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A bigger battery pack can usually charge at higher power than a smaller one. Sure enough the Tesla Roadster with its monster 52 kWh pack has a 16 kW AC charger, by far the most powerful of any electric car. It came out before the SAE J1772 AC charging standard was adopted in 2009, so Tesla developed its own connector; You can buy an expensive adapter cable for it to use at the thousands of public AC charging stations. The Roadster doesn't support even higher-power DC fast charging.

This new standard has a Frankenplug that adds two fat pins for DC power to the existing 5 pins (RTFA for a picture). But Tesla didn't go for it. They developed their own compact plug that supports both AC and DC fast charging (scroll down for a picture) with fewer pins. Using it a Model S with the biggest battery option can recharge at 90 kW (the same maximum power as this new standard) from a Tesla-specific "SuperCharger", and Elon Musk has talked about setting up networks of SuperChargers along major highways.. But I don't think Tesla ever seriously proposed it as a standard, SAE was always only going to choose between the Japanese CHAdeMO plug on the Nissan Leaf and this Frankenplug. I hope Tesla develops an adapter for the DC fast charge that succeeds.

( Haruchai , posting as AC due to previous mod ) You should report that to Nissan unless your commute happens to be uphill both ways See below for the experiences of a gent with a 130-mile daily round-trip who has racked up 36,000 miles on his Leaf in 11 months. http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1075494_11-months-36000-miles-in-a-nissan-leaf-electric-car-no-problem

congratulations on proving that you totally failed to understand this concept. or to type.

Take a look at this pictures. It looks to me like it is a single module desiged to swap a single engine with a single battery pack. That swapping structure is quite large and not viable for almost all drivers. That is much different than this video which is how a central station would work.

Renting a Gen-set would require one to go to the gen-sets are stored. will this take longer? Yes. Will this be inconvenient? Yes. Is it open? Will they have the module I need? Considering that there has been a company trying for years to build central battery swap locations the issues are not small.

To me the drawback of the extra energy requited to carry a very small gasoline engine around is much less thn the drawback of having to go to a central location every time one needs to travel far.

More than 50% of vehicles sold are diesels, for that very reason (higher efficiency, cheaper to run).

Trust me, I WISH diesel vehicles were more common in the US. Alas, they're not currently an option.

I have yet to find a first person account, or indeed anything more authoritative than "heard it from a Tesla repair dude".

Doesn't seem to be much, is there? It is a little interesting that the blogger is the business partner of a Tesla owner who has a warranty problem. So despite all the disclaimers at the bottom of his blog, he must have accidentally forgot to put that little tidbit in. So right away, the lack of that knowledge being passed on could give a reasonable person the idea that he's grinding an axe for his buddy.

Here's a link to that knowledge: http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1073289_tesla-battery-bricking-the-real-story-behind-the-post

So perhaps we should go to the issue of the vehicle.

Keep 'em plugged in! Let's say that you have a big diesel Earthmover. Try running it out of fuel some time. (actually - don't, because it's a bad thing to do). So does that mean diesel technology sucks? No, it just means you have to take care of it in a certain way. Same with the Tesla or other electric vehicles. They'll be a lot happier if you keep the batteries charged.

Towing? The Tesla cannot be towed by "traditional means" with dead batteries?, What is he referring to - the old tow setups with a ton of chains and weird grastaphaguses that you used to see 50 years ago? I've been towed maybe 5 times in the past 20 years, and in each case it was either a dolly tow, or pulled onto a platform.There is a whole lot less liability for the tower that way. Does "traditional towing" even exist any more? The towing issue is so moot as to be ridiculous.

Finally, it's a good thing that conventional vehicles never have engine problems. I had a Chevy Astrovan with a 6 cylinder engine that I had to replace twice at 5 thousand each time. It was a strong engine, but they didn't last. But there is this weird undercurrent of thought that any problem with an electrical vehicle condemns the entire concept, while we are so smitten by our gas vehicles that a similar cost - say the 12K battery vs my 10 K of engine replacements are no big deal.

If a person can't take care of the vehicle correctly, then maybe they should get something else. If you run out of fuel often, you don't want that diesel engine, you can't be troubled to plug your electrical vehicle in, or if you like to leave your Tesla in an airport parking lot for 6 months while studying Jackass Penguins in Cape Horn, Maybe the Tesla isn't for you. Seriously, would anyone do that anyhow?

By the way, I do not buy the Extension cord failure mode.

I'd sum it up as a person who is trying to do dirt on Tesla because his friend is having trouble with the Company, especially since he hid that fact. Maybe his next blog entry will be about Electrical fires from batteries. Apparently much worse than Gasoline fires, no doubt.

Tesla specifically makes you sign a document acknowledging that you understand the charging needs. If you get an expensive toy, you should be willing to time in to maintain it correctly. Also, Tesla offers the option to have your car send you a notification (probably a text message) if your battery gets discharged below a certain threshold. This was a brand new technology when it came out, so of course early adopters are going to encounter a few kinks. But, it seems like Tesla did everything it could to inform owners of the potential problem and give them tools to prevent the problem from occurring. But, like in the rest of life, you can't save the idiots from themselves.

Really? Most buyers purchase this car for that particular route? Even prior to the charging station being deployed?

I don't know why they bought the 300 mile models rather than the models with shorter ranges. But the fact is, they have. From TFA:

"...most of Tesla's current orders are for Model S Sedans complete with 300-mile battery pack option..."

Goingreen, REVA UK importer stopped selling them, quoting the competition from mainstream manufacturers, like Nissan Leaf, Mitsubishi i-MiEV and its rebadged Peugeout Ion cousin finally arriving on market. See here

So it doesn't take hours to recharge the batteries? Oh wait...

RTFA http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1066795_breaking-tesla-making-faster-2012-model-s-0-60-in-under-4-5-seconds

When the batteries are depleted, Tesla says even the 300-mile range Model S will be able to recharge from empty to full in under an hour thanks to its new direct current external charger. The 90 kilowatt units will be installed by Tesla at suitable rest-stop locations or hotels alongside arterial freeways such as I-5 between Canada and Mexico.

Elon Musk sure has to put up with a lot of you-know-what. First, he went through that ugly divorce, where his ex-wife blogged about all his dirty laundry. Then, he had to pilot his two fledgling companies through near-bankruptcy in the worst financial environment since the Great Depression. Then, some Venturebeat journalist developed a personal vendetta for some reason, and starting scaring away investors. Now, he has this naysaying LA Times journalist crawling up his ass. I mean, the guy's got #billionairerproblems

So what if Tesla's production schedule slips by six months? Delays are extremely common in bleeding-edge research. So the Tesla slips into 2013. That's only a decade sooner than anyone ever dreamed we'd see practical elecric cars! Let's all pile on Musk because it took him an extra few months with his plan to save all our asses from climate change.

Just look at these pictures of Musk and Neil, and tell me who's the asshole here?

Something else about ultra-capacitors - their efficiency needs to improve and they need to be safer. Read the link below about ultra-cap electric buses catching fire

http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1063473_chinese-electric-bus-catches-fire-on-road-not-the-first-one

Most "pollution" today (excepting CO2) is emphatically not from modern cars.

reinforcing what Anthony says, in addition to coal, the emissions from cargo ships using bunker fuel also results in a staggering amount of pollution. Automobile pollution is negligible in comparison, (although many L.A. residents would likely disagree). "A car driven 9,000 miles a year emits 3.5 ounces of sulfur oxides--while the engine in a large cargo ship produces 5,500 tons" and "bottom line: One giant container ship pollutes the air as much as 50 million cars" (Voelcker, 2009; linky). A Google search for bunker fuel pollution returns an article over at the Daily Mail, How 16 ships create as much pollution as all the cars in the world. (of course I doubt that this is news to most Slashdotters...).

I am no expert but I wonder if the majority air/water pollution is coming from automobiles, trucks, and buses.

Nope, cargo ships. Each one pollutes like 50 million cars.

http://www.greencarreports.com/blog/1050675_next-gen-mazda2-will-return-70-mpg-without-an-electric Ignore this link, i was testing pasting.

Wow... is there a bug open for that? because it's really annoying...

``If you use a commonly used metric to describe an attribute of your car and that commonly used metric doesn't mean anything close to what you're using it for, you're being deceitful.''

Problem is, they couldn't have. The EPA had not established a standard test cycle for the kind of car that the Volt is. So as far as using the commonly used metric the way it's commonly used (i.e. reporting performance on the EPA test cycles), it could not have been done. This has been known pretty much from the beginning. Now, they could have done any number of things. They could have tested their car on one of the already established EPA test cycles. They could have claimed "MPG? For most city driving, you won't be using any gasoline at all!" They could have cooked up some kind of equivalence formula. Or they could have waited for the EPA to come up with a test cycle for their kind of car, and gone with that.

According to many sources on the web, the 230 miles per gallon figure was based on preliminary/draft specifications for a new EPA city test cycle developed specifically for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, with final ratings to be determined by testing after the EPA test cycles for PHEVs would be determined. Does that strike you as GM being deceitful?

On top of this, it's going to be more expensive than it's competitors.

Fully loaded, with absolutely every option you can add to a Prius from the factory (At least when I built one on Toyota's site), it costs $36795, and can be easily retrofitted to work similar to the Volt's powertrain since the Prius powertrain already has an electric only mode built in. (albeit, not with the same range or power, or with a plug)

The Chevy Volt is reported to start at $41000, and is $44600 fully loaded.

Yes I know there's a tax credit that will knock $7500 off the price, but that only lasts until they build 200,000 cars. After that the credit starts phasing itself out.

Considering that what made this car special is now proven to be just another hybrid in a sea of hybrids, and an expensive one at that, There's a good chance that the Volt will be GM's Edsel.

Yeah, like this: http://www.greencarreports.com/image/100174380_erwin-wurm039s-fat-car/

Throwing out your existing tires for fuel economy? How much oil is in those tires anyway?

Add 2 PSI to regular tire pressure and your roll resistance goes down. Another great factor is driving style and type of car.

Bigger topic..

Subtraction is just addition using negative numbers. Why not skip subtraction altogether and just do addition? And hey, multiplication is just addition done over and over, and division is just subtraction done over and over, so we could simplify all those operators down to just one.

We don't do that, not because we're too stupid, but because it's terribly inconvenient to work everything out in terms of addition alone. We pick the notation that's most convenient for the given purpose.

Doing the faction in terms of volume-over-distance is better in comparing fuel efficiency because it makes it obvious where to focus efforts in efficiency increases.

Full writeup on the subject.

Not really - since the Prius DOES get the benefits that the Volt won't be.

So... yeah. It makes very, very little sense.

Yep, it makes "very, very little sense" because it's incorrect.

If you bought a Prius TODAY, it would not qualify for the HOV lane exemption because you couldn't get a new exemption sticker for it because they've all been allocated. Anyways, by 2011, no hybrids will be allowed in the HOV lane with just one person... how is this different for the Prius than for the Volt since both won't be able to qualify for the HOV lane exemption by the time the Volt is sold in CA? http://www.greencarreports.com/blog/1041787_hybrid-owners-howl-as-california-hov-lane-access-ends-in-december

Also, if you bothered to read the original article, the reason why the Volt doesn't qualify for any CA credits is because it didn't meet CA AT-PZEV requirements that the current Prius meets. Who's to fault when their vehicle doesn't meet a published standard? Blame GM, not CA.

I once looked it up, and 15 cargo ships produce as much greenhouse gas as all the cars in the world combined.

As much as I despise the phrase ... lolwut?

Just think about that for a second. Use your sense of natural intuition, your common sense, your sense of proportions and orders of magnitude. Does that statement seem even remotely plausible. That 15 ships emit the same volume of GHGs as a billion cars?

For the record, what you are thinking of is this: http://www.greencarreports.com/blog/1020063_pollution-perspective-one-giant-cargo-ship-emits-as-much-as-50-million-cars ...which is talking about the volume of ~pollution~ (e.g. sulfur, particulates, other 'dirty' stuff etc), not greenhouse gas emissions (most GHGs aren't dirty and cannot really be called pollutants, as they occur naturally in decent concentrations anyway). When we are talking about pollution (rather than GHG emissions), modern cars are in fact very clean indeed due to the tough emissions standards in most countries in the last several decades.

Having said that shipping is still a substantial slice of the greenhouse gas pie (the above article attributes 3-4% influence to total anthropogenic GHGs). But it's nowhere near the huge difference between cars and ships as you make out.