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EVs In the Spotlight At West Coast Green Conference
DeviceGuru writes "Electric vehicles were prominent among the 'hot products' showcased at West Coast Green in San Francisco this week. The event's product expo featured an assortment of preproduction units, prototypes, and concept models based on two-, three-, and four-wheel designs, along with several of the vehicles' creators. Specifically, the EVs and plug-in hybrids that participated in the show included Wheego's Whip, Saba's Carbon Zero Roadster, Green Lite's three-wheeled plug-in hybrid, Brammo's all-electric Enertia motorcycle, and Mitsubishi's i-MiEV EV, which PG&E is evaluating for some unstated purpose. Notably absent were Nissan's LEAF, Chevy's Volt, Toyota's Prius Plug-in, and Tesla's sexy Roadster, though in fairness the conference wasn't an actual auto show. So how many Slashdot readers plan to switch over to a plug-in EV in the next few years?"
With the exception of your 200+ range, the Nissan LEAF satisfies the rest of your requirements (it's only got a 100 mile range). It's a perfect "around-town" car for me, which is why I've got one on order. It should be delivered by December. I can't wait.
Can you imagine if Thomas Edison had been working on the light bulb and this guy would have said, "Whaddya mean I need a cord? My candle doesn't need a cord. You can keep your stupid electric light until you don't need a cord.
He would have had to ask Tesla nicely?
"Why don't you give me a call when gas is six bucks a gallon?"
Rrrrrring! It's more than that on the gas-station I can see from here. (Europe)
How about Better Place [betterplace.com]?
I heard Shai Agassi speak at the Commonwealth Club in SF, and met some of his people afterward when everyone went over to 111 Minna (a club). They talk big, but they have very little actually deployed. They talk about growing by a factor of 10 each year, and deployment all over the world. All they have are three (3) taxicabs in Tokyo, and one automated battery change station for them. Their next deployment will be seven (7) cars at the Sheraton Waikiki Resort, plus and a few charging spots. That is a Government-funded project. They have yet to deploy anything that pays its own way, even with subsidies. There are much bigger electric taxi projects; Shenzen already has 100 electric taxis running. New York tried one in 2007, but "it got to spend a lot of time on the back of a flatbed tow truck and not a lot of time as a taxicab", especially in cold weather, so they're deploying hybrids in large quantities instead.
Better Place's basic assumptions are that 1) fast charging technology won't work, so battery changing will be necessary 2) leasing battery packs is a viable business, 3) enough cars can be designed around the standard battery packs to make this work, and 4) they can standardize the infrastructure around their standards. All four are iffy.
A female environmentalist friend who heard Agassi speak commented that he's really good looking, and too much of his credibility comes from that.
&& >= 60 km/h.
Ignoring that 60km/h can be done on a moped, I'll assume you meant 60mph. Which, if you had done more than jump on the groupthink bandwagon, you would realize is easily doable (admittedly with "high-performance" electric vehicles, but still). Mass-production vehicles don't necessarily need to be all that speedy, although I don't think 60mph is outside the realm of "normal" unless you're some kind of anti-technology freak.
The biggest factor against electric vehicles is currently range, not speed. Tesla motors has had an electric drag racer for several years; you can easily find videos of their electric car absolutely smoking petroleum-based racers on the track. Power is actually *better* with an electric motor - the power (torque) curve is dramatically different in an electric motor as compared to a combustion engine, in that (in a basic sense) the power is all available regardless of the RPM of the motor, as opposed to a combustion engine requiring rotational energy before it can crank out decent numbers.
I've heard some absolutely ridiculous arguments against electric motor ranges, by the way - someone actually commented that traffic would obliterate the supposed fuel-efficiency numbers of any EV... without stopping to think that when the vehicle is not in motion, the motor isn't doing anything. If you are at a red light, the only things taking electrical power are your radio and the vehicle's climate-control system - unlike a combustion engine, which keeps a massive flywheel turning as long as the vehicle is "running". This can be unsettling in a hybrid; it takes some getting used to when your car appears to stall and die every time you come to a complete stop.
Energy storage technology is improving at a rapid pace, both on the size/mass end of things (how big/heavy is it), and on the capacity end of things (how long does a single charge last). A recent development in the field (were one to inquire) would be a battery that can be printed using an ink-jet printer, on normal paper (special ink, of course). This should make capacitor technology achieve things previously thought of as outside the realm of possibility, and quite soon.
On the "consumer-ready" side of the equation, a Swedish company recently received a prize for designing and building a vehicle they believe will cost approximately US$20,000 per unit for mass production. It's a 4-seater that achieves highway speeds, and it actually resembles a car (as opposed to the "concept vehicles" that have been being trumpeted as the latest and greatest but which no one in their right mind would be caught actually driving).
I don't mean to get all ad-hominem on you, but did you bother to do a simple web query before responding, or was this more of an off-the-cuff knee-jerk type of thing?
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...I would want to to hold a full day's drive, at least 1000 miles...
Good grief. 1,000 miles is a lot more than a full day's drive... For the sake of argument, we'll say you're doing circles on a highway in Texas, so you can actually get away with an average speed of 75 miles an hour... Do you realize you're casually throwing around nearly 14 hours' driving time, not accounting for stops for food/bathroom breaks? Never mind that (assuming a very generous 350 miles per tank of gas) you would need to stop at least 3 times, simply for gasoline. That's nearly double the amount of time that truckers are legally allowed to drive in a single day, for fatigue reasons. All of this is at high speed, with no stopping. Drop the average speed to something more reasonable, like 60mph, and you end up with a driving time of nearly 17 hours. I have personally managed an 1800 mile cross-country trip in three actual days (not "driving time" but "actual time elapsed"), and let me tell you, that was a brutal pace. A thousand miles is closer to two full days' reasonable driving time than to the "full day's drive" you claim. Having driven to remote locations as part of my job, I can tell you in no uncertain terms that a full day of "on the clock" driving is more like 400 miles per 8-hour day, assuming perfect weather/visibility and no construction.
To stay on the topic of "a full tank of gas", I get about 300 miles to the tank in my PT Cruiser. A full tank is approximately 15 gallons, but that probably isn't relevant information for this conversation. So let's call 300 miles "a tankful". Driving to the nearest town to the north of the one I live in is about 30 miles. I did this 5 times a week to get to my place of employment - and then drove back in the evenings. "Aha!" you shout, "that's a whole tank of gas right there!" To which I respond "Yes, it is. In a week, not a day."
Unless you are a commercial shipping company, or someone whose job it is to drive for hours on end every day, I simply cannot understand your argument.
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(what, power can only run one direction?)
Well...yes, at least on most modern cars unless it's a 1-2v trickle, otherwise you're likely to turn around and nuke the computer(s) from orbit, even though they're on a protected circuit. But I'm guessing you haven't seen the size of the average battery pack on a ev car. They weigh around 450lbs, and a 6v mini-cell doesn't have the amperage to get you going anywhere.
Om, nomnomnom...
&& >= 60 km/h.
Where have ye been sleeping the last decade? The Honda Insight, Toyota Prius, and 2002 released Honda Civic are all hybrids and all meet your demands for unlimited distance, same cost as a regular car, and highway speeds. But heaven forbid you let facts get in the way.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
And batteries lose their charge in the cold weather.
No they don't, they simply cannot deliver their power when cold. The chemical reactions that occur in them when you draw power from them happen too slowly. Drawing power from them happens inefficiently at this time. However, when you begin to run the system it heats up, the batteries are heated in short order, and then you're going down the road just fine.
Ask any Canadian, he'll tell you dozens of stories about regular cars and trucks not starting in the middle of winter.
I'd rather ask a Canadian who knows how the car battery works. Oh wait, I got an "A" in a six-unit automotive electronics course... I think I'll just ask myself. While we're on the subject, I'm also ASE certified in automotive heating and cooling systems.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"