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Electric taxi can go 200km on 15 minutes of charging

Darthrevan

By Darthrevan,
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Darthrevan

Darthrevan

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Singapore yesterday unveiled its first electric taxi prototype at the biennial Tokyo Motor Show in Japan.

Plug it in, wait 15 minutes and this electric taxi will be ready to travel up to a distance of 200km.
Singapore on Thursday unveiled its first electric taxi prototype at the biennial Tokyo Motor Show in Japan.
The sleek, lightweight vehicle took about two years to conceptualise and build. It can zip from 0 to 100kmh in 10 seconds and seat four people, including the driver, comfortably.
Among its other features, the front passenger seat can be converted to fit children aged nine months to three years old, and its unique air-conditioning system can cool each seat individually.
"This helps to save energy because when the driver is alone, it is not necessary to cool the entire vehicle," said Dr Harry Hoster, scientific director of the TUM-Create electric vehicle and transportation research programme.
The programme, which is funded by the National Research Foundation, is a joint effort between Nanyang Technological University and the Technische Universitat Munchen in Germany. The researchers said introducing electric taxis here would help reduce carbon emissions as the vehicles are on the road most of the time.
From January to August, a two-shift taxi here travelled almost an average 300km per day while ferrying customers, according to the Land Transport Authority's statistics.
The team claimed the taxi would also be cheaper to own and maintain at S$426,000 (US$340,881) over eight years, compared with S$460,000 (US$368,088) for existing diesel versions.
The figures include the cost of the vehicle, fuel, tax, maintenance, insurance and others, but the team stressed that these were preliminary estimates.
The researchers declined to comment on the prototype's cost or to estimate its commercial price, saying that this would depend on manufacturers.
The prototype is also likely to be modified to bring down costs. For example, its shell is made up of light but expensive carbon fibre. Manufacturers may use other, cheaper materials for some parts, said the team.
While the car is suitable for Singapore's climate and geographical size, putting it on roads here will require infrastructure such as charging stations for its super-fast charging system.
German technology firm Bosch Software Innovations has installed more than 57 charging stations here as part of a government electric vehicle trial, but these cannot be used for the prototype's charging system.
"We also need to study how plugging in the vehicles will affect the national grid, among other things," said Professor Subodh Mhaisalkar, executive director of NTU's Energy Research Institute.
The Singapore Land Transport Authority and several taxi operators did not respond to queries by press time.

 

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Detach8

Detach8

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(edited)

Savings of just $34K over 8 years? Really? In percentage that's like 7%+. Wahlau, it's barely covering GST. The technology is not yet proven, how sure are they that it's going to cost $34K less to run. Not like it costs a whopping $150-200K less. All in the name of going green? It's not going to save anything.

 

After they ditch the carbon fibre to save cost, then they need to make the wheels thinner to increase economy... I'm guessing it's eventually a zero-sum game. Just creating jobs for our poor post-grads at NTU.

 

I'm not against green vehicles, but this... is a waste of time. Might as well just buy the Fiat 500e.

Edited by Detach8
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Evillusion

Evillusion

Supersonic

Savings of just $34K over 8 years? Really? In percentage that's like 7%+. Wahlau, it's barely covering GST. The technology is not yet proven, how sure are they that it's going to cost $34K less to run. Not like it costs a whopping $150-200K less. All in the name of going green? It's not going to save anything.

 

After they ditch the carbon fibre to save cost, then they need to make the wheels thinner to increase economy... I'm guessing it's eventually a zero-sum game. Just creating jobs for our poor post-grads at NTU.

 

I'm not against green vehicles, but this... is a waste of time. Might as well just buy the Fiat 500e.

its made in singapore....how many tax regime will it circumvent? unless the gov wanna playball and make the price the same as imported cars i am sure the savings will be more. COE will then be a different monster that will throw in a spanner into its gearbox!
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Detach8

Detach8

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I am not saying its purpose is to circumvent tax regieme. I'm just saying it's a waste of time.

 

Cabs can drive around 1,000 kms per day. If you are cabbie you'll wait an hour charging your cab up. What the heck. And at electrical outlets. You need to imagine the scale of this logistics.

 

Sometimes at night I drive around, the entire road all taxis. That's how many taxis are on our roads.

 

IMHO they shouldn't have reinvented the wheel. Should have taken a Prius or Fiat 500e, pull out the battery... and find out how to make that battery more efficient, lighter and compact.

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Paddie

Paddie

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Sounds too good to be true. Maybe it can be charged up in 15 minutes but how about the safety? How long will be battery realistically last if charging is done every day or twice a day? How about fire risk? It's all untested at this point of time.

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Evillusion

Evillusion

Supersonic

Sounds too good to be true. Maybe it can be charged up in 15 minutes but how about the safety? How long will be battery realistically last if charging is done every day or twice a day? How about fire risk? It's all untested at this point of time.

isnt it about research and testing.....if there is an industry to start with i am sure we can start history of sg automotive industry. I am being optimistic....if we dont start the journey we will never get to the destination. We have many engineers but we lack the gumption to start....maybe this can be the start.
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Dankoo

Dankoo

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I believe for it to be charged up within 15mins means that the amp is very high thus you cannot have many such charging stations the the grid will be overloaded in no time.

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Maseratigood

Maseratigood

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kns....sell as taxi! Sell as normal cars and i am sure there is money to be made! just change the exterior a bit and i am sure many will ant to grab it!

 

 

I think better drive it than grab it coz this one I grab 100hours also wont win a prize for me like the Subaru Challenge!!!

 

or you actually mean grab the passenger while you drive?

 

on a serious note, I met one of the engineers involved in the project, the team should be in Tokyo Motorshow now presenting the prototype to the world!!! he promised to take some don't know what skirt pictures of the nihon xmms to show me

 

the prototype is actually very advance, the engine is donated by a famous german car maker, the rest of the details I better not mention too openly

I believe for it to be charged up within 15mins means that the amp is very high thus you cannot have many such charging stations the the grid will be overloaded in no time.

 

 

the workers involved in the charging told me the special generators needed to power up the charge are so loud once they start running, most of them run away from the charging room!!!! the voltage/ampere is super high

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Evillusion

Evillusion

Supersonic
(edited)

 

 

I think better drive it than grab it coz this one I grab 100hours also wont win a prize for me like the Subaru Challenge!!!

 

or you actually mean grab the passenger while you drive?

 

on a serious note, I met one of the engineers involved in the project, the team should be in Tokyo Motorshow now presenting the prototype to the world!!! he promised to take some don't know what skirt pictures of the nihon xmms to show me

 

the prototype is actually very advance, the engine is donated by a famous german car maker, the rest of the details I better not mention too openly

 

 

 

the workers involved in the charging told me the special generators needed to power up the charge are so loud once they start running, most of them run away from the charging room!!!! the voltage/ampere is super high

good...got insider info! the charging sound scary....maciam connecting the busbar to the national grid....whole substation shaking! Edited by Eviilusion
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Maseratigood

Maseratigood

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isnt it about research and testing.....if there is an industry to start with i am sure we can start history of sg automotive industry. I am being optimistic....if we dont start the journey we will never get to the destination. We have many engineers but we lack the gumption to start....maybe this can be the start.

 

 

I support this idea of we must grab the opportunities to start something else we are not going any where

 

btw, any other word for "gumption", I lazy to open my dictionary.... thank you hor.... thank you

good...got insider info!

 

 

inside the engine, or skirt? better be clearer else got misunderstanding! [sweatdrop]

I am not saying its purpose is to circumvent tax regieme. I'm just saying it's a waste of time.

 

Cabs can drive around 1,000 kms per day. If you are cabbie you'll wait an hour charging your cab up. What the heck. And at electrical outlets. You need to imagine the scale of this logistics.

 

Sometimes at night I drive around, the entire road all taxis. That's how many taxis are on our roads.

 

IMHO they shouldn't have reinvented the wheel. Should have taken a Prius or Fiat 500e, pull out the battery... and find out how to make that battery more efficient, lighter and compact.

 

 

the team might have already pulled out more cars than just the Prius and 500e.... shhhhh....

I think it will not work in singapore.

What do you think ? With this tax and all duties,

Even if it is roll out, life span won't be long

 

 

do we have enough space/land to build enough charging stations also?

Savings of just $34K over 8 years? Really? In percentage that's like 7%+. Wahlau, it's barely covering GST. The technology is not yet proven, how sure are they that it's going to cost $34K less to run. Not like it costs a whopping $150-200K less. All in the name of going green? It's not going to save anything.

 

After they ditch the carbon fibre to save cost, then they need to make the wheels thinner to increase economy... I'm guessing it's eventually a zero-sum game. Just creating jobs for our poor post-grads at NTU.

 

I'm not against green vehicles, but this... is a waste of time. Might as well just buy the Fiat 500e.

 

 

actually R&D thingy is like that one, out of many trials and failed projects we are lucky we hit one or two that actually can be commercialised.... but we don't try we wont even have a chance to succeed.

 

of course, based on things like ROI etc, R&D is just a waste of time looking at the surface

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