especially since the VW Touareg is $61k
the alternative personal transportation thread
Various companies, including standard OEMs and some upstarts from the electric motorcycling world (!) of all things, are gearing up to provide the guts of future electric vehicles. This is probably more relevant for the auto manufacturers planning their 2014 lineups, but these things definitely could be used by a spendthrift hobbyist in converting an existing car or wheeled conveyance of some sort.
MotoCzysz D1g1tal Dr1ve D1 with Remy motors, 75 kW of power, a claimed 1000 N-m of torque <-- no doubt through the gearing, a misleading figure, and a weight under 150 lbs. It's an all in one unit, with the motor, inverter, oil pump, gear reduction, and differential all in that box.
Mission Motors is also pimping its system as part of its MissionEVT program. Specs are few and far between, but supposedly some of its components were used in a hopped up ~200 hp Honda CR-Z shown at SEMA, for whatever that's worth. Here's their motor and controller with fancy "crabon fibre", as BikeSnobNYC would put it.
Getrag is also in the game with their 1eDT240 topping their lineup. 75 and 145 kW motor options, a similarly misleading 1,770 ft-lbs of torque as measured after the reduction gearing (162 ft-lbs at the motor itself), and looking production-ready enough that Volvo signed on for use in their C30 EV program. Add a controller and a big ol' battery and you'd be ready to go.
MotoCzysz D1g1tal Dr1ve D1 with Remy motors, 75 kW of power, a claimed 1000 N-m of torque <-- no doubt through the gearing, a misleading figure, and a weight under 150 lbs. It's an all in one unit, with the motor, inverter, oil pump, gear reduction, and differential all in that box.
Mission Motors is also pimping its system as part of its MissionEVT program. Specs are few and far between, but supposedly some of its components were used in a hopped up ~200 hp Honda CR-Z shown at SEMA, for whatever that's worth. Here's their motor and controller with fancy "crabon fibre", as BikeSnobNYC would put it.
Getrag is also in the game with their 1eDT240 topping their lineup. 75 and 145 kW motor options, a similarly misleading 1,770 ft-lbs of torque as measured after the reduction gearing (162 ft-lbs at the motor itself), and looking production-ready enough that Volvo signed on for use in their C30 EV program. Add a controller and a big ol' battery and you'd be ready to go.
http://green.autoblog.com/2010/11/11/officially-official-general-electric-ordering-25-000-electric-v/
GE orders 12,000 Chevy Volts in one fell swoop. That's one big order.
GE orders 12,000 Chevy Volts in one fell swoop. That's one big order.
nice to see the Cruze Eco getting such good mileage too w/ a gas engine alone...28/42 w/ a 1.4t engine. all for only $19k
too bad this isnt coming to the States instead of the Volt. the front end is much nicer than the Volt IMO
http://blogs.consumerreports.org/cars/2010/11/electric-cars-coming-to-a-city-near-you-if-you-live-here-volt-leaf-focus-ev-chart-list.html
Nice chart of good places to live... er, I mean, places in which EVs or the Volt will be rolled out in the next few years.
Nice chart of good places to live... er, I mean, places in which EVs or the Volt will be rolled out in the next few years.
San Diego and Washington DC get all 3 vehicles..... Wonder how much effect the competition will have on local dealership pricing for the residents?
the Volt looks even less special after hearing the Focus gets 100miles on a charge.
there hasnt been that much press on the Focus EV which is surprising.
there hasnt been that much press on the Focus EV which is surprising.
Volt wins Automobile of the Year from both Motor Trend and Automobile Magazine.
http://www.automobilemag.com/features/awards/1101_2011_automobile_of_the_year_chevrolet_volt/index.html
http://www.autoblog.com/2010/11/16/motor-trend-car-of-the-year-the-2011-chevrolet-volt-w-v/
No big surprise there. Rooting for the home team, I suppose.
http://www.automobilemag.com/features/awards/1101_2011_automobile_of_the_year_chevrolet_volt/index.html
http://www.autoblog.com/2010/11/16/motor-trend-car-of-the-year-the-2011-chevrolet-volt-w-v/
No big surprise there. Rooting for the home team, I suppose.
rechargeable roads?
Pretty sweet.
http://www.greenwala.com/channels/green-technology/blog/11379-London-Gets-First-Electrified-Roads-That-Charge-EV-s-Wirelessly
Pretty sweet.
http://www.greenwala.com/channels/green-technology/blog/11379-London-Gets-First-Electrified-Roads-That-Charge-EV-s-Wirelessly
and the confusing corresponding label for the Volt:
99 MPG-equivalent combined rating for the Leaf from the EPA, for what that's worth.
As Jalopnik puts it:
I just got my first electric bill here in Long Island* and was shocked to find that we're paying a 21 cent/kWh effective rate. Click the link to see the work, as it were.
Seattle's effective rate given our current, low usage would be 5.75 cents/kWh and Portland's would be 13.3 cents/kWh, for comparison. An extra ~10 kWh/day that we'd use if we had a Leaf would bump up all of these effective rates a bit but wouldn't change the conclusions.
How is this transportation related? Well, 21 cents/kWh is so expensive that it almost makes driving an electric car not make economic sense: driving a Nissan Leaf that uses ~300 Wh/mile for the same 45 miles that our Prius travels on 1 gallon of ~$3/gallon gas would cost $2.84 (probably more like $3 counting for charger inefficiency, actually)!
Admittedly, the Prius is a corner case for gasoline-powered vehicles and most people with both lower electric rates and more inefficient gas vehicles would see bigger savings, but it underscores the point that one must be aware of both the cost and the origin of local electric power before springing for that shiny new BEV. Live in Seattle? Hell yeah, buy one. Live in West Virginia? Keep the Prius rather than have the coal miners work overtime.
*: the astute reader will note that we've been out on Long Island for just shy of a year and a half. Until Oct 1 of this year we were in an apartment with utilities included, so this is indeed our first Long Island electric bill.
Seattle's effective rate given our current, low usage would be 5.75 cents/kWh and Portland's would be 13.3 cents/kWh, for comparison. An extra ~10 kWh/day that we'd use if we had a Leaf would bump up all of these effective rates a bit but wouldn't change the conclusions.
How is this transportation related? Well, 21 cents/kWh is so expensive that it almost makes driving an electric car not make economic sense: driving a Nissan Leaf that uses ~300 Wh/mile for the same 45 miles that our Prius travels on 1 gallon of ~$3/gallon gas would cost $2.84 (probably more like $3 counting for charger inefficiency, actually)!
Admittedly, the Prius is a corner case for gasoline-powered vehicles and most people with both lower electric rates and more inefficient gas vehicles would see bigger savings, but it underscores the point that one must be aware of both the cost and the origin of local electric power before springing for that shiny new BEV. Live in Seattle? Hell yeah, buy one. Live in West Virginia? Keep the Prius rather than have the coal miners work overtime.
*: the astute reader will note that we've been out on Long Island for just shy of a year and a half. Until Oct 1 of this year we were in an apartment with utilities included, so this is indeed our first Long Island electric bill.
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California, which will surely be one of the big markets for the Leaf, is also one of the markets with the most expensive power:
http://www.pge.com/tariffs/tm2/pdf/ELEC_SCHEDS_E-1.pdf
Note that the rate for residential electricity can go anywhere from 11.9 cents/kWh for baseline usage to over 40 cents/kWh after one exceeds 200% of their defined baseline.
Yikes.
http://www.pge.com/tariffs/tm2/pdf/ELEC_SCHEDS_E-1.pdf
Note that the rate for residential electricity can go anywhere from 11.9 cents/kWh for baseline usage to over 40 cents/kWh after one exceeds 200% of their defined baseline.
Yikes.
lots of negatives. not too many positives.
http://blogs.consumerreports.org/cars/2010/12/2011-honda-cr-z-hybrid-scores-too-low-for-consumer-reports-to-recommend.html
http://blogs.consumerreports.org/cars/2010/12/against-the-current-the-reality-of-the-award-winning-chevrolet-volt.html
Consumer Reports saw 30 mpg in charge-sustaining mode.
There are a few CR-Z's around here, I want to drive one. I liked the way the '08 Fit drove, it was a lot like my CR-X in terms of feel. I still miss the 48mpg that little bastard got, too.
If the CR-Z drives at all like the Insight--and, sharing the same platform, I think it would--it won't be like a Fit. The Fit feels spritely despite being slow in absolute terms but the Insight is/was a turd.
would be nice if that actually made it to production, but a gas turbine engine wont be here anytime soon for day in and day out usage
Here's a weird one, a "Yo" car championed by a Russian billionaire.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/14/business/global/14hybrid14.html?src=busln
A hybrid with no battery and a "circular piston arrangement"? WTF.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/14/business/global/14hybrid14.html?src=busln
A hybrid with no battery and a "circular piston arrangement"? WTF.
big government protects the stupid yet again
http://www.autoblog.com/2010/12/13/senate-unanimously-rules-in-favor-noisy-hybrids-electric-cars/
http://www.autoblog.com/2010/12/13/senate-unanimously-rules-in-favor-noisy-hybrids-electric-cars/
I hope at least you get to choose your own sounds. I would choose 70s xxx movie music.
Mission R racebike unveiled
141 hp, 115 ft-lbs torque. 14.4 kWh battery. Just under 250 kgs per the race series regulations. More pics at the link above.
141 hp, 115 ft-lbs torque. 14.4 kWh battery. Just under 250 kgs per the race series regulations. More pics at the link above.
So will they have some kind of device that can put the sound into the pedestrian's blaring ipod?big government protects the stupid yet again
http://www.autoblog.com/2010/12/13/senate-unanimously-rules-in-favor-noisy-hybrids-electric-cars/
Use a very low frequency so they can feel it more than hear it or maybe go with a low intensity raytheon pain ray setup instead.
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Interesting idea with the turbine though. If all you are doing is charging batteries with the gas engine, you have totally different engine requirements and a turbine might be more appropriate than a reciprocating piston design.
You can always operate it in its peak efficiency range and you don't have to design for a broad torque curve like most street cars.
Last time we filled up the Prius we calculated 39 mpg. That was kind of disappointing until today, when I calculated all of 21.3 mpg from our Fit. Same kind of driving (stop and go city traffic), same cold weather, and the Fit in theory should benefit from my slower driving style as compared to my wife.
Hybrids do work. Whowouldathoughtit. I'd be surprised if I got above 30 mpg in similar driving in a diesel.
Hybrids do work. Whowouldathoughtit. I'd be surprised if I got above 30 mpg in similar driving in a diesel.
I saw a scooter with a roof in the rain this weekend. It looked liked a smaller version of yours, but I couldn't see the brand. Looked like it was doing well, though.
Honda to lease EV-neo electric scooter in Japan
While I welcome any EV experiments by major manufacturers, with the support and R&D that that entails, this one looks like a dud besides being restricted to the land of the rising sun: $5k to almost $7k, performance comparable to a 50 cc scooter, and 30 km of range. Hmph.
Carbon fiber BMW's?
This looks interesting, less weight = better performing electric cars.
BMW's Electric Automobile Revolution
This looks interesting, less weight = better performing electric cars.
BMW's Electric Automobile Revolution
Just convinced my mom to buy a jetta TDI over a prius. She took her friends out for a few days to try it. She averaged exactly the same as your prius at 39, with no hybrid drive or ignition system to work on. Not to mention the thing looks 100000 times nicer and sounds super cool
There are also dudes who build their diesel trucks for mileage, there is a guy on one of the diesel boards claiming 34 highway in his 3/4 ton
ib be surprised if you didnt
That's common sense, but common sense doesn't account for the massive scale of these ships. Even if they were built in more places there'd still be a long truck ride at the end of the journey. I'd wager that truck ride has a large (larger?) contribution to the transporation "costs".
jimmydean will attest that that mileage figure is suspect.
With regard to the TDI 39 is the WORST tank we've ever gotten. I'm going to go ahead and guess that your mom's 39 mpg (which, in terms of CO2 emissions equates to 34 mpg on gasoline, source: http://www.epa.gov/oms/climate/420f05001.htm ) wasn't in frigid winter weather and stop and go New York-area city traffic.
All vehicles use truck transportation even in the country they are made, they don't drive the leaf from the factory in Japan to dealerships in Japan. Automakers also ship some vehicles by rail which is about 70% more efficient than truck but not as good as boat (large boat is about 60% better than rail but is more limited by ports which can handle large shipping vessels). They also have hybrid and/or electric cargo rail and truck in production, they don't have hybrid cargo vessels which do better than average (see below).
Regardless with only a single factory they will be wasting more resources than having multiple factories around the world.
Average Use
Barge - .002 gallons diesel/Ton Mile
Rail - .005 gallons diesel/Ton Mile
Truck - .017 gallons diesel/Ton Mile
Here is a relatively new comparison test:
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It was on a newer common rail one, they are damn efficient. That may be, but imagine the emissions if some one was producing a diesel competitor to a prius, it would kick the crap out of it.
I could also care less about emissions, I have an old diesel truck with no form of emissions controllers and a newly shortened exhaust, and a few mills off the fuel plate. In short, I get a nice cloud of smoke.