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Test Driving the Tesla Roadster
stacybro writes "Wired has an article about the Tesla Roadster. It is similar to other electric cars that we have seen in that the electric engine's serious torque will allow it to do 0-60mph in about 3 seconds. Part of what is different about this is that they are using over 6,831 laptop-type lithium-ion batteries. They are claiming the range is about 250 miles. As the battery tech for laptops improves, so will the range of these cars. The car will run about $80,000, which is about par for an exotic two-seater. So who is doing the poll on which tech CEO will be seen driving one first? My guess is one of the Google or E-Bay guys, since they are investors. It is nice to see more companies serious about helping to getting rid of our oil dependency. It is odd that the big car companies aren't more on this track!"
I'll take two, just as soon as I sell my stock in Exxon.
Purple, because ice cream has no bones.
It is nice to see more companies serious about helping to getting rid of our oil dependency.
Now all we have to do is get rid of our electronics, consumer products and innovations dependencies, and we can tell the rest of the world to take a hike!
If only all countries could have such a lack of inter-relatedness with their neighbors, imagine what a beautiful world it would be...
Lies about crimes
I am left wondering if this car is involved in an accident if the batteries will vent like the recent /. articles suggest.
Exploding Dells, fires on planes, and soon at an intersection near you... cars venting more flame than the batmobile.
Orationem pulchram non habens, scribo ista linea in lingua Latina
I would hate to see the devestation after a head on collision.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Here in Texas, where I suspect temperatures exceed battery design, I think this idea will bomb spectacularly.
Seriously, though, Li-ion? I shudder to think of how those will get disposed of, eventually.
A 250 mile range gets an electric car into the "very practical" range IMO. Now the challenge is to get the price down to something acceptable. Range has always been the biggest downside of electrics and the reason I would never consider one. However if I can have something with the sized between a Mini and a Civic and be able to easily commute to work AND not pay through the nose for it, I'm in.
There is nothing inherently safe about liberty. That's why so many people died protecting it.
It is nice to see more companies serious about helping to getting rid of our oil dependency.
Yeah, it uses close to 7000 laptop batteries and costs over $80K. These guys are REEEEEAL serious about it.
In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
Wow! Can you imagine what this will look like if the batteries come from Dell's supplier. Frying eggs will be nothing :)
While i love the roadster design, and I applaud their efforts, and am happy to see them working on a sedan, I think I would have really liked to see a cheaper, less break-neck car for my commute. something in the $20k range would have been much easier to sell with the missus :) Yes, I've looked at the Smart Roadster, but it's not US available, and not that cheap.
Still, I'll be trying to afford it...
-- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
It is nice to see more companies serious about helping to getting rid of our oil dependency.
Oil isn't the problem, ENERGY is. So instead of burning oil everwhere, we'll be burning more coal in a few places. Maybe this is the kind of thing we need to turn public sentiment away from the greenies and get some more nuclear power plants built.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
There have been some great inovations in vehicles over the years which have been supressed and even shut down by the big auto companies in the past, but with current technology its hard to keep information and good innovation down. Perhaps with the help of the internet this company has a chance of not going the way of the Tucker.
Part of what is different about this is that they are using over 6,831 laptop type lithium-ion batteries.
...
Over 6,831 batteries? Why cite an exact value as random as that if it is a ballpark value anyway?
TFA: The Tesla Roadster is powered by 6,831 rechargeable lithium-ion batteries
Considereing this :( Exploding laptop old news to Dell? Anonymous writes "CRN is reporting that Dell had about a dozen reports of burned laptops before they announced last year's battery recall. The recall was launched in response to a exploding laptop caught on film at a Japanese conference. Dozens more cases popped up with apparently severe overheating, melted cases, etc., according to the report." ), and the fact that there is a lot of toxic/EPA unfriendly chemicals in laptop batteries (which will need replaced- the discarded ones will go where?), and what EPA unfriendly processes are needed to produce the batteries in the mean time, how can this be good news?
Okay, the tech acheivments are to be commended, but this seems more an answer looking for a valid question.
Maybe I'm wrong and over-reacting, if so, help me out here.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Now THAT's a car that'll hit the market with a bang! Not only do you have the instant response of electric motors and full torque from a dead stop, but you will also get rocket assist when you put a heavy load on the Li-ion batteries!
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
It is odd that the big car companies aren't more on this track!
Just like Dell is in bed with Microsoft, the auto manufacturers are in bed with the oil companies. No surprises.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
What does "over 6,831" mean? I'm guessing it's closer to 6,832 that it is to 60,000.
Whoever comes up with a significant advance in battery technology will die a very rich person.
Li-Ion batteries have excellent amp-hour ratings for their size, but like all other batteries are still pretty limited.
Acceleration/Torque for electric cars is not a problem. High performance capabilities are there if you want them. However, you are playing battery energy against performance against distance, and all electrics, or fuel-electric hybrids have been designed to be "green" in their approach. (Any Hummer oweners want an environmentally aware vehicle?)
Right now the weakest link in many electronic systems is the energy source. A good solution there and you can be a very wealty person.
www.effectiveelectrons.com "chips that work" Analog, RF, Mixed Signal
It's not just price that will get electric cars used... it's the dork factor. The first company to figure out how to make electric cars less dorky (marketing, design, I don't know) will be the winner. I don't care if gas goes to $20/gallon. I wouldn't be caught dead in one of those things.
Not if they are like my Ni-Cd battery electric shaver, which takes 14 hours to recharge.
More info:
-NPR
-Carnegie-Mellon
-ABC News (why corn ethanol is not so great), and which points out:
An interesting report on "locking down CO2 emissions" can be found at
The News Hour with Jim Lehrer
Lithium ion batteries are known to be a bit hazardous, however lithium polymer batteries seem to be a safer option. Lithium polymer batteries can be formed to fit different shapes, do not require rigid metal casings, don't use flammable solvent liquids and are, therefore, less likely to fail dangerously. They also seem to provide a greater number of charging cycles. Large size lithium polymers are available to the electric scooter and bike market now. They are often the battery of choice in solar racers.
You'll need to buy a new set every five years or so, even if you don't use them, because these batteries have a shelf life. Mistreat them once, and you may have to buy a new set, even if they're only a few months old.
You might want to factor that into your cost per mile.
KFG
It's Powered by Dell batteries I'm assuming? It's a great car for 4th of July then.
the electric engine's serious torque will allow it to do 0-60mph in about 3 seconds
...in about 3 seconds
The engine's power does this. To get a X-kg mass up to 60mph requires about 400J per kg (e.g. a 500kg car would require about 200kJ)
Change in energy / change in time = POWER, not torque! An engine's power dictates how fast a given mass can accelerate.
arent moving to alt fuels
1) they make money from oil either directly or indirectly
2) it would require updating the thousands of gas stations in some manner or creating yet another sub industry
3) it would require quite a bit of money to retool factories - when US companies are not doing all that great now
Which is to say we are still in the same world, in which low volumes and other issues cause electric cars to be 50%-100$ higher than traditional cars. All that seems to have happened here is that an electric car has been targeted to the high end market and priced accordingly. It is kind of like taking the hummer, putting a cheap truck base on it, calling it an H2, and pretending that it still has the dubious value of the original.
Oh well, I suppose if they can build a sedan for 35K I would be impressed. We would also have to look at maintenance cost of the vehicle, which would be dominated by the battery replacement. A sports car car easily run 20 cents/mile in maintenance. Knowing that laptop batteries can only handle a couple hundred charge cycles, one can image where the long term maintenance cost could approach three or four time that amount.
I wish we had electric cars. I think the technology is there, and the pricing could be reasonable. But even companies that could be using the electric car to revive themselves, for instance Mazda and Ford, still seem to be married to the antiquated internal combustion engine.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
It's cheap (about $4 for a "fillup" for me) ...until I have to rewire and order another feed from the utility to charge this thing up... (Still with 110V and 100A service here)
Definitely not a 'roadtrip' car however.
After a year or two of serious use my laptop batteries last about 1/2 as long as they originally did... And those things are pretty damn expensive to replace.. i would guess that a large percentage of the price is going to pay for all the batteries. What happens when they don't hold their charge anymore?
I wonder if they are Dell laptop batteries. If they are, we are probably in for a level of destruction never before seen on earth.
Does it run under direct current? (Probably does)
My UID is prime is yours?
"The Tesla Roadster, powered by more than 6,800 lithium-ion batteries, can go zero to 60 mph in about four seconds. Top speed: 130 mph."
When I first read the name of this car it reminded me of the Tesla coils in Command and Conquer - http://www.cnc-source.com/gallery/data/media/14/te slacoil.jpg . Or maybe that's just what the car looks like when it gets too hot and the batteries explode. :)
Video Game cheats, hints a
An alternative power car that doesn't look like crap. In fact to me it looks fantastic. Compare this to all the Priuses and Insights in the world, and those are just hybrids. Sure there is that Ford hybrid SUV, Toyota's large sedan and I beleive Honda has hybrid Accord as well that look like a regular car, but again, they also burn fuel in the car (yes, electricity has to get produced somewhere, bu doesn't have to come from coal - how about wind/solar/hydro, the more demand grows, the more we will see these eco-friendlier plants appearing).
Interestingly enough, their main site http://www.teslamotors.com/ says there is still couple an hours to go before unveiling. If this thing actaully performs as advertised, it will finaly give the name Tesla some more cradit that it surely deserves. I have already started saving for it (hope they have financing plans available)!
(the above is an attempt at visualizing all those lithium ion batteries igniting all at once).
If you put enough of something together that are prone to a certain sort of behavior, it seems very likely that said behavior will happen somewhere in the population. Hasn't there been discussion recently about these batteries spontaneously igniting?
It just doesn't seem like a good idea to amass that many of them in a big movable cluster that can crash and cause cell ruptures. Really, it just doesn't.
Eberhard suggests it would be easy enough to pump MP3s of prerecorded engine roar into the car's Blaupunkt stereo. And for those with even older tastes, the sound of horse hooves could be substituted.
:)
Or turboprop engines.
sorry, several anonymous informed slashdot screen names say electric cars will never work, in every article about electric cars, hence all those other investors are idiots, especially the billionaire ones. I mean, what do they know anyway?
that's just how it works here. and on most forums.
How many big car companies can sell small roadsters for $80k? Not very many. The car has range because it's light and impractical. This won't scale into a typical sedan.
Good work, guys. Your next project is to design a power strip with room for 6,831 wall warts.
From the Slashdot story: "It is nice to see more companies serious about helping to getting rid of our oil dependency."
That's why democracy doesn't always work: Many people don't understand the issues. Electric cars do not necessarily reduce the oil dependency, and definitely not greenhouse gases, because the electricity to run the car comes from power plants.
--
Like where your money goes?
Get a motorcycle.. my ST1300 gets 45MPG...
-Dirtbag
How about taking out, oh... 80% of the batteries, cutting the pure electric range to 50 miles, and using the space and weight that's freed up to install a small IC engine for longer trips?
Aside from that, for those who argue that electric cars just move the problem to the power plant, this is true, but emissions problems are easier to solve at the power plant. Also, grids can choose to shut down plants that use fuels that are temporarily expensive. Grids can transform to new generation technologies without impacting the end users.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
(Bob at the desk) Wow, Chuck, this wire report lists' the car as having over 6,831 laptop batteries. That's some fire!
(Carol at the desk) Gee, 6,832 batteries on fire all at once, that's gotta be a mess!
(Bob) Uh, I thought I just said " over 6,831 laptop batteries".
(Carol) That would make it 6,832 batteries, right Bob?
(Bob) Whatever Carol! Hey Jim, How did those Dodgers do today?
My Doctor prescribed daily nasal saline irrigation, hehe
OK, let's see it go to Tahoe. Start at Sacramento, and make that long climb up I-80 at Donner Pass. That's 100 miles, but it's mostly uphill. It's easy to get range on the flat.
This is where I like the 'wind turbine' unit of measure. How many wind turbines would we need to deal with an increasing energy demand. The truth is we consume far more energy than we need to. While on person using energy doesn't seem like much, a population of 500 000 is.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Just imagine how much you'd save. Firstly, cost per mile is cheaper, based on what you pay for electricity out of your socket compared to buying gas. Nextly, electric motors are a simpler setup that don't need all that maintenance. You could drive that thing for a much longer time without even needing any repairs. No lube jobs needed, and with
All you have to do is replace the batteries, probably once a year. And if the newer-technology ultra-capacitors get used, then you wouldn't have to replace them ever. You could have a vehicle that might require no maintenance at all for the life of the car.
But gee, I'd hate to get hit from behind because I didn't hear the damn thing coming. You'd have to build some kind of noise-maker into it. Also, what about accidental electrocutions? Could you get electrocuted in an accident? Could people maliciously misuse that kind of mobile power source to zap people they don't like?
sr180 , I agree 100%, that is why my original post linked to articles that show ethanol could be made in the United States from switchgrass .
For example, the article I linked from ABC News is entitled "Switch Grass: Alternative Energy Source?", and states:
Li-ion batteries have a limited number of charge cycles on them, somewhere around 300, before their capacity starts to decrease. You would have to replace all of the batteries at some point after this when your car's range is decreased to the point where you can't stand it. This means, what, most of the value of the car after 100000 miles? Is it worth it?
I had but a simple dream, to destroy all humans.
Until something replaces Coal power plants as the main method of generating electricity, you're just replacing one evil for the other.
Yes, because a few coal plants are way less efficient than millions and millions of internal combustion engines.
(not to mention it's a lot more efficient, as technology progresses, to upgrade emissions controls on a few power plants, than every car on the road)
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
It is odd that the big car companies aren't more on this track! Yeah I was wondering why they wouldn't be... oh yeah, $80,000.
Anyone know what Steve Jobs drives?
Come to think of it, he probably doesn't drive at all. Never mind. Sigh.
The full energy cycle of an electric vehicle is FAR more efficient than the full energy cycle of a gasoline powered car. But don't take my word for it, here's the research, rather than the usual "common sense" that passes for ill-informed criticism on slashnot these days.
I am constantly amazed by the anti-EV mindset that pervades Slashdot. Every time the subject comes up, INVARIABLY, someone claims that because EV's are powered by coal plants that there is something somehow wrong with that, like they would not still be a huge jump in both efficiency AND technology (power distribution issues like AWD, ABS, traction control, etc... with EV's they become *SOFTWARE* problems... perhaps I am just too old school for Slashdot, but I happen to think that is pretty cool).
I'd get one, except the cargo space is limited :-) === This is not a serious car for the typical consumer.
(||) Nehmo (||)
Not considering the sunk costs they have in their current designs (based around the over 100 year-old combustion engine) and manufacturing facilities... And their persistant incompetence at building smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles to compete with those from Japan. You'd think American car companies would have learned from the Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s, and in many ways, they have: American cars now start on the first key-twist, they don't explode into a giant fireball when rear-ended, they're cheap, and reasonably fuel-efficient.
But Japanese makers still beat the Americans on small, efficient cars, because they've been doing it longer and have focused on the longer-run issues of depleting oil supplies more than American car copmanies have, so fond of their SUVs to the exclusion of fuel-efficient vehicles they were until just 2-3 years ago...
Frankly, if one of the "Big Three" ends up being swallowed by another car company, or going bankrupt altogether -- preferably without a government bailout this time (thank you Jimmy Carter) -- not only will I not be disappointed, I might even be mildly-happy...
(Of course, there is the massive dislocation of the employees of whichever of those companies goes under, and that is a problem that frankly requires 2 efforts: one on the part of those people to save for their own "rainy days", and the other on the part of government, charity, and businesses to provide re-training, job-finding assistance, etc.. And, of course, many of those workers would no doubt be re-employed under new corporate management anyway, to help remaining companies pick up the market slack left behind by the recently-deceased auto corporation...)
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
ethanol corrodes pipes, can't pipe it around like gasoline. Using cellulose to make sugars and then butanol would let us use an entire plant rather than just the sugary fruit, and would require no modifications to gasoline engines to use.
1) big car makers have made plenty of electric cars they are not practical (cost, size, time to recharge ect ect ect) or cost effective..
some have been successful look up the GM ev1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1
2) 250 miles in something best described as a deathtrap fit for a midget.. great that does the other 99% of the world no good. In a car that small I am not impressed with its performance.
less oil.. maybe, but not much.. it depends on how they generate electricity in your area..
FAR from a solution.. this goes 4X for hybrids.. they are just patches..
fuel cell cars will be done soon.. everything else is just a fad IMHO
just yet...
I applaud the car and the idea and technology behind it.
But the article seems to me intentionally misleading. It compares the car to Ferrari Enzos and Porsche Carrera GTs and compares the prices as if the cars are equal, which they are absolutely not.
They just cite the 0-60mph time, and while that achievement is impressive, 0-60mph times have been (and still are being) used to confuse consumers for so long. Regular car manufacturers would gear their cars to hit 60 in 2nd no matter how optimal or suboptimal that is just to get a good 0-60mph. And this is in play here again with a car that can hit 60 in 3 seconds but with a maximum speed of 130mph. Granted, most people never even hit a 100mph, but still for a fair comparison you should also factor in that both the Carrera GT and the Enzo will top out above 200mph.
And for something that's more comparable costwise check the C6 corvette Z06 which will not only turn out close 0-60 times (4 seconds) but also outrun the little roadster up to 190mph.
Morale? Not exactly the most objective article I've seen.
The following statement is true
The preceding statement is false
Too bad these cars keep dissappearing when they get to 85. :-(
Just be careful if you get the car from your local DELL dealership... Keep a close eye on those 6,000+ lithium batteries... KABOOM!!!!
than I have burning laptops. Ok, so I've only seen one burning vehicle, but it was going up a real treat! That said you'd certainly want some sort of protection so that one catastrophically failing battery didn't take the rest with it.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
The motor is going to need a lot higher voltage than a laptop. This means that the batteries have to be organized in series/parallel banks. 6831 is a plausible number since it is 23 x 11 x 3 x 3 x 3. This gives you a lot of flexibility in arranging the banks. You could have 99 banks of 69 batteries in series, presumably giving you something like 345 volts. That sounds about right for a DC motor.
Cos you know it's going to need some aftermarket sound effects. Who wants to own a silent sports car.
...A one or two year old laptop tends to have a fraction of the battery life of a brand new one. Now look at the replacement cost of not one, but thousands of batteries.
When I first started looking at the photos, I thought to myself "that looks just like my car". Then I realized it is.
Their "prototype" chassis, body, and even interior is all Lotus Elise S2, probably 2005.
Looks like a scam to me.
So your $10,000 petrol-powered car grew on a tree?
I have no idea what this means, it just seemed like an obvious thing to compute.
The pictures make it pretty obvious that this was built on a Lotus Elise frame.
Which is a fine place to start, considering the Lotus weighs about 1900lbs with the Toyota 4cyl motor.
60 mph is about 100 km/h, or 27m/s. G is 9.8 m/s. So 0-60 in 3 sec is about 1G. Street tires don't do that.
But the 0-60 in 3 is McLuhanesque's fantasy. What the article says is 0-60-0 in "about 9 seconds." So let's say that "about 9" is really 10. 0-60 in 6 secs is about half-a-G, which is strong acceleration, and 60-0 in the remaining 4 secs is still most-of-a-G.
Why inflate damned good performance into a preposterous claim?
So what do you do when you've done 100 or 200 discharge cycles, and you're left with a couple hundred pounds of useless lithium ions? Oh well. Time to buy a new car, right?
Maybe you could design a clever little nozzle to get a boost from your on-fire battery packs. That'd be AWESOME.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Some one said: You want to know why pure-electric cars are incredibly unlikely to become popular? Answer: it's not possible to get a full battery charge in 2 minutes. When you run out of gas, you can fill up again in 2 minutes. Traveling cross-country, it simply is *not* acceptable to have to sit around for 3 hours at the gas station waiting for your car to get enough juice to continue. Nor is it likely to be possible to improve on this, until someone invents some radically new battery technology - no existing battery technology will allow charging at this kind of speed without the batteries exploding. So we need a new battery technology which will, at which point Exxon-Mobil and their battery won't matter a damn. The world and their brother is working on that, because everyone knows that whoever gets better tech is going to be in the money big-time. Trouble is that nothing's coming along - the best bet so far is fuel cells, and we're back to fossil fuels again (or hydrogen, which will be produced and distributed by the same folks anyway). But this is easy to solve, capacitors!!!1! Caps are quick to charge/drain but you could "trickle" energy back into the batteries and don't forget you could always upgrade the alternator so that it generates more electricity..... Basically I don't know anything about cars or electrons and i got that one. I remember reading somewhere that caps will one day replace batteries. if someone else has read that and knows a url please post, I'd google but i'm lazy (-1 something or rather) (My English is bad please forgive, i am a product of Los Angeles public schools ;) )
You do know, I hope, that by burning that much oil, you're probably doing far more damage to the environment and to the health of other people around you than you would if you just drove a Hummer H1 that actually ran properly and cleanly...
2/3rds of a quart of oil per tank is way over the 1 qt per 1,000 miles that's considered acceptable by most standards; I'd be surprised if your car was even passing emissions standards, if it's been doing that for a while. (And the emissions standards in most places in the U.S. are so lax as to basically be a joke anyway -- you car has to be grossly polluting to fail, generally.)
There are lots of tricks you could probably do with an engine to boost its efficiency and power at the expense of cleanliness, if that was desired; however, there are good reasons why that tradeoff isn't often made, or allowed. And, it's older cars that are the most polluting; practically any new car, regardless of its gas milege, would probably be more environmentally friendly than one that's 20 years old, even when you factor in the 'pollution overhead' incurred by its manufacture.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Imagine driving down the road when all of a sudden your whole back end suddenly blows up for no reason.
I just watched this movie yesterday: http://www.sonyclassics.com/whokilledtheelectricca r/
I thought the movie was quite biased and didn't show enough of the other side, but I still found the the movie somewhat interesting and informative.
Just interesting that this article came out just when the movie is in theaters.
HD Trailers
"It is odd that the big car companies aren't more on this track!"
Not really odd if you consider that MOST OF US CAN'T AFFORD AN $80,000 CAR!!!!!!
Since driving a hybrid is more of a personal statement for suburbanites to proclaim how environmentally sound they are...I guess a 80K price tag would be going after...rich, mid-life crisis suburban men who need to drive to walmart once in while? Unless they're able to charge the car at work, I doubt it can even reliably used to commute any substantial distance. I am fully supportive of doing something about the fuel and energy issues, but these kind of cars don't seem to be cost-effective yet for the masses
Driving 250 miles in a really zippy car followed by waiting 3 hours to recharge isn't most people's idea of a good strategy for long distance driving. (This is one place where hydrogen fuel cells have a big advantage over batteries: you can refill a hydrogen tank quickly. I'll not go into the disadvantages of hydrogen here.)
On the positive side: if you have a large installed base of batteries plugged into the power grid (recharging electric cars) then you have the possibility to use them to even out power fluctuations from wind/wave generation. On windy days, power is cheap an everyone tops up their batteries. On windless days, power prices rise, and many people sell back some of that power for a profit.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
Whatever happened to the idea of using flywheels (built from exotic materials and spinning at crazy speeds) to store energy. There was a Discover Magazine cover story about it a few years ago--the flywheels floated on magnetic bearings in a vacuum.
Killed by big oil?
Bigtime Consulting - "We're the best because we cost the most"
That's not how corporate America works. You should have said:
The owner of the company that employes whoever comes up with a significant advance in battery technology will die a very rich person. Heck, at the best inventor will get his name on a patent and $500 cash.
"Morale?" I do not think it means what you think it means.
Wow, finally an electric car that isn't ridiculously ugly!
ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
You can take the word out officially, but people will take years upon years to actually realize that it is no longer a valid word, or doesn't mean what it once meant. The same goes for adding new words. "Y'all" is not a damned English word, but every American south of the mason-dixon line seems to use it in singular and plural terms. I'm just as guilty, being from NJ. I occasionally take the common word "You" and pluralize it with an 's'. "What the fuck do yous thing you're doing?!"
Then there are the differences and commonalities between American English, and the rest of the English-speaking world. I've tried to talk to a couple of Brits and Australians, but sometimes I just don't under-fucking-stand a word they are speaking!
What else can happen when an unstoppable force collides with an immovable object?
Unfortunately, the Elise(I have one) is pretty much a bare minimum track car. There are no frills, sound insulation or comfy electric seats. In fact, it's pretty darn uncomfortable for the long haul. While it may compete with the high end exotics on the track, it gives up a lot of comfort to do this. One the other hand, I would love to drive an "electric" Elise. Bring able to plug it in at night is so cool. The Elise barely gets 250 miles on a tank anyway. $80k is a lot but 0 to 60 in 3 seconds? Holy cow batman!
http://www.pluginamerica.com/media/Wrightspeed.wmv /
So would a Dell laptop battery be the electric equivalent to premium gasoline?
The 250 mile range is almost a non-starter though. It'll get relegated to "commuter car" or "city car". I have to drive 300 miles one way next week. I'm supposed to stop in the middle for 4 hours while this thing charges at a non-existant 220V 70A charger?
How bout a little (bio)diesel generator so you could have the option of charging while you drive. I doubt one small enough not to be stupid would not make electricity as fast as it's used but it should extend the range enough to be useful.
I also worry, frankly, about the lack of noise. How many times, as a kid, did you hear a car coming and get out of the way? Sure you can see it too, but anything else that helps you aviod a human-vehicular collision is a good thing. And this is a car that can get to 60 in 3 seconds? I have a bad feeling this fuckker is gonna kill people with its silence.
Damn cool car though. Me want.
Need Mercedes parts ?
Anyone ever heard of Blue Rhino? I know I have.
It's a simple concept really. You take your empty propane tank to the corner store, you give them you're empty old one, and they give you a full one. Very simple.
Now, I realize you can't exactly throw 6,831 Li-Ion batteries over your shoulder and walk into the store, but it really wouldn't be that difficult to have an attendant with a tool do it. What's an attendant? Stop by new Jersey sometime, as all fuel stations there are still full service only, or were until recently.
With a standardized method of mounting and unmounting a battery, even a robot could do the replacement for all vehicles in 5 minutes or less. Imagine this simple process:
1. Drive into a typical garage with an in and out like a car wash.
2. Robot removes battery using standardized mount.
3. Robot verifies the battery is in good working condition. (Other options would be available if the battery failed testing, such as additional fees for repair..)
4. Robot inserts the new battery and tests to make sure installation was successful.
5. Drive away, fully charged in less than 5 minutes.
Now, I realize that I left out a step (Profit??), but it wouldn't be that difficult to make money on this without raising the cost of a recharge too much. I'm sure most of you have seen those car washes, self done or drive through, that have no attendants and are open 24-hours. This could easily operate exactly the same way.
This is not that complicated and can be easily done. This is a solution to the long charge time. We're already doing it with propane tanks just for the sake of convenience.
Aero
Please stop hurting America -- Jon Stewart
(not to mention it's a lot more efficient, as technology progresses, to upgrade emissions controls on a few power plants, than every car on the road)
Have you a clue how many power plants will have to be built in order to satisfy demand for electricity needed if the entire US converted to electric cars? I don't, but I've heard it's lots.
Ever driven from Salt Lake City to Reno? There's an entire valley with a permanent cloud over it in the desert. Absolutely disgusting. Consider the environmental damage that one plant is causing.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
... after about a year you'll be unable to find replacement batteries for the ones that fail and you'll have to drive the car while it's plugged into a wall outlet limiting your range to whatever length of extension cord you can get at your local hardware store; typically 100'. Of course, enterprising hackers will increase the range by building their own extension cords but this won't be a popular solution and the cars will be pulled from the market once the general public finds that electrical outlets aren't plentiful along expressways and few drivers can afford an new $80,000 car every year or so.
Keep tryin', though, guys. I expect to be in the market for a new vehicle in about 4-5 years.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
There's an interesting site written by the late Robert Warren which addresses this concern, at http://runningonalcohol.tripod.com/id1.html:
The site also has blueprints for building an ethanol distiller, but you have to pay $30 for it. Maybe somebody could point to free plans?
"Warning
Lithium-ion batteries can easily rupture, ignite, or explode when exposed to high temperatures or direct sunlight. Never store them inside of a car during hot weather. Short-circuiting a Li-ion battery can also cause it to ignite or explode. Never open a Li-ion battery's casing. Li-ion batteries contain safety devices that, if damaged, can cause the battery to ignite or explode. See example: Dell laptop explodes at Japanese conference"
Like 6,000 dell laptops traveling at 60mph
So that's why they are trying to get mobile phones and laptops to use fuel cells, Tesla bought all them Li-Ion batteries
Am I the only one who read this and said "bullshit"? The article says there are 11 sectors possessing of 621 batteries. The first word of the next sentence is "Each". That gives you your 6831, but only if you really think this car weighs 3 tons but manages to hit 60 in 4 seconds. gg editors.
Flammable means inflammable? What a country!
What do we teach children in school about road safety? Stop, Look, Listen. Unfortunately with the Tesla Roadster listening wont get you anywhere.
Other than the minor problems of charging and mass child slaughter it looks like a nice car. Maybe they can use a clothes peg to stick a playing card in the wheels or something.
True. But with Lotus doing the handling this car would probably be better point to point than the Z06. Reading the Euro car magazines take on the Corvette it really doesn't handle well when pushing on, especially on roads that are anything other than smooth. The opposite can be said of Lotus' efforts, the harder you go the better they get.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur
You could have 99 banks of 69 batteries in series, presumably giving you something like 345 volts. That sounds about right for a DC motor.
It's an AC motor.
War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?
This car is not a true Tesla Car.
If it were, it would have no batteries at all. Instead it would gets it energy from some kind of wireless source like microwave power transmission or even the Earth's magnetic field.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
It's nice to see something more than a xebra car as a solution as most of us need a car that goes over 40mph. Besides the price tag of the Tesla being out of range to %90+ of the population, the technology is there- or at least close enough to pay attention to. We as a nation tend to not push towards what we know is right in a lot of cases....or maybe it's just too difficult of a process. I don't know- I'm not a scientist...but you know the whole man on the moon and living in space project involved brains- right? Do we need to get Silicon Valley to lead us into the next generation of transportion?? Again- I don't know...but it's great someone is thinking as I'm sure most of us agree. Options to explore?.... I'm not an expert, but I know that $$ can hush brilliance, and as you know- it's all about $$...yes? If I can suggest, let's discuss what we know and don't know about alternative fuels and possible viable solutions already in progress.... Biodiesel 101- Anybody can make biodiesel. It's easy, you can make it in your kitchen -- and it's BETTER than the petro-diesel fuel the big oil companies sell you. Your diesel motor will run better and last longer on your home-made fuel, and it's much cleaner -- better for the environment and better for health. If you make it from used cooking oil it's not only cheap but you'll be recycling a troublesome waste product. Best of all is the GREAT feeling of freedom, independence and empowerment it will give you. Here's how to do it --[http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_make.html ] ....It's being done. People have converted cars to run on refined grease that you would get from a such a fine american corporation as McDonalds. Wouldn't it be nice to get a re-fuel with your McApple pie? Now that is patriotism! Less arguements would arise regarding occupation of territories that contain oil. We might even synergistically blend our love of the fast food lifestyle with a more "green" and localized method of fuel production. ....now there's a thought! ***not to mention that McD's is in pretty much every country, so it could be a international solution even. (If someone gets rich off of the process- otherwise, forget it. Oil companies have power and influence here, so we'd have to pay them off for awhile.)
Another biofuel possibility: HEMP
"Hemp car was an alternative-fuel project car that utilized hemp biodiesel for fuel. Industrial hemp would be an economical fuel if hemp were legal to cultivate in the United States."
"The car toured America, with stops in Canada, frequenting alternative-energy, environmental, and hemp-legalization events. The car departed from Washington D.C. on July 4, 2001 and returned home on October 2, 2001. We provided the public with information about biofuels, hemp, their uses, and current American laws. We established a world distance record for a vehicle utilizing hemp for fuel: 10,000 miles." [http://www.hempcar.org/] Hmmmm 10,000 miles....I guess that's pretty good, but what other factors are involved in acheiving that feat?
We of course have biodiesel blends currently in use that we have yet to perfect as an alternative fuel also.
ELECTRIC CARS:
Still some kinks for the average US consumer. Most electric cars don't have what the average US resident needs in the area of speed and mileage per re-charge. Since past and present trends continue to show a love for the SUV- it's likely that the smaller electric powered vehicle options we have now will not suffice for the average US consumer. The good news is obvious as the article points out. Technological solutions might be advancing into markets that you don't expect, and we have some intelligent folks (with backing) trying to perfect a worthy technological advancement IMO.
The above is just a tip of the iceberg. If we can adapt and create solutions to live in outer space, it just seems plausible that we can figure this issue out rather quickly. Alternative fuel and power supply research is nothing new....as is the struggle for those that have broken even smaller barriers and have not been heard or recognized.
Am I way off base? I don't know. Maybe it's best we return to our tv's. American Gladiator is on. 150 Channels of...
It isn't, because you have to take into account the losses in generating the charging power, getting it to the car, and then the charging losses themselves (run 10-20% on most battery technologies.) Generating plant is only around 40% efficient, add in 30% transmission loss,15% charging loss and 20% motor loss and that is under 20%. Factoring in transport costs for fuel, transmission losses etc., a decent modern Diesel car can manage around 25-30%, the same as hybrids achieve in practice. The Diesel has the lowest manufacturing energy cost, followed by the hybrid, followed a long way off by the electric car (huge energy input just to make the batteries.)
Pining for the fjords
It's nice to see something more than a xebra car as a solution as most of us need a car that goes over 40mph. Besides the price tag of the Tesla being out of range to %90+ of the population, the technology is there- or at least close enough to pay attention to. We as a nation tend to not push towards what we know is right in a lot of cases....or maybe it's just too difficult of a process. I don't know- I'm not a scientist...but you know the whole man on the moon and living in space project involved brains- right? Do we need to get Silicon Valley to lead us into the next generation of transportion?? Again- I don't know...but it's great someone is thinking as I'm sure most of us agree.
l ] ....It's being done. People have converted cars to run on refined grease that you would get from a such a fine american corporation as McDonalds. Wouldn't it be nice to get a re-fuel with your McApple pie? Now that is patriotism! Less arguements would arise regarding occupation of territories that contain oil. We might even synergistically blend our love of the fast food lifestyle with a more "green" and localized method of fuel production. ....now there's a thought! ***not to mention that McD's is in pretty much every country, so it could be a international solution even. (If someone gets rich off of the process- otherwise, forget it. Oil companies have power and influence here, so we'd have to pay them off for awhile.)
Options to explore?.... I'm not an expert, but I know that $$ can hush brilliance, and as you know- it's all about $$...yes? If I can suggest, let's discuss what we know and don't know about alternative fuels and possible viable solutions already in progress....
Biodiesel 101-
Anybody can make biodiesel. It's easy, you can make it in your kitchen -- and it's BETTER than the petro-diesel fuel the big oil companies sell you. Your diesel motor will run better and last longer on your home-made fuel, and it's much cleaner -- better for the environment and better for health. If you make it from used cooking oil it's not only cheap but you'll be recycling a troublesome waste product. Best of all is the GREAT feeling of freedom, independence and empowerment it will give you. Here's how to do it --[http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_make.htm
Another biofuel possibility: HEMP
"Hemp car was an alternative-fuel project car that utilized hemp biodiesel for fuel. Industrial hemp would be an economical fuel if hemp were legal to cultivate in the United States."
"The car toured America, with stops in Canada, frequenting alternative-energy, environmental, and hemp-legalization events. The car departed from Washington D.C. on July 4, 2001 and returned home on October 2, 2001. We provided the public with information about biofuels, hemp, their uses, and current American laws. We established a world distance record for a vehicle utilizing hemp for fuel: 10,000 miles." [http://www.hempcar.org/] Hmmmm 10,000 miles....I guess that's pretty good, but what other factors are involved in acheiving that feat?
We of course have biodiesel blends currently in use that we have yet to perfect as an alternative fuel also.
ELECTRIC CARS: Still some kinks for the average US consumer. Most electric cars don't have what the average US resident needs in the area of speed and mileage per re-charge. Since past and present trends continue to show a love for the SUV- it's likely that the smaller electric powered vehicle options we have now will not suffice for the average US consumer. The good news is obvious as the article points out. Technological solutions might be advancing into markets that you don't expect, and we have some intelligent folks (with backing) trying to perfect a worthy technological advancement IMO.
The above is just a tip of the iceberg. If we can adapt and create solutions to live in outer space, it just seems plausible that we can figure this issue out rather quickly. Alternative fuel and power supply research is nothing new....as is the struggle for those that have broken even smaller barriers and have not been heard or recognized.
Am I way off base? I don't know. Maybe it's best we return to our tv's. American Gladiator is on. 150 Channels of...
[..It is nice to see more companies serious about helping to getting rid of our oil dependency..]
Where do you think comes the elctricity from?!? And how much chemicals and energy do you need to first produce 6000 laptop batteries?
think first!
Politicians are taking advantage of the ignorance of the average person. "Alternative energy" such as wind and geothermal plants and rivers that have not already been obstructed with dams can provide only a very small percentage of that required.
Does that mean it won't catch fire? That's unflammable!
Eclectic beats from Leeds, UK
handmadehands.co.uk
Facts are facts, mister. If it can't yet be done, you're out of luck - screaming and bouncing like an angry chimp won't change that. The point at which you can change the world, practically, is "today". To do that, you have to show a present-day solution. Not try and arm-twist the world into throwing away what actually works for alternatives that are fictional, theoretical or inadequate.
"Seeing past today" is like seeing through walls. You'd run into what you couldn't see, and smash your nose flat.
The US has vast reserves of coal. We wouldn't have to rely on the Middle East.
_ publications/company_level_imports/current/import. html/
the US isn't 'relying' on the middle east for oil. us oil imports have never been more than 20%.
however the US is interested in the mideast's CHEAP oil.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data
--- widget evolution: enhanced, plus, super, ultra, extreme, exxxtreme, ultra-extreme,
I think that eventually "gas" (or whatever they'd be called) stations will provide precharged batteries service: they will remove drained battery (or part of the battery, if it is not monolithic) from car and install a fresh, charged one. Probably, it won't take more time than refueling with gas, as soon as car makers will provide the easy/standard way to install/deinstall car batteries. Also these "gas" stations will be responsible for properly recycling the old ones.
The car makers could develop a standard interface to batteries, and battery and car industries could be totally decoupled. It could be like low voltage devices and AA batteries we use today.
Consumers still can use a long "wall outlet" recharging if they want to, for example, if "precharged batteries service" is not available in their area.
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these all catching fire at the same time!
Paid Q&A/Research
times 6,831
@2-3yr lifespan
hrm..........
There's no way they can sell that thing for $80k, the batteries cost more than that even in bulk.
"Physics is to math as sex is to masturbation." -R. Feynman
I work at one of the "Big 3" automakers and I have to comment. The electric car is a short term solution. While it does reduce the consumers dependence on oil it does little to reduce polution. Why? Because most of the power produced in this country is done with coal or oil. So in essence you are merely displacing who is poluting. Additionally, the batteries themselves are hazardous waste and most be replaced and disposed of. For these reasons the electric car is a short term solution.
I'm intrigued with the fuel cell ideas but am worried that they will be too complicated and expensive to maintain. Hydrogen looks good until you consider it takes more energy to produce hydrogen then what you get out of hydrogen. I believe steam is the proper way to go but haven't seen any development in this arena. Anyone who thinks a steam car is impracticle or unworkable should look up the Doble steam cars.
I didn't realize that Lotus was selling "OEM" versions ;)
After a year, their capacity is usually half what it started as. And they're way too expensive given how short their useful life-span is. They also take too long to charge. One technological advance we need to make "battery-based" cars viable is the super-capacitor.
This is just an Ariel Atom with the motor removed and an electric and batteries put in.
http://www.arielmotor.co.uk/04/frames.htm
That being the case, I have seen this car put up against a sport bike on a closed course... and out did the bike in the TURNS. First turn the car went under the bike and never looked back.
Dell's Complete Care with that car?
I had this image of a giant Tesla coil tower in the middle of
a fuel-less nascar race....
little electric screammers....
Yep, the true greens still hate nuclear power. Why? Pragmatism... not idealism.
Have you read any of the arguments presented by the NRDC, FOE (Friends of the Earth) or Greenpeace? Here's a couple (sorry for the pdfs):
NRDC
FOE
Nuclear power is an unrealistic way to slow down global warming, poses more safety risks, is a national security threat and costs way more than switching to 100% renewable energy. Unfortunately, the US Government has a habit of illegally blocking renewable technologies such as wind power. Despite what the mainstream corporate media says we can meet the energy needs of the entire US with wind and solar power. Both the cost of wind and solar are rapidly dropping. Why should we punish taxpayers to support nuclear, when you can let clean renewable technology take over without doing anything?
P.S.
F--- the F---ing birds that are stupid enough to fly into wind turbines (or into the side of buildings for that matter). True environmentalists don't give a shit about birds when our oceans are turning to acid.
"As I see it, this technology is coming."
In general, the laws of physics prevent much of what people think can be done. Solar power for New Jersey, for example, would require covering a large part of New Jersey with solar cells, and even then it would not provide enough power for all the vehicles.
Nat Geo magazine had a great feature article on this about a year ago.
Go look at how coal is obtained some time. Coal formation are often like a thick blanket draped over large areas, covered with pesky overburden like hills, forests, towns, and rivers. To get to the coal, first you need to strip away the overburden.
My understanding is that most coal formations in the U.S. require extensive removal over overburden to access. In the southeast, whole mountains have been leveled and valleys filled in with waste material in the quest to reveal coal. The moved material is often unstable and prone to slides, it changes natural watershed patterns, it releases silts and toxic minerals into the watershed (a common mining-related problem), and it just plain disrupts entire ecosystems.
So I'd hardly call coal a centralized problem. We need to look at the whole picture, including the inconvient bits.
PS: I think the technik might become more interesting when electricity generation becomes cheaper and less harmfull for our environment one day. Nuclear fusion somewhere in the far future may be?
Trolling is a art!
F--- the F---ing birds that are stupid enough to fly into wind turbines (or into the side of buildings for that matter). True environmentalists don't give a shit about birds when our oceans are turning to acid.
Right! Except that many people that consider themselves "true environmentalists" don't think like that. They also include people like Ted Kennedy, who think that wind power's great, as long as a wind farm doesn't interfere with the view from his particular private compound in New England. I'll hazard a guess that the windfarm NIMBYs are worse than the nuke NIMBYs, if you take into account that you'd need to cover half the country with wind farms to even put a dent in the growth in power demands over the next 50 years.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I hope they're not the same ones that make the Dell and Apple laptops explode. Imagine driving at highway speeds when your car spontaneously combusts 8O
OK .. not wanting to nit-pick, but your example doesn't really indicate that the problem is due to breaking any of the laws of physics that I am aware of. I agree that much of the (so called) green solutions are impractical, and I think that is what your example is successfully indicating.
What if the solar arrays were put somewhere more sensible like the middle of the USA where the population is lower and the climate perhaps more suitable. I'm not saying that solar is the answer, but it might be an answer, in some areas, for some people.
What if every house had a small solar panel on the roof. Probably just collecting the sun to warm/heat water rather than actually generate electricity as it is (I think) far more efficient. Sure, this doesn't charge your batteries, but it does mean you're not drawing the current from the grid to heat your water. Cold/dull climates might opt for a small wind generator on each property, or maybe even a mixture of the two.
Even then, I hear you say, that wouldn't be enough. True, it wouldn't, but it would take some of the pressure off the large generation stations which might be able to burn a lot less carbon based fuel to generate the rest of the power needed.
New Jersey has some coastline (if only the Hudson) so maybe some tidal power generation too. It's all probably more expensive than just burning coal or oil of course, but if you think global warming is an issue at some point it should be worth spending a bit extra.
I think the point is that once we have some viable electric vehicles we can expend more effort in cleaning up the power generation, and that might involve generating some using "alternative technologies" such as wind/sun/tidal/geothermal.
Is this a viable electric vehicle?
Not for everyone, but certainly for some. The more that buy it the better, and cheaper, the next generation will be.
Eclectic beats from Leeds, UK
handmadehands.co.uk
There are Dutch buses which utilise this idea (as featured on Slashdot some years ago). The buses also feature an original approach to motor/drivetrain efficiency.
The diesel engine the bus carries drives a generator, which charges batteries which power the electric motors. This allows the diesel engine to run constantly at its optimal RPM, instead of revving and idling in stop-and-start conditions, increasing efficiency and reducing noise. Perhaps one day this can be adapted for smaller vehicles such as cars.
As for your worrying about the lack of noise, I think that's a ridiculous issue to hold against electric vehicles. I can imagine how much nicer cities would be without the constant drone of gasoline-powered vehicles. Somebody think of the children!?! What about the children's future? Shall we attach noisemakers to the front of electric vehicles just to warn absent-minded kids to get off the damned road? Which noise will be most effective? Shall we fill the air with the constant drone of raspberries, or would a loud beeper be more efficient?
RTFM; please, I beg you.
About 55% of the US electricity grid comes from burning coal. Coal releases twice as much CO2 per unit of energy generated as octain burning. Nuclear, wind, and hydro are much clean, but aren't increasing their share of the US electric grid.
(which it will, due to demand from China/India, though the timescale and severity is a big ?)
What will happen?
In the short term:
Traditional cars, but smaller, lighter, and with more efficient drivetrains?
Hybrids
Diesel in some mix with Biodiesel
Gasahol
In the long term:
Does anyone honestly really claim to know?
There are options, but there are bigger problems with infrastructure, distribution, and Joe the mechanic. That, and people (at least in America) will be very slow to give up the freedom to go anywhere, continuously enclosed, and on there own schedule.
Electric cars are an interesting possibility, I like the idea because of the flexibility it gives to use any means to generate the power. However, this latest announcement doesn't change me from being a skeptic. I suppose battery tech is getting better, but even a 250 mile range is going to limit adoption, heat tolerance and battery disposal are important concerns, and replacement cost on batteries is bad. That, and unless you can just plug your car into a standard outlet, there's a highly distributed infrastructure problem. Another poster made a pretty convincing case that limitations in the supply of lithium are a killer here. Finally, you wonder about the state of the power grids... you probably need to program a scheduler so it only pulls at night.
In the meantime, I'm doing fine in my regular grade sipping Focus.
It's only been costing me about 15c a mile and I'm being inclusive (gas, insurance, taxes, depreciation, maintenance, repairs).
Did anyone see the Discovery channel special that was on the other day? The average US home produces about 5 tons of CO2 a year. This can be cut by 60% if you changed your life style a bit... using energy efficient light bulbs, unplugging appliances when not in use, etc. We can probably sustain electric cars if people would just make a better effort at conserving energy. i.e. shut off your comps once in a while...
What is with all of the arguing? Coal boo hoo, gass boo hoo... Who cares?!? Someone just tell me how I can convert my 91 MR2!
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
Those with a Northeast liberal education who was taught proper grammer and speling in a good skool
The best chance at an electric car is probably with those nano capacitors /. spoke about a while back. The expected improvements were amazing. Even tho it's still in dev stage...
Petroleum is too much of a dependency for the worlds economy. So many things are made out of it's derivatives that we should be saving it as much as possible. Otherwise we face it running out when we're not ready for it.
Electricity is far better of an option when compared to Petroleum.
So far it's been obstructed or chalenged as a replacement for Pretroleum because most interested in the development of electricity are making more money from petroleum.
This world is not sustainable how it's being run. We might still save it from destroying us if we stop and correct our mistakes. I dought that, tho. Personally I think all this save the world talk is too late, and we are ice creams waiting to happen. Not before the earthquakes, tornados, volcanos, blah, blah, blah... You all know the drill! Kiss your own ass goodbye, 'cause you stepped on some big shoes and they're about to squish you...
Blind are we who do not know that we are blind. The world has been boring ever since I got here.
I sure hope they aren't the exploding Dell laptop batteries we've all been readin about... or >1500 of them can be quite the road hazard!
Someone forgot to tell these guys that Tesla was a proponent of AC current and it's kind of wrong to brand a DC powered car with his name!!!
KEYSER F---CKING SOZE!!!
The industry that keeps environmentalists up at night, the butcher of the environment. A peerless, psycho, butcher who lights flames at night, nonchalantly dumps thousands of litres of black death on the environment and has been known to buy out, sue, and even kill to maintain its dominance over the entire world.
Note: This is from my highly speculative blog that no one reads or knows about.
Am I the only one who drove only 3 kilometers to work today, and left my car in the sun for 8 hours? Make a hybrid car, and cover it with solar panels for additional recharging. Many people use their car just for driving to their workplace and back, maybe stopping at a store on the way home. And as far as I know, electric cars use little or no electricity while not using the engine ( so no electric current draw). So no trouble getting through traffic jams with your loaded battery. And IF your battery runs out, you always have your backup combustion engine ready to work. Using energy from braking and the sun your battery will be charging. And even on longer trips, you're probably going to be driving when the sun is up, so your battery is charging a bit. In my opinion a lot of normal traffic is between home and workplace, which normally means your car is in the sun most of the day. Even in countries like mine, where the sun shines through the day only for about 1/4th of the year, it would be a huge saving in fossile fuel usage. Yes, there are problems with this idea, but i think they're not so difficult to solve compared to a lot of other ideas like Cold fusion or dealing with greenhouse gasses. First of all, the main problem is aesthetics. The indrusty is going to have to come up with a way to make the solar panels look good or "not-there", and make them more resistant to outside damage. Batteries are always a problem, but the technology is getting better. Battery technology will be getting better, and not only because of portable computers and cell phones, but because ALMOST everything runs on electricity these days. Solarpanel tech is expensive. BUT if these cars were mass produced, it wouldn't be a problem. Through mass production everything is cheaper. And through this mass production, there would be an incentive for every car company to better the technology. Why would anyone waste their time on niche technology, that's even more expensive and uneffidient than their current technology. At least when it's bringing in profits. In my opinion, governments should fund this new tech, and put harsh taxes on polluting technologies. The fact that most governments don't give tax breaks to green tech makes me believe the bullshit about oil companies bribing people. So the only major problem seems to be the Oil companies who have too much money. I can't think of any excuse why properly made hybrid cars wouldn't work, except for the greed of the oil companies. Over and out
People who have a clean conscience are happy. People who don't have a conscience are the happiest motherfuckers alive.
Unfortunately I was not able to find a link, but the alternative energy sources can actually supply only a small percentage of all the energy used in cars, for example. People often live 30 minutes from work, and drive alone in a 1,000 kilo automobile a total of an hour a day.
Modern buildings depend on air conditioning.
There are things like that which cannot be easily changed.
"I also worry, frankly, about the lack of noise."
Yes, but there's nothing much new with the Tesla car -- engines are generally so well muffled that most car noise is from the tires and wind. Stand near a road and listen; unless you are standing on an uphill or acceleration section, the sound isn't that different from a car coasting at speed. And, cars will continue to get quieter, regardless of the Tesla car. noise==inefficiency and efficiency is the key to engineering cars today.
Of course, it has been pointed out many times, including in the article, that speakers and selected sounds are easy (and fun) to add.
No, winds biggest problem isn't that it isn't reliable -- I've seen many windmill farms set up in permanently windy mountain pass areas that work great -- its the environmentalits who scream about the number of bird kills on windmill blades and the homeowners who feels windmill farms are unsightly (a la Cape Cod hippocrites). Never mind that bird kills occur in the same amount for any tall structures....
very effective gyroscopes.
Although gasoline burns, it doesn't explode. What happens to a chain reaction of overheating lithium ion batteries? I would rather have the 3 or 4 seconds to clear my gasoline car in an accident. A stack of damaged lithium ion batteries would give me much less escape time. Open a Lithium Aluminum hydride battery sometime and see what you can do with the stuff.
Most of the oil US imports is not from Saudi. It is from Canada. Then you have Mexico (Gulf of Mexico), but Canada is the only country in the top 5 that can double, tripple, etc... its production.
_ publications/company_level_imports/current/import. html
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data
[slap slap slap]
Wake the fuck up, Dude!
I've driven from Salt Lake City to Reno (several times) and never seen this cloud. On the other hand, I've driven in LA and in the CA central valley. Talk about disgusting.
Oh, you said "Tesla Roadster". I thought you said "Testarossa". I wonder if the name is supposed to sound similar.
From the pictures, it is apparent that the car is a modified Lotus Elise. The base Elise costs $45K, so the modifications are only $35K. Not all that bad for cutting edge, actually. I'm sure there are plenty of Elise drivers who would spend that kind of money to get an even more exotic car, and to improve the 0-60 mph from 4.7 seconds to 3.1 or so. (There's an $18K kit that one tuner is working on.) They'd probably even order it with less batteries to lighten the car and improve the speed/acceleration.
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
The person who suggested that the Tesla Roadster uses "laptop batteries" is incorrect. The high-performance sports car does use Lithium-Ion batteries (Li-ion), but they're not "laptop batteries." The person who suggested that batteries needed to be replaced annually is incorrect as well. The batteries have a finite life, but it's not "one year." The person who suggested that the Roadster could go 0-60 in three seconds is optimistic by one second. The actual 0-60 time is estimated at 4 seconds. If you have more questions, please feel free to ask. Gov. Schwarzenegger and a number of reporters, photographers and customers/potential customers for the car went for rides last night. And for the people who claim that "eBay" is behind this car, that's not accurate either. Elon Musk, who was a co-founder of PayPal, is the major investor in Tesla Motors. The company is not seeking other investors. Martin Eberhard is the CEO of Tesla Motors. For the person who suggested that a "real" Tesla car would have a wireless microwave source, the company's name has nothing to do with any of Nikola Tesla's experiments, but honors a scientist who made early breakthroughs in electricity. For more information on the company, please visit http://www.teslamotors.com/ .
http://www.answers.com/hummus
If you never made hummus with your food processor, it's really easy. Replacing the lemon juice with lime juice or grapefruit/orange juice makes for really tangy or sweet hummus suitable for breakfasts.
Cheers
I'll be your candy shop of infinite deliciousity if you'll be my discotheque of endless rump-shaking.
There's more than one way to skin a cat. By controlling the stoichiometry of a gas reaction, a mixture of gases can be used to produce hydrogen much more efficiently than through electrolysis of water. It still takes a fair amount of heat energy input, but that's really not a big deal. Hydrogen itself would be a pain in the tuchus to transport; it would have to be compressed and is a little on the flammable side. Carrying methanol for use in hydrogen production would be both safer and simpler. With good catalysts and control of waste output, fuel cells which rely on hydrogen from wood alcohol in microreactors could be a viable alternative.
I'll be your candy shop of infinite deliciousity if you'll be my discotheque of endless rump-shaking.
I am not familiar with New Jersey in particular, but isn't a large part of the state covered with buildings? Put the solar panels on top of the buildings, and presto, you have a large part of New Jersey covered with solar panels, and no land lost.
Granted New Jersey probably isn't the best place for using solar, but there are plenty of places that are. There isn't one unified green solution for everyone, everywhere. But every little bit helps.
Why not use it in places where it is practical? Just because solar is not a solution for New Jersey means we should ignore it in Arizona, Nevada or California?
OK, so this gets a 250 mile range in California Suburbia. Wonder what it would get in Buffalo NY during a snowstorm with the heater on? Or climbing the Rockies in the hot summer with AC?
What is the total lifetime cost ... not dollars but gallons of crude oil. Or the equivalent for your choice of power generation. Don't forget it takes a lot of energy to manufacture all those lithium cells that need repalcement and that the weight of those batteries contributes to the weight of the vehicle associated with propulsion. A gasoline drived relatively high performance two seater could be made for around 1 quarter the cost and achieve 30 or so miles to the gallon. Over the life of the vehilcle if properly maintained replacement parts manufactureing cost in terms of energy use is relatively small. When you start replacing the cells of something like the litium cells with over 6000 of them then you best also have sophisticated technology to assure charging correctly to avoid reverse charging if some cells go bad, identify the bad cells, etc. They would be better off making a few larger cells to deal with the problems that come about from such a huge number of individaul cells. This is just not real viable technology from a overall including manufacturing energy usage and recycling cost yet.
More power too 'em for the effort though as we have to get real alternatives to get real numbers. Personally I'd rather see them crack gasoline more efficiently into better burning fuels that can be processed with less harmful emissions and that can allow better efficiency in terms of energy extraction from the fuel. That like the somewhat dubious better efficiency of electric cars (the electric current to charge them comes from the same fossil fuels in a large number of cases) would result in transferrence of the energy use to a larger scale and might result in significant efficiency gains...
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
I like that, thats funny. Of course you realize that oil is mostly plant-based. So using your arguement, by burning it we are also releasing net zero gas... it just took a little longer to return it... and the net result is that the world climate will be back to the condition it was when those plants were alive.
[Extrapolation] Maybe the climate change was not caused by a meteor or anything, maybe the plants just removed enough CO2 to weaken the greenhouse effect... enought to cause the climatictic shift that killed them off...
Just thought that was an interesting point to make...
- I stole your sig.
Aside from that, Detroit needs to get on the ball with electric cars and quickly. If they would make a Cavalier that ran on battery power like this and priced it at around $25,000 (more than an average Cavalier), I would buy one tomorrow.
IMO, I think the reasons why we keep seeing "hybrids" and not thoroughbred electric cars is because big oil and the big 3 are in bed together *takes off tinfoil hat*. Just keep researching the hell out of making better batteries and get these electric-only cars on the road!
Content Management System: A pretentious way of saying "text editor."
If we used various breeder reactor designs we could take more of the energy from the mined uranium before junking it - right now we use systems that only extract a few percent of the available energy. It is possible to get more fuel out of a fast breeder reactor than you put into it. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_breeder.
Anyhow, you don't want to toss out the "waste", because it contains good stuff - you want to process it, and extract the useful stuff and store the rest until you figure out a use for it. A few big facilities in the middle of the desert would be able to store the things we don't want people to touch for a while.
There is some interesting reading at the "bad movie physics" webpage where the author explores how easy it is to light gasoline with a lit cigarette - he basicaly found that it was very difficult to do. See http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/mpmain.html#c igarettes for details (note that is a link to frame within a page - the page itself is at http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/ - hit the link on the left to "cigarettes" to get it displayed as the author intended.)
....
From the page:
Lighting puddles of gasoline with cigarettes in movies is a common device. The character takes a few puffs and tosses the glowing cigarette in the puddle. Immediately, the gasoline ignites. However, numerous readers have written us and said it isn't so. Some have cited experiences where they saw it attempted. Others have said that cigarettes don't get hot enough.
We searched the web and found several sites that say cigarettes do get hot enough. In other words the glowing tip of a lit cigarette is well above the autoignition temperature of gasoline. Normally this information would have convinced us, but as mentioned before, some of the people writing in seemed to have personal experience. Finally, we decided to conduct an experiment.
We poured a very small amount of gasoline in an aluminum pie pan or slightly deeper cake pan and placed it in the middle of a concrete slab. The pie and cake pans were chosen because they allowed the gasoline to spread out into a very shallow puddle the way it would if spilled on the ground. It also pretty much guaranteed that the vapors at some point above the pan would mix enough with air to form an ignitable mixture.
Actually yes it is. Ever been involved with a large lithium fire? I'll take a gasoline sourced fire over that any day.
Lithium fires are nasty
1. They don't actually need an external ignition source such as spark or flame
2. Lithium fires can melt metal
3. Lithium fires put of very noxious fumes requiring self contained breathing apparatus to fight it. Sucks to be nearby.
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
How could I have forgotten about that one?
Good catch...
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
typo- this car has nothing to do w/ tesla
Cleaner in what way? Mercury emissions from coal are actually very low and it exists in gasoline, too (I suspect in lower ratios, but I couldn't find that info anywhere). More importantly, the first federal regulation of mercury emissions from coal-fired plants was issued last year. For the record, that would be under the current administration. Mercury is the most difficult to control, and technologies for handling it in coal plants are just now becoming feasible.
Or were you talking about sulfur dioxide or nitrogen oxides? Acid rain isn't very cool which is why those have been increasingly regulated since 1990. The second phase of reductions for coal plants are just coming into effect now. Plant operators face a penalty of $2000 per ton of SO2 or NOx that they release over their limits.
Which leaves us with the big emission on everyone's mind: carbon dioxide. But I know you weren't referring to that. First of all, it's not technically a pollutant; it's an essential part of the atmosphere. Furthermore, aside from developing alternative energy sources, I'd love to hear how you think the government should reduce it. You can't exactly require plants to chemically "scrub" it like they do other emissions. The whole point of burning coal is to take advantage of the exothermic reaction of the formation of CO2 and H20. Trying to go the other way takes all the energy you just got and then some.
"We just don't care about global warming and the future generations all that much."
It isn't "we". Bush and Cheney and their friends and families have investments in oil and weapons, and they seem to act in such a way that they maximize the value of their investments.
--
U.S. Taxpayer Karma: If you contribute money to kill people, expect your own quality of life to diminish.
I think they where talking about cells, not complete 'laptop' batteries.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I can finally drive a car that sounds like fingernails on a chalkboard, or the dentists drill!
My day has arrived!
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
You make an intersting point, and your extrapolation sort of gets at some of what I was suggesting. Releasing carbon from burning vegetable-based plants comes from a carbon source which was metabolized from carbon recently. Much of our fossil oil was also from animal sources -- and their carbon isn't necessarily all atmospheric (like that of plant matter). Further, when vegetable oil is pressed, I don't think that all of the carbon is extracted. Perhaps there is a carbon load, but it would be negative in this case.
In any case, I'm not scientist. I'm not clinging too hard to this one, but it does make sense -- especially when approached in the context of the carbon cycle.
-Turkey
That's from the summary of the article on Slashdot. Even if they meant "cells", the number isn't 6,831. There aren't 6,831 of anything in the car. They just multiplied the total number of sectors times the total number of cells because they read the article incorrectly. Sorry I put "batteries" instead of "cells" in my original post, but I don't think it should have skewed my point.
my cell phone has a lithium-ion battery. I'll have had it for 4 years this coming August. Same battery for all four years. It's only in the last month or so that the life has started to go downhill enough that I'm considering replacing the phone.
Batteries can last and last, as long as they're taken care of. Lead-acid chemistries don't like to be drained to less than 20% of capacity. Lithium Ion batteries shouldn't be fully charged... Consistently charging to 95% will allow your battery to last longer than consistently charging to 100%.
I've gotten my phone battery to 4 years by trying to never let the little red light on the charger turn to green...
I did a rough "back of a napkin" calculation on a similar thread a few months ago... To replace all of the oil consumed today by vehicles (which is *not* all the oil we use).. it would about triple the demand for electrical power for the United States.
In order to triple the capacity with only nuclear power (which don't emit CO2), you would need to build about 12 times the current number of nuclear power plants.
That doesn't begin to address the issues of electricity distribution. In SouthWest Connecticut, there is already a shortage of transmission capacity. The "I'm going to die from cancer from the power lines" crowd has forced decades of delay in building new power lines or increasing voltages... they finally reached a deal to increase the voltage, but at the cost of having to bury most of the transmission lines.... now the A/G of the State of Connecticut is saying he is going to take the ISO-NE to court because they had the audacity to say that the costs of burying the power lines will result in higher rates.
And you want this when?
Any why exactly are we still burning oil in New England to heat homes?
And how well does an electric car work in Minnesota in February? Possibly a nice idea in Silicon Valley, but imagine how well those ion lithium batteries will hold up overnight outside in the cold... or in Texas out in the sun all day...
Unforunately, I don't think the submitter thought his ignorant question about the "stupid" car companies was rhetorical. Reality is a real bitch sometimes.
Final 2006 "Proof of Global Warming" US Hurricane Count -> 0
Who killed the electric car? New documentary coming up about how GM had an awesome electric car that everyone wanted...and they canceled it. Then they recalled them and junked them instead of letting people buy them outright like people wanted to. Trailer's on Apple.
"It is odd that the big car companies aren't more on this track!"
Odd that major manufacturers aren't jumping at the chance to market 2-seat cars costing four times as much as a standard model with 2/3 the range? I wouldn't call that odd. I'd call that smart business.
It doesn't matter. In fact, most "brushless DC" motors are actually an AC motor with an offboard motor controller.
Thus, if you consider the motor itself and its control electronics, it effectively becomes a DC motor.
Whether or not you want to nitpick these details, there are two facts:
a) The input source to the propulsion system is DC from a battery
b) The voltage of that DC must be much higher than in a laptop due to the high power levels involved. If the voltage weren't high, resistive losses in the controller/power cables/etc would kill efficiency. It's the same reason long-haul power transmission is done with voltages on the order of tens or even hundreds of kilovolts.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
AFAIK the first serial hybrid was the Lohner-Porsche Electric Car, which was presented at the Paris Expo in 1900.
Chinese Rural Vehicles (CRV's) are a better deal. $500 buys a nice little truck and it can burn old cooking oil. We just need to change import laws here.
This one car is enough to change my attitude to electric cars as a tech. All of its stats are adequate. It's not some in-town, "there-and-back and recharge all night" souped up milk float for commuting hippies. If you're travelling > 250 miles, you probably don't mind a 3-hour lay-over.
New tech has an "inflection point", when it's nowhere near mature yet, can't match the old tech for features, still a bit of an executive toy, but you can already see it will inexorably displace the older mature tech. I figure electric cars just arrived.
It will be interesting if these early generation electrics have non-obvious social knock-on effects. I can imagine for example, an industry of short break stopovers where you can relax, drink coffee, work via wi-fi for an hour or two, and meanwhile recharge the car. Sort of like gas stations, but much more restful.
It's also a reasonable DC supply voltage for an inverter (variable-frequency, variable-voltage drive) generating 240Vrms AC. So the GP has made a reasonable estimate either way.
Doesn't anyone actually READ /.? There are carbon nanotube capacitors in development right now for replacement of batteries for portable electronics. The use of carbon nanotubes increases the surface area inside the capacitor to the point that the size of the device can be reduced to a battery size. That said, capacitors have the advantage of EXTREMELY quick charge and ability to discharge high currents. They also have no memory, and would outlive any mechanical device they're powering.
"Here in Texas"
I live in Texas too, and you tell me if you can use your laptop, or start your car in the afternoon. I can.
> That 250 mile range estimate is probably at significantly lower speeds.
"The LiIon tzero will drive 250 miles in left lane traffic, in LA that means 75-80 mph.
Alan Cocconi (AC Propulsion founder and chief engineer) drove it to San Diego and back
without charging. On any type of standardized drive cycle it will go over 300 miles." link
> If I remember right, electric motor efficiency and power typically increase with load,
> but fall off with speed
"Efficiency: 90% average, 80% at peak power" torque chart
> 1000 pounds of batteries...are equivalent to about 1.5 gallons of gas (6.3 pounds/gal).
> Divide that by an efficiency of around 30% and you've got a 32:1 energy density ratio
> in favor of gasoline.
Internal combustion vehicles are about 15% tank-to-wheel energy-efficient. link
An all-electric vehicle is about 44% tank-to-wheels energy-efficient. link
The car's web site puts its efficiency at 2.2km/MJ, vs. 0.6km/MJ for the gas cars (see here).
So an electric vehicle needs to carry about 30% the energy of a gas vehicle.
Another way to look at this is to compare to the Lotus Elise, which consensus is saying is the closest regular car on the market. The Elise gets 25mpg, and so would need 10 gallons -- 63 pounds -- to travel 250 miles, giving us a ratio of 16-to-1 in required weight.
The fuel tanks on this Peterbilt model range from 40 to 150 gallons, with an apparent midpoint of 83 gallons, giving us 525 pounds of gas or 8320 pounds of batteries. The suspensions seem to cluster around 40,000 pounds, suggesting that batteries would need to replace about 20% of the max weight capacity of a truck in order to get the same mileage as a tank of gas (although that's not taking into account weight savings in the engine and similar components).
That's a lot -- it's probably 25-30% of the freight capacity of the truck. Batteries are dense, though, so it'll take up little of the truck's volume, potentially making the result feasible for cargo that is more limited by volume than by weight. Still, I think it offers a good argument that long-haul trucking is likely to stay a liquid-fuelled activity for the forseeable future.
Mechanical Engineering Power did a study that came up with much the same results as the white paper already linked -- see here. (gas engine for comparison -- about half the well-to-wheel efficiency.)
In general, your back-of-the-envelope numbers are mostly wrong. Generating plants often exceed 50% efficiency), transmission loss is about 7%, switching chargers lose in the range of 5-20%, and overall drivetrain loss is around 55% for an electric motor, for a total of about 22% (as above).
That huge drivetrain loss is known as the "tank-to-wheel" efficiency, and it's what really kills the gas car -- those have about 14% efficiency for that process, giving them 11-12% overall efficiency (also known as "well-to-wheel" efficiency). So in general a gas-powered car takes about twice the energy to run that an all-electric car does, with hybrids somewhere in the middle. Google "well-to-wheel" and you'll find a great deal more on this.
Manufacturing costs play some role in overall energy requirements, but it's pretty minor. A typical car in the US fleet will see about 160,000 miles; at 22mph (average), that's about $22,000 of gas (at $3/gallon), which totally dwarfs the energy costs involved in constructing the car in the first place. Careful about total-lifespan costs, though -- there was a deeply bogus study that came out a few months ago that used nonsensical assumptions (e.g., "cars last for 100,000 miles, trucks for 250,000" even though the figure as measured for the US fleet is 150,000 vs. 170,000), so there's some false claims floating about.
Average vehicle lifespan in the US is 13 years, at which point a car will have been driven 145,000 miles (link).
Based on that and replacing the batteries every 100,000 miles, you'd be spending $13,000 once in 13 years, or $1,000 a year. Compare that to 145,000 miles of gas at 22mpg at $3/gallon -- $20,000, or $1,500 per year -- and you'll find that anyone moaning that "battery changes are ridiculously expensive!!" just hasn't done the math.
"...and it's important to recgonize that the electric car is no panacea for our environmental/political/economic ills. It just moves the problem elsewhere, and would continue to for the forseeable future."
It doesn't just move the problem elsewhere. It also promises to be much more efficient in net energy usage. I saw one estimate of nearly six times as many miles travelled per barrel of oil consumed, assuming an oil-fired power station. A second advantage is flexibility, since electricity can be produced from a wide range of sources: oil, gas, coal, solar, wind, nuclear. That can't be said of gasoline-powered vehicles. I agree that the electric car is no panacea, but it can be a useful part of the larger solution we're all looking for.
As for diesel power, and biodiesel in particular. . . I'm a big fan of biodiesel, but the main problem right now is that our methods of producing it aren't efficient enough. We're using too much petroleum -- in fuel, pesticides and fertilizers -- to produce the stuff, and the yields per acre are low. There are people working on that problem (algae looks promising), the same way there are people working on improved batteries for electric cars, and improved solar cells, and improved nuclear reactors, etc.
It's not going to be one magical technology that cures all our energy ills. I would like to see all these lines of research pursued vigorously.
The battery-replacement canard continues to make the rounds. Toyota RAV4 EVs (NiMH-powered) have rolled 150,000 miles without needing new batteries. RAV4 EVs in California are now passing 100,000 miles with no need for battery-pack replacement. I drove a GM EV1; just like the car mags had said, it took off like a silent rocket, handled like a dream and had all the bells and whistles. GM's cost basis for leasing an EV1 was under $35,000, although GM never sold their electric vehicles (EVs.) If GM had actually mass-produced its touted "most efficient production car in automotive history," it would have sold for $30,000 in a few years as efficiencies of scale lowered unit costs. Instead, GM sued to get out of producing EV1s, along with Chrysler and a group of new-auto dealers. The W Bush Administration supported the plaintiffs with an amicus brief. The zero-emission vehicle mandate was gutted, and automakers began repossessing their lease-only EVs and crushing them. GM soon refused all EV1 lease renewals, refunding attempted renewal payments and taking the cars away from people who wanted to buy them.
Breathe free,
You might want to rethink that...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon