High Efficiency Hybrid Car Planned For 2009

An anonymous reader writes "You may have heard some of the hype last month when California-based Aptera let out first word of its allegedly super fuel-efficient (and cheap) Typ-1 electric vehicle. A video test drive and gee-whiz specs breakdown at the Popular Mechanics site proves that this thing is for real. The plan is to have a vehicle that goes 120 miles on a single lithium-phosphate pack charge for 2008, with a 300-mpg model to follow by 2009. Aptera is also mentioned in Wired's new cover story as one of several early front-runners for the Automotive X Prize."

Comments

But, will it fly?

[WED Fan]

Where's my flying car?

Non-fossil fuel vehicles will start selling when they are made as inexpensively as traditional vehicles. And, when they have the range, capacity, and easy and quick refuel capabilities.

Until this point is reached, they don't stand a chance in the American system.

Re:But, will it fly?

[orclevegam]

According to the wikipedia article this stuff is stable to temperatures of 18C, and the average temperature where it's found at is between 0C and 2C, so you temperature at the bottom of the ocean would need to rise by 16C. If it's hot enough that the ocean bottoms temperature has been raised 16C we're already screwed, as most crops would probably already be dead and most animal life as well.

Re:But, will it fly?

[Archimonde]

The only way I'd be OK with flying cars was if the average population not only had an IQ of 180 to start

Problem is, if the average population has IQ of 180, then technically, it has IQ of 100.

Re:But, will it fly?

[curmudgeous]

These vehicles are intended as suburban commuters, not general purpose load haulers. I understand that lots of people own boats, campers and trailers, but how many need to tow them seven days per week? Also, how many families already have more than one vehicle just because they don't want to drag the recreational stuff around everywhere?

I don't expect we'll see many of these in rural areas, nor will they be suited for regions with lots of cold weather (battery performance drops with temperature), but for coastal regions and pretty much anywhere below the Mason-Dixon line these could be a godsend.

My typical commute is about 10 miles each way with minimal baggage, and practically anyplace I need to go falls within a 30 miles radius. If I could find a safe, practical electric commuter vehicle with at least a 100 mile range for under $25k I'd buy it tomorrow.

Re:But, will it fly?

[saboola]

Yeah... that's what we really want. The general public, going fast without horses. Think about all the idiot riders on four horse carriages that roll their carriages regularly. Do you really want those mouth breathers going faster? If we ever do get horseless carriages, it won't be long before these CARs are slamming into the sides of farm houses and crashing through people's porches. Drunk driving anyone? Head-on collisions? The only way I'd be OK with horseless carriages was if the average population not only had an IQ of 180 to start, but also had a really strong sense of REAL personal responsibility. That is to say, "Not only do I care about taking care of myself, but I care about the wellbeing of every human being that I am around". Until that happens (yeah right), I'll be casting my vote against the common neanderthal getting a vehicle that is not pulled my animal.

Re:But, will it fly?

[orclevegam]

I personally wouldn't have modded you flamebait, but I can offer a suggestion for how to avoid it in the future (although no guarantees, odds are if your statement isn't popular you'll still get a troll or more likely an overrated mod). Whenever you make a claim that will require people to take action, particularly if it's an unpopular opinion it's critical to cite sources. Remember the burden is on you to prove your point, particularly in a crowd of geeks. Most of us are open to discussion, we just ask that everyone has some sort of credible backup to their claims, either through logic, or by citing some semi-credible source. Please, if you can provide some links to papers saying that a small climate change of a few degrees will be enough to release the methane trapped under the ocean, then by all means post it, I'd love to read it. Of course I may have missed the point of your comment, so if you're trying to say you missed a variable and came to the wrong conclusion just ignore me. Likewise if you're saying I missed something let me know.

Re:But, will it fly?

[MattW]

If you get killed because you get run over by a truck, they're unsafe.

Midsize cars, large cars, minivans, and import luxury cars are all statistically safer for the driver than an SUV. Subcompacts are more dangerous for the driver, but because SUVs and pickups are more than twice as likely to kill someone else in an accident, that's only because of all the SUVs on the road. Obviously SUVs and trucks have their place, but the exemption in fuel efficiency standards for them should be removed, and they should be taxed like any gas guzzler.

The point, though, is that you can drive a midsize car, and you're just as safe as you would be in an SUV, and you're not putting the OTHER drivers at risk to get your safety. If you *really* want to be safe, then you want an import luxury car or a minivan, both of which are also significantly safer for other drivers than SUVs.

Courtesy of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab study on safety.

Electrics burn coal?

[dada21]

On many of these electrics, you do need to plug-in to get your initial charge. Isn't that causing just as much, if not more, pollution than burning oil locally?

I'm still not sure that anyone can actually decipher all the different impacts that "environmentally-friendly" vehicles or machines have. I know I read an article this year that spoke of the CO2 emissions for just peddling a bike or taking a walk, so even not using machinery seems to have an impact.

Then again, I'm not a big fan of the global warming scams out there, nor am I a fan of peak oil theory. I just need to see the whole picture, rather than what some people will say is a small portion of the picture, but ignores other ramifications of decision making.

One area we're visiting in India in January is a town on a hill that allows no cars or trucks (you usually can only get there by train). Same in Switzerland (entire towns with no machinery). Yes, the air is cleaner, but so are the people living there. If we all use electric vehicles in those towns (let's say), another town that generates the energy is going to get the brunt of the polluting. I'd rather pollute MY area, so we can see the direct effect, than push it off to a poorer neighborhood where we won't.

Global yadda-yadda-yadda, I think it is more important to focus on the damage you can actually see than try to control the world's climate.

Re:Electrics burn coal?

[dada21]

I completely understand that part -- our own home(s) are moving to get off the electric grid, but not for ecological reasons (we want to save money as the dollar plummets).

Solar isn't clean, that's for sure. The 3 solar-panel investors we speak with have told us of the ecological burdens of producing solar panels. We're still moving to solar (and to geothermal A/C and heat) for our primary residence to lower the long-term cost of energy, but we know that we're likely causing as much damage to the environment elsewhere to bring our cost-reductions home, over the long run.

We have a few greenie friends who really think they're saving the environment, but the more I research it, the more it seems that there is nothing you can truly do to reduce your carbon footprint, even if it seems logical. There are too many parameters to wade through to calculate what a certain mode of transportation or energy generation costs.

I'd love one of those basement-nukes, even if it cost $5b. Run the thing at 5c/KwH, and feed the rest of the power back to the grid for a nice refund each month. After a decade of inflation, I wonder how much energy would cost.

I also don't feel safe in some of the lighter cars. My favorite car happens to be a diesel Land Rover, but it's outside of my price range. I do like feeling safe, and I like something that can handle Chicago winters. Our little Subaru (2.0l I4) is fairly decent on gas mileage, but I'd love a diesel if they ever started making one. It handles great in snow and ice, is definitely safe (my wife totalled one of my Subarus years ago at 75MPH and walked away), but it's still no eco-friendly machine.

For me, the best reduction of polluting we've done is cut our driving significantly, but we travel by plane much more than before, so I'm sure that's a negative reduction :)

Re:Electrics burn coal?

[RAMMS EIN]

``On many of these electrics, you do need to plug-in to get your initial charge. Isn't that causing just as much, if not more, pollution than burning oil locally?''

It depends on how you generate your electricity. I would have thought that's obvious, but apparently it isn't to many people.

``I'm still not sure that anyone can actually decipher all the different impacts that "environmentally-friendly" vehicles or machines have.''

I agree. The only thing that is certain for now is that they _do_ cause pollution. Exactly how much, I couldn't say, but it means that the environmental friendliness is only relative.

``I know I read an article this year that spoke of the CO2 emissions for just peddling a bike or taking a walk, so even not using machinery seems to have an impact.''

Of course. The human body consumes O2 and emits CO2. But there is something worth noting: the carbon we emit typically comes from renewable resources (i.e. plants or animals). This means it is released after recently having been absorbed, so the net effect is 0. Contrast this with burning fossil fuels, where you are releasing carbon that had been buried for millions of years into the atmosphere.

``Then again, I'm not a big fan of the global warming scams out there, nor am I a fan of peak oil theory.''

Global warming is a fact, and that mineral oil extraction will peak at some point is given. Whether these are things we should be afraid of or feel guilty about is a different matter.

``I just need to see the whole picture, rather than what some people will say is a small portion of the picture, but ignores other ramifications of decision making.''

It is very hard to get a clear picture, with all the clueless people shouting so loudly. One the one hand, there are people still pretending and trying to convince others that the changes that are happening to the environment aren't really there. On the other hand, you have people who have blind faith in some clean technology and think it will solve all problems if only the evil governments and oil companies stopped fighting it. Millions of people just parrot one camp or another, and they're all wrong. In the meantime, there _are_ good ideas that we could implement, but they are mostly left by the wayside because they don't stand out among all the wrong-headed noise makers.

``I'd rather pollute MY area, so we can see the direct effect, than push it off to a poorer neighborhood where we won't.''

That, of course, is the main problem with any kind of pollution. The effect isn't felt in full by the people generating it, and thus doesn't factor into the cost of things. Therefore, cleaner alternatives almost universally seem more expensive. Thus, it makes economic sense to pollute. It's hard to do something about this without resorting to heavy-handed, commitee-decided, wrong-headed measures. Like, for example, in the Netherlands, where there is a tax cut on hybrid cars. Think about it. It's on hybrid cars. Not on clean cars. If it's a hybrid, it gets the cut, no matter how polluting it is. If it's a clean car but not a hybrid, it doesn't get the cut. Madness!

Re:Electrics burn coal?

[TomorrowPlusX]

On many of these electrics, you do need to plug-in to get your initial charge. Isn't that causing just as much, if not more, pollution than burning oil locally?

Obviously, the electric car is consuming energy which has to be produced, somehow. In a magic future it will be generated by wind, solar, geothermal and some sort of better-thought-out nuclear like pebble-bed reactors. Right now that energy will be produced by oil/coal so yes there will be pollution.

That being said, automotive IC engines are completely and utterly piss-poor at converting oil to torque. They are shamefully poor at it, with efficiency down in the 20-30% range. Modern electricity generation plants ( using coal or oil ) convert quite a bit more of the chemical energy in the fuel to electricity. They're really quite good at it. They can run hot, they don't need gearboxes, etc etc. Even better, these facilities can have scrubbers and other carbon reduction measures which are too expensive for cars. Also, of the electricy consumed by an electric car, far more of it can be converted to torque simply because electric drivetrains are so simple and direct. No need for transmissions, and no need for differentials or CV joints ( provided the motor is in the wheel as some electrics do )

So, yes, electric cars are not non-polluting. But, the amount of fuel burnt to move an electric car 100km is quite a bit less than even the best hybrid IC car can pull off. And looked at in the long term, electric cars are so simple I see no reason for a well built electric not to last 30 years ( provided good maintenance ). During those 30 years your city/town may have upgraded to a new power generation mechanism which is cleaner. Thus less pollution. Can your IC engine car do that?

That being said, I'll continue to ride my bicycle to work, and only use my ( tiny, 2 door stickshift ) car when it's really necessary

Re:Electrics burn coal?

[ArsonSmith]

then install solar panels on your roof of your garage and use that juice to charge the car overnight.

Ohh, man that's funny...

Re:Electrics burn coal?

[Bobb Sledd]

Yes, the temperature readings are facts; but the theory of global warming is not. Indeed, over the past 50 years, it has been shown a gentle warming of .5C. That is not statistically significant, and you know that. But you are making the leap that since temperature readings are facts, then so must be global warming.

Looking at only 50 years of temperatures and making an assumption without knowing all the variables is as silly as building a trend from a single Spring season and saying "the trend shows that the temperatures will continue to get warmer forever!"

It is only recently that we discovered that el Nino seems to cause general warming trends on a cycle larger than one year.

True, you might possibly push the temperature aggregately -- assuming there were no other natural environmental factors (direct sun flares, enormous crashing asteroids, Yellowstone exploding, etc.). Frankly I think if Hillary Clinton would shut her mouth that might help the situation the most.

But speaking of aggregately, that only works if you get everyone to lower emissions. Even if you could get everyone in, say, America to zero emissions... what about China? What about every other budding nation that is just now coming into their Industrial Revolutions, and starting to consume more gas and coal? Then what Americans did will make a hair's bit of difference on global warming.

Look, global warming might be true and real. You can even tell me "I told you so" later if it is. But my point is that it is NOT a fact, yet. Maybe in your mind there is overwhelming evidence. I am skeptical.

Re:Not Very Pretty

[morgan_greywolf]

This one pretty enough for ya? :-D

Three wheels?

[asquithea]

An interesting and radical design -- but the three wheel arrangement bothers me:

Single wheel drive? According to the video, much of the weight is over the front, but the driving wheel is at the back. That might be OK for California, but I wonder how well this vehicle would cope with a little ice and snow.

I see that they've done it that way to simplify the transmission, but I'd much rather have four wheels.

Re:Three wheels?

[kalislashdot]

It has to have 3 wheels, so it can be classified as a motorcycle. Once you got to 4 wheels it is a car and is required to have airbags, crumple zones and seat belts, and a whole slew of safety features.

So the fact that is this not a car but a motorcycle I think they are labeling it wrong, A 300MPG Car???, nope a 300MPG enclosed bike is what it is. Heck my wife's scooter gets 70MPG.

The previous post talks about rain a snow? Do you ride a motorcycle in the snow. Nope, same goes for this.

Re:300 What?

[UbuntuDupe]

I don't think irrelevant in either case. When someone asks for the MPG, they're asking for the fuel efficiency. In the hybrid case, where gasoline is its only external fuel, that should be simple to calculate. When it's "all electric", you take the fuel that powers that electricity -- using a representative number for the electricity generation -- and compare that to how much distance it gets you.

Though for the optimal apples-to-apples comparison, you might as well just take a given gasoline price and compute how much it costs to power one mile of travel for that price, vs. some existing car being used today.

Re:Not Very Pretty

[Loke the Dog]

When american culture stops idealizing the 60's.

In other words, this is how effective cars look. Sure, you can make the detals a bit more aestethically pleasing, but this "futuristic golf car"-look will generally stick because it gives a perfect mix between performance and efficiency. They do what they were designed for well, and those who desire this mix of performance and efficiency will learn to like this look, because it will symbolize what they desire.

So basically, this is a case of the beuty being in the eye of the beholder. However, I do think this car was unusually ugly, but its over all style was good.

Battery choice is interesting

[hey!]

One of the problems with hybrid cars is the inability to obtain large format NiMH cells. The technology needed to produce these cells is patented, and the patent holder has declined to license it to anybody producing large format cells.

(I should mention for the conspiracy fans among us that the patent holder is Chevron).

Anybody who wants to build an electric car or hybrid car design that requires a large battery capacity can't use the safe and proven NiMH technology. This makes the plug-in hybrid, which needs more electrical storage than an ordinary hybrid, the domain of aftermarket kits only.

Lithium Phosphate, once it becomes economical to produce, might well make better hybrid, or even plug-in hybrid technology a commercial reality. While not quite as good as Li-ion, it's inherently safer and (if reports are to be beleived) superior in performance to NiMH.

Re:Battery choice is interesting

[hey!]

I agree it doesn't make sense to think Chevoron bought Texaco just to get Ovonics.

However, the situation is very odd, if Texaco truly thinks it is doing all it can to introduce NiMH technology for automotive applications. If you are making money by licensing the technology, you want to see that technology in as widespread production use as possible as quickly as possible, before something comes along to obsolete it.

If people want to use a technology you have patented, and you are not in the business of producing a competitor technology, then licensing a technology only on terms that discourages its adoption is madness. You don't put early adopters in a catch-22 situation where you'll only license large scale producers, but potential producers have no user base to sell too. If foreign firms who produce your technology where you have not patent want to import, you offer them licensing terms that will be attractive for them. You don't scare them away.

So, we can only conclude that either (a) the people managing the licensing for large format NiMH are utterly deranged or (b) Chevron has some reason to discourage the adoption of NiMH technology in automotive applications.

Of course it doesn't seem exactly likely that NiMH technology could have a measurable impact on Chevron's petroleum profits in the near future. Once Li-Phosphate technology becomes available on the scale needed to support production of EVs and PEHs, we can put this unlikely proposition to the test.

Re:Battery choice is interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

(I should mention for the conspiracy fans among us that the patent holder is Chevron).

With all of the publicly available information surrounding the patents on large format NiMH batteries it pretty self-evident that the company, which is Cobasys, has an agenda to keep the technology out of the marketplace. How many corporations do you know that will deny themselves an additional revenue stream by not licensing their patents, especially patents that are due to expire very soon? Anyone?

Re:Other incentives

[penguin_dance]

Things I'd rather see:

How about employer incentives like working from home, so we don't have to drive there in the first place?

$30,000

[kurtis25]

Call me when the middle class can get a fuel effiecient car. If I have to decide between that and a $15,000 Corolla which gets 30 mpg. I would have to choose the Corolla becuase the extra $15,000 is the current equivilant of 5,000 gallons of gas or about 150,000 miles of driving. If I drove my Corolla 100,000 miles I would pay $25,000 (car + gas) if I drove the Typ-1 e 100,000 miles I would have paid $32,500. If I got the Typ-1 h I would pay 31,000 to go the same distance (assuming it costs $30,000).

Re:$30,000

[GnarlyDoug]

WHen I use the term 'IC' in my post I am referring to straight internal combustion cars.

Gas is going up in price. You can expect $4 or even $5 per gallon in the not too distant future. As this climbs, standard vehicles will become more and more expensive relative to hybrids. In addition you mention 100,000 miles, but that is low. Most modern cars are good for 200,000 miles or more. There are Priuses that have over 300,000 miles on them on the road today.

A $25,000 50 MPG Prius, run for 200,000 miles at $3 per gallon will cost you $12,000 in gas. Your $15,000 30 MPG Corolla will cost you $20,000 in gas. The Prius would cost you only a net $2,000 more in this scenario, and that does not include the unscheduled maintenance cost penalties you pay (see below).

If gas goes to $4 per gallon it is about $17K vs. $27K, making the Prius a wash. If it goes over $4 per gallon, the Prius is cheaper.

As hybrids become more effecient and cheaper, these numbers will dramatically swing against owning a regular car. A 300 mpg hybrid like the article mentions that costs $30,000 will only cost $2,000 to $4,000 in gas over the lifetime of the car even at $5 per gallon. Such a car is free in comparison to the cost of the Corolla. You would literally save in the low tens of thousands of dollars by buying the 'more expensive' hybrid.

There is another big factor. Scheduled maintenance costs on hybrids are about in line with regular cars, but their unscheduled maintenance costs tend to be much lower. Cab companies and fleets like this one are starting to publish the reliability and maintenace results of using hybrids. The data is still sketchy, but even with the early hybrids (2001 models or so) that these sets of data apply to, the data indicates that you can save from $1 to $2 per 50 miles (very rough estimate) or so in unscheduled maintenance costs (ie, unexpected repair costs) over the life of the vehicle for a good hybrid vs. a regular IC vehicle. In other words, if you drive 200,000 miles you, statistically speaking, save about (200,000/50)*(1 to 2) = $4,000 to $8,000 over the lifetime of the car. Now that is a statistical average of course, and you might get a car that costs you almost nothing over that time. But that again you might not.

Hybrids are also holding their value much better than regular cars. You don't take a huge hit to the value of a hybrid just becuase you drove it off the lot. Go look around you'll find used Priuses going for almost as much as new ones.

Finally, I'll point out that Toyota (since we compared Corolla to Prius) no longer makes or sells regular IC cars in Japan. It's hybrid only. They are only making their older cars for America and some other markets, but they have already shown that they consider all non-hybrid lines to be end-lined soon.

In short I would not buy a high-end new IC car today. If you're not ready for a hybrid or you don't drive enough for it to make economic sense to you, then do your best to buy a cheaper used regular car and wait. In the next few years you will see IC cars fall out of favor. For a period of time IC cars will become dirt cheap as demand for them drops through the floor, making the greatest buyers market in history for IC cars. Then IC cars will all but disappear. It's a pretty standard model for technology that has reached the end of the line.

Re:Other incentives

[Firethorn]

Your employer puts up solar panels in the employee parking lot for anyone driving an electric car to work. You park your car in the cool shade under the panels and plug in for a free 9 hour recharge.

It'd be cheaper to simply put up a carport and pay the electric bill each month. Discounting massive subsidization of the solar panels, of course.

Actually, make it simple. Put an AC plug next to every parking stall. In cold places we do it for block heaters. Employers pay for all sorts of perks to attract good employees. Why not add free recharge to the list.

This would work well, I think. Especially if you have the carport charging plugs be on a circuit that allows discretionary turnoffs by the power company - this would increase baseload and not peak.

The power company is willing to cut quite a deal per kwh for these deals, as baseload power can cost them a third or even less than their more expensive peak sources.

People complain about how slow charging will be - but a major difference between pouring gasoline into a car and charging the batter is that pouring gasoline pretty much needs to be an attended activity - charging a car you only need the 30 seconds or so to attach the plug, then remove it before you leave. Heck, you could even set it up so that the act of backing out of the slot disengages the cord, which is on a auto retraction wheel. With 130 miles of range current, I still wouldn't need to charge every day.

No, the ocean absorbs lots of methane

[postbigbang]

And has been doing this for millions of years. The only thing that changes the ocean methane equation is reduced atmospheric pressure, or a very wicked ocean warming--- more than what's forecast.

Re:300 What?

[Firethorn]

I've read the articles, of course, but I feel the need to respond to the part you quoted.

You see, I feel that the 300mpg figure is cutting it very close to being fraudulent, and at least deceiving.

Because I really doubt that if you drained the batteries at the start that it'd get 300mpg, or even if you drove it over the test course in such a way that the battery was equally charged at the beginning and end. Say, 50% charge - enough room for regenerative braking to be utilized, not so low that the car's trying to charge the battery back up.

As such, I'd like to see some new figures quoted - average mileage per kwh, plus a figure for how many kwh the battery stores, then gas mileage as I proposed.

'300mpg over the first 300 miles' isn't as useful as '1 mile per kwh city, 250 kwh pack, 50 miles per gallon gasoline, 10 gallon tank'.*

*Plus the standard disclaimers about driving habits, patterns, routes make a difference here.

What's Taking Them?

[RAMMS EIN]

It's nice that this is up and coming, but that sort of thing is also known as "vaporware". We've been hearing announcements of cleaner vehicles for years and years. Even Lada demonstrated one last century! And what do we have? A handful of hybrids...

Why is it taking so long? Why is it that I can see things that could be improved, and it's not being done? For example, why do the two hybrid cars I can buy here have gasoline engines and a fuel economy comparable to a diesel in the same price class, when they could (1) burn diesel, which has a much better fuel economy _and_ is cheaper here, and (2) use the combustion engine _only_ for electricity generation, so that it can run at its optimum efficiency? And, while I'm at it, why not a more efficient engine (e.g. Sterling or Wankel instead of Otto)?

And why do we have cars that can run on up to 85% ethanol (the rest being gasoline) instead of 100%? And why do diesel cars not run on straight vegetable oil right out of the factory, even though you can get them converted for about 2 thousand euros, after which they can run on straight vegetable oil _or_ diesel?

Come on, people! It's not like there are unsolved technical problems here! The solutions are known, they are just not in mass-manufactured cars.

And governments! The (well, some previous) government here has refused to lower taxes for CO2-neutral fuels because "the environmental benefits are not clear". This despite studies having found that using straight vegetable oil instead of diesel reduces CO2 emissions _even_ if fossil fuels are burnt in every possible phase of the production and transportation. If it wasn't for that, straight vegetable oil would be cheaper than diesel here.

And all the misconceptions people have. "But electricity generation emits CO2, too!" Well, depends how you generate your electricity, don't you think? "But the crops for producing vegetable oil will use up valuable arable land!" Well, not if you use crops that don't, or algae, which grow in deserts and on salt water and have a much higher yield anyway. And on and on.

I don't claim _I_ have all the right answers, but it's sad to see how messed up the situation is, considering the things that _are_ known and _could_ be used.

on the market already

[Anonymous Coward]

You're behind the times. All the big fleet operators in the US are testing diesel electric hybrid trucks now(fedex,ups, coca cola, etc), and are going to be investing in them to expand their fleets as the older trucks wear out and get replaced, and two companies in england are shipping all electric trucks well into the multi ton delivery range. *Shipping*, as in normal, you can buy them right now. Cab companies all over are switching to hybrids from crown vics, and as soon as plugin hybrids start coming from the majors they will be using those. This stuff is not theoretical anymore, all these new drivetrains are hitting the market now and in 2008, the automotive industry is going through significant disruptive technology change *right now*. Over seas, in india and china, big moves to electric vehicles, several large companies shipping them in 2008. The range is plenty good enugh now, and will only get better the next few years, ton of battery breakthroughs this year, as in this car in the article, read about their battery tech. Rough analogy, electrics and hybrids are at a similar status as computers in say 92-3, and that was "good enough". Earlier adopters get the benefits, just like with computers. Heck, the prius has been out ten years now! And most of them still on the road, and most of them still running on the original battery packs!

You'll be seeing diesel electric drivetrains in normal cars and pickups real soon now. Real soon. Suburban guys and contractors are gonna eat them things up off the lots as soon as they hit. Same power as a big gas engine, twice the mileage, same towing capacity, double duty as the home or jobsite backup generator. Americans *like* pickups and SUVs, that style is *not* going away, that's where a big part of the market is, so plugin hybrids will be coming to a lot near you soon in pickup and SUV models. It might be the japanese have them first, but who knows, detroit is getting desperate and I bet there's some skunk works action going on there. They can be motivated at times to actually produce. The shareholder pressure and market pressure is now intense, that will have an effect.

lithium-ferro phosphate

[raddan]

Lithium-ferro phosphate is the chemistry used in the cells for the XO OLPC laptop. Here an excerpt from ACM Queue's recent inteview with OLPC CTO Mary-Lou Jepsen:

We started to look into other battery chemistries, such as lithium-ferro phosphate, which people haven't really used yet in consumer electronics. This chemistry charges in heat up to 60 degrees C. It's also about as safe as NiMH. We can put nickel-metal hydride or lithium- ferro phosphate or, eventually, other battery chemistries into our laptops, which was another accomplishment. It was a real pain. We did that in the embedded controller. We also have a little fuel gauge in each battery that so we can keep track of its life cycle.

Our battery has a five-year life. You can go to 2,000 charge/recharge cycles. The lithium-ion battery in my ThinkPad is supposed to last for 500 charges, but in practice it's more like 200. So, moving to lithium-ferro phosphate is really cool because you don't have to spend additional money on periodic battery replacement costs, regardless of the environment.

Also, lithium-ferro phosphate is pretty environmen- tally friendly. Some early studies we did suggested that it possibly can decompose into fertilizer (with processing). Typically we think of batteries as environmentally bad, but there's some indication that lithium-ferro phosphate isn't that harmful. We haven't quite gone through all of the rigor on this, however, and it does require some processing to decompose it into fertilizer. Full article is here.

Re:Not Very Pretty

[ArcherB]

This one pretty enough for ya? :-D

base price: $98,000

Not any more.

Re:But, will it fly? - not insightful

[Ralph Spoilsport]

saboola parodied a comment about flying cars by looking at the transition from horses to automobiles with the same language.

Somehow, he was rated insightful, when he really isn't. Flying cars and driving cars may have epistemological equivalence (both = vehicle operation) but they are not ontologically equivalent. Example: hacking up a cooked turkey and brain surgery are both examples of (episteme) knife wielding, but they are not the same (ontologue) activities and have radically different social values and results.

Similar to the brain-dead postmodernists who insist that theory has no value, because "it's all theory".

All he did was act contrarian in a very adolescent manner - the kind of numbskull pigheaded idiot logic I expect from a dull second year university student - the kind I normally give a C- and a recommendation to do some follow up research to get the grade up.

RS

Welcome to two centuries ago

[busydoingnothing]

What many people don't know is that the electric car actually predates gasoline and diesel vehicles, but for so[big]me rea[oil]son, disappeared into obscurity (I guess we could blame lousy battery technology, too). As recent as a decade ago, the GM EV-1 provided a viable solution to current car technology, but again, disappeared into obscurity. The story of this car can be seen in the documentary Who Killed The Electric Car? . It's a damn shame that such a solid alternative was sent to an early grave. Hopefully this time around, with the focus on global warming, car companies will get smart and embrace this technology.