Progress On Electric Cars

Mike sends along a couple of items of interest to those anxiously awaiting the era of production electric vehicles. First, there's the upcoming Aero EV, which Shelby Supercars claims will charge in just 10 minutes and will be able to produce over 1,000 horsepower, powering the vehicle from 0-60 mph in less than 2.5 seconds. Then there's the announcement by Aptera of the first pre-production model of the Aptera 2e, which will have a top speed of 90 mph and go around 100 miles on a charge. This EV also features a strong and aerodynamic body, a lithium-based battery, front-wheel drive, and an improved door design. Release is planned by October of 2009.

Comments

Re:That's it?

[AKAImBatman]

Say "Yes" to nuclear. It's less radioactive than coal, has killed barely a minuscule fraction of the number of people coal has killed, and we have enough supply to easily last for as long as we can reasonably project our energy requirements.

Oh, and it's a key component for any serious attempts at interplanetary or interstellar space travel. Which could be important if we want to research more efficient solar collection or need to go track us down more nuclear materials. (Or you could send missions to Titan and supply the Earth with a near-infinite supply of $10billion/gal gasoline. :-P)

Re:That's it?

[markdavis]

It doesn't matter *WHAT* was used to generate the electricity, it will *still* be cheaper and cleaner than burning gas in cars. Large power plants are tremendously more efficient and clean because they have the scale... even burning coal (as long as they are modern plants). Don't focus just on coal & oil. Throw in natural gas, solar, geothermal, nuclear, hydro, and wind... they already account for a huge percent of electricity production and increasing each year.

And using electricity means that everyone has a fuel source right at home, ready to go. No new infrastructure. No hazardous or explosive alternative fuels (like hydrogen or LP gas). No special equipment or training. Plug it in... Done.

Big list

[Rei]

I've compiled a big list of upcoming EVs and their stats here.

In fact

[WindBourne]

Coal has killed FAR more than is attributed to it. Right now, nearly all the deaths attributed to coal is based on coal mine deaths, which IS much greater than nuclear power deaths (even when including all the uranium mining for weapons). But what is not added in there is the mercury poisoning that we get. Most of the mercury in our water is from coal. Likewise, much of our acid rains, etc are from coal. In a nutshell, Coal is far far worse than nukes.

Re:In fact

[Firethorn]

First, I'll point out that I believe that nuclear weapons aren't in the same category as nuclear power; that'd be like adding deaths from tank weapons into automotive deaths.

Still, I think it's an interesting topic.
Hiroshima: 140k
Nagasaki: 80k
Chernobyl: 57 direct deaths, 4k 'additional cancer cases', estimated, not all of which would be fatal.
Other: Various accidents; under a hundred. Less than 1% of the above, easily within the margin of error of the nuclear weapons usage.

224k total, of which 1.8% can be attributed, partially, to nuclear power(Chernobyl was also a weapons material plant, which affected it's design).

If you believe this article, 24k lives are 'shortened' by coal power, cause 2.8k cases of lung cancer a year, 4k deaths from asthma, heart attacks, etc... At 4k, we're killing a Chernobyl's worth of citizens each and every year. In the 63 years since the nuclear attacks in 1945, that would be 252,000 people.

On to China - They've made it a 'goal' to reduce their annual coal mining deaths to a 'mere' 5k in 2007 over the 7k of 2003. In 1988 - "chronic
obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) was 26% of all causes of death. If even a fraction of a percent of those deaths are from the pollution from coal power, 26k a year isn't outrageous from a country of over a billion.

Basically; I figure coal power kills more people every year than Chernobyl accident did period, and it bypasses our nuclear bombings in less than five years.

And people wonder why I'd shut down all the coal plants if I could...

Even coal is better than gasoline (no, really!)

[Rei]

According to a DOE study conducted at PNL, switching to EVs is a net win even on our current grid. The main reason is that power plants are a lot more efficient than gasoline-powered cars at turning fuel into energy, while transmission and charging are very efficient. Also, EVs, which mainly charge at night, reduce the need for spinning standby, allow plants to operate more efficiently at night, and so on. The net result is that you could switch 84% of our cars over on our existing grid and you'd cut CO2 emissions by a third, increase PM somewhat, NOx would drop slightly, SOx would stay the same, and CO and VOCs would be nearly eliminated. The pollutants that would be emitted would be emitted on average much further from people's lungs and so affect them less.

Interesting

[ShooterNeo]

For you questioning the "charge in 10 minutes" claim : be aware that a lithium ion battery exists that DOES have this feature. Altair nanotechnologies is shipping a battery right now that supposedly has an improved anode that solves the problems that prevent rapid charging conventional lithium ion batteries. Actually, they claim 5 minute recharges in their marketing materials.

They ALSO claim to have solved the other big problem with lithium ion batteries : finite lifespan. They claim their batteries do not 'wear' and can be put through at least 20 years worth of power cycling. Again, note that these special batteries can be purchased today, they are not vapor-ware. (I don't know if their claims are valid, but I do know the physical batteries exist)

Yes, I am aware that a 10 minute recharge would strain the capacity of standard electrical service. You would need the electric gas stations to either have extremely high amperage connections to the grid, or to have some kind of energy storage technology at the station. Such as super-capacitors, a bank of precharged batteries, flywheels, ect.

So could it be done? Mass produce these high end lithium ion batteries by the billions, putting banks of them in every new car and truck on the road and in electric gas stations? I think it could, but the huge upfront costs of such a conversion are going to put it off well into the future. The ultimate long run costs might be the same or cheaper than fossil fuels, but in the short term consumers won't pay for something that is significantly more expensive.

For the conversion to occur, one of these has to happen

          1. "Moore's law" makes lithium ion batteries so cheap that electric cars are cheaper than gas
          2. Oil shortages make gas so expensive that even electric cars look cheap
          3. The government puts a huge tax on gasoline/diesel and artifically makes electric cars seem cheap

A lot of people have pointed out that an electric car is actually simpler than gas. The motors are a lot smaller, and the battery banks consist of thousands of identical battery cells. The only other thing in the car is the power handling circuitry, which is solid state. If the batteries didn't wear out with age, then an electric car would probably be much cheaper to maintain.

Re:That's it?

[Rei]

The most common number for the lower-cost EVs for range seems to be about 100 miles. About what percent of Americans do you think travel more than fifty miles to work and then 50 back? I'd bet under 10%. Probably under 5%.

but don't kid yourself, anything approaching a 10% adoption rate of EVs could easily crush the grid

This has been studied, over and over again. No, they don't. EVs are actually a rather sedate grid load in that they don't suddenly kick in, draw a huge amount of current, then stop; it's a steady load. And easily most of the time, it's a nighttime load, which is a boon for the grid, not a bane.

But yes, our grid could use some overhaul because it's not good at dealing with our current loads. We need HVDC for long-distance transmission, a smart grid for timing loads, and EVs for variable loads and, potentially, V2G.