Second-fastest sports car runs on batteries

(continued from previous page)

Electricity is also comparatively cheap. The X1 consumes about 220 watt-hours per mile in city driving. That's the equivalent of 170 miles per gallon: The vehicle's vanity license plate reads 170 MPGE. It can be charged from a 110-volt wall socket and will be compatible with the faster chargers Tesla will bring to market.

The problem is the batteries, which effectively serve as the gas tank on an electric car. The 538-pound battery in the X1 can hold about the same amount of energy as three liters of gas.

As a result, electric cars can only travel so far without recharging. The EV1 from General Motors could only go 130 miles before it needed a recharge, and it needed a special charger. The all-electric Xebra from ZAP doesn't go on the freeway. The Tesla Roadster, an electric sports car coming from Tesla Motors, can go 200 miles before its 6,831-cell lithium ion battery peters out.

The X1 can go around 100 miles under regular conditions and might only go 25 miles in racing conditions before it needs a recharge.

"Batteries are also intrinsically expensive things," Wright said. "There's a lot of R&D involved."

The lithium-ion polymer battery on the X1, for instance, costs around $40,000. If you wanted to make an electric Honda Accord, the car's sales price would likely jump from $20,000 to $50,000.

Even with today's high gas prices, the cost of inserting a lithium polymer battery into an Accord, therefore, would be prohibitive. "At $3 a gallon, it doesn't add up," Wright said.

Tesla chairman and PayPal founder Elon Musk believes the price can be driven down. The Tesla Roadster, coming in 2007, will sell for around $90,000, but the company plans to come out with a family sedan in three years that will sell for $50,000. A cheaper version is slated for a few years after that.

Wright, who worked at Tesla, doesn't see that happening. Besides, the market is fairly large. Every year, consumers in North America alone buy around 30,000 new supercars, defined as cars that sell for $80,000 and up. That's about $3 billion a year.

Sports car boredom
The market is heavily saturated with famous brands. Still, that could prove to be an advantage because many sports car enthusiasts probably suffer from boredom. When they first buy a sports car, they love it. Two years later, it sits in the garage. (Wright speaks from personal experience. A former amateur racer in Australia, he admits that his Ferrari sits in the garage a lot these days.)

"You take your Ferrari out and everyone thinks you're a snob," he said.

Translating a prototype into a commercially viable car, however, won't be easy. Many new car companies--such as Rosen Motors, started by venture capitalist Ben Rosen--have failed.

Additionally, Wrightspeed has set some fairly aggressive goals. The commercial version of the X1 will sell for around $120,000-- far less than the $1.7 million Bugatti--and actually will be faster than the prototype. Because most of the potential purchasers won't be trained drivers, the company also has to improve the handling and stability. Wright once let a friend drive the X1 and the friend (with Wright in the passenger seat) careened into a power pole.

"We have to make the performance more accessible," he said. "It will be quicker and a lot safer to drive."

Still, the hubbub and activity around the automotive and energy market in Silicon Valley is unusually high. Tesla has already taken deposits on its first 100 cars. Companies touting new battery technology or fuel additives are landing venture funding. Fears about global warming are also prodding governments to offer incentives for alternative vehicles.

And the demand for fast cars won't vanish any day soon.

"A certain number of people turn 40 every year," Wright said.

[bishop375]

It's the Ariel Atom?!

So this is essentially a battery-powered Ariel Atom.

I'm surprised nobody else has mentioned it!

[coolz321]

It's the Ariel Atom?!

Thats exactly what I said when I saw it. Wikipedia says that it is an Ariel Atom that is just modified to use an all-electic powertrain.

[skippytbk]

Ariel Atom mod?

are they the same people who made the Ariel Atom? The pictures on the site doesn't show the "A" logo on the seat nor on the nose of the car. Or did they just buy an Ariel and changed it to electric, took out the logo and called it their own?

[michael kanellos]

the chassis is from ariel

The chassis is from Ariel but the drive train and engine of course are not, so overlap between the two is limited. (the engine after all is a big deal. If it were a gas car, we wouldn't be writing about it.). Drive train comes from AC propulsion/.

Saunders from Ariel will design the final frame. The commercial version will look similar but different. Possibly carbon fiber.

[Hoser McMoose]

Modified and rebadged Atom

"Ariel" is actually the name of the company that makes the Atom car. They are based out of England. This car is being sold by a different company, so it's pretty clear that they are just pulling the Honda motor out of the Atom and putting an electric drivetrain in and then slapping their logo on it.

Does make for a nice performance comparison of electric (X1) vs. ICE (Atom) though. Going with the numbers in this article vs. the Ariel Atom 2 with a 300bhp supercharged engine, you get the following:

The X1 does 0-60mph in 3 seconds, the Atom does it in 2.9 seconds.

0-100-0mph for the X1 is 11.2 sec., for the Atom it is 10.9 sec.

Fuel consumption strongly favors the X1, at about 70-90mpg equivilent (the "170mpg" number listed ignores the 50%+ loses to generate the electricity in the first place) vs. about 20-25mpg Atom (I couldn't find reliable numbers for the supercharged model, but the naturally aspirated one comes in at 9.5L/100K, or around 30mpg).

Trip length strongly favors the Atom, at about 500km (320 miles) per 60L (16 gallon) tank of gas vs. only 160km (100 miles) for a full charge of the Atom.

Of course, all these numbers are kind of moot, because really these are not "cars" in the normal sense of the word, but track-day cars. You take them to the racetrack and run some crazy laps with them on the weekend. The problem being that with the X1 you can only run about 5 laps before you need to stop and recharge.

[disco-legend-zeke]

Racing Teams Ready? American TV viewers are.

first, leaving the chassis design to a name manufacturer just plain makes sense. What precious brainpower an electric startup can spend, should be spent on motor, battery, and control chip design.

The third one, control chip, is the complete key to adding range without adding weight/cost. Once a chip is designed, the manufacturing costs become insignificant. The real magic of any electric transportation is re-using the energy that is otherwise wasted as heat during the braking process. The japanese have been feeding passenger train braking energy back into the power grid for decades. When Phelpes Dodge lifts a couple hundred tons of rock off the side of a mountain, it pumps the energy of lowering it into the grid.

A modern electric car, including the EV-1, and most hybrids, achieves range by recovering braking energy. This is not a trivial task, the energy absorption to stop a car is equal to the energy that was used to accellerate it, but is generally applied much faster. People love small G-forces, its a reason American drivers are not getting the mileage they should from their hybrids, they stop faster than the batteries can accept the charge.

The answer, as i stated earlier is great chip design. Adding supercapacitors, with their high current capacities, into the mix will help too.

100 miles per charge is just fine for a lot of people. If the jobsite has charging facilities, the range is further than most commutes.

But the consumer does not care about that... They want to know who is winning the ECAR cup this season. Which Manufacturer? Which driver? Fast charge at pit stops? battery swap...

Hey, this is gonna get really fun, real soon.

and a few years from now new car choices will be just a matter of selecting the right range. An all-electric for around town/commuting, and a heat engine or fuel cell for road trips.

letting the rich consumers and race fans pay for all that great design talent is a good way to buy the brains needed, the publicity is almost a freebie.

[mjtimber]

Lithium

I am always confused by the "lithium battery is toxic" argument. Lithium batteries are NOT toxic. Especially when compared to the lead acid battery in a standard car. In fact, the standard 18650 lithium battery can be disposed of in a landfill, though recycling is much better. Ingredients: Cobalt/Lithium Oxide, Graphite, and the electrolyte. Cobalt isn't the best, but is still considered landfill safe.