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Meet the Virginia-Built 110MPG X-Prize Car
tcd004 writes "Instead of using Detroit engineers or Silicon Valley bitheads, Virginia-based Edison2 relied on retired Formula 1 and Nascar engineers to build its entry for the X-prize. Relying on composite materials and titanium, the team assembled an ultra-lightweight car that provides all the comforts of a standard 4-passenger vehicle, but gets more than 100 mpg. The custom engineering goes all the way down to the car's lug nuts, which weigh less than 11 grams each. Amazingly, they expect a production version of the car should cost less than $20,000." Earlier today, in a Washington, DC ceremony, Edison2 received $5 million as the X-prize winner. Writes the AP (via Google) "Two other car makers will split $2.5 million each: Mooresville, N.C.-based Li-Ion Motors Corp., which made the Wave2, a two-seat electric car that gets 187 miles on a charge, and X-Tracer Team of Winterthur, Switzerland, whose motorcycle-like electric mini-car, the E-Tracer 7009, gets 205 miles on a charge. Both of those companies are taking orders for their cars."
"Two other car makers will split $2.5 million each"
What does that mean? Does it mean they get $2.5 million each or is it split between them?
Drill baby drill - on Mars
The story at Wired has pictures.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Edison 2 site that would have been linked to in the summary if anyone posting stories gave a damn anymore
Like they've ensured Tesla Roadsters never get to the road, nor the Chevy Volt, Nissan Leaf, or the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd generation of Toyota Hybrids. Oil companies may have been able to get a stranglehold on battery patents before, but the EV genie is out of the bottle. So, go buy one (if it fits your driving needs).
Does it have air bags, side-impact beams, crumple zones, etc? It seems like an impressive bit of engineering, but it will never make it to production in the US unless it meets all the government crash and safety standards.
Safety standards are one of the main reasons a 2010 Honda Civic gets nearly the same mileage in practice as a 1990 Civic. Although the more modern car has made strides in improving drive train efficiency, it weighs over 600 lbs more resulting in nearly the same fuel efficiency. Things like side-impact beams, air bags, and ABS make cars safer, but they also make them a lot heavier.
It looks like they opted for non-scarce materials according to the official site:
The Very Light Car is a more sustainable vehicle. Not just efficient to drive, but cradle-to-grave environmentally responsible. Less mass means fewer material inputs. Energy intensive materials and hazardous or scarce materials are largely avoided in favor of conventional materials, such as aluminum and steel, that are readily available, easily made in volume, and completely recyclable.
Does this mean the car can only turn left?
Unfortunately, after the added weight of an average American the car only gets 50 MPG.
The NEV article states the safety requirements:
In addition, some states have increased the MPH limit (owner can easily mod this) to 35MPH, allowing them to travel on 45MPH roads in the slow lane:
All of this adds up to a vehicle that is good for local commuting (if allowed on the 45MPH "expressways") and grocery grabbing, with minimal safety requirements and if it's non-emissions, also benefit from tax incentives.
I'm definitely keeping my eye on this, it'd be great for those days when I don't want to ride the bike to work (i.e., have to pick up the kid). The Edison2 car would fit nicely here (though it wouldn't get tax credits).
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So you're saying that despite the fact there are hundreds of thousands of them on the roads, the Toyota Prius is neither practical, affordable, nor does it offer any real and immediate savings to the consumer? And before you come back with some trite answer about it being a smug feel-good car, I've got two words for you to consider: Taxi Cab. If the Prius weren't a winner on all three of the metrics you name, why would taxi companies love the things as much as they do?
As for the Edison2, it's a cool concept, but it's still a concept. The thing exists as a one-off prototype with exactly none of the real-world production hassles and economics worked out. It therefore fails your three metrics by default.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
And before you come back with some trite answer about it being a smug feel-good car, I've got two words for you to consider: Taxi Cab. If the Prius weren't a winner on all three of the metrics you name, why would taxi companies love the things as much as they do?
Ha! Have you ever met a New York cabbie? Because I sure haven't, and I'm assuming that there's never been a bigger bunch of hemp-wearing tree-hugging kumbaya-singing hippies. With disposable income.
The enemies of Democracy are
why weld? just form/machine the parts and then bolt together, see "billet aluminium car" by kirkham motor sports.
Machining is the most expensive way to produce a metal part. You start with a block of metal and grind away everything that isn't the part. It's very wasteful, in terms of energy, even if you recycle the waste metal chips. The cheapest methods are stamping or casting. Guess how most metal car parts are made?
Robotic welding is cheap, repeatable and produces strong assemblies. Bolting tends to be labor intensive, and adds more weight (bolts weigh more than welds).
It's not like the existing car companies haven't analyzed these alternatives more than a few times over the last 100 or so years.
Putting moderation advice in your
That's a particularly lopsided view of the "oil conspiracy." The reality is that oil companies represent the single largest caucus of industry money with a single purpose: sell more oil. They brought those resources to bear against the California Air Resources Board (CARB) in order to end the public's mandate for zero emissions vehicles, even the smallest amount, which killed electric car development in it's infancy. I remember seeing electric RAV4s and EV1s and Ford Ranger EVs buzzing around in the late 90s in rural Georgia. The technology developed by GM was mothballed by Exxon Mobil, who bought and buried the battery technology. Toyota continued to develop theirs, and now they have top selling hybrid car in the world.
The red herring offered consistently is, why wouldn't GM want to lead the way in electric car development? Two reasons: one, EV technology was receiving zero subsidy after CARB was bought and sold, yet gasoline in the United States is sold at a fraction of the price due to massive subsidies by the US government. The second is that electric motors are hideously reliable, as evidenced by hydroelectric dams that have been in operation for over one hundred years. If a material for infinitely durable shoes was developed by Nike, do you think they would be dumb enough to manufacture and sell it?
It's tough to continue netting billions if you make your product cheaper and more efficient, without being able to drop the price enough to sell it to more consumers. So, as one would naturally expect, you fight any newer technology with every tool you have, while simultaneously buying up the competition and burying new technology. An oil company actively reducing the value of their trillions of dollars of oil infrastructure is like Microsoft funding R&D for open source software. It just doesn't happen.
Eventually the new technology will win, if there is some other industry that will see gains, or if the government steps in to make sure the economy isn't artificially shackled to old technology because of monopolistic business practices. It's fashionable to call that Socialism, but everyone else calls it progress.
Sounds like deregulating your electric system really worked out for you then.
Seat ibiza gets 97.4mpg and it's a real car:
http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/carreviews/firstdrives/237415/seat_ibiza_ecomotive.html