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.'"

Comments

Interesting, but not new

[AKAImBatman]

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.)

Re:Interesting, but not new

[Phanatic1a]

Gasoline engines are restricted by the tolerances of their mechanical parts

Well, so's an electric drivetrain. The big difference is the torque curve. An internal combustion engine at 0 rpm stalls out, providing absolutely 0 torque, so you need some way to couple non-rotating parts (red light!) to an engine that has to idle at some minimum rpms. And then the engine delivers more torque as you spin it up.

Electric motors deliver their maximum torque at 0 rpm, and then it drops off as mechanical friction starts acting as a parasite. And since you don't need to worry about mating non-rotating to rotating parts, your drivetrain can be more efficient overall, since you can get out some of the lossy linkages.

You're right. This is nothing new. I saw a video online of an all-electric car beating a Ferrari off the line years and years ago (And not just beating, dominating). But at the end of the quarter-mile it needed a recharge. There are a lot more obstacles to electric cars replacing IC cars than just performance.

Seen it before

[thanuk]

That's not a new car - that's the Ariel Atom with an electric motor in it. http://www.arielmotor.co.uk/

No Shit, Sherlock!

[mrchaotica]

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!"

Ariel Atom?

[albino eatpod]

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).

The Obligatory Simpsons

[murderlegendre]

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...."

I'm not impressed.

[JesseL]

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.

DOA

[LaRoach]

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.

From the article:

[Bromskloss]

Engineer Ian Wright uses processors, flash memory and software to get top performance out of standard parts.

:-) Hehe, the people at CNN really know their technology, don't they?

Re:Acceleration Range

[mspohr]

"The solution allows at least 350 highway miles per charge and can be fully recharged in 5 minutes or less."

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.

Re:Fuel comparisons?

[digidave]

"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?"

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/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.