Sweet
However, as I can't wait that long, I will have to purchase my Masarati now.
Start-up Bee pledges 'affordable' British e-car
The Register can bring you exclusive details and images of what could become the UK's most affordable electric car. Bee Bee.One Bee's Bee.One: four-seater EV for seven grand, anyone? The four-seat, five-door Bee.One from British e-car start up Bee is scheduled to go into production in 2011 with a target price of £12,000 ($ …
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Tuesday 21st April 2009 14:20 GMT Anonymous Coward
Hmmm
Well I'd hate to piss on anyone's parade, but when was the last time this country produced any piece of high tech that could compete with the Japanese, Americans and Germans?
I'd love to think Britain was going to be a leader in this trade, but I still remember how breathless journos told us that we were going to lead the world in aviation, rail, pharmaceuticals, GM, computers, space... but somehow we ended up selling cheap Korean phones and insurance to one another to make things meet.
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Tuesday 21st April 2009 14:20 GMT Anonymous Coward
But...
How the hell are we supposed to charge it. None of these manufacturers seem to want to answer this. We don't all live in houses with driveways or garages. Anyone who has to rely on on street parking is totally fucked by all the electric car manufacturers.
Or are we going to have "Electricity" floats which deliver a freshly charged battery or two to our door step every morning.
And unless the electricity comes from a wind turbine or other such source its not pollution free at all.
Why doesn't someone ever take these two important points up with the car manufacturers instead of just swallowing their marketing guff and hype totally?
Oh and its pig ugly as well
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Tuesday 21st April 2009 14:20 GMT Joey
Nice but...
It's nice to see some UK initiative in this area and good luck to 'em. Living and driving in London, though, I would rather the it reflected the design principles of the fairground dodgem. Whoever thought of painted plastic bumpers really needs to be sent to the back of the class. As for the companies that will only sell you a complete wing mirror assembly when only your glass is cracked...
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Tuesday 21st April 2009 14:20 GMT Andy
12,000 cars a year - hardly conservative
Compared with other niche vehicles, 12,000 cars a year is a lot of cars and would require a huge investment in production facilities. Add in crash testing, meeting regulations and other development work, and the price looks optimistic at best. Unless they are partnering with an existing manufacturer, this sounds a little like a theoretical exercise rather than a commitment to build.
It seems that with motors and batteries becoming off the shelf items, many back shed operations are assuming that the bits that go in between can be developed at minimal costs to production standards. That's not to denigrate this company, but with so few concrete details in the article it's difficult to assume otherwise.
Good luck to them though.
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Tuesday 21st April 2009 14:20 GMT Greg
Put me right off
"In the interests of weight and cost, the One will forsake a conventional in-car entertainment system in favour of an iPod dock which Bee sees as being more than adequate for most drivers ICE and navigation needs."
Because we all have an iPod. No-one could possibly own anything else. iAudio, Creative, Microsoft, River - none of these companies apparently exist. And God forbid we want to play a CD.
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Tuesday 21st April 2009 14:31 GMT Daniel
Promising startup claims to have mastered Lightwave
A promising startup, yesterday unveiled their latest designs for yet another e-car, which, they claim, reflects the ground-breaking research they have been carrying out into Lightwave's 'extrude-rectangles', and 'add-bevels' features. The firm claims that the new design is revolutionary, in having several door units whose rotation planes are actually centred on their 'hinge' extrusions, rather than having to be extacted, rotated manually, and then bodged back into position.
The company aims to follow this early success, with a logo, sometime in the summer, once they have worked out the final nuances of solid metalic reflections and specular lighting.
More ambitiously, the startup also aims to produce a dangerous and uncomfortable roadster - which, they claim, will offer an unparalleled level of performance, coupled with handling, so vague and impreceise that it will, in the words of their marketing director "Revolutionise people's perceptions of electric performance vehicles, in the same way that 1970s tripple cylinder Kawasakis changed people's notions about the life-expectancy of motorcylists". They hope to achieve this by making virtually the entire mass of the vehicle unsprung, and simply sticking a large settee, in the middle, slung between two big rubber bands. An artist's impression of the ambitious performance car would be available to the press once some final teething problems involving an inverted reflection plane and some pesky internal widdow-vertices, that kept crashing the renderer, had been resolved.
The company is now seeking venture capital funding, in order to buy a second Dell Inspiron, which will, they hope, reduce rendering times to under ten hours.
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Tuesday 21st April 2009 14:31 GMT Alexander Holland
Carbon cost?
What is the carbon cost of the vehicle? The metal for the batteries is probably mined in South America where they had to deforest to set up the open cast mining operation. The ore is then shipped half way round the world to china for processing into batteries before being shipped the other half way round the world to the UK where they are charged on electricity from a coal power station and then only last for 3 years before having to be replaced!
Current generation electric cars suck. They are in no-way environmentally friendly.
Try to take public transport for one journey a week. Try to walk or use a bike for short journeys you might otherwise use your car. Service your car regularly. Check the tire pressures every time you fill up with fuel. Shop for groceries on line once a month. MUCH better for the environment ideas than getting an electric car.
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Tuesday 21st April 2009 14:31 GMT Nick
Interesting.
Id say thats an interesting concept, but add 20% to the cost of that, just because manufacturers are always over optimistic.
But with these electric cars coming to market soon, all they need to do is get someone to invent a way for people who don't have driveways to charge their car on the street, without the owner being sued for creating a trip hazard.
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Tuesday 21st April 2009 14:31 GMT Anonymous Coward
See also: Bee Four
As reported in the Torygraph in January, in an article which also briefly mentions the Bee.One.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/environment/4308084/Electric-car-to-compete-in-British-Hillclimb-Championship.html
Not sure how unique the "motor per driven wheel" concept is; anyone who'd read (or maybe written) El Reg's EV coverage would know it's been done before.
Is Lord "Two Resignations" Mandelscum going to be as helpful to this outfit as he has(n't) been with LDV's electric vans?
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Tuesday 21st April 2009 14:31 GMT fifi
viable concept?
Two of the reasons I'd not consider an electric car yet are range and charge-time.
With removeable battery backs like this, it could pretty much address those issues. Granted, you're still looking at 1/2 the range of an ICE powered car, but being able to carry a spare, charged cell and swap it quickly, as well as being able to swap out cells at "petrol stations" would pretty much cure these shortcomings.
It does bring another issue to the fore, however. Should all electric car manufactures settle on a standardised form-factor for power cells, such that they are common to all makes? And how does Bee and the like plan on encouraging fuelling stations to start accepting stocks of cells, when it's taking money away from their main business of selling fossil fuels?
it'll be interesting to see how this develops.
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Tuesday 21st April 2009 14:31 GMT Paul Murphy
Getting better
100 miles @ 80mph, swappable batteries and seperate motors.
Now we need a small diesel motor to replace one of the batteries (if/when needed) for longer trips or too long in the traffic queues.
Regenerative braking,
Also induction charging would be good (at home and at traffic lights) and motors in each wheel, for those slippery situations.
Now - does it have aircon?
ttfn
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Tuesday 21st April 2009 14:31 GMT David Evans
very green
Lovely, now where exactly is the electricity to power all these electric cars coming from again? I was under the impression we faced a power generation shortfall as it is. I'm also unimpressed by the green credentials of this; maybe not having a second car as a local runabout at all might be a tad more environmentally friendly?
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Tuesday 21st April 2009 14:38 GMT Ian Moffatt
How much weight will that save?
'In the interests of weight and cost, the One will forsake a conventional in-car entertainment system in favour of an iPod dock which Bee sees as being more than adequate for most drivers ICE and navigation needs'
You'll still need amp and speakers. Or do we share a set of headphones? Then we'll get fined by the new roadside cameras designed to catch us out/keep us safe.
Plus I wouldn't want to rely on my iPhone as a sat nav. It's not accurate or fast enough.
Ian
Paris - because she knows all about being caught on camera
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Tuesday 21st April 2009 14:38 GMT richard
april fools...late?
surely?
if not, can someone please inform us how much these things cost to charge up every other night? how much is a service, how much is tax? how much is insurance? do i have to have a wire from my house to the car running across my drive for the local chav to pull out?
they all sound great in the sales blurb, but we need hard running costs please...
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Tuesday 21st April 2009 14:38 GMT Richard
Assumptions ..
Assuming that they start cranking these out by 2011 and that the price holds true and that the government subsidy actually arrives (and without onerous T&Cs) ... then I would be in the market for one to replace a (by then) 15 year old ford fiesta as my 4-person carrying "occasional" second car.
Its good to hear they are thinking about the whole lifecycle of the car and could get good revenue from getting involved in the charging and maintence bits .. maybe also bringing down the upfront cost !
Being an English pessimist though I think these are widely big assumptions and that I will have to end up with a second-hand petrol/diesel tank with 4 wheels instead 8-(
Now if Smart had a commerical leccy car (at a reasonable price) and an option to have room for 3 people then I'd upgrade my fortwo instead 8-)
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Tuesday 21st April 2009 14:38 GMT Francis Fish
Batteries? Just gimme hydrogen fuel cell
Car will still run on electricity but have much better range.
All refilling stations will need is a power supply and some water (in theory). Apparently working fine in Florida according to Top Gear.
What's all this blx about batteries?
It's so ... 1950's...
Actually didn't U-Boats use them?
1940's...
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Tuesday 21st April 2009 14:38 GMT Sandra Greer
Any chance of marketing this in the U.S.?
It looks lovable. For cities (at least NYC), it would need an extra set of battery packs for charging, as one does not park near one's house, generally.
It would be very popular with teachers, who travel to odd places where their schools are located, rather than to downtowns. Likewise, nurses.
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Tuesday 21st April 2009 14:38 GMT Gerard Krupa
Green Solution
That would be all well and good if electric cars had any proven environmental benefit. A recent study (published in the Torygraph) showed that electric cars are in fact considerably less efficient than diesels: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/greenertransport/5176216/Environmental-benefits-of-electric-cars-dismissed-as-fiction.html
Switching to electric cars doesn't help unless the electricity also comes from environmentally friendlier sources.
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Tuesday 21st April 2009 14:38 GMT sotar
E-car subsidy??
Surely the proposed £5000 subsidy is for scrapping your old, old, car and replacing it with with an 'eco-friendly' leccy one.
How does that accord with the statement in the article "Designed primarily as a second car, the One will be pitched at buyers who want a 'leccy vehicle for local use rather than as a replacement for the family motor."
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Tuesday 21st April 2009 14:38 GMT Marco
great , just what is required.
Very nice indeed . What power system will the vehicle need to be connected to if we were to do a home charge - I presume that will be possible . I am trying to understand what running costs are involved . I'd also get the Top Gear guys to give it a go as an 80 MPH car isn't bad at all. I wonder if buying a small wind turbine for the house would then solve any charging issues .
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Tuesday 21st April 2009 14:38 GMT Luis Ogando
More Like It
This is more like it. A 'leccy car that's (1) not a stupid price, and (2) looks reasonably normal.
I'm just worried about exactly how much information will be 'sent back' through the 3G link. All that's required is distance and time for the black 'copters to send out speeding tickets left, right and centre for those occasions when you have to overtake an artic in a 40 limit.
Other than that, I like it.
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Tuesday 21st April 2009 14:38 GMT Anonymous Coward
vaporware?
I'd be impressed if they get that range, that speed, that pricepoint and that look all sorted. If they do then I would definitely be wanting one for my commute. It's 8 miles of motorway and this little beaut could do more or less a week on a charge. Me and the bird only need one sensible car between us.
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Tuesday 21st April 2009 17:39 GMT Gildas
@ Gerard Kupra
That Torygraph article is based on "data" from Transport Watch which is nothing more than the rantings of one Paul F Withrington who thinks the country's transport problems can be solved by tarmacing over its rail lines and using them for trucks and buses. Why the Telegraph ran a major article based solely on that loon's ramblings is beyond me - he is one step up from standing outside a tube station with a sandwich board proclaiming "Trains Are Evil!"
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Tuesday 21st April 2009 17:39 GMT Nic
standard response to the Coal fired power station whiners
500000 cars with ICB or 500000 with electric motors. Once we are over to electric we have centralised the power generation and can therefore change the method at any point. IE it doesn't matter too much that our power generation is largely carbon based right now. We change to nuke/solar/wind/fusion etc in the future and are car model still works. We don't have to change every flipping car over each time which would be the problem with other models such as hydrogen.
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Tuesday 21st April 2009 17:39 GMT CC
Fed up with the hype...people need something real NOW!
I am so tired of seeing these "proposed vehicles", time for the manufacturers to put up or shut up...you notice how the time lines keep dragging out another and another year and now they're back to drawings.
What the world needs in not a new car but an engine battery module that can be used in pre-existing vehicles.
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Wednesday 22nd April 2009 09:30 GMT Anonymous Coward
Question
If we are heading for brown-outs because of retiring power stations, and this is unavoidable we are told. We all have to reduce our consumption of electricity or we will have cuts, then if we all switch to rechargeable cars, this is going to help how?
Maybe it is me....
Paris because she'll make the blackouts less tiresome.
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Wednesday 22nd April 2009 10:07 GMT Anonymous Coward
Brown out "this is going to help how"
Because when your car is at home and its battery doesn't need charging, you can use your car battery if you want house electricity when the grid wants to reduce demand.
Or, more adventurously, you use the battery to feed in to the local mains (needs a bit more thought, but not greatly different conceptually than micro wind turbines or micro CHP "feeding in", which works OK in some countries, the main problem is commercial not technical).
It's the same concept in principle as "pumped storage" power stations, except rather than half a dozen per country at maybe a GW each (eg www.fhc.co.uk), you eventually have a few hundred thousand around the country at a couple of kilowatts each. Every little helps.
Of course, "Brown out" is a phrase with a different meaning at the moment. Especially after today's budget and the resulting election.
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Wednesday 22nd April 2009 11:27 GMT Aaron
C6
Finally Clive Sinclair is giving it another shot I see. "Permanently hooked up to a network", will I need to run Zonealarm Security Suite or will Zonealarm Free suffice? Will it support playing minesweeper or tetris while the updates are installed like the new BIOS replacement? No stereo, just a ipod dock... do ipods have radios these days? No one would want a radio in their car would they?
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Wednesday 22nd April 2009 11:27 GMT Anonymous Coward
3G permanently on?
If it is anything like my oldish cell phone that craps the battery dead (and heats up while at it) when GSM 3G is a no-go and it falls back to analogic cell-phone network (as in '90 analogic network TDMA ) then we'll see interesting things, like cars bursting into flames for no apparent reason, just like last-year Sony laptops.
Hope it doesn´t suffer the same fate. Reminds to install more mains sockets in the garage, along with 200 feet cable extensions to charge my car parked in front of the house.
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Wednesday 22nd April 2009 14:12 GMT John Smith
@ Francis Fish
How about 2-3 Kg of TNT instead?
USAF and NASA do range safety assessments. A Helium tank at 5000 psia of about 3.4Cu. Ft capacity is assessed at 3.3lbs (1.5Kg) of TNT. This is solely the result of the compressive energy released, as helium does not burn. The Toyota Clarity holds 4kg of Hydrogen. Hydrogen is also diatomic so can hold compressive energy in the H-H bond as well as bulk compression. This will increase the TNT equivalent. While all such tanks are designed to leak before bursting this would still leave a fairly large hydrogen gas cloud. H2 has a very broad flammability range (4% -96% in air IIRC) and low ignition energy. So before you can say "Fuel air explosive" you should have quite an impressive bang with enough over pressure to do quite a bit of human and property damage. OTOH given its lightness a leak might disperse before ignition.
I wonder if 200 vehicles was chosen as a number which limits the chance of any of them having a major (tank rupturing) crash during the leasing period.
When would you like your Clarity delivered, sir?
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Wednesday 22nd April 2009 18:36 GMT Anonymous Coward
@ the 3G-tards
maybe you do the upgrade while stationary?
maybe it does a download, checks it (md5 whatever) on the move but it insists on upgrade only while stationary and has some sort of roll-back (in the loader, keeps old version as backup) in case of failed upgrade. probably not that hard.
to all the other whiners:
"where's the electricity going to come from ..?."
- would you rather just wait until the petrol runs out?
"why is it so expensive ...?"
- early adoption, volume brings price down, govt subsidy
"where will I plug it in ...?"
- petrol stations would love to sell you coulombs instead, no need to do it at your house (don't keep petrol there at the moment, I expect) so don't panic about street parking. need to be able to recharge quickly, obviously - s'pect someone will make that work.
time to think a little bit, folks, in order to solve the problems rather than just bitch and moan and do nothing
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Thursday 23rd April 2009 09:05 GMT Anonymous Coward
@@the 3G-tards
Quote
"to all the other whiners:
where's the electricity going to come from ..?.
- would you rather just wait until the petrol runs out?"
-- Not having enough leccy to keep the lights (and all the other essentials) on is just as bad. People are pointing out the lack of planning, and how the plans as proposed do not add up. They are not whining. If we are going to be short of electricity capacity in 5 years then planning to increase consumption drastically without building more power stations within that timeframe is reckless and doomed to fail.
"time to think a little bit, folks, in order to solve the problems rather than just bitch and moan and do nothing"
- Same unthinking argument as Gudrun Brown tries to use to fool the sheeple about the "do nothing tories" and it is just as mindless here. Trying to suggest that people who do not agree with your point of view are unthinking is as old as the hills when you have no substantial argument left yourself. No one is suggesting doing nothing, they are suggesting planning properly and doing it right rather than failing to plan or doing half the planning and it all going tits up before we end back where we are today (or worse off) and another (much needed) idea fails to fly.
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Thursday 23rd April 2009 14:37 GMT John Smith
An inescapable fact
20% of UK electricity comes from nuclear power. Most of those reactors are coming to the end of their working lives. Quite soon they will need to be replaced by something (anything) to meet *current* leccy demands. Any scheme which plans to radically increase demand must be factored into replacement and new build plans.
If you did not know this your planning with your eyes shut.
To get the ball rolling. London pooches drop 4m tons of poo. That must generate a *lot* of Methane. its renewable and virtually in-exhaustable.
Just a thought.
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