Whats the best technology developed in terms of electric cars to date?

Question

I know they are starting to produce cars that run on purely electric power. The Tesla for example is an high performance car currently in production which has couple hundred mile range. But what is the best technology out there right now. I had a friend tell me that they have a car that can charge in five minutes using capacitators which has like 500 mile range? true or not? please give me linked sources. thanks

Answer 1

Hybrid cars i feel will be the mainstay for a while,as people both want high gas mileage and high performance at the same time. I think lithium ion batteries are being made for such purposes as we speak.

Answer 2

There is no "best" technology yet.  Telsa is NOT an advanced design.  It is very expensive (~$100K).  It uses a lot of very light material to achieve lower mass so it can have a good performance and good range.  

The battery is the #1 limiting factors out there.  No one has solved that problem yet.  As far as the power train goes, I think the old EV1 by GM had the best technology.  It did set the Electric Car land speed record.  It uses a 130 HP engine that is a size of 1 lb coffee can.

Your friend is wrong on a capacitor that can be charged in 5 minutes and has 500 miles range.

It is possible to have a power system than runs on capacitor and get the car up to 500 miles PER HOUR.  But 500 miles range is NOT possible based solely on capacitor.   Maybe going 500 miles downhill...  =)

Answer 3

carbon fiber frame and super capcitators. And I like your dicription

Answer 4

I've been researching electric cars lately, too--here's what I've found:

Think City: 106 miles on a charge, 62 mph, meets all safety requirements, $32,500, but not available yet & battery may be leased. Fall 2007?

Obvio 012: 200 miles on a charge, 5 hrs to recharge, goes 120 mph, can run on gas/electric/alcohol.  But $59,000 for the electric version...

Zap-X: 350 miles on a charge, recharges in 10 minutes, goes 155 mph, not available yet, $60,000?

Fetish: Wildly expensive at $660,000, goes 105 mph, recharges in 20 min.

T-Zero: no longer available

Tesla: still expensive at $100,000. 230 miles between charges.

Xebra Xero  & Xebra Zap truck & G-Whiz:  city cars only, Zap truck won't go over 25 mph, Xebra & G-Whiz won't go over 45 mph, 4-5 hrs to charge, 30-40 mile range.

Chevy Volt--also only a 40 mile range, but does have a gas backup, making it more of a hybrid.  6 hrs to charge, but still not available (2010?) & no pricing yet, though GM says it will be cheaper than most other options.

Mini Coopers supposed to have an electric version in 2008--   Will do 80 mph, go 120 miles on a charge, but still not cheap at $60,000. (the new Mini Cooper D is diesel, but gets 53 mpg..too bad it is so bad for the environment.)

Haven't heard of anything doing over a 350 mile range, unless it falls back on a gas engine.

Answer 5

The Tesla isn't exactly in production.  They'll take your money and promise you a car, but they say it'll take fifteen months for delivery, which is plenty of time for them to go bankrupt.  

At present, very large 'super capacitors' seem like a more promising technology than any electrochemical battery yet manufactured.  They're fairly astonishing devices, and if the literature is to be believed we'll be seeing the first rechargeable electric power tools powered with them sometime this year.  This doesn't mean that they'll be powering cars any time soon, but it is an alternate technology path.  

Bear in mind that electrically-powered private cars aren't necessarily the answer to our transport needs.  Buses (preferably electric, powered from trolleys) and trains for people and freight are preferable to the inefficient system of tires and concrete we're using now.

Answer 6

The current, proven technologies for all-electric vehicles are:

1.  High voltage battery pack (around 200 to 400 volt)

2.  Alternating current (A/C) motor and controller

3.  NiMH Batteries (NiMH is proven.  Lithium may prove worthy someday, but for now it is still being refined.)

Unfortunately, this combination of components will only give -at  most- 150 miles range in a typical sized vehicle at 'freeway' speeds.

As far as a 500 mile range car that would recharge in 5 minutes, it is unlikely to be developed.  Here's why -

A typical high-efficiency electric car uses about 250 watt-hours per mile.  For 500 miles, that would be 125,000 watt-hours.  For reference, a 100 watt bulb uses (as you would guess) 100 watt-hours to light up for an hour.

Are you still with me?  Here's some more math...

The largest cable that can be conveniently handled by humans is probably #00 cable (about 1/2 inch in diameter with insulation)  #00 cable under optimal conditions can be rated up to 300 amps @ 2000 volts.  

It would take a special transformer from a utility pole to provide 2000 volts at 300 amps, but let's assume they could possibly exist.

At 2000 volts, it would take 62.5 amps for one hour to provide 125000 watt-hours. (assuming a perfect system with no loss)

Since an hour is too long, and the #00 cable can handle more amps, we could max out the cable to 300 amps, but it would still take about 10 minutes.  ...and be quite dangerous due to the heat that will inevitably be generated by this system, and the extremely high voltages/amperages involved.

Charging a 500 mile car in 5 minutes approaches the possible, but is not probable in the remotest sense.