A car that could save the planet—fast
Silicon Valley's big brains think they can beat Detroit and Tokyo and save the planet -- all while doing 0 to 60 faster than almost anything on the road.
By Michael V. Copeland, Business 2.0 Magazine senior writer
May 5, 2006: 5:57 AM EDT


SAN FRANCISCO (Business 2.0 Magazine) - Ian Wright has a car that blows away a Ferrari 360 Spider and a Porsche Carrera GT in drag races, and whose 0-to-60 acceleration time ranks it among the fastest production autos in the world. In fact, it's second only to the French-made Bugatti Veyron, a 1,000-horsepower, 16-cylinder beast that hits 60 mph half a second faster and goes for $1.25 million.

The key difference? The Bugatti gets eight miles per gallon. Wright's car? It runs off an electric battery.

Wright, a 50-year-old entrepreneur from New Zealand, thinks his electric car, the X1, can soon be made into a small-production roadster that car fanatics and weekend warriors will happily take home for about $100,000 --a quarter ton of batteries included. He has even launched a startup, called Wrightspeed, to custom-make and sell the cars.


But Wright isn't some quixotic loner. He's part of a growing cluster of engineers, startups, and investors, most of them based in Silicon Valley, that believe they can do what major automakers have failed at for decades: Think beyond the golf cart and deliver an electric vehicle (EV) to the mass market.

Indeed, the race for the new consumer EV has already begun: Just a year ago, Wright was working for his Woodside neighbor Martin Eberhard, co-founder of Tesla Motors, a startup that has 70 employees and a major investment from PayPal founder Elon Musk, which is building a mass-market rival to the X1. Wright left, believing he had an even better idea.

Beyond that, startups are forming to equip new "plug-in" hybrids that run almost entirely on their electric motors. And around the country, a handful of other exotic EVs are showing up on the road -- including George Clooney's new ride, a $108,000 commuter coupe that's just 3 feet wide.

The more that cars become technology platforms, the more the future plays into the hands of people like Wright and Eberhard. "Automakers can't do this," Eberhard says. "If you drill into the complexity of an electric car, it's not the motor, it's the electronics and battery system, which car companies aren't good at."

Adds Musk, "The time is right for a new American car company, and the time is right for electric vehicles, because of advances in batteries and electronics. Where's the skill set for that? In the Valley, not Detroit."

Wright's garage-born heroics are, in many respects, long overdue. After all, electric cars predated the gasoline combustion engine. But they soon headed for museums, replaced by gas engines. A mid-1990s wave of all-electric cars was short-lived -- GM (Research) spent more than $1 billion to introduce a short-lived electric vehicle -- and were soon replaced by Toyota's hot-selling hybrid gas-electric Prius.

So how do you build the EV of the future on a six-figure budget when GM couldn't do it with more than $1 billion? For starters, you get all the basic parts off the shelf. By itself, all the hardware in the X1 is nothing new. The X1's real secret is how Wright engineers it all to keep the car in optimum race mode whenever you hit the accelerator.

Proving grounds
Last November, Wright towed the X1 to a racetrack near Sacramento to see how his prototype would do against a Ferrari and a Porsche. On paper, a win seemed guaranteed. But he hadn't yet run the car full out.

In the first matchup, the X1 crushed the Ferrari in an eighth-mile sprint and then in the quarter-mile, winning by two car lengths. In the second race, against the $440,000 Porsche, the two cars were even after an eighth of a mile. But as the Porsche driver let out the clutch in a final upshift, his tires briefly lost traction. The X1, blazing along in its software-controlled performance mode, beat the Porsche by half a car length.

It never occurred to me that I would lose," says Kim Stuart, the Porsche's driver. "It was like a light switch. He hit the pedal and was gone."

So what now? Wright isn't sure himself. Only 50 or so people have driven the car, and Wright has just begun to hold his hat out for potential investors. With $8 million in funding, he says, he is convinced he can put a consumer version of the X1 into production that meets federal safety standards, has a 100-mile range, and recharges in 4.5 hours.

To bring any EV to the masses, of course, will require much improved battery technology. But a handful of startups backed by Valley VCs are claiming that big advances are just around the corner. Menlo Park-based Li-on Cells claims that its technology will double the performance of lithium-ion batteries for about half the cost.

Thus, the X1 and the Tesla could be just the things to throw the EV race into high gear. As battery prices drop and performance improves, the cars could come within reach of a wider audience. And if oil prices keep climbing, more and more consumers will demand alternatives that are punchier than a Prius.

has a 100-mile range, and recharges in 4.5 hours.

http://www.leftlanenews.com/2006/05/...r-250-mpg-car/


Company files for patents for “250 mpg car”
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AFS Trinity Power Corporation today filed a patent application disclosing the company’s new technology for an “Extreme Hybrid” car capable of carrying the average American motorist more than 250 miles on a single gallon of gasoline or ethanol. The Extreme Hybrid will plug into a house’s electrical current overnight and could run without gasoline or ethanol for the 40 miles that the average American drives each day, the company said. For longer trips, the vehicle would operate as a conventional hybrid that efficiently burns gasoline or ethanol.


“The U.S. Department of Transportation estimates that the average American drives 300 miles per week,” company CEO Edward W. Furia said. “Most days Americans drive 40 miles or less. At $3 a gallon, this costs about $48 a week for a conventional 20 mpg car and $36 if the car can get 25 mpg. The most efficient conventional hybrids get about 50 mpg which means $19 a week. By comparison, the Extreme Hybrid will use less than $8 per week total for fuel and electricity.”

AFS Trinity plans to build the XH drive train with the help of UK-based Ricardo plc, an automotive design and engineering firm.

AFS Trinity and Ricardo have signed a “mutually exclusive Technology Partnership Agreement” to work together to develop the plug-in hybrid technology. With sufficient funding they expect that XH demonstration vehicles could be in the hands of fleet owners in two years and could be licensed for mass production by car makers in three years.

The Patent and the Technology

The AFS Trinity patent filing discloses that Fast Energy Storage technology, including ultracapacitors, controllers and power electronics, will enable the Extreme Hybrid to “overcome the limitations of the energy storage components of conventional hybrids and other plug-in designs.”

“This technology will permit a car to travel the entire 40 miles of an average American’s daily driving in all-electric mode, without giving up rapid acceleration or the ability to travel at highway speeds, all without burning a drop of gasoline,” Furia said.

The patent filing also discloses that idle XH vehicles will be capable of sending power back into the grid through a vehicle to grid – V2G – subsystem, which will help stabilize the power grid and reduce XH owners’ cost of electricity.

“The Extreme Hybrid won’t only cost less to operate on a daily basis, it will also be the first hybrid that will save enough money from reduced operating costs to more than offset the higher purchase price of the car,” added Furia. “In fact, over five years, we estimate that the XH owner will be $11,000 ahead and, over 10 years, $22,000 ahead.”

Filling up once every 10 weeks

“The advantages to the environment and our independence from foreign oil are obvious, but the reason we believe consumers will want this car is because they will save money and because the performance of the XH will be no different than that of conventional cars,” Furia said.

“To recharge the Extreme Hybrid for your daily driving you will need to plug in your car to house current every night, but the average American will only have to fill up with gasoline or ethanol once every 10 weeks or so unless they take a longer trip.”