Electric car ‘Silver Streak’ has 400-mile range on a single charge

The original project got shelved because.......drum roll pease........big oil interests......

Once all these nano lithium ceramic batteries hit he market, it will be super easy to build diy projects just like this......

Big oil is on its way out!!!!!! Give it another decade and we will decentralize the corporate fascism that's currently in place

reply to post by C0bzz


What I was thinking of (and failed to pull up the data I worked on some time ago) is what it would take to recharge the battery of such a vehicle in the same time frame as it takes to refill the gas tank which is well under 1 hour - something like 5 minutes would get the motoring public on board for such a vehicle being a practical proposition for everyday use.

But even at 71.5kW, how many homes have an electricity service that could support that sort of load?

Our standard household power outlets are rated at 2.4kW (240V single phase 10A) and the largest such outlet (optional) is 15A for 3.6kW so at perfect 100% battery charging efficiency, it would take 71.5/3.6 = 20 hours to fully charge a flat battery with the larger outlet or 30 hours with the smaller one and a 3 phase 15A outlet could do it in around 7 hours for overnight convenience. What it all comes down to is you'll need to at least rewire your premises for this. Also, from my time in the energy distribution business, you'll need to apply for permission to connect such a load to the grid and, depending on the loading & voltage drop profile of your domestic distributor, quite likely you'll be up for a part of the cost of building a new substation in your immediate neighbourhood as this is a large but very intermittent load and energy revenue alone will not guarantee the authority will ever recoup the whole cost of it. We used to apply a 'guarantee of revenue agreement' in such cases IE if the cost of the sub is not recovered in 5 years, the customer is responsible for the difference.

Widespread use of fast charge electric vehicles is simply not possible with current infrastructure and amplifying it to make it possible will have an extremely unpopular effect on energy prices for everyone, not just drivers.

400 mile in one charge?

I think it’s a little bit exaggerated here. In what conditions..?? Flat (interstate) roads..? Traffic infested roads? How about mountainous roads? What about winters and temperatures below 10C when you run the heater or summer when you run the air condition? Night driving? In what speed exactly?

Any of those above conditions push every battery driven cars (no matter the type of batteries) to their limits.

Put wind turbines in the front grill.

reply to post by shanegm


That won't be effective because the extra drag created by the turbines in the grill will exceed the power you get out of them. IE you'll be even worse off.

My previous car had a thermostat controlled electric cooling fan mounted on the rear of the radiator and I had a lot of trouble with thermoswitch failures which were difficult to source replacements for at short notice. What I did was fit a dash mounted manual over-ride switch and an led to indicate when the fan was running. If I noticed the temp gauge rising above normal I could simply flick the switch to run the fan.

All that aside, I noticed that I needed to be doing over 100km/hr for the draft through the radiator core to be strong enough to spin the fan fast enough to begin lighting the led which really isn't enough power to make any difference to anything. Yes it's a very 'dirty' air flow in that situation but to get the best outcome you'd have to exploit a location where the airflow is very clean IE create drag in a location where there is currently very little (like on the roof).

reply to post by tothetenthpower

This might change the car market up for the better. Electric cars have never been ideal because of high costs and low return on charges.

This reason, and the problem with the time it takes to charge 400miles into a car leaves me eagerly awaiting this little gem VW is cooking up.


Though I wont be able to purchase the XL1, the same power train will become available in other models within VAG..



If I get 60 miles a gallon out of it, I'm buying.

No one wants a 100% electric car with the high prices of electric today and the higher cost coming.

Here in Calif we have the big San Onofre decommissioning cost that are going to be added to all the rate payer electric bills.

Originally posted by ANNED
No one wants a 100% electric car with the high prices of electric today and the higher cost coming.

Here in Calif we have the big San Onofre decommissioning cost that are going to be added to all the rate payer electric bills.

Oh I like one... Paying big on electrical bill or paying big at the pump doesn't matter. The problem with electrical cars is them being no where near competing in price - and if they are it's because there's a battery rental scheme tied to it leaving you pay an $x amount per month for your battery pack.

The market has to mature on both sides. Until then I drive my 45mile/gallon diesel or get me one of those 60mile/gallon diesel hybrids.

I'll get around.