RE: Lotus Evora 414E: the tech
Discussion
Max_Torque said:
Sure it's a great "technology demonstrator", but here in 2012 no OEM would accept the cripling financial burden that all that complexity brings. A car with only two seats, that has no boot and would cost >£100k? So it does 4sec to 60 and 40mpg, you'd probably sell 7 of them.......
I can think of a number of models with those same attributes, apart from the mpg (where they get 12 instead of 40).bencollins said:
Soooooooo GM have had the ampera in production 2 years, with the same config as this, but the UK has just produced its first unfeasible for production concept. How tragic.
Pity the DOE didnt fund the UK based mini development (exactly on these lines in 2003).
DUH!
Not quite as the Ampera still has a direct engine drive option, via a 2speed box, IIRC. Pity the DOE didnt fund the UK based mini development (exactly on these lines in 2003).
DUH!
What it does highlight is how batteries need to be considered as part of the structural design to maximise packaging efficiency. Look at something like the Fisker Karma for how to package sufficient batteries for decent electric only running while retaining a usable package.
Best way to 'charge' an electric car, I think, is to have a standard battery unit that can be swapped at a petrol station for a full one. Could be fully automated - just drive over the battery bay and it removes the spent battery cartridge and plugs in a new one. Could be back on the road quicker than you would when filling up with fuel normally. The batteries would always be maintained in top condition and would probably pay less for the car in the first place as the battery is owned by the power companies - you just pay for the recharging of the battery plus a bit towards its initial cost/maintenance.
Just needs a standard to be developed and the infrastructure, which is where it probably falls down - needs big investment and planning, no one wants to do that...!
Just needs a standard to be developed and the infrastructure, which is where it probably falls down - needs big investment and planning, no one wants to do that...!
AJLintern said:
Best way to 'charge' an electric car, I think, is to have a standard battery unit that can be swapped at a petrol station for a full one. Could be fully automated - just drive over the battery bay and it removes the spent battery cartridge and plugs in a new one. Could be back on the road quicker than you would when filling up with fuel normally. The batteries would always be maintained in top condition and would probably pay less for the car in the first place as the battery is owned by the power companies - you just pay for the recharging of the battery plus a bit towards its initial cost/maintenance.
Just needs a standard to be developed and the infrastructure, which is where it probably falls down - needs big investment and planning, no one wants to do that...!
The problem for this is developing the standard battery. You just have to look at the standard battery for all mobile phones to see how hard it it to combine all the features that everyone wants in to just one item. Just needs a standard to be developed and the infrastructure, which is where it probably falls down - needs big investment and planning, no one wants to do that...!
Plus a lot, if not all, EV batteries are water cooled, so thats something else to connect up.
Then of course you have the massive up front investment by the battery station. A normal sized petrol station can fill up 4 cars a minute, so if your standard battery pack takes 3 hours to charge you need 720 batteries on charge all the time. Motorway service stations are going to be huge.
Captain Muppet said:
The problem for this is developing the standard battery. You just have to look at the standard battery for all mobile phones to see how hard it it to combine all the features that everyone wants in to just one item.
Plus a lot, if not all, EV batteries are water cooled, so thats something else to connect up.
Then of course you have the massive up front investment by the battery station. A normal sized petrol station can fill up 4 cars a minute, so if your standard battery pack takes 3 hours to charge you need 720 batteries on charge all the time. Motorway service stations are going to be huge.
Yep I agree there are certainly challenges Plus a lot, if not all, EV batteries are water cooled, so thats something else to connect up.
Then of course you have the massive up front investment by the battery station. A normal sized petrol station can fill up 4 cars a minute, so if your standard battery pack takes 3 hours to charge you need 720 batteries on charge all the time. Motorway service stations are going to be huge.
Except if you combine charging at home and your destination (something that could be improved at the same time) with these systems at garages they wouldn't be used as much as petrol stations are now. You can't fill up your car at home or work currently I love what Lotus stand for and one day dream of owning a S1 Elise but I think I'm missing something here. In burning fuel to produce electricity are you not losing energy in the transfer process? Why is it not more efficient to burn fuel and transmit the energy straight to the gear box?
I can only think that maybe if you can store energy (in those batteries) produced by methods independent of fossil fuels you can get around the problem. Is that where the fact that it can run on ethanol/methanol comes in?
Not very petrol headed I know but it sounds like its just delaying the problem of declining fuel reserves not solving it.
I can only think that maybe if you can store energy (in those batteries) produced by methods independent of fossil fuels you can get around the problem. Is that where the fact that it can run on ethanol/methanol comes in?
Not very petrol headed I know but it sounds like its just delaying the problem of declining fuel reserves not solving it.
dougalf1 said:
I love what Lotus stand for and one day dream of owning a S1 Elise but I think I'm missing something here. In burning fuel to produce electricity are you not losing energy in the transfer process? Why is it not more efficient to burn fuel and transmit the energy straight to the gear box?
Because a typical high-powered petrol engine like that in the Evora S cruising on the motorway, is only converting about 15% of the energy released by burning the petrol into motion - internal combustion engines are very inefficient when running at light loads. However, running a small engine at peak efficiency you can turn more than 40% of the energy in the petrol into electricity, which more than counters the small losses in the batteries and electric motor. Basically, the batteries are simply there to act as an energy buffer to allow the petrol engine to run more efficiently. Plus of course you can plug it in and avoid paying silly amounts of tax for your commute.
Edited by kambites on Thursday 18th October 09:43
kambites said:
Because a typical high-powered petrol engine like that in the Evora S cruising on the motorway, is only converting about 15% of the energy released by burning the petrol into motion - internal combustion engines are very inefficient when running at light loads.
Wow 15%, now it makes sense, Thank you. Edited by kambites on Thursday 18th October 09:43
Off the back of chatting with Lotus we've updated the piece to amend a couple of detail errors - the generator is in fact from Evo Electric, Fagor Ederlan production partners for the range-extender engine when it reaches that stage with the one in the Evora being a Lotus-built prototype.
Cheers,
Dan
Cheers,
Dan
AJLintern said:
Best way to 'charge' an electric car, I think, is to have a standard battery unit that can be swapped at a petrol station for a full one. Could be fully automated - just drive over the battery bay and it removes the spent battery cartridge and plugs in a new one. Could be back on the road quicker than you would when filling up with fuel normally. The batteries would always be maintained in top condition and would probably pay less for the car in the first place as the battery is owned by the power companies - you just pay for the recharging of the battery plus a bit towards its initial cost/maintenance.
Just needs a standard to be developed and the infrastructure, which is where it probably falls down - needs big investment and planning, no one wants to do that...!
Google for Renault Quickdrop.Just needs a standard to be developed and the infrastructure, which is where it probably falls down - needs big investment and planning, no one wants to do that...!
http://www.renault-ze.com/en-ie/old-ie/renault-z.e...
Exactly as described.
I think the debate about range and mpg is missing the point. As I mentioned in my post following the road test the other day, the range extender engine is only there as back up for when the batteries run low. Drive is always electric.
The point about this class of vehicle is that it should be charged up from the mains as often as possible i.e. if the average commute is 8.5 miles daily, a weekend charge should give you almost a week's driving (for a couple of pence worth of electricity) - you would probably never have to use the range extender at all (allowing for charging points at the office, at the supermarket etc). Today's power stations are much more efficient at turning fuel into energy compared to vehicles and as renewables take on more of the load this can only improve.
Look at how Jay Leno has run his Chevy Volt (Vauxhall Ampera over here) He has done almost 11,000 miles in the two years he has had it and used only 4.6 gallons (US) of fuel. His boast is he still has half a tank of fuel left over from he got the car two years ago - that's 2,400 mpg (US)!
And of course Lotus aren't going to build this (although its a real shame they didn't get a chance to build the Emerge-e for Infiniti) Its a technology demonstrator that main stream manufacturers should now pick up and develop into production versions.
We should be glad the Government, through funding of the TSB, is doing something sensible with our taxes!!!
The point about this class of vehicle is that it should be charged up from the mains as often as possible i.e. if the average commute is 8.5 miles daily, a weekend charge should give you almost a week's driving (for a couple of pence worth of electricity) - you would probably never have to use the range extender at all (allowing for charging points at the office, at the supermarket etc). Today's power stations are much more efficient at turning fuel into energy compared to vehicles and as renewables take on more of the load this can only improve.
Look at how Jay Leno has run his Chevy Volt (Vauxhall Ampera over here) He has done almost 11,000 miles in the two years he has had it and used only 4.6 gallons (US) of fuel. His boast is he still has half a tank of fuel left over from he got the car two years ago - that's 2,400 mpg (US)!
And of course Lotus aren't going to build this (although its a real shame they didn't get a chance to build the Emerge-e for Infiniti) Its a technology demonstrator that main stream manufacturers should now pick up and develop into production versions.
We should be glad the Government, through funding of the TSB, is doing something sensible with our taxes!!!
Edited by Hedgerley on Thursday 18th October 17:41
Hedgerley said:
I think the debate about range and mpg is missing the point. As I mentioned in my post following the road test the other day, the range extender engine is only there as back up for when the batteries run low. Drive is always electric.
The point about this class of vehicle is that it should be charged up from the mains as often as possible i.e. if the average commute is 8.5 miles daily, a weekend charge should give you almost a week's driving (for a couple of pence worth of electricity) - you would probably never have to use the range extender at all (allowing for charging points at the office, at the supermarket etc). Today's power stations are much more efficient at turning fuel into energy compared to vehicles and as renewables take on more of the load this can only improve.
Look at how Jay Leno has run his Chevy Volt (Vauxhall Ampera over here) He has done almost 11,000 miles in the two years he has had it and used only 4.6 gallons (US) of fuel. His boast is he still has half a tank of fuel left over from he got the car two years ago - that's 2,400 mpg (US)!
And of course Lotus aren't going to build this (although its a real shame they didn't get a chance to build the Emerge-e for Infiniti) Its a technology demonstrator that main stream manufacturers should now pick up and develop into production versions.
We should be glad the Government, through funding of the TSB, is doing something sensible with our taxes!!!
But with electricity prices soaring (which will become far far worse when we put all our motoring needs on the grid, seeing as it is rapidly running out of capacity as it is by all accounts) and how much is that charge to get you 30 miles actually going to cost in terms of ££££ of electricity? I genuinely have no idea how many units of elec it takes to charge a car like this - anyone?The point about this class of vehicle is that it should be charged up from the mains as often as possible i.e. if the average commute is 8.5 miles daily, a weekend charge should give you almost a week's driving (for a couple of pence worth of electricity) - you would probably never have to use the range extender at all (allowing for charging points at the office, at the supermarket etc). Today's power stations are much more efficient at turning fuel into energy compared to vehicles and as renewables take on more of the load this can only improve.
Look at how Jay Leno has run his Chevy Volt (Vauxhall Ampera over here) He has done almost 11,000 miles in the two years he has had it and used only 4.6 gallons (US) of fuel. His boast is he still has half a tank of fuel left over from he got the car two years ago - that's 2,400 mpg (US)!
And of course Lotus aren't going to build this (although its a real shame they didn't get a chance to build the Emerge-e for Infiniti) Its a technology demonstrator that main stream manufacturers should now pick up and develop into production versions.
We should be glad the Government, through funding of the TSB, is doing something sensible with our taxes!!!
Edited by Hedgerley on Thursday 18th October 17:41
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