ANOTHER electric car -- BUT ......

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Dean Huster
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ANOTHER electric car -- BUT ......

Post by Dean Huster »

The newest issue of Electronic Design (08/17/06, page 21) describes an electric car that's interesting, if nothing else.

0 to 60 in ~4 seconds -- that's pretty good ramp ballistics

Top speed 130 mph

Battery pack is 1000 lbs -- ouch! There went the GVW. Just think about how fast it could accelerate with a fourth that pack weight!

Replace the Li-ion pack every 100,000 miles (but we don't know the cost of that from the article).

$100,000

Manufacturer's site: http://www.teslamotors.com
Magazine site: http://www.electronicdesign.com


Dean
Dean Huster, Electronics Curmudgeon
Contributing Editor emeritus, "Q & A", of the former "Poptronics" magazine (formerly "Popular Electronics" and "Electronics Now" magazines).

R.I.P.
zotdoc
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Post by zotdoc »

That was a great site, and I'm sure the car will be a hit. I wish someone would make a practical electric pick up truck, though, because I live in a rural area and I wouldn't want to haul fence posts or horsefeed in such a cool car!
hlreed
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Post by hlreed »

There are neighborhood electric cars limited to 25 mph speed that include a little pickup truck. Google electric cars and they should show up.

By the way, I got an email from Electronic Design that said the Tesla motors car was sold out. I forgot how many were produced.
Harold L. Reed
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ku7485
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Post by ku7485 »

Just got my issue of Electronic Design in mail... The car is expected to come out in early 2007, but the price is starting at $100,000. Overall, I think its a good car anyway. It has nifty features also....
zotdoc
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Post by zotdoc »

The neighborhood car may work for some people, But I would still need to get on a 60 MPH highway for about 15 miles each way, so it wouldn't work for me. I believe the electric car for now will remain a mission intensive vehicle, but if we all had em, especially with some type of solar charging scheme, we could reaqlly put a dent in our oil use and our dependence on the midlle east.
Ron H
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Post by Ron H »

The're planning to make an affordable family car by bootstrapping with the profits from the road rocket.
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jwax
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Post by jwax »

Go Tesla!
Silicon Valley will take the title of the "Motor City" away from Detroit in the next decade if the fossil fools don't wake up in Michigan.
Tommy volts
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Post by Tommy volts »

Electric cars require huge fossil fuel expenditure to manufacture and maintain and operate.

An electric car that costs $100,000 uses up about 5 times more fossil fuel resources to manufacture and operate than a gas operated car costing $20,000. But what fun to drive!!! I love driveing electric vehicles, they are so quiet and smooth and sometimes FAST!!! (see Dean's post: http://www.teslamotors.com/).
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jwax
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Post by jwax »

"An electric car that costs $100,000 uses up about 5 times more fossile fuel resources to manufacture and operate than a gas operated car costing $20,000."
I wonder what source determined that stunning, albeit dubious claim.
Tommy, have you an origin of that quote?
Tommy volts
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Post by Tommy volts »

jwax


Here is the basic claim:

money varies directly with fossil fuel, or even simpler:

money = fossil fuel.


Here are a few examples of how fossil fuel is tied to money:

An employee wakes up in the morning with an alarm clock that was manufactured by machinery built and operating on fossil fuels, he then uses the bathroom, the water he uses was pumped and cleaned with heavy machinery using fossil fuels, he dresses with clothes manufactured by fossil fuel machinery, he eats breakfast with food delivered to the stores with machinery using fossil fuels, he commutes to work with automobiles that run on fossil fuels, the plant that he works at was built with machinery using fossil fuels and by workers who all live on products manufactured from fossil fuels etc. All of the resources and money involved with virtually every aspect of our existence is based on fossil fuel.

In the electric car example: $100,000 cash = $100,000 fossil fuel.
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jwax
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Post by jwax »

I think we all agree that fossil fuel is very commonplace in our everyday life. Our mission is to REDUCE that dependency, right?
An electric car that I charge primarily by photovoltaics is using no more fossil fuel than it took to build it.
What's with your spelling?
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Externet
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Post by Externet »

That Lotus uses 6,831 rechargeable lithium-ion laptop cells :shock:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.08/tesla.html

Miguel
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Chris Smith
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Post by Chris Smith »

What a typical load of government crap?

Electric cars save oil,.... soldiers,.... and regardless of the cost, don’t ever reward bad arab behavior.

That alone is worth it.

Screw the world and your pretend reps,..., and tall buildings will fall down in NY any way,...duhhh?

Do it like Nike says, be your own person, and as to the 100k for a car, fire all republicans, greed in not patriotic.

The market wont bear them any day soon.

Sniff some arabs ass if you have to, just leave us alone morons.

You’re the real problem, buildings and all Pugs and cons.
rshayes
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Post by rshayes »

The point made by "Tommy volts" is entirely valid. The favored material for high density batteries is lithium. This is produced by electrolysis, using electric current supplied by some energy source, probably fossil fuel. Large scale production of lithium would require a massive source of additional electrical energy. Since nuclear energy is unlikely in this country, this would probably require fossil fuel.

Charging the battery with present silicon photovoltaic cells doesn't help. The production of silicon also requires the expenditure of large amounts of electric energy. The energy payback time for silicon solar cells is not very good, possibly a decade or more.

In order to reduce weight, these cars probably use a substantial amount of aluminum, which is also electrolytically extracted using electric energy.
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jwax
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Post by jwax »

Dude, the point being there IS A PAYBACK PERIOD for photovoltaics!
There is none, NONE, for fossil fuels.
Whatcha want to do? What is your world like 20 years from now?
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