Posted on 03/08/2014 6:39:57 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
With a solution that looks more like SF than real life, and a design taken from the imagination of comic strips fiction authors, the Quant e-Sportlimousine concept, developed by NanoFlowcell, took Geneva by surprise. It is very likely that you have not heard about NanoFlowcell until today. Although it looks like a name for an electric car powered by hydrogen, it actually is the name of a company based in Liechtenstein. And not just any company, but one that brought the Auto Show in Geneva the most beautiful concept presented in this edition of the most important European auto exposition in the first part of the year.
The official name of the prototype is Quant e-Sportlimousine and is exceptional both in design as well as the solutions proposed for propulsion and energy storage. “A vision becomes reality. The Quant e-Sportlimousine is a research vehicle for road testing innovative energy storage systems, focusing especially on development and improvements in flow cell battery technology,” says Nunzio La Vecchia, Technical Director of the company.
At 5.25 meters long and 2.2 meters wide, the prototype is longer than an S-Class with increased wheelbase and comes with flowing lines that resemble those of the individual transport solutions imagined by science fiction filmmakers. The difference is that this prototype it's not science fiction, even if it uses a propulsion system that can be considered two steps ahead of those existing in the current automotive world.
The most interesting thing about this is that NanoFlowcell’s engineers have turned to the newest innovations in the field of nanotechnology, the branch that deals with the study and development of special materials that occurs at the microscopic level, in order to modify the structures and cellular connections. The chosen technical solution is complex, it relies on the so-called “Flow-Batteries” (a combination of normal batteries, and the cells on the basis of hydrogen, and energy is not stored by the electrode, as in a conventional battery, but a liquid electrolyte in a more complex system), and it is not very detailed in the company's first official press release.
The car is based on four electric motors, one for each wheel, which develops a total of 925 horsepower at full load with a torque figure of 2900 Nm for each motor! In terms of performance, we are talking about a drive idea which has the ability to propel the vehicle in 2.8 seconds from 0 to 100 km / h and reach a maximum speed of 380 km / h. Aided by two tanks of liquid electrolyte the Quant-Sportlimousine has a range between 400 and 600 kilometers.
According to company officials from Liechtenstein, the concept was developed in a lab in Zurich, and the first prototypes that will run on the streets will see the light of day by the end of this year. For a production model based on the concept, we will have to wait until 2015.
This is obviously the car that Lichtenstein needs. Hit the accelerator for three seconds. Stop. Turn around. Hit the accelerator for three seconds. Stop. Turn around. Repeat.
They just need an EZpassport.
I read some recent articles about liquid electrolytes. Some people are proposing building electric fuel stations that would suck out old electrolytes from new electric vehicles, and refuel the vehicles with charged liquid electrolytes. So once an electric vehicle depletes much of their charge, they can quickly refuel and be on their way again in the same manner as gasoline refueled vehicles. No standing around for ten hours to recharge.
I’m not sure Lichtenstein is a real country, anyway. What countries border them? France? Belgium? Pittsburgh?
How do you exit a gull-wing car in a parking lot?
It depends. Some go almost straight up, some swing out.
They hid durning WW2. it took the Germans three months to find them
Austria and Switzerland.
62 square miles. 35K people.
Lichtenstein has 35K people? How many L people do they have?
Hmm
L=50
35K/50=700.
So
700L people.
I don’t know that the Romans had a numeral higher than M; I suppose they might have said that Liechtenstein has XXXV Ms of people.
I know this is MMXIV, but I’ve been playing with Roman numerals since MCMLXXII or so and even tried to figure out the old mathematical computations on a checkerboard pattern (the reason the British Treasury is called the “Exchequer”), with mixed and now half-forgotten results.
I think that in the interest of fairness, some of those L people should change over to be K people.
Letters are numbers. Just like Algebra class all over.
“Excuse me Mr. Olsen. How can a letter be a number? If we start assigning multiple meanings to things, why pretty soon, anything can mean anything.”
“Have you thought about transferring over to the Business Math class?”
It is! I tried to stop there once but by the time I realized I was there I was actually in Vaduz, Switzerland.
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