By David Boyce
Almanac Staff Writer
If there is one idea that’s been around the block, it’s the electric car. The first one drove onto the scene in 1894 and led to 127 companies making them in the United States, according to Michael Brian Schiffer, a professor of anthropology at the University of Arizona and co-author of “Taking Charge: The Electric Automobile in America.”
In turn-of-the-century America, the electric car found a niche in city driving for the wealthy classes. Streets were shared with horse-drawn carriages and speed limits were low. “They could essentially go all day long on a single charge,” says Mr. Schiffer. By 1913, some 6,000 to 6,500 were on the road.
It was not to last. Obscurity came with the end of World War I as speed limits rose with the increasing popularity of gasoline-driven cars, says Mr. Schiffer.
A comeback may be ahead for that old niche — electric cars, wealthy owners and city driving — but with a difference: the battery-powered, street-legal vehicle in the works by Woodside resident and would-be car manufacturer Ian Wright would get the equivalent of 170 mpg and could humble Porsches, Ferraris and their cousins when met on the track.
That’s what happened at the drag strip at Sonoma County’s Infineon race track on November 8, when Mr. Wright — driving a 236-horsepower electric car he assembled in his garage — went up against a 400-horsepower Ferrari 360 Spider and a 600-horsepower Porsche Carrera GT. He made them look slow.
Mr. Wright, a former high-tech executive, former amateur racer and the CEO of Wrightspeed Inc., told the Almanac he is seeking venture capital to build a car factory, “probably on the Peninsula,” and hire some 60 employees to assemble high-performance electric cars modeled on his prototype. They would sell for about $100,000 apiece, he says.
The car
Like his prototype (he calls it the X1), the Wrightspeed production car would be a fair-weather vehicle with neither doors nor roof. Unlike the X1, it would have air bags and body panels that may be designed by Pinanfarina, the legendary Italian design firm behind the Ferrari look.
Mr. Wright did not offer production numbers for his proposed factory other than to say that volume would be “low.” It wouldn’t be a Detroit-style assembly line, he says; the work would focus on batteries, electronics and software. A Silicon Valley location would be ideal for raising venture capital and finding engineering expertise, he says.
Asked to comment on the audacity of such a plan, Mr. Wright replied: “This happens to combine a lot of things that I love in one product and one company.” Besides, he adds: “The auto industry is pretty lean at the moment. People are pretty hungry.”
The chassis of his car would be manufactured elsewhere, but it would perform like the Ariel Atom, an English-made racer used to build the X1. Mr. Wright bought the motor system from San Dimas-based AC Propulsion, but the batteries and transmission are his design.
“It’s an extremely high-performance car,” he notes. “People who haven’t driven on the track probably haven’t experienced anything like this. Training is a good idea.”
Driving lessons on a track may be included in the purchase price, he says.
Unlike most cars, the X1 has just one forward gear. Floor the pedal and you’re off like a shot toward the 112 mph top speed. “With this thing, you just put your foot down,” he says. “You get immediate and precise application of as much (pulling power) as you want.”
Starting from 0 mph is tricky in most high-performance cars; clutch release and engine speed must be precisely matched to get maximum traction. Not a problem with the X1: it has electronic traction control to guarantee smooth starts.
Getting back to 0 mph is easy, too. Take your foot off the pedal and the slower spinning electric motor slows the car significantly, and the deceleration energy recharges the batteries as is done in hybrid cars. The brakes themselves should last 100,000 miles, says Mr. Wright.
The car is notably quiet. Pulling away from a parking spot tends to create a sensation among bystanders as the car begins to move as if by magic. At speed, all you hear is wind noise and a slight gear whine.
The car’s range for town driving on a full charge is about 120 miles if driven carefully — the equivalent of 170 mpg — a figure derived by calculating the watts in a gallon of gasoline (33,705) divided by the watts the car uses per mile (200). “I can drive all day for a couple of bucks,” he says. On occasion, he says he’s packed an extension cord.
The 538-pound lithium-ion battery pack reaches full charge in about five hours on a 30-amp circuit as is used for a clothes dryer, he says. The batteries should last the life of the car, about 10 years, he says.
In his garage sits a 1978 308 GTS Ferrari, which he is careful not to stress until the oil warms up in the engine and gearboxes. With the X1, “you just turn out of the driveway and go. … So I’m selling the Ferrari,” he says. “It’s just not that fast.”
The race
The races between the X1 and the Ferrari and the Porsche were the idea of James Fox, CEO of Bolinas-based EnergyNext, a nonprofit with a goal of raising consumer awareness of energy issues.
In three races against each car, the X1 easily outran them, but anyone familiar with electric power may have seen it coming. An electric motor delivers maximum power immediately and keeps it coming, whereas a gasoline engine must build to a maximum, producing the familiar rising tones of an accelerating engine as it winds through each gear.
“It was actually kind of embarrassing,” says Mr. Wright. “If nothing failed, I expected to beat them.”
On race day, with the track damp and slippery, the X1 ran a quarter mile in 11.9 seconds versus 13.5 seconds for the Ferrari, says Mr. Wright, adding that times for the Porsche were not comparable because the driver insisted on rolling starts.
The X1 tops out at 112 mph, which Mr. Wright says is deliberate because it’s a good power range for one gear and it’s a reasonable limit. Had the races been a mile on a straight course, the X1 would have lost. It could go faster, but the extra gearing would add weight and complexity.
Playing with wire
Ian Wright, 50, of Woodside, the CEO of Wrightspeed Inc. and the designer of the battery system and transmission of his X1 electric car, grew up on a New Zealand sheep farm.
He says his dad wanted him to take over the farm and discouraged his interest in electronics. “You’ll never make a living playing with pieces of wire,” he recalls him saying.
“I took that as a challenge,” he says, adding that his dad did come around and is “quite proud” of him today.
Mr. Wright studied electrical engineering and has 20 years as a high-tech executive behind him, including one year as engineering vice president at San Carlos-based Tesla Motors, a company with its own plans for an electric car.
He and his wife Anne have lived in the Untied States for 12 years. She’s a microbiologist on leave to tend to their two young children.
Why the name X1? “Because I’m not a marketing person,” he says with a smile, then adds that the name recalls the Bell X-1, an experimental aircraft flown in 1947 by U.S. Air Force test pilot Capt. Chuck Yeager, the first to break the sound barrier.
For information on the X1 and Wrightspeed, go to wrightspeed.com.
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