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?

[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.

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.