TWO BIG batteries stand side by side at the General Motors testing lab in Michigan. One is an artefact, built a dozen years ago. Weighing 550kg, it could fill the back of a large pick-up. Standing on one end, it towers over Robert A Kruse, GM’s executive director of global vehicle engineering for hybrids and electric vehicles.
The other battery is new and produces the same amount of energy but is a relatively trim 180kg. It comes up just past Kruse’s shoulder, and it will squeeze into the body of the new electric plug-in model GM plans to start producing next year and retail in Ireland under the name Opel Ampera.
“You can see the direction the technology is driving us,” Kruse says. However, the costs and limits of current batteries remain the biggest obstacles to mass marketing plug-in vehicles. Although nearly every major car company is moving ahead with electric-car plans, the batteries still cost about €10,000 or more each, experts estimate, and that could make electric cars money-losers. Moreover, the industry’s manufacturing capacity is limited.
In the US, solving these problems could become more critical as President Obama pushes to toughen fuel-efficiency standards. The car firms are already lobbying congress for help to establish a battery industry.
The issue is whether battery development is the most cost-efficient means of reducing US dependency on oil. “You can heavily subsidise small volumes of electric cars and lightly subsidise high volumes, but you cannot heavily subsidise high volumes,” says Menahem Anderman, chief executive of Total Battery Consulting. “The environment and energy security will benefit more if we had a million hybrids in the US than 10,000 [electric vehicles], and technologically and economically this is more realistic.”
For now, batteries represent the greatest obstacle to an electric car, says JB Straubel, chief technical officer at Tesla Motors. “There is no question that we can make 10 million cars. But with batteries, you’re beyond the existing manufacturing base. You need to build a whole new industry to make the batteries, as big as the industry that is making the cars themselves.”
According to Lux Research, a consulting firm specialising in emerging technologies, the electric-car battery market is projected to grow sixfold by 2013. About 70 per cent of it will be lithium-ion batteries. Similar technology could become widespread in storing wind and solar energy for utilities, too.
So far, Asian battery makers have a leg up. General Motors this month announced that it had passed over US battery firms and chosen LG Chem, a Korean firm, to make the lithium-ion battery cells for the Opel Ampera.
“LG Chem, thanks to years and years in the prismatic lithium-ion cell business and also thanks to massive financial technological support from the Korean state, has a several-year head start,” says Bob Lutz, GM’s vice president for global product development. “This is why we say if we’re serious about electrification of the automobile, we do need, as part of a national energy policy, government support for advanced battery development.”
– (LA Times, Washington Post service)
An electric motor to set the pulse racing
One day all electric cars will sound like the Brabus tesla, which delivers a healthy does of dirty, old school, oily nostalgia writes Nick Hall
THE MENACING chug of a big-bore V8 echoes through our test chariot and I can feel the pistons at work as the whole car shakes at idle. But this car doesn’t have a V8, nor pistons for that matter. This is the Brabus Tesla, a tuned electric sportscar, and something weird is going on.
Brabus is famous for wringing huge horsepower from Mercedes cars, but a makeover on the poster child of green technology is its first step into the world of zero emissions.
Forget big horsepower, though. Without ripping out the generator there was nothing Brabus could do to boost the output, but with the equivalent of 248bhp and 380Nm of torque from its 375 Volt AC induction motor sending it to 100km/h in 3.9 seconds and on to 210km/h, it wasn’t too shabby anyway.
The overall experience, though, was crying out for a fix. Only when the car scooted off the line at outrageous speed did you know it was even on and the dull crescendo of electric motor and rolling resistance was just wrong.
Not any more. Now it vibrates like an old-school muscle car to the sound of Brabus’s own 6.1-litre V8 and 625Nm of feigned output. Strategically placed subwoofers and speakers, and Brabus’s Space sound generator, mimic a real engine to perfection in terms of sound and feel through the carbon-fibre bodywork.
And when I finally tire of blipping the throttle and engage D, the Tesla no longer feels like a leap into tomorrow’s world. It feels like a real sportscar.
Brabus recorded its 6.1-litre at every stage of throttle travel and linked the results to the Tesla’s own pedal. On the move, it’s hard not to believe there is a huge petrol engine under the skin with this kind of accelerative force.
Every time I pin the throttle all thoughts of environmentalism give way to pure, unadulterated adrenaline and a lunatic smile as the V8 Elise surges forth. Adjustable coilover suspension can drop the car up to 30mm on to those dirty looking 7x18 front and 8.5x19 inch rear Titans, which widen the track. And while three-point turns are a nightmare with no power assistance, the handling is pin sharp, more in touch with the extruded aluminium chassis. The Tesla cuts into the bend with that immaculate low inertia feel and a set of Pirelli P Zero Rossos help its cause. In fact, it is almost as good as the Elise on which it is based.
With the best will in the world, there is no hiding the extra 450kg of battery pack. Brabus used forged aluminium to drop the suspension weight by 30 per cent and even lightweight hole-punched the leather inside. But that is like ordering a diet drink with a bucket of nuggets and this is a car screaming for battery technology to catch up and lose weight.
Until then, the cosmetic modifications will still go down a storm with the rich, green-conscious set.
The naked carbon front and rear spoilers and Audi-style daytime running lights add a touch of testosterone to a potentially cutesy car. Inside, Brabus has removed every last whiff of Lotus with the lightweight leather and Alcantara trim. And while the underfloor lighting and backlit kickplates were a step too far, they’re as optional as the €5,000 matte white paint and the two “space” sounds. They can replace the V8, but are so much more annoying than any ring tone, even Crazy Frog, they’ll get you beaten up.
The Tesla is a brave new dawn for Brabus and Tesla boss Elon Musk should look long and hard. Because, with the addition of piped-in sound, the Mercedes tuner of choice has given a brilliant technical achievement real motoring heart and soul. And this is not Tesla specific. One day all electric cars will sound like this and the perfect green car of the future will come with a healthy dose of dirty, old school, oily nostalgia.
Factfile
Engine:375 volt AC induction air-cooled electric motor
Power:248bhp@4500-8500rpm
Torque:380@0rpm
0-100kph:3.9s
Top speed:210km/h