Electric Car 0-60 in 4.1 sec

This is the T-Zero a all Electric car created by AC Propulsion that will smoke most gas engine cars. So much for those slow and underpowered electric cars this boy can hang with the supercars.

Motor 200 HP AC Propulsion premium copper-rotor AC induction motor. 110 lb, air cooled. 183 ft-lb torque from 0 to 5000 rpm, 200 HP from 6,000 to 10,000 rpm

The range has been increased to 300miles for the production T-zero with a 3 hour charge time.





acpropulsion

Electric engines produce immense torque and only have one moving part. A well-constructed engine will last at least a human lifetime. They are silent and clean. The only problem of course is supplying them with electricity in a medium as convenient as a gasoline tank.

Excellent! and it has a somewhat sporty look to it too! Most electric cars look so bizarre - no one wants to be seen in them. I hope this one isn't going to go on the market at an incredibly high price. That's another problem with currently available electric models.

I find most people when they hear about a electric car they picture this little, slow hippie-mobile. I thought it was nice to see someone that made a true electric sportscar, I mean you see that thing smoke that C-5 vette.

The batteries are distributed throughout the body making a ideal weight ratio in the car ideal for Turning and Cornering

Another thing that is nice about this car is that it might appeal to all the young (tuner/import) kids that want a car with alot of power and speed.

Over in ex-Soviet Union countries they have these electric busses. They run on the roads with rubber tires and run off overhead power lines just like old electric trolleys - just without set rails. They can go off the power lines for limited time with their batteries. Anyway, these busses had incredible acceleration, like sports cars. Electric engines are the way to go we just need to make electric more accessible and easier to charge. Once the power issue is done you can believe gas cars will be forgotten within a couple years.

Electric motors have a torque curve inversely proportional to rpm's.
The lowest rpm's have the highest usable torque, and the highest current demand on the power source.


Starting and stopping as well as doing 60 in under 5 seconds, will extremely tax the storage system and reduce overall miles-between-charges. I suppose a flat road could be used to get the mileage numbers, while a 1/4 mile track can be used to get the acceleration numbers. But I doubt you can the best of both worlds. The numbers at the site are a nice sales pitch but do not reflect the facts as they should be presented. I especially hate the horspower rating thrown around like it means the same to an electric motor. It reminds me of the stereo-a-rama's that are at the motel meeting rooms, selling 'peak-playing-power' amps like it is RMS.

Although it is a snazzy looking vehicle, it is only constructed using existing technologies, and does not provide any new solutions to electric car problems.

Basically it seems that they are using a common industrial ac motor inverter. (you need to know these fail, and power-IGBT's are NOT cheap to replace.) The charger converts the ac into dc for the batteries. The ac motor inverter normally would operate off ac, but some simple mods can be made to operate from dc, as this is the first thing an ac motor inverter does anyway, convert to dc. (and note the ad suggests an integrated 100 amp power supply in the inverter, this implies a modd'd ac inverter that was off the shelf, as all ac motor inverter's use large capacitors as 'headroom' storage.

Regenerative braking?...that is a standard feature of most ac motor inverters, and all it does is shunt power generated by the motor/vehicle inertia via the drive motor's back to the batteries, after some loss is applied of course.


Trust me I have always wanted a cool looking car that was very fast, sqeals tires, and gets 100+mpg (or electrical equivents),..

but this car isnt it.


edit,...just to add that the power factor corrected charger, well that could simply be switching in a couple of capacitors to the motor and using it as a common 3-phase generator, powered by single phase ac. Again, 20 year old technology packaged in a bright yellow sportster.

[edit on 31-7-2004 by smirkley]


OK last edit to add something else I wanted to append here,...after looking at the tech pages I can say assuredly that this car is powered from modified but common technologies.

The drive motor may be as elaborate as a vector motor, but after reading all the wonderful and distracting words and numbers, I doubt it, and still think it is just a common 3 phase ac motor, driven by a modified ac motor inverter, and the re-charger is just switching in a couple of caps on the motor, and using single phase to spin the motor, giving it a regen-effect even while the car is not moving.

This car, as well as many other's out there, have provided me with much disappointment, as people find flashier and tech'ier ways to sell high priced stuff that does not provide the spec offered. In this example, you could put mazaratti body on a vw frame and driveline, but it is still just a vw at heart. (analogy)

[edit on 31-7-2004 by smirkley]

Originally posted by smirkley

Starting and stopping as well as doing 60 in under 5 seconds, will extremely tax the storage system and reduce overall miles-between-charges. I suppose a flat road could be used to get the mileage numbers, while a 1/4 mile track can be used to get the acceleration numbers. But I doubt you can the best of both worlds. The numbers at the site are a nice sales pitch but do not reflect the facts as they should be presented.

[edit on 31-7-2004 by smirkley]

Under 5 sec and 4.1 sec in the car world is a big difference. Most cars that claim under 5 sec 0-60 are running 4.9. Low 4s is a good way to put it for all the car guys out there

As for the performance to range issue this is true even of a gas engine, Riding the engine hard kills gas mileage. Im also pretty sure car companies pull the same stunt to get good gas mileage numbers for their cars they are not racing around the track and really pushing the car when they get the MPG numbers for a car.

This car is not perfect but its a nice step in the right direction.

Actually I like the concept,...but everything under the hood is been tried and done many times over. I went thru the site, and the text descriptions and specs are written in such a way to sound new and different, but from the standpoint of actual tech, it isnt.


The fact is either you get 300 miles out of a charge, OR you can do a few high velocity accelerations.

[edit on 31-7-2004 by smirkley]

Check it out,

The "White Zombie" beats a Muscle Car!






more: www.nedra.com...

One of the wonders of ATS is the immense pool of talent and knowledge that we have here. Thanks for that information Smirkley, as a noob int he wilderness in this topic its great to see it broken down to the common denominators.

Its a nice concept though, and one that is a massive market waiting for be exploited...

The body and accessories look like they are totally stripped down (note the thin racing seats), so you are getting a very low power to weight ratio as well.


[edit on 31-7-2004 by Netchicken]

Thanks for the link HR...


but in the article it suggests that it will 'unleash' 2500-3000 amps.

At 240vdc the batteries will last about as long as the run, even though it can top 100, with no power to spare, and will probubly be stressed to the point of failure. PLUS the motor will cook at that current level if run for any extended times.

Again, to beat that car, he had to use a contactor to completely bypass the motor controller.

On and Off only - Full power and no control over speed.

[edit on 31-7-2004 by smirkley]

(wishing to understand why I have difficulty cutting and pasting on an edit...)

But I wanted to add a couple of links related to electric cars in general...

www.metricmind.com...

www.metricmind.com...
First, don't get obsessed with raw power unless you plan to drag race and enjoy breaking and fixing things.

First - formal relationship. On paper, one horse power equals 736 watt. So, say 200 hp amounts to 147,200 watts, or ~147 kW. This, however, doesn't mean you need 147 kW electric motor for your car to perform the same as 200 hp gasoline counterpart, and this is why: The power of ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) is always specified at max horse power (or kW) it can produce at the best spot - certain RPM, let say 3000 RPM. Maximum power almost never achieved because engine does not spend any length of time running at 3000 RPM at full power (unless you clime up a steep hill), you will certainly accelerate. So typically the RPM ramps up from ~500 RPM to ~5000 RPM, thus having peak power output just for a fraction of second when crossing 3000 RPM mark. To cruise with steady speed on a freeway it takes about 12 hp and the only reason we have huge 200 hp engines is to be able to accelerate or pass quickly. So vast majority of the time your 200 hp engine really runs at 12 hp. If you ask what *average* power an ICE engine makes in useable RPM range, it will be about 30-40 hp for 200 *peak* hp engine.

In contrast, electric motors are always rated at maximum continuous power output, say 30 kW (which is 40.8 hp). The motor can output peak power at least 5 times of rated power (if supplied with enough energy), so a 30 kW motor can give you 150 kW (or 203 hp) for acceleration or passing. So in a first approximation 30 kW motor will give you at least the same performance as 200 hp engine in the same car. Practically, electric motor is even better than that because it develops full torque instantly right from the start (0 rpm) while ICE doesn't make any power until the shaft ramps up to at least 500 RPM. So as a rough rule of thumb, an ICE engine with X hp power will equate to the electric motor with X/4 hp electric motor rating. In our example, 200 hp engine (making 30-40 hp average) will need to be replaced with 200/4=50 hp motor. Since 1 hp is 0.736 kW, 50 hp motor is 50*0.736=36.8 kW. This is what you have to choose for substitution to keep the same performance.




But hey,...there are already used modified electrics available...
www.austinev.org...

I just can see how we could supply the power for even 1/10th of the current vehicles in the world.

We must remember that while the car seems to run cleanly, do they power plants used to make the electricity run cleanly?

We would need a major remodel of the infrastructure we use now for cars. But at least with a car that uses pure electricity it has options to use truly clean sources. Solar,Wind and Wave power come to mind off the bat.If people wanted it enough we could find all the clean energy we would ever need. With a engine that runs on gas your really don't have any options.

Quicks, got a good point.
The power required to run the cars has to come from somewhere, Nucleur, geothermal, oil, coal or dam.

Would the cost of generating the power to run the cars be just as expensive to produce as using petrol?

[edit on 2-8-2004 by Netchicken]