Zero-60 in 3.1 Seconds, Batteries Included

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."

Not bad at all.

[Colin Smith]

How would a bike version do? Existing litre bikes can manage around 2.5 seconds... Or is gravity the limiting factor here, I have hellish problems keeping my front wheel on the ground.

 

Re:

[RightSaidFred99]

Wouldn't work - you can't get a good weight ratio on an electric bike with respect to overall performance. The batteries would be too heavy.

The bike (singular) is even faster

[Engineer-Poet]

The Killacycle used to be powered by spiral-wound AGM cells, but the producer went out of business.

Since then, it was repowered with A123Systems' LiFePO4 cells. It now does 0-60 in 1.5 seconds [typepad.com] and the quarter mile in 8.16.

Electrics need not be slow, and their range is growing by leaps and bounds. The ICE has received its terminal diagnosis; the future is electric.

Faster than jumping out of a plane

[Colin Smith]

Cool, that's close to 2G acceleration.

18m/s^2

Re:Faster than jumping out of a plane

[Soulslayer]

Here's a video [youtube.com] of it in action.

Re:

[Rei]

Batteries have been the big lag factor. You'll find electric cars with long range, but you'll typically find that they're built superlight (uneconomical, unrealistic for everyday driving) and sometimes supersmall as well, in addition to using lithium-ion batteries. Lithium ion batteries have pretty nice energy density (twice that of NiMH, which is itself much better than most other battery techs except some in-development ones), but A) they're expensive, B) they like to burn, and C) they have short lifesp

Re:Not bad at all. DISPENSE

[Nom du Keyboard]

I have hellish problems keeping my front wheel on the ground.

Just dispense with the front wheel altogether and race a unicycle. All the weight over the wheel, and no way to lift it off.

Or put the wheels side-by-side Segway style.

Re:

[Somnus]

Two axes of stability is boring.
One axis of stability is fun.
Zero is .... adventurous.

Re:Not bad at all. DISPENSE

[The Wooden Badger]

Or put the wheels side-by-side Segway style.

You know, putting the wheels side by side just might revolutionize transportation.

Re:

[Zaiff Urgulbunger]

No, really! [gearbits.com]

Re:

[AJWM]

That's just too cool. Weird name though -- Embr[iy]o?

Re:

[GoRK]

I call your fake vehicle and raise you two [tlb.org] real ones [theriotwheel.com].

Re:

[dbIII]

How would a bike version do?

Seven years ago I saw an electric bike built for an engineering student project with similar acceleration and very good handling. They pulled the motor out of a dead suzuki bike and replaced it with a batteries and an electric motor to give almost the same centre of mass (slightly lower) and set the gearing to give very good acceleration from 0-80kph and get there in a couple of seconds, faster acceleration than when the thing ran on petrol. It took off like a rocket and looke

Wrightspeed X1

[Anonymous Coward]

The Wrightspeed X1 goes from 0-60mph in 3.07 secs... Not much faster but certainly a cooler looking car. Not to mention that the X1 HAS turn signals..

More info at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrightspeed_X1 [wikipedia.org] and http://www.wrightspeed.com/x1.html [wrightspeed.com]

Few creature comforts...

[writermike]

Of course, there are few creature comforts inside

The high-G force helps add to the notion of "few creature comforts." ;-)

Re:

[adrianmonk]

The high-G force helps add to the notion of "few creature comforts." ;-)

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.

Re:

[writermike]

The high-G force helps add to the notion of "few creature comforts." ;-)

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.

Good point. Thanks. But I think that at that g, I would fart a bit too easily. ;-)

How about the rest of the story?

[Nom du Keyboard]

Oh, and the car recharges via a 110 outlet.

Yes, and in how many days to pass that much energy back into your car. Not exactly a candidate for a quick pit stop, unless they can swap the entire battery pack in 10 seconds.

Re:How about the rest of the story?

[vertinox]

Well... If you are rich enough to buy a six figured electric car, might as well buy two.

Re:

[Soulslayer]

The new nanophosphate based Lithium-Ion A123 [a123systems.com] cells can be recharged in under 5 minutes (about as long as it takes to fill up the twin 20 gallon tanks in a behemoth SUV) if an appropriate capacity charger is available. These are the batteries powering the Killacycle [a123racing.com] electric drag-bike to 8.16 second, 156mph, 1/4 mile EV records.

Even the older VRSLA batteries (like those used to start your ICE) used in most home-brew conversions can be recharged in 3-4 hours off a 30A circuit (dump charging from one battery

electric

[polar red]

There's a reason the TGV is electric

Re:

[AJWM]

There's a reason the TGV is electric

Now if we can just get them to string overhead wires on the Interstates...

Re:

[hey!]

Why not convert our cars into gigantic slot cars while we're on the Interstate? Our electricity use would be metered and read off when we take the exit using the same technology used in wireless toll passes.

Actually, I'd go farther and have autopilot too, so the cars can draft on each other safely. But then you have to convince people that an automatic system that occasionally fails and kills people is better than a manual system where you're only as safe as the worst driver on the road and which routine

Make electric cars cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Wired had an article a couple of years back about a guy that was making electric race cars. His whole philosophy was that to sell electric cars, you have to make them cool.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.03/drag_pr.ht ml [wired.com]

Re:

[0racle]

They never sound right so it will never be cool enough.

Re:Make electric cars cool

[rossifer]

They never sound right so it will never be cool enough.

I think silence and/or natural noises (wind noise) are pretty damned cool. But then, I prefer sailboats over motor boats, vibrating phones over polyphonic ring tones, opening the window over central heating/AC, backpacking over theme parks, reading over television...

So, I'm a wierdo. But I did manage to find a wife who agrees with me on noise, so I'm not alone, just outnumbered.

Less glibly: I would love to be able to eliminate my motorcycle tailpipe and make it completely silent. I've heard that this would make me less safe, but I've noticed that when driving, I've never heard a motorcycle coming up behind me. Even the ones with loud pipes.

Regards,
Ross

Re:

[BoberFett]

I hate phones that play pop songs, and I prefer opening windows to A/C as well. I love the sounds of nature, chirping birds and a gurgling stream are music to my ears. But I do love the sound of a big V8 rumbling by my house, and the sound coming out of the aftermarket pipes on my bike still makes me giddy every time I fire it up. The two are not mutually exclusive.

Re:

[AJWM]

They never sound right so it will never be cool enough.

Oh, man, think of the choices! Without the noise of a combustion engine, you can hook up a sound system and generate whatever sound you want -- UFO, pod-racer, F-4 on afterburners, TIE fighter, you name it...

Re:

[mandos]

Funny enough gas cars weren't popular alternatives to carriages when they first came out. Henry Ford got his start making race cars. I wonder if the Tesla Motors folks are hoping to do the same with electric vs. gas as Ford did with gas vs. horse. Regardless, electric cars are gaining momentum these days (pun intended). (Also, it seems odd that we're still measuring electric motor power in "horse power".)

Re:

[Soulslayer]

While the article isn't online, the same gentleman, John Wayland, was featured in this May's Car and Driver magazine. He got 4 pages worth of astonishingly positive article (C&D has a history of negative response to electric vehicles) with some excellent photos.

John's website is http://www.plasmaboyracing.com/ [plasmaboyracing.com] . There you can find videos of his latest races (and other escapades). This year he expects to be breaking into the mid-11's in the 1/4 mile. Not bad for a 1972 Datsun 1200 with no transmissio

It's all about continuity and safety

[icepick72]

Ben from Popular Mechanics, before taking the test drive, says he's going to "hand the mic over and take this thing for a spin". The next shot is of him driving with the microphone. Hahahah Both key factors continuity and safety are thrown completely out the window so to speak.

Tesla

[Idbar]

The Tesla [teslamotors.com] that appeared in the last IEEE spectrum issue is also a nice looking car with also good specs when compared to this one.

More info

[laing]

Some real specifications are here [hybridtechnologies.com]. It's not quite as fast as PM is claminig and it has only half the range.
No price mentioned other than "six figures".

Brushless motors have pretty much unlimited power

[viking80]

With electric cars, the h.p. rating it typically limited to overheating the motor. As opposed to a motor with brushes, a brushless motor can take as many amp as you will as long as it does not overheat. That means a lot if you only want to accelerate for a few seconds. The same goes for the control electronics and batteries.

So while you may have 600hp to accelerate, you may only have 50hp of continuous power. This may be exactly what you want in a car, but the term may be somewhat meaningless.

Instead of a gas engines power/torque curve vs rpm, a power curve vs time would give us this information.

When?

[sithkhan]

When will we be allowed to build a sufficient number of nuclear reactors to power these vehicles? I enjoy the feel of my internal combustion engine, but for the efficiency of nuclear power for electricity, I'm ready to switch.

Free the atoms! Free the atoms!!
---
When you want to type a double-quote use " instead
Generated by SlashdotRndSig [snop.com] via GreaseMonkey [mozdev.org]

Re:

[dbIII]

When will we be allowed to build a sufficient number of nuclear reactors to power these vehicles?

When we have a tested reactor design that is not a 1960s dinosaur that can only break even by selling weapons materials at 1960s prices. For civilian purposes it currently is just an expensive way to boil water. The future is to advocate research into something better and not the current lobby tactic of pushing bad designs for a government handout. It also isn't that the plants are not allowed - it has been

Re:

[AJWM]

did you ever think how much pollution and destruction comes about and is emitted from the mining all of that uranium?

Very little, even in absolute terms (and especially in relative terms). I'm no mining engineer but I've toured uranium mines and yellowcake processing facilities -- no real difference than any other hardrock mine, and a lot cleaner that e.g. the smelters used to burn the sulphur out of copper ores.

Recall that a uranium fuel pellet the size of your thumb can provide the energy equivalent of

Re:

[shmlco]

I was about to say the same thing.

Plus the amount of energy needed to transport it to all of the coal-fired power plants.

MSRP?

[prisoner-of-enigma]

When I can buy one of these for under $40K, call me. Until then, this is a neat idea which requires much more development before anyone will be interested.

I'm all for green power, green transport, et. al. But if it costs me more than my house, what's the point? Nobody will buy it because nobody can afford it, good intentions or not.

Now if all automakers would suddenly convert over to pure carbon-fiber bodies, CF production costs would (eventually) plummet to the point where it's the same cost (or cheaper) than steel. But that's not likely to happen anytime soon.

Re:

[bazorg]

Sometimes conquering a specific 5% of total users means selling way more than 5% of the total market value. This is very clear on the beer market, I'm not sure about the automotive business. What I do know is that F1 racing has an impact on what may turn up on production cars some years later. If a company delivers an electric car that has extra performance compared to the usual suspects in the high-performance segment: Porsche, Ferrari, Lamborghini, BMW... they have a chance to get the attention of the peo

Porsche, Ferrari, Lambo. . .

[Zobeid]

By your line of reasoning, Porsche, Ferrari and Lamborghini should have gone out of business decades ago, since "nobody" can afford those cars, and they clearly require "much more development before anyone will be interested".

Yet, somehow those companies manage to stay in business. I wonder how that is possible?

Re:

[BoberFett]

Did you even read the GP? He didn't say anything about companies going out of business. He said nobody will buy them, which is true. What percentage of the market does Lamborghini have? 0.001%? If you really think that electric cars having that kind of market share will help reduce carbon emissions, I'm not sure if there's any hope for you.

Re:

[Zobeid]

Did you even read my post? I never said anything about reducing carbon emissions, and neither did the poster who I was replying to, and neither did the original article as far as I noticed. I personally think global warming is a big scam, it doesn't even interest me.

So. . . He says nobody will buy them. That's demonstrably untrue, since over 350 people have already put down deposits to reserve Tesla Roadsters. In the world where I live, nobody means nobody, it doesn't mean 350 people. I don't know wh

Re:

[AK Marc]

Well, then you are a slave to useless rhetoric. It's obvious that "nobody" did not mean "not a single person" but that it was "nobody" in the sense it would be irrelevant to the industry. Yes, I understand the meaning of the word. I understand that the usage is contrary to the meaning of the word. However, it is obvious what his meaning was to everyone. Given the number of people that have corrected you in it and no one else with your point of view, I can assume that you now know what he meant and don'

Ford Hybrid

[drix]

Ten years from production don't mean shit when your company is three years from oblivion.

Re:

[jo7hs2]

You really believe that Ford will actually disappear? If things get bad enough for them, somebody will buy them, or the Feds will bail them out. Simply put, domestically owned domestic automobile production is a defense asset, and I don't believe the government will allow either Ford or GM to collapse.

If I were Toyota, I'd be cutting back US sales, because if things get bad enough for GM and Ford, both the unions AND the money will be lobbying for tariffs and other protective measures. And don't think Toyot

Re:

[Catbeller]

Ford as a nameplate will always be around, but the company/with factories will not. They've screwed the pooch, along with all the other auto execs in Detroit. They believed their own PR about the world never changing from big gas-fueled hot rods, and now they are toast. Chrysler is the first to go on the chopping block. There is no recovery plan, as they *have no cars* the new world market demands -- electric, non-polluting, cheap, very low margin. They still want to make Americamobiles. Their only chance i

Re:

[jo7hs2]

While it is a remote possibility that Ford's car factories could be shuttered permanently, I find it unlikely that their truck factories (which DO produce an excellent product) will be closed, even if Ford was purchased. Chrysler is already dead. That Diamler-Chrysler "merger" was the death of the company, they are now just a nameplate to be bought and sold. Ford can still turn the trainwreck around. They do still make the occasional shocker, look at the initial sales of the Focus and the Fusion. Ford's p

Re:

[Catbeller]

There is a further consideration, which I strongly believe, that Ford and the other auto companies are walking into a perfect economic storm. The national debt, borrowing, and spending, coupled with twenty five years of "right-sizing" the work force, outsourcing the manufacturing to foreign companies, depressing wages, disappearing cheap credit, and feeling the violent increases in real estate and rental costs, are creating a "all curves down" depression of consumer spending. Only 10-20% of American workers

Re:

[drix]

No, I don't think Ford will disappear. 100 years' worth of brand equity is certainly worth something, even if the last 30 are synonymous with ugliness, unreliability and inefficiency. Someone--Toyota?--will come snap them up in a few year's time, scrap the entire product line, and sell rebadged versions of their own products--a foreign car in disguise. In fact I've heard rumors that Toyota is absolutely champing at the bit to do this, because it would remove the last major hurdle for a lot people to buying

And?

[Shadowlore]

It's old news (Wow bet you are suprised! ;) ). It isn't the first, and any car that weighs in under 1200 kilos and has 600 HP damned well better pull that kind of time. The Electric Ariel Atom smokes this car. Of course the Ariel Atom pulls sub-3 second 0-60 times (2.8) with a mere 300HP motor. And yes again the key factor is weight: It weighs in at just under half the weight of this car - about 500 kilos. The electric one pulls 3 seconds in the 60 and weighs in at about 700 kilos. The fact that the two var

Re:

[hamburger lady]

If you have a car priced at $125,000 with 600HP of power that weighs a mere 1200 kilos you better pull times like this. Otherwise go back to the drawing board. The Corvette Z06 weighs in at a hefty 3100 pounds, has 500 less HP and pulls 0-60 times of 3.2-3.8 with 3.5 being the official result.

the corvette does all that with only 100HP? that's amazing.

Context please

[K8Fan]

For those of us who are not total gearheads, how is 3.1 seconds for 0 to 60 compared to internal combustion engines? Anyone have a chart of 0 to 60 times for Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche and various types of race cars?

some context

[hc5duke]

• Ford Mustang GT = 4.9 seconds ($30k)
• Chevy Corvette Z06 = 3.4 seconds ($70k)
• Lambo Murciélago LP640 = 3.3 seconds ($300k)
• Enzo Ferrari = 3.14 seconds ($650k)
• Bugatti Veyron = 2.46 seconds ($1.5MM)

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:

[karnal]

Anyone in the world can write anything they want about any subject -- so you know you are getting the best possible information.

So you watch The Office too?

Re:

[K8Fan]

Thank you for the information. If one is into cars, I assume "0 to 60" times of various automobiles are pretty much encoded into one's DNA.

Why no Solar Cells?

[Stevecrox]

One thing thats been bothering me for a while, is every electric car or hybrid I've seen lacks solar panels. To me that makes perfect sense, quick charge battery's have a short life as well as being as it being difficult to find a charge point and cars like the above use standard connections but obviously the charge time is long enough to be annoying.
I know solar cells have a dubious enviromental advantage but a small set on a spoiler or on the roof (silicon or the new type which is less efficent) would pr

Re:

[Zobeid]

It makes no sense. You just can't collect enough solar energy on the tiny panels that can easily fit on a car. Your example module produces 54 watts . . . The Tesla's battery pack (for example) stores about 50,000 watt-hours of energy. So, it would take about 925 hours of full sunlight to charge. A good sunny day might get you a mile and a half down the road. Meanwhile, you have to leave your car outside exposed to the elements all the time. So the weather is taking its toll on your paint, it's taki

I don't get it.

[suv4x4]

I never understood why people watch the 0-60 timing and top speed of a car. On the road, what you need is a stable, safe, efficient vehicle.

Noone really want to go 0-60 in 3.5 seconds and reach 175mph, unless they're looking to die, and do it as fast as possible.

Re:

[Wolfier]

First, because a lot of people also want to drive their cars on the tracks.

Second, people who want a stable, safe, efficient vehecle doesn't mean they'll also want it to be slow.

Lastly, just because you don't want to do a 3.5 second 0-60 to reach 175, doesn't mean that "noone" wants to. Open you eyes.

Re:

[suv4x4]

Lastly, just because you don't want to do a 3.5 second 0-60 to reach 175, doesn't mean that "noone" wants to. Open you eyes.

I'll open my eyes just in time for someone to drive me over at 175mph.

Re:

[shmlco]

How many want to? Now, how many need to? And how many should?

Most production cars and SUVs are in the 6-10 second range as far as 0-60 acceleration is concerned. 3.5 is overkill. 5-6 would feel "fast" to the average consumer, and let them concentrate on efficiency.

"..doesn't mean that "noone" wants to. Open you [sic] eyes."

Hope that was intentional...

Add regenerative braking!

[Khyber]

Please add regenerative braking to this car! Get some extra mileage!

Electric Car Roundup

[Zobeid]

Many of these are more-or-less performance oriented vehicles. . .

Tesla Roadster: http://www.teslamotors.com/ [teslamotors.com]

Tango: http://www.commutercars.com/ [commutercars.com]

UEV Spyder: http://www.universalelectricvehicle.com/spyder.htm l [universale...ehicle.com]

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]

Re:

[Larry Lightbulb]

It's useful to know when you'r racing away from a traffic light.

Re:

[Zader]

More like when you are racing to beat the timing on sequential sets of lights designed to slow you down.
Just remember though, that sets of lights you can get through at 40mph you can also get through at 160mph!

Re:quarter mile time?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Why do car manufacturers always quote 0-60 time when quarter mile is what everyone really cares about?

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.
b

Re:quarter mile time?

[Bertie]

Actually I'd rather know how it does 30-70 in gear, as that's the kind of acceleration I actually need - getting up to speed for joining a motorway. Blasting away from the lights is strictly for boy racers, and how fast my car does it is of no practical value to me.

Re:

[polar red]

I guess It won't be slow neither ... electric cars don't need to shift gears.

Re:

[Paul Jakma]

electric cars don't need to shift gears.

Nor do internal combustion engine driven cars, with continuously variable transmission [chttp]. Williams tested it [cke-tech.com] in the early 90s - there's video of Coulthard accelerating from a standing start with the engine steady at peak revs the whole way, but it was banned by the FIA.

Re:

[jusdisgi]

CVT's aren't so obscure. Everybody's doing them nowadays; off the top of my head I've seen them from Ford, Nissan, Audi, and Honda. The Audi A6 had a 5-speed auto, 6-speed manual, or CVT at one point (last I looked was at least a year or two ago) and the CVT gave the best 0-60 and gas mileage of the three. And without any shifting. No doubt, CVT is cool.

What I would really like to see is a diesel on a CVT. In a sports car. No, seriously...by modulating the transmission ratio rather than the throttle you'd h

Re:

[StikyPad]

I'd guess, just offhand, PRETTY GODDAMN QUICK. As in, way way quicker than whatever you drive now, unless you're "joining the motorway" in a Ferrari Enzo.

Pfft.. my '92 Eclipse has NOS stickers, a CF spoiler, and a 6" tailpipe and it'll SMOKE that shit all day, any day.

Some concepts are closer to reality

[Engineer-Poet]

The performance isn't quite as good, but Tesla Motors was already taking orders last year.

Re:

[leoc]

As is Commuter Cars [commutercars.com].

Re:

[awfar]

Wow,

I would agree with your assessment on a normal market playing field. Auto manufacturers are no longer auto manufacturers; they are owned, run, influenced by holding corporations or corporations that influenced by many areas. Look and see where GM made most of its money in past years; not in making cars, but in the fincancing of cars; theirs or others. You know, make money on the razor blades, not the razor.

Another I watch is G.E. - they make nothing, directly, anymore. Good or bad company? I'm not sure.

Re:

[SnowZero]

Another I watch is G.E. - they make nothing, directly, anymore. Good or bad company? I'm not sure.

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

Re:American car companies are tanking

[zogger]

The big three (I will talk primarily US) are tanking and fast precisely because they never got it on mileage and reliability until the japanese had a solid decade or more advances on them. And for the most part they still haven't caught up. They obviously threw away that market because they didn't give a crap, and are mostly retarded to boot.

I used to have a 74 dart, held six adults, roomy trunk, I tried it once it would actually do 110 mph with the six banger in it, and it got around 25 miles per gallon, w

Re:

[TubeSteak]

Because of it's nature, this type of car would have to be made out of very lightweight materials, and even then, panels as thin as possible. Seeing that the majority of car sells are in the sedan/family models, it wouldn't be reasonable for auto manufacturers to market and produce a car like this - that won't be very safe and crash survivable - on a large scale.

Lightweight materials (like carbon fiber) allow you to built very strong frames.
The only catch is that it is very expensive.

Price, not strength, is

Re:

[damiam]

Well, since it's a two-seat roadster, no, it's not a family car. But there's no reason light cars can't be safe - people regularly walk away from 150mph crashes in F1 cars.

Re:I'm guessing not a family car..

[thrillseeker]

there's no reason light cars can't be safe - people regularly walk away from 150mph crashes in F1 cars.

We can't even get people to wear seat belts and observe traffic laws - what are the odds we can get them to spend years developing high speed driving skills, to wear nomex garmets, full-face helmets, neck braces, undergarmet cooling systems, four point harnesses - and not have head-on collisions - and be willing to spend the several hundred thousand dollars for the carbon fiber bodies that F1 cars are using?

Re:

[dbIII]

It appears the point has been completely missed - the idea would be to take some of the features but not to have everyone driving about in F1 cars.

Also the car bodies are expensive because they are one off handcrafted things - when it comes down to it they are polyester and the same sort of carbon fibre that is in an inexpensive fishing rod. Mass production isn't difficult - building the first set of moulds is the expensive bit.

Yeah, hydro dams do that

[SmallFurryCreature]

It is caused by the water dropping down, releases ton of carbons. As for wind power, those blades are made of carbon and they just evaporate in the sun. Nasty stuff.

When will people finally get it into their head that the move to electric/hydrogen cars means that you break the direct link between your source of energy, and the energy to put in a moving vehicle?

A wind powered car would be inconvenient, by an electric car whose electricity comes from windpower isn't.

A country like greenland could use geothermal energy to create hydrogen and ship it to the rest of the world.

But yeah, some power plants currently use carbon based fuels, so electricity causes carbon pollution. We wouldn't want to confuse you.

Re:

[Forrest Kyle]

If by "some power plants" you mean "the vast, vast majority", then yes some power plants use carbon fuels like coal.

Your response was rude and hardly very enlightening.

Why is this red herring moderated up?

[guidryp]

He makes a clear point. Electric cars break the tie to any single fuel type. That means at any point the generation is cleaned up by adding renewables/nuclear even old electric on the road benefit.

You concentrate on the worse case scenario without even looking into it. You can look up carbon content per megajoule of energy today and do the comparison numbers.

You will still produce much less net emissions by using an electric car because of it's much higher efficiency.

Under no circumstance is an electric car producing more net emissions. This long tailpipe argument is an old unsupported red herring.

Re:

[ironicsky]

That depends on how your power is generated. In Manitoba, we're mostly hydro electric, so the only bi-product is flooding behind the damn. If your in places that use coal, oil, gas, or any other carbon fuel to generate electricity then you will have this issue. But using renewable energy such as hydro electric, geothermal, nuclear, only product heat.

Re: Global Warming

[djupedal]

So is this a productive application of technology?

Without digging into the production details and uncovering the carbon footprint, there is no way to know - my guess...not by any means, or they would have mentioned it.

Wrong.

[leoc]

When considering the full energy cycle of ICE cars vs EV's, EV's are more efficient by a fairly significant amount.

REFERENCE: http://www.evadc.org/pwrplnt.pdf [evadc.org]

Re:Global Warming

[Zobeid]

You have heard wrong. Your typical gasoline engine is about 20% efficient at turning chemical energy into motion. Your electric motor is around 90% efficient. That means, if you work through all the maths from start to finish, that the electric car always produces less pollution per mile driven as compared with the gasoline car.

If all your electrical power comes from coal-fired plants, that's the dirtiest source of electricity we have, and the electric car still comes out slightly ahead on pollution. When you bring in other sources of any energy -- any other sources -- the numbers get better. You can burn natural gas, or run nuclear plants, you can do wind, solar, geothermal, hydro power, and your cars don't have to change.

And here's another fun fact. . . Many electrical power plants in the USA produce excess energy at night, when demand is low. It's not practical to shut the plants down and "cold start" them again the next morning, so they sit idling and producing power that is wasted. If we charged electric cars at night during that time, we could power tens of millions of them without having to build a single new generating plant.

Re:Mod parent -1 troll

[SnowZero]

parent is obviously trying to ignite that.

It's shocking that a gasoline car advocate would add fuel to the fire by igniting an argument with electric car advocates. Maybe he doesn't have the capacity to understand the power of electric vehicles.

Re:

[icepick72]

Glad you passed through friend, but don't let the door hit you on the way out ...

Doesn't work, refer back to Newton, Faraday et al

[Flying pig]

No, you can't. You are talking utter nonsense, I'm afraid. First, you have to control all that current. It's no good having a huge knife switch with on and off positions. The arcing will destroy it instantly. You need a lot of control electronics to manage the power to the large brushless motor you will need, and you will need big gears and shafts to handle the torque. This adds weight, and also adds the need for ever more advanced cooling technology.

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

[Talchas]

I'm pretty sure that last time that SUVs are better than a Prius thing came up here, many people did a very good (and reasoned) job of smashing the claims to really little pieces.

Wrong.

[leoc]

when total life cost is taken into account, even some small SUVs are actually lower energy impact than a Toyota Prius.

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:Doesn't work, refer back to Newton, Faraday et

[dbIII]

One thing is certain: factor in the battery manufacture and recycling costs, and they are no solution to global warming.

No, the whole idea is to have all the pollution happen elsewhere - like at the top of a very tall stack instead of at ground level in the centre of a city. It's the same with hybrids - they are the solution to a city traffic problem and have a different transmission system that has benefit.

As for the SUV thing - yes you can cherry pick stuff and say that a one litre Suzuki Seirra is still an SUV but it all comes down to big heavy vehicles requiring more energy to move about whether they have a tonne of batteries or are just big to look impressive. A minivan with the aerodynamic properties of a brick can carry more people for far less energy than what I would normally call an SUV.

Re:

[MtViewGuy]

I remember reading in an automotive magazine recently about a British company modifying a Mini (the current design) to be powered by four powerful electric motors. The result was actually FASTER than the standard Mini, which shows that once we lick the battery storage problem electric cars won't be slow, that's to be sure. And since the electric motor is very compatible with computer controls it could mean built-in traction control and antilock braking all by controlling how each motor works.

Re:

[Yetihehe]

I don't see this being sold in any halfway-large volumes until at least after the other side of peak oil. Until then, it's a nice toy, but it doesn't make any econmic sense.

Yeah, just look at Tesla Roadster [teslamotors.com]. It's the same miserable failure. Like, they sold they production for 2007 in 4 months. If this thing costs less than $100k, it will have dramatic success.

More recently...

[leoc]

Check out the videos [plasmaboyracing.com] on the White Zombie EV drag racer site.

Re:

[Soulslayer]

Actually the better designed conversions (home-brew electric cars made out of factory ICE vehicles) tend to be more stable that the gas car that they started from. While you are generally exceeding the original vehicles weight by a few hundred pounds or more the electric components can be mounted lower and take up less space per pound. The end result being that you lower the CG of the vehicle and make it more stable in the corners.

There is even an EV racer out there competing with the gas cars in SCCA rac

Re:

[Zobeid]

I dunno about the electric Mullen GT, but PCMAG.COM recently reported that the Tesla Roadster does, in fact, run Linux. Check it:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,2109194,00.as p [pcmag.com]

Re:What is the point?

[hey!]

The point is that people's perceptions of electric vehicles is that they have to be glorified golf carts.

Now I happen to think there's room in the transportation world for glorified golf carts that are capable of typical commuting trips. But not everyone agrees with me.

So you have to educate people that the electric drive trains have a variety of possibilities.