Speaking of Electric Cars...

Silicon Valley entrepreneurs plan to market an upscale, electric hot rod:

"We’re building a car for people who like to drive," Eberhard said. "This is not a punishment car."

To build the Roadster, Tesla engineers designed a sophisticated battery system with more than 8,000 lithium-ion cells and a network of computers to control them, Eberhard said. They also built an electric motor that is more than twice as powerful as earlier electric vehicles.

The Roadster will be able to drive about 250 miles on a single three-hour charge, drive up to 135 miles per hour and accelerate from zero to 60 in four seconds, Eberhard said. It will cost between $85,000 and $120,000.

Great, I guess, because it taps into the core of the Boomer McMansion-habitating conspicuous consumption set with a technology that's better for the environment. But, it's too bad these entrepreneurs aren't interested in making electric cars available to us proles.

Comments

[lightning]

Point of the exercise is to get experience with the technology. One way to do this is to sell prototypes to rich folks, and let them work the bugs out. Then, hopefully, they can license their technology to the Big Guys, who'll sell it to us plebes.

"The rich you have always with you." Use 'em. Sell 'em toys.

[David Parsons]

There's a _lot_ of experience with the technology; there are hundreds of people out there who operate EVS. EVs have only been around for about 100 years now, after all, so it's possible that the technology is a little more mature than the macho-cars-for-the-wealthy salesmen are implying.

[Powerpuff]

Over ten years ago I read in an engineering design magazine about an electric car that was going to have separate induction engines for each wheel. It was supposed to extremely fast. Never heard about it again.

[RobW]

Given those performance numbers, that really isn't all that expensive for a production sports car. Have you priced a Lotus Elise, Porsche Boxter, etc.?

The key to this car's cost is here:

"...more than 8,000 lithium-ion cells and a network of computers to control them..."

These are basically the same batteries in my laptop. It takes a whole lot of them to power a car. Hence, an extremely complex wiring harness (probably hand-built, hence huge labor cost) and complex controllers to keep them at an equal state of charge.

The solution would be to manufacture much larger li-ion batteries, so fewer could be used. But, battery manufacturers won't build them unless they see a mass-market of electric cars to use them. And without those batteries extant, no car manufacturer can mass-produce a vehicle that uses them. It's a chicken-and-egg sort of problem, a Catch-22.

There is hope- a Japanese car builder (Subaru, I think) is already designing cars around their own giant Li-ion battery pack, but it is years away from production.

Is this car really new? I'm not up to digging for a link right now, but it seems to me there was a similar concept sports car, with similar performance numbers and thousands of little Li-ion batts, displayed at the SEMA show in 2004. It was particularly noteworthy because it had been driven to the show in Las Vegas from LA, and still had enough charge left to cruise the Strip and show off some smoky burnouts for the cameras.

Yes, the basic technology has been around for a century, using old-fashioned lead-acid batteries. Many companies sell electric conversion kits for existing cars. But those batteries are SO heavy, you end up with an overweight car that takes several hours to charge, usually has a range of around 60 miles, and can't get out of it's own way.

Performance matters, if you want to actually sell a car. Even Geo Metro drivers expect to be able to keep up with traffic, at least.

I'm both an environmentalist and a hot-rodder. Performance, efficiency, and environmental friendliness are NOT mutually exclusive. All of these are about extracting the most energy from a given amount of fuel. The same techniques can make a car go further, or faster, or both.

Also... nothing beats an electric motor for sheer torque, which equals acceleration. The reason current electric conversions are slow is because of the battery weight. Get the lead out!

Other promising new batt. technology includes a new design that replaces the lead with aluminum. Another uses carbon foam instead. These will reduce the weight by an order of magnitude. When that happens, you'll see electric cars actually outperforming gasoline cars in speed, acceleration, and range. THEN, you'll see sales go through the roof.

[Elayne Riggs]

I think the key is the word "punishment." Proles aren't worthy of comfort or luxury, only of being punished to keep them in line.