[Closed] i'm sorry it sounds like a milk float

One day we'll look back to the time when we all drove around in noisy, inefficient internal combustion powered vehicles and wonder what on earth we were thinking.

Sounds great to me, would love a go.

jackthedog - Member
One day we'll look back to the time when we all drove around in noisy, inefficient internal combustion powered vehicles and wonder what on earth we were thinking.

Think I'll still prefer the sound of a lazy yank V8 or a V10 at full chat personally 😀 'leccy cars are getting very interesting though. Westfield or Caterham had a Seven style car running an electric drivetrain the other week. Really cool.

Ariel Atom in electric form. Nuff said.

Makes me realise just how realistic driving games are 🙂

is it me or does it look like it has horrendous understear?

[b]retro83[/b]
Think I'll still prefer the sound of a lazy yank V8 or a V10 at full chat personally

I'm an AJPV8 fetishist myself. But my love of engines feels like it's on the verge of being twee and old fashioned, a bit like steam train enthusiasm.

[b]Some grandad in the future[/b]
[i]Eeh lad, they don't make em like they used to. Noisy, grubby, heavy and inefficient they might've been, but they 'ad soul...[/i]

interesting, but still horribly polluting as all electric cars are. 😕

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having just been out in a Lexus Hybrid with a V6 + 2 electric motors I can confirm that they are bloody fast and bloody good!

I don't believe that we will all ever have electric cars - they're no more efficient or less polluting than the currently available internal combustion engined cars.

Just a political ploy and a technical 'dead-end' - given currently available technology.

Cool video though - I'd love a go 8)

Agreed^ it's more the way we structure our life that will slowly have to change.

Scary fast video! Shows the amazing torque that is possible with an electric motor. I'm amazed people have the madness to drive like that.

a bloody fast milk float but still a milk float !

This too...

Built in the UK and currently holds the world record for quickest electric vehicle (9.51s 1/4 mile, 0-60mph in 1.6s).. an amazing piece of kit and fantastic development by the guys involved.

Makes me realise just how realistic driving games are

I'd have one tomorrow. I'm serious.

An electric car has peak torque from 1rpm upwards and is going to be very responsive to the throttle.

I'd want two issues sorted. The least important one first is the range. I'd want 500 miles between charges. The second one and perhaps the biggest hurdle - but not insurmountable - is that mine would have to sound like an Alfa 2.5 Milano V6.

That nazi staff car is quite something...

they're no more efficient or less polluting than the currently available internal combustion engined cars

No - they are more efficient, even if you refuel using the current energy mix we have in the UK. Equivalent to what, 30g/km CO2 currently I think I've read.

The second one and perhaps the biggest hurdle - but not insurmountable - is that mine would have to sound like an Alfa 2.5 Milano V6

Nah, you just have a powerful loudspeaker belting out a synthesized version of any car you like. I'd have the flying car noise from the Jetsons.

No - they are more efficient, even if you refuel using the current energy mix we have in the UK. Equivalent to what, 30g/km CO2 currently I think I've read

And what about the energy involved in mining, refining and transporting all the assorted metals etc in the battery, plus manufacturing stages? This is where (apparently) battery cars are not at all green. And then what happens to the batteries at the end of their useful lives?

Are they not missing the point though? The technology to make a fast electric car has been around for a long time, the challenge is making an electric car than can cope with everyday use. It'll be a long time until there's a practical electric car than can replace my diesel beast.

Try doing 1000 miles a week in an electric car, fair enough thats an exceptional week, usual mileage is closer to 500 but even that's not going to happen in an electric car. Can it do Stirling to Leeds and back in a day? If the answer is no, I'm not interested.

Ernie would love that.. how many gold top can it manage..

And what about the energy involved in mining, refining and transporting all the assorted metals etc in the battery, plus manufacturing stages?

You tell me. The haterz trot this one out all the time but I've never seen any figures or explanation. I understand though that the materials are all recyclable so the mining and refining thing is not an issue. To be honest, given limited supplies of some of the metals involved you'd be bonkers not to design them to be recycled.

People are still mainly focusing on second cars at the moment. Apparently a great many people have cars that only ever do short trips.

oldish paper but puts some figures on it for you mr grips

[url= http://www.transportation.anl.gov/pdfs/B/239.pdf ]electric cars are bad mmmmkay?[/url]

battery technology has moved on, but recycling is still a major issue and very energy intensive.

I like the idea of electric cars, but until we can make electricity by not burning dinosaurs in power stations it's all a bit daft.

Hydrogen is way, but still a long way off as well

I thought that was great - and fast as.

PJM1974 - Member

I'd have one tomorrow. I'm serious...I'd want two issues sorted. The least important one first is the range. I'd want 500 miles between charges.

you won't be getting one tommorrow then...*

The second one and perhaps the biggest hurdle - but not insurmountable - is that mine would have to sound like an Alfa 2.5 Milano V6.

that's bit's easy; with a little computerology, and a pair of ear-phones plugged into the dash', your milk float could make any sound you liked!

🙂

[i]you won't be getting one tommorrow then...*[/i]

That's exactly my point. Battery technology still has an awful long way to go, perhaps a fuel cell is a better long term solution.

But as someone who's been known to enjoy the occasional high performance car, the prospect of a free revving, responsive and very torquey engine is very appealing indeed. The fact that it sounds like a milk float is a minor tragedy considering that there are internal combustion engines out there that sound tubeful, but I daresay that there will be a requirement for electric vehicles to make some noise for safety reasons. I'd just like that noise to be a highly strung Italian V6 engine please! 🙂

No - they are more efficient, even if you refuel using the current energy mix we have in the UK. Equivalent to what, 30g/km CO2 currently I think I've read

I must be lacking bloke genes.

I'd love a quiet car. I don't want to listen to my engine banging away, I want to hear my radio and music.

Sorry aracer but that report is full of cherry picked data like

An electric car with a lithium ion battery powered by electricity from an old coal power plant could emit more than 200g of carbon dioxide per km,

The figures shouldn't use older less efficient power stations, rather they should use the average of all the power stations. Transmission losses in the UK are very small. That is not to say that electric cars are without their issues but countering one potentially dodgy statistic with another isn't very helpful.

...I daresay that there will be a requirement for electric vehicles to make some noise for safety reasons. I'd just like that noise to be a highly strung Italian V6 engine please!...

modern cars are very quiet anyway, most noise comes from the tyres, doesn't it?*

(*in the kind of 'pootling around residential streets' kind of driving where this kind of thing is a consideration)

and as for the 'leccy vehicle' vs 'i-c vehicle' pollution thing; the big difference is that the emissions from a gas-burning power station are very clean*, and miles away from my face. A bus exhaust is NOT very clean, and often only feet away from my face.

leccy busses please!

(*ignoring CO2, which i am, because i don't give a crap about it anymore)

Imagine if I came to you with the following proposal:

Every vehicle on the face of the planet shall work like this.

A large, heavy, complicated, noisy box of reciprocating metal will be placed in each vehicle, which will rotate a shaft. This shaft will then be connected (via a box of gears to ensure the engine speed and torque can be translated to useful road speed, which will therefore itself necessitate a clutch device to momentarily split the power while different gear ratios are selected) via a rotating solid steel drive shaft hidden in a tunnel beneath the floor, through differentials and then more rotating solid drive shafts fitted with CV joints (which will have to run in rubber boots containing an oil bath) to cope with the changing angles of suspension and steering, down to the road wheels.

These power units shall be put into motion by thousands of explosions per minute, each explosion fuelled by a mix of oxygen and a noxious, polluting and hazardous liquid which is the result of refining the remains of dead prehistoric organic matter dug out of the ground half way around the world, and shipped on huge ocean going tankers the size of small towns to the coastline of each country, from where it will be transferred to road going tankers which will in turn deliver it to stations strategically placed across the land, where it will sit in huge underground tanks until people come along with their cars and, by way of a small pumping device, transfer it through a flexible hose into a tank in the rear of their vehicle.

As each vehicle drives along it will produce from its rear a constant supply of expelled, poisonous gas. The power unit will of course make a lot of noise for the fact that it is a box of explosions, but with sound insulation we will be able to mostly mask this, at least at low revs. In order to burn less dead prehistoric organic matter, as I accept there is a finite supply of it and doing so is bad for the environment, we will strive to make them as efficient as possible, perhaps by fitting a computer to constantly monitor the activities of the engine and adjust the fuelling to suit.

No guarantees can be made that these vehicles will ever be anything like 100% efficient as the energy losses in the gearboxes, drive shafts, and those inherent in the engine itself would render the pursuit of it a fallacy, but we shall do our best to make the best we can of it.

In order to allow these high speed bits of reciprocating metal in our power units not to grind to a rapid halt we shall have to use some sort of system whereby a lubricant is constantly pumped around, as well as water for cooling, which will have to be cooled by being pumped through a radiator which shall, for best results, be mounted behind narrow slots or perhaps some kind of protective mesh in the nose of the vehicle, through which air can flow.

The complexity of the entire machines will be large enough to necessitate a large national network of businesses be set up to facilitate the maintenance of them, which will be performed by people trained in such matters.

The international reliance on the above mentioned refined prehistoric organic matter will likely create a great deal of tension in those areas where it is most abundant, and wars will no doubt be waged and thousands if not millions of lives lost in the race for claims of ownership over it. But I have considered this as an inconsequential downside when the overall gains are factored in.

Right, who reckons it'll catch on? Any investors?

jackthedog is once again my favourite brand. 😀

The figures shouldn't use older less efficient power stations, rather they should use the average of all the power stations

countering one potentially dodgy statistic with another isn't very helpful.

Actually it's not that far off according to this

http://www.whatcar.com/car-news/electric-car-test/co2-emissions-and-coming-soon/243719

Converting the mitsubishi one into g/km give about 47g/km, although it is unclear what the source of the electricity is.

Using the marginal generating efficiency is flawed though as the efficiency would depend on the time of day that charging was done over (and I have serious doubts about the assumption that was made in the cnet link) thereby rendering any comparison meaningless.

biggest thing which strikes me about that is the tyre noise on cornering.

I was watching an electric race car the other week and the lack of engine noise really opens up a huge opportunity for the driver, mechanics and designers to optimise the suspension set up better as you can really hear what is going on between the tyres and the race track. I actually think it will make drivers better at car control but obviously they will miss out on the whole engine power band and gears part of driving a race car which is where races can be won or lost which is a shame.