The new BMW I8 is the new innovation in automotive technology, this vehicle is a sports car designed to run on electricity without the insane weight of the batteries. This vehicle uses a combustion engine to turn a generator in place of turning the wheels, since it takes less energy to turn a generator than to move a vehicle the conversion from gas to electricity gives the efficiency of 36.8 kilometers per liter with the torque to go from 0 to 100km/h in 4.6 seconds, and that, in my opinion is AWESOME.
I believe that this is the future of cars, smaller engine with less load on the engine means engines will last longer, the electric motor means that there won't be as many moving parts so the engine itself will last longer. With almost the greatest fuel efficiency of all combustion engine vehicles around I believe that this innovation is the best way to conserve our ever depleting fossil fuel resources, while making our transition to something more environmentally friendly a bit more comfortable. This is our first step away from fossil fuels or just another method to increase fuel prices, either way it will help us reduce green house gas emissions.
It's a good start given our current infrastructure and will make the eventual movement to hydrogen fuel cells a bit easier. My biggest problem is the noise, there isn't much. A sports car like that needs to sound like a sports car and until they can make that electric motor sound like this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9Qe-wE0ZsTY) it's just not the same.
ReplyDeletevery cool. I saw some snippets of this car on a commercial but didn't quite know what it was all about. Do you know if it is going to be put into production?
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing...
you're absolutely right jordon. Although, when push comes to shove and we have people dying because of it and mass genocide ; I think that it's going to be a necessary sacrifice. Who "really" cares if people can't hear it - should be a moral judgement call that society needs to take just because it makes sense. Louis C.K. says it perfect when he talks about the problems us north americans think are important like complaining about 3g internet taking forever, when in reality - a little signal has to go to SPACE and back!! Current media, facilitated by government, and ran by corporations, sculpt the way we think we should perceive things, and right now oil companies have an iron grip on the balls of what constitutes cool - and that's a loud car!
ReplyDeleteAlbeit I'm a total sucker for the sound of turbo.
Very interesting. I would like to see the price of this car? or not. I have seen the same technology on other less sporty vehicles.
ReplyDelete