Cool ride! (I have a question, too.)
written by Rosemary , January 03, 2008

That is a very nice looking ride and if it can do that, I may consider buying another car. I haven't driven for over a decade, because I don't want to give any money to the Middle East terrorists. But that's another issue. lol

I do have a question. I found you through Digg. I was seeking an answer to, "What is CAPTCHA" when I found your link. My article won't be submitted until I correct my CAPTCHA. That's well and good, but there's no one there to explain to me what it is! Not everyone knows everything.

I would really appreciate any help you could provide. Is it as simple as some coding I've used? Oh well. I'll wait to hear from you. I hope your family and you have a wonderful New Year.

...
written by Dutch , January 03, 2008

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captcha

Still talking performance?
written by Karsten , January 03, 2008

Do you really think that we will solve our transportation problems with performance comparisons? If performance remains in the spotlight fossil fuel will remain the power source of choice and wasteful driving habits will remain "cool". Promoting an electric dragster is barking up the wrong tree. The people who care about dragsters are, generally speaking, not those who waste thoughts on wasting fewer resources.

How many times can you do the quarter mile before the battery is shot and needs to go to the hazardous waste dump?

BTW, a whole CLASS limited to alternatively powered long-distance race cars would make sense. Competition pushes performance, attracts money, and it would result very quickly in possibly cleaner vehicles that could have practical applications.

Karsten
--
http://www.polluteless.com
Practical Advice to Pollute Less

Duty cycle
written by Jon , January 03, 2008

From the PR stuff from the battery provider, you can run the 1/4 mile about 15k (or 7.5k - does duty cycle refer to charge/discharge/recharge time, or just full charge to discharge?). Given that modern dragsters' motors are good for about 3 runs before they have to be completely rebuilt from scratch, that sounds pretty good to me.

Again, that emphasizes your point that making a dragster out of Electric power isn't really helping much.

However, if you look a little further below the surface, it DOES address the primary problem with Electric vehicles. With current tech, as I understand it now, you can either discharge quickly (think getting up to speed in a reasonable amount of time) at the cost of heavy batteries (internal resistance of Lead Acid batteries is low, hence you can extract power out of them quickly), or you can have a good range (Li-Ion or Li-polymer batteries have much better energy density, but much higher internal resistance). So what does that mean to the average consumer? There's a tradeoff. Either lots of range (mostly Li-Ion batteries) or reasonable performance (mostly Lead Acid).

There are ways to get both, but they're very complicated (running Lots of small LiIon batteries in parallel with complex electronics to manage it). Complicated means potential for problems.

These "new" batteries from Altairnano appear to solve some of the problems - low internal resistance means that you can effectively dump power in/out of them quickly (for quick boosts when you need some acceleration, or for rapid charging) but are reasonable energy dense (so you can get decent range out of a charge).

The dragster concept, while not at the surface, appearing to help out the "electric car" cause, DOES point out that you can effectively get lots of power into or out of the racer quickly. Which IS very important for the viability of the general purpose electric car.

NerdFighters!

7.956 @ 159.85mph
written by Brian , January 03, 2008

According to their website
http://www.currenteliminator.net/
The dragster pulled off 7.956 @ 159.85mph