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New Video of Tesla's Mass-Market Electric Car
Slatterz writes "The Tesla Roadster has almost mythical status among electric car enthusiasts. It's fast, with high torque over a wide RPM range, and can beat a Ferrari in terms of acceleration. Now Tesla has released new video of its upcoming new electric car, called the Model S, which Tesla Motors claims is the world's first mass produced fully-electric vehicle. Unlike the Lotus-Elise based Roadster, the Model S is a traditional sedan of the type millions of commuters might actually drive. Tesla claims it will fit seven people (if two of them are 'children under 10'), and has mounted a rather large 17in LCD in the dash. Key to Telsa's future will be the evolution of lithium-ion battery technology. Tesla Motors claiming the new Model S can travel up to 300 miles on a single charge, but the battery will still take 45 minutes to quick-recharge." (And for those in countries where it matters, this article mentions that it should also be available in right-hand drive.)
It's great to see an electric car this cool for so cheap. I mean, $50k isn't cheap, but it's cheap in comparison to their other car, an it seems generally more practical. If I were going to buy a car, I might consider this, but I might very well decide that $50k is just too much.
I'm wondering, though, does anyone know what kind of profit margin Tesla is getting on these? Is the government subsidizing these at all (for environmental reasons)? Are they in the sort of situation where, as they start selling, Tesla will enjoy economy of scale and prices will go down substantially? Or is this price pretty firm?
"After all we would all like to see the model T version of the electric car that will get us off of expensive oil."
For that to happen, early adopters must drop the cash on much more expensive vehicles, just as they did before Henry Ford produced the Model T. Early adopters will be more likely to forgive faults that buyers of an econobox would not.
At fifty grand for a beta version, I'll be better off letting the rich folks purchase those.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
300 miles will take some 4 hours to drive, you could prob do with at least a 45 min rest ... so this is finally acceptable range for an electric car.
I live in Ireland, drive a left-hand drive and it has never caused me any problems. The odd time I can't overtake because I cant see but other than that I actually prefer the left hand drive. i started off in a right hand drive but never really liked it. I never had to get used to the left hand drive and if i go back to a right hand drive now it will take me ages to get used to it.
It's about the torque. Those electric motors have full torque when they start moving, unlike the internal combustion types that need to spin up to a certain RPM to maximize torque. The transmission tries to even this out, but with an electric, you just have more acceleration from a stop by the nature of the design. I'm more interested in how fast they can go from 60-100 mph, like when you need to pass someone. In theory it would be similar, but not better.
If I had the money, it would be a no-brainer for me. Since I don't have the money, it's still a no-brainer, but on the side of "no".
True, but lithium from old batteries is more recyclable than the CO2 that comes out of a normal tail pipe. The supply/recycling thing might work even better if instead of relying primarily on recharging, a network of battery swapping stations is built up, where you'd lease the battery, and the manufacturer would necessarily get it back at the end of life for refurbishment. That said, I still think the future is synthetic gasoline that runs in a normal engine. Less of a pain in the rear to implement and no additional infrastructure to build up during the phase where petroleum-based gas and whatever new thing is are both in use.
The article is optimistic in my opinion.
Let's assume they're talking about the same pack as in the Roadster (even though the pack you get for $57.4K is lesser capacity). That means you're putting in 45kWh in 10 minutes. That's a charge rate of more than 270kW. That will require 440V power (3-phase) at 600A! And that's assuming 100% efficiency!
There's going to be a lot of places where you can't get that much power. And even if you can, the amount of waste heat giving off by the charger, and in the pack will be very difficult to manage. Also, the charging cable would be a bit of a hassle to wrestle because it's going to be very thick.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
A (wealthy) friend had his delivered recently. Here's my twisty road test report.
Executive Summary: Oh. My. God.
Systems Lacking: 4-point harnesses, sufficient handholds for passenger, automated system to maintain directional control during GLOC on launch, earplugs to block whimpering sounds from passenger seat
The Blackstar (Roadster) was the 'infinite money' car. The White Star (Model S) is proof it can be mass produced.
The Bluestar (Model T?) will be the $20K 'car of the masses'.
Cars around most (though not all) of the world are specificlaly designed so that the driver is as close to the middle of the road as possible. This is a safety feature; it makes it easier to control where you are relative to oncoming traffic. After a few years of driving you probably don't even notice anymore (I don't) but new drivers have a real tendency to try and put themselves toward the middle of the lane. On a left-hand drive (in the US) this means they end up taking a bit of the shoulder, or lane going to same direction. Right-hand drive would put them over the center divider.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
More accurately, it's 5+2 seating -- two mini rear-facing seats in the back. Not many believe those will actually make it to the production version, but it's another in a long line of pretty shrewd marketing efforts by Tesla to break all of the EV stereotypes one by one (they're slow, they can't go very far, they're small, etc). They're also shrewdly pushing its after-tax-credit price rather than its before-tax-credit price like many others are doing.
All them years of priest training, taken out by one bounty hunter.
Another interesting point: My current vehicle can travel almost double that distance on a tank of gasoline, and takes seconds to refill. This is important because it's almost 500 miles to the next city from where I live -- I can travel to the next city with one tank of gas, but I'd need to refill the battery 3 times to comfortably make it by electric car, since I'm not going to let my batteries run to 0%.
Will the 8 hour drive to the next town become a multiple day journey? Will I need to start planning to visit hotels where now I can just ignore the towns? Will we see a re-emergence of small refueling towns, as we saw in the age of coal-based rail, thanks to the significantly reduced range of our vehicles?
It's been a long time.
That prompted me to run the numbers. I drive about 11K miles per year commuting and get around 23 mpg (lead foot). 11K miles/23 mpg = 479 gallons. Gas is already $3.20 a gallon again here so let's call it $3 average to account for the "penny a mile". $3/gallon * 479 gallons/year = $1,437/year. I keep cars for ten years so that's $14,370 over the life of the car, and that's if gas doesn't go any higher (yeah, right).
Adding in four oil changes a year at $40/each and that's $160/yr or $1600 lifetime. No smog checks is another $60 every two years or $300. Not to mention ZERO time spent filling up or waiting for oil changes/smogs. So savings of $16,270 takes $49,000 down to $32,730. My last car was purchased in 2003 so I can buy a used 2011 in 2013 (I always buy slightly used anyway) for probably $40K or so max. No time at filling stations or smog checks is worth another $3K to me as well. I'm not going to even mention stuff like no fuel filter, fuel injector cleaning, all that crap. We'll assume some irritating yearly maintenance is required for this as well.
I am purely pragmatic when it comes to car costs and going green, but if this thing turns out to be reliable -- which wouldn't surprise me given they have experience and pure electric is far simpler than internal combustion -- I'll be on this like white on rice.
That's a good thought. though it adds another layer to the efficiency problem, it makes up for it by off-peak loads. all those hydro electric damns and nuc power plants can smooth out their loads.
Even better if every onehad one, you even power your house off it when your car did not need it, and pay night rates for daytime electricity.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
If you plan on driving your truck for 300k miles@ 20 MPG, then that's 15,000 gallons of fuel - which is pretty good for a "truck". You are really paying less than $2 per gallon? Gas seems to average around $2.75 and to be fair, it will probably only increase in price. So I'll call it an even $3/gallon, which will make fuel coasts around $45,000 for 300K if you were to buy your truck now. Unless your truck is a diesel, then some major engine repair/ maintenance costs would be probably fair to also add in, as well as transmission repairs/replacements.
Powerline costs on an electric car will be changing the battery at 100,000 miles and will cost $12,000 , so 300k miles would have operating costs around $24,000 +$3,000(electricity). Not too bad. The electric motor/transmission should not need ANY repairs during that time. I imagine significant R&D and economy of scale will tend to drive this price down significantly by then.
..........FULL STOP.
For some more perspective, I usually travel around 700km/week, which was costing around $120 in fuel. In the newer car the cost is around $60/week. Or $520/month vs $260/month.
I live 10km from the office, but we have clients that are considerably further.
To say "their decision to live hundreds of kilometers from where they work" is a bit of an oversimplification too. Some people start out living close to work but then work moves, or they lose their job and just cannot afford to move closer to their new workplace, or your workplace just happens to be a long way away from your spouses and so a long commute for one or the other is the only alternative.
It would be nice if people could stop pointing fingers and judging without having at least some understanding of the issues involved.
I think you should watch "Who Killed The Electric Car?"
There was certainly a car that "panned out" - the General Motors EV1.
GM didn't even sell the car. They had a lease-only program throughout which you could never actually buy the car. They put marginal marketing into it and despite a practical cult-like following of its users who loved the car (i.e. the Apple effect), they forced all of them to be returned. They then crushed every single car save for a few saved for educational purposes (universities, museums). The educational vehicles were given under a clause that they could never be in working order.
Why would GM do any of this if they actually wanted them to get on the road? They wouldn't do it because they didn't want these cars on the road.
In the early 90s, California raised a stink about pollution. They wrote up a law that basically said cars in California have to conform to way tighter pollution restrictions. The federal government eventually overruled them.
The EV-1 was a well-designed model that was eaten up by early adopters but never got very far because a few powerful groups (oil companies, auto companies, and the federal government) colluded to do everything they could to make it a failure. It was unethical and criminally negligent.
On the plus side, GM is completely fucked. Had they not sabotaged the EV-1, they would be one of the leading car companies in the world.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
A small cult of enthusiasts doesn't support a full-scale manufacturing run. And please quit the conspiracy theories about how 'big oil' or whoever killed the electric car. If they were viable, Japan and Europe would be firing them out no matter what the US government did.
Don't forget $500 billion on "oil" war. These green hippies won't be needing US government to ensure so dramatically the oil availability so that others can get their $3 per gallon gas. Other issue is that CO2 reduction needs to happen someday, giving tax credit now is a good start and saves a lot of money later on. I think the $7500 tax credit is justified and shows how much less collective pressure to secure increasing amounts of oil these electric (or less consuming) cars cause.
At the cost of electricity in California, that is about $22.50 worth of electricity. Depending on the size of your tank, a typical fillup for a midsize sedan is about $40 and will get you about 25% further. So in reality we are looking at about $30 for a gas car to go the same distance. Still a pretty good savings, until everyone has one of these and the cost of electricity doubles. Too bad the greens don't want us building any more power plants.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.