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Shelby Super Cars

Posted by turnip

Company:	Shelby Super Cars
Brands:	Ultimate Aero EV
Pricing:	Unknown (Q4 2009)
Range:	150-200 miles on one charge
Speed:	208 mph
Batteries:	Unknown Battery Type

Shelby Super Car’s Aero was already the worlds fastest gas powered production car.  As the company behind the Ultimate Aero EV, they also hold the title of the worlds fastest electric powered production car.  Featuring twin motors producing a 1,000 HP and 800 lb-ft of torque enabling, it travels 0 to 60 mph in a snappy 2.5 seconds and reaches a top speed of 208 mph.  Tesla who?

If you need to ask how much this car will cost, you probably can’t afford it.  So what is the point?  The point is that this 100% Green supercar becomes a billboard to showcase Shelby’s Green powertrain.  This scalable electric power technology has uses ranging from economy and luxury cars, all the way up to trucks and buses.   Their SSC’s “Charge on the Run^TM” onboard charging system allows for 10 minute full battery recharges on a 220V service.

As great as this charging system sounds, it’s still a far cry from what was mentioned in their July 2008 press release:

The drive train under development will feature a revolutionary power source allowing for extended time between charging intervals with the possibility of several years between charging.

Other than not driving it during that time period, or having some passive charging system like solar, I can’t imagine what their original plans were.  Mini nuclear reactors?  Still, a another system proposed for electric cars travelling any distance above 40 miles.

The more companies providing competition in the electric vehicle market, the better.  Innovation across the board will propel electric vehicles into the mainstream, particulary in the area of battery and charging technology.  Call me a skeptic, but I don’t put much trust in the car/oil industries producing real alternative products any time soon without being forced into it.  They’ll all have something to display at the autoshows, but good luck actually being able to purchase one at a reasonable price.

Parking Meter

Chargers For Electric Cars

Coulomb Technologies knows mainstream auto manufacturers have plans to begin selling electric cars by 2010.  Consumers will need a place to park their vehicles.  Currently there is little if any infrastructure design with electric vehicles in mind, but Coulomb plans to solve that problem with their smart charging infrastructure for plug-in vehicles.  Electric car owners who park next to one of Coulomb’s ChargePoint Network meters will be able to charge their cars while they sleep, shop, work or eat.

This is a great idea for those who rent an apartment and don’t have their own garage or driveway.  Forget the idea of long extension cords.  Coulomb envisions a system where vehicle owners subscribe to a monthly service.  They would receive a key fob allowing them to park at any available meter.  Below is how Coulomb describes a typical user experience:

The subscriber will use a navigation system to find the nearest available charging station. He will park the vehicle next to the Smartlet Charging Station. For 110V charging, the subscriber will swipe a key fob to be authenticated at the station, unlocking the Smartlet access door. After plugging in the cord, the door will lock in a partially open position to secure the cord and begin charging. After charging is complete, the subscriber will scan the key fob again to deactivate the charging station and unlock the access door. The cost of the transaction will be displayed on the charging station. The driver will replace the cord into its original position and can then drive away.

Not everyone who charges their car will need to subscribe.  For example, if you rent an electric vehicle, you could make a one time charge payment using a cell phone or credit card to charge a car.  Some businesses may offer free charging/parking to entice customers.  Employers mighty offer charger parking to their employees as a benefit.  Condominium communities could include ChargePoint Network fees with their monthly dues.  Since the system uses bi-directional communication, you would only be charged for the electricity used.

The question becomes one of standardization.  All electric vehicles will need to use the same 110v/220v recepticle .   Just as there is a choice of unleaded or diesel gasoline, there needs to be electrical standards as well.  What will happen to those who want to park a non-electric car or have their own portable solar charging kit?  Will they be left to fight for the free spots at the mall?

http://zapyx.com/

Electric-car maker

Tesla preparing IPO

U.S. electric-car maker Tesla Motors plans to go public soon, two sources familiar with the matter said, amid growing interest in green technology and battery-powered vehicles.

An IPO filing from the 6-year-old start-up, best known for its $109,000 all-electric Roadster, is expected any day, said one of the sources. The person did not give a specific time frame, although IPOs typically take several months.

Tesla spokesman Ricardo Reyes declined to comment on what he called “rumor or speculation.”

Tesla Model S

(Credit: Caroline McCarthy/CNET)

Tesla would mark the first public offering from a U.S. automaker since Henry Ford’s Ford Motor debuted its shares in 1956. The IPO represents a landmark in the resurgence of electric-car technology that most carmakers had dismissed as impractical until recently.

The company’s chairman Elon Musk said early last year that an IPO was a possibility in either late 2008 or 2009.

But the financial market turmoil following the collapse of Lehman Bros. in the latter half of 2008 virtually shut down the IPO market. The appetite for IPOs has picked up since mid-September this year with a robust pace of new filings.

Tesla’s IPO would follow the successful debut of lithium ion battery maker A123 Systems, whose shares rallied 50 percent on their first day of trading on September 25.

Analysts have said that the success of A123, the first green-technology IPO this year, would encourage more venture capital-backed green companies to go public.

Tesla will compete with established automakers like Ford, General Motors, and Nissan Motor, all of which are racing to launch electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles. Tesla, by contrast, is a small player with a high-end market and limited production.

A combination of factors has driven the recent interest in developing electric, or partially electric vehicles, including the Obama administration’s push to have 1 million rechargeable vehicles on U.S. roads by 2015 and low-cost Department of Energy loans for manufacturers.

Venture funds back green cars
The carmaker is developing a second, lower-cost model, an electric sedan known as the Model S, which will have a base price of $49,900.

Tesla said in September it delivered 700 Roadsters since February 2008. The Roadster, which is built on a Lotus frame, can go from 0 to 60 miles an hour in less than four seconds, making it faster than a Porsche 911 or a Ferrari Spider.

The electric-car start-up was offered $465 million in low-cost loans by the U.S. Department of Energy to help build the new Model S. Tesla said it will build the new car in California.

Tesla’s investors include Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page.

Other investors include Daimler; Abu Dhabi-based Aabar Investments, which owns a stake in Daimler; and venture capital funds Valor Equity Partners, Technology Partners, The Westly Group, and Compass Venture Partners.

Tesla said it had achieved overall corporate profitability in July with about $1 million of earnings on revenue of $20 million.

But like established automakers, survival in the hyper-competitive U.S. automotive market has not been easy for Tesla. The company had to face cost overruns and production delays for the Roadster.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10402752-54.html

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Kiss the American Auto Industry Goodnight

By Bill Moore

Effectively, that is what the conservative Heritage Foundation is arguing in a November 23, 2009 blog piece entitled Help Stop the EPA from Imposing More Costly Regulations. The Foundation asserts that if the EPA enacts the fuel economy standards embodied in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, signed by former President George W. Bush, it will mean fewer consumer choices in automobiles, more expensive vehicles, and less safe models due to the inevitable downsizing that will occur in order to comply with the 35 mpg fleet average the law will require.

They claim, “to meet these new standards, cars and trucks will need to be lighter, making them less safe. The National Academy of Sciences study pegs the cost of downsizing at 1,300 to 2,600 lives per year.” They also assert that increasing fuel economy to 35 mpg will do little to reduce global warming, something I am not sure they actually believe is real, but that’s another matter. Instead, let’s examine the “smaller is deadlier” allegation.

The National Research Council published a 2002 study entitled, Effectiveness and lmpact of Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) Standards in which the majority of the committee concluded, “The downweighting and downsizing [of vehicles] that occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s, some of which was due to CAFE standards, probably resulted in an additional 1,300 to 2,600 traffic fatalities in 1993.”

Notice that the Heritage Foundation chose to cherry pick this statistic by failing to note that only “some” of the downsizing of the vehicles were the result of CAFE standards and probably resulted in those estimated fatalities. They also failed to point out the fact that the study was done using 1993 accident records. The implication of their citation is that for carmakers to comply with what the Foundation considers an Obama Administration initiative, despite originating during the Bush presidency, carmakers will be forced to build smaller, less safe vehicles.

Let’s examine that question, shall we?

When the original 2002 report came out, the committee responsible for its findings were not unanimous in their opinions as to its conclusions. A minority disagreed, stating publicly, “The conclusions of the majority of the committee … are overly simplistic and at least partially incorrect … The relationship between vehicle weight and safety are complex and not measureable with any reasonable degree of certainty at present… Reducing the weights of light-duty vehicles will neither benefit nor harm all highway users; there will be winners and losers.”

In 2008, Tom Wenzel with the Lawrence Berkeley Lab and Marc Ross with the University of Michigan presented a paper American Physical Society’s Forum on Physics and Society, essentially concurred with the minority view in that the issue of vehicle safety is far more complex than the “bigger and heavier is safer” mantra.

They contended, “Safety can be improved using new technologies, with little impact on weight or fuel economy.” Those new technologies include high-strength steel, improved crash safety design, electronic stability control, better seat belts, stronger roofs and vehicle-to-vehicle communication (crash avoidance).

The above graph, screen-captured from their March 2008 Powerpoint presentation, shows relative risk by vehicle type. What’s illuminating here is the fact that while compact and subcompact models do represent a higher risk to their occupants than more car-like Crossovers, for example, the damage inflicted on passengers in other vehicles is less. And when you compare them to the light truck/pickup category, the compact car is “safer” than any class of pickup but full-sized vans. Not only aren’t these light trucks any safer than a compact car, but the aggressive havoc they cause to other vehicles and their occupants is three to five times that of the compacts and subcompacts. Compare all vehicles classes and imported luxury cars (presumably Mercedes, BMW, Volvo, Saab, etc.) come out the best, which can’t be explained by size or vehicle mass alone. Something else is going on here including vehicle engineering and driver maturity.

It seems to me that the answer isn’t allowing American carmakers to continue to build big, heavy, cheap vehicles, but to engineer safer and more fuel efficient models, and this is, in fact, what they are doing. Both Ford and GM are creating “global” vehicle platforms that they can sell in Asia, Europe and North America, offering comparable amenities and performance, instead of the wide disparity previously seen between GM and Ford’s more fuel-efficient models in Europe and their name sake-only variants in North America. Chrysler and Fiat’s recently unveiled vehicle and engine plans highlight this shift.

And if you’re wondering about how safe those Euro-ized global models are, the World Health Organization reported that in 1998 in the whole of Europe there were 106,757 traffic fatalities and 3,213,104 injuries for a comparably sized population, while in the United States and Canada there were 125,959 fatalities and 4,410,736 injuries. Recall that Europe is more congested and has higher highway speeds than in most of North America, so it should have higher fatality and injury rates, but it doesn’t.

Bottom line, smaller and lighter doesn’t have to equate to more deaths and injuries. Better engineering and materials can largely mitigate the problem; and doing so will make U.S. carmakers more competitive, not less. Or, we can blindly follow the advice of the creaky Heritage Foundation and kiss the rest of the American auto industry goodnight.

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