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!"

Comments

Re:Sigh

[Jeff DeMaagd]

You do realize that a power plant is much more efficient than a car's combustion engine, right?

Exactly. Even with transmission losses, and losses due to charging and discharging, I bet this thing is considerably more efficient than a gasoline engine. What gasolene has as an advantage is that it's not so heavy with respect to the amount of power it has. And that batteries are expensive, have a very limited life span and possibly an environmental catastrophe waiting to happen. There was a guy on Science Friday that suggested that we could convert to methanol use, it's easy to make from oil, it's easy to make from biomass, easy to haul and so on.

Re:where are the flying pieces of cars?

[RiffRafff]

Seriously, though, Li-ion? I shudder to think of how those will get disposed of, eventually."

Um, probably the same way you dispose of alkaline batteries. You throw them in the trash. Lithium-Ion batteries are classified as "non-hazardous waste and are safe for disposal in the normal municipal waste stream."

Or punture and flood with saltwater if you're paranoid.

"Discharge: with the cell or battery pack in a safe area, connect a moderate resistance across the terminals until the cell or battery pack is discharged. CAUTION: the cell or battery pack may be hot! Discard: puncture plastic envelope, immerse in salt water for several hours and place in regular trash."

Li-Ion and Li-Poly batteries are a non-problem if they're discharged, and they are environmentally friendly, to boot.

Re:80K?+batteries once a year

[himurabattousai]

Since you mentioned Mazda and Ford, type "hydrogen RX-8" into Google's search engine. The RX-8 uses a Wankel rotary engine, an engine that has the unique property of being flex-fuel, in this case the alternative fuel is hydrogen, without any modifications. Since Ford owns roughly one third of Mazda, they could use that engine in Ford-branded cars and have a nearly instant alternate-fuel vehicle. I imagine it could even be turned into a Prius-like hybrid, since the Wankel engine looks not much different than a generator--and since all the parts rotate in the same direction, the generator could be built right into the engine components itself.

Yes, you are correct in saying that auto companies are married to the internal combustion engine. Right now, they have to be. Americans expect their cars to be capable of certain things, and those expectations influence what they buy. Right now, electric cars (and hydrogen vehicles like the hydrogen RX-8) do not have the combination of capability and price to be mass-market vehicles. Until they reach that sweet spot, they will be nothing more than niche products. The research and investment shouldn't be stopped because of this, though. The best niche products have ways of becoming mainstream, and even if the Tesla roadster never makes it big, the accomplishment and lessons learned will have an impact on automobile technology before too long.

Re:Exploding Batteries?

[Emnar]

Liquid gasoline only explodes in Hollywood. You can drop a match into it and the match will go out.

Gasoline fumes, on the other hand, can definitely explode. While it's a fine distinction, it's an important one.

In fact, the technological advance which finally permitted combustion engines was figuring out how to vaporize gasoline so that it would burn.

Wrong Name for Car

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

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.

Re:Electric Cost Per Mile is Cheaper

[Quadraginta]

You make a good point, but there are maybe a few qualifications to the calculations. The lithium metal in a lithium-ion battery is only a small part of the mass of the battery. A typical electrolyte component might be LiPF_6. Only about 4% of the mass of this compound is lithium metal. Then there's the mass of the solvent, the electrodes, casing, et cetera -- all of which contribute to that 200 W-h/kg figure. Probably your final figure of lithium required for a 10% fleet replacement is 60-100 times too high.

Of course, that doesn't change your point that batteries generally are an expensive and inefficient way to store energy. Storing energy in chemical fuels is far cheaper and more efficient, and that's why it became the preferred energy-storage method for automobiles. It's not that way because our engineer ancestors were idiots, didn't understand batteries and electric motors, or because gasoline at the turn of the 20th century was as cheap and widely-available as it is now.

Re:Electric Cost Per Mile is Cheaper

[Aladrin]

I was going to mod you insightful, but then I realized that some may not realize why.

The trick? The Tesla Roadster is powered by 6,831 rechargeable lithium-ion batteries -- the same cells that run a laptop computer.

They are not using laptop batteries, as you said, but instead using batteries that use lithium cells. They say they are the same cells, but they probably actually mean that they are the same kind of cells used in laptop batteries.

Anyhow, good call. I'm hoping others will read my post and rate yours insightful.

Re:where are the flying pieces of cars?

[RiffRafff]

In the states, only California requires non-hazardous batteries to be recycled for their materials.

Re:Electric Cost Per Mile is Cheaper

[rsclient]

OK -- here's some basic terminology:

a "cell" is the fundimental unit of a battery. A "D" battery contains one cell -- and indeed, in old books was just called a "D cell" and never a "D battery". The "cell" is the fundimental battery unit because of chemistry.

A "battery" contains a bunch of cells. The actual word "battery" means "a bunch of identical things" -- so that a bunch of cannon all grouped together (for example) is a "battery" -- hence the existance of "Battery Park" in New York.

Thanks to the average person's inability to keep these concepts seperate (and the lack of a reason why they should be seperate), "battery" is now used to mean either a battery in the old-fashioned sense OR a cell in the old fashioned sense (but only if the cell is, as it were, individually wrapped). Once again crystal clear tech language is subverted. (Note to self: don't go on a wild tangent about dumb terminals)

The "battery" in your laptop contains a bunch of cells -- I see from Google that at least some laptops use batteries of 12 cells. The "batteries" in the Tesla contains exactly one cell and would be better termed "cells", except that (per above) language is changing.

A big chunk of the cost of buying batteries for your laptop are:
1. You aren't buying in bulk. Bulk is lots cheaper.
2. You are also buying specialized circuitry that inside of the
3. Expensive plastic

I would expect that your 90%-off-in-bulk isn't high enough. Add in another by-twelve factor, and the price-per-year drops even more.