How do you recharge a failing automobile industry? Make it exciting again. How do you make it exciting again? Introduce new and improved technologies like the electric drive… for instance. Oh, and don’t forget to innovate and bring about un-thought of solutions.
The gist is that there are many prototype and concept electric cars in this year’s car shows, all offering one glimpse of a possible future. While traditional car makers battle the war on bulges and ill-adapted business models, a slew of possibilities are coming up, promising a brighter, and cleaner future.
Protoscar, The Swiss Revelation. We briefly touched upon the introduction of the Protoscar’s LAMPO concept here and the car is gaining interest as it will be unveiled at the Geneva Auto Show.
What is it anyway? The Swiss-based Protoscar its LAMPO is fully electric and breaks away from traditional electric drive design by having 2 electric engines, one each on the front and rear axle, according to Paultan.
Technically Speaking. The electric vehicle, EV will put out 268hp, with 440Nm of torque and use a 32 kWh lithium ion battery pack, good for roughly 125 miles. The LAMPO can be fully recharged in 12 hours under 220 volts.
Uniqueness Of The Car. What stands out of the car is the fact that it can plugged in pretty much anywhere, making a universal traveler.
Here is the other fascinating part, the company has a 16 kWH photovoltaic plant in Tuscany, Italy that feeds its energy into the global grid. The idea being to self-produce the energy needed for the car and counterbalancing consumption. This would be a great idea for other car makers, by doing the old proverbial, “put your money where your mouth is”.
The company has a few images on the benefits of electric drive versus gasoline, which all readers here should be well aware by now. Right?
Range Anxiety Fear, Shmanxiety! To answer the tired “range anxiety fear” leitmotiv used by hybrid car makers, the LAMPO has a range estimator, showing charging stations as well as an advanced long-distance trip planning system which incorporates charging time and recommended locations.
In conclusion, we feel the LAMPO is a brilliant spin on the electric drive battle. The idea of dual electric engines on each access, the innovating computer helping calculate distances, suggestions, finding electric recharge stations and finally using solar panels to pump clean, renewable energy back into the grid to propel its own cars, is just brilliant. We hope a few other mainstream car manufacturers will take a cue from Protoscar.
[...] clean alternative energy pumped into the Swiss grid would offset its EV carbon footstep, is Lampo. Now, VW wants to expand on it. Lampo [...]
Pingback by Electricnick, The EV Revolution » Blog Archive » Car Maker Future, Energy Providers And Technology Companies — October 13, 2009 @ 3:01 pm
[...] clean renewable energy. Little companies pushing for alternative energy, outside of the Lampo concept, the fact is that the equal important push behind EVs is more clean energy. However, it will not [...]
Pingback by Electricnick, The EV Revolution » The Environment Promise Of Electric Cars — October 22, 2009 @ 9:00 am
[...] an interesting dilemma, one that so far as we know only another company has looked into. The Lampo Protostar also wants to provide clean energy for the EVs they will offer. While yes, a PHEV still uses gas, [...]
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