I just checked that out with high hopes. The Zenn is nothing more than a fancy $18,000 Golf cart!
I could build a fullsized electric car that goes 100 miles to a charge for cheaper using an existing Sub Compact car.
Didn’t you guys steal Niagra Falls from us!? :lol: Or was it the other way around?
That’s cool. What model?
I’ve always liked the Buells.. I think I would get a Buell Blast if I was to start riding again (used bikes are a good alternative to the gas prices). I bought one for $400 before the price increases 2-3 years ago.. and I sold it last Spring for $800. I had a friend in a similar situation and he sold his for $1200 this Spring.
Buell Firebolt XB12, not the best on gas by a long shot but better then a car…
Probably going to pick up a Harley this summer so I have some storage space (saddle bags) the Buell isn’t really practical for day to day driving without anyplace to put anything…
The Buell Blast are a fun cheap bike, you will probably have a lot of fun with one if you are looking to save gas…
Niagara Falls is in Ontario. And New York State. Only, Niagara NY is a pretty boring fall, while Niagara, Ont is a shoehorse shaped fall. Makes for more touristic attraction. Nobody stole from anyone, just that the 2 cities are aside eachother in both countries.
This being said, its in Ontario.
I’m in Quebec.
Look it out on a world map, its like 3 times bigger then texas, with loads of lakes and rivers we used over the years to build up several dams for hydroelectricity generation. We do sell some of our supplemental hydro to you guys, and ontario.
Oh, and the Zenn is a fully road safe car. I’ve worked on solar powered vehicles while in college (a la american solar challenge) - if you can convert a subcompact and keep it roadworthy, good for you, but I strongly doubt you’ll be able to make it road approved while keeping price low. there are ZENN at 12000$, they are road approved in your country.
Problem with subcompact cars is that they are framed to hold (and restrain in case of impact) a heavy engin, while electric motor are lighter. You’d essentially be wasting electricity because of your original frame. That’s why most company makes hybrids and about none makes electric ones… power effiency.
The ZENN isn’t ment for highway, but for urban transit. I agree it sucks at a highest speed of 60km/h but for in-town usage its perfect.
Heh. In our state, we don’t have any inspections or anything. I know the basic Zenn is like $12,000 for last years model, but the top of the line 2008 is $21,000… and according to the site would have the same capabilites as a 50cc scooter. (no highway use, top speed in the 30’s mph).
Actually I would wager that a good sized electric motor would weigh just as much as a gas engine in an engine bay. With some batteries and the engine controller it would easily weigh more. Then with several more batteries in the rear.. you’d probably have to cut weight somewhere to make it better. Most subcompacts also have unibodies.. so as you mention they are designed to crumple and react a specific way in collisions, but they don’t have heavy frames.
That really wouldn’t work in most suburban settings. City usage yes.. New York City would be perfect. Pizza delivery.. perfect vehicle. But the majority of Americans need to use highways in atleast some part of their daily routine. I mean.. 35 mph is the speed of the road just down the street, and it’s 45mph to work. But.. the majority of Americans could use an electric 50 mile range vehicle in their daily commute. I think that was mentioned in the “Who Killed the Electric Car” documentary.
Cool bike Exoray!
i wish it could be that price here, like i say, it roughly about £5..75 per gallon, which is approx $11.50 per gallon!!!
Then you’d wager wrong. one of the top idea for people building electric vehicle is to save weight, in order to save power.
I don’t want to waste time arguing with you, but I understand you have no real knowledge of electric vehicles. Look over what’s been done, and what is offered.
you might want to check over http://www.americansolarchallenge.org/
they have fully solar vehicle that goes 140 km/h at full sunlight.
I would love to have a respectful debate / discussion. No serious disrespect is intended.
If you are going to claim I have no “real” knowledge and then state that you won’t argue with me.. then what is the point? The fact of the matter is I do have quite a bit of knowledge regarding Electric Vehicles.
I know that the reason behind building EVs from scratch is to save weight. The fact that I say that if I take the engine out of my car and put in an electric motor I wouldn’t be saving any weight. The engine in my car weighs roughly 275 pounds. Electric motors vary in weights but they do weigh a lot. I’ve seen ones that weigh 360 pounds, and I just installed a 5HP motor that weighed more than 100 pounds. With 3-4 more batteries crammed into the engine bay around the motor.. and then with more batteries in the cabin.. you will have more weight then normal. Hence you will need to lighten the car else where.
Speaking of Solar.. I’m not entirely interested in that kind of vehicle you are referring to. Those cars are both lightweight, aero dynamic, and completely unpractical for normal driving. They are simply built for maximum distance and speed running off of the sun. In High School I worked on and rewired a Solar powered Kayak.. we had it running entirely off of solar. Some genius decided we weren’t gonna run with a battery at all (and I had no say in it.. because I wasn’t actually on the Solar team at the time.. I was just asked to rewire it because I knew how). It was unfortunate that our race day was a bit cloudy.. but we still got around the lake. (and we won an award for having the only purely solar boat). I also worked on a highmilage vehicle a little bit in High School. We had a 3 wheeled vehicle that would go 590 miles per gallon at about 40 miles per hour. (that is cheaper and faster than the Zenn).
I am working up plans to convert one of my vehicles to electric. Before I do that though.. I need to cut about 1000 pounds off of it to make it light enough to make it worthwhile.
Again. No disrespect is intended.. but if you are going to call me an idiot without any basis or argument.. then I am going to argue back.
The battery systems in hybrids are around 200-300lb in themselves, I suspect to get a decent (real world practical) full electric vehicle you would at least need to double the battery capacity if not more… An iron Chevy 350 weighs in at about 600lbs, most new engines are aluminum blocks and weigh much less… Battery weight alone will almost certainly be inline with engine weight even before the motor is factored in…
I would love to think that an electric vehicle was the answer, but the technology is no where advanced enough for the mainstream…
Also when you work out the cost factors it’s simply not economical yet for most people…
As for solar powered vehicles they are useless for the real world right now… Take any solar powered vehicle and tell me with a straight face you would be able to commute 50 miles round trip to work, drop off and pick up the kids at soccer practice, swing by the grocery store, and later in the evening swing out with the whole family to the theater to watch a movie… Sorry it isn’t going to happen with current solar technology…
** Edit and lets not forget creature comfort, in electric cars the heating and AC pose big issues…
Batteries are pretty much the limiting factor. We really need to better manufacturering technology to make better batteries cheaper. Sealed Lead Acid batteries are pretty archaic when compared what could be used in an electric vehicle. Lithium ion batteries could triple the range of a EV while reducing weight compared to SLA.
New batteries are being developed all the time that hold more charge while being lighter.. it will just take some time (maybe a decade or two) for those batteries to trickle down and be cheaper to make. By that time a lot more things will probably be dependant on battery power.. just imagine only having to charge your cell phone every week or other week.. and your laptop battery lasts all day.
As far as the creature comforts go.
Heat isn’t too bad. Electric motors do create heat, and they have liquid cooled ones too. Some people use these in a similar fashion running through a radiator and heater core in EV conversions. Otherwise you’ve gotta use heater coils.. which draw electricity. A/C similarly you can run the compressor off of the motor (or directly with a seperate motor).. but it is gonna draw electricity no matter what. Maybe some secondary system could be setup using dry ice or something?
Oh how I long for an electric pickup truck.
I know it’s possible but the power requirements for electric heat and cooling are huge, the amount of amps required to heat and cool is way out of line with the reserves available by batteries… Also electric cars are geared towards efficiency, the motors don’t draw any current when you are parked or stopped in traffic, the same can’t be said for creature comforts they need to run full time or run double time to make up for lost time…
The only viable solution right now is to resort right back to fossil fuels for heating and cooling…
Yeah maybe someday battery technology will provide the answer, but it’s not in the immediate future as you said it’s decades away at best… And this also brings up other important issues, as people migrate to electric powered vehicles the whole electrical grid and even house wiring will need to be upgraded to handle the load… In addition to building many more power plants to provide this electricity… And right now besides nuclear there really isn’t any alternative source for electricity that is able to handle the load (windmills/solar/hydro are all location specific and costly) so that leaves us with the same fossil fuels we are trying to get away from to provide the power… Just look at places like California where they are already pushing the electrical grid beyond it’s capacity requiring rolling black outs just to stay online, and I sure everyone here has experienced brown outs during the summer months when AC use is high… The whole electrical backbone will need to be rebuilt, as it can’t even handle the current loads efficiently this will also take decades to upgrade…
Catch 22, this in turn just makes us dependent on simply another small select group of countries…
Also when you consider the amount of Lithium available…
http://www.evworld.com/library/lithium_shortage.pdf
Not a real promising outlook, when you read that whole article in reality we would exhaust all recoverable Lithium supplies almost immediately in the grand scheme…
Have you read about the EEStor capacitor?
There are a lot of promising alternative battery ideas, and that appears to be one… But, only time will tell…