SSC to Launch World’s Most Powerful Electric Car in 2009
Shelby SuperCars (SSC), the company behind the world’s fastest production car, has announced plans to launch an electric supercar that is four times as powerful as the Tesla Roadster later this year.
The Ultimate Aero EV will feature the firms proprietary All-Electric Scalable Powertrain, the AESP, containing twin electric motors capable of an incredible 1,000 HP (735 Kw) and 800 lb-ft (1083.42 NM) of torque. According to SSC, this should enable acceleration from 0-60 mph in a breathtaking 2.5 seconds and a top speed of 208 mph.
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The car will boast a range of 150-200 miles on a single charge. Moreover, SSC’s Green division has trademarked an on-board charging system called “Charge on the Run,” which enables a 10 minute full battery recharge on a 220V service.
A new green division, known as SSC Green, Inc., will offer packaged solutions of the AESP for a range of applications, including 200 horsepower economy and midsize cars, 500 horsepower light trucks and SUVs, and up to 1,200 horsepower delivery trucks, heavy-duty equipment, buses and military vehicles.
Shelby expects to roll out its first full-scale, pre-production Ultimate Aero EV in the second quarter of 2009, with full commercial availability anticipated as early as the fourth quarter of 2009.
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Image Credit - Shelby SuperCars
I highly doubt the claims coming out of SSC regarding “charge on the run”, so let me do 2 things.
1. I want to be the first (on this forum) to call “vaporware” on SSC.
and …
2. I want to wish SSC all the luck in the world. If they can deliver on even half their promises (which, for them, would be a big improvement!) this could be a big leap forward in battery tech.
Jo’s comments should be obvious to anyone except the impressionable optimists who invest in all these power point presentations. The 90s were the decade of the dot com get rich quick scheme. Now we are in the decade of the green miracle get rich quick scheme. I’ll be the first to predict the results will be the same.
I’m optimistic. A 10 minute charge would be awesome. A huge leap in terms of making EVs more accessible and usable.
I’m going to have to second Joe’s opinion and call bull*&#t on Shelby’s 10 minute recharge claim. First, they claimed a 10 minute recharge on 110v, which is just plain impossible, and increasing the voltage to 220v only halves what is already an astronomical amount of current required to recharge a battery that large, that fast. Given the fact that they changed their announcement from 110V to 220V shortly after their press release, I’d say that the whole thing is vaporware.
Swappable power pack? My electric vehicle’s power pack takes me less than a minute to swap. Try to fill a regular car’s gas tank with gasoline that fast.
Do you lift and remove something at least 200 pounds when you fill your gas tank? The plug-in prius LiOn batteries weigh that much for a 35 mile range.
NO he drives a electric moped.
you obviously can’t get that kind of juice from a wall outlet.
I’d imagine that there is some kind of capacitance system that continuously collects power from the outlet, and lets it all out in 10 minutes to the car when needed.
Some astronomical number of capacitors that completely nullifies both the torque number quoted? Hey, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt (or magic) but I certainly wouldn’t hand them any money until they show it work.
Here’s the problem with cars, electric or otherwise:
America spends $130 billion (!) a year on roads. This is a staggering sum, given the severe cuts in social services we’ve been seeing over the last few decades. In addition, of the total federal transit dollars spent, roads get 90%, while mass transit gets just 10%.
Meanwhile, only half of Americans drive.
Cars as a method of transportation, by its very nature, requires taking from the poor and the many, and giving to the rich and the few.
This is, quite simply, not sustainable.