Electric car 0-60mph second fastest in world

Main article Link on CNN.com:
money.cnn.com...

I've always said that they need to make hybrid cars, electric cars, etc, more sexy. It is about time that they start showing the advantages of the technology to gain recognition.

Here are a few clips:

SAN FRANCISCO (Business 2.0 Magazine) - Ian Wright has a car that blows away a Ferrari 360 Spider and a Porsche Carrera GT in drag races, and whose 0-to-60 acceleration time ranks it among the fastest production autos in the world. In fact, it's second only to the French-made Bugatti Veyron, a 1,000-horsepower, 16-cylinder beast that hits 60 mph half a second faster and goes for $1.25 million.

The key difference? The Bugatti gets eight miles per gallon. Wright's car? It runs off an electric battery.


In the first matchup, the X1 crushed the Ferrari in an eighth-mile sprint and then in the quarter-mile, winning by two car lengths. In the second race, against the $440,000 Porsche, the two cars were even after an eighth of a mile. But as the Porsche driver let out the clutch in a final upshift, his tires briefly lost traction. The X1, blazing along in its software-controlled performance mode, beat the Porsche by half a car length.


So what now? Wright isn't sure himself. Only 50 or so people have driven the car, and Wright has just begun to hold his hat out for potential investors. With $8 million in funding, he says, he is convinced he can put a consumer version of the X1 into production that meets federal safety standards, has a 100-mile range, and recharges in 4.5 hours.

How long does the battery last?

Originally posted by No1tovote4
How long does the battery last?

Ditto. Also some other questions I have:

What is the maximum speed of the vehicle?

What are the safety ratings?

We don't have many conventional cars that look like that in the United States, and it seems that if someone got in a wreck with that thing, they wouldn't have much of a chance of survival if at fairly high speeds.

thats such a small light car.. more like motorcycle. makes it so much easyer to go quick, lets see that engine in a sports car the same weight as the veyron. more like 0-60 in 11 seconds, and 30 mile range.

Originally posted by Protector

I've always said that they need to make hybrid cars, electric cars, etc, more sexy. It is about time that they start showing the advantages of the technology to gain recognition.

Only problem it's slower than the same car (The Ariel Atom) with an normal motor. The Atom, with it's bone stock Honda 2.0.l is quicker, (and from all reports better than sex) and with the weight around 1000 pounds I imagine you can get pretty good gas mileage if you keep your foot out of it. But what's the fun in that???

Pure electric cars may have their uses, but if they were to instantly replace the cars we have now, pollution would get worse because the coal plants that make most of the electricity in the US don't have as strict of emissions laws compaired to motor vehicles. Even if the emissions were comparable you're just moving the pollution from one source to another.

Cleaner sources of electricity just are not practical for many reasons.

Wind - Not in my backyard, nobody wants to put up with the "Unsightly" wind turbines and they kill little birdies.
Hydro - Environmental problems, aging infrastructure, Massive damage possible if they fail, I'm pretty sure that no new plants have been constructed for many years.
Solar - Still not there yet, if your carefull with your usage you can power a home with solar for $25-50,000.
Nuclear - well it's nuclear, Nobody want one in their backyard, and again no new plants in many years.

What good is it if it's not affordable to the average man on the street? Not going to make much headway with global warming if we all can't get one.

Originally posted by Relentless
What good is it if it's not affordable to the average man on the street? Not going to make much headway with global warming if we all can't get one.

Well of course a single concept car is going to be too much for the average man to afford. But does that mean the price would be high once they refine the concept into a marketable idea and produce it in large quantities? Doubtful. Things cost more when they're produced singularly.

So what now? Wright isn't sure himself. Only 50 or so people have driven the car, and Wright has just begun to hold his hat out for potential investors. With $8 million in funding, he says, he is convinced he can put a consumer version of the X1 into production that meets federal safety standards, has a 100-mile range, and recharges in 4.5 hours.

It's a start, all is very impressive.. except the recharge time 4.5 hours is a bit long to wait when you run out of juice.

But if you look at research they are doing with batteries and the other thing that stores electricity but is not called batteries (forgot the word and no not fuel cells).. you will find that there are some interessting things in-the-making. I think not 100% sure there was batteries that was to be used for laptop computers in-the-making wich would recharge to 80% in 1 min and 100% in 2 min.. that would be something for an electric car!!

I've been messing with radio controlled cars since I was a kid and us in this hobby have always known that electric cars are the fastest... if you have the cashola and resources to exploit the technology (i.e., lightweight composite construction and new technologies like Lithium Polymer batteries and computer controlled brushless motors). What else could you expect from a powerplant generating max torque right off 0Rpm?

Cool drivetrain, but IMO the idea of electric only cars is a long ways off. Alot more development on energy storage needs to be done, everything else is pretty much in place. Seen Toshiba's new fuel cell powered consumer electronics? That sorta stuff. A company by the name of AC Propulsion has been selling a car called the TZero that's got some nice performance figures as well, albeit Corvette Z06 type performance and not Carerra GT type performance.

That TZero is going for nearly $300k and it's a complete car. I wonder if the $100k estimate was just for the drivetrain, an Atom chassis with said drivetrain, or a completely new design (with possibly completely new performance figures).

Just because it runs off electric propulsion, don't discount the fire-farters as anything becoming obsolete or antique. They do run off a spark and are computer controlled... There are a buttload of street legal cars that would chop down both electric examples.

BTW, what sort of driver would you expect to find driving a Carerra GT in Sacremento? I'm just sayin'... from what i've heard, you've gotta be Walter Rohrl to exploit the car's full potential. It's design began life as Porsche's next LeMans prototype racecar.

-Vin

Okay, so this guy's just re-re-re-verified the fact that electric motors can provide tremendous acceleration due to their torque potential. That's nice and all, but where's the guy with the new battery technology that can make a vehicle like this practical? All you need is about 300 mile range and instant recharge (that's the toughie) and you've got a car that anyone would buy. Until then this only amounts to a super-light, street legal, but impractical vehicle that can get off the line quickly, but has next to no stamina.

I'm not saying I could do it better and I am aware that some of the coolest technologies to trickle down to production vehicles have come from racing circuits, but we're not in need of either a bigger SUV or a smaller alternatively-fueled vehicle.