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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...
... and downhill, both directions ;^)
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
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.
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.
How does the energy of hundreds of laptop batteries compare with the energy of 60 litres of petrol?
I had assumed that with all the talk of new technology
Next time try reading up on it instead. Some people assumed with all the talk of new technology that by the year 2000 we'd all be driving flying cars and we'd have colonies on the moon...
I have just passed the 15,000 mile mark in my 5 month old Tesla Roadster. My commute in it is almost 100 miles a day. People who claim that the Roadster is not a viable car due to range concerns have never tried to use one. I drive more than anyone else I know, and will likely put 35,000 miles on it this year. The Roadster is a blast to drive, and is definitely up to the task. The convenience of always having a full tank when I get in it in the morning is far better than doing the same commute in my previous car where each day I had to check to see if I had to stop by a gas station. It is true that I cannot easily take it for cross country roadtrips - but any 2 seater roadster doesn't lend itself for long family vacations. I have a second car for that. Just like I plan to take an alternate vehicle to Hawaii, I am content to take another vehicle on the occasional long trip. "Oh noes! Why would anyone buy that Toyota - you can't drive it across the Pacific!"
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.
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.