Electric Cars

davemercedes

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Now here's a glimpse of the future:

Faraday FF91: World's 'fastest electric car' unveiled
http://news.sky.com/story/faraday-ff91-worlds-fastest-electric-car-unveiled-10717493

Apparently this model can accelerate from zero to 60mph in 2.39 seconds - quicker than the McLaren P1 or the Lamborghini Aventador. That would also beat the acceleration of Tesla's Model S - currently the world's fastest production electric car.

No pricing info yet but they are taking deposits of $5,000 (£4,075) to get one in 2018.
 

Xtractorfan

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Its faster to 60 mph, so thats our selling point, Jeepers I want one... not.
 

C350Carl

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I wonder what it's range will be. Elon Musk gave 10 model X away to the first 10 people that proved they had gotten 450km on a single charge in a model S

Some did it but they were driving at 40mph on motorways which is bordering on dangerous.

The Achilles heel of any electric car at the moment is range. Once they can give you a car that can do 500miles+ and have similar performance to a fast fossil powered car then they will take off.

Hopefully these new high density super capacitors will yield results. Giving both range and ability to fully charge the car up in the same time it would take to fill a tank of fuel.
 
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LostKiwi

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Hydrogen FTW

:)
Hydrogen has massive issues in storage and distribution - its such a small molecule it can easily leach through 2" thick steel walled tanks.

One possible solution to the issue of range is to use inductive charging under the road surface. It would require a significant investment in infrastructure but is technically feasible.
 
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davemercedes

davemercedes

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I wonder what it's range will be. Elon Musk gave 10 model X away to the first 10 people that proved they had gotten 450km on a single charge in a model S

Some did it but they were driving at 40mph on motorways which is bordering on dangerous.

The Achilles heel of any electric car at the moment is range. Once they can give you a car that can do 500miles+ and have similar performance to a fast fossil powered car then they will take off.

Hopefully these new high density super capacitors will yield results. Giving both range and ability to fully charge the car up in the same time it would take to fill a tank of fuel.

>>>
In the article they quote a range of 435 miles, but I suppose they will do the same as Tesla and create a network of charging points.
 

Craiglxviii

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>>>
In the article they quote a range of 435 miles, but I suppose they will do the same as Tesla and create a network of charging points.

And VAG quote mileage and emissions figures too ;)

The main issue with all-electric cars is that battery energy density is around 10%, max, of petrogas.

Personally I'm leaning towards either a fuel-cell solution (presently VERY costly) or a petrogas-electric hybrid (still double the cost of a single powertrain...)
 

C350Carl

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The new super high density capacitors are supposedly 1000x better than the current ones in use.
 

ZZZZ

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I've seen some experimental system with battery swap, instead of charging...
Very interesting, I thought, but would obviously require co-operation between manufacturers and tightly supervised forecourts' handling / charging of those batteries.
 

Xtractorfan

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I've seen some experimental system with battery swap, instead of charging...
Very interesting, I thought, but would obviously require co-operation between manufacturers and tightly supervised forecourts' handling / charging of those batteries.

For the time being, until they can come up with long range batteries the swop idea is the most viable.. I think.
 

C350Carl

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I think Tesla ditched the battery swap idea and instead use super chargers.
 

Frontstep

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I was talking to someone with an electric Nissan cold weather range for her is 80 miles.

I am waiting for Nuclear, endless power for everything I will poke my car into a charger and run the house on it :)


Emissions zero, the end of life recycling is a slight issue...................
 

Craiglxviii

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I've seen some experimental system with battery swap, instead of charging...
Very interesting, I thought, but would obviously require co-operation between manufacturers and tightly supervised forecourts' handling / charging of those batteries.

Doesn't work, been looked into and the chronic, massive issue is control of batteries on the forecourts. The warranty implications alone kill the whole idea stone dead.
 

Craiglxviii

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I was talking to someone with an electric Nissan cold weather range for her is 80 miles.

I am waiting for Nuclear, endless power for everything I will poke my car into a charger and run the house on it :)


Emissions zero, the end of life recycling is a slight issue...................

But for nuclear propulsion you'd need to fit steam turbines for turbogenerators if you're after electric, or closed-cycle heat transfer if you're after rocket exhaust... your car might end up at 2000 tons ;)

otherwise you end up with something like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WS-125
 

Craiglxviii

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Its the cost of battery production and of course the lithium, once again a natural resource doomed.

Hydrogen is the way for now imho.

Toyota already in >> https://www.toyota.co.uk/new-cars/n...gclsrc=aw.ds&dclid=CO-R3cjEqdECFfER0wodt_QCKg

.

The way the volume manufacturers (e.g. those actually at the cutting edge, not Tesla) are going is with fuel cells. Despite all the hype, Nissan are really the world leaders in electric vehicles for the mass market by some degree.

http://nissannews.com/en-US/nissan/...s-world-s-first-solid-oxide-fuel-cell-vehicle

Problem with lithium is that it cannot be made; it is produced during stellar formation only and so is a diminishing resource, hence $$$...
 

ZZZZ

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But for nuclear propulsion you'd need to fit steam turbines for turbogenerators if you're after electric, or closed-cycle heat transfer if you're after rocket exhaust...

One very clever application was a nuclear-powered mobile station (as in a huge military truck) for extraction of extra heavy crude (high viscosity oil) from a permafrost - perfect use for steam (pumped under/next the oil layer to push it out) and fully autonomous, developed in late 70s, but never actually deployed in numbers greater than a few prototypes ... too expensive. The inventor used to refer to the power station as "my pocket nuke" ...:D
 

Craiglxviii

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One very clever application was a nuclear-powered mobile station (as in a huge military truck) for extraction of extra heavy crude (high viscosity oil) from a permafrost - perfect use for steam (pumped under/next the oil layer to push it out) and fully autonomous, developed in late 70s, but never actually deployed in numbers greater than a few prototypes ... too expensive. The inventor used to refer to the power station as "my pocket nuke" ...:D

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersonic_Low_Altitude_Missile

This is a much more clever application, an open-cycle nuclear jet engine. Now who wouldn't want a few of these...?
 

d215yq

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Why does it need to have a range of 500 miles? That's just people thinking "petrol cars have 500 miles so this must"

For users that can plug it in and charge over night it would probably need a range of about 100 miles to do 99% of journeys. In fact a range of 100 miles but plugging it in overnight is way more convenient than a normal car with 500 miles range having to stop at petrol stations.

If the charge to mass ratio of EVs is 10% of petrol then the optimum range for the best designed vehicle will be less than with petrol. It should beat the petrol on everything else e.g. acceleration, complexity, cost, emissions, servicing, refinement
 

Craiglxviii

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Why does it need to have a range of 500 miles? That's just people thinking "petrol cars have 500 miles so this must"

For users that can plug it in and charge over night it would probably need a range of about 100 miles to do 99% of journeys. In fact a range of 100 miles but plugging it in overnight is way more convenient than a normal car with 500 miles range having to stop at petrol stations.

If the charge to mass ratio of EVs is 10% of petrol then the optimum range for the best designed vehicle will be less than with petrol. It should beat the petrol on everything else e.g. acceleration, complexity, cost, emissions, servicing, refinement

Well that's just it, it doesn't NEED to have that range. If we all grew up with electric-only cars with 80-100 miles range, but could leave it on charge through the day, then never need to visit a petrol station (for day-to-day life) would we know any difference?

The change comes when one needs to drive for more than 80-100 miles in one go. Then one needs to plan recharging stops. Two colleagues drove a popular EV from work to South Wales & back over one weekend, planning their journey via available fast-charge points, just to prove that it could be done. It could, but it wasn't particularly convenient.

I significantly doubt that an EV will beat a petrogas car on cost just down to a) body structure- inherent costs are greater due to layout differences, to achieve crash performance; b) weight of copper in the powertrain makes it just about cost-neutral to a normal petrogas engine anyway; c) inherent costs of energy storage media.

For emissions, while the car itself might have very low or zero emissions (of any kind, not just CO2) don't forget the kicker- the national grid contributes to emissions*, and would need to be expanded to account for the increased load placed upon it by increasing numbers of EVs. I've already explored this in some depth, it's possible given a timescale of 50-100 year+ but not even remotely so in the near to mid term.

(*One then has to answer the question of, how much emissions of all types per MWh, nett, transmitted to the point of usage does the grid contribute, and how does this compare to a petrogas engine installed in a vehicle?)
 

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