Electric Car

[Footie]

Here's a very nice looking electric sports car being shown off at British International Motor Show 2008

Lightning sparks at London - Yahoo! Cars UK

Lightning car company web site.
Site say the batteries have a fast recharge but I can't find any details on distance / range

Welcome to Lightning Car Company - The UK's Premier Electric Sports Car

Use's NanoSafe™ batterys - lithium ion.

Altairnano - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Comments anyone?
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[flecc]

Very nice, but I wish someone would concentrate on a sensible small electric car for mass production. I tried for one again early this year, but ended up with another petrol town car, nothing realistic electric available.

As ever, plenty just around the corner and plenty of promises, but nothing to exercise a credit card.
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[john]

Does the G-Wiz not do it for you flecc?

[flecc]

Originally Posted by john

Does the G-Wiz not do it for you flecc?

I'm afraid not John, it's too hilly where I am and the G-Wiz is like a loaded milk float up hills. I'd cause a riot with the heavy and fast traffic in the lanes around my London fringe.

I'd had my eye on the electric Smart, but after years of delay there's only 100 released to nominees for trial this year.

Even better because of the interior space would have been the electric version of the Mitsubishi i-car, but for the third year running it's been put back a year, lithium battery problems. Now where have we heard that before?
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[prState]

Happened to see the editoral on this today.

Will Lightning Strike in the UK? - MSN Autos

The car is pretty.

Can you really get 700hp out of 30 batteries?

[flecc]

It's possible prState, depending on the battery type and an adequately high discharge rate. I agree with the correspondent though, the range they claim is quite ridiculous. I'm completely confident that like all the other high performance electric sports cars, Tesla etc, it won't arrive on the market anytime soon, and probably never.

At the present state of battery and associated technologies, the only viable realistically priced car is a town car, moderate performance and range. As I remarked above, even they keep getting put back year after year due to problems, despite having some of the top motor companies like Daimler Benz (electric Smart) and Mitsubishi (electric i-car) behind them. Previous e-cars from the big boys like models from GM and Peugeot have quickly disappeared from the market.
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[scobo]

It's really frustrating as the technology to build good electric cars is obviously here now if they can build cars like the Tesla and Lightning.
You have to wonder if there are other factors preventing the car manufacturers from developing production electric cars such as pressure from the big petrol companys not to.

[halfmedley]

There was a letter in The Telegraph motoring section from someone questioning the Lightning. I don't know the veracity of what he says but here it is verbatim:

"The Lightning GT Coupé is powered by a 36kW/h battery, which its maker claims may be quick-recharged in 10 minutes. Neglecting any losses, I calculate that this would require a supply of 216kW, nearly 1,000 amps at 240volts! This would need a large three-phase supply, not normally available at home, and demonstrates the ignorance of those who extol the virtues of battery-electric cars."

Are the figures correct?

I wish someone would concentrate on a sensible small electric car for mass production. I tried for one again early this year, but ended up with another petrol town car, nothing realistic electric available.

What about the Th!nk City car Flecc? Any good?

[flecc]

Originally Posted by scobo

It's really frustrating as the technology to build good electric cars is obviously here now if they can build cars like the Tesla and Lightning.
You have to wonder if there are other factors preventing the car manufacturers from developing production electric cars such as pressure from the big petrol companys not to.

The snag is that the technology isn't here Scobo. For years we've had a succession of chancers trying their get rich quick luck, but nothing comes of things like the Lightning, Tesla and many others simply because they can't get the finance or backing to produce. And the reason that they can't get the finance or backing is that their products don't stand up to examination. See halfmedley's post above for an indication of what I mean. High on claims and instant appeal, low on reality.

The largest oil companies are heavily into electric vehicle and other environmental research since they need to be doing something else to keep their businesses going as they are increasingly starved of crude oil, so they are the last people who would want to impede progress.

See also my answer following to Halfmedley.
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[flecc]

Originally Posted by halfmedley

What about the Th!nk City car Flecc? Any good?

Doubtful I think. After all, if Mercedes (Daimler Benz) have had to put the electric Smart back at least three years running to date and are still only doing a test market to a selected group of 100 to see how it goes, how could a tiddler succeed with their limited resources.

Again, Mitsubishi have put back the electric i-car another year for the third time due to lithium battery problems.

Equally, giant Ford after years of work on small e-cars have only released a few to one large organisation so that they can PR manage the failure rate without corporate damage, like Smart above.

The small town car at a realistic price and acceptable hill climbing, range and reliability will arrive when one of the giants of the motor industry succeed. The annual blast of publicity for such as the Think Car makes me smile as it must make the big car companies smile.

Batteries are the problem, lead acid works as in the G-Wizz, but cars like that climb like milk floats, and that's unacceptable in todays traffic except in the flattest areas.

With better quality e-bike lithium batteries from £300 to £450, imagine what a set for a car costs, £4000 to £6000 perhaps? Now think of the less than two year lives we've been seeing and you see the scale of the problems. After all, the NiMh batteries for the electric Peugeot 207 many years ago cost £4000 and failed to reach the promised four year life, rendering it not viable.

The answer may have to come by missing out on batteries altogether and using fuel cells, but that can only happen if we have access to abundant hydrogen or methane with a distribution network for motorists. Methane will probably not be viable for universal use, so we'll need nuclear generation to realise enough hydrogen.

I've almost given up on being able to buy an electric town car in my motoring lifetime, and I'm not demanding, being willing to pay at least 50% over the petrol equivalent and not needing a very long range. It does however need to perform with today's traffic on acceleration and speed, up hills as well as on the flat.
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