Electric Universe
We are living in very interesting times, it is a proven fact that our generation has seen the most number of changes. Be it technological advances, change in society or even economical changes. But these interesting times have recently become a little troubled thanks to so many crisis that have occurred lately. And there are so many that just counting them gives us a need for an aspirin. Be it the recent recession, inflation along with recession, food crisis, draught, and the cherry on the cake and a major pain in the neck, oil crisis. Amongst all this lies one little thing that is everybody’s dream whether they accept it or not: Cars.
Everybody has a dream car, for some its a long and luxurious Mercedes S-350 or the BMW 7-series, others like sports cars like the Porsche Boxter or the BMW Z4. Then there are a few who wouldn’t go for anything below beasts like Lamborghini Murcielago or a Ferrari 599GTB.
Like me.
But there’s a catch, with all the crisis looming around especially the oil crisis, these cars are en-route to becoming highly endangered species. Mainly because of the fuel guzzler tag that they have. That means by time we are able to afford one, the only ones we’ll find will either be in private museums or the junkyard and even if we do manage to get our hands on one some, how on earth are we going to drive it without oil?
The answer, is one word: Electricity.
Electricity is the most widely used source of power in the world. It powers everything from light bulbs to car factories, even our own bodies use electrical signals to operate . While most people were fighting over oil an contemplating the end of cars, others were busy developing hybrid cars, namely Toyota & Honda.
First let me highlight the differences between a hybrid and an out and out electric car. There is actually just one difference, hybrid cars use both an internal combustion engine (petrol or diesel) and a relatively small 43-50kw(50-70 bhp) motor. Hybrid cars cut out the fuel supply during rush hour or city drive when the car does not go over 40kph. But once on the highway the engine is re-fed with fuel to achieve higher speeds, this in turn saves fuel and when on the highway the electric motor is charged by the engine itself. An electric car on the other hand uses electric motors either on two or all the 4 wheels delivering the power to the wheels, these are connected to a number of batteries mostly lithium-ion. These cars eliminate the use of oil altogether but need a plug-in charge(as if we were complaining).
Now imagine that technology in our fuel guzzling dream cars, they will be everything they are except fuel guzzlers and also will be a tad quieter. In 2008 Tesla an American car maker built a car, the Tesla roadster, a Lotus Elise inspired car with a fully electric motor capable of 125mph(electronically limited) and this was the first car to use a lithium-ion battery which has claimed the longest range till date, a little over 300km. Not bad for a car that can be charged in a little over an hour.
And that is just the beginning, come 2009 at the Frankfurt auto show Audi released its latest effort to please the environmentalists and petrol heads alike, the Audi E-Tron concept. Sounds like the star of the next Transformers movie and considering its performance figures it just might be there and it looks very futuristic and rather, empty. However this car boasts of 4 electric motors mounted just above the wheels to keep the weight equally distributed, this is further connected to lithium-ion batteries behind the driver’s cabin which provide the fuel to the powerhouses. The motors produce a little over 230kw(313bhp), don’t wrinkle your noses because it can do 0-100 in 4.8 sec. and has a rolling acceleration from 60-120kph in 4.1 sec. This car has so much torque that it can literally rip your head off, a jaw breaking figure of 3319 lb-ft and a range of 248km when fully charged and Audi claim that it can be fully charged from empty in under an hour.
Mercedes isn’t far behind either, they released their eco-friendly weapon of mass destruction the Mercedes SLS AMG Gullwing E-drive along with their new supercar the SLS AMG which is set to rival the new prancing horse the Ferrari 458 Italia . The E-drive has 4 electric motors mounted over each wheel together dishing out 392kw of power which is equal to 525bhp. It accelerates from 0 to 100kph in under 4.0 sec. Mercedes neglected to mention the top speed of this new generation supercar but its bound to be enough to outrun a plane. The motors are powered by rows of liquid-cooled lithium-ion batteries laid out in the car to keep the gravity of the car dead centre. Even Lamborghini is going green but not entirely, their latest concept , Estoque is said to be a hybrid concept but it is doubtful that it will make it debut on the road. Lamborghini have promised to launch a hybrid car for the road in the near future. But driving a noiseless Lamborghini through a neighbourhood defeats the point of buying one in the first place, but on the highway we can let her rip and enjoy the glorious engine noise.
However Ferrari have no plans of making a car that doesn’t cause the environmentalists’ noses to wrinkle anytime soon. But there are rumours of a ‘green Ferrari’ under works but there are no released pictures but its apparently called the FFX Millechilli, and it has cardboard as one of its body materials. Cardboard? are they serious? I hope not.
Then there is another car that has created quite a flutter but not many people know about it. Its a German car maker called Wolf and car is called model e-2. This is a pure German electric supercar and it looks like anything but German. It has a max. power output of 200kw but its enough for a car that weighs just 900 kg. 0-100, 3.0sec. flat, 0-200, 7.0 sec and an electronically limited top speed of 250kph a range of 400km and recharge time of under 30 min., that’s quicker than my phone charge. It has a lot of Enzo-ness in the front, from the side it looks like a Koenigsegg from 2050 and from the back it just looks like an X-wing fighter straight out of star wars. In a nutshell, its absolutely gorgeous.
But there is a flipside to this fantasy land of green supercars and that is, they are bound to be very very expensive. so Expensive that even Bill Gates will need to think twice before buying one of these. So that means even though we will be saving fuel we’ll be spending a lot nonetheless. Interesting. But then something’s got to give right?
