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.)

Comments

Model S not T

[tie_guy_matt]

At $50,000 do they think it is too expensive to call it the model T? Do they think calling it the model T would be too arrogant? Maybe the next one will be cheaper and then they will go ahead and give it the next name. After all we would all like to see the model T version of the electric car that will get us off of expensive oil.

Re:Model S not T

[couchslug]

"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.

Re:Model S not T

[Kneo24]

Early adopters make economies of scale a realize goal. People who bought the roadster showed that there was continuing interest in a cheaper, more massly produced vehicle. People who buy the model S will do the same. Tesla does want to create a car that they can sell for $20k to $30k. If you have the money why not become an early adopter? Right here is hopefully the future of the automobile industry.

Re:Model S not T

[Delwin]

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'.

Re:Model S not T

[cheesybagel]

AFAIK the engine does not run off DC. The car has an inverter and the engine is a polyphase AC engine (the AC engine was invented by Tesla).

Re:Model S not T

[Sj0]

Every manufacturer test-marketed electric vehicles in the California market, not just GM.

None of them panned out because the cars were ridiculously expensive to build so they had to lease them at a fraction of cost.

GM is bankrupt. How would building yet another unprofitable vehicle help them?

Re:Model S not T

[jamesh]

More importantly, remember to keep the price of gasoline in perspective. Over 100,000km, you'll pay about 5500 dollars in gasoline or diesel at $1/l(about 3.80/galllon), or 11000 dollars at $2/l(about 7.60/gallon). Considering just how far 100,000km is, that's a pittiance.

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.

Of course, there are the people who travel a few hours to get to and from work each day, and those people's problem isn't the price of gasoline, but their decision to live hundreds of kilometers from where they work.

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.

Re:Model S not T

[Ihmhi]

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.

Re:Model S not T

[drsquare]

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.

Re:Model S not T

[e4g4]

your workplace just happens to be a long way away from your spouses

Utah is a big place, and if you don't keep all your spouses in one house, I could see that maybe this car isn't for you.

Insane price

[evilviper]

So much for it being affordable...

$49,000 USD AFTER deducting the $7,500 federal tax credit.

Re:Insane price

[selven]

They aren't an established company like GM or Ford, it makes sense for them to start out with high-end customized vehicles, grow large on that, and then slowly descend into the mass market as economies of scale start to kick in. There's no other good business model that does not require eight digits of initial capital.

Re:Insane price

[Rei]

It's important to note where the cash burn came from. Initially Tesla was looking at a car that'd only cost $60k to build; they discovered, through an audit partway through development, that it actually cost over $120k to build. They jacked up the price to $109k and have been optimizing it for a while, and finally have it down to where they make about $10k per Roadster -- not a lot for a car that expensive, but not pocket change either. At the same time, as a company, they're still losing money, as they're pumping a lot into Model S development. But they got the loan because they met the DOE's requirement to have a profitable core business (in this case, the Roadster).

Re:Insane price

[ScentCone]

$49,000 USD AFTER deducting the $7,500 federal tax credit.

What you really mean is: after the $7,500 more in taxes that other people, who can't afford this car, will be paying on behalf of the person who can afford it. That's nice. So progressive.

Re:Insane price

[ScentCone]

I suppose next you'll come up with some crazy talk about getting rid of tax deductions for buying gigantic houses.

Actually, it's the tax break for borrowing money to buy a house that we're really talking about here. And yes, it bugs the hell out of me. Local jurisdictions might want to provide some sort of financial incentive for people to buy property in their area (and some do - with the provision that the buyer occupy the house personall for some period of time), but forcing a taxpayer renting an apartment in Wyoming to help a guy in New Jersey buy a house is ... wrong.

Anyone know the economics on these?

[nine-times]

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?

Re:Anyone know the economics on these?

[polymeris]

It actually does say: They claim capacity 300 miles, $4 a recharge. Thats 1.35 cent a mile.

Re:Anyone know the economics on these?

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Purely on economics, the Fit hybrid or any economy-oriented turbodiesel car will beat out the Tesla Model S, no doubt about it.

But none of those are capable of doing 0-60 in under 6 seconds. The Model S is a luxury sedan meant to compete with the offerings from BMW, Mercedes, Jaguar etc., not with econoboxes.

Your $10,000 vehicle conversion will be nowhere near the same quality nor performance as a Model S, you're being silly.

Re:Anyone know the economics on these?

[Sj0]

I used an electric bike a couple years ago that wasn't high tech in any sense of the word. The batteries were basically UPS batteries in expensive casings. Besides that, the electric parts were basically grafted onto a conventional bike chassis. It reached residental street speeds and did so for distances far longer than I could pedal. The bike cost about $500 CDN.

I think we're trying to solve the wrong problem. We're trying to reinvent the car as a car, when we need to re-invent our concept of a vehicle altogether.

I imagine a good electric vehicle being had for less than 2000 dollars, and being a 3-wheel, 2 seater with a lightweight basket capable of carrying a couple bags of groceries. It would have to be weather-proof, but that could (and should) be accomplished using something cheap and effective like tarp and plexi-glass and aluminium. It'd have a small enough footprint to use bike paths and to store like a bicycle, a long enough distance to use as a commuter(at least 100km on a charge), high enough speeds to use residental streets, and low enough cost that people like me don't need to point out it's uneconomical to own. Such a vehicle would require a fraction of the energy to move, it would require a fraction of the materials to build, and overall could actually be a practical solution that doesn't need a technological deus ex machina to happen.

The tesla motors paradigm is still too inside the box. They're trying to make an electric car in a world where electric cars aren't useful. We need to think outside the box, to what we actually want, so we can escape the limitations of the automobile.

Re:Anyone know the economics on these?

[Al Dimond]

How do you plan to build a three-wheeled vehicle narrow enough to used bike paths and store like a bicycle? Obviously the seating arrangement can't be side-by-side... but I think once you want a third wheel, second seat, and shelter from the elements you're talking about a vehicle that's just too wide and cumbersome to steer to go on a bike path. Bike paths are bad enough when used by the very narrow and nimble vehicles they're intended for; these would be worse than rollerbladers and recomb bikers put together.

Bike paths aren't really a good design target anyway. There aren't that many of them compared to roads, and they're mostly very poorly designed for efficient and safe riding (much less driving!). Instead think about roads. In many places you're going to need to get it out on major roads to get where you're going, which means it either needs to be fast enough to keep up with traffic or narrow enough to be passed. At least until it takes over the world and transportation laws and infrastructure are reformed to fit its requirements.

Ultimately you're basically looking at a motorcycle. Many of them have two seats and luggage space, and if you're wearing the proper clothing for safety you're protected from the elements. Or just pedaling an old-fashioned bike.

Re:Anyone know the economics on these?

[drinkypoo]

My point is that this thing has way, way too much acceleration and that as a result, there are gasoline cars that come close to it in terms of ongoing operating costs. The whole point of going electric is to lower your costs,

Stop. Right. There.

This car has superior performance to any other car in its class, period.

and if it isn't doing that, why not buy a luxury gas-powered car? Give me 0-60 in 7-8 seconds and that's plenty.

Says you.

The performance level of this vehicle is important to get the early adopters necessary to make it credible. It's also necessary to justify the price on an unproven technology (electric cars are known to work, but this package is so far untested.)

The NEXT vehicle is intended to be a basic sedan with ordinary performance and much more range. This has always been part of the Tesla Motors game plan, so if you are actually interested in this subject you have zero excuse for not knowing this.

You prob want a rest after 300 miles

[Alain Williams]

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.

Re:You prob want a rest after 300 miles

[0100010001010011]

It's not for me. 4 hours is nothing in the midwest. I currently live 5 hours from my parents house. When we drove to NYC last year it took 12. 15-20 minutes max for a break, otherwise your journey takes for ever.

I'll stick to my Diesel Jetta which can run on Diesel, Biodiesel created from waste oil, crushed soybeans, algae, liquefied natural gas (GTL), or liquefied coal gas (GTL), any one of a number of renewable resources. If I stretch it I can get 800 to a TANK and still refill in 5-10 minutes.

Re:You prob want a rest after 300 miles

[YesIAmAScript]

The battery pack you get for $57.4K (the cheapest model) is a 160 mile pack, not a 300 mile pack.

And you aren't going to be able to fully charge it in 45 minutes. LIons just won't stand for it. You should be able to put 85% of the charge in in 45 minutes, but since it such rapid charging reduces the lifespan of the battery, Tesla doesn't recommend you charge it in 45 minutes (at least they don't recommend it for the Roadster, this has a similar pack so I presume this is the same).

Acceptable range is kind of a tricky idea, if you had a charger everywhere, then this might be okay. But instead, you are likely to drive to your range and find there is no place to charge it at your stopover or destination.

Here's an example of how the difficulties in recharging an electric car makes it less useful than a gas car.

http://www.teslamotors.com/blog5/?p=68

This guy took a 40 hour trip and spent 8 hours of it waiting for his car to charge. 4 hours walking (twice) around an RV park waiting for his car to charge to 88%.

Re:You prob want a rest after 300 miles

[nine-times]

It's not for me. 4 hours is nothing in the midwest. I currently live 5 hours from my parents house. When we drove to NYC last year it took 12. 15-20 minutes max for a break, otherwise your journey takes for ever.

Still, that's not too typical for most people's day-to-day routine. And like the previous poster said, I would expect that most people can live with a 45 minute break every 4 hours on long car trips. You stretch your legs and maybe get something to eat, and then you're ready to go.

Actually, the funny thing in my mind is that, given your examples, I would probably be much more frustrated with the 5 hour trip than the 12 hour trip. If you're already taking a 12 hour trip, adding an extra hour or two of rest time doesn't seem that extreme to me. Hell, you might even think of it as a safety feature to help prevent road-hypnosis.

But imagine your battery lasts for 300 miles and you regularly make a trip that's 320 miles long. To have to stop 20 miles short of your destination and recharge for 45 minutes then would be pretty annoying. On the other hand, I would suppose you could just charge for 10 minutes and keep going. If it's like most batteries, it recharges most of the way pretty quickly, and then takes a long time to get that last 10% of charge.

Re:You prob want a rest after 300 miles

[RightwingNutjob]

What people don't get is that the point of liquid gasoline or CNG or LNG or whatever is that it takes 5 minutes at most to fill up and off you go. That and range are the two criteria that make electric cars unacceptable to Joe Sixpack at the moment. If you can make an electric car that gets 300 miles per charge and charges up in 5 minutes, then you've got a competitor (except for the problem of not being able to hitchhike down the road to bring back a can of gas in an emergency). Until you bring those two parameters down to the convenience of the gas powered car, the electric vehicle will be confined to things like taxis and delivery vehicles with well-defined operating modes. Normal people aren't going to buy a vehicle that lets them do less than a normal gas-powered car.

Re:You prob want a rest after 300 miles

[YesIAmAScript]

Oh, now I'm going to rent a car? So now I don't need a rest?

People are ready to make all kinds of excuses as to why short range cars are okay. Many of them are even accurate. The problem is that consumers don't seem to agree with the arguments. People are using to paying a little and getting more car than they need. Getting them to warm up to the idea of paying a lot and getting less car than they need is going to take a lot f convincing.

In the mean time, turns out 300 miles is not sufficient range, which is the point I refuted.

I think it's hilarious you would just tell someone they have to spend more than 20% of their trip (25% if you subtract out the 8 hours sleeping) waiting for their car to charge. And they should be thankful for it.

I mean, if I wanted to spend 8 hours walking around an RV park, I can do that on a trip I take with my gas car. So there's no advantage to being forced to do it.

This guy took a trip where he never went over 80% of rated range of his car in a day and he still felt he had to stop to recharge it during the day 3 times in two days! If nothing else, range anxiety is a huge issue.

Re:You prob want a rest after 300 miles

[Solandri]

Still, that's [a 5-12 hour drive] not too typical for most people's day-to-day routine.

The thing is, unless they're rich, people don't buy a car based on their day-to-day routine. They buy a car based on how well it can handle all their driving needs. If a car that suits their day-to-day driving needs can't handle an annual 12 hour drive to grandma's for Thanksgiving, they're not going to buy a second car just for that one trip. They're going to eliminate the electric from consideration and buy one car that can handle both needs.

I've proposed that people rent a car for their once-a-year trips, and the common reply is that it'd be a "waste of money" when you "already own a car." Not to mention rental cars would be in short supply with jacked up prices around holidays like Thanksgiving. The fiscal benefit of an electric car for day-to-day travel would have to outweigh the cost of renting for that once-a-year trip. A decent rail system would also fill this need for intermediate trip lengths, but alas the U.S. has sacrificed its rail system for freeways. Plug-in hybrids are also a good solution, since they can fill up at a gas station if need be. But then you're carrying around all that weight of an ICU which is only used a few times a year.

Re:You prob want a rest after 300 miles

[nine-times]

If a car that suits their day-to-day driving needs can't handle an annual 12 hour drive to grandma's for Thanksgiving, they're not going to buy a second car just for that one trip.

But:

1. They might decide to fly or take a train.
2. They could rent a car for that once-a-year trip.
3. It can handle a 12 hour trip. You'll just have to take a few 45 minute breaks along the way.
4. If you're really that strapped for cash, you're not going to spend $50k on a car anyway.

People's needs are really more fluid than they like to admit. I don't think a 45 minute break every 4 hours is going to be a deal breaker for most people. If it is, it might be more psychological than based on real need. There may be some people who really drive around all day and need a better distance per charge ratio, just like there are people who genuinely need a pickup truck, but it's really not that common.

Re:You prob want a rest after 300 miles

[Rei]

Exactly! Earlier this year, I needed a cargo van to move a furnace up from Missouri. So I rented one. I need a cargo van about once every year. Does that mean I should buy a cargo van, make it my daily commuter? Nobody would ever suggest that. But then they apply that exact same logic to EVs.

Personally, in terms of range extension, I'm fond of towable generators. Range-extended when you need it, and not when you don't. And it'd be so trivial to set up a genset rental shop once such vehicles are on the market in any relevant numbers. Compared to what they have versus what a rental car has, I imagine it'd cost about $15-$20 a day.

Re:You prob want a rest after 300 miles

[ucblockhead]

It'd work best as a second car in a two car family. Neither my wife or I even remotely get close to 100 miles in a day. We only go longer on vacations, in which case we'd be together.

So yeah...I'd buy one of these and use my wife's gas powered car for long trips.

I'm not sure you can say "consumers don't agree" because consumers haven't really had the opportunity to buy an electric car that performed like a gas one, even ignoring range.

Re:You prob want a rest after 300 miles

[nine-times]

Turning my 8 hour trip into an 11 hour trip is a big deal.

First, it wouldn't turn your 8 hour trip into an 11 hour trip. If the Tesla car only needs to be charged every 4 hours, then you only have to stop once to recharge to go 8 hours. So that's 8:45. Plus, there's a good chance your 8-hour trip already includes one stop or more for gas, a couple bathroom breaks, and a stop for a snack, so you extend any one of those stops by a few minutes and charge your car a little more, and you're not necessarily losing much time at all.

But anyway, adding an hour or two to an 8 hour trip really isn't that big a deal. Quit your whining. Go back in time 100 years, and that 8 hour trip would have taken a week, and the world didn't stop spinning. Yeah, sometimes creating a better world requires accepting some mild inconveniences. If you really can't handle an extra 45 minutes on an 8 hour trip, then fly.

Re:You prob want a rest after 300 miles

[hattig]

8 hours is what? 500 miles? This vehicle has a range of 300, so you'd only need a single recharge en-route, and there's no way any responsible person would drive 8 hours straight without at least 2 breaks for toilet, food and refueling anyway, so I really do doubt that you would extend your journey that much. There's really no need to exaggerate the effect to ridiculous levels (11 hours indeed!) because it ruins any argument you might have had.

In addition it is likely that petrol stations will introduce fast charge stations for electric cars as they get more popular. OTOH I'm sure the price per unit would be a lot higher than it is for home supplies. Drive into the service station, drop $5 into the machine and plug it up, then pop in for a coffee, sammich and piss, and come out rested later and the car's ready to go.

If you live in hogbutt creek, middle of fuckallnowhere, then maybe an electric car won't become an option for ten to twenty years, but that's an entirely different issue.

Re:How about better range?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Instead of wasting energy making it accelerate unnecessarily quickly, how about giving it a usefully long range

Why would you assume they can trade battery life for low end torque? One property of electrical engines is they allow for faster acceleration on the low end. It's not like they can somehow get rid of this acceleration while still having an electrical motor with the same top speed and I don't see how they can get more battery life out of the same either.

Re:How about better range?

[Anonymous Coward]

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".

Re:How about better range?

[John Hasler]

> Instead of wasting energy making it accelerate unnecessarily quickly, how about giving
> it a usefully long range?

This is electric, not gas. That isn't a tradeoff. Any electric motor capable of acceptable performance at highway speeds will accelerate very well: it's the way electric motors are. If you put in a feeble motor barely able to go 65mph on the level you would only gain a little range, and nobody would buy it. And it could still lay rubber.

Europe

[fenring]

$50.000 ~ 35.000 euros Tesla model S looks like a luxury sedan. The same money would buy you a low end Mercedes or BMW in Europe, but with nowhere near the performance of 0-60mph in 5 seconds. For that kind of performance you would probably have to go with a turbo-charged compact, but the fuel economy is gone and you won't have the same interior space. If the numbers they advertise are true, it's quite a cheap car to buy, all things considered.

Re:Europe

[Plutonite]

Can you guys quit the high-fiving and general atmosphere of butt-massage therapy so we can get back to businness and have a decent f*cking flamewar? What the hell are you people doing on slashdot? Were you not told it was mean to ruin the fun for everyone else? Jesus H Christ in a Tesla. We're trrying to have a having automobile piss contest here. WTF?

And happy independence day, doo-doo heads.

Re:Europe

[__aasqbs9791]

Can someone just put this into a car analogy for me? I'm not really sure what this Model S is supposed to do. What is it used for?

Re:Europe

[ptudor]

Wow, you get it. The people that think the sedan model is expensive aren't the market for a 5-series or M-class car from BMW either. And those who call the Aptera expensive at $25k-$30k probably wouldn't have chosen the GTI that I did either. But when I or any other consumer am already willing to spend that amount, and one considers the Free Fuel (at a penny a mile, close enough) and the money you don't have to spend on oil ($10/quart or so for Syntec) and the absence of those damn O2 sensors that fail... I look forward to the day Tesla purchases GM as a proper memorial to the EV1.

Re:Europe

[bakes]

It's like a car.

Re:Europe

[feepness]

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.

Re:Europe

[feepness]

I assume it would be charged overnight at my house. In the six years I've had my current car I've driven it further than 200 miles from my house exactly once. I don't even get to 100 miles in a day really.

For electricity, I am looking at installing solar as I live in Southern California and it's break even in about eight years. Add this in and it's a no-brainer.

As far as maintenance issues, I didn't calculate any major maintenance costs for either this or internal combustion as I specifically stated: "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." The Tesla website says every 12 months or 12K miles.

Battery life is definitely something to consider, and if it can't maintain 50% after ten years (I really could care less whether it's 300 miles or 150 personally.) then that cost would have to be figured in. From what I've read though, that shouldn't be an issue. You lose 20-30% in five years and then it begins degrading much slower.

So yeah, overall, $40K - $16.5K = $23.5K is very doable for me and not in the toy realm at all. My last car was $17K used and my wife's car was $12K (bought this year during the automotive crash). The utility of next to no service or fillups and silent operation is worth at least $3K over the life of the car so that puts it at around $20K for me. That is far from the realm of "rich person's toy".

Re:Lithium Ion battery safety?

[RightwingNutjob]

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 says 80% charge in under 10 minutes.

[YesIAmAScript]

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.

Re:Lithium Ion battery safety?

[Anonymous Coward]

Imported oil is consumed by driving... maybe at an average rate on about one tank full of gasoline per week.

Imported lithium for replacement electric batteries will be consumed at maybe an average rate of one battery pack replacement per 10 years, with probably some recycling ability of the lithium from a used battery pack.

I think we are talking about drastically different scales of foreign import dependence.

Re:7 People? NOT!

[Kufat]

I believe the two child seats fold out into the trunk area...the rear-facing kids' bench used to be common on station wagons, but it is quite unusual for a large sedan. Interior pictures would be nice.

Re:Memory Effect

[Zantetsuken]

You seem to be missing the entire point - the Rapide is gas, Tesla's are all electric and still get great performance/torque/etc

Wikipedia: The Roadster's 0-60 mph (0-97 km/h) acceleration time is 3.9 seconds for the Standard Model and 3.7 seconds for the 2009 Sport Model.
Aston Martin Rapdide: 0-100 km/h (0-60 mph): 4.7 seconds
Model S: 0-60 mph in 5.6 seconds
Nissan Sentra (2007+): 6.4 seconds. (for comparison)

So the Tesla Roadster actually has better acceleration than the Rapide, and considering Wikipedia quotes the Rapide at $240k USD compared to the $110~120k USD for the 2009 Roadster, I'd say the roadster wins on bang for buck there. The Model S in tfa is set to cost ~$49k USD and is still one helluva luxury car. And more than just the initial price, the Model S (supposedly according to Tesla marketing anyway) will cost only $4 dollars to fully recharge from empty.

I could probably rant all day, but the point is, the offerings from Tesla Motors puts an electric car with performance as high as the gas equivalent in the price range of mere mortals and doesn't require you to be an Apple stock millionaire or sell your ocean front property just to buy the damned car...

Re:Right-hand drive?

[asquithea]

Not true. An imported car must be registered with the DVLA, and must meet certain standards. LHD cars are perfectly legal, and relatively common -- especially with sought-after vehicles, such as the early Smarts.

See: http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Motoring/BuyingAndSellingAVehicle/ImportingAndExportingAVehicle/DG_4022583

Re:Lithium Ion battery safety?

[Cyberax]

STOP THAT NONSENSE! Lithium is CHEAP. You can extract it from the saltwater for $50-70 per kg. if all else fails, but right now it's just easier to buy it for $20 per kg. in Bolivia.

Lithium so far is SO CHEAP that it makes no sense to make geological surveys specially for it.

Also, it's almost perfectly recyclable.

Tesla Roadster test drive report

[thrillseeker]

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

Re:Top Gear found...

[wildsurf]

Top Gear is full of it. I own a Tesla Roadster and regularly get 180-200 mile range with ordinary driving, and the car recharges empty to full in 3.5 hours on the fast charger.

Re:More affordable alternatives

[socsoc]

If the Volt ever makes it to market with the bankruptcy. They claim to still have it lined up, but we'll see...

Re:Right-hand drive?

[cbhacking]

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.

Re:Lithium Ion battery safety?

[knappe duivel]

I don't know. Plants seem to be pretty damn efficient at recycling CO2.

So stop eating them, you insensitive clod

Re:Circus car?

[Rei]

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.

Re:Lithium Ion battery safety?

[Rei]

Lithium scarcity is one of those myths that just won't die. It's based on a few misguided notions: 1) that lithium makes up most of a lithium-ion battery (it doesn't); 2) it's its most expensive element in a lithium-ion battery (it isn't); and 3) a gross misunderstanding of how reserve figures work.

In reference to the latter case, everyone needs to get in their heads that reserve figures are based on A) what's been found, at B) the current price, and C) current technology. In reference to lithium, A) people haven't really been looking for it because it's so cheap; B) it's dirt cheap; and C) the tech to produce it cheaper hasn't really been needed so it hasn't been worked on.

Even with current tech, a figure of li-ion EVs could easily be sustained through seawater extraction indefinitely. Isn't that the beginning and end of the issue right there?

Re:Top Gear found...

[Spatial]

Hello? Top Gear is for entertainment not facts. They lied for laughs.

Re:Memory Effect

[anagama]

I wonder how much extra it will cost to have the blue LEDs stripped off the outside, the blue lights removed from the inside and replaced with dull red (because I like to be able to see at night), and the 17" touchscreen ripped out and replaced with knobs and dials you can operate by feel rather than sight (because looking at the road is good)?

Re:Insane price... For taxis a no brainer.

[ScentCone]

A relative of mine puts 100,0000 miles on a car in a year. That's a lot of fuel.

And it's still going to be a lot of fuel, burned somewhere else to make this car's electricity. We need nukes, since the wind and solar things will never put a dent in a massive shift to cars like this.

Re:More affordable alternatives

[Overzeetop]

I don't know, the aptera seats 2 (3 if one is an infant), goes 120miles on a charge and runs 30k for the electric model. The model S seats 5 (7 if you put two dead 10 year olds in the trunk), has a 300 mile range, and runs $60k. If you had to take 4 people on trips regularly, the model S is a better deal. It's also more likely to be accepted at you local country club, where people tend to have 30k+ to drop on a second car.

The Volt is dead on arrival, imho, as a real "alternative" vehicle. 40 miles on a charge? You'd think they could do better than Elon's hobby business.

Reality check can't be cashed

[goombah99]

notice the 45 minute quick charge.

I don't think it's possible that you could get 300 miles on a 45 minute charge off of a regular household power line.

my estimate:

to push a honda accord shaped object at 55 mph through the air takes over 30KW of energy. that would take 5.4 hours. to to recharge that would take 220 KW of power assuming no conversion loss.

if you used a 220 volt line that would be 1000 amps for 45 minutes. There's no way they would use a 480 volt line since those are catastrophically unsafe for consumers.

I don't have a 1000 amp service at my house!

So I don't think the 45 minute quick charge can be used int he same sentence as the 300 miles. But if its some lesser milage then the whole 45 minute statment seems weirdly arbitrary. Why not say it has a 5 minute quick charge?

Since the tesla folks are not stupid and have delivered in the past, I'm perplexed what is going on. Are there going to be special kilo amp charging stations. or did I bork my own math?

Re:Reality check can't be cashed

[TrekkieGod]

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?

Or, much more logically, will we see people using their electric cars for the daily everyday travel and simply use other options for long-range travel? I don't get the emphasis people are placing on these over 200 miles trips. How often do you drive that much? If the answer is 2 or 3 times a year, then the electric car should suit you just fine the vast majority of the time. If the answer is, "very often" then the electric car isn't for you, but it still is perfect for 99.5% of the driving population. It's not like gas cars are going to disappear overnight because kickass electric cars are finally here.

Re:Reality check can't be cashed

[goombah99]

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.

Re:Reality check can't be cashed

[Toonol]

That's not how people weigh choices. They will wonder "Will I ever need to travel more than 200 miles? Yes? Ok, that rules out the Tesla."

That would basically be my thought process. Unless there is some huge benefit to driving a Tesla, it would simply not even be worth considering; if I bought one, I would then have to turn around and buy a second 'real' car.

Re:Reality check can't be cashed

[TrekkieGod]

That's not how people weigh choices. They will wonder "Will I ever need to travel more than 200 miles? Yes? Ok, that rules out the Tesla." That would basically be my thought process. Unless there is some huge benefit to driving a Tesla, it would simply not even be worth considering; if I bought one, I would then have to turn around and buy a second 'real' car.

It's your money, and you can use whatever thought process you want as to how to spend it, but that doesn't make it logical. If you only need to make a few over 200 mile trips a year, the money you'll save on gas will pay for the car rental. So the only thing that makes sense to ask is, "is this a better car for the majority of my driving needs and is there an alternative I can easily take for those exceptions where this car just isn't suitable?"

For me, the answer is yes on both counts. The only thing preventing me from buying the car is that I'm not in the market for a new car, much less a $50,000 one. The range isn't an issue at all.

Re:Reality check can't be cashed

[hattig]

I think that Tesla would be far better off selling this in Europe than the USA first, simply due to the range limitation not being a massive issue here.

For example, you're meant to stop every two hours for a break, definitely every three hours. That's about 150 - 220 miles driving distance. A quick ten minute recharge is therefore quite viable, as long as petrol stations could create enough recharging bays (effectively a large amount of the service station car park would have powered bays, in the long run, you drop in a few coins and get charged for the next 200 miles). In the UK service stations are every 20 to 50 miles, and most cities are well within 300 miles of each other.

I'd also like to see how they safely fit SEVEN people in that car.

Also a small house in the UK is £150k, and this car is around £40k, so that's quite a difference compared to your analogy.

On the other hand the cost savings from operating an electric car would have to be vast to make up for a car that costs double an equivalent petrol car, and has the downside of no existing recharging infrastructure (is there even a standard recharge socket design yet?).

Re:Reality check can't be cashed

[bogjobber]

You and a lot of slashdot, maybe. But rule #1 about marketing is that most people don't behave rationally, particularly with something like a car. Just look at SUV's. Most people that buy (bought?) them are actually experiencing a downgrade in functionality and an increase in price, but they do it anyway. People often buy cars that perform poorly or are functionally crippled for what they need just because of some strange perception of what the car *represents*.

Re:Reality check can't be cashed

[brasselv]

Which is precisely why Tesla is doing a good job in making these toys cool.

Re:Lithium Ion battery safety?

[rdoger6424]

The last time I saw a major Bolivian export being priced on a per-kilogram basis, I had the DEA on my tail!

Re:Quick battery change stations

[goombah99]

so if you drive a car for 5 hours at 30KW then want to recharge it in 10 minutes that means you need 900KW of power. it also means the wires in the car need to be able to handle 30 times the typical driving load.

if the connector was a 208V connector then that's about 4000 DC amps for ten minutes.

you'll be able to degauss your hard drive while you wait!

Calculations??

[spineboy]

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.

Re:what will happen in a storm flood?

[cheros]

what happens if you try to drive it through two or three feet of water

You generate energy for other cars by producing oxygen and hydrogen. No problem :-)

Re:Quick battery change stations

[miro f]

the electric car is not for you, get over it.

there are plenty of people like me who barely ever travel more than 100km in a day and for us an electric car is perfect. No one is trying to sell one to you. Go and troll some other article.

Re:They Call THAT Affordable?!?

[ceoyoyo]

I hate to tell you, but we also produce a goodly chunk of the world's food and lumber.

The reason the houses are so far apart is because there's rather a lot of land in between that either grows trees or food.

Re:Quick battery change stations

[tompaulco]

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.