Environmentally friendly Race Car, pretty interesting read........NPC Options

[TROJANMAN]

Electric car almost as fast as the bugatti

I lied, there is some Posche Content (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[KaptKaos]

Interesting article. If they really want to make electric cars into something worthwhile, they need to race them. Racing improves the breed as they say.

Regardless, these are still powered by fossil fuels (mostly). It just changes from gasoline to natural gas or coal. Not enough nuclear in the USA to make a difference. So you move the problem the pollution problem to a point problem, generation facilities, and away from the tail pipe. Still a problem.

What no one can tell me is if the impact on the environment of these cars is actually less than gasoline powered cars. Taking everything into consideration like; waste disposal of all those batteries, energy loss on powerlines, and other similar issues. In short, I don't know if electric really is better for the environment and no one has made a good case to me as of yet.

[ewdysar]

I agree that racing will develop a better E-car, but drag racing isn't gonna help that much. Handling and range are the problems that need to be addressed.

As far as the environmental impact, electric generating companies are trying to move towards non fossil fuel sources, but it takes time. In the mean time, the advantage of moving to a single point of fossil fuel use means that you can control the emissions with huge and effective filter/trap as well as invest in raising the efficiency of a large, common generator, rather than trying to apply the improvements to each individual vehicle. Most e-car development is moving away from L/A batteries, I don't know about the recycling process of the newer battery technologies.

If you're going to to evaluate the total environmental impact of any alternatives to gas/diesel powered vehicles, don't just measure the vehicle emissions. I have never seen the proponents of the status quo include oil exploration, extraction, storage, refineries, transportation, distribution and other stages into the calcs, but they always talk about the complete energy chain for the alternatives.

The current (no pun intended) sticking point in e-car development is the energy density of batteries. Even the latest batteries fall short of average consumer expectations. Fossil fuels are so energy dense, we are spoiled as consumers. Very few people will make the necessary compromises to accomodate today's alternative energy storage.

It's a long debate, and I want to go electric, but the technology just hasn't made it to my personal requirements yet.

Eric

[KaptKaos]

I agree that racing will develop a better E-car, but drag racing isn't gonna help that much. Handling and range are the problems that need to be addressed.

Exactly! Head to head competition can bring that out. Until then, we won't get the real inspired genius that poeple are capable of and that competition seems to bring out.

If you're going to to evaluate the total environmental impact of any alternatives to gas/diesel powered vehicles, don't just measure the vehicle emissions. I have never seen the proponents of the status quo include oil exploration, extraction, storage, refineries, transportation, distribution and other stages into the calcs, but they always talk about the complete energy chain for the alternatives.

I agree, and that is part of my point. I have not seen any good information about the loss of energy on tranmission lines. People have told me its very small, less than 5%, but I find that hard to believe. Additionally, we have major power grid issues in the USA. I doubt that the grid, as it exists, could handle a lot of electric cars on it. No one seems to be talking about that, nor do they remember the blackouts that we caused by old grids and old equipment a few years back.

[richardL]

I have not seen any good information about the loss of energy on tranmission lines. People have told me its very small, less than 5%, but I find that hard to believe. Additionally, we have major power grid issues in the USA. I doubt that the grid, as it exists, could handle a lot of electric cars on it. No one seems to be talking about that, nor do they remember the blackouts that we caused by old grids and old equipment a few years back.

If you go to Wrightspeed Webpage there is a pretty interesting FAQ that addresses just that and has percentages for efficiency for powerplants and the grid and also a breakdown of where the electricity comes from.

Since this car is an arial atom I don't think handling is a problem. Efficiency wise, its getting an equivalent of 170mpg.

Also with new developments of capacitors using nanostructures to increase surface area and hence capacity, the issue of batteries, weight and range should all diminish in the next 5 - 10years.

I think this is pretty exciting as a prospect.

The site also has some more video including driving around on Sandhill Road in Palo Alto

Richard

[Gradskater]

An electric Atom, cool.

This might be a dumb question, but wouldnt the electric motor benefit from having at least two gears? I understand that it makes tons of torque, so you dont need the gears to get going like a gasoline engine, but once you get to highway speed, wouldnt it be more efficent to have at least one gear to switch into (an overdrive) to lower the RPM's on the electric motor.

Lower the RPM's, lower the electricity used? Extend the range? Or would that even make a difference?