Chinese firm unveils long-distance e-car A Chinese company has developed a battery-powered electric vehicle capable of travelling 250 miles on a single charge. Zoyte_2008_EV_at_Shanghai New Power's Zhong Tai: can travel 250 miles on a single charge The Zhong Tai — which translates roughly as 'Peace and Safety for the People' – is branded by firm New Power, but …
Cheap shots at the cars 75mph limited speed in a country with a 70mph legal limit seem childish at best. And 12 seconds 0-60 is not unrealistic for a small family car. Whilst the performance is I grant you sedentary people buying this car don't do so for performance.
If it is possible to have such a thing as an "Eco" car then these cars need to be reviewed relative to their peers in the "Eco" Car market and not to their distant cousins in the performance car market.
I would be interested to see if the majority of people on this board could honestly tell me 0-60 time of their current car and whether or not that was determining factor when they decided to buy their car? I suspect that a very small minority of people if not on this board then in the general public as a whole, actually know or care.
I have a Honda Accord 2.2ctdi and I bought it because I have a 50 mile motorway commute to do everyday. I have no idea what its 0-60 time is, but I know it gets between 45 and 70 to the gallon depending on how I drive because that is what is important to me.
Mines the one with cheapskate on the back.
"I would be interested to see if the majority of people on this board could honestly tell me 0-60 time of their current car and whether or not that was determining factor when they decided to buy their car? "
- 8.1 seconds. V8 Jag... so no I didn't give a shit about the environment when I brought it.
*Paris becasue there is no substitute for cubic inches
WTF? Unless I'm much mistaken this is the first electric car for the hoi polloi. More than enough range to get to work and back, and at a reasonable price. It even looks like a 4x4.
True, I won't be able to drive to John o'Groats in a oner, but if electric cars become commonplace the whole transport framework's likely to change anyway.
Paris, 'cos she's just around the bend.
There isn't that much inter-city travel done in China - mostly because of these long distances.
Most car travel is done around the local city, and you drive pretty slowly in the city since it's a constant battle between cars, bikes and people trying to cross the road. Some interesting facts about cars & China:
- If someone flashes their lights at you, it doesn't mean "After you." it means "Get out my way!", which gives you a useful indicator of the difference in driving styles generally.
- If you want to cross a busy road in China, you need to walk a bit out into the road so that the cars make an arc around you, keep moving slowly forwards and after the mid-point the cars will start to swerve the other way around you. If you stand at a zebra crossing and wait for cars to stop for you, you'll die of old age by the side of the road.
Back to more serious matters - the uptake of electric cars can be strongly influenced by capturing the taxi market. Half the cars on the roads are taxis, but in most provinces they are already running on compound natural gas which is already very cheap - so I'm not sure how easy it will be to convince taxi drivers to go for EVs instead. Possibly by releasing a number of taxi licenses that are valid only for EVs (taxi licenses tend to be pretty valuable, and can be sold for about £20,000 - at least that's the case in my local city).
i think it would make a good bank job weapon...
4 seats, boot, understated, and 200 miles in total silence! thermal footprint for the pesky helicopter will also be a lot smaller than an IC car, not invisible, but possibly oddly shaped enough to cause confusion...
hell... if the banks had any money in them, id be tempted myself!!!
6.7s BMW 325i. It gets 35mpg highway.
I bought the 325 because it gets better mileage than my older 540i AND performs well. A Honda Civic would get better mileage but I'm not going to sacrifice that much.
I suspect people won't buy many of these "Eco" cars until they quit being terrible to drive.
4.6 seconds - BMW K100.
The 660cc Daihatsu Mira in which we do over 80% of our driving does give a slightly less exciting performance, but is much more suited to it's "around town" role than either of our other vehicles.
I would see this Chinese vehicle as an excellent vehicle for daily in city use, with a larger more powerful distilled dino powered device for long distance travel.
~8 sec in my Skoda, ~7 in the Seat and ~9.5 in my wife's Toyota. And yes, accelleration is a key factor for me. I'd never buy anything with a 0-60 greater than about 10 seconds. Anything that does 0-60 in more than about 15 seconds is bloody dangerous at a T-junction onto a 60mph road.
Hell, if a Mercedes Vito van can hit 60 in about 10 seconds, a passenger vehicle has no excuses...
The main problem this would have in China is charging it up! Most Chinese live in apartments,and parking is outside or in a garage underground, and these places don't have electricity outlets.
Going to be a total bastard lugging those batteries up seven flights of stairs!! (Chinese apartments of less than seven stories don't have lifts!).
My living in china blog: www.ChinarensBlog.com
So you're driving your battery car to Derbyshire [let's say] and you get to the hills.
Apart from pissing every other driver off because you sanctimoniously stick to 60mph, you suddenly hit the gradients.
I think there will be a fleet of these things chugging around the country with outboard Honda generators on the roof.
I wouldn't buy a Daihatsu Terios anyway let alone one so slow and with a limited range. Oh and Bobbles it was indeed a factor in my purchase of a huge auto SUV 9.9 seconds. But running on LPG and purchased at 50.9p a litre it's the equivalent to you getting 45 mpg in your petrol powered car.
Main reason I wouldn't have a terios is there's no room in the back for my two large hounds and they'd look silly gaffer taped to a roof rack. Automatic cos of my wife's disability.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
