Sounding Circle: Li-Ion tzero Electric Vehicle

 Li-Ion tzero Electric Vehicle10 comments
picture 17 Oct 2003 @ 09:00, by Raymond Powers

ACPropulsion Electric Car
Continuing to make breakthroughs in electric car technology

(Though I believe electric cars are still not the best method for clean energy technology)

Wednesday, August 27th, the Li-Ion tzero was driven for the first time. The 90-mile test drive included climbing to the top of Mt. Baldy road, a 40-mile loop including a climb to 6000+ feet elevation, and a 35-mile highway loop at 70-75 mph. At the end of the test drive less than 1/3 of the measured battery capacity had been used. During the test drive, the tzero battery exhibited excellent voltage uniformity, excellent temperature distribution and control, and high discharge rate capability. The Mt. Baldy trip gave the highest regenerative energy recapture ratio that we have ever observed, demonstrating the high cycle-efficiency of the cells.

The weight of the tzero is reduced to under 2000 pounds, providing significant improvements in acceleration, handling, and efficiency. As a complete car, the Li-ion tzero has higher specific energy, in Wh/kg, than the RAV4 EV battery pack alone.

This first drive confirms the benefits of Li-Ion batteries, demonstrates the usability of small, commercial, off-the-shelf Li cells for automotive applications, and increases our confidence in the techniques we have developed for assembling them into automotive packs.

Testing and development of the Li-Ion tzero continue. The results so far justify our moving forward with plans for design and development of other vehicle applications for this technology. More extensive test results and developments will be posted here in the coming weeks.


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10 comments

17 Oct 2003 @ 11:09 by waalstraat : I probably shouldn't give this away free
I probably shouldn't give this away free but I am not that materialistic. It seems to me everybody has missed the boat on electric cars...sorry about the mixed metaphor. What they should do is place the batteries in an easily removeable position (removeable by some type of robot)than revise their ideas of filling stations. You would pull in next to a bunch of cabinets with filled batteries and shelves for weak or empty batteries. You robot would activate when you parked in the proper position, lift your battery out, measure how filled or empty it is and replace it with a filled one. You would be charged for the difference between your trade-in battery and the filled one...after you left, your trade-in would be moved to be charged up or it would be charged up in place....of course this is a rough idea and would have to be refined...Don't thank me yet world...I'm sure someone will find a flaw in the scheme or paradigm.  

1 Jan 2004 @ 13:48 by Stu @81.168.92.148 : T-Zero
One flaw in the filling station method. Due to the high price of battery packs It would create a blackmarket as old/damaged packs would be swapped for garage fresh packs.

On another point does anyone find it slightly strange that a small engineering company managed to create an electric vehicle from off the shelf parts that outperforms the offerings from the major auto manufactrers.  

8 Jan 2004 @ 14:13 by Joblo @192.26.245.166 : car
I've been looking around and haven't found much on cars trying alternative batteries. Most commercial EVs are still using lead acid batteries. From the success of the cell phone and laptop batteries I'd think that those are the route to go. Looks like this car is doing just that.

As far as the refueling station thing...that would slow down progress of battery upgrades. You buy the 2004 Zappit battery and in 2005 they come out with a battery that has twice the capacity at the same weight. But everyone's using the same batteries so you won't upgrade. Plus the service stations would give you the crappiest batteries they can get away with.  

8 Jan 2004 @ 14:22 by Jim @192.26.245.166 : EVs
Why do EVs always look so corny? The cars are always some way out there design that sticks out like a sore thumb. Please, when designing an EV, try to make the thing look normal. I'd love to have an electric car but why not make it as close to a regular car as you can? It seems that there are a lot of people out there that like regular cars.
It'd be much easier to mass produce electric cars if you could just say...oh, don't worry you won't have to change your lifestyle to drive this, just plug it in when you get home and unplug it before you drive to work.  

6 Jan 2005 @ 14:14 by r vatcher @192.91.147.34 : big 3 evs
The bigget reason I can find for the "BIG 3" not to create a better EV is that they would not have as many replacement or maintainance parts to sell at inflated prices to the consumer.It has already been brought out that the T ZERO designer worked for GM and was not allowed to use the best electronics design for recharging or battery management.The GM EV'S are going to or are already crushed due to an "electrical fire possibility".Also look at how many of the BIG 3'S executive boards have oil company input or representation.  

1 Sep 2009 @ 12:43 by Tigra 07 @81.137.240.118 : Suspicious
Perhaps the car manufacturers purposely sabotage their electric vehicles to push towards hydrogen, which will keep people going to the pumps
They do the same for their slow advance in fuel economy, only upgrading a little at a time to keep them in business
If they made their next car their best with everything they have and it looked crap and nobody bought it they would be finished

I am still an advocate of Hydrogen, i just find it suspicious so many tiny companies can appear from nowhere and outperform the huge manufacturers making billions and spending billions on research.  

1 Sep 2009 @ 22:40 by bushman : Hmm
Keep in mind that water vapor, is the most heat storing greenhouse gas.  

2 Sep 2009 @ 08:54 by Tigra 07 @81.137.240.118 : still not as carbon
And?
It lasts up to 2 weeks in the atmosphere, compare that to over 100 years for carbon dioxide
If all cars were hydrogen powered we could add hundreds of billions more cars to road before pollution in the atmosphere became even half to what it is now
And it still causes NO long term environmental damage, unlike carbon.

Anyway the ice age has come and gone, if you believe this global warming is caused by people then by all means by an alternative fuel car when they get mass produced at earliest 2013  

3 Sep 2009 @ 18:02 by bushman : lol
Well we could get into so many concepts, for instance, the ratio of Methane expeled by how many Cows, to the amount of methane expelled by one Brontosarus in a day. My guess would be 10 to 1 assumming you could stuff 10 cows into 1 Brontosarus. Ok ok, maybe we should use 1 T-Rex, since they eat meat. Has anyone ever ventured a guess on how much Crude Oil back in Dino days just oozzed out of the ground. Or the very likly senario of huge lakes of oil burning due to ever present volcanic activity during the distant past. Anyway I agree, if you can live your life simpler and cleaner then do so. :}
Poeople might be intrested in the Mayan calendar, I for one have come to the conclusion that the Mayan calendars document past and future Iceages based on the behavior of the Sun and its conection to the galactic center, like you can call the galixy the Father, and our Sun can be the Son, Sun of God, or Sun God, I mean really all these stories, are based on real things that went on in the past. Man will still do what man does. Maybe there is a group of people who know, but in general we dont know where middle ground, climate wise, on this planet is. We can only speculate that radiations from the Galactic center have a calming effect on the Sun, or even the ramafications of the Earth itself passing thru the tail of the Sun as it plows thru cosmic dust. You know if mankind ceased to exist, in 10,000 years there would be very little left to even tell mankind was even here at all.  

4 Sep 2009 @ 08:35 by Tigra 07 @81.137.240.118 : Climate change and global warming
Anyone know how the ice age came about and how it ended?
If man causes global warming why has it been happening before man walked the Earth?

I'm a fan of global warming, frankly if it can heat the UK up a bit i welcome that
I look forward to the day when i can grow pineapples and bananas in winter.
Although the scaremongerers want you to think it will be about 200 years before that can happen, if anything we need more global warming.  

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