Your new, electric car.

[Frank]

What would you require from an electric car to consider buying one?

I'll start.

- Fast recharging at home, and being able to use a simple wall socket for slower recharging (from empty to a full charge in at most 16 hours).
- Driving distance of at least 400 km on a full battery pack.
- Normal (EU) sized car.
- Good acceleration (0-100 km/h in at most 8 seconds).
- Being able to swap the battery pack easily at home (at most a few minutes work).
- Long life battery packs (at least equal to 350 full cycles), which are less than 1/4th the total price of the car for a full replacement.

And, of course:
- No or little extra tax on the energy used (which is extremely cheap).

 

[The_Wolf_Who_Cried_Boy]

I would buy one already if they were readily available in Aus, and I could afford one..... I'm sure the girlies would fawn to such an environmentally freindly e-penis.

Tesla Roadster


Wiki

You Tube

Test drive

Seems a reasonably close match to your criterea.

 

[Bigus Dickus]

Seems chicks don't typically dig the mid-life crisis penis-extension sports cars. A few of the dumb shallow ones, but mostly just other guys.

 

[The_Wolf_Who_Cried_Boy]

But, but, but, it saved the whales....and the ozone layer... n' stuff....

 

[Skrying]

If I could quickly charge it anywhere. Such as I can currently quickly fuel my car anywhere.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

Bolded parts are most important:

• 
  [*]It would have to look cool
  [*]Proper performance (0-100km\h in less than 7 seconds)
• Better range
• Atleast as big as my current CLK
  [*]Less plastic, more leather
• Needs to be competitively priced, otherwise i'm gonna stick to my big merc coupes.

 

[Blazkowicz]

0-100km/h in less than 20 seconds, lightweight, no batteries but ultracapacitors and a small diesel/vegetable oil generator instead.

 

[_xxx_]

0-100km/h in less than 20 seconds, lightweight, no batteries but ultracapacitors and a small diesel/vegetable oil generator instead.

Wouldn't take you very far. That way you'd need more fuel than in a normal car.

 

[Phil]

I would buy one already if they were readily available in Aus, and I could afford one..... I'm sure the girlies would fawn to such an environmentally freindly e-penis.

Tesla Roadster


Wiki

You Tube

Test drive

Seems a reasonably close match to your criterea.

Meh! A Lotus with an electric motor? As amazing the performance is, just having 2 gears just sounds sooo boring to drive... not to mention no engine sound, no exhaust, nothing! (see my sig).

 

[Simon F]

Meh! A Lotus with an electric motor? As amazing the performance is, just having 2 gears just sounds sooo boring to drive... not to mention no engine sound, no exhaust, nothing! (see my sig).

There's nothing stoping you from having an MP3 player blasting "Vroommmm" continously into your ears.

 

[_xxx_]

There's nothing stoping you from having an MP3 player blasting "Vroommmm" continously into your ears.

Actually I did such a sound module for a car when I was still a student, it used an acceleration sensor (calculated the speed by integrating acceleration) and played the sound with the according pitch. I used samples of F1 Ferrari from 2001 for that, it worked through an adapter-cassette for the external CD-player, actually it was contained in the cassette housing in the end. that was a very nice little project.

Unfortunately they never settled the licensing issues (BMW had a somewhat similar device) and thus it never got produced

 

[Phil]

There's nothing stoping you from having an MP3 player blasting "Vroommmm" continously into your ears.

I actually thought of that for a second.

Still kind of sad having to do that. It's good to see that in a time where combustion engines may be history, there will still be some sort of electric driven alternatives - but driving a car with 2 gears, perfect linear power delivery and lack of an exciting soundtrack - what character is left of that car? None I can think of...

 

[_xxx_]

what character is left of that car? None I can think of...

It would be more agile than any combustion engine ever You'd feel the character in the curves imediately

 

[Phil]

It would be more agile than any combustion engine ever You'd feel the character in the curves imediately

I'm not sure I follow - what about the electric engine makes it more agile over a combustion engine? Having full torque at any RPM?

 

[Frank]

I'm not sure I follow - what about the electric engine makes it more agile over a combustion engine? Having full torque at any RPM?

That, and true AWD. All wheels are powered individually.

 

[_xxx_]

I'm not sure I follow - what about the electric engine makes it more agile over a combustion engine? Having full torque at any RPM?

Dunno about the torque (could be), but I meant less delay/drag - when you give throttle the electromotor reacts lightning fast because it takes next to no time to rev up.

 

[Phil]

That, and true AWD. All wheels are powered individually.

Frank,

From what I've read, it's a "mid engined" rear-wheel-drive. Not AWD. I've checked the official website and there's nothing that hints it to be AWD... Even it it were, all wheels powered individually wouldn't be much different than what EVO's are doing today. Regardless, it shouldn't be dependant if it's powered by a combustion or electric engine...

Dunno about the torque (could be), but I meant less delay/drag - when you give throttle the electromotor reacts lightning fast because it takes next to no time to rev up.

True. Though (IMO), the inherit "flaw" or weakness of combustion engines over electric ones is what I define to be the "character" that I'd be missing...

 

[Xmas]

I think there is a huge market potential for short-range electric "city cars" (as second or third car for some people). I don't travel far with my car, so I'd be fine with a range of less than 150 km if I could recharge at home or at work. I don't need sports car like acceleration either, nor a top speed beyond 150 km/h or manual transmission (so get rid of the gearbox cost/weight). Even with the battery, electric should save some space and weight as well as require substantially less maintenance.

- inexpensive
- easy to maintain
- safe
- nice and comfortable interior
- rechargeable at home
- swappable battery
- standardized battery and charging, widespread recharging/battery swap infrastructure (e.g. parking spaces with recharge option)

And with wheel motors you could do fancy things such as driving sideways or turning on the spot.

 

[_xxx_]

I think there is a huge market potential for short-range electric "city cars" (as second or third car for some people). I don't travel far with my car, so I'd be fine with a range of less than 150 km if I could recharge at home or at work. I don't need sports car like acceleration either, nor a top speed beyond 150 km/h or manual transmission (so get rid of the gearbox cost/weight). Even with the battery, electric should save some space and weight as well as require substantially less maintenance.

- inexpensive
- easy to maintain
- safe
- nice and comfortable interior
- rechargeable at home
- swappable battery
- standardized battery and charging, widespread recharging/battery swap infrastructure (e.g. parking spaces with recharge option)

And with wheel motors you could do fancy things such as driving sideways or turning on the spot.

That's exactly what Smart should have been originally I saw the prototype at Porsche back then (I don't know if they did it or if they just provided the dev resources)), it had wheel e-motors and no combustion engine.

 

[Mariner]

True. Though (IMO), the inherit "flaw" or weakness of combustion engines over electric ones is what I define to be the "character" that I'd be missing...

i.e. the inefficiency and waste of an ICE is what you would miss. A bit daft if you think about it logically.