On 30 Jan 2016 at 18:31, Lawrence Rhodes via EV wrote: > If you go light and I mean under 1000 pounds you can use less batteries > .. The challenge is to make it safe. Racing has given the answer. 5 > point harnesses and airbags.
If you're homebrewing, or possibly designing a kit car EV, this is the way already shown by RQ Riley and others. However, if you want to turn it into a mass market EV here in the States, that's a different story, and a trail that's already tripped up other would-be EV makers. The solar challenge is a subject in itself. We've discussed that here many times in the past. Even neglecting that, building an ultralight EV and getting it on the market is far from trivial. Just ask the Aptera folks. While IMO it's worth it to save lives, crashworthiness inevitably adds mass. It's going to be tough to keep the weight under 1000lb and still meet FMVSS. The Smart Fortwo qualifies, but as tiny as it is, it weighs over 1800lb. For comparison, my plain old (uncrashworthy) monocoque steel 1965 Opel Kadett A carried 2 more passengers handily, and weighed less than 1500lb. That's hardly the only reason that cars today are so tubby. Once you start adding the goodies that American drivers expect today, such as air-con, big stereo systems, power everything, and lots of sound deadening materials - none of which my Kadett had - you're packing on still more pounds. Don't forget that adding 4 average American adult passengers can easily add over 70% to the mass of your 1000lb EV. Composites would help some, but then you're into higher production costs and the resulting customer resistance to higher prices. So would making your EV a 2-place vehicle so that your passenger load drops to an average of 360lb. But there's another limit on your sales potential. I expect that a 5-point harness would be fine with most EVDLers, but show that to Jane and Joe Average and watch how they react. If they even know what it is and how to use it, they'll think "how inconvenient," and "this car isn't safe," even if it is. Now you have yet another sales impediment. You could negate most FMVSS problems by making it a trike, but that's one more sales strike against you, and a big one. I would never say it's impossible, but you'd have to rethink the funding and marketing process at least as much as you were rethinking the vehicle development process. As long as you're trying to work within the traditional US automotive investment, development, sales, and legal liability model, IMO you're just dreaming. You'd have a better chance in Europe, I think. There you might be able to qualify such a car as a heavy quadricycle, like the G-Wiz and some versions of the Renault Twizy. That would let you dodge some of the safety regulations, at the cost of having to limit the motor power to 15kW. European attitudes and legal framework might also give you a better chance against liability to the families of people injured and killed by crashes in your car. I would guess that you'd have a somewhat better chance there at partial public funding for your EV's development. That might change though, given recent political and economic trends in the EU. Finally, some EU nations might put a thumb on the price and running costs scale for you, with beneficial EV tax, licensing, and usage treatments that would go beyond anything you'll ever see here in the US. David Roden - Akron, Ohio, USA EVDL Administrator = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = EVDL Information: http://www.evdl.org/help/ = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Note: mail sent to "evpost" and "etpost" addresses will not reach me. To send a private message, please obtain my email address from the webpage http://www.evdl.org/help/ . = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org Read EVAngel's EV News at http://evdl.org/evln/ Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
