm done with school, my daily commute is around 25 miles a day, so the limited range wouldn't worry me one bit.
Also, I got stranded in the middle of the UP, in the middle of winter, in the middle of the night (around 1am) my freshman year because I ran out of gas (it can happen if you're retarded like me). Ironically, I ran out at a gas station and was able to call AAA and get 3 gallons of gas (barely enough to get me to an open gas station).
And they'll shit a brick when 30 nights of pulling volts in a row lands them a $500 electric bill. Way to save all that gas money.
"I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
A glaring omission from the summary and from the article text:
. html
The 0-60 time of the X1 is 2.8 seconds, according to the discussion on
http://priuschat.com/lofiversion/index.php/t15170
Its a fine electric go-cart, but its not practical.
Why not unveil a semi affordable commuter car that can take 4 adults 100 miles.
It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.
Your point is a good one. Many multi-car families could get by quite well with one of these; Dad drives to work fifteen miles a day in the two seater electric, while mom uses the Ford Compensation to drive around town and get the kids.
Owners of two-seater sport cars and motorcycles understand this kind of compromise quite well - you don't have just one car. You take the right car for the job. Hauling 4x8 pieces of drywall or bags of mulch from the store? Get the pickup out of the garage. Driving to work ten miles away? Take the electric.
Of course, this prototype is still too expensive to be the second car for anyone who doesn't already have four or five expensive cars already. Still, the point of a prototype or first generation technology is to work out the bugs and build economy of scale with the early adopters first, then pass on the improvements to the masses later. Those of us who buy computers know this pattern well.
BTW: I bought a two-seater Honda Insight five years ago with the same idea in mind. With a wife, one child and one more on-the-way, I was concerned about the lack of a back seat, until I read a review that said "makes a great second car". I realized that was exactly what I was shopping for: not the only car in a four person family, but an extra car for a family that already had a station wagon.
I drive under 200 miles a week TOTAL - I could easily get that to seriously under 50 if I wanted to, and frankly with my Prius that 200 miles costs me $15 dollars... not all that much.
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
I'll translate for both of you:
The parent is saying that he wants a vehicle that allows him the freedom to go where he wants without undue inconvenience. Basically the technology should empower him to meet his needs and wants.
You are saying that he should conform his needs and wants to the existing technology.
Where freedom and independence of movement is involved; I think I'd prefer not conforming to someone else's idea of what is reasonable.
Sales of alternative powered cars will be proportional to their ability to meet the needs and wants of consumers.
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
Do you have any idea how big the battery packs are on these cars? You couldn't swap them out without serious equipment.
And why would you have an off-line battery pack in the vehicle with you? It's not like your phone, where the battery is small relative to the thing that's carrying it (you). These battery packs are BIG.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
I doubt your dream car could be charged without rewiring most houses: ((((350 miles) / (30 mpg)) * (29 (megajoules / litre))) / (5 minutes)) / (240 volts) = 17 787.9304 amperes
For the trillion dollars we're going to dump into Iraq for what can only be passably rationalized as oil and energy security (the alternative: a shallow dream to one-up your dad), we could be making major strides in research and implementation of wind and solar farms, huge incentives toward energy efficient vehicles, subsidizing hybrid models of existing gasoline engines, algae-based biodiesel, the list goes on.
Oh, and I apologize to republicans everywhere, it's not that you're stupid.
You just don't care.
Hey, I'm just your average shit and piss factory.
What we need is an electric version of Nascar. So many innovations come out of racing.
Some basic Electric Nascar rules.
1) Car must have electric based drive (how that electricity is stored/generated is optional)
2) Race is 400 miles.
3) One refuel/battery change.
4) Must carry 800lbs minus drivers weight in additions to everything required for the car to run.
"It's because they're stupid, that's why. That's why everybody does everything." -Homer Simpson
They look much better than that ugly monstrocity. If the car had a better design I would actually find this news interesting. I guess they wouldn't beat the Ferrari or Porsche if it had a more appealing design.
#####Free and Open Source Game Directory#####
Gas turbine engines also produce peak torque at stall (zero rpm). Too bad they're noisy and not really environmentally friendly because they'll burn damn near anything - alcohol, peanut oil, diesel, kerosene, unleaded gasoline - and all without recalibration.
;-)
Chrysler's A831 turbine cars (early '60s) produced 130 horsepower and 425 ft/lb or torque at zero rpm. Their fifth-generation turbine (1981) only made 105 hp but got 22 mpg in EPA fuel economy testing.
Now all we gotta do is figure out some way to clean up the exhaust from 'em
we see things not as as they are, but as we are.
-- anais nin
did anybody LOOK at the car? it looks like the batmobile. and not the cool Christian Bale one, or even the Michael Keaton armadillo batmobile. nay, this looks like the Adam West batmobile. isn't half the fun of having expensive cars that you look cool in them?
I own a 2005 Honda Civic Hybrid and get about 45 mpg on the highway. I've heard several people make the claim you make, but none of them (so far) actually drives a hybrid. I think this is one of those "facts by repetition" like, well, I'll avoid starting a war on a second front.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
and most of all theres no petrol tax to get from a to b. not like the petrol cars in england.
It might help if they have an inductively coupled charging option that can be mounted on the floor of a garage. Then there's no need to plug in when you get home, just drive into the space and charging begins. Hmmm...maybe I should patent that (I'm kidding! where's that phone book...)
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Try kilowatts
Search Google for: ((29000*16) cal / 300 sec) in kilowatts
and it gives you the following answer: 6.47125333 kilowatts
This assumes 16 gallons of fuel, 29,000 kcals per gallon and a 5 minute (300 second) pumping time. That value is only the calories stored in the material you are pumping, not the actually expenditure of energy in order to pump that fuel.
That is about equivalent to a transfer rate of around 54 amps of electricity at 120 Vrms, that is doable except you would cause the battery to explode. It would be ideal if you could have an affordable capacitor in the car that would hold that much energy (29000 * 16 kcal) over a day that could be charged at the rate of 54 amps and not explode. The limiting factor is the rate you can transfer energy into the storage device, and not the actual transfer rate of the energy.
So many car companies are intent on making plug-in-abble cars, but if electric cars become the new thing, we'll have to stop fuding hydrogen engines and dump all of our money into a thousand new nuclear power plants or fusion research.
I certainly agree that range is really where it's at. On average, I need to do about 10 miles a day for errands and other business related things. That's why instead of hauling around my SUV or even getting a hybrid electric car I made an hybrid electric bike. I can bypass all traffic in my town, it gets me around very fast and it only cost pennies to run. Plus the added health benefits, and fresh air can't be beat for the price. Really though , as futuristic as my bike may seem, the same thing could have been built 20 years ago and it's not really using modern technology. If you want some more info or screen shots, you can find it all in the link below for the curious :-)
http://endless-sphere.com/index.php?option=com_con tent&task=view&id=13&Itemid=27
"Faster" and "quicker" mean exactly the same thing, as far as I know. What is the distinction you had in mind? Speed versus acceleration?
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
Computers that use more than 25W should also pay extra for electricity. You should pay a 30% surcharge on electricity for entertainment, or incandescent bulbs. Overclocked, noisy, water-cooled gaming machines should be banned. Those people should pay more and the rest of us that are responsible people that give a damn should not have to subsidize their selfishness. People shouldn't be allowed to run home machines 24h per day. There is no reason to be buying Alienware PCs other than to look retarted.
Congratulations on your new car purchase. Has it occured to you that you could've saved the environment even MORE by buying a used corolla? or by making sure your current vehicle is up to spec?
Probably this doesn't apply to you, but people who buy a new car every year have no right to criticize people who buy an SUV every ten, no matter how miserly the new car is with gas.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
I'm 6'2", and I found there was plenty of head room in the Prius, unless I sat in the back seat. I also found plenty of leg room in both the front and back. I ended up buying a Civic Hybrid (which has plenty of head room in the front and back) mainly because my previous car was a Civic.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
I was just talking with a friend the other day about this very subject. I dread the day when we are all electric. Cars will be so boring then. Whether you prefer the sound of a classic V-8 or a high rpm 4/6 cylinder it's all for one reason...it stirs something inside of us. Personally, I wouldn't love my GTI as much if it wasn't for the sweet sound my Vr6 makes when I stomp the Go pedal.
I can't help but be impressed. One of the difficulties with electric autos, is maintaining the power/torque nessisary to make them worthwhile. It looks like this Wright guy did it...now no one needs electric cars that preform quite so extream, yet why not take this technology, improve it just a bit, extend the range of the auto by 100-200% and viola! you have yourself a decent electric car for once.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. ~Albert Einstein
If he really wants to mass produce this car, he has two big hurdles: federal safty regulations and litigation concerns. There is a huge amount of complexity and engineering that goes into making mass produced automobiles as safe as they are today.
I imagine that is partially why GM had to spend $1 billion for their car.
I wonder if a mass produced electric motorcycle would be easier to pull off?
Yeah, it's a small car, but it's actually quite roomy on the inside, lots of cargo space, and enough room in the back seat for a 6' guy to sit comfortably. At $23k fully loaded (sun/moon roof, AC, 6 disc changer + monsoon system, etc...) the TDI is rated at 45mpg diesel. With a gental foot, 50mpg is achievable. Also, since it's diesel, you can run it off Biodiesel. Anything over B5 voids the warenty, but people have had no problems running their older TDIs on BD100 (other then clogging the fuel filter after initially making the change).
Lower emissions, carbon nuetral, higher gas mileage, reduced foreign dependency, existing distribution network, renewable resource (soy beans)... the only reason to NOT switch to BD is that BD100 will gel around ~40 degrees. Running blends of BD (BD20 with winter D2 has virtually no gelling issues in the continental US) can take care of that. And in the colder climates, tank heaters can keep the juice flowing with out a problem.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Really? How many *anvil* handles have you ever broken?
Take the 90-Day Challenge! http://rwmurker.bodybyvi.com/
What with traveling the world and staying in all of the hostels I am sure he saved a few Euros, but how does he have the time to take a break from his globe trekking (hint hint) to build an electric car?
If the money buried in oil drilling, distribution and developing, manufacturing and distributing AND maintaining combustion vehicles were poured into electrics, we would be using cars like the one mentioned in the article for fun by now, or as 'classic'.
The combustion scheme went further than it was capable due to the fact that the governments and big money can control oil production and distribution - whereas any weirdo with the right equipment can produce electricity enough to charge a car - profit loss for big corps.
Read radical news here
So what happens during the winter time, when I go out to go to work, and it's 30 below? That's not all that uncommon in a lot of areas in this country.
I wouldn't want to be calling my boss on several consecutive days saying "I can't come in today, because the car I chose to buy won't run in this weather."
I tried to read all the previous comments, I really did, but I got fed up with people saying "I want it to meet criteria x, y and z before I'm interested", and "how are electric cars going to help, you still need to generate the electricity?". For the first point (mainly aimed at all you people from the good old U S of A), when are you going to realise that sensible use of energy is the only way we are going to survive, whether you look at global warming or dwindling oil stocks (irrespective of how many middle eastern oil-producing countries you invade to try and control their oil stocks). These cars are probably the future, but if everyone says "I don't like it" before considering the real benefits it confers, they are going to take longer and longer to have the features you want because there is no percieved market for them. Also, if you remove the problems of SUVs and other similar monstrosities from the roads, you will find that most cars perform better in crash tests, a recent test even showed that a standard family MPV was safer during a head-on collision with a 4x4 than the 4x4 (ESPECIALLY for the children). As for the second point, yes, you do still need to generate the electricity, but generally speaking, it is more efficient to generate it at a power station, charge the batteries, and then run the car than it is to burn the fuel in the car. It is also easier to control the pollution caused (and as a side effect would make towns and cities much more pleasant to live in, just imagine Athens (one of the most polluted cities on Earth) without the pollution caused by cars) and with new "clean coal" technologies - not perfect I know, but a step in the right direction - we can reduce the emissions further still. Finally, and I know this post has gone on for a while, scietific progress has never been quick (the difference this time is that we are watching it happen) so give the people involved a break. These cars aren't perfect, they are a long way from being perfect, but they are a step in the right direction, and may help our grandchildren to have a decent planet on which to bring up their children.
You've clearly got something against explosions. I'll bet you don't drink self-heating lattes either.
we see things not as as they are, but as we are.
-- anais nin
Unless battery tech makes a big lead the only way to solve the weight problem is to run electrics on an electric rail. Weight is the problem and petro cars can be nearly impossible to beat. Lot's of energy in a gallon.
What I don't get about people's obsession with electric cars/vehicles is this... Where is all this power coming from? All you're doing is transferring the power source from a locally purchased commodity to a distantly purchased one. But half the time guess how we're getting that same power? From various power plants that still polute, etc. Not only that, but most already know that in many areas power is a limited commodity. If everyone goes to electric power for their cars, oh crap, now the power company is running low on power and starts charging premiums for it, etc. Price goes up, and we're still all screwed. Oh and how are we going to get the additional power? Build convential power plants? Can't do that. Nuclear? Nope, we can't do that. Wind? Haha, not a chance. Solar? Nope that hurts the environment too. Dams hurt the fish, etc. If you've followed the trend of energy articles posted on here in past month, they all revolve around power sources being shot down by interest groups protecting something.
Even I can beat any of those cars in a 10-foot race. Maybe even 20.
When a hybrid is traveling on a highway for an extended period, 100% of it's power is coming from the engine. To push a modest car (honda accord) down the road a 55MPH requires about a 30-40 HP engine. You probably want a larger one so it does not wimp out if you want to go faster for an extended period.
The batteries in hybrid cars are only used for acceleration in city driving and short periods of excess speed on highways. They are NOT used for anything else because ultimately 100% of the average power comes from the gasoline.
Thus the sole benefit of hybrids is that it turns city driving inefficiency (stop and accelerate) into the equivalent of highway driving since the engine can run at a constant, efficeint, tuned point almost continuously. For people who actually stop and leave the engine running for long periods, the hybrid can save a few sips by shutting down the engine. Also the hybrid can make use of engine type not associated with sexy car performance, like diesel.
But anyhow it cant avoid getting 100% of the energy from the gas.
What about charging the batteries off the grid? That will not work if everyone tries to do it.
If you wanted to be able to pull your car into gas station and gas it up in under 10 minutes to a range of 300 miles like you can with gasoline then the gas station would have to deliver power to your car at a rate of a megawatts. Besides the absurdity of delivering that over the powerlines, any practical battery would explode when charged that fast.
Okey you say, well what about trickle charging it overnight or while you are parked for a long time at work. Well that would work, for you. But if everyone else in your neighborhood did it, then we are back to delivering many megawatts to every neighbor hood. that simply is impossible until we have underground superconduction transmission lines in every city in america.
Thus electric cars re nice show pieces but cannot replace gasoline on a large scale at this time.
Thus the only way to charge an electric car is to have distributed power production or distributed chemical fuel delivery.
So this can mean: 1) hydrids that burn fuel like now. 2) hydrids that burn hydrogen like fuel cells (make the hydrogen at nuclear plants and ship it as chemical energy not over wires)
or charge batteries at nuclear plants and ship them in trucks to refueling stations where you swap batteries.
Thus you can only transport the power needed for typical driving as chemical energy.
30 HP = 22,371 watts
300 miles @ 55 Miles/hour = 19,636 seconds
30hp for 19636= 43,9285,090 joules
delivering 24 mega joules in one minute requires
7,321,418 watts from "pump" at gas station to recharge one car.
If a gas station was a busy one and was processing one car per minute all day long then it would have continous feed of 7 megawatts.
The total capacity of the US for power production is 300 terrawatt hours. so that would mean that if we doubled the entire electrical capacity of the US we could build less than 10,000 gas stations, ignoring all the transmission problems.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I assume you've done the hard work of actually calculating the efficiencies of electricity versus gasoline and that is why you can state this so matter of factly? Or are you instead simply basing this on a pre-conceived notion that sounds plausible so you assume it is correct?
People who have actually sat down to think about this question have come to a different conclusion. Electric cars, even when sourcing energy from dirty coal, are significantly more efficient than gasoline cars. In addition, as the "dirty" electricity sources get cleaner and more efficient, EVERY ELECTRIC CAR ON THE ROAD BENEFITS. With gasoline cars, the efficiency of the existing fleet that is on the road cannot be improved.
If we eventually wisen up and move our electricity generation to all nuclear, and all our cars to electricity, the air pollution levels would be reduced significantly. Yes, electric cars are not "zero" pollution cars, you still have batteries to recycle after all, but they are much much cleaner than gasoline engined cars.
No kidding that an electric motor responds faster.
However, over the long haul the gas engine will eat the electric.
This also isnt even close to being 'news'. 'Info' for the slow ones around here perhaps, but not news.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Ooooh, burn :P
Hey! I can see the future of NASCAR!
:)
I see long yellow extension cords plugged in to the middle of the track powering those speed machines. Sure the roar of the engines would be gone, and the smell of the gasoline wouldn't be there (not to mention that really nasty extension cord knot at the end of the race), but dammit, we saved the polar bears!!! (sniff)
I'll just shutup now...
1 gallon @ 6lbm/gallon => 2.72 kg/gal * 42000 kJ/kg = 114306.5 kJ/gal
10 gal * 114306.5 kJ/gal / (3 min * 60 s/min) = 6350.4 kJ/s
Bumping the time up to 5 minutes drops down to 3810 kJ/s (my current vehicle is 10 gallons/fill, and it takes about 3 minutes).
It gets worse if you use 43 or 43.5 MJ/kg for gasoline content instead of 42.
Note: if you typed in what you said, Google was correct: you put 29000 *cal* in your formula, then reported in kcal...what's a few orders of magnitude among friends?
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
ARE solar panels really clean? I mean there is the manufacturing process? How much pollution does that create? I can see LARGE solar plants being cleaner - but I wonder about home solar panels. I don;t know that they aren't cleaner - I'm just saying - don't assume they are - just because the don't pollute where you can see it.
"Horsepower sells cars, torque wins races." - Carroll Shelby
I knew a lady who once converted her Ferrari into an electric car. She used to charge up her electric Ferrari every day from the photovotaic panels on the roof of her home. She said she has the largest array of photovotaic panels of any house in the country, it covers a large portion of her roof. At the time I knew her, she no longer had the electric Ferrari (or any other electric car). Most of the time, her electric meter runs backwards and she is selling her unused excess electricity back to the power company.
She is somewhat wealty and could afford to have a huge array of photovotaic pannels. If prices eventually come down for photovotaic perhaps someday more people will be able to do that. She also has one or mere very large deep cycle batteries for her house. Of course presumably the electic Ferrari had its own batteries. I would probably be more in the electric motor scooter price range, not the electric Ferrari price range, like her.
She seemed to me to be nice but perhaps slightly eccentric person (although I don't really know her too well). She lives on a small ranch in Arizona with her own private dirt airstrip in the front yard. She has a large ham radio tower next to her house. She raises her own chickens and on occaision has sat on the back porch doing target practice. Last I heard she was thinking about eventually getting another electric car. She met someone and and got married a few years ago. Her house is totally solar with photovotiac panels, a solar hot water heater, and solar pannels for heating the house.
I also once had a conversation with a guy who had driven up from 100 miles away with his electric car and was looking for somewhere to recharge it before driving home. A found a nearby RV park which allowed him to park on a trailer space while plugging into the 50 Amp outlet and rechaging it for 10 cents per KWH or whatever they charged him.
They leave out the fact that with that 100k$ price tag of the X1, you don't get a roof, or last I checked a street legal car. You don't get a stereo, or nice leather seats. You really don't get anything... you get a motorcycle with 4 wheels more or less. The other cars it's "competing" against are real cars, not glorified crotch rockets. Let's try apples to apples my good man.
The X1 is good as a track car and that's about it. That's definitely not the market bugatti is aiming for.
If you want to actually do something about it rather than wait for government and maximum profit old entrenced industry to do it for you. Hint:neither of those places wants to help YOU.
This is why, just for an example or two, you go electric car (google for kits, they exist, around 10 grand to convert something you can go find used for pretty cheap) the same time you go to being your own power provider, whichever method or combination of methods fits in your area. Wind/solar are the most common. There are a lot of people out there now who have electric vehicles (usually converted from older gas models) who also charge their batteries from their home alternative energy system. See how that works then? It's even showing up in some electric tractor conversions for smaller organic farms now.
As to cost, hard to say. You are never paid off using grid supplied, because you must always pay a monthly bill, and you have no idea what that bill will be several years down the road. Electric bills rarely go down, either, let us call that a default reality. With the alternatives, this isn't true, you can get a fixed cost today, and actually pay it off, well before it stops putting out electricity for you. Typical windplants at todays prices are paying off within a few years now, and are very competetive with the best coal or gas plants. And storage battery tech has gotten great, you can easily get ten or twenty year warranties on the top shelf products out there now, 30 years on solar panels is also common. Current by the watt prices at a fixed average KWH electric rate (if that existed) are running 5-6 years "payback" on *some* solar installations (hint, as much of the work possible you can do drops the price down, in other words, geek skills will pay you lot$, spend the bulk of the money on the hardware, have licensed electrician do the bare minimum connect to panel action to satisfy local imspector).
While people-most people-have been debating and saying there needs to be "more research" on the alternatives, thousands of families have gone ahead and done it and it is working just fine now. Other people are generating electricity at commercial rates and quantities and *making money* at it with the larger wind generators.
The future arrived, it is the 21st century, you may *prefer* the old ways of doing things, but the newer ways several years ago hit affordable-enough, practical-enough status for a lot of people, just depends what you need and where you live is all.
For everyone?, No, not at this time, for around 3/4s of the population geographicaly wind and solar (or a hybrid) would be more than adequate, even just covering one normal sized roof that faces south will provide many kilowatts of power now, and has little to no maintenance depending if you go grid tie only or storage battery bank/grid tie (preferred, sell extra power off, plus have whole house backup power during outtage time). Several mortgage outfits now *routinely* will let you add in the cost of power upgrades like that to your house note, and a lot of people are finding out the house note increase with that addition is *less* than what their power bill was pre-modding, in other words, you get paid to go alternative, pure dollars and cents. If there is a better deal than that out there I sure am not seeing it. And that is at *today's* electric grid supplied prices, if they go up significantly-which they could pretty easily, your personal home energy investment goes up just as fast, with the difference is it is paying you, not you paying them the diff. Sweet, or what? Combine that with the current government tax credits, etc and for a lot of people it is an attractive option right now.
Disclaimer-yes, before the anecdotal smarmy replies come in, if "anyone you" lives in an apartment you don't own or can't mod a little because you chose to move to a restricted covenant home or something, in a perpetual dead calm air, no wind, completely overcast city-sorry, you are correct, not much options, yo
One way to recharge quickly is to exchange battery packs. You could rent a pack and exchange it for a fully charged one when you fill up. Probably a good idea to have a complete charge history stored in the pack.
Can somebody save the video and put it up somewhere? Fracking WMVs.
-K
oops. The last paragraph is wrong. the 300 terawatt hours would provide a lot more gas stations than that. so that's a red herring. However all the numbers and conclusion up that point still stand.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Most of the US still get's it's power from Gas run power plants.
Maybe we could convert to burning extraneous apostrophes, at the rate of two per clause.
It's good to see improvement in the tech though
Oops, you just lowered the overall efficiency of the new system.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Not quite. It's actually from coal. Gas is 14%.
The fact is the car is ugly...so are the spyders. But...since i am a local shore boy here...everything i do is within 100 miles of me.. In fact its a rare day when i drive more than 70s. That includes work, to the Girlfriends, out with the boys, whatever. if they could slap this engine in my civic...i'd be happy... but this is kinda cool too Go Propane
Sorry, tension breaker, had to be done. As a person that did his senior seminar project on battery technology, I am continuosly surprised at how little penetration flywheel batteries get. Almost all of the issues that were brought up here with normal batteries are solved by using them.
a ge
But don't take my word for it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flywheel_energy_stor
Hearing slashdotters arguing different ways that cars with combustion engines can still beat electric cars is proof of how much electric cars have advanced - enough to spark some feeling of competition. It is also a sad lack of imagination.
Modern combustion engines benefit from generations of research, billions of dollars investment and an unmatched manufacturing scale. All of which ensure both a highly slanted field in any comparison and prices that cannot yet be matched by alternatives.
I swear it's sounding like a bunch of grumpy old men objecting to these new-fangled changes in here.
If we get the brain trust on board we can address the challenges. With some imagination we can also re-think the logistics of travel rather than simply trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.
You mock the challenges still ahead but remember that the public didn't believe an electric car could begin to compete with combustion cars on speed. Fast electric cars are good optics which inspire public confidence. Make no mistake, this vehicle is a step.
You plug it in at home, where it charges from the battery bank you have in conjunction with the solar panel array.
It may be smaller than your wish, but it would get the "what was that" response.
http://www.obvio.ind.br/obviona/012.htm
It is a fact that the quest for high performance and competition spurs the research that ultimately benefits the consumer. Host national, red-neck accessible, honest-to-god races, with electric or other alternavehicles, get the speeds up to 200 MPH, and endurance up above 300 miles and watch the masses flock to it. Then, let the masses power the drive towards consumer versions of the next generation.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
Sales of alternative powered cars will be proportional to their ability to meet the needs and wants of consumers. Needs and wants which are largely derived from media advertisements. It is interesting to see how the average American views the vehicle compared with the average European. The American sees it as a liberating device, a tool of freedom, a big status symbol. In most European countries, this is just not the case. I'd say a car is viewed more as a functional device. You will also notice that America has an inordinant amount of car advertisements on the television, most of which show the car as a liberator in some fashion, be it through speed on some curvy road to an SUV climbing alpine mountains. I can only really attest for Sweden, but percentage of car comercials here is much less, with themes usually different. The caveate is that as we adopt American culture more and more, the car commercials come in kind. Vehicles really don't offer that much freedom, because freedom is a state of mind rather than a location. I know this is hard to swallow for most Americans, but it is simply the truth. I've never owned a vehicle, and bicycle everywhere, all seasons of the sea, snow or shine, and oddly enough manage to do all right. Most people really are not served anything by having the OPTION to, on a whim, travel 400km, any given day. I guess what I mean to say is that there is likely a large percentage of people who have "needs" that are not satisfied by alternative transportation, who, in reality would be served quite well by alternative transportation, but for their past inculcation.
Thank you for a very informative post. I agree with your overall theme, but I have one nit to pick. On the issue of hybrid efficiency, hybrids at highway speed also capture energy going up and down hills, which helps efficiency somewhat. I got 54 mpg in my last 3 hour highway drive in my Prius (with 2 adults and three in the car, plus luggage). Sure, the Prius is aerodynamic, but having the electic motor work on the hills must have helped.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
And why would you have an off-line battery pack in the vehicle with you? It's not like your phone, where the battery is small relative to the thing that's carrying it (you). These battery packs are BIG.
I thought the same thing initially, but then I realized the gp has a bit of a point. If battery packs for cars were standardized across the board, a "gas" station could have a crapload of fully-charged battery packs, ready to be swapped out with motorist's fully-drained battery packs, kinda like the propane-tank exchanges that many gas stations already have (for outdoor grills and stuff). You'd give the "gas" station your old battery pack along with $30 or so, and they'd give you a brand new, fully-charged battery pack. Obviously, there'd have to be some sort of heavy-equipment involved to exchange the batteries, and it would be *way* to expensive, but it's an interesting idea.
ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
That's not my understanding of the words "faster" and "quicker". Do you have a reference for this kind of usage?
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
A civilization could concievably decide that total consumption must be reduced or kept static, but that is based upon the civilization's realization that there are significant long term impacts that must be controlled/mitigated through the use of regulated consumption rates.
minor note: I believe his name is Jevons not Jevon
Well yes. That was the point being made in the title. electric cars are not yet feasible on a mass scale. Only chemical fuel hybrids are.
You go ahead and get back to me when we get laptop and cell phone batteries standardized.
(Never happen. Why? Money to be made.)
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
If you took something as innocuous as a Prius, and either bumped the size of the electric motor or added a second one (at the rear wheels, perhaps)-- you could build a hell of a fun car that was efficient, too.
As long as the electric motors could take a stupendous peak power for 20 seconds without melting, you could put down some truly stupendous torque and fly off the line. And the rest of the time you'd get 50mpg, since power like this is truly on-demand. There would be some slight additional weight to the car, but not enough to drastically change the fuel economy.
Does is have enough juice to put a pound of bacon into the asteroid belt?
What Ferrari will do is go into electric car business. It's a racing car manufacturer after all.
Once the technology is there, it'll be possible to have a very light weihgt motor on each wheel. Provided batteries/cells will be lighter, a totally new concept will be there. Imagine the curves you can make with alighter, more powerful car.
It 'll be like with foto cameras. The most experienced manufacturers will rule after the change. Getting a car to behave well on the road isn't easy.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
"Just look back to electic motorcycles, they had to add artificial noise-makers so people would accept them."
Look back?
I'm STILL looking for ANY electric motorcycles, especially the one's with "artificial noise-makers" on them.
I must be living in a third world country becaue I haven't seen ANY here in the USA.
The Porsche and Ferrari are required to meet safety standards, which means withstanding front and side impacts, and also to have all the safety equipment on board.
This car is no doubt much much lighter than either of the competitors, but will likely gain 1000 lbs as it will be required to have headlights, tail lights, seatbelts, and a frame strong enough to withstand a 5mph bumper test without KILLING EVERYONE IN IT.
Then you don't know cars.
Faster refers to how fast a car can travel. Its top-end speed. A Ferrari is a very fast car, with models able to top 200mph. There's no indication that the electric has that kind of top-end, and in fact gearing it for drag racing likely precludes high speeds as well.
Quicker refers to a car's acceleration. How quickly can it do 0 to ???, where ??? is the speed that best shows its acceleration in relation to other vehicles. Most motorcycles are quite quick, with drag bikes usually beating all but the most high-powered automobiles due to a motorcycle's superior power/weight ratio.
In short, when referring to a car's performance, Fast and Quick are not interchangeable.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Thus electric cars re nice show pieces but cannot replace gasoline on a large scale at this time.
Sure they can. Sure, if every car were turned into electric tomorrow, the country would be crippled. But with a 5% penetration per year, it would give sufficient time to build out the infrastructure. Additionally, there are ways to still have "gas stations" for electric cars. If I were master of the universe, I'd require all batteries be a few different types and be easily externally accessible. Have the energizing stations be battery swap, rather than battery recharge. Then recharge them at leisure. The recharge fee will cover the cost of testing and certifying each battery and covering replacement cost when they fail. And, it would could be quicker than a petrol refueling, if standards were followed.
The power problem would be easily solved by solar kits with every electric car. If people spent $10,000 on solar power for every new car, that would cover the power generation needs for the vehicle. Then, it essentially takes their house off the grid and puts the car on the grid at an even swap. Certainly not cheap, but just one of a very long list of ways to deal with the power problem. I'm sure I could come up with solutions to every one of your concerns, but I'm sure you'd declare all my solutions as impractical.
Learn to love Alaska
Don't forget about regenerative braking. That is a major reason why stop-n-go driving is more efficient in a hybrid.
So what about the batteries?
Notice that the WrightSpeed website doesn't tell you anything about battery life.
Here's a link to a website for engineers that deals with battery issues: http://www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm
Check out the data for ageing due to storage temperature and charge/discharge rates.
Not pretty is it? Leave your car out in the parking lot and its batteries get trashed.
And that 100 mile travel rating is for new batteries. It's going to be 80 miles next year.
How many years will you wait before you relace your batteries?
The T-zero uses 6,800 'laptop computer' batteries. You do the math on that.
You may be contributing more pollution, but you may be contributing less. Depends on the rate of pollution emitted per kWh generated versus pollution emitted per mile travelled with an IC engine.
Somehow I doubt though that your IC engine is as efficient at converting chemical energy to mechanical compared to the petroleum powered electrical generator turning it into heat and subsequently electricity.
Besides, where do you live that your electricity is petroleum generated? The vast majority in the US comes from coal.
Now I was reading an article awhile back which discussed the new revolution of growing carbon nanotubes on the surfaces of capacitors which ultimately increases the electric potential exponentially. While this technology is about 5-6 years out most likely, batteries utilizing this technology could completely revamp the entire electric car industry. I've seen mentioned about the ability to go 300 miles+ on a single charge, well I suppose here is one of the solutions to that problem.
A little french car maker called Venturi did a real sport car (i.e. with all the comfort and security of a mass production car). http://www.venturi.fr/us/fetish/specs/specs.php3 Specs are: - power: 180Kw (~300 HP) - torque: 220 Nm - acceleration: 0-100km/h in 4.5 sec. - autonomie: 250 km - top speed: 170 km/h So, it is not a top car in term of speed, but sounds more reasonable anyway to hit the road. Hope my next car to be 100% electric. I've been in the Honda EV, it is just great to drive, especially for city travelling and commuting.
You go ahead and get back to me when we get laptop and cell phone batteries standardized.
;-)
(Never happen. Why? Money to be made.)
Heh, I didn't say it was a good idea...
ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
There are only two ways to move that kind of energy that quickly and not need serious protection from something that might melt or even explode in your hands from losses, (a) mass transfer of either a chemical compound like gasoline or a battery swap, (b) superconductive cables, 'cause 6 MW at even 0.1% loss (an insane level of efficiency) would be 6kW in your hand and that's gonna get hot.
This is the most effective argument against electrical power and one that cannot be overcome without a serious change to the public's expectations during the refueling process. As long as we expect to re-energize our vehicles in a few minutes, there is no currently known solution that will not be at best dangerous. Even with superconductive cabling and a transfer system that is close to lossless, if we move power via DC, the contacts aren't going to last long due to electromigration; if we move power via AC, the fields are going to be really, really strong, and everyone's credit cards will get erased (actually much worse things are likely to happen, but you get the idea). Pushing megawatts of power through E&M fields is hard.
Now, if we can recharge a different way, say over 10 hours instead of 10 minutes, the story is entirely different, 'cause moving kilowatts of power isn't that big a deal. Or if we re-energize the vehicle by swapping batteries for ones that the filling station recharges at their leisure, it's much less of an issue. But both of those require a substantial shift in public perception and expectation.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
the solar flux on a cloudless day at noon at the equator is about 1 Kilowatt/sq meter. if we assume that solar cells can be made to run at 20% effiiciency, and that given that cars won't have panels aligned to the sun we assume liberally that 1 meter of useful area is presented then that is
200 watts of power. driving at 55 requires 23 kilo watts. So you simple cannot even come close to driving sustainably at 55 mph. not even close.
to put this in perspective: if you parked your car for two days you could drive it for 1 hour on the highway.
this assumes you are able to park it on the equator and not in a parking garage.
"sorry boss, it was cloudy so I can't drive to work today".
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Uh, yeah, that's why I said it was a BAD idea.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
http://world.honda.com/news/2006/4060108FCX/
there's your 350 and 5
-ubuntu others as you would have others ubuntu you.
IMO it was a good thing that electric cars didn't have the power that gas-powered cars did. The higher the power the more the energy wasted by every fool that does burnouts at stoplights and drag races. Now it looks like the cycle will continue. Since most of our electrical power comes from coal it looks like our air pollution isn't going to be decreasing anytime soon, although at least it will be more centralized.
...a 1-litre superbike straight off the assembly line will make toast of any of these (0-60mph 3 sec). Cost is around $10K, so you can get one in every color and still buy that bass boat, for what this thing costs.
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
Another solution would be to swap entire batteries at charge stations.
You go to the charge station, they remove your empty battery, install a charged one (using some fast slot-loading mechanism), and you're ready to go. The charge station would then charge your empty battery for another user. And you'd still be able to charge your battery at home.
"Vehicles really don't offer that much freedom, because freedom is a state of mind rather than a location. "
The US is larger in size than any European contry and many states are larger than most European contries. While Europe is trying to unify now it will be a very long time before Europe is really one big happy culture while in the US, it's not unusual for people to move cross country away from where they grew up.
An example, in my office, of the 6 people that I work closest with, I am from this area (North Carolina) allong with one other, one is from Michigan, One from Iowa, One from New York and One from Florida.
I don't know if that is the case in Eruope because of Cultureal/Language differances between the various contries. Do people frequently move as far from home Europe? If you walk into an office in Paris will you find a lot of people from other European contries who have moved thier families there from Germany/Italy/UK/Spain/ETC.?
Other factors to think about too. The US is Large and spread out so like it or not, in most areas, you just gotta have a decent car even for just around town. Also in Europe the Mass Transit is fairly good even in smallish towns while in the US it is nonexistant in anything smaller than a midsized american city.
A lot more could be discussed compairing the US culture to European and how that effects driving habits but I don't want make this post too long.
No matter where you go, there you are.
-I must be missing something-
If you use an electric car - it needs to be recharged. That energy has to come from somewhere.. So instead of using a combustion engine, you are using energy from power plants, which usually means nuclear energy, or burning fossil fuels. - how does that help pollution?
The only benefit I can see is for urban areas, where you want to reduce the smog created from such a high concentration of vehicles - in which case you do not need a sportscar.
magli
"Besides, where do you live that your electricity is petroleum generated? The vast majority in the US comes from coal."
Within eyesight of my building in Fort Lauderdale we have a petroleum fueled station that powers much of this area. There are nuke plants further to the North and South of us, but ours here still burns fuel. There are no coal mines anywhere near here and the land is very flat so hydroelectric power is not an option.
Needless to say, we're not happy about oil prices going up as this not only affects us at the pump, it's also passed along to us by our local electric provider monopoly so we see it on our power bill as well. And we're still footing the tab for the hurricanes damage to the infrastructure here last year. I am not happy about my electric bill lately, I can assure you.
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?
I'm not forgetting it. I'm assuming it. The limiting case is at 100% recovery and lossless acceleration, city driving approaches highway driving efficiency where the motor runs at a constant rate. Depending where the engine was tuned (highway or city) one of the two might be slightly better on average but since I've already ignored conversion losses, basically those numbers I sight are best case scenarios and include the effect you mention.
On the other hand don't think I'm arguing against hybrids. I'm arguing that wholsale conversion to electric cars is absurd until we consider how we deliver the power in a way that lets people actually use their cars as they please. I'm also pointing out that counter to everyones assumptions about hybrids--they don't do magic, they are 100% gas engines. the battery is just for acceleration and breaking.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Thus the sole benefit of hybrids is that it turns city driving inefficiency (stop and accelerate) into the equivalent of highway driving since the engine can run at a constant, efficeint, tuned point almost continuously.
None of the currently available hybrids use a setup where the gas engine can run at constant RPM.
The benefits of the current drivetrain designs are as follows:
1. Your engine is the same total power, but now has two pieces. You can turn half of it off when both are not needed, such as when cruising.
2. In stop-and-go traffic, regenerative braking turns your kinetic energy back into stored power you can use to accelerate.
3. The large electric motor acts as an "instant starter" making it easy to shut down at stoplights and start up again seamlessly.
4. The high-torque electric motor lets the gas motor be run on the more efficient but less torquey atkinson cycle.
I can imagine. Well, at least now I know where that 20% of US electricity from petroleum is going. I am overjoyed to live here in Illinois, otherwise known as the Land of Neutron.
(And, to boot, I happen to like the styling of that much more than the current most popular hybrid.)
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
They are definitely roomier than you'd expect. I'm 6'2", and fit comfortably behind the driver even when the seat is all the way back AND partially reclined. I had more than 4" of knee clearance even with the drivers' seat tipped back like that.
It's significantly bigger than my Civic on the interior.
Only 50mpg? Seriously? I guess I just always assumed bikes were getting something reasonable for their weight, considering plenty of cars have topped the 50mpg mark over the years.
I thought for sure you'd be seeing 100mpg or some such at a minimum! Some sort of real tradeoff for using your skin and bones as the crumple zones.
..what happens when some asshat wraps this thing around a tree?
Battery acid everywhere !
Seriously. Having never seen the fuel cells in an electric, I have no idea what would happen in this scenario. Anyone know the specs on the batteries these new-fangled electric cars use?
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
Floor the pedal and you're off like a shot toward the 112 mph top speed.
9
w ww.almanacnews.com/story.php%3Fstory_id%3D1129+X1, +Ian+Wright+%22top+speed%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd =1
:P
Google's cache of http://www.almanacnews.com/story.php?story_id=112
http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:bJ8pEWoBNq4J:
Ferraris are a TINY BIT faster!
-- Boycott Shell
With 10000 such stations you could charge 14,4 million cars a day (24 hours). With 300 miles/refill the average american fills up, what, once a week? Thats 100,8 million cars that would be supported by just doubling the capacity.
...is how fast it goes in a straight line, then buy one. But for those that understand the fun of turning left and right, it just won't compare to a Ferrari or Porsche.
Thanks for the answer. Do you think next time you could do it without the snarky "then you don't know cars" remark?
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
I say the solution is to have America be divided between rich and poor. 50% own cars (the rich) and the other 50% don't. That simple. 50% less cars....
I believe as resources get more scarce and gas is $20 per/gallon perhaps in 40 years it won't be what type of car determines your economic status but do you HAVE a car.
Ecomomics has ruled since the dawm of man. It won't change.
As for the water problems. I could always kill you and steal your water dude....This is the war you speak of????
- Civic Si Coupe: $20,290, 49/51 mpg city/hwy
- Civic Hybrid Sedan: $22,150, 23/32 mpg city/hwy
- Difference: $1,860
The web-site doesn't list the EX anymore. Last year, when I bought the car, the difference from the EX was about $2,000. Of course, I also got a $2,000 tax deduction (meaning that if you're in the 30% tax bracket, a $600 savings). So, in that case it's about $1,400 more expensive. After 100,000 hwy miles, the Hybrid will have used approximately 1,960 gallons to the Coupe's 3,125 gallons. That's a savings of 1,165 gallons, or at $3/gallon about $3,495. And, that neglects the fact that that the Coupe is rated for Unleaded Super whereas the Hybrid is rated for Unleaded Regular. OTOH, actually mpg for for the hybrid is probably slightly lower. If you use 45 mpg, then the Hybrid will have used approximately 2,222 gallons, for a savings of 903 gallons or $2,709 at $3/gallon. Of course, gas will probably continue to go up in price, as well.Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Electric Car - $1,000
538Lbs of Li-Ion batteries - $99,000
Beating a $440k Porsche - Priceless
The power company would be thrilled if people plugged in their cars to charge overnight. Set a timer so that the charging runs from midnight to seven in the morning. That's when demand for electricity is lowest right now, and when the power company has the most unused capacity. The utilities would love to have more uniform demand for electricity over the course of the day--big power plants that run 24/7 are usually much cheaper to operate than gas turbines that are spun up for a few hours per day.
Many newer homes already have the ability to deliver sufficent juice, as long as the car charging runs at night: when the air conditioner, electric clothes dryer, lights, and television are all off. I'm assuming that most vehicles won't need a full 300 mile charge every night. Most people don't spend six hours driving on the highway every day, after all.
Your estimated 'tank capacity' of 43,9285,090 joules is 122 kWh. If we assume that a typical driver will use about a quarter tank per day--75 miles of driving--we need to feed about 30 kWh into the car. Over eight hours of charging that's a constant power of 3750 watts; at 110 volts that works out to a shade less than 35 amps of constant current.
If everyone got an electric car at once, there might be problems--but assuming modest market penetration at first, the power company won't have any worries.
~Idarubicin
"I guess these are the reasons that EV's never really caught on."
Or, it could be that they are still prohibitively expensive and nothing but a toy for the rich.
The EV's name that the article fails to mention actor George Clooney purchased for $108,000 is the CommuterCar Tango T600.
http://www.commutercars.com/
This company has been around for years. Out of Spokane, WA, they are currently able to make only their flagship model, the Tango T600 until they get enough money to pay the millions necessary to design, test and meet federal requirements for the two lower-tier models.
The article also didn't mention the raw numbers of the EV vs. ICE. Performance-wise, the T600 rocks. I'd love to have one of these around town... From their website:
"As far as performance goes, the Tango is no slouch. Since electric cars--especially small ones--are generally thought to be slow and weak performers we set out to blow some minds by designing the Tango to accelerate through the standing 1/4 mile in 12 seconds at over 120 mph and travel from 0 to 60 mph in 4 seconds."
The X1's charge isn't as fast @ 4.5 hours versus the Tango's three hours. Again, from their website:
"Its 80-mile range is nearly 4 times the distance the average commuter travels per day. With high-tech batteries, range could exceed 150 miles per charge.
To minimize any day-time inconvenience, the Tango can charge to 80% in just 10 minutes from a 200 amp charging station. This gives approximately 50 additional miles of range per quick-charge. Typically one would just plug in each night to a dryer outlet and get a complete charge in less than 3 hours and be ready for work the next morning."
Besides the other pluses of having a roof over your head, a NHRA-certified rollcage, a nice stereo, and (gasp) even A/C, I think the Tango is more for me.
now... if I can only remember where I put that pesky $108,000 that was cluttering up my bank account.
No sig for you! Come back one year!
What do you do when you want to drive long distance?
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
That the car the Duracell Bunny drives?
Looks helluvalot like a boat with wheels to me.
Defining Statistics and Social Research
I don't think the swapping batteries theory works. It's OK for propane tanks because the tank works just as well after 10 years and 1000 uses as it does when it's brand new, it just doesn't look as good. Batteries so far are not that way. I would not want to take my brand-new electric car with its brand-new $5000 battery pack (or even $200) and let the gas station attendant swap it out for whatever crap they just finished charging. I might end up paying thousands of dollars to refuel. And if you were running the gas station, would you take that brand new pack, charge it up and give it to the next customer, or would you sell it? Gas stations would be pretty much guaranteed to only have old, less valuable batteries. And if you're on a road trip and you find that this battery pack only got you 250 miles instead of the 400 you were expecting, what are you going to do? Go back to the gas station and get your money back? Until batteries work as well as new for thousands of charges, I just don't think it's workable. And by the time we get to that point, we'll probably be using ultracapacitors or something anyway.
A pound of bricks weighs WAY more than a pound of feathers
Nothing is ever safe in the hands of corporations! I couldn't agree more. The only thing worse than putting it in the hands of corporations is putting it in the hands of the government. And maybe individuals.
Because it's batteries only last for 660 feet.
Speaking for myself, I enjoy the snarky remarks on slashdot.
The article claims the X1 is second only to the Bugatti Veyron in its 0-60 time, being half a second slower than the Bugatti. Firstly, the Bugatti clears 60 in 2.9, meaning the X1 does it in 3.4. I can think of a handful of cars which can hit 60 much faster than 3.4.
One also has to consider the fact that the X1 has a computerized traction system, where as the Porsche either does not, or did not have it turned on (I can't remember if it has one).
Furthermore if you look at the X1, it's obviously a light car. The Bugatti weighs just around 4000 lbs and the Ferrari Spyder and Carrera GT weigh in at about 3300, if I recall correctly.
The article's writer really should have done a better job of quantifying the thing. Basically he's saying, "An extremely light-weight car with a traction system, which obviously would not meet US safety requirements, is trouncing safer, regulation-meeting, heavier and more attractive cars that can drive much farther than 100 miles and which don't have pathetic traction controls."
Good job.
The Prius still uses, and needs, the friction brakes for a real emergency stop. The battery pack simply can't recharge fast enough to absorb all the power that a sudden stop can generate. Doing the math is instructive: if you're going 60 and a kid runs out in front of you, you could light up your block for a few seconds with the energy the car is shedding.
It won't be fast for long! There's no particular magic to making an electric car accelerate faster of have a higher top speed than some gasoline-powered cars. Just put in a bigger motor that produces more horsepower.
Problem is obviously that to get more power out, you have to put more amp-hours in, and if you run at a high power level it's not going to last very long. You can still only store so much energy per unit mass in a battery, and it's still FAR less than the energy per unit mass you can store in gasoline.
THAT's the reason all attempts at *practical* all-electric cars result in wimpy performance - they are trying to extend the range by limiting the performance. It's not anything about the inherent weakness of the motor, it's about the limited power you can store.
Brett
but google seems to rank the X1 as 0-60 in 'under 4 seconds' - the Ariel Atom 2 chasis that the car's based on does it 2.9-3.5 depending upon who tested it.
Basically what I'm trying to say is that the X1 makers took a very very fast car with a 2 litre Honda petrol engine - and have made a slightly slower electric version for a significant multiplier more.
Whoopeee-skip.
Now if you want an electric car, this is all wonderful - but don't plug it as electric being better than petrol.
If you want to see Ariels very understated show-off page clicky this
http://www.arielmotor.co.uk/04/press.htm
Why do I have the feeling that car companies will standardize a mechanical interface for batteries some time after laptop manufacturers do?
>The problem with electric cars was never performance, it's range.
The two fight each other. You can get 300-mile ranges at the expense of performance.
Two issues: a long-range battery pack is a heavy one that's hard to accelerate quickly.
Second, more subtle, if you try to pull energy out of a battery pack too fast you get less energy total. Google for words like "Peukert" to find out more.
But you really can't think of a way where we could have a power distribution network for electric vehicles?
>The batteries in hybrid cars are only used for acceleration in city driving and short periods of excess speed on highways. They are NOT used for anything else because ultimately 100% of the average power comes from the gasoline.
There's one more use, namely load leveling. Drive a Prius down the highway and you'll notice something interesting: the gas engine keeps cycling on and off. This is because gas engines have a "sweet spot" in their operating envelope where they are most efficient. That's why the outrageous gas mileage records are done with "pulse driving", running the engine briefly at peak efficiency and then coasting. The Prius does the same thing without annoying everybody with speed changes: it runs the engine briefly at peak efficiency to push the car and charge the batteries, then shuts the engine down and runs electric instead of coasting.
>ultimately 100% of the average power comes from the gasoline.
Which is exactly true. The refinement is that instead of *running* at average power, the gas engine can be duty-cycle modulated to *deliver* average power while never running off peak efficiency.
Anyone with basic car savvy is now wondering whether compression drag from the turned-off engine is a problem. 'Tisn't: the gas engine can be "taken out of gear" in software.
You guys are not getting it. I rode in Ian Wright's car a week ago. This car is the most fun you can have sitting down. It is electric; no giant corporate, national security and pollution problems. The Wrightspeed is silent, incredibly fast, 1.24 lateral g's cornering! This car is more than three times as efficient as a Toyota Prius in terms of energy used per mile. How often do you drive more than 150 miles locally in a day? There are more than 100 FREE locations available to charge it in the San Francisco bay area alone. The car is cheap to buy compared to all the others in its speed and performance class. This is the auto world equivalent of open source. Accessible technology that is usable and practical today. Batteries are available that charge in minutes (see A123 lithium cells) and drive systems (see AC Propulsion and the T-Zero) are incredible. Americans have been barraged by so much auto and oil energy bull over the past 50 years or so that we have a hard time seeing the light even when being blinded by it!
Your kneejerk ill considered response thinking I was atacking hybrids is perplexing.
I said no such thing, and offered only a minor, polite correction. I did not in ANY way state that you were attacking hybrids. Perhaps you are referring to a different poster?
First I did mention you could turn off the engine if you were parked. however the idea you could turn it off when cuising is ass backward nonsense. When you are cruising, you MUST run the engine.
Actually, no. This depends on the particulars of the design. A first-gen civic hybrid is essentially a gas engine with a motor "booster," but even in this case the electric motor can indeed be off while the engine is running, effectively shutting off one of the two engines. A Prius or second-gen hybrid civic, on the other hand, can run both, electric-only, gas-only, or neither of the motors. *including* pure-electric cruising with no gas engine. I urge you to go test-drive one-- you can see this for yourself firsthand.
Right. So that means they get poorer efficiency that I described. if they ran at constant rates they could be tuned to get maximal efficiency.
No, it means that they chose a direct-drive design over one where power produced by the engine must go through conversion losses with the potential to go through a chemical conversion loss in the battery as well. Although a constant-rpm engine would be more efficient, it quickly loses its edge once it is used to drive a generator that goes through an inverter and a battery prior to arriving at the electric motor. Sure, it's an optimal RPM, but you've got three stages of conversion loss in your electrical system. When the engine drives the wheels, those conversion losses are eliminated.
So this is already included in everything I said.
What you said was, and I quote "Thus the sole benefit of hybrids is that it turns city driving inefficiency (stop and accelerate) into the equivalent of highway driving since the engine can run at a constant, efficeint, tuned point almost continuously."
Perhaps it was an honest mistake, but this sentence clearly states that you believe hybrid cars work by running the engine at a constant, tuned point during stop-and-go driving, and that this is their only benefit. I politely pointed out the actual benefits, and some gaps in your description of how they work.
What you are describing is in fact much closer to how a diesel-electric locomotive works, with the engine operating at a tuned RPM driving a generator to power a large electric drive motor.
I am not accusing you of not supporting hybrids, and only want to point out a few minor oversights.
Solution to range problem with electric cars is just to own or rent a trailer with a diesel generator and just tow it when traveling on long trips. http://www.power-generators.net/trailer_mounted.ht m
It just adapts a standard all-electric car into a "hybrid-on-demand".
BTW, my dad lives in Sun City (large retirement community just west of Phoenix Arizona, must be >55yrs to live there). About every 5th house has an electric golf cart. Many are actually used to golf at courses nearby, but some are used because the residents get so old they are not allowed to drive real cars anymore. Development is laid out so residents can use these to get to grocery stores etc.
I heard an idea about trying to get better gas milage from standard cars. Make a trailer that has lots of batteries + an electric motor attached to its wheels. It "push-assist" the car (when running straight and level, no brake lights, etc) The car's gas engine is running and provides much/most of the power for movement but the electric-motorized-trailer gives a little push under certain controlled conditions (got to keep it from jackknifing). I suppose it could even sense when brake light comes on and use the motor to generate electricity and put back some charge on battery pack. Could be another version of "hybrid-on-demand" except it changes a standard gas car (a lot of them around) into a hybrid-like car.
I got a trailer hitch (had to sell my boat). I would love to try out one of these things.
>storage batteries become almost useless in very cold weather
Factually incorrect in the experience of everyday people. John Wayland in the Prius Yahoo group left his car outside overnight in January in Minnesota. The car cold-soaked to 22 below Fahrenheit (that's -30 to the rest of the world).
The next morning he turned the key. The computer took an extra second or two to announce everything was OK but it started the first time.
>batteries need to be replaced after a few years use at large cost.
Factually incorrect in the experience of companies that have put >200,000 miles onto Priuses in brutal taxicab service while running on the factory battery. (Yellow Cab, Vancouver BC).
>Some promising research into new battery technlogies using lithium is being performed, but even the scientists at the forefront of this research admit, "We've got a long way to go."
Someone get this man a laptop?
First I did mention you could turn off the engine if you were parked. however the idea you could turn it off when cuising is ass backward nonsense. When you are cruising, you MUST run the engine.
I think I see our miscommunication here. My implication was that since a hybrid uses a small gas engine and an electric motor to replace a large gas engine, you can turn the electric motor off when cruising, effectively shutting off half your engine when not needed. The same is true of the gas engine, but only for shorter distances-- the gas engine cannot remain off if the battery runs flat.
You were referring to the fact (and I agree!) that hybrids are ultimately purely gas-powered. The car may run for 10 miles in electric-only mode while cruising, but eventually the battery runs dry and the gas engine *must* kick in.
Splitting the system in to multiple parts yields a number of advantages in your ability to optimize how you're using power.
With a high temp ceramic you could run it HOT and theoretically get better efficiency. Then just hook the turbine straight to a generator so you get no gear loss and the normal turbine issue of low torque at low revs is moot. I wonder why noone has done this already? Is there some hidden drawback?
Haven't seen too many instances of references to RMI or the Hypercar here on /.
The Hypercar design that they've put a lot of engineering effort into would appear to merit some consideration. It's predicated on the assumption of a transition to the hydrogen fuel cell, but I would imagine that a biodiesel/electric hybrid based on their Whole System Design methodology represents one viable future of personal transportation.
It'd certainly be interesting to hear some slashengineers comment on some of the concepts integral to RMI's approach.
Barton
Huh? Oh yeah, that.
Imagine if they put a jet engine on it!
I dream of electrified highways. Batteries are heavy, and as Beryllium Sphere points out, you put in more energy than you get out. I want to get my current from the grid; now my range is limited only by it. Possibilities exist in the addition of internal combustion engines of various sizes and fuels.
If the infrastructure were built (if, if..) equipped cars could run on electricity produced by any source - hydroelectric, nookyulur, solar, even hamsters - reducing our dependence on oil.
And from the department of statistics made up on the spot, let's say 25% of commuter traffic could go without batteries and without a heavy engine. Frames and wheels could be lighter. If a quarter of the cars weigh a quarter less, that's 1/16th of however many millions of cars times the average weight of a car today, say a ton, in pounds of machinery that doesn't need to be accelerated.
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
In fact, it's second only to the French-made Bugatti Veyron, a 1,000-horsepower, 16-cylinder beast that hits 60 mph...
They say that like it's a bad thing.
It's certainly not as bad as explaining the X1...
"What do you have under the hood?"
"Um...a magnet..."
And, who cares anyway? As anyone can obviously see, this is no practical vehicle, it's supposed to be (look like?) a weekend racer. Anyone who drives a weekend racer is doing it for fun, and a huge part of the fun factor in any car is the sound it's engine makes.
Ever heard the engine sound that the Ariel Atom (from which the X1 gets its chassis) makes? It's a glorious four-cylinder rumble accompanied by the super-charger whining several octaves above.
Now replace that sound with the whirring of rubber on tarmac. Not quite the same.
I'd take the Atom over the X1 any day, especially considering that it's about half the price of the X1.
An SUV is not optimal for a short commute, but a person might need to haul people and tow a trailer. Are they supposed to buy:
1. a little commuter car
2. a minivan
3. a pickup truck
???
Most people don't have that kind of money, especially when you include insurance. Most people don't have the storage space.
This is only comparing only one facet of what a sporty car can do. In addition to quick acceleration, what about runs deep into the canyons? One of the things I enjoyed in a sporty car is going 100+ miles through canyon roads. If a car running on battery was trying to match the performance of a gasoline powered car, I think the battery will be exhausted after a few corners. Hmm.. Thinking about this... I'd like to see the electric car in a comparison after 5 runs.
.Also, if you look at the pictures this is actually just an electric Ariel Atom, which is also faster than a 360 Spider or Carrera GT.
And don't forget, a motorcycle as well (eg.: Honda CBR 600 RR) when driven a real track and not just blasting off from the traffic lights. I doubt the same can be said about the X1.
Slashdot... Where no good question goes unpunished.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
the answer lies in side-stepping the whole idea of vehicle transport.
Teleportation booths, people. Teleportation booths.
This is not new at all, AC Propulsion made the T-Zero years ago, and its faster 0-80 than every exotic car, they have video footage taken independantly to prove it.
http://acpropulsion.com/
So someone made a car that'll outrun mine. Big deal.
I want to see that car hold its re-sale value like mine (hint: I own an Abarth), or better yet, appreciate in value (hint: I used to own a TVR, which I sold for more than it cost new.)
Colour me not impressed.
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
Phillip Island is a racing circuit near here. The lap records for cars and bikes can be compared here
p hp
http://www.phillipislandcircuit.com.au/lap_times.
Fastest bike 1'30
Fastest car 1'24
Fastest F3 car 1'27
F3 cars are nothing like F1 - they use a restrictor plate and a 2 litre engine limiting the power to around 200 HP.
So a 200 HP car will beat the best motorcycle riders on the planet, apart from you.
For rapid charging there are a number of existing battery technologies that will meet your requirements. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanadium_redox_batter y can be refilled just like petrol. Swap over batteries can have recharge times measured in seconds and having charging equipment provided in carparks makes the charging time far less important.
For me, most of my trips are less than 50km, I'd be quite happy to hire a petrol car for holidays. I could then hire a big comfy 4wd and go camping, but avoid the on costs.
Lets do the calculations again ;-)
Gasoline has energy density of 9.7kWh/l
Many cars get about 4-6l/100km in highway driving.
The cars energy that goes from wheels, is 15% of used energy in fuel...
So we can assume about 1l/100km on electric engine/battery efficiencies.
Thats 9.7Kw/h per 100km of range. Thats far less than most daily commuting around here at least.
Also in Finland the minimum standard for home electricity delivery is 17.5kW
If you could spread the 10Kw/h need across about 10 nighthours. Its 1Kw each night hour for per car.
Entire Finlands car usage could be handled with single 2000MW power station. But just to be safe Finland has already begun building a its 6th nuclear reactor which has 1600MW output.
And the 100km is too big number for Finnish people as it would end up 35Mm/year. When the more typical number is 20Mm/year.
To apply this for americas by simply multiplying with population you would need 70 nuclear reactors to handle 140 million cars.
And we don't care about fastest possible load time, nor maximum amount each car could be loaded if used maximum length. What we really care is maximum daily average use, and the hours that the car recharge is spread. If some individual wants to recharge is car during long car trip quickly, and pays extra for it, it doesn't mean that there is too many cars at outlets at exacly same time. Unless everyone decides to recharge at maximum speed at exacly same time.
Emacs is good operating system, but it has one flaw: Its text editor could be better.
Hire a gas powered car... What do you do when you want to travel across water?
all well and cool. ... i hope u get my drift :P
...
why please do we need a fuel-cell or battery plese?
with modern tooling machines, nearly going into
nano precision range, why can't i have a jet-engine
or gas-turbine if u like the size of a coke can?
i hear they're very efficient. and i also hear that
modern electric generators are very efficinet and that
modern electric motors are very efficient and that solar
cells are getting more efficient and that research into
aero dynamics are improving every day
GE makes gas turbines and jet engines i think. BMW
made jet engines in the second world war and bought rolls-royce
(which also makes big-ass commericial airplane jet-engines) for a
short while
the 'ol up-and-down engine needs to become more ROUND.
In addition, the ability to change out just the generator and move to
IOW, you have one car system and then you have one area that allows for real tinkering. I suspect that we would see some major increases developments in car tech on the same order as what has been witnessed with OSS (the internet, the web, e-mail, Unix ).
The truely inefficent thing about this, it not the car, but all the support systems that go into place; mechanics that know electrical, the roads, the car dealers, the gas stations, etc. If we had an electrical hybrid car going, then it would allow a transition with the support systems.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Evenif the traveler wanted to "pay extra" to "quickly charge" his batteries how does he actually do this? Even he Finds a megawatt class hookup all that will happen is his batteries will explode.
You can recharge a battery in 1 minute to 80% of its capacity.
http://www.physorg.com/news3539.html
But there is alternative solution to that problem. Other solution is having enough range, stop for 1 hour for every 5 hours of driving. There are plenty of battery technologies capable of recharging in 1hour.
Emacs is good operating system, but it has one flaw: Its text editor could be better.
In automobiles, a Prius-like scheme with a differential joining the engine to the electric motor is substantially lighter and less expensive.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Yeah, it's hard to believe. But physics is funny like that-- things aren't always intuitive.
.26 coefficient of drag, beating performance vehicles like the corvette (.29) or a Ferrari F50 (.372).
That boxy blunt-ended design (called a Kammback) is staggeringly aerodynamic. The prius, despite its chunky silliness, gets a
imagine that...a fully computerized, software/firmware driven car. battery operated. sounds like all of us in the computer/IT industry are going to have more jobs...more security more work to do lol. extinct will be the occasional combustion engine mechanic...(goodbye menekie haha)
"In the kingdom where everything dies, the sky is mortal."
Just for posterity...
3 billion miles driven per year in the US (2005) * 44 MJ per 300 miles = 4.4 x 10^14 Joules needed for electric cars.
4 trillion kWh electricity production in the US (2004, from CIA WFB) ==> 4,000,000,000,000 * 1000W*hr * 60 min/hr * 60 sec/min = 1.44 x 10^19 Joules.
Thus, powering all the US's cars would require 4.4 x 10^14 J for cars / 1.44 x 10^19 J per year * 31 557 600 seconds per year = 964.26 seconds of the US's yearly electricity production.
By your numbers, the US generates enough electricity in 16 minutes to run the nation's cars for the entire year.
Green Car Congress reports a Li-ion cell from A123Systems with phosphate chemistry (no thermal runaway like cobalt oxide) and a charge to over 90% capacity in 5 minutes.
This is not vaporware, this is product going into high-end power tools as I write this. If the cost can be brought down with experience or some sacrifice of charge/discharge rate will make it cheaper (a 10-minute charge wouldn't bother me), it's more than good enough for a killer electric car.
This isn't the first serious electric car to crush a Ferrari in the 1/8 mile; the tzero (from AC Propulsion) came before it. The tzero with Li-ion batteries has a range of nearly 300 miles and can go from LA to Las Vegas non-stop - and it's even faster.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.