Ugh.

I should be more open-minded...

If I am in a crash I feel less safe being cramped in some little thing.

If they had something similar to a BMW SUV I would be all in.

Biodiesel all the way, baby.

http://www.physorg.com/news205599757.html
http://www.physorg.com/news193569763.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5526HY20090603
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100812171943.htm

Look, I like electric cars, I think we should keep funding the research, but they're in no way ready yet. As is we'd need high-powered rechargers, robotic arms to remove batteries quickly...and it still wouldn't fix the fact that half our grid electricity comes from coal. If it's derived from algae it'll at least take as much CO2 out of the air as it produces in burning it.

I want one.
I want a Tesla car.

>>2297
You feel less safe. You aren't necessarily any safer. In fact, if you get into a wreck, your SUV has a much greater chance of killing the other people involved than a smaller car would.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DfHyGD7_pM

My main worry is the battery charge time. Yes it's only $5 on the bill but I'm waiting to hear if they've fixed that charge time.

I'm probably late to the party here. But I haven't heard reports to the contrary.

>>2386
GRAPHENE WILL FIX EVERYTHING.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FezuB7R11A8
enjoy!

>>2445
this still doesn't answer the problem of charge time and charge duration. The issue is not instantaneous speed, it's how long can the car function on a single charge. Maybe 4 hours of high speed test aren't very best test of these batteries for duration. But again, how long does it take to charge that battery block?

>>2447
If you watched the whole video, you'd have grokked that the big theme is how quick it can recharge and discharge. The batteries can suck up energy and discharge it very quick. That's the whole thing.

>>2448
Yes and again we're not seeing prolonged tests. We're seeing instantaneous discharge and we only witnessed the charging of one cell, not the whole bank. Which, y'know, blew out the motor in setting that speed record.

This doesn't answer my questions. A better battery maybe, but even if we're talking 4 hour charge time to a 4 hour drive time, that is not exactly economical in terms of actual car use. In practical terms, speed is not what we need, endurance is what we need.

>>2449
Correctomundo! But that's why when I watched a research channel program a few months ago, the guys behind implementing the electric cars have been talking about selling additional batteries. That way one battery can be home charging while a second is in the car being used.

Everybody wants the cars to be able to pack enough juice to be able to go as long as a ICE before drinking back up, and we've almost got the recharge time nailed down, but creating enough storage capacity is still a little ways off. Thankfully, redundancy with batteries can kind of ease the problem. For now.

The Aptera 2e looks pretty cool.

I'd say links should be mandatory but frankly I'm too fucking lazy to not be hypocritical on that count most of the time

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryrGaK837rI

...not that it's not a bad solution (even though the video still doesn't mention charge times)....

I must admit I do not like its' aesthetic. It looks flimsy. Plus there is zero chance of retrofitting for current vehicles.

I want me a Nissan Leaf.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUS327177010820101123

And look at that dashboard!

>>2495
I would drive the hell out of the Nissan Leaf. But it's about 30-40 miles just to get to civilization where I live, and that miles per charge doesn't take into account difficult terrain like hills, gravel and bad rural roads.

If only they could put a Small Fella plug for the home recharge and attach a Big Fella plug at gas stations to recharge them faster..

>>2379
Actually, I think the issue Electric cars are aimed to fix has more to do with oil dependency than emissions. Bio-diesel, however, I think has a much greater potential as an aircraft fuel. The only problem is fuel gelling at lower temperatures. Most Soviet Bloc aircraft, like MiGs and Aeros, possess fuel warming functions that prevent that and will readily burn a 100% Bio Diesel mixture. In fact:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=biodiesel-takes-to-the-sky

Bio-Jet 1 is an '68 Aero Vodochody L-29 Delfin, which you can pick up for about the same price as a new car. In the end, it's algae, what else are you going to do with it? It's worthless slime. I'm willing to bet we'll be seeing more and more Turbo props and jets in the future. Hell, it'd be nice to see a car that ran off of a turbine engine.

>>2386
They've since fixed the charge times. Or so they claim.

>>2536
The current motivation for electric cars has to do with oil availability, but there are a number of people who say that electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids are core climate change solutions.

That's not to say that electric cars alone will solve our climate problems, but EV/PHEV combined with renewable energy production and effective emisison regulation gets us most of the way there.

Rather have a car outfitted with those Full Spectrum Solar Cells and a good storage conversion system. And a compact fusion reactor sometime in the latter decades.

I may be the last person left that has faith for hydrogen as an alternate fuel source. Even if only used as an emergency fuel.

I realize electric is amazing. It really is. Great, efficient, good to use and store. Wonderful as a fuel. However, the amount of energy you can store chemically is still greater than you can store in a battery. Until that changes, and it will eventually, what would be the harm in expanding into hydrogen, if only temporarily?

Think about it. The majority of the energy units we get from burning coal and natural gas goes into what currently in a very inefficient grid, where it circulates and loses little bits of power before getting to our outlets, where it idles unused until used. We lose a lot of potential energy this way alone.

The source of electricity may differ in the future, say if we had enough solar panels to compensate for our coal consumption. But we're still going to lose a great deal of it over the lines. The storage issue when not in use. Batteries are still currently very expensive, and even when the price drops, how long do modern batteries last? Feels like every time I buy a box of energizer or duracel they produce dead flashlights the next time there's an outage.

For my money I would like if, if only for suburban and rural homes, people started having home electrolysis systems. Yes, it takes a pretty amount of juice to convert water into hydrogen and oxygen, but a lot of that juice was just going to disappear from disuse in the first place. And when converted and stored in a hydrogen tank, it'll last longer as potential energy than it would've been wasted constantly traveling and idling in the lines, created but unused.

You could even use hydrogen as an alternative fuel for an electric car. Electrolysis to reintroduce the hydrogen to oxygen creates a charge that produces pure, clean water, a little heat and get-up-and-go. It's like all the power and flexibility of a chemical fuel combusting vehicle with the efficiency and power of electric.

Yeah, the fuel is combustible. So is gasoline. I won't get into the 'hydrogen is unsafe' argument, just that I think it could be as clean and renewable a chemical fuel source as any substitute.

>>2541
>Yeah, the fuel is combustible. So is gasoline
Some people are too young to remember the Pinto, I guess. Electric is indeed fine and all, but for folk like me who are dumb enough to live out in the boonies, it just isn't a realistic option.

>>2543
not even with self-sustaining power sources like Solar Cells or something?

>>2543
Actually being out in the boonies would make you a *spectacular* candidate for either pure electric OR a nice cozy electric/hydrogen hybrid. Solar cells and wind turbines, broski.

I won't lie. It's pricey right now. There's an engineer in New Jersey that installed a 500,000 dollar electrolysis system in his rural home. It's a prototype, but all prototypes are expensive, y'know? Solar cells, and a little nest for his bed of hydrogen tanks. Efficient appliances and home heating/cooling. What electricity that doesn't immediately go into running the shit in his house goes into electrolysis as excess energy he saves and uses when there's a lack of sun to turn to. But the fact is, he's storing his surplus power in a way that won't tax a battery into exploding. But imagine if you added a wind turbine and a few solar panels to your abode.

Not only that, but yo planes could run on electric or hydrogen. Boeing's "FCD project" and the SkySpark come to mind. Imagine that. You could be flyin' all day, err'day, and your house could be recharging your tanks.

>>2558
Well, therein lies the problem: Price. That's awful spendy, but believe me, I'd love it.

There's two other electric aircraft I can think of:
One produced by Sonex
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8Pb_psj1A8

And another called the Yuneec
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwyyQ1BckK0

Ignore the angry hippy Freddytuber, but he brings up a major issue I think may come up. Alternate Energy pushers and Pilots might eventually butt heads in the future. Reason being, they want to see electric airplanes and pilots will be wary of them. Electric car would be a definite purchase for me, but an electric aircraft? No. Several reasons why:

1) Safety. This is the biggest one. We pride safety in aviation over anything else. I've had electrical failures before in the air. So, I've lost Radio, GPS, lighting, the works. However, I still had an engine, I was still flying. I was in the home stretch for my airfield, too. It was just a matter of landing normally, minus a radio. What happens if I lose electrical power in an electric airplane? I've also had an engine out experience, too. Fortunately I was in a Cessna 172 at the time and they glide extremely well. We found a long stretch of dirt road and set down on it. The glide characteristics of few aircraft come any where near that of the 172. Not many like the idea of a little short knocking out their engine.

2) Most are kit planes. Now, don't get me wrong, kitplanes are sweet. Like the one pictured, it's called a Velocity SRG. They're pretty cool airplanes, and since you've got crazy cool folk like Burt Rutan designing stuff like this, you see very high speed aircraft that burn a surprisingly low amount of fuel. Most of the pilots that do get off on alternative designs will still opt for this over an electric aircraft. http://www.velocityaircraft.com/ We're talking a 200MPH top speed and burning around 8 gallons per hour. For comparison, the gold standard for civilian pilots is the 1970s Cessna 172. It'll burn the same amount of fuel and struggle to get close to 130MPH in straight and level flight.

3) The USAF Fuel initiatives. Yup, the USAF is getting behind Biodiesel. They figure if they gotta set Arabs on fire with B-52H's, they should do so for less cost in fuel. They want something cheaper to burn in those engines than pure Jet-A.

I predict that Bio-D is going to be the future for aviation power, rather than electric. It'd take minimal modification for most jets and Turbo-props and in fact some wouldn't require any at all.

>>2559
And that's just dandy for business planes.. However, you're also a civilian and hobbyist pilot, aren't you?
Well, imagine this: Hydrogen can be burned in internal combustion (not a STANDARD I.C.E, of course) or run through a cell and used to drive an electric device. Wouldn't this be the perfect fuel for an airplane? You could cruise at high efficiency on electric, and in case of a short out, switch to a more standard combusting engine using the same fuel.
Wouldn't that offer the security of an I.C.E. with the fuel saving benefits of an electric? Sure, it might increase the weight of the plane a little bit for the redundancy. And you can make bio-diesel at home, but you can't make it out of sunlight, water and wind.

>>2561
More than a hobbyist, I do a lot of charter and bush work, too. And, aviation as a hobby has degrees to it. Some like kit aircraft and ultralights, my poison is warbirds. Although, your hydrogen and electric hybrid would be met with a considerably more willingness to try from pilots. And by that, I mean a viable market. It would add further options for pilots. Still, I feel we'll be seeing more like this Siai-Marchetti SM1019 than Hydrogen-Electric hybrids. Simply put, Jet/Turbine engines are very simple and robust.

It does sound call, call it a "Hydro-Electric Hybrid."

>>2562
Yeah, bio-diesel is pretty cool like that. Does the USAF plan on using algae, or are they going with standard Compost It and maybe thermodepolymerization? If they're anything like NASA, probably not Algae. Day late and a dollar short...

>>2563
Can't say. The Algae based Bio-D (which is an awesome shorthand phrase and I will use from now) is making some insane progress at the U of M. So, It might still be up in the air.

>>2571
It's funny, but you know, I was watching a program on the Science channel about a geneticist(?) that worked on cracking the human genome. Now he's (or was- two year old show by now) sailing across the oceans of the world, looking for algae and ocean flora that process energy differently.

So far, he's found little critters that consume sunlight and water and produce hydrogen the way the algae we see at shore produces burnable oil, little critters from a cave that eat ROCKS and turn it into energy- some even attack the latent nuclear schtuff in the caves.
There's another scientist that was featured on a program about alternative energy that was making batteries out of microbes and viruses Microbes and viruses, I shit thee not..
If our future is filled with microbes that assist in the breaking down of sunlight for green gasoline, diesel, hydrogen gas, pure electricity and processing rocks for nuclear power, I am the happiest man in his armchair.

>>2386
You can load military batteries quickly with a special device

>>2577
Straight conversion electric cell to power okay but what I want to combine that with is a flying car. Been waiting on those damn things for 40 years now and still none the closer. Families personal ideas kick around a magnetic repellent systems at least to beat the friction and induce higher velocities . Personally I'd like to see a rebirth of the domestic train system running on mag rails.

>>2609
>flying car
YOU HAVE JUST ACTIVATED MY TRAP CARD. Hopefully, I won't sound like an arrogant pilot douche bag with what I'm about to say. If I do, I sincerely apologize I didn't mean to be. In that event, read this post as if it were being narrated by Harry S. Plinkett. This is what I offer you to consider, from a CFI MEI.

Anyways, the Flying car is a fine example of modern day snake oil. I really think these designers are doing little more than bilking money out of their investors. For a quick summary, I will present some short comings of aviation in regards to public transit.

1) Convenience.
Every good pilot, no scratch that, every acceptable pilot does a pre flight check. This extends to the following:
-Checking control surfaces for damage and their connections to the flight controls.
-Checking flaps and making sure they function
-Sumping the fuel, making sure it's clean
-Checking oil level
-Checking the brakes
-Making sure the prop isn't damaged
-All the while, doing a walk around of the aircraft, checking for any damage.
-Testing the radio to make sure it's functioning
-Having, on hand, any radio frequencies you may need to use
-Listening to ATIS/ASOS/AWOS for weather

And even after all that, you still have the engine run up to perform. Then, and only then, can you take off. That's assuming you aren't at a towered airfield and don't need clearance. Can you imagine doing that, every day, for your car?

2) Landing.
Landing a fixed wing airplane is easy. And, if you're talking a flying care like the Terrafugia Transition, it would be as well. It's just a matter of lining up the aircraft with the centerline, pulling the throttle out, and pitching nose up to burn off airspeed and set down. But, most people have VTOL or V/STOL in mind. VTOL aircraft are incredibly difficult. It's a balancing act, pure and simple. Would you like to balance a multiple ton vehicle on a pillar of expelled gas? Another downside is that is a tremendous amount of thrust coming off that aircraft. A propped VTOL is bad enough with all the rocks and other shit it would kick up. A jet VTOL is just asking for trouble. The exhaust gas temps on a Harrier, for example, exceed 800 degrees Fahrenheit. And, the cost. A Jet VTOL would be just too expensive, even if Bio-D was readily available, it had fuel warming systems, and it was $1.50 a gallon. The Harrier, once again, burns about 1 gallon of fuel ever 2 seconds. Even if you had a tiltrotor, you'd still be burning a lot of fuel as the entire weight of the aircraft is supported by thrust alone. You're not going to be landing in any parking lots, that's for sure.

3). People are stupid. Yup. People can't fucking drive, mini 9/11's all day, err day. The only feasible "flying car" would be based off of an autogyro. They're about as idiot proof as aircraft can get.

But the magnetic train? Yeah, that'd be fuck win.

>>2631
Mask crusaders,
Working all the time, fighting crime, fighting crime!

http://www.pal-v.com/

http://www.samsonmotorworks.com/

But yea Mag Train transport would clear up highway congestion and make freight transport much faster and efficient.

>>2635
Maglev trains are a much better idea than a roadable aircraft/Flying car. To me, a roadable aircraft or something of that nature is a toy and not a proper mode of transportation. It's an oddity and a novelty.

>>2637
yea it looks neat when one is in the air but not when you try multiples. While the Rails are still all over the place and they just need to either follow those paths and replace them for a mag system or have some kinda retrofit for the rails.

In my unemployed state I've actually given consideration to looking and seeing if the railroads are hiring, training and/or what they offer for jobs. Working on or around trains all day seems like it'd at least have plentiful work to do, and good pay to boot. Pound for pound, soooooooo fuel efficient!

>>2631
Yes, thank you. While the Moller Skycar is a fun oddity, I just don't trust people who haven't that special spark of awareness to be able to fly stuff. It always comes back to pink sky cars being driven by peroxide blonde teenagers and sky rocketing insurance.

Now, I DO believe that as the fish farming industry and community grows, we might experience at least a short term explosion of ocean going floating homes. I could imagine hovercraft becoming more popular means of transportation.

>>2639
Yea if we can just find some way to cut down on the excessive noise of horvecraft in small scale which they might be able to do with modern fans. Still we need electric to do this right.

Some updates on the Aviation Industry's effort to find a replacement for our current 100LL AVGAS.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IP77AWzrVA

When you've got the muscle of Embry-Riddle, Purdue, and the USAF behind you, you're going to be taken seriously. But when you get fucking Cessna throwing in help, then you're going to win. Think of it this way: You're making your own sodas and Coca-Cola endorses you. Cessna could be considered to have a monopoly in some regards. No other aircraft has the kind of numbers the Cessna 172 does. Almost 44,000 delivered. The 172 is the ubiquitous small airplane. I guarantee you, every North American pilot has some hours in a 172. Most European pilots do as well.

In addition, I was reading Sport Aviation to find that Cessna is developing an Electric version of the 172 that will fly later this year. This could either prove to be one hell of a flop or a resounding financial success. The Cessna 172 is the airplane for two kinds of people: Instructors and people that fly once or twice a month. It's almost negligible to maintain, it's easy to fly, it's docile, and it's dirt cheap to insure and fly. If Cessna only offers this as a new aircraft, that will be a shot in the fucking foot. A new 172 will run you at least $200,000. Now, if you buy a 172 used, you're looking at between $30,000-$50,000 for a very nice one. Pilots baby their aircraft. I can attest to this. I'll catch myself *talking* to my Comanche and 207 when I'm washing them. So, you'll find aircraft that look and feel brand new, and are probably 30 years old. So, if Cessna wants to truly make a killing on an electric powerplant, they offer it as an upgrade to existing 172s. It'll probably come in under $100,000 one you've factored in labor and the cost of the aircraft.

>>2642
>electric hovercraft
Actually, that'd work out pretty well. However, I think this is a better idea than the Hovercraft:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSeZ1eQzDvI

The low demand for power, I think, makes the WIG a great candidate for an electric engine.

>>2687
Hmmm now if that could just work on land, though what would the lowest flight speed be in order to maintain its efficiency. Also I saw these from a German company. The design is nice on the small scale but I've a really hard time seeing these at a scale in which they would prove practical. Though I do find the wing and tail control system to be of interest.

>>2691
>what would the lowest flight speed be in order to maintain its efficiency.
That would all depend on Wing shape and area.

>>2687
...I've.. never experienced a ship performing the "haters gon' hate" strut.
I think a ship that hovers over the water qualifies as this. Jesus Christ in a WiG.

>>2699
yea I can see this working in ground effect with a one or two person craft. Though four or more in ground effect would seem like a challenge.

Part 2 of the Alternative fuel video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6USPtdQG4A If this can be proven as a fine fuel for someone as demanding as an aircraft, it's not that much of a jump for an automobile.

>>2701
Kind of unrelated, but I give you the Soviet Ekranoplan. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSYmSnpQ360

>>2705
And, actually, take note of the video as well. It's a WiG on an immense scale.

http://blogs.wsj.com/drivers-seat/2011/01/24/chevy-volt-does-an-electric-car-suit-your-life-slideshow/

The Volt sure does sound underwhelming. And, Tesla is working it's wizardry in grorious nippon:
http://www.teslamotors.com/about/press/releases/tesla-motors-and-toyota-motor-corporation-formalize-agreement-develop-rav4

They've also got 1,500 of their Roadster out there. Pretty impressive numbers for such a small company, IMO.

http://www.cessna.com/NewReleases/New/NewReleaseNum-1192324720455.html

Lots of CFI's are bitching about this, claiming that the cheaper operating costs might cut into over all profits. Yeah, bull fucking shit. When you go out for flight instruction, you're renting the aircraft, paying for the gas, AND also paying for the instruction. When you reduce one of those items, your customer pays less, but you still don't pocket less at the end of the day. In fact, Cessna projects it's electric engine to have a time between overhauls of about 25,000 hours. As long as your aircraft is under taking some kind of commercial use, you have to get it's engine overhauled according to manufacturer's recommendation. Piston engined aircraft typically require an overhaul every 1,000-2,500 hours of flight time or every 10 years. Turbine aircraft (Jets and Turbo-props) are almost double that.

So, you don't have to get that damn engine over haul for an insanely long time and that will save you a LOT of money, as an instructor owning his own business.

The proposed means of generating energy are pretty cool. Everything from solar cells on the topside of the airfoil to turning the prop itself into a miniature wind farm that you just need to point in the direction of the wind. Of course, you could be plain practical and plug it in.

Since this is an airplane with an unrivaled safety record and not some little kitplane I haven't any confidence in, I'd feel great using it as a platform to instruct out of.

>>2812
Anything that can get any miles of electric before switching to gas and regenerating the electricity with breaking is good. Even if it would take time to recharge.
Even if it's underwhelming, it's still spending maybe a dollar on a trip that would've cost roughly ten with gasoline. And when you think about how much you spend on gas over the life of the machine.. well, I'd rather buy expensive boots than expensive food, know what'msayin'?

>>2823
Totally, we seem to be nearing the cusp of the electric car. Going from a mere novelty to perhaps a more viable means of getting around and a definite alternative.

I'd want to see a few years tacked on to the first batch of cars, but if they proved reliable and I lived in a much more developed place I'd give serious thought to getting one. Though, I wish some of the extreme enviro-nuts would calm down. I can't browse sites that discuss these sorts of things without seeing them cast ad hominems at those that dare suggest that an established technology like the ICE will have a better support network than an electric engine for many many years.

>>2824
http://money.cnn.com/2010/11/22/autos/nissan_leaf_fuel_economy_rating/index.htm

old news now but the Nissan all-electric Leaf has 99 mpg equivalent. But still, implementing the infrastructure, down to just how we can efficiently (and cleanly) power all this is still a worry.

>>2825
If ya ask me, we should have a small plug for slow home recharging and a big plug for powering up at dedicated plants. Just put the outlets wherever there's gasoline.

>>2825
One step at a time, I suppose.

>>2826
If you could convert Raw boring into power, Minnesota would subvert OPEC entirely.

>>2828
Beneath every boring plane of dull beige sits a power source.
We need to start utilizing landshare. Imagine if we built wind turbines around geothermal plants or just general industrial plants.

>>2833
It's probably require a lot of clear cutting here in Minnesota, but wind power could be doable, indeed.

Also of topic relevance:
http://www.damninteresting.com/the-atomic-automobile

Speaking of next gen vehicles:

http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/darpa-offers-10000-challenge-new-military-fig

Get cracking.

This goes here.

http://www.popsci.com/cars/article/2011-03/shockwave-generating-wave-discs-could-replace-cars-internal-combustion-engines

>>3035

As does this:

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-07-graphite-future-energy-storage.html

>rechargeable batteries

>made of carbon and water

>nigh-instant recharge and long-lasting

This is the stone killing the two birds named 'peak lithium' and 'making practical electric cars'.

>electric cars
>traditional transmission system

WTF are they thinking, both the roadster and the model S have the same antiquated transmission system you see on a petrol car

electric motors are small enougth and have enougth torque for it to be possible ot directly drive the electic motors to the ground which would give a fully independent 4WD system, reduce waste energy from the transmission system and make regenrative braking more effecient
the roadster engineers should of played with more trains

>>3446
I'm no electrical engineer, so I couldn't tell you.

>>3445
OK, so where's the catch? Water and Graphite aren't exactly expensive components. I'm guessing durability as graphite isn't exactly a resilient material.

>>3452
>graphite isn't exactly a resilient material
True. Graphite is not. But you know.. we are entering the carbon age. Bucky paper, balls and tubes are some pretty god damned rugged structures of carbon, and when working in tandem.. well. I'm willing to bet with the carbon nanotube manufacturing we're doing now, we can have both resilience and cheapness. Similar to the way stainless steel changed the face of iron, forever.

So. We've got electric vehicles, we've got a potential battery that can house, charge and discharge.

>>3452
Graphite isn't, but graphene's pretty damn tough. Also, I think this application uses it more as a gel with the graphene dispersed in a liquid, so the durability wouldn't be that much of an issue.

I fall on the biological side of things, but to my eye it doesn't look like there is a technological catch. There MAY be an intellectual property catch. We know shitloads of ways to make graphene, but most of them are either expensive or difficult. People have found a couple really cheap and easy methods to make it, but I would bet a lot of money they've got the patents to the process locked down tight.

So it might be the case that licensing issues could hold it up instead of technical matters.

Then again, if I had the patent for the method and I saw these guys who could use it to basically put every other battery company out of business? You can bet your ass I'd partner with them.

So who knows. Maybe we'll see this on shelves in a couple years.

>>3453
>>3454
Ah, thanks for the clarification. It still sounds.. almost too good to be true. Call me a pessimist.

>>3464
It really /is/ too good to be true. But it's also true.

I thought it'd take another ten years for it to get this far, but it's actually looking like a battery for the electric car is within reach. Now we just need to invest in a superior grid for relaying our electricity as reliably, efficiently and in the quantitites we need. And we'll be golden.

The only unfortunate thing is now alternatives to a charge bearing battery will go by the wayside for this standard. I was kind of looking forwards to strips full of inert viruses that eat genetic material and create electrical charges. Unlikely to happen now!

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110730180245.htm


"Based on that technology, MIT researchers have made a button-sized power generator fueled by butane that can run three times longer than a lithium-ion battery of the same weight; the device can then be recharged instantly, just by snapping in a tiny cartridge of fresh fuel. Another device, powered by a radioisotope that steadily produces heat from radioactive decay, could generate electricity for 30 years without refueling or servicing -- an ideal source of electricity for spacecraft headed on long missions away from the sun."

Holy shit this is awesome.

>>3506
Jesus christ.

>>3506
Those radiothermal batteries have actually been around since the 60s. They last decades, but they don't put out a lot of power (unless you have a huge assembly the size of a person).

>>3509
I guess the news part of the post is that now they put out comparable power to Li-On batteries.

So, I was impressed with some of the electric offerings at AirVenture this year. I think the greatest potential lies with PC-Aero's Elektra One

Elektra One - designer's tour

The aircraft displayed some fairly snappy characteristics on the take off roll and landing roll, but it was pretty windy there for a sailplane. That's the reason why I think it's a step in the right direction; it's more of a sailplane than a conventional aircraft. You need less energy to stay aloft.

Antares electromotor

The Antares 20E is Lambo of sailplanes, from what I've heard. Who needs a tow anymore? Well shit, that means less money for me.

Sonex Electric Powered Flight,…

It's really nice to see Sonex throwing it's hat into the electric flight initiative. They've always been making kit planes that are easy to build, affordable, fully aerobatic, and fuel efficient. Their design for an electric airplane is wonderful because it bypasses the issue of weight and balance. In a nut shell, you want an airplane to be slightly nose heavy so in the event of a stall it noses down and air continues to flow over the wings as opposed to going into a flat spin.

>>3509
>>3510
Yeah, they're what's use to power pacemakers.

I wish they specified how much electricity it generated in those 30 years.

>>2472
The Aptera is a perfect aerodynamic design, a realization of Alberto Morelli's computer optimized shape from the 80's. Sadly, Aptera was taken over by Detroit morons who alienated those who preordered, squandered the venture capital, fired everyone, and are sucking the life out of the company. Expect bankruptcy within a year.

Go watch "Revenge of the Electric Car". It is a great flick, following Elon Musk, Bob Lutz, and Carlos Ghosn around from 2006-2009, showing how they coped with the 2008 financial crisis to bring their babies to market (Roadster, Volt, and Leaf, respectively).

The director did a Q&A at the premiere and said he had the most fun following Elon around. Carlos is a suit, Bob is a garrulous old codger about to retire, but Elon really wants to change the world.