Is Our Beloved Viper Next?

[Coloviper]

Stumbled across this, which as an Electrical Engineer, I find very intriguing. If this electric direction is just the way things are going to go, than I would pick this car for my ride as at least it has style.

Car News and Reviews - Autofiends.com - » News Archive » Rally Hottie Hoons Electric Cobra

Watch the video with Lisa. Wow! 1000 lbft of torque and 3.2 sec 0-60, that is pretty insane.

Question as I posed in the title, is our beloved Viper next? I wish we borrowed the complete carbon fiber body concept, at least.

 

[Vic]

Myself, if I could have 1000 foot pounds of torque from 0 rpm all the way up to redline, and sub 4 second acceleration, I'd go electric in a heartbeat. Its the performance that I want, not the method. Sentimental clinging to internal combustion engines is like wishing steam engines would power trains once again, instead of the vastly superior deisel units that replaced them. Progress rules.

 

[ShadowLight]

Wow that girl was super irritating. Very cool car though. I wonder how long the juice lasts with that much power on the track?

 

[Yellow32]

Opinion, not fact:

Have fun at the track, you might get a couple run sessions in and your electric car will be outta juice for hours.

And if you have any uncontrolled contact, I would not want to be anywhere near you, LI batteries tend to catch fire and explode and lead acid, well, it's lead acid.

I do not believe electric cars are an equivalent evolution as was steam to diesel electric (locomotive).

Diesel electric locomotives simply are using a much more potent fuel source (combustible fuel with greater energy per unit burned) versus burning wood or coal. Also, diesel electric locos are 'electric' but instead of using batteries they use a diesel motor to create electric current.

Electric cars are no more than a gimmick and will never be any more than that until such time a competent 'fuel' (battery) is found...which it likely will never be. It's an evolutionary dead end.

-J

 

[BOTTLEFED]

^^agreed^^

 

[jdeft1]

Electric cars are no more than a gimmick and will never be any more than that until such time a competent 'fuel' (battery) is found...which it likely will never be. It's an evolutionary dead end.

I'm not sure that's the case. We're pumping and burning oil at a incredible rate. The future may be a long way off but the cheap oil will become ever more expensive as easy, high quality crude dries up! We are very close to a world extraction peak, similar to the USA extraction peak that occured in 1972.

hummm... There's also a very competitive race going on to create the "holy grail" of batteries. Nearly instant charge/discharge rates could revolutionize the auto industry. Several companies have created such a thing including A123 Systems (IPO April?).

my .02

 

[J&R3xV10]

I saw that car on supercars exposed. THe girl drove it around then when she gave it to Taner it broke

 

[GaryA]

Of course the power is awesome, but I don't know if I could ever get over not having the sound of a good internal combustion engine. I mean, it just wouldn't be the same going through a tunnel at about 4500 rpms. I guess I would have to invest in some super-powerful audio system to create the illusion of sound. But then again, that would take away from that precious battery power. I digress...

I think the issue of a battery not holding power long enough will eventually be solved in a couple of ways. First, just like any other technology adopted over the past 100 years or so, there will be improvements made as long as their is the promise of a big payoff. You don't have to look far for many examples of this.

Also, why not have a car design with a removable battery pack that allows you to pull into a "service station", back your car into a freshly charged battery pack module "rack" that removes the spent battery module and locks in a fresh one and you're off. Of course, that's a big infrastructure issue, and standards would have to be developed, but it's not beyond the realm of possibilities. This solves the issue of waiting for hours to recharge your car.

My 2 cents.

 

[Yellow32]

I'm not sure that's the case. We're pumping and burning oil at a incredible rate. The future may be a long way off but the cheap oil will become ever more expensive as easy, high quality crude dries up! We are very close to a world extraction peak, similar to the USA extraction peak that occured in 1972.

hummm... There's also a very competitive race going on to create the "holy grail" of batteries. Nearly instant charge/discharge rates could revolutionize the auto industry. Several companies have created such a thing including A123 Systems (IPO April?).

my .02

Gotta love this, talk like this used to bother me because I did not know any better.

"pumping at an incredible rate", I disagree. If you take all 32 BILLION BARRELS (42 gallons a barrel) of oil that is pumped yearly (85-86MMB/day) you end up with somewhere around 1.3TRILLION gallons of raw crude. Sounds like a lot, doesn't it? In all actuality, it's less fluid you find in a mid size lake! And that powers the WORLD! 1.3T gallons is a little more than "one cubic mile" of fluid!

Put simply, we are barely using any oil at all! And this planet has a lot more and there is some quite serious thought that some oil fields are abiotoic. We already know that natural gas is "of the earth" and moons such as Titan (one of Saturn's moons) has LAKES of hydrocarbons...which backs up the abiotic theories.

Titan has "Hundreds of Times More" Liquid Hydrocarbons Than Earth | Universe Today

Not only that but coal can be turned into liquid fuel and we have centuries of coal sitting around.

As for the 'peak extraction' statement, I also disagree. We are no where near such a point. Where we are right now is the 'peak' of what has been established. Remember, for decades crude production maxed out around 65-70MMB/day and the world had 'spare capacity' of 10-15MMB/day. What happened was a lot of 3rd world economies suddenly increased (2000-2003) their intake and essentially used up the spare capacity. So what you say, put more capacity online. That is what is going on now, but, on average it takes 10 years to put a field online. And with the USA sequestering many productive areas (and have been since the 60s/70s) that only diminishes the ability to put more fields online.

I could go on for some time, but I should keep this short. The next paragraph might be a little cryptic to some.

Most "oil companies" are "national companies" run by thugs and barbarians for their own ends and they, quite frankly, are not very good about keeping things going (Chavez is an example here). What that means is if they are having trouble producing a field they just let it go into decay. Sometimes they ask help from the major oil companies (who directly control less than 10% of worldwide capacity) and then stiff them. So, the majors (Shell, BP, Chevron, Exxon, etc) want to own is more of their production so they are now exploring deep sea locations and boy is there a lot of oil out there! In less than 1 year Brazil probed unproduced fields that speculatively contain 30+BB of crude and they are pre-salt layers (could be abiotic).

Blah blah blah, ANWR, part of Alaska, purchased from Russia for its mineral wealth should be opened up. It has not been reassessed using modern technology and could contain unbelievable amounts of crude. Don't forget the Bakken field straddling USA/Canada border (only 'shows' to have 3-4BB but could be much larger, USGS is just being very conserative..but there is insufficient infrastructure up there for massive production...10 years out...)

I could go on, but statements that indicate we are anywhere near peak oil are just unfounded.

I'm not even going to touch crude oil refining and we are fast outsourcing it and its cost implications no to mention all the crazy federal regs on formulations.

-J

 

[Yellow32]

Of course the power is awesome, but I don't know if I could ever get over not having the sound of a good internal combustion engine. I mean, it just wouldn't be the same going through a tunnel at about 4500 rpms. I guess I would have to invest in some super-powerful audio system to create the illusion of sound. But then again, that would take away from that precious battery power. I digress...

I think the issue of a battery not holding power long enough will eventually be solved in a couple of ways. First, just like any other technology adopted over the past 100 years or so, there will be improvements made as long as their is the promise of a big payoff. You don't have to look far for many examples of this.

Also, why not have a car design with a removable battery pack that allows you to pull into a "service station", back your car into a freshly charged battery pack module "rack" that removes the spent battery module and locks in a fresh one and you're off. Of course, that's a big infrastructure issue, and standards would have to be developed, but it's not beyond the realm of possibilities. This solves the issue of waiting for hours to recharge your car.

My 2 cents.

Remember, you have to give something to get something. Gasoline is very powerful for its size and refueling is very quick and simple. Batteries will never compete with its "footprint" and battery technology has been around a long time and even if you could plug into a 500Amp line and recharge quickly (never mind most homes are 200A or less capacity) you still have to recharge, those electrons are still going to have to 'flow' to fill up and their "flow" will never replicate that of refueling with gasoline.

As for removable battery packs, love to see the "self service" island for that! Forklift operator license would be a must have.

As for A123, they use LI batteries...some issues there remain, fire-proofing and supply issues. If you think we are 'running out of crude', don't even look at mining operations for the exotic metal Lithium.

Here's a timely commentary:

Li-ion Battery Manufacturers: The Bleeding Edge of Energy Storage Technology -- Seeking Alpha

-J

 

[Coloviper]

Well, having worked in Oil & Gas, Mining and Power Generation all over the world for over 13 years now, I can tell you the world energy supply is VERY large and it basically boils down to the economics for the source.

Most sources just require a very large $/barrel or $/commodity price to be feasible. If Oil was around $75/barrel and Gas was around $6/cuft, they would have all the projects kicked off and North America would be working towards it's energy independance. Don't be too sad as the Oil & Gas companies are required for energy independance, as Green "Sustainable" sources just can not feed the full need for power in North America. These types of commodity prices are a given, thus just brace yourself. If anyone doesn't think the $150/barrel fiasco was not a test of whether America can pay it, it proved it can.

Will it run out? Eventually it will run out, but not in our lifetime or even our kids, kids lifetimes. There is just too much. Does that mean we should shy away from alternative sources or downplay the electric car aspec as an examplet? No, but the sooner people realize that there is no one solution, their is no Holy Grail of power, then maybe they will start to do an energy balance.

Trust me, in about 10 years, you will not see an Oil company or a Power company, or a Mining company. It will just be ENERGY companies and their taxes will be tied to an overall desired energy balance and polutant footprint. These companies will have Oil, Gas, Mining, Power Gen, Solar, Geo-Thermal, and Wind/Wave Technologies all in their portfolios.

I have to say that coal fired electric power is just as dirty as oil but because you can not see it in your backyard, people tolerate it. It is VERY political.

For those that just say no, think about what you are saying. Look at all the camera companies that thumbed their nose at digital cameras. Look at the companies that thumbed their noses at video tapes, cassette tapes, even cds or dvds now. Technology moves and you basically can accept it and approach it with an open mind or reject and ignore it and age poorly.

Will electric replace gas as the soruce of power for the masses? No! In fact, we would have a better chance of Natural Gas replacing Gasoline, but that is another story. In the end, electric cars are going to be a part of the road and that is just going to be that.

Oil, noise, etc. etc. all things aside, you can not take away the fact this electric Cobra is very fast and a pretty cool car. If they came up with a way to recharge it in 2 minutes, and with a range of 250 miles, would that be acceptable? Who knows? I love my combustible power and my Viper the way it is now, but let's not kid ourselves, an electric version is only a matter of time. I would embrace what they come our with, as long as it has style with a nod to heritage. If it looks like a bubble, burst it!