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from the EVs-are-making-a-charge-on-ICEs dept.
The BMW i3 has been on sale since 2014, and in that time, BMW has seen fit to expand its battery size and, by proxy, its range. For the 2019 model year, it's getting yet another battery upgrade, and it's a big one.
The 2019 BMW i3 will come with a 42.2-kWh battery (120 amp-hours), which should permit for up to 153 miles of all-electric driving. This is a roughly 30 percent improvement over the previous 94-Ah battery, which allowed for 115 miles of range. The i3's first battery was just 60 Ah, offering a range of just 81 miles. Oh, how far we've come.
BMW will offer the battery in both variants of the i3. The standard i3 uses a 170-horsepower electric motor, powerful enough to get the little EV to 60 mph in just 7.2 seconds. The i3s, on the other hand, is the sportier trim, offering a 181-hp electric motor and a 6.8-second sprint to 60.
Will EVs (electric vehicles) like this succeed in replacing ICEs (internal combustion engines) as commuter cars?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Friday September 28 2018, @06:11PM (2 children)
But there is certainly a bright side! Improvements primarily in battery technology, hastened into production by demand for electric cars, has already made something MUCH more interesting possible. Electric aviation.
Check out a Pipistrel Taurus Electro for instance. They managed to fit an electric motor big enough to take off with, plus a battery big enough to climb to altitude and have some leftover, into a glider. Then you add a solar trailor for it, and it charges for free, slowly, particularly in less than sunny weather, but a lot of places it will charge pretty quickly. Or you can charge off the grid as well. Not horribly practical I guess but this is a viable powered glider entry without any doubt. Really neat little machine.
Or their Alpha Electro. Sure, it can only fly for about an hour and then it's down for charging, but it's marketed as a trainer, and it's really got a lot of advantages in that niche. And it would also make a great commuter plane in some situations. If you have maybe a 45 minute or less flight to do twice a day, this thing wouldn't have any problem doing the job.
Of course, if you need more range, you still need internal combustion, but frankly I think it's quite impressive that electric is already viable in certain niches where they aren't being effectively mandated by political forces.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Friday September 28 2018, @07:40PM
For weird property tax reasons we can never have electric train tracks on a large scale for long distances in the USA without overthrowing like multiple levels of government. Maybe after the revolution we can have Euro-style electric trains. However... right now we could stuff a boxcar full of batteries...
Also, a strange mental image, after a hurricane or something, a train pulls into the city, hooks up 100 box cars worth of batteries, and ta da electricity! Maybe not with current tech, but not totally farfetched. How does a train full of super-batteries compare to the energy transfer rate of a very expensive electrical transmission line? Obviously it would be enormously cheaper to physically transport buckets of antimatter than transfer the energy equivalent thru old fashioned wires, but where's the balance point, close or far from now?
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by fakefuck39 on Saturday September 29 2018, @04:20AM
OH L OOK. ANYONE CAN WrI TE Annoyi NGLY too.
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answer me this codeboy - how ugly are you? really - fucked up face and fat, or just fucked up face?