Slashdot Mirror
Toyota Partners With Tesla To Make Electric Cars
An anonymous reader writes "Toyota just announced that it will invest $50 million in Tesla Motors and the two companies will partner to manufacture electric vehicles to meet California's growing demand for greener cars. Bay Area residents should be especially excited, as this venture is expected to create thousands of new jobs in the San Francisco Bay area, and is sure to be a boon to California's flagging economy. Tesla fans as well should rejoice as the new partnership will allow the EV startup to bring its highly coveted, iconic design to more affordable electric vehicles like the Model S sedan, which will sell for $49,900 and gets 300 miles on a 3- to 5-hour charge."
"flagging economy"
"more affordable"
"sell for $49,900"
one of these things is not like the others... ?
Answering the "is-a-new-tesla-greener-than-an-existing-hummer?" in the header:
Yes, collectively in the long term. Every new electric car put on the road will contribute via networking effects to the development of an infrastructure to support electrics, and every gas-burning car taken off the road will contribute to the dismantling of the infrastructure that drills (and spills) for oil underwater, ships (and slicks) it in tankers around the world, etc. A new car is only manufactured once; it will continue to interact as a part of our environment for years (possibly decades) to come.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
How many times do we have to hear this argument? Central production of electricity at a power plant is more efficient than millions of cars producing it in internal combustion engines. Shifting the pollution away from where cars drive should be a benefit (i.e. breathing less smog in LA). Then there's the effect of burning fuel to transport fuel to all the gas stations when we already have an electrical infrastructure to deliver energy to electric cars. I agree that not all power plants are green, but compared to burning fuel in our cars, it's greener. And once demand for electricity goes up, maybe we'll finally get the push we need to expand renewable energy generation. There's no instant solution but there is progress.
There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
That's 'cause you haven't thought about storage issues yet.
"everyday use" usually means commuting. So your car was charged overnight, and you drive to work. If your work is less than 150 miles away, you just plug it in when you get home (real world mileage is probably not so precise, but I really doubt there are many ~300 mile/day commuters out there). Long road trip? That's not everyday use, and presumably something like a "car share" program would cover you for the few times you're going on a long drive.
I'm pretty sure that the environmental impact of the current generation of electric cars is actually more than petroleum ones, just much better hidden.
And I'm pretty sure that's wrong, because:
The electricity that's used to make and power them today is coming mostly from burning fossil fuels in 30 year old power plants. That might change in 10 years time, but it's not 10 years time, it's now.
While that is true, it's a sad fact that a 30 year old fossil fuel burning power station is STILL greener than the ICEs in most of the cars on the road on a power-generation to output-of-bad-stuff comparison...
Plus of course, a small amount of power generation DOES come from greener sources, and this will be used equally along with the non-green sources. As green sources increase, that automatically makes all these cars greener without being changed. Unlike ICE vehicles which remain equally as non-green no matter what you do to processes external to them.
My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan
Anyone who would describe a US$50K car as "affordable" has more dollars than sense.
I, on the other hand, can't justify that price. I live in a colder climate and cannot spend $50k on a vehicle I only drive four months of the year (that's what my motorcycle is for). It's a safety consideration. A traditional gas-powered car, when stuck in a snow bank, will idle with the heat running and keep you alive for a very long time. An electric car will let you freeze to death before morning (and hope of rescue) comes.
Why would the electric car let you freeze to death? If your vehicle has a 300 mile range it should have plenty of power to be able to keep you warm. For example, here is a truck that has a 35 mile range (I just chose a random car on a google search to get some numbers). It has twenty 6 volt, 210 amp hour batteries or 25,200 watt hours of capacity. If you were near a full charge when you got stuck, you could run a 1000 watt heater for 24 hours. Our hypothetical vehicle with a 300 mile range would have 210,000 wh of capacity. If you weren't running anything else you could run a 1000 watt heater for nearly nine days. The only time where you wouldn't have enough power to run a heater for a night would be if your battery pack was near empty, and you would be in the same situation if you allowed yourself to get stuck in the middle of nowhere with a nearly empty gas tank.
Of course there is always the observation that if you are consistently getting stuck in snowbanks enough that your life is threatened, you should evaluate your equipment or your driving skills. I live in a fairly snowy place as well and I can't remember the last time I had to spend the night in my car. With tire chains and a bag of sand/salt most cars can go through some gnarly weather. Add a cell phone (or sat phone if you really are THAT remote) and the chances of you having to spend the night in your car are close to nil.
Enigma