Maker Faire: X1 electric car does 0-100mph in 6.8s

Craft & Design Energy & Sustainability
Maker Faire: X1 electric car does 0-100mph in 6.8s

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Come check out two amazing electric cars that will be at Maker Faire!, speeding in to the future! Here’s a snippet from the project description by Rich Hilleman and Ian Wright:

Electric cars do not have to be heavy, ugly, and slow. The Wrightspeed X1 weighs only 1536 lbs, and has beaten some of the world’s fastest supercars on the racetrack. It’s a pure electric street car that does 0-100mph in 6.8s, yet it uses only 200 Whr/mile, about 170 mpg equivalent. It’s quiet and easy to drive around town. And it burns no oil at all. Rich Hilleman’s project sportscar uses the same electric motor as the X1, but adds a microturbine generator as a range extender. Ian Wright is an amateur racer, fusing his love of performance cars with advanced electronics and software.

The Maker Faire is May 19 & 20 at the San Mateo Fairgrounds. Get your tickets in advance now, avoid the lines and save a few bucks.

18 thoughts on “Maker Faire: X1 electric car does 0-100mph in 6.8s

  1. samurai1200 says:

    “It’s quiet and easy to drive around town. And it burns no oil at all.”

    I’m going to assume that he doesn’t use solar power to charge the car’s batteries, and so every car burns oil in one part of the process or another.

  2. Hso says:

    samurai1200, just because it doesn’t have solar panels ON the car(boy, i love the ariel atom ^_^), it doesn’t mean that it’s not charged at it’s home via solar panels or other green energies

  3. ryborg says:

    Nice!!! I saw this car on 101 near Morgan Hill on Sunday. I was wondering what the heck it was. This thing looks great in person.

  4. charliex says:

    they’d have to be some pretty big solar panels, the car still needs oil just not quite as much of it, Hopefully they aren’t sony lithium ions in there!

    charger is around 110-220v upto 80amps.

    as with most electric cars the mpg comparison is way off, lithium ion batterys just don’t last that long, certainly no where near as long as most car 12v lead acids, or an engine, high speed, high torque electric motors aren’t exactly what you’d call everlasting either.

    still its a cool car, but the atom always was, even the petrol version, the atom 2 SC version has a 0-100 of 6.8 seconds too.

    the somewhat lotus elise based tesla is pretty cool too, and its in production, its just stupidly expensive.

  5. nerys says:

    First only 54% of our power plants are coal driven so please educate yourself.

    Second the MOMENT you switch to electric you produce at MINIMUM 1/6th the amount of pollution because it requires 1/6th the amount of energy to move a car with E over Gasoline.

    Then you have the fact that power plants tend to be cleaner per unit that cars are THEN you have the increased effeciency of E cars (no power used while coasting and stopped etc..) and THEN you add in regen breaking.

    SO even if 100% of our power plants are Fossil Fuel driven (and less than have of them are) you would instantly remove more pollution from production than every single other act and technology in the last 200 years combined.

    On top of that you would EMPOWER citizens with electric cars. I would have AT MINIMUM $2500 EXTRA dollars in my pocket EVERY single year and thats not including repairs on that Gas car (A properly built EV is virtually everlasting and virtually maintenance free there is after all not counting COMMON parts only one moving part and thats the giant nearly unbreakable Electric Motor)

    Exxon made 39.5 BILLION in profit last year.

    Consider that number and realize thats REPORTED PROFIT. that means after subtracting ALL expensive ALL write offs ALL utilities ALL salaries ALL R&D ALL money they could not HIDE from reporting and they STILL ended up with $39.5 BILLION in profit and thats just ONE COMPANY.

    Imagine putting 99% of that BACK into our economy BACK into the pockets of our citizens and corporations.

    NOW imagine REMOVING fual costs from Decision making equations. No longer do I decided to take a trip on the basis of fuel costs. It now costs me $10 in Fuel to round trip to work no detours in my 30mpg 76 Diesel. In my van ? $20 round trip. With an EV that trip now costs about $1.50 (MAX) probably closer to $1.25 in E.

    Do the math. Imagine what this would do to our economy the environment (also consider the SECONDARY effects on the environment. FEWER parts made FEWER parts thrown away etc.. etc..

    Even More freedom. Restrictions on travel go right out the window.

    Hybrids blow. 50mpg prius? I can buy a brand new diesel jetta that gets 52mpg all the time at 75mph with the air on.

    I can buy a 25 year old Diesel VW that gets 50mpg and your impressed by 50mpg in a prius?

    And its more expensive. Even if you could make that prius last for 250,000 miles you would still never recoup your cost over a half the price 30mpg car.

    Hydrogen? Your joking right? all hydrogen does it keep you slaved to that fuel pump paying whatever damned price they want.

    Hydrogen is illogical and inefficient!!

    Think about it a Fuel Cell car is nothing more than an ELECTRIC CAR that gets its power from a Hydrogen Fuel Cell.

    So let me get this straight you REALLY think that using electricity to make hydrogen and then transporting that Hydrogen and then using that hydrogen just to make Electricity again is More efficient than just USING THE DAMNED ELECTRICITY to drive the Electric car ???

    Your joking right?

    I will tell you why H2 Fuel Cells are so big.
    Its 20 years off
    It Retains your slavery to an expensive pump
    It retains expensive parts heavy complicated vehicles.

    This means you have to spend even more on repairs for theres no way a Fuel cell is gonna be all that DIY.

    THATS why they want H2 Fuel Cells NO OTHER REASONS it has nothing to do with green and savings.

    Electric cars BENEFIT US but DO NOT benefit Manufacturers.

    Hybrids and Fuel Cell cars BENEFIT manufacturers and DO NOT benefit us.

    You don’t really think its going to be legal for you to make your own Hydrogen do you? and storing it? can you say expensive.

    So guess which there promoting……

    Grrrr
    Chris Taylor
    http://www.nerys.com/

  6. MekkMan says:

    All nice stuff, I spose. But does it even run at -20 degrees F? Can I drive it 150 miles round trip to town? Does it pull a 6000lb trailer? Any trailer? Can it carry seven people? Can it carry 2x4s or bags of cement or a couple of dogs (real 70 to 100 pound dogs)? Does it do well in ice? Two feet of snow? Mud? Can it keep you warm? Or cool? How about all at once?

    Electric cars are nice toys for city folk. But working men need something a bit more practical.

    (Currently beautiful sun, 8 degrees F, gentle 20MPH breeze, 2+ feet of snow. My Durango will do all of these jobs today – except for the mud bit.)

  7. Greg says:

    Currently, nothing is available to the public “en masse” but, electric motors today can do all of that work.

  8. Jason says:

    RE: All nice stuff, I spose. But does it even run at -20 degrees F? Can I drive it 150 miles round trip to town? Does it pull a 6000lb trailer? Any trailer? Can it carry seven people? Can it carry 2x4s or bags of cement or a couple of dogs (real 70 to 100 pound dogs)? Does it do well in ice? Two feet of snow? Mud? Can it keep you warm? Or cool? How about all at once?

    Electric cars are nice toys for city folk. But working men need something a bit more practical.

    (Currently beautiful sun, 8 degrees F, gentle 20MPH breeze, 2+ feet of snow. My Durango will do all of these jobs today – except for the mud bit.)

    I’m with you fellas electric cars have the potential to do anything at any temp in any condition but for how long? thats the ticket. my wife has to drive staight hwy 60+ miles a day one way to work i say elevrtic car i go wheeling and hunting and fishing for a few weeks on end i say 4×4 jeep good ol petro i believe electric cars are what are better for us overall but they cannot at this time meet everyones needs or wants ps the oil company’s simply wont let us have them it would put them out of there WORLD RECORD PROFITS.

  9. Anonymous says:

    well I don’t know if you read but this car uses a wind turbine to extend travel distance. So if it’s done right it should be able to travel 60+ miles at highway speeds with out having to stop and charge. As we all should know when driving there is one thing we can be sure is there, wind. And the faster you go the faster the wind which means more electricity being generated. Because of this a properly designed wind powered car should be able to drive further on the highway without needing a fuel break then a gas car. So a car like this is more likely to suffer from to much city driving then to much highway driving.

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