Trev Two-Seat Lithium ion Electric Travels for 2¢ a Mile

Just don't let the oil companies find out...

The oil Companies probably have to coolest technology ever pertaining to oil alternative stuffs. They're just stalling everyone until they can find a way to dominate the market and charge us madd monies for it all.

Duh....

How much do they cost and where can I buy one?

It just cost me $72.75 to fill my van last week.



Peace, love, and enlightenment.

If we do not live in peace together, we die in war together!

Can I get a franchise?

If Colonel Sanders could start a chicken business at the age of 80, I can start a car sales franchise at 75.



Peace, love, and enlightenment.

If we do not live in peace together, we die in war together!

MORE NONSENSE.
You guys are worse than the "free energy" wackjobs.
Or the guys who want to use fuel cells, which require PLATINUM.
This lithium ion car costs several thousand barrels of oil(barrels not gallons) to build. That cost isnt figured into the equation, nor in the cost of the wind and solar generators, both requiring several thousand barrels of oil to produce and several thousand a year to run.
And when the battery finally wont hold a charge after a few years you have to build another one, again at the cost of several thousand barrels of oil.
You're still using oil, nimrod, and the most efficent way to do that is put it into a CAR.
NOT to turn it into a lithium ion anything, then powering it with a solar or wind generator, both of which make inefficent use of the oil used to make them.
NOW put your burkenstocks back on and start at square one.
Truth is everything in the modern tech world requires oil,
oil to make and oil to use, it might make your hippie heart feel good but you are not part of the solution, your part of the friggin PROBLEM.
nOT THAT THERES A SOLUTION to this paticular problem.
Well, there is a solution, we are like bacteria in a petri dish, we eat the food and reproduce till the food runs out.
THEN WE DIE OFF, and a stable population is established, one a lot smaller than the original.
Thats how the energy "problem" is going to be solved,
what a LOT of people leaving the planet
(well, getting recycled, really)

If this thing was half as impressive as some think the oil companies would LOVE it.

You see, then they could use the crude that now makes gasoline and diesel that they make a few pennies on a gallon and make tens of dollars per gallon with the crude as chemical feedstock.

Lets see, a few pennies per gallon profit from gas, dollars per gallon profit from feedstock.

You do the math.

must feel good on your knees giving bjs to the oil companies

I will defer to your expertise in the delivery of blowjobs. You obviously know more about it than I do.

Now back to your "paranoid marxist fantasies for dummies" class, boy.

i completely believe in this story, and ron paul, and chemtrails, and santa claus, and global warming, and zetas

How many barels of oil does it take to make a regular car?

For a measly hundred grand you can drive one of these:
[link to www.teslamotors.com]

and shall we ignore even more toxic products dumped into your environment to produce vehicles that don't work??

few live in a sunny enough place for this dream to work

even fewer live in a flat enough place for this to work

when the global power grid fails oil will still be king

global warming is false, an Orwellian trick by TPTB, designed to enslave the masses, this is an attempt to sell the air you breathe

CO2 is a requirement of all plant life, more CO2 faster plant growth

You exhale it 24/7, duh, limiting CO2 will excellerate a huge world economic collapse

world economy requires CO2 emmissions, to breathe!!!

Oil is created by microbes and not 'dinosaur poop' or 'fossil fuel' and it is made deep within the earth and will continue to be created forever by this free biological process,

synthetic production of domestic oil will soon replace foriegn imports

when this domestic synth oil becomes the majority source of world oil the tide will have shifted and the third world oil exporters will be the next sub prime bomb

and for about 20,000 you can get one of these :) and its closer to the U.S. , with dealerships right in the U.S. !!
[link to www.zenncars.com]

Last years race was actually the 20th aniversary of the Solar Challenge run here in Australia. Its quite well known, being on the tv and everything, with teams from all over the world competing (including one from america)

funnily enough- BP (as in the oil company) make most of the solar panels used on the cars

many of the cars cost very little, being built by uni students and tafe students as a class project

more info at their website [link to www.wsc.org.au]

Wow that's almost as cheap as my Jetta TDI - 450 miles=$33 @ $3.30/gallon As diesel moves up, I'll probably get off my ass and make BioD reducing my cost to around $2/gallon assuming a 1.5-2 times rise in the cost of methanol. Still if I had a bunch of money to kick around I'd want one of these for around town if it could take a family of five plus groceries (a town so small there are no stop lights....), as it is: a used golf cart makes more economic sense in my situation. Cool none the less.

I like the Tesla better. And it's made in California so I'm not sure what you mean about being made in the US?

Your theory discounts the fact that plants are a far more efficient solar energy conversion device, than any nonrenewable based technology. Turns out that twinkie your eating can easily cost 2000 Calories to make per Calorie delivered. A man and an ox and a small piece of iron (plow blade) can produce 10 Calories for every Calorie burned. The negative entropy remains largely in the sun, yielding a long term perpetual-like motion biomachine. The free energy machine is you and the animals and plants you choose to share your space with. Sweat equity is all we started with and will be all that our children will have to work with at the rate we're using up non-renewables and thoughtless moving the population above the number of arable arces (locally). Sorry, but your nillism doesn't fly. The "free lunch" will come to an uncomfortable end if people don't start learning how to do honest produtive work in a hurry. What about wooden windmills? I can cast the small amount of iron I need (except the bearings/races) from the same wood I build the windmill from. Granted it won't produce electricity without copper and magnets, but I'm more interested in water, grinding, compressed air. There are several "waste" windmills out here built from abandoned axles with differentials, yes we had to turn on the welder for 5 minutes, but suspect free compressed air for 10-20 years will overcome that 5 minutes.

What a Bot like response.

You are wrong and your philosophy belongs in the bronze age. Please feel free to leave the thinking humans your share of Oxygen and Calories and check out ASAP.

Useless eaters, debunker shills, and their outmoded ideals have become a burden to the rest of the planet and are no longer desirable as a population segment.

Thanks for the info but unfortunately the Zenn is a Neighborhood Electric Vehicle (NEV) governed at 25 mph.

I need 45 mph to even reach the outer edges of our town which is just 5 miles. There are no alternate connector roads.

The G.E.M., an NEV is made nearby and costs about $12,000 fully equiped, but cannot do the highway speeds. A friend has one and I like the vehicle, but he holds up traffic just making a run to the dump.
[link to www.gemcar.com]

Peace, love, and enlightenment.

If we do not live in peace together, we die in war together!

keep your dirty mouth shut, pigfucker.

Have a look at Loremo (Low Resistance Mobile).

It is still a conventional petrol driven car, but low weight, low wind resistance, modern materials sum up to : 2 liters /100 kilometers.

Without high tech akku packs that life only 3 years (Li-Ion) and without hours to reload.
Just drive it like your normal car, and: it does not look ugly like most of those hippy *alternate transportation devices*


[link to evolution.loremo.com]

Man i been looking for this thread that i posted at like the crack of dawn today.. looked through all the pages and thought SOB they killed my thread... I just seen it in the pin rack lol

Mint thanks guys

Its a darn I cant get my hands on an EV1. I have three electric vehcile parking/charging spots right across the street from my Condo. Cost to charge = ZERO. Loved that EV1... what a perfet machine

I'm thinking about buying a used Toyota Electric RAV4. It would be perfect for me.

Unless you produce your own electricity your still polluting that's what most people don't understand.

We live off the grid and have two all electric vehicles that have about a 75 mile range. The kids use them to run around with there friends but because we live about 90 miles from the nearest city they aren't that practical.

We also have 3 full sized trucks a Suburban and a bus. They all run on used veggie oil and biodiesel that we make our selves. A $15 filter produces about 250 gallons of veggie oil and the biodiesel cost around 60 cents a gallon to make.

It takes about 2 gallons of biodiesel for warm up and then switch to straight veggie oil and maybe 1/2 gallon to flush during shut down. The trucks and suburban get around 20mpg on either fuel so you do the math.

On a long trip fuel cost $15 for 250 gallons and we've gone cross country on nothing but the veggie oil.

All the vehicles are equipped with the pumps and filters on board and every truck stop has used oil so it's easy.

Yes they still pollute to some degree but not near as bad as normal fuels AND we are not limited to 100 miles.

So what's that about $1.50 for start up and shut down and around 16-17 cents per gallon at 20 miles per gallon. So for 100 miles it costs around $2.35 not to bad for running on a waste product.

AND they aren't special vehicles just regular diesels imagine what you could do with a Jetta or other small diesel.

[link to www.unisa.edu.au]

Questions and Answers about Trev
What is it? Why are you doing this?

Our aim is to design, build and demonstrate a practical commuter vehicle that runs entirely on non-polluting, renewable energy. Commuting without polluting. We have been building and racing solar cars for many years. Solar racing cars can travel 750 km in a day at sustained speeds of over 95 km/h, powered only by sunlight. But when we get home from a race, we put the solar car back in the shed and then drive relatively short distances to work and back in cars that are heavy, noisy and polluting. If we can drive across Australia on solar energy, driving to work and back on solar energy should be easy.
Why is it called Trev?

Trev is a good Australian name. But if you want it to mean something, it can stand for Two-seater Renewable Energy Vehicle.
Who is designing and building the car?

The car is being designed and built by staff and students at the University of South Australia. The project involves many UniSA research groups and schools:

* Institute for Sustainable Systems and Technologies
* Centre for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
* Sustainable Energy Centre
* Transport Systems Centre
* Louis Laybourne Smith School of Architecture and Design
* School of Advanced Manufacturing and Mechanical Engineering
* School of Mathematics and Statistics
* School of Electrical and Information Engineering

Where are the solar panels?

Solar racing cars require large panels of high-efficiency solar cells to propel them along the road at 100 km/h. Our car is not as efficient as a solar racing car, and has much less surface area available for panels. If you are going to propel a car using solar energy, the best place to put the cells is somewhere where they will always be facing the sun. We will be using renewable energy sources on the electricity grid to recharge the car's batteries. We will eventually put some solar cells on the roof of the car, to extend the range and to power a ventilation system that will operate when the car is sitting in the sunlight.
How fast does it go?

Trev has a top speed of 120km/h so that it can be driven with normal traffic on urban highways. The acceleration is 0-100 km/h in about 10 seconds.
Does it have gears?

The rear wheel is driven by a 6000 rpm electric motor through a two-stage belt transmission. The gear ratio between the motor and rear wheel is fixed at 6:1. One of the advantages of an electric motor is that it delivers maximum torque when it is needed, at low speed.
What type of motor does it use?

The car currently uses a brushed DC motor. We will eventually use a 25 kW (peak) permanent-magnet brushless DC motor with a maximum speed of about 6000 rpm. A high-speed motor is lighter and less expensive than the in-wheel type of motor used in solar racing cars.
What type of battery does it use?

Trev uses a 40 kg pack of lithium ion polymer cells—the same type of cells that are used in mobile phones. These cells deliver about five times as much energy as the same mass of lead-acid cells, and are more energy-efficient.
What about hybrid cars and fuel cells?

The automotive industry seems to be working almost exclusively towards fuel-cell cars running on hydrogen. Hybrid cars are seen as an intermediate step.

Hybrid cars generate significantly less pollution than conventional cars. They do this by turning off the engine when the car is stopped, and by using electric power to help the engine run more efficiently. Fuel-cell cars are electric cars powered from hydrogen—the fuel cell converts the hydrogen to electricity without combustion. The conversion from hydrogen to electricity is clean, but the overall efficiency of generating the hydrogen and then converting it to electricity is not much better than the efficiency of a petrol car. Furthermore, the infrastructure required to support hydrogen cars is unlikely to be in place for at least another 20 years.

The automotive industry is trying to make existing cars more efficient. We have a different approach—make an efficient solar racing car more practical. We do not need 1-2.5 tonnes of machinery to transport one or two people around the suburbs. By designing a car with low mass and an efficient electric drive system, we can provide adequate range for commuting using existing battery technologies.
What is the range of the car?

Trev currently has a range of 120 km/h, but we hope to improve this to more than 150 km. While this is less than that of a petrol car, it is more than enough for most commuting. The car will generally be charged overnight, and so start each day with a full range. The running cost will be less than 1/10 of the running cost of a small petrol car.
How long does it take to recharge?

From a conventional household outlet, it takes 3-4 hours to recharge. With a high-power outlet, the battery can be recharged in just over an hour.
Will the battery need replacing?

The battery should last over 250,000 kilometres.
How efficient is the car?

The car will use about 1/5 of the energy of a four-cylinder car. At 60 km/h, the motor output power is less than 2000 W. About half of this power will be used to overcome rolling resistance; the other half will be used to overcome aerodynamic drag.
Won't charging the car cause extra emissions at the power station?

The CO2 emissions from a coal-fired power station recharging a 1200 kg electric car are about the same as the emissions from a 1200 kg petrol car. But our 300 kg, aerodynamic car requires only 1/5 of the energy of a 1200 kg car. The car can also be recharged using green electricity generated from renewable energy sources such as solar and wind, in which case there will be no emissions.
Why two seats?

About 80% of commuter trips have only one person in the car. Fewer than 5% of all trips around town have more than two people in the car.

Occasionally you may need a car that can travel long distances or carry more than two people. Many households have more than one car; the car that is used for daily commuting could be a low-mass, efficient, non-polluting car. Most times, there will be only one person in the car.
Why is the passenger behind the driver?

The tandem seating layout has two main advantages. First, it gives the driver a better view of the road without having to look around the passenger. Second, it allows us to build a more streamlined vehicle, which reduces the power required to propel the car.
Why three wheels?

Why four? Three wheels has several advantages:

* the suspension system is simpler,
* the car will have a lower mass than a similar four-wheeled car, and
* it is easier to meet the requirements for registration with a three-wheeled vehicle.

How much does the car weigh?

The prototype car has a mass of about 300 kg. With two occupants and cargo, the total mass will be less than 450kg.

The car is built around a low-mass tub built from aluminium honeycomb panels—the same type of panels used for aircraft cabin floors. Non-structural body panels are be made from low-density foam with a fibreglass skin.
How much will it cost?

The prototype car cost us about $40,000 in materials, parts and machining to build. The most expensive item was the battery, which cost around $10000. Custom built motors are also expensive. In mass production, however, this type of car should be significantly cheaper than a conventional car.
How safe is it?

Safer than a motorcycle with a sidecar.

We have taken safety into account in our design. The cabin section of the tub chassis is relatively stiff, and the surrounding structures are designed to crush. There is a trend to view large, heavy cars as being safer, but this is not necessarily the case. Furthermore, heavy cars inflict more damage in a crash. Would you rather be hit by a large SUV or by our car?
Does it have air-conditioning?

A conventional car air-conditioning unit uses enough power to push our car along at 100 km/h. We are investigating more efficient alternatives. We will also use small glass area, solar powered ventilation and insulation to help keep the car at a comfortable temperature.
When can I buy one?

We don't know. Our aim has been to demonstrate the concept of a low-mass, efficient commuter car. We first displayed Trev at the 2005 World Solar Challenge. Our aim is to have the prototype registered and on the road during 2008. But we will need someone else to take the ideas and produce a commercial version of the car.
I know this bloke that built an electric car with generators on the tailshaft...

Our car is designed to operate in a universe where energy is conserved.

That's great OP but what country, state, city has non polluting electrical generation right now? With the exception of one Norwegian country none that I know of.

What country, state, city has plans for nonpolluting production of electricity as a sole source? None that I know of.

I think a vehicle that uses a nonpolluting energy source is needed but still impractical and the range needs to be 300 miles between charges. Europe could use a vehicle with ranges of 75km but that's not practical in the US for most people and a two seater is way way to small.

People want to buy a vehicle that will do it all not have one for going to work and another to take the entire family out especially with the economy going to hell.

If we are to make a dent world wide in pollution from vehicles you will have to market to the americans as they drive more than anyone and I don't think a vehicle like this will be in high demand nation wide.

Good idea though I hope they get it down and put solar panels on it and make it bigger.



I still like Underground dudes vehicles and they are widely available now and the cost to run is similar it appears this vehicle is 2 cent and by UDs figures his is 2.3 cents and the range with 25 gallon tank at his 20mpg is 500 miles in a suburban.

I came across something to do with this that stated the idea was to recharge it using solar cells on the car as well as power generation and recharging through wind power also on the car itself.

Which is what made me post the story to start with as i thought the idea itself was sound.

Peace

I drive max 50 miles a day

in the city

I park my car for 9 hr a day at work in a parking lot the gets sun all day

this little car would work fine for me and millions of other people .

soler cell on the roof and I can plug it in if I need to.

at night.

Thanks for the info OP

Thats all great - Does anyone know where plastics and asphalt come from? This car built with a lot of plastic & running on asphalt roads? Both products are in the same barrel of crude oil as gasoline. Hmm - Nobody has a solution to replace plastic - or a replacment for our blacktop parking lots. Bummer, same deal as all those diesel pickups then diesel went way high in price.