Power to Weight Ratio Question

I've been interested in Hybrid vehicles for a long time but told myself I'll park my car for a couple of months to offset the additional fuel consumption with a real car. Then I started thinking why not and considered bying a hybrid. Drove a Prius for about a month as a rental and beyond impressing my 8 year old nephew with the cool dash I hated the car (mostly the acceleration felt dangerous on the highway). I recently met with a friend in SanFrancisco who was telling me about Wrightspeed. I'm an intuitive physicist not a practicing one, can anyone help explain if this video makes sense?

I haven't researched it enough to know if the technology has made it to production vehicles yet.








Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/19/2012 11:16PM by Wannabe.

I don't doubt that it's fast. Communter cars in Spokane Wa sells a vehicle called the tango. A goofy tall two seat (fighter style) car that does 0-60 in less than 4 seconds and quarter mile in just under 12sec IIRC.

The torque curve for a DC motor starts out at it's peak at 0 RPM and gradually goes down as rpms go up. So all of your power is available instantly, unlike a standard car where torque generally increases with rpms.

http://www.commutercars.com/

When a cuz of mine was at Western he was on a team that built an electric firstgen rx7 that ran high 9's, well, one run. Per charge. So keep the weight down and a batterycar will go real good for a real short time. I went to wrihtspeeds site and they are doing some different stuff. made for a good read. Wright used to work for Tesla and quit cuz he thought they were doing it all wrong...

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Jay Woodward
Snohomish, WA
'90 Mazdog Frankenprotege
Chronologically, 46...

The wrightspeed stuff is really interesting. I can't wait till batteries come down to a reasonable price. I think that a DIY ariel atom replica with an electric drivetrain would be awesome. On top of which think of how easy it would be to convert some of these nice looking but fwd cars to right wheel drive.

Buddy of mine put together a couple of DIY electric Integras. Utilized the factory gearbox and drive train. It was quicker than snot but he could never get more than 40-50 miles to a charge.

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aj_johnson
It was quicker than snot but he could never get more than 40-50 miles to a charge.

I remember hearing a quote from some auto exec "You know, they're right, with the range of electric cars, they aren't good for all Americans. Just 95% of them."

This was a production electric car, and I think 80+ miles is expected out of them.

Anders

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Grassroots rally. It's what I think about.

What's the range of an electric when it is 15 degrees out?

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Pete Remner
Cleveland, Ohio

1984 RX-7 (rallycross thing)
1978
Silence is golden, but duct tape is silver.

Thanks guys for sharing your thoughts. My neighbor just got a new Audi Q5 and BMW sent me an invitation to test drive their new Active Hybrid the same week so I've had Hybrids on my mind. I think I need to brush up on my physics!

As for the range at 15 degrees...probably as far as a human at 15 degrees without a jacket. I think most have built in battery warmers

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Jay
When a cuz of mine was at Western he was on a team that built an electric firstgen rx7 that ran high 9's, well, one run. Per charge. So keep the weight down and a batterycar will go real good for a real short time. I went to wrihtspeeds site and they are doing some different stuff. made for a good read. Wright used to work for Tesla and quit cuz he thought they were doing it all wrong...

Stuck in San Francisco on a flight delay, thought I'd share this.

Telsa launched their Model S yesterday from Freemont. A bit pricey for mainstream but it's a great looking car with some interesting stats. I think the X has even greater potential.

http://www.teslamotors.com/models

Tesla is right across the street from where I work, they bring their Roadsters in often for alignments and tires. Haven't got to drive one yet but I look forward to it.