1965 Corvette Hardtop Coupe 327 cu in, 300hp
this is a nice condition, good running car
IS AN ELECTRIC CORVETTE IN YOUR FUTURE?
My beautiful wife is taking delivery of a 2011 Nissan Leaf sometime this spring replacing her 2010 Prius. The Leaf is the start of a wave of all electric cars soon to be showing up at automobile show rooms near you as every auto manufacturer is ramping up electric car production. These electric cars use no expensive gasoline, produce no pollutants, have very few moving parts, and best of all for my beautiful wife, it's fueled with free electricity from the solar panels on our garage roof.
Is it possible there is an electric Corvette in the works? I don't know if GM has plans to bring an electric Corvette to market, but lets look at some reasons why this might be possible. GM typically uses the Corvette nameplate to test out new technology before it’s use on mass-market models, so taking advantage of these rapidly evolving concepts makes sense. Also, an electric motor has the advantage of generating maximum torque at zero RPM, therefore there is no need to rev the engine up to 4 or 5 thousand RPM to take off from that stoplight.
Porsche seems to be on the forefront of electric sports car technology developing the Porsche 918; this plug-in hybrid electric/gas car goes 0 to 60 in three seconds. Also there is the RUF all electric Porsche Carrera conversion that has a top speed of 136mph, 0-60 in less than 5 seconds and can go over 100 miles on a charge.
Here is a short video you may find interesting of an all electric 300 hp Datsun 210 smoking a Corvette and others supposedly fast dragsters.
Like the Nissan Leaf most electric cars showing up in the next two years are small vehicles, so what makes me think GM will develop an electric Corvette when this technology is still in it's infancy? What's so special about an electric car? What's wrong with the gasoline cars we are driving? As it turns out there is much wrong with the gas engine automobile and a lot right with the electric motor automobile.
THE GAS ENGINE IS RUNNING OUT OF GAS
The reciprocating engine automobile has been around for a long time-- longer than my 104, soon to be 105 year old next-door neighbor Winnie, who is no longer firing on all cylinders. However, unlike Winnie, the automobile and it's gas engine has gotten better and better over time and especially so the last thirty years.
During the first oil crisis in the early 1970s, the oversize, poorly constructed, polluting gas-hog-automobile, especially Detroit iron became a drag on the U.S. economy and the environment. Gas mileage was very poor and car design was at a nadir; perhaps you remember the Chevy Vega and the exploding Ford Pintos. But since then, scientists and engineers brought about an amazing revolution improving automobiles so that today's cars have more power, use less fuel, travel further on a gallon of gas, last twice as long and emit only small amounts of pollutants into the atmosphere.
THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION
How did this happen? These massive improvements were brought about through the use of the low cost digital technology that was rapidly evolving during the 1980s. Cheap microchips allowed the automotive industry to manufacture autos with parts that fit much better and simultaneously increase production using digitally controlled numerical machinery and to also digitally control the engine. Today's auto engine is monitored using a raft of sensors and computers to wring every last bit of energy out of each gallon of gas and also control the pollutants leaving the exhaust system.
Unfortunately, during this period of innovation came cheap gas prices with mileage improvements effectively negated by a trend toward increasingly larger and larger vehicles. Every soccer mom, every contractor and cowboy wannabe had to own a vehicle on steroids. Soon Detroit was delivering vehicles of Brobdingnagian proportions such as the H1 Hummer originally designed as a military troop transport truck. The result? Our nation requires more and more oil at a time when worldwide oil production has peaked (production peaked in 2005). Today we import two thirds of all our oil, sending approximately $1 billion out of the country every day to pay for it and we consume over 25% of the worlds oil. This is clearly an unsustainable situation, especially with the fast growing economies of China and India with their two billion people, all wanting a car.
Here is a quote from a USA Today article written by Donna Leinwand about rising gas prices, "Asia's growing energy needs are pushing the global demand for oil to 88 million barrels a day, 3 million to 5 million barrels more than the world's production. The United States, which consumes 19.7 million barrels of oil a day, produces 7 million barrels and imports the rest. Where is the 5 million barrels of oil going to come from?"
THE ELECTRIC REVOLUTION
There are enormous implications to the infrastructure of the world's largest industry as we transition to electric vehicles in the future. Oil and gas is the world's largest industry and the third largest industry is transportation, primarily cars and trucks. These industries will have to reinvent themselves to produce electric vehicles and provide the infrastructure to power them.
IT'S SIMPLE
Why will the electric motor replace the reciprocating engine? Compare the electric motor car to a gas engine car. The electric car has a rather simple electric propulsion motor with a only a couple of moving parts, has no complex transmission and is controlled by a sophisticated computer system and fueled by a very large battery made using about $40 worth of very plentiful lithium metal. Today it currently costs a lot to process the lithium for one car, about $10000 and mostly because it is manufactured in limited quantities for a handful of cars. This cost will surely come down as larger quantities of batteries are manufactured. For broad acceptance the electric car battery needs to hold enough energy to move a car at least three hundred miles, be capable of being charged in 5 or 10 minutes, and last the life of the car. Very tall requirements!
Today's lithium battery technology has improved significantly since it was introduced in the 1990s, primarily to power laptop computers. But car quality batteries still can only provide power for a range of 100 miles or so, take hours to charge and last only 8-10 years before needing replacement. Another problem is the lack of a charging infrastructure. No nationwide electric filling station system exists and a national charging network will require a major upgrade to the national electric grid.
WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE GAS ENGINE?
If you look under the hood of your gasoline engine vehicle you will find that it has more than 500 very high precision moving parts and bearings. This number does not include the many thousands of castings, nuts, bolts and fittings that make up the complete engine and transmission. Inside the engine these parts are moving at extremely high speeds and subjected to internal temperatures approaching 1800 degrees F. The famous cartoonist Rube Goldberg would be very impressed with the modern gas engine's extraordinary complexity.
Also, each auto engine has three complex fluid subsystems required to provide fuel, cooling and lubrication, and an expensive exhaust system to remove fuel byproducts. And there are four different electrical subsystems for starting, charging the battery, providing high voltage to the ignition with a digital subsystem for engine control. An electronic control unit computer and sensors monitors the engine operation. Here is a list of sensors found on most engines: nitrogen oxide sensor, air pressure sensor, air temperature sensor, engine coolant temperature sensor, throttle position sensor, knock sensor, 1 to 4 oxygen sensors, oil pressure sensor, fuel sensor, cam position sensor, manifold absolute pressure sensor, manifold airflow sensor, throttle position sensor, and crank position sensor.
The gasoline engine is very complex but relatively cheap to produce due to modern mass-production manufacturing techniques and what is most amazing-- this engine will toss a two ton car with all it's passengers three or four miles down the highway at 70 mph using only a cup of gas that costs less than 50 cents and the engine will last 200,000 miles.
THE BATTERY IS THE PROBLEM AND THE SOLUTION
In contrast the electric car technology is simple mechanically, but complicated chemically.
If one delves into the world of battery research-- and there really is an amazing amount of research taking place-- one would see many claims, about battery technologies that would solve the battery problem. For example IBM is doing research with a goal of developing a cost effective battery that can provide a 500-mile driving range.
Charging technology is also improving with devices coming online that can charge a battery in less than 6 minutes. Cost, however, is going to be an issue for some time as new battery technologies evolve and manufacturing efficiencies are ramped up. A good example of the time it takes for new technologies to become effective can be seen by looking at the 30 to 40 years it took to design and manufacture efficient and low cost photovoltaic solar panels. Today's solar systems deliver power at equivalent costs to coal or nuclear energy when all factors, such as the environment, are considered.
THE HEADWIND
The promise of cheap electric autos, powered by cheap non-polluting electricity, will wreak havoc on many of the worlds industries. I went to the SEMA/AAPEX (Specialty Equipment Market Association/Automotive Aftermarket Product Expo) show, the largest automobile parts trade show in the world in Las Vegas in November and estimate that 75% of the companies displaying products at this show will not be in business in an all electric world.
Think about it! No pistons, cams, spark plugs, fuel systems, cooling systems, ignition systems, exhaust systems, timing chains, belts, transmissions and so forth. Furthermore, fewer refineries, no oil change stations, no brake jobs, no tune-ups, no auto service departments, few auto parts stores, and cars will last years almost forever when compared to today's cars and the simplicity of the car will make them less expensive.
The disruptions to the auto and oil industry will be great but the end result will be cheaper, longer lasting automobiles, using non-polluting fuel (depending on where your electricity is generated). The oil industry will have to evolve to become an electric energy industry to survive in an all or mostly electric world.
There are skeptics such as reported in the New York Times on 2/10/11 where William M. Colton, ExxonMobil’s vice president for corporate strategic planning said "batteries would be a problem for at least ten years". The article went on to say, "A reverse skeptic could say, sure, why would ExxonMobil say nice things about a car that would displace gasoline? That’s certainly true, although Exxon Mobil is getting more and more invested in natural gas, which would indirectly help fuel electric and hybrid cars because it is an important fuel stock for the electric utilities that ultimately charge the car batteries".
GM CEO Dan Akerson has a different opinion and said in a recent interview that General Motors is preparing to launch at least two new electrified vehicles, on its way to selling one under every U.S. brand.
So, will you see an electric Corvette in the future? I believe the answer is yes, whether it'll be all electric or plug-in hybrid/electric like the Porsche 918 is unknown, but GM is currently rolling out their first electric car, the Volt, so the only question regarding an electric option Corvette is when.
Written by: Jim Schultz
Cut-a-way of a V8 engine