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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!"
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
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.
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.
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!
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
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?
There's a good reason that this is a roadster.
That most electric cars are billed as roadsters.
1. It's going to cost around $80,000 no matter what you do.
The parts are just that expensive.
So they need to classify it as something that is already that expensive to be competivite.
2. Electric engines have an intrinsically very high accelleration rate.
This isn't even really something you can turn off.
The sedan version of this is still going to accelerate faster than a porsche.
So if it has to be expensive, and high accelleration is built it, you might as well call it a roadster.
Its the only chance you have of making it appealing for somebody.
Put it another way... It only cost $80K and it has similar acceleration to the Ferrari Enzo!
Plus it's only a prototype. How can you be negative about that? Are the batteries made from harp seal eyes or something?
Dammit! I had a good one.
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.
If the batteries are damaged, how does one shut them down? Once you short a lithium battery there is no stopping the reaction - no practical way, anyhow. Almost 7,000 of them in a confined space will lead to an interesting chain reaction if just one in that cluster gets damaged. It'd be a fun fire to watch at night though, especially if firefighters douse the burning vehicle with water.
As much as I dislike NiMH due to their rapid self-discharge rate, they look like a safer bet for automobiles.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Could people maliciously misuse that kind of mobile power source to zap people they don't like?
... you think that this possibility is somehow more dangerous than the current situation, where everyone is driving around with a tank of explosives under them? Where anybody who doesn't like you could get a jerry can, a gallon of petrol, and a barbecue lighter, and melt your flesh off? Or burn your house down? Blow your car up?
Uh
Don't be ridiculous. Electric cars have enough problems without inventing inane ones for them.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Only problem is, is that farmers are greedy by necesity of desparation. Except for small family farms who exploit their children rather than tech for yield increases, most farmers grow their crops on petrol products because they cannot afford not to. They dump them in the fields, they run it through outragously inefficient equipment. More petrol is spent growing bio-mass used in ethenol production than is produced. The whole industry is propped up by government transfer payments.
The solution is undoubtedly in electric cars. The only point of debate is where the power comes from to drive the motors. Some claim petrol-electric hybrids, others hydrogen--be it combustion or via fuel cells, and there are those who think we can hold the power in batteries and just plugin when we get home. The most promising tech for the present is likely the plugable petrol-electric hybrid. It's not the most glamorous but it is far closer to the budget of the average person than any of the others and it's readily available today.
--Neth
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Some claim petrol-electric hybrids, others hydrogen--be it combustion or via fuel cells...
...The most promising tech for the present is likely the plugable petrol-electric hybrid. It's not the most glamorous but it is far closer to the budget of the average person than any of the others and it's readily available today.
But: you get hydrogen very inefficiently through the use of enormous amounts of electricity, which is currently being produced mostly through burning coal. Start using hydrogen in your car, you'll start burning that much more coal and natural gas at the electric plants. Your plug-in hybrids introduce the same problem.
They only viable solution is more nuclear power plants. A LOT more.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
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.
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!
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."
The other problem is battery chemistry. The common, older lithium ion cells can't take much current when they charge up. This creates very lossy regenerative braking in addition to longer charging. So even if you did have more power, you couldn't charge them that fast anyway. Now, there are newer cells that can charge quite rapidly. The cells from A123 Systems have a standard charge of 45 minutes and a standard fast charge of 15 minutes. Altair Nanotechnologies and Toshiba also seem to have something along these lines. However, you're still limited by your outlet with them... For 15 minute charge, you'd need more than 200 kW of power.
Now to recharge. To the nearest substation!
There are some excellent points here. People get all excited because some electric car is now faster that some car the author thinks is defined purely by its acceleration from 0-60. And most slashdotters, I would bargain, are persuaded by such arguments because they are similarly uneducated. Sports cars like the Porsche Carerra and the Bugatti Veyron (mentioned in a related article) are consummate sports cars - they exemplify not only speed but styling, handling and quality expected of a car with their price tag. Cars such as the Corvette, especially the most recent incarnation, do so relatively inexpensively. But regardless, 0-60 acceleration is not the most important statistic, and often isn't an important statistic at all EXCEPT to people who don't know better (I refer the undereducated to the more useful 0-100-0 or 0-150-0 tests, as well as relevant agility tests such as emergency lane change, slalom and skid pad.) Electric cars will be desirable when they meet the following conditions met by existing cars - price (under 30k), features (styling, interior, gizmos), convenience (fueling in under 5 minutes.) This car does not appear to meet any of those.
> All you have to do is replace the batteries, probably once a year...
There is the rub. Replacing the battery on my laptop costs USD 100. The Tesla roadster uses 6831 laptop batteries. I would estimate that half the $80,000 cost of the roadster is batteries.
i think it's obvious, that they can't be talking about 6341 laptop batterypacks, but about 6341 laptop battery cells. at which point you can get these bulk for about 50 eurocents each.
howie
Since the US more or less uses 100% of the total oil it gets, if the Middle East oil went away, you'd immediately have a huge shortfall. This would make fuel prices in the US rocket - until the price causes a reduction in demand by 20%.
I suspect that a loss of 20% of the oil and the consequent increase in fuel prices would cause a very severe economic impact - so yes, the US *is* reliant on that oil. Unless the US can do without 20% of its oil tomorrow with no consequences, then it's reliant on it.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
I'm not sure that's right. Let's look at the Wright Brothers first flight shall we. Well, that's obviously such a useless machine. Range measured in hundreds of yards? Only carry one person. Likely to die.
The 250 mile range is perhaps too short for many people, but I bet the majority of car journeys are well within this range. If people started purchasing such vehicles as second/third cars then the technology would improve. As the number of units sold increased, the unit price would come down. Competition would be encouraged, inovation would be rewarded and some of the bigger players would start looking into it. It's already happening because Toyota/Honda have decided it will happen and want to be first with the hybrids. They are expensive, but some people are buying them. It happens in all new technology. Mobile phones, digital cameras, everything new - they start off really pricey and the early adopters buy 'em. Soon though, economies of scale bring the prices down, and the technology improves as the market expands.
I don't think anyone expects everyone to immediatly chop in their beloved gas-guzzlers for some electric golf cart and start hugging trees, but this vehicle probably does have a market. If the Gov could give tax breaks - such as allowing tax free re-charging whilst at work, it could further encourage the take-up of the technology by reducing the cost of ownership.
This might even mean that in a few years when you have to get new batteries for your Tesla, the new ones will be cheaper, lighter, and provide a greater range because the tech has moved on.
Eclectic beats from Leeds, UK
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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.
the electricity to charge them would require a huge investment in nuclear power plants and a corresponding huge increase in nuclear waste.
But the amount of waste that comes out of an efficient reactor is tiny that even a "huge increase" would be easily manageable. (Note practically all of the old reactors currently operating are not terrible efficient.) It is simply incorrect to suggest that relying on nuclear energy as a primary energy source would be impractical.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
Electric cars will be desirable when they meet the following conditions met by existing cars - price (under 30k), features (styling, interior, gizmos), convenience (fuelling in under 5 minutes.) This car does not appear to meet any of those.
of those only one is important for a sports car styling and it looks nice enough. Convenience (not just fuelling) Price, interior, gizmos are not usually considerations of sports car buyers in the first place otherwise current models wouldn't sell well.
I actually think starting of with a small low production volume sports car might be an astute choice as this means they will not be trying to compete with major manufacturers, this car could do for Electric cars what the Elise did for Lotus i.e. provide a profitable product from which other more mainstream advances can be made.
Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.
15 minutes on the charger might get you another 15-20 miles. And 220 volts at 70 amps is a pretty hefty 15 kilowatts, so to have a dozen cars sitting at the local McDonalds charging is going to be draining about 180 kW from their coinpurse. That is a serious amount of juice. Also, I'm skeptical that you'll be getting 250 miles at 70 mph. If I remember right, electric motor efficiency and power typically increase with load, but fall off with speed, which makes them awesome for say, a 0-60 run in 3 seconds, but marginal at best for high speed cruising. That 250 mile range estimate is probably at significantly lower speeds.
Big rigs generally run around 5 mpg, but it varies quite a bit around that number depending on the truck, the load, and the speed. Few truckers drive at the most efficient speed because it increases the labor costs significantly.
If you're suggesting running commercial trucks on electricity, forget it for the foreseeable future. It's definitely been considered. Not only is there the conflicting speed issues I mentioned above, but you run up against the energy density limitations of batteries fast. Assuming the numbers from the article are correct (I doubt it...something isn't quite adding up according to my gut) and unrealistically taking the charge/discharge at 100% efficiency, it's storing up 194 MJ. Gasoline holds about 120 MJ/gallon, so the 1000 pounds of batteries (according to the Tesla website) 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. For a truck to haul the equivalent of 150 gallons of fuel (actually diesel, not gas, but close enough), it would need about 30,000 pounds of batteries. But then you have to go farther and take into account that 2/3's of its cargo capacity has been replaced by fuel, so you need to make 3 times the number of trips. And you've got a lot of trucks either sitting idle recharging or having their 30,000 pounds of batteries swapped out every few hundred miles.
Obviously these are really rough numbers, but other engineers have already looked at the idea in more detail and rejected it.
I'm not trash-talking the Tesla. It looks like a lot of fun, but like all sports cars, it's a toy and not a good comparison for commercial trucking. Most of a car's weight is itself, be it gas or electric. Most of a truck's weight is it's cargo.
For the record, I think electric can work extremely well for short range commuting (5-10 miles on city streets), but if you travel far, you'll realistically be looking at gas.