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Small Electric Car May Usher In Big Changes
An anonymous reader sends us to a profile in CNNMoney.com on a Norwegian car company that is building a compact, plug-in electric car, the Think City, that will go on sale in Europe early next year. It could hit US markets in 2009. The CEO is working with Silicon Valley VCs and with Google, Tesla Motors, PG&E, and Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway. Plans are to sell the car only on the Web. No dealers, cheap manufacturing plants, and a battery pack that you lease, not buy — there's potential here for shaking up the auto industry the way Dell did PCs.
Are those "big changes" similar to Segway's "Big Changes"?
Dell succeeded because they simplified and streamlined the computer buying process, and had good prices for PCs with reasonable features, compared to the rest of the market.
Other than possibly streamlining the car buying process, how does electric car company compare to Dell? It's not like people in the US are jumping to replace their SUVs and trucks with little electric cars.
Recently Top Gear magazine paid for one of these to be subject to the most basic testing - the results were pretty horrific.
I think it's a good idea with a lot of potential here in Europe, maybe not in the US.
For me it's definitely enough car. For most people it would make a great second car.
From their homepage:
Range: 180km
Speed: max. 100km/h
A max. speed of 120km/h would be nicer, but range and speed are sufficient for all of the routes on which I prefer car over train.
"Hannibal's plans never work right. They just work." Amy/A-Team
If I were to design a car these days, I would do as these guys did and use an electric motor for propulsion, and a Stirling engine for power generation. For those not in the know, Stirling engines are engines that run on heat. They can be powered by pretty much anything that generates enough heat, including but not limited to fossil fuels. Compared to conventional combustion engines, they Stirling engines are more efficient, but they take a lot of time to increase or decrease speed. That is a problem when using them for driving the wheels, but not when generating elcetricity.
Thanks to AKAImBatman for pointing me at Stirling engines; I first read about them on his blog.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Please wake me when I can help save the environment without declaring bankruptcy.
Experience teaches only the teachable. -AH
did we ever discuss about the Indian electric car company Reva any time in the past? Their latest variant, Reva i, released this month costs around USD 9K (at exchange rate of INR 40 per USD).
Sure, it can only do a top speed of around 50MPH with a range of 60 Miles per charge, but I guess that's enough for city driving? I don't know, but is USD 9K too much for a small electric car that can carry two adults & two children in your place? In India, it is a viable option as a second car, for the growing numbers of nouveau rich at least.
-- Prem
Aiming to tweet on a rice
For those of you who are about to RTFA: be warned, it contains businessspeak.
I have no idea what they mean by describing the car as "open-source". Also, they can't seem to decide whether it's a car, a glorified terminal, a power generator, or an iPod.
I also get the eerie impression that it is vaporware. Golden mountains are being promised, but will they be delivered? With so many rich people being enthusiastic about it, there is just a chance, but still, I don't want to get my hopes squashed again.
All in all, it looks very cool. I want one.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Selling via the web may sound cool, but at least one state (Texas) requires that a retail automobile purchase be conducted through a brick-and-mortar dealer.
Current technologies exist to generate electricity carbon free.
Nuclear (70%+ of all electricity around here)
Wind is already competitive price-wise with coal. Its main problems are that they require massive initial investment, and that it takes A LOT of time to get over all the Nimbys. Wind also happens to be unpredictable, but that's a non issue as far as battery charging is concerned. All that's required is a broadcast flag to tell the charger to stop sucking current when not enough power is available.
these vehicles are not the same as the vehicle that the article is about. It is not about to go on sale this year or the next. There is nothing that you can order yet, so there is nothing you can crash test. The test was with a totally different vehicle. If one SUV did bad in a crash test (like killing some bystanding dummies that were not even in the test), does that make all SUVs bad? (well OK, SUV are still bad, but for other reasons). ,made in different factory. Or are all electric vehicles the same?
Some other poster pointed out your strawman is called g-wiz(made in India), which is a different vehicle
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
Here's the text:
OK, so maybe we need small, medium, and large batteries, plus a couple of bigger sizes for trucks, buses, RVs, and those 4x4s needed for all that rugged terrain around the suburban malls :-) but the last thing we need is some dipshit marketing droid inventing new and proprietary batteries that you have to get from the manufacturer. Suppose you bought a Toyota but you had to go to a Toyota garage to get your gas...
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Really? Most Americans I know have at least two (if not more!) vehicles - for example, a normal car, a giant SUV and a pickup. The normal car is used for nothing but the man's commuting. The wife uses the giant SUV and the pickup gets taken on camping trips. So at least one of the vehicles is a "unitasker" already.
When I lived in Houston, I was quite unusual amongst my friends having only one vehicle.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
...with selling such a tiny car in the US is that "Escalade" is French for "trash compactor".
VW's Toureg can already get up to 25 MPG, real world. Semi trucks can see 7-8 MPG, as good as a Hummer and they're actually pulling a load.
Diesel is going to make a bigger impact that hybrids in the coming years.
I don't drive up mountains with deer in the back. I do, however, drive about six miles each way for work, and short grocery runs during the week. I bought a scooter that gets 80mpg, but I'm definitely interested in something that can get the same or better mileage but keep me out of the elements.
Just because you don't think something is useful doesn't mean other people don't.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
Diesel is going to make a bigger impact that hybrids in the coming years.
They already have, in Europe. Diesels account for 50% of car sales in some countries. But diesel isn't without its problems. Governments worry about particulate emissions (and are considering road tax increases to dissuade people from buying diesels).
There's nothing to prevent hybrid systems where the ICE component is a diesel. There isn't one available now, because the European car makers were concentrating on diesels instead (and on catching up with the Japanese in manufacturing efficiency and reliability). They were caught off guard on the whole hybrid idea.
A hybrid drivetrain can be more efficient than is possible with an ICE (petrol or diesel) only.
The next trend that's going to have a big impact is smaller, more efficient petrol engines. We're seeing the first cars come out now where a 2-litre engine has been replaced by a 1.4 with a turbocharger, with the same max. power output while using less fuel and better emissions figures.
Killed? It's not dead, it's pining for the fjords.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Good thing slashdot isn't a frickin' VC company...I can just imagine the comments:
No, instead, we have the run of the mill peanut gallery, with their particularly ignorant insights. Don't get me wrong, a strong dose of skepticism is a healthy thing to have, but do you really think that Sergey and his band of PhD.s are not quite as clever as you when it comes to spotting and growing ideas? I'm no fan of the Segway, but you have to admit, much of the pesky unwanted energy in our machines shows its face in the form of heat, and if you can find a *relatively* cheap way to convert it to some other form, well, that seems like a pretty handy little model...
But slashdot has all the answers...it's too small, too expensive, the batteries should be $free, it's failed x times before, it's a toy, it's not safe, Joe sixpack wants a hummer, ponzi!, l4m3, FUD, w00t...whereas a couple of commenters actually get it: this could work in x conditions, but not in y, for z reasons...at least there are still a couple people left around here that haven't grown up thinking a forum is a place to pile on, the snarkier, the better.
I'm not saying it will succeed just because some heavy duty investors are behind it; plenty of ideas that fit that bill haven't made it. The point is, it could, and maybe one day something will happen that might cause people to think about energy differently, and this model will be ahead of its time, or at least some lessons will have been learned. Like a HOWTO on overclocking your chip with a stirling engine that charges your iPod...
Instead of analysis, we have negative comments modded as insightful. I suppose it's true what The Onion says, it turns out that a majority of Americans are actually NOT entitled to have their own opinions...
The Top Gear test was performed on a G-Wiz, and has nothing to do with the Norwegian cars being discussed. The G-Wiz basically an electric scooter with a metal enclosure, has a top speed of 40MPH, and isn't intended for highway use.
According to the article, the Think cars have a top speed of 62MPH (which their agreement with Tesla hopes to raise to 85-90MPH. It will very much be a highway car, and therefore subject to American and European safety standards. Lumping the Think and the G-Wiz together as "these cars" is like lumping your pet rabbit and your sister-in-law together under "these animals". Did that analogy make sense? No? That's my point: it's nonsensical. If Chewbacca lives on Krykkit, you must acquit.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
It depends on the article. If the article makes grand claims, it deserves a nitpick or two. Grand claims require grand evidence.
In this submission it was questioned whether this would "Usher in Big Changes" in the automotive world. The veracity of that is entirely up for discussion and if you've evert tried to get funding for company, you'd want to post the idea here. That way you'll know all the possible failure modes.
Will this make a big change in the automotive world? No. It is not cost effective nor space effective for most people.
For single persons having two cars that carry the same amount of people is wasteful, and takes up more parking spaces in their apartment complexes - spaces they may not have available. Most families of >2 members already have two vehicles, so this would make a third one. Again most families have at most a two-car garage (and many of those are actually wide opening single-car garages). Thus the space issue hits home, no pun intended, for them.
Further, the cost of this car versus their current car makes it cost more to buy and use than to continue driving their existing car, for most people that it is alleged would be the target.
All that boils down to who the real market, targeted or not, is. People who only need this car and are OK with it's limitations (all cars have them). That market is demonstrably small. I
d even suggest that teenage drivers make the most logical target market. These markets are a small, small measure of the overall market. From this standpoint the answer to "big changes" is a flat "no".
On the standpoint of whether the method of selling will usher big changes, again, no. The reasons are different here. The existing model consists of manufacturers selling their product to dealers, who then sell it again. The automaker is already selling direct in this model. Selling directly to the customer would represent a breach of contract with their dealers. It would also put them in competition with their largest block of customers. So no, that won't change either.
It isn't a matter of opinion as to whether or not the questions asked represent a likely future, it is an analysis. Just as with the hype of the Segway. Does the Segway work as a means of transportation? Yes, it is functional. Is it cool? arguably, yes. Did it represent a fundamental shift of how we the people would get around? No. Did it cause a "rethinking" of how we get around? No.
See, that is the problem. Every "new idea" is touted as a funadmental shift, a paradigm change, a "world changing idea", or some such notion. So of course, we the thinkers, analyze that. And due to the nature of the frequency of truly world changing ideas, more often than not the answer is "no it is not a world changing idea". An idea can be a good one without being a world changing one.
Then again, if you believe that the majority of people are not entitled to their opinions, you probably believe they are entitled to your opinion.
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.