GM has already killed off one electric car - the EV1 was a product tragically ahead of its time - but the company is now committed to building an improved version:
The new car, to be unveiled as a prototype early next year, would use an onboard internal-combustion engine as a generator to produce electricity to extend the range of the vehicle's rechargeable batteries.
The idea was greeted enthusiastically by Chris Paine, director of "Who Killed the Electric Car?" The recent documentary took GM to task for creating and then abandoning the first production electric vehicle since the early 1900s.
"Bring it on," he said, noting that he has never doubted GM's ability to produce an environmentally friendly electric vehicle but has criticized its commitment to marketing one.
"I hope this one can get from concept to showrooms," Paine said.
Some environmental activists also seemed intrigued by the idea, noting that though it is not a "pure" electric vehicle like the battery-powered EV1, a generator-driven hybrid electric car would still consume far less fuel than a vehicle that relied on a larger, thirstier gasoline or diesel engine for propulsion.
Is Detroit finally getting serious about improving its environmental track record?
PS. GM also just announced that they are developing a new Hummer truck, which is exactly what the world needs right now.
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GM is committed to building a prototype, and showing it off at auto shows. As expressed in that article, there is no stated commitment to selling a production model - yet.
It will be interesting to see the prototype. If the engine is used solely for electrical generation, that opens the path to changing the basic geometry of the vehicle. For example, in some of GM's futuristic concept schemes, the central engine and transmission are replaced with electric motors at each wheel. Nothing this radical has appeared in commercially-available hybrids yet.
That new Hummer they talk about is slated for 2009. Assuming that's the model year, it could be on the streets as early as 2008. That gives some sort of idea about how long it takes to go from concept to product, and a new Hummer is a lot less radical departure than an electric car.
Mustafa, I remember seeing an antique firetruck (about 1908-1911?) that had an electric motor at each wheel, as well. They were slightly ahead of their time, I guess.
Far from an electic car, this is really a car with an electric transmission. While an improvement over current hybrids, which have regenerative braking coupled to a weak electric motor, but utilize a standard engine/transmission combo for general driving, it is still not an electric car.
The best feature of the implementation of this technology is that it allows the replacement of the internal combustion engine with another power source (battery, fuel cell, ultra-capacitor, fusion reactor, etc..). While battery technology is still the feature holding up electric cars, several other developments (cheaper, high quality electric motors, reasonably priced motor control systems), are also a good bit off and developing these will be beneficial.
As far as the new Hummer's go, they have a msssive profit margin. Maybe those will fuel R&D...
When may we expect Harry Potter's fireplace to be available to speedily transport us, and our paraphernalia, without polluting the environment - that's the news break through I'm waiting for. Cheers
http://whitterer-autism.blogspot.com
Your choice of nomenclature is a bit nonstandard and therefore misleading. As I understand it, the entire drivetrain would be electric.
Mr. Lehrer, I submitted a post with several links, which must be sitting a queue somewhere waiting for your approval. Please approve it, it's good stuff.
Mr. Mond - The comment has yet to show up in my junk queue, which is where most comments with lots of links end up. I'll approve it ASAP...Sorry about the delay...
Well, you may consider my description non-standard, but it is not misleading. The power is coming from a gasoline engine, thus, it is not an electric car. What are the generator and electric motors replacing? The transmission.
An electric car has to have a power source that generates electricity, if that power source is a gasoline engine (even if you call it a generating plant), it's NOT an electric car.
The mechanical force driving the wheels comes from the motor(s). Your usage is quite unconventional.
Well then, if we're allowed to extend the chain of causality backwards, it's not a gasoline-powered car either. It's a solar-powered car! They're all solar-powered cars! Ooh, let's go back even further: they're all powered by the Big Bang!
Sounds like an electric car to me. If, in the future, they rip out the gasoline engine and replace it with a hydrogen fuel cell or solar cells or a windmill or a wave-powered turbine, it will still be an electric car.
Sounds like a great engineering compromise to me. But I can't help but wonder. How much would such a thing cost? Would putting both gasoline and batteries into the same car make it weigh a lot, or give it poor gas mileage? I'm very curious to see what this thing's like once they start showing it to the public.
Does anyone know, how quickly did these charge, and how much did they cost (in dollars) to perform a charge?
Here's the latest on the GM electric car, the details of which remains underwraps. From Auto Blog:
Andrew Frank, a professor at the University of California-Davis who is credited with developing the first plug-in hybrid, believes it's likely to be a series hybrid rather than the more common parallel-type hybrids that are sold today. This means that the internal combustion engine on board will not be directly attached to the drivetrain, but act merely as a generator to fill the batteries up with juice when they're low. This advanced technology is common on large locomotives, and some have suggested it will be used in the future on heavy duty pickups to greatly increase torque ratings.
If you ask me, I'd go with a small diesel engine and a big lithium battery. It would make the Prius look like a suburban.
Another comment of mine "held for approval" - you must seek out the hidden dungeon and release the captive posts.
Atkinson cycle engines