Is this what the Idiot wants us all to Drive

mcwhirter

ismynametoolong wrote: »

Would hate to be involved in an an accident in this yoke !

Can't believe we were all tricked into voting for that muppet.

Curran

Hope the boys with their clamps were about - he's parked on Double Yellow Lines, like to see him talk his way out of that one!!!

I didnt read every post, it may have been mentioned!!

Thoie

E92 wrote: »

Am I the only one who's realised that Gormless has parked that thing illegally?

Btw, Tesla may be in a spot of bother.

Damn, I was going to buy one if I was allowed park it on double yellow lines.

I'd buy one for popping around town in if it was cheap, no road tax, free parking and low/no insurance. If I was allowed drive it in the buslane I'd get one tomorrow. I'd still keep my "normal" car for driving any more than about 5 or 10 miles though.

Recharging is one of the biggest problems I can see with these things though. I live in an apartment building, so no way to recharge it at home. And given the distance you can wander to find a parking meter, I don't want to have to park at Stephen's Green to recharge if I'm heading to Parnell St.

Rowley Birkin QC

A lot more incentives would be needed to get me into something that:

1. Looks like it would fold in the face of a moderate fart
   
2. Let's be honest, would make the driver look like a tool
   
3. Have the overtaking power of an asthmatic long distance runner
   
4. Would please John Gormley.

towel401

Shyt like the gee whizz gives electric cars a bad name

towel401

phutyle wrote: »

About 90% of our domestic electricity is generated by burning fossil fuels. Why should owners of these cars get these incentives (including free fuel!) for doing little more than shifting their carbon footprint one step down the supply chain?

its still more efficient than most normal cars. since the engine doesn't idle and what ever is generating the power is usually operating at its peak efficiency. like if you charge an electric car with a decent size diesel generator you will get a fairly good mpg out of it. and nobody can say anything to you for filling the generator with green diesel

Rowley Birkin QC

towel401 wrote: »

Shyt like the gee whizz gives electric cars a bad name

Is that not an Ariel Atom? As in a proper and oh so fantastic form of personal transport.

Or did some company buy the platform off them?

towel401

it is.someone stuffed an electric engine in the back of it. the guy wants to make them commercially but it could be years before that happens
wrightspeed X1.

Stark

bigkev49 wrote: »

A lot more incentives would be needed to get me into something that:

1. Looks like it would fold in the face of a moderate fart
2. Let's be honest, would make the driver look like a tool
3. Have the overtaking power of an asthmatic long distance runner

A Seicento owner would drive one.

Rowley Birkin QC

Wrightspeed XI wrote:

# 0-100 km/h (0-62 mph) ~ 3.0 seconds
# Standing quarter mile (400 m) ~11.5 seconds

That I could live with. At least if I got driven over by a Range Rover or suffer the ignomy of being squished by a bus it would at least have been a fun drive first.

Hellrazer

galwaytt wrote: »

so, 76% of people you surveyed said they're happy to sacrifice not only their own, but their passengers - and families - lives for. :eek:

Actually nearly everyone I surveyed said they wouldnt carry their family in it,that it would more than likely be a single driver on a commuter journey of less than 20 km each way.

Which is exactly the idea of these things.Commuter journeys of short distance where speed isnt an issue due to the road congestion.

A lot of them were motorcyclists and scooter drivers who compared the safety of these things to the non-existant safety of their 2 wheeled transport.


Besides Im not saying I like the thing but if Gormless is going to enourage the uptake of these things then Im considering getting in at the start with a franchise.

derry

A vidio of the electric atom car

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=3351816n

he figure cost for car in production is ~$200,000 or about ~E150,000 euros

some stats for the car

wiki wrote:

Performance

For more details from the manufacturer, see: http://www.wrightspeed.com/specs.html

* 0-100 km/h (0-62 mph) ~ 3.0 seconds
* Standing quarter mile (400 m) ~11.5 seconds
* Top speed 180 km/h (112mph) (electronically limited)
* Range >160 km (>100 miles) in urban use
* Charger: onboard conductive. Input 100-250V 50 or 60 Hz. Current: user adjustable up to 80A
* Energy consumption 125 WHr/km (200 WHr/mile) in urban use, equivalent to 1.4 L/100 km (170 mpg) (8920 WHr/L or 33,705 WHr/gallon)

and

wrightspeed wrote:

http://www.wrightspeed.com/specs.html
X1 Prototype Specifications


• 3-phase AC induction motor, 236hp at the motor shaft
• 182 ft lbs torque at the motor shaft, from 0 rpm to 6,000 rpm
• 13,300 rpm rev limit
• weight 1,536 lbs
• no clutch, single gear ratio 8.25:1
• Quaife limited slip differential
• Alcon front calipers, 4 piston
• Dymag Magnesium Alloy wheels
• inboard Bilstein race dampers, Eibach 2-stage springs
• steering: rack and pinion, 1.5 turns lock-lock
• 25 kWhr Lithium Ion battery pack

Performance
• 0-60 ~ 3.0 seconds
• Standing quarter mile ~11.5 seconds
• Top speed 112mph (electronically limited)
• Range >100 miles in urban use
• Charger: onboard conductive. Input 100-250V 50 or 60 Hz. Current: user adjustable up to 80A
• Energy consumption 200 WHr/mile in urban use, equivalent to 170 mpg (33,705 WHr/gallon)

The batteries are A123 class lithuim nano titanium ferrous oxide

Each battery has about 2200 MHA at 3.2 volts ( useful 2.5 volts) weight 70 grams per battery
Each battery will recharge in less than 15 minutes with less than 10 minutes being able to recharge to 90 % capasity

So in the case of this car the 90KM range at slow suburban speeds is possible in ten minutes

each battery cost about $30 each and has a cycle life of 2000 cycles

However the car would require some few thousand cells to supply this power

I would suspect that the battery pack costs would be $50000 ~E35,000 euros minimimum

The batteries require special controlers for each battery to ensure it is balanced so add another $12,000 or ~E10000 euro for that
Then it requires a complicated charger not your regular of the wall electric socket to recharge it

Example a 220 volt will only supply 3 amps or 3000 watts power or about 2.5BHP

Now the engine is rated at ~~250 BHP

this infers the battery is rated at 300 BHP for a short period or 150 BHP for longer period or lets ball park estimate 100BHP for one hour

this means the typical wall charging unit would take 100bhp/2.5bhp ~40 hours to recharge the battery

So if we used two wall sockets that would go down to 20 hours
using 10 wall sockets would go down to 2 hours
100 wall sockets down to 12 minutes

100 wall sockets at 3 amps each means we need 300 amps to recharge the battery rapidily

So we can infer the rapid charge charger supplied in the car of 80 amp recharges the battery in about ~45 minutes which isnt even the maxium the battery can achieve

Now even the average house total input is aften less than 80 amps and even commersial places like garages would be hard put to supply 80 amps just for one car never mind maybe 10 car sitting there for 45 minutes using 800 amps

If all the cars then got bigger chargers let say 300 chargers and ten cars came in a nd refilled at one garge in ten minutes the deamnd would be 3000 amps which would chalage a local sub station to supply that much power

100 of these cars pulling into a recharging stations in Dublin for example all recharging at the same time would use now 30,000 amps or the same power as 3000 houses and could even overload the local power ESB station like Pidgion house


So from this we can see that solving the battery problem whicjh is sorta solved (but to way expensive ) then it makes new demands on the ESB network which would cost gazzilionsof Euros in making new sub stations to supply forecourts and parking spots to recharge the cars


Then every 2000 trips of 100 miles for the car or 200,000 the battery would be useless and binned probably along with the car which is respectable milage to retire any car but the Electric car would have used 1/4 the energy compered to a 50MPG car
If the car cost E200,000 Euros and we did 200,000 miles cost to run capital would be 1Euro per mile
we can assume each recharge cst some 1/8 th of the petrol equivent lets say 10 euros per 80 euro petrol tank which makes it about ~5 cents per mile

This now means it cost 1 .05 euro per mile using that version of electric car

If we bought a typical E30,000 petrol car and we did 30MPG at lets say E 5 euro per gallon at 200,000 miles we would use 6666 gallons of fuel which cost ~ E33.400 euros making each mile cost about E63400 euro total or about E0.32 cents per mile

For the joe soap the petrol car is 1/3 as cheap to run compared to electric even if the cost of electric car refill is buttons

The story doesn't stop there as the car would have got it power from a 60% effient ESB power station
This in turn is delivering the power to the batteries at global effiency of about ~20% (eg ~80% of the power is wasted )
This compares to petrol car which has 30% effecient engine but global return with transmission losses etc are ~10% of the power (eg ~90% of the power is wasted )


This means that Ireland as a country would be able to run 4 electric cars to the same gallon of fuel and as ESB electric fuel bought in bulk is often much cheaper it means the real fuels for running electric cars would be about 1/8th that of petrol or deisel solutions

So for the benifit of the country reducing Co2 emmission and reducing the fuel burnt in Ireland often forgien oil and gas teh electric car is a no brainer for the governments to want in place as soon as possible

So we can expect the electric battery costs to drop buy half or even buy 2/3rds in a few years which would make E30000 euro electric cars possible

Then at that time electric cars at 1/4 or less trhe cost per refill will make everybody change to electric

Then every car park will need to have mega LARGE electric sockets to refill the electric cars often in tren minute recharges

That will mean tearing up half the roads in Ireland to put in big electric cables which will slow traffic yet again

Derry