The Electric Car Revolution is on

[VelesHomais]

Whatever you think of electric cars doesn't matter, the fact of the matter is that 2010 marks the year of the beginning of the Electric Car Revolution. Every major and minor car manufacturing company is releasing an electric car this and next year, with a hundred more models becoming a reality in just two years. Charging stations are popping up in every country and their numbers will rise exponentially. Battery capacity is expected to rise by 1000% thanks to nanotech breakthroughs.

Let us monitor and discuss this inevitable and overall positive revolution.

Some existing problems to overcome:
* Average range of a single charge is at 110 miles or 177 km.
* A single charge from your regular home outlet will take as much as 6 to 9 hours. Although a new boosted charging stations does the job in 30 minutes. These numbers are expected to drop substantially in the coming years.
* In the next few years electric cars will only be convenient for those that have their own garage or a large parking lot equipped with electric charges. The latter is unlikely now but will change in just a few years, France is planning to enact a law that starting 2012 all residential complex parking lots are to be equipped with electric charging stations.
* Electric cars don't solve environmental problems just yet, because much of electricity is generated by coal power plants. However, this is easily remedied by building more Nuclear and Solar power plants. Fusion power reactors will soon be tested, in the future easily providing most of our energy needs.

To kick start the thread here's Aptera, the weird electric car that offers the least resistance to air. About 5000 of these have been pre-ordered in the United States :




NOTE: Most electric cars look like regular cars, not futuristic space ships.

Post anything related to electric cars here. Hopefully I'm not the only one excited

[Concrete Stereo]

Yeah, I'm excited to see it happen.

I don't expect it so much to solve environmental problems though (well, why wait for the electric car to start with green energy?)

But it will help solve fine dust and noise issues - which would definitely make cities a lot more comfortable. And using the electro motor as dynamo to brake can make cars a lot more energy efficient in the city. And anyway, the car industry can use some fresh wind.

[Turknology]

Turkey will be one of the production bases for electric cars, first production is expected for 2011

[VelesHomais]

New York has opened it's first public charging station, 100 more will be set up in the next 12 months. How many, if any, do your cities have? I know Israel wants to be completely covered with them in just 3 years, they expect to abandon gas powered cars by 2020. Hawaii has similar goals.

[Turknology]

Originally Posted by VelesHomais

New York has opened it's first public charging station, 100 more will be set up in the next 12 months. How many, if any, do your cities have? I know Israel wants to be completely covered with them in just 3 years, they expect to abandon gas powered cars by 2020. Hawaii has similar goals.

I think 2 will be built in Istanbul this year as a start. It is planned for electric cars to slowly replace combustion cars within a couple of years.

[Fuzzy Llama]

What we need is a revolution in energy storage technology. With current Lithum-Ion or LiPoly batteries the cars are unlikely to exceed the 500km range anywhere in future. Just look at your mobile phone - the iPhone has a battery that's merely several % larger than the one your dumbphone had five years ago. We need another way.

Once this will be done, once a car will cross the 1200-1500km range barrier (which mean that I could use this car for holiday travels and recharge it at some hotel/at the destination - recharge times won't matter then anymore), the electric revolution will kill the combustion engine in the couple of years.

I hope that in 15 years time my car will be all electric.

[VelesHomais]

15 years? More like 2 for me. I'm sure that car companies are investing like crazy into battery technology research.

[AltinD]

Originally Posted by Turknology

It is planned for electric cars to slowly replace combustion cars within a couple of years.

It is NOT going to hapen!

[VelesHomais]

It will happen in some regions and countries (Hawaii, Denmark, Norway,Israel, California) within 10 years and on global scale within 20 .

[Turknology]

Originally Posted by AltinD

It is NOT going to hapen!

Why?

An electric car currently does 110km/h for example, top speed limits on autobahns are 120km/h here, so nothin much will be lost, and there will be no speeding tickets

[AltinD]

Not in 2 years.

[Turknology]

Originally Posted by VelesHomais

It will happen in some regions and countries (Hawaii, Denmark, Norway,Israel, California) within 10 years and on global scale within 20 .

Also Turkey has been working on Hydrogen feul cells for quite some time now. As a country dependant on petroleum importations electric cars are a way out of our dependance on foreign countries for feul.

[Turknology]

Originally Posted by AltinD

Not in 2 years.

I said in a couple of years, not 2

[AltinD]

Plus, just as with smartphones, more fancy things are added to them and the baterry life now is 1/3 or even less of what it used to be a decade earlier. I doubt the switch to electric wil, happen before cars progress to the point where they would be able to drive themselves.

Let the hybrid take hold first, and then the electric cars can get over.

[AltinD]

Originally Posted by Turknology

I said in a couple of years, not 2

couple = 2

[Fuzzy Llama]

Hydrogen fuel cells sucks because it's gods damn expensive in terms of energy used to produce hydrogen right now. I've read somewhere that Honda FCX Clarity (first mass produced car powered with fuel cells) has the same level of energy efficiency (understood as "energy-to-wheels", with a power plant, electrolysis and fuel cell efficiency taken into account) than a conventional car. The only difference is that pollutions aren't produced by the car itself, but by the electric plant.

In comparison, even with current crappy batteries all-electric cars are four times more efficient, so even when the electricity is produced from coal it's still much more environment friendly.

[Turknology]

Originally Posted by AltinD

couple = 2

[Turknology]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy Llama

Hydrogen fuel cells sucks because it's gods damn expensive in terms of energy used to produce hydrogen right now. I've read somewhere that Honda FCX Clarity (first mass produced car powered with fuel cells) has the same level of energy efficiency (understood as "energy-to-wheels", with a power plant, electrolysis and fuel cell efficiency taken into account) than a conventional car. The only difference is that pollutions aren't produced by the car itself, but by the electric plant.

In comparison, even with current crappy batteries all-electric cars are four times more efficient, so even when the electricity is produced from coal it's still much more environment friendly.

True, it is early days yet for the hydrogen feul cell.

[VelesHomais]

Hydrogen, imho, has been a wasteful diversion, it will see a temporary use, but not long term.

[VelesHomais]

Originally Posted by AltinD

Plus, just as with smartphones, more fancy things are added to them and the baterry life now is 1/3 or even less of what it used to be a decade earlier. I doubt the switch to electric wil, happen before cars progress to the point where they would be able to drive themselves.

Let the hybrid take hold first, and then the electric cars can get over.

Technology for cars to drive themselves has arrived, it's used by U.S. Military and NASA. It will be available to us in ten years.