Hybrid and Electric cars from Chevy, Nissan, Mistubishi; DIY; electric drag racing
Andrew P. Tasi
Pricing was announced this week for the 2011 Chevrolet Volt and Nissan Leaf.
The Nissan Leaf ( http://www.nissanusa.com/leaf-electric-car/ ) will go on sale
in December of this year with "limited quantities in select markets". The MSRP
has been set at $32,780, which could be as low as $25,280 with the maximum
$7500 federal tax credit. Unlike the Volt, the Leaf is all-electric and will
have a range of approximately 100 miles.
The Chevy Volt ( http://www.chevrolet.com/pages/open/default/future/volt.do or
http://www.chevroletvoltage.com/ ) will initially start at $41,000, but tax
credits should bring the end-number down to $33,500; a 36-month lease will start
at $350/month. The Volt can be thought of as a "plug-in hybrid" - like the
Toyota Prius, Honda Insight, and other hybrids currently on the market, as Volt
will have an onboard gasoline engine. But unlike current hybrids, the Volt's
propulsion is solely electric - the onboard gas-motor is really a generator that
kicks to extend the range of the vehicle - GM calls this an E-REV, or Extended
Range Electric Vehicle. To illustrate:
- You decide to drive your Chevy Volt on a road trip. You begin the trip with a
full tank of gas and "fully charged" battery pack.
- To extend the life of the Lithium Ion battery pack, the Volt's "full" charge
will only 85% of the maximum potential charge.
- Leaving with a "full" charge, the Volt will burn no gas and operate solely as
an electric vehicle for up to 40 miles.
- Once the batteries are discharged to approximately 25%, the gasoline powered
generator will kick in to keep the battery pack charged between 25% and 30%
while you drive up to 300 additional miles at approximately 48 MPG.
- You can stop for gas, and keep driving another 300 miles.
So depending on how you drive a Volt, it would be technically possible to either
never buy gas OR never plug it in (but not both). The 2011 Volt will go on sale
later this year with Chevy planning to sell as many as 10,000 in the launch
markets of California, Washington DC, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Texas,
and Michigan. The Volt is expected to be offered throughout the rest of the
country by the 2012 model year.
The Mitsubishi i-MiEV (
http://www.mitsubishicars.com/MMNA/jsp/media.do?sID=0&aID=10 ) went on sale in
Japan in July of 2009 and will be sold in the US beginning in 2011. There are
some i-MiEVs already on US soil, but only for evaluation purposes by fleets and
government agencies.
The manufactures of all three of these vehicles claim you'll be able to charge
them with either 110/120V or 220/240V AC power, with the higher power recharging
the vehicle faster. Recharging options may become quite interesting. Nissan,
for example, is expecting to offer a home charging station that works with
either 110/120 Volt 20 Amp, 220/240V 40A, or 440/480V 80A AC power, with the
latter offering a "quick
charge" mode.
I've previously provided links to a number of DIY electric car projects,
and here's three more:
1) After a small fire in 2008, an owner of a 1974 VW Camper
bus decided to convert his vehicle to electric power:
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=8012
2) A 14 year old decided to convert his grandfathers VW Beetle into an electric
car:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128892473
http://www.greenoptimistic.com/2010/07/26/ashton-stark-convert-1972-beetle-electric-car/
3) Electric cars can be very fast in a straight line as well as this 1978
Pinto(!) demonstrates:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112006313
Lastly, check out NEDRA - the National Electric Drag Racing Association:
http://www.nedra.com/
Cheers,
Andrew P. Tasi