Slashdot Mirror
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."
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?
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.
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...
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.
Actually, I wouldn't be so sure. Urban driving means low speeds, which means lower air drag. Also, stop and go gives regenerative braking a chance to do its job. I wouldn't be surprised if an electric car would go further in city driving than on the highway...
If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress?
You are right ... screw improvements until we can find perfection!
The laws of thermodynamics state that regenerative breaking can only capture *some* of the energy lost in slowing down. One will never get as much range in city driving than in highway driving. Mainly because in this house, Lisa, we obey the laws of thermodynamics.
I hate printers.
The regenerative braking doesn't involve a heat engine, so in principle you could get arbitrarily close to 100% energy recovery given sufficiently advanced technology. IIRC, hybrids do get better range in urban driving.
One will never get as much range in city driving than in highway driving.
Definitely not true with hybrids. Reason is that at highway speeds the gasoline engine is always on, whereas if I keep it under 60km/h, the electric kick in which is more efficient.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
and that when I'm out of power I can stop and have full power again (either through rapid charging or a battery swap) within 15 minutes or less
Personally, I'm looking forward to the time when I go to my electric car after work that has been parked in the parking lot all day, and the battery is fully charged for free from the solar panels. THAT is what the oil companies are really afraid of.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
Good luck putting 53kWh of energy into a battery in "a matter of minutes".
Technically, Lithium batteries can be charged to 80% capacity in only a half hour. The main reason for the Roadster's slow charging is that household plugs can't output more than 1800 Watts for a standard socket, at that rate it would take 30 hours to charge the Roadster.
If you wanted to charge it within 1 hour, you would need a 53000W power source, that's about 240Amps@220Volt, 480Amps@110Volts. Considering that the main circuit breaker to my house is rated 200Amps, I could never charge the Tesla at my house in 1 hour, even if it had super capacitors or whatever else you wanted.
If you want to charge it in "a matter of minutes", say 10 minutes, you would need a 318000Watt power source. If you wanted to charge your car in 3 minutes, you would need a megawatt power supply... for that you'd need a dedicated power station to supply this kind of power otherwise the whole city would have a brownout every time some prick decides to recharge his Tesla. I don't know about where you live, but there aren't dedicated electric stations that can supply a megawatt of power anywhere near my house.
So: batteries? supercapacitors? ultracapacitors? it doesn't matter the least bit if you don't have the power infrastructure to charge it.
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?
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.
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.
Ding ding ding!!! Mod this guy up please-- Regenerative brakes *are* capable of catching a significant portion of energy, very nearly to the point where all energy spent accelerating can be recaptured decelerating. Yes, there is a loss, but it is insignificant next to the energy lost overcoming wind resistance. The regenerative braking also saves just as much energy on the highway as it would in town-- since it basically recaptures energy spent accelerating.
IIRC (and be kind if I'm wrong on this last point-- college physics was so long ago....) the force of air resistance increases as the square of the velocity.
Of course, a car running on a standard gasoline engine is generally more efficient on the highway because it has no way to recapture energy spent accelerating.
+1 Disagree
... because the lightweight frame will fold like a piece of tissue.
You WANT the frame to fold. Ever hear of crumple zones?
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.
The advantage of CF is weight, it is not much stronger than steel (if at all, depending on application). So while more and more components of mainstream vehicles will be made using CF, the main reason is for better fuel economy (less weight = less fuel needed).
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.
Your heavy and inefficient vehicle is not only a danger to others, but to yourself as well. You equate a heavy and inflexible frame with improved safety, but this is not reality, and (if you haven't noticed) the exact opposite direction that car manufacturers have taken ever since safety standards were put in place.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/uptospeed/2009/09/iihs-crash-chevy-malibu-bel-air.html
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.