NEDRA President John Metric took his Miata, Assault and Battery to an all-time 1/4 mile record for an Electric door slammer at Royal Purple Raceway with a best time of 9.12 at 145 mph!
The EV record has been held by Black Current III since 2010 with a 9.51 sec @135 mph pass of Santa Pod.
The tube frame and tubbed 2002 Mazda Miata runs a 340 volt LiPo pack with 2x 2000 amp Zilla 2K-EHV controllers feeding dual brushed DC NetGain 9-inch motors, a Lenco 2 speed and double GV overdrive. For the record run the controllers were set to 170 volt & 1100 amps per motor.
BMW could build a large battery powered sedan to compete head on with Tesla's Model S.
Following the critical success being enjoyed by the Tesla Model S many within BMW's i project are already convinced that there is potential for a model larger than the i3.
The company is still deciding whether the new car – likely to be called i5 – would be a crossover or a conventional sedan.
'We are having these discussions right now,' said the senior BMW source, 'and no decision has been taken. In fact, there's still not an absolute decision that the car, if it is called i5, should even happen. Many, including myself, believe that there is potential. Then if we decide the car should happen, we need to decide if it is a regular sedan or something where the passengers are sitting slightly higher up.
'Then after that we need to decide whether a car of this size can be a fully electric edition, like the i3, or whether it needs to be a range-extender – or perhaps even a plug-in hybrid. That could ultimately be the best solution for that model; we don't know yet.'
BMW have already underestimated demand for their first fully electric i3 and have announced they are planning to have a plug-in hybrid in each and every model series. BMW have also already road tested an all electric X1 crossover, initially bound for Chinese production in a joint venture with Chinese partner Brilliance Auto, so perhaps an all electric 5 series or X5 is a logical next step.
Nissan bosses have refused to rule out the introduction of an electric version of the next-generation Nissan Dualis (Qashqai in EU)
According to Autocar Guillaume Cartier, Nissan's head of European sales and marketing says the Japanese automaker won't consider an electric-drive version of the model "for now," implying that there may be one in the future for Europe. He added that economies of scale are driving battery-electric powertrain production costs down, so Nissan is likely to expand the battery-electric option well beyond models such as the Leaf.
The Qashqai has been built at Nissan's UK plant in Sunderland since December 2006. Nissan started production of the LEAF at Sunderland in March of this year.
Cartier also said that Nissan's EV lineup will continue to grow, but EV technology will not be retro-fitted into existing models. New models will be designed with electric propulsion in mind from the outset.
Japanese fans will have the first opportunity to see the revolutionary Nissan ZEOD RC in action when the car makes its public on-track debut at this year's Fuji Speedway round of the FIA World Endurance Championship.
Running in pure electric mode, the Nissan ZEOD RC will undertake demonstration runs on October 18, 19 and 20 – all three days of the Japanese round of the WEC. The Fuji demonstration was announced today at the Nissan 360 global media event in California.
The ZEOD RC (Zero Emission On Demand Racing Car) will make its race debut at next year's Le Mans 24 Hour. The global leader in electric vehicles for the road, Nissan will trial variants of new electric drive train technologies as part of its intended future return to LM P1 competition to challenge for overall victory at the world's most prestigious endurance race.
The Nissan ZEOD RC will kick off its testing and development program soon in the UK with inaugural Nissan PlayStation GT Academy winner Lucas Ordóñez behind the wheel.
Ordóñez and Krumm were teammates at Le Mans this year where they scored third place in the LM P2 class with 2011 GT Academy winner, Jann Mardenborough.
Nissan is also enjoying a highly successful season in the FIA World Endurance Championship in the LM P2 class with pole position and victory at the first four rounds of the season at Silverstone, Spa-Francorchamps and Le Mans and Interlagos.
"One of our goals with the Nissan ZEOD RC is to draw back the curtain for fans so they can see what goes on behind the scenes in the development of such a unique race car," said Nissan's Global Motorsport Director, Darren Cox.
"As part of that philosophy, we thought it would be quite fitting that rather than just test behind closed doors, we give the fans the chance to see the car in action.
"To be able to do that at such a great venue like Fuji Speedway only 90 minutes away from the home of Nismo in Yokohama was too good to pass up.
"We'll be on track with many of the cars from the WEC at Le Mans next year so our demonstration runs will also give us some initial comparison data as well."
After the Fuji events, the Nissan ZEOD RC will continue its development program in Europe with Lucas Ordóñez returning to the driver seat. The car is scheduled to make its race debut at next year's Le Mans 24 Hour where it will occupy Garage 56 – an additional entry reserved by the Automobile Club de l'Ouest for cars using new and innovative technology not previously seen in the French endurance classic.
"Nissan has become a global leader in the development of zero emission automotive technology and the Nissan ZEOD RC will allow us to further develop those capabilities using the toughest endurance race in the world as a mobile test bed to test the potential of our planned LM P1 power train," said Andy Palmer, Executive Vice President and Executive Committee member at Nissan Motor Company Limited.
"The ZEOD RC program is designed to develop multiple technologies to evaluate how they could be used for a future LM P1 class return of Nissan at the Le Mans 24 Hour."
Nissan is already a global leader in the development of electric vehicles for the road. Launched in 2010, the Nissan LEAF has become the world's best-selling all-electric car. The LEAF won the 2010 Green Car Vision Award, the 2011 European Car of the Year, the 2011 World Car of the Year, and the 2011–2012 Car of the Year Japan.
Nissan launched the Nissan LEAF RC in 2011 – a race car prototype powered by the same 107-hp electric motor that is used in the road car.
The Nissan ZEOD RC is the next step in the electrification of motorsport. The new car will turn speeds faster than GTE class cars running purely on electric power with zero emissions.
Bloomberg reporter Matt Miller tries to make a case that BMW and Audi are going to squeeze out Tesla at the top-end of the market, but the analysis is fairly poor.
Miller's argument starts by comparing BMW's two seater plug-in hybrid i8 sports car to Tesla's seven seater 100% battery electric Model S 4 door sedan? These cars aren't even in the same market segment!
We're not even sure how Audi enters the competitive analysis as Audi admitted defeat and canned the R8 e-tron saying they couldn't figure out how to make a high performance battery only car economically viable and they have not announced any plans for a high performance battery only sedan to go up against the Model S.
This is the kind of trash reporting that listed companies must endure, commentators constantly trying to talk the stock price up or down. At least it's good to see a 'real' analyst like Dougherty & Co.'s Andrea James who actually knows what's she's talking about get some air time.
The recent Electric Vehicle Racing in Motor Sports Japan Festival saw some interesting EV race car demonstrations, some of which have made their way onto Youtube.
While the environmental benefits of converting tire rubber into smoke are debatable, what is of particular interest is the demonstration of the horsepower available in Monster Tajima's EV class winning Pikes Peak Special.
GKN EVO axial flux motors power all the leading Japanese Pikes Peak EV entries and we believe Tajima's Monster Sport E-RUNNER runs 2x AFM-240 Axial Flux motors, each capable of 335 kw (455 hp) and 1200 Nm Peak.
While we don't know what differential gearing the car runs front and back so are unable to calculate torque at the wheels, anyway you look at it, that's just over 900 horsepower shredding tires in this car park demo, which equals the 900 hp 900 kg Peugeot 208 T16 Pikes Peak Special used by nine time World Rally Champion Sébastien Loeb to win overall.
When asked about beating the new gasoline record, the 63 year old Tajima responded: “We are able to do that very soon, it depends on the battery. With a high quality and high density battery, I can beat that record for sure.”
Europe's car fleets have been persistently transformed from being petrol-driven to diesel-driven over the last 20 years. The EU average for diesel new car sales is 55%, with Spain and France as high as 70%.
According to leading automotive engineers the dominance of diesel engines in Europe’s new car market could be over before the end of the decade. A combination of increasingly stringent emissions regulations and the high cost of new-generation anti-pollution technology will make diesel engines much more expensive along with the high possibility of significant rises in the price of diesel fuel making them more expensive to run.
Joe Bakaj, head of product development for Ford of Europe said “It is much cheaper to get petrol engines through EU6.2; with diesel engines we need technology such as selective catalyst reduction systems, and costs increase again with heavier vehicles.”
Will EVs fill the void? With the average cost of fuel across the EU approx € 1.50 / liter (US $8 /US Gallon), those prices have driven european motorists to sacrifice the performance of a petrol engine for sluggishness and jack-hammer sound track of a diesel engine in search of 10-20% fuel efficiency improvements.
Based on those motives, if a 10-20% fuel saving can generate 50-70% market share of new car sales, then the 95% energy cost saving of running a plug-in electric car has the potential to take over significantly more than 70% market share.
Nissan employees working at the company's Barcelona Technical Centre are proving there's more to motorsport than striving for the fastest lap times by taking part in a new concept in motorsport: ECOseries, which rewards efficiency and fuel economy rather than outright speed.
The employees - who are all taking part in the series in their spare time - are using three Nissan Leaf in the zero-emission category.
ECOseries, which is based in Spain and combines track and road-rally events over the season, attracts entries from a wide variety of road cars. Aside from the Nissan team, there are cars from rival manufacturers including Peugeot, Toyota, Volkswagen, Porsche and Mercedes-Benz.
In the EV category, the Nissan LEAFs and a Mercedes A-Class E-Cell have been fighting for outright honours. Although two of the team's three LEAFs are essentially standard, a third was introduced as a mobile test lab, running in the series' EV prototype category. For the final race, its battery pack was doubled in size to take battery performance to 48 kWh and allowing it to perform on more equal terms with the 36 kWh Mercedes.
In the end, although the LEAF was quicker than the A-Class and ran at the same pace as the Nissan Juke with no potential range issues to affect the car's progress, the Mercedes took outright honours by lapping closer to its regularity target.
A 48 kWh Leaf could have up to 250 miles (400 km) estimated range, although the extra weigh would reduce that slightly.
The electric Kia Soul is due to go on sale in the UK in October 2014, with prices set to rival those of other electric vehicles.
Yaser Shabsogh, Kia’s UK Commercial Director, has confirmed that the electric Soul will be offered in the UK, but not until the end of 2014, some months after the arrival of the new Soul in early 2014.
He said the projected prices were based on the assumption that the car would be sold with a battery, rather than via a leasing scheme. Kia is yet to decide whether to lease or sell the battery.
The car, which Shabsogh says will have a "low-to-mid £20,000" price tag, will also be eligible for the government's £5000 electric car grant, assuming the scheme is still operational as the car goes on sale.
Kia UK will use it to demonstrate Kia has cutting-edge EV technology available.
Shabsogh told Headline Auto:
It is not going to be priced to try to stimulate demand.
We won’t be selling hundreds of them – maybe a couple of hundred, mostly in the key metropolitan areas.
The bigger question for the manufacturer is the support network that an electric car would require, with Shabsogh saying: 'We would definitely have some specialist dealers that can charge and service it.'
Renault leads the electric vehicle market in Europe where it has sold over 34,000 electric vehicles since its first model, Kangoo Van Z.E., went on sale in late 2011. In this developing European electric vehicle market, Renault has a market share of 47% so far this year.
Renault ZOE, spearheads its Z.E. range of 100 per cent electric vehicles and is the world’s first affordable, purpose-built, all-electric supermini – perfect for households whether they’re commuting, doing supermarket and school runs, or even doing moderate distances.
ZOE’s official NEDC range is 130 miles (208 km), the longest of any affordable EV on sale today, with a real-world range of around 90 miles in temperate conditions or 60 in the harshest conditions. It is priced from just £13,995 on-the-road after grant, plus battery hire from £70 per month.
In addition to the Kangoo Van Z.E., Renault also offers Fluence Z.E. saloon; the two-seat commuter vehicle Twizy; and the ZOE supermini, launched earlier this year.
Twizy is Renault’s best-selling model with over 11,400 units sold since it went on sale in early 2012, closely followed by 11,000 Kangoo Z.E.
