Cars and Accessories: electric car

Showing posts with label electric car. Show all posts

Sunday, September 7, 2008

(Credit: Mazda USA)

Chevrolet's Volt hasn't even been released yet and other automakers are already hard at work developing their Volt killers. Sources at Autocar say that Mazda engineers have developed a working Mazda5-based electric vehicle prototype. The prototype is said to use a rotary engine to charge a battery pack that powers an electric motor driving the wheels.
Essentially, the only thing that's keeping Mazda from putting the system into production is the high cost of batteries. Meanwhile, Mazda is said to be concentrating on more conventional green tech, such as engine start-stop technology
Originally posted at The Car Tech blog

Wrightspeed's X1 prototype car
(Credit: Michael Kanellos/CNET Networks)

DAVIS, Calif.--Ian Wright, founder of electric sports-car maker Wrightspeed, wants to get into pickup trucks too.
The company is looking at making an electric drivetrain for trucks that the company would then sell to established manufacturers, he said during a hallway meeting at the GoingGreen conference taking place here. The top-three selling vehicles in the United States in 2006 were the Ford F-150, the Chevy Silverado and the Dodge Ram, he said. "No. 4 was the Camry."
Converting trucks from gas to electric could have a big impact on carbon monoxide emissions, he added. Trucks emit a lot of fumes and don't get great mileage.
It won't be easy. A new crop of electric cars is just coming to market, and a big issue is battery life. The high-end Tesla Roadster, coming out later this year, only goes 200 miles on a battery charge. It costs $98,000 and a big part of the cost is the battery. How far will a truck priced in the $40,000 range go with a load of lumber? Wrightspeed would face competition from clean diesel trucks too.
The company also is still in the prototyping stage. Wrightspeed has built a fast electric car, but it's a demonstration vehicle and won't resemble a final product. (It doesn't have doors, for one thing, sort of a tough feature for selling a car in the United States.) Wrightspeed is not manufacturing cars yet.
But who knows. A number of companies are tinkering with electric car ideas.

It's showtime again in the auto world--that time of the year when manufacturers trot out their latest fleets of new models and wacky concepts. In preparation for the forthcoming Frankfurt auto show, Nissan this week unveiled details of its Mixim electric concept car. According to Nissan, the Mixim (which is unlikely to make it to production) is aimed at young, Web-savvy, digital-age drivers with a penchant for gaming. Check out our photo gallery here.