Zero-60 in 3.1 Seconds, Batteries Included 230
FloatsomNJetsom writes "Popular Mechanics has a very cool video and report about test-driving Hybrid Technologies' L1X-75, a battery powered, 600-hp, carbon-fiber roadster that pulls zero-60 in about 3.1 seconds, and tops out at 175 mph. Of course, there are few creature comforts inside, but that's mainly because the car's 200 mile range is meant for the track, not the road. Nonetheless, Popular Mechanics takes the car for a spin up 10th Avenue in NYC. Oh, and the car recharges via a 110 outlet. They also test-drove Ford's HySeries Edge, a hydrogen fuel-cell powered, plug-in series hybrid that, unlike the L1X-75, is unfortunately at least 10 years away from production and nearly 100 mph slower."
Re:Not bad at all. (Score:2, Informative)
Does this surprise anyone? (Score:1, Informative)
Wrightspeed X1 (Score:3, Informative)
More info at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrightspeed_X1 [wikipedia.org] and http://www.wrightspeed.com/x1.html [wrightspeed.com]
Some concepts are closer to reality (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not bad at all. (Score:1, Informative)
Electric cars right now are topping out at around 150-200 miles at a form factor similar to gas cars, which means with the bikes if we keep that 50% of a car expectation... you're looking at only 75-100 miles *at best*. Try to get back to the mileage you get with a gas powered bike and yeah, you'll find the weight of the batteries becoming quite obscene. But the same would happen if you tried to make an electric car go as far as a gasoline powered car.
Re:quarter mile time? (Score:4, Informative)
Because you can play games with gearing and traction to get a good 0-60 time. But 1/4 mile trap speed is hard to fake, and trap speed (even more than 1/4 mile E/T) correlates with how fast a car "feels" to drive in the real world or on a racetrack.
My car does about 11.7-8 @ 124 mph in the 1/4. I can pick up half a second of E/T just by going to sticky tires, but improving my trap speed is much harder. I've driven cars that are "as fast" as mine when you look at 0-60, but they don't feel anywhere near as fast in practice. Yeah, they'll keep up from 0-60 by dumping their clutch at high RPM. But coming out of a 40 mph turn on a track into a long 150 mph straight, I will totally obliterate them.
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Make electric cars cool (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.03/drag_pr.h
Tesla (Score:2, Informative)
More info (Score:5, Informative)
No price mentioned other than "six figures".
Re:Some concepts are closer to reality (Score:3, Informative)
Wrong. (Score:5, Informative)
REFERENCE: http://www.evadc.org/pwrplnt.pdf [evadc.org]
Re:Yeah, hydro dams do that (Score:2, Informative)
Your response was rude and hardly very enlightening.
some context (Score:3, Informative)
The Veyron is the so-called "most expensive production car", so 3.1 seconds would be considered very good. All speed numbers from Wikipedia. Anyone in the world can write anything they want about any subject -- so you know you are getting the best possible information.
Re:Few creature comforts... (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, it's only 0.88g. Which is still a LOT for acceleration in a car, but nothing like the 6-10g that people can handle momentarily before they start to black out.
Doesn't work, refer back to Newton, Faraday et al (Score:5, Informative)
You also have to accelerate the batteries as well as the rest of the vehicle, and of course the more batteries you have, the greater the mass to be accelerated. In fact, it doesn't take a genius to see that once you reach a certain size the weight of the driver is hardly a factor and any increase in power will scale precisely with increase in mass, and hence acceleration will rapidly asymptote to a nearly constant value.
The only way you can really improve this is to either produce batteries and control electronics which can produce more power for a given mass, or improve the efficiency of the drive chain significantly. Modern brushless motors and FET controllers are better than the old systems but there is not a lot more to gain. Battery technology - minimising internal resistance, developing polarisation free chemistry, finding completely reversible cycles that can handle high oxidation rates - is the key to producing high acceleration electrical vehicles.
Unfortunately, such are engineering tradeoffs that long life and high discharge rate rarely go together, and these experimental vehicles seem largely to be about either getting publicity or bragging rights. One thing is certain: factor in the battery manufacture and recycling costs, and they are no solution to global warming. I believe there is a claim that, when total life cost is taken into account, even some small SUVs are actually lower energy impact than a Toyota Prius.
Re:Doesn't work, refer back to Newton, Faraday et (Score:2, Informative)
Wrong. (Score:5, Informative)
I've seen this claim before. If this is "for certain", then I suppose it should be easy for you to produce some actual evidence to back it up. And please, don't bother linking to this [cnwmr.com] discredited [autobloggreen.com] study.
Re:American car companies (Score:3, Informative)
Apparently you watch them so well you don't bother to go to the "products" page on their website? For some examples, they make most of the world's jet engines, nearly all of North America's diesel-electric locomotives, and have a big chunk of steam turbine and wind turbine markets for power generation. Their primary work over the last decade or more has been increasing the efficiency of such systems, so I'd hazard to guess they are a good company now if you care about decreased emissions[1].
You really have to take a step back, and think about such conspiracy theories. If one company can go against the conspiracy and make more money, they'd do it. That's why secret conspiracies don't really work, and only public ones such as OPEC succeed. In OPEC, nations can face sanctions from the other members if they cheat on the oligopoly, but if it were secret you couldn't do that without making it clear something existed.
The only real "conspiracy" is very large companies not wanting to take risks in their research and development, and what you get is what seems like a lot of foot dragging. However it's primarily just inertia and highly risk averse primary investors. Would you bet your retirement fund on unproven investments? Probably not. So, you look to small companies for innovation, but the reality is that many small companies fail. That's just the nature of business -- nearly anyone can start a company, but only a few can grow large in a market with limits.
[1] Their environmental history sucks though, in particular with regard to dumping PCBs, but find me a large company that didn't abuse the environment when they could get away with it prior to the 1970s.
Re:Faster than jumping out of a plane (Score:5, Informative)
Electric Car Roundup (Score:4, Informative)
Tesla Roadster: http://www.teslamotors.com/ [teslamotors.com]
Tango: http://www.commutercars.com/ [commutercars.com]
UEV Spyder: http://www.universalelectricvehicle.com/spyder.ht
Wrightspeed X1: http://www.wrightspeed.com/x1.html [wrightspeed.com]
ZAP-X: http://www.zapworld.com/ZAPWorld.aspx?id=4560 [zapworld.com]
Silence: http://www.silenceinc.ca/accueilEN.htm [silenceinc.ca]
VentureOne: http://www.venturevehicles.com/ [venturevehicles.com]
Phoenix SUT & SUV: http://www.phoenixmotorcars.com/ [phoenixmotorcars.com]
You have no idea what you're talking about (Score:1, Informative)
F1 bodies are made out of prepreg, which use aerospace epoxy resins (which are nothing like polyester resins in terms of performance, cost, or availibility). Prepreg consists of various orientation and weaves of carbon fibers pre-impregnated with the above mentoned epoxies mixed under tight industrial process controls. Prepreg is then stored and shipped under refrigeration to the builders who have to use it before its shelf life expires.
Using prepreg is not the same as mixing up some Bondo brand polyester resin in a paper cup and slapping it onto some fibers with a disposable paint brush. It has to be oriented and draped into the mold by hand or by production robotics, then placed in a vacuum bag which in turn is placed in an autoclave. The part then is subjected to a very careful cure schedule consisting of high pressures and a series of specific temperatures for very specific periods of time. The cure schedule depends on the resin formulation and the desired properties of the finished part.
No part of this process is cheap. No part of it is similar to the process used in every-day consumer composite parts, except maybe for the fact that there's carbon fibers and some sort of resin involved. The carbon monocoque of an F1 car has far more in common with an F22 or JSF body than it does with a carbon/polyester fishing rod.