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Tesla To Blanket US With Superchargers In Two Years
dublin writes "Electric car manufacturer Tesla is planning to triple its construction of "supercharger" rapid charging stations, with a trail of stations in place for L.A. to New York trips by the end of this year. In addition to the east & west coasts, islands in Colorado, Illinois, and Texas will grow together to cover nearly the entire continental US by 2015. The two biggest obstacles for electric cars are high cost and range problems. Cost is still a problem, but this move to blanket the US with supercharger stations could fix the range half of the e-car equation."
Tesla has made a map of where they intend to put the stations and how far you can drive from them. http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger
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That was Henry Ford's model, of course. But don't forget that before the Model T, there were a number of very expensive automotives available that only the rich could afford...
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First, 100 fast chargers does not a nationwide blanket make.
Second, these things are extremely expensive to install (especially if they're not immediately next to major power lines). We're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Third, fast charges are very inefficient by comparison to level 2 chargers-- there's a lot of waste energy.
Fourth, fast chargers are most likely to be used midday when electricity is at its costliest.
So, they're expensive to install, wastes electricity, and are most likely to be used when electricity is at its most expensive. Thus, if they want to install them and want people to use them, there's going to have to be massive subsidies.
Or Tesla's spending themselves into a hole again because they figured out that the quagmire that is proprietary charging payment systems has stymied adoption and they're going to just do it themselves... because their product depends on it! And because they missed out on the only true future for battery-electric vehicles: Battery Swapping!
No, that is not Tesla's job. Tesla are fulfilling a very important part of getting the industry to take electric cars seriously by appealing to the car enthusiasts. This group represents a big barrier to green technology cars because they are traditionally seen as pokey, boring machines. Tesla are changing that perception and there are plenty of other companies who are now starting to produce cheaper electric vehicles. Tesla should keep doing what they are doing - challenging the dominance of the petrol driven sports car.
yea, I dont see tesla pulling a ford
Electric cars have long been a chicken or egg problem. We would have gladly rented a Tesla model S for our trip to New Orleans from Dallas last weekend (Elon, lend me a car when we can do this and we'll document the trip), but A) you can't readily rent a Tesla and b) there are no charging stations yet.
I think it's interesting that they're building out a "free forever" stations, and carpeting the nation with them. They probably represent a fixed cost, as you can only charge so many cars per day, and eventually competing stations will pop up along the most popular routes. Electricity really isn't that expensive.
I was thinking about how US automakers might try and sue Tesla in federal court over providing "fuel" for the cars, but I wonder if the "free forever" is due in part to the fact that it's much more difficult to sue a company for anti-competitive practices if there's no money changing hands in the fueling process.
moox. for a new generation.
Are these plugs public ? If so, do they only key to Tesla cars ?
Or can I deliver the Lexor 3000 to the masses and have 'em charge for free at the Tesla stops ?
(then again tin cans for the masses aren't working so well for Tata right now...)
Regards, Lex
And then when everyone has an electric car, they will start charging to charge your car. 5 dollars a KW or something lol
Third, fast charges are very inefficient by comparison to level 2 chargers-- there's a lot of waste energy.
As much waste energy as carting around an inefficient internal combustion engine, that gets at best 30% efficiency? I think not.
I am artificially intelligent.
A few quibbles:
DATABASE WOW WOW
Actually, you are a bit off, Cost of install depends on size of install. 4 station charger will cost more than a 1 or 2 station. The power draw is easy enough to get around as they are installed in commercial districts with more than enough power available. Most of them are being installed in conjunction with Solar panels anyways. Eventually these will be refueling stations at a cost to all electric cars so the costs to build them will be fully recouped.
You're right that they're more efficient than combustion engines, but so are bicycles. The point is that fast charges are not the future-- they're a dead end to a technology.
Battery swapping, on the other hand, is the most cost efficient, environmentally friendly, and quickest form of refueling an battery EV.
cost is the MAIN problem.
Wait till you get to replace those batteries and discover the real costs :D
From what I've read about the Prius the battery life is exceeding expectations by a wide margin.
Most drivers have never faced a battery replacement, because they are easily managing 10 years (200K miles) and the batteries
have shown no sign of needing replacement.
Admittedly it costs around 2000 to 2500 bucks when you do need a replacement, although salvage yards will sell them
to you for around $500. A cottage industry has sprung up refurbing Prius batteries.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Just wait until the Tesla Tow Truck. Then you'll see a lot of Teslas pulling Fords.
But if they don't tell you what they will do, then who will invest? Who will be ready to buy as soon as they hit the market? It's a pretty stupid advertising strategy to roll your product out the door and then start telling people about it.
Back of the envelope calculation: [(10k miles per year) / (30 miles per gallon)] * (4 dollars per gallon) = 1.3k$ per year. Over ten years, 13k$. Tesla offers a pre-paid battery replacement (pay when you buy the car, get the new battery much later) for 12k$. So, if the battery lifetime is on the close order of ten years, then you're not far from the break-even point. If gas prices go up, or if you drive more, or if your gas mileage is worse, or if the battery replacement price comes down, then less than ten years will do.
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Interesting idea with solar powered recharge stations... you could put automated recharge stations in the middle of nowhere where it's inconvenient to ship gas to, like long stretches of empty highway in the American Southwest. Of course, it will be a while before solar can keep up with the demand of anything more than a very low volume station but the potential is there.
Could electric cars have rooftop solar panels to slowly charge the batteries while the car sits in a parking lot all day? It's too small of a surface to charge them to capacity, but it might make enough of a difference to be worthwhile, especially in sunnier areas.
While 30 minutes is great compared to waiting several hours, they need to really bring that recharge time down by a factor of 5 or more. Being able to stop for a recharge in many places is good, but for longer trips (which mentioning coast-to-coast travel seems to be pointing towards) waiting for half an hour every charging cycle will start to add up on your travel time.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I feel like this is trying to force the current gas station paradigm (refuel, adding 300-500 miles of range in 5-10 minutes) onto EVs, when that paradigm doesn't really fit well.
Based on a little Googling, Tesla's Superchargers can apparently charge 50% of an 85 kwh battery in about 30 minutes. Not bad (a bit over twice the charge rate of DC fast charging on a Leaf), but based on the EPA estimated range of 265 miles, that gives you about 130 miles of range. So every 130 miles, you stop for 30 minutes - more if all Superchargers at a station are in use. While I'm all for taking frequent breaks on long trips, this is a lot more than the usual 10 minutes every few hundred miles.
To match gas station refuel times, the power requirements get ridiculous pretty fast. Superchargers put out 120 kw according to Tesla. Let's say we have a hypothetical battery that can take a full 85-kwh charge (265 miles) in 5 minutes like a gas pump. That's 12 times faster than the Supercharger rate of half-capacity in 30 minutes, or 1.44 MW per car! By way of comparison, most (many?) homes in the US have 240-volt, 100-amp service, or 24 kw maximum available power. 1.44 MW is equivalent to 60 homes all maxed out and about to trip breakers! If a typical charging station will service a similar number of cars as a gas station, multiply that by maybe 10 - or 600 maxed out homes. For one refueling station. Insanity. It gets even worse if you want more than 265 miles of range in 5 minutes.
The bottom line is that even if battery technology gets there, how will the grid handle such quick charging? I see that being the bigger obstacle to EV road trips as convenient as gas-powered trips are now.
The easier solution is to shift the paradigm - how we think about and use our vehicles. Everyone could have an EV for commuting and regular driving within its nominal range. You charge at night or any other time when you're not using the car anyway - NOT when you are on a trip and just want to keep going (but can't, until you wait to recharge). If/when you need to take a long road trip, you take a gas-powered car. Either an extra car in your household, a rental, borrowed from someone you know. Whatever. Or if you're not hauling a bunch of stuff, maybe it makes more sense to fly.
As a current EV owner (Nissan Leaf), I've already made the switch in paradigm - and I love it. I'm saving tons of money on fuel costs, driving my Leaf over 16k miles per year. Pretty much every trip within its range will use that car, because it's cheaper and fun to drive. Going to Vegas (from SoCal)? We use the other car. Or any longer trip. Most multi-driver households have multiple cars, so road trips shouldn't really be an issue. I think this kind of strategy makes way more sense than seriously increasing travel time (waiting to charge) or the failed battery swap idea.
Battery swapping, on the other hand, is the most cost efficient, environmentally friendly, and quickest form of refueling an battery EV.
That would seem more credible if the company that tried it hadn't recently gone out of business.
The range bubbles are one way distance. To verify this look at the one surrounding Denver. Colorado is about 380 miles across, and the diameter of that bubble is slightly larger, so they have about a 200 mile radius. The advertized range for the two Tesla S models are 230 & 300 miles, so neither can drive from a charging station to the edge of a bubble and back.
yes they tried, but it does not mean that it is the wrong way to go. They just could not sell it to enough people
Doesn't sound like a great business model.
Car enthusiasts think every single one of the world's top selling cars are pokey boring machines and that doesn't matter the tiniest bit to anyone else. I can guarantee that most car enthusiasts would pan every car I've ever owned. No one gives a crap about the opinion of car enthusiasts. For that matter the primary issue that car enthusiasts have had with electric cars is that they're slow, which the Tesla still is(by car enthusiast standards anyway).
If Tesla wants to change the world, instead of targeting the dominance of the petrol powered sports car of which a few hundred thousand exist in the entire world, they should target the millions of family sedans, small vehicles and other perfectly ordinary cars. You know the ones regular folks use to drive at or below the speed limit on their short daily commutes which is the perfect market for what a Tesla can actually do. Of course then they'd have to try and sell the entire car for less than they currently charge for the battery pack, but if they stopped trying to make it do what it still can't do(be an electric Ferrari), it might actually be possible.
The bigger question is who on earth would be insane enough to drive from New York to LA in one of these things?
Third, fast charges are very inefficient by comparison to level 2 chargers-- there's a lot of waste energy.
As much waste energy as carting around an inefficient internal combustion engine, that gets at best 30% efficiency?
I think not.
The efficiency of the average power plant isn't much better.
Well, when you consider that the Tesla engine isn't 100% efficient, that the charging process isn't 100% efficient, and the charging station is probably being powered by a 40 year old coal powered power station which is actually less efficient than an internal combustion engine in the first place, not to mention substantially dirtier(yes even coal power can be more efficient than your car, but only if you have a new plant and most places don't).
I am NOT stopping for 30 minutes every "half tank" on a 3000 mile road trip from LA to NY.
Fuck no.
When an EV can go 500 miles on a charge and refill in 5 minutes, then we'll talk.
I do not agree. Many great ideas have failed on their first attempt simply 'the time is not right'. It does not mean that it was a bad idea. Subsequent tries on the same idea, modifying a few points have managed to succeed and thrive. Being the first to do something is not always best.
Why is it that most of the people that I encounter seem to have been shat from the Sphincter of Mediocrity?
If so they'd better include a pair of sneakers with the purchase of each car.
Spoken by someone who clearly has no idea what car enthusiasts think or how much influence they have on the industry. The Tesla model S goes from 0-60 in 4.4 seconds which puts it in the seriously quick category. Now, exactly what makes you think it's slow? Or are you just playing internets?
Second, these things are extremely expensive to install (especially if they're not immediately next to major power lines). We're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars.
I'm guessing that you've never had to build a gasoline station. Environmental assessments. Underground excavation. Costly double-walled tanks and plumbing. Inspections. Insurance in case you contaminate the local soil or water with spilled fuel. And it's not like you get a pipeline direct to the station--every gallon you sell has to be trucked in.
~Idarubicin
Nobody said they don't have to be replaced.
Just that the vast majority of them are running much longer than expected.
Only the first generation of Prius vehicles are reaching their 10 year life.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
If other car makers could license the charging connector and rate from Tesla through them or through a standards body the EV market could take off once all of these charging stations are built. Only issue then is waiting half an hour for 66% charge and waiting for others to finish charging.
Or perhaps they could disrupt a profitable market, sell at an appreciable margin, and make lots of money before trying to build massive, Toyota-scale factories out of nothing?
DATABASE WOW WOW
Because he never said that you imbecile, the very first line of his post is "battery life is exceeding expectations by a wide margin" and then he goes on to elaborate that even after 10 years most people still don't need a replacement.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
You're right that they're more efficient than combustion engines, but so are bicycles. The point is that fast charges are not the future-- they're a dead end to a technology.
Battery swapping, on the other hand, is the most cost efficient, environmentally friendly, and quickest form of refueling an battery EV.
I think chargers are a pretty reasonable solution to a relatively rare problem: how to recharge your car when you want to drive more than a couple of hundred miles at a stretch.
What's more, the batteries weigh quite a bit (http://www.roperld.com/science/TeslaModelS.htm) 1200lbs for the S. Anyone can plug a car in. 1200lbs of battery would be a bit rough to handle. Even 1/10th that would be too much to deal with.
I always figured Tesla would (literally) make a model T, soon after the model S.
The Tesla Model T, the electric car for everyone.
At some point, you can count on someone commenting that electrics cars are stupid and slow because they can't do the 1/4 mile in 4 seconds.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
If the company owned the batteries and you just rented them it would work. Combined with some sort of standardized battery and automated swapping system it sounds relatively fast and easy to me.
If they only charge Tesla vehicles, that would be like building gas stations that only sell proprietary fuel for Ford vehicles. Maybe sell the juice cheaper to Tesla owners but they need to provide high current plugs for all of the major electric vehicles.
Cross-country travel is still gong to be a hard sell, tho. They're talking about 30 minutes to 50% charge. So call it an hour to 90% and 1.5 hours to 100%. And I assume they're talking about the small Tesla pack to get the best numbers. And non-Tesla vehicles will have to be charged at a more conservative rate so they're going to have people hanging around for an hour or two charging their vehicles. That's a lot of time to kill.
Yeah, that is a valid comparison, because it is well known that gasoline flies by itself from refineries to gas stations, right ?
I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous.
It would be more credible to claim that the ONLY company that tried is bankrupt. You can almost always find a pioneering company that failed.
Perhaps fuel cells are the future or maybe someone will invent the Shipstone or Mr Fusion, but battery swap, I believe, can be viable and profitable.
Better Place was too far ahead of the curve or was focusing on the wrong niche.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
CHP / cogeneration's efficiency is pretty good; hydroelectric's efficiency is very close to awesome.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
I think the idea is that you're supposed to charge overnight at 115V or 230V in Vegas.
That's fine when the edge of the circle is your destination. But the fact that these are one way circles makes the map very deceptive. For example, take a look at the Fall 2013 map. It would seem that Toronto to NYC is a feasible trip, but it isn't, at least not by supercharger.
If you improve one inefficient plant, that automatically improves 10000 EVs.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Can someone tell me why a readership that embraces every speculative technology suddenly gets downright angry about the very thought of an electric car? Or for that matter any mention of energy produced by any alternative means?
Why does it make you so damn mad?
You are welcome on my lawn.
The efficiencies are too low and the cost is still too high. A rooftop solar panel was an (grossly overpriced) option on the Fisker Karma but would only generate enough power to keep the car cool on a hot day and power some electronics.
Even at 100% efficiency, the most that could be generated from a 1 meter square panel would be 1 kW.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Funny, I was just reading this a little while ago:
"âoeAt the time of the latest record, wind generation accounted for 22 percent of the power demand of 34,318 MWâ¦Wind farms expanded rapidly in Texas until 2009 when production began to overwhelm the existing transmission capacityâ¦Texas is building more than 2,300 miles (3,700 km) of high-voltage transmission in a $6.5 billion plan to expand the grid by late 2013 to accommodate wind-farm growth of up to 18,500 MW" - Reuters.
Maybe those 40 year-old coal plants won't be needed too much longer. I imagine getting 18,500MW without burning or consuming anything at all is pretty efficient.
You are welcome on my lawn.
30% is max efficiency, which usually occurs at around 75% output power. You don't use anywhere near that much power cruising (with the possible exceptions of Montana and the Autobahn). Average efficiency in driving is 14-26% according to this: http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/atv.shtml That's a frustratingly wide range, but you get the idea. IIRC coal plants are about 40%. Combined cycle natural gas powered plants are approaching 60%.
Exactly it is like me going to a car dealership and buying the car and the gas for the life of it and paying interest on both up front. Then we add another 5K paid by someone else all for the luxury of having a low range inconvenient vehicle. I have nothing against electric vehicles but they are going to have to get hell of a lot more practical before I jump into one.
Got Code?
Second, these things are extremely expensive to install (especially if they're not immediately next to major power lines). We're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars.
If it only cost hundreds of thousands, great!
However, it seems to me that you don't even have a basic understanding of construction costs.
"His name was James Damore."
I can burn down my garage with $10 worth of gas, thankyouverymuch.
With a gas-powered car, you can drive to the next town or next state and fill up. Maybe even the next street if the gas station has backup generators. If the "gas" station relies on the same grid, you're up the creek in a really bad way that you aren't right now.
Big Oil has long gone out of its way to stifle any advances in automotive technologies which would depends on other sources of fuel than petrol. More than likely by now electric cars should be a defacto standard for urban driving. We are at least 20 yrs behind because of Big Oil. I wish it was a conspiracy theory, but its true and many people got either paid off and/or were silence all in the name of gasoline.
Also, they can build biomass digesters near the windfarms to convert all the eagles, condors, and migratory birds being chopped up into even more clean energy. It's a win-win situation for sure.
Every restaurant along a major highway should be looking at installing an electric vehicle charger. If I'm taking a trip in an electric car and getting hungry, you can bet I'll choose the stop that lets me charge the car at the same time.
Sure, the Tesla supercharger may be expensive to install due to the power requirements, but even a standard 220V charger would be enough to make me decide to eat there instead of somewhere else. Even if my trip doesn't require extra charging, having extra power in case I encounter something unexpected is a good thing.
You have no experience in business, do you? Tesla is taking a huge risk to develop a product that requires a major shift in consumer behavior and a major outlay for charging stations.
These normal people you suggest targeting have budgets and already are suspicious of a technology they have no desire to be early adopters for. You even said this yourself. "Who would drive from New York to LA in these things?" If you're also selling a car that is $5-10K too expensive, you're toast, because you have no room to maneuver if the inevitable unforeseen costs give you any trouble.
Compare that to targeting an enthusiast market with low price sensitivity by making it the best driving experience you can, and where I can easily charge an extra $10-20K if I need to without drastically affecting my demand. Plus, I likely prefer lower production runs anyway because I'm still developing my process before I can benefit from economies of scale anyway.
This is the only way to make it happen.
I think that you're grossly underestimating the size and weight required of a battery to carry the 300 mile range.
Swapping out a 600lb battery pack isn't going to be as easy as pumping gas.
They don't have to. They can use all the birds, fish and crabs that were killed in the gulf oil spill. Better than just letting them rot on the beaches all across the gulf coast.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I think the idea is that you're supposed to charge overnight at 115V or 230V in Vegas.
That's fine when the edge of the circle is your destination. But the fact that these are one way circles makes the map very deceptive. For example, take a look at the Fall 2013 map. It would seem that Toronto to NYC is a feasible trip, but it isn't, at least not by supercharger.
According to marketing, if you leave Toronto in the Fall of 2013 and drive slow enough that you hit new stations coming online in early 2014... then you're OK. :)
And a solar thermal heat engine running a turbine with 800 degree pressurized steam can get close to 60% efficient. 60% efficient of the nigh inexhaustible power of the solar systems most powerful thermonuclear furnace.
Here is a pretty neat article on how the Chevy Volt uses its battery to modulate energy production from its internal combustion engine, allowing it to run nearer its optimal range more of the time. Note it is right in its sweet spot at 72 mph. (That said the car gets 'only' 40 mpg on the highway on gas, even though it can bypass the electrical drivetrain on the highway. It does weigh 700 lb more than a Prius so maybe the problem is the weight of the batteries which aren't very useful on long trips, but could allow you to drive up to 40 miles per day in the city without ever buying gas again.)
Regarding automobiles, the word supercharger already has a specific meaning, Find another word.
The other day I saw an advertisement for a wireless music receiver. Back in the day, we had something like that. We called it a radio.
A small obscure example....the pda/smartphone...
I'm really looking forward to this. Last weekend I took my model S down to Big Sur to do some camping and used a bit more power than I anticipated while driving over dirt roads and due to a headwind driving back north. On my way back I had to stop for a bit in Monterey at a level 2 charger to add a few miles before I could reach the Gilroy supercharger. I ended up having to unplug a Volt who was taking up an EV only spot (and was apparently there for many hours according to a Leaf owner parked across from me).
Of course their announcement shows that this summer a supercharger will be installed in or near Monterey, which would have solved that problem, and there are more on the way along Highway 1.
In fact, it looks like they'll be building some near some of the other out-of-the-way places I like to travel around the state. It looks like at least one is going in along Highway 395 along the Eastern Sierra.
The fact that they are reducing charging time is another bonus. 200 miles in 30 minutes for "free" is awesome. I enjoy the superchargers. It's often nice to chat with other Tesla owners there. When I stopped in Gilroy to charge I had 8 miles left. The fellow who pulled in next to me was down to 2 miles, and like me he had taken his car over a bunch of dirt roads. A standard level 2 charger gives me around 15-20 miles of range per hour. At a Supercharger I can get 15-20 miles of charge in 3 minutes!
While charging I can go stretch my legs, get a meal, check email, surf the web or whatever so I don't consider the delay that big of an issue.
Out of all the times I've used a supercharger I have never had to wait and there are usually plenty of places nearby to eat or shop while charging, even during Memorial Day weekend.
The superchargers really make road trips possible with electric vehicles. Sure, it's not as fast as filling a gasoline car, but 30 minutes for 200 miles is not bad! I suspect that when Tesla comes out with their 3rd generation coupe it will charge even faster since it will be a smaller and lighter vehicle.
Tesla seems to be well ahead of anybody else out there in terms of EV technology. Their batteries have the highest energy density for the lowest cost as well as a very compact electric motor. They spent a lot of effort on battery safety as well. I don't think synchronous motors can compete with induction motors when it comes to power density and I'm sure the cost of induction motors is also lower since there are no rare-earth magnets involved. The 420HP/445ft-lb induction motor in my Tesla is the size of a watermelon.
The Tesla power connector design is also much better than the J1772 Frankenplug or the huge CHaDeMo connector. Both the J1772 frankenplug and the CHaDeMo connectors are the size of a softball vs the much smaller Tesla connector. They have a small J1772 adapter and I'm sure they'll come out with additional adapters in the future for the frankenplug if it becomes popular.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
Good point. I didn't think about that. Oh well
"A good friend will bail you out of jail. A true friend will be sitting next to you saying, 'damn....that was fun!'"
The goal is to put a solar canopy over them to help power the station. Probably once the onsite batteries are charged, they'd even be able to make money on some of the lesser used routes. It's not so bad when you're wasting solar panel since it's going to waste anyways.
Battery swapping may seem like a common sense idea, but the technology in batteries isn't there that we can have a small enough batter package that can be robust enough to be swapped.
cost is the MAIN problem.
Wait till you get to replace those batteries and discover the real costs :D
From what I've read about the Prius the battery life is exceeding expectations by a wide margin.
Most drivers have never faced a battery replacement, because they are easily managing 10 years (200K miles) and the batteries have shown no sign of needing replacement.
Admittedly it costs around 2000 to 2500 bucks when you do need a replacement, although salvage yards will sell them to you for around $500. A cottage industry has sprung up refurbing Prius batteries.
Considering a typical Honda Accord will have two full tune-ups and maybe three of them by the time it hits 200k miles, the cost of those tune-ups will set you back equal that cost of the battery replacement, if not more. Never mind the usual replacement of struts, brakes/brakepads, exhaust system, transmission, etc.
If you check the map or try to actually drive a Tesla (I did) then you'll notice that superchargers are located at service plazas, which typically have fast food restaurants (maybe even MacDonalds).
Never, ever running the gasoline engine in a Volt would be a seriously detrimental thing, if for no other reason than the facts that gasoline gets a bit funky as it ages and engines are made to be run. Bad things happen to them during long periods of disuse if not properly prepared.
40 miles a day in a Volt and never buy gas again? Good luck a few years from now when you need to go 41 miles.
Kid-proof tablet..
Or perhaps they could disrupt a profitable market, sell at an appreciable margin, and make lots of money before trying to build massive, Toyota-scale factories out of nothing?
This. Here in Norway the Tesla Model S is looking like a very compelling offer because they're getting all the tax breaks of electric vehicles and the taxes tend to be much higher on high end cars which means that here a $80k Model S Performance sells for about the same as a slightly upgraded Audi A6 that'd sell for $50k in the US. Or if you look at cars that'd be roughly even priced in the US like the $75k Audi A8 it sells for 90% more than the Tesla here. Yes, it's exploiting a tax structure that won't last but right now they're getting to sell a damn fine high performance car like it was the most environmental-friendly subcompact on the block.
They've confirmed that 1000+ people here are now on a waiting list in a country of 5 million people, that's the equivalent of 60k+ in the US. And that was before the 99/100 Consumer Reports score which was widely publicized. It's not petrol/diesel car volume but they're getting decent volume - it's not like you're one of ten people in the country who has one, they get real people who have experience with them - most people are very conservative and true to brand when it comes to car purchases - and they get to boot a charger network. All in all, I'd say this looks like wins all around for them. So far I think they've promised the EV perks will last out 2015, if they come to an end I expect a huge rush of Tesla Model S orders before that who are still waiting for the first round of kinks to be worked out first.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
So if we combine a business arrangement that doesn't currently exist with a robotic system that doesn't currently exist that pulls standard batteries that don't exist from cars using the standard swapping system that doesn't exist it's easy
Exactly! Could I borrow a few billion dollars?
Can someone tell me why a readership that embraces every speculative technology suddenly gets downright angry about the very thought of an electric car?
Because they're a dumb idea until we have a much better battery technology, and we're forced to pay taxes so rich people can buy them at a subsidized price.
Or for that matter any mention of energy produced by any alternative means?
Because many of those 'alternative energy' technologies are scams and most of the rest are subsidized by our taxes because they make no financial sense.
Yeah really. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercharger
The Official Site of 1337 Pwnage
So, you plan on doing a coast to coast road trip and only plan to stop for 6 minutes each time the tank is running on empty?
I suppose you plan on packing all your food to eat on the road as well as a bunch of empty bottles to piss in (please throw them out at the filling station, rather than dropping a pee bomb on the highway.)
What is your plan for doing #2?
Seriously, for long road trips, waiting 30 minutes is not a big deal.
For local driving, you have more than enough charge until you get home to charge over night.
Yeah AC, thanks for the link to such a crap article by a biased writer who loves to hate.
Check out his latest headlines.
I love this nonsensical gem in the article you linked:
Tesla can’t increase demand by dropping the price very much. About the only way they can do this (barring some—currently remote—major battery technology improvements) is by cutting the vehicle’s range.
Seriously? This guy is suggesting that their only hope to increase demand is to reduce performance, rather than cost?
Q. And what do you think will drive better battery technology? A. The *need* for better battery technology. If the world subscribed to your point of view we probably wouldn't have invented the wheel yet because we were waiting to come up with a good enough axle. Most technologies are highly dependent on other technologies which means they improve iteratively over time. Do you know how inferior early internal combustion engines were compared with today's? And yet we didn't give up on the car altogether.
Until there is a MAJOR advancement in batt. tech(as in away from lithium with charge times at least an order of magnitude shorter) as well as a VERY well entrenched nationwide charging system gas and diesel ain't going anywhere except for the upper middle class to rich in major metro areas.
all electric motorcylces have already beaten the 7 second mark at over 200mph http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_drag_racing
It would be more credible to claim that the ONLY company that tried is bankrupt. You can almost always find a pioneering company that failed. Perhaps fuel cells are the future or maybe someone will invent the Shipstone or Mr Fusion, but battery swap, I believe, can be viable and profitable. Better Place was too far ahead of the curve or was focusing on the wrong niche.
It's not. Electric cars have batteries form fitted as part of the chassis. To have them in a standard form easily swappable outside the bearing structure would be a dramatic design limitation (as in functional design, not just looks).
The general public has never driven 300 miles (without stops of far more than 5 minutes) in their life. Seriously... never. Most people never take road trips. A lot of them never leave a hundred miles or so radius of where they were born. If they need to go somewhere more than a couple hour's driving away, they drive to the airport and take a plane.
When you can charge the car up to full every night while asleep (and energy is cheap), the odds are good that most Tesla owners will never even drive 100 miles - well within the range of even the lowest-tier Model S - without having at least half an hour to charge up. Five minutes for 300 miles is useful for truckers and serious road trippers, but nobody else cares. Hell, even on backpacking trips into the mountains I don't need that; the trailhead is rarely more than 100 miles away, and whiler I can't charge up there, I can recoup some of the energy from regenerative braking coming back down the mountain, and 200 miles is within the range of the larger-battery Model Ss anyhow.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
EVs have rather different battery packs to the Prius though. It is unlikely you would ever replace the whole thing, just like you wouldn't replace the whole engine in a normal car. Some of the cells might start to fail and need changing.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Actually the fast chargers should be more efficient. They're basically pumping DC directly into the battery, bypassing the car's built-in charging circuit. They're fed directly with 480V 3-phase power from a high voltage source. The two that I have seen are right next to a big HV power transformer. The Supercharger units themselves are about half the size of a refrigerator witha large fan on the side.for cooling. Lithium Ion batteries are typically quite efficient when charging as well.
Each Supercharger cost around $250,000 to build which isn't all that bad. So building 100 of them is only $25 million dollars, which is not all that much. They will more than pay for themselves in terms of added demand for their vehicles due to them.
They also have announced that they haven't ruled out battery swapping. There are inherent problems with battery swapping. Let's say your car has a new battery. What will be the condition of the battery that is swapped into your car? I could see it if you're leasing a battery instead.
The Tesla model S battery can be replaced in under 5 minutes. Better Place tried battery swapping and just went bankrupt. Perhaps Tesla can do it more successfully if they choose to do so. I would prefer to keep my battery and just wait the 30 minutes to add 200 miles of range.
As for a proprietary charging payment system, there isn't one. Tesla has promised that they'll be free to use forever, though cars with the smaller battery size will need to spend $2000 to activate that feature (the 85KWh battery cars don't have to pay to activate it). They are offsetting the electricity usage by installing solar (through Solar City, one of Elon Musk's other companies). If they wanted to do a payment system it would be easy. As a Tesla owner I have an account set up through their web site and the car is connected to the Internet. It wouldn't be that difficult to implement, no more so than ChargePoint or Blink, who have billing systems for using their EV chargers.
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Most people just don't drive that far, though. Even when I lived in the US (for 7 years or so), the number of times I drove more than 200 miles can be counted on one hand. Most of the people I knew were the same. 99.9999857% of their journeys were 15 miles or less.
If electric cars had been around then (and I had been rich and able to afford one), for the very few times I went on a road trip I could have rented a gasoline powered car. America is just too damned big to drive most of the time, even with the TSA shennanigans, it's easier to get on SouthWest.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
I have heard from multiple sources that each Supercharger cost around $250,000 to build. Out of curiosity I looked up the price of a 1000KVA transformer for 480V 3-phase and it was around $26K for a refurbished one. I know Tesla is very cost conscious from my tour of the factory. They were showing off one of their ceiling mounted cranes. They bought 10 of them for something like $60K when they were normally $100K each new.
The construction costs should not be that high from the two Superchargers I have been to. They basically poured four concrete peers where the posts with the cables are installed and a concrete pad off to the side which contains a large transformer and a couple Supercharger towers, each about half the size of a refrigerator. The transformer takes high voltage in and steps it down to 3-phase 480V which is then fed into the Superchargers. Each one is capable of outputting 120KW split between two vehicles. The wiring to each post needs to handle up to 255 amps so I'm guessing it's likely 1 gauge wire.
There's nothing fancy at the Superchargers I have been to. No big obilisk or solar covered roof like they show in the pictures (maybe some have that, but neither the Gilroy nor the Folsom ones have that). I understand later they plan to build out the solar panels which will add more cost, but the cost is supposed to offset the power used and then some.
I think the Superchargers will more than pay for themselves by increasing demand for their cars. Once they build out their network some more it will completely elimintate the need for my gasoline car for 99% of my driving. If I really need a gasoline car I can just rent one.
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The funny thing is that here in California during the summer there is much less demand at night when most charging takes place. In fact, with time of use fees it is cheapest to just configure the car to start charging at midnight. Temperatures are much lower at night so the demand for AC is significantly lower. The numbers have been run and there is plenty of capacity for EVs to charge overnight. In fact, there is excess supply at night since it's difficult to quickly start up and shut down power plants.
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and the charging station is probably being powered by a 40 year old coal powered power station
Tesla's superchargers are powered by solar cell farms operated by SolarCity.
sigs are hazardous to your health
Waiting in line at these charge stations is going to suck.
Elon Musk recently made a mysterious comment on twitter about how it would be possible to recharge your car in less time than it takes to fill a tank of gas. The actual announcement he was alluding to is still pending, having been pushed back by such details as Tesla raising a billion dollars in fresh capital etc.
Quite possibly though he is referring to battery swapping, something which the Model S has been designed and built for but which hasn't seen much actual use yet.
sigs are hazardous to your health
So I guess this means they don't have much faith in their new battery. The Al/AlO battery from phenergy I mean. The one they somewhat recently acquired the patent to.
Car enthusiasts think every single one of the world's top selling cars are pokey boring machines and that doesn't matter the tiniest bit to anyone else. I can guarantee that most car enthusiasts would pan every car I've ever owned. No one gives a crap about the opinion of car enthusiasts. For that matter the primary issue that car enthusiasts have had with electric cars is that they're slow, which the Tesla still is(by car enthusiast standards anyway).
Are you high? The Model S is one of the fastest production sedans on the planet, and far and away the fastest you can jam five or seven people in.
Define "rapid" in "rapid charging stations" please. It could still mean something like 45 minutes, which is "rapid" compared to the 5-6 hours needed to normally charge a Tesla. Assume you have to cover 700km. If you must do 400km, then wait 45 minutes sitting in a charging station before you continue your trip, I am not interested. And that is assuming they can work out the cost problems. The total cost of ownership of a Tesla for 10 years is still higher than the one of a gasoline powered hatchback or sedan.
$20,000.00 for a Chevy Volt battery
$4000, if you need one today. And the price will drop again as more of their cars use that battery.
And Chevy has said their indications right now are 300k+ miles out of the battery.
Nobody said they don't have to be replaced.
Just that the vast majority of them are running much longer than expected.
Only the first generation of Prius vehicles are reaching their 10 year life.
The Prius's use of the battery is fairly minimal -- most people wouldn't notice if the battery had lost 50% or more of its capacity. (The Prius gets its fuel efficiency from the Atkinson cycle engine, not from the electrics. The electrics are only there because the Atkinson engine has so little torque you'd never get the car moving without an electric "boost".)
If the battery was completely toast, you'd be stuck in a Prius, but even at 15-20% of the capacity, the car will drive just fine.
You have a good point, but you should have RTFA. It says the rapid charge stations take 30 minutes to charge the battery halfway. Which is why my money says this is all a huge waste. No one wants to sit at some station half an hour to be able to drive another hour and a half.
I think putting in such charging stations is pointless, unless you have the battery tech to the point where they're actually useful for the average driver. And that would mean charging 3-5 hours worth of driving time in 15 minutes or less. Personally, I don't think we're likely to get there any time soon, if ever. I think we're more likely to find ways to increase the total capacity of car batteries so you can do a day's worth of driving on one charge, then charge overnight.
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Smartphones used to be a "dumb idea" until better battery technology came along. Certainly tablets were a dumb idea.
The Apple Newton was a dumb idea until better battery technology came along but I bet the same people who get whipped into a fury at every mention of an electric car were creaming themselves over the Apple Newton.
Did I mention that Texas is getting better than 22% of it's electricity from wind turbines? Do you know how much of Germany's electricity comes from solar? Germany is a lot more cloudy than the US.
Only in the US do you hear the "Alternative Energy is a Scam!!" routine. I wonder why.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Henry Ford knew that for his business to succeed, his workers would have to become his customers, so he made sure they were paid decent wages. When Tesla's line workers can afford to buy a Tesla automobile, then Elon Musk will have succeeded.
I don't know about you, but there is actually an electric charging station next to where I live.
In terms of a percentage of the original purchase price, replacing the batteries in an electric car, after the first 10 years of life, is not all that different to the powertrain maintenance that a conventional auto would need during or by that time: engine rebuild, tranny rebuild and fluid replacement, timing belt replacement, (ordinary, starter motor) battery replacement(s), brake maintenance and replacement (over and above what an electric vehicle needs), and 25-50 oil changes.
No, you don't swap out the battery. It's too build into the car to easily remove and would take a lot of structural integrity out of the chassis to make one removable.
Instead, what you do is swap out the whole car. Drive to the next station, move your luggage and CD's and change, and everything into another car and continue on your way. That sounds about as reasonable as battery swap. And much more easy to do.
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
Bathroom breaks don't take half an hour. And meal breaks are taken when the location and time of day is agreeable, which *MIGHT* be, but is not particularly statistically likely to be at the exact same point or time that you always need to recharge.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
The engineers at GM are well aware of this, and the Volt's computer is subsequently aware of it. If you have not filled in ~6 months, it will alert you to add fresh gas. If you don't, it will start burning off the old gas to force you to do so.
But thanks for this perfect illustration of the "But what about [problem that everyone knows about]? You'll be fucked!" comment.
That 30 minutes only gets you half a charge, which amounts to barely 2-2.5 hours of driving time. That means if you wanted to spend the day driving (10-12 hours) you'd spend over two hours sitting at charging stations. That's absolutely terrible.
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"especially if they're not immediately next to major power lines"
None of those on major roads, no..
(And no, these do not need to be near 'major', i.e. transmission, lines. Any 3-phase primary is sufficient, same as most commercial customers)
Yes you can. That's only 12 gallons in a typical car that averages 25mpg highway. I've done fuel stops before that took 5 minutes or less while on a trip. Yes, I actually timed some of them.
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The general public has never driven 300 miles (without stops of far more than 5 minutes) in their life.
Irrelevant. The vast majority of the people who do drive 300+ miles at a stretch don't stop for half an hour during that stretch. The general public you're talking about don't drive far enough to need a charging station at all. Either way, these stations are going to prove a large waste of money.
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Same with the Tesla. Going 300 miles without a recharge is useful occasionally, but how light and quick would the same car be with just enough to easily get me to work and back, some 20 miles.
superchargers are widely used on locomotives, ships, generators, the term will be around for many decades
$0, they are covered under warranty. None of them is yet out of warranty.
$2500-$4000 will likely be the cost in 10 years or so when they start needing out of warranty replacement.
Environmentally toxic, short lived and manufacturing energy intensive battery power is not the way forward, biofuel from plants grown on scrubland (e.g. sagebrush) is the sensible carbon-neutral solution for long range vehicles such as we already have.
I think what the poster is trying to say here is that car enthusiasts are a bit myopic with how they rank cars. To me (and I suspect many consumers), an efficient, reliable, low total cost of ownership car with respectable safety ratings is the pinnacle of cars. I don't define my worth by the machine I drive. Enthusiasts don't get excited about these things, and likely don't drive Civics or Corollas.
All hybrids do that. Even my cheap insight keeps the engine RPMs in the most efficient range.
Even assuming your premise is correct, you forget the public relations value. Tesla will reward those customers who purchase their Model S car with apparently *free* access to fast charging facilities, for the lifetime of the car. Sounds like a good deal to me, I bet you it will tip some people towards Tesla and away from BMW/Cadillac/Mercedes Benz. It is not that uncommon to drive a long distance A to B and take a break on the way. Are there 4 people in your car? (Model S is a large car) Are there youngish children? They will want toilet breaks, drinks, snacks. If you do 3 long trips or so a year this could easily assuage fears about getting stuck, or having to hire something unfamiliar. This offer makes them seem like a really cool company, and addresses the problem of people's largely misplaced range anxiety.
Quick in a straight line maybe, but always obese and wallowing in the corners.
The roadster offers a perfect comparison: Drive a Lotus Elise (essentially, a modern gas-driven version of the Tesla Roadster's platform), then drive the Roadster and feel how the excess weight absolutely kills the sporty character of the car by butchering its performance and handling envelope. The only reason it works at all is because the Elise is such a light car to begin with.
Electric only offers good performance in a straight line, and then only for a few runs - I don't expect a Tesla of any kind would make it through a night of drag racing. And I don't expect we'll see electrics in any kind of road racing anytime soon. The lowliest Corolla would run away from the electrics after their batteries begin to flag just a few laps into the race...
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
It sounds strange, but maybe the answer isn't a swappable battery but a swappable passenger compartment.
Germany has so much solar because it has *insane* subsidies. It's moronic *not* to put money in solar in Germany, because (although this is changing), any excess power you produce *must* be bought by the power company at a very hefty multiple of the normal price. Germany is *not* the way we want to go here - in fact, the rush to solar and the Green's crusade against nuclear have created very significant instability in Germany' power grid. They are not far from the time that a large, dark front could crash the country.
Germany's subsidies are a lesson in how to create a really unsustainable ecosystem. It only works because Germany's industrial base is a world leader and makes enough to keep the socialist redistribution (barely) afloat. With its current balance of trade, I'm not sure that the US could even pull off German-style subsidies, and the Germans themselves are backing away from them very quickly as they begin to see the train wreck unfold.
BTW, fraud and abuse is rampant in the industry in general (I work in solar, and have worked int he oil industry - "green energy" really is thousands of times sleazier than oil & gas ever was) - in Spain, for instance (which also pays a premium for power delivered from solar plants), a large solar PV farm was caught using a bunch of generators to inject power into the grid at night - not only was this dirtier than a real power plant, they were getting many. many times more for that power since it was "green" because it came from a solar plant!
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
Note that if the photovoltaic farm is being installed to power the chargers, then the cost of the photovoltaic farm should be included in the cost of the charging station.
Also consider the amount of electricity per square foot that can be generated even by some of the higher end panels today. How much area would be needed to charge a single Nissan Leaf @ level 2 versus a Tesla at level 3/fast charge? Enough to charge 2 cars simultaneously? If not that, then the sheer amount of batteries required to store the power until needed.
I never said it was cheap to do anything with gasoline. Instead, I quite directly say that installing fast chargers are so cost-prohibitively expensive that it's likely that they're being subsidized by the federal government to serve expensive, wasteful electricity to the very, very few people who would actually use them.
At the very least, gasoline stations are paid for by private industry and will be able to pay off their own expense. These fast chargers are just getting people used to sub-market value fuel prices.
My comment here spurred fantastic conversation. How in the world did it get modded "troll"? Is this a case of "disagreement modding"?
It's great for Tesla owners that SuperChargers will be blanketing the nation, but I have a LEAF and wonder if, when SuperChargers start appearing near me, will I be able to charge there - paying for it as I would with Blink or any other EV charging network.
I see mixed news on this. My LEAF SV has two charging receptacles: a standard SAE J1772-2009 connector for level 1 and 2 charging (120/220 volts AC) and a JARI high-voltage DC connector designed by TEPCO for DC fast charging (480 volts DC 125 amps) using the CHAdeMO protocol.
The Tesla S uses a proprietary connector. The connectors are not the issue, as they can be added quite trivially.
It is Tesla's business decision to either permit or forbid competing vehicles to be customers of their charging facilities. Does anyone know of "other" vehicles can or will be able to use the Tesla facilities?
Can someone tell me why a readership that embraces every speculative technology suddenly gets downright angry about the very thought of an electric car?
Or for that matter any mention of energy produced by any alternative means?
Because many of those 'alternative energy' technologies are scams and most of the rest are subsidized by our taxes because they make no financial sense.
Have you considered this: things that make no financial sense may make no financial sense because of the way that accountants arbitrarily add in only a few of the costs of the existing technologies. The rest, like the cost of sick days from polluted air, high building maintenance or replacement costs because of acid rain, the contribution towards the costs of global warming, these are all called "externalities" and not considered. Add in those, and some of the alternative sources of energy might have a lower cost than the traditional ones. If not, then do the comparison after the R&D for the alternative energy sources is paid off. For example, I was reading Flibe Energy's estimate that the thorium-liquid salt reactor they want to mass produce will cost $100 million to develop. On the other hand, once it's developed, many of the (pollution, scarcity, radioactive waste processing and storage, high cost of manufacture) issues of other forms of energy production will virtually go away. I note that business may not fund this because it provides no short-term financial return, so they're going after military funding. It's also government money in the form of military funding that's keeping Polywell research alive.
-Gareth
It doesn't have to fully blanket the nation, just enough to get you from one station to the other.
Once you do that, there's a chance you'll have towns and cities begging Tesla to install them as well - similar to how the old rail system used to work when rail transportation was king. The towns used to fete the railway executives into building a stop in their town because it attracts people there, and with people comes money.
And since a Tesla is a luxury car, even if a station cost $1M to build, just having it could easily bring in tons of itinerant Tesla owners willing to spend some dough in town.
It's like how advertisers pay more for iOS eyeballs than Android eyeballs - because IOS users tend to buy stuff they sell. Your own little Leaf or Volt customer won't bring much money in, but richer Tesla owners?
...and then there's that first leak.
Relax. It's the first customer to ever use the men's room. Sheesh.
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
You should work in advertising.
The Tesla Model S's top speed is a full 50mph less than the top speed of my daily driver. It is quick to 60 ... but with an electric motor I'd hope so! p.s. I am a car enthusiast, as you can imagine from the top speed of my daily driver! :-) I saw a Chevy Volt on the way to work today. I passed on the left.
I'm impressed. You appear to be the sole owner of a fast car who actually drives fast (on the street). Typically, if you see two cars at a stoplight and you're trying to decide which lane to pick, you avoid the lane with the fast car. The faster the car, the slower the owner will drive it.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
What subsidies? If you're talking about the tax payer loan from the DOE to Tesla, in case you've been living under a rock they paid that back... with interest. The model S isn't subsidized by anyone; it's making a profit. A good one, apparently.
Of course, it should be even more obvious to put electric car chargers at hotels. When spending the night, you don't even need the high-speed superchargers. And as we're seeing more plug-in hybrids showing up, these won't just be used by pure electric cars. It's another way for a hotel to differentiate themselves and attract more business.
Bingo... if I had mod points, I'd mod you up.
Tesla Model S and it's ilk will most likely be charged at night when demand is low, anyway. Few people will charge during the day unless they're on a road trip... and for that they have the Supercharger stations (which long term it's intended that they all run solar and some will have local storage to feed back into the grid).
That's not a very good comparison because they don't share a lot outside of the body and chasis. There is about a 700 pound weight difference which of course means they handle differently, but the Roadster is still under 3000 pounds. I drove a Porsche 944 for years that was heavier than that and was renowned for it's handling characteristics. For handling weight distribution is far more important than absolute weight. One of the reasons the Model S apparently handles so well is that the battery pack is under the floor boards which gives it a very low and well balenced center of gravity. Anyways in real races cars aren't classed by their appearance but instead by their performance.
I live in St. Louis. That means that on a long road trip the supercharger stations I am most likely to use are in Bloomington, IL... Columbia, MO... and Springfield, MO. That'll get me as far as Kansas City, Tulsa or Chicago at which point I can charge again.
Quite frankly, when I drive to Chicago (about once a year), I typically stop in Bloomington for about half an hour to an hour anyway. It's a nice break point in the drive, and they have a lovely downtown. I know exactly where the Supercharger station is going in and it's within walking distance to some great restaurants and cafes.
Columbia, MO is a similar story... I don't know where the SC will go in but it's a college town with some fabulous eateries and cafes. No complaints there.
Springfield... ditto. I don't drive down that way as often as the other two, but again there are some nice places in Springfield. Nice area of the state.
All three of these places are often where I stop for gas, too. Even though I don't need it, I like to stop and fill her up. While doing so I tend to park the car and wander around a bit to keep blood flowing and stop being such a damned couch potato. Sitting still for 6 hours with only a 5 minute break doesn't sound like fun to me.
If I were to own a Tesla Model S, I would have to change precisely nothing about my lifestyle in terms of driving today. I would not have to particularly put any great planning into it, and in fact I might find myself with more time to myself because I don't have to detour a mile out of my way on the way to work in order to make sure I hit a gas station. Believe it or not on my daily commute there are ZERO gas stations by the side of the road... they're all quite a ways off. Minimum detour is just under a mile by the time you get off the highway, get gas and get back on. If my car is "fueled" in my garage every night then I'll never have to do this detour again. My life would be made better by a Model S or similar vehicle even without the SC stations... the SC stations just mean that I can take trips in that vehicle that I currently can't. Having said that, I don't often take my car to KC or Chicago, either... Chicago is the more frequent of the two but even then I usually fly.
I'm aware of that but I'm talking about cars. Personally, I don't care as I've never lived anywhere that you could legally drive that fast or would need to.
I would love a Model S but it's well outside my budget but could do alright most of the time with a LEAF.
If the Volt gets the promised price cut of $7-10k and either a larger battery or an increase in DoD from 65% to 80-90%, it would definitely make my shortlist of cars to buy.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Actually, they tend to break even or even make a profit over relatively short periods of time. Maintenance is rather low, typically... and the solar panels on the roof feed back into the grid. Even if they build it and no-one comes, the cost of putting it up will pay for itself in less than 10 years just by standing there and gathering solar power.
They're really rather cheaply built; they're big concrete covered parking with solar panels all over the roof. Sounds like a good idea to me :)
Subsidized price? Are you talking about the loan that they paid back already, 9 years early, or are you talking about the $7500 that the government is pitching in? I'm not a big fan of the subsidy, myself, but I have to wonder if you've considered the taxes that the oil companies aren't paying, and the relative impact of that versus the cost of the electric vehicles. Maybe if the oil companies didn't have a stranglehold on our collective scrotums, we'd balance out a bit better.
Watch for Penguins, they eat Apples and throw rocks at Windows.
But they're far too late to the game to be a major player. Natural gas has the same infrastructure obstruction they've been slowly overcoming, a far more cost competitive product, and a solid established user base in industry and public transportation. NG is the immediate future. Solar might follow it.
Renault was able to do it with the Fluence ZE - the only physical differences from the ICE version are the greater curb weight and an extra 5 inches length.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
So, you're saying that Germany's economic, industrial and social success is proof of the failure of democratic socialism?
Uh-huh.
You are welcome on my lawn.
And thanks for this perfect illustration of the "but I didn't even follow the context!"
OP was expressing that a Volt owner driving the car less than 40 miles a day would never need to buy gas again.
Which I'm sure we can both agree is utter bullshit in practical terms.
(And, no: I didn't know that the Volt had such functionality as automatically burning off old gas. That's a neat trick, even if it doesn't invalidate anything I said. But what happens when it lives in a garage?)
Kid-proof tablet..
The thing is that most FAMILIES have more than one car. One of those cars should be a car that will work for long range driving, while the other car should be an electric for around town driving. I have a number of colleagues who are switching their cars to this model as one or the other wears down. It just makes sense.
Subversion of spatial scale luxury decoration ideas.
This might cause a major culture shift in road trips. One, forcing a 30 minute rest every 3-4 hours will do wonders for driver fatigue and provide an easy opportunity for driver swapping. Second, when you can't iron-man a 1,400 mile trip in less than a day, it becomes more probable you'll take a second to stop and take in the local scenery and culture of the area of the US you're driving through. This could do wonders for bringing the country back together since people won't be traveling from one microcosm to another without interacting with all those in between.