100-Year-Old Electric Car Design Makes a Comeback

CNet's Green Tech Blog is reporting that Detroit Electric plans to release a small number of cars based around a car designed nearly 100 years ago. Detroit Electric is a joint venture between Santa Rosa, CA-based electric transportation specialist, Zap and China's Youngman motors. "Back in 1917, a Detroit Electric cost anywhere from $1,775 to $2,375--in other words, fit for the proletarian or plutocrat. The cars could go 65 miles to 100 miles on a battery charge, but only go at speeds ranging from 6 miles per hour to 25 mph."

Comments

Why no go back to horses sometime?

[CRCulver]

In the essay "Calvary in the Age of the Autarch" (collected in Castle of Days ) Gene Wolfe explains why in his far-future science-fiction epic The Book of the New Sun he had battles fought on horseback with some kind of genetically modified horse. They reproduce for you, they don't break down as stubbornly as machines (and can be used as dog chow), and they can graze instead of needing processed petrochemicals. I find that an intriguing notion, and I wonder when genetic engineering will get to the point that we can create new species to order.

Re:Why no go back to horses sometime?

[LynnwoodRooster]

Interesting little factoid... If you look at the German Eastern front in WWII, and Poland and Russia, more troops rode on the back of a horse in WWII than rode in a vehicle!

Re:Why no go back to horses sometime?

[knarf]

they don't break down as stubbornly as machines (and can be used as dog chow)

I can tell you're not living with a horse vet like I do... nor do you have horses yourself like we do... otherwise you'd see that horses are among the most fickle creatures ever to be kept by humans. Murphy is an optimist when it comes to horses: give a horse something to hurt itself on and it will. Keep some horses together and soon you'll see that some of them eat to much and develop laminitis (hoof wall shear) while others don't get to eat enough and soon resemble the Grim Reaper's skin-and-bone nag. Ride them and they'll need regular shoeing and/or hoof care otherwise you'll soon have more dog chow than you can chow. And when it comes to that, even if you were inclined to have your dogs eat your horses you'll probably find that those horses have been treated with some medicine one time in their lives which makes it illegal for them to be used for animal or human consumption - at least that's the way it is here in Europe. So if you plan to use genetically modified horses may I suggest crossing them with a wolverine or some other creature with better healing capacities?

Bicycles are a better alternative...

Re:Why no go back to horses sometime?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are many US troops in Afghanistan who are also riding on horses. When they get into trouble they call in airstrikes and helicopter gunships. I suppose that must look sort of bizarre in an anachronistic meets prochronistic sort of way.

Re:Who Killed the Electric Car?

[sgt.greywar]

I think this gets posted to every /. article that even tangentially refers to electric vehicles.

Conspiracies are interesting but in the end the Prius sort of proved that while there is a chunk of the relatively affluent who will buy electric cars the consumer gestalt as a whole was never waiting with baited breath only to have their hopes dashed by Big Oil or any other conspiracy faves.

Such a lovely place, that Eastern front

[wsanders]

More German troops froze to death and were killed by disease than were killed by bullets. They were riding on horses because Germany was having a hell of a time supplying them and they were getting their asses kicked by the Allies.

Let's move to the ecological paradise or the early 19th century, people in Europe and America weren't dying too much of disease and cold (at least if you could get clean water.) You were just walking though mud and horse shit up to you knees, or dying of cancer at 40 from a atmosphere constantly polluted by wood and coal smoke.

I'll take our media cluster-fuck-slash-ecological apocalypse anytime.

Porsche designed an earlier hybrid

[nickull]

Circa 1900, Ferry Porsche developed what has been regarded as the world's first hybrid car. See: http://www.theautochannel.com/news/2007/11/09/070253.html. The issues with Diesel are the glow plugs have to be used in colder weather starts when the combustion chamber cools for a longer period (requires more energy) and the torque required to turn over the engine (due to the high compression ratios used in diesel engines) is greater. This eats more electricity form the battery in conditions where lots of starts, stops are done.

Re:Who Killed the Electric Car?

[Rei]

They mention that the Prius batteries are warrantied for eight years, but don't mention that they're only ever depleted to 40-60% of their total charge to preserve battery life

Yes, but they also go through more charge/discharge cycles; PHEV batteries are stressed more. I edited the wiki to reflect your criticism and this fact.

They talk about cheaper, longer-lasting batteries with high energy density.

Cheaper, not yet. Safe and long lasting, yes, you can get them. If you want low volume, your only option, really, is to buy DeWalt power packs and dissect them for the A123 cells, and that'll run you about $2/Wh. However, if you buy in bulk, you can get batteries from any of a dozen or so automotive battery makers for notably less (except for AltairNano, whos batteries in bulk still cost around $2/Wh).

Great! But they also have less than 10% the energy density of lead-acid batteries, and the cost is prohibitive.

Not necessarily. The EEStor supercapacitors due out this year are to have several times the energy density of *li-ion*. Several teams are working on nanotube supercapacitors with the energy density of li-ion. This is all covered on the page.

They then go on to talk about the cost of running a car based solely on the cost to charge, ignoring the cost of periodically replacing the battery.

Incorrect. Maintenance costs are also discussed on the page.

The cheapest car I've seen with a decent range is the Th!nk City

Th!nk isn't particularly cheap, and its stats are pretty lousy (~60mph top speed, for example). You mentioned Aptera; it's much better performing and cheaper. There's also the MiEV (minivan-styling) and MiEV sport (style like a cross between a Prius and a VW beetle) ($24-25k), the VentureOne (tandem two seater, automatically tilts into turns like a motorcycle) ($25k), and about a dozen more due-out-soon in the $20-35k range. The only thing that the $20-35k rangers don't have is >120 mi or so range unless they're PHEVs. The batteries, not yet being in mass production, are too expensive for that. In five years or so, that won't be the case, and you should easily get 200-250 miles range in that price range.