Part of the difference may come from using the easier WLTP testing cycle than the EPA cycle the Cybercab probably uses, but only part.
coool interior and aero. all of the hyper efficient designs end up looking like the modern prius designs with the swan tail rear and hawk-beak nose.
The whole "higher on the road" thing is a red queen's race: if everyone is higher on the road, nobody is. You've got slightly better sight yourself until all the other people upsize, and in the meantime you are blocking everyone else's sight. Considering SUVs are more expensive, the only people winning are the car makers.
Did you mean fat people?
I'm curious to know if the evolution of the average car size tracks obesity.
https://www.volkswagen-newsroom.com/en/press-releases/missio...
This is concept car that has no planned release date.
Waymo should have a mixed fleet of 2 adult passenger vehicles like this one, 4-5 passenger models as well as some vans. It'll save them a lot of money, and will make streets safer by normalizing small vehicles.
A drag coefficient of 0.158 is not quite setting a record. Aptera's road-legal car has a coefficient of only 0.13, while Hyundai achieved a drag coefficient of 0.144 with the Aero Challenge concept car [1] (but it's not clear whether that vehicle is road-legal, or even what it looks like).
Wake us up when it can safely navigate a speed bump or enter a driveway without smashing against the bottom.
> 6.48 kWh/100 km
At a constant 68km/h in perfect conditions (no up/down) and no additional consumers of energy (climate control).
Even on a real route they apparently got some useful stats with 7.51 kWh/100km including charging. Cool.
My car is around 17-20 kWh/100km at a 64kWh battery for a medium cost car in germany. I wish it was even close to that efficiency.
You could also go the other way and use the improved range to shrink the battery, but with the ongoing battery cost drop that's not exactly a gamechanger either - and fast-charging long-range Chinese EVs are available for their domestic market for a fraction of the cost of entry-level Western models as well...
Don't get me wrong, improving aerodynamics is a nice goal, but with the ongoing push towards gigantic SUVs there's zero chance anything even remotely resembling this concept car will ever see the light of day.
Great, you've designed and prototyped the vehicle. When will they be built at the rate BYD and other Chinese automakers are building EVs? Until then, it's vaporware. All that matters is deliveries (China EV manufacturing is currently at a run rate exporting ~3M more EVs per year than VW sells in a year entirely regardless of powertrain [~9M]).
I'd rather just bring my phone, which gets replaced every 4-years or so anyway.
https://photos.classiccars.com/cc-temp/listing/165/1814/3484...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_Insight#First_generation...
>It’s also the most efficient EV in its class, consuming just 6.89 kWh/100 km without charging losses. >The VW Mission Efficiency covered 1,278 km (794 miles) on a single charge and still had 164 km (102 miles) of range left at the end of the trip.
But at 6.89kWh/100km for a 1278km trip equals 88kWh battery and it is stated later that the battery is a 54.9kWh one and that was recharged during the journey.
> The 54.9-kWh net battery was recharged only once during the journey....
It would be nice to have an article that makes sense from time to time...
They're also convenient for hauling around toys. Being able to put my skis inside my car is nice in shit weather.
Cybercab is most efficient electric production car, 165 Wh/mile
As impressive as the efficiency there is, I'm going to take issue with the "production car" part of this statement.
It's not like I can walk into a dealership and drive one of those bad boys home either...
Where? I live in Wyoming. The folks who have EVs around me are doing fine–there aren't many public chargers on a square-mile basis, but there aren't many places the public is randomly going. If you're travelling on a highway, you're passing chargers about half as regularly as you're passing gas stations.
My next vehicle will be an EV. (I'm waiting for non-Tesla self driving to get a bit better.)
Yes the Chinese have better infrastructure. Probably even better technology out in production available to them at this point. But so what? I mean it's great for the rest of the world. And that's awesome. But how are we plebes in the US ever gonna get access to those vehicles?
It's not as simple an issue as people make it out to be here in the US.
But yes. Good on Europe and China for pushing these technologies forward.
Perhaps there are some farm workers left who would like some additional range, but they can always throw an extra battery pack or two in the cargo bed, Cybertruck-style.
There will always be people who aren't perfectly served by the currently-available options. We shouldn't let the outliers dominate the conversation when the existing options are sufficient for the vast majority.
this is not a global thing.
Yes, driving truck-sized cars with two-ton batteries the size of a french-door fridge also works and also easily moves 1.5 people per trip.
Sub-10-minute charging is going to be standard in new Chinese EVs very soon. There are already many new models on the market this year with charging times between 5 and 10 minutes. There will soon be cars with Megawatt charging speeds that sell for $15k.
As I understand it, Chinese manufacturers have optimized for a different set of parameters than European manufacturers. The Europeans emphasize range, but the Chinese are more willing to trade range for cost while optimizing charging rate.
Being able to bring more energy with me is a very useful.
Avicebron•35m ago
If I just need to get somewhere, I want to take a clean fast train like Japan and then walk.
Lio•31m ago
eigenspace•31m ago
The development and building of newer, more efficient electric vehicles does not preclude the investment in more high speed electrified rail and busses. That complaint is a non-sequitor.
crote•15m ago
EVs might be fun for drag racing, but if you want to drive on a circuit ICE is still the better option for now.
eigenspace•7m ago
I guess I haven't taken any corners agressively enough to really notice the problems you describe with weight.
I will say though that at least for non-racetrack scenarios, the extra weight isn't always as noticable as you'd think because the centre of mass tends to be extremely low relative to an ICE vehicle.
noir_lord•29m ago
I like them, they are smoother and quieter than the ones they replaced (in fairness that was the oldest diesel buses mostly), I don't like the new on board announcement "Next stop <X>, You are at <X>" style but that's because I'm not partially sighted/blind and it's a small price for making life a lot easier for those folks (and headphones exist).
oklahomasports•28m ago
eigenspace•23m ago
Electric busses and trains can have quite powerful and good air conditioning systems.
The problem with this in Houston is the disgracefully stupid urban layout that makes it very hard to effectively serve the city with public transit.
crote•14m ago
swiftcoder•24m ago
I'm not clear how something that ran up to 138 kmph (85 mph) during an (intentionally low-speed) efficiency test, would be equivalent to a golf cart?
rtkwe•16m ago
The US is trapped in a local maximum due to history, geography and finally politics. There's a lot of local resistance specifically to highspeed rail because to stay highspeed the trains usually bypass smaller local towns so they don't get the benefit but all the negatives of it's construction.
kotaKat•10m ago
Good luck convincing all those Americans the rail line has to run through their property to freely give up the right-of-way. You're already dead in the first few hundred feet of rail when the first person says "fuck off, no" and starts challenging your eminent domain.