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Hey, the electric drive cars use less energy to go the same distance. And what is the lowest gm/km you have ever heard of for an internal combustion car -- about 80gm/km? Funny that fits very well with the MPGe at X-Prize.
The average for the gasoline alone is 120gm/km. EV's use less energy and put out less carbon, even without adding in the embedded energy of the gasoline -- how can that be bad for the environment?
Weight matters, but not as much as drivetrain efficiency. If weight was most important, then the Spira would have been the best -- it wasn't bad, but it wasn't the best. I think aero is more important than weight, as well.
Because, we have three examples of heavy EV's that are much more efficient than light ICE powered cars: the Dolphin at 3,200 pounds, the FVT at ~2,000 pounds, and the Illuminati at 3,200-3,400 pounds -- all of them are more efficient than the Edison2 and the Spira.
The average EV got over 50MPGe *more* than the average ICE car., so the 85-95% electric motors more than make up for the extra weight. And, imagine if Dave Cloud were to put 500-600 pounds of lithium batteries (this could be 32-40kWh) and the Dolphin would be around 1,800 pounds -- and it would be well over 200MPGe; maybe even 300MPGe.
And how is it that the FVT eVaro (which is a serial hybrid, with a 21kWh EiG pack, can carry around the genset (it did not need it for the distances in the X-Prize -- it could go ~140 miles on that pack) and still get 157MPGe? Because it's custom made direct drive electric motors are so efficient.
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