Britain to produce first electric supercar?

[realityhack]

Lightning GT

I quite like the looks - and the lack of engine noise would be a novelty - but with no transmission, drive shaft etc - wouldn't it feel a bit strange to drive?
I think having no feedback though the steering wheel would freak me out a bit - you may as well use an xbox controller to drive the thing.

[IR35 Avoider]

I agree that the lack of engine noise will be a real problem for sports cars using this technology. I think Sports car buyers will continue to prefer fuel-burners. This same technology will be used for hybrids, so I think for sports cars serial hybrids will be the way to go. You get the faster acceleration of electric motors, but still have an engine to make a noise and give pleasurable vibrations. You can probably even program the computer so the engine revs temporarily when you put your foot down, even though generally speaking the point of a hybrid is to break the direct link between petrol engine output and workload.

I don't want a sports car myself, so putting the batteries under the floor and thus creating a high driving position isn't a problem. Tall cars are in fashion these days, it's not just SUVs, people-carriers and hatchbacks are taller than they used to be. Making the seats high enough off the floor that people's knees do a 90 degree bend and the lower leg is perpendicular to the floor also makes cars taller, but creates lots of extra space (or a shorter car) in the longitudinal direction.

With regard to having nothing but a bumper in front of a driver, yes that is a slightly scary thought, in terms of what happens in a crash. I think VW Kombis (and also some Japanese vans from the 70s) were like this, with the engine presumably under the floor, but my memory may be playing tricks on me. Maybe the solution is to have a "forward cargo area" to carry the shopping that only adds about 2 feet to the length. A strong cage around that with no big lumps of metal inside to get pushed back into the passenger compartment should make it safer than a conventional car in an accident. Having this at the front might mean you could trim some luggage-carry capacity off the back, so it wouldn't necessarily make the car longer.

I reckon allow 2 feet for luggage front and back and 3 feet per row of seats, and a spacious five seater would be only ten feet long. Add an extra row of seats (and extra set of doors) and you have a spacious six door 8-seater that's about the same length as a Ford Focus. (That would suit those who were slow to work out what was causing the kids.)

[IR35 Avoider]

Apparently Volvo have signed an exclusive contract with PML Flightlink (developers of the wheel-motor) to get all their initial output, so they may be first to produce the practical electric hatchback I'm looking for. (Though their concept car is actually a hybrid, use Google to find the video on YouTube.)

The californian company that are producing an electric SUV using the same technology are having to get their wheel-motors from China, as a result of being locked out by the Volvo deal. They claim this is a good thing, they say the Chinese will deliver sooner and cheaper. (I think the Chinese wheel-motors are the same ones developed by PML, manufactured under license.)

[TimberWolf]

Apparently Volvo have signed an exclusive contract with PML Flightlink (developers of the wheel-motor) to get all their initial output, so they may be first to produce the practical electric hatchback I'm looking for. (Though their concept car is actually a hybrid, use Google to find the video on YouTube.)

The californian company that are producing an electric SUV using the same technology are having to get their wheel-motors from China, as a result of being locked out by the Volvo deal. They claim this is a good thing, they say the Chinese will deliver sooner and cheaper. (I think the Chinese wheel-motors are the same ones developed by PML, manufactured under license.)

Be sure to check out the cost of replacement batteries and how long they last. Batteries are the only tricky part of electric car technology, and are carp.

[AtW]

700BHP, 0-60 in 4 seconds.

Admittedly top speed is unimpressive, but it's about 50mph higher than I'm ever likely to drive in Britain.

This is odd that they quote BPH rather than torque - that is what matters, say diesel engine with same BPH as petrol will pull much better, electric motors have got very good torque, while might have low BPH.

Ok, lets take 700 BPH as true figure - this means torque is very very high, now they say 4 secs, what does this mean? It means that the car is heavy - look at Tesla car spec: http://www.teslamotors.com/performance/perf_specs.php

In Tesla (and that car is known to actually exist not being vaporware) - 250 bph peak they claim to accelerate actually 4 seconds to 60 mph. Weight spec - http://www.teslamotors.com/performance/tech_specs.php - 2700 pounds (1.2 ton - almost like an ordinary car - not too light at all).

So, we have here known Tesla also accelerating in 4 seconds to 60, yet it uses 250 bph motors, which is logical because yet again it is the torque that matters. So, this new car supposedly has the same performance but it uses 700 bph motor (very close to petrol motor that would be needed to get to that performance level), that's almost 3 times more than in Tesla, it would require car to weight a LOT more than Tesla (which is not very light either) to have the same performance with almost 3 times more powerful motor.

Conclusion - this car actually does not exist as it is rather suspicious specs they posted compared to other known parameters of a real electric car.

[IR35 Avoider]

Be sure to check out the cost of replacement batteries and how long they last. Batteries are the only tricky part of electric car technology, and are carp.

The batteries have an estimated life in a laboratory of 40 years, which they thought might translate into 20 in real world. I've also seen estimates of 15 and 12 years for battery life in the real world.

They (battery manufacturer AltairNano) did a test of 9000 cycles in the laboratory, where a cycle is charge to 100% (in six minutes) and discharge to 0% (in six minutes), from which they projected battery would retain 85% capacity after 15,000 cycles.

One charge/discharge is one day of use in real life, assuming car is normally charged overnight, so that works out to about 60 years in my rough calculation. That's a lot more than they concluded, so I suppose I might have got something wrong. (Edit: actually the difference is probably that I assumed a 5-day week and they assumed a 7-day week.)

[IR35 Avoider]

This is odd that they quote BPH rather than torque - that is what matters, say diesel engine with same BPH as petrol will pull much better, electric motors have got very good torque, while might have low BPH.

Ok, lets take 700 BPH as true figure - this means torque is very very high, now they say 4 secs, what does this mean? It means that the car is heavy - look at Tesla car spec: http://www.teslamotors.com/performance/perf_specs.php

In Tesla (and that car is known to actually exist not being vaporware) - 250 bph peak they claim to accelerate actually 4 seconds to 60 mph. Weight spec - http://www.teslamotors.com/performance/tech_specs.php - 2700 pounds (1.2 ton - almost like an ordinary car - not too light at all).

So, we have here known Tesla also accelerating in 4 seconds to 60, yet it uses 250 bph motors, which is logical because yet again it is the torque that matters. So, this new car supposedly has the same performance but it uses 700 bph motor (very close to petrol motor that would be needed to get to that performance level), that's almost 3 times more than in Tesla, it would require car to weight a LOT more than Tesla (which is not very light either) to have the same performance with almost 3 times more powerful motor.

Conclusion - this car actually does not exist as it is rather suspicious specs they posted compared to other known parameters of a real electric car.

First thing I should mention is that this car uses more advanced battery technology than Tesla, though as far as I know that doesn't affect anything in your argument. Google "Nanosafe" or "AltairNano" for details.

I agree the car is vapourware at this point, but two manufacturers are promising delivery this year, multi-million dollar contracts have been signed, so we should soon find out if there's anything in this. There are two wheel-motor suppliers that I know of dealing with three car manufacturers. The battery company is selling to three car manufacturers. (Not quite the same 3 - a would-be US electric truck maker replaces Volvo in the line-up.) So it does sound like something might happen.

I guess they just quote BHP because that is what car-buyers think in terms of. If you go to "PML Flightlink" (wheel-motor supplier) web-site they say torque is unlimited, but then back down a little and say in reality acceleration is dependent on ability of rubber to grip the road, as well as the weight of car. Their web-site does give comprehensive stats on the performance of their wheel-motors, so you should be able to deduce from those if the 700BHP stat makes sense. (The California company promising an SUV are claiming 644 BHP for it, if I remember correctly.)

As far as I know the Tesla is like a conventional car, with a single in-board electric engine driving two wheels through a two speed gearbox. The cars we are talking about here will have four engines, each wheel is an electric motor, and there is no gearing. I don't know what difference this makes.

You say the car is very heavy - my overall impression is that it is expected to weigh about the same as an ordinary car. By "the car" I don't mean the Lightning GT, which looks rather oversized to me, but a generic car based on the same technology. PML Flightlink converted a Mini into a hybrid as a technology demonstrator, and I think it added a couple of hundred kilos to the weight. I'm not sure what this says about a pure electric car, as the hybrid might have less battery weight and obviously has more petrol engine weight. Also the Mini was not necessarily optimised sensibly - it had something like a 1200 mile estimated range, which is excessive.