175 MPH Student-Built EV Smashes Speed Record 164
An anonymous reader writes "A team of Brigham Young University students recently smashed the world land speed record for electric vehicles by hitting a top speed of 175 miles per hour in their self-built electric car. The car, named 'Electric Blue,' reached high speeds thanks to lithium iron phosphate batteries and its streamlined design, which is capped by a tail fin for speed and agility."
Re:Cmon (Score:2, Interesting)
Make EV cheap, not fast!
There's only one thing holding it up and that's cheap light batteries. The thing you have to realize is the last major commercial battery upgrade happened a dozen years ago and there's nothing on the horizon. Lithium Ion batteries have actually been around a long time but only became commercial fairly recently. Yeah if you follow the press releases light high capacity batteries are around the corner just like a cure for cancer. Realistically we are probably 10 to 20 years away from a major innovation that would make electric cars in line with gasoline cars. Even that is pure speculation since there's nothing standing out yet and we're talking 5 to 10 years after the innovation until there's any hope of a commercial product and another 5 to 10 years before the price drops. Everyone says hydrogen but I've been following hydrogen since the mid 70s and I have yet to hear of a new storage system that is anywhere near a commercial product. Once again it's just another form of battery but at least it can be refilled. I'm not crazy about hydrogen for all vehicles. For people that don't drive a lot they'll likely loose 10% to 20% to leakage, I'm saying if you only fill up once a month. People that fill up weekly will only loose a few percent but it's still a factor.
I've read about dozens of new concepts for batteries over the years but as I say none are anywhere near being released as a commercial product. I swear 20 years ago there was talk of polymer batteries being the solution since they are light but none ever came close to holding the energy needed. It wasn't that long ago NiCads were the battery of choice and they hit the scene in the 70s for wide spread commercial use. Based on that we could be looking at another 20 years until a new battery takes over. Gee where did I hear that before? Like I say don't expect cheap electric cars for 10 to 20 years, if ever. Cars may simply in the end get more expensive. Then stick with gasoline? Last time I checked they weren't making anymore dead dinosaurs. Long before we run out oil will simply get too expensive to burn in cars. That's what peak oil means it doesn't mean we're running out.