Torque
570 nanomoles?!
'Leccy racer whacks petrols in Oz race
An Australian EV bearing the name ELMOFO has beaten petrol-powered competitors in an officially-sanctioned race – twice. Ahead of the FIA Formula E race in China in September, a battery-powered car managed three feats at a meet for the NSW SuperSports State Championship: it won two out of three heats against petrol-powered …
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Wednesday 20th August 2014 09:03 GMT jake
That's nice.
Can one of it's siblings get me, the wife & a couple of whippets, towing a three-horse-slant trailer (empty on the way out, full on the way back), from Sonoma to Solvang California and back in under half a day?
Until then, don't call me. I'm not interested, I live in the real world. Energy density in batteries will never be useful for over-the-road transport, outside of "look at me" vanity crap.
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Wednesday 20th August 2014 09:27 GMT phuzz
Re: That's nice.
Is there *any* race car that can do any of that?
If you're looking for an electric vehicle to carry lots of people, dogs and cargo, at least compare your current car to something like this: http://www.smithelectric.com/smith-vehicles/models-and-configurations/
Which doesn't have the range you need, but can probably do everything else. Unlike a race car.
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Wednesday 20th August 2014 09:28 GMT monkeyfish
Re: That's nice.
But a hybrid could. And if you have a second household car that (typically for second household cars) rarely travels outside of the immediate surrounding area where you live, a full electric makes a lot of sense.
Ah, but you assume that because your use case doesn't work with a full electric, clearly it cannot possibly fit anyone else's. Dick.
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Wednesday 20th August 2014 11:10 GMT Alan Edwards
Re: That's nice.
> Sonoma to Solvang California and back in under half a day?
Assuming your use the rest of the time is within the electric range, buy a Focus Electric (or Leaf, whatever) and hire a Suburban for the weekend when you need to drag the horse trailer around.
The fuel you didn't buy the other 363 days will probably pay for the hire...
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Wednesday 20th August 2014 11:19 GMT NumptyScrub
Re: That's nice.
quote: "Can one of it's siblings get me, the wife & a couple of whippets, towing a three-horse-slant trailer (empty on the way out, full on the way back), from Sonoma to Solvang California and back in under half a day?"
It also wouldn't be able to replace my network of freight locomotives, and I couldn't use it in place of my hovercraft fleet either. When will people realise that electric racecars just aren't useful outside of a racetrack?
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Wednesday 20th August 2014 11:20 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: That's nice.
Even your average everyday car wont do that, no matter what it was powered by. It is too light. The only sort of vehicle capable of such a thing would be one of the full sized pickups (just) or a truck. Your tow vehicle should be twice the weight of what you are towing, there aren't many vehicles that people use everyday that weigh more than 4 tons (my guesstimate of the total weight of your rig fully loaded is 2 tons minimum) in fact the vast majority if cars don't even tip the scales at more than 2tons.
This is a race car not a tow car for abusing your horses by sending them on a 340Mile journey couped up in a tiny box just so that you can amuse yourself by riding around a Danish based theme town.
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Wednesday 20th August 2014 12:39 GMT Asylum Sam
Re: That's nice.
Your response brings to mind the Babbage quote, only with the nationality reversed.
<quote>Propose to an Englishman any principle, or any instrument, however admirable, and you will observe that the whole effort of the English mind is directed to find a difficulty, a defect, or an impossibility in it. If you speak to him of a machine for peeling a potato, he will pronounce it impossible: if you peel a potato with it before his eyes, he will declare it useless, because it will not slice a pineapple. Impart the same principle or show the same machine to an American or to one of our Colonists, and you will observe that the whole effort of his mind is to find some new application of the principle, some new use for the instrument. </quote>
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Thursday 21st August 2014 01:26 GMT dan1980
Re: That's nice.
@jake
Although everything that needs to be said probably already has been, I would like to add my own pennies.
The point I would make, primarily, is that this car is not designed to test or advance the science of battery energy density.
Petrol/diesel is a phenomenal fuel source from the point of view of energy density and internal combustion engines have been developed over many decades to take advantage of that energy to provide excellent performance.
Unfortunately, there are a few fairly downsides to it. It is also a limit resources that is not getting any more plentiful, much of what is left is to be found in countries whose ideologies do not accord with our western ones and, it is rather bad for the air quality*.
The ideal propulsion system for a vehicle should have the following properties:
- Plentiful
- Cheap
- Good energy density
- Good performance
- Available for all nations and not able to be hoarded and exploited by a select few
While conventional fuel will always provide good energy density and thus good performance, it is steadily decreasing in availability and affordability.
Electric power - in whatever guise - one the other hand, is increasing in all these areas - it is increasing in performance, increasing in energy density, increasing in availability and increasing in affordability.
Different groups and different projects and companies are focusing on different areas. Sports car makers are proving that pure electric power can match and even exceed traditional power in certain applications and they are widening all the time. Researchers are developing new battery technologies to increases density, reduce cost, improve reliability, decrease weight - sometimes all at once.
To say, flat, that "energy density in batteries will never be useful for over-the-road transport" is not only stupendously short-sighted, it is largely missing the point.
As things stand, right now, electric vehicles and even hybrids are on average more expensive over the life of the car than a petrol/diesel car. As batteries become more efficient, more durable and cheaper (which is exactly what is happening) and petrol becomes more expensive (which is exactly what is happening), this equation slides towards electric power.
You may find that electric cars will actually be the saviour of 'traditional' fuels, preserving dwindling oil reserves for those applications that are harder to address with electric power as it stands - like air travel or heavy lorries. That seems pretty "useful" to me.
* - Whatever your position on 'global warming' or the environment in general, there is no denying that car exhaust is less than stellar for humans to breath in.
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Wednesday 20th August 2014 14:18 GMT John Brown (no body)
Re: What's with the video?
But still looks like I'm watching a computer simulation :-)
The speed of motion and the video compression blur the sidelines and scenery so much that just doesn't look quite real.
On the driving style, back in the day when I played Pole Position or Revs, running over the kerbs was always a massive speed penalty yet whenever I see a FPP from a race car they seem to ride the kerbs and run-offs at every corner.
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Wednesday 20th August 2014 15:08 GMT Anonymous Coward
What a handful
That car oversteers too much even with hot tires. The better cars in front just left him behind as a result.
As far as the EV saga is concerned, there are places where EVs make since but they are currently only useful for city driving. Larger trucks could make electrics work but nothing is free and recharging costs money just like buying petrol. About all EVs have going for them at the moment is perceived reduced emissions but when you look at the toxic battery production and disposal, EVs are not the savior they are made out to be.
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Wednesday 20th August 2014 17:33 GMT theOtherJT
Re: What a handful
Well, no, they've got instant torque and gearshiftless acceleration going for them too. Also that whole "one moving part" thing in the drive train is nice, that ditches a ton of associated efficiency losses.
Like most things the problem is a matter of how to move energy around from where we make it to where we need it. What this proves is that we can turn electricity into car-like motion really quite effectively as long as the power source holds up.
Now what we need is to sic a whole load of researchers on the bits where the technology isn't there yet. Fast charging, long life, high capacity batteries would be excellent for everyone, not just cars, but it's pretty much "pick any two" at the moment.
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