Tesla Touts Cross-Country Trip, Aims For World Record

smaxp writes "A cross-country trip by two Model S sedans 'recorded the lowest charge time for an electric vehicle traveling across the country – a feat that is now being assessed for recognition as a Guinness World Records achievement,' according to a Tesla blog post. 'The 3464.5-mile jaunt is yet another attempt to ease range anxiety among many consumers who worry about being stranded in a car with a depleted battery pack and nowhere near a charging station. While Tesla’s Model S is too expensive for average consumers, the company plans to roll out cheaper models at some point and needs to address the fear that has stopped many people from buying electric cars, even cheaper ones such as the Nissan Leaf...'"

Comments

Call me when they can do trans-Atlantic

[TWiTfan]

Now THAT will impress me!

Re:Call me when they can do trans-Atlantic

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember this car ad on TV back in the 90's.
It had the catch-phrase, "if this car had wings, it could fly."
Well no shit. If I had wings, I could fly too. That's like saying "If this car had pontoons, it could float."

Re:Call me when they can do trans-Atlantic

[olsmeister]

Tell that to a penguin or an ostrich.

Re:Call me when they can do trans-Atlantic

[tripleevenfall]

It's like that centuries-old saying gunga-gunga-gunga-galunga. Which translated from the classical tongue means, "If your auntie had balls she'd be your uncle."

Re:Call me when they can do trans-Atlantic

[mspohr]

Perhaps you were thinking of Fiat:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Re:Call me when they can do trans-Atlantic

[Anonymous Coward]

There is the Sun21 and some other big solar trimaran that did it.

And sailboats have been doing it for centuries.

Re: Call me when they can do trans-Atlantic

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, she'd *probably* be your uncle. She might be trans.

Range anxiety isn't really rational

[i kan reed]

Big point-proving stunts don't help with people who go "my local gas station doesn't provide chargers. I'm doomed if I get one." Because that's really in their head, more than about any particular drive being possible. Tesla has to win market share the same way every new technology does: winning enough early adopters to seem normal(and creating a support market).

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[TWiTfan]

The thing that concerns me is that the various car companies have never even agreed on a standard for charging stations. So not only would I have to look for a charging station somewhere in the (currently pretty limited) areas they're available, but I also have to deal with looking for one specific to my car manufacturer. I can't just take my Nissan Leaf down to a local Tesla charger, or vice-versa.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. Today, you can't "really" do a cross country trip unless you are extremely careful about where you go, where you stop, and do your research on charging stations, hours of operation, hotels nearby, etc. They need to continue building up to the point where the average person can just say, "roadtrip" and go. That will take time, and probably means easily swappable batteries at locations (similar to how in the US they have swappable propane tanks at stores and you just switch yours out with a full one for a fee. Those locations would need some serious grid power so they can charge the empties. Until they have that, this whole "charging" thing is going to continue to be a problem. Having stunts like this try to convince people that it is viable isn't really all that productive when anyone can see it isn't viable for most people - yet.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[CastrTroy]

But your local gas station doesn't need chargers, because you can charge it at home. The Tesla has a good enough range that many people could probably drive it back and forth to work all week, do the groceries, and still only charge it once a week (on the weekend, when electricity rates are low). At 300 miles, that gives you 42 miles a day. It won't cover everybody's commute, but a fair number of people should be able to make it through the week on that. In reality, the main place you need charging stations is out on the highway. Add them in at hotels and shopping malls for visitors to the city to use, and you could clear up quite a bit of land currently in use by gas stations.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[i kan reed]

1. Negative charisma means you are literally unable to communicate at all. I thought that was more important than the discussion at hand.
2. There are generic chargers outside the building I live. I've seen both leafs and teslas hooked up. I'm not sure whether that disproves your point or misses it, but there you go.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Anonymous Coward]

Even Tesla cannot agree on a standard (see the story where Tesla chargers stop charging in Norway).

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[TWiTfan]

They really should:

a) Agree to a standard for the chargers for all brands (so that Nissan, Chevy, Tesla, etc. are all on the same page and working together)
b) Bring in some major gas station chains and offer them a subsidy for installing at least a single electric "pump" at all their stations.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Attila Dimedici]

Well, yes, of course, they would also need some new technology as well, rather than this 100 year old technology they are working with. However, they may have finally found the way to win a place in the market for this technology, despite the fact that it is not new.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Anonymous Coward]

But your local gas station doesn't need chargers, because you can charge it at home.

Which is useless when you're not at home. There is more to life than driving back and forth to work.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[mlts]

Nail, head hit. It would be nice to have multiple standards for charging stations, and it work across all cars. If we can do this with phones (MicroUSB), we can do this with cars, except with some caveats:

1: Circuits may vary. One place may have a 15 amp, 120VAC circuit at best. Another place might have an 80 amp circuit to support higher chargers, with a 50 amp subpanel coming from it to handle current charging needs.

2: The charger would need some safety features, If someone stuck a fork in a charging cord and got even a tingle, the lawsuits would be flying. Most current chargers are goof-resistant, but this is definitely an issue, especially in the US where I've seen workers stick two straightened clothes hangers into an outlet, then use alligator clips between those and the prongs on a plug.

3: Patent neutral. This needs to be a benefit for everyone, as vendor-neutral chargers will help every player in the market.

4: Low voltage failsafes. US power can be dirty [1], so it should either downshift or stop trying to charge altogether if it gets under 90 volts.

5: High voltage failsafes... Same reason. Just in case someone hooked up 120VAC to 240 or vice versa. This isn't an issue in Europe and the rest of the world, but there are a lot of RVs killed each year by plugging into a 240VAC dryer outlet which is almost the same shape as a 30 amp, 120VAC receptacle.

[1]: As a RV-er, a hard-wired EMS is a must if one doesn't want to fry their A/C due to voltage sags.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Anonymous Coward]

There is more to life than driving back and forth to work.

You're not being rational.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[CanHasDIY]

Big point-proving stunts don't help with people who go "my local gas station doesn't provide chargers. I'm doomed if I get one." Because that's really in their head, more than about any particular drive being possible.

Aside the fact that the Model S is an $80,000 luxury car (which is a fact that will limit sales all on it's own), the lack of charging stations and charging times are real concerns, which is probably why it's "in their head[s]."

Tesla has to win market share the same way every new technology does: winning enough early adopters to seem normal(and creating a support market).

This is a car that costs almost 6 figures, not the latest smart-gadget. I do not believe early adoption plays into the situation as much as with other, cheaper technological improvements - not nearly as much as the expense, charging times, and lack of range do.

Don't get me wrong, now that I've seen a Model S in person it's really grown on me, but regardless the fact remains that I, like most people, A) can't take on a(nother) $400+/mo car payment just because "it's neat", B) occasionally need to drive more than 200 miles at a time, and C) value my time more than a minimum 1-hour-to-charge wait affords.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[i kan reed]

Please, electric motors aren't new, but lithium ion batteries and their absurd ability to hold a charge and recharge are only a couple decades old as usable tech.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Attila Dimedici]

They are batteries. Yes, they are a new form of battery, but batteries are not new technology. Batteries appear to be even older than electric motors by a significant number of factors.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Attila Dimedici]

I forgot to add, wheels did not become a new technology when we started making rubber tires.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm going to cal BS. Dryer outlets don't look anything like regular outlets. I don't believe RVs are dying from plugging a cord into the wrong outlet.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[EvanED]

Because that's really in their head, more than about any particular drive being possible.

It really isn't, at least from what I can tell, for long road trips. Even under the numbers from Tesla's range calculator you just can't make the same pace you can in a gas car even in reasonably forgiving conditions. In moderately hard but still very realistic conditions, it becomes even less favorable:

If you put in 70 mph and 32 degrees, you get 204 miles. And that's on a full charge. But that's not the most time-efficient way of charging -- better is to spend about 45 minutes charging to, IIRC, about 75-80% capacity. That drops you to 164 miles. So that's "drive for less than 2 1/2 hrs, charge for 45 minutes." That's making pretty poor time IMO.

And what about colder weather and, say, 75 mph (which their range calculator doesn't even go up to)? You could easily be driving less than 2 hrs between charges, even if the superchargers were placed perfectly.

I'm super optimistic about something like the Tesla for around-town driving and shorter trips. But for the longer ones... I think Tesla needs very good coverage with cheaper battery swaps than they are planning.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Negative charisma means you are literally unable to communicate at all.

So that's why no one listens to me no matter what I say.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Anonymous Coward]

Big point-proving stunts don't help with people who go "my local gas station doesn't provide chargers. I'm doomed if I get one." Because that's really in their head, more than about any particular drive being possible. Tesla has to win market share the same way every new technology does: winning enough early adopters to seem normal(and creating a support market).

I have to give you this, you are consistently one of the most idiotic commenters on this site

A Tesla driving across the country does little to address the REAL problem of scarcity of charging
stations. The concern some drivers have about being able to charge an electric vehicle is
firmly based in the reality that without the ability to charge a vehicle, the vehicle which needs
charging cannot serve their needs. I live in the mid-Atlantic US and I drive hundreds of miles on
a regular basis. There is no electric vehicle which can meet my needs no matter how much bs artists
like Musk or idiots like "I Kan Reed" insist otherwise.

Seriously, I kan reed, you have proven you are an idiot, and it is time for you to shut the fuck up.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[daem0n1x]

WTF? A simple electric outlet isn't standard enough to you?

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[i kan reed]

Let me spoil some things for you:

James Watt didn't invent the steam engine, he made it pragmatically efficient.
Edison didn't invent the light bulb, he (paid people to) improved the design to make it cheap to manufacture and relatively reliable.
ENIAC wasn't the first computer, it was the first one to be able to do some tasks faster than a human.

Improvements in technology have almost never been sudden and game-changing, and it's completely disingenuous to pretend that advancement to the stage of usability isn't a big deal.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[CrimsonAvenger]

But your local gas station doesn't need chargers, because you can charge it at home.

No, but the local gas station I stop at halfway to my parents house needs one. Otherwise I can't visit home with an overnight stay somewhere.

And yes, I can have another car to use for long trips. Or rent one. But if I have to keep an extra car around, or pay rental to use one, I might as well keep the gasoline burners I use now, rather than switch to electrical.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[i kan reed]

Look at me not doing what you say.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[CrimsonAvenger]

b) Bring in some major gas station chains and offer them a subsidy for installing at least a single electric "pump" at all their stations.

Now this would be a significant step toward widespread acceptance of electric cars.

Actually, you don't even need a subsidy - offer to install, say, 2-4 chargers (with software for metering and selling the electricity) at every gas station for free.

Or have the Feds do it.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[cayenne8]

Meh....

If you want to get my attention back again Tesla, start building the roadster performance model again, or something similar in the price range of a corvette.

Then I'll be interested!!

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Attila Dimedici]

You expressed the opinion that what Tesla is selling is a new technology. What Tesla is selling has been around for essentially as long as ICE vehicles, was initially more popular than ICE vehicles. In order for Tesla to succeed they must prove to people that what they are selling is a superior solution to what they are already doing to meet the need. They have developed a strategy that may work, part of that strategy is to convince early adopters that it is new technology, even though it is not. They appear to have succeeded with you, even though you appear to know that it is BS.

Re: Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Anonymous Coward]

"There is more to life than driving back and forth to work." Right, there is also driving back and forth to the store, and to swimming lessons, etc. etc.

Home charging is way better than the gas station. My wife's car is often way to close to empty for comfort (and my kids will attest). My Tesla, on the other hand, is always fully charged within a couple of hours (at most, usually much less) of arriving home. No problem.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[slapout]

So you're saying we need charging stations with "Regular", "Mid-grade" and "Premium" like options.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Meeni]

European union has enforced a norm. So you could expect that this will become somewhat pervasive. Except if USA decides to come up with its own norm as usual.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Githaron]

I think the issue is the superchargers being particular to one car manufacturer. If you are on a trip, you want to be able to charge in minutes not hours.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[i kan reed]

I can't argue against your absurd assumption that incremental improvements that make important headway aren't new. It's crazy in the face of the history of technology, but you've decided that point as an absolute fact, and I'm not going to convince you you're wrong, apparently.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[AmiMoJo]

There are already standards for chargers. You just need a charging cable suitable for your local market (US ones are different to European ones and Japanese ones) but Tesla supply one with the car.

All the requirements you list have already been met. The cable negotiates with the charger to see how much power it can draw and to make sure the current isn't turned on until it is securely attached. Tesla cars monitor the voltage and current constantly so if there is a problem they reduce power. Voltage support is universal so 120V and 240V doesn't matter.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[badboy_tw2002]

Why does it have to be gas stations? If they're really serious, have every McDonalds & Walmart install 3-4 charging stations at their stores. Then you at least have a place to sit or something to do for the half hour the super charger takes. Its not like you specifically have to be a gas station with all the associated hardware to install these things, its much much simpler than burying a giant tank and coming up to code and all that.

Re: Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Anonymous Coward]

There is also not driving back home. What good is charging at home if you aren't returning home.

Not that I would expect you to understand that. After all you were dumb enough to buy a tesla.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone should just decide on a charging standard by fiat.

Except that fiat isn't too good of a car company to follow...

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Anonymous Coward]

> Tesla has to win market share the same way every new technology does: winning enough early adopters to seem normal(and creating a support market).

It's going to be trickle down, for sure. I live in just outside of LA, and there are a lot (nearly a dozen) of Tesla's in our small suburb of ~25k. Six months ago it was, "Wow, look, a Tesla." Now it's, "Oh look, that one is red. I don't think I saw a red one before." They are certainly habituating me (though granted I didn't need much convincing).

Once the cheaper version (crossover SUV?) comes out, and we start seeing even more, it's definitely going to snowball, at least out here in California.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[davester666]

Yeah. Rent a real car if you have to go anywhere else!

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be nice to have receptacles that are clearly marked as free to use. A neighbor of mine had to call the police on someone who took an extension cord and plugged their LEAF into the outdoor receptacle, then said person when confronted, said that they had a right to use any power plug they so chose. This doesn't sound like much, but 1500 watts can add up, especially with more and more electric vehicles and the fact that people view leeching power is acceptable.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Anonymous Coward]

Because Norway's electrical mains are technically nonstandard, thus...Tesla had to accommodate it through extra lengths.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[TWiTfan]

The standards you're talking about are only for home chargers, not for these supercharger stations. And a home charger wouldn't be appropriate for such use anyway (unless you want to leave your car charging overnight at a station). They need a supercharging station standard, so someone could charge up their Leaf, Volt, or Tesla at the same charger..

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[mlts]

I'd take a gander at various RV forums, and this happens fairly often. The 30A, 120VAC receptacle has a U-shaped ground. The older 30A, 240VAC receptacle has an L-shaped neutral. Modern dryer outlets in the are four-pronged (a ground was added) which makes this a moot issue in any install made in the past decade), but sometimes people still confuse or miswire the two in an older place.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[hawguy]

Exactly. Today, you can't "really" do a cross country trip unless you are extremely careful about where you go, where you stop, and do your research on charging stations, hours of operation, hotels nearby, etc. They need to continue building up to the point where the average person can just say, "roadtrip" and go. That will take time, and probably means easily swappable batteries at locations (similar to how in the US they have swappable propane tanks at stores and you just switch yours out with a full one for a fee. Those locations would need some serious grid power so they can charge the empties. Until they have that, this whole "charging" thing is going to continue to be a problem. Having stunts like this try to convince people that it is viable isn't really all that productive when anyone can see it isn't viable for most people - yet.

Why do you "need" swappable batteries to do what the Tesla did without swappable batteries? 20 minute charge time sounds reasonable for the rare long distance trip, (especially if charge stations are available at restaurants and hotels so you can charge while you sleep or eat) but their goal is to drop the charge time to 5-10 minutes, which should eliminate the need to swap out batteries -- which sounds like a logistical nightmare if battery swap stations have to stock a dozen or more expensive batteries to cover all of the cars on the road, and the station might be out of your battery type when you go in for a swap.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[WindBourne]

nice thing about Tesla, is that they deal with all of those issues.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Ralph Wiggam]

The thing that concerns me is that the various car companies have never even agreed on a standard for charging stations.

They agreed on a standard years ago, and implemented it. My Nissan Leaf can plug into any public charging station. But in 7 months, I have never charged my car outside of my garage.

Tesla's Supercharger stations are a different, 90kW system.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[WindBourne]

you are right. There is more to life than work. However, how many ppl drive their car more than 250 miles/day constantly? Few. VERY few. And within 2 years, Tesla will have a supercharger every 100 miles in the USA, so that you do not have to worry about that.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[mythosaz]

They need a supercharging station standard, so someone could charge up their Leaf, Volt, or Tesla at the same charger..

There already is, and I charge my Leaf at a Supercharger now and again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S... (level 1 and 2 charging) is widespread (500+ in my city), and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... (level 3) are scattered about.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Anonymous Coward]

NEMA 10-30 and TT-30.

Of course, the NEMA 10's are a bit out of date anyway, they are technically safe, but you'll find new installs will use NEMA-14 instead.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Attila Dimedici]

You are correct that you are not going to convince me that electric vehicles are new technology in the same class as Personal Computers were (or even computers were going back to ENIAC) or cell phones were (and maybe still are, it is open to debate in my mind whether cell phones have crossed over into mature technology yet).
Lithium ion in batteries does not make electric vehicles new technology any more than putting rubber tires on wheels made wheels new technology.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[mythosaz]

Actually, you should.

Any long-distance trip is almost NEVER worth your mileage.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Anonymous Coward]

Tesla will have a supercharger every 100 miles in the USA

Which is useless if you don't own a tesla.

Also super charging will destroy your battery so a super every 100 miles is useless when your battery capacity have depleted to less than that 100 miles.

Also super charging is a will still take hours. Because there are only two slots and if you are the third car there you will need to wait an hour before you can even start charging your car.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[phantomfive]

Big point-proving stunts don't help with people who go "my local gas station doesn't provide chargers. I'm doomed if I get one." Because that's really in their head, more than about any particular drive being possible.

I don't know about 'range anxiety,' but it makes me more likely to buy one. If I can drive most places I want to go without getting stranded, then I am happy.

Of course, the solution isn't complete yet; but it shows coverage is growing, and Tesla is committed to the growth. So that's a good thing.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought everyone had agreed on SAE J1772? I'm pretty sure the Model S, Volt and Leaf all use this. I know for sure everyone is planning on using it going forward. All the public charging stations where I live (Orlando, FL) use it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAE_J1772

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[i kan reed]

Who "invented" the personal computer, please.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Anonymous Coward]

Any long-distance trip is almost NEVER worth your mileage.

Citation Needed

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[TWiTfan]

They're not too standard. Tesla doesn't use them.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[TWiTfan]

Tesla uses its own standard. You can't charge anything but a Tesla at one of their chargers.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[WindBourne]

First off, Model S/X are expensive, but that is about to change in 3 years.
Secondly, Next years Toyota rav ev can make use of the superchargers.
Third, super charging does NOT destroy the batteries. They have already proven that is the case.
Fourth, having a charger every 100 miles does not mean that you must use it, any more than you must use a gas stations that runs block to block.
Fifth, super charging is less than 1 hour to charge the model S from drained. And most sites have 6 slots, not 2. You can use google map to look right down on it and see how many slots, or simply read it straight off the page.

Basically, you BSed your whole way through this.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Anonymous Coward]

Third, super charging does NOT destroy the batteries. They have already proven that is the case.

WRONG

It's has been proven that super charging does destroy the battery.

Re: Range anxiety isn't really rational

[AvitarX]

I think they need to wait until they come up with a method that gets a 200+ mile pack charged in 15 minutes before they standardize.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[mythosaz]

There's an adapter.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Attila Dimedici]

Did I say someone invented the personal computer? Does something have to be invented by a specific person to be new technology? Are you claiming that the personal computer was no more new technology in the 1980s than the electric car is today? The idea of the personal computer when it arrived in the 1970s was a new idea, previous ideas about computers was that they would always be room or building sized devices. What is new about the idea of the electric car today, that was not part of the idea of the electric car in 1900?

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[mythosaz]

Car rentals are as low as $30 a day. [Lower even.]

A simple road trip (Long Beach to Las Vegas) is about 280 miles. Easily 300 miles from driveway to hotel valet.

A small sedan is, on average, 30 cents a mile to operate before gas. That includes maintenance, tire, insurance, depreciation - everything. Removing the insurance still leaves you at 23 cents a mile.

A $30 rental that drives 300 miles is 10 cents a mile. Even a $60/day rental is cheaper than driving your own car, on average, even for a short road trip.

http://newsroom.aaa.com/tag/av...

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[amorsen]

4 people in a regular petrol car driving at the speed limit (not on the Autobahn) is almost unbeatable when it comes to cost per distance as well as pollution. Most electric trains have trouble beating that. Electric cars are even better, of course.

The problem with cars is that they rarely transport 4 people in practice.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Anonymous Coward]

Car rentals are as low as $30 a day.

That 30 dollars per day don't include
Insurance
Gas
Millage charges
Opportunity costs associate with extra time to get the rental.
Costs for damages.

Plus that 30 dollars per day is no where near true prices. A quick look on Hertz shows the cheapest car at $91 per day for Kia Rio.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[TWiTfan]

It's only works one-way, though. You can't charge anything but a Tesla at a Tesla supercharger.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[ceoyoyo]

Some people don't really want to check into a hotel for the night when they pull into a fuel station.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Anonymous Coward]

From the mythosaz post to which you originally replied:

"...I charge my Leaf at a Supercharger now and again."

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice of you to quote only the first line of his post, and then pretend to dispute it by calling out 'other factors' that he actually explicitly took into account in the remainder of his post.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Em Adespoton]

Big point-proving stunts don't help with people who go "my local gas station doesn't provide chargers. I'm doomed if I get one." Because that's really in their head, more than about any particular drive being possible.

Aside the fact that the Model S is an $80,000 luxury car (which is a fact that will limit sales all on it's own), the lack of charging stations and charging times are real concerns, which is probably why it's "in their head[s]."

Tesla has to win market share the same way every new technology does: winning enough early adopters to seem normal(and creating a support market).

This is a car that costs almost 6 figures, not the latest smart-gadget. I do not believe early adoption plays into the situation as much as with other, cheaper technological improvements - not nearly as much as the expense, charging times, and lack of range do.

Don't get me wrong, now that I've seen a Model S in person it's really grown on me, but regardless the fact remains that I, like most people, A) can't take on a(nother) $400+/mo car payment just because "it's neat", B) occasionally need to drive more than 200 miles at a time, and C) value my time more than a minimum 1-hour-to-charge wait affords.

A) 2013 Tesla Model S: from 69,900 USD

I don't think that's close to $100,000 or even $80,000.

That said, it's still at the pricey side, when you can get a fuel efficient reliable new car for $24,000. But there are a lot of people who can afford this price range, as the large number of vehicles sold in that range indicates. Once the infrastructure is set up and Tesla is ready to release their $30,000 vehicle, the price question will be even less relevant.

B) When you drive 200 miles at a time, do you stop to use a rest room and/or eat? Plug in while you're doing that, and you'll have no problem making the 200 miles. There's no rule that you have to top up your charge every time you "fill up".

C) See B.

While there are a number of reasons to avoid electric vehicles, including the Model S, your reasons are more the popular ones bandied about than actual reasons that make sense in the long-term. In fact, your response is exactly why they need to do things like these "record breaking drives" -- as they get it into society's consciousness that such things are possible, which is one of the biggest hurdles to overcome.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[ceoyoyo]

The web site wouldn't let me match my typical winter driving conditions, but the closest I could get put the range at 171 miles.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Anonymous Coward]

By your own benchmark "What Tesla is selling has been around for essentially as long as ICE vehicles", the personal computer was no more a 'new technology' at its introduction than the Tesla is now.

There's nothing new about the *idea* of an electric car today (compared to the 1900s). Just like with comparing the PC to it's predecessors, the differences are all in the *implementation*.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[mojo-raisin]

mythosaz is full of it.

Tesla is not paying to fill up all EVs. Tesla only pays to fill up Teslas.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[BasilBrush]

a) Tesla is minimising the charge time for their own cars. They can probably save time by doing their own thing than following a standard.
b) Tesla is providing free electricity from it's superchargers.
c) Tesla's business interests are best served by giving these advantages to their own cars only.

It's a transitory period in the technology. Charging stations will eventually be run by companies other than the manufacturers, and they will be best served by providing electricity to all comers. But whilst EV manufacturers are priming the pumps, it's hardly surprising they are serving their own interests.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice of you to quote only the first line of his post, and then pretend to dispute it by calling out 'other factors' that he actually explicitly took into account in the remainder of his post.

He took nothing into account for the rental. Learn how to read.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Anonymous Coward]

That damn USA, always coming up with their own norms. Why can't they just eat all the shit Europe feeds them? We really don't want them thinking for themselves.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[peter303]

I just sleep in the car.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[dbialac]

In the last ten days I've seen two articles which, IMO, spell the inevitable death of the electric car's resurgence. The first talked about a new process that breaks down normal plant cellulose into sugar, meaning that the entire corn crop can be converted into ethanol rather than just the second and the second talks about a huge breakthrough by Boeing. I can't find the link to the first, but here's the second:

http://www.energypost.eu/exclu...

The Boeing breakthrough basically means we can turn the Sahara Desert into a giant farm to grow ethanol crops. And unlike with conventional fuels or even electric, you can build inefficiencies into the system to absorb more CO2 than you expel back into the atmosphere. Better put, you can have carbon negative fuels.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[AK Marc]

When Tesla has a large bank of chargers and Nissan doesn't, Nissan will license the connection from Tesla, and the non-standard will become a de-facto standard. So many standards came about this way.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[mythosaz]

You're correct. I have never used a Tesla branded Supercharger.

There are, on top of the 500+ J1772 chargers, a smattering of "Type 3" CHAdeMO chargers in Phoenix, usable by Leafs and Teslas alike. They charge my battery from empty to full in 30-40 minutes. They offer the same sort of charging rate as the Supercharger(tm) chargers. They're strategically stationed at the edges of the city, for the most part. One's even located in Casa Grande -- not quite midway between Phoenix and Tucson, but enough to make that trip possible on a short time table.

http://www.plugshare.com/

If you look at PlugShare's map of Phoenix, you'll see plenty of Type-3 chargers (select only them from the Legend on the upper right), but most of them are at dealerships. You can almost certainly use them -- the dealers are happy to let you -- but they're not exactly located for convenient shopping and going about your day.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[CanHasDIY]

A) 2013 Tesla Model S: from 69,900 USD

Yea - "from $69,900 - that's marketing talk for "$69,900 and up." Per Tesla's website, the $70K model has an "EPA-Certified Range" of just over 200 miles, no free access to Superchargers, and no lifetime replacement warranty on the batteries. As the theme of the article we're discussing is "OMG No Fuel Cost Cross Country Drive," it becomes obvious that the $70K base model was not the one being used, but rather it was either the $79,900 85Kw or the $89,900 85Kw Performance version.

On the plus side, though, both 85Kw variants have a range closer to 300 miles.

I don't think that's close to $100,000 or even $80,000.

Well, I said $80K, and if you can't see how $70K is close to $80K... You probably have a different understanding of the value of things than most people I've ever met.

That said, it's still at the pricey side, when you can get a fuel efficient reliable new car for $24,000. But there are a lot of people who can afford this price range, as the large number of vehicles sold in that range indicates. Once the infrastructure is set up and Tesla is ready to release their $30,000 vehicle, the price question will be even less relevant.

Sure, save the fact that most of the people they want to sell $30,000 electric cars to already own $30,000 fossil fuel cars, and can't afford that extra payment. I presume Tesla is banking its hopes on the idea that those people will, someday, trade in their current vehicle and opt for an electric; only time (and availability) can tell on that one.

Personally, I've considered trading my wife's TDI Jetta in on one of the cheaper models when they come out, as it would make a perfect commuter vehicle for her; however, I'm stymied by the fact that I often take trips of over 600 miles in 2 days, and cannot afford to waste time A) searching for a Supercharger (Which won't exist in my state for another 2-3 years), B) waiting for someone else to finish charging so I can start my hour, C) driving around and around until I find a publicly accessible outlet owned by someone cool enough to let me use it, etc.

Plus, the Vee-Dub is fuckin' tight, man - never realized how nice a car 30 grand could get you until I bought the TDI.

B) When you drive 200 miles at a time, do you stop to use a rest room and/or eat?

Hell no!

It's a 3-4 hour trip, hold your shit; I do.

Plug in while you're doing that, and you'll have no problem making the 200 miles.

"Plug in" for how long, and where? Just hope some local resident of Bum-Fuck Egypt has an external outlet, and is kind enough to let me spend an hour or two sucking a few kilowatts the electricity they pay for? Not to mention, I don't know about you but I consider my time, especially on a weekend road trip, far to valuable to waste in such a manner.

So you know, I can spend 10 minutes filling up the TDI, and it will get me there and back (~500 miles total) with enough fuel left to drive to work on Monday. When you consider that 99.99% of the driving population is not only used to, but expects that sort of convenience, you begin to see why electric cars aren't 'taking over' anytime soon.

There's no rule that you have to top up your charge every time you "fill up".

There's no rule that I have to top off my fuel tank, either. The difference is, if I start to run low on diesel, I can pop into the service station that exists on every highway off-ramp and most street corners and re-up. Finding a good-hearted soul that's going to let me park on their property and soak up some of the juice they pay for, not so easy.

While there are a number of reasons to avoid electric vehicles, including the Model S, your reasons are more the popular ones bandied about than actual

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[BasilBrush]

The Roadster was based on the Lotus Elise. A car that's not shipped for 18 years. The supply of Elise shells ran out.

The Roadster was only ever intended to be a way to bootstrap the company in a relatively raid way, by only having to work on the EV side of a car.

Meanwhile, if you want a modern Lotus with electric car performance, here's a nifty hybrid:
http://www.theguardian.com/env...

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[BasilBrush]

I might as well keep the gasoline burners I use now, rather than switch to electrical.

Maybe. For now. But as gas continues to become more expensive relative to electricity, at some point your personal balance point will be surpassed.

The whole thing with technology adoption curves is that not everyone comes over at the same time.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[BasilBrush]

You expressed the opinion that what Tesla is selling is a new technology.

And he's right. Modern batteries aren't the same as the old lead-acid batteries anymore than whisky is the same as beer. You're an idiot if you think there is no new technology in batteries.

Likewise with computerised battery management. There was no such thing in 100 year old EVs.

Also the modern smartphone is new technology compared to two cans and a piece of string.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[BasilBrush]

Which is useless when you're not at home. There is more to life than driving back and forth to work.

Right. But it does mean you can create a workable supercharging network by simply concentrating on the motorways/autobahns/interstates/highways. This differs from gas stations, in that they aren't needed so much at a local level. They are primarily needed for long distance journeys.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[BasilBrush]

Lithium ion in batteries does not make electric vehicles new technology any more than putting rubber tires on wheels made wheels new technology.

I'm afraid that just goes to show your lack of understanding of what goes into modern battery systems.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[BasilBrush]

What is new about the idea of the electric car today, that was not part of the idea of the electric car in 1900?

Battery management systems. Without which the modern EV would not be possible. And which requires a microprocessor just as much as the PC did,

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[BasilBrush]

This is a car that costs almost 6 figures, not the latest smart-gadget. I do not believe early adoption plays into the situation as much as with other, cheaper technological improvements - not nearly as much as the expense, charging times, and lack of range do.

All technology adoption curves have an early adoption phase.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...

High cost at the early adoption phase is normal. The early majority comes in as the price reduces.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[EvanED]

However, how many ppl drive their car more than 250 miles/day constantly?...Tesla will have a supercharger every 100 miles in the USA, so that you do not have to worry about that.

You don't have to do it constantly, just on occasion. For example, do you live in a city or live alone and only have one car? I don't know about you, but at least I wouldn't make it an electric. Even that 100-mile supercharger interval doesn't make it sound appealing for reasons I've said in another post: even the superchargers are too slow for long trips. "Just rent a car when you actually need to drive somewhere!" doesn't exactly make a good advertising slogan.

I'm very excited about electric cars now for commuting and very short trips, but once you get to the point of needing more than one charge on the road (which could happen in as little as ~5 hrs of driving in very realistic conditions -- really, even less than that) I think it starts to look really unattractive.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[MMC Monster]

Tesla cars apparently come with adapters to use other chargers.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[BasilBrush]

Suppose all cars were running on biofuel. If you were to grow biofuels in a strip of land next to the roads on which the cars run, that strip of land would on average have to be 8km wide.

This is of course impossible.

Re: Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Anonymous Coward]

Pick a different chassis then.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[mattack2]

J1772 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J1772) isn't standard? There are a couple of ones that don't 'support' that built in (e.g. Tesla), but I believe you do get an adapter with the car.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[pavon]

Some of the older Tesla charging stations have SAE J1772 connectors, in addition to superchargers. There is no reason to doubt that he has used them with his Leaf. He's not lying, just being willfully ignorant about the difference between a supercharger and a standard slow charger.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Anonymous Coward]

Cluless dickhead endlessly bangs on about a meaningless trivial semantic point, thus proving his dick headed cluelessness to the world.

Film at 11.

Re: Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Guspaz]

They came up with a way to get a 200+ mile pack in your Model S in about 90 seconds... an automated station swaps the battery pack. They have some videos showing it off. The plan is to roll them out at supercharger stations. You'll have the choice of supercharging for free (where 15 minutes gets you something like 85 miles of charge), or doing a battery swap where the swap costs about as much as an equivalent tank of gas at local prices (it's a rental, you're expected to stop and do the swap again on the way back to get your original battery).

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Guspaz]

A simple electrical outlet (providing you mean "standard everyday type") can safely provide you at most ~1.5 kilowatts. Charging a long-distance electrical car from such a socket would take days.

A supercharger can do 170 miles of range in a 30 minute charge. A standard 110v outlet would take 40 hours to provide the same range.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Guspaz]

Everyone agreed on it, and Tesla includes an SAE J1772 adapter with each car... but that's a very slow charge, under 20 kW. The SAE is working on higher power standards, but none of them are available or ready yet.

Re: Range anxiety isn't really rational

[AvitarX]

Do we really want to commit all future electrics to have battery packs like present day Tesla's? Does Tesla even want to commit to that?

I'm not trying to be contrairian, I just dont want to standardize too soon, the time will obviously come, but I dont know that it's now yet.

Perhaps something similar to the current slower chargers, with a plug that the physical dimensions are enough to move enough amps at a reasonable voltage to do the charge, and then allow the negotiating to handle future compatibility.

I think the battery packs are the wrong place to standardize, because I can see benefits to them being odd shapes that contour to the car.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Firethorn]

They offer the same sort of charging rate as the Supercharger(tm) chargers.

Just fact checking:
Level 3 charger - 240kW max (actual capability depends).
J1722: 240V@80A: 20kW
CHAdeMO: 62.5kW.
Tesla supercharger - 100/120kW
On the other hand, the Leaf maxes out at 44kW with a DC charger. 6.6kW with the onboard charger, vs 11/22 for the Tesla(single/dual charger option).

Checking everything, it looks like you would only max out your leaf's charging capacity with a CHAdeMO connection, but while it and J1772 both count as 'level 3' because they're DC and over the capability of level 1 & 2 AC charging, they're not up to Tesla's standards.
Right now Teslas Model S vehicles are the most capable of fast-charging in terms of miles of charge per hour. Given their relatively huge battery packs, this makes sense.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Firethorn]

No real links to give, but a number of sources has mentioned that Tesla is willing to license their technology to anybody willing to be 'open'. Presumably that amounts to 'not shutting out Tesla cars while you're using Tesla technology for your charging'.

IBM compatible comes to mind.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Firethorn]

Secondly, Next years Toyota rav ev can make use of the superchargers.

Citation? My check shows that the Toyota Rav EV will use teh J1772 plug, not Tesla's proprietory setup, even though everything else seems to have come from Tesla.

Re: Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Guspaz]

I wasn't implying that anybody should standardize on battery packs, only that one company had a solution to that problem for their own products. I suspect that eventually, one of two things will happen. Either Tesla will maintain a sufficiently large marketshare to be able to pressure the rest of the industry to move to their own charging standard, or their marketshare will be small enough that a more general industry standard takes off. At this moment, Tesla's superchargers are really the only chargers in their class deployed in the US (CHAdeMO is more widespread, but limited to about half as much wattage), but SAE has a 90 kW version of their J1772 connector that adds some DC connections, and presumably they're working on even higher wattage versions.

I think Tesla deserves some credit for attempting to solve the problem of range anxiety by building out the infrastructure themselves, but ultimately a universal standard would be far more beneficial.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Firethorn]

No, but the local gas station I stop at halfway to my parents house needs one. Otherwise I can't visit home with an overnight stay somewhere.

I tend to live in 'expansive' areas like North Dakota and Alaska, but even I don't consider a fueling station that I need to hit between two locations so far apart that I need to refuel between them (IE 300+ miles apart) as 'local'. As for the Model S - at ~200 miles between charging points, with a charging time of ~40 minutes, you're looking at having a nice rest stop for lunch before being on your way.

My model:
0500 Get on road, drive 3 hours (200 miles on odometer)
0800 Stop for breakfast
0830 Get on road again, 3 hours (400 miles)
1130 Stop for lunch
1200 Start driving, 3 hours (600)
1500 Bathroom Break/exercise stop(jog some), have a snack
1530 3 hours driving (800)
1830 Dinner
1900 You guessed it 3 more hours (1000)
2200 Bed(Parents ~900 miles away, so I get in a little early).

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[RaceProUK]

The Roadster was based on the Lotus Elise. A car that's not shipped for 18 years. The supply of Elise shells ran out.

The Elise is still very much in production, and it's not the shells Tesla used, but the chassis.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[WindBourne]

Apparently, the 2014 rav ev has some issues, that are NOT tesla's. So, one of the tesla guys told me that Toyota is in talks with Tesla about getting access to their current tech (the rav 4 is using roadster tech, not Model S), which would include the SC.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[CanHasDIY]

All technology adoption curves have an early adoption phase.

Considering that the first, "practical" electric car was invented in the 1880's, I think we're a bit beyond the whole "early adoption" meme.

More like "late adaptation," really.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[BasilBrush]

Which is as relevant as the rotary dial landline phone on the technology adoption curve of the smartphone.

It doesn't have to be a completely new tech to have a technology adoption curve. Television for example has been through many.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[CanHasDIY]

I personally find it funny, how "electric cars" are touted as new technology, when they predate internal combustion ones. Yea, you and I know better, but the MSM, and the people who get all their news from the MSM, do not.

YMMV, obviously.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[macpacheco]

Nissan has a special charger (faster than a twin 220V charging) ?
I believe the issue is the other vendors don't have a battery nearly as large as the Tesla so they don't have long range driving solutions.
Tesla Superchargers are like 4-5 times more powerful than other charging tech, the other cars simply can't take that charge.
The simple fact is other car companies just don't have a car that can do everything other cars can (compared to Tesla with the full planned supercharger footprint).
Saying that EV vendors don't agree... They do have standards for lower power charging. But Tesla needs something on another league. And they've done it.
Of course Tesla isn't interested in giving their tech away for free for other vendors, but they do sell their electric power trains to Daimler Benz and Toyota, and would be happy to sell other tech to others, but the others aren't interested.
Elon Musk made it clear he wants competition. And he'll we'll help others if they want to pay for it.
But then you have the not invented here syndrome, plus the simple fact most other EV vendors are only doing minimum they need to do to qualify for govt subsidies. Tesla is making a real car, others are making toy EV cars.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[macpacheco]

Obviously. Do you really think Tesla should charge other vendor's EV for free ?
The reality is other vendors aren't making no compromise EV's, they mostly care only about qualifying for the green car credits, which have a much lower standard compared to a Tesla.
I'll say that again, vendors that sell regular plus EV cars aren't doing it because they want EV's to succeed. They are doing it because they need the green car credits. They are vested in gasoline cars.
In 3-5 years Tesla will get big enough the other cars will really start to hurt from lost sales, then magically they will come up with something a little more serious.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[CrimsonAvenger]

I don't consider a fueling station that I need to hit between two locations so far apart that I need to refuel between them (IE 300+ miles apart) as 'local'.

The gas station I stop at on the way to my parents is not local to ME. It IS local to the people that built it, maintain it, work at it, and use it on a daily basis. If there were no "locals" living there, there would be no gas station there.

Note that YOUR local gas station is probably halfway between a couple of places that you don't consider "local" to you as well.

Remember, ALL gas stations are local to SOMEONE.

Re:Range anxiety isn't really rational

[Firethorn]

Remember, ALL gas stations are local to SOMEONE.

Maybe, maybe not. Another way to look at it would be to examine the customer base. There are lots of gas stations out there that are in business areas that don't really serve long distance traffic. This would be the one next to the grocery store, for example. There are also lots of gas stations that are right off highways, where 90% of the traffic is just passing by on the highway, there are generally cheaper stations located within any nearby towns that the locals use. There are also 'flystamp' stop areas that might have 2 gas stations and 2 restaurants, that are about 50-50 between visitors, locals, and farmers.

If you figure on a substantial ability to refuel at home, you don't need the gas stations at the grocery store anymore(fair bit of parking to be reclaimed there), though I'm sure 'top off' points would be nice - one advantage of electric charging is that you don't need the dedicated area for the fuel tanks or separation from buildings for safety, so you can just have a row of parking spots with chargers.

As such, you only really need 'supercharger' stations on the highways. Otherwise you charge wherever you're staying - home should already be setup, of course. Pack an appropriate cord to use the dryer outlet(if possible) if the people you're visiting isn't set up for EV charging. I still figure that there will be plenty of in-city charging available, mostly offered to draw in EV drivers - in choosing between 2 eating places, the fact that one has an EV charger(where I'm visiting and a bit low on charge) might make a difference.

What I don't get...

[Joce640k]

Why doesn't Tesla rent little trailers with extra batteries for long trips?

(or some sort of thing you can clip on the back of the car, or on the roof, whatever it takes...use your imagination)

Extend the range to as far as you're ever likely to drive in a single day.

That way you can drive down to Vegas for a weekend, drive to Grandma's place for thanksgiving, etc., no problem.

Re:What I don't get...

[gurps_npc]

For the same reason we can't simply add more batteries to the car itself.

The batteries are heavy.

Worse, unlike gasoline, when you use up the energy, the battery do not get lighter. If you double the number of batteries, you don't double the range, you get something like 25% more range.

Re:What I don't get...

[Anonymous Coward]

It may have something to do with the weight of the extra batteries cancelling out some of the additional benefit - not unlike using aircraft to transport gasoline for army vehicles.

Re:What I don't get...

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool idea!...EXCEPT that battery pack that would extend range by 300 miles would weigh 1200 pounds.

Re:What I don't get...

[CastrTroy]

This is an idea I've always thought would be nice. You could even hook up an electric generator on the trailer for easy refueling. I wonder what size of generator you'd need to continuously charge the batteries? It may sound like a step backwards to be using gas to power an electric car, but if you're only using it for long trips a couple times a year, that's still a huge savings to the environment.

Re:What I don't get...

[mlts]

I've wondered similar, except a space for an Onan generator. Since Onan gensets can be gasoline, LP gas, or diesel, one can pick what fuel supply they want to use, have that genset installed and be good to go.

Of course, the gensets are made for AC voltage, but that is what the charger is made to handle. It probably would not take much work to make DC generators so only DC-DC conversion would be necessary to keep the car's batteries going while on a long trip.

Re:What I don't get...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's actually a great idea. Being removable means that it can be swapped out in the same amount of time it would take to fill your tank in an ICE car. Right now even the fastest charging stations (Tesla Superchargers operate at 120kW!) take a minimum of half-hour to get you only 170 miles of extra range, while standard ones are 10 times slower.

dom

Re:What I don't get...

[Joce640k]

You've calculated that precisely, have you?

Re:What I don't get...

[Whorhay]

The original plans for the Model S actually included a small built in generator for extending the range. The idea was scraped though at least in part because they wanted to stick with keeping it 100% electric with no ICE at all. If I ever own a Model S I will definitely build my own small Generator trailer for it. Heck it might not even need to be a trailer, you might be able to get away with something that just hung on a trailer hitch. If plug in electrics ever catch on without huge improvements in batteries I expect some company will start building these kinds of things and selling them to companies that do rentals or something.

A purpose built generator will likely be more efficient fuel wise than a normal ICE engine for propelling the car. This is because the generators ICE could be built to run at it's peak efficiency range and its power output would be just enough to charge the batteries. A normal ICE for a car spends most of its time operating significantly outside its peak efficiency range.

Re:What I don't get...

[Joce640k]

Sure, some of it.

Re:What I don't get...

[Joce640k]

If you double the number of batteries, you don't double the range, you get something like 25% more range.

Citation needed.

Re:What I don't get...

[Joce640k]

This is an idea I've always thought would be nice. You could even hook up an electric generator on the trailer for easy refueling.

That's a good idea.

A little trailer with a generator in it for long trips - go as far as you want to!

Re:What I don't get...

[cnkurzke]

What size generator would you need to power a car on the freeway?

How about a ~50hp to 100hp Generator. Kinda like the one built into the Chevy Volt? And the Prius?

Your Honda 2000W "backup generator" is not gonna cut it.

Re:What I don't get...

[AmiMoJo]

There really isn't any need. You can do a full charge in 50 minutes or add 180 miles of range in just 30. Most people can't drive much further than that safely without taking a break, let alone would want to. They also have their battery swap technology coming in. If for some reason all that isn't enough you could just rent a car for the trip, since it's not like you will be doing it every week.

Re:What I don't get...

[Valdrax]

Why doesn't Tesla rent little trailers with extra batteries for long trips?

(or some sort of thing you can clip on the back of the car, or on the roof, whatever it takes...use your imagination)

Because the battery is about 1/4 the weight of the car. Just doubling the range would involve towing around an extra 1000+ lbs, plus any added weight for things like wheels, suspension, etc. Have you ever tried towing a trailer that heavy? It isn't something you can just clip on and forget about. Plus, adding more weight increases the amount of power it needs to get around.

Also, there are major safety issues involved. There's a reason the battery pack is armored and a reason why gas tanks are where they are in most sensibly designed normal cars. You don't want to get rear-ended towing around a battery pack (or a generator for that matter). Read up on the legal troubles Jeep has had from leaving their gas tank too exposed in the back (over all the flaming horrible deaths that resulted).

Re:What I don't get...

[Anonymous Coward]

While the percentage is probably off, the basic math is fine.

Since I don't care to hunt down the numbers, I'll start with some blatant hypothetical guesswork.

First assume a perfectly rigid spherical Tesla Mark Math which has 25% of its mass devoted to batteries and gets 400 kilometers to a charge (across perfectly rigid perfectly flat surfaces with an infinite coefficient of friction).

If we double the batteries, we now have 800km worth of charge, but the carsphere also weighs 25% more. This results in an actual range of 800 / 1.25 or 640 km.

Now, since I've done the completely fictional numbers, I've changed my mind about getting real numbers.
A Model S allegedly weighs 2108 kg with no passengers. The larger range option allegedly gets 500 km to a charge, and a forum post that I can't track back to a better source claims that over 1500lbs are battery.

For convenience, I will round total carmass to 2200 kg with driver, batterymass to 680kg and batteryrange to 500km.
Using the same process of math as above, this suggests that adding another 680kg batterypack would adjust the range from 500km to 760km. More than a 25% increase, but I'm not dealing with real-physics either. In a world of ideal math, doubling the battery increases the distance by about 50%. This world is far too squishy to be that world, so there are other limiters that will reduce the effective performance.

Re:What I don't get...

[hawguy]

You've calculated that precisely, have you?

A Tesla battery pack with a 300 mile range weighs 1200 lbs, so it's reasonable to suggest that an extra battery to provide an additional 300 miles of range will weigh about the same. Though he didn't include the weight of the trailer to haul the battery, so probably needs to add a few hundred pounds to the estimate.

Re:What I don't get...

[hawguy]

This is an idea I've always thought would be nice. You could even hook up an electric generator on the trailer for easy refueling. I wonder what size of generator you'd need to continuously charge the batteries? It may sound like a step backwards to be using gas to power an electric car, but if you're only using it for long trips a couple times a year, that's still a huge savings to the environment.

It's not hard to estimate -- if a 70KWh battery has a 300 mile range at 60mph, that' s 4.3 miles/KWh, or 14KWh to drive 60 miles, so driving 60mph, you'd need a 14KW generator to power the car. Not huge, but not exactly tiny... here's a 15KW generator trailer.

I've seen other estimates of around 3 - 3.5 KWh/mile for the Tesla, so you might need a 20KW generator.

Re:What I don't get...

[Anonymous Coward]

My guess is that it might have to do with weight (as others have mentioned above) or perhaps due to safety. You'd basically be towing a battery array that contains as much potential energy as a couple of gallons of gas, in the rear of a car where collisions are highly likely. Look up the regulation for towable fuel tanks and that might give you an idea of how the various transportation bureaucracies would treat a towable battery array.

Re:What I don't get...

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people can't drive much further than [180 miles] safely without taking a break

Huh?? What do you base that on? I would estimate that most people can drive at least ~400 miles safely without an extended break (~6 hrs, for example between lunch and dinner on a roadtrip), as long as they are well rested. Not to mention, for these kinds of trips, most people would just swap drivers after the first one gets tired, extending this range to ~800+ miles (although there would probably be at least 1 or 2 meals in there).

Re:What I don't get...

[Em Adespoton]

This is an idea I've always thought would be nice. You could even hook up an electric generator on the trailer for easy refueling. I wonder what size of generator you'd need to continuously charge the batteries? It may sound like a step backwards to be using gas to power an electric car, but if you're only using it for long trips a couple times a year, that's still a huge savings to the environment.

It's not hard to estimate -- if a 70KWh battery has a 300 mile range at 60mph, that' s 4.3 miles/KWh, or 14KWh to drive 60 miles, so driving 60mph, you'd need a 14KW generator to power the car. Not huge, but not exactly tiny... here's a 15KW generator trailer.

I've seen other estimates of around 3 - 3.5 KWh/mile for the Tesla, so you might need a 20KW generator.

15KW should do fine; you just might not arrive at your destination with the batteries topped up.

Re:What I don't get...

[spitzak]

You are assuming the energy used is exactly proportional to the mass being moved.

This is false, the vast majority of the energy is to overcome wind and rolling resistance, which do not scale linearly with the mass.

Re:What I don't get...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why doesn't Tesla rent little trailers with extra batteries for long trips?

(or some sort of thing you can clip on the back of the car, or on the roof, whatever it takes...use your imagination)

I thought the Volt was a good idea since it added a gasoline motor to help charge. Why can't someone bring a generator with them (there are some fairly small Honda' or something designed for that purpose)? Of course, it will take you hours to charge using the generator but at least you wouldn't be stranded.

Re:What I don't get...

[RespekMyAthorati]

And, you could rent them like you would any other generator at the local tool rental place.

Re:What I don't get...

[RespekMyAthorati]

Again, you would rent the generator for the few times that you need to make a long trip.

Re:What I don't get...

[Anonymous Coward]

use a gas powered car for long trips and have no trouble

Re:What I don't get...

[Anonymous Coward]

"I've seen other estimates of around 3 - 3.5 KWh/mile for the Tesla"

Your decimal is in the wrong place. Actual power consumption of a Tesla S at interstate speeds is 0.28 - 0.36 kWh/mile (the higher number typical for driving at ~75 MPH with outdoor temps in the single digits, the lower number for spring/fall at ~75 MPH). Source: first hand experience with 14,200 miles driven to date and an overall average consumption of 0.304 kWh/mile mixed city/hwy.

Re:What I don't get...

[hawguy]

"I've seen other estimates of around 3 - 3.5 KWh/mile for the Tesla"

Your decimal is in the wrong place. Actual power consumption of a Tesla S at interstate speeds is 0.28 - 0.36 kWh/mile (the higher number typical for driving at ~75 MPH with outdoor temps in the single digits, the lower number for spring/fall at ~75 MPH). Source: first hand experience with 14,200 miles driven to date and an overall average consumption of 0.304 kWh/mile mixed city/hwy.

Yeah, sorry, I inverted my statment, I meant 3 - 3.5 miles/KWh. But it still works out to around 20KWh for 60 miles.

Using your figure of 0.28 KWh/mile, you'd need a generator to provide around 21KW to power the electric motor.

Re:What I don't get...

[hawguy]

Again, you would rent the generator for the few times that you need to make a long trip.

Or, instead of renting a 1200 pound, $15,000 generator for your $70,000 car, you could just rent an entire $30,000 gasoline powered car when you want to make a long trip.

Re:What I don't get...

[Firethorn]

Adding a trailor though will also add to wind and rolling resistance.

Personally, when I've looked at range-extending trailors I picture a hydrocarbon fueled IC engine-generator set, with the trailer somewhat oversized such as to also provide additional cargo space(because long trips are when you want to bring the luggage).

The engine itself varies between a traditional generator to more exotic options like an efficient motorcycle engine, turbine, or recently a Wankel. 1/3rd the weight, relatively tiny, and the poor fuel efficinecy is 'eliminated' when you drive it at a constant RPM(and load).

At about .2 kWh per mile, that's about 16kW@80mph. Let's say the trailer adds 4kW. 27 horsepower is more than enough to keep the car on the road, and the resulting engine can be *tiny*. Heck, you can probably 'get away' with 20 HP as long as you either plug in at night/when stopped or at least leave the generator running.

Re:What I don't get...

[Firethorn]

.2 kWh per mile@80mph = 16kWh or roughly ~20 hp.

Might be a touch undersized, but that's where the idea that you're merely extending the range of the 300 miles worth of batteries you already have comes in.

12 hours@80mph=960 miles, 240 kwh(rounding UP to .25 kWh per mile to add some buffer). Subtract the 65 kwh(margin of error) for the car's battery, leaving 175kWh. 175 kWh/12 hours = 15 kW generator for your 'trucker bombing' self'

What if I drive a little slower?
12 hours@70mph=840 miles, 185 kwh(using .22, slower=more efficient). 120 kWh left after subtracting 65 kWh, 120/12 hours = 10kW generator being enough.

Re:What I don't get...

[CastrTroy]

Yeah, but I can understand people wanting to have "their car" with them when they travel. Since every car has different controls laid out in a different fashion, it's nice to have something you're comfortable with, especially on long trips. Sure the steering wheel and pedals are in mostly the same place, but that's about the only thing that remains consistent between cars. Signal lights are pretty standard, but I think that's as far as it goes.

Re:What I don't get...

[toddestan]

A Citation burns gasoline, so what's your point?

Re:Still too slow.

[Joce640k]

An ICE car can make the trip in 32 hours 7 minutes.

Average 108mph?

I assume Tesla wanted this test to be legal...

Re:This is a gimmick.

[wagnerrp]

Diesel trucks don't run too well on gasoline. The octane is much too high.

Infrastructure from the 60s, today!

[Anonymous Coward]

The 3464.5-mile jaunt is yet another attempt to ease range anxiety among many consumers who worry about being stranded in a car with a depleted battery pack and nowhere near a charging station.

A: But doesn't that same problem exist with gasoline-fired cars if you run out of gas and there's no gas station around?
B: Don't be silly! There's gas stations all over the country!
A: True, in most places. But there's long, lonely stretches through unpopulated areas like Montana or the deserts of the southwest where there's nothing for miles.
B: Okay, fine, but in those cases, you can plan your trip better and remember to refuel before you leave!
A: Um... you can also do that with electric cars...
B: Of course, but the point is that you don't have to with gas cars because there's a huge, generations-old infrastructure of gas stations everywhere! Yay!
A: But what if we took the time to expand the infrastructure of electric charging stations? I mean, out in the desert, for instance, you could set up solar farms to help supply the stations with power, something you can't do with gas.
B: [blank stare, face appears to have frozen in place]
A: Um... are you all right?
B: Segmentation fault (core dumped). Restarting argument from last saved state. Of course, but the point is that you don't have to with gas cars because there's a huge, generations-old infrastructure of gas stations everywhere! Yay!
A: [deep, annoyed sigh]

Re:Infrastructure from the 60s, today!

[Beyond_GoodandEvil]

A: But doesn't that same problem exist with gasoline-fired cars if you run out of gas and there's no gas station around?
Then a nice man with a nice truck brings a gas can, and(this is the important part) minutes later, one is off on their voyage.
But what if we took the time to expand the infrastructure of electric charging stations? I mean, out in the desert, for instance, you could set up solar farms to help supply the stations with power, something you can't do with gas
What if I rode around with RTGs instead of batteries? What if my car came with a huge sail I could deploy, that would be true solar power. But hey, you've solved a problem no one had, how to get power in the middle of the desert no one drives through for electric vehicles(slow clap).

Re:This is a gimmick.

[magarity]

A lot of big trucks run on gasoline instead of diesel.

Re:Still too slow.

[Anonymous Coward]

I guarantee you the Tesla was exceeding the speed limit.

Cannonball!

[Anonymous Coward]

Cannonball!

Well, maybe in 15 years.

Re:This is a gimmick.

[beelsebob]

Just like a battery truck could drive across america if it hooked up all the batteries it was carrying to it's electric motor... What's your point?

Give me a petrofuel range extender

[toejam13]

It would be nice if there was an option for a small turbine with a 4 gallon fuel tank that could drive a generator for extended range. Preferably an air-cooled model so you can omit the radiator and coolant lines/pump.

Re:Give me a petrofuel range extender

[OhPlz]

Isn't that self-defeating? The whole point is that the vehicle is all electric, otherwise it's just another hybrid. I wouldn't want to lug around the extra weight just on the off chance that I can't make it to a charging station. Adding such a feature would be admitting that there is a problem with the concept.

Re:Give me a petrofuel range extender

[Joce640k]

Why only 4 gallons? And why not put it in a trailer, along with some space for a couple more suitcases? One that you can rent when you need it?

Re:Give me a petrofuel range extender

[WindBourne]

why? These cars do 250 miles. And they have access to a free supercharger every 100 miles or so (or will in 2 years). 250-300 miles is the current range of about 75% of all ICE passenger cars. So, tesla is currently average. Why should they add an extender?

Re:Give me a petrofuel range extender

[toejam13]

Most hybrids have the petrol engine attached to the drivetrain. Those engines are still relatively large, and there is a deal of complexity having two engines attached to the drivetrain. A turbine engine can be quite small as it is very efficient. Driving only a generator, it greatly reduces complexity (read: weight).

And there is a problem with the current concept. Batteries just don't recharge fast enough to allow for quick refueling. And there aren't enough locations to refuel when away from home. That'll change in the future, but what about today? I like the idea of having a little insurance under the hood, even if it adds 50lbs to the vehicle's weight.

Re:Give me a petrofuel range extender

[Anonymous Coward]

Because I can refuel in 2 minutes. We'll see what Tesla does WHEN they do it. Everything else is speculations and for today my 20k car beats the crap out of the 80k Tesla as far as basic mobility.
 
I've heard a lot of things are just two years off. The vast majority of these never come to fruition.

Re:Give me a petrofuel range extender

[s122604]

Why air cooled?
You are omitting a potential benefit, HEAT. Electric resistance heating his horribly inefficient. If you had a small, liquid cooled, (lets say for argument 850cc) LP or gasoline generator on-board, you could have it come on immediately, at a low idle, when its cold. The trickle of charge it provided at low idle would provide a little extra range, but the heat provided would eliminate the need for resistive heating and help range even more
You could spin the generator up for more juice in an out of power situation, not enough to provide top performance, but enough to get you moving along to the next charging station

Re:Give me a petrofuel range extender

[WindBourne]

2 minutes? I doubt it.
Secondly.
The super chargers are here and being built out NOW. It is no different than gas stations in the 60s when I was growing up, since gas stations were NOT everywhere.
And in 2 years, when gas is 5/gal, please let us know how you feel about the rest of us getting free energy for xing the nation.

Re:Give me a petrofuel range extender

[OhPlz]

Maybe, but I'd expect such a gadget to come in well over 50lbs. Otherwise, why even bother with charging stations? Once the vehicle is relying on that engine to make further progress on the long trip, what is the vehicle's new range before needing more gas? It really sounds like the hybrid is the best choice for anyone that may use the vehicle for more than simple commuting and errands.

An additional problem comes to mind. If the engine gadget isn't fully functional and is just collecting dust in the garage, the owner won't know it has issues until they hit the road on their big trip. Whereas in a hybrid, you know the engine works because it's being used frequently.

Re:Give me a petrofuel range extender

[RespekMyAthorati]

Then you basically have a hybrid. That's why they are so popular.

Re:Give me a petrofuel range extender

[rpstrong]

Electric resistance heating his horribly inefficient.

Electric heating is typically the most expensive way to heat, but that is because electricity is typically more expensive than fossil fuels - not because the heaters are "horribly inefficient." In fact, every electric heater (be it resistive, ceramic, infra-red or whatever) boasts 100% efficiency: every single watt that it uses is converted to exactly one watt of heat. The $14, 1500 watt space heater that you buy at your local big box store puts out exactly the same heat as the 1500 watt unit with the Amish mantle, cured copper cores, etc. that you see advertised for several hundred dollars in the Sunday newspaper (remember newspapers?).

An ICE powered generator has the advantage of being able to use a fuel with a high energy density, but will always lose heat through the exhaust - as well as other inefficiencies relating to the fact that it is separated from the passenger cabin. And how much heat would it actually provide? (That last question was somewhat rhetorical; I certainly don't know the answer.)

Re:Give me a petrofuel range extender

[s122604]

Very good analysis

FWIW, there's more than enough heat to mine. a water cooled 850cc engine with a good sized heater core would produce enough heat to keep the cabin of a small/midsize car toasty.
Gas engines produce a lot of waste heat, but that was what I was thinking, in the winter its not all wasted. You'd also get some charge back into your batter whilst you are heating.

Of course you are no longer zero emissions at this point, but the gasoline consumed would be small.

But Does it Scale?

[BBF_BBF]

OK, so Tesla builds ONE string of charging stations approx. 150 miles apart that stretches across the US. So tell me how does that work when there are millions of Tesla cars on the road? Charging will take 40 minutes, but the line to get to charge will take 24 hrs.

Will Tesla be able to build enough fast charging stations when selling cars that cost less than $40K?

A lot of things work when the average selling price of your cars isclose to $100,000, you have government subsidies flung at you and/or your customers left and right, you have fewer than 100,000 vehicles in the field, your company isn't really expected to show a profit, and your customers actually *read* the users manuals (probably send corrections to technical errors in them to your engineers) and make Apple Zealots look like disinterested teens.

Re:But Does it Scale?

[geekoid]

Just like they built all the gas station before putting cars on the road.

Come on, with popularity charging stations will be built.

Re:But Does it Scale?

[Anonymous Coward]

"millions of Tesla cars on the road"? Try 60 000 in the whole world.

Re:But Does it Scale?

[mbkennel]

When there are millions of Tesla cars on the road, Tesla will have the money to build many strings of charging stations and expand capacity on the existing ones.

Re:But Does it Scale?

[necro81]

OK, so Tesla builds ONE string of charging stations approx. 150 miles apart that stretches across the US. So tell me how does that work when there are millions of Tesla cars on the road? Charging will take 40 minutes, but the line to get to charge will take 24 hrs.

Will Tesla be able to build enough fast charging stations when selling cars that cost less than $40K

Switch to decaf and chill out. Do you think the gasoline/diesel infrastructure we have today was built in just a year or two? When filling stations first showed up, they too were isolated points that couldn't be linked by the range of the available vehicles, then got strung out on transportation corridors, and only now are ubiquitous. Having a look at the rollout map, the infrastructure will cover a lot of the US's transportation corridors by the end of this year.

As for what happens when $40k electrics start rolling out - I'm not terribly concerned. The number will be small to start, and the number of vehicle trips that would actually require a supercharger station is vanishingly small. I doubt that the utilization of the existing stations now is anything above 5%. You can bet that Tesla has realtime statistics about utilization, and probably even the wait times (i.e., how many cars are queued up), and can adjust their rollout accordingly. Given the stock price, the limiting factor in the rollout certainly isn't capital, which is a good position to be in.

Re:But Does it Scale?

[petrix]

Something about the way you formulated your questions is telling me you are not willing to read a serious response, but I'll try anyway: If they will start sellling many cheap cars, that will not happen over night. If they are not able to keep up themself with building charging stations, others will use the oportunity and make some money. Most people will buy this kind of car for daily driving around the city (work, mall and so on) and will have the posibility to charge at home. If they cannot charge at home, they are not likely to buy a Tesla. I've seen in Paris(France) charging stations on the street, because they really want electrical cars to decrease pollution. I am pretty sure that the change will be slow anyway. That's my take.

Re:But Does it Scale?

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on, with popularity charging stations will be built.

SO, clever boy, why don't you explain how the cars which need charging stations are
going to become popular BEFORE charging stations are built ?

( hint : "they just will" is not an acceptable answer )

Re:But Does it Scale?

[AmiMoJo]

By the time there are millions of Teslas on the road there will be more charging stations, since where there is demand the market will meet it, right? Most people don't regularly charge at superchargers anyway, they charge at home or work or in the car park of the place they are visiting. The superchargers are for occasional long journeys and the very small number of people who do extremely high mileage regularly.

Re:But Does it Scale?

[WindBourne]

Spoken like a fool that has no idea of what he talks about. These are not designed for simple day-to-day charging. You do that at your home. These are designed for long distance driving across the nation. Within 2 years, they will these every 100 miles or so (keep in mind that the car travels 250 MPC).
In addition, current average cost of a Model S is around 85K, not 100K. 100K is a very decked out Model S.
And Tesla has been making a profit for the last year.

Finally, Tesla has said that the Model E, WILL have free access to the super chargers.

Re:But Does it Scale?

[Anonymous Coward]

As for what happens when $40k electrics start rolling out - I'm not terribly concerned. The number will be small to start, and the number of vehicle trips that would actually require a supercharger station is vanishingly small.

You're assuming that people will "voluntarily" adhere the "I'll only use the FREE supercharger station for long trips" only rule. When the masses get access to electric cars, FREE charging stations will have line ups from here to eternity, and rules will have to be changed.

See Costco for how well the honor system works when it comes to generous policies that depend on customer morals.

Re:But Does it Scale?

[Kjella]

OK, so Tesla builds ONE string of charging stations approx. 150 miles apart that stretches across the US. So tell me how does that work when there are millions of Tesla cars on the road?

Well, first they make it a grid. Then they build them 75 miles apart. Then 40 miles apart. Then 20 miles apart. Then 10 miles apart. Car parks and parking houses start offering it. Office buildings start offering it. Adding a charger circuit to the garage becomes standard. The challenge is now, is there a charging station where you're going not where Tesla wants to take a PR tour.

Will Tesla be able to build enough fast charging stations when selling cars that cost less than $40K?

It's actually the other way around, one of the most expensive parts of a Tesla is the battery so a cheaper version will no doubt have less range. Without a widespread charger network it won't sell, it'd be just an inner city commute only car. The average commute is not so long, 2x16 miles so even a household plug (110V/12A) could charge that overnight. But then you have just a one-trick pony, it's not that it's hard or awkward to take a long trip it's that you literally can't. Even in a two car household it's cumbersome and people get possessive about his and her car. And for one person two cars is nonsense.

If you extrapolate the charger network to 2016-2017 when the Tesla E is coming, it's clear that their plan is to sell the first cheap electric which can do both the 95% daily commute and errands and limp through the last 5%. That aunt you visit twice a year or that music festival you go to or picking people up at the big city airport, it can do it. The Model S can today already, but at a very high cost. Make say a 120 mile range E model and chargers every 75 miles (double the density), you'll be making a stop every hour and a half but for the occasional long drive it will work.

Re:But Does it Scale?

[Anonymous Coward]

The same way gasoline powered cars became popular before there was the wide-spread network of gasoline stations that you take for granted today.

1) Sell some cars, paired with home charging stations.
2) Build some free-standing stations.
3) Sell some cars to people around those stations (who don't need to venture out of range of those stations).
4) Using a fraction of the proceeds from Step 3, Go to step 2.

Eventually, you end up with enough of a population of cars & charging stations that *other* people start helping out with the station build-out because they can make money doing so.

Re:But Does it Scale?

[Anonymous Coward]

True, more cars on the road will lead to more demand at the charging stations, but it's not a direct 1-to-1 as it is with gas stations. Since the majority of charging will probably occur at home/workplace charging stations, these roadside stations will be used by the long-haul roadtrippers. The total demand for use will still be less than the demand for use of gas pumps.

Re:But Does it Scale?

[Anonymous Coward]

They already are popular. Tesla is doing just fine selling these cars. More cars will mean more charging stations.

Re:But Does it Scale?

[Algae_94]

Try reading all the words in a sentence.

Re:But Does it Scale?

[Pontiac]

One big thing you overlooked in your example.. most of those cars will be charged at home and used for local trips They wont be clogging up the charging stations..

  The only ones hitting the super charger stations are the idiots who forgot to charge and the rest of the folks on round trips over half their expected range.

Re:But Does it Scale?

[Anonymous Coward]

More cars will mean longer waits at charging stations.

Re:But Does it Scale?

[BasilBrush]

OK, so Tesla builds ONE string of charging stations approx. 150 miles apart that stretches across the US. So tell me how does that work when there are millions of Tesla cars on the road?

When there are millions on Teslas on the road (and there will be) there will be more charging stations than that. Some provided by Tesla, most provided by other companies. Mostly the electric utilities, directly or as a franchise - much as gas stations were mostly created by the oil companies.

A lot of things work when the average selling price of your cars isclose to $100,000, you have government subsidies flung at you and/or your customers left and right, you have fewer than 100,000 vehicles in the field, your company isn't really expected to show a profit, and your customers actually *read* the users manuals (probably send corrections to technical errors in them to your engineers) and make Apple Zealots look like disinterested teens.

It seems your views are made from hysterical emotional reactions to imagined customers of companies you don't like, rather than rational thought on the logistics.

Re:But Does it Scale?

[mknewman]

The Tesla Superchargers are not in heavily populated areas. They are along major routes in areas that aren't served by other charging possibilities. Also, if you look at http://www.teslamotors.com/sup... you will see that by 2015 they will have many, many more superchargers than the current cross country list. Eventually you will be able to do a battery swap. $60 and 90 seconds. Or you can wait for a charge and in an hour get a 'free' charge. Yes, I'm a fan, and no, I cannot afford one currently, but by the time the Model E comes out I will definately in the market. I just hope it doesn't look like a Smart and has performance similar to the current Model S.

Re:But Does it Scale?

[Bandraginus]

I'm pretty sure that the commuting masses will work out the economics of it and realise that waiting for an hour to get a free charge worth five bucks isn't quite worth it.

Re:But Does it Scale?

[jwhitener]

I'm starting to think that half of slashdot is paid shills for the petrol industries. Every time any article comes up about renewables, electric cars... basically any forward progress, half the posts are along the lines of "it will NEVER happen".

Jason

Still not good enough.

[kaplooi]

Sorry Tesla, but you're about 200 miles short on the car's range. That's a notable achievement, no doubt, but if you want to sell a car to Joe Public based on it cross-country capabilities then you need to provide a battery that will last for an entire day of driving at highway speeds before needing to be recharged (i.e. 8-10 hours behind the wheel). That means around a 500 mile range. I for one wouldn't bother driving cross country if I couldn't do at least 500 miles between when I woke up and when I had to turn in for the night (i.e. charge the car fully overnight). And that's not counting the times I've driven non-stop in shifts with other drivers and done well over 500 miles. For any gas car this pretty much means more than 1 tank per driving day, but when filling takes all of 5 minutes, so it's a non-issue. That kind of range won't really be possible with EVs until Sodium-air batteries or some other type of metal-air battery makes super high capacity batteries cheap and light enough to bring to the masses. The bottom line is that EVs will remain a niche market until advancements in battery technology bring down the costs enough to be competitive with gasoline or diesel powered cars of equivalent range, if not equivalent refueling time. Anything less is not 'progress'. That's why hydrogen fuel cell cars, at least on this front, have more 'promise' in the sense that you get the same sort of range and refueling time vs today's gasoline cars. I won't get into the myriad of other issues with hydrogen fuel cell cars here though.

Re:Still not good enough.

[geekoid]

That just tells me that if this where 1920, you would still own a horse becasue cars wouldn't have enough range.

"The bottom line is that Automobiles will remain a niche market until advancements in gasoline technology bring down the costs enough to be competitive with hay "

Re:Still not good enough.

[master_kaos]

then rent a car. Seriously all these people say "but it can't do this!" well it's not meant for that application no matter what tesla tries to shove down your throat.
99% of the time I am driving it is <50km Another .5% of the time <150km the other .5% of the time I may run into issues. But guess what, that two days a year Ill just rent a car instead. Honestly even know sometimes I'll rent a car for long trips.. ill rent a fun driving car just to try something new.

You wouldn't buy a coupe if you had a family of 5, just like you shouldn't buy a Tesla if you are consistently driving far range.

Re:Still not good enough.

[WindBourne]

LOL. My accord has 12 gals. I get 26 MPG driving nicely. That is 312 miles.
My wife's highlander has 16 gals, but gets 21 mpg driving nicely. That is a range of 336 miles.

In fact, the average car has a range of 250-350 miles. That is why Tesla picked that size. The Model S's range IS AVERAGE.
Now, as to driving 8-10 hours without a stop, good luck. Driving at 75 MPH in the USE, 8 hours will take 600 mile range.
Worse, not even truck drivers are allowed to drive for that long without a break. In fact, they are required to take a minimum of a 30 minute break during any 8 hour period (i.e., they can not hit 8 hours of driving).

You silly neo-cons/tea* make lance armstrong and richard nixon look like boy scouts that tell simple white lies.

Re:Still not good enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

That just tells me that if this where 1920, you would still own a horse becasue cars wouldn't have enough range.

Except the early car had obvious benefits over the horse that even with it's limitations such as range, it was better choice. By contrast, the electric car offer no benefits what so ever over a real car.

Re:Still not good enough.

[gerardrj]

My TDI VW Golf holds 16gals and gets about 40MPG for 640 mile range. At 75MPH.
The Tesla's range drops to closer to 200 miles at 70MPH. Their web site won't even let you choose 75MPH as a calculation for range; why not?

Re:Still not good enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. I have need of a pickup truck a few times a year, so I rent one when I need it. Much cheaper than owning, insuring and feeding an 18-mpg behemoth. The rest of the time I drive my 10 year old econobox that gets 35+ mpg. When that finally dies, I'll likely buy the best electric that I can afford, and still rent that truck a few times a year.

Re:Still not good enough.

[ceoyoyo]

Just like all the other electric cars on the market, the Tesla is a luxury commuter car for city use. Since the story is about Tesla making claims that it's a viable drop in replacement for a gasoline car, specifically that it can do cross country road trips, the criticism is more than fair.

Re:Still not good enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

My 1999 Accord had a 17 gallon tank. At 34 mpg I managed to drive from Ohio to Connecticut without having to stop. This was a trip of about 500 miles and close to 8 hours.

If you have a Diesel fueled car with a decent size tank, you can go even longer. VW is advertising their Passat gets 43 mpg on the highway, giving it a range close to 800 miles!

dom

Re:Still not good enough.

[BasilBrush]

The bottom line is that EVs will remain a niche market until advancements in battery technology bring down the costs enough to be competitive with gasoline or diesel powered cars of equivalent range, if not equivalent refueling time.

It will follow the usual technology adoption curve. The early adopters will grow, and as technology improves, and price comes down, will smoothly give way to the early majority, followed by the late majority and the laggards.

You've spelled out your requirements, but everyones requirements and price sensitivities are different. That's why these curves are relatively smooth.

Re:Still not good enough.

[EvanED]

Now, as to driving 8-10 hours without a stop, good luck. Worse, not even truck drivers are allowed to drive for that long without a break. In fact, they are required to take a minimum of a 30 minute break during any 8 hour period (i.e., they can not hit 8 hours of driving).

He didn't say he'd drive 8-10 hours without stop, just that he wanted to get that much actual driving in in a day. And IMO, that's short.

For example, take your trucker example. I'm not sure what that's supposed to be arguing, because 30 minutes every 8 hours is only even remotely approachable in the absolute best of conditions for the car (and awful conditions for the driver) -- 45 mph in 110 degree heat with no A/C running, according to Tesla's calculator. At 70 mph in a comfortable temperature, you'll barely be looking at 3 hours of driving off of a full charge. In that situation, even under unfairly favorable calculations for the Tesla, you'll be on the road about 85% of the time, which is about 3 times the breaks of the trucker.

The other problem is that driving conditions degrade the Tesla's performance dramatically. Conditions that would put the estimate at under 200 miles are reasonably common, and the most time-efficient way of driving is to only charge it partway, so you in poor-but-realistic conditions you could be looking at stops every 2 hours or less. (70 mph in even 32 degree temps with the heat on gives 196 miles. At 0 degrees it's 178. Let's say we're interested in 20 degrees, and guess 188. Increasing the speed by 5 mph decreases range by 10-15 miles, so let's say I'm interested in the range at 73 mph (this "may or may not" be my speed on the IN and OH turnpikes, for instance) and guess we're down to 180. Now multiply by 80% because of an incomplete charge, and you have 144 miles, or just a hair under two hours at 73 mph.)

Re:Still not good enough.

[defcon-11]

Fiat is rolling out there electric 500 to California, supposedly with a lease price of $199 a month. The lease price includes 15 days of gas car rental per year included. Sounds like a pretty awesome deal to me.

Re:Still not good enough.

[XcepticZP]

You silly neo-cons/tea* make lance armstrong and richard nixon look like boy scouts that tell simple white lies.

And this is what's wrong with society. Some people supposedly lie/exaggerate the truth/say something objectionable, and immediately some douche from who knows where decides that they only did it because "they must be neo-cons/tea*" Or however the fuck you interpret that positively awful sentence of yours. That's as bad as a racial/ethnic/religious stereotype being attributed to some random trait or action.

But then again, I don't blame you because I know you're doing it as an act of intellectual desperation. You, and people like you, will use any opportunity or example to try to reinforce your ridiculous partisan politics and the hatred that comes along with it. People like you are why we can't have nice things as a society.

Re:Still not good enough.

[Bandraginus]

No benefits what so ever? I'd bet that the folk paying $0 for gas on their daily commutes would beg to differ. Sounds like a decent compromise to me.

over a real car

Oh, wait, I see what you did there. No REAL Scotsman... I really should learn to stop feeding the trolls.

this acknowledges range anxiety is real

[Dan667]

The fact that tesla is doing something like this really only acknowledges that getting stranded somewhere is a real problem they have no solution for.

Re: this acknowledges range anxiety is real

[necro81]

The fact that tesla is doing something like this really only acknowledges that getting stranded somewhere is a real problem they have no solution for.

And rather than avoid the problem and pretend it doesn't exist - like every other electric vehicle manufacturer to date - or accept the car's limited utility, Tesla is actually doing something about it. It looks to me like they are putting out a solution. Not a perfect solution, not the only solution, but a solution that can ameliorate the problem. Is that something that should be ridiculed?

Re: this acknowledges range anxiety is real

[WindBourne]

Why do you say that they have no solution for it? They are putting in free superchargers all over the nation. In fact, within 2 years, they will have one every 100 miles around the nation.
This issue is no different than what happened when I was growing up and everybody worried about gas stations (many cars back then were only 100 miles range). So, gas stations arose everywhere. BUT, I can still recall in the mid 60s, my dad wondering where to grab gas along some of the new highways that we drove.

Re: this acknowledges range anxiety is real

[BasilBrush]

Getting stranded would be a rare occurrence given that you know the range remaining, and you have a Sat-Nav with the locations of chargers. But it'll happen. Just as most of us have from time to time run out of petrol.

As EVs become more common one can imagine a small industry of mobile battery/generator vans that go to rescue the people that get stuck.

Re: this acknowledges range anxiety is real

[Areyoukiddingme]

On my way home from work today, I saw four separate vehicles all stranded by the side of the road. Every single one of them was a gasoline car. What was your point again? Something about the drivers being at risk of being eaten by wolves?

Convenient Ignorance

[Anonymous Coward]

This argument conveniently and consistently ignores the additional fact that a gas tank refueling, after a 300 mile run, takes 4 minutes(8 if you also take a piss and grab a drink).

Meanwhile, the electric "refueling" takes a minimum of 75 minutes for a full charge. Tesla suggests that an 80% charge is optimal and fastest at 40 minutes(minimum), but suddenly the "300 mile range" becomes a mere 170 mile range, at best.

Point being, that when you perform an apples to apples comparison, the higher energy density of gasoline makes for much faster much longer trips.

Re:Convenient Ignorance

[Anonymous Coward]

higher energy density of gasoline

Good point! Why just yesterday as I was putting some rechargeable NiMH batteries in a charger, I wondered, why am I not using electric capacitors instead? A quick search of the Wikipedia showed that chemical batteries have at least 100 times the energy density of the best electric capacitors.

Gravity charging?

[Dare nMc]

I would be curious if the car is efficient enough to charge with say a 50 gallon inflatable water bladder in the trunk. IE could I drive to the top of the 9000' mountain pass with a stream, use a electric pump to fill the bladder with stream water, drive to the bottom using the regenerative brakes and empty the bladder. Would I have more energy than I started with? Obviously a steep enough grade, a few passes would eventually charge the battery enough for a few extra miles anyway. Could reduce the range anxiety getting through the mountains a bit, but wasteful on water use (unless you could dump back into the same stream.)

Re:Gravity charging?

[bored_engineer]

I calculate the potential energy of water at about 2.7E6 J, while a gallon of gasoline has 130E6 J. A close equivalence, I think, is to assume that only 1/5 of the gasoline can be converted to mechanical energy at the wheels. That leaves about 26E6 J from a gallon of gasoline, ignoring any inefficiencies in the systems on the electric car, about 10X more energy than your hour-long (minimum, assuming an 8% grade) trek to grab water.

Re:Gravity charging?

[Solandri]

I would be curious if the car is efficient enough to charge with say a 50 gallon inflatable water bladder in the trunk. IE could I drive to the top of the 9000' mountain pass with a stream, use a electric pump to fill the bladder with stream water, drive to the bottom using the regenerative brakes and empty the bladder. Would I have more energy than I started with?

A sedan needs about 20-25 hp to maintain highway speeds on level ground. This is mostly aerodynamic losses (there are smaller losses due to rolling rubber tires, friction of the axle, etc). Going with the lower figure, 20 hp is about 14.9 kW.

A 50 gallon water bladder would weigh about 189 kg. To extract 14.9 kJ of potential energy from it each second would require 14900 J/s / (189 kg * 9.81 m/s^2) = 8 meters/sec altitude drop.

So no, even if your regenerative braking were 100% efficient (thus the energy to push the car up the mountain is completely recovered during the downhill trip), 50 gallons of water isn't enough to overcome air resistance to move the car forward at highway speeds for the trip. It's short by about two orders of magnitude. The concept works for undersea gliders because they're content with moving at less than 1 m/s, which keeps friction losses minimal.

Re:Gravity charging?

[phantomfive]

Wouldn't that just be an inefficient form of regenerative breaking?

Re:Gravity charging?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, that's in J/gal. Would you mind converting to foot-pounds per litre, as I have difficulty with metric numerators.

Thanks.

Re:Gravity charging?

[Dare nMc]

The Tesla EPA rating says it consumes 237.5 WÂh (853kJ) per kilometer. So the energy from driving 189kg of water down 1.3km of altitude (2.2MJ) would give me almost 3 km of forward travel.
So probably one jug gets me down the hill at 30km/hr, one more jug to get me back up at 30 km/hr, and a 3rd jug gives me 853kJ to play (assuming 100% efficiency, and a 2000 kg car carry 600kg of water. )
Darn.

Re:Gravity charging?

[Dare nMc]

regenerative breaking charges the batteries on the car.
    Moving a 2000kg car up a 2000 meter mountain requires 36 MJ of energy to overcome gravity, and the EPA says it requires 0.8 MJ per Km to move the Tesla under typical driving.
Basically if you drive the Tesla from the base of a 0.2km high mountain, over the mountain then back down traveling a total of 10km. Starting on the Journey you would need 40MJ of battery power, but should end up at the base with 32MJ in the battery. To reach the peak driving, you would need 36 MJ to overcome gravity, and 4 MJ to overcome friction. At that point you would have 0MJ in the battery, and 36 MJ of potential energy stored in added altitude. On the way down, you would loose another 4 MJ to friction, but could recover the excess 32MJ into the batteries. But if when you were at the peak of the mountain, you added 500kg (rocks water, etc from the mountain) you would transfer their potential energy to the Tesla, adding 9MJ of potential energy. Thus at the peak of the mountain you would now have 45 MJ of potential, you could actually drive back to the bottom of the mountain recharging the batteries from regenerative braking, drop the extra weight off at the bottom, and now have 41MJ of battery charge (1MJ more than you started with.) The stuff you carried down now has 9MJ less potential energy, the car has 1 MJ more charge in it's batteries, and you created 8MJ of heat lost to the atmosphere.

not exactly correct

[slashmydots]

That's really only half true. Informed buyers know that a slow charge time (16 hours or so for the Leaf if I recall) is annoying and unusable. Informed buyers also know that extremely fast charging batteries wear out much faster. There are battery banks in some popular cars that cost over $10,000 to replace and have an anticipated usable life of 3 years due to their fast charging time. So what they really need to address is how internal filaments around the charging port break down in most lithium batteries.

Re:not exactly correct

[Sprouticus]

According to the info I found the Leaf will lose an additional 10% of capacity(70% vs 80%) over the course of 10 years (not 3) if fast charging is used. Not great but not horrible. For an informed buyer, you are not seeming to be very informed.

There are plenty of challenges for Electric cars, no need to exaggerate them.

Re:not exactly correct

[AmiMoJo]

There are battery banks in some popular cars that cost over $10,000 to replace and have an anticipated usable life of 3 years due to their fast charging time.

Name one please. Tesla, Nissan and Mitsubishi all have 8+ year warranties that cover the use of a fast charger on a regular basis. In fact Nissan currently have an offer on where you can get one installed at your home at low cost when you buy the car.

What you have to understand is that while the charging current for the entire pack is high the charge rate for individual cells isn't. The per-cell charging rate limit is not what is keeping charging times high, it is the rate at which the charger can deliver current to the entire pack.

Re:not exactly correct

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

That's really only half true. Informed buyers know that a slow charge time (16 hours or so for the Leaf if I recall) is annoying and unusable.

I disagree. I lease a Leaf and I love the car. I fully admit it's not for everybody but I needed a 2nd car that I could use as a daily driver (I live approx. 20 miles from work) and my work commute stays well within the expected range (75 miles and up depending on your sources - Nissan says it will do 85 miles on a charge if the weather is not unreasonably hot or cold). I have no big need for quick charging and am quite content with standard trickle charging from a 110 outlet overnight. I have a gasoline burning car that I can use anytime I want, it just doesn't get great gas mileage in the city. I do a lot of stop and go driving to work, so it's expensive to drive my gasoline car to the office. More range in the car would be great as I could take it to visit family members who don't live very close to me, but I love the car. I've talked to others who also have one and I can't tell you how cool it is to pass by convenience stores and gasoline stations and know that you don't have to stop for gasoline. It's not practical as an only car unless you simply do not ever need to go beyond the charge range, but as an additional car it can meet a lot of people's needs.

Re:not exactly correct

[WindBourne]

exactly. Nissan does not handle the heat correctly, and their chemistry DOES mean that fast charging is NOT good. BUT, you are right that it is nothing like what the original poster wrote.

Re:not exactly correct

[Anonymous Coward]

exactly. We got the leaf as a commuter car. we chose to only use trickle charging because, as a commuter car, the 6pm-6am charge is plenty to get us back to where we need daily. We really didn't want to go back to gas though, so we replaced our family car with a tesla and charge off a 240. Turns out we don't drive that much so we only keep it charged to 65%, and only charge it every other day...but it is there if we want to head up to Canada or out on a road trip via superchargers.

Re:not exactly correct

[Anonymous Coward]

Same here. I needed a second car, and the Leaf fit perfectly. I did extensive research and knew exactly what I was getting. I live about 15km from work, and in my suburban environment, almost everything I need to visit (parks, grocery store, airport, entertainment) is within 20km. Even with a few extra trips a week, I rarely charge every day, and never on anything other than 110V.

Sure, it takes 20 hours to charge from completely dead to 100% on 110V. However, I rarely see the state of charge dip below 50%, and to preserve battery lifespan, I only charge to 80%. So it almost always takes less than 8 hours. And my workplace has set aside a large number of parking spots with 110 outlets for EV-driving employees to trickle charge while at work. Since then, I haven't needed to charge anywhere else.

Re:not exactly correct

[swillden]

Informed buyers know that a slow charge time (16 hours or so for the Leaf if I recall) is annoying and unusable.

I think I'm an informed buyer, since I've owned a LEAF for almost two years now. In that time I've never even felt the need to spend $250 to upgrade my slow charger to an L2 charger, because the 20-hour (not 16) slow charge times from completely empty are not, in fact, at all annoying or unusable, at least for my driving patterns.

Look at it this way: my LEAF is normally parked in my garage from 6 PM to about 8 AM. That's 14 hours per day. While parked there it's recharging slowly, recovering about 5 miles of range per hour of charge time, which means that each night will put 70 miles of range into the battery. As long as I never need to drive more than 70 miles per day, my car will always be full when it's time to leave in the morning.

In practice, I also charge while at work, so my battery typically hits full by about 1 AM.

Informed buyers also know that extremely fast charging batteries wear out much faster.

This was thought to be the case, but real-world experience is proving otherwise.

Re:not exactly correct

[Anonymous Coward]

Name one please.

Well... Nissan. They kinda screwed the pooch with the Leaf and didn't put in any sort of cooling system (unless you count passive cooling through the shell of the battery pack). There's a heater for cold weather (so the battery doesn't freeze), but there's no cooler for hot weather. Leafs work really well in Norway and the Pacific Northwest. Arizona? Not so much. That is in fact the reason that Nissan started offering a warranty.

It doesn't help that Nissan put such a small battery in the Leaf to begin with. 70ish real-world miles very quickly degrade to 50ish real-world miles, which really cuts down on its practicality. The Chevy Spark, on the other hand, actually has over 100 miles of real-world range, so even if it does experience the same fractional loss, Spark owners will still have much more real-world range. And the Spark is much less likely to experience battery degradation because GM's engineers did their homework. Same think with the Model S (except that it has around 200 miles of real-world range).

Range anxiety is wholly rational

[SuperKendall]

"my local gas station doesn't provide chargers. I'm doomed if I get one." Because that's really in their head

It's not that at all.

Electric cars would work fine for most people day to day.

However - sometimes you have to drive across town unexpectedly. Or you want to go on a long road trip where the destination is a way off the main highway.

All of those things could well exceed the remaining charge if you've already driven to work - or just not be possible, like if you were going to go drive around the Osarks or the mountains of Colorado/Wyoming. Neither of those things is unreasonable to want to do, yet you would be constantly running on the edge in an electric vehicle.

Even in a gas car, I start looking for stations when I get to 100 miles of estimated range. Electric cars get to that point way too quickly for my comfort.

In the end the ethnology that will win out, for those reasons and others, is Hydrogen. Cars will still be electric, they just won't have to lug around a literal ton of batteries.

Re:Range anxiety is wholly rational

[johnlcallaway]

And of course there is the driving in heat/cold problem that sucks down the juice far faster than normal. Let's see them do the same Phoenix/LA trip in July, when temps hit 110 and most people will want the A/C running. Or how about from Fort Kent Maine to NY one day with the temps hovering close to zero, in a snow storm where you have to run BOTH the A/C and heater (A/C takes moisture out of the air and makes it easier to keep the inside of the car frost-free).

I don't want a car that I can drive most days, most places where there are roads. I want one like the one i have now, that will take me just the same places I go now whenever I want to. And if there aren't enough gas stations along the way, I can toss a couple of jerry cans in the back to get a few more miles.

I'm not against electric cars, but I can afford to drive my truck when it's hot or raining, and my motorcycle every other day. I have no desire to restrict my driving habits just to save a few dollars. People want to earn more and more money so they can enjoy more things in life, not fewer.

And I'm not getting a third car, there isn't enough room in our garage for the vehicles we have now and any gas savings will need to be used to pay for the higher insurance of a newer car compared to my 13 year old truck and 25 year old motorcycle.

Re:Range anxiety is wholly rational

[amorsen]

So? You will be a late adopter of electric vehicles. People who drive 13 year old trucks are not the obvious customers for something which is new and expensive and still has teething pains. There are quite a lot of people who do not drive 13 year old trucks and never drive where there are no roads. If you are lucky, there are enough of those people who will switch to electric cars so that petrol remains affordable.

Re:Range anxiety is wholly rational

[rsborg]

n the end the ethnology that will win out, for those reasons and others, is Hydrogen. Cars will still be electric, they just won't have to lug around a literal ton of batteries

If there's one thing I agree with Musk about, it's that Hydrogen is a dead-end technology, and only exists as a potential is that it's backed by the oil companies, who want inferior options to exist, especially if the only extraction method is going to be fossil-fuel based anyway.

Re:Range anxiety is wholly rational

[SuperKendall]

only exists as a potential is that it's backed by the oil companies

Exists as a potential backed by car manufacturers.

Didn't you realize that oil companies are already backing lots of electrical efforts?

who want inferior options to exist

If that were true they wouldn't back hydrogen, which is inherently superior to battery power in every way.

especially if the only extraction method is going to be fossil-fuel based anyway.

There are many possible extraction mechanisms that have nothing to do with oil.

There are lots of possible ways to get at hydrogen, and lots of possible ways to store it well. If you think long term hydrogen is simply a vastly mechanism to batteries - it weighs far less, has a much greater range, and is vastly quicker to refill.

Electric cars are the future, but batteries are a stopgap until the reach technologies to deliver power move to the forefront.

Re:Range anxiety is wholly rational

[BasilBrush]

In the end the ethnology that will win out, for those reasons and others, is Hydrogen.

Right. Just as fusion has been the technology that will win out for nuclear power stations since the 1940s.

Re:Range anxiety is wholly rational

[BasilBrush]

Didn't you realize that oil companies are already backing lots of electrical efforts?

Other than hydrogen, no.

If that were true they wouldn't back hydrogen, which is inherently superior to battery power in every way.

Except for in the way of being a better technology for powering a car. There are reasons that all commercial EVs use batteries, and hydrogen is only in concept vehicles and pilot schemes than never progress beyond pilot.

You can believe hydrogen fuel cells are the future if you like. My bet is that you'll be waiting as long as fusion enthusiasts have been waiting for fusion power stations.

Re:Range anxiety is wholly rational

[rsborg]

There are many possible extraction mechanisms that have nothing to do with oil.

Care to list one that scalable? Not to mention, fixation of hydrogen so it won't evaporate has so far shown *very* low energy densities. Energy density is exactly why gasoline is king (for now).

Compared to gas, battery tech may seem a bit "cloudy" but hydrogen has truly been vapor since as long as I've been tracking it (early 90s).

EV cars are here and now, even if they don't have the range of gas cars (which really, only exist because there's a distribution network of gas stations that make gas range "feasible"). Hydrogen cars, like fusion power, seem like they'll always be 5 years in the future (or more distant).

Telsa is doing yeoman's work in reducing range anxiety.

Re:Range anxiety is wholly rational

[Firethorn]

If that were true they wouldn't back hydrogen, which is inherently superior to battery power in every way.

Cost? Energy density by volume? Efficiency?
Cost: Fuel cells are still outrageously expensive
Energy density by volume: You have to compress hydrogen to almost 700 bar before it's denser than LiIon.
Efficiency: The electricity->LiIon->Motor chain is more efficient than electricity->hydrogen->compression->Fuel Cell->Motor

Re:Range anxiety is wholly rational

[badkarmadayaccount]

If you think hydrogen and it's associated equipment is any easier or lighter, or cheaper to lug around, then I have some prime beachfront Texas marshland to sell you, free bridge included.

charging standard does exist

[mbkennel]

actually they have.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAE_J1772

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VDE-AR-E_2623-2-2#VDE-AR-E_2623-2-2

Tesla's supercharger however is proprietary because it delivers far more power than the standard mechanism permits and it is intimately linked with the battery & its control system in the car.

Re:charging standard does exist

[TWiTfan]

Fine, I'll amend that to "a standard that everyone actually USES."

Re:charging standard does exist

[mbkennel]

LMGTFY

http://www.teslamotors.com/charging#/basics

Public charging station adapter (J1772, 80 amp capable)

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/wiki/index.php?title=Charging_System

All LEAFs have a SAE-J1772 Level 1/Level 2 charging port.

http://cmaxchat.com/?tag=kilowatt-hour

The Ford C-Max Energi uses a J1772 compatible charge station

Re:charging standard does exist

[TWiTfan]

Yeah, but this article specifically references Tesla's charging stations--that refuse to use these "standards."

Re:charging standard does exist

[mbkennel]

The Tesla superchargers are much more powerful than the standard allows, but Tesla automobiles still accept the standard charger.

Tesla invested in a much higher capability than the standard allows and supports the standard.

What else do you want?

The charging stations could use the standard system, but if only Tesla vehicles will be charging there, what is the point?

Re:charging standard does exist

[Algae_94]

The point is they are using a non-standard charging station that can only charge Teslas. By not using the standard they are reducing the number of possible charging stations for non-Tesla electric cars. This doesn't help the electric car market as a whole. I understand that Tesla doesn't care about other electric car manufacturers, but it's kind of a dick move.

Re:charging standard does exist

[BasilBrush]

The point is they are using a non-standard charging station that can only charge Teslas. By not using the standard they are reducing the number of possible charging stations for non-Tesla electric cars. This doesn't help the electric car market as a whole. I understand that Tesla doesn't care about other electric car manufacturers, but it's kind of a dick move.

Otherwise known as a rational business decision.

Re:charging standard does exist

[mbkennel]

It's not compatible with the standard because the standard can't handle the capability. Any incompatibility isn't gratuitous.

http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger

"30 A" public charging station: 7 kW
Tesla supercharger: 120 kW

Because their non-standard charging station can't charge anything but Tesla because the other cars couldn't accept it either. Tesla has an extremely high current charging system not compatible with the standards.

It isn't reducing the number of possible charging stations for non-Tesla cards, it isn't increasing the number of them. They're putting out a much more impressive technology.

And some of the charging stations have standard J-1772 connectors.
http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger/gilroy

Re:charging standard does exist

[Guspaz]

CHAdeMO chargers (of which there are many more in the US) are 50+ kW, but they're still less than half the speed of a Tesla Supercharger.

Planning

[SuperKendall]

: Okay, fine, but in those cases, you can plan your trip better and remember to refuel before you leave!
A: Um... you can also do that with electric cars...

Um, you can't "fill" your electric car before you leave and even REACH the remote areas, much less drive through them.

Um.

Your "plan" would have to be to stop for a day in some town you would otherwise be simply driving through in an ICE car.

Re:MOD PARENT DOWN!

[master_kaos]

Hey! You are the speciest insulting pigs in that manner you blockhead nincompoop!

Exactly how much fossil fuel was burned...

[jdastrup]

based on 1197.8 kWh it took to drive, you can figure that out here: http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/... or

1281 lbs of coal, or
1197800 cubic feet of natural gas, or
95 gallons of residential fule oil.

Just to keep things in perspecitve for the tree huggers.

Re:Exactly how much fossil fuel was burned...

[Anonymous Coward]

remember, though, some of the SuperChargers utilize Solar Energy. soooooo, temper the overall consumption a bit (though probably not by much). ;)

Re:Exactly how much fossil fuel was burned...

[amicusNYCL]

Tesla addresses that issue on their site:

http://www.teslamotors.com/goe...

44% of US power generation comes from coal, with 23% from natural gas and 20% from nuclear. They have a map that shows each state's breakdown. If you're charging in Washington, Idaho, or Oregon, for example, you're not using a lot of fossil fuel. If you're charging in Wyoming, Indiana, or Kentucky, on the other hand, then it's mostly coal. If you're charging in Vermont then you might as well be fellating a tree, but without the splinters.

Re:Exactly how much fossil fuel was burned...

[WindBourne]

nice thing about W's admin is that he changed laws that implemented mercury controls to 2016. Combine that, with nat gas cheap prices and utilities are walking away from coal plants (cheaper to switch to nat gas, then to add more pollution control).
So, coal is now 35% and going down. Here is 2012.

Re:Exactly how much fossil fuel was burned...

[QuasiSteve]

Exactly how much fossil fuel was burned...

...in relatively few, localized, relatively strictly controlled, locations as opposed to the relatively wasteful, decentralized, pumping out exhaust all along the way, combustion engine car?

I'm sure the 'tree huggers' thank you for asking the question.

Re:Exactly how much fossil fuel was burned...

[s122604]

You do realize that you have to burn a significant amount of diesel/coal/natural gas just to get crude oil out of the ground, ship it to a refiner, refine it (HIGHLY resource intensive), ship it to the gas station, and get it into your car, don't you?

And I'm sure you realize that we don't have to stage a significant portion of our navy halfway across the world, at enormous expense (in terms of energy and money), to keep COAL flowing through the strait of Hormuz...

That's a lot of energy/effort that occurs before you burn the first drop of fuel in your ICE...

But surely you realized this... Or did you think the magic petrochemical fairies did that all of that for you?

Re:Exactly how much fossil fuel was burned...

[Anonymous Coward]

And solar city works to convert them to solar power. 3-5 solar panels will make that in a year depending on what part of the country you are in.

Re:Exactly how much fossil fuel was burned...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're charging in Vermont then you might as well be fellating a tree, but without the splinters.

They have that on their site?!?

Re:Exactly how much fossil fuel was burned...

[bledri]

based on 1197.8 kWh it took to drive, you can figure that out here: http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/... or
1281 lbs of coal, or
1197800 cubic feet of natural gas, or
95 gallons of residential fule oil.

Just to keep things in perspecitve for the tree huggers.

Funny, you didn't do the conversation to gasoline which the same source provides. The 1197.8 kWh, was total for both cars. That's 3,464.5 miles on 46.1 gallons of gasoline (1197.8 kWh / 2 cars / 13 kWh per gallon of gasoline) based on the source you provided. In other words, a big, heavy, powerful, luxury car went 3,464.5 miles on the energy that could be produced with 46.1 gallons gasoline. That's 75.1 MPG, in the dead of winter.

EV's are way more efficient than ICEs, even when the power is generated with fossil fuels. And EVs have the potential of being powered by nuclear, solar, wind, and hydro. Can an ICE do that?

Just to keep things in perspective for people that have the numbers directly in front of themselves but choose not to do the math.

Re:Exactly how much fossil fuel was burned...

[bledri]

s/conversation/conversion/
Doh!

Scenic route? 672 Extra miles (~24%)

[Anonymous Coward]

Google maps shows the Drive from LA to NYC being 2,792 miles. I guess they had to take the scenic route to be able to hit their charging stations. So that's an additional 10 hours of driving! Plus the extra stops to recharge.

Electric cars are for brown people

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't want to be a brown people, do you?

Re:Still too slow.

[Joce640k]

I guarantee you the Tesla was exceeding the speed limit.

...but their competitors can't do some simple math and *prove* it.

Ring Ring

[jbeaupre]

http://www.energymanagertoday....

Gas car rentals to supplement electric cars.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

When you buy it in bulk gas cars can be rented for less than 25$ a day unlimited miles. Electric car makers can easily throw in 28 days of gas car rental as a sweetener to induce sitting-on-the-fence customers.

Also time is ripe for rental car companies to offer a simple car rental accounts to electric car, bus/rail commuter, bicyclers, elderly etc. I imagine if they come up with a model like 50$ a month gets you two days of rentals, and the unused days accumulate, once the customers reach something like 28 days of rentals they just pay a small annual fee to keep the account current. The might even provide a couple of electric charging stations and brag about their green credentials.

Re:Gas car rentals to supplement electric cars.

[bhiestand]

I agree with you completely, but it is worth mentioning the challenges this may pose. I suspect most of the car rentals will be holiday periods. Being able to meet higher peak demand during Christmas, Labor Day, etc. could require rental companies to maintain larger inventories.

I don't know much about their business models, so I could be wrong here.

Re:Gas car rentals to supplement electric cars.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Actually it would work to balance the load on the car rental businesses. Their biggest customers are business customers. That is why you see cheap deals on weekend rentals. So it is basically easy money for the rental companies.

Re:Gas car rentals to supplement electric cars.

[bhiestand]

Great point, I didn't even think of that.

Re:Gas car rentals to supplement electric cars.

[Anonymous Coward]

Already being done by BMW and Fiat: http://business.time.com/2013/04/02/buy-an-electric-car-get-a-gas-powered-car-free/

Re:This is a gimmick.

[wagnerrp]

Not the ones pulling tanker trailers.

electric cars are cool, BUT ...

[WindBourne]

the only one that is worth buying is Tesla.
The leaf is far too high priced for what you get. And the other electric cars are pure junk.
Elon Musk is about to announce his giga-factory. This will build batteries. It will effectively double the amount of batteries on the global market.
It appears that he will be using lithium from Wyoming, since it is the cheapest lithium in the world (and loads of it).
And considering that Elon focuses on lowering manufacturing costs via heavy automation and other techniques, it is obvious that he will cut the price of lithium batteries in half or more.
When Tesla does their model E in 3 years, it will have cheap batteries, and the base on it will be around 35K, while having better luxury than anything that Audi, MB, Caddi, or BMW have in that range. At that point, gas/diesel car sales will plummet, as will stock prices for car makers that are not into decent electric car production. And so far, none of them are.

Re:electric cars are cool, BUT ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, there's a lot of speculation in your post, and based on the content of your post, I'm guessing you don't own an electric car.

The LEAF starts at $21k after incentives, so I don't see how that's 'far too high' priced (mine has LED headlights, 360" camera view, heated steering wheel/front+rear seats, high-end audio system, yet it's cheaper than any other ICE car with similar features). There are so many good deals to be had on electric cars, even on nicer EVs, the expensive excuse is starting to become really lame.

I'd like to see your list of cars you consider 'junk'. I'm guessing you are thinking of the Mitsubishi i-MiEV, which might be small/cheap feeling, but it's far from junk, probably more reliable than most ICE-equipped cars, and a great commuter.

Go take one for a spin, you'll be surprised.

Re:Still too slow.

[Anonymous Coward]

If the tesla was going with the flow of traffic then they were breaking the speed limit.

tesla

[Anonymous Coward]

Cheaper cars "at some point", huh?

I like Tesla, I like the concept of them, and I like that they have completely shaken up the rank and file automotive industry.

But come on. The only people who can afford their cars are people who don't care about mileage and fuel costs. They sure aren't helping the common working man any. I don't have time to wait for "at some point." I need a car now, which is why I'm looking at turbo diesels.

Re:Still toys

[bobbied]

but that we'll move from internal combustion engines to engines driving a generator and electric motors (like trains).

Not really a good idea. The reason for diesel electric locomotives is more about convenience than efficiency. It is really hard to couple a few thousand horse power to the wheels using gears and clutches. Diesel electric setups allow you to do away with the clutch and gear box and the mechanical complexity of hooking up the drive wheels to a source of power. Diesel electric configurations let you run the engine at it's ideal efficiency RPM/Torque at a wide range of actual ground speeds, but it's more about how easy it is to control the electric part by varying the field currents of the generator and motors.

I don't think the same efficiency would be possible in an auto or truck. There is a LOT of acceleration and breaking when driving a car that is NOT done with a train. I also don't think there is that much gain to the total electric system in that situation or hybrid manufacturers would be doing it.

Re:This is a gimmick.

[hawguy]

A gasoline tanker could drive itself across the country easily if the fuel hose attached to its own tank. Lifting yourself out of the Earth's gravity well has always been 95% of the battle. Every pound in extra weight requires multiple pounds of fuel.

What makes this a gimmick just because other conventionally fueled vehicles may be able to make the trip without refueling? Those vehicles are not electric.

And what does earth's gravity well have anything to do with it? The Tesla drove coast-to-coast, it didn't launch itself into orbit.

You needn't use a gasoline tanker if you just want a vehicle that can do the trip without refueling -- a 48mpg Prius could do it with an extra fuel tank -- it would take around 60 gallons (375 lbs) of extra fuel (in addition to the the 12 gallon fuel tank).

there is absolutely NO reason to

[WindBourne]

The car has a 250 MPC range. The average for an ICE car is 250-350 (with most of it at the low end). As such, this is very similar to a regular car.
In addition, within 2 years, America will have a free supercharger every 100 miles or so. In addition, they will in about 2 years, start adding battery swaps at those locations that will allow you to not only swap out your battery for a fully charged one (and only in 90 seconds), BUT, the new temp battery will have a range of 400-500 MPC.
So, please explain why you need anything else?

charge time anxiety is rational

[bzipitidoo]

And battery life anxiety is rational too. I can deal with range issues, it's the other 2 that are deal killers. Having to charge up every 100km is annoying, but doable. Having to wait 2 hours to get enough charge to go another 100km makes the car near worthless for road trips, and not much good for local delivery duties either. Way too much down time. Last time I checked, that's about where the Nissan Leaf is at. Then, if the batteries have to be replaced every 5 years or sooner, there go all the savings and environmental friendliness.

Re:charge time anxiety is rational

[amorsen]

Then, if the batteries have to be replaced every 5 years or sooner, there go all the savings and environmental friendliness.

If old batteries start breaking, there will be a lot of easily-accessible lithium available from recycled batteries. This should reduce battery prices.

Re:charge time anxiety is rational

[BasilBrush]

Then, if the batteries have to be replaced every 5 years or sooner, there go all the savings and environmental friendliness.

They don't. Prius batteries had a planned life of 10 years. Many have been going for 15 years. Which is longer than the average life span of a car. And about the time an ICE is wearing out.

And todays batteries are significantly better than Prius batteries fitted 15 years ago were.

Actually, range anxiety IS rational....

[WindBourne]

Just not with Tesla. Look, if you are in a leaf, you get 75 MPC. And that is without any extra energy use. That limits you to city driving. Worse, there were few fast chargers in the cities. Now, because of Tesla, Nissan is installing CHadmo chargers at all of their dealers. But a 75 MPC, means that you can really only go about 35 miles away, which makes the leaf a close car, nothing more, without access to decent chargers.

BUT, a tesla with a range of 250 MPC, well, none of those owners suffer from range anxiety. In fact, if you read what they post, they find this better than gas cars, because they can simply plug in at night time, and get a full charge each and every single night. Not even a gas car is that good, without taking a 10 minute stop at a gas station.

Re:Actually, range anxiety IS rational....

[mythosaz]

The Leaf's actual range is a lot closer to 80-85 in blended city/highway driving. [I'm getting 3.9m/kWh lifetime, which seems about par for the course.] Much less if you've got open road. Much more if you've got slow city driving.

What most people don't understand about driving a Leaf is that you just go about your day as normal, and while you go about your day, you generally encounter public chargers which you can (and do) use to top off, often for free, while you just go about your business. I've only once been more than 5 miles from a charger (in the last 8000 miles), and most of the time when I stop to shop, see a movie, go to lunch, there's a charger in the same plaza I'm going to -- or at least one just across the street or on the next corner. Does the availability of chargers change some of my behavior? Sure. I'll use the grocery or theater chain that installed chargers once I'm familiar with them, but what people miss is that you just go about your driving as usual, and when you stop here or there, you add 5-10 miles of charge to your vehicle. You often get home with more than you left with (if you didn't start full).

If you drive 85 miles a day, with no chargers except at home, it's not the car for you.

...but this is about range anxiety. It's a real thing. The first few weeks, having such a small "gas tank" is scary. A few weeks later, it's totally normal and not worth thinking about unless you're planing a trip.

...and then you rent a car, because it's fairly dumb to ever not rent a car for a road trip, considering the wear and tear on your own vehicle.

Re:Actually, range anxiety IS rational....

[WindBourne]

I agree with you about the long trip and using EVs for regular local trips. In fact, I view the leaf as a good MOM type vehicle. Still, I have issues with the constant daytime charging.

Re:Actually, range anxiety IS rational....

[mythosaz]

If you're not driving 80+ miles a day, there is no daytime charging.

But the important point about daytime charging is that it occurs organically, while you just go about your business. Unless you're driving long distances, it just happens while you go about your day. Heck, most of the time you get better parking out of the deal. :)

On the scale of difficult things, charging your car at the grocery store is about half as hard as getting a kid out of a child seat, or maybe as hard as returning the cart when you're done unloading your groceries.

Re:Actually, range anxiety IS rational....

[WindBourne]

the leaf's that I see are never parked in a simple lot. They are always plugged in. That indicates that ppl are concerned about range. And when the leaf has 1 million+ cars out there, it will NOT be inconsequential for all of this charging.

Also, I note that you speak of 80+ miles /day, but the fact is, that most ppl will think about distance, not about total miles. As such, we are talking 40 miles away. After that, it needs a charge.
As I said, this is over all a good second car for a family esp. on the east coast. I would never use it for the for the primary in the west, and certainly think carefully about it as a second in California (things are really spread out).

Re:Actually, range anxiety IS rational....

[mythosaz]

Yes. That's what people think until they drive one.

If you're a candidate for a Leaf at all, rarely is the drive you make 40 miles straight out and 40 miles straight back. It's home, mall, grocery, school, karate, home -- or whatever your route is when it's not just work/home/work/home/repeat. ...and one of those stops will let you top off and ease your anxiety.

Range anxiety was the reason for the stunt with the cross country Tesla. The reality doesn't match the anxiety.

The Leafs are always parked at the chargers because they're there. There's little reason not to use them when you pull up to the grocery store and there happens to be one. When public chargers aren't free they cost roughly 3-4 times what you'd pay at home. But that's till maybe 7 cents a mile instead of 2. Public chargers don't so much change my range (as my trips are still rarely 80 miles total), as they keep my day flexible so I could change plans mid-day.

I live in a suburb of one of the biggest urban sprawl cities there is - Phoenix, AZ - and it's just not a problem.

Horrible example

[DarthVain]

You do realize you just picked the worst analogy ever right?

Wile USB and MicroUSB are standards produced by standards associations, one of the most popular phones in existence doesn't use it (iPhone) and would rather use its proprietary lighting standard.

Re:Horrible example

[geogob]

Worse counter example ever right?
Although the iPhone use a lightning connector, the cable can be connected to any USB port. You can charge your iPhove with any "charging station" with USB port. So technically, it can charge using the existing standards, even if on the phone side, the connector is different.
(Although, I'll give your the credit to some part of your argument, as the OP was referring to the connector on the phone side).

The same could go with cars... if they use a propriatery connector on the car side, that's the car maker problem... as long as the other side fits in a standard charging station, all is perfect.

Re:Horrible example

[amorsen]

That is actually the perfect example. There is a fast-charge standard, but Tesla does not use it because they have a technically superior solution. Just like Apple does not use micro-USB because they have a technically superior solution.

The analogy breaks down when considering that Tesla would love if everyone changed to their solution and AFAIK they do not use patents or other means to prevent that. Apple on the other hand...

Re:Horrible example

[DarthVain]

Meh you could say the same thing about a lot of stuff. Like power sockets (though there is variation in the world), or light bulbs, or computer parts, or any standard really. That is what standards do, make things compatible as you can all build using the same specifications.

What the article is saying is that these are Tesla charging stations, which presumably won't have an interface for say the Nissan Leaf, or other competing electric cars. Which if you think about it, if they are trying to get consumer buy in as a viable alternative is a pretty colossal stupid move (tho maybe influenced by specific technology which would be a shame). As while I might drive a Nissan, I don't want to be forced into only going to Nissan brand gas stations, or drive by a Ford gas station simply because some asshole designed the gas nozzle a particular way in order to screw over the competition.

However even your USB example might not be as ubiquitous as you might think. My new computer has a USB interface on the front bezel. However it is a USB 3.0, which I think may be causing my Galaxy S3 to be all twitchy when I try to connect it. There is also USB 1.0 and 2.0 standards, and they are not all completely compatible with all USB devices. Some portable external hard drives cannot use lesser standards due to inadequate available voltage to power the device.

Anyway like any analogy none are perfect, and likely because this is a reverse car analogy, something probably just broke inside slashdot. However so far as these things go, using mobile phone connectors as a example is pretty bad.

Re:Horrible example

[DarthVain]

Unless of course they were going for irony, in which case it was very good.

Re:Horrible example

[BasilBrush]

What the article is saying is that these are Tesla charging stations, which presumably won't have an interface for say the Nissan Leaf, or other competing electric cars. Which if you think about it, if they are trying to get consumer buy in as a viable alternative is a pretty colossal stupid move (tho maybe influenced by specific technology which would be a shame).

Elon Musk and others at Telsa are pretty obviously not colossally stupid. And they know the EV market a lot better than you. So the question becomes what can they see that you can't?

The answer is that the popular move to EV is inevitable. Whilst there is the question of how fast it happens, there's also the question of which EV manufacturers will dominate. And if people see that there's a lot of Tesla only supercharging stations around, and they are free of charge, that's two good incentives for them to buy a Tesla rather than another EV.

This is just the short term though. Longer term the charging stations will be run by other companies (probably primarily the electric utilities themselves.) Just as gas stations are run by oil companies rather than car companies. Those charging stations will have the incentive to support all types of EV. So things will work out in the medium term.

Re:Horrible example

[Guspaz]

It's worth noting that Tesla has adapters for pretty much any charging standard you can shake a stick at, and they include the most common ones with the car (110v, 240v, and J1772). They also sell adapters for the more esoteric sockets, and they even have one for the CHAdeMO fast charge standard, although those aren't cheap ($1000) and CHAdeMO tends to operate in the 50-60 kW range while superchargers are 120 kW (they're apparently looking into doing 150 kW).

There are a rather large number of CHAdeMO stations in the US, but they're very clustered, meant for driving inside a metro area rather than between them. And at less than half the charge rate of a supercharger, I'm not sure it's in the EV industry's best interest to lock themselves into a medium-speed "fast charge" standard like that...

Even the supercharger stations might not be the long-term answer. Improvements in batteries may enable even faster charging in the future, so who knows when all of this stuff will be widespread and standardized.

actually, you can

[WindBourne]

Tesla has a number of adaptors that allow it to use the other chargers. It is true that the others can not use superchargers, but tesla can use the others.

Diminishing Returns

[DarthVain]

I would presume the heaviest part of the car will be batteries. They probably base the amount directly to a weight/range calculation. Simply tacking more batteries onto the problem may simply make is less and less efficient until you are not going anywhere.

Chevy Volt

[EmagGeek]

For all of GM's shortcomings, the Volt is actually a good idea that solves the range anxiety problem nicely. If you're just puttering around town, you can go all-electric no problem. Going on the longer trip? No problem, either, as the gas generator will supply you when the batteries run out. It's a win-win for about half the cost of a Tesla.

Re:Chevy Volt

[beanpoppa]

I think the best thing about the Volt platform is that in a few years, when battery technology has improved 10 or 20%, and prices have been reduced by 50%, they can drop the gas engine to lower the price and save weight (thus improving range and space- really wish it could seat 5). So then you could buy a Volt LE with a 70 mile range for $30k, or spend $40k and buy a Volt HE with a 130 mile range (no ICE, more room for batteries), or spend $40k for a Volt Classic and get 60 mile range with the ICE range extender for people with range anxiety.

Re:More Corporatism

[WindBourne]

no. They BORROWED AND PAID BACK 450 million in gov money. And will have a 35K EV in 3 years and a $20K EV by 2020.

It's not a 'fear' it's simple reality

[runeghost]

I live in the Mountain West, and regularly take trips where I need to cover 600 miles or more in a day. Nothing electrical, from Tesla or anyone else, comes close to meeting my needs. And that's without getting into how on a backcountry trip I can haul along a couple of jerrycans to easily and cheaply extend my range.

While a (cheap) electric vehicle might meet my everyday commuting needs, I am not in the market for two cars. One ICE car plus bike and public transit seems to be a far more cost efficient solution to all my transport needs.

Re:It's not a 'fear' it's simple reality

[WindBourne]

no vehicle suits 100% of ppl. Few vehicles will work in the back county of the rockies.

Re:It's not a 'fear' it's simple reality

[GrahamCox]

You're simply not a customer Tesla is interested in right now. They're quite up-front about that.

Re:It's not a 'fear' it's simple reality

[RespekMyAthorati]

Then a hybrid 4X4 would be best for you.

Re:It's not a 'fear' it's simple reality

[beanpoppa]

Yes, and your case is so typical. Therefore, there is no use case for anyone to buy an electric cars. And I need to carry my 3 kids in the back seat of my car about 2 times a week, so obviously there is no market for 2-door sports cars, which explains why no manufactures make any of those

If only 80% of two-car households replaced one of their cars with an electric car, it would be a huge savings

Re:ICE vs EV in the high end cars

[Anonymous Coward]

Gasoline Cars priced themselves out the market...!

You lose.

[WindBourne]

There is no speculation in my posts. Go read Musk's twitters.
As to our not owning an electric, we are waiting for the Model X. Once it comes out, then my wife will decide which one she wants (she wants a crossover; I think that Model S is good enough).
I have done the leaf and have seen the others. Sorry, but they are not worth the money. In my mind, electric cars should not have any real subsidy until it has at least a 150 MPC. Without that, you encourage not just loads of range anxiety, BUT, most of the small MPC vehicles will charge in the daytime. By doing that, you will add to the costs of electricity by requiring more power and grid.
BUT, EVs that get 150+MPC, will actually LOWER electric costs. The reason is that almost all of the time, they will charge at night time.

That is also why I believe that we need to change our subsidies on evs and hybrids. Basically, offer up $5K for all general hybrid and EVs that have less than 100 MPC, while offering 10K for EVs with 100-149 MPC and gas/diesel serial hybrids, and then $15K for any vehicles that is 150+MPC EV, or a natural gas serial hybrid (these can be converted to regular electric as energy density increases in batteries, caps, etc ).

Re:You lose.

[Bryan Ischo]

I work in Silicon Valley, probably the ideal markey for electric cars, so of course this will not be representative of all places at all times.

But the long row of Nissan Leafs at my work every day shows that lots of people find them worth the money. I've ridden in one many times as one guy who tends to drive to lunch drives one, and it seems like a fine car to me.

Our company provides free chargers which must provide much of the appeal, along with the car pool stickers. Still seems like a fine car if your daily commute is short enough, which I believe for the vast majority of people, it is.

I also test drove a Model S at the Tesla factory a couple of months back, and it was fine too. I'm not a huge car person but it seemed like a nice enough car. The smugness of the test drive attendant was a little hard to take, though. But nothing against the car. I also took a guide tour of the factory, it's not exactly what I expected, but the only other car factory I've ever been in is a Mazda factory in Japan. Those guys really have their sh** together, the Tesla plant seemed quite a bit less well organized in comparison, but whatever; the Tesla technology and design is more impressive than anything.

Re:You lose.

[Bryan Ischo]

markey -> market. Obviously.

For those screaming about chargers, etc.

[WindBourne]

This is a map of the superchargers that are currently in the USA, as well as those that are under construction. Do a 250 mile range to see where you can drive your model S today. Do a 100 mile range to see where the next super chargers will be built.

In addition, you can see the coverage that Tesla is planning here. Advance the time on the map to see where the build out will be at the end of 2015.

Everything is a World Record now

[Anonymous Coward]

How many world records does this feat deserve?

'recorded the lowest charge time for an electric vehicle traveling across the country – a feat that is now being assessed for recognition as a Guinness World Records achievement,' Isn't the charging when the vehicle is stationary and not traveling? This is the largest Redwood tree...traveling across the country!

recorded the lowest charge time for an electric vehicle traveling across the ... state of South Dakota
recorded the lowest charge time for an electric vehicle traveling across the ... state of Washington
recorded the lowest charge time for an electric vehicle traveling across the ... state of Michigan
recorded the lowest charge time for an electric vehicle traveling across the ... state of Wisconsin

recorded the lowest charge time for an electric vehicle traveling across the ... county of ABC
recorded the lowest charge time for an electric vehicle traveling across the ... county of DEF
recorded the lowest charge time for an electric vehicle traveling across the ... county of GHI

recorded the lowest charge time for an electric vehicle traveling across the ... City of LMN
recorded the lowest charge time for an electric vehicle traveling across the ... City of OPQ
recorded the lowest charge time for an electric vehicle traveling across the ... state of RST

recorded the lowest charge time for an electric vehicle traveling across the ... street named Main Street
recorded the lowest charge time for an electric vehicle traveling across the ... street named 1st Street
recorded the lowest charge time for an electric vehicle traveling across the ... street named 1st Avenue

It does reach 108mph easily

[saibot834]

The ICE runs at a speed of 198 mph in some locations and back in 1988 it even set a new world record with 253 mph. Only problem: It's a train.

It's in your garage. . .

[mosb1000]

Shouldn't your local charger be in your garage?

You are not exactly correct either.

[WindBourne]

Turns out that fast charges does NOT wear out the batteries. What wears them out is doing a fast charge all the way to the end while allowing heat to build up. So, tesla is the ONLY company that handles the heat of the batteries correctly. In addition, when super charging, it can do 50% charge in 20 minutes, and the other 50% in 40 minutes. The reason is that it after it is half full in the cell, it slows it way down so it does NOT burn out the cell. And if you charge 100% of the time at a supercharger, the tesla batteries will last the same as if you charge on a 110.

Of course, time for you to be honest

[WindBourne]

you do the numbers, BUT, you do not factually point out that coal is only 35% of our electricity or that 28% is nat gas and that less than 1% is fuel oil. IOW, you need to lower those first 2 figures to around 1/3 of what they are and kill off the last (or .95 gallons).

It's detachable

[sjbe]

Isn't that self-defeating? The whole point is that the vehicle is all electric, otherwise it's just another hybrid

Not really. The nice thing is that you can detach the gas engine when you don't need it whereas you cannot with a regular hybrid. It's similar to having a pickup tow a trailer instead of having an RV. When you get to your destination you can detach the trailer and drive around in your regular car which is a nice situation.

If I'm doing a cross country trip it's probably no big deal to tow along a compact trailer with a generator on it. Eventually this will not be necessary but since battery charging technology still has a ways to go then it makes sense. Alternatively you could populate the trailer with more batteries too I suppose. Kind of a range extender like external batteries for a cell phone.

Re:It's detachable

[OhPlz]

If there's anything a performance vehicle is crying out for, it's a trailer.

Re:It's detachable

[sjbe]

If there's anything a performance vehicle is crying out for, it's a trailer.

If you are driving cross country you aren't using it as a performance vehicle.

Re:It's detachable

[OhPlz]

When does one use a performance vehicle as a performance vehicle on a public road?

Re:It's detachable

[sjbe]

When does one use a performance vehicle as a performance vehicle on a public road?

Mostly when accelerating between stoplights.

Most people don't buy a performance vehicle because they are ever going to see the limits of what it can do. Most buy it for image, both self image and to show off. I see corvettes literally every day and I doubt more than a single digit percentage of the drivers can really actually come close to handling what that car can do. Even if they could handle it, virtually nowhere can you take the vehicle anywhere near its top speed. The only reason anyone cares if a car can go 200mph is for bragging rights. They're never going to actually do it and when you see someone try the story seems to usually end in a fatal crash.

Same thing happens with trucks. People buy trucks that can haul 20,000lbs and do amazing things off road and then never tow anything or take it off the pavement. What they really are buying is a product that supports their self image. They want to think of themselves as a rugged guys who do manly work even if they really just drive to an office and work at a computer all day. I can't count the number of people I see driving an F250 diesel which gets single digit gas mileage who never haul anything and never get the pickup bed dirty.

Re:This is a gimmick.

[geogob]

A lot?
In all my life, I can't think about a single example of a truck running on gasoline.

Where's the number?

[gerardrj]

Funny how Tesla doesn't tell you how many hours they spent actually charging so you can compare it against the driving time. They only fall back to quoting the marketing talking point of "50% charge in 20 minutes" from a super charging station. 75+ minutes to get to 100%.

Let's just ignore that and assume that charging is linear and 1hr from empty to full charge and that a full charge gets you 300 miles(assuming the 80kWh battery option) at 55mph as the Tesla marketing materials claim.

How does a weekend getaway look for a 650 mile drive?

650mi / 55 mph = 12 hours of driving and need 2 charge stops (2 hours)
A total of 14 hours of travel time and an average speed of 46.5mph

If you drive at a more common 70mph** on such a trip instead of the anemic 55mph and your range is 240 miles
650 / 70mph = 9 hours of driving and need 3 charge stops (3 hours)
A total of 12 hours of driving and and average speed of 54mph

**Tesla's web site won't even let you choose 75MPH as a calculation for range despite that being the standard rural speed limit on many Interstate highways.
http://www.teslamotors.com/goe...

Remember: those numbers are the most optimistic range and charging estimates from the Tesla web site. More realistic charge times are about 50% longer if you go to 100% each charge) If you don't have access to a 120kW SuperCharger, don't have the 80kWh battery and don't have the dual onboard charger options then charging times increase significantly. A residential 240V 40A charging station takes 9 hours to charge to 300 miles of range!

Use a gasoline fuel engine based car and you'll spend about 10 minutes refueling. Diesel will probably make the round trip without refueling. A 9 hour trip takes... about 9 hours.

The Tesla S is a nice, all-electric short distance commuter car. Why can't they just leave it at that and stop trying to prove that you can take cross-country trips with it even when all the most optimistic numbers say it just doesn't work unless you don't care when you get to your destination?

WRONG

[WindBourne]

that is LEAF's, not tesla. Two very different cars and battery chemistry. As I wrote up elsewhere, Nissan does not handle their heat, and their chemistry is known to not like fast charging. Tesla's battery chem is different and they handle the heat properly.

Re:WRONG

[Anonymous Coward]

that is LEAF's, not tesla.

They will have the exact same problem.

Re:WRONG

[WindBourne]

If you believe that they have the exact same problems, then you must be claiming that diesel fuel has the same problems as gasoline and that a Chevy blazer will have the same issues as a ford explorer. Yes?

Re:WRONG

[Anonymous Coward]

All batteries have this problem.

Re:WRONG

[WindBourne]

no. li-ion batteries have 3 main issues:
1) Overcharging will kill them.
2) high power drains.
3) most of all, HEAT. Heat is the bane of li-ion batteries.

With tesla, they avoid all 3 issues. With nissan, they suffer at least 2 of the issues.

For example, both probably keep the overcharging down. However, the leaf is far more likely to suffer from overcharging. The reason is the few numbers of cells that they use that must undergo large amounts of charging. Basically, the leaf has 192 cells, of which they pull and charge from all of the cells in parallel.
OTOH, the Model S has 7000 cells in the Model S 85 KWH pack. What they do not do, is pull from a set of cells at a time, until they are drained down to a certain level, and then go to another set of cells. As such, when you are charging the tesla for nighttime from your average 40-70 miles, you will only charge a fraction of the cells.
Now, another issue is the heat, and this is a big one. Nissan thinks that putting all of the cells in a closed box and then air cooling the box will work for when charging. Nothing could be further from the truth. BTW, you will notice that Nissan is re-formulating their chemistry to handle those high temps. And if you look through my postings from several years ago, I spoke about the fact that I would never want to own a leaf in the south esp. in AZ, southern CA.
OTOH, Model S has cells that are basically AA size, with each one fully monitored and each one individually liquid cooled. That means that each cells is pampered.

And as proof of the situation, the roadsters that have 100,000 miles already, none had more than 19% loss. They are varying between 12-19% loss. And that is with the OLD formula that is not supposed to be as good as what is in the model S. There was ONE roadster that with 149K miles, was down to 50% levels, but he is the only one. It is possible that he abused his car since he is the ONLY one with this issue.

supercharger impact on batteries.

[WindBourne]

I can't be completely sure how Tesla's batteries work since I don't have the proprietary info on their specific characteristics. However, most batteries are harmfully affected by only 3 things: overcharging, deep discharge, and high temperatures. This means you can charge them at nearly any speed as long as you keep them cool (Tesla's thermal management), don't overcharge them (presumably intelligence in the battery management system), and don't discharge them too low (up to the user). Presumably, if sensors in the battery detect that the pack is getting too warm, the supercharging will slow down to protect the battery pack. While I can't be 100% sure Tesla is doing this, they're pretty smart so it is very likely that supercharging won't have any adverse affect on the battery life - ever.
.
.
I agree that I don't think there is a problem with the Tesla batteries. We have nearly 60,000 miles on our Roadster that is over 4 years old and we have minimal noticeable range loss. It has driven and charged in temperatures well over 100F many times. It did, however, limit the charging current below the 40 amps available when it needed to, in order to protect the battery.
.
.
.
A field test engineer told me their test cars were filled over and over with a supercharger during trials, and no measurable change occurred. He was awestruck.

Re:This is a gimmick.

[jimbolauski]

The Isuzu NPR EFI comes with the option of a gas engine or diesel.

Re:This is a gimmick.

[Anonymous Coward]

An Isuzu NPR EFI cannot haul a tanker trailer.

Re:Still toys

[amorsen]

Locomotives also have to be heavy, preferably a decent fraction of the weight of the entire train since iron-against-iron is lousy for traction and only the locomotive has power to the wheels. One of several reasons why passenger trains like to have powered carriages instead of locomotives. The weight of the diesel-electric transmission is therefore not a problem, it just means the locomotive has to carry slightly less ballast.

With a Prius-style parallel hybrid system you can use the main electric engine as the generator. If you go serial, you need to have a separate generator which is able to supply the largest sustained load that you design for.

Re:Still too slow.

[Anonymous Coward]

In reality the trip from LA to NYC in an ICE would only require driving about 2800 miles, which can be done in 40 hours plus traffic, weather, and stops for gas every 8 hours. Since the Tesla team hit some bad weather that caused road closures, they were delayed for reasons beyone their control.

The Tesla team was hampered by the fact that there are not Supercharger stations along the shortest route, plus each SC stop takes a fair amount of time. While gas stations are usually right at highway exits or rest stops, SC stations are sometimes many miles from the route you're on. Under the best conditions (the latest 120kW Superchargers) you can only get 3 hours of driving for 30 minutes of charging, and cold weather means you spend less time driving and more time charging.

A Tesla won't be able to beat an ICE until they have battery swap stations all along the route. And even then a Diesel fueled car that can drive for 12 hours and then take only 1 minute to refuel at a truck stop is still going to win.

dom

Re:This is a gimmick.

[Anonymous Coward]

Diesel trucks don't run too well on gasoline. The octane is much too high.

He said "a gasoline tanker", not "a gasoline tanker full of gasoline". It's your own narrow-mindedness that keeps you from seeing he meant a gasoline tanker filled with diesel fuel. ;)

Re:This is a gimmick.

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish I could keep it in, but it keeps popping out of my ass as soon as it gets hard.

if only there were an international standard

[SuperBanana]

It would be nice to have multiple standards for charging stations, and it work across all cars.

Teslas come with a bunch of adapters to charge using a standard 110V outlet (which is fine for overnight charging), some 220/240V outlets (hint: if you're staying with a friend and they have an electric dryer, guess what...) and J1772 plugs, which ARE the standard EV charging socket, in the US. You can buy adapters from them to charge off damn near any socket you could possibly find in the continental United States, and since sockets imply current ratings, "safety" is taken care of (provided the wiring was installed properly and to code, which is not an EV's responsibility.)

Circuits may vary [...] safety features/interlocks [...] patent neutral [...] etc

If only there were a body of professionals in the field of electronics...and if only they came up with a standard that encompassed this sort of thing!

Oh, wait. There is.

If only there were a way to search worldwide hypertext documents for such information before you posted....

The arrogance of ignorant slashdotters never ceases to amaze me. If this were the 60's, Slashdot would be chiming in from its armchairs about how NASA really needs to make sure those astronauts have a way to breath oxygen on the way to the moon, and some way to talk to people on the ground.

Re:if only there were an international standard

[Firethorn]

If only there were a body of professionals in the field of electronics...and if only they came up with a standard that encompassed this sort of thing!

Reviewing your link, I see why Tesla came up with their own charging standard - the design committees seemed to settle on 20 kWh battery packs as 'standard', vs Tesla's 60/85 kWh. Only the latest/beefiest standards meet or exceed a Tesla Supercharger, and considering timelines, Tesla was deploying the chargers while the standards committee was still working on getting an agreement on where to hold the meetings.

Support Vans

[steamraven]

Overlooked in a lot of the articles is the team used 2 "support vans" to help ease the burden of driving.

Re:Support Vans

[Anonymous Coward]

It's real early for an electric car to get across country on one of these.

How many times can I recharge?

[Anonymous Coward]

How often do I have to replace the batteries in my hypothetical electric car, please? If I have two electric cars, can I quickly transfer charge from one to the other?

I've never really looked into the electric car market. I always buy used, and I fix myself as much as possible. My skills come down from a family working in the auto industry. My maintenance costs are incredibly low. An electric car would be an absurd rip-off to me if I have, without choice, to pay $1000s every few years just for what boils down to a new fuel tank, and for the costs of carefully disposing of the old one (even though I may not be charged at the point of service for that, I know I'm paying for it too).

Even though I avoid iPhones for the non-removeable battery, since it's a needless hassle to replace, at least in principle I can replace it myself without having to shell out half the cost of a new 'phone, providing I go to a third party. Is it the same for a Tesla, or is it like the old software lock-in joke about Microsoft cars only being able to use Microsoft gas...?

Home Charging

[Anonymous Coward]

So many posts about lack of charging stations. Teslas are built primarily around home charging. Superchargers are designed to allow crosscountry trips. You don't need regular gas stations, AS YOU WILL BE CHARGING AT HOME. This is one of the big points of having an electric car, is that you don't need gas stations. The whole point of this is to prove you can go for crosscountry trips with a Tesla, which effectively gives it the same range as a ICE car.

Re:This is a gimmick.

[geogob]

Ok, but that's not really what I had in mind with a truck.
But ok, in that category of small trucs and delivery vehicules there are plenty of gasline motors.

As mentioned by others, that's not really what the OP was refering to...

If Only...

[Anonymous Coward]

If only there was a EV that had an on-board generator JIC you ran out of charge during long drives.

Oh, wait... NM.

Vapor isn't real, Hydrogen cars are

[SuperKendall]

Compared to gas, battery tech may seem a bit "cloudy" but hydrogen has truly been vapor since as long as I've been tracking it (early 90s).

You may want to check your tracking then, because there are very real hydrogen cars running around in California and quite a few fueling stations.

That is not vapor, any more than the tiny handful of all-electric cars actually sold is.

The use of hydrogen is inevitable, as the engineering challenges there are much easier to get over than the mythical better battery.

Re:Vapor isn't real, Hydrogen cars are

[Bandraginus]

You may want to check your tracking then, because there are very real hydrogen cars running around in California and quite a few fueling stations.

That is not vapor, any more than the tiny handful of all-electric cars actually sold is.

To prove your point, could you please name me a single make and model of car that I can walk down to the local dealer and purchase today? I've actually tried googling it and can't seem to find an answer. This article says that hydrogen cars will be on the road in 2015. However they also say that the cars will not be sold, they will be leased (because of the high cost).

You're saying that they're not vapor, but I can't find a shred of evidence to support your claim.

The use of hydrogen is inevitable, as the engineering challenges there are much easier to get over than the mythical better battery.

Telsa has just driven across the country in 72 hours. If your statement were true, why aren't we seeing similar headlines about all the hydrogen cars on the road today? It might be because there's only 10 hydrogen fueling stations in the US. The evidence says that they're solving the battery engineering challenges faster than the hydrogen ones.

Rational Range anxiety

[sonamchauhan]

Range anxiety is normal. Redefining "normal" only works right up until your competitor goes undoes it for you.

(Competitor... Whether electric or non-electric)

Like a Prius has a battery backup, the tesla needs a petrol backup.

LMGTF

[SuperKendall]

To prove your point, could you please name me a single make and model of car

Dude, the Honda FCX Clarity is literally the first non-paid search result in "buy hydrogen car".

The SECOND link is about Hyundai shipping hydrogen cars LAST YEAR.

You're saying that they're not vapor, but I can't find a shred of evidence to support your claim.

You are either a liar or a complete idiot.

Telsa has just driven across the country in 72 hours. If your statement were true, why aren't we seeing similar headlines about all the hydrogen cars on the road today?

Because Musk, that's why. Electric cars are sexy and currently they are more advanced than hydrogen. But what I keep telling you, and perhaps you should try listening to someone who actually knows what the hell is going on even without googling, is that Hydrogen is better long term. All of the car makers know it (The THIRD link is a giant page from Toyota about their fuel cell plans), which is why they are doing hybrids now to get the electric power train in shape, then when hydrogen is feasible enough they are switching En Masse.

It's not like that even hurts Tesla that much since they too have a lot of understanding of electric power trains now. They just need to design a car that's stable without 1000lbs of battery pressing it to the ground.

That's the last I'll say on the matter, in the next decade you'll see it play out and then you will know better.

Re:LMGTF

[Bandraginus]

Dude, the Honda FCX Clarity is literally the first non-paid search result in "buy hydrogen car".

I ask about cars that I can go down to the dealer and "buy". Honda only lease the FCX

The SECOND link is about Hyundai shipping hydrogen cars LAST YEAR

The second for me is a HowStuffWorksPage. All the links for Hyundai are about their plans to launch their car next year.

Earlier, you said this:

as the engineering challenges there are much easier to get over than the mythical better battery.

Now you're saying this:

... and currently they are more advanced than hydrogen

If the engineering challenges for hydrogen are easier to get over than battery technology, then why are battery cars currently more advanced than hydrogen?

Because Musk, that's why.

Ahh, I see, so one man has come down from on high and sprinkled some magic dust over his cars, trumping the combined sum of all the research dollars pumped into hydrogen tech.

I posit that you, sir, are the "complete idiot". See how these ad hominem attacks work? Fun, aren't they :)

Re:Scenic route? 672 Extra miles (~24%)

[Firethorn]

Consider that today you can fly directly over the Atlantic/Pacific Oceans to various destinations today. Back before 1927 it wasn't possible, you had to detour/take the scenic route through areas like Iceland.

The comparison isn't exact, of course, Tesla is currently doing something more like stationing carriers across the ocean than extending the range of the planes. They simply haven't gotten their refueling lines expanded enough that they could take a more direct route; give them another year.

Charging stations will have to absurdly multiply

[rkinch]

Why no concern that if it takes 10x the time to charge an electric car as to fill a gasoline tank, then you're going to require 10x the number of charging stations as we have gasoline stations now, to the extent we replace gasoline with electric. Most places have more gasoline stations around than they want already. Where are we going to find the real estate in suburbia to put 10x that number of charging stations as we have filling stations today? And 10x is a kind estimate for electrics.

Re:Still too slow.

[Anonymous Coward]

This would be counterproductive in their goal ... going faster would mean reduced range and more charging required. I'm guessing they tried to drive at the optimal speed for extending range.