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

80K?+batteries once a year

[fermion]

I would wager that this vehicle is more like a Lotus Elise, or a Corvette, or even a S2000, all of which can be had for under 50K. Any performance benefits over those sports cars can be attributed to the natural advantage of this car, namely that you can go from 0-60 without switching gears, and it is easier to get it perfectly balanced without an engine. Anyway, The true test of a sports cars, as opposed to just a fast car, is the handling, which was not mentioned in review. Without proper handling, it becomes a Mustang at 30K.

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.

Re:Global "Dependencies"

[superdude72]

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.

Re:Electric Cost Per Mile is Cheaper

[shawb]

"All you have to do is replace the batteries, probably once a year." From the summary, the car runs on 6,831 laptop style lithium ion batteries. A quick froogle search reveals that a replacement lithium ion laptop battery runs around $90 - $150. Let's assume $100/battery. Since you'd be buying in bulk and using batteries designed for this purpose, I'll give you a 90% reduction in cost (overly generous) which puts you at $10/battery. That means your annual battery replacement is almost $70,000 (I.E. most of the price of the car.) And we haven't even charged the batteries yet. Most people I know with anything approaching a reasonable car fill up maybe once a week for under $50.00/tank. That puts you at $2,500 annual fuel cost, add in a quite generous $1,000 for maintenance and repairs, and $1,000 a month for insurance and loan payment brings you to a little over $15,000 annual cost of driving a relatively decent newish car. So, assuming a lithium ion battery pack lasts four years, it would still be cheaper to own and operate, and insure a gasoline powered internal combustion vehicle than to simply change the batteries on this car. And I'd be willing to place a decent size wager that trying to outfit any significant portion of U.S. vehicles (Let's say... 10%) with lithium ion batteries will cause a tremendous surge in demand for lithium, driving prices sky high. In fact, I'll do the math. Lithium has a specific energy density of up to about 200 Wh/Kg. Many major electric vehicles use around 300 Wh/mile, so I'll be generous and say 1 Kg of lithium storage will get a driver 1 mile before recharging. American passenger vehicles drive around 2.5 trillion miles per year, which works out to around 6 billion miles a day driven by americans (An average day's driving being the absolute minimum charge you would want in a car) which means we would need 600 million Kg lithium to make enough batteries to replace 10% of passenger cars. That works out to a bit over half a million tons of lithium. In the year 2005, only 18,000 tons of lithium were mined WORLDWIDE. That means we would need over 25 times the current annual worldwide lithium production just to make enough lithium batteries to give ten percent of U.S. passenger vehicles (cars, light trucks, SUVs) enough charge to drive for one average day, with pretty generous rounding in favor of lithium storage at almost every step I took. That's not even touching the semis, construction equipment, mass transit, airlines and ocean liners that actually keep our society running. And then there's the issue REPLACING the batteries, although I assume there would be large scale lithium recycling implemented.

So I don't foresee lithium being a long-term cost effective material for energy storage in our transportaion system.