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If you check out their website and/or read up on the company, the goal is/has been just that - produce a consumer car as well....2011 was the target IIRC.

One additional point, it does seem like something about their last round of financing fell through (not having luck finding details tho) and that's what's prompted this request for cheap loans. If I'm wrong about their financing, however, this whole thing may be a way for them to take a simple jab at their gas-powered competition by doing nothing more than raising awareness of the situation.

I certainly don't see the controversy in a high-tech auto startup getting cheap loans that were ear-marked for high-tech auto startups in the first place.

By contrast, the "Big 3" - GM in particular - are asking for money for cash-flow issues. There's nothing to say those 3 won't be back in the same boat com again in the next few months. They don't even have much of a plan (so far as they've mentioned) to stop the suck-train they've all been on (speaking of their products, management and social responsibility) for the last few decades....I see giving them money as a bad investment at this point.

I'd be at least as tempted to fire all the management and turn the companies over to the workers and the unions (freeing up a lot of that money tied up in wages) as I would be to give them what they're asking for.

-Matt

Yes, I'm well aware that the conversion isn't 100% accurate when trying to compare different modes of transporation, and there are other things to take into account when trying to do the conversion. What I am trying to say is that energy is energy, no matter what form it happens to take at the moment.

This page on efficiency at Tesla Motors does a pretty good job at explaining at least some of the conversion factors that also take into account engine efficiency, thermal resistance in the batteries, mechanical losses (even in the electric motors), and transmission losses from sending the energy from the utility plants to the vehicle.

There was a white paper on the Tesla website that went into much more detail, but apparently it has been pulled. The text currently reads that it will be updated for current EPA calculation standards, and I hope that it is at least as good as the paper that Martin Eberhart wrote in the first place.

BTW, one area where Tesla is sort of fudging the results is in the "cost of operation" which is different than the cost of fuel. The "big ouch" for the operational costs of an electric vehicle is battery replacement after roughly five years or so of operations. This is compensated for the fact that most of the systems are solid-state devices that don't have moving parts, and the mechanical systems that do exist are really quite simple. Wheel and brake systems are nearly identical for all of the vehicle power plant types, so that isn't even a consideration.

Having rebuilt my share of internal combustion engines, I certainly can say that the operational costs of an ICE vehicle include far more than just the raw gasoline costs as well. I certainly spend more than a couple thousand dollars each year just on vehicle repair and maintenance costs... particularly if I put into account the value of my time I spend on vehicle repairs instead of taking it to a local mechanic.

On the margin here, including depreciation and other factors, you are likely to be spending less money on an internal combustion engine vehicle... even taking into account fuel & repair costs. The big thing that Tesla and GM (with the Volt) need to figure out is how to drop the cost down so that electric vehicles actually start to save you money in the long run even taking the overall cost of ownership into account. If you compare a Corvette vs. a Roadster, Tesla may have the advantage here but not by a whole lot.

Yes, I'm well aware that the conversion isn't 100% accurate when trying to compare different modes of transporation, and there are other things to take into account when trying to do the conversion. What I am trying to say is that energy is energy, no matter what form it happens to take at the moment.

This page on efficiency at Tesla Motors does a pretty good job at explaining at least some of the conversion factors that also take into account engine efficiency, thermal resistance in the batteries, mechanical losses (even in the electric motors), and transmission losses from sending the energy from the utility plants to the vehicle.

There was a white paper on the Tesla website that went into much more detail, but apparently it has been pulled. The text currently reads that it will be updated for current EPA calculation standards, and I hope that it is at least as good as the paper that Martin Eberhart wrote in the first place.

BTW, one area where Tesla is sort of fudging the results is in the "cost of operation" which is different than the cost of fuel. The "big ouch" for the operational costs of an electric vehicle is battery replacement after roughly five years or so of operations. This is compensated for the fact that most of the systems are solid-state devices that don't have moving parts, and the mechanical systems that do exist are really quite simple. Wheel and brake systems are nearly identical for all of the vehicle power plant types, so that isn't even a consideration.

Having rebuilt my share of internal combustion engines, I certainly can say that the operational costs of an ICE vehicle include far more than just the raw gasoline costs as well. I certainly spend more than a couple thousand dollars each year just on vehicle repair and maintenance costs... particularly if I put into account the value of my time I spend on vehicle repairs instead of taking it to a local mechanic.

On the margin here, including depreciation and other factors, you are likely to be spending less money on an internal combustion engine vehicle... even taking into account fuel & repair costs. The big thing that Tesla and GM (with the Volt) need to figure out is how to drop the cost down so that electric vehicles actually start to save you money in the long run even taking the overall cost of ownership into account. If you compare a Corvette vs. a Roadster, Tesla may have the advantage here but not by a whole lot.

It should also be noted that just prior to the financial meltdown on Wall Street, Tesla was trying to get a rather sizable loan for the construction of their new line of vehicles. Elon Musk wrote about at least one of these loans in this blog post and he noted elsewhere that the financial meltdown killed some other financing for his company.

I see this "bailout" money as mainly money Tesla would have been able to get had it not been for the screw-ups in Washington DC & New York.

The latest news about a car for regular people coming from tesla is a luxury sedan going for a base price of $60k according to their website [1]. In order to buy that, the average joe might have to take out a loan to afford that car. Don't get carried away with you got a loan for college, that you could get a loan for a car. I think that is a bad investment. Buy modestly. http://www.teslamotors.com/media/press_room.php?id=1037

Hydrogen is a total disaster.

As to SuperCaps vs. Batteries, current SC are far more expensive than a battery for the same amount of energy. The biggest problem is that SC have energy density just above lead acids. HOWEVER, there are 3 super caps in the making. The MIT one based on buckyballs which is better than nimh, but will costs less than either nimh or li-ion. A different one that I do not recall is now building their plant and will be comparable to above. The POSSIBLE (though I am thinking less so) REAL WINNER is EESTOR. 2x the energy density of li-ion and a fraction of the cost of ANY of the solutions. If real, everything changes. The best thing about supercaps is 5 min recharges, and pretty much unlimited lifetimes. Even now,

i hate to burst your bubble. but lets get real here. #1. tesla went carbon fiber.

"Carbon fiber on its own isn't much use, though. It's like a very thin fishing line, it is only strong in tension (when you try to break it by pulling it along its length). So, to make a panel that is strong in all directions, carbon fiber is typically woven into cloth (to give it strength in two directions) and then the carbon fiber cloth is encapsulated in plastic. In our case, it is encapsulated in epoxy resin - it has a higher specific strength than the alternatives. The epoxy is strong in compression but relatively weak in tension, so the two materials act together to produce a panel strong in tension and compression."http://www.teslamotors.com/blog4/?p=50

epoxy resins weaken over time, the longer the epoxy takes to set, the longer it takes to soften. but even the slowest setting epoxy resins are going to soften within a decade. or less. forget rust, the body is just going to turn into a malleable fabric when the bond of the epoxy resin wears down. Fast Set epoxy can fail in as little as 12 months.

let's hit up aluminum next. Aluminum has metal fatigue. consider aircraft which have to be made of aluminum, they use only the purest, highest grade virgin aluminum with no recycled content at all. that's fine, we don't make 40 million airplanes a year. bicycles are often made of cheaper recycled aluminum, it's a bit hokey, but i've know people who while being obese, still managed to snap apart an aluminum frame just from trying to loose weight by cycling many miles a day. this is a huge issue for cars, a single high speed impact could snap or create fatigue fractures in the frame. causing the frame to suddenly unexpectedly come apart at highway speeds the next week, month or even years afterward.

plastic. no matter what you do with plastic, heat is the worst enemy of plastic. it also has problems with fatigue, and the chemistry to make auto grade plastic is crazy mad.

fiberglass is still glass, and glass won't last forever.

now if you had suggested building a car out of carbon nanotubes, then maybe we could be talking about 100 years of use, but still not with absolute safety. a hard rigid body creates the highest g-forces on impact, causing the most serious damage to the occupant. even if you can make a carbon fiber humvee that can take a head on with a semi and still be drivable... well not even a 5 point harness would spare your life from a head on with a semi.

just remember all the nascar drivers who have been lost before the safer barriers, and they were in crumpleable steel framed cars, not a solid non deforming carbon fiber shell forcing them to hit the harness with 1000gs for 1/1000th of a second. crumple zones save lives at current highway speeds. carbon nanotube shells designed to last 100 years would cost lives, every single year.

You've got that the wrong way round. The old powertrain was two-speed. The new, simpler and more reliable version is single speed.

so why are the big 3 automakers also struggling right now and asking for $50 billion in government subsidies to continue operations? must be because they're a bunch of eco-hippy leftists and not at all due to the credit crunch, right?

and of course the Tesla Roadster is aimed at a niche market. it's a $100k car. there are lots of car companies out there that specialize in ultra high-end vehicles. this is nothing new, and there's nothing inherently unsound about this business model. it's only when the economy is failing that problems arise for companies that sell luxury commodities.

as for your unfounded claims about electric vehicles, perhaps you should do a little more research before spouting uninformed nonsense:

• the Tesla Roadster's top speed is electronically limited to 125 MPH.
• it has a range of 244 miles.
• does 0 to 60 in 3.9 seconds.
• has a maximum torque of 280 ftlbf
• and its peak torque begins at 0 RPM and is constant up to 14,000 RPM.

aside from the lack of infrastructure for plug-in electrics, there's no reason for us not to be driving them instead of ICE vehicles. and as plug-in electrics gain more acceptance, the infrastructure will follow. but even now you can charge a Tesla Roadster in your garage in under 3 hours, which coupled with its 244 mi. range should be sufficient for the majority of commuters.

its ignorant and reactionary attitudes like yours that are impeding technological progress and the adoption of environmentally friendly technologies; which is why the Tesla Roadster is so important--because it helps to dispel such false assumptions about electric cars. uninformed knee-jerk responses are typical whenever new technologies arrive, but don't use your own ignorance to criticize people who are actually driving our society forward.

by that logic we should all drive tanks so that when we get in accidents our cars survive but we die (crumple zones are designed so that the car absorb the energy from a collision rather than passengers). your attitude is more suited to destruction derby than road safety.

ICE engines are a technological anachronism no matter how you slice it--both environmentally and in terms of energy efficiency. so what you feel is based on irrational beliefs. the only reason hybrids are useful now is because we haven't yet built the infrastructure for plug-in electric vehicles to completely replace ICE vehicles. it's an intermediate phase. it would not make sense to have hybrids if electric propulsion did not have advantages over ICE propulsion.

but all forms of progress, whether technological, cultural, social, or political, there will be a strong rearguard reaction to overcome. therefore it's important to disseminate information and encourage people to take a rational approach to the issue rather than falling victim to knee-jerk responses based on ignorant reactionary attitudes. luckily there are companies out there working to dispel false negative perceptions of electric vehicles as a lot of people still associate environmentally-friendly with poor performance.

My other cars? One yes, one maybe. Of course, you haven't actually provided any real numbers for price "per gallon" for an EV, so no way to say that those numbers would be realistic.

I was being almost like an economist - feeling out your comfort zone. Just how much do you value that 500 mile range? I wasn't trying for real numbers. Think like a car company feeling out potential customers - how much range to they think they need? How much do they want? What charging time would be acceptable? What would be good? How much are they willing to pay? How much can they save? Etc...

I won't even try to come up with a 'per gallon' rate. Between the volatility of gas prices and the various electric rates it's useless. Instead I'll reduce it down to a common figure that makes sense - cents per mile

One of the things you run into with EV's is that most data is for converted Lead Acid DC motor driven vehicles - commercial vehicles can be a lot more efficient. So I'll use the Tesla. The Tesla Roadster is rated at 200 watt-hours or 5 miles/kwh.

It depends a lot on your electricity cost - which varies more across the country than gasoline. Some people get deals and pay around 5 cents/Kwh. Some people pay 20 or more.

A 32 mpg vehicle will cost 12.5 cents per mile at $4 gallon. At 10 cents a kwh, a Tesla Roadster will cost you 2 cents. At 20(expensive electricity!), it'd be 4 cents.

At 30 cents per gallon gas taxes, that works out to less than a penny per mile(for a 32mpg vehicle). So it'd raise the EV to 3 cents, or still slightly less than a quarter the price of your vehicle per mile. Still less than half for expensive electricity.

As for a surtax for electricity - unless you drive a LOT, any extra electricity surcharge will disappear into the other uses people use electricity for. I drive a lot, and even for me, I'd only use $36 of electricity for my vehicle a month - and that's half my current utility bill. So unless they mandate a separate meter, the tax is going to be problematic.

That's not including extra costs due to batteries, reduced costs because of less maintenance(no oil chances on a electric motor), and assumes taxes and insurance are a wash, of course.

If I had $109k... Tesla Motors Roadster.

Oh BTW, Tesla Motors is also planning on a 'family' type car in the $50k range soon if I remember one of their press releases correctly. Thats getting pretty close to the sweet spot for people to buy into electric car technology. As the price of oil and gasoline keeps going up, it will make more and more sense to buy a slightly more expensive car that you can fill up the charge on for a measly 12 cents.

All they need to do is use a less powerful engine that gets the 'family' type car to 80 MPH instead of the 125 MPH the Roadster gets to cut a portion of the costs.

I don't find these electric cars ugly:

The Tesla is not very ugly, and the Think Ox is not to shabby either.

Not all of them

The one I bought: http://www.teslamotors.com/

The one I'm building: http://evhelp.com/S10_Conversion.htm

Well there's this one http://www.teslamotors.com/, but its a tad pricey. It's all electric not a hybrid, but has a range of 220 miles on a single charge, and great performance, though pushing the pedal to the floor would reduce your range a tad.

Others have already given a good idea of how NiMH batteries are recycled (and how they are relatively benign if not), here is how Tesla is planning on recycling Lithium batteries used in their electric cars when it comes time to replace them:

Mythbusters Part 3: Recycling our Non-Toxic Battery Packs

While NiMH batteries are what's used in just about all hybrid vehicles on the road today, the industry is slowly moving towards as the advantages of Lithium based batteries (higher power to weight ratio, higher power density) outweighs their drawbacks (high cost), and higher energy density is required to make plug-in and pure electric vehicles usable.

Tm

I wouldn't knock electric or fuel cell vehicles. For one, have you seen the new Roadster from Tesla Motors? That sucker almost puts the average Ferrari to shame,... ;-) Plus, the Muthbusters recently put electric cars against gasoline cars . . . and electric won out! Read about it here.

How about 0-60 in 3.9 sec and 220 miles per charge? http://www.teslamotors.com/ Hey, I'm all about muscle cars. I'm talking big engines, not dinky engines with coke can mufflers. But you can't ignore what's coming.

http://www.teslamotors.com/
0-60 mph 2.9 seconds
256 mpg equivalent
220 miles per charge
less than 2 cents/mile

See the "Are there any toxic chemicals in the battery?" question in the Tesla faq:

http://www.teslamotors.com/learn_more/faqs.php

I can't wait until somebody finally gets around to making a full EV car that seats two with ABS and Airbags, PS, Heat and AC, even if it only goes 100 miles.

Done: Tesla; and 2.5x more range too. Next.

If they can do it under $25k I'm there with cash in hand.

Ditto. Patience is a virtue as it is already on it's way: Tesla Sedan Press Release (7/30/2008). My guess is the sedan will be priced in the $40-$50K range. However, I understand Tesla is actively negotiating with established manufactures to license their engine technology; which will help to drive down costs over time. Unless something happens to kill the electric car (again) I would buy into the belief a $25K- 500-mile EV could be a reality within 10 years.

I find Chevy's Volt a pathetic attempt. Tesla has already come to market and shat all over the Volt's range. Even with alternative range-extending on-board sources (e.g. E85) they're WAY behind the curve. If Tesla's technology already gives them 200+ mile range in cars that are on the road today, just imagine how much more efficient they'll have made things in 3-4 years.

Ask, and you shall receive

Frankly, this goes to show one thing: That democracy as-we-do-it is a dead end and will lead is straight into self-destruction. Evil dictatorship, on the other hand (China hasn't been a pure communist country for years) can get things done.

Face it: The west is in a dead-lock. We want to save the world, but we can't, because our focus on self-interest and "the market will solve it" very efficiently prevents any common-interest solutions. It's the tragedy of the commons all over again, just on a global scale.

This is the most fallacious comment I've seen in awhile and is totally wrong.

China's economy is half the GDP of the USA and pollutes almost as much. What are you talking about a central power 'getting things done'? A government-built 'green city'? How is THAT going to change the world?

Now, SolarCity is already profitable. And TM is already expanding scale to start producing electric cars for a wider market in about 2 years. Oh, and they're making profits too.

Evil money grubbers! Selling solar panels and electric cars! Self-interest != common-interest! Seriously, educate yourself.

A caveat to your argument is that in ten years, the electricity infrastructure is likely to be far more effective and efficient than it is today. The current price of gasoline (and its cause, the high price of oil) are pushing all sorts of investments into electric power. Will all of them pan out? No. But some of them will, and by the time there are enough people wanting to buy the Chevy Volt, or whatever other all-electric car is on the market at that point - personally I'm looking for a good deal on a Tesla Roadster (http://www.teslamotors.com/) - the infrastructure will have grown to accommodate the new demands.

Sorry, I meant to say induction.

See this great blog post: http://www.teslamotors.com/blog4/?p=45

Buried away is this quote: "Brushless or Induction?
Back in the 1990s all of the electric vehicles except one were powered by DC brushless drives. Today, all the hybrids are powered by DC brushless drives, with no exceptions. The only notable uses of induction drives have been the General Motors EV-1; the AC Propulsion vehicles, including the tzero; and the Tesla Roadster."

The parent mentions flaws and the article mentions "powertrain 1.5."

The development of the Tesla wasn't quite smooth sailing. They're asking for a lot of performance out of a relatively lightweight power supply and motor. At some point in the last year or so, Tesla ran into some durability problems with their two speed transmission. They were never clear about what the problem was, but it became apparent when they started talking about changes.

They switched from a 2-speed transmission to a single speed. Obviously, this takes them outside the ideal operating ranges of the motor at the high and low ends of the rated performance (115 and 0 mph respectively). It also meant a redesign of a major component, which is probably a significant part of the delay of these vehicles that were supposed to be shipping late last year.

What they have shared, however, is that they plan to build vehicles with the 2 speed transmission and more restrictive motor governing (read: lower performance than originally advertised) while they finish development on the single speed transmission. At that point, they'll change over to the single speed in the factory and refit the vehicles already in customer hands at no extra charge.

To match the original performance promises, they changed to a higher-rated motor controller, and made a few other changes in the electronics. A side benefit they are claiming to have achieved is slightly higher efficiency from better electronics, although the range on an EPA test cycle is still a little bit below what they initially planned to achieve and were touting two years ago (235 miles on a full charge, IIRC).

Overall, an exciting sports car, but I'll hold back from calling it a breakthrough until I start to see the same technology applied to lower performance, more practical cars that fit the budgets of ordinary people. In the meantime, I look forward to seeing the Stig take it around the track on Top Gear.

Tesla article on Powertrain 1.5

PS - the Tesla Roadster uses Lithium batteries, not NiMH like the Prius or Civic hybrid, so others ramping up production doesn't directly affect costs for Tesla.

While the batteries used in the Tesla are standard laptop type 18650 cells, they are managed far more effectively that your typical laptop.

There's really nothing special to making making a battery perform reliably, but it does take some work.

I suggest you read Tesla's blog post The Most Coddled Automotive Battery Ever? to learn more about what steps they've taken to extract as much power as they can reliably from the 6,831 individual cells that make up the Tesla's battery pack.

It looks backward until you look at torque curve on. The torque curve is flat up to 6000 rpm, and slowly goes to zero at 16000.
To conserve battery juice and keep the motor cool you need to drive it at high rpm. It sounds funny, but all electric motors use less power at high rpm.
At around 11000 rpm torque is roughly at 50%. Switching to "high gear" will force electric motor to run at lower rpm where more torque is available and power curve starts to climb up.
As far as it goes to regenerative braking, I admit that driving at high rpm is not always the best solution. However it is the only solution for saving "battery juice" while driving at medium speed. I'm sure it won't help much if the car is driven carelessly, not caring about keeping the momentum.

The way I think of it, is that hey made "low gear" for city driving, cruising, and high gear for high speed driving and rapid accelerating. Should be fairly simple to drive.

Yes I want that but wanting something and being able to afford it are 2 different things. If I had the money to buy a car with a price like that I'd buy a Dodge Viper. That's because I wouldn't care how much I was spending on gas in the first place unless I wanted it for the novelty factor. For the Tesla car, it wouldn't be bad to have it for just the novelty factor but, then again, a Dodge Viper has a nice novelty to it too, about 600 novelties to it.

Actually, that's for just the battery *cells*. There's much more that goes into the battery pack: White Paper from Tesla Motors. Warning pdf.

http://www.teslamotors.com/blog4/?p=55

A roaring engine is an integral part of a good drive. This doesn't get me, *ahem* revved up, so to speak. Behold, the music of the angels:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPsywA5soAE

Nobody really gives a damn what fuels their cars, they care about cost and acceptable performance (can I make 70-80 on the freeway, or will I have a top speed of 40). If they can solve the problem of refueling infrastructure and sufficient mileage per refuel, there's no reason why not to go with a non-gas car.

you want this

http://www.teslamotors.com/

Like this one?

Instead of filling your car with gas, you're using coal/oil power plants instead. I don't see what the true benefit really is.

If you paid any attention at all to this subject over the past 5 years you'd know that battery-powered electric vehicles are far more efficient than blowing up gasoline to move, so even if the electricity to recharge them comes from fossil fuel, there's less pollution and lower costs and higher equivalent MPG.

People have already refuted and posted links here (and the last 500 times someone who "doesn't see" brings it up), but I'll repeat two: http://www.teslamotors.com/efficiency/well_to_wheel.php and http://www.ecoworld.com/blog/2006/08/04/electric-car-cost-per-mile/

I compared my 2006 F250 Crew Cab Long Bed with a 5.4L Gas engine to the Tesla Motors Tesla Roadster Electric car ( http://www.teslamotors.com/ ). I wanted to see what was the breakeven point for the Tesla (how many miles I had to drive before the Tesla would make sense). In my estimates, I am not counting Insurance, Maintenance, Taxes or Cost of Financing. I am also making the assumption, that I will never go to Home Depot, haul something or plan anything with my family. Nor will I consider the coolness factor. I am also not assuming that my range is less than 200 miles each day. I am also assuming that both vehicles will last forever. So here it goes: My truck cost me about $32,500 and gets about 13.8 MPG using cheap regular gas. I posted this when Tesla was a mere $100K. Oh yes, I know the truck is a different class of vehicle. Just want to put things in perspective. The Tesla Roadster cost $100,000 and gets about 50 miles on a buck. I am assuming that Gas prices are $4.00 per gallon and the mileage on both vehicles are the same rate (i.e. average cost of City/Highway). The Answer: I would have to drive 250,000 miles before the cost benefit of owning the Tesla Roadster. At $3.00 per gallon, I would have to drive my truck 350,000 miles before I broke even.

So when was the last time you drove a two-seater roadster with extremely limited storage space more than 100 miles away from your home? Better yet, when was the last time *you* drove 100 miles away from your home? My point being, it doesn't happen every day for most people. Even so, you can charge the Tesla from a standard outlet if you're away from home. But a roadster (electric or otherwise) isn't exactly the best choice for a road trip anyway.

That said, I'm looking forward to the day that either A) I have the expendable cash to afford a car like this, or B) the technology filters down to more typical consumer-targeted cars.

Oddly, the Tesla Motors website was missing from both the slashdot submission and the article.

http://www.teslamotors.com/

Yep. How about you go and practice that, too ?

First, if you had actually read the Tesla Motoros site, the few dollars is closer to ~$2, not $6.

If you had actually read it, they mention "discounted rates" for electric vehicles, while I was using the standard rate in my estimate.

again if you could read that same page, the car can charge from "totally dead" to "fully charged" in ~3.5 hours.

And if you had read the whitepaper on their battery system (find the link below), you'd know that their battery stores 53 kWh, which is pretty close to my guess of 50 kWh. And if you're charging that in half the time I assumed, you'll arrive at over twice the (already quite high) power estimate I've come up with - over 12.5 kW. (How exactly they want to draw 12.5 kW from a 110V electrical outlet is a bit of a mystery to me. Maybe they're just full of sh1t or the charging time will be significantly longer than 3.5 hours if you use a 110V outlet instead of a 220V one)

http://www.teslamotors.com/display_data/TeslaRoadsterBatterySystem.pdf

Ya, but I guess reading is harder. First, if you had actually read the Tesla Motoros site, the few dollars is closer to ~$2, not $6. Second, again if you could read that same page, the car can charge from "totally dead" to "fully charged" in ~3.5 hours.

http://www.teslamotors.com/efficiency/well_to_wheel.php

http://www.teslamotors.com/ Batteries are an installed component, not field-replaceable. (Devices larger than a flashlight generally use this method.) Batteries are recharged via a portable standard AC charger, or a special home-installed rapid charger. Good for commuters, bad for cross-country adventures. The first Tesla model is a sport car ($100,000 USD), shipping starts in March 2008. Next model will be sports sedan ($60,000USD) starting in 2009.

The above is not an informative statement.

http://www.teslamotors.com/learn_more/faqs.php

Scroll down to Battery Questions, and click on 'What happens when my car battery reaches the end of its life?'. You pay for a new battery; the price of the car does not include battery replacement, although it does include the cost of recycling the battery.

Why are all these people so interested in new fuels? It's abundantly clear that we could solve all of our energy and transportation problems cheaply, and more efficiently with solar and electricity. Photovoltaics have improved ten fold, and come way down in price, and there are operating solar power plants based on the Sterling model that have been reliable and efficient for some time already. I'd also like to mention the Tesla car. There is no reason we couldn't have cheap clones all over the roads at this point.

The whole Biofuel/Ethanol push is just a ploy for corporations to continue to control the energy and transportation sectors. It's stupid, inefficient, does not come down in price significantly nearly as quickly as solar electric at economies of scale, and is going to waste huge tracts of land, in addition. Land that would do much better converting sunlight to electricity directly.

Can somebody point out in any broad way any type of new alternative fuel is better than:
http://www.miasole.com/
and
http://www.teslamotors.com/

Thanks in advance.

And did you not back it up with any sort of link? If it was accurate, I could forgive the lack of citation, but for blatantly false information it's not tolerable.

Comparing Apples to Apples: Well-to-Wheel Analysis of Current ICE and Fuel Cell Vehicle Technologies
http://www.transportation.anl.gov/pdfs/HV/300.pdf

Tesla Motors Well To Wheel Comparison
http://www.teslamotors.com/efficiency/well_to_wheel.php

AskPablo: Well to Wheel Efficiency Tutorial
http://www.triplepundit.com/pages/askpablo-well-to-wheel-efficie-002461.php And let's be honest. Car and Driver? Not the most intelligently written rag out there.

Disclaimer: IAAEVE (I am an eletric vehicle engineer). It sounds like you've never even driven an EV.

You've exposed the most fraudulent part of the greenies' movement. Recharging batteries requires electricity, which in the US, is derived primarily from burning coal, which is worse ecologically than burning gasoline.

Burning coal to power EVs is a pretty stupid solution, and I don't think anyone is actually advocating that, but it is absolutely an improvement over burning gasoline. Your assertion is well documented as totally false, yet it's constantly repeated. You really should do your own research on this, but here's a whitepaper from Tesla Motors for starters. It's a pretty fair analysis of the relative efficiencies of various propulsion systems. It does cheat a little by assuming natural gas generation for electricity, but it's obvious from the numbers that--even from coal--EVs are a significant win in terms of reducing pollution and CO2 emissions.

You can substitute just about any EV for Tesla's Roadster -- they're all exceptionally efficient, at under 300 AC watthours per mile. Yes, I'm an electric vehicle engineer.

As long as the Greenies keep pushing fake green agendas on us like electric cars but at the SAME TIME keep protesting nuclear power, this will never be a good solution.

Nuclear power is a fantastic option. Between nuclear, wind, and hydro, more than half of California's energy is pollution- and CO2-free. Electricity is the ultimate flex fuel -- you can generate it from coal, nuclear, or solar panels on your roof.

You spewed some further misinformation further down -- I'll reply to that later on.

This issue came up on the Tesla Motors (see http://teslamotors.com/) blog where a petrochemical engineer was trying to demonstrate what the MPG rating of the Tesla Roadster really could be compared to in terms of a more conventional automobile. All sorts of issues were addressed, including the assumption that 100% of the electricity was produced from burning carbon-based fuels such as fuel oil (or other from crude common extracts), tars, and coal. These operate at a pretty high efficiency rate in part because of the huge industrial size of these facilities, and the fact that most utility companies want to extract as much energy out of those fuels as possible. Face it, you can't possibly meet the energy extraction capability of a 500 MW generating plant in your backyard. Certainly not in a moving vehicle like your automobile.

Other issues came up, and even addressed the raw energy that is released from burning a gallon of gasoline. He also had at hand some figures in terms of how much electricity that his plant was consuming for producing the gasoline, and did a simple division of the number of gallons of gasoline his company produced vs. how much electricity that they were using, even independent of overhead like lighting the offices of the plant or other issues. Mind you, this was light, sweet crude oil he was processing here and wasn't even dealing with extraction costs. At the refinery he discovered that he was actually consuming far more energy than was possibly being produced in consumer-grade gasoline. That also sold him completely on the subject of buying an electric automobile, and made a purchase immediately with Tesla.

I do wish I could get some figures from a more reliable source than a blog, but for myself, this is sufficient. I will say that for now you can consider this to be merely a conjecture, but something that has some real weight behind it and may be worth a formal study... if you are in the market for something like this. For those who are pushing for alternative fuels, this is one sort of figure that certainly would prove a killer app for trying to select alternative fuels.

I also wish that the petroleum companies would elaborate on the fact that petroleum is really not an energy source but rather an energy storage medium, as it would really frame the whole debate over where investment really needs to take place, and kill the ethanol industry for once and for all (except in the case of perhaps Jack Daniels, but I digress here). Ethanol producers are attempting to get into the energy storage game as well, but it is incredibly expensive and they are masking the true costs of their efforts, including how it is significantly affecting the price of food due to diverting food production from grocery stores to fuel plants.

Obviously other alternative fuels/energy storage devices have their place, but energy legislation is dumping far more effort into areas that may in the long run prove to be dubious on their return. It also makes solar energy sources appear much more attractive if you can demonstrate that they are true energy sources and not just energy storage mediums, not to mention that solar energy can be transformed into storage media in one form or another.