Unfortunately it's still not practical but very cool anyway. Hopefully these companies will start to explore other technologies to try and get the amount of time to charge down and the range longer.
Tesla Roadster charges in 3.5 hours from completely dead battery, which wouldn't normally be the case. After 100 miles it charges to full capacity in 2 hours. And of course in a pinch you could just charge it less then full. Also the range is much better at 240 miles. Lastly, 0 to 60 in 3.9 seconds. Maybe the Porsche version looks better, but it's got nothing on the Tesla Roadster in terms of both performance and technology.
last time we talked about an electric car there was a major charging difference between 120 and 240V outlets. Is that the case here? is it 10 hours on a 120V house plug?
The problem with saying "Get that charge time down" is that while it is feasibly possible (Connect all the cells in parallel and charge the whole lot with a massive current inrush), if you consider the power drain, it's simply not feasible.
Most household outlets are 15 amps, and most houses have a 200-amp main feed (IIRC).
And, of course, there's the issue of flash-burning the cells. Remember the Laptop Battery fires? You try and recharge a battery too fast and that kind of thing happens.
Ruf, in contrast to Tesla, knows one or two things about making (modifying) cars. Most people only know Alois Ruf as a Porsche tuner, but he is actually an electrical engineer and happens to own three hydro power stations.
“An engineer explained to us that hundreds of ear impressions were gathered in the name of research, and while each one obviously boasted its own unique shape and size, one single characteristic remained uniform across the board: the entrance into the ear canal is not a perfect circle, it's an oval.”
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Unfortunately it's still not practical but very cool anyway. Hopefully these companies will start to explore other technologies to try and get the amount of time to charge down and the range longer.
@ Kris
RUF isn't exactly in the practical car business.
Tesla Roadster charges in 3.5 hours from completely dead battery, which wouldn't normally be the case. After 100 miles it charges to full capacity in 2 hours. And of course in a pinch you could just charge it less then full. Also the range is much better at 240 miles. Lastly, 0 to 60 in 3.9 seconds. Maybe the Porsche version looks better, but it's got nothing on the Tesla Roadster in terms of both performance and technology.
Get that charge time down to 5-10 minutes and we are talking practical here.
last time we talked about an electric car there was a major charging difference between 120 and 240V outlets. Is that the case here? is it 10 hours on a 120V house plug?
The problem with saying "Get that charge time down" is that while it is feasibly possible (Connect all the cells in parallel and charge the whole lot with a massive current inrush), if you consider the power drain, it's simply not feasible.
Most household outlets are 15 amps, and most houses have a 200-amp main feed (IIRC).
And, of course, there's the issue of flash-burning the cells. Remember the Laptop Battery fires? You try and recharge a battery too fast and that kind of thing happens.
Ruf, in contrast to Tesla, knows one or two things about making (modifying) cars. Most people only know Alois Ruf as a Porsche tuner, but he is actually an electrical engineer and happens to own three hydro power stations.