Did anyone see the ZENN motor car?

Question

Its supposed to have a new battery technology promising 500 miles of commute time on a five minute charge using an electric motor. Tell me...Did I mess up the math?

Assume 24 HP motor. That means 18000watts. Assume 500 miles at 50mph. Thats 10 hours. So we need to store 180KWH. To replenish that charge in 5 minutes at 120 v would require 18,000 Amps.

Sounds like a massive brown-out waiting to happen.

Answer 1

to h**l with the charge rate.

24hp? who wants a car with 24 hp?

that's less than the old skool vw bugs!

LOL!

my grandma generates more than that rolling her wheelchair.

Answer 2

Rapid recharge rates on electric vehicles are accomplished with special charging stations which have much higher voltage than 120 V.

Here's the Zenn recharge in a 120 V outlet:

Standard 120 volt outlet plug-in - 80% recharge in 4 hours, complete charge in approximately 8 hours

http://www.zenncars.com/specifications/s...

Do they have more than one model?  Because the one I'm looking at only goes a maximum of 25 mph with a range of 35 miles.  Sounds like you're talking about something like the Tesla Roadster or ZAP-X Crossover.

http://www.zapworld.com/electric-vehicle...

Answer 3

There is nothing wrong with your math

Zenn has stitched up a deal with eestor.

http://www.zenncars.com/home/EEStor%20eq...



It is not really a battery but a Super capacitor.

http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energ...

Assuming that you have another capacitor on continuous charge It could dump its charge into the vehicle in a quite short period of time.

There are a few other problems to over come like operating a motor over a large range of voltages and making it sturdy enough to be transported in a vehicle.

This is on my "wait and see" list with a few others. Rapid charge always makes me sceptical. But if this one works there will be more applications than just transport.(Could be the end of peak demand in the electricity industry)

I always wonder why they don't go for rapid battery replacement systems instead. (no one doubts this could be done in under ten minutes.)