BMW Megacity Electric Car

[carvetia]

If that opening is covered by one door... Well it's going to be pretty huge and not very practical on a car that's supposed to squeeze into small city spaces. I'm betting on an RX-8 style setup from what has been shown so far: Conventionally hinged and sized main door with a smaller suicide one just to help rear access.

Really really looking forward to this... I just hope they can be as adventurous with the rest of the design as they are with the chassis. Though going from sketch to chassis... Seems like a very early rendering with little that will survive because the basic shape does not seem very similar (and of course all the obvious details like glass and wheels).

The shape of the windscreen is interesting though. You can see in this picture it is exceptionally curved which will creep into the bonnet and make the interior feel much bigger than it really is - a nice example of packaging that would not be possible previously. Also those of you wanting to see what damage to the composite parts will look like, well here's a good shot. I don't know much about composites but the damage looks pretty terminal... however in a similar collision a steel car would probably be just as much of a write-off. Will be interesting to see how close this tub really is to the production version.

Any word on when we might see the first concept car? Paris? [-o<

This here gives a nice overview of their philosophy... Obviously it's marketing but there are some nice points, and I like the arrangement of their schedule around their prediction of 'peak oil'. Shows there really might be some substance in the auto industry's pledges to advance after all.

[Just_a_fan]

Actually, looking at the piccies linked by carvetia it is a suicide door behind a front hinged door. You can see both sets of hinge locations at front and rear of the opening.

[Jon]

Just a bit of an update, let me quote:

energy from new solar installations has, for the first time, become cheaper than energy from new nuclear plants, according to a new Duke University study. Thanks to cost-saving technologies and economies of scale, price can no longer be an excuse to invest in nuclear power rather than solar.

And also:

The study factors in governmental subsidies for both power sources, but found that even if all subsidies were removed, solar power would still be cheaper within a decade.

Cheaper now...wow...who would've thought???

Full article:
http://inhabitat.com/2010/07/29/solar-p ... irst-time/

[carvetia]

Ahem, as much as i would like it to be true, it always pays to check who is paying...

The study was developed in response to aggressive lobbying by the nuclear industry...

If you look at the actual 'paper' you will see it's prepared for NC WARN. A quick glance at their website shows they're not exactly neutral. These kinds of 'studies', that are so prolific thanks to the peculiar American lobbying culture, really annoy me. Those researchers always show great objectivity and integrity. We should not abuse the trust people place in the opinions of the educated.

The study factors in governmental subsidies for both power sources, but found that even if all subsidies were removed, solar power would still be cheaper within a decade.

So actually it's not cheaper yet, and obviously their prediction is just an estimate. What if nuclear power becomes cheaper in that time? I'm 100% in favour of solar energy, whatever form it might take, but spreading false information doesn't help anyone. Solar energy is not going to be an option in the future, it's going to be a necessity, but right now that's not the case. Nuclear energy is by far the best way to get ourselves off of fossil fuels between now and then... I just don't understand why people become so irrational around the 'N' word.

I don't know what Ukranian representation we have on this board but i doubt there's a single person here who has, or even knows anyone who has been adversely affected by nuclear power generation. So, instead of all this alternative-energy infighting, how about we be grateful for whatever we can get right now and accept that the ideal solution is not yet available?

/End anti-lobbying rant.

[autogyro]

I have a neighbour who used to work at Selafield.
He does glow a bit in the dark when he comes home from the pub.

[machin]

The BMW Megacity concept, the one the thread was originally about.

There was a fairly extensive feature in last week's Autocar magazine feeaturing all those pics... Definitely suicide-type rear doors (I think Vauxhall have renamed them "flex" doors on their recent car to feature them; I guess "suicide" didn't sit well with the marketing people!!!!). Got to say I'm slightly disappointed in the megacity in that the car features (what looks to be) a fairly bulky "Drive" chassis (holding the suspension, motors and batteries), on top of which the passenger compartment (the "Monocoque") sits....

A lot of these alternative energy cars seem base them on internal combustion car build philosophies, and trying to lighten them a bit.... The whole personal transport design needs to be re-thought to make elextric cars more viable... people need to accept that their car isn't an extension of their living room.. then we'd see some really light-weight vehicles with really high "mile per KJ" figures....

[Edis]

Do those nuclear costs include cleaning up ALL the nuclear waste produced during the reactors complete life cycle?
Conveniently left out of the sums as usual?

It include all costs except taxes. That would include site clean up, final repository for used fuel, insurance costs, fuel costs and so on. However, those costs are only a small part of the total production costs. The most significant cost is the cost of the plant itself, and the cost of borrowing that money (interrest, risk premiums). A nuclear powerplant is quite expensive to build at around 2500 euro per installed kWe. That's probably twice what a coal fired power plant costs. Running costs are higher too, but fuel costs are low and there are no CO2 taxes.

[xpensive]

Ciro, your POV is well known on the issue. I'm happy for you if if you can live without concerns and that you do not want to know more about risk side. It seems to be all convincing for you. Please also respect people who have some skepticism and do not believe in everything the nuclear lobby publishes. We have been lied to many times and that is an experience that is hard to overcome.

The reason I'm not going to argue with Edis is simple. He seems to know a lot more than I do about the issue. That does not mean that all his points and opinions are correct. I simply do not have the necessary depth to argue with him. Nevertheless his posts do very little to alleviate my concerns. I will leave it to more knowledgable people to argue the anti nuclear position.

Conclusively WB, even if you know s**t about the subject, you're still right?

But this is really the problem, there are so few knowledgeable people supporting the anti-nuclear position, if any at all,
why their argumentation becomes limited to sentiments and scary predictions of an unknown future.

If you compare nuclear-related fatalities and destruction of environment with the same impact from the coal-industry,
the influence of the former is miniscule, absolutely miniscule.

[godlameroso]

Carbon tubs are surprisingly strong as long as the associated crash structures are up to snuff.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPZ-ldJD1kk[/youtube]

Apparently this crash wasn't enough to destroy the tub, but everything else was not so lucky.

[xpensive]

I think the fundamental flaw in WBs, if you ask me rather tiresome posts, on the subject is that "wind power" will always be stocastic, meaning that for every invested MW of such, an equal investment of back-up power needs to be made.

The second problem is that "wind power" has a cubic relation to the wind speed, which means that whith your typical
"3 MW" windmill, it will produce that at 12 m/s, but it will only yield one eighth of it, or a measly 375 kW at 6 m/s.

I Europe, 12 m/s is rare, 6 m/s is far more the case, which makes the entire investment a charade.

Politicians have been taken, journos have been taken, but most of all the taxpayers have been taken big time.

A scam is what it is.

[hollus]

I think the events of the last weeks have left out of the bottle a dirty little secret of nuclear energy that has taken a lot of people by surprise. I didn't know it and I know a lot of people that didn't know it.
I mean the fact that even after shutdown, the rods both in the reactor and out of it need ACTIVE cooling for weeks, months, years. I think most non-experts in nuclear energy (like me) had the impression that once shut down, it is shut down, and safety would be OK.
As it turns out, the 40 year old engineering present at Fukushima performed fantastically well. The safety measures held (more or less, some radioactivity was released, but admittedly a small amount) remarkably well after a monster (but expectable!) earthquake and the concomitant tsunami. One can only expect newer designs to hold on even better.
But after that... you have to keep on cooling the fuel, and keep on cooling, and keep on cooling... a part where the safety chain can still be compromised.

And a point that I cannot stress often enough, apparently. Wind turbines in land occupy virtually no land at all! The space immediately adjacent can be used for storage or logistic facilities, for solar panels, for cattle grazing, for farming (stopping the turbines when people are working there)... the space can be used, it is currently mostly not, but only by choice. If we were to occupy land in a much larger scale, the space around the windmills can be used for productive tasks.

OK, by now it should be clear on which side of the fence I stand, so I'll be fair, the one largest, weakest point with both wind turbines and sun is the intermittency of energy generation. Bloody obvious, but after commenting on weak points of nuclear energy, it is only fair to put the finger in the eye of the most likely alternative.

So now, for a calm and intelligent debate (are there any forum members with both qualities simultaneously?), who would like to chime in with workable solutions to the energy storage problem? I don't mean anything that can be done in the next 5 years, but good old shoot for the sky speculation. Something that could mature in the next 50 years or so...
Obvious possibilities:
a) Electric batteries. They are low density and only so green in themselves. But if enough of them are going to be around anyways...
b) Hydrogen, methanol or some other liquid fuel that can be generated in fuel cells when electricity is locally available in excess. As it was pointed above, the efficiencies are not so high.
c) Pumping water upwards to drive hydro later on. I have no clue as to exactly how applicable this can be. On a large scale it means sacrificing land, but if you ask me, we will have to sacrifice some land at some point in the future, whether we play the ostrich or face the problem from now on. Still, no way free of problems and the necessary landscapes are not universally available.

So, forum members, please come forward with some other workable possibilities!

Final remark, please remember that all, everything in this world, is a compromise. See my signature, There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch!

[xpensive]

...
Also, the future of nuclear is with micro-nukes. And at $2.5M per MW for a turnkey, distributed, terrorist-proof, cheap to run solution, they aren't that bad. And that's the pilot cost - the real price tag should be a decent amount less.

Aha, something like "MrFusion" then?

[Pup]

Not yet powerful enough for time travel. But there are 10MW solutions ready to go, and we're trying to fast-track the approval process here in the US, though my guess is that we'll see the first installations in Africa.

[segedunum]

No matter how you fiddle the figures I'm afraid nothing of what you're postulating on will generate enough power for any grid anywhere WB. It's that simple. The fact remains that despite a lot of people enjoying a lot of subsidies winds, waves and much vaunted 'renewables' generate a miniscule amount of power on any national grid. The only way anyone has been able to argue that they are serious replacements with any straight face is to pluck fantasy 'efficiency savings' out of thin air.

[Richard]

Is this a thread about a car or power generation?

The title should be changed to "Is nuclear power the way to go?" ... Note the improved grammar and removal of the spurious BMW