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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 $80,000, which is about par for an exotic two-seater. So who is doing the poll on which tech CEO will be seen driving one first? My guess is one of the Google or E-Bay guys, since they are investors. It is nice to see more companies serious about helping to getting rid of our oil dependency. It is odd that the big car companies aren't more on this track!"
I would hate to see the devestation after a head on collision.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
A 250 mile range gets an electric car into the "very practical" range IMO. Now the challenge is to get the price down to something acceptable. Range has always been the biggest downside of electrics and the reason I would never consider one. However if I can have something with the sized between a Mini and a Civic and be able to easily commute to work AND not pay through the nose for it, I'm in.
There is nothing inherently safe about liberty. That's why so many people died protecting it.
More info:
-NPR
-Carnegie-Mellon
-ABC News (why corn ethanol is not so great), and which points out:
An interesting report on "locking down CO2 emissions" can be found at
The News Hour with Jim Lehrer
Which is to say we are still in the same world, in which low volumes and other issues cause electric cars to be 50%-100$ 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
You know what's odd about this -- that's roughly $10/battery.
I saw we buy one and part it out on ebay...
They will be recycled. Almost all lead-acid batteries get recycled today, and lithium is far more valuable than lead.
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?
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.
Yes, I'm aware of Nucular, Hydro, Wind, Tidal, Natrual Gas. Doesn't matter. Coal is the most popular choice today.
The US has vast reserves of coal. We wouldn't have to rely on the Middle East. And it is easier to cut pollution from relatively few centralized sources than it is from hundreds of millions of cars. And if something better than coal comes along, it's easier to switch relatively few power plants than hundreds of millions of cars. Etc, etc.
I'm going to give you a pass on "nucular" because a dictionary guy I heard on the radio said it's a regionalism, not barbarism that is like nails on a chalkboard to educated people.
So simple, yet so wrong.
Cleaning up the emissions from a hundred million cars means telling a hundred million peons that they are responsible for maintaining one vehicle. That's simple compared to telling a hundred lobbyist-paying energy companies to maintain one power plant.
Just look at the White House's Clear Skies program. It allows antique coal plants, which were supposed to be phased out in favor of cleaner ones, to increase their capacity without being subject to the regulations on new plants.
Gasoline cars in the U.S. are cleaner than electric power plants.
Whoever comes up with a significant advance in battery technology will die a very rich person.
Life doesn't work that way. There will be a handful of people who invest their time and money into organizing a lot of people to make better batteries because no one person can do it alone.
Li-Ion batteries have excellent amp-hour ratings for their size, but like all other batteries are still pretty limited
These cars get 250 miles on a charge, while other, lead acid based cars get a max of 80. That's a big difference and thus a big deal. Plus, they are using 6800 laptop batteries, not batteries designed for the car. When there is enough demand for ANY electric car, there will be a battery made for it, increasing that range again for ALL electric cars.
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?)
This is true only for conventional fuels but not for fully electric cars. Electric motors are highly efficient at whatever speed/acceleration.
Right now the weakest link in many electronic systems is the energy source.
It's the only weak link. The problem has always been a matter of energy storage. We can make cars, we can make electric motors to power them, we've had all of this other tech for ages. But a battery that can hold a lot of energy at low weight and volume as well as give that energy back quickly and consistently has only existed in recent times. Some would argue we still aren't there yet, especially when weighing in safety concerns as noted by other posters. However, there are batteries in development that are safer and as we all know, batteries get better all of the time (statistically about 5% greater capacity every year). If cars did that, we'd have our 80 mpg cars today.
What is shameful is that governments around the world haven't pooled massive quantities of money together to make better batteries. This should have happened immediately after the first embargos in the 70's. If it had, we wouldn't be spending the gargantuan sums we are today trying to protect all that middle eastern oil, nor would my laptop run out of juice in the middle of a meeting or on a plane flight.
J
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 ?
(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
Do you have any idea of the volume of radioactive waste produced by the whole world over a 1-year period ? It is much smaller than what you think. Search for it and I'll promise you will change your mind after knowing it. No I won't give you the response here, I want to make you change your mind by yourself ;-)
Gasoline cars in the U.S. are cleaner than electric power plants.
I subscribe to my power company's optional wind power program. This means that the electricity I use at home was sourced from a windfarm.
How is that not cleaner than burning gasoline? I'd love to be able to plug my next car in overnight and never have to visit a gas station again - and knowing that my day-to-day energy use was 100% sustainable.
Although admittedly the power company wouldn't have the capacity for this if everyone had an electic car, their windpower allotment is already currently full. But stuff like this is a start.
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.
Has already happened in my home country, which generates 79% of its energy in nuclear power plants.
Yeah, and over 99% of ours is by hydroelectric power (Norway), but you need some more global scale to get it going. That is, if you could increase your nuclear power plants enough to actually meet demand. Around here we have too little power, but gas power plants are polluting so we export gas and import electricity *rolls eyes*. Apparently pollution doesn't exist if it's not domestic.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Do the math on it. Imagine that GM had access to some magical technology that would double (triple?) gas mileage, or allow them to create an electric car with a 300 mile range and a 2-minute recharge time. Figure out how much that technology would be worth to GM -- and therefore how much you'd have to pay them to not use it. Figure out how much profit an oil company (or parent company with an interest in oil) would lose if such technology were introduced, and therefore the maximum that they'd be willing to spend to supress the technology. Under any reasonable set of starting conditions, the former is always greater than the latter.
Maybe they wouldn't need to be bribed. Maybe threats or captitalist solidarity would cause them to choose not to put the new technology in their car. In that case, though, Ford might. Or Kia. Or BMW. Or Ferrari. Or Honda. Or some car company in India that you've never heard of. Or John Deere might find out about it and get into the car business. There are easily a hundred companies in the world that could exploit such a technology if they knew of its existence.
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....
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.
/snip
The soloution, then, is to rework the transport infrastructure so you are railing cargo in containers for any distance greater than @100+ miles. Then you can power the *trains* with electricity. That is OldTech. The main reason the electrification was pulled out on the railroad from Chicago to Seattle, USA was that the company that owned the line was doing poorly in the 1970s recession. Accounting decided that they could make more money from selling the copper than the fuel cost difference.
Electric long distance rail is efficient. We simply are too lazy to do what needs to be done.
Transport should be done using more efficient rail, period.