As wealthy early adopters anticipate the summer of 2008 when they hope to take delivery of the first Tesla Roadsters, another company is ramping up to produce an electric vehicle to make your hair stand on end. The car is the ZAP-X, and its maker, ZAP!, claims it will do 0-60 in 4.8 seconds, charge in ten minutes, and go 350 miles on a full "tank" of electrons. The ZAP-X is supposed to cost around $50,000; plus, being that it's a small SUV, your family can come along for the ride.
Even though ZAP!, the Santa Rosa-based electric vehicle dealer, is happy to accept your $25,000 reservation fee, neither the ZAP-X nor its smaller sister, the ZAP Alias, actually exists yet. Not even as working prototypes. Between the lofty performance claims and ZAP!'s mixed financial history (which includes a bout of Chapter 11 back in 2002), it is no wonder that staunch car realists are inclined to apply the vaporware label. But some intriguing recent developments including new battery technology (the linchpin of EV success) have made the story noticeably more believable.
The ZAP-X
ZAP! makes and sells small neighborhood electric vehicles, scooters, and ATVs; the company has never designed or built a highway-ready car of its own. So rather than reinvent the wheel, the company approached Lotus Engineering. "Use your imagination," ZAP! told Lotus. "Design this car as if you were building it for yourself."
Britain's Lotus Engineering is a known go-to source for automotive problem solving and has been involved in the realization of many automakers' mass-market vehicles, not just temperamental supercars. Lotus loves a challenge. Furthermore, the design consultancy carried out the engineering work that made the Tesla Roadster possible and so has wrestled with the EV conundrum at least once before.
What Lotus first handed over to ZAP! was not a car but a multivolume technical assessment, "5 or 6 phonebooks thick," that laid the groundwork for what Schneider calls "the most technologically advanced electric vehicle in history." Schneider is not shy about using superlatives, but if he is correct, the secret behind this visionary line of cars lies in the frame, the motors, and the batteries.
The APX Architecture
Back when the ZAP-X was still a brainstorm, there was talk of it being a two-seater sports car like the Tesla Roadster. It wasn't until ZAP! executives were strolling through the Lotus Engineering lab that the idea clicked to use the Aluminum Performance Crossover (APX) prototype that Lotus had already developed. It is the light and rigid APX design that ZAP! proudly unveiled at the convention of the National Automotive Dealers' Association in February. Going with Lotus' aluminum frame and shooting for a small SUV instead of a lighter sports car is ambitious, and has made the challenge as well as the ultimate marketability even higher.
Wheel Hub Motors
Making room for more passengers and more mass in the ZAP-X means packing in more batteries and more power. Lotus' solution was to scrap the idea of a central electric powerhouse altogether and replace it with wheel hub motors: four separate motors—no bigger than standard brake drums—that sit in the hubs themselves. According to Schneider, PML Flightlink's motors are "without question the most advanced wheel hub motors in the world."
Wheel hub motors are supposed to bring higher performance, faster stopping, and more efficient regenerative braking, but the only major automaker to seriously consider them, Mitsubishi, has since backed off. PML Flightlink, ZAP!'s provider of choice, has so far retrofitted two plug-in hybrid MINI Coopers with hub motors, but nothing has been commercialized. By definition, putting the motors in the four wheels of the ZAP-X makes it an all-wheel-drive vehicle, and by eliminating the need for a transmission, driveline, rear axle, and conventional brakes, it opens up more space for the muscle of the ZAP-X: the battery pack.
Lithium Polymer Nano Batteries
Electric cars have been around for almost a century. They are not complex beasts, at least in theory, but battery performance and range have held things back. The Tesla Roadster is such a leap forward not because it can do 0-60 in around four seconds, but because it can go more than 200 miles between charges (recently revised from 250).
ZAP! hopes to be a major contributor to the evolution of the electric car by introducing cutting edge nanotech lithium polymer batteries that are safer, longer lasting, faster charging, and capable of storing more energy than anything on the market today. CEO Steve Schneider recently returned from China, where lithium battery production is growing fast, and announced that the company had partnered with Advanced Battery Technologies and made an initial $5.3 million battery purchase.
ZAP! will introduce li-poly batteries first in the XEBRA (its three-wheeled neighborhood car) and then in the ZAP-X and Alias. ZAP! also unveiled plans to open a joint development center with Advanced Battery Technologies in Beijing. ABT's lithium polymer technology uses nano particles that offer significantly higher surface area within battery cells. At a rapid charging station the ZAP-X will theoretically reach full capacity in ten minutes. At a conventional 110-volt home outlet the car will reach roughly 80% in the first hour and top off in about six.
The ZAP Alias
To push the envelope yet further, ZAP! announced in June that a smaller, leaner EV is due out before the arrival of the ZAP-X. Also designed by Lotus Engineering and using much of the same technology as the SUV, the Alias will be built on a three-wheel platform. ZAP! claims the Alias will travel 100 miles on a charge, top out at 100 mph, and cost $30,000 or less. Its tricycle design technically classifies it a motorcycle, therefore bypassing mountains of Department of Transportation regulation. Steve Schneider says the Alias will have all the safety features it needs and more, but since they are not legally required, the production can be fast-tracked. "Half the Lotus crew wants the first ones off the line," he said.
So What Happens Now?
To see if ZAP! can be a major player in the much-awaited electric vehicle revolution, we can only wait and watch. These two cars sound almost too good to be true, and in some respects they almost certainly are. ZAP! has broken promises in the past (in 2005 it scrapped plans to bring Smart cars to the U.S.), and is still $50 million short of the $395 million it will take to produce the ZAP-X and the Alias. But then again, all the pieces just might fall into place this time. The publicly traded company has drive, Chinese nano batteries, and a cacophony of media buzz.
At company headquarters in downtown Santa Rosa, Steve Schneider has a room full of rare electric vehicles. Some, like the original electric Smart car, are models now defunct. Others are in production but are limited specialty items like the three-wheeled, one-seater Corbin Sparrow. In that room is an important lesson in American EV history, a reminder that the revolution has been attempted but hasn't actually happened yet. Catalyzing the revolution is exactly what ZAP! has in mind.
From Jacob Gordon at TreeHugger.com
