700hp Lightning GT EV on track for 2010 launch

MUCH nicer looking. glad to see an EV that stuck to the promises.

now the big question... how much does it cost?

10 minute to fill? Sure, and the charging cable will melt. Unless it's as wide as my neck.

Maximum power at all rpms, shouldn't that be maximum torque at all rpm's? Usually electric engines deliver top power at max rpm since power=torque*rpm.
Am I misinformed?

All these new electric offerings are great, but the elephant in the room is the lack of a carbon offset for production of the electricity needed to run them. This seems to be a "running in place" exercise- I don't see the environmental benefit of these things- and isn't that the whole idea- environmental friendliness?

hmmm I checkted the official site. They say \"maximum available power at the wheels at any speed.\"

http://www.lightningcarcompany.com/technology.php

Unless the power is created via a nuclear plant, but then that's a sticky subject as well, I guess...

ok,... time to comment from an electrical engineer:

raptor: the cable wouldnt need to be that large. cable size is based on current. its likely that these motors are high voltage motors. voltage doesnt determine cable size. high tension power lines are running in the 115kV and up range, and are no larger than 2" around yet supply electricity to entire cities. because of the increase in voltage. 10 minute changing is no problem. the cable could be as small as a heavy duty extension chord (although beefed up insulation would be needed for the higher voltages). the reason why a 10 minute charge time is impressive is because batteries act as a load in a charging condition and thus emit heat which damages the battery.

raymand: jezza got it right. yes, max torque is available at all RPMs but power in an electric motor is a function of the current through the windings; something easily controlled by the controller. power isnt exactly torque*rpm, its torque/time, or more generally, work/time. because max torque is available at any one instant, max power is available at any one instant as well. they go hand in hand. strictly speaking however, when you're talking about a rotating shaft, torque is all you care about.

JD: the environmental benefit is very clear if you know the electric power generation industry. every power plant in the western world (including the very dirty coal generation) is much cleaner than any internal combustion engine for personal transportation in production today. you see, even trains pollute less because they're a little less "throw away" so more advanced technologies are put into these items than say, a similar diesel truck, or your TDI jetta. power plants are the same way. theyre built with 50 years of operation in mind. millions of dollars worth of technology are invested to make the generation as efficient as possible, and then environmental standards require that the exhausts are filtered in ways that car exhaust will never be filtered. its like comparing your car engine to your lawn mower. they both put out probably the same amount of pollution but one is much much smaller and delivers much less power. yes, the electricity coming out of the wall isnt exactly clean, but even if it was entirely coal based, it would still be cleaner than a prius. imagine this: gas stations getting demolished and replaced with some sort of green station. one that sells electricity for cars at higher premiums than the other electricity fillup stations because this one doesnt pull from the dirty grid but actually makes its own hydro electric power on site. imagine having an EV and living in ontario, quebec, or north eastern US. all your power comes from niagara. you're driving a 0 impact car.

not to mention it regulates the power industry,.. unlike what some people say. some people argue that theres already an electric power shortage. the problem isnt capacity but peak capacity. think about it... the california brown outs were happening in the middle of the summer, in the middle of the day. hottest temperatures call for the most airconditioners. i can assure you that your local utility's loading goes down to about 30% at night. imagine if everyone was plugging in their cars during that time. power distribution would get regulated.

if this idea sounds absurd to you, read up about ice fueled air conditioning. its used in big buildings because large buildings pay for electricity based on peak power demand, not the amount of energy they consume. they can keep their peaks low by using electricity at night and freeze large blocks of ice, to be used by the air conditioning system during the day.

Charging for 250 miles in 10 minutes???
Ridiculous lame! From where? From a powerplant directly?
Maybe they want to sell this car to powerplants only :)

Hey, after reading Chris' response on power generation, it does make some more sense to me.
There is no doubt that the electric car is the best idea, and if they can truly charge the battery in 10 minutes (and you know this is going to get shorter and shorter) then I am willing to wait an extra few minutes to fill up.
The only other problem I see is what happens when you run out of juice away from a recharging station? You can't just have a tow truck bring you a can of gas. Will tow trucks of the future carry around supplemental power in the form of a generator or battery pack that can charge you car enough to make it to a charging station?
I, personally, look forward to an electric Mustang GT convertible (I know, blasphemy, the exhaust sound is half the fun, right?). Endless torque, no noise. Wouldn't bother me a bit. And I have always longed for an silent powerboat, silent off-road motorcycle (I wonder how you would rescue that if you ran out of power, can't just siphon electricity, can you?), silent airplane with solar panels on the wings and elevator. The most fun I had as a pilot was taking an ultralight to 10,000 feet and turning the engine off to glide all the way back down...

Very interesting Chris. Good points.

Thanks for the comments everyone. To answer your questions, the car can supposedly charge for 250miles after just 10 mins however you might need a more powerful electricity connection for it. The company has explained this on their site:

Q. How does the Lightning charge its battery system?
A. The Lightning has a built in battery charging and control system. Simply plug the car's charging lead into your home's electric power point and you'll soon be charged and ready for the next journey. The lead is 12 feet long (optional 20 foot extension cable available). The electronics take care of various power sources that it can receive power from. It's as simple as that! There are a number of different sources that can be utilised with this cable and charging times can vary depending on the state of the batteries and also the power source chosen.

Q. How will the Lightning be charged away from home?
A. Standard single phase home type power source can be used to charge overnight and is available just about anywhere by using the onboard charger. For a fast charge a 3 phase power supply is required and with the interest in electric powered vehicles increasing significantly, more high power charging stations will be installed. Most garage forecourt and industrial areas already have this level of high power source available and therefore can be fitted with a universal charging station.

gorgeous
the front end is how a aston martin should look like and the maserati can take some cues from overall body styling and apply it to their future models

I assumed it wasn't just a 110 volt outlet.
I'm sure what we'll see eventually is a "gas" station where these high power charging stations are available, once a standard is agreed upon and batteries are found that can quick charge and don't deteriorate over time.

No way, No way, No way is this car going to travel 250 miles on a 10 minute charge.
An all electric Fiat (using the same type batteries) traveled 186 miles with 3 recharges with a 3 phase external charger. The Phoenix trucks only claim to go 100 miles. It has to have a high powered external charger as well to make the 10 minute charge. The on-board charger takes 6 hours. And to top it all off the Lightning GT has more motors.
To use a line by Gary Busey in "Gumball Rally", if this car does what it claims I'll eat my Airedale.

With all this talk about recharging time, hasnt anyone noticed how incoherent their power and speed / acceleration claims are. I mean, 700 hp and only a top speed of 130 mph?? 700 hp and a 4 second 0-60 sprint? C'mon somethings off here.

The reason for the low top speed is that there is no gearbox. Nothing funny in those figures.

plenny is exactly right. no gears. thats why tesla is all gung-ho about a gear box on an electric car. a 700 hp electric motor isnt anything particularly insane, specially if the battery pack runs at a high voltage. but theyve done the very smart thing here and made it with 4x175 hp motors, which make the overall motor package larger but much more flexible.

as the admin has pointed out, 10 minute charging is done with 3 phase, 600 volt power. much more energy capacity than a single phase 120 volt service in your house. and really, if you think about it, a 10 minute charge at a station is the only time u need it, if your charging at home, an hour or two charge time will do just fine.

also, thats not a complete charge. there is what is called "trickle charging" which more effectively charges the battery and i would expect this car has been designed for a trickle charge time of 8 hours.

realize the battery technology used in this car is ridiculously advanced.

gus: realize that every gas station needs electricity to power the pumps that get the gas into your car. where theres a gas station, there could be a charging station. 3 phase power is available almost everywhere, and certainly everywhere there is a gas station standing today.

THIS CAR right here is the reason why i like hybrids. it gets giants like gm, toyota, and ford, thinking in kWh's and not MPG's. THIS IS THE FUTURE. MUCH cheaper, safer, and with higher theoretical output than hydrogen fuel cells. and not to mention, its cleaner too.

think about this: in a hydrogen economy, a power plant would make electricity that is used to separate water. hydrogen is transported PHYSICALLY to you. you use it to turn it back into electricity. all it is is a storage medium. its a battery.

in an electric economy, electricity is sent across the nation at very high efficiency through wires with VERY little loss, and you charge your car. no physical transport of millions of gallons of hydrogen...

and like i said, the storage capacity of batteries is already higher than that of hydrogen. hydrogen is just a sexy pipe dream.

regarding 3 phase electricity, i must clarify, 600 volt 3 phase is a canadian standard. in the US, 3 phase is 440 volt, and in other parts of the world, who knows. it varies a lot more than 1 phase voltage which is either 50 or 60 hz, 110 or 220 volts.

IT IS SHIT, WHERE ARE THE SOLAR PANELS. IT PROBABLY MAKES THE SAME AMOUNT OF POLLUTION AS A TOYOTA HILUX. wHERE DO THEY GET THE ENERGY TO CHARGE THE BATTERIES (A COal FACTORY) WHICH POLLUTES A LOT

hey bob. i've worked in nuclear, natural gas, hydro-electric and coal power plants and i can tell you that this car will pollute less than a prius no matter where the electricity comes from. so long as it isnt coming from china.

why cant the batteries charge themselves if an alternator is fitted or surely the physical movement of the car could be used to recharge the batteries. if this was possible then the batteries would never need to be charged. AM I MISSING SOMETHING HERE.

az; an alternator turns the mechanical rotation of a drive shaft into electrical energy to recharge your battery after its spent itself starting the engine. this car has no engine. GM uses this in "mild hybrids". basically, the alternator is bigger to charge more batteries faster, and under lower loads, the alternator turns the crank instead of the pistons.

the movement of the car could be used to charge the batteries? you must be thinking about kinetic watches or something along those lines (kinetic watches require very little power compared to the energy that your body makes to move. they simply extract some of that energy and turn it into time-keeping energy).
Remember the most fundamental law of physics. energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed. this is an all electric car that will turn electrical energy into movement. what your saying is to take that movement and turn it back into electricity to turn it back into movement? you ARE missing something because in the end, you're saying that the kinetic energy of a car can be used to create that same kinetic energy in the car. this is perpetual motion, and it is heresy. energy can only be converted from one form to another. in the standard car, chemical energy is turned into mechanical (rotational) energy. in an electric car, electric stored energy is converted into rotational energy. what your suggesting is a car that takes the energy of its movement and stores it, in order to make it move again. this would only work in a perfect world where energy conversion is perfect, energy storage is perfect, and theres no friction, air resistance, or any sort of losses what so ever. you could pump a car full of energy and make it recover anything it uses. in a perfect world.

Amazing, this is the type of car the ''BIG'' European manufactures such as BMW, Mercede Benz and VW should be making

Hi all

Well, I am writing from Portugal, and currently I am working in a private company that is doing what is possible to be more friendly environmetal.

This is not a easy task, because so many solutions at the end are not what they seem, but just marketing "Green", but not so Green.

My biggest doubt here is about bateries, because I am not a technitian, and for example the Prius it seems that the bateries are not so good for environment as the car it seems, and How about bateries of Tesla and Lightning Car Company?

I have studied the sites of Tesla Motors ( www.teslamotors.com ) and the Lightning Car Company ( www.lightningcarcompany ), and it seemed to me that the Tesla site was better concerning information, but if I had money I would buy the Lightning.

First - I would say, that urgent and important is that this techonology must be monotorized by Environmental Organizations to certify them or not, and then about electricity there is being happen some developments for the near future that this might be a solution, and just please look at this site:

http://1366tech.com/v1/

Second - Apply urgently this technology to other cars and not only for sport cars, and spread it to all automotive industry, in order that scale production reduces greatly the cost.

Well, I just would like to say that "Tornado" was not a well know word in Portugal, but last week happen twice.

So, things must be done and quickly.

Good luck for Tesla and Lightning Car Company, that I hope they will set up a new standard in industry, it is a pitty that they do not have capacity of production enough, and so very probably other trademarks do not feel afraid.

I hope others might appear to shake up...

Fernando

The LIGHTNING sounds like a futuristic car, which, if only part of this were true
then we are heading in the right direction. But, technically something is fishy here.
The CHARGING SYSTEM on this car sounds impractical. But, beautiful and working
toward a feasible EV, well, gotta give 'em credit for that. Let's see what develops
in the very near future.

mario, I've already explained in comments further up that recharging this car quickly at a station is very possible. the kind of power capabilities on a normal household circuit are not nearly high enough to charge this car in any less than 8 hours, but provided the batteries can handle the very quick rise in temperature associated with a fast charge, you could expect an "industrial" electric circuit to recharge this car in the minutes that the article claims.

nothing is wonky about these claims at all. the power of electricity!

I just want to say that its great that this car is really coming to fruition. as far as electric systems are concerned, a 175 hp motor is nothing, and putting one on all 4 wheels isn't very difficult. these electric drive systems have been in industry for decades... i should expect a thansition to electric vehicles to follow the manufacturability of the batteries very closely.

LOL, Chris stole the show, what else can I add?
Lets see, What about the price? Oh wait someone mention it already.
I like the looks anyway.

The Lightning will give Tesla a run for its money.
A fast run if the Lighning company can hold its promises - Tesla let thier (ADVANCED-paying) customers down for 4 years in a row.

The Lightning car is, if the tech spects are becoming only halfway true, a century advanced above
the comparable technical "primitive" setup of the Tesla "soap-box" approach.

Beyond the Teslas Lotus body there is not much technical advanced we did not had 1910 - even less...

Boris - A burned Tesla evangelist...

My only question is - why is the hood long enough to fit V12 in there, yet it has 4 motors (one each wheel). What do they keep in there?
I would capitalize on the fact that I don't need the bulky engine, and come up with non-traditional car design.

Chris, what about the vertical movement of the car aiding in the recharging of the batteries? I read recently in Tokyo, they are generating electricity from their freeways. As cars pass over plates in the road, they generate electricity. I know it's probably not much, but maybe every little bit helps. And it's virtually free, isn't it?

probably cause they've borrowed someone elses chassis or something...good point tho - Ivan

Having driven the Tesla, I can say I would really miss the targa top.

If it is an all electric car why the exhaust tip?

mcw,were did you read that artical about the freeways in tokyo id like to read that
thanks

goodness! charging up in 10 minutes seems incredible - hopefully that tech trickles down to the masses!

Love it!

Industrial lift trucks ("forklifts") have run on battery power in warehouses for decades. They use regular, wet-cell batteriers, the larger version of your standard car battery.

With new battery technology we will see more and more all-electric cars being promoted. They will work. The first few may not be practical, but eventually we will be driving them around town. Distance may continue to be a problem, but commuting travel will not be an issue.

The only reason hydogen is even on the table is because it's much easier to regulate. What I'm really saying is that it's much easier for 'the man' (a.k.a, Govt / Big Business / Oil Companies) to charge us for it because they would deliver it to us like they do with gasoline. Fears with fully electric cars is that 'they' lose a measure of control when we 'fill up'.

I argue that there are entities that currently impede the introduction of mass-use electric cars. We will not be able to buy an EV from the car companies that we grew up with.

Did you know that it's possible to build a full sized electric vehicle (EV), freeway capable for more than 100 miles per charge with batteries that last the life of the vehicle, and with air conditioning and power windows, etc. (not the costly Tesla). This is without research into Lithium or other exotic batteries (like the Tesla) but instead with proven Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) batteries. This car has been on the road for 10 years now as an embarrassment to the entities that stand against the existence of an electric vehicle: It is the Toyota electric Rav4, and there are about 600 of them still operating in California.

The "research required" line we have been told repeatedly is misinformation, which unfortunately, most of us believe.

Who does not want EV's in our driveways:

-Big Automakers, because they, and their dealer networks do not earn significant revenue by selling cars. A look at how large their service departments are (and our out-of-wallet experience with them) shows what's at stake revenue-wise because EV's never need service beyond tire changes. EV's don't even need brake jobs due to electronic regenerative braking that does most of the work. Their ordinary friction brake pads and rotors thus last the life of the car (as shown on the Toyota electric Rav4).
The large established car companies depend on their service department, like printer companies depend on sales of ink cartridges. So why did Toyota sell the Rav4 instead of leasing and crushing as GM did with the EV1? It's a mystery, but I came across a blog that mentioned that a Toyota exec at a public speech mistakenly said that the cars would be sold, and so to save face, Toyota reluctantly sold the Rav4. Buyers, however, now post on blogs that they actually had difficulty in getting the Toyota dealer to sell them an electric Rav4 and that they were highly pressured to instead buy a Gas Toyota or a Prius. As a journalist, you can probably resolve this apparent contradiction of why Toyota would build the Rav4 EV but not want to sell it.

-Large oil companies, for obvious reasons. Note they are also major stockholders in auto companies and thus have influence over their board of directors. Note that it takes only 6% of stock ownership in a company to be able to force them to allow you onto their board. This flaw is extensively being exploited by so called "activist investors" to invade companies and then to ruin them by making them split up and be sold, etc. For the auto firms, though, the oil companies mearely make sure EVs do not make it out of "research".

Business firms exist to make profits, but profits are going to be reduced if EV's replace the ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) car. Much of our economy is based on the automobile, and its upkeep. Almost every business is related in some way to the car. What will happen to employment if the need to service a car is reduced?

What happens to Midas, Pepboys, Kragen's, smog check, AMCO, gas stations, Jiffylube, general service repair centers, the manufacturing plants that fabricate repair parts, the UPS people that deliver the parts, the corner deli or Taco Bells frequented by those firm's workers at lunchtime? What about government agencies that depend on collecting all manner of tax revenue from the above interlinked economy?

If people understand this scenario, then they will understand why they can't yet buy an EV from the legacy business infrastructure. Only recently can one sniff the scent of a potential EV from upstart EV boutique manufacturers like Tesla (too costly for mass production partly because they hand-solder a battery pack of 6000 Lithium flashlight battery sized cells together in series-parallel groups, and it is a difficult feat to electrically balance the cells so that they work together and share the work equally lest some over-tasked cells be strained and thus fail, eventually causing the whole pack to fail), Aptera, BugE, etc., because a startup company does not need to address the risk that a service-free vehicle will parasitically affect revenue from other parts of its company.

Curiously, besides Mitsubishi, Nissan's CEO has advocated a pure EV but I have a hard time believing he really will build one and that the announcement is mostly PR in nature. After all, Nissan has their cash-cow service departments too.

What could replace displaced jobs from the ICE economy? Anyone who has flown from California to Florida has seen that most of the American land in between is empty and that a sizable portion of it is desert-like with plenty of sun exposure. This land could be loaded with massive solar and energy storage farms. This would employ a sizable workforce to build and then to maintain them. Solar farms could be photovoltaic or solar thermal. Energy storage, for evening power delivery, could be networks of batteries, massive flywheel generators, or pumped water elevated reservoirs for hydro power generation. Costly? Yes enormously so, but so was the Manhattan Project and so is the Iraq war, national ventures not undertaken for profit and thus cost justification. How much of the above could have already been built with the funds spent in Iraq? Some people advocate nuclear power, but I would encourage solar as being risk-free. One exciting company in my city of San Jose, Nanosolar http://www.nanosolar.com/ seems to have developed solar photovoltaic panels at 1/10 the existing cost. They can print them off like sheets of a newspaper.

Final Comment: There is a viable battery already proven to last the life of an electric car and to provide a driving range of more than 100 miles between charges; the "95 AH (Amp Hour) NiMH Large Format" battery. This powers the Rav4 EV.
This battery is no longer sold (why?), but instead a much smaller capacity battery, a 10 AH NiMH battery is sold to go into the hybrid cars we now drive. This smaller 10 AH capacity battery insures the car still mostly runs on gas. A web search will reveal that a major oil company holds the patents on this battery, and they sued Panasonic for 30 million dollars and had the factory that made them dismantled.

There are many web sites that explore these issues. Google: "Rav4 EV" or "95 AH Large Format NiMH battery", or you can visit this EV web site: http://www.evprogress.org/ which has various links and research.

Lookin' great, and Hot!!!!!!
I wonder if this will reach USA shores?!

electro cars are green...look up electro magnetic generators...put one of those at a charging station and its a purely non-cabon and non anything based system

I think Chris should be paid to answer questions on the site. His contributions to this discussion have been awesome.

ivan & dandan: my answer here is, this car LOOKS awesome, looks POWERFUL, because of that huge hood. sure they could really put the batteries anywhere, but if you have to contribute a large volume of the car to batteries, why not put them in a position that we've come to recognize to mean power... under a very long hood ;) i believe this car is entirely fresh engineering. this isnt some electric lotus. if you want to see what an electric car would look like with the flexibility of the electric model.. look at GM's HyWire concept. the entire car is an 11 inch tall platform. everyone alive today knows the car as a very rigid device, and it will help if we stick within those boundaries for the time being (i think)

mcw & boney; the tokyo highway makes me uneasy. theres a law in science about energy not being created or destroyed, only converted. it is the reason why you cant put a wind mill on your car and then expect the car to get up to speed and be powered by the same wind mill you're pushing (see a recently posted article on this site that suggests theres a firm in britain doing exactly that. in truth its an electric car made by a green energy provider that is "selling" you green power to charge your car). basically, i dont trust those claims. scientific convention says that if a road is making power because a car is driving over it, then that power is actually coming from that car. theres no such thing as magic, and there is no free lunch.

carlos: exhaust tip? you mean that low slung brake light? cause i cant see anything in those ground effects.

arthur.. very paranoid view, if you dont mind me saying. who taxes your power consumption? who regulates the power industry.. hell.. the government OWNS the power industry in parts of the world. the truth is that fuel cells potentially have much more power than any conceivable battery technology.. so hydrogen fuel cells are really seen as the best sort of "end game". a half a gallon of hydrogen has just as much "tank to wheel" energy as a 20 gallon tank of 87 octane.

mark reynolds: no... comment. actually... to hell with that. say what you want about big business in america but there are countries and corporations that are big enough to market this magic car you speak of. i think the demand for such a wonder product is clear.. and i think GM's efforts to do a plug in hybrid are well documented. we dont see these products yet for a reason. go visit japan, scandinavia, and other tech leaders like that.. tell me that advanced technology is being suppressed by big oil. and then pass me what ever you're smoking.

justin: electromagnetic generator?? you mean.. the way that effectively ALL electricity is generated? its a motor in reverse. you spin the shaft and you get electricity on the windings.. the problem is how do you spin the shaft? the answer: in nuclear plants.. through nuclear fire making steam that spins a turbine.. coal, makes steam,.. spins turbine... natural gas turbines.. hydro electric dams spinning generators... the problem is.. finding a "green" way to spin the shaft. now.. if you're talking about the so called "motionless electromagnetic generator", you'll find that its just a concept that violates the most simple and basic fundamental laws of physics.

ken: i've definitely made a point of killing THIS thread specifically because this car really is amazing. advanced battery technology will be the new "engine development". electric motors are already very very good with little room for improvement, and electric drive systems are spectacular in theory and practise. the only problem is getting the power to the motors. but the admin of the site has already approached me for writing for this site, though i find my "free" time sporadic at best. i haven't really visited the site since the summer because i've been busy at work and over the next 8 months i suspect i'll be pretty silent on the whole. but it's definitely greatly appreciated.. your comments.




I thought i would add a comment about advanced battery technology. anyone who wants to read further about these things need to check out the following things: EEStor and ZENN motors out of toronto, and UltraCapacitors.

The Tesla is out of reach for most people at $120,000. And it has 6000 batteries and takes 3 hours to charge!!
The Lightening can go 300km on a single charge that only takes 10 minutes. And many people would gladly pay the 120,000 -160,000 pounds...and it goes zero to 94km in 4 seconds!

Not too many geographical markets that can support electrical cars yet (unfortunately).
Great looking vehicle though.

I know the owner of Lightening cars as this car uses our nuts and bolts. I also have seen this car in its petrol version which is stunning, specially with that roof off. This car is the start to the future in that it will charge fully in 10 minutes, and those figures of power and mileage are correct. If I could afford one, I would have one. Only one thing though, there is something missing from the rear, don't know if it needs a spoiler or that rear Jaguar type screen changing, but needs something there. Looks gorgeous, goes like most supercars, and will pay for itself in fuel and tax costs. My opinion....BUY ONE. Anybody, feel free to buy me one.

Oh, to all those sceptical people out there that think this car cannot do 250 miles on a ten minute charge, you are wrong. This car uses the latest battery technology which has only just been released, the military use it and I suggest you read up on it. The acceleration too, is constant from 0 rpm and so too is its torque. The only thing that governs this car too 130 mph is that it is a direct drive, its revs run flat out at 130 mph. I want a car to scare me, this does.