The Lightning Hybrid and the Inizio EV

Mike writes "With auto show season hitting its stride, there's no shortage of incredible prototypes on display. First up is a brand new 100-mpg supercar by Lighting Hybrids. The biodiesel-fueled vehicle has its sights set on the automotive X prize and uses a hydraulic compression system to store energy from regenerative braking. Next, the Liv Inizio, a sleek fully-electric roadster that boasts a scorching top-speed of 150 mph and a 200-mile range, placing it in direct competition with the Tesla roadster."

Comments

Price

[Tubal-Cain]

Just so everyone knows:

Tesla Roadster (all electric): $98,000
Liv Inizio (all electric): $100,000
Lightning Hybrids car (biodiesel): $39,000-$59,000

Re:Price

[fusionstein]

Just to point out: 'biodiesel' = 'diesel'

Re:Price

[Anonymous Coward]

i sill dont understand whats so great about biodiesel?
i mean we burn our crops in our cars instead of using the fields to harvest food for people who are starving

Re:Price

[Anonymous Coward]

You can grow oil.

It just takes a long, long time.

Re:Price

[iminplaya]

not that long

Re:Price

[Anonymous Coward]

It just took you a long, long time to say it.

Re:Price

[KnightMB]

The guys at this forum have already done many projects similar to this at a fraction of the cost. I guess for a sports car, the cost is about right, but not everyone needs to do 150 mph. Sometimes people just want to the take the family and friends out to dinner, doesn't look like you'll fit more than a few people in most of those. It's still cool though that more are interested in building electric hot rods instead of the ICE counterparts.

Find a lot of the pioneers in the forum below.
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/

(Edit: ICE = Internal Combustion Engine)

Re:Price

[Anonymous Coward]

How about a cheap, regular electric car I can drive every day instead of overpriced sports models? I am no car fan, I sometimes use a car to drive my ass and my bicycle from point A to point B, and I see no reason whatsoever to spend on a car that can do stuff I don't need.

Get me something moderately fast, reliable, not really ugly and reasonably priced that I can plug ... and drive.

Re:Price

[RAMMS EIN]

``i sill dont understand whats so great about biodiesel?''

What is great about it is that the CO_2 you realease into the atmosphere when you burn it has first been extracted from the atmosphere while the crops you make it from were growing. In other words, biodiesel is CO_2 neutral: it does not add to the total amount of CO_2 to the atmosphere. It is often also cleaner than regular diesel in other ways, e.g. it contains no sulphur.

``i mean we burn our crops in our cars instead of using the fields to harvest food for people who are starving''

We can do that (and that certainly happens), but we can also make biodiesel from things that don't use up land that could be used for farming food crops. The crops that are best for feeding people and the crops that have the best yield for making bio fuel are not the same. Algae, for example, have very high oil yield and will grow on water, and even on desert land. If we do it right, we can produce bio fuels in addition to food.

Re:Price

[MrNaz]

Yea, because excess corn in the US finds its way into the mouths of starving Africans.

The food shortage myth is propagated by oil companies so that whenever someone talks about a carbon cycle neutral crop alternative to fossil fuels, they can say "but think of the poor starving people!".If you want to know what big oil thinks about starving people go have a look at Shell's history of dealing with Nigerian villages, or Chevron's dealings with Ecuadorian natives. Big oil's obnoxious effort to feign concern over the welfare of the poverty stricken makes me sick.

The only reason food crops (such as corn, which is horribly inefficient as a fuel crop) are used is due to the insane subsidies that the US government offers them. Of course, the US government would never subsidize proper fuel crops such as rapeseed, flax or linseed because that would step on the toes of big oil.

So cut it out with the "think of the poor starving masses" rubbish please, it's so obviously a load of BS.

Re:Price

[anagama]

I'm not saying biodiesel is bad, but realize that it won't be carbon neutral. This is because we basically eat natural gas, NG being the main feedstock for ammonia, which of course becomes fertilizer. Because our food isn't carbon neutral, it won't make carbon neutral fuel.

Perhaps someday fueling stations will sell diesel, biodiesel, and organic-biodiesel for successively greater prices. But we'll never ever be able to replace the energy we get out of mineral oil with organic-biodiesel for a price anywhere near what it takes suck oil out of the ground and refine it.

Re:Price

[Toonol]

The only reason food crops (such as corn, which is horribly inefficient as a fuel crop) are used is due to the insane subsidies that the US government offers them. Of course, the US government would never subsidize proper fuel crops such as rapeseed, flax or linseed because that would step on the toes of big oil.

I don't think big oil is the problem. I think it's more about keeping the corn farmers happy.

Re:Price

[cayenne8]

Actually...these performance cars, that don't look like a fugly Prius...are the only things that are starting to garner my attention. I'm all for performance, and something that looks like a sports car.

If they could get these down to the Vette price range, I'd be all over buying one. If they can get them into the $50K-$65K range, put me on the list.

Re:Price

[vlm]

This is because we basically eat natural gas, NG being the main feedstock for ammonia, which of course becomes fertilizer.

Its far worse than that because of diesel used for transportation and tractors and insecticides and, well, everything else.

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2004/02/0079915

"Every single calorie we eat is backed by at least a calorie of oil, more like ten."

The theoildrum.com scientists seem to think ten is much more correct, a blathering mainstream media claims its 1:1, so it's probably somewhere in between, probably much closer to the scientists on theoildrum than to some magazine journalist. So, you can turn (the equivalent of) ten barrels of crude into (the equivalent of) one barrel of human food.

As a side issue, that is why it is not efficient to bicycle... if it takes ten gallons of gas to make the food equivalent of one gallon equivalent of bicycling. Just think about it. My car gets about 30 MPG and after a half hour 30 mile drive is thirsty for a gallon of gas. After a multi-hour 30 mile bike ride I am very hungry and can easily eat two pounds of food (and still lose weight, if it's salad and not eight quarter pounders with cheese and bacon). Anyway, that two pounds of food obviously takes twenty pounds of gasoline to grow and process and ship and cook. Now at 6 pounds of aviation gas per gallon (note I am not a pilot, but that is my fuzzy memory from wanting to be a pilot decades ago) that would make a bit over 3 gallons of gas to grow the food to bicycle 30 miles. Lets be very pessimistic and round my car down and bicycling up. I'm sure I can do better than 20 MPG for a car and I'm sure I'd do worse than 15 MPG for a bicycle. It's even worse if you have four people in the car vs four bike riders. Now bicycling is fun and good exercise, the fact that I'm wasting fossil fuel by bike riding instead of driving does not stop me from having a little fun, but I don't operate under some delusion that bicycling saves the planet compared to car driving.

Now if you're not going to bother making the food safe for humans to eat (like ethanol, or food that is imported from China) you can get that ratio down to maybe two barrels of crude makes one barrel of inedible fuel. Use far more toxic insecticides, process the inedible parts of the plant, a little rot at harvest time is OK as long as the overall total yield increases, bugs will ferment into fuel just as well as food ferments into fuel, etc. Some marketing people claim that under ideal perfect never attained conditions in the perfect climate ignoring some minor details like maintenance or personnel costs it is possible to turn one barrel of crude into slightly more than one barrel of ethanol, but no one believes that unless they are getting a marketing salary, or live in Brazil where they have a uniquely perfect climate.

Re:Price

[ArcherB]

Is it really that difficult for a corn grower to move some or all of their production from corn to rapeseed/flax/linseed/ whatever crop is best for bio-diesel? IANAF, so serious question how difficult(expensive) would it be?

I am not a farmer either, well, not a professional one anyway. I do have one hell of tomato crop starting this year. Anyway, the areas that are ideal for growing corn may not be ideal for growing rapeseed/flax/linseed. You also have to consider the millions in investments (per farmer!) in equipment that is proprietary to corn farming like harvesters and such, that will become worthless if the farmers start growing switchgrass.

Re:Price

[Smidge204]

This argument assumes at least two things:

1) That arable land is used for growing biofuel crops instead of food crops. There are many biofuel crops that will grow on land unsuitable for food crops.

and

2) That all arable land is used for growing food. The US has so much food growing capacity we actually pay farmers to NOT grow anything, since the abundant supply would ruin the value of the crops.

I'm sure there are other glaring holes in your argument but that's what immediately comes to mind.
=Smidge=

Re:Price

[Lumpy]

After a multi-hour 30 mile bike ride I am very hungry and can easily eat two pounds of food (and still lose weight, if it's salad and not eight quarter pounders with cheese and bacon).

Because you are riding a low efficiency junker.

Upgrade to a recumbent velomobile and your efficiency goes up DRASTICALLY. your comparison on biking is like comparing a Honda insight to a Hummer H1 driven in 1st gear the whole way. Your bicycle, yes even that overpriced $4500.00 trendy bike is a piece of crap in aerodynamics and efficiency. A velomobile in a recumbent position and set up right will give you incredible upgrade in efficiency.

I Ride a recumbent tadpole trike. I'm more efficient than they 2 wheel brothers on their pedalies. I swapped with a friend on a long ride last year. he was riding a http://www.go-one.us/ go-one and the difference was insane. I could go twice as fast with the same effort. I can see riding 24 miles in that thing for a daily commute to be a very doable thing. I could easily average 25mph on flat roads in it.

Re:Price

[DuckDodgers]

It doesn't have to be that way. There is ongoing research to produce biodiesel from sources like Miscanthus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscanthus), Switchgrass (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switchgrass) or Algae (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algae_fuel). We'll do more harm than good to the environment as long as we continue using biofuels sourced from palm oil or corn, but with the right sources biofuels are a win.

Any of those three sources I listed can be grown on land that is poorly suited to growing traditional food crops.

But for now, diesel is once again so cheap that biofuels are not cost effective.

Re:Price

[maxume]

Feel free to stop glad-handing yourself anytime. 7000 Calories (That's 2 pounds of pure fat, you pretty much can't digest anything more energy dense than that) is equivalent to (just under) 0.21 gallons of gasoline. That ends up being about 1.3 pounds of the stuff. So using the 10:1, that's 13 pounds (or about 2 gallons) of gasoline that went into feeding you 7000 Calories of fat. If you use a more reasonable number that includes water weight and non-fat foods, you are going to get something less than a gallon of gasoline (a gallon of diesel has more energy than a gallon of gasoline, so it would be even less diesel).

Re:Price

[afidel]

There is no such thing as a "proper fuel crop" except algae, the only feedstock crop which is not topsoil-based, and thus the only one we should be using.

While I agree in general (not using food as fuel) I also have to point out that Jatropha is another good candidate for fuel production. Jatropha grows in very poor soil with very little water needed and produces seeds which are 1/3rd oil. I'm not sure what huge kind of acerage you would need to supply world energy demands but not every solution has to do it all. Algae is great if you have the water and the infrastructure to support that kind of production, but it's definitely possible that poorer places may need a different form of production which is less capital intensive.

Re:Price

[smoker2]

What you appear to miss is that the US offshores everything it can and so you end up with Brazilian rainforest cut down to grow crops for US bio-diesel, and existing third world subsistence farmers switching to bio-diesel crops because they are worth more money in exports than local market produce would bring. Meanwhile, YOUR farmers are still getting subsidies on excess corn production because that's the way it is.

Re:Price

[J05H]

#3 - mass-produced biodiesel in the future will be generated by algae in tanks, not crops grown in soil?

100-mpg supercar

[iminplaya]

See? Told ya they've been holding out. Put that fancy secret carburetor that Exxon has under wraps on there and you'll get 200.

batteries

[timmarhy]

what is the cost and environmental impact of a car full of batteries? how do the batteries perform after 10 years?

Re:I don't care about a sedan

[fractoid]

Geez, never seen one of those before!

(Plans for the Doran Electric were always for sale in the back of the Popular Science magazines I used to collect when I was a kid, I'm talking 1986 or so, I always wanted to build one :).

*Snore*

[Kokuyo]

Please wake me, when they start building family cars at affordable prices...

Family car

[calagan800xl]

I think there's a bigger need for a decently-sized, affordable electric car than a Tesla Competitor. That's why EV Innovations' PT Cruiser conversion (Liv Surge), priced at 55K seems much more interesting.

Hydraulic accumulator?

[Viol8]

In a car? The safety issues with the high pressures required aside , how reliable would this be over the cars lifetime and what would the maintenance costs be? Also I don't see how you can provide 150hp for any useful length of time from a pressure vessel that needs to fit into a sports car chassis. Call me cynical but I'll wait for v2.0 before I part with any cash for something like this.

Re:I don't care about a sedan

[Bruiser80]

There's a really good reason these vehicles are 3 wheels - it allows these vehicles to not be classified as a "car," thus circumventing a bunch of safety laws around the world.