The *Ultimate* Aerodynamic Car? Dave Cloud's "Dolphin"

[KamperBob]

Originally Posted by gasstingy

I don't know anyone (locally) who would not laugh at me for driving a car like that. But then, most of the people I know don't really care about the environment, renewable energy, lowering their homes energy consumption through thoughtful improvements, etc.

Since that crowd doesn't translate into Mark's (me) opinion, I would dearly like to have one like this. I hope he shares more about how he did this. At 170 watts/mile (I rounded up for safety), I could make my 40 mile roundtrip commute on 6.8 kilowatts of electricity, which means at 8.5 cents per kilowatt hour, it would cost me about $0.58 to drive to work and back.

A BIG for this streamliner!

It would be good to understand the electrical operating cost of this wonderful machine. Did we take reported amp-hour usage times nominal voltage of the battery pack as killowatt-hour consumption, then times utility rate for dollars, and divided by miles driven? If so, that would not account for efficiency of recharging the batteries. Now if a KillAWatt meter was used to measure the recharge, for example, then all bets are on!

BTW, for me (Northeast) $0.15/kW-hr is more realistic. So

180Ah * 72V = 12.96 kW-hr @ $0.15/kW-hr => $1.94 / 80 mi = $0.024/mi

For grins I compared that to my daily commute by motorcycle.

90 mpg @ $2.85/gal => $0.032/mi

Rock on!
KB

If you wish to continue your discussion on something other than Dave Cloud's Dolphin, please start your own thread.

The Dolphin is a true beauty to behold, no doubt. It's shape simply inspires one to wonder if ways exist to recapture much of the wasted energy produced by the choking miasma of less aerodynamically advantaged counterparts.

And if so, just how much....

Almost got knocked over on my recumbent by the gusts created from a passing tractor trailer and got to wondering how many Dolphins could ride a bow wave that powerful.

I'd still put a tail on the Dolphin, even if just for around town.


lol



TS

Otherwise, you're just a guy building a Chia car and shouting about random fluctuations in your fuel log.

Ok, that's just spooky....how, exactly, did you know that my car runs on a steam turbine powered by fuel logs? And who told you about my Chia grass tail cone idea?

Orwell was right, There's just No privacy anymore!

[tf4624]

Need to do that to my prius LOl.. I love it ..got to have it lol

[vpoppv]

Wow, I'm glad I found this thread. I hope it gets updated....

[ShadeTreeMech]

what's that law concerning the physics of a body in motion? Something that says you cannot extract energy from a moving object and expect the energy to not run out?

Otherwise I'd have had a half dozen windmills with alternators hooked up to the top of the car.

I do think it would be cool to have a vehicle that used electrical generation as its sole source of slowing down the vehicle. Imagine using a generator being spun very fast from the coating energy of a car to stop it. Done right, I'm sure it's physically possible, and that would certainly recharge the batteries a bit, especially if going downhill.

[ShadeTreeMech]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...ropped-90.html

My 9 year old daughter thought this is a cool looking car. There may yet be hope for the future!

[NeilBlanchard]

From the EV Discussion List:

Greetings everyone, I have some updated information on very recent accomplishments with this car. After it was shown at the Greenwood Car show on Saturday, it went home for a good charge. On Sunday, we headed out for an attempt at 200 miles on the freeway without recharging, by driving from Woodinville to Bellingham.

On the return, we came up just short, at 191 miles, so we repeated again today with the following results.

Total miles traveled: 201! The right-side drivetrain used 273 Ah, and the left-side used 262 Ah. Using 72 volts nominal, that works out to about 191.6 Wh/mile. The car now has the full complement of 60 batteries, of the 33 lb type I described previously. We assume that the 18% increase in usage is due to the increase in battery weight from the Lacey trip.

The bulk of the miles were on the freeway, but the last several miles were on surface streets near home base in order to complete the trip at home, but still get over 200 miles.

Also, Dave recorded some usage numbers over a 100 mile stretch in order to develop more accurate numbers for strictly highway driving, however, I don't have those numbers yet.

As before, I can answer some questions, but for more in-depth discussion, please call Dave Cloud.

[The Toecutter]

Would you be able to obtain information on how fast Dave Cloud drove for most of his highway driving?

191 Wh/mile would seem to be quite high consumption for a car as aerodynamic as that if he were only doing 55-60 mph! I understand that the car is heavy due to the battery weight, but even at speeds over 50 mph in a body streamlined as such, weight is nowhere near as significant of a factor in energy consumption. It may be possible that his tires are unsuited to maximum range, OTOH. If he has tires with a Crr ~0.01, then maybe that 191 Wh/mile figure would make sense. There are EVs nowhere near as aerodynamic as Dave Clouds EV that can get by on ~120 Wh/mile at 60 mph, even if they might be more streamlined and lighter in weight than the norm, but they are nowhere near as streamlined as that.

[Clev]

Originally Posted by The Toecutter

There are EVs nowhere near as aerodynamic as Dave Clouds EV that can get by on ~120 Wh/mile at 60 mph, even if they might be more streamlined and lighter in weight than the norm, but they are nowhere near as streamlined as that.

Which ones would those be? I believe the EV1 has the lowest consumption of a production EV at 179Wh/mi. The Tesla gets 240Wh/mi, and even Gary Graunke's Insight EV, which uses an AC drive system with regen, gets 185Wh/mi at 50 mph. The one that claimed 120Wh/mi, Aptera, released a press release on April 14 that revised the estimated consumption up to 200Wh/mi.

190Wh/mi is still very good.