Posted on 09/30/2011 9:03:59 AM PDT by Red Badger
A group of gear heads from Croatia has produced a car designed to show that “electric vehicle” doesn’t have to mean “something my granola-eating neighbor drives.”
Rimac Automobil, named for its founder, Mate Rimac, unveiled the Concept_One at the International Auto Show in Frankfurt. Designed as a sleek sports car it is powered entirely by batteries, and can, the company says, hit 62 miles per hour in 2.8 seconds, and reach a limit of 190 mph. The batteries carry 92 kilowatt-hours, or enough to power an average American home for three days -- or drive the car 372 miles, enough to get from New York to Pittsburgh. (The Tesla Roadster, also a very impressive electric hotrod, hits 60 mph in 3.7 seconds, has a top speed of 125 mph and has a battery range of 245 miles.)
The engines put out the equivalent of 1,088 horsepower, enough to beat some internal combustion models. The motive force to the wheels is divided among four engines that can each be controlled independently. That allows the torque to each wheel to be adjusted as necessary. A computer subsystem controls each pair of wheels and, according to Rimac, can make adjustments thousands of times each second.
The body is light, made of carbon fiber, and the battery is placed near the center of the car for better weight distribution.
This isn’t the only electric supercar out there: there’s the Tesla Roadster, which boasts a similar 0 to 60 acceleration and Audi rolled out a high-performance electric concept car, the e-tron, in 2009. But if nothing else it shows once again that newer body designs and advances in control technologies can build an electric car that is both powerful and environmentally friendly.
That’s a very nice looking coal-powered car.
As long as I’m not paying for it, I wish them good luck.
It looks great but the idea they have to place the battery in the center for better weight distribution bothers me.
It reminds me of the movies when they have to ditch the cargo in order for the plane to fly. How safe can it be?
Where all the electricity would come from for millions of them is an entirely other question.
Yeah, yeah.
I’ve been reading about the torque advantage for electric cars for some years now. Big deal. The article says it can go 372 miles between recharges. I’ll just bet it can. So it’s got a body you can put your fist through and the ability to carry one passenger and a cup-holder.
Get back to me when the competitively priced minivan version comes out.
Two are in the center front and four are in the center back. (from their website.)
How long does it take a coal powered utility company to charge it for that 372 mile range? How much does each charge cost the driver? How well does it handle a crash? What would be the expected costs from a 20 mph crash?
There are a lot of questions that the answers cannot be found for in the article and on the company website.
92 kilowatt-hours is the energy equivalent of 2.6 gallons of gasoline (at 34 megajoules per liter). Even considering that gasoline engines are relatively inefficient compared to electric motors (just don't ask any questions about whether the inefficiencies are moved back to the electric generation plant), that is pretty darn impressive.
I’ll take two!
Let’s see the range on a typical winter day with the heater running and hot summer day with the air conditioner blasting especially if the car is left outside overnight. What rare earth metals are used in the battery? Who supplies these minerals besides the Chinese? What are the environmental impacts of mining these rare earths? What is the replacement cost of the batteries?
My only issue is with GM, and I will never forgive that company for the massive corruption that turned GM into "new" GM, stiffed bondholders, stiffed old owners for warranty repairs, and enriched UAW and other politically connected crooks. The Volt will die, soon, and that terrible car deserves to die based on its low quality and lack of value, but Rimac has a good idea with this car.
how long will it take to recharge?
top gear did a little skit with two electric cars that showed how pathetic they were.
If it can recharge overnight and truly has a range of over 350 miles, it is viable.
If it can't and/or doesn't, it is not viable.
And there are many other issues, but I am addressing only these two.
—92 kilowatt-hours is the energy equivalent of 2.6 gallons of gasoline —
Which would mean they are claiming it can go 372 miles on the equivalent of 2.6 gallons of gas. That’s 143 MPG.
Something doesn’t wash here.
It looks nice though.
Is that a coal powered van?
Burning coal is considered environmentally friendly these days?
Wait a minute: so it takes all NIGHT to recharge? So you’re driving through Kansas and are out of gas, er, volts. You pull into an electric charger and you have to sit there TWELVE HOURS???
So from 92kWH for three days, that would mean a monthly electric bill of about $138 for their “average family”. That’s reasonable.
372 miles, if at 60mph is 6.2 hours.
92kWH used constantly would be 14.8kW.
746W per HP means 19.9HP would be available to maintain that cruising speed. That’s doable in current ultracompacts.
OTOH, lets examine “1,088HP”....enough to beat “some internal combustion models...” LOL. “some” Seeing as the Corvette 6.2l monster is rated at 430HP, yeah, 1,088HP would be just about beat “some” engines out there. This is the kind of “tell” in an article that shows the writer has no clue what numbers they’re throwing around.
1088HP = 811.6kW
92kWH/811kW = full throttle for 6.8 minutes.
So all in all, the numbers are rational. Not necessarily *reasonable* or practical, but exactly what you’d expect if you scaled up a child’s R/C race car to full size.
IOW, there’s nothing magical about electric cars here, just same old laws of physics and scale.
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