The Th!nk City Electric Car in 2009. Would You Buy One?

Q. I hear that the Th!nk electric car is coming back for sale in 2009 from Norway. This was the car Ford originally marketed here a few years ago and tanked from little interest.

The original one had:
Range: 50 miles
Top Speed: 56 MPH

This new one has:
Range: 110 miles
Top Speed: 65 MPH
Acceleration: 0-50 MPH in 16.0 sec. Woo Hoo!
Charging Time: 10 Hrs. (220VAC @ 14A) Zzzzzz!
Price: Under $25,000 and you rent the battery.

It looks kinda Smart Carish, but less geeky.

Personally I'm sticking with my Honda Civic EX. It carries 5 and has decent trunk space.

I don't th!nk there is a market here honestly. It might be cool to use if you have huge property to cruise around on.

Who would buy one of these?
Basically the battery lease thing I guess is partly to control where the batteries go when they go bad and when it does go bad they just drop another one in for you I guess is the idea.

In the field of electric cars I've been a fan of Alan Cocconi. That littleTzero prototype he made is awesome and even took out a Corvette! He's the guy who was the technical genius behind the EV1.

http://www.acpropulsion.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC_Propulsion

When they get something going that gets close to my Civic and hopefully as reliable then I'll think about it.

Answer
I'd buy one as long as the battery rental wasn't too expensive. $25k is reasonable for an electric car with over 100 mile range and highway speed capability. I rarely drive very far, so the range would be plenty for me. As long as it's got room for my dogs in the back seat!

The 0 to 50 mph time is really weak though. It would be hard to get up to speed on the highway. So I might hold off until there's a better electric car option (for examples, see link below).

Anyone know where I can buy an electric car?

Desertdwel

Gas at Chevron is $4.10. I'm tired of it.

Answer
Unfortunately the only highway capable electric car currently in production is the Tesla Roadster. Another unfortunate thing is all 600 of 2008 units have been sold and many of the 2009 are gone too. Unfortunate number 3 is the price tag is $100,000 and going up due to foreign currency exchange rates.

The next group of electric cars are the Neighborhood Electric Vehicles (NEV) some times called Low speed Electric Vehicles (LEV). They have an upper speed limit of 25 or 35 MPH depending which state they're in. They are available NOW in almost all states. Google names like ZENN, Dynasty IT, Miles Electric, GEM, ZAP. They are available now but have limitations being designed for putting around within 20 miles of home.

There are a couple of highway vehicles coming before 2010. Both ZENN and Miles plan to have regular sedans ready by 2009. Another is Phoenix Motors with their SUT and SUV. Tesla has already started work on their affordable sedan, code name white star, and hopes to have it on the road before 2010.

2010 is going to be a magic year. Chevrolet will have their Volt ready by November with the 2011 model year. It's not much of an EV, only goes 40 miles on electricity then the gas powered range extender kicks in to power the car. At least 3 Japanese companies, Subaru, Mitsubishi, and Nissan will begin importing full Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV) that get at least 80 MPC and more likely 120 MPC.

All I can tell you is, that you'll have to wait. Because in 2003 GM and the other car makers decided to DESTROY all of the EV's they had made in the pursuit of greed. See the film "Who Killed the Electric Car" for all of the idiotic details.

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electric car charger, can one charger work for different cars?

best electric cars 2009 image

Tj

What is the best electric car charger to install in a city? I am asking this because I am guessing that each car has it's own kind of charger. Is there a car charger that can charge any model of car?

Answer
It depends upon what you mean by "charger."

The present system for electric vehicles has a Battery Management System [BMS] take care of charging and discharging the battery among other things. The "charger" is part of the BMS which is specific to the vehicle type. A Tesla Roadster BMS is not going to work in a Nissan Leaf.

However what many people commonly refer to as the "charger" is the charging point that can be found in an EV owner's garage, at public charging stations and some dealerships. These often wall mounted "chargers" have limited electronics in them and are just a little more than adapters to a standard plug configuration. (SAE J1772 -2009 in the US)

The Tesla Roadster came out before the standard and an adapter set was sold with the car allowing you to plug into a dryer outlet and other 240 volt receptacles.

Most electric vehicles come with a cord that will allow you to plug into a standard 120 outlet. At this point you will more likely see the term "EVSE" to describe the cord. There are aftermarket upgrades to this cord that will allow you to plug into a 240 volt outlet. In many places it would not be strictly legal and would probably void a warranty. This article is one of the best discussions I have seen about this charging option: http://www.plugincars.com/cheap-charging-level-ii-doesnt-have-cost-2000-110210.html

So with the electronics on the vehicle that will accept either a 120 volt or a 240 volt source and a wall adapter that will provide either one the only question remaining is the plug. This is where the J1772 standard enters the picture. By having a standard plug for both voltage configurations you can plug your car into any wall public charging point and any vehicle can plug into that point.

In the US 120 volt charging is known as Level 1 charging while 240 volt charging is known as Level II charging. But some manufacturers want to cut out some of the inefficiency and shorten the charge times even further. For this there is Level III charging. This is typically a DC charge (almost) directly into the vehicle battery at 440 volts. Unfortunately at this level there is less consensus and there are several standards and different plug configurations.

The charge levels mean something different in most of the world outside of the US. While in the US the basic voltage is 120 in most of the world the basic supplied voltage is 240.

Does any body know how to build an electric go cart?

living one

I wanted a build go cart with an electric motor.
A motor like the ones with a generator, so when i get do i dont have to keep recharging the batteries for a long period of time.
Just like the knew electric cars coming out in 2009.
Advice and links needed

Answer
All the new electric cars need external charging unless they have a gas or diesel motor on-board as well.

It's true that each of these electric cars has a form of battery charging that uses the forward motion of the car to charge the batterys.

That type of recharging is thru what is called regenerative braking. In regenerative braking, the motor(s) act as the brakes when braking is needed & simultaneously as a generator to replace some of the battery's charge.

With regenerative braking it's unlikely that you will obtain a perfect balance between charging & discharging. You'll need some type of external charging unit to replace the missing energy.

Unless you travel downhill as much as going uphill, you wont replace all the energy it took to go up that hill with regenerative braking.

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