All-Electric DeLorean Car To Hit the Streets In 2013

An anonymous reader writes "The DeLorean Motor Company just announced plans to launch an all-electric version of its gull-winged Back to the Future car in 2013. While it doesn't run on fusion power (yet), it still has a top speed of 125 mph driven by a 260 horsepower electric motor."

Comments

Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

The 80's called, they want their crappy car back.

Re:Why?

[DJRumpy]

I think that's the point of the article. In your rush to be 'first', you probably failed to notice that the car doesn't run on fossil fuels. Given that the 80's had no such car that was fully electric and ran at 125 MPH, then it's unlikely we'd find such a car unless we went to the future. Say, somewhere around 2013 to find it, no?

Re:Why?

[0123456]

Given that the 80's had no such car that was fully electric and ran at 125 MPH

That's because in the 80s we knew that electric cars sucked.

then it's unlikely we'd find such a car unless we went to the future.

More like the past; I'm not sure about 125mph, but I believe electric cars were doing over 100mph in the 19th century. But then people realised they sucked and switched to gasoline instead.

Re:Why?

[sideshow]

More like the past; I'm not sure about 125mph, but I believe electric cars were doing over 100mph in the 19th century. But then people realised they sucked and switched to gasoline instead.

More like barely 20mph, but thanks for playing.

http://gas2.org/2009/04/19/9-electric-cars-100-years-old-or-more/

Re:Why?

[Firethorn]

But then people realised they sucked and switched to gasoline instead.

Gasoline: Lousy Engine, incredibly great energy storage
Electric: Great Engine, incredibly lousy energy storage

There's nothing wrong with electric cars that a battery that costs half as much for twice the life(range and longevity) wouldn't fix.

Re:Why?

[DJRumpy]

Actually the top speed for the first electric cars was about 60 MPH. Even at the time they recognized that electric cars were cleaner, pronounced less noise, and more economical. Their downside was the battery, which was primitive and prone to failure.

As in all things, it lost out to gasoline and diesel as those became cheaper to operate and easier to fuel as opposed to swapping out batteries. That didn't necessarily mean that electric sucked, but rather it couldn't compete at the time as fossil fuels were much more abundant and the infrastructure was easier to provide for.

Re:Why?

[fredmosby]

I can't tell if you realise that the 19th century is 1800 to 1899. I seriously doubt they had 100mph cars in 1899.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but there's this little thing called fuel prices -- whenever they go up, gasoline cars suck a bit more, and electric cars suck a bit less in comparison -- it's only a matter of time till they win. And don't underestimate the enhancements in battery tech meanwhile -- modern electrics often have comparable range to old electrics, but on a battery pack weighing half as much, so better handling, and they often support faster charging.

Though IMO it's more like 20 years than 2 years till electrics win in general, they're already viable for certain niches.

Re:Why?

[lorenlal]

Citations and explanations would be awesome. As a wise man once said: "Saying something sucks isn't a take."

Someone made a rocket version of an electric car to get to 100mph... but still wildly dangerous back then. Funny thing, check out the wikipedia article on the electric car from 1911 talking about the various advantages of electric over gas back then...

How about this: Electric cars fill a particular market very well. There are plenty of drivers who need a commuter car, and saving a couple gallons a day getting to and from work can probably save that person about $800 in fuel costs per year. Yes, the cars are expensive and that's only about $4,000 in fuel savings over the use of a car in 5 years, but not worrying about where to find a pump isn't so bad. I say run with it if you like it, and let's see if we can reduce our dependence on a particular region of the world that doesn't really like us.

Re:Why?

[Rei]

The fastest electric car (and fastest vehicle, period) in 1899 was La Jamais Contente, which hit 62mph on a straightaway. And wasn't exactly a 4-seat crash-rated vehicle with modern accessories, to put it lightly ;)

Rechargeable batteries have been doubling in energy density about once every 8 years, have maintained such a pattern since the 80s, and show no signs of slowing down. Don't think today's ranges are good enough? What about in a decade? Two decades? Three decades? If your car can go 800 miles per day (a whole day's drive), what need to you have for frequent fast-charge stations? You just need to be able to get your 800-miles of range charged while you settle in for the evening/eat/go to bed/wake up/get ready/eat/leave. 250Wh/mi and, say, 10 hours charge time requires 20kW (~83A). Modern houses are generally built with 200A panels nowadays (most of that being little utilized at night), and hotels far larger.

So at some point, all of those other issues just go by the wayside. 800 miles not good enough for you? Then wait for 1000. Or 1200. But at some point, you hit your mark. And low current distribution panels are increasingly a thing of the past.

The bigger question is cost. Battery cost per watt have generally declined, but not followed a very predictable path. A given tech (say, PbA, NiMH, Li-ion, etc) generally shows a predictable price decline over time, but at random intervals, a new tech comes along to continue the aforementioned energy density increase. Usually (but not always) it starts out pretty expensive, but then declines over time. In short, though, it's really hard to say how expensive those 800-mile packs of 20 years from now will be -- only that no matter what their initial price, it will drop over time.

As for history: "Fuel" powered engines have a much longer history than "electricity" powered engines. The early brushed DC motors and lead-acid batteries are the electric-car equivalent of the steam engine. The modern synchronous AC drivetrain and lithium-ion batteries are the electric car equivalent of early internal combustion engines. It's a game of catchup. There was one point where electric vehicles briefly took the lead, but only due to extreme deficiencies of the gasoline vehicles of their day (the lack of a starter, nonstandardized fuels, horrible reliability, etc). Speaking of "nonstandardized fuels" -- electric cars are just now having to get over a related problem (nonstandardized connectors).

It's simply an industry that needs time to mature.

Re:Why?

[ghjm]

Sure there is. Charge time.

Re:Why?

[ThorGod]

Twice you used "sucked" and twice you didn't substantiate your claim.

Point not made.

It's all about what's the cheapest (at the time) form of energy. Unfortunately, that only means dollars and cents TODAY; it doesn't mean dollars and cents TODAY plus whatever today's use makes unavailable in the future. The artificially cheaper oil prices enjoyed in the US make alternate forms of transportation almost non-existent (in the US). Batteries, until very recently, have been much heavier and required payment up front. (Gas tanks are much cheaper than batteries.) In short, it isn't electrical cars that 'suck'; the ('unfair') competitive prices of gas power engines 'suck'.

Re:Why?

[ghjm]

But they weren't that far off. The first 100 mph race car was in 1919.

Re:Why?

[steveg]

Oh, for a mod point.

In the 70s there was some speculation on flywheels for energy storage. High energy density, even higher power density (charge and discharge can be *very* fast) and some designs (called "superflywheels" and made with carbon fiber) were claimed to fail gracefully without big chunks breaking through their containment vessels. Not sure what ever happened to those plans.

You did have to engineer around some "interesting" gyroscopic effects if you planned to put them in a vehicle though.

Re:Why?

[History's Coming To]

"Thank you for your empty battery. Here's a full one. That'll be x-dollars. Thank you and have a nice day"

Doesn't seem all that long to me.

Re:Why?

[ghjm]

Set them up for bank stability. Who needs all four wheels to touch the ground in a corner?

Re:Why?

[ghjm]

Got one for an older Hyundai? No, the GLS. No, the 2012 GLS. You sure it's eighteen volts? I'm not gonna blow up a mile from here, am I?

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Given that the 80's had no such car that was fully electric and ran at 125 MPH, then it's unlikely we'd find such a car unless we went back to the future.

Hello, McFly? Fixed that for you.

Re:Why?

[pwizard2]

but not worrying about where to find a pump isn't so bad.

Maybe I’m missing something, but where do you live? In the US, many large intersections in cities and even rural areas have at least one gas station. Even if there's not, chances are you can find one in less than a mile radius. You almost never have to go out of your way to find a place to fill up unless you're waaaaaay out in the sticks and you just went past the last station for 20 miles. (I've only seen one of those and it was clearly marked that there were no other stations on that road for that distance... I watched the odometer and it turns out the sign was telling the truth)

Re:Why?

[skids]

Just use two parallel counter-rotating flywheels. The precession force will cancel out.

Though really what we don't need is to store the entire fuel capacity of a vehicle in a form that can be released almost instantaneously. A small bank of flywheel, ultracap, or LiFePO4 backed by a high energy density storage with a rated for a non-degrading C of about 1 what is needed.

Re:Why?

[epyT-R]

uhh until we're not burning petroleum to generate electricity, using electric cars INCREASES our dependence due to their inefficiency.

gasoline car
pump out of ground -> ship -> crack/process -> ship to station / pump into tank -> burn -> kinetic energy.

electric car
pump out of ground -> ship -> crack/process -> ship to power plant -> burn -> phase change water -> kinetic energy -> electrical energy AC -> multiple step up and step down transformers -> AC to DC and voltage stepdown conversion -> chemical change in battery -> second chemical change -> electricity -> kinetic energy.

The greens need to accept something like ubiquitous nuclear energy before electric cars become feasible and more environmentally friendly than ICE based cars.

Re:Why?

[Sulphur]

I think that's the point of the article. In your rush to be 'first', you probably failed to notice that the car doesn't run on fossil fuels. Given that the 80's had no such car that was fully electric and ran at 125 MPH, then it's unlikely we'd find such a car unless we went to the future. Say, somewhere around 2013 to find it, no?

Unless your electricity is from nuclear power, then it does run on fossil fuel.

Re:Why?

[peragrin]

shhh don't tell the greenies the truth. they don't like it.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't give a shit--I drive a Yugo.

Re:Why?

[ghjm]

Assuming you don't mind charging it for an hour for every hour you drive.

Re:Why?

[lister king of smeg]

I totally agree and what about the toxic chemicals in the batteries themselves? Or in their manufacture.

Re:Why?

[Pentium100]

If your car can go 800 miles per day (a whole day's drive), what need to you have for frequent fast-charge stations?

Sure, not now, but in a few years when the car does only 500 miles (or whatever).

10 hours charge time requires 20kW (~83A)

The main circuit breaker for my house is ~32A, which means that I can use about 7.3kW. 1.2kW is used by my computers, add the lights, TV, microwave, electric teapot and not that much is left for charging the car. I could get three phase power and more current but that would be expensive.

In short, though, it's really hard to say how expensive those 800-mile packs of 20 years from now will be -- only that no matter what their initial price, it will drop over time.

There is also a problem with the battery life. Over time the capacity gets smaller, so you need to replace the batteries after a few years when the capacity is not enough. A gas tank does not shrink, it can develop a hole, but the hole can easily be patched and the tank is as good as new. Even for a 30 year old car. Now, how far will a 30 year old electrical car go if it was originally advertised to be able to go 1000km?

The point is, electrical cars suck now, they may stop sucking in the future (like gasoline powered cars did).

Re:Why?

[furbearntrout]

Actually, I have a PV kit on top of my garage.

Re:Why?

[Sulphur]

Actually, I have a PV kit on top of my garage.

My bad . . . Nuclear or Photo Voltaic.

Re:Why?

[darthdavid]

Firstly, the inefficiency difference isn't as bad as you make it out to be since the power plants are vastly more efficient at extracting power from that fuel than the cars would be and because a lot of our power comes from non-oil sources anyway (admittedly a lot of them aren't very green, but still).

The other thing to consider is that using electric cars means that all you have to do to move away from fossil fuels is to switch your power plants over to a different energy source (admittedly no mean task) whereas if you're running all your cars of petroleum products when it gets to be impractically expensive to pull oil out of the ground (ie Peak Oil, which a number of experts believe we're hitting right now) you've still got to switch the fossil fuel burning parts of your grid to a different energy source but on top of that you've then get to either deal with the inefficiency of the Fischer–Tropsch process or replace every car on the road and all your fueling infrastructure in one go (and with no real experience in creating/using/maintaining electrics or whatever alternative you end up using because you've refused to use any out of some harebrained notion of them not being green).

Lastly, I'm what you'd probably consider a green and am a staunch supporter of Nuclear Fission in the immediate future and Beamed Orbital Solar + Nuclear Fusion in the medium to far future. Just because there are plenty of loons out there that don't realize the need for reliable baseload power capacity and spend all their time fapping over solar and wind doesn't mean that everyone that supports sustainable, environmentally friendly development is a moron.

Re:Why?

[AK Marc]

Almost no electricity in the US is generated from petroleum pumped out of the ground. As such, your silly and contrived example is simply wrong. Not to mention you are deliberately complexifying the electric example, but not the gasoline one. "burn" doesn't make kinetic energy. "burn" creates wastegases which the expansion of is captured with very poor efficiency. Your example is closer to a steam engine than an IC one.

The greens need to accept something like ubiquitous nuclear energy before electric cars become feasible and more environmentally friendly than ICE based cars.

Yes, because that's what the greens need to do. Listen to biased liars like you trying to sabotage the movement for what they "should" do. Tactics like that work great and gave us the World Class healthcare bill we now live under. Always give more attention to the opposing side than your supporters.

Re:Why?

[colinrichardday]

Don't we (in the US) burn coal to generate electricity? According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_electricity_production, we use petroleum to generate 1% of our electricity and coal to generate 44.9%. Of course, coal is a bit dirty, but it doesn't make a great vehicular fuel unless you spend energy to change it.

Re:Why?

[Genda]

Actually they handled that too, by have sets of alternate flywheels spinning in the opposite direction effectively canceling out gyroscopic effects (at least everywhere except at stress points where the flywheels met their bearing.) The problem was coming up with enough titanium to build the scatter shields for all those flywheels, and waiting 5-15 minutes at a power up station getting yourself spun back up.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Terrific. Another electric car that uses electricity made from...?

Re:Why?

[Rei]

The main circuit breaker for my house is ~32A

Unless your house was wired by Thomas Edison, I seriously doubt that. That's not enough to even run a modern 4-burner electric range -- range sockets are 50A. A dryer socket is 30A.

There is also a problem with the battery life

False. One always has a choice in battery life as a balancing factor versus other factors (price, energy density, etc). There are nickel-iron batteries out there that have been operational for over 100 years. You're referring *specifically* to non-climate-controlled laptop cells wired in series with no charge balancing. Nobody is ever going to use that in an EV. The closest out there is Tesla, but they climate control the cells and each "brick" is only one cell in series (many in parallel), and the bricks are all monitored and individually replaceable. All other manufacturers are simply using more stable cell chemistries.

Re:Why?

[colinrichardday]

According to Wikipedia, about 70% of our electricity is generated by fossil fuels. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_electricity_production

Re:Why?

[Pentium100]

Unless your house was wired by Thomas Edison, I seriously doubt that.

I do not live in the US and heat my house with natural gas (much cheaper than electricity). So, I only have single phase 230V 32A power.

You're referring *specifically* to non-climate-controlled laptop cells wired in series with no charge balancing.

Not only to laptop cells. UPS batteries (lead-acid) shrink in capacity (and increase internal resistance) quite fast, especially at higher temperatures. Car starting batteries (again lead-acid) do the same, with the bonus of degrading fast at low (-10C) temperatures. Cellphone batteries (NiCd, NiMH, Li-Ion, Li-Pol) also shrink in capacity over time.

And NiFe batteries most likely won't be used in electric cars because they are as heavy as lead-acid batteries.

Also, batteries in cars will have to be operational at wide temperature ranges. Where I live, outside temperature can be anywhere from -35C (all time low -42.9) to +35C (all time high +37.5), the car with the battery will be outside and I might even want to drive it when it's -34C (and use the heater of course). Climate controlling the batteries will reduce the range of the car in the temperature extremes.

Re:Why?

[somepunk]

The roads sucked hard back then. A fast car would have been pointless. But there wasn't anything wrong with the propulsion technology. One of the cars mentioned in the linked article averaged 57 mph over a mile course, so it would have been rather more than that measured instantaneously at maximum speed.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

"burn" doesn't make kinetic energy.

Thermal energy is simply the kinetic energy of the particles in a given system. And you mean to correct him?

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like the first car to break 100 mph was in 1904:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Rigolly

Re:Why?

[Lanteran]

Stupid thing to assume. Semantically incorrect also. Technically it runs on electric current, drawn from the battery. My battery would be charged by hydroelectric power. It wouldn't be economically unfeasible where I live to set up a separate solar charging system in the garage, either.

Re:Why?

[Grave]

let's see if we can reduce our dependence on a particular region of the world that doesn't really like us.

Canada???

Re:Why?

[LurkerXXX]

Barely 20 mph? Nope, thanks for playing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Jamais_Contente

100 *K*PH (not mph) was done in the 19th century.

Re:Why?

[ozmanjusri]

Charge time.

Flow battery

Re:Why?

[steveg]

Yeah, counter-rotating flywheels would certainly eliminate the asymmetric gyroscopic effects and the other effects might actually include increased stability. I didn't know about the titanium shielding, but it makes sense.

But once we start talking about 10 hour charge times for batteries, 5-15 minutes might start sounding attractive. Fast charging a battery damages it over the long term, but the real limit to spinning up a flywheel is how fast you can deliver the power.

Re:Why?

[froggymana]

Gasoline: Lousy Engine, incredibly great energy storage
Electric: Great Engine, incredibly lousy energy storage

There's nothing wrong with electric cars that a battery that costs half as much for twice the life(range and longevity) wouldn't fix.

Can you say gas generator powering "electric" car?

Re:Why?

[kurzweilfreak]

Make the batteries modular and easily removable. Set up all the service stations in the country with battery-swapping stations so that instead of stopping for gas, you make the stop for a battery swap. You get a fresh one, and the spent ones can be charged at their leisure. You pay a service fee for the swap. Plus you now have an easy method for recycling batteries at the ends of their life cycles.

I'm sure there's some kind of cost associated with all this that I'm not thinking of, but I'm thinking about it purely from the convenience aspect of making battery charging as convenient as filling up the tank...

Re:Why?

[Chas]

Of course, coal is a bit dirty

That's kinda like saying that cutting someone's heart out with a chainsaw is "kinda dangerous" for them.

Re:Why?

[Will.Woodhull]

Flywheel energy storage has found several niches. IIRC, the New York City subways use stationary flywheels as a kind of load leveller when trains are using regenerative braking at some of the platforms. Also I believe they are still in use on some research vessels to supply steady power to fancy equipment.

The theoretical energy density is very high. The practical limitations seem to be failure containment systems and cost of materials. In mobile situations, there is also the size of the gimbal mechanism.

In the "I don't know but I've been told" category, when a carbon fiber flywheel fails catastrophically it can result in a cloud of carbon dust massing a few kilograms expanding outward at high velocity. If that cloud hits an open flame, the resulting secondary explosion would be comparable to a grain elevator explosion.

Re:Why?

[epyT-R]

it's still petroleum..and from a green standpoint it still pumps carbon into the environment. this is the primary green activist reason.. the whole thing about foreign dependence is a stab at convincing americuh-fuk-yah style right wingers of the validity of their argument.. a nice fallacy-stack, but that is the mentality behind it.

Yes, because that's what the greens need to do. Listen to biased liars like you trying to sabotage the movement for what they "should" do. Tactics like that work great and gave us the World Class healthcare bill we now live under. Always give more attention to the opposing side than your supporters.

where did I lie? I stated the truth.. running electric cars on a petroleum powered electric grid is even worse for the environment than the status quo.. maybe we should convert to nuclear first, then worry about electric cars? have you considered the costs of charging all these vehicles? there's a reason people don't use electric heat either.

Re:Why?

[Will.Woodhull]

I do not think there is any problem with what you suggest. That is pretty much how things work with acetylene and oxygen tanks.

The battery charging stations could be held responsible for assuring that any batteries approaching failure are pulled out of service and returned to the manufacturer who would refurbish or recycle them. The overheads involved would be passed on to the customer of course, but since it is distributed over years and presumably many, many drivers, the cost per battery swap would be too small to notice.

Re:Why?

[epyT-R]

even if the power plants were as efficient, the TRANSPORT is where the problem lies. oil or not, the context of this discussion was that carbon based fuel sources are damaging the environment.

Yes..and how long does it take to switch over? if we started today, it would be what? 5-10 years to build plants assuming they were funded, designed, insured (this is a big one), constructed in parallel, and with a massive country-wide push. this is a best case scenario which will never happen.. in reality it'll take half a century or more to do something like this as, like you suggest, it has to happen in stages. meanwhile, all the marketing and hype surrounding electrics will simply result in them having their tailpipes extrapolated back through a vastly less efficient delivery system (energy wise) compared with petroleum shipping and storage, causing us to burn more carbon per car than we were doing before, with lower performance and range as well.

people don't do certain things with electricity that they could in theory because of cost. it's easy to generate electricity, but hard to store it, which is key here. bottom line: if we're gonna burn the carbon anyway, lets use it as efficiently as possible until we find other systems.. one tank of gasoline has immense amounts of energy..to get that equivalent in batteries, the car would have to weigh twice what it does now. (no these are not calculated figures, they are meant to make a point). to get that equivalent charge INTO those batteries as charge will take a lot more carbon than simply burning the carbon onsite as needed.

I don't have a problem with being 'green', but a lot of the hippie-types involved will not see reason.. they don't like nuclear either. .they scream chernobyl every time someone suggests it.

Re:Why?

[smi.james.th]

Ah, but the question is, can it get to 88mph?? 125 is irrelevant IMO.

Re:Why?

[epyT-R]

where the carbon comes from is largely a non issue here. burning all that carbon to extract energy from it pumps it into the environment, which is the primary complaint with it..

Re:Why?

[FatLittleMonkey]

Electrons?

Re:Why?

[Rei]

Not only to laptop cells. UPS batteries (lead-acid) shrink in capacity (and increase internal resistance) quite fast, especially at higher temperatures.

And what major auto manufacturer is proposing to use UPS batteries to power an EV?

Yeah. So scratch that off the list.

Cellphone batteries (NiCd, NiMH, Li-Ion, Li-Pol) also shrink in capacity over time.

Modern cell phones are generally all powered by li-ion and variants (li-pol is just a li-ion variant). But great of you to bring up those other chemistries because, they too, by material, management, and charge/discharge profile curves, too can be made to have vastly different lifespans. Example: the NiMH pack in the Prius, which averages 10-15 years of life. They chose a target life and built to it.

NiFe are even heavier than lead-acid. But do you really want me to give you an example of a li-ion battery that's been running for over 100 years? There's a weeee bit of a problem with that notion....

Where I live, outside temperature can be anywhere from -35C (all time low -42.9) to +35C (all time high +37.5), the car with the battery will be outside and I might even want to drive it when it's -34C (and use the heater of course). Climate controlling the batteries will reduce the range of the car in the temperature extremes.

It is done, and not that much, actually. And, FYI, gasoline (and esp. diesel) cars don't exactly run so great in -34C either. Just as a random example, automotive-style li-ion batteries (your manganese spinels or phosphates) are much less cold sensitive than the PbA starter batteries your gasoline car relies on.

Re:Why?

[Rei]

Oh, and concerning your 32A panel: Amazing that you can run a house on that. Even old farmhouses in the US generally have twice that much power at their panel. Are you sure you're not just looking at a single breaker? In what country are such tiny feeds standard?

Re:Why?

[nacturation]

Sure there is. Charge time.

What's the charge time for turning this dead cow into a liter of gas?

Re:Why?

[kurzweilfreak]

Well, that's what I was hoping but I didn't take the time to think through the cost of replacing end-of-life batteries, who would pay that cost (duh, consumers), or how that cost would be spread. Glad someone agrees with me. :)

Re:Why?

[Pentium100]

And, FYI, gasoline (and esp. diesel) cars don't exactly run so great in -34C either.

Well, if the carburetor is tuned and valves are adjusted properly then it runs OK, until the engine warms up (while I scrape ice from the windows), then it runs pretty much the same as in warmer weather.

Example: the NiMH pack in the Prius, which averages 10-15 years of life.

And the gas tank in my car is 29 years old and still has pretty much the same capacity as it had when it was new. I also doubt that the batteries just fail after 10-15 years, they most likely shrink in capacity slowly over time, so the range slowly decreases.

Re:Why?

[ghjm]

Your momma.

Re:Why?

[ELCouz]

Lithuania!

Re:Why?

[SharpFang]

Got diesel? No, Superdiesel? No, bio-superdiesel for turbo engines.

Somehow they managed to standarize on exactly two incompatible kinds of fuel in multiple fully interchangeable variations, but I believe early cars rode on a wide variety that wasn't nearly as interchangeable. Also, fuel type is a result of very tricky distillation and mixing process. Battery shape is just putting it into an agreed upon case.

Re:Why?

[ghjm]

Yes, but that standardization was a result of government intervention in the market, which we aren't allowed to do any more.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole advantage of switching over to electric is that we can generate electricity from multiple sources. Then when one source runs out, you don't have to replace the whole fleet of cars, trucks, etc. just the source of electricity.

Re:Why?

[maxwell demon]

I can't tell if you realise that the 19th century is 1800 to 1899.

No, the 19th century is 1801 to 1900.

Re:Why?

[epyT-R]

I understand this, but my issue is the order.. first new energy, then new cars, at least for the changeover to electric. let's make sure we have an ample supply of cheap electricity that can overcome our (compared to energy densities of transported/stored petroleum) limited storage and transmission technologies before switching the heaviest of our energy loads onto the grid.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

> it's still petroleum..and from a green standpoint it still pumps carbon into the environment.

Uh, coal is not petroleum - it's a carbon-based fossil fuel, but petroleum is crude oil.

You sure you know what you're talking about?

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

ok, he's misused a term. lets discount his entire argument. way to go there buddy.

Re:Why?

[maxwell demon]

even if the power plants were as efficient, the TRANSPORT is where the problem lies. oil or not, the context of this discussion was that carbon based fuel sources are damaging the environment.

Did you also take into account the fuel used to deliver the fuel to the gas stations? It's not as if fuel transport would be free either.
A power plant will likely have a pipeline installed, which I guess is a more efficient means of transport. Especially if that pipeline is big.

Re:Why?

[maxwell demon]

Actually, I have a PV kit on top of my garage.

My bad . . . Nuclear or Photo Voltaic.

Or hydrelectric power. Or wind power. Or wave power. Or geothermal power. Or biodiesel. Even using wood to drive a steam engine driving a generator would not be using fossil fuel (not that I think is would be a good idea to do so).

Re:Why?

[SharpFang]

Stil, some standarization efforts still succeed. Blu-ray (yes, the battle with HD-DVD was not pretty), various computer interface and networking standards, the web, many more. And even though the beginnings may be painful, it will likely work in the end. Besides, you've got to standarize on a 12V plug in an arbitrary shaped (but standarized) box. It isn't nearly as hard as USB 3.0. And even the incompatible ones aren't utterly left out in the cold - they are still left with (slow) charging stations. (and besides, one could likely modify any older car to accept modern "trays" instead of the built-in batteries, just like about every modern car can be modified to run on LPG.

Re:Why?

[epyT-R]

agreed, that's a cost, but transmitting energy via electricity is not very efficient energy wise.

put 5 gallons of gas into the empty tank of your car.. drive until empty (or nearly so). calculate the mpg. try to make the driving habits of your trip something that can be reasonably duplicated with an electric. borrow an electric car and rent a gasoline generator that can charge it in its most efficient mode. drive until you run out of gas.. compare the stats.. I guarantee you will go farther, faster per unit of fuel on the conventional ICE than you will on the electric. while both the fuels and electrical characteristics of the grid are different then this simplistic setup, the point holds. this is why electrics only make sense in electricity abundant markets that are not based on burning carbon of some sort..which we do not have atm.

Re:Why?

[Pentium100]

Lithuania and it's a bigger than normal feed, IIRC standard is about 4kW. Yes, it is a single breaker (after all, it's a single phase supply), when it trips the whole house has no power. The breaker is three phase, but only one phase is connected.

Electricity is quite expensive, that's probably why not a lot of people are using big feeds, since heating is usually natural gas, wood/coal/etc or bought from the heating company (this is also how most multi flat buildings get heating), cooking is usually using natural gas (electricity only where you can't get a gas line, but then you would get three phase power and feed big enough). There are not that many other high powered devices that are active at once.

Re:Why?

[AK Marc]

Yes. Increasing the average kinetic energy within a substance is essentially unrelated to increasing the kinetic energy of a car. You are getting so worked up that you know a big word, you forgot to look at the context.

Re:Why?

[AK Marc]

As the AC pointed out, for one, the grid is *not* petroleum based, and an increase in EVs will reduce petroleum used. For another, your over-simplified conversion on one part and over-complicated on the other was given in an attempt to impart an incorrect view of the processes involved. Attempting to deceive through words is a lie (even if the words are true). You lied by making up shit to try to make electric worse than it is. Add that to the *lie* that EVs would use large amounts petroleum for their fuel, and you are obviously ignorant, repeating someone else's lies without understanding or a bald face liar who knows better.

Re:Why?

[The Wild Norseman]

In the 70s there was some speculation on flywheels for energy storage. High energy density, even higher power density (charge and discharge can be *very* fast) and some designs (called "superflywheels" and made with carbon fiber

The superflywheel was one of the best-kept secrets of the 70's as a matter of fact, issued only to African-American undercover crime fighters. They acted like ordinary Cadillacs until the passcode was said aloud ("Smoke these honky motherfuckers!") and then the engine would kick in like Black Dynamite.

BOOM baby! Awwww yeah!

Re:Why?

[cheekyjohnson]

Technology never improves or advances. Electric cars will always suck (and something "sucking" is a fact of the universe and not my opinion).

Re:Why?

[epyT-R]

ok lets use coal instead. someone here said it was 40% of the electric grid in the US. how does that change any of the points I made? even if coal is more efficient per unit of carbon (or whatever!) burned (I doubt it, but hey), it is still less efficient to pump all that resultant energy over great distances using electricity than it is to truck petroleum for use 'on site' in vehicles. There's a reason people don't use electricity for long term high energy tasks like home heating or even cooking. even projects like the hadron collider that require ridiculously large amounts of electricity operate relatively close to power sources in countries with a strong nuclear grid.. why? because it's cheaper and greener too.

assuming I'm 'lying' just because you disagree is fallacious. take your own advice. this makes me think it is you who has the emotional/political bandwagon to defend.. I assure you I do not. yes, my conversion explanation was simplified.. it was not intended to deceive. if you want to get into the physics and math of it, go ahead, since you infer a superior knowledge of it than I do.. ad hominems do not help do this. simply stating "an increase in EVs will reduce petroleum used" proves nothing either. this makes you sound like you're repeating propaganda.

Re:Why?

[Joce640k]

The real problem with flywheels is what happens in an accident. A whole lot of extra kinetic energy appears from nowhere and destroys everything in the vicinity.

Would you want a 100kg flywheel coming through your living-room window at 200,000 RPM?

Didn't think so.

Re:Why?

[Joce640k]

This is the real problem - when a flywheel (or its mounting) fails the results are truly catastrophic.

If the wheel stays together then everything in the vicinity gets shredded.

If it doesn't then the shrapnel from the ex-wheel will take care of business. I don't know about your dust explosion but the thought of a million carbon shards traveling at armor-penetrating speeds is enough to put me off wanting one in every car on the road.

Re:Why?

[Eunuchswear]

The greens need to accept something like ubiquitous nuclear energy before electric cars become feasible and more environmentally friendly than ICE based cars.

Did that in the '70s.

Oh, you're not living in France. Sorry.

Re:Why?

[adolf]

How do you dry your clothes? I live in the US and have mostly natural gas appliances, but my (very!) old entrance wiring has 60-Amp main fuses (240V split-phase). The electric clothes drier, alone, wants a 30A 240V circuit, so that hypothetically uses half by itself.

Now, I know you can dry your clothes with gas too (though it isn't too common here for whatever reason), but that's still just not very much power for other things that are generally electric, like power tools or an air compressor, fridge, microwave, toaster, etc....not to mention electronics, lighting, etc. (The lights in my home office alone use 600W when turned up.)

My house would not survive with 32A 240V service, even if I didn't use it to dry my clothes, unless I was being very careful about not switching too many things on at once -- especially if we're running power tools when working on the house.

Around here, 200A service is common for new home construction, my 60-amp service is considered very weak, and 3-phase is very rare except for commercial and industrial applications: I couldn't get 3-phase power even if I wanted it, as my neighborhood is not cabled to support it, nor are most others.

(And never mind an apartment that I lived in once, which had an electric forced-air furnace which consumed 8kW by itself, an electric range, and an electric water heater...all running from 240V split-phase.)

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

The biggest issue with the DMC-12 was that it was underpowered, and overpriced. It only had 110 KW motor. In this case, they can double the size with an electric and no big deal. The issue is battery management and energy density. Well, energy density is improving all the time. And if they provide a switch, they can make it possible for an electric car to double the miles just by preventing lead foot.
To be honest, I think that muscle cars like this wanted to be, are going to get a massive boost from electric. It is trivial to bump ANY electric car up in HP/KWs. You just have to give up distance. That is for now. OTH, a friend of mine threw a large block 455HO into his small block 69 camaro. He had to make EXTENSIVE changes to the car for that. Cut away the insides of the front. Hood was massively cut up. Beefed up tranny (different meaning back then compared to today) and suspension. All in all, it was pretty much a new car. With an electric car, I think that we will see a lot more hacking coming about.

Re:Why?

[Pentium100]

How do you dry your clothes?

Hang them outside (or in the bathroom) and wait.

Lights, well, each room has 40-180W of lights (some incandescent, some CFL), but they are not all at once - we have more rooms than people.

Power tools, well, the lawn mower is 1.5kW (but we are using a gasoline powered one - no cord to get wrapped around things). Other stuff is usually less than 1kW and two people (who would be using those tools) cannot use them all at once.

3 phase power can be had easily here (well, we have it in the summer house), since all wiring from (and to) the last transformer (which steps down from ~10kV to 230V for a few multi-flat houses or more individual houses) is 3phase. There is no need for split phase power (all equipment is 230V) so you either get two wires (one phase and one neutral) or 4 wires connected.

One more thing - I use about 1300kWh/month, around here this is considered "holy shit that's a lot, do you have electrical heating or stove?", since "normal" people (who do not have several PCs running 24/7) only use somewhere around 300 (individual house) or even lower (flat).

Re:Why?

[Endo13]

That was one car (not cars) and it was specifically built to set a speed record. It wasn't over 100mph, and it certainly wasn't cars in general, as GGP vaguely implied. GP is absolutely correct in that "electric cars" in the 19th century were doing 25mph or less. Claiming electric cars in the 19th century were doing over 100mph is about the same as claiming that piston-engine cars today are doing over 500mph.

Re:Why?

[Endo13]

And that particular car wasn't built in the 19th century.

Re:Why?

[Monchanger]

The main circuit breaker for my house is ~32A, which means that I can use about 7.3kW. 1.2kW is used by my computers, add the lights, TV, microwave, electric teapot and not that much is left for charging the car. I could get three phase power and more current but that would be expensive.

I'm sure this is a terribly stupid question but... Why do you run your teapot and microwave all night long?.

Re:Why?

[Pentium100]

Why do you run your teapot and microwave all night long?

I don't, but I have to reserve the power so that I don't have to go outside to unplug the car if I want to heat some food using the microwave and make some tea then plug it back in when I'm done.

OH, and we have 3 cars that are in use almost every day, so all 3 would need to be charged at the same time.

Re:Why?

[bill_mcgonigle]

So at some point, all of those other issues just go by the wayside. 800 miles not good enough for you? Then wait for 1000. Or 1200. But at some point, you hit your mark. And low current distribution panels are increasingly a thing of the past.

800 is more than I need. I could use 500 miles between charges in a 5-passenger family car that I expect to run for a moonshot. Charge rates can be as long as 10 hours. When do the density and price curves put the real cost of such a system on an even footing with a gasoline vehicle (including maintenance costs)?

Last I looked, a Prius netted out with a Corolla at 180,000 miles of ownership, but only because Toyota was eating the subsidies still. At market prices, it was still a loss.

I'm genuinely interested - I have no love of gasoline - but vehicles are tools to solve a problem for me, and economics are one of the most important factors.

Re:Why?

[bill_mcgonigle]

One more thing - I use about 1300kWh/month, around here this is considered "holy shit that's a lot, do you have electrical heating or stove?", since "normal" people (who do not have several PCs running 24/7) only use somewhere around 300 (individual house) or even lower (flat).

Despite having 200A service, I only get up to about 1100kWh/month when it's the middle of summer and I acquiesce to having a couple air conditioners running. I probably have 3 always-on PC's in the house, others that sleep, and an electric clothes dryer (propane for hot water and to supplement wood heat). I have power tools but don't put too many hours on them.

So, on 32A, you're doing quite well! Mining bitcoins are we? ;)

Re:Why?

[Pentium100]

Mining bitcoins are we? ;)

Tried it (when bitcoins were worth about 10EUR each), but the exchange rate soon dropped and now it is not profitable (that is, not even worth the electricity) to mine them. I have a couple of file servers (and torrent servers), a PC used as a router and so on, the functions are a bit distributed so no single computer is critical. The hardware is quite old (oldest server is 3x 700MHz), that's why I need a lot of computers, I could put all of the functions on a single new server (with &gt 5 hard drives) using virtual machines (and have these old computers as cold spares), but such a server costs a lot and I do not have that much money up front. So I have to wait until I can get a server tat meets my requirements used (and much cheaper).

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, so your complaint about electric vehicles comes down to the idea that you've got to power an electric vehicle with an even less efficient ICE than what is used to power the 'normal' car?

You want an equal comparison, using sensible methods? Try this:
Calculate how much energy your electric vehicle's battery can store.
Calculate the equivalent amount of gasoline, by determining the energy storage capacity of a gallon of gasoline and multiplying accordingly.
Put that much gasoline into your 'normal' car, and a full charge in your vehicle's battery. (or a full tank, and partial charge, if that's how it works out)

Drive them both on the same route at the same time.
See which one lasts longer. (Hint: It'll be the electric, because a 'normal' ICE car is about 16-20% efficient due to losses in the engine, transmission, etc., while the electric will easily hit about 50-60% efficiency without resorting to bleeding edge gear.)

The limiting factor on electric vehicles today isn't the efficiency of their drive systems. It's the energy density (and thus mass) of their batteries.
On the other hand, the vast majority of people spend their lives making daily trips of *less* than 100 miles, and that's well within the reach of electric vehicles today, even without improvements to battery technology.

Re:Why?

[treeves]

Swapping out several hundred pounds of battery doesn't sound like a one-minute job.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a reason people don't use electricity for long term high energy tasks like home heating or even cooking. even projects like the hadron collider that require ridiculously large amounts of electricity operate relatively close to power sources in countries with a strong nuclear grid.. why? because it's cheaper and greener too

Ok, now we know you're not lying, you just don't have a clue. Yes, some people use gas (natural gas, not gasoline) for cooking and heating, but a great many use electricity instead. If you live somewhere with gas lines to your house then you *probably* use gas to cook and heat, but you may also use electricity for one or the other (or even both). If you don't have gas lines to your house, or a big propane tank out back, you most certainly *do* use electricity for those functions.

Re:Why?

[treeves]

Sure. Can you say "pointless"?

Re:Why?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Definitely true. Is that 3x700 a Pentium-III machine? Those ran so hot!

I recently replaced my old-ish office server with a Phenom x6 and the power and cost ratio is fantastic! I use it to host my VM's that used to run on separate hardware. Cost is presently about $300 for a mobo/cpu/RAM. Dunno how that compares to your electric rates - for me it was a 5-month payback. One of the VM's was formerly a Pentium 4 server (for a PBX) that ran $50/mo in electric costs!

Re:Why?

[steveg]

The carbon fiber flywheels shred, so you don't get big chunks that would punch through an enclosure. You do need a strong enclosure though. Another posted cited shortage of titanium for the enclosures as being a reason these didn't catch on, which makes sense to me.

Traditional metal flywheels normally break into 3 asymmetric pieces, and no reasonable enclosure can handle that. The enclosures that I was reading about in the 70s had been successful at containing failures of the fiber flywheels.

Re:Why?

[Pentium100]

Is that 3x700 a Pentium-III machine?

Yes, Pentium 3 Xeon. Hot, but I guess not as hot as Pentium 4 (netburst), which is in another server (2x Xeon (nocona) 3GHz). Though both servers are quite well designed and manage to cool themselves quite well.

Cost is presently about $300 for a mobo/cpu/RAM.

Well, a rackmount case would add some more, but I am looking for server grade hardware - if it becomes a single point of failure then it should be as reliable as possible (at least have redundant PSUs and fans). Oh, and rack mountable. Also, I would most likely need new hard drives, most of my hard drives are IDE or parallel SCSI and they are not very big (biggest is 750GB), but there are a lot of them (about 12) and they won't fit in one case.

Current affordable used servers usually want SCSI drives which are too expensive (because they are usually at least 10kRPM). That's why I am waiting for a lower price of a used server with SATA connectors (and at least 6 drive slots). I could then use WD RE or Seagate Constellation ES drives.

5-month payback

Which to me means 5 months without any server at all, then buy a new server with the money I saved.

Re:Why?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Understood. For what it's worth, I made the same arguments to myself and realized I couldn't afford my ideal. I have a non-hotswap case and an MSI motherboard (I've had server-grade mobos fail, and at least it has good capacitors ). Going AMD lets you use ECC RAM without paying for an expensive memory controller (but make sure the BIOS can do it). I have a pair of desktop Hitachi 2TB desktop drives that I use for my VM storage with ZFS and a cheap SSD to help with the seek performance.

Based on my power consumption, I was able to justify buying on credit to replace the gear. The 7th month of electricity savings covered the interest. I'm of course completely ignorant of the credit market conditions in Lithuania.

I'm 10 months in and haven't lost any business or data to the decision, so for me it was the right thing to do.

Re:Why?

[Pentium100]

I'm of course completely ignorant of the credit market conditions in Lithuania.

To get a bank to lend you money you basically have to prove that you earn enough to not need the loan. As I am still a student and do not have a full-time job, the bank will never lend me money.

When I manage to buy what I want, I am planning to use it for 5-10 years. Well, assuming it does not completely fail before that (and I cannot find replacement parts). Or my ISP does not offer 10gbps connection (current connection - 300mbps up/down) and the server becomes too slow for it.

Re:Why?

[AK Marc]

ok lets use coal instead. someone here said it was 40% of the electric grid in the US. how does that change any of the points I made?

"using electric cars INCREASES our dependence [on oil/coal] due to their inefficiency." True, however, oil is imported. Coal is not. Thus the economic and global repercussions of funding terrorists through oil sales do not apply to coal. Also, note the new power being added to the grid is not the same ratio as existing. Solar and wind are being added at a greater rate than coal power, so absolute dependence is increasing as proportional dependence is decreasing.

There's a reason people don't use electricity for long term high energy tasks like home heating or even cooking.

I looked but was unable to find the homes heated with electricity vs fossil fuel. Electricity is more efficient, and the main reason gas is used is that it's cheaper per kWh than electricity. Piping gas around in pipes isn't vastly more efficient than piping electricity around in "pipes" of wire. But gas is often a no-cost byproduct of oil production, which taints your example. Yes, given gas for free (or nearly so) or electric for .17/kWh, people will choose gas. That's not a limitation of electric, but a factor of gas cost.

assuming I'm 'lying' just because you disagree is fallacious.

You are wrong, provably so, on so many thing (like the definition of petroleum) that you are either too stupid to operate a computer and wouldn't be posting, or are deliberately posting wrong information to give a false impression (making you a liar). It's not that I disagree. It's that you are posting false things in an attempt to deceive others that makes you a liar.

simply stating "an increase in EVs will reduce petroleum used" proves nothing either. this makes you sound like you're repeating propaganda.

Ha ha ha. You are trying to be funny, right? You are the one parroting the anti-EV propaganda. More EVs means less gasoline used. You are asserting that I'm wrong, which I take to be a positive assertion that "EVs used will increase the use of oil." Since EVs don't use oil, directly or indirectly, I'd think that your counter-intuitive and extraordinary claim would be the one that requires proof. Electricity can be generated in many different ways. Even if all the electricity in the US was generated from oil only, EVs would reduce the "dependence on oil" (your initial claim was about oil dependence). Because all it takes to change the fuel of every car is to change the generation plants, without any changes to the individual cars. That reduces the dependence because there isn't a dependence on the oil, it could be reduced in a matter of months from constructing generation facilities using alternate methods.

In other words, even if everything you've said in support of your position is true, you are still wrong. You are begging the question. You start with the answer you want, then pretend that you got there from logic and condemn others who don't use sufficient logic, when you didn't actually apply any logic at all. You stated your thesis, then supported it. I'm working the other way. I don't "prefer" one answer to another. I examine the reality until one answer becomes the clear leader. You should try it sometime. Science (and critical thinking, which you've demonstrated you lack) work best when you argue from the assumption you are wrong.

Re:Why?

[skids]

A battery rated at 1C with enough charge in it to provide a 250-400 mile range is obviously not being used at 1C. That's just what you need for going up long hills where the ultracap bank won't cut it.

As far as charging time is concerned, I sleep 8 hours a day. Anything under that is just peachy for my purposes, given I never take any of those sleepwalking drugs.

Re:Why?

[adolf]

Heh. What a bizarre set of circumstances: Expensive power, plentiful bandwidth.

Here in the States, folks would kill eachother to be the first person in line to subscribe to 300mbps symmetric service. My own VDSL connection is 12/1.5Mbps, and is considered rather fast by most of my (local) peers. The ISP does not offer anything higher than 18Mbps.

At my place, I've got two thirsty gaming rigs that stay powered up 24x7 (one for the wife), and another desktop that sleeps almost all of the time.

There's also a very lightweight (by today's standards) Athlon XP box with Gentoo which plays headless server 24x7 that can do whatever I ask of it except realtime video encoding. I could easily sidegrade that machine to something Atom-based and likely save enough on power to pay for it, but it's so bloody stable (with uptimes often measured in years, and zero crashes) that I really don't want to touch it.

Most of this runs from a 2kW inverter in a stout little UPS, which isn't the most efficient way to do things...but on the other hand, I haven't lost a power supply or hard drive since I started doing things that way. It's funny that this UPS could run half of a standard 4kW feed there. :)

As to split-phase wiring: Yeah, it's dumb. There's no good reason for it. Hypothetically 120V is safer, but it uses twice as much copper in the walls, in extension cords, in the primary windings of the transformers in all sorts of gear, and in electric motors as 240V does to do the same work. And it allows all sorts of issues with the neutral wire (lights can brighten when something big fires up on the other 120V leg) which just can't happen on straight single-phase power.

But that's just how it's always been, so we're stuck with it.

Re:Why?

[epyT-R]

the original argument was not about terrorists, not about whether petroleum is oil, or whether coal is dirty or clean, so I'm not going to address them. I'll strip it down to a basic level for you and I'll use 'fossil fuels' instead of the previous terms to silence your non sequiturs..

for a given amount of fossil fuel burned, it is more efficient to ship it, then burn it on site as needed, then to burn it, convert it to electricity (by whatever method, steam/ICE/fuel cell), transmit it, and then convert it into kinetic energy at the other end. in a system like this (which is the one we currently have), EVs DO burn them...you know when you have to charge? despite what most people think when they talk about this, charging one of these is not like charging your cellphone.. it's not 'free'. En masse, these things WILL significantly increase grid load, and thus everyones' power bill, badly, considering the equivalent spent on gasoline, which would give much more mileage and better performance per pound of carbon. This assumes similar weight, driving behavior, terrain , speed, and distance traveled. Since our electrical storage technologies are not even close to the energy density of a tank of gas, we need cheaper electricity and more efficient storage methods (I highly doubt electricity transmission methods will change much in the next 50 years). These (at least the former) must come first, BEFORE mass adoption of EVs if the goal is to reduce carbon footprint.

EVs probably do use some petroleum based products for lubrication. The plastics used to save weight for those inefficient, heavy batteries are probably petroleum based as well. There are other options, like bio plastics, but use of these depends on cost and engineering considerations (are they durable enough?). when it's time to dispose of those batteries, you've got quite a toxic mess on your hands. These things are not as green as you'd first think. could these issues be mitigated in the future? maybe, but right now that's how it is.

As for my reasoning skills, they are sufficient to discuss this topic at the level being discussed. Your language makes you out to be the one worshiping political altars, not mine.

Re:Why?

[epyT-R]

how much extra carbon do we generate if we suddenly switched everyone from ICE to EV? like you said, electrical transmission and storage is inefficient so we'd have to burn more fossil fuel to make up for that. whether the burning happens at the plant, or in your car's engine, the efficiencies are probably similar.. even if the plant is substantially more efficient, coupling it with the additional transmissions, conversions, and storage issues, make the EV less tenable (until we're on a fossil fuel free grid with cheaper electricity).

Re:Why?

[Pentium100]

It's funny that this UPS could run half of a standard 4kW feed there.

I have a 2kW (well, 2.2kW) UPS too. It is usually enough for about 20 minutes after power goes out. The UPS is only line-interactive (even then I could only afford it used, but it works quite well, despite being 13 years old). Computer power supplies do fail from time to time, but eact time a power supply failed I replaced it with a higher quality one. Hard drives, on the other and, are pretty reliable for me, IIRC only one hard drive failed in the last 9 years (and even it was kinda half-failure, the drive developed lots of bad sectors but can still spin) even though they have been spinning 24/7 for a few years (newest drive is 3 years old). Though it seems that I stopped buying hard drives right before the quality of Seagate drives went down.

Also, wen you use split-phase power you probably can't get 3 phase power (which would allow for even lower currents if the power hungry device used delta wiring). But then you can get 200A. If I wanted 200A the power company would most likely tell me to get 3 phase too (which makes sense - I either have lots of devices, so I can balance them on the phases or I have one big device, which would be 3 phase anyway).

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

I suppose you also think that coal is pumped out of the ground too?

Re:Why?

[adolf]

Well...

Let it be known that the 2kW online sinewave UPS had an excellent price: One might even say that I was paid to bring it home and use it. I'm simply very lucky to have such a modern and featureful unit. My only complaint is that the cooling fan is very loud, but I keep it in a closet so I don't hear it much.

If I were buying new, it'd almost certainly be a simple standby model with an AVR function (and/or "line interactive") to look after any voltage spikes or dips. (I'm wary of the concept because I've seen a lot of inexpensive, name-brand UPSs fail, sometimes spectacularly with smoke and everything, but that might just be because they're also by far the most common.)

I used to have a couple of big Best Ferrups units which weighed about 80 and 140 pounds, respectively, and they were particularly industrious things. But they eventually needed new batteries which I couldn't afford, and I didn't trust them at all after a flood subsequently kept them submerged in river water for 2 or 3 days.

They were pretty cool because of the giant ferroresonant transformer in them, which was completely capable of -passively- smoothing out the AC line voltage and killing any inbound/outbound RFI. The inverter was also capable of continuous duty, though the units were standby in design (the resonant transformer was able to roll right over the power loss detection/switching time like a flywheel, with no meaningful interruption in output). I'd thought about installing the smaller one in my work truck since it used a single 12V battery, to run small power tools or a soldering station from, or just to charge the truck battery in case I'd run it down somehow, but unfortunately didn't get around to it before the flood.

Those were free, too. The folks who had them knew they'd be useful to somebody. But they're too heavy and bulky to bother with trying to ship on an Ebay sale, so they were just happy to have someone haul them out (the other realistic option was that they'd have to carry them to the trash themselves).

Keep your eyes open. I'm sure these finds exist in your neck of the woods, also.

Back to power: Lots of commercial buildings here have 3-phase, 480V power. It's used for motor loads (AC compressors, blowers, elevators) mostly, and makes perfect sense in that application. I'm not sure how they bring it down to 120/240V single-phase for other more mundane loads just because I haven't had a good reason to study up on it. But whatever the method, it oddly leaves a leg of 208V available, which generally gets used for fixed overhead fluorescent lighting.

A lot of stage lighting gear and pro audio amplifiers here are also very happy with 208V. I really wish I fully understood why 208V is so common in such environments, while the rest of the usual stuff in this country uses voltages that are integer factors of 120V, but all I really know is that it mostly precludes using that sort of stuff at home on split-phase 240.

Some areas are wired for 3-phase, but almost zero residential areas are as such: 240V split-phase is absolutely the rule for home use, and 120V is absolutely the rule for small appliances that folks are expected to plug in themselves. (It's easy enough to discern the absence of 3-phase just by counting the overhead lines.)

And, really: I'm still shocked that you can't (generally) get high-current single-phase 240V where you're at, while my mind boggles at the possibility of having residential 3-phase. It's ideal for motor loads, and it really would be more efficient (in terms of Watt-hours per unit of work) for a lot of things around the average American home.

So. Despite your small main breaker, you've damned near got me as jealous about 3-phase power availability as I am about your bandwidth. :)

(Are Lithuanian girls hot? How is your immigration policy? Are German cars affordable there? What's the national stance on piracy and copyright? Do skilled people in Lithuania generally have English skills as good as your own, or will I want to learn the language first?) ;)

Re:Why?

[AK Marc]

when it's time to dispose of those batteries, you've got quite a toxic mess on your hands. These things are not as green as you'd first think. could these issues be mitigated in the future? maybe, but right now that's how it is.

They are much more "green" than you assert. All of them are designed with recycling in mind. Toxic chemicals are everywhere. Mercury in the CFLs and CCFLs (one being common "green" bulbs, and the other in nearly all LCD screens, probably including the one you are looking at while reading this). And people eat farmed salmon - don't ask what's in that. If some "toxic" substances sealed inside batteries recycled is causing you to lose sleep, you need to reevaluate your risk assessment skills.

En masse, these things WILL significantly increase grid load, and thus everyones' power bill, badly, considering the equivalent spent on gasoline, which would give much more mileage and better performance per pound of carbon

And what level of "en masse" is necessary for a 10% increase in your power bill, and when the additional load is on the grid, what is your local company adding to generation to meet the need? When I look locally, it's wind. So the additional load is almost all wind powered, meaning that by how you put the additional load on the EVs, the EVs burn wind, not fossil fuels. Is wind the most reliable way out there? Nope, but that's what they are throwing on the grid around here to supplement the recent growth. I'm sure you can assume the worst in all cases to further your irrational hate of EVs, but that will never make it true. "Green" power generation is growing much faster than coal plants (even dirty "clean" coal).

Your language makes you out to be the one worshiping political altars, not mine.

Nah, I just think that people who assert the best implementation of one tech against the worst of another are liars, and that's where I jumped in. I worship no political altar, but if you want to continue to make up such lies to make yourself feel better, feel free to do so. Or, you could stick to facts rather than false opinions presented as facts (lies). But you have such a track record so far, I wouldn't expect you to ever speak in a reasoned manner.

Re:Why?

[Pentium100]

Let it be known that the 2kW online sinewave UPS had an excellent price

I paid ~319EUR for my APC Smart-UPS 2200 with new 4x 12V/18Ah batteries that lasted 4 or 5 years. Then I bought some cheap batteries that failed after a year, now I have CSB EVX batteries that are designed for longer life and higher temperatures (in summer my room gets very hot, up to 40C, and the UPS spins its fan only when charging/discharging batteries).

It outputs a clean sine wave, a couple of AC motors (fans to cool my room) run on it without any problem. As far as I can see, the UPS uses two huge transformers that, when the USP is on battery, make the image in my CRT monitor shake. The UPS is about 60cm away from the monitor (under the desk).

But they're too heavy and bulky to bother with trying to ship on an Ebay sale

Yea, my UPS weighs ~25kg without batteries. The batteries add another ~27kg.

Lots of commercial buildings here have 3-phase, 480V power.

So, a single phase voltage of 277V (?), weird. I guess some weird configuration is used to make it more compatible with the 110V voltage.
Here in 3 phase configuration, the voltage between phases is 400V.
Big AC motors and big heating units use 3 phases. For motors it's obvious, for heaters, I guess it allows to distribute the load over all phases and reduces the need for thick cables (especially if the heater is delta connected and gets the 400V).

I'm still shocked that you can't (generally) get high-current single-phase 240V where you're at, while my mind boggles at the possibility of having residential 3-phase.

Well, maybe I could get a big single phase feed, but it would be smarter to just use 3 phase if i want a lot of power. I have not tried to get 100A single phase, so I cannot say for certainty that you cannot do that.

Are Lithuanian girls hot?

As everywhere - some are hot and some are not.

How is your immigration policy?

I don't really know, but there are foreigners living here, so I guess it's possible :)

Are German cars affordable there?

Well, used cars are affordable and almost nobody buys new cars. German cars are quite popular though. Even my car is German (Mercedes W123 made in 1982).

What's the national stance on piracy and copyright?

Officially - its illegal. Actually - nobody cares about individuals (BSA sometimes ruins some company's day). LANVA (our anti-piracy organization) has been fighting linkomanija (our version of the pirate bay) with no luck. Last case was against some people downloading Windows 7 - the court said that screenshots of uTorrent "peers" tab are invalid as evidence because uTorrent has not been certified as a tool for evidence gathering (like the police radars and so on).

Do skilled people in Lithuania generally have English skills as good as your own, or will I want to learn the language first?) ;)

Young people usually can speak English (with varying skill - for example while I can read/write/understand English quite well, if you want to talk with me, be prepared for pauses). Older people usually can speak Russian (Russian was mandatory in school when the Soviets were here and English is usually mandatory in school* after they left).
* that is, one foreign language is mandatory, but the school can choose which. Most of them go with English tough. The foreign language is usually taught since starting with second orr third grade and continues to the 12th (final) grade.

Re:Why?

[Rei]

I'm quite surprised that your starter turns over with the battery at -34C.

I also doubt that the batteries just fail after 10-15 years, they most likely shrink in capacity slowly over time, so the range slowly decreases.

Indeed, the standard for modern EVs is to warranty the pack for 8-10 years, with "failure" being rated as below 80% capacity. Tesla doesn't do that, though -- they "estimate" a 7 year pack lifespan, but don't warranty it (but will pre-sell a replacement pack at a notably reduced price, counting on the future cell price reduction, since it's predictable enough). Note that the warranty age is obviously shorter than the typical failure age.

The average car on the road in the US is about 10 years old. Congrats for keeping yours running so long. :)

Re:Why?

[Pentium100]

I'm quite surprised that your starter turns over with the battery at -34C.

What I am supposed to do when it's -34 outside? Try to push start the car? I seriously doubt that it will start then. If the battery is in good condition and a proper size (mine is 88Ah and IIRC 800A) the car should start.

The average car on the road in the US is about 10 years old.

Here people usually buy 10 year old cars when they want to replace their car. With newer cars te price goes up too fast compared to quality etc (diminishing returns).Last year I chose to have my car restored (mainly patching up the 28 years of rust, the engine runs fine with regular maintenance (valve, carburetor, LPG vaporizer adjustment), but the body was quite rusted, especially the underside) over buying a newer car, because I like it (and it has a simple electrical system - no computers, so I can fix most of the electrical problems myself) and it was in the family since my dad bought it in 1996 and I was a kid. My dad is driving a 1996 car now (with very complex electronics).

Re:Why?

[nacturation]

Your momma.

Odd... that's exactly what she said.

Obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

While it doesn't run on fusion power (yet)

... yes, but does it run Linux?

Re:Obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you imagine a Beowulf cluster of these?

And do they blend?

Re:Obligatory

[maxwell demon]

In Soviet Russia, fusion power runs on you.
In Korea, only old people run on fusion power.

Damn, is it April 1 already?

[Radical Moderate]

n/t

Re:Damn, is it April 1 already?

[justin12345]

I'm a child of the 80s, but I have to agree. What is so exciting about DeLoreans? Is it the gall-wings? Other than that they look like oversized, over-priced Toyota hatchbacks. I know they are made of stainless steel, but that couldn't really seem like a feature, even back then. Stainless steel at sheet metal thickness is basically just nickel.

Were those cars actually popular before Back to the Future? I don't remember seeing any on the road.

Re:Damn, is it April 1 already?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nickel, SS, whatever. It doesn't rust. It doesn't chip. It doesn't fade. Hell yeah it's a feature (vs. ordinary paint-over-low-carbon-steel cars, not the handful of aluminium cars) -- just not necessarily a big enough one to overcome their underperforming little engine.

Re:Damn, is it April 1 already?

[jklovanc]

It doesn't rust but it dents and scratches just fine. Get into a minor fender bender and you need to replace panels. If you fix a dent in brushed stainless steel you will always see it. Add to that the fact that welding stainless isn't easy. What about weight; stainless isn't very light.

Re:Damn, is it April 1 already?

[Nom du Keyboard]

My thought exactly.

Re:Damn, is it April 1 already?

[scottbomb]

I highly doubt this car will be made out of stainless steel. The article mentions SS models but it doesn't explicitly say this one will be. It will therefore be a cheap knock-off that nobody will want.

Re:Damn, is it April 1 already?

[YouDieAtTheEnd]

It's the frikkin time machine from Back to the Future! Everybody that saw that movie as a kid wanted one and probably still does. The gull wing doors just add to the high tech appeal as do the sharp lines and stainless steel body.

Stainless steel at sheet metal thickness is basically just nickel.

Maybe you're thinking of a stainless steel finish? I'm pretty sure that nickel content in stainless doesn't usually go above 10%

Re:Damn, is it April 1 already?

[mikael]

Yes, the gull-wings, plus the futuristic white with black speed-stripes, sports-car look with the large rear light indicators made it distinctive. At least from the estate-cars with the adhesive wood-panel veneer look, the three-wheeled Reliant robins, Rover Minis, and Volkeswagon Beetles (aka Herbie).

Re:Damn, is it April 1 already?

[Boigaz]

no no. not stainless steel... aluminium

Re:Damn, is it April 1 already?

[justin12345]

I might be dead wrong, I'm just going on what I've been told by people more knowledgable then myself. My understanding is that for stainless steel to be immune to oxidation, it must have the iron atoms removed from its surface. It's usually dipped in sulfuric acid, which leaves behind only nickel (on the surface). With something as thin as sheet metal, most of what you have left is nickel.

I may be wrong though, I have no experience, I'm just parroting what I've heard said by friends that work on expensive cars and planes. Obviously the thickness of the sheet is an important variable too.

Re:Damn, is it April 1 already?

[aztracker1]

anodized aluminum might be cool, and lighter than steel.. I think the wing-style doors are lame though.

Re:Damn, is it April 1 already?

[justin12345]

I'm positive on the stainless steel part, even wikipedia backs me up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeLorean_DMC-12

Aluminum might be cool, but I have a feeling its tendency to warp under stress limits it's use automobile wise.

Re:Damn, is it April 1 already?

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't they make a really big deal about tossing the casts into the sea? So that was pointless then?

Re:Damn, is it April 1 already?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't call them "popular" amongst normal people, but they were iconic enough by the time that movie came out that they were recognizable by most people -- and given Marty's initial reaction, a sort of kitschy icon at that.

You didn't see them on the road because they were always broken down.

Re:Damn, is it April 1 already?

[Anonymous Coward]

No it will be Stainless Steel. I own a DeLorean and know the guy who is working on this. He has a warehouse of the original DeLorean spare parts and he needs to turn them into cars to recoup his investment. The way that the DeLorean is built, the stainless doesn't add that much weight. They are just panels that bolt onto a fiberglass body. It is actually a pretty light car.

Re:Damn, is it April 1 already?

[seqex]

I highly doubt this car will be made out of stainless steel. The article mentions SS models but it doesn't explicitly say this one will be. It will therefore be a cheap knock-off that nobody will want.

the DMCEV will be stainless steel. jumping to any other conclusion is highly illogical. *(go to end of my post for update with proof.) for starters, no-one has ever made a non-stainless steel delorean, and the reincorporated delorean motor company has never entertained the idea, nor has any other entity. it would cost them more to implement a new manufacturing process using conventional steel or aluminium. but let's say they weren't purists about the stainless steel concept and figured that would have saved them money in the long run, they would have done it by now on the re-manufactured DMC-12 models they sell today. they acquired stockpiles of the remaining parts from the old DMC-12 factory in ireland AND already implemented new manufacturing processes (using stainless steel) for the parts they still need and for when they run out of new-old-stock parts.
the author of this brief article didn't mention these electric models using stainless steel because he/she assumes the reader knows any delorean is and will be stainless steel. all they are doing is replacing the engine and the dashboard in a DMC-12, because that's the easiest and most economical way to accomplish what they want to do here. to boot, delorean motor company is passionate about the original delorean vision and design theory, and they're certainly not going to cut corners on a $90-100k sticker price vehicle. they're going to make something THEY want to drive. this isn't some low end design division of GM that's trying to churn out sub $20k hatchbacks with plastic wheel covers.

*update* just before i post this. i just found the jalopnik review here: http://jalopnik.com/5850448/electric-delorean-first-drive the DMCEV is definitely stainless steel, as the reviewer says "I'm still buzzing from the sensation of closing the stainless steel gullwing door just moments earlier." and the up close picture of the hood also shows the brushed grain of the stainless steel: http://cache.jalopnik.com/assets/images/12/2011/10/xlarge_delorean_night_02.jpg

Re:Damn, is it April 1 already?

[j-beda]

That doesn't seem to be correct

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stainless_steel#Properties

"The chromium forms a passivation layer of chromium(III) oxide (Cr2O3) when exposed to oxygen. The layer is too thin to be visible, and the metal remains lustrous. The layer is impervious to water and air, protecting the metal beneath. Also, this layer quickly reforms when the surface is scratched. This phenomenon is called passivation and is seen in other metals, such as aluminium and titanium. Corrosion-resistance can be adversely affected if the component is used in a non-oxygenated environment, a typical example being underwater keel bolts buried in timber."

Re:Damn, is it April 1 already?

[seqex]

actually, fixed dents are virtually invisible from what i've heard from every DMC-12 owner and service shop. and if the stainless steel scratches -- you can just buff it out. never any need to repaint, not even clear-coat, and no need to wax.

see an example of dent removal here: http://www.deloreanreborn.com/index.php?itemid=123

Re:Damn, is it April 1 already?

[justin12345]

Crap, you're totally right. It's chromium not nickel. I got my metals mixed up, and didn't bother to double check wiki.

Re:Damn, is it April 1 already?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, Marty McFly had it right when he said, "A DeLorean?!"

Back in the early 80's, I worked at a small repair shop where one of our customers had a DMC-12. In the beginning, he thought that car was the cat's ass but after about 25,000 miles, he couldn't wait to get rid of it. I think it spent about as much time in our shop as it did on the road and getting parts or any kind of support for the damn thing was a horrible experience.

They were expensive, mechanically and electrically unreliable, heavy, underpowered, handled like shit, got bad mileage, and not to mention the engine fires.

Re:Damn, is it April 1 already?

[Anonymous Coward]

... just not necessarily a big enough one to overcome their underperforming little engine.

Have you driven one? It's not a rocket, but the package is very entertaining. Easy to toss and catch, lovely chassis and brakes. 0-60 or quarter mile times are a pretty limited way to rate a car.

Re:Damn, is it April 1 already?

[dbIII]

It's a continous protective oxide layer that forms as soon as you cut it and expose it to air - just like with aluminium and titanium alloys. So the surface corrodes and then it stops. Iron on it's own has a broken and porous layer of rust and the rust can just keep on going.
Throughout a piece of stainless steel you have a fairly consistant mix of all the allowing elements if it's the non-magnetic austenitic stainless steel (single phase which means the same all the way through), or a second carbon rich phase for the less common magnetic ferritic stainless steel.
When it comes down to it the stuff is steel with about 20% or less of extra stuff in it. That means although it is stronger than mild steel thin sheets bend just the same (up to a point) even if they spring back into their original shape. Thin sheets are going to feel cheap and flimsy even if it is a very strong steel.

Re:Damn, is it April 1 already?

[Bob the Super Hamste]

Aluminum has been used in automobiles for years in cars like the BMW 3.0 CSL (the original one), Honda Insight (original one), Audi A2, BMW 507, Mercedes-Benz 300SL (an option that not all of them had) and probably some others as well. The oldest of these vehicles is the Mercedes-Benz 300SL but the oldest one where it was standard was the BMW 507.

Re:Damn, is it April 1 already?

[YouDieAtTheEnd]

Also, it's not dipped. You're thinking of electroplating or a chrome finish. Stainless steel is an alloy of steel and chromium with either nickel or manganese added.

Re:Damn, is it April 1 already?

[Sparckus]

The guy that owns the place at about 20:00? (Wheeler Dealers = win)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=804iYqNQetk

Re:Damn, is it April 1 already?

[jklovanc]

The dent came out just fine but the finish is now changed. In an untouched car all the lines in the brushed finish go in one direction. After the repair some of the lines now go different direction. That can be seen below and to the left of the penny in the first "after" picture. Under certain lighting conditions the difference can be quite obvious.My point was that it is difficult to exactly match a brushed finish after repair.

Re:Damn, is it April 1 already?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know... in nearly 30 years 6,500 out of 9,000 vehicles made are still on the road. I'd like to see Ford show a similar statistic on their vehicle longevity.

They're still around??

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought they were busted for cocaine smuggling?

Re:They're still around??

[Anonymous Coward]

It was entrapment... he was found not guilty.

At any rate, there's a place in Texas that's been sitting on a huge stock of parts for years. They've been producing the cars in small amounts (think a dozen or two) a year for about the last five years or so. I'd be interested in one if I had the money and they are putting in better engines. The DMC-12 had a damn lawnmower engine in it.

http://www.delorean.com

Re:They're still around??

[LifesABeach]

Will the Factory Rebate be under the back seat?

Re:They're still around??

[AK Marc]

It has a Volvo car. The safest in the world because you can't go over 35 mph in one because their engines suck. Then they started using turbos, and evreyone realized their suspensions, seats, and build quality sucked. Then, Ford realized how much better Volvos are than Fords, and bought Volvo.

1.21 gigawatts

[roman_mir]

This sucker is electrical!

The only question remains - do you need to wait for a lightning storm to charge it?

Re:1.21 gigawatts

[siddesu]

Not if you live in Japan. You can use the plutonium from the sea urchins directly.

Re:1.21 gigawatts

[roman_mir]

were the Libyans notified?

Re:1.21 gigawatts

[lister king of smeg]

no you can also use a Mr Fusion cold fusion generator

Re:1.21 gigawatts

[lennier]

This sucker is electrical!

Marty, the time circuits are electrical, but the internal combustion engine runs on gasoline! It always has!

Re:1.21 gigawatts

[siddesu]

Yes, the NATO envoy has informed both Libyan governments.

Re:1.21 gigawatts

[roman_mir]

Sorry, I didn't mean to say Libyans. I meant to say lesbians.

Re:1.21 gigawatts

[CaptainJeff]

If you're going to quote, get the quote right.

Mr Fusion powers the time circuits and the flux capacitor. But the internal combustion engine runs on ordinary gasoline, it always has.

Re:1.21 gigawatts

[Anonymous Coward]

I am currently engaging in oral communication with them. Be at peace.

Re:1.21 gigawatts

[roman_mir]

Where we're going, we don't need roads.

Or combustion engines.

260 horsepower...

[johnthorensen]

...can someone give that to me in jiggawatts?

Re:260 horsepower...

[Anonymous Coward]

260 hp = 1.94e-4 GW

"jigga" is an accepted pronunctiation of the "giga" prefix.

Re:260 horsepower...

[Anonymous Coward]

That wasn't cool. You made the voice in my head say "jigga-bytes". Disturbing.

Re:260 horsepower...

[Anonymous Coward]

It was gigawatts. What's funny is that he pronounced it jiggawatts because the prefix "giga" was not in common use at the time. How many jiggabytes does your hard drive have?

Re:260 horsepower...

[gstrickler]

"jigga" is an accepted pronunctiation of the "giga" prefix.

No. No, it's not. Only in english (possibly in a few other languages) could you possibly pronounce the two g's differently, and even then it's relatively uncommon and usually derives from combining roots from two different original languages, or from a deliberate construction for the purpose of creating distinctness.

Re:260 horsepower...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Only in English"

Yes, this is English.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/giga

"combining roots from two different original languages"

Languages such as Greek and English?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giga-

Re:260 horsepower...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually "jiga" is the correct pronounciation, seeing that it derives from a greek word that is pronounced like that. And in other languages I speak, it is pronounced as "jiga" in all of them.

Re:260 horsepower...

[msauve]

"Only in english could you possibly pronounce the two g's differently,"

How do you pronounce "gigantic," which is from the same Greek root?

Re:260 horsepower...

[ChrisMaple]

"jigga" was the preferred pronunciation when the prefix was devised. Ignorant usage made giga (hard g, long i) common, and by the usual progression of language, giga has become the default.

Vox populi, vox dei.

Re:260 horsepower...

[Anonymous Coward]

And you just made the voice in my head say "jibi-bytes." Deeply disturbing.

Re:260 horsepower...

[snowgirl]

"jigga" is an accepted pronunctiation of the "giga" prefix.

No. No, it's not. Only in english (possibly in a few other languages) could you possibly pronounce the two g's differently, and even then it's relatively uncommon and usually derives from combining roots from two different original languages, or from a deliberate construction for the purpose of creating distinctness.

You realize that the Greek gamma is pronounced as a voiced velar fricative now right? So, neither English pronunciation is actually "correct". Although, Dutch would pretty much have the most accurate pronunciation.

Re:260 horsepower...

[snowgirl]

And you just made the voice in my head say "jibi-bytes." Deeply disturbing.

I can't find any "official" pronunciation direction for gibibytes, but my understanding was always that the "giga-" prefix is always pronounced like "jigga-" unless you're talking about computers, in which case it's always pronounced with a "hard" g.

In any case, I'm one of those freaks who actually does use the -bi- notation, and it usually causes people to stare at me and say, "did you just say giBIbyte?"

Re:260 horsepower...

[snowgirl]

Actually "jiga" is the correct pronounciation, seeing that it derives from a greek word that is pronounced like that. And in other languages I speak, it is pronounced as "jiga" in all of them.

Checking the various language Wikipedias, it seems to be relatively split actually. Arabic, and Spanish use "jiga-"; Japanese, German, Esperanto, Russian, Hebrew use "giga-", French uses "zhiga-" ("jiga-" with a fricative instead of an affricative in the same place of articulation.), Greek and I presume Dutch both use the voiced velar fricative. (These were the only ones I could really check for sure, as they have strictly accurate spelling, or their Wikipedias have a clear pronunciation note. It appears that all of the Scandinavian Germanic languages/dialects use "giga-" but I can't be sure enough of my understanding of their pronunciation notes.)

So, it appears kind of like it's all over the map... if you can update me about which languages you can vouch for "jiga" as the correct pronunciation, I'd be interested in hearing them. (I'm a crazy linguaphile, if you couldn't tell.)

Re:260 horsepower...

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. Much like Wifi - WhyFi/Weefee, Wikipedia - WickaPedia/Weekeepedia.

(btw, WeekeePedia is the correct pronunciation as it's based on the Hawaiian Wiki Wiki shuttle which is pronounced weekee weekee)

Re:260 horsepower...

[colinrichardday]

Those few other languages would include French, Spanish, and Italian. The soft g seems to be mostly a Romance language thing. True, "giga" is Greek (which as far as I know only has hard g).

Re:260 horsepower...

[AK Marc]

Ignorant usage made giga (hard g, long i) common,

I can say I've never heard anyone pronounce it that way. It's always short i when I hear it.

Re:260 horsepower...

[colinrichardday]

Did ancient Greek even have a j sound? I thought that all of their g's were hard.

Re:260 horsepower...

[gstrickler]

Which would not result in "jigga", but in two soft g's.

Re:260 horsepower...

[gstrickler]

And how to you pronounce that root in greek?

Re:260 horsepower...

[gstrickler]

And that does not counter my (rather tongue in cheek) statement that "jigga" is not an accepted pronunciation or that english is the primary (possibly the only) language that might pronounce the two g's differently.

Re:260 horsepower...

[colinrichardday]

No, g followed by a, o, or u is hard in those languages, well "gui" in Italian is pronounced like "gwee" in English.

Re:260 horsepower...

[gstrickler]

Good point. Obviously, I overlooked that. Thanks for the correction/reminder.

Still, "jigga" as pronounced in "Back to the Future" is not an accepted pronunciation, unless you're using it for humorous effect. In those languages, the first g would be soft, and the second hard, but that's not the same as starting with an english "j"

Re:260 horsepower...

[Anonymous Coward]

0.195 jiggawatts of electric motor means at least about 0.7 metric asstons/metre of torque at 0rpm. Seriously, they need to start teaching the metric system in American schools.

Re:260 horsepower...

[snowgirl]

And that does not counter my (rather tongue in cheek) statement that "jigga" is not an accepted pronunciation or that english is the primary (possibly the only) language that might pronounce the two g's differently.

"jigga-" is actually considered to be the proper pronunciation in the USA, and the "giga-" is considered the mispronunciation (and typically confined solely to computers).

Also, English is not the only language that has two pronunciations for "g" Spanish, and Italian both have pronunciations dependent upon the following vowel (Spanish <ge>, <gi> -> /x/ or /j/, <ga>, <go>, <gu> -> /g/; Italian <ge>, <gi> -> /dZ/, <ga>, <go>, <gu> -> /g/). As well, so does Swedish, <ge>, <gi>, <gö>, <gä> -> /x\/ or /j/, <ga>, <go>, <gu>, <gå> -> /g/.

But, let's presume that we want to limit our discussion strictly to the prefix "giga-", Arabic and Spanish both pronounce it "jigga-", Arabic is even clear about this, as it is spelled with their "j" character, which is distinct from their "g" character. Spanish even has a wikipedia page about it, noting that it is properly pronounced "jiga", except in computer science where it is "yiga", which is how "giga-" should properly be pronounced in Spanish, as the <g> is a front vowel.

So, no English is neither special nor unique in its treatment of the "giga-" prefix... At least two other languages pronounce it as "jigga-", and one of those two even has the proper pronunciation as an exceptional pronunciation that is regularized in computer science to conform with proper orthography.

Re:260 horsepower...

[gstrickler]

Someone already corrected my about french, spanish, and italian with the following vowel. I had forgotten about it, but I did know it.

"jigga" is still not an acceptable pronunciation, unless you're using it for humorous effect. I don't care what source you cite, it's not an acceptable pronunciation, and never will be. :)

Re:260 horsepower...

[colinrichardday]

See Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giga#Pronunciation

Re:260 horsepower...

[snowgirl]

"jigga" is still not an acceptable pronunciation, unless you're using it for humorous effect. I don't care what source you cite, it's not an acceptable pronunciation, and never will be. :)

Oh... so you're going the denialist route. "I don't care what evidence you show me, evolution/global-warming is a conspiracy to fool Americans into accepting socialism."

Re:260 horsepower...

[gstrickler]

No, I'm going the "jigga" is a stupid pronunciation route, so I refuse to acknowledge it as valid.

Re:260 horsepower...

[snowgirl]

No, I'm going the "jigga" is a stupid pronunciation route, so I refuse to acknowledge it as valid.

I'm with you! I pronounce gigantic as "ggigantic" not as "jigantic". </sarcasm>

Re:260 horsepower...

[gstrickler]

Clearly everyone missed the sarcasm of my initial response, so I'll be blunt.

"jigga" is a stupid pronunciation so I refuse to acknowledge it as valid. I don't need any evidence, it's an opinion and nothing more.

However, if you want evidence, according to the wikipedia link, "According to the American writer Kevin Self, a German committee member of the International Electrotechnical Commission proposed giga as a prefix for 109 in the 1920s, drawing on a verse by the humorous poet Christian Morgenstern that appeared in the third (1908) edition of Galgenlieder (Gallows Songs). This suggests that a hard German [] was originally intended as the pronunciation."

Re:260 horsepower...

[gstrickler]

Touche'

Re:260 horsepower...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah and I'm going to start saying the word 'give' as 'jive'. Or 'giggle' as 'jiggle'. Jotta love how inconsistent the English language is.

Re:260 horsepower...

[maxwell demon]

You realize that the Greek gamma is pronounced as a voiced velar fricative now right?

Now if I knew what a voiced velar fricative is ...

Re:260 horsepower...

[Anonymous Coward]

"jigga" is still not an acceptable pronunciation, unless you're using it for humorous effect. I don't care what source you cite, it's not an acceptable pronunciation, and never will be. :)

Not acceptable because everyone else accepts it and you don't?

IIRC, before computer guys got ahold of it for "gigabit" and "gigabyte," the standard pronunciation in other fields was (and is) "jigga."

Re:260 horsepower...

[91degrees]

They're metric asstonnes (or arsetonnes in britian and commonwealth countries). The asston is the imperial measure.

Re:260 horsepower...

[roman_mir]

Nobody needs more than 1.21 gigawatts.

Re:260 horsepower...

[suprslackr420]

giggity

Re:260 horsepower...

[Cowmonaut]

260 horsepower == 0.00019388 gigawatts

Definitely not enough on its own for time travel :/

GREAT SCOTT!!

[Anonymous Coward]

nt

Wow,

[RLU486983]

talk about Back to the Past!

Re:Wow,

[donotlizard]

Awesome! An interestingly expensive way for me to finally become a giant douche.

Re:Wow,

[Eil]

Looks to me like your dreams have already been realized.

88mph

[Anonymous Coward]

...is your speed limit, despite what they claim (125mph), coz, you know, if you exceed that, you'll be back in 1885...

What extras does it come with?

[Anonymous Coward]

"There’s no announcement on the vehicle’s range, but cost is projected to be in the $90-100K range

Read more: All-Electric DeLorean Car To Hit the Streets in 2013! | Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World "

At that price does it come with a briefcase of cocaine?

Re:What extras does it come with?

[FrostDust]

Isn't that similar to the Tesla Roadster?

How far will it travel

[countertrolling]

on the iPhone's battery?

DMC?

[scarboni888]

How can that outfit even still exist?

Re:DMC?

[Anonymous Coward]

maintenance for the first model

Re:DMC?

[damn_registrars]

This is not the DeLorean Motor Company that we knew in the 1980s. This is a resurrection of the name, by a . Which is how they are able to take the original car, put whatever they want into it, and still call it the DMC-12.

And since they have a number of original 1980s chassis, they can sell them as "reconstructed" 1980s cars, and they don't need to worry about modern safety and environmental requirements.

Re:DMC?

[Teancum]

When DeLorean Motors was liquidated, the naming rights along with the spare parts inventory and a few unfinished chassis went to some group of investors in Texas where they continued to "hand-build" a few cars at a time based off of the original DMC-12 model design. They also purchased the production certificate, with some restrictions that didn't really matter due to the low production volume.

So the company, in one form or another, has been around awhile even if they haven't exactly been thumping their chest about what it is that they are doing except to existing owners (buy genuine DeLorean parts for your cars!) and to the hobby car/car mod market.

It isn't as if this is something new. Louis Chevrolet originally established the company that bears his name, did some fancy racing with cars, sold the company to General Motors, then blew his money where he finally ended up becoming a mechanic.... working on Chevrolet vehicles including on the engine he designed himself. Then again Chrysler isn't exactly under the same management team they were operated under two decades ago... with several incarnations of that company over the years.

Re:DMC?

[SgtXaos]

I was in Houston a few years ago, and had to drive up north of town to get some equipment. Looked over and next to the highway, I saw DMC's place. Freaked me out a little, 'till I did some research later and found out about the resurrected brand and their manufacturing of cars from NOS and other parts.

Re:DMC?

[Bob the Super Hamste]

And since they have a number of original 1980s chassis, they can sell them as "reconstructed" 1980s cars, and they don't need to worry about modern safety and environmental requirements.

So true a vehicles age is based off of the date of the chassis. This allows all sorts of fun thing with older cars and is why my project car is going to be a super charged alcohol burner. A few years back I remember reading about some original AC Ace chassis that Carrol Shelby and his company had and how they were going produce a few more Shelby Cobras using them. Because the date of the chassis they didn't have to comply with modern emission standards but could dump any modern engine into them.

It's gigawatts pronounced oddly...

[rwade]

260 horsepower...can someone give that to me in jiggawatts?

Anyway, here is, from google.

Re:It's gigawatts pronounced oddly...

[Yvan256]

260 horsepower = 0.000193881967 gigawatts

So, I just carry a rug around and wipe it to get a static charge into the car every once in a while?

Re:It's gigawatts pronounced oddly...

[gman003]

Considering that's still nearly 200 kilowatts (or about the consumption of the UNIVAC I), I think you're going to need a lot more rug.

Re:It's gigawatts pronounced oddly...

[Kryptonian Jor-El]

The man wanted jiggawatts, not gigawatts, but thanks for trying

Re:It's gigawatts pronounced oddly...

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking only for myself, I like a woman with a nice rug. Not an unkempt jungle, but at least something so I know she's a woman.

Re:It's gigawatts pronounced oddly...

[CyberDong]

According to BTTF.COM, it's jigowatts.

Re:It's gigawatts pronounced oddly...

[CyberDong]

stupid preview... changing links and stuff... it's http://bttf.com/index2.php

Re:It's gigawatts pronounced oddly...

[Daniel Dvorkin]

The man wanted jiggawatts, not gigawatts, but thanks for trying

I guess the Kryptonian education system isn't what it used to be.

Re:It's gigawatts pronounced oddly...

[Pharmboy]

jiggawatts == gigawatts. It is just an alternate pronunciation, one more quirk of old Doc Brown.

cite

Re:It's gigawatts pronounced oddly...

[nitehawk214]

I think you're going to need a lot more rug.

That's what she said?

Re:It's gigawatts pronounced oddly...

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering that's still nearly 200 kilowatts (or about the consumption of the UNIVAC I), I think you're going to need a lot more rug.

That's what she said

Re:It's gigawatts pronounced oddly...

[Anonymous Coward]

1 horse power is 746 watts so multiply that by 260 HP and you get 193,960 watts which is 0.000193960 gigawatts. "Jigga" is the real original pronunciation of "giga." You can thank the architects of the computer world for the mispronunciation since they only read it and never learned how it was really pronounced. You're welcome.

Re:It's gigawatts pronounced oddly...

[EdIII]

Well.... lightning is generally considered to be billions of watts of energy. I think peak power is nearly one trillion. So let's just say average is 800 billion watts to be conservative.

The time machine required a minimum of 1.21 jigawatts. I always guessed that the farther you wanted to go back the more you needed, but I theoretically think there could have been a fuse to limit it. We have a flux capacitor, so I imagine a fuse and the ability to control that much power must have existed too.

Dr. Brown said a lightning bolt was the "only" thing capable, so I think the ratio of jiggawatts to terrawatts is 1.5:1 at the low end.

That means that 286 horsepower = 0.0000002665875 jigawatts, assuming that 286 horsepower is ~213k watts (I had to look that up).

Re:It's gigawatts pronounced oddly...

[EdIII]

Well.... lightning is generally considered to be billions of watts of energy. I think peak power is nearly one trillion. So let's just say average is 800 billion watts to be conservative.

The time machine required a minimum of 1.21 jigawatts. I always guessed that the farther you wanted to go back the more you needed, but I theoretically think there could have been a fuse to limit it. We have a flux capacitor, so I imagine a fuse and the ability to control that much power must have existed too.

Dr. Brown said a lightning bolt was the "only" thing capable, so I think the ratio of jiggawatts to terrawatts is 1.5:1 at the low end.

That means that 286 horsepower = 0.0000002665875 jigawatts, assuming that 286 horsepower is ~213k watts (I had to look that up).

P.S - That means the Mr. Fusion used on the Delorean later really kicked some ass. That's a kitchen appliance putting out 3.75 million horsepower . In other words... you would need some real courage to stick your dick into vacuum cleaners of the future.

Re:It's gigawatts pronounced oddly...

[Anonymous Coward]

Rugs? Where we're going we dont need rugs.

PS: we're going wool sock shopping.

Re:It's gigawatts pronounced oddly...

[Phreakiture]

Go to Merriam-Webster's Dictionary and you will find that bot a hard G and a soft G are acceptable in pronunciation of "giga", but thanks for trying.

Re:It's gigawatts pronounced oddly...

[Anonymous Coward]

And conversely: 1.21 gigawatts = 1,622,636.73 horsepower. They're going to need a few more motors...

Re:It's gigawatts pronounced oddly...

[bill_mcgonigle]

jiggawatts == gigawatts. It is just an alternate pronunciation, one more quirk of old Doc Brown.

And some Spaniards pronounce it 'hhhhhhh-iGGKKawatts'. When English speakers can't even agree on what 'million' means, variations on pronouncing 10^9 shouldn't worry anybody.

Re:It's gigawatts pronounced oddly...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not so odd, prior to the 70's 'jigga' was the normal (and correct) pronunciation. The hard g is a modern abberation.

Re:It's gigawatts pronounced oddly...

[Maxwell'sSilverLART]

William Shatner wouldn't have a problem.

Fast Enough

[umbrellasd]

This one is more than fast enough (88MPH) to travel through time and get that Fusion-powered refit!

Re:Fast Enough

[Teancum]

It sounds like the Mr. Fusion might be coming to a store near you by 2015.... just like the movie said it would. Or perhaps not. The hover mod also keeps being talked about, but I think that is still a few more years away before it gets built. Isn't the future grand!

Smacks of silly publicity stunt

[Bertie]

I mean, making an electric car out of heavy stainless steel is rather missing the point.

I wonder will they remember to design in windows that open this time?

Re:Smacks of silly publicity stunt

[Anonymous Coward]

Electric cars do not have to be lightweight... It just helps. Just as it helps with normal petrol cars...

In fact considering how small the delorean is it weighs less than a prius.

http://cars.findthebest.com/q/194/3256/What-is-the-weight-of-a-2011-Toyota-Prius-Two
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeLorean_DMC-12

Re:Smacks of silly publicity stunt

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually stainless steel is quite light.. The DMC-12 is about 200LBs *lighter* than a 2nd generation Prius ^_-
The idea that the DMC-12 is heavy seems to come from it's pitifully inadequate engine.. Making the car feel "heavy" because it has no power.

Re:Smacks of silly publicity stunt

[Charliemopps]

What's the point? You think Electric = fuel efficient? If you do, I think you're the one missing the point.

Re:Smacks of silly publicity stunt

[Junta]

To be fair, the prius has some heavy batteries to contend with. Though yeah, a DeLorean with an electric drive would be easily in the weight area of the big name electric vehicles, though probably not nearly as safe in the event of an accident.

Re:Smacks of silly publicity stunt

[ArsonSmith]

don't you mean light weight fiberglass? The stainless steal was just there for looks.

Re:Smacks of silly publicity stunt

[Anonymous Coward]

...The idea that the DMC-12 is heavy seems to come from it's pitifully inadequate engine.. Making the car feel "heavy" because it has no power.

Have you driven one? A friend bought one used (not very expensive at that time) and I drove it extensively. Plenty of power to be fun to drive. It wasn't intended to be a Corvette killer on the race track. Good handling and unique looks were the selling points.

Re:Smacks of silly publicity stunt

[maxwell demon]

Few people will buy it for its safety features I guess.

Re:Smacks of silly publicity stunt

[DrXym]

The point is that all those batteries you need to put in your EV add plenty of weight. If the chassis were atypically heavy (and I have no idea if a Delorean is), then it turns your EV into a tank. And weight = lower range. Therefore you want your EV to as light as possible.

Personally I think the Delorean has always been a deeply ugly vehicle and the "brochure" for the EV variant suggests the trim and build quality has not improved in the intervening years. It looks bad, like kit car bad. Not surprising if they're cobbled together from old parts.

Re:Smacks of silly publicity stunt

[DrXym]

Will it be lighter when you load it down with enough batteries to afford it a 100 mile range? I doubt it. Another serious issue is where that weight is going to be distributed. Cars like the Prius and its ilk tend to have lower floors (like a van almost) to hold the batteries, beefier suspension and benefit also from computer designs to distribute the weight properly, such as along the centre of the vehicle between the passengers. I assume any Delorean EV is going to have to stick it's batteries wherever its retrofitted design allows. I also think the added weight would seriously affect the way it performed & handled and not in a good way.

Re:Smacks of silly publicity stunt

[KlomDark]

Is that with, or without, the hover conversion?

Electric DMC...

[Anonymous Coward]

Electric DeLorean + iPhone dock + http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/flux-capacitor/id391862376?mt=8 = awesome.

Now we know where Doc got the conversions done...

[Chas]

They were factory mods!

This is heavy!

Electric Car with Some Style

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess the way they see it, "If you're gonna build an electric car, why not do it with some style?"

There. I said it.

Re:Electric Car with Some Style

[ArundelCastle]

I guess the way they see it, "If you're gonna build an electric car, why not do it with some style?"

There. I said it.

"Electric cars don't run on water. Unless you've got power!"
There. I said it.

Re:Electric Car with Some Style

[anyGould]

And of course, today is the day I don't have mod points.

The stats

[Osgeld]

Kick the shit out of the original, 130 HP V6

Alright!

[amightywind]

Alright! I'll bet it'll go at least 20 miles before needing a recharge. That's pretty good performance for Obama's green cronies. I imagine it will be expensive, but the bay area millionaires who will buy this thing will undoubtedly receive a subsidy from the rest of us stuck with gas power.

Never ran on fusion power

[Anonymous Coward]

The car never ran on fusion power ... only the time machine add-on did! The car itself ran on gas.

Re:Never ran on fusion power

[Nom du Keyboard]

The car never ran on fusion power ... only the time machine add-on did! The car itself ran on gas.

It also ran on Being Pushed by a Steam Locomotive.

Re:Never ran on fusion power

[Bob the Super Hamste]

IIRC the hover/flying system was also powered by the Mr. Fusion.

I want one!

[Etylowy]

Now I have motivation to stop spending my time on /. instead of working.

Top Speed

[skine]

"it still has a top speed of 125 mph"

That's purely theoretical, though, since I've never seen one go over 88.

Re:Top Speed

[Anonymous Coward]

I have driven my Delorean (yes, really) up to around 110 mph before I remembered I was driving on a 25 year old suspension and slowed to more sane speeds.

They did have their problems and they were certainly underpowered, but they're not the crapfest a lot of people believe. I love mine.

Re:Top Speed

[maxwell demon]

I have driven my Delorean (yes, really) up to around 110 mph before I remembered I was driving on a 25 year old suspension and slowed to more sane speeds.

They did have their problems and they were certainly underpowered, but they're not the crapfest a lot of people believe. I love mine.

Your flux condensator must have been defective.
Or in short: Whoosh.

Re:Top Speed

[Ginger Unicorn]

When I bought mine I had to dismantle and reassemble the fuel injection system, replace the fuel sender, fuel pump, gas struts, roof lining, door seals, respray the dashboard and centre console, dismantle and reassemble the blower/heater assembly, remove the front wing/bumper to rewire the cooling fans, remove the rear bumper to adjust its fit, install a self bleed kit on the thermostat, replace the otterstat, replace the seals in the clutch master, rewire a melted fuse box and a million other things i can't remember. I know that car inside and out, i've had it for 7 years, and i have to say it's a thing of beauty, but it was absolutely, definately assembled by barely sentient monkeys. The build state of the thing is an abomination. I found bits of held together with (and this isn't a joke) blu-tack and paperclips. If you stripped one down completely an rebuilt it, then installed a turbocharger,(which plenty of people do) you would have a car that was beyond reproach. As it stands it is a perfectly fine, if extremely quirky car, and I love mine to death, even though most people would evaluate my experience as nothing but pain :)

Re:Top Speed

[Anonymous Coward]

I just want to say that, even though you had some sweet suffering going on, I do envy you:) Cheers!

DeLorean Motor Company?

[Anonymous Coward]

What DeLorean Motor Company? He died about 10 years ago...

How much?

[Charliemopps]

How many Kilos of coke does one cost?

Re:How much?

[Nom du Keyboard]

How many Kilos of coke does one cost?

Good one. I remember a political cartoon of that era of the car using its gull-wings to flap its way over the border inspection station. One guard says to the other: I think we'd better check that one next.

Re:How much?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have to ask you can't afford it.

Besides, a smart buyer would be asking "How many miles per kilo does it get on the highway and how many in town?"

Re:How much?

[Nomaxxx]

Expected price: $90,000 - $100,000. I pass. ;-)

Re:How much?

[jfengel]

According to this:

http://www.narcoticnews.com/Cocaine-Prices-in-the-U.S.A.php

a kilo of coke is around $30,000. Which, by to the article's estimate, means you'll need about 3-4 kilos to buy one of these cars.

time dilation

[dumuzi]

If you spend 24 hrs driving at 125 mph you will experience a time dilation of 1.5 ns.

Re:time dilation

[lennier]

If you spend 24 hrs driving at 125 mph you will experience a time dilation of 1.5 ns.

.. relative to your start and end points, and your start and end points will experience an exactly corresponding time dilation, leaving you with what relative time dilation exactly?

Re:time dilation

[dumuzi]

Drive away for 12 hours. Stop. Turn around Return to start point. 1.5 ns.

Faster vehicle before 1900

[ChrisMaple]

145 kph (90mph) LNWR No. 790 Hardwicke Steam United Kingdom 22–23 August 1895 (wikipedia)

Steam rail vehicles were the fastest vehicles in the last half of the 19th century.

Safe driving

[failedlogic]

For better safety while driving an electric car, I recommend humming your music instead of listening to the radio, getting manual controlled windows instead of electric and only drive in daytime to avoid having to turn on headlights. It might sound silly, but the last thing you want to have happen is to die in an accident - at night in the summertime because your car stalled trying to roll down the window since it was too hot and turning the radio to hear your latest hits of Mozzart CD.

Re:Safe driving

[Anonymous Coward]

Embedded systems with integrated power management do not behave like your Windows PC, Herr Professor.

Can I pre-order

[mevets]

an ounce of blow?

http://www.delorean.com is DOA

[iroll]

Apparently their website is also running on refurbished 1980s technology.

LOL, FAIL!

[p51d007]

And the only ones to afford it, will be collectors. Until/if they make one for under 30K, range of 500 miles the electric car will fail.

I love this part

[Colven]

FTA #2:

“A lot of people consider the styling of the DeLorean timeless,” said Toby Peterson, who operates a DMC franchise in Seattle, Wa. and has personally owned a DeLorean for 20 years. “It was state of the art 30 years ago, and it looks state of the art now. It’s a style that has transcended the decades.”

State of the art 30 years ago? 80's Ferrari, yes. 80's Corvette, yes. 80's hatch-box with alien ejector doors, no. I never did get the appeal of this car.

Flywheels

[Firethorn]

I remember reading about a company working on them back in the '90s. Carbon fiber, vacuum housing, the works.

Failing 'gracefully' was relative - it was more that the carbon fiber used for the wheel would basically disintigrate at the velocities it'd spin at, such that it wouldn't penetrate the heavy housing used to maintain the near-vacuum. Might pop it so it's no longer air tight though.

Last I'd heard they'd backed completely off the car angle(which they hit discover magazine for), and were making specialty industrial UPS systems.

Re:Flywheels

[steveg]

In the late 90s I saw a flywheel option on a data center UPS that we were looking at. MGE Comet, I think. I've never seen that option since.

260 HP:

[PowerCyclist]

So the electric version will be stronger and have better performance than the gasoline version? -original US version had only 130 HP. Must have a $200k price tag.

Mr. Fusion only powers the time circuits

[AmericanBlarney]

"and the flux capacitor, but the internal combustion engine runs on ordinary gasoline; it always has."

Battary swaps...

[Firethorn]

The idea is that you end up with a standardized battery pack, perhaps a couple of them. With a little custom wiring, you can even make the same battery put out a couple different voltages.

Or, to handle a range of sizes, you have the 'standard' EV1 battery. The future electric Civic takes 2, the Escape takes 3, my light truck 4, etc...

That leaves the legacy Tesla Roadster types out in the cold, but it's still not that bad.

Even if they end up with a dozen types, outages should be fairly rare, given that they get the old battery as trade in and it shouldn't take them more than a couple hours to charge it back up(using industrial sized chargers).

Then figure that, sure, it might only take you five minutes once a week to fill up at the gas pump, but with an EV it only takes you five seconds to hook up the charger at home for the night.

Re:Battary swaps...

[mrxak]

Might bring back full service gas stations, in that case. Lugging those heavy batteries into the convenience shop would get old fast.

Re:Battary swaps...

[History's Coming To]

Yeah, we might have to even go to the lengths of employing real people to do it. Completely impractical. I prefer the old "storing thousands of gallons of highly flammable fluids of several different sorts in an underground bunker" technique after all.

Re:Battary swaps...

[TheJediGeek]

A standard battery pack would mean they become very common and very cheap. How will the auto makers make any money if they can't charge a ridiculous price for a SLIGHTLY different part that is only on 2 models?

But seriously folks, the auto manufacturers would fight tooth and nail to NOT use standardized parts so they can have a huge markup on THEIR brand of part.

Re:Battary swaps...

[m2shariy]

So you trade in your brand new battery for a charged old one which dies on you in half an hour. That would be two grand and better luck next time!

Re:Battary swaps...

[mhajicek]

Real people? Please. You drive up (sorry, your autopilot drives up), the robot under the parking spot pulls out the old battery and puts in a new one just like a pallet changer on a CNC machining center.

Re:Battary swaps...

[ghjm]

Congratulations, you have identified yet another failure of the free market that can only be solved by appropriate and intelligent government regulation.

Re:Battary swaps...

[AK Marc]

The system would work only if the batteries had a "lifetime" meter and were voluntarily pulled out of service by the charging stations and the charging service covered the cost of battery degradation. Of course, that fee would have to be high for the guy that charges his at night all the time, notices it doesn't work well anymore, then limps to the station for a replacement and gets a new-ish battery every time his wears out. The "lifetime meter" would have to be able to discover those and charge accordingly at a swap. If you ever got a dud, just go in again and get a fresher one on your next charge.

There are plenty of ways around it, that you can't think of any fixes for a problem you can think of indicates a massive bias (or complete stupidity), and that you assume the worst for electric reveals your bias.

Re:Battary swaps...

[Anonymous Coward]

Prepare to be downvoted by the butthurt libertarian brigade...

Re:Battary swaps...

[Genda]

Its simple. Put a cheap IC and sensor on the battery that warns if the battery is no longer working properly. The driver get's a little red "Battery is Shite" icon and a buzzing noise. He kindly informs the attendant that this is a crap battery, and with all due haste please install one that isn't on its last charge. Done.

Re:Battary swaps...

[Anonymous Coward]

The idea is that you end up with a standardized battery pack, perhaps a couple of them.

It's a bit more complicated than that--the high energy packs have monitoring for every cell and temperature sensors scattered all through to make sure that none of the cells overheat. In addition to matching pack voltage, you also need to match the battery to the car network, software versions, etc. Can you say BSOD?

Re:Battary swaps...

[Will.Woodhull]

Yeah! Just like they fight so hard today to keep their proprietary gasoline mixtures. It would be so much easier if we could just put Exxon gas into Hondas, and Sinclair gas into Chevies.

Oh, wait...

Re:Battary swaps...

[Anthony Mouse]

The "lifetime meter" would have to be able to discover those and charge accordingly at a swap.

The trouble is that the reward for committing fraud is too great. You think odometer fraud is bad, what happens when some who runs an independent service station realizes that if they figure out how to crack the "lifetime meter" they can do six an hour at $2000 a pop and the money comes out of their competitors' pockets?

Re:Battary swaps...

[SharpFang]

...with dispensers similar to current fuel distributors? I mean, the infrastructure wouldn't be -that- much harder to make.

Re:Battary swaps...

[SharpFang]

Okay, let me just seek overly expensive tires for my model of car, unavailable and not interchangeable with other models.

Re:Battary swaps...

[SharpFang]

You mean they never mix up some shit with the fuel to sell more and gain extra profit nowadays?

Re:Battary swaps...

[AK Marc]

You throw them in jail for fraud. What, was that a trick question? Or are you really too stupid to come up with anything that might stop blatantly illegal activities?

Re:Battary swaps...

[Iamthecheese]

The same kind of measures that keep gas stations from cheating on quality and quantity of gasoline can be used to prevent this.

Re:Battary swaps...

[Anthony Mouse]

You're assuming you can catch them. Look up the solve rate for these sort of things, it's enlightening.

Re:Battary swaps...

[Firethorn]

As mhajicek mentions, it'd most likely be done by automated machinery.

The battery pack for a tesla roadster weighs ~450kg/~1k pounds. Even if you split it into 4 seperate standardized 'packs', that's 250 pounds apiece, or 5 times the limit of what you can ask a worker to routinely lift. Even if he could, do you really want to have him make 4 trips for every exchange?

A pallet changer sort of robot is indeed the best answer. Could be completely automated, and you'd improve stability by mounting the batteries low on the undercarriage.

Re:Battary swaps...

[AK Marc]

It's not that bad for battery "odometers" if you think of them as odometer rollers, rather than inventing some new category of battery fraudsters. The serial number of the batteries report as 1000 charges one day, then 500 the next when swapped out somewhere else. It's the same reason Carfax works. When you get enough reports of odometer readings, you'll know when it changes backwards, and can work from there to find it. It would be hard for a hacker in his home to reset the counter, and if an station was doing it systemically, then it would show up immediately. Odometer fraud is reasonably rare (the most common being semi-innocent, where a gauge cluster is replaced with a scrapped one and the odo isn't noted as innacurate on the title, though with the electric ones, the dealers can set the new cluster to match the old and the odo is still accurate).

Re:Battary swaps...

[History's Coming To]

Alternatively, you get your new battery pack and drive away without paying. When it requires replacement your card is debited to the original battery station depending on how many Joules it produced (meaning you pay more per mile if you drive more aggressively). The quality of the battery doesn't matter because you only pay for what you get. Obviously we'll need a minimum battery quality, but that kind of thing is easily covered by trading standards legislation, just as it is with liquid fuel.

Can someone give a car analogy?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not good with automobiles, if someone can give a car based analog, would be appreciated.

Wait, the DeLorean car company still exists?

[Anonymous Coward]

If so, that's the big story.

All they ever had going for them anyway was that well known shape and the gull wing doors. I mean, it's not like anyone knew or cared how good they were to actually drive.

why

[eyenot]

The DeLorean failed because it was too expensive and quickly earned a bad safety reputation for shearing in half during collisions. People didn't buy them when they were offered at 60%. Why would people go back and buy one, now?

Re:why

[BradleyUffner]

The DeLorean failed because it was too expensive and quickly earned a bad safety reputation for shearing in half during collisions. People didn't buy them when they were offered at 60%. Why would people go back and buy one, now?

Because they are rare, and famous from the movies.

Re:why

[anyGould]

Exactly.

Same reason why people build batmobiles or tron lightcycles - not because it's cost-effective, but because of the sheer cool-factor.

Re:why

[bill_mcgonigle]

The DeLorean failed because it was too expensive and quickly earned a bad safety reputation for shearing in half during collisions.

There are lots of antique cars that aren't safe to drive on highways. Still, people enjoy owning and driving them.

I guess it'd be harder to keep a DeLorean under 55 than a Model T, though.

Oddly enough...

[sottitron]

I realize there is no reason to believe me on this, but I saw a Delorean in Fairfax, Virginia just last weekend. My wife found it hysterical that it had antique tags. My comment at the time was that I thought that GMC could sell that car as new again - maybe ditching the stainless steel.

Re:Oddly enough...

[Anonymous Coward]

I saw a VW bus with antique tags recently. In FL, anything over 30 years old qualifies, and you get cheaper somethingorother.

Re:Oddly enough...

[Leebert]

Not that unreasonable to believe, there's like 5000 of them out there still. I myself saw one on Sunday.

Re:Oddly enough...

[Anonymous Coward]

There's one in the area where a live: middle of nowhere, eastern border of Finland.

Re:Oddly enough...

[quacking duck]

Why so hard to believe? Saw an unmodified one two weekends ago in Ottawa, Canada, and in Montreal a couple friends stopped behind one at a stoplight, it was fully decked out in Back To the Future props, with pictures to prove it.

Slashdot needs to be proofread more carefully!

[kheldan]

I checked the math, and there must be a mistake in the summary: 260 horsepower isn't anywhere near 1.21 gigawatts. Seriously guys, could you proofread these things a little better before releasing them?

Re:Now we know where Doc got the conversions done.

[Erbo]

Weight has nothing to do with it!

heavy stainless steel????

[rubycodez]

as compared to mild steel, which is denser? (7.85 mild steel vs. 7.65 for 440 stainless)

wasteful

[rubycodez]

absurd amount of horsepower for a small car, a 100 H.P. engine would be fine. Just because most americans are morons who blow their money out the exhaust pipes of their "performance cars" and SUV doesn't mean we have to go continue to be stupid in making electric cars.

Re:wasteful

[Amouth]

I'm not sure you know the DeLorean - it is a very large very very heavy car - and i couldn't imagine making an EV version of it. (100$ says the range blows)

Re:wasteful

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes like all those american car makers that make ridiculously over powered cars.

Aston Martin,
Bentley,
Rolls Royce,
Range Rover,
Jaguar,
TVR,
Mercedes Benz,
BMW,
Audi,
Porsche,
Ferrai,
Laborgini,
Masarati,
Pagani,
Bugatti

I am assumed at all these american car makers.

Re:wasteful

[EmagGeek]

It doesn't really matter what the electric motor is rated for. It matters how much power it is asked to produce. Even a 500HP Shelby V8 is only producing about 20HP to drive the car at 65mph on the highway.

You probably think your computer's 500W power supply is always drawing 500W from the wall..

Re:wasteful

[Anonymous Coward]

The Delorian DMC-12 weighed well under 2800 Lbs. Not a lightweight, but not heavy by a long shot.

The EV shit must weigh a ton though, because 125 MPH from 260 ponies is fucking pathetic. Could be really, really tight gearing, but that'd be fairly moronic for an EV. My 130 horse, 2400 Lb Miata with pretty short gears will do 135... and could do more if it wasn't approximately as aerodynamic as a brick.

Re:wasteful

[mobby_6kl]

Hey there Miata buddy! I think we really need an extra gear and better aerodynamics :(

Looks like the Tesla Roadster also tops out at 125 MPH, though wikipedia claims it's limited to that speed. Whether it's limited "just because" like BMWs and MBs are, or because it would explode if it goes any faster, I don't know. I suspect though it could be the gearing - if there's just one gear (like in the Roadster) and you redline the engine at 125, well, there's nowhere to go even if it still has enough power.

Re:wasteful

[rubycodez]

hah! I was born in the early 60s, my 1968 buick wildcat at 4300 lbs. curb weight was a LARGE car. Yes, stupidly wasteful with its 430 cu inch engine. But please don't call any pregnant roller skate from the 1980s a large car.

Re:Now we know where Doc got the conversions done.

[lennier]

Has there been a change in Earth's gravity? Is this why everything's heavy in the future?

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Re:Top sell new style and cheap best Women shoes

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you make like a tree and get out of here?

Roads

[Jon Abbott]

Roads? <slips on futuristic sunglasses> Where we're going, we're still going to need roads... <sheds tear>

Funding

[JoelWink]

I wonder where they get their funding from? Too bad John's not around to provide "out-of-the-box" strategic fundraising ideas.

Re:Funding

[DishpanMan]

Similar to Tesla motors, rich people who have money to burn on sports cars that seem "green"., or silver in this case.

weak?

[Anonymous Coward]

My 40k station wagon does more that 125 mph and has more than 225 hp, 6.2s 0-60.

225 hp and 125 mph is pretty sad. Does it have a sub-4s 0-60 to justify the 90-120k price tag?

OK in flatland, but ...

[dbIII]

How do you handle the third dimension?
Also flywheels have been used extensively since at least the 18th century. I'd say most engineering students that gain an understanding of how a flywheel works have thought about using them in vehicles since then. There have been busses and other vehicles with big mechanical flywheels taking braking energy but ultimately regenerative braking and electric motors have been a better idea in nearly anything big enough to use one.
They need a bit of mass to work no matter what you make them out of and you have to expend energy to move that extra mass around. They are a nice simple system fairly easy to understand which is why people jump on the idea - so simple that I the first time I played with finite element analysis software in the 1980s as a student the first exercise was designing a flywheel.

Re:OK in flatland, but ...

[skids]

You don't have to. Two parallel flywheels, one rotating clockwise, the other counterclockwise. No matter how you twist them, the forces cancel. Rotation around the axis of the flywheels itself would not be consequential at the speeds high energy flywheels turn.

I just rob a train and push it to 88MPH

[Joe_Dragon]

I just rob a train and push it to 88MPH

Hey Beavis,

[Slutticus]

I think I just inoculated

Get back to me...

[R.Mo_Robert]

I know this is going to be too hippie for some of you to handle, but get back to me when they make a car that solves the problem of urban sprawl, pedestrian and cyclist hostility, lazyness, non-human-sized development, and all the other problems that automobiles bring to cities.

I suspect they never will.

Re:Get back to me...

[Fex303]

Actually a flying DeLorean solves basically all those problems.

...

It doesn't fly?! Then what's the point?!

Re:Get back to me...

[teh kurisu]

It's probably not a solution, but Heathrow Airport have had a stab at it.

Fusion

[Lord Kano]

It never ran on fusion. It was a gasoline powered automobile, only the time circuits were electrical and they needed fusion to generate the 1.21 Gigawatts(Jigawatts) of electricity to operate.

LK

Re:Fusion

[bill_mcgonigle]

It never ran on fusion. It was a gasoline powered automobile, only the time circuits were electrical and they needed fusion to generate the 1.21 Gigawatts(Jigawatts) of electricity to operate.

The hover-conversion was fusion-powered and the primary means of propulsion for the DeLorean after 1985.

Remember the hover unit was damaged in the lightning strike on the second visit to 1955, so it was unavailable for use in 1885. The lack of available gasoline in 1885 lead to the train scheme (Doc Brown somehow thinking this superior to adjusting the Delorean to run on methanol).

Not the same company

[mgiuca]

From Wikipedia (emphasis mine):

In 1995, Texas entrepreneur Stephen Wynne started a separate company using the "DeLorean Motor Company" name and shortly thereafter acquired the remaining parts inventory and the stylized "DMC" logo trademark of DeLorean Motor Company. The current DeLorean Motor Company located near Houston is not, and has never been, associated with the original company but supports owners of DeLorean cars. DMC (Texas), as they are known, has an additional five authorized, franchised dealers in Bonita Springs, Florida; Crystal Lake, Illinois; Garden Grove, California; Bellevue, Washington and Hem, The Netherlands.

Back to the Future - nearly there

[mgiuca]

Great! Got my Nike auto-lace-up shoes (that don't actually auto lace up) and my electric De Lorean car (that doesn't actually run on fusion from ordinary garbage). Now all I need is a Mattel hoverboard (that doesn't actually hover) and Pizza Hut expanding pizza (that doesn't actually expand when cooked).

Hard to Drive

[Anonymous Coward]

Keeps running over the white line.

Refund of subsidy coming ?

[Zoxed]

Does this mean there is still a chance the UK Government will get some of it's money back ?

What's the point? You think Electric

[zincsulfates]

What's the point? You think Electric=fuel efficient? If you do, I think you're the one missing the point.
Zincsulfates from www.rqsulfates.com 

Re:88!

[TaoPhoenix]

THANK YOU!

We get an article on the DeLorean, and no one makes jokes about 88 miles per hour or getting to the future! There's your proof of the decline and fall of slashdot first posts! (Within ten comments it descended into dates and batteries.)

Good attention to detail, heh

[Anonymous Coward]

The quality of the stitching on the dash in that interior shot is appalling. Still, at least it's staying true to its American car origins.

Just think...

[Anonymous Coward]

If this had come out in the 1980's, Back to the Future 3 would have been a lot shorter! XD

Re:Just think...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just think, if Doc Brown was a mad engineer instead of a mad scientist... the whole damn car would (and should!) have run off the Mr. Fusion because he'd have converted it over; we already have kits to do that. The energy potential of filling up the gas tank with water and routing it into Mr. Fusion would have made the engine look like a tinker toy... He could have gotten some Texas Tea and refined gasoline. Sure, Marty's stuck for a longer period of time, but it is totally doable... He could have picked a car that didn't suck and put its guts in the DeLorean's body. Or put an engine in it that didn't suck, at some point, since he didn't want to go electric for arbitrary reasons. DeLoreans are notorious for engine problems and he'd either discover this first hand or via reading later. Seriously, if you were in the future wouldn't you pick up the Haynes manual for your car?... He could have implanted something in Marty's head that called him a chicken at completely random and arbitrary times for the sake of the narrative. Because 'Marty, something's got to be done about your kids!' is what you tell Future Marty, not Present Marty, you douche. If you're going to be a douche, go all the way, don't just half-ass it and ensure he's stuck with a mediocre life, go full-assed and get him locked in a loony bin.

not sure they had Watts either...

[fantomas]

Not sure the ancient Greeks had watts as a measure orf energy (well, pretty certain of that actually ;-) ) so I think it's irrelevant, it's a modern term, and so modern localised pronunciation is fine I'd say. The ancient greeks didn't recognise the nations of USA or UK so the whole debate about how you pronounce "tomato" is probably not important either.

Back to the Vacuum?

[StatureOfLiberty]

If it is anything like the original, they will have to perfect the energy efficient electric vacuum pump. The first time I put a new stereo in one (many years ago) I was astounded at the number of vacuum lines behind the dash. They weren't very well organized or very well marked either if I remember correctly. Let's hope they have run out of parts for the old A/C and heating system.

Re:Back to the Vacuum?

[Bob the Super Hamste]

I am always surprised at the poor vacuum and wiring layout of vehicles from the 80s especially on American cars. The worst vacuum system I saw was on the electronically controlled carburetor of my 85 Olds Cutlass Supreme, and wiring wise had to have been my 88 Ford Bronco II (why would you run a wire loom between the intake manifold risers and mount the ignition control module on the distributor right above down pipes for the exhaust).

Re:Back to the Vacuum?

[leftover]

During the early days of the car, I was part of an engineering group asked by DMC to suggest improvements. We were all astonished at the plumbing and wiring mess and the company engineers confirmed it was the major contributor to reliability problems. Manufacturing cost too. Under the pretty SS skin it is very 1960's Chevy|Ford.
  ( I suggested using a microcontroller-based serial communication bus for all control signals, primarily to relieve the mess behind the dash. The 'car guys' of the day said that would never happen. 8^)

Gigawatts vs. Jigawatts

[crgrace]

The term Gigawatt used to be pronounced "Jigawatt" in the United States. In the 1950s this was common practice. I know this because I am an electrical engineer and have worked on RF projects. Almost everyone today says "Gigaherz" and "Gigawatt" but a few old timers nearing retirement still say "Jigaherz" and "Jigawatt".

According to one of these guys arguing the correct pronunciation of Gigawatt was a holy war in the 60s, similar to vi vs emacs or mac vs pc.

"Gigawatt" won. Because it is superior. Like vi.

Electric Deloreans already exist

[Anonymous Coward]

Several electric DeLoreans already exist. Check one out at http://electricdelorean.com. That's by Dave Delman, who's located in NY.

There's also an Italian one: http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/blogs/electric-delorean-begins-milan-to-rome-journey

And a Japanese one: http://www.japanprobe.com/2009/10/26/electric-delorean-in-japan/

Similar models exist today...

[Firethorn]

Just look at propane exchange programs. They're popular to the point that propane filling stations are getting rarer.

Heck, is the ratio of the value of an 20# propane tank to the propane in it that much less than the value of a battery to the electricity it stores?

Re:Similar models exist today...

[treeves]

...and look at the difference in cost when you exchange a propane tank compared with refilling one. Exchange, in my experience, costs about twice as much as refilling, and it's not really more convenient, IMO.

Fraud = charges though...

[Firethorn]

I'd disagree. What happens when some logging allows the fraud to be found almost automatically, and the service station gets hit with a $1M fine?

What sort of 'cracking the lifetime meter' are you thinking of? A smart automated charge system would [i]realize[/i] that the battery's charge level, the amount of power needed to reach full charge, and reported charge don't add up and throw a fault on the battery.

Then investigation would have the customer(s) complaining about the crooked service station, which would spark an investigation and most likely criminal charges.

There's plenty of ways to commit fraud out there, this isn't really any different.

'Solve rate' for adulterated gasoline?

[Firethorn]

Do you happen to have a source for this? By my understanding aldulterated gasoline tends to be caught pretty quickly, and pretty easily. A number of people have car trouble, they track it down to the station(many/most people fill up at the same station every time), somebody does an independent test of their fuel, and they get busted.

Now, short-selling gasoline is caught less often, but 'most' states have a fairly active testing program ensuring that a gallon = a gallon. My last state tested every gasoline station twice a year on average, and the fines for short selling were extreme. In addition, they also get busted when somebody who tracks their gas obsessively(and there's more of them today with gas prices), exceeds the known capacity of their tank and complains.

In any case, the fraud is generally single digit percentage points - not $2k a pop 6 times a day.

It's called a 'series hybrid'

[Firethorn]

Sure, I could. It's called a 'series hybrid' or 'diesel-electric' when it comes to locomotives.

The problem is that you still need that lousy gasoline engine to hook up to the generator to produce the electricity for the electric drivetrain. The efficiency gain is limited, and the increase in cost and complexity is high.

You'd be better off burning the gasoline in a fixed facility for ~30-40% efficiency, with proper pollution controls and such. Of course, at that point you don't burn expensive fuel like gasoline, you burn coal, or bunker oil. Even better - hydroelectric, nuclear, wind, or solar. Natural gas even.

Re:Now we know where Doc got the conversions done.

[Anomalyst]

How/Why would you mod a factory to go 88 MPH?

Re:88!

[smi.james.th]

There were some jokes about 1.21 jiggawats though. Give them some credit.

Propane tanks = batteries?

[Firethorn]

Consider my point - propane tank exchange programs don't experience a high enough rate of fraud to render their business model unprofitable. Sure, I'll fill my tank up the old fashioned way over doing the exchange thing. But even propane tanks have a limited lifespan - they have to be professionally inspected every so often, and part of what the exchange programs have done is made getting a tank inspected more difficult.

So when the propane filler refuses a tank, often the easiest solution is getting an exchange. Going back to electric cars, even batteries that are no longer servicable are generally so valuable from a recycling point of view that any exchange program isn't going to worry about it too much, as long as the battery is still intact, they aren't losing(much) money. One would have to be a fanatical 'fill at home/work' type to not hit up the exchange place enough to pay for the eventual replacement battery.

You made an electric car...

[mattack2]

...out of a DeLorean?

I've seen one go over 88.

[Anonymous Coward]

It was on it's way to bankruptcy, and after it crashes is the only car you can't open the doors to get out because of it's design.

By the way, Heil Hitler!

Electric Delorean

[Anonymous Coward]

So... It's timely that I just finished converting my Delorean to 100% electric last Sunday. It's not quite as fast but it was $70,000 less. View link here http://gallery.me.com/stevengottlieb#100417

DeLorean

[Steve Gottlieb]

So... Just in time. Just finished my full electric conversion Sunday, only $70,000. less. view here http://gallery.me.com/stevengottlieb#100417

Lots of power + rear wheel drive

[justthinkit]

How do electric cars perform in wet snow?