This car isn't designed for road tripping. It's designed as a commuter car to and from work etc. The sports car model is simply designed for fun.

Here's a scenario I've thought of.  Others have thought of it to, because they actually DID it with the Rav4 EV.



You produce an electric car that has enough range for most commuting and local driving.  Say 150-200 miles on a charge.  Most people would be able to get by on that with no problems.  For example, my commute to and from work is just over 50 miles.  On the weekends if I go to the field (archery) and run a few errands, I can do about 100 miles, maybe 120.  So 150-200 miles works fine.



For longer trips, you rent a generator that's strapped to a small trailer.  This generator would run off of gasoline or diesel.  Wanna drive across the country, shazam!  You can do it!  If you wanted, you could buy one of these trailers and stash it in your garage.  Heck, maybe even use it in SHTF situations.  



Then imagine if you didn't have one, and, oops, you forgot to plug in last night and now you're stuck 30 miles from home with a flat battery.  Hello?  AAA?  Yeah, I need a generator.  Thanks.  



30 minutes later, Bubba shows up with a generator trailer on the back of his flatbed.  Hooks you up, and the generator powers up and you're on your way home.  The next day, you drop by the shop and drop off the trailer and pay the 'dumbass fine'.   Life goes on.  





They actually did the trailer thing with the Rav4 EV.  Toyota didn't produce them, but some industrious individual did.  Not a bad idea.  Most of the time you won't need to lug around a generator, but for those rare times when you need one, you can easily pick one up.

BTW, I can't imagine McDonalds allowing everyone to run an extension cord out to their car to recharge it when the family stops in for a happy meal or two. Nor can I imagine all these cords running across the sidewalk downtown Chicago so Commuter Joe can recharge while he is at work.
Maybe a dedicated parking garage? Yeah, I can only begin to imagine monthly costs there. Or maybe the "electric gas" station? Instead of taking 5 minutes to fuel up it will take a minimum or forty five. Just how many "pumps" and how big of a lot is there going to be available? I don't even think I would want all the kinfolk plugging into my house to recharge during our thanksgiving hootenanny either.
Charging at home, yeah, fine. Out on the road, loads of problems to be solved.
Personally I think electrics would be fine for a daily commuter but would seriously suck on a road trip and I am not going to buy a separate car for each task nor do I think many people would. Double your insurance, taxes, maintenance etc. People want one car to do as much as possible (why do you think SUVs are so popular?)
It is going to take a long time for electrics to get to the level of convenience of gas engines and until they do I can't see them taking the lead.

ETA; homeowners can plug in at home. What about apartment dwellers or big city residents who are stuck with on street parking?
How far is someone willing to walk to their car on a rainy/snowing/100 degree day?

Years ago, I came across a website a guy had put up about his VW Rabbit that he had converted to electric.  For trips, he had the front end of a diesel rabbit (chopped it at the front edge of the doors and base of the windshield, and added a small fuel tank) that he had made a small trailer out of.  When the batteries got low on the highway, he'd fire up the diesel, switch the electric motor to regenerative mode, and let his trailer push the car.

Having a trailer that only generates electricity makes more sense, but his solution worked for him.

No, electrics are not for everybody, and they will most likely gradually grow in numbers as one option, not the 'only solution'.

For myself, I prefer small diesels for driving and electric for RC flying.  But the development of electric car technology is interesting to watch.

Pure electrics won't be for everybody, plug in hybrids are more practical and would probably get greater market penetration.



Both present workable solutions for a portion of the population.  It took awhile for horses to be replaced by automobiles.



The cord thing is temporary.  If electric or plug in hybrids start growing in number, parking areas will start to appear with automatic charging capability.  There will be standard charging slots under the car.  Think of a the old cell phone batteries that you slid into a separate charger.



Electric and plug in hybrids don't have to replace all cars.  Just being a percentage of cars will help reduce our dependency on imported oil.





 

If you charge the car at night, you're using cheap base load power supply generation (nuke or coal) rather than expensive peaker (natural gas) units.  I like using nuke/coal power because the US isn't dependent on foreign supplies and, of course, there's no road tax on them.

I fixed your quote.
Okay, assuming an 80% charger efficiency (and I am being kind to the charger), the 26% drops to a modest 21% which is in the ballpark of IC.  That magic charger ain't gonna run for free....


Now we are approaching 'normalized' data.  Of course, I am immediately suspect of any charts and graphs that have a .gov in the the url.  They ALWAYS seem to point in the direction that the graph-maker wants them to.  

Now, if I had a chainsaw engine running a generator charging a set of batteries to power my wheels, why wouldn't I just use the chainsaw engine to power my wheels?  It would be a much more efficient to use the power coming off of the flywheel than trying to store it.

You knew that a diesel-electric has more to do with starting tractive effort (torque characteristics of electric motors) and less to do with efficiency, right??  

I would really like to see normalized data that showed the true cost of energy with all of the costs and losses figured in.  This would include wind, solar, hydro, nuclear, coal, etc, etc.  The information would have to include subsidies, of course.
Does anyone have this data?

...snip
So, you used your solar panels at night and the generator during the day?  Isn't this a bit backwards?  

For the record, I am not pro IC and anti electric.  Creating (uh, I mean converting) energy is a piece of cake, storing it for later use is the issue.  Batteries work, but they are horribly inefficient.  They are getting better but they are still crummy.  

Caps might be a solution.  Maybe there is a better one out there waiting to be invented/discovered.

For me, I will continue to drive my 1 ton pickup with a diesel engine and get 15-18 mpg (loaded) until a better solution is found.  It will have another 400 miles on it  by the end of my day today.  I would love to say otherwise, but I don't see an electric in my near future.

The battery recharge time can be solved by making the batteries modular and easily removable.

Use the existing infrastructure of gas stations to store and recharge the batteries.
Pull into the gas station, they swap out your batteries for a fresh set.
They put your exhausted batteries on the charge bench and you pay and depart in 10 minutes.
You could island hop from station to station like you do now with gas.  (probably need a realistic range loaded of ~250-300 miles.

You'd pay for the recharge (and associated storage, maintenance costs) like you do gas.  But you'd always have to "fill 'er up".

This would keep newish batteries in your car at all times and reduce the charge time and eliminate the need to have to plug in everywhere you go.

The batteries on the charge bench would be monitored and pulled from circulation and recirculated if they were past their useful lives.

This solution would require that all batteries be built to the same form factor and carry the same capacity. Probably doable, but keep in mind that these batteries can be very heavy, and it would probably take several of them to power larger vehicles.
Sounds a lot easier than it is too.  Unless the batteries are built very small and light, it would take some machinery to load and unload the batteries, as well as some engineering solution to place them in an easily accessible spot (especially considering that the vehicle may be fully loaded).
Also keep in mind the electrical problems spawned from using mix and matched batteries.
With sufficient advances in battery tech, I think this approach might have some merit, but than again with a little more advances, it would be rendered obsolete.  Not sure anyone can justify spending so many billions of dollars creating this new system for such a small interim step.





Another issue would be accessibility.  Assuming your system runs as smoothly as and easily as a LP swap operation, there are still a lot of people unable to handle a 20# propane cylinder.



The thing is, gasoline and diesel are perfect solutions and they are working great right now.  We have tons of it here as well.  There is no reason why we shouldn't explore alternatives, provided it is being done with private research money, but there is no reason to kick oil in the nuts either.  The resource will literally last forever.
 

The solar panels weren't used at night, the batteries were.  The solar panels recharged the batteries the each day.  There are three reasons for using batteries at night.  1.  Batteries don't make noise.  2.  Batteries don't make CO.  3.  My loads at night were very low, consisting of a few fans, occasional lighting, and medical equipment.



Using the generator would have been very inefficient and would have wasted fuel that was very difficult to replace for at least a week.  A lightly loaded gasoline generator is very inefficient.  Gasoline was hard to get and usually required waiting in lines.  The generator was used in the day because that's when our loads were much higher and we needed the power.  Noise and CO ceased to be an issue.



Storing energy in the battery isn't as inefficient as you think in such a situation because you don't get the huge idle losses that you do with a generator and the amount of energy pulled from the battery is nearly directly related to the load.



Lightly loaded gasoline engines are horribly inefficient.  This is why hybrid technology has the potential for energy savings.



A hybrid design allows the engine to be sized for the average power needs.  It is commonly known that the average car uses only about 20 hp or so when driving on the highway.  Engines are commonly sized to provide 10 times that horsepower so that you have acceptable acceleration.  A hybrid design allows the use of a much smaller engine.  The batteries provide the extra power needed for momentary requirements such as acceleration.  The savings comes from using a smaller, more highly loaded engine.



The Chevy Volt concept has no engine drive to the wheels.  The engine only runs to operate a generator which charges the batteries and therefore spends most of its time running at peak efficiency loads and rpm or at least much closer to peak efficiency load and rpm when compared to conventional engines.





 

A la 'Project Better Place'.   Someone's already working on this.  Though technically feasible, the infrastructure would be waaaay too costly.  Not only would every vehicle need a battery, but there would have to be a large number of extra units for these swap stations.





I think my solution above is more feasible.  Longer trips wouldn't require any infrastructure changes at all.  



 

I hear you.  It sounds like a good idea, but the technical aspects are way too complex and render the whole scheme nigh on impossible.  Without some MAJOR breakthrough in battery technology, something that greatly increases power and energy density, reduces weight and manufacturing cost and complexity...  it just won't work out.  



I think battery electric vehicles will be economical for many people in the next decade or two, and that the idea of a towable generator will be much more feasible in almost every way.  



 

while i will always own a gas vehicle is it was cheap enough i would commute in town with a electric.

The grid is not at 105% capacity at night.

This guy's math is correct

Battery tech. still not good enough for elec. cars.

They've been working on these for years now,how many Teslas have you seen on the road lately?

How long have they been actively selling cars?

300 miles on level ground at what speed?  Carrying how much weight?

What's the Ah capacity of the batteries?  Total draw in kWh for a full charge?

I think there's some merit in electric vehicles, but there is no way I'm going to believe that 1 cent per mile figure without more data.

All he said was that the technology is still not good enough for electric cars.  He is correct.  The reason why Tesla has not been selling them for long, still command a very hefty price, and have some major drawbacks in convenience speaks volumes about the immaturity of the technology.



The fact that they have not been selling long, proves his point.  



 

Yes, the XR3 does share some of the styling of Riley's earlier designs.  His construction methods are also a bit dated, using plywood bulkheads in some areas, with urethane foam and polyester resin.  But the XR3 has been presented as a 'homebuilt' vehicle, so the owner can alter the styling and (to some degree) the construction methods to suit their tastes.  Just updating the construction methods to what has been used in homebuilt aircraft would result in a reduction in weight and/or an increase in strength.

The Aptera appears to be much more aerodynamic, but I think it's styling would have to grow on me quite a bit.

Honestly that little roadster looks awesome. If it were priced around $20k I would buy it for a commuter. For $100k I will stick with my Mustang. I will dig electric when the cars look like these, have 300-400 mile ranges and charge in ten-20 minutes. The performance of an electric motor is impressive. All torque all the time.

The Aptera's total aerodynamic drag is less than the windshield wipers on most cars.  



They're pretty neat, very aerodynamic... very strong shell... heck, the Aptera guys will bet that you can climb up on the fucker, and hit it as hard as you can with a sledgehammer... and you MIGHT chip the paint.  



 

Hydro-electric plants can shut down or power down when load drops,   Most plants can take boilers and generators off line when load drops and do.

Take boilers off line? Unless they HAVE to,  power plants do not ever take boilers and generators "off line".

Hydros.........................why would one go offline with a truly "green" power source that is as cheap to run as it is to shut down?

Not to mention the EV would charge off of a second "Non Peak" meter that was radio controlled and ran mostly at night when there is surplus power available. Coal and Nuke plants still run wether there is a demand or not.

Tesla at 50K is high but if it delivers as advertised would be comparable to an E class benz.

Notice that Tesla's second car is cheaper than the first... each time they build a car, they learn new stuff, and they have already tooled up for various parts.  I listened to an interview with one of the heads of the company, and they said that they targeted the high-end market on the first, but their second would be more affordable - and their third would be significantly more affordable, still.

I like the idea of all-electric cars.  Given time, they may even get to where I'd buy one.



Lithium Iron batteries have gotten rid of the dangers.



You're right, that doesn't work for everyone - that's too low of a range for something like 3%-5% of the population.

Because closing down the gate on a reservoir prevents water from escaping downstream.  Some times of the year water is hard to come by due to climatological variations, and there is no need to let the reservoir drain when less power is needed.  When the reservoir is dry, there is no more power.  They fill up in the spring and run down during the late summer and fall.





 

Like it or not, Hydro's are used for load following and even peak only power.  Hydros are used in this manner because they can be started near instantly to provide peak power.  It is easier to do this with a hydro than most other plants, which is why they are used that way.  Some hydro plants don't have enough water to run at max power day in and day out so they store water and run at peak only then shut down until the next peak.



See page 11 for proof.  http://www.usbr.gov/power/edu/pamphlet.pdf



Also here http://www.rp-i.com/hydropower/generation



Boilers aren't shut down, but power plants that use boilers are cycled.



http://www.aptecheng.com/corporate/CurrentEvents/100_CoalPowerWinterMag16-20.pdf



Before the 1990's it was much more common to cycle oil or coal fired boilers because there weren't any gas turbine combined cycle plants.  GE was just starting to produce its 100MW gas turbines in the mid 80's.  They now make 480MW gas turbines.



Gas turbine plants that cycle will usually be combined cycle which means there is a steam plant that takes advantage of the exhaust from the gas turbines to improve the overall efficiency of the plant.



It is much easier and less stessfull on the plant to cycle a gas turbine combined cycle plant than an oil or coal fired plant.  (Oil fired plants have nearly disappeared, but used to provide as much as 22% of electricity in 1978, cost of the fuel has dropped this number down to 2% and new ones aren't being built.)



Peaking power plants are plants that will only come on line during high peaks and will not operate the rest of the time.  These plants would usually be gas turbines that aren't combined cycle.





 

Could be that when I see a shape like that, my brain connects it to similar shapes that I am familiar with, and those shapes happen to be ones that leave the ground.  I prefer my car to not leave the ground, so I suspect this line of thought could cause an involuntary aversion to the shape as applied to a car.

Or maybe I just haven't gotten used to the idea of a car shaped that way.

There are things I don't like about the shape of the XR3, either, but if I ever get around to building one, I'm sure the end result will look quite a bit different from Riley's prototype.


ETA:  And I hate wheelpants (too much experience scraping a year's worth of crud out of them), so that could be another reason for a negative reaction to the looks of the Aptera.