Kim Gu-Han of Universitat Dulsburg-Essen, Germany, wants to build a solar-powered car that can not only recharge itself while sitting, but also run your house with its extra juice. The car concept, which he calls the Helios, is a four-wheeled, off-road vehicle that looks basically like a dune buggy. It’s open cockpit design, prominent roll bar, and four large wheels and tires make it look like it has “off road” written all over it.
Then it unfurls. When parked, the four wheels turn counter to one another (which, if spinning, would let the car turn in place) for stability and the wings unfurl up and outward. Creating a half-moon shape, the wings house the massive solar array that the car uses to recharge itself. It has the option of being plugged into your home or RV to power that too.
The idea is a good one except for one glaring problem. One that someone like me, who lives in Wyoming, can appreciate: wind. A good wind would pick this thing up and send it flying across the landscape on its solar wings like a grocery sack.
Otherwise, this is a great concept and I expect that something similar could become the kind of thing you’ll see on the market some day. Sort of a reverse of Honda’s Hydrogen Home concept.
The company is Think Global and the CEO, Jan-Olaf Willums, is the driving force behind it. That and the new electric car, called the Think City, which debuted in its production concept at the Geneva Motor Show earlier this year.
The car, which looks like a new Volkswagon Bug from the front and a modernized Geo Metro from the side, is not about the electric vehicle itself. Instead, insists Willums, it’s about revolutionizing how people view and purchase a car. Don’t be surprised if GM’s Saturn doesn’t steal this phrase for their next alternative-fuel promotion. It’s right out of their playbook.
The Think City is an ultra-compact electric that, while looking goofy, has a lot of promise. First, it’s scheduled to hit America’s shores and be highway legal sometime in 2009. It has a top speed of about 65mph, depending on payload, a range of about 120 miles in-city, and has all the safety features you’d expect from a “real” car, including airbags.
The biggest bang for the Think’s buck, though, comes from two things: price and green. The think’s sticker will be around $20,000USD and the car is 95% recyclable. Yep, both greens aren’t bad for an electric with this kind of ability.
The car is already on the market in Norway and Denmark and doing well, is in pre-sales in Sweden and the UK, will be available in France by Christmas, and is expected to hit the German market at roughly the same time it comes to the U.S. and Canada.
The highest sticker will be in the UK (close to $30,000USD), but Think justifies that by pointing out that this is a “real car,” and not a plastic Indian knockoff—referring probably to the Tata Nano, which would never meet safety standards in Europe or North America. I’ll get to a third aspect involving the batteries later on in this article.
What’s My Take?
I see two stumbling blocks that must be overcome before the car reaches American shores for sale, however. First is brand and copyright issues, due to the car’s name, and the second is it’s overall dorky looks.
The first issue has to do with the semi-non-profit group of the same name: Think City. They’re an urban beautification and “lifestyle enhancement” group that are gaining ground nationally by pimping community service and awareness. This amazes someone like me, since I live in Wyoming and in our towns, this is the normal way of doing things. We don’t need some non-profit group ordering us to do it. One of many reasons I’ll never live in a city.
The other issue is the car’s looks. That I can speak to. Sorry, folks, but this car is as dumb-looking as all the other “affordable” electrics out there. I don’t know why the car companies that make these things insist on making the affordable ones look like they’re affordable for a reason. I mean, come on, if Honda can make their Accord look like someone might want to drive with the windows down so people can see who they are and still have a realistic price tag, why not all these other groups?
I’m gonna rant for a minute on this because it really peeves me.
Why is it that all of these so-called “green” cars like the Prius (which, hate to break it to you, isn’t all that green, really) and this Think City look like bubbles with windows and headlights? What happened to style? At least the Chevy Volt will look (more or less) like a normal car. Where’s the disconnect? When will people like Dean Kamen (Segway Scooters), Larry Page and Sergey Brin (Google)–all heavy investors in Think Global—realize that just because they’re nerds who enjoy flaunting the fact doesn’t mean that the rest of us are interested in driving a nerd-mobile.
But, anyway, this is all coming from a guy who thinks the 1970 International Harvester 393 tractor is the shizznit.
OK, rant is over.
Battery Leasing
Yep, the above is correct. The other caveat with the Think City is its batteries. More precisely, it’s the lease that they require. Calling it a “mobility pack,” they will be leasing them for between $100-200 per month, depending on which market you’re in, but will include not just the batteries, but also car insurance and carbon offsets. Not sure about the insurance, since no details are available, and I’d prefer to opt out of that and keep my current insurance, as I’m sure many others would, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
The bonus with the Mobility Pack will be that when the batteries begin to lose their optimum charging and range capabilities, they will alert the driver (through the dashboard display) who can then request new ones. That could be a big deal, since batteries are almost always the most expensive part of any EV.
I’m sure you noticed some glaring holes in data in this article: no charge times, no 0-60 numbers, etc. That’s because they aren’t available (that I could find) and probably don’t mean much to the kind of person who would buy one of these cars. I suspect the charge time will be at around 4-7 hours (80% and full) for the expected range of this little car. No word on the type of battery for sure either, though I doubt they’re Li-Ion.
The Chinese company Changan Automotive Group (Ford Motor’s China partner), has partnered with Electrovaya in Canada to ship a test-run of thirty all-electrics to Canada before year’s end. The deal, which was struck in May, has Changan shipping shells of its popular BenBen model 4-door to Canada, where Electrovaya will fit them with electric motors and batteries.
The initial fleet of thirty cars will be used as test vehicles and for limited-sales distribution. The cars, which have not been named, will eventually be made entirely in China and shipped to Canada to be sold, though no time-frame for that has been given.
The price point is also being held close to the vest, though the gas-powered BenBen currently sells for about $5,000USD in China, so an under $20k price tag is definitely realistic.
If this deal is pulled off, the Changan-Electrovaya cars could be the first Chinese-made electrics to hit the North American market.
Who Killed the Electric Car? General Motors, of course, that’s what the movie said. Right? Well, those GM EV1s are now quite the collector’s item. Most of them were returned to General Motors and destroyed, since they were leased (not owned) and at the end of the lease, they were still GM’s property. Because the car was a financial failure and because the oil crunch of the 80s was very much over, there wasn’t much call to continue making an electric car. So GM discontinued the series.
Fast-forward thirteen years or so to today and you see a model that’s been garaged for several years posted on a website for sale. This one, apparently, is one of those rare models that was not leased, but purchased, and as such, is a collector’s item. GM, of course, has contacted the person owning it several times to retrieve the car, one of the few left in existence, but the person wasn’t interested.
Instead, they offered it for sale to collector’s only, to be screened and approved before sale. The initial starting price was $75k, but that quickly started going up with the final purchaser paying a whopping $465,000! Those were Canadian dollars, though, so that translates to like a billion American I think. I’m not up on current exchange rates.
Being one of the first electric cars made as the first mass-produced, consumer electric vehicle made by a major auto company, it’s not surprising that these rare items go for so much money. The only other existing models known to exist are in museums and in the hands of one or two collectors. Sure, it’d be cool to have one, but I think I’ll hang onto my half a million and spend it on something else. Like maybe ethanol futures: the USG seems to think those are worthwhile…
To Australia, anyway. They’re to be wind-powered, available in select cities such as Westminster, and are a combined effort of three Australian firms. Better Place is partnering with AGL and Macquarie to pull together the resources needed to make this happen.
Better Place has a scalable model for these charging stations and the network to feed them, which they developed in Israel and Denmark. Meanwhile, Macquarie will raise the $1 Billion AUD needed to build the network and AGL will provide the electricity through their wind power farms.
The coalition plans to capitalize on the $500 million Green Car Innovation Fund the Australian government has created to encourage automobile manufacturers down under to build petrol-alternative transportation.
The company plans to expand into neighboring areas as their network grows, incorporating Australasia and Southeast Asia.
With the resurgence of electric vehicle mania, but with costs for these vehicles still high relative to their gasoline counterparts, much of the focus on these cars in America has been in high-end (and costly) sports cars. Considering the requirements of a great speed demon, it’s little wonder electric is catching on so fast. I know I’m not the only one looking at converting my gasoline powered car to electric, and many car companies like Shelby are doing the same.
Shelby Supercars plans to trump the current electric salivation leader, Tesla Motors, with their own Ultimate Aero EV. It is said to be faster than any other electric car on the market with a whopping 500 horsepower motor. It’s definitely getting a lot of hype and publicity, with its sleek looks and it’s base on the world record holding Ultimate Aero (which broke the world record for fastest production car at 256.18mph).
The Aero EV will have the same chasis of the exotic “SuperCar” and will use a 373kW electric motor. The new drive train will feature “a revolutionary power source allowing for extended time between charging intervals, with the possibility of several years between charging,” according to Shelby. With electric design guru Tony Stark on the project, I guess anything is possible.
Prototypes will be unveiled in February with production rolling off the line by December of 2009.
Whatever the hype and seemingly far-fetched claims, the cars are very cool, sleek, and could possibly break the electric propulsion record. It’s likely they’ll be as unattainable as the Tesla or any of the high-end, high price tag vehicles we love to salivate over, but it’s worth dreaming about.
Kind of makes my electric conversion plans for my Toyota pickup look lame, though. Maybe I’ll paint it white and put speed stripes on it to feel better…
Electric dirt bikes are hitting the mainstream with KTM, one of the leaders in race bikes, announcing their plans to roll one out in about two years. The bike’s current specs are pretty competitive, at 29.5 foot pounds of torque and lithium-ion batteries supplying about forty minutes of race-condition power.
The Austrian firm is working on the premise that electric bikes, being silent, will facilitate more closer-to-home racing for amateurs as well as the ability for arenas to proliferate, promoting the sport. Since the noise of these bikes (which are usually unmuffled, to limit choking) is their largest deterrent in urban and suburban environments, this makes sense.
KTM believes that the costs for these bikes will be in line or slightly above the pricing for their current line of race-ready enduro bikes.
From a rider’s perspective, the bikes will function basically the same way, with throttle and brake controls remaining unchanged. What will change is the noise level and the power response, since electric motors deliver power immediately on demand while petroleum-burning motors require a short “ramp up” time to provide the same torque. This means riders will have to adjust their skills to match, but the transition shouldn’t be too tough.
I think it’s likely most riders will find they enjoy the electric much more. Plus they’ll be much less likely to become prematurely deaf after years of exposure to their gas-powered enduros.
London’s famous black cabs may be going electric soon. The current cabs are made by a company called Manganese Bronze, which is owned by the Chinese company Geely and they have been in talks with the UK’s government for conversion of the fleet of cabs to electric.
Matthew Cheyne, the international development director for Manganese Bronze, told BusinessGreen.com that a partnership between his company and the Tanfield Group (specialists in electric vehicles) is progressing and that the first electric black cabs could be prowling London streets early next year.
The new cab, which will be based on the company’s current TX4 model, will be designated the TX4E and will have a top speed of 50mph and an operating range of 100+ miles on one charge. The vehicles are basically engineless shells of the TX4 that have had electric motors installed rather than petrol-powered drive trains.
Cheyne confirms that London will only be the “proving ground” for these cabs and that they will likely spread, with successful trial, to other parts of the world that the black cabs operate in.
The vehicles will have a Tanfield electric drive train powered by a lithium-ion-phosphate battery pack, replacing the current petrol or diesel powered engines used in today’s black cabs. Using a currently-tested and proven vehicle design helps bypass many of London’s vehicle fitness requirements, speeding up the process of approval.
