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That may be true but electric cars are expensive, have shorter range, and much longer recharge/refill times than gasoline. All of those combine to make electric vehicles very unattractive.

Have you seen the Tesla Model 3? $35000 US. Beautiful design. 215 mile range in base model. Honestly I think your talking points were written before the Model 3 was revealed. Don't worry, I'm sure your oil financed PR agency is working on new talking points. They are probably being tested on focus groups right now.

Seems strange to me that Musk engineers can't make this happen.

They already did...

The battery can be replaced in 90 seconds - https://www.teslamotors.com/vi...

There are three different motor configurations: Rear Wheel Drive, All Wheel Drive, Performance

Standard 48 amp charger can be replaced with the 72 amp High Amperage Charger

If you have to recall 300,000 cars and you have got "dozens of service stations", what impact do you think a recall would have on those service stations? I count 71 in the USA. Each one has to deal with 4,225 recalls on average. How long do you think it's going to take? How much is it going to cost? Don't forget to include parts and labour. The Tesla of today would not be able to cope with such a vast recall.

Of course, the model 3 isn't due to appear for more than two years, so Tesla has some time to expand its support network. It also does not have to "get as many Model 3s manufactured and out on the road as soon as humanly possible" [from TFS]. Just because you have 300,000 preorders for a car, it doesn't mean you need to satisfy all of the orders on day one. As long as the growth and production are carefully managed, a recall for something like a seat hinge is not going bring the company down. A recall for a faulty battery that needs replacing might, but that is probably already true today.

* NEMA 5-15, a standard 120 outlet, will recharge at the rate of 3 miles per hour
* NEMA 5-20, a standard 120 outlet that supports more amps, will recharge at the rate of 4 miles per hour
* NEMA 14-50, a standard 240 outlet (used for electric stoves), will recharge at the rate of 29 miles per hour

For people with short enough commutes, a standard 120 outlet will work just fine, else just get a NEMA 14-50 installed in your garage.

Rates from Telsa's Model S Charging Guide (click on Adapter Guide in the Outlet Charging section).

Adapters for other standard outlets are available though sadly they dropped the NEMA 14-30 one, which is typically used for electric cloths dryers (which would have been handy when visiting family).

You nailed it and I totally get it. I'm just saying that the cars themselves have not yielded a profit yet if you include the R&D required to get them out the door. This also needs to include after sales service which has been expensive because all new tech has issues. Here are the number right from Tesla: http://ir.teslamotors.com/rele...

The investors are investing not because of their amazing track record of profit but rather the potential the R&D bring and the ROI long therm. They see the next Apple and it's very attractive for early investors.

Back in 2006 Musk laid out his 10-year plan (frighteningly accurate) as part of laying out the efficiency numbers for EV vs. Hybrid which puts EV at ~2x better even back then.

https://www.teslamotors.com/bl...

So yes, EV moves the pollution upstream. Oh, AND:
- upstream means outside of major metro areas where many people are impacted
- is at least 2x more efficient well to wheels
- can benefit from large, consolidated investment in power plants to increase efficiency/reduce pollution
- can use solar to greatly reduce pollution AND work off-grid
- can use nuclear power as well to vastly reduce pollution

And so on...

So sure, enjoy your smog...erm smug Mazda 2.

According to the people who sell ads at gas pumps, it's closer to 5-7 minutes. And they are probably inflating it as longer time there allows them to sell ads for higher prices. And here they talk about 20 to 40 minutes for charging. So it's about a 4:1 to 6:1 ratio of time. Meaning you can have 1/4 the number of gas stations relative to Tesla charging stations - and still satisfy needs.

It's too hard to install an electrical plug?!

It is if you want to install one which can charge your car rapidly. This is not just your standard wall socket and if you only plug it into a standard wall socket it you get 46km range per hour from Tesla's own figures (so that might be on the optimistic side) so if you ever forget to plug it in you will be 1-2 hours late for work. Even then the 240V socket only doubles the recharge rate.

The comparison of petrol stations to charging spots is also highly disingenuous. For a start a single petrol station has multiple pumps, typically 8-12, so you would need an order of magnitude more charging stations than petrol stations assuming the charging stations are for one car at a time. Then there is the time requirement. A typical tank of petrol will let a vehicle drive ~7-800km. So since most public stations only support the slow recharge rate (again a claim from Tesla's own website) what takes me ~5 minutes at a petrol station will take me 15 hours (=700/46) at a public charging station. Hence if each petrol station has 10 pumps then you need approximately 1,000 charging stations to be able to provide the same number of kilometres of range in the same amount of time.

Electric cars are the way of the future but there are still significant hurdles to overcome before they are ready for mainstream use. The most likely use-case at the moment is for a run-about-town vehicle but for that to happen the cost needs to drop to the ~$20-25k range. I doubt the next generation of "affordable" vehicles will be that cheap...but if they are I may be getting one!

That may be true but I suspect the motor uses plenty of rare earth metals. While the GPP may have where those metals end up in the car wrong they do end up in the car somewhere.

Your suspicions are most likely incorrect, unless you count copper as a rare earth metal. Most serious EV vehicles use AC motors. This is explicitly true for Tesla. No rare earths are required for it's motor.

FTA: Unlike the DC brushless rotor, the induction rotor has no magnets – just stacked steel laminations with buried peripheral conductors that form a “shorted structure.”

It's the hybrids that are using DC motors that need magnets, preferably rare earth ones.

An electric motor can certainly be made without rare earth metals but it will be heavier and less efficient.

Not when you want performance, or go over a certain performance level:

Thus, the induction machine when operated with a smart inverter has an advantage over a DC brushless machine – magnetic and conduction losses can be traded such that efficiency is optimized. This advantage becomes increasingly important as performance is increased. With DC brushless, as machine size grows, the magnetic losses increase proportionately and part load efficiency drops. With induction, as machine size grows, losses do not necessarily grow. Thus, induction drives may be the favored approach where high-performance is desired; peak efficiency will be a little less than with DC brushless, but average efficiency may actually be better.

Diesel engines rule the road, rail, and sea.

Speaking of rails... Have you heard of the "Diesel-electric transmission"? They've been in nearly all locomotives for many decades. We've had diesel electric ships since 1903, and their use is becoming more popular.

The concept is simple enough. Rather than having a mechanical gearbox, you hook your diesel engines up to a generator, then run power lines to electric motors that power the wheels. The diesel provides the energy, the motors provide the power for movement.

Well, let me know when electric tractor/trailers are on the market.

Consider yourself informed.

Until we get batteries that can compete with fuel oil and diesel fuel on weight, volume, and cost we will continue to see electric vehicles as novelties and penis size compensators.

Not really, the weight and energy density of diesel is not necessary for all applications, and batteries have (recently) become cheap enough that electric is finally cheaper than diesel - at least in the applications most suited for them. Tesla is looking to cut costs in half again for their batteries, allowing them to break into the market a step down from the luxury section.

Saying that electric won't be suitable for semi-tractor trailers anytime soon is like saying that jet engines aren't suited for use because they can't reach the moon. Long haul tractor trailers are the most demanding common application I can think of, the most suited for diesel. Long before they go electric, it will be highly practical and economical for 99% of consumer automobiles to be electric. Including trucks such as UPS delivery vehicles.

This thing does not appear to replace generators, it still requires a power input to "charge", so it would require some kind of power production facility. It is more like a backup generator I guess. I wonder how it compares to batteries like the new Tesla wall mounted batteries.

https://www.teslamotors.com/po...

Apparently Tesla already open sourced their electric car patents

https://www.teslamotors.com/bl...

First, it's easy to opportunistically refuel a gasoline powered engine. And fast.

Not so much with batteries.

As well, the energy density of Li-on batteries is very low compared to gasoline (44.4 mj/kg for gasversus .36-.875 mj/kg for battery).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Consider that the battery pack on a Tesla S comes in at 1,200 pounds or so:
https://my.teslamotors.com/for...

That's for about 250 miles of travel.

Gasoline weights about 8.3 pounds per gallon. The equivalent weight results in 144.58 gallons of gas (probably requiring a smaller volume area), and at a low 15 miles per gallon that would be 2,170 miles or so, about a factor of 10 better.

Batteries are nothing compared to fossil fuel that has had multi-million years to process naturally (basically capturing and compressing the power of the sun over long periods of time).

My numbers are probably off a bit, but they are ball park at worst...

Elon Musk controls the patents on what are currently the best batteries for an electric car.

https://www.teslamotors.com/en...

Yeah, not so much.

The idea is to get everybody into a ZEV and sell them a Powerwall to charge it. Save the planet, and then retire on Mars.

The first return of a Google search "tesla plans recycling batteries" actually answers your question.. It has the exact steps of their recycling program, and even has pictures.

Maybe that's why I didn't see any Teslas cruising around Vegas on my last trip,

There's a Tesla *dealership* in Vegas, out west of the airport.

There are also quite a few charging locations. https://www.teslamotors.com/fi...

One guy sold a pretty new 2014 S85D on eBay for $70,000 and here are listings for quite a few more

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html...

or you can get one through the company's certified pre-owned listings at http://www.teslamotors.com/mod...

Wasn't Edward Teller parodied by the mad scientist guy in Doctor Strangelove?

Dunno, but Teller loves Tesla, it says so right here: http://www.teslamotors.com/cus...

Oh, waah, cry me a river. I live in Ohio, and the only place I have ever found to plug in my car is in my own garage, at my home. There ARE no public charging ports, anywhere.

There are hundreds of charging stations in Ohio. If you haven't found any it's because you haven't looked. Heck there are even 6 Telsa supercharger stations in Ohio.

Selling cars that cost as much as a small house is all well and good if your target market is 1%ers and boomers, but if you want to sell to the mass market you need something that's priced for a generation that will probably never be able to afford to own a home.

Tesla's business model is explicitly to use the experience and funds generated by high end models to create less expensive models. Elon musk has repeated this over and over. Here is a blog post from 2006. Why is this so hard for people to understand? Where else is Tesla suppose to get the money and experience to create the car? Tesla is using the money of 1%ers (as you say) to fund development of cars for the 50%ers and people bitch about it like it's a bad thing.

So what's the gripe? They aren't proceeding fast enough? They are proceeding as fast as they can. They want to sell a shit ton of cars, do you think they are sandbagging? I get so sick of the "cut off your nose to spite your face" envy and jealousy.

If you think it's easy to make an inexpensive but compelling electric car from scratch, then start a freaking car company and do it. Or join GM, Ford, or some other company and help them to it.

That's why Tesla has built and is building more supercharger stations.
http://www.teslamotors.com/sup...

He said Out West. They don't even have gas stations in some places. I'd love to see a supercharger station in the middle of butt fuck Wyoming but that's a bit in the future.

OTOH, you could conceivably make one with solar panels and huge capacitor and battery banks that didn't need to be hooked to the grid. It would be the size of a large truck stop and costs tens of millions of dollars but it wouldn't require fuel deliveries. Interesting concept.

Lucky you, they sell that solution. Wire up as many PowerWalls as you need for 90kWh of adult toy enjoyment.

http://www.teslamotors.com/pow...

I would like to see range figures for a typical commuter.. In summer and winter. Unfortunately they are priced high enough we won't see that.

A range calculator is built into the Tesla website. No idea about its accuracy. You can change outdoor temperature, toggle AC/heating and speed. http://www.teslamotors.com/mod...

Tesla Superchargers provide 170 miles of range in as little as 30 minutes.

http://www.teslamotors.com/sup...

That is indeed an improvement... of course it takes a $100k car to get there. :) (yea, I know, the base model is less, but who buys those?)

170 miles takes as little as 2 hours to drive, depending on where you're at. Then 30 min to charge, not counting stop/start time.

It is getting there, but that isn't it yet. Now if they can get 170 miles of range down to 15 min, and do it in a $35K Model 3, now that'll be much more interesting...

So if most families get an EV within 30 years we have close to 50% EV adoption.

It would bring adoption close to 50%, for families with 2 or more vehicles... but that leaves out all the single vehicle households or the households who have a need for 2 longer range vehicles, or who have 3 or more vehicles in the house.

EVs might be 10% of new vehicle sales in 30 years, only time will tell there. But I think the objections of the buying public won't be so easily overcome, regardless of technical solutions. There are a whole lot of people who wouldn't buy an EV tomorrow, even if it was the same price as the gas car, simply due to "fear, change, new, unknown, etc."

That will, to some extent, take a generation shift to overcome.

For the most part we appear to have the same view of EVs and their future.

Would I be willing, given similar cost, to have my second vehicle be EV tomorrow? Sure. Would I be willing, regardless of price, to replace my primary vehicle with an EV? No. I need the ability to refuel in 5-10 min. The charging times for EVs are not acceptable. That might change, but not for awhile

Look at this link about charging Tesla Roadster: http://my.teslamotors.com/road...
The new Tesla's have built-in charging stations that run on 110 and 240. The 110v will charge about 5 miles per hour and the 240v will do about 32 miles/hr. If EVs pickup within the next 10 years the infrastructure will change quickly as a result of demand. At this point it's all speculation but it's also not far fetched.

So if most families get an EV within 30 years we have close to 50% EV adoption. By then I would assume cost would be lower and options not as limited.

If Apple throws as much money at a car as Tesla did, perhaps they can, but they aren't likely to do that.

I fully agree with you, Apple isn't going to spend as much as Tesla did to ramp up production.

At a significant expense, Tesla innovated many processes and designs for their electric cars. Elon Musk threw the patents into the public domain and asked other companies to leverage them. Apple will do that and then build on top of that with their own R & D investments.

Not bullshit. As of March: http://www.teslamotors.com/mod...

Tesla supports plugging into a standard NEMA 14-50 50A plug. This plug is common for RV parks and for large appliances like electric stoves. The tesla cable that comes with the car contains the GFCI and other safety circuitry in it. The Tesla wall charger includes the cable and does not provide a plug on the wall.

See http://shop.teslamotors.com/pr...

The article is not clear if this only for guest use or for general public to use. If it's for general public, I'm not interested in becoming an electric gas station.

Even at full tilt a Wall Connector can provide 58 miles/hour for a single car which would take 4-5 hours for a 90 kWh model, longer if you can't supply 80A(!) or the car doesn't have dual chargers so I don't see it being very useful as a makeshift gas station. It'd occupy your parking spot not to mention I don't see anything about any kind of compensation for electricity so I assume they're giving away the box, for you to offer charging as a service to your guests at a price you set with Tesla staying entirely hands off.

I've been an Airbnb host for over a year now, with over 50 clients and never had anyone ask about electric car charging. Tesla only produces approx. 2000 cars/month. Ford/GM sell way more than this in a day. Until they get their production numbers up and I start getting charging inquires, I can't see this as being a useful upgrade to my property.

You're looking at it from the wrong perspective. Tesla is looking to give Tesla owners an opportunity to rent an AirBnB for the night and start the next morning or every morning with a fully charged car, so the owners don't have to find/wait at superchargers. The owners who install it hopes Tesla owners - despite being few - will use the few houses that do have a charger over all the others that don't. Basically a niche of the supply satisfying a niche of the demand.

I think it's a good move by Tesla, because their range is far beyond the daily commute as long as you return to base. The supercharger network is strategically positioned so it's used for road trips and not daily charging. But if you're staying in a foreign city and don't have any easy access to a charger, having an EV becomes painful. Sure, they could try to get hotels and such to offer it but they're big and slow to move and would need a reservation and billing solution. If they can convince a few AirBnB hosts to add it as an option, they just bought their customers a very nice solution.

Will it pay off? Not sure but if you're in the lower end of the installation costs with $200 and is renting out a whole house - the linked map showed most cost around $500/night it basically takes one Tesla owner on a stop-over staying one night that it'd otherwise be empty to break even. First I'd check the supercharger map and if there's anyone else with a charger nearby, but if there's neither I'd probably be willing to roll the dice.

Tesla latest car has doors that open up and are very non urban friendly. Try getting out of one in a tight parking lot.

As the animation on the Model X page shows, the Falcon Wing doors are very urban friendly; they require less space between cars than conventional doors do.

$57,500 for the base Model S, US: http://my.teslamotors.com/mode...
So, $4k is about a 6.9% loss

(GB price for the same model is £50,000: http://my.teslamotors.com/en_G...)

$57,500 for the base Model S, US: http://my.teslamotors.com/mode...
So, $4k is about a 6.9% loss

(GB price for the same model is £50,000: http://my.teslamotors.com/en_G...)

One would hope that before you purchase a Tesla car you would be okay with your distance to the nearest service center:
http://www.teslamotors.com/fin...

They're covering the major highways first. There's a map of projected Supercharger network for 2016 here: http://www.teslamotors.com/sup...

Its a good thing my reason for wanting hybrid and electric vehicles is purely economical.

That's something I think a lot of people are missing about EVs, and which TFA touches upon. They look at the economic price per mile, and conclude that EVs must be vastly more efficient than ICE cars. In terms of energy consumed, they're actually almost the same.

ICE car gets 30 mpg. A gallon of gasoline has 120 MJ/gal. So (forgive the mixed units) you're consuming about 4 MJ/mile.

A Tesla S has a 85 kWh battery, and can go 253 miles. That's 1.2 MJ/mile. The EV is a lot more energy efficient!

But wait, what about energy production costs? Mining, refining, and transport adds about 15% to the energy consumption of gasoline. So the ICE vehicle is up around 4.6 MJ/mile.

The Tesla S has a charging efficiency of about 80%. It also has a discharge efficiency, but that is built into the EPA mileage figures which are calculated using battery capacity, not energy pulled out of the battery.

Electrical power lines have a transport efficiency of about 98%.

Coal power plants have an efficiency of about 40%

Coal mining and transport adds about 10% to the energy consumption cost.

The actual energy consumption of the Tesla then is 1.2 * 1.1 / (.8*.98*.4) = 4.2 MJ/mile (assuming 100% coal). Not much different from an ICE car. In fact if you converted these back to MPG, the ICE car actually gets 26 MPGe, the Tesla gets 28.6 MPGe (though obviously the latter would vary based on electricity generation source).

As it turns out, almost the entirety of the reason EVs are cheaper to operate than ICE cars is not because of energy efficiency - both use almost the same amount of energy per mile traveled. The EV is cheaper because coal is so much cheaper than gasoline. Coal costs about $55 per ton, and a ton of coal produces about 21 GJ of energy, for a final cost of 0.26 cents per MJ. Gasoline at $3/gal is about 2.5 cents per MJ. An order of magnitude more expensive than coal.

The only reason distilled petroleum is used as an energy source for transportation is that this huge cost disadvantage is more than offset by the high energy density - 42 MJ/kg for gasoline, 0.55 MJ/kg for the Tesla S battery (and 21 MJ/kg for coal if you're curious). You can carry more of it around (greater range), and you can load it up more quickly and easily (faster refueling). Those are the primary hurdles EVs have to jump to achieve widespread adoption, not economic. Gasoline was already a very poor economic choice in the first place, but that wasn't a big enough drawback to prevent it from being widely adopted in transportation.

• 70 kWh rear drive Model S for $70k
• 90 kWh battery pack option for $3k
• 2.8 sec 0 to 60 mph upgrade to "Ludicrous Mode"

First, I should address something that might be on your mind, like: "Where the heck is the Model X and the Model 3!? You should really get on that." Don't worry, those remain our focus and good progress is being made on both. X is on track for first deliveries in two months and Model 3 in just over two years.

70 kWh for $70k
Now, on to the awesome news of today. The 70 kWh version of the Model S in the single motor version at $70k costs $5k less than the dual motor version, consistent with the price differential for the single and dual motor 85 kWh car. Importantly, enough options are now standard that you will have bought a great car even if you pick the base version.

In many countries, national and state/province purchase incentives for clean energy vehicles improve the price to some degree. In the US, for example, the price after incentives is usually around $60k. Also, not having to buy gasoline and needing less service for an electric car typically saves around $2k per year, which accumulates to $10k over the national average car ownership period of five years. This economic advantage is often overlooked when evaluating gasoline vs electric cars. Moreover, these savings are experienced immediately in your monthly cost of transportation if you lease or finance an electric car.

90 kWh Pack
New buyers now have the option of upgrading the pack energy from 85 to 90 kWh for $3k, which provides about 6% increased range. For example, this takes our current longest range model, the 85D, to almost 300 miles of highway range at 65mph.

Existing owners can also purchase the pack upgrade, but I wouldn't recommend doing so unless usage is on the edge of current range. On average, we expect to increase pack capacity by roughly 5% per year. Better to wait until you have more time on your existing pack and there is a larger accumulated pack energy difference.

Luuudicrous Mode
While working on our goal of making the power train last a million miles, we came up with the idea for an advanced smart fuse for the battery. Instead of a standard fuse that just melts past a certain amperage, requiring a big gap between the normal operating current and max current, we developed a fuse with its own electronics and a tiny lithium-ion battery. It constantly monitors current at the millisecond level and is pyro-actuated to cut power with extreme precision and certainty.

That was combined with upgrading the main pack contactor to use inconel (a high temperature space-grade superalloy) instead of steel, so that it remains springy under the heat of heavy current. The net result is that we can safely increase the max pack output from 1300 to 1500 Amps.

What this results in is a 10% improvement in the 0 to 60 mph time to 2.8 secs and a quarter mile time of 10.9 secs. Time to 155 mph is improved even more, resulting in a 20% reduction.

This option will cost $10k for new buyers. In appreciation of our existing P85D owners, the pack electronics upgrade needed for Ludicrous Mode will be offered for the next six months at only $5k plus installation labor.

It is important to note that the battery pack size upgrade and the pack electronics upgrade are almost entirely independent. The first is about energy, which affects range, and the second is about power, which affects acceleration.

There is of course only one thing beyond ludicrous, but that speed is reserved for the next generation Roadster in 4 years: maximum plaid.

— Elon

Plugshare? Really? And you own a tesla?
Here is what has been built and what is being built
And here is what will be built out over the next year.

Just out of curiosity, how long did it take? I am guessing that you just got it and are taking it for its first SC drive (everybody has to do one :) ). We are waiting until the new year, and will then get a Model S (possibly X, but I doubt it). Since it is my wife's car, she wants to pick up at the factory and drive home in it. Kind of a cool road trip. Hoping to meet some of the workers that actually worked on it. Personally, I would like to have them simply sign it.

Thanks to Tesla among others we're getting closer. There are a number of strategies under active development including battery, flywheel, thermal, and hydro conversion storage. It's an engineering problem. We simply need sufficient economic motivation to solve it.

Take a look at the Tesla AWD. The front motor is is much smaller than the rear motor. While it may move it would be much slower. The front motor is there for traction control and acceleration boost.

I wonder if they'll get as generous a package as Government Motors did when they needed rescuing?

No they won't. Tesla revenue was $881.67M producing 36,000 vehicles and has 6,000 employees. GM makes revenue was $155.929 billion, producing 9,714,652 vehicles and has 216,000 employees. Based on revenue GM is 176 times as big as Tesla. On a vehicle production basis GM is 270 times as big. Let GM fail and at least 216,000 people are out of work. That does not include all the dealers, parts suppliers, transport companies, etc. Let Tesla fail the would be 6,000 people are out of work. See the difference?

Getting a free pass on $45 billion in future profits is a pretty sweet deal.

To scale it to the size by revenue that would be $255M in tax breaks to Tesla. To scale it to the size by vehicle production that would be $166M in tax breaks to Tesla.

What Cool New Tech Would You Put In?

Some of the best new home technology is actually old technology:

- Masonry Heaters, were invented in the Neolithic Era. Unlike wood stoves or fireplaces they burn clean with almost 100% efficiency and require infrequent fueling, only once or twice a day. They also look cool, have a neat ambiance and fuel costs are far lower than any alternative.

- Nickel-Iron Edison batteries were invented over 100 years ago by Waldemar Jungner in 1899 and developed by Thomas Edison in 1901. The nickel iron batteries in Jay Leno's 1909 Baker Electric Coupe are as good as new. Unlike any other home electric backup storage technology they last for basically an infinite number of charge/discharge cycles and have many other desirable characteristics such as immunity to 100% depletion (which destroys lithium and lead-acid batteries) and the are environmentally friendly, non-toxic and 100% recyclable. The only downside is their mass, but unless you will be driving your house around, it's by far the best option. And unlike aluminum batteries, and the Tesla Powerwall, the Nickel Iron batteries are available today.

- Used shipping containers: Build your house out of them. Invented, depending on your point of reference, some time between 1933 (first containerized shipping in Europe) and 1968 (ISO standard published). It's environmentally friendly and your house will be impervious to tornadoes and earthquakes. Container homes have gone from being kind of trailer-park to high-design.

Of course I would want modern options such as photovoltaics and a ground-source heat pump, in addition to the old stuff. So my advice: You will do best to select the best of both the old and new, instead of exclusively one or the other.

and they go out of their way to hire veterans: http://www.military.com/vetera...

And they doing their best to insure that most of the battery production in the world will be done in the U.S. in the future: http://www.teslamotors.com/gig...

And oh by the way they are the future of the car industry... and perhaps getting the U.S. energy independent in a sustainable way...

But yah, let's bitch about giving them tax breaks... because we need to save those for more worthy industries (sarcasm).

Pat

The Tesla Powerwall battery packs is wired for a 350-400 volt range, and come bare bones except for some equalization circuitry, (no charger nor inverter). Any modifications to the battery pack itself would likely void the warranty. How ever adding a low voltage circuit does have it merits, but the Powerwall will not be a factor.

I have considered running a solar/battery backed up 32-35 volt DC supply into the house, and use a number of 5-pack LM2596S stepdown inverters. The adjustable nature of these DC buck converters can power DC fans, Security system, DVRs, Antenna amps, Sat boxes, night lights, laptops, LCD monitor, door bell, automation system, charging stations, etc. The higher distribution voltage keeps losses to a minimum while providing uninterrupted power.

.

This article is wrong on so many levels it's not funny. Go to http://www.teslamotors.com/pow... and you will see that the Tesla home batteries are NOT low voltage. Efficient inverters are way cheaper than rewiring and relamping a house. Silly story.

Some additional to the copper is expensive arguments:

The Tesla Powerwall battery runs at 350-450V DC. So the home wiring will go low voltage because the battery itself is high voltage??

The Tesla Powerwall is only a battery. The inverter/battery charger will be (amongst others) Fronius Symo Hybrid (german, pdf). This neat little device combines a solar inverter/battery charger/battery inverter! DC-AC or AC-DC efficiency: 95-98%.

This must be the most idiotic technology prediction I ever read on slashdot!

Not according to this site: http://my.teslamotors.com/mode...

I agree. It also just goes to show how far behind GM is compared to Tesla. I've had my Tesla Model S for over two years and I have to say that GM's response has been pathetic at best. Their Cadillac ELR was supposed to be the Tesla killer, it failed miserably. Tesla is years ahead when it comes to battery technology, having much higher energy density at much lower cost. Tesla's skateboard design is also much better when it comes to interior room and storage space.

Saying a 3.3KW charger is adequate is a joke. The only reason that it's even possible to go up to 20KW with the SAE J1772 connector is because Tesla fought hard for it. I have a 20KW charger at home and it comes in handy. Sadly few public charging stations come anywhere near that, though most I've used will handle at least 6KW (30-32A, 208/240V) and the RV hookups are often 10KW (40A, 240V). Usually I rarely bother to use the public charging units unless they're free since it's cheaper to just charge at home where I can charge at 80A, 240V which adds around 55 miles of range per hour. The one time I had to use a public charging station to reach my destination it was painful since it only added 18 miles of range per hour so I was stuck an hour waiting until I had enough range to reach the Gilroy supercharger. Fortunately it looks like by the end of the year they'll have a spot around Monterey.

GM also has no real answer to Tesla's supercharger network which is years ahead of anyone else. I just used it a few days ago to travel from the Bay Area to Reno. In every case, it took longer for me to eat lunch or dinner than it took for my car to charge. Hell, I added 40 miles of range (which I didn't even need) when I stopped in Truckee just to use the restroom and pick up a 6-pack of hard cider at Safeway. Tesla's network is building out very quickly (go to their supercharger site to see). I made the same trip to Reno last year but this year there were 4 more superchargers along the route. Last year I had to make a short jog over to Folsom to charge, this year I had my choice of places along the route. Right now there are multiple routes across the country. I can drive all the way from San Diego to Edmonton, Canada or anywhere along the East Coast. By the end of this year it looks like most of the major north/south routes in California will be covered, 5, 101 and 395 and by the end of next year 99 will also be covered. They have also been helping seed a lot of hotels around the country with 20KW chargers in a lot of the vacation spots.

As far as batteries go, Panasonic may be manufacturing Tesla's batteries, but Tesla owns much of the intellectual property of their batteries and holds numerous patents on them. The Tesla batteries are quite a bit cheaper with a higher energy density and they seem to be fairly reliable as well.

Tesla has also shown that it's possible to create a car with a very low coefficient of drag that isn't butt ugly. I say this as a former Prius owner.

I bought an after market lithium battery and now my laptop lasts for days, weeks, even months between charges. The extra weight is a tradeoff. When people see it, they ask "What the hell is that!" But that's normal when you are cutting edge.
http://www.teslamotors.com/pow...

Just how many >200 miles trips do you do a year by car that you won't stop ?

About 8 to 10 a year.

Stopping 30 mins to charge every 200 miles isn't the end of the world.

Not at all... except that unless you are driving south of about the 49th parallel, the routes you can take are extremely limited... instead of taking a direct route from A to B, you must drive a distance that can get to be two or even three times as far.

200 miles is at least 3 hours of driving and probably much more depending on traffic.

Traffic is not a huge issue on the freeway.

I know my bladder would be an issue long before the battery would. I would need to stop before 3 hours.

It takes 5 minutes for a rest-stop, maybe 10 minutes to fill up a car with gasoline, and 30 minutes to charge at a Tesla supercharger station. The latter might not sound too bad if you do it once every three hours or so, and you could still clock in 1000km in a day with that, but that time does not account for how long you may have to wait in line just to use a supercharger. Because of how sparsely they are distributed particularly in Canada, in practice, there is going to be a wait time as well... which can be upwards of half an hour all by itself.

Further, It's my understanding that map I linked to includes all currently planned supercharging stations, and not just all currently existing ones, so that map represents about what one can expect for at least the immediately foreseeable future. Want to drive from Calgary to Regina. for example? Fuhgeddaboudit in an EV....

Trips from Vancouver to Calgary are feasable, as long as you are spending the night in Calgary, and can use an overnight charging facility when you arrive... but it's utterly unworkable to drive from Vancouver to Edmonton via Jasper, since there are no superchargers in Alberta north of Red Deer, and no superchargers in BC north of about Kamloops anywhere along that route.

I think it's fairly realistic to use a Tesla S if there are Superchargers available on the route you are taking.

Yeah.... *IF*. Or did you miss my parenthetical remark about recharging...?

...(with suitably spaced recharging facilities)...

No, I'm not confused. converting AC to Dc is what they do in a grid-tie system. They're also partially responsible for cutting power in the event of a power failure so as not to backfeed the power grid and kill a lineman. In a system that also utilizes batteries these will be part of the system used to charge the batteries, except that when you buy grid-tie this isn't part of the package. If you bother to read some of the press materials about these batteries you will find mention of some hardware manufacturers and mention of "hybrid" inverters. That will be the gear needed to properly charge the lithium battery pack and to properly feed the home from the battery pack when the time is right or power is lost but NOT backfeed the grid one would hope. See here -> http://www.teslamotors.com/pre... and for ease try searching for Fronius to get an explanation.

There ARE some inverters now that will do this - with lead-acid batteries. I'm betting you will find that these don't use the same charging curve as lithium, if you've ever charged li-po packs for RC use you'll know why (lol). A firmware update might allow these to work and you'll primarily find these used for off-grid homes. Grid-tie seldom have battery packs because the cost nearly doubles and lead-acid batteries must be properly maintained which is a PITA. Oh and lead-acid are often replaced every 5-7 years or so depending upon how many times you've drawn them down too far or too fast and damaged them YMMV.

So yeah, I'm familiar with inverters and what the issues here are. What did you think you could just hook this up like a solar panel and it would charge and discharge properly? I think perhaps I'm not the one who's confused here...

They've had a link to pre-owned roadsters for awhile. Of course, it's rare to actually find one, dammit...