http://www.triplepundit.com/pages/te...com-003181.php

http://www.ampmotorworks.com/index.html

Electrics are slowly becoming more reasonable in price, performance and range.

 

It looks like it would take about 10 years to offset the initial cost of the car with the amount of fuel savings, or likely even less time given the rising fuel prices.

 

Right, I'm not sure the batteries will even last 10 years (even if they do, i suspect yoru range would be well under 150 miles). The problem is this company has to buy these vehicles from GM (probably for the same price you or I pay) an dthen go through all the work of removing the engine and installing the electric powertrain. I think this proves GM could probably do this and sell the vehicle for a lot less than this third party company is doing.

 

People do similar to the pirus which increases the electric only range and allows plug in's. If manufactures could do this it would save the inital cost of the engine and serveral components. However do realise that to be like this from the factory it would have to be tested and proven to be reliable over several years as well as safe. No one thinks twice when a modded electric car breaks, but it would be big(er) news if factory ones have major flaws.

 

Now that's an electric car that I might consider if I had the $$$.

 

A range of 150 miles would require a pack with a usable capacity of at least 24kWh (based upon the assumption that this vehicle could achieve an excellent and nearly unrealistic figure of 10 km/kWh; the much smaller and lighter Tesla roadster is actually about 10% less efficient than this). You'll need to provide a pack that's substantially larger than the required usable capacity; typically, the pack has a total rated capacity that's around twice the usable capacity (this not only allows for degradation of the pack over time, but also allows the pack to avoid full charges and discharges). Figure that a pack of ~48kWh is required (for reference, the Tesla pack is sized at about 50kWh, and requires the use of about 90% of that to achieve its claimed 220 miles).

The currently accepted cost for an automotive-grade lithium-ion pack is about $1300/kWh. This brings us to a pack cost of about $63,000 if indeed it's sized to 2x the required usable capacity.

How AMP is providing a conversion for only $25,000 is a bit of a mystery. It could be that the pack is undersized, and maybe it isn't built to OEM standards. More information from AMP would be useful.

 

Cool to hear it get some news. This is actually being done right next to the city I live in.

 

I strongly doubt they took that route. Call it an educated guess, but like you said - the numbers dont add up.

Also to consider is that its supposed range is roughly 66% of the Tesla - which has a 900lb battery pack.

A 600lb battery pack - for both weight *and* volume would be hard pressed to stuff into a sky as well. If that means splitting it in half with one chunk under the hood and the other where the tank would go - thats more engineering involved.

Also, the pictures on their website all show a sky with a standard exhaust tip. I'd have figured that would be gone... Kinda makes you wonder about the company...

 

All the pictures I saw had no tail pipe. The flash on the homepage shows multiple views including the rear with no exhaust and license plate "0 TL PIPE."

Anyhow, it's interesting but I wonder about how safe the batteries are in an accident. At least with a major manufacturer I'd feel more at ease about that aspect.

 

Looked through it again... I coulda sworn the flash showed quite a few without it as you went around the site... Anyway...



And the battery is under the hood, with smaller individual motors at each wheel - literally - at each wheel. I wonder what that would do for reciprocating mass and suspension rates, not to mention how the motors would stand up to excess vibration.

 

FWIW, Most cutting edge electric/hybrid car designs are using motors at each wheel. They can provide braking by running in reverse.

 

So its the price of a Sky plus $25,000?

 

Basically.