The Lightning car company has released new electric cars in the UK. The electric Lightning GT and Sports versions are now available to pre-order. Reservations for the first cars (2008 delivery) are now being taken.
Performance
- The car is capable of reaching a speed of over 130 mph.
- Driving range is over 250 miles.
- The Electric Lightning GTS (GT) can accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in 4.0 (5.0) Secs.
- It has carbon fibre/Kevlar hand-crafted bodywork with aluminium honeycomb crushable impact cells.
Battery
The NanoSafe battery by Altairnano has no operational safety issues and contains no toxics or heavy metals. The battery does not need to be cooled or heated, there's no risk itwill explode and there's no thermal runaway. The battery will workcomfortably in temperatures between 75°C and minus 30°C (-22° to 167°Fahrenheit).
While the Altairnano warranty is restricted for EVs to three years, the battery does have a life expectancy of 12+ years, and can retain up to 85% charge capacity after 15,000 charges. With 15,000 cycles and an average of 40 miles per charge, you can drive the car for over 600,000 miles, before needing battery replacement. The batteries exhibit no memory loss, i.e. partial charging and discharging of the battery does not have a negative impact on the life or the holding charge capacity of the batteries.
Also, the battery can be recharged rapidly, depending on the power available. A standard single phase home type power source can be used to recharge the battery overnight or at work. With a 3 phase power supply (EVCS), it can be recharged in about 10 minutes. In recent laboratory testing, Altairnano has demonstrated that a NanoSafe cell can be charged to over 80% charge capacity in about one minute.
Purchase cost
The cost of the car is £150,000, three times as much as the Tesla. The battery alone is estimated to cost between $12,000 and $14,000. However, note the points below.
Maintenance cost
Cost of maintenance is likely to be low, as there are few moving parts. The motors are in the wheels. There is no gearbox, differential, axle, or shaft. You don't need to change engine oil, filters, gaskets, hoses, plugs, belts, there's no catalytic converter or exhaust pipe to replace.
People spend more on consumables (gasoline, motor oil, maintenance, etc) than on the purchase and finance costs of cars.
Driving cost
Cost of driving the car is also low. It's 10 x cheaper to run, compared to a gasoline car, based on UK rates for electric power to charge the battery at a cost of around 2.2p per mile versus 22p per mile for the equivalent gasoline car.
Contributing to these low driving costs is regenerative braking, i.e. the motors act as generators and the car recovers energy when slowing down. In city driving, about 30 percent of a conventional car's engine output is lost to braking.
Tax benefits
In the UK, there are further cost benefits. When comparing the Lightning to its petrol counterpart for a typical London company car commuter, the savings are currently in excess of £10,000 a year:
- 2.2p cost per mile equivalent - save £3,960 (based on 20,000 miles at 25p/mile for petrol version)
- Exempt from road tax - save £215
- Exempt from London's congestion charge - save £1,920 (48 working weeks at £8/day)
- Lower company car tax - save approximately £2,500
- No company fuel benefit tax - save £1,600
Clean
The car has a CO2 rating of zero. There are no fumes and the car hardly makes any noise. It actually comes with virtual engine sound, as well as satellite navigation and ipod interface.
References:
The Lightning car company
http://www.lightningcarcompany.com
NanoSafe battery by Altairnano
http://www.altairnano.com/markets_amps.html
Can Altairnano Deliver the Goods?
http://jcwinnie.biz/wordpress/?p=2080
English electric Lightning
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/main.jhtml?xml=/motoring/2007/09/01/nosplit/mflight01.xml
rate
email
print
link to this page
Comments: 38 ( 1 removed by Sam Carana )
So I guess this new Electric Lightening car has stolen your heart?
What about the Telsa Roadster now?
It would be nice to have a hot sports car, but there are those of us
that have to look at the practical side of things, passenger space,
hauling capabilities, besides the speed.
I like the "included road sounds" feature of the Electric Lightening car.
We were teasing a friend recently that spent over a hundred grand
last year on one of those fancy new BMW's (racing car model with the
trigger switch on the dash board that instantly increases the horsepower).
Our friend drove the car over to Groveland from Las Vegas where he lives,
and he nearly lost my husband out of the backseat when he flipped the
trigger switch on! We tried to convince him to trade the BMW in for an EV
car like the Telsa Roadster. He said he would miss the ROAR if the engine!
A typical guy thing?
I'll send my friend a link to this article for the Electric Lightening car,
and see what kind of response I get.
The people (not only men) that drive around up here in their giant
4/wheel drive mega trucks in the High Country (Yosemite) area are
in constant competition for who has the tallest, fastest, and loudest
truck on the road. I guess they'll lose their thunder when the EV's
take over, or they'll have to turn up their loud speaker recordings
for road sounds to keep the thrill going...
I'll stick with the Phoenix Truck for now, (I won't have to wear
ear plugs to keep from damaging my hearing) and I hope that
it'll be more affordable (so you say?) PG&E is supposed to be ordering
a fleet of Phoenix trucks, but who knows what kind of a deal they
would be able to negotiate for fleet prices? It would be interesting
to find out. Can you super-snoop this information for me?
I need Santa Claus to bring me an EV truck.
(But I got some black pearls this year!) Yeah!
What was under your tree this year?
Have a Happy Holiday!
Becky Novak
Sam - is this what you got for Christmas?
Even at 250 miles, well-- you'll need two cars, one for "city driving" another for your yearly vacation.
As for the price *double chuckle* it sounds like the typical marketing ploy-- spend your money at our sale and you'll save money *ROFL*
I guess the old cliche applies to the new technology as well, you have to spend money, to make money.
You could travel over 250 miles on one charge. You can travel even further, if you recharge it during your travel. If you do so with a high capacity charger, it could be done in as little as one minute, extending your range for another 200 miles, until you reach the next place to recharge, and so on. I bet it takes you more time to fill up your car with gasoline.
Prices are still high for electric vehicles, but people spend more on vehicles than on most other things, except housing.
A more affordable alternative using NanoSafe batteries is the Phoenix, which has a range of 130 miles. Phoenix is currently working on an expanded battery pack that will allow a 200-mile range, still permitting a 10-minute charge. It will be available in late 2008. Starting prices will be $45,000 or even less, according to a number of articles:
Phoenix Electric Truck: Fantasy No More
Can Altairnano Deliver the Goods?
The Practical Environmentalist
These prices are still high, but this reflects the fact that these manufacturers don't have the facilities in place yet to deliver in large quantities. The point is that the technology is there. Zebra batteries are successfully used in heavyweight electric vehicles. Lithium-ion batteries are also improving rapidly, just look at these developments at Stanford University
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2008/january9/nanowire-010908.html
The problem is that the manufacturers with the facilities to produce large numbers of cars stick to old technology. To facilitate the shift, we need to implement a FeeBate, i.e. charge a fee on dirty technology and use the proceeds for rebates when people buy better alternatives. In this case, a fee on polluting cars is appropriate, with proceeds used for rebates on electric cars.
As I described in my article Let electric vehicles power homes!, the fact that most electricity comes from coal-fired power plants is no excuse to delay the shift to electric cars. On a mile by mile comparison, driving an electric car causes less CO2 emissions than driving a gasoline car, even if the electricity used to power the electric car came from coal-fired power plants.
The NYPD is introducing Vectrix electric scooters. Vectrix has also announced an electric scooter with two front wheels. Compared to traditional gasoline scooters that can produce up to 10 times the pollution of an average automobile, these scooters are emissions free, as the news release explains.
Here's an interesting report on BankTrack, pointing out that banks are contributing to global warming by funding coal and oil exploration. Banks should end support for all new coal, oil and gas extraction and delivery projects, and for new coal-fired power plants. banks should also increase support for the development of climate-friendly technologies, such as renewable energy production and energy efficiency -- but avoid "false solutions" such as nuclear power, large hydropower or biofuels.
The same could be said for banks that are financing the Big Three US car manufacturers. Let's face it, these car manufacturers are broke - they are only kept alive by banks that keep financing their growing debts. And what does the Bush administration do? It bails out failing financial institutions. It is this government support for the wrong crowd and for the wrong technologies that is largely responsible for the problems that we're in regarding global warming. That support should stop, and to facilitate the shift we need to better alternatives, we need to implement a FeeBate.
Looking forward to more Articles from you, Sam. I am learning a great deal from the information you provide.
Blessings,
Rene A.
Rene: "explain your concepts with regard to FeeBates"
The old socialist motto of taking-from-the-rich-to-give-to-the-poor isn't helpful in regard to global warming. If you tax the rich in order to assist the poor with higher bills for, say, energy and travel, then nothing much will change, as the poor get paid to continue with polluting practices, while the rich will also continue to do so, since they can afford to do so.
Instead, we need a policy that is known in the industry as a FeeBate. It's the most effective way to facilitate the shift we need. We need to implement a framework of fees on emissions, with - in each case - the proceeds being used exclusively to fund specific rebates or subsidies for better alternatives. As an example, a fee on gasoline cars could fund rebates on electric cars. Charging a fee of, say, 10% on fossil fuel would create a giant pool of money, which could subsidize installation of local solar and wind power. Similarly, a 10% fee on fertilizers could fund rebates assisting farmers who buy agrichar. A fee on dirty concrete could subsidize clean concrete. I have also suggested a 10% fee on meat, to subsidize vegan-organic restaurants in communities without roads. Over time, proceeds from fees will decrease, as the shift to less polluting practices eventuates, while the better alternatives will need ever less subsidies. More and more, the invisible hand of the market can then do the work of sorting things out, while the long arm of the law can take a backseat.
Further details are described in many of Sam Carana's articles
http://www.gather.com/viewArticles.jsp?memberId=217467
Many environmentalists believe almost religiously in composting of kitchen and garden waste. The practical environmentalist commands people to compost. Instead, I believe its better to convert organic waste into agrichar. I suggest a 10% fee on fertilizers could fund rebates assisting farmers who buy agrichar.
I know when my car is out of warranty I could get an upgrade kit to get me to 100 mis. per gallon if I plug in. The trouble is that the upgrade kit is pretty expensive. I guess it is an investment though, yes?
My conclusion is that plug in electric prices will come down and that they will get onto a trajectory to becoming the standard american vehicle type- provided we get a few battery improvements. I believe now that this technology represents a more effective strategy to end our oil addiction than ethanol, biodiesel, or hydrogen fuel cells- because the infrastructure of household electrical outlets exists EVERYWHERE and does not require the building of another multibillion dollar fueling infrastructure. But do not worry too much about the gas station guys. It will take over a decade before most cars are electric.
- a fee of 10% on sales of new cars with internal combustion engines, with the proceeds used to fund rebates for electric cars;
- a fee of 10% on sales of gasoline, with proceeds used to fund rebates on purchases and installation of facilities that produce renewable energy;
For more details on the proposed FeeBate policy, see my article the FeeBate Debate
As you can see in the FeeBate policy that I advocate, I prefer rebates to fund electric cars, which don't emit any greenhouse gases. Let me explain my reasoning.
As the article describes, the Electric Lightning is 10 x cheaper to run, compared to a gasoline car, based on UK rates for electric power to charge the battery at a cost of around 2.2p per mile versus 22p per mile for the equivalent gasoline car. Contributing to these low driving costs is regenerative braking, i.e. the motors act as generators and the car recovers energy when slowing down. In city driving, about 30 percent of a conventional car's engine output is lost to braking. Also, electric cars can stop the motors while waiting for traffic lights, whereas gasoline cars need to keep the engine running. Therefore, electric cars are ideal for use in the city.
Regenerative braking is easily accomplished by electric cars, simply by using the electric motors in reverse, which will at the same time recharge the battery. Gasoline cars don't shut off their engine when stopping for traffic lights, one only starts the engine once, i.e at the start of a trip. For a gasoline car to benefit from regenerative braking, it's hard to use alternators and standard batteries. A good battery is needed to cope with the short bursts that result from braking - this would make a standard battery boil. As far as I know, only the BMW 5 series offer this option, since the gasoline saved in this way is minimal, it's only the energy you use to start the car. The reason why BMW adds this expensive technology is not so much to save the driver gasoline, but to avoid the taxes that cars attract that drive less miles per gallon. This kind of regenerative braking saves little gasoline when driving the car, but it might make a lot of difference on the purchase price, depending on what kind of taxes are added locally.
In short, it doesn't make sense to drive a gasoline car on the starter motor. You would need to turn it into a hybrid gasoline/electric car to drive it on battery power. But once cars are hybrids and have special batteries and electric motors, it's a small step to add plug-in ability as well. That would actually allow you to drive without using the gasoline engine at all. As long as you're not driving long distances, there's no need to additionally have a fuel engine and to carry a tank full of gasoline or biofuel around. It is like carrying dead weight for no purpose! The Nanosafe batteries can be recharged rapidly, so it makes more sense to instead make a stop at a gas station that has an electricity outlet and to recharge the battery, in case you do want to travel long-distance. That would be cheaper and quicker than refilling the gasoline tank. Alternatively, one could add a fuel cell and hydrogen tanks to an electric car. A fuel cell weighs less than an internal combustion engine, gearbox, exhaust and all the other parts.
Apart from the fact that electric cars don't emit greenhouse gases, there are additional benefits of storing electricity in the batteries, as described in my article Let electric vehicles power homes!.
In conclusion, I would prefer a FeeBate policy that results in a rapid switch to electric cars, over the current system of taxes, fees, subsidies and rebates which may benefit biofuel and more efficient gasoline cars, but which has failed to increase the number of electric cars on the road.
Excellent designing! If this car is three times the cost of the Tesla, according to what I've seen that would put it in the $70,000 range, a little out of sight for the most of us. Hopefully they can extend the range, the battery warranty, and bring the price into reason so it can really be viable!
A more affordable alternative using NanoSafe batteries is the Phoenix, which has a range of 130 miles. Phoenix is currently working on an expanded battery pack that will allow a 200-mile range, still permitting a 10-minute charge. It will be available in late 2008. Starting prices will be $45,000 or even less, according to a number of articles. The links are in my above comment with the graphs.