Lotus built/styled Electric car

thedguy

thedguy

rides with Rebecca Black.. in the back
Joined
Jun 18, 2004
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Location
Orange California
Car(s)
(OO=[][]=OO)
http://www.wired.com/news/wiredmag/0,71414-0.html?tw=rss.index

Official website

Has a 250mile range
0-60 in 3.9seconds
2speed trans and does 13,500 rpms
70mph in 1st gear.


FF_162_tesla1_f.jpg

FF_162_tesla3_f.jpg
 
Haha, the cover on their website comes off in less than 5 minutes! :p
 
Well, if I'm ever going to own an electric car it will be like that... but I hope that day doesn't come
 
His Holiness said:
Looks nice! But a range of just 250 miles... That's not a very long way, now is it?
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Its gettin there. An average car will do around 350 miles so 250 aint bad
 
peter3hg2 said:
His Holiness said:
Looks nice! But a range of just 250 miles... That's not a very long way, now is it?
Click to expand...
Its gettin there. An average car will do around 350 miles so 250 aint bad
Click to expand...
Petrol stations everywhere but this thing needs electricity and I don't think you can buy electricity everywhere.
 
Xeon SX said:
peter3hg2 said:
His Holiness said:
Looks nice! But a range of just 250 miles... That's not a very long way, now is it?
Click to expand...
Its gettin there. An average car will do around 350 miles so 250 aint bad
Click to expand...
Petrol stations everywhere but this thing needs electricity and I don't think you can buy electricity everywhere.
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Like your house?

Also, there are supposed to be charging stations set up at shopping malls if you're on the road. California still has a few from the EV1 days, if I'm not mistaken. Go for a drive, come back, buy some Gucci handbags, and you'll have it charged to go back home.

Eberhard suggests it would be easy enough to pump MP3s of prerecorded engine roar into the car's Blaupunkt stereo. And for those with even older tastes, the sound of horse hooves could be substituted. But damn if that horse isn't going to sound strange at 13,500 rpm.
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:lol:
 
His Holiness said:
Looks nice! But a range of just 250 miles... That's not a very long way, now is it?
Click to expand...
No, but from what I'm told, the average person drives like 30 miles a day.
 
Viper007Bond said:
His Holiness said:
Looks nice! But a range of just 250 miles... That's not a very long way, now is it?
Click to expand...
No, but from what I'm told, the average person drives like 30 miles a day.
Click to expand...

Something like 90% of the world does. I do A LOT of driving (over 2500miles a month on average) and 250 miles, if it's a full 250miles a charge would be plenty for me.

It's a lot more usable than the less than 100 the EV1's were getting.

next few times your out doing your normal driving, you should keep an eye on how many miles you actually use, and you'll realize this is fine.
 
Great thing is that these electrics are only a wiresnip away from replacing the batteries with fuel cells. Thus, instead of a long recharge cycle, a quick swap/refill of a fuel tank and you're on your way again. Like this .
 
That brings up something else with the electric car range...

If a standard battery scheme could be worked out between the manufacturers, then if your batteries run to low and you need to keep going, then one could find a place that sells these batteries pre-charged and ready to swap out.

Of course this also brings about one other thing, what do they do with the old batteries? Li-ion's only last for about 3 years before they are completely useless, and they can't be 100$ recycled like NiMh's.
 
I really think this is promising. It's not a two-seater commuter pod like the EV1 was (or the Insight, for that matter), but a sports car that is actually pretty fast and looks terrific. Much more appealing than a commuter pod favored mostly by people who want to portray themselves as smug elitists.

When the first cars came out, the infrastructure for gasoline wasn't there either. That's the biggest problem with alternative-fueled cars, whether it's hydrogen, electricity, fuel cells, etc: the infrastructure isn't there, so nobody uses it. Nobody uses it, so nobody's going to bother setting up one. Hopefully this will be different.
 
An Elise-based roadster that can beat an M3 CSL to 100 km/h and sounds like a vaccum cleaner?

I'd put it in the sub-zero section!
 
The top speed is on the low side at 130mph, it probably sounds like an over-sized blender, and there are only 2 gears to play with. However, you cant argue with a car by Lotus that does 0-60 in 3.9 seconds. Id take one if the price was right
 
That'd be one amazing little machine. I'm sure it'd be bloody quick around a racetrack too. Don't forget Electric Motors have 100% of their torque from 0rpm, so there's a fair bandwidth to play with there.... It'd be like driving a big displacement V8 with low end torque, but also having the top end 8000rpm plus rush of a VTEC engine. Sure, we're going to lose exhaust notes, but the day electric cars become a viable alternative to the Internal Combustion engine, we're going to see some bloody fast cars indeed. We'll need to work on improving the 2 speed thing though...

EDIT: SHIT I want one of these things. I never thought I'd want an Electric Car, but my god this thing is awesome. 185kw in a 1133kg package? hell yes. And it looks bloody great too. If this thing is marketed properly, it will sell by the bucketload, especially in California. The Toyota Prius days as the enviro-car are numbered and thankfully it will be replaced by something worthy.
 
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