By now you’ve all probably heard about electric powered cars. Advocates for electric powered cars believe they will be the way of the future as the technology develops and some people argue that you don’t really get any bang for buck, but for fun, lets check out the new electric powered sports cars that are being created by the likes of Tesla motors, Mercedes and Rimac to name a few.
GM motors really were the ones who pushed forward the electric car ‘movement’ in the form of the EV1 (Above) from 1996 to 2002 in California. Due to pollution levels, the Californian government cracked down hard on emissions aiming to reduce smog that was at critical levels. Hundreds of EV1s were ‘leased’ out to potential buyers to test the consumer viability of the car. While customer reaction to the EV1 was positive, GM believed that electric cars occupied an unprofitable niche of the automobile market and ended up crushing all their electric cars regardless of protesting customers. In GM’s view, the EV1 was not a failure, but the program was doomed when the expected breakthroughs in battery technology did not take place within the anticipated time line. Not to mention the political pressure from the Bush administration and we all know where their interest lay. But boy oh boy, has it now. The cars that are coming onto the luxury market are beyond impressive.
Most of you have probably heard of Tesla. Tesla motors have been working diligently at producing Battery Electric Vehicles and created the Roadster in 2008. The Tesla Roadster uses an AC motor descended directly from Tesla’s (the man not the company) original 1882 design. The Roadster is the first production automobile to use lithium-ion battery cells and the first production EV with a range greater than 320km per charge. It isn’t cheap however, coming in at around $200,000 AUD.
As technology develops, these cars become more like super cars than sports cars. That is indicative when you look at the new Mercedes SLS AMG electric drive sports car. Released in 2013, the SLS AMG Electric Drive will include a liquid-cooled 400V lithium-ion batteries rated to 60kWh that delivers a range of 250km. The SLS AMG Electric Drive is powered by four electric motors with combined ratings of 552kW. Each motor can spin up to 13,000 rpm and weighs 45kg. In addition, the transmission allows each motor to selectively drive all 4 wheels which seems to be the going thing for maximum output of these super cars. If you’ve got a spare $500,000 in the bank and this baby could be all yours.
If you really wanted to push the limits of what a car could or should be then the Rimac Concept 1 is right up your ally. The car was produced to be the worlds first electric ‘super car’. With a total output of 811kW and a top speed of 304km/h, the Concept One will go 0 to 100km/h in about 3 seconds. Each wheel is powered by a separate liquid-cooled permanent magnet electric motor and controlled by the “All Wheel Torque Vectoring System” that distributes the power to the wheels in accordance with user setup and driving conditions. The motors are powered by a 91 kWh lithium iron phosphate battery that pumps out a whopping drive time of 500km before having to recharge but with a $1,000,000 price tag its sure to be a limited run in late 2015
Obviously these aren’t your average family vehicles but as far as luxury automobiles go they are definitely taking their petrol powered adversary’s for a ride. Even more amazingly just this year in an effort to boost global electric vehicle production Tesla motors released all their technology patents for any one to use for free! So don’t be too shocked if you start to see an influx of EV’s on the market for sports cars and the good old family wagon and with longer battery life, impressive speeds, and charging stations beginning to pop up on highways around the world, the issues that were faced by the EV1 seem to be in the past. Now, if only they could fly..
C.Reynolds
