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The Santa Rosa, Calif.-based company will try to bring an electric sports car to the market by the end of 2008 built around the APX, a concept car developed by England's Lotus Engineering. Lotus designed the APX to accommodate a gas-powered V6.
The design goals for the Zap-X, if met, would allow Zap to leapfrog ahead of Tesla Motors and Wrightspeed in terms of how far the vehicle will go before a charge. Zap said its car will go 350 miles before a charge, significantly farther than either the Tesla Roadster or the car from Wrightspeed.
by England's Lotus Engineering.
The Zap-X will cost only $60,000, said Zap CEO Steve Schneider. The Tesla Roadster sells for $92,000, while the WrightSpeed X1 will go for around $120,000. The Zap-X won't be as fast, but it won't putter either. It will go from zero to 60 miles per hour in 4.8 seconds; the Tesla Roadster does that in 4 seconds, while the X1 can do that in 3 seconds. Just as importantly, the Zap-X will have room for five adults, instead of the two seats in the other cars.
"We are appealing to the SUV buyer who feels sort of guilty about buying an SUV," Schneider said.
Zap said it will show off an electric version of the Zap-X at the North American Dealers Association starting February 3.
The company also said the battery in the car could be recharged in about 10 minutes, faster than other cars. Zap did not identify the battery manufacturer, but Altair Nanotechnologies has been touting a rapidly charging lithium ion battery for cars. The Zap-X will have a theoretical maximum speed of 155 mph and sport 644 horsepower, the company said.
Inserting an electric motor into a gas car isn't new. Wrightspeed's X1 is essentially a marriage between an electric motor and the Atom, a sports car from England. The company, however, is redesigning the car for its commercial launch. Using an existing car shell cuts down engineering time and costs.
Lotus has been working on trying to incorporate electronic technology into its cars for a while, Schneider said. Lotus actually worked with Tesla on its car. Initially, Zap considered building an electric car around Lotus' Europa sports car, which would have made the Zap car similar to the Tesla model.
Then, by chance, Schneider said, he saw the APX while at the Lotus facility. The APX holds more people and comes with an aluminum shell, rather than a carbon one.
The Zap-X differs significantly from the gas-powered version of the APX. The Zap-X runs on four hub motors on the wheels. The brakes are also powered by the engine. The 350-mile range on the car comes from the fact that Zap and Lotus were able to remove many parts required by the gas version of the car but not needed in the electric version.
Better batteries, high gas prices and worries about global warming have all combined to give the notion of electric cars a boost. Car companies, however, also have tinkered with their creations to make them easier to own. Many earlier electric cars needed to be charged at special stations, while the modern crop of electric mobiles can be charged at home.
Additionally, car companies are touting performance just as much as ecological friendliness, a distinct change in marketing. Ian Wright of Wrightspeed pointed out that his car is the second fastest sports car on the market, largely because of the way electric motors work. Most likely, the car will largely appeal to those looking for a thrill, not for a way to combat fossil fuel consumption.
"A certain number of people turn 40 every year," Wright said last year.
Every year, consumers in North America alone buy around 30,000 new "supercars," defined as cars that sell for $80,000 and up, according to Wright. That's about $3 billion a year.
Tesla is booking deposits for one to two Tesla Roadsters a day. (The car isn't out yet, but people can buy one on the company's Web site.)
Currently, Zap primarily markets budget electric vehicles designed mostly for short hops. Zap's Xebra car, for instance, costs about $10,000 but tops out at 35 mph. The company's scooters go for around $500.
Meanwhile, Tesla is working on a four-person sedan, said CEO Martin Eberhard. The company is also selling batteries to Think Global. Think Global bought the Think car from Ford, tinkered with the design, and will rerelease it in Norway and England later this year.
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Is this how we're going to save the environment, by having British companies covet the US auto industry stereotype that cars need MORE POWERRRR? It's inefficient waste!
How bout this. Halve the damn horsepower and top speed (most people don't know how to handle a car anyway at that speed), and sell the fricken thing for $30,000. Which is still too much.
Idiots.
Only then will it be time to team up (or get bought out by) a larger manufacturer who can absorb the large assembly line costs.
You are right, I don't need to go 0-60 in 4 seconds, I just want to go 70 mph for 100 miles on a 15 minute charge. I would even pay $20k. Is that possible?
One of the bid differences between electric cars and IC cars is that power is irrelevant cost and efficiency wise. You could halve the power and end up with a car that costs 2% less and has about the same range.
An electric cars power is limited mostly by the battery power output. As the battery size is normally not dictated by this but by energy storage, reducing the power needed does not affect the battery size.
What they are doing is speccing the battery based on range and vehicle weight/size. Then, given the power output of the battery they spec the engine and other parts. They could use a lower size/power motor, but nothing would be gained.
They are doing what's right for today. If they could do a $10 car with a thousand mile range, they would, but in a nascent field you do what it first become possible. Given the layout/weight/size/range constrains, a sports car (which has the lowest possible useful load to overall weight ratio) is simply possible earlier than a compact or a sedan. And a sports car has better margins, which is important for an emerging market with so many variables. They'll focus on those when they become possible.
Zap couldn't possibly be using NanoSafes, although there were plenty of other reasons as well - Zap explicitly stated that the results were due to a computer software battery management system (vaguely similar to Tesla's) built by a Danish company. And the batteries were also explicitly
described as li ion batteries, which Altair NanoSafes most definitely are not. Before speculating on something, a little knowledge would
go a long way. Also, the "electric sports car"
is anything but a sports car.
Also, I would still consider Altair's batteries Lithium-Ion, just with an important mod. Even Phoenix Motorcars calls these Lithium Ion in multiple press releases.
I'm just pickled tink that SOMEBODY is doing something about moving us into the future.
I just wonder, if half the people who paid $60,000 or more for autos in the past two years, had been able to buy electrics like the one described in this article, instead of the smokin', chokin' gas guzzlers they did buy, what would be the price of gas today?
I realize that the electricity to charge the battery may come from fossil fuels but much of it doesn't and that could make a difference.
Regardless, I hope that someday, in the near future, my children will be able to breath something other than soot from infernal combustion engines, and that we'll be able to tell Hugo Chavez and Islamic fanatics to "take a hike!"
Don't get mad at the people who are trying to accomplish that, regardless of their motives.
This article says "..could be recharged in about 10 minutes, faster than other cars."
How ambiguous! Is it 10 minutes or just 10 minutes faster than other cars???
This car sounds promising, except $60k is still too much for an electric car. $100k is just insulting.
People try to make transportation a race: Hey I didn't sign on to risk my life in a road race with you, I'm just trying to get to work.
Would you rather get a fast car for 60K or a slow car for 59K, all other things being equal?
likely contain any Altair Nanosafes, which weigh around 30 pounds per kWhr. That would indicate a battery pack weight of over 2500 pounds! The car would be a porker. Also, if they were Altairs, the news would have been released by Altair. And Phoenix has exclusive use of Altairs for EVs, so ZAP couldn't buy them even if they wanted to. They also are mentioning a battery pack control unit, which Altair batteries do not require.
Whoever suggested Altairs obviously is a real neophyte in the auto battery world.
- Toshiba Super Charge Lithium-ion
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by HalFisher
July 10, 2007 12:17 PM PDT
- There are others but Toshiba will be producing nanotube lithium-ion in 2008. Here is the original article from 3/2005: http://www.physorg.com/preview3539.html
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