If true it would revolutionize the industry and culture and we can tell OPEC to go pound sand.
Posted on 04/15/2008 8:03:29 PM PDT by Dane
Ultracapacitors: the future of electric cars or the 'cold fusion' of autovation? ZENN Motors says its electric car will cruise for 250 miles on a single five-minute charge. Skeptics cry shenanigans. By Mark Clayton | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Reporter Mark Clayton discusses the prospect of a new type of electric vehicle from Toronto-based firm ZENN Motors.
Ian Clifford wants to start a global revolution by building a practical, everyday car with no gasoline engine, no batteries, and no emissions.
While big Detroit automakers ponder a future plug-in car that goes 40 miles on a battery charge before its gas engine kicks in, Mr. Clifford's tiny ZENN Motor, a Toronto maker of low-speed electric cars, announced in March that it will build a new highway-speed (80 m.p.h.) model that goes 250 miles on a charge – and can recharge in just five minutes.
Having no batteries, the new "cityZENN" model will use a breakthrough version of a common electrical storage device called an ultracapacitor to store power from a wall socket, the company says. Fuel costs to operate it would be about one-tenth of today's gas-powered vehicle.
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
If true it would revolutionize the industry and culture and we can tell OPEC to go pound sand.
Don’t forget the time travel possibilities...
"If true" being the operative words. If true, this would be great. Unfortunately, my skepticism is pretty healthy on this one.
Unless you live next to the power station, that's just a stupid statement a third grade science student could disprove in a NY minute.
Yeah...and all that capacity would drive a cool rail gun.....better than a gas powered spud gun.
If true.....
A capaciter needs as many amps IN to charge it up as it discharges OUT.
You have pesky little things like current in-rush to deal with. It may charge in 5 minutes.....but you would need a 100 amp service to supply power to it for charging.
There is no free ride. Power Out must equal Power In.
Goes 250 miles and recharges in 5 minutes?
Just considering it takes 20 hores power to push an econobox down the road at sustained 50 mph, and figure this power level is needed for 5 hours.
I have been away from these kind of calculations for a long time, but the amount of energy transfer that would happen in those 5 minutes would likely overload most home elect. service capacity.
This is just another fishing expedition. Someone fishing for “financial backing” to make his pipe dream come true.
Enviros won't let us have anything stylish. We're not supposed to enjoy ourselves, remember?
But the tech is cool, and if workable, I may adapt it to an old 240Z I happen to have sitting out under the shed. It's about time that materials technology increased the watt/cm3 of storage devices a couple of orders of magnitude.
/johnny
Isn’t the US Navy working on a cool rail gun ? I remember seeing something like that on the cable TV show ( Future Weapons ) or some show like that.
Probably a combination of ultra capacitors and batteries will do the trick. See http://www.afstrinity.com/. Their car actually exists. It appeared at the Detroit Auto Show. Gets the equivalent of 170mpg and can retrofit a Saturn Vue. Payback based on 3.50 gasoline and 20,000 miles per year is three years. Its a plugin hybrid kit, actually produced by two real companies, unlike this one. The ultra capacitors are much too expensive to use exclusively. By combining them with a lithium ion battery, you can get fabulous acceleration and performance.
I suppose you think the Gub’mint should buy you one.
I would NEVER have had that thought. Really. No, really, really.
/johnny
How about having two of these capacitors? You could have at home, charging constantly at 5 or 10 amps, whatever is convenient, and the other in the car, charged quickly from the home one, when needed.
The one at home could also be used to smooth out the power demands over the day and night, which would be a great boon to power companies. They wouldn't have to run their overload coal or gas fired plants during the heat of the day, to supplement their nuclear or hydro plants that really prefer to run at a constant load all the time.
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