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Tesla Roadster Breaks Distance Record For Electric Car
An anonymous reader writes "The CEO of an Australian ISP has driven his Tesla Roadster into the record books, completing 501km on a single electric charge in the 2009 Global Green Challenge — beating the Roadster's official specifications, which rate the all-electric sports car as being capable of a maximum of 390km per charge. The previous record was held by another Roadster in the 387km Rallye Monte Carlo d'Energies Alternatives in April this year. In a race specifically designed for alternative energy vehicles (such as hydrogen and electricity), the Roadster was the only vehicle to complete the entire course. Though to be fair, that race course was a mixture of twists, turns and hills."
To be fair, these cars were expected to turn, and go up and down hills. Something no mere mortal car would dare perform...
I only wish I could afford one.
Caffeine is my anti-drug!
Duranin - A NWN2 Roleplaying Persistent World
Though to be fair, that race course was a mixture of twists, turns and hills
So what? You say that like they SHOULDN'T be required to handle it. Who wants a car that can't handle turns or climb hills?
What the summary fails to mention is also that the average speed was at about 55 km/h, which is pretty decent...
Regards, Boyan
I'm sure at least *one* of the four people still holding a job might be able to afford one.
313 miles is almost exactly the range of my '99 Subaru Outback Legacy (15-gallon tank), which is worth about $2500 now. Except I can easily refuel that and keep going. The trip to my folks' house is 365 miles.
I had assumed that with all the talk of new technology Tesla was going to be comparable with the hybrids. This article helps re-adjust my expectations, but it also gives me hope that by time they're generally affordable the range will be there too.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
501km = 311 miles, about the range most gasoline vehicles get on a tank of gas. If it was affordable, this would definitely make a viable replacement for a petroleum fueled vehicle. Now, if we could just do something about the cost of the batteries so that average people could buy one...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Though to be fair, that race course was a mixture of twists, turns and hills.
To be fair, normal roads are a mixture of twists, turns and hills.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. -Aldous Huxley
Not the CEO.
Lindsey D. if your reading this I need you to get back to work on those TPS reports.
The tesla has hundreds of laptop batteries in it, each with the energy of a hand grenade. What if something goes wrong...?
No sig today...
Yes, there are zero emissions from the tailpipe, but the electricity has to come from somewhere. Hydro, solar, wind are all very small percentages of the total electricity generating solutions. The majority of electricity comes from 'dirty' sources, such as coal, oil and nuclear. All thats happening is the carbon output of transportation is being shifted from the consumer to the manufacturer.
And even if we DO get a much larger percentage of clean energy sources, we still have to consider the massive costs that will be needed to upgrade the aging energy grid to be able to support the huge draw that electric cars will demand. Even a few million electric cars in the US will put a huge strain on the grid.
Finally, how good are the batteries for the enviornment? Can they be recycled cleanly? And how often do they need to be replaced? After a few months of steady use?
They need high performance super capacitors to be practical. Sure you may be able to go 313 miles on a charge, but it's a 12 hour layover while your car batteries recharge.
Caps recharge in a matter of minutes... almost like a traditional gas n' go.
And they last a lot longer with less environmental headaches for disposal.
So what's your solution? Extinction?
Yes they are. Even the most inefficient plants are still vastly more efficient than a car's engine, with transmission losses accounted for.
Batteries are very recyclable, and are designed to last the life of the car.
Even if there was 0% coming from clean power, the efficiency rate of electric cars is such that fewer emissions are put out per mile from a coal power plant fueled electric car than a gas burning regular car. The sad fact is that gasoline combustion engines are not very efficient with their fuel, whereas electric are much more so.
Also, do you just think that suddenly in 1 year everyone will just be driving electrics with no chance for the grid to adapt? It is these "lets take todays infrastructure and apply some hypothetical load to it" guesses that just drive me nuts. As people switch to electric, obviously the grid will be expanded to handle the new load.
The statistic was that even after manufacturing costs and other hidden energy consumption... the electric car is still less of an enviromental impact. the dirty energy you speak of is still cleaner than even the most finely tuned fossil fuel engine. The net effect over the life of the car is a decrease in pollution.
"Infecting minds with my own memetic virus, one post at a time." Ultimape
Is a single-seater motorbike not a viable form of transportation, then? How about a $100k truck? Your "viable" is not the same as everyone else's.
The metric system is the tool of the devil! My EV gets 40 rods to the... damn, I don't know enough about how energy is measured to finish the joke.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Batteries are very recyclable, and are designed to last the life of the car.
So, the car is only expected to last 7 years or 100,000 miles?
All downhill?
You are right ... screw improvements until we can find perfection!
'dirty' sources, such as coal, oil and nuclear.
These sources aren't dirty (especially nuclear), they just aren't quickly renewable.
When i drive an electric car, i love to get electric blow jobs.
"Yes, there are zero emissions from the tailpipe, but the electricity has to come from somewhere."
True.
But even if the volts are coming from coal, it's coal burning happening in one place where it would/should be easier to capture. Instead of burning gas all over the place where it might be hard to capture.
i wish we weren't so afraid of the n word. Not *that* n word, the other.
i've been saying for a long time that there won't be a silver bullet for energy. i'd like to see more efficient cars, more hybrids, some fuel cell cars, some pneumatic, more nuclear power, more geo, more this more that. Use as many sources as possible as efficiently as possible. And build worthwhile public transport.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
That must be the same route I used to walk to school.
Only in reverse.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Solar_Challenge
Stories like this will (soon) be as quaint as the circa 1909 stories about flivvers racing from Dover to Calais. Will it be Zn-air batteries or fuel cells or next-gen Li ion ... ?
Obi-Wan: "I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were sudden
According to a report from the U.S. Department of Energy, off-peak capacity of the grid could satisfy the charging needs of a car fleet that is more than 70 percent plug-in hybrids. So what is this "massive costs needed to upgrade the aginging energy grid" you speak of?
Viable? Definitely. Practical, probably not. but any work that can be done in this arena can funnel down to the practical cars in the future. Just like the people that bought DVD players for $1k when they came out. They caught on, were mass produced, simplified, and came down in price.
I know if I was rich, I'd get one. ('cause not being rich means my wife wouldn't quite go along with that purchase)
-=JML=-
... because the lightweight frame will fold like a piece of tissue.
Which is why I won't buy one of these things until the frame is a carbon fiber composite stronger than steel or titanium. Expensive. In the meantime, I plan to continue to drive a gas guzzling heavy framed car that keeps me safe from the dimwitted morons on the road.
Yours truly, Mr. Cold-Water-Of-Reality-Man
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Hold on. Where do you get your statistics, sir? How can you assume the majority of electricity comes from coal, oil and nuclear?
Oh yeah, the USA is everybody! I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but there are many countries where greener sources are the main source of energy. Around here, over 90% of our electricity comes from dams. In France, around 75% of the electricity comes from nuclear powerplants with 16% from hydroelectricity (meaning around 90% comes from much cleaner sources than coal and oil). I'm sure there are many other cases where this also holds true.
Point is, it's not because the US is using antiquated, pollution-heavy sources of energy that everyone on the damn planet is. Neither does it mean the US can't change. All it does is eliminate one hurdle to a cleaner future: now we only have to fix powerplants and cars will be fixed at the same time. I call that a great improvement.
And before anyone asks, nuclear is cleaner than coal and oil by miles. There is waste, but it's ridiculously smaller than the impact oil/coal have.
I have two motorcycles and riding is fun, but 90% of the time I can't use them. Either the weather is bad or I have something or someone to carry. Savings on gas is irrelevant given how expensive tires are. Wife's Prius is cheaper to run than the bikes. If you want to save money you have to go for a scooter. The Tesla is so expensive it makes my MINI look practical. The electrical engineer in me cringes at the thought of 7000 Li-Ion batteries (for reliability reasons).
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
A) If a trial (IMHO, this isn't a race) doesn't include twisty turny roads it's pointless. B) 300 miles is nothing. I'll regularly drive 700 miles a day and it takes about 10 minutes to refill my tank, empty my other tank and get back on the road. Until THAT problem is solved, don't bore me with this stuff.
but something with 7000 batteries that cost $100k and can only hold two people is just not viable transportation. Nice toy-not a real vehicle.
Which of the three make it not not viable transportation or a real vehicle? The fact that it has 7000 batteries should not factor in at all. Would you feel better if it was just one big battery of equivalent size? As for the $100k and 2 person point, most sports cars over $100k are only 2 person cars. So, are they also not real vehicles. For you they might not be feasible but for someone that does not have kids, has a relatively short commute, and can afford it, it is viable transportation and I bet a lot of fun.
When most new technologies are released, they are usually priced where the average person can not afford it. But over time either the price will come down or newer cheaper versions are build. Look at the cost of the first Plasma TVs that came out, they were around $10k to $15K. Enough people bought them at that price that the price started dropping and other vendors started producing cheaper and better quality TVs. The same happened with PCs, Gaming consoles, DVD players, Blue-Ray, and the list goes on. The same thing will happen here. Tesla is already working on a new model (http://www.teslamotors.com/models/index.php) that is cheaper ($50K), has better range and can hold more than 2 people.
Actually it seems the event mentioned was more of a test how the cars would perform under normal driving conditions than a race. I invite any and all readers to watch the documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car". There are several web site where you can watch this interesting video, it can be rented from NEtflix, and it is available for sale online.
The documentary details how the very successful GM EV1 electric car (and others) were killed by the automotive industry and the oil industry. I truly believe that if sales and research and development of electric cars had continued, today we would have practical and affordable electric cars available to pretty much everyone. If you watch the video, pay particular attention to the fact that Chevron now owns (and is sitting on) the patent to the highly efficient NiMH batteries that were used in some electric cars at that time According to the statement of a Chevron employee, Chevron is determined never to let these highly efficient batteries power any electric car again.
Just another case of the patent system being abused to the detriment of of consumers.
Does a car have to be nuclear to get people excited around here? I'm not even hearing any new arguments. Until it can be instantly recharged and cost less than an average car few people are interested and most are outright hostile? If any one is interested check out "Who Killed The Electric Car". Every person that got their hands on one loved it and they did no more than 50 miles per charge, the Tesla can do around 240 with normal driving. The real joke is what they seemed to like most WAS the convenience. They loved the fact you didn't have to stop by a gas station just plug it in when you got home.
"Gee they are only for the rich." Well I've got a shocker for you when calculators first came out they were large and cost around $400, more like a $1000 in adjusted dollars. Also all they did was basic math. Within ten years they were under $10 and you could soon after that find them built into pens. You won't find that radical a change with batteries but they will come down. I'm more concerned with the weight since that is hurting performance. The battery weight is all that is keeping a Tesla from blowing away a $200,000 sports car. Basically they have the potential to blow away a car twice the price and can already do it in the straightway. Just imagine the weight cut in half and the mileage doubled?
"But once a year we drive to Grandma's house". Man am I tired of that argument. How many drivers drive more than 200 miles a day? Damn few. Here's a shocker, how many people that could aford an electric car are single car families? Near zero. Point being if the thought of not being able to take a long drive makes you hyperventilate then make one car gasoline or hybrid.
Christ I've even seen blind people complain because of the LACK of noise. They do make sound just not as obnoxious as cars and trucks do. Picture this, once the prices start to match regular cars you can fill up for a $1 to $3. And it's a myth that we'll each have to have our own nuclear plant. The average house could charge one daily just by switching their existing bulbs to compact florescents. Once LEDs get as cheap the savings would be enough to charge two cars. We won't have to build a single coal plant and if you just took the gas savings and put solar panels on the roof then there would be no increase you'd actually drive for free once the panels were paid off.
Last century saw the end of horse drawn carriages let's make this the century we get rid of gas guzzlers. They are starting to look as primitive as carriages.
The majority of electricity comes from 'dirty' sources, such as coal, oil and nuclear.
Well, it seems like in this case, it's coming from a giant diesel gen ;)
Every time I heard about Tesla Motors I thought I was hearing about that scam company Spark EV.
So I decided to post this clarification in case any other incautious reader did the same mistake.
http://dilbert.com/2010-12-13
Here in New England it can get pretty cold in the winter, (granted not Alaska or Alberta style cold but still a few degrees below zero (Fahrenheit). How does the car provide heat for the passenger on an electric engine? If it used heaters wouldn't that draw more power from the battery and therefore lower the miles you can drive on a charge? What about the battery itself? Does it behave normal in sub zero temperatures?
I see this same argument on every article about electric vehicles. It is always refuted with evidence and the same argument. You must be new here, or like making the same argument as has been made previously.
Electric cars can easily switch sources as the power infrastructure is upgraded to cleaner energy sources, gasoline cars cannot.
Studies have been done, that even on completely coal electricity, the emissions produced to move the electric car are still cleaner then the gasoline car.
Please stop this tired old argument, it has been proven false previously, and it is very obnoxious to keep making it.
If you want citations, you can look them up yourself, they aren't too hard to find.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Now we know the right distance to place Tesla coils along route 95 in New England.
If only we could find another really expensive contractor to do the work...
Many people have pointed out that it will be hard to charge batteries as fast as you can fill a tank of gas. But what if you didn't charge? What if you pulled into a station and swapped your low battery out for a full one? You could be ready to go in seconds.
With some vehicle standardization, you might even have a robot arm that does it automatically.
Out where I grew up (redneck PA) the majority of our power came from nuclear. Cue all the chernobyl trolls, but the rest of you enviromental party poopers best be quiet, nuclear power is awesome.
I agree with you; but, must point out that we get around 50% of our power from coal because we have so damn much of it. It's hard to convince managers and politicians to use something else when it's 2-3 times cheaper than any other option. Personally I'd be happy to see the U.S. using nuclear to the extent you are, with solar, wind, hydro filling in the balance, and gas for peaking / load balancing.
The majority of electricity comes from 'dirty' sources, such as coal, oil and nuclear. All thats happening is the carbon output of transportation is being shifted from the consumer to the manufacturer.
Fine. How much pollution is added for an additional $5 worth of electricy, vs. the amount of pollution that comes from a full tank of gas.
Also, lets not forget leaking gasoline storage tanks, but there's more than just air pollution you know. http://www.calgasoline.com/news81902lat.htm.
And even if we DO get a much larger percentage of clean energy sources, we still have to consider the massive costs that will be needed to upgrade the aging energy grid to be able to support the huge draw that electric cars will demand. Even a few million electric cars in the US will put a huge strain on the grid.
Doubtful. Electrical usage peaks during the day, whereas most would likely charge their car at night.
Finally, how good are the batteries for the enviornment? Can they be recycled cleanly? And how often do they need to be replaced? After a few months of steady use?
You realize you can easily find answers to this questions on google. the fact that you're even posing them makes me supsect you're being willfully ignorant.
Dumbass moderation, parent is not a troll, but a realist. Just because somebody does not have starry eyes does not make them a troll.
Let's look at the real data from the real sources...
According to Tesla motors official specifications the motor has a output of 248 peak horsepower (185kW) and 276 ft/lbs (375 Nm) of torque. Also, for full charge it takes "3.5 hours using the Tesla Motors Home Connector at 240 Volts and 70 amps" which for simplicity and because they have neglected to disclose the actual kwh of full empty to full charge at room temperature (capacity will degrade with use) lets assume is 3.5hrs * (240V * 70A) = 58.8 kwh. Most likely this is an overly conservative estimate because of the constant current constant voltage nature of charging lithium batteries. This is more important than battery capacity because it is the load the power plant feels to charge your car and is the important quantity of interest. This will take you 244 miles on average (from same site) of course flat straight stretches will get better but it is the average that is most important. Total is 58.8 kwh/ 244 miles or about .241 kwh/mile. You can do the math on charging, but it should be obvious at this point that it is much cheaper than gasoline since electricity costs from around 7-20 cents/kwh in the US depending on numerous factors.
Now go look at EPA official website for determining CO2 emissions (in the US) and you can see that generating one kwh gives you 7.18x10^-4 metric tons of CO2. In addition, they also state on the same page you generate 8.81*10-3 metric tons of CO2 per gallon gasoline.
Lets do some simple math. At .241 kwh/mi this gives you (.241 kwh/mi * 7.18x10^-4 metric tons CO2/kwh) = 1.73 x 10^-4 tons of CO2/mile. At 8.81 x 10^-3 metric tons of CO2/gallon (from EPA) then you have the Tesla getting 50.91 MPG equivelant CO2 pollution. Note that hybrid vehicles and diesels both come close to or exceed this value making the CO2 pollution for a pure electric not as rosy as some have been led to believe.
Note that this is bested by emissions from diesel vehicles at this point. Untill fission or fusion or solar or whatever comes on line, and given the cost of these vehicles, it dosent make sense. Even if the battery were somehow cheap *now* it still wouldn't make much enviornental sense over a efficent chemical fuel based design.
Duh. Um, yeah. I would word it "not practical transportation for most people."
It goes exactly half as far before "refueling" as my 1995 GMC half ton with 6.5L turbo diesel can go on a single tank of fuel. The GMC has 250K miles on the ODO and I paid $2900.00 for it last year.
I can buy enough diesel fuel to drive another half million miles for the price of the Tesla even before figuring in the cost of its electricity. LOL
That's with a 14-year old pickup truck. Don't even get me started on the total cost of Volkswagen TDI versus these things. You can't beat dead dinosaurs.
Out of order? Fuck! Even in the future nothing works! - Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis) "Spaceballs"
Duh. Um, yeah. I would word it "not practical transportation for most people."
First, in your none intelligent way, you agree they are not real vehicles. But then you turn around and say that they are not practical transportation for most people. So which is it, Not real or not practical?
Totally agree. No wifi. Less space than a Malibu. Lame.
(/sarcasm)
+1 Disagree
That is true for a petrol or diesel car, but on an electric car, you have basically the bushes and mechanical wear only to worry about. No explosives going on in each cylinder, etc to worry about, not residue buildup or cat needed to be replaced.
Our power grid is incapable of producing enough antimatter for even a single warp engine, much less an entire Star Fleet of them!
The enemies of Democracy are
You wrote "Good God people - think! I'm an electrical engineer who has been driving a gas-electric hybrid since 2002, and if regenerative breaking was able to recover even half the energy, I'd be amazed."
Prepare to be amazed.
http://www.teslamotors.com/blog4/?p=58
Tesla is saying their best case is in the 64% ballpark.
You claim the insight's sweet spot is 50mph. Have you tried 30 mph? That's where most cars get the best mileage (and how the Tesla went so far).
Consumer reports just did a piece on fuel efficiency (see http://blogs.consumerreports.org/cars/2009/09/tested-speed-vs-fuel-economy.html) and they didn't even test speeds below 55 mph. The MPG of every single car was increasing as speed went down.
so what, too crappy to use a real measurement, like miles? you and your European short miles~
what?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Those 'dirty' sources of electricity are still cleaner than the typical car.
Most hybrids and EVs use NiMH batteries (because Lion is still too expensive). NiMH batteries can be *completely* recycled without any toxic waste. Based on the Prius, they typically don't need to be replaced at any point during the lifespan of your typical car. (That's defined as *drivable*, not *original owner*.)
Last I saw mention of it (last year, IIRC) Toyota had yet to need to replace a single Prius battery pack for any reason other than manufacturing defect or damage due to an accident. In other words, properly constructed NiMH battery packs for the Prius are staying good right along with the cars themselves. There was the Prius that they bought back from the NY cabbie who had put 200,000 miles on it in the first year. It was still working beautifully, but they wanted to study an example that had gone through that sort of extreme driving, so they bought his car back and gave him a replacement (new model).
Fair points, well made. As a MINI owner myself, with a Caterham on the cards for next year, I have no problem with two-seaters (the back seats of the MINI are never used). My boss has a Tesla on order right now and for him it's an entirely viable choice of transport.
Interesting point on the Li-Ions. I don't know what the access is like or whether Tesla will provide cover under warranty. But I've driven my fair share of unreliable ICE-powered machines (mostly Fiats and Peugeots in my youth!).
I agree with the whole efficiency of plants - you'd be surprised what some companies go through to reduce emissions.
As for batteries, how do you determine the life of the car in an electric car? Gasoline powered vehicles tend to have a limitted life because of all the combustion that takes place inside which requires lots of moving parts and oil for all those moving parts and eventually the stress will just kill it in one section or another. I've not known someone who's driven a car for more than 5 years who hasn't had to replace SOMETHING under the hood.
Given an electric car doesn't have nearly as many explosions or moving parts to it - its lifetime could be exceptionally longer than a regular car, which means its impossible to guage the lifetime of a battery of a car that could live forever.
This is of course excluding the occurances of vehicular accidents.
Is a single-seater motorbike not a viable form of transportation, then?
Yes, but they generally don't cost $100k
How about a $100k truck?
Yes (if you like that sort of thing) - but they generally seat more than 2.
Not everything that can be measured matters; Not everything that matters can be measured.
Personally, I'd suggest that all those that constantly moan about carbon emissions do something about it themselves. Stopping exhaling would be a good start. Not having kids is also a good preventative measure. (Junior's carbon footprint is for life - not just for non-denominational end-of-year holiday)
Not everything that can be measured matters; Not everything that matters can be measured.
Yes they are. Even the most inefficient plants are still vastly more efficient than a car's engine, with transmission losses accounted for.
Not so "vastly" once you've taken into account the loss in the power transmission lines from the plant to the power socket, and then the mechanical loss in the electric motor. Wikipedia reckons that from fuel to motion, e-cars are about 20-25% fuel-efficient - which compares pretty badly with the 45% of modern diesels. And, of course, you can fill a diesel up pretty much anywhere.
Not everything that can be measured matters; Not everything that matters can be measured.
Which is a good thing. Consolidating the sources of pollution makes them easier to manage.
The obama administration is talking about a "smart power" rewiring of the electric power lines. They plan on being able to remotely control when you can run your dishwasher.
Now, with these worries about the limited power concerns, where do all these electric cars fit in?
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
I am always interested in the CO2 output of these pure electric vehicles. After all, right now we power most of the electric grid with coal and until that changes it dosen't make sense to wish or just assert what things out to be instead of just doing some simple research and high school physics calculations.
Let's look at the real data from the real sources...
According to Tesla motors official specifications [teslamotors.com] the motor has a output of 248 peak horsepower (185kW) and 276 ft/lbs (375 Nm) of torque. Also, for full charge it takes "3.5 hours using the Tesla Motors Home Connector at 240 Volts and 70 amps" which for simplicity and because they have neglected to disclose the actual kwh of full empty to full charge at room temperature (capacity will degrade with use) lets assume is 3.5hrs * (240V * 70A) = 58.8 kwh. Most likely this is an overly conservative estimate because of the constant current constant voltage nature of charging lithium batteries. This is more important than battery capacity because it is the load the power plant feels to charge your car and is the important quantity of interest. This will take you 244 miles on average (from same site) of course flat straight stretches will get better but it is the average that is most important. Total is 58.8 kwh/ 244 miles or about .241 kwh/mile. You can do the math on charging, but it should be obvious at this point that it is much cheaper than gasoline since electricity costs from around 7-20 cents/kwh in the US depending on numerous factors.
Now go look at EPA official website for determining CO2 emissions [epa.gov] (in the US) and you can see that generating one kwh gives you 7.18x10^-4 metric tons of CO2. In addition, they also state on the same page you generate 8.81*10-3 metric tons of CO2 per gallon gasoline.
Lets do some simple math. At .241 kwh/mi this gives you (.241 kwh/mi * 7.18x10^-4 metric tons CO2/kwh) = 1.73 x 10^-4 tons of CO2/mile. At 8.81 x 10^-3 metric tons of CO2/gallon (from EPA) then you have the Tesla getting 50.91 MPG equivelant CO2 pollution. Note that hybrid vehicles and diesels both come close to or exceed this value making the CO2 pollution for a pure electric not as rosy as some have been led to believe.
Note that this is bested by emissions from diesel vehicles at this point. Untill fission or fusion or solar or whatever comes on line, and given the cost of these vehicles, it dosent make sense. Even if the battery were somehow cheap *now* it still wouldn't make much enviornental sense over a efficent chemical fuel based design. the best bang for the buck, since CO2 polluters aren't all rich, is to utilize efficent fossil fuel vehicles
Someone up above provided it, and I have said this for years as well: the solution right now for extended range with the electric vehicle, for the occasional longer trip, until batteries or ultracaps get a lot better, is the "modular hybrid" approach, just like this
http://www.evnut.com/rav_longranger.htm
Problem solved, no need to worry about long recharge scenarios or that tarded battery swap out idea. And just a ton of suburban guys who commute and *could* do that in an electric car with even just a 50 mile range, also want (and buy today) a home generator for the occasional use when the power goes out, so this is double plus good there. And for city boys with no garage who live in apartments, who want an electric, these genny trailers could be *rented* for that trip to grannys.
The only thing I would do different with those trailers is make them a scosh bigger with some additional cargo room for that long trip, for your luggage and camping gear or whatever.
One of the really big expenses for adoption of the all electric at a more normal non millionaire pricing level is the insane battery prices. Reduce the needs from a 30 grand battery pack to 5 grand (something like that), be content with just a 50 mile day to day range, with the genny option, bought or rented, and the actual car can be made loads cheaper, and smallish gas gennys just aren't all that expensive (especially if they were to become common for this purpose and mass produced), and most likely only being used half a dozen times a year they would last a really long time.
I think on board hybrids are a dead end, that's just too much weight and complexity having to haul around two different styles of drivetrains all the time on the same axles. All electric + the modular "makes it a hybrid" genny trailer is the way to go.
Dear Mr. Coward: You can split a fucking grammatical hair anyway you want, but in the real world a hundred grand sports car that can go 300 miles but only if you keep it to 35 mph, is not going to be anything that is on the radar screen of 95% of drivers.
For those who are interested, the blog for this internode entry, detailing the event so far is at;
http://blog.internode.on.net/
Simon and Emilis are experienced glider pilots too, and credit the experience they have from glider energy management as one of the factors in acheiving the record.
MOst amazing thing is the article spelt Emilis surname correctly!
Coincidentally I just suggested a similar course of action to a person who has angst about eating meat.
no surprise there (lameness reducer)
I don't just eat meat because (as you say) it's delicious. I also eat meat because doing so is good for the environment - it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make...
Cows fart (quite a lot) - all that methane has to be bad.
But if you kill them, they stop farting.
I like my cows dead before I eat them.
Ergo, because I eat cows, less methane is emitted.
I'm doing my part!
Not everything that can be measured matters; Not everything that matters can be measured.
The 2 seater sportscar Tesla cost over $100K, but the sedan costs around $49k.
0-60 in 5.6 seconds too, with 230 and 300 mile ranges
WOW!
..........FULL STOP.
I've figured it out before, but generally speaking, if you need a vehicle that can perform duty X once or twice a month, it's still worth trading up to the larger vehicle to be able to do that than trying to rent or otherwise mess around.
Then, since you have the larger vehicle, generally speaking due to insurance, registration, cost of capital and such, it's cheaper to have one vehicle that can do everything than to try to get by with two vehicles.
Unless your super-duper vehicle is something like a crew cab monster-truck that gets 6 mpg, your commuter is a used geo metro that you drive 5 days a week 60 miles a day and carry only liability on.
I don't read AC A human right
No, but you may dream of electric sheep.
OK, I was referring to the ICE plus electric kind. They do make an alternative, the hydraulic hybrid boost (and/or complete hydraulic drive), that is already out there in some city delivery trucks and buses. It captures braking force and pressures it, then it adds the boost needed to get going again from a stop. Does it loads cheaper than the electric "regenerative braking" version. Now these sorts of hybrids I can see being useful in a number of scenarios, heck, most vehicles could use it. That's really the big waste in stop and go urban driving, all that starting and stopping inertia. It's fairly efficient in recovery, easily as good as or superior to the electric kind, also easier for the manufacturers to get into, hydraulic and air brakes are by far and away the most common now anyway. Some info, various ideas, random google selection
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2009/10/parker-20091018.html
http://machinedesign.com/article/hydraulic-hybrids-boost-fuel-economy-1012
http://www.frost.com/prod/servlet/market-insight-top.pag?docid=6752777&ctxixpLink=FcmCtx7&ctxixpLabel=FcmCtx8
As to the electric generator trailer and the electric vehicle, pretty much doable today at a normal entry level ICE vehicle budget. They make kits now to convert real common vehicles (as in by used and cheap to start the project with), like ford rangers or chevy s-10s (some sedans but I forget which ones now they recommend, I am in favor of smaller pickups over sedans for electric vehicles, they can haul the weight better and still have useable cargo and room space). One just needs then a normal landscaper type lightweight steel mesh framed trailer, the kind you see people towing that have a riding lawnmower on them and a few tools, etc, home depot or wherever special, relatively cheap, the generator, can be cheap to expensive, just a judgement call there, some u-bolts to clamp the thing down over the balance point on the trailer axle, add a starter battery on the nose for the down weight needed for attachment, and maybe some additional fuel tank action, etc then sill room for cargo. Probably need to make your own jumper cable thing, not that hard, to connect to the vehicle charge point. Now I am *guessing*, but I would bet you could just about get real close to a new prius price, and have pure electric instead with the genny trailer doing it this way.
You are basically just trading the cash you would have put into an advanced battery system, that is *still* limited, into a more affordable generator system for the once in awhile long trip, and then just having a modest battery system instead. Which also has the benefit of as battery tech advances, you can buy into it easier and cheaper, because you just don't need that many batteries total.
I even noted around a six (to ten) grand NEV modular hybrid type thing that could be assembled completely in one trip at my local home depot before. Not exactly a commuter experience, but you can see the potential there is real close now to this being affordable, the vehicle itself just needs to be a little more realistically a car, say add five more grand to it to get it out of the NEV class, then do the trailer idea with it.
http://slashdot.org/~zogger/journal/207291
The article says that to achieve the 501 km range, it had to be driven at "average speeds of around 55 km (34 miles) per hour". That's not viable for highway usage.
And as for your sig: whether universal health care is socialist or not depends on how it is achieved.
If we make voluntary charitable contributions that empower low-income people to purchase health insurance, that is the noble, effective, non-socialist way to go about it.
The other way to do it is for government to seize a greater portion of our income against our will. And then, its countless and growing layers of bureaucracy will dissipate most of those funds; little will be left over for the people who actually need assistance. That's the coercive, inefficient, socialist way to go about it.
I suspect you're in favor of the latter.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
I double-checked his math and came up with a similar answer: given his assumptions, you'd need 2.23 square meters of solar cells on your car to make this a reality.
Of course, one thing neither of us took into account is that the effective surface area is maximized when the cells are perpendicular to the light source. When the sun is low in the sky, any cells on your car's roof will be poorly angled for capturing solar energy. Still, this could help keep your battery topped-up.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
So you think it is socialist and evil because it is government run?
I guess the public schools, police and justice system is also socialist. Unless you like the idea of competitive bidding to buy the judge.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
You're not thinking it through. Even if 100 pounds of lithium is shipped 20,000 miles to make your car, that's nothing compared to moving 3,000 pounds of car 150,000 miles over its lifetime. Besides, shipping goods by sea is very efficient per pound.
Some sites like whatgreencar.com try to compute the production of a car as well as its pollution in operation. But since all reputable studies suggest that 75-90% of lifetime energy use occurs in operation of a vehicle, not its production, weight and materials don't have much effect. The car that is more efficient is better for the environment, so adding batteries is better environmentally despite the increased weight. For those of us who can't afford a Tesla Roadster, the least bad car for the environment is the one with highest MPG.
=S
the battery is fully charged for free from the solar panels
The solar panel roof option for the Prius only runs the air conditioner while you're away. You'd be lucky to get 2 kWh (about 25 cents) of electricity a day from solar panels that fit on a car (the sun isn't directly overhead for 8 hours, car surfaces aren't tilted to match northern latitudes, etc.). I think the Tesla goes about 4 miles per kWh. So your idea is intriguing, but not 5 Insightful, and impractical unless you have a short commute. There's a reason solar-powered cars look like enormous flat billboards on bicycle wheels with a hole for the driver's head.
Maybe you mean solar panels forming big solar carports over your parking space. That's another neat idea, but making a free-standing structure to support solar cells roughly doubles the cost. AFAIK no one is mass-producing solar carports, they're nifty design ideas or one-offs. Unless you're an off-the-grid survivalist, just put solar cells where they generate the most for the last amount of money (probably a nearby south-facing roof), and feed the electricity into the grid.
=S