2009 Mitsubishi i MiEV has the prestige to win the “MOST ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY” award yesterday in the 41st Tokyo Motor Show. i MiEV is a 4-seater electric car that was seen on Japanese roads in July this year with around 1400 units already sold in Japan. 900 more units have been ordered in Japan for 2010 i MiEV production. Mitsubishi deserves this award which has been working on electric cars a long ago since 1970’s and properly employing the high performance lithium ion batteries in all i MiEV models.
The i MiEV production for the European countries will begin form October 2010 except UK where i MiEV will be on roads in December this year. This is because UK auto market is occupied with right hand drive vehicles.
Man has never been so concerned about fitness as he today is. Da Feng, a graduate from British faculty, has designed a concept GYM car. It may be characterized as an electric car that generates its energy from the lithium ion batteries. The batteries run the electric motor which drives the car.
The basic idea behind this project is to convert the mechanical energy produced by the body movements of the driver into the electrical energy to charge the battery. So the driver is bound to make enough exercises inside the car which keeps the battery charged.
This GYM car uses steering wheel, pedals and seat as the gym tools. It is still ambiguous whether you may do the exercises before turning the car alive or you can do it during the journey. The front view of the car resembles Formula One racing cars.
Where you have high performance BMW Vision EfficientDynamic Concept in the Frankfurt Motor Show, Audi is no more behind. Audi releases its new electric concept super car on tuesday, Audi Etron, with some new dynamic features and big tyres. The company claims that its prototype will be there on road next year and production will start in 2012. This car resembles Audi R8 with some unique changes. The front aluminum grilled frame seems to be a bit wider than conventional Audi R8 models. The innovative design of the front lights gives it a unique ultimate look. The car seems to be quite strange without the side view mirrors, this is as though a man without ears (just a comic relief). Actually the side view mirrors are replaced with the camera system which monitors the cars coming from behind.
The new Audi concept is so simple from the side that there is nothing much to say on it where as the rear view is very attractive. The tail lights are a bit narrow which are completely homogenized with the body.
The new super car is supposed to be driven with four electric motors, two for front axle and two for the rear one. The lithium ion batteries are used to power the electric motors with the capacity of 42.4 kWh which can drive the new sports car upto 248 km. The car can accelerate from 0 – 60 miles in 4.8 secs.
Some of the unique features as I cited above include the torque vectoring concept (being used in Porsche), use of a heat pump, thermal management system.
Torque Vectoring concept provides extra stability to the car in sharp turns and evenly distributes the torque to all the four motors. Heat pump heats up the interior of the car quite effectively as desired where as the thermal management system controls the electronics and battery.
Lets discuss the interior of the car. An innovative side view LCD screen is used instead of the side view mirrors. Another LCD for navigation purposes is used between the two speed dials. Rest of the interior is very simple with no additional buttons on the dashboard.
Performance Stats:
Acceleration – 0 – 60 mph in 4.8 secs
Motor Power – 313 hp
General Motors, being the second largest world leading automakers, has introduced a new five door sedan with a unique and innovative feature of engine powered electric generator that works after 40 miles. The car uses the lithium ion battery which being composed of nano particles drive the electic drive motor of the vehicle. When a car completes 40 miles around, the electric generator which is run by a separate gasoline engine turns alive and provides an additional electric energy to the Electric Drive Unit that can drive the car upto 700 miles on road. So you can drive the new Chevy Volt without using a single drop of gas upto 40 miles or so.
The rounded front corners of the Chevy Volt gives it a new aerodynamic look. The car has the plug in socket a little below the side view mirrors from where it can be re-charged easily.
The interior of the car is very touchy which is almost completely composed of touch systems. Two liquid crystal displays give vehicle’s statistics results, on road navigation, engine/battery charge, audio and other reconfigurable informations as longed by the driver. Just below the second LCD is the capacitive touch screen panel. One side of the panel includes a start button which makes the car alive.
Christi, the product manager of Chevy Volt says:
“Someone driving this vehicle could do their daily routine, come home at night, plug it in, charge it back to full charge, go back again the next day into their rountine and potentially never use the drop of gas.”
