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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.'"
That's not a new car - that's the Ariel Atom with an electric motor in it. http://www.arielmotor.co.uk/
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.
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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.
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.
"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?"
n ode43.html). Power plants are wasteful, but generally more efficient. When you consider that it looks like we're on the verge of building a lot of new Nuclear power plants, whose waste is easier to contain, I think plugging in your car is a decent choice. Parking lots can be like old drive-ins with the radio wire, but with electrical outlets instead.
Automobiles aren't very fuel efficient at all. Car engines waste in excess of 30% of the energy from gasoline (http://staff.science.nus.edu.sg/~parwani/htw/c2/
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
You are correct, nothing new.
There is really no reason why even a less racy looking EV could not be as fast as a Ferrari or Porche, even more pedestrian EV's are quite peppy.
The problem is range and battery performance. A range of 100 miles is mentioned, but this does not mention driving style or ari temperature (sure to be nice and hot, since it is a permanent convertable).
Here is an interesting video blog by a guy who owns a small EV and drives it around London." He gets free parking down town and pays no congestion charge. Other good things mentioned is the durability of the car and the fact that is very cheap to own and operate.
The problem is, his range becomes very limited, especially in the winter he can only do 25 miles. Another problem is the 16h equalization charge he has to do every month. These could of course be because of the specific battery technology used in his particular model of car, but I'm sure similar problems exist with other EV's.
I guess these are the reasons that EV's never really caught on.
Some say he is made with ascii, others that he is eyeballed daily by millions. All we know is, he is known as the Sig