New High Yield Electric Cars

[Freshfroot]

Just to illustrate to you how inaccurate the discussion about electric cars is in the USA, here's another scare article claiming that charging an electric car would knock out the community power supplies.

Those people seem to forget that those cars are MEANT TO BE CHARGED ON HOUSEHOLD POWER OUTLETS, with their limited power output. The industry certainly doesn't build cars that blow the fuses of your households.

Here's the real numbers for the Chevy Volt: Charging time for 240 V is 3 hours at 16 A (which would be a theoretical maximum), that would theoretically be 3.84 kW charging power and 11.52 kWh. So depending on the maximum available charging current, which depends on the household circuits, the charging time varies. That doesn't change the fact that charging an empty battery would consume about 12 kWh in total, which is a signifcant number.

There's always the possibility of adding a current limiter between the charger and the power outlet to have it charge at exactly the rate you want.

It wouldn't knock out the power. BUT we would need to find or use other sources of electric generating power. Because then every house will be at least charging 1 car. Which means more power is needed per a home.

I guess homes that are in a sunny area could always move on to solar power to help out. But we would definitely need other power sources.

 

[Monster]

But we would definitely need other power sources.

That's perhaps why new nuclear power plants are planned in the US ...

If the tests at the US National Ignition Facility or what it's called are successful, we could be having true fusion reactors soon ... then no more need to worry about nuclear waste.

 

[Monster]

Gizmag reports about a Brabus-tuned Tesla that is even greener than the original.

Most industries have a legacy mind-set but few are as heavily blinkered as the performance car industry. Recognizing that gas-guzzling sports cars will be seen as archaic as the fossil-fuels they burn a few decades from now, German ultra-performance remanufacturer Brabus has been quick to establish its green credentials. It was the first to offer customization of the Tesla Roadster and now the company’s ultra-exclusive TESLA Roadster Sport BRABUS Green Package includes a quick charge station for the customer’s garage, 30,000 kilometers (18,641 miles) worth of eco-electricity with which to run it and a one-year unlimited-use pass at all public RWE charging stations. Sadly, it’s only in Germany, but we can see this being the start of electric cars being marketed quite differently.

---------- Post added at 01:55 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:49 PM ----------

In other Gizmag news, new light-weight, high-performance capacitors are being developed for use in hybrids and EVs.

 

[Monster]

The Audi A2 mentioned above has been found burnt up in a storage facility.

heute.de has an interesting articlel from dpa about it, however it cannot be translated with the Google translator, and translating it piecemeal produced unreadable results (gibberish). Google translator sucks so bad, lol, I wonder why they even bother to make it available.

Anyway, the gist of the story is, that there have been some mysterious things happening that might hint at a scam targeting German federal research sponsoring.

The battery has been retrieved by the Ministry of Economy after some apparent struggle, and is currently being examined by the Institute for Material Research and Testing. DBM Energy had cashed in € 275,000 in research funding, and the ministry will try to find out if they did so legitimately.

The world record drive was also riddled with strangeness. For instance, the car disappeared from view for a while, and might've been recharged or exchanged.

We'll see if it was a scam or some legit development.

---------- Post added at 07:15 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:14 PM ----------

Here's a manual translation that I made:

Burnt Up: Riddle About World Record Car
DBM Company in Trouble

World record car subject of arson? The electric car of Berlin company DBM energy that has been destroyed in a fire has possibly been subject of a crime. Only now, the company confirmed the loss.

When the electric car was taking a turn into the yard in October, the battery was charged at 18 percent. After the ride from Munich to Berlin, Minister of Economy Rainer Brüderle (FDP) enthusiastically spoke about a breakthrough for the electric car: "Now we all must use this technology, then we've made it"

But since the record ride the celebrated Berlin company DBM Energy had to listen to uncomfortable questions for weeks now, because the lilac-yellow-colored Audi A2, with which the world record was achieved, has burnt up in the middle of December in a Berlin storage facility. According to information from news agency dpa, a lot seems to indicate arson.

ADAC: All legit?

The ADAC (General German Automobile Club) has issued concern for weeks if everything had gone right during the record ride. The Ministry of Economy urges for clarification, because DBM Energy had received 275,000 Euro in funding. As power company, eco power vendor "lekker Energie" was involved - which advertises on their homepage the so-called "lekkermobil". (NOTE from me: "lekker Energie" sounds like "yummy energy")

The DBM creators around young CEO Mirko Hannemann are unsettled. In industry circles it is said that Hannemann doesn't exclude the possibility that he had become the victim of envious competitors that set fire to his wonder car. On the quasi-turned-off DBM homepage there is - besides the masthead - currently only a long New Years greeting. "We have decided to use the change of year and the first quarter of 2011 to entirely regroup professionally for a successful future." They also said they'd be continuing work to bring electric mobility to the market.

Brüderle Has Battery Examined

Only after multiple inquiries, DBM responded and stressed that they had applied for a range check to eliminate doubts about the battery technology and the record ride. The Ministry of Economy has also become active. The battery celebrated by Brüderle is currently sitting in the Federal Institiute for Material Research and Testing. There, it is being examined using all means of the art.

The fire happened on December 12, 2010. For reasons of investigation, it wasn't made public until now, however. At the time of the fire, the car was equipped only with an inflammable auxiliary battery charged to ten percent, according to DBM. Competitors had criticized that the success battery on lithium-metal-polymer base wasn't safe because easily inflammable. Was this to be "proven" by the car fire?

Battery Check Denied After Record

Renowned industry wanted to test the battery right after the record ride - but DBM declined. "A medial alternating bath of emotions began that finally overextended us on staff level", DBM now explains when asked why many questions had been left unanswered. "This nourished doubts about the whole thing", it is said in industry circles. The car industry, that uses billions to research batteries with higher range, was highly miffed at what the small group of tinkerers achieved.

During the nightly world record tour from Munich to Berlin with a speed of 98 kph on average, contrary to earlier announcements, no solicitor had been present - and the normal technical acceptance tests before and after the ride didn't occur, according to the ADAC. DBM stresses about this topic: "roughly 30 eye witnesses have accompanied us during the way from Munich to Berlin". Additionally, journalists, members of the Federal Ministry of Economy, of the German Center of Air and Space Travel (DLR), plus "eight security guards" were said to have witnessed the ride.

The editor of "ADAC Motorwelt" (ADAC Motor World magazine), Wolfgang Rudschies, was in the bus that drove behind the e-car in the night towards Octobar 26. He was surprised when roughly 130 kilometers near Berlin, the bus overtook the e-car, got off the freeway and turned around to drive ten kilometers in the direction to Munich.

Suddenly, The Car was Gone

Only after half an hour, the "lekkermobil" was reached again. Rudschies doesn't impute to DBM that in the meantime the battery was recharged, exchanged or even the car exchanged. "But to believe is not to know. Fact is, that we didn't see the car the whole time."

DBM refuses such allusions and produces the GPS navigation log as proof. "Using the log, it can be clearly deducted where, at which time, how fast and at which height the car was travelling." Manipulations could be "excluded completely with this log".

By Georg Ismar and Tim Braune, dpa
With material from dpa

 

[Monster]

A new article (German) says that during the analysis by the German Federal Institution for Materials Research and Testing, it was confirmed that the battery works as specified. The DEKRA (which is similar to the TÜV) has tested a different vehicle with the new battery and went 454 km on one charge (with reduced battery capacity). The battery technology has been in use for years in forklifts and other industrial gear, and is expected to be useful not only for electric or hybrid cars, but also for temporary energy storage for renewable energy sources like photovoltaic and wind energy.

 

[Silly]

Yesterday have see a short tv emission that was talking about some race with electric cars. Was amizing and they are planning in the futur to do that with the F1 cars

 

[leon ice]

I really think electric cars will be the future. i think better and cheaper batteries will happen soon, if not for auto manufactures, then laptops and cell phone manufacturers. there's a lot of money in who ever gets to produce more storage for the juice . and when that happens, oil is out. I for one can hardly wait.

 

[Sunfyre7896]

I like the fact that people are thinking alternative energy such as electricity. I even like that some of the electric cars actually have some power. My biggest points so far is that here in DFW, there are no posts to charge them as I've seen. Secondly, there is going to have to be a way to charge it other than by plugging it in such as mini solar panels or something. Just think about if you are running around all day and can't find any charge posts. Or better yet, what about going on vacation? Once you run out, are you going to have to sit at a recharge area for 3 hours? This is something they shall have to address if they want to make a serious run at selling these to the average consumer.

 

[Monster]

For house owners, all-electric vehicles aren't a problem if they keep an eye on the battery charge.

Most vehicles that are sold to consumers are hybrid cars, however, for good reason. Cars like the Chevy Volt go on electric, but also have a gasoline generator for when the battery charge is low. This significantly lowers fuel consumption if you mostly use the car for short range. Especially people in Europe are extremely happy about this, b/c we have a very dense infrastructure for both electricity and gasoline. So, essentially, people can purchase hybrids today and either drive them on gasoline as other cars or charge them with charging stations when they're available.

But generally, electric cars and hybrids are most useful to house owners, since they can charge the car in the garage overnight.

The more cars of this kind are sold, the more infrastructure will appear.