Tesla Aims For $30,000 Price, 2017 Launch For Model E

An anonymous reader writes The biggest complaint about Tesla Motors' electric vehicles is that they're far too expensive for the average motorist. The Roadster sold for $109,000, and the Model S for $70,000. Chris Porritt, the company's VP of engineering, says their next model will aim for much broader availability. The compact Model E aims to be competitive with the Audi A4 and BMW 3-series, which both start in the low $30,000 range. To reduce cost, the Model E won't be built mostly with aluminum, like the Model S, and it will be roughly 20% smaller as well. The construction of the "Gigafactory" for battery production will also go a long way toward reducing the price. Their goal for launch is sometime around late 2016 or early 2017

Comments

What about range on this smaller car?

[Nightshade72]

People will like the smaller car and lower price,but if it doesn't have the range... they will not flock to it...

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[Trepidity]

Musk has mentioned in the past a range of around 200 miles.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[Anonymous Coward]

And a separate compartment for the children. And three noisy horns. And tailfins.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[flyingsquid]

People will like the smaller car and lower price,but if it doesn't have the range... they will not flock to it...

A lot of families have more than one car. You could have a large, gasoline powered car to go visit Aunt Mabel or on a camping trip in the Grand Canyon, and a smaller electric car for commuting, runs to the supermarket, etc. The hope is that eventually electric vehicles will have the range, rapid recharge rate, and charging infrastructure that they can compete with and replace gas engines; in the meantime the technology may already be mature enough to compete in particular niches. The nature of disruptive technology is that it initially plays to its strengths and gets a foothold in a market where conventional technology does not perform as well, and as it improves it eventually moves in and takes over from the conventional technology.

That being said, we are a long way away from a fleet that is all-electric or even substantially electric. It's growing rapidly compared to where it was a few years ago (basically, no electric cars), but it's still a tiny segment of the automobile market. According to Wikipedia, .62% of all cars sold in 2013 were electric. Even if that were a much higher figure- say, one-third of all cars sold each year- the average car is around 10 years old. So assume we replace ten percent of the fleet every year, then it would take years to reach a fleet that was one-third electric. Internal combustion engines are not going to go away any time soon. Tesla's stock price is soaring but GM, Ford, and Chevrolet still sell a lot more internal combustion engines than Tesla sells electrics.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[CastrTroy]

Or you could rent a car for the few times year you need to travel more than 200 miles. Some people almost never travel that far. Some people go that far every weekend.

I've always wondered how big of a generator you would need to keep an electric car running continuously, and whether it would be feasible to just tow it behind you on a trailer. Maybe make those available to rent so that people can make long trips on their electric car. It would probably be cheaper to rent than an actual car, and the money you'd save from using an electric car for most of the year would easily offset the cost of renting the generator once in a while.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[GNious]

Or you could rent a car for the few times year you need to travel more than 200 miles. Some people almost never travel that far. Some people go that far every weekend.

From discussing this very solution, it seems people (At least american flesh-people) are very opposed to the notion of renting a car for the purpose of driving long-distances, or carrying large things around or just about anything.
Instead, most insists on having a vehicle that can solve every imaginable situation, even if most of these situations come up once yearly (or even not-at-all).

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[haruchai]

The recognition of how long it would take to replace the current driving stock versus Tesla's manufacturing capacity was one of the reasons for opening up their patents.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[serviscope_minor]

People will like the smaller car and lower price,but if it doesn't have the range... they will not flock to it...

And cargo capacity, don't forget that. This is why I always drive a Peterbilt. First, it's crucial that I can drive 3000 miles with no load, because I reckon some day I might need to drive all the way across the country without stopping.

A semi in that case is handy because I can fill up the back with energy drinks to keep me awake, and a portacabin so I don't have to waste valuable time finding a restroom at a stop.

But the cargo is what's really important. I once thought I would have to move house. It turns out I didn't in the end, but the thought of the panic I would have undergone had I not owned a semi made it all the more worthwhile!

Oh and it's a vocational model on the off chance I might need to move house to somewhere without a paved road.

Honestly, until I see them building small "cars" with this kind of cargo capacity I just don't see people flocking to them.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[serviscope_minor]

I've always wondered how big of a generator you would need to keep an electric car running continuously, and whether it would be feasible to just tow it behind you on a trailer. Maybe make those available to rent so that people can make long trips on their electric car. It would probably be cheaper to rent than an actual car, and the money you'd save from using an electric car for most of the year would easily offset the cost of renting the generator once in a while.

It might be cheaper, but for now certainly the cars would have an big advantage due to economies of scale. You'd also have to haul around the battery back, electric motor and engine (though it only just needs to be large enough to top up at highway speeds, not accelerate), and all on a relatively high drag trailer.

Also, since you're travelling a long distance, I'd assume there's mostly highway cruising, which means one of the other electric car benefits, regenerative breaking, would not be an enormous benefit, unlike for city driving.

The other thing of course for renting is you get to choose a different sized model if you wish as well, e.g. more luggage space or just plain old more space for sitting in on a long journey.

TL;DR I'd could work, but I'm not sure it would be worthwhile.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[onkelonkel]

You nailed it. My neighbor drives a big dodge pickup with a hemi. Drives it 60 miles every day to work round trip. Gets 15 mpg tops. Bitches constantly about the price of gas. Why not drive a commuter car with double the gas mileage and save $2k a year? Because once a year he hauls his boat to the lake and once a year he hauls it back. (Honestly I think he just likes driving a big ass truck, and the boat is an excuse.)

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[Rei]

If they go with steel instead of aluminum that'll probably cost them about 10% range (matters less for big structural elements, but overall it has a significant weight difference), which means more batteries. Seems weird that this would work out to be overall more economical.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[pr0fessor]

I'm not an electrical engineer or anything but I keep thinking that a high performance gas or diesel generator should be able to charge one of these while driving and get good mileage {much higher than a regular gas engine} and better range. Doesn't the chevy volt already do this?

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[AlecC]

Your last paragraph is definitely not the case in the UK. All moving vehicle offences go to the driver. The owner has a legal obligation to tell the police who was driving when an offence was committed, but after that the person who was driving takes all the penalties.

And the insurance is the other way round. The named drivers get fully covered to drive the insured car, and they also get bare legal minimum insurance driving another car if they don't own it. But if somebody else drives the insured car, it is up to them to get insurance.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[AlecC]

If you are on a long trip, you are usually passing filling stations: very few people do 200 miles entirely on back roads. And good safety means that you should take a break about every 150 miles or so. So, as soon as filling stations do electrical recharge, the problem goes away for drivers not trying to keep going avery minute of the day. The problem is always chicken-and-egg: until people have the cars, the charging station will not exist.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[Rei]

I disagree. Most people don't have a car that can move furniture or large appliances. They just pay to rent a vehicle for those occasions. I find it odd that they don't apply the same logic to EVs. No car solves every imaginable situation. A good furniture mover's not likely to be an affordable commuter. Both will likely suck on the track. All three of those will likely suck off road. Etc. Vehicles come in radically different varieties for precisely that reason.

Actually, my preferred solution for EV range is like the AC Propulsion Long-Hauler trailer - a small self-steering (aka, easy to drive) genset trailer. You could own one, rent one, borrow one, have a group of friends/neighbors that share one, whatever. You've got range when you need it, and are otherwise you're pure electric and not having to haul around an engine that you don't use and which takes up space and weight in your vehicle (aka, PHEV).

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[quetwo]

Since the time that the S has come out, battery technology has gone significantly further... I'm sure that by the time this hits the road it will be far enough to compensate the difference in material...

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[Trepidity]

That's certainly possible, yes. It's sometimes called a "series hybrid". While conventional "parallel" hybrids have both gas and electric engines connected to the drivetrain, in a series hybrid the drivetrain is 100% electric, but there's also a gas generator that feeds into the electric system when needed.

Whether you should call that en electric vehicle or not seems to depend on what proportion of the energy is expected to ultimately come from gas vs. wall charge. If most of the energy comes from gas, then it's just a different configuration of hybrid vehicle. Diesel trains work that way, for example (electric drivetrains powered by a diesel generator), and are not considered electric trains. On the other hand, if it runs mostly electric and there is a tank just used for occasional range-extension, those are being marketed as "extended-range electrical vehicles".

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[Anonymous Coward]

If it had a 150 mile range and could charge to 100 mile range in 10 minutes, that might get me to consider it at that price. They're working on getting more quick-charge stations out there. Freeing up their patents was a huge step in that direction. The door is open for any establishment that wants to attract Tesla drivers who need to "stretch their legs" anyway, and may buy something.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[pr0fessor]

I looked it up the chevy volt gets about 38 miles electric and about 380 mile on a full charge and a full tank of gas... I'd probably just go over the electric range by a few miles everyday which is fine if it got 60 miles electric I'd have to make sure I used the gas engine occasional to make sure it didn't have problems.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[Rei]

The question is not whether you "can", it's what it costs and what constraints it imposes. It's possible to make an EV that goes a good chunk of a thousand miles, it'd just be a totally impractical absurdly-expensive monstrosity.

No question that batteries are advancing - usually a gravimetric energy density doubling every 8 years or so. But the trend for volumetric isn't as impressive, and the price changes per watt hour are far less predictable. Sometimes the next generation which improves your battery stats is more expensive than the previous one. Sometimes it's cheaper. Overall the trend is negative, but it's very bumpy and not as fast.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[knightghost]

Unlikely. Battery technology has only improved 5% annually over time without using exotic substances.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[organgtool]

One of the advantages of a fully-electric car is that it has very few moving parts and requires hardly any maintenance. With a series hybrid such as the Volt, you now have a generator that adds a lot of the maintenance that would be required with an ICE. The Volt may be a nice option at the moment to help some people overcome range anxiety, but the better long-term solution is to ditch the generator and the maintenance it requires and go fully-electric.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[pr0fessor]

True, that's why I like electric mowers and weed eaters.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[cheesybagel]

The trailer thing is perfectly feasible. The tzero had one.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[Webcommando]

If you are on a long trip, you are usually passing filling stations: very few people do 200 miles entirely on back roads. And good safety means that you should take a break about every 150 miles or so. So, as soon as filling stations do electrical recharge, the problem goes away for drivers not trying to keep going avery minute of the day. The problem is always chicken-and-egg: until people have the cars, the charging station will not exist.

In the Chicagoland area, they have a number of oasis situated on the expressway that have food, restrooms, gas. I imagine if the tollway authority added charging stations to the parking area, you would see an uptick in adoption. I know other metropolitan areas have the same type of setups; a few strategically place charging stations could start turning the tide.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[penix1]

And the insurance is the other way round. The named drivers get fully covered to drive the insured car, and they also get bare legal minimum insurance driving another car if they don't own it. But if somebody else drives the insured car, it is up to them to get insurance.

That is not true. If the driver is not the owner, but was authorized to drive the car by the owner, then the owner's insurance covers. It doesn't matter if the driver was named on the policy. If the driver drives without the owner's permission, then not only is it grand theft auto but it is considered uninsured. I know because I was hit by a driver in a stolen car where the thief ran away in all the confusion. Luckily I had full coverage and my insurance paid my medicals. Had I just had liability then I would be left holding the bills.

If you drive a car that is not covered by insurance, whether you have insurance on another car or not, it is still considered uninsured.

Having said all that, since automotive insurance is a state thing I suspect the laws governing the insurance varies by state. What I said above is correct for my state.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[rainmaestro]

Well, that's only partially correct. Drunk driving and speeding tickets will have no effect on your insurance because both of those issues apply to the policyholder and any additional named parties, not to the vehicle. Since your buddy isn't on your insurance, he gets the premium penalty for the DUI, not you.

In the event of an accident, the driver's policy covers bodily injury while the owner's policy covers physical damage. Typically, your insurance company would also seek partial compensation from your friend's carrier as well, and you both will be affected.

Also, where the hell do you live that parking tickets affect your insurance? Even if you don't pay them, the only consequence is that you can't renew your registration until you pay them off. Or if you live in a city that uses parking enforcement to generate cash, your car gets towed and you have to go pay it off immediately.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[Dragonslicer]

You nailed it.

(Honestly I think he just likes driving a big ass truck, and the boat is an excuse.)

No, but you did.

Re: What about range on this smaller car?

[EvanED]

Running from the police? That's the driver not the insurance or plates.

Until they impound your car for being used in a crime, and then file a lawsuit against it (it, not you or the driver) in attempt to take it under civil forfeiture laws.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[EvanED]

Most people don't have a car that can move furniture or large appliances. They just pay to rent a vehicle for those occasions. I find it odd that they don't apply the same logic to EVs.

To play devil's advocate, and I only know my own experiences, but I suspect that people go on longer roadtrips far more than they need to move furniture or large appliances. Especially if you count at the point of renting instead of just "hey, call Joe to see if he will help us move this couch; he's got a pickup."

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[Hamsterdan]

True.

But as of now, the problem with electric-only is recharge time. I can fuel my car in 5 minutes (and give it 600KM range). Let me put at least 300KM in 10 minutes in an electric only, and they will take off. Yes I know about Supercharging stations, but until I can do the same at most gas stations, electrics will stay a niche application. Add solar panels to the car, the possibility of hooking up a range extender (generator), the possibilities are there.

Gasoline's energy density is pretty much why it's about the only practical way to fuel a car in minutes. (I'm only in my early 40s, and I sadly don't think I'll live to see mainstream electric-only vehicles)

There's a limit to how many amps you can dump in a battery without severely shortening its capacity to hold a charge (not withstanding the heat and other problems related to running hundreds of amps on a connector)

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[lgw]

The Volt is a clusterfuck (it's a parallel hybrid, you know, with a stupidly complex gearbox), but trains are very cost and maintenance sensitive. A true serial hybrid car can be quite simple, with the generator being a small, (relatively) lightweight, replaceable unit (unlike a train, it could be full electric 95% of the time).

A Tesla Model S with a 30 HP genny up front would eliminate all range anxiety and still be a perfectly usable car if the gas engine broke. But that's the key, it needs to be an electric car with a generator for emergencies, not a gas car with an electric motor for short trips.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[gururise]

Yes, the Chevy Volt mostly does this. It operates in Series Hybrid mode (ie. uses a 1.4L ICE with 9 gallon tank to charge the battery) when speeds are low and switches to a sort of parallel hybrid mode when speeds are higher. The Chevy Volt gets a combined 37MPG when driven in this mode.

A true series Hybrid, like the BMW i3 ReX utilizes a much smaller 0.4L ICE with a 1.9 gallon tank to charge the battery and give you an additional 92 miles of range on gasoline.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[gururise]

The BMW i3 already does this. Its got a 66HP 0.4L generator that operates as a true series hybrid. The 1.9 gallon tank gives you an additional ~92 miles of range.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[Loki_1929]

You can fill your car in 5 minutes and go another 600KM. You can battery swap a Model S in 90 seconds and go another 500KM. Or you can wait 20 minutes and get a supercharge that will get you 250KM for zero cost.

Seems like the electric car not only meets your expectations, but rather exceeds them.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[amaurea]

So 2 years would be enough to offset the extra weight of steel?

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[Fnord666]

There's a limit to how many amps you can dump in a battery without severely shortening its capacity to hold a charge (not withstanding the heat and other problems related to running hundreds of amps on a connector)

That and the fact that you have people who forget to remove the nozzle before leaving the gas station. How many of these people will a supercharging station fry?

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[Fnord666]

(Honestly I think he just likes driving a big ass truck, and the boat is an excuse.)

I think somebody is compensating for something.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[bbn]

That and the fact that you have people who forget to remove the nozzle before leaving the gas station. How many of these people will a supercharging station fry?

None. An electric car will not move while still plugged in.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[flargleblarg]

You can fill your car in 5 minutes and go another 600KM. You can battery swap a Model S in 90 seconds and go another 500KM. Or you can wait 20 minutes and get a supercharge that will get you 250KM for zero cost.

Seems like the electric car not only meets your expectations, but rather exceeds them.

In theory. I mean, there are more than 100,000 gas stations in the United States, compared to how many Tesla supercharging/swapping stations?
Don't get me wrong; I think electric is here to stay and will win out in the long run... but to say it meets or exceeds expectations of convenience is not right.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[pr0fessor]

"The i3 performance in range-extending mode may be more limited than when it is running on battery power, as BMW clarified that the range extender is designed not for long-distance travel but purely as an emergency backup to keep the electric system going until the next recharging location." from the same article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...

Neither are 100% what I was thinking but they may eventually be. The chevy volt is close but the 48 mile all electric range is a little to short for my use {more like 60} otherwise I could use all electric during the daily work commute and errands but still take long trips on the weekend without worrying about charging time or is there a place to charge where I'm going.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[Anonymous Coward]

Range anxiety is common - nearly everyone has it. We went from 2 gas to 2 electric only cars and we had it for a while at the start too. Eventually you know exactly what you can and can't do in the car, just like how you know how your ICE performs accelerating and handling on different roads and how far/long you can go on a tank of gas. It is amazing how quickly you stop caring about range when you buy a car that meets your 99% case. Our leaf gets ~75mi in our area/climate on an 80% charge. You get home and you just plug it in, so that means a comfortable 60mi a day without even blinking. 20mi to work and back (and if there is busy traffic it burns *less* energy to crawl) and there is plenty to pick up kids, do some errands, go out to eat, and plug in at home.

In those rare days when I need more, there are chargers close to work I can plug in for a couple hours while I work, there are free L2 chargers at city hall (near grocery stores, restaurants, shops), and other chargers spread around. 8 months in and I've only used this option once...and then it was just to test and make sure my charge cards were working.

I think what the industry needs most is a ParkAndBorrow model. Drive your car in and park it, rent an electric for a week for a low rate, return it and drive your car home. Even a trickle charge on a leaf gets you from 0 to 80% over night (10hrs?) so you don't even need special charge hardware for the common case test.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[LordKronos]

OK, so even at 5% per year, in the 5 years between the model S and the model E (assuming it comes out in 2017), that's almost a 28% cumulative improvement.

I'm not sure how much more weight a steel vehicle typically is vs an aluminum one. I know the 2014 F-150 weight roughly 5000 lbs, and on the 2015 F-150 the use of aluminum is supposed to knock off about 700 lbs compared to the 2014. So in that case, that's less than a 20% increase in weight by using steel rather than aluminum. On top of that, with all the talk of this new aluminum F-150, it's started a bunch of talk about ways to produce steel panels that are lighter, making them weight competitive with aluminum but at significantly reduced price.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[nut]

As does this Mazda 2 prototype with 0.33 litre rotary engine. http://www.autonews.com/articl...

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[lgw]

Cool! If only it weren't a frat-boy-M-W.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[peragrin]

Battery power grows about 5% every 5 years. maybe.

You are off by an order of magnitude for battery power.

Right now using the latest battery power the tesla S might get an additional 10% range. maybe if you are lucky and careful.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[damnbunni]

Actually, it takes a long, long time to get your Model S battery swapped.

Since none of the battery swap stations are actually open, you'll have to sit there and twiddle your thumbs till they finish building it.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[Guspaz]

You don't need as many supercharger stations, though, because they're not a direct replacement for gas stations. Mainly, the expectation is that you will charge your electric car at home overnight, starting each day with a full charge. Public charging stations, then, are only required if you will be driving a great distance.

Gas stations, on the other hand, are effectively the only way to refuel your gas car, so there needs to be a larger number of them.

If you get enough supercharger/swap stations to cover any likely long distance routes, electrics end up more convenient, because you'll always start each day charged and never need to stop anywhere during daily commuting and use.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[R3d M3rcury]

In his defense, it can be very difficult to rent a big dodge pickup with a hemi for towing your boat. That's definitely a specialty rental and could end up costing him quite a bit of money.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[sillybilly]

Battery operated ones? How long do the batteries last on your electric mowers and weed eaters before needing replacement? 5 years? And how fast do they recharge? 10 minutes? I know I know, you're just sarcastic, and high power electric things, like electric mowers and electric clothes dryers all run off a power chord. Even electric trains all run off of a power chord, none of them are battery operated. Though a train could lug around a couple of these lithium ion battery pack freight cars, and drop them off at stations to get recharged. But it's cheaper for trains to just electrify the track, for now at least, until they can make the cost of battery plus recharging station cost less per mile than electrifying the track plus charging station for the track. It'd be nice if you could do with a car what you can do with an electric mower, and just drag an extension cord behind you where ever you're going. Or have many plug in sockets along the way, like each mile, plug in to one, go the mile, unplug, plug into the next one, go a mile, and the traffic going backwards picks up and takes the chords the other way. Your only problem would be circular statistical traffic patterns, where going one way is not the same as coming back. How about electrified highways with overhead power lines like tram rails and trolley buses. With a trolley bus you really gotta watch your driving or you rip the overhead cables down.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[BasilBrush]

A battery charger engine can run constantly at it's optimum RPM and so doesn't need a gear box, and doesn't have to have reasonable efficiency over a wide range. Also provided the battery capacity is decent, won't be running for most of the time. It can also be mounted for easy access or removal for maintenance. So the maintenance cost should be quite a bit lower.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[BasilBrush]

Hybrids are for other companies. Tesla is there to showcase the best that pure electric vehicles can do.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[blind monkey 3]

There is also the possibility of charging your car at work, friends/relatives houses... this could introduce the problem of power theft.

It also doesn't appear to be too far off for the use of a car as energy storage for a house - The Nissan Leaf is offering that option already although I'm not sure if it could cope with our western home requirements although the Tesla battery should be able to manage a couple of houses over night. A new business model - selling power to your neighbours?

Long distance travel is the only real weakness as you've pointed out. You really wouldn't want to miss a charging station - I suppose it may be possible to ask any residence if they were willing to let you charge your car (for a fee).

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[q4Fry]

Electric trains run off of a power chord? I thought that was just Nickelback.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[q4Fry]

Anecdotal: A friend of mine was hosting (as in couchsurf) a band who travels in an electric station wagon covered in solar panels. A lightning storm took out power all over the city. Theirs was the only house on the block to run lights and the fridge, because they plugged them into the car and ran them off the battery.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[LordKronos]

Don't blame me. I wouldn't know. The person I was responding to was the one quoting the 5% per year figure.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[Whorhay]

Steel is a cheaper resource than aluminum by far. Steel is also much stronger and easier to work with. Sure it'll weigh a bit more but I would bet that this is more about economics than range of the vehicle.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[Enigma2175]

I've always wondered how big of a generator you would need to keep an electric car running continuously, and whether it would be feasible to just tow it behind you on a trailer. Maybe make those available to rent so that people can make long trips on their electric car. It would probably be cheaper to rent than an actual car, and the money you'd save from using an electric car for most of the year would easily offset the cost of renting the generator once in a while.

Back when they first made the RAV4-EV there was a trailer that you could pull behind it to extend the range. It used a 500cc motorcycle engine and was not too big. I have been interested in this concept for a long time, it seems to be a great way to alleviate range anxiety.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[aaronb1138]

A bigger portion with aluminum is the stamping / machining / welding / inspection / prep & paint steps are all massively more expensive. Aluminum parts have higher manufacturing fail rates and you run the machinery way slower because the metal is more sensitive.

They might be able to go with aluminum skin and select non-structural parts with a steel body. Several Japanese and a few European luxury cars use this technique. The Infinity G / Q series uses aluminum hoods (and skin?) with steel bodies for example. Structural aluminum is just pricey and difficult to work. From a material science / engineering standpoint, aluminum always fatigues to failure by definition; so designing, building, and validating aluminum parts takes a lot more time and expense.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[aaronb1138]

No, no battery technology has not gone significantly further. You are confused with CPU / RAM / Flash trends in the mobile market which have markedly improved battery life (e.g. Surface Pro 1 vs 2: Ivy Bridge vs Haswell - battery didn't change). We're still on Li-ion variants and will be for some time.

Tesla building there own battery plant allows some optimization of form factor and cell packaging which will come out to appreciable but nothing huge in weight savings and increased safety.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[aaronb1138]

I love trucks, but I f***ing hate all the guys who drive one for status or compensation. I would never daily drive a truck for commuting (long term). It's a working class tool that should look well utilized. If you like trucks for show, get one for show and drive a midsize car for commuting. You can pay for it with the gas savings.

At least the sports car guys can claim to actually drive their cars in the intended fashion on a regular basis, and put money back into society with speeding tickets. Maybe we need a fine for driving down a highway every day with an empty truck bed.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[fyngyrz]

I got the impression that the cost savings were in manufacturing. Machining and otherwise dealing with steel is a quite different set of tasks and requirements as opposed to trying to make essentially the same components out of aluminum; admittedly, steel is heavier (hence the lesser range, perhaps) but it's a lot easier to fabricate steel. Every tiny shop I know of can do it, while handling aluminum is still somewhat of a speciality undertaking.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[Jeremi]

if it got 60 miles electric I'd have to make sure I used the gas engine occasional to make sure it didn't have problems.

An interesting feature of the Volt is that it will handle this for you -- i.e. if the gas engine hasn't been used in a long enough time, the Volt's computer will force it to be used for a little while just to give it some exercise (and keep the gas in the tank from getting too stale IIRC).

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[aaronb1138]

Only because the market has developed around boat owners who all have trucks and trailers. In places where this isn't the case, dry and wet docks are plentiful and affordable. How much better would it be to have a service come pickup the boat and drop it in the lake for you and by the time you get there Saturday morning it is fueled and ready to go.

The post WWII rugged, independently capable of all feats American has been a horrible target for the populous. Weird given that WWII was the epitome of teamwork and interdependence in all things. Really the only distinguishing feature from today's specialization to the point of incompetence 2 degrees to the left or right, is entirely the idea of having perspective enough to go grab the right person for a given job or realize one must imitate it for a bit.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[blindseer]

When in college I was in the solar car club. I heard the car we were building was using a steel frame because the old car with an aluminum frame broke in half. The car was not in a competition at the time, it was being driven to train drivers or something. It hit a bump in the pavement and suddenly the car was in two pieces.

Other issues driving the decision to build a car with a steel frame instead of aluminum was time and money. The high chrome steel used was expensive but still much cheaper than the structural aluminum. it was also easier to find people willing to weld the steel.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[blindseer]

I liked my old sedan. It got good gas mileage, it had plenty of power, was real easy to get around parking lots. Problem was that I live on a street that is a low priority for snow removal and I was expected to be at work in all kinds of weather and that sedan had a habit of getting stuck in even a light snow. I also didn't like that it didn't have a whole lot of room for my rifle case and such for when I went to the shooting range.

When it came time to get a new(er) vehicle I opted for a 4 wheel drive light SUV. The mileage is not as good, the turning radius a bit wider, and it does not accelerate like that sedan could. But I have not yet got stuck in the snow and I have all kinds of room for my stuff.

If I had a longer commute I'd consider getting a sedan again and drive the SUV only when the weather was bad or I had to carry a lot of stuff. If it came to that I'd consider also trading in the SUV for a big truck that you despise but for now I compromise.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[markass530]

the electric car generator trailer thing has been done

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[Guspaz]

The distance travel thing is perhaps not ideal now, but that's a problem that will be solved in time: Tesla alone is building a ludicrous number of such stations along highways in US/Canada/Europe, and their recent patent moves indicates that they'd like to improve on that even more by having other car companies build their own compatible stations and everybody shares all of them. They can probably never share the swap stations (just because the requirements on the car side of things for that would be way too specific), but just getting more charging stations would help a lot.

In terms of not wanting to miss a charging station, that shouldn't really be an issue, as you can have the car's satnav automatically hit up the charging stations along your route, so that you don't need to think about it.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[Rei]

Surely you know that today's ithium ion technology is half an order of magnitude better energy density than when the tech was introduced, and it keeps improving every year. Yes the trend of battery energy density doubling every 8-ish years has continued under li-ion. Li-ion isn't a single chemistry, it's a family.

It's not simply electronics improvements that let the batteries in these devices keep getting smaller and smaller with each generation while battery life improves.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[Rei]

Sounds like metal fatigue. You have to design to prevent that.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[jordan_robot]

What? The labor associated with AL fabrication is generally less than steel for production runs. Generally a machine shop that can work steel can and will work aluminum. It machines much quicker and is easier on tooling. Welding can take a bit longer than steel, but generally only when done by hand -- and I imagine they're reducing the number of welds to as few as possible. On a project like that you'd cast most of your complex parts or do fastened assemblies rather than welding. That said aluminum material costs more lb per lb than steel, and you'll need more AL material to match a functionally identical steel part. You'll also probably spend more engineering time on aluminum, but that's more of a 1-time fixed cost anyways.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[lgw]

I doubt that - Tesla is there to be a successful US automaker. Musk had an itch to scratch with electric cars, and that's fine for a niche brand, but the roadmap for Tesla clearly isn't sticking to making 4-wheeled Segways for the rich. You can see they want to be mainstream, plus their stockholders have bid up the price to where they must be.

Tesla now has a market cap that's 40% of Ford. They will be making mainstream cars, and being appealing to the mainstream requires ending range anxiety, and making an actual truck. I suspect making the cars generator-friendly will happen, sooner or later, and I think there's be a real appeal to an electric truck with a built-in generator (with a power offtake) in the same space as the Jeep Grand Cherokee (still a rich man's toy, but a much bigger niche, and a half-step to the pickup market).

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[fyngyrz]

Explain to me, then, why none of the local shops can fab aluminum beyond cutting it, and all of them can, and do, work in iron and steel? Last time I went hunting for aluminum fabrication capability here (last year) I came up completely dry.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[BasilBrush]

Tesla is there to be a successful US automaker.

I didn't say they weren't. But their approach to doing that is uncompromising - where a compromise would mean a hybrid. And uncompromising can be a very good business plan. It drove Apple to be the most valuable company in the world. And seems to be working well for Tesla too.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[lgw]

You seem to be coming at this from some cultural perspective where "electric == win; anything else == lose". That really is a niche subculture. Apple found a valuable niche, to be sure, but could never be a dominant player. That's fine if you're selling fashion accessories (Apple's market), where exclusivity is what you're selling after all. But I just don't see that as Tesla's goal.

They've never said "we're making fashionable cars for rich kids, and we'll never make ordinary cars as that would ruin our exclusive brand" (there are quite a few niche carmakers who do just that). They've been aiming for mainstream from the beginning, with the high-margin cars only as the natural starting place. Can a pure electric car really be mainstream? Not soon, I don't think. We'll see how then next model does, of course, but there's a vast horde of rural buyers who love the idea Tesla (Murica!) but simply have no use for a car with limited range.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[BasilBrush]

Apple found a valuable niche, to be sure, but could never be a dominant player.

The only way you can look at it that way is if you think market share is everything. But of course it's not, it's profit. And Apple is the most profitable tech company in the world. Their success s not qualified, they are absolutely the most successful tech company in the world right now.

Likewise with Tesla. They are clearly dedicated towards making the best pure electric vehicles, and selling them at the price that dictates. Don't blame this on my "cultural perspective" unless you can find anything to suggest Tesla would ever make a hybrid. They aren't the most successful car company in the world yet, but they very well may become so without changing their approach one jot.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[tech10171968]

People will like the smaller car and lower price,but if it doesn't have the range... they will not flock to it...

And cargo capacity, don't forget that. This is why I always drive a Peterbilt. First, it's crucial that I can drive 3000 miles with no load, because I reckon some day I might need to drive all the way across the country without stopping.

A semi in that case is handy because I can fill up the back with energy drinks to keep me awake, and a portacabin so I don't have to waste valuable time finding a restroom at a stop.

But the cargo is what's really important. I once thought I would have to move house. It turns out I didn't in the end, but the thought of the panic I would have undergone had I not owned a semi made it all the more worthwhile!

Oh and it's a vocational model on the off chance I might need to move house to somewhere without a paved road.

Honestly, until I see them building small "cars" with this kind of cargo capacity I just don't see people flocking to them.

I think this semi is right up your alley, then: http://tinyurl.com/q7rxj7s

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[RespekMyAthorati]

Where range anxiety is a rather smaller issue.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[RespekMyAthorati]

Don't forget cupholders!

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[lgw]

Fashion companies do quite well, to be sure. At least as long as fickle fashion smiles on them. But that's not Tesla.

I'm still not sure where you're coming from with the idea that Tesla would be "compromising" to sell e.g., a truck with a fitting for a Honda generator under the bonnet, but whatever. One way or another, Tesla will need to appeal to rural America, not just cityfolk, if they want to be a serious automaker. Maybe battery tech improvements will get them there one day, but that day is distant at best.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[BasilBrush]

Fashion companies do quite well, to be sure. At least as long as fickle fashion smiles on them. But that's not Tesla.

I never said anything about fashion companies. And if your implication is that that's what Apple is, yet because you feel differently about Tesla, it's not, is just ignorance. They are both in the business of quality designed technology.

I'm still not sure where you're coming from with the idea that Tesla would be "compromising" to sell e.g., a truck with a fitting for a Honda generator under the bonnet, but whatever.

Well that just suggests that you don't understand Tesla just as much as you don't understand Apple.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[lgw]

Apple is a fashion accessory company. Why would you think otherwise? Because their accessories are "on a portable device"? Watches were similarly high tech at one point, but there were fashion brands there too from nearly the beginning. They get markup due to design and exclusivity, much like Rolex (and one day I'm sure we'll see the Patek Philippe of electronics, as the market continues to mature - why not a $30k cell phone?). That's their market, and they're content to stay there.

Tesla gets a similar benefit today, but they aren't content with that. Their stated goal is to be mainstream, not only an upscale brand. You can't reason from Apple to future Tesla as far as customer base and what will succeed.

Well that just suggests that you don't understand Tesla just as much as you don't understand Apple.

I really think you don't understand the rural market. While the Model E can do just fine just selling into cities, and Tesla's near-term expansion is well-served by that, that's just the next 4-5 years. Then what? It's unlikely batteries will be different in kind by then, so if Tesla want's to continue their journey to becoming a mainstream car company, they'll have to come to grips with non-dense environments.

Plus, they'll want a truck eventually. And while Land Rover has finally retired the mechanical PTO from their model line, there'd be real appeal to an electrical PTO (generator or no) on a truck, not to mention the ability to charge safely from ad-hoc electrical sources like a portable generator, no? Do you really think rural customers won't think to bring a portable generator "just in case", or as a range extender? Do you really think Tesla will stand of some bizarre principle and not accommodate that need, to sell into the rural market?

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[BasilBrush]

Apple is a fashion accessory company. Why would you think otherwise?

Simply because they are not. They are a technology company that values design and can thus sell at premium prices. Which is very much not fashion.

I really think you don't understand the rural market.

I don't think you understand the world. The consumer truck is relatively rare in most developed countries. Even in rural parts. It might be YOUR priority, and it might even be something Tesla do when it's possible to proactively do one that is pure EV. But they don't need to compromise their business to deliver a compromise vehicle to a relatively small market.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[KingMotley]

Have you been to any of the expressway oasises? I haven't been to them all, but the northbound one on 294 has a charging station.

Re:What about range on this smaller car?

[Webcommando]

Have you been to any of the expressway oasises? I haven't been to them all, but the northbound one on 294 has a charging station.

I travel through Chicago a few times a year now (and lived there before open road tolling existed) and did not notice them before. Great information and I do wonder if how many have them and if there is a build out plan.

As a Quebecer...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty jealous of American billionaires who *do* things. Our billionaires mostly do things like wearing clown noses in space or union-busting convenience stores.

With our hydro electric resources, we should be pioneering electric cars.

But no, *doing* things is not in our culture. Corruption, incompetence and thinking small, that's Quebec.

Re:As a Quebecer...

[L'Ange Oliver]

At least we found out about the corruption. Maybe now we will start to THINK BIG, sti!

Re:As a Quebecer...

[Trepidity]

Our billionaires mostly do things like wearing clown noses in space or union-busting convenience stores.

Oh, the U.S. has plenty of those too: 6 of the top 10 richest Americans have either the surname "Walton" or "Koch", and they do roughly the same kinds of things with their money that someone like Péladeau does. One of the remaining four has the surname "Ellison", and his visionary thoughts mostly involve yacht races.

Re:As a Quebecer...

[rmstar]

I'm pretty jealous of American billionaires who *do* things.

Elon Musk is south african.

Re:As a Quebecer...

[Hamsterdan]

"With our hydro electric resources, we should be pioneering electric cars."

Montreal citizen here...

We did. In mid-90s Hydro-Quebec developped an electric wheel hub. Tech derived from that research (TM4 engine, 96% efficiency) is now being tested by the Societe de Transport de Montreal for buses. I've seen one of those buses, and besides being ugly as hell they do the job and are *completely* silent (besides being too low for sidewalks and curbs while turning :).

Will they be reliable during the cold-as-hell north-pole winter? I dunno, but as a geek I can appreciate an all-electric bus.

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

What I'm still wondering is why they don't use hybrids. A city bus would be the *perfect* application for an hybrid vehicle. All that stop-and-go would help keep the battery running, and the Diesel engine would recharge the battery if it gets too low. Combined with the fact that Bio-Buses run on biodiesel made from (mostly) trash, that would seem like the logical application.

Re:As a Quebecer...

[Hamsterdan]

Nah. We re-elected the same ones responsible for CEIC...

Re:As a Quebecer...

[Hamsterdan]

"no money will be recovered, taxes will not go down, services won't improve."

More money will be taken, taxes will go up, services will go down. FTFY :)

Re:As a Quebecer...

[Anonymous Coward]

Really?
It is quite possible that we would be better off if they all disappeared.

Reducing the up-front cost of an item is good, but if you want to work out whether or not something is positive then you need to take more than just the up-fount price into account, or you will call slavery good too. Wallmart is famous for paying workers so little that they have to take food stamps not to starve, among several other abusive worker practices. Without workers spending more you don't get the customer growth that is needed to maintain long term economic growth, so it is quite possible that walmart is a net negative even in purely financial terms. The Koch industries have a disturbing tendency to bribe politicians, sorry make campaign donations, in order to avoid being held to account for the costs they impose on others, such as shortening peoples lifespans with air pollution. To consider the total impact of Koch industries the medical costs of pollution must be considered, at the very least, given that these are also quite high we might well be better off without them too. In both cases it is not like there would be a shortage of people trying to fill the space if you eliminated them, the question is whether they would be better or worse.

Re:As a Quebecer...

[HangingChad]

Our billionaires mostly do things like wearing clown noses in space or union-busting convenience stores.

Not all our billionaires do things. We have a pair from Kansas who thinks they can buy themselves a government. So far they're winning.

Re:As a Quebecer...

[Jeremi]

Elon Musk is south african.

He was born in South Africa, yes. But he's also a US citizen, and lives and works in the USA.

The big picture

[Anonymous Coward]

Tesla Model S, E and X ? there must be some joke in there ...

Re: The big picture

[Anonymous Coward]

Elon said at the last shareholder meeting that Ford wouldn't let them use the Model E name as they already have a trademark on it therefore "Ford is killing SEX"

http://youtu.be/VvWDBnhe588

Re:The big picture

[penguinoid]

Tesla Model S, E and X ? there must be some joke in there ...

I'm sure the creator of Virgin Galactic wouldn't think along those lines.

*Wonders how many slashdotters would buy a Model S, E, and X.*

Sometimes I wonder...

[spacefight]

...if Musk is in for the long run or for an exit within the next 2-3 years. Any ideas?

Re:Sometimes I wonder...

[queazocotal]

He's planning on a big exit in 15 years or so. To Mars.

Re:Sometimes I wonder...

[olau]

Judging from his words and actions, it's seems unlikely to me that he'll exit as long as there is still potential to change the world. Once electric cars are common (and they will be if the current trends in battery tech and oil prices continue) then I could see him exit to pursue other things. But we're a long way from that happening.

Re:Sometimes I wonder...

[AlecC]

I would say he is in it as much for the fun as for the money. Of course, he wants to make profits, because that is the proof that your idea is good rather than a billionaire's toy. But I think his main motivation is to be the worlds coolest engineer. So I don't see him taking an exit any time soon. I think he will only exit when there is no more novelty to be wrung out. Which is probably when all the other manufacturers are treating electric cars as mainstream, not niche.

Re:There is no model E

[khallow]

What will it be called? Thatâ(TM)s something we think itâ(TM)s impossible to say at the current time, but weâ(TM)d be keen to hear your nominations for suitable names nonetheless.

Since nobody outside of Tesla has a clue what this car will be called, "Model E" is better than nothing.

Profit before subsidy?

[khallow]

Glancing here, I gather the new vehicle will probably be able to qualify for a $7500 subsidy from the US government. What bothers me is whether Tesla can produce that car in the absence of the subsidy? A reliance on temporary subsidies for profit would explain why there has been calls to turn Tesla into solely a battery manufacturer.

Re:Profit before subsidy?

[Nemyst]

The same question can be asked about gas vehicles if you were to remove all the subsidies that come into their operation. The oil industry gets a fair amount of it, many manufacturers got sweet deals for building their factories where they did, etc. You can't selectively remove one subsidy from one end but not do the same to its competitors.

Re:Profit before subsidy?

[khallow]

You can't selectively remove one subsidy from one end but not do the same to its competitors.

Tesla enjoys those subsidies as well. The problem here is that up to 25% of its revenue on this particular vehicle will be due to a single, not very well protected subsidy source.

Re:Profit before subsidy?

[flink]

I just did the calculation for myself, and compared to my $15k 40mpg Hyundai, and given the amount of gas I go through on a weekly basis, if I pay sticker price for the model E it will be just about at the break even point. Any subsidy is just gravy. My current car is only 2 years old, so I won't be in the market for a while, but I'll definitely take a long hard look at a Tesla when I am.

I can't be that unique. Hopefully this car will find it's niche.

Re:Profit before subsidy?

[khallow]

That's a lot of traveling. Ignoring time value, the $15k difference in price buys you about 160k miles of travel (at $3.75 per gallon).

I doubt most people put 160k miles on a car before they get rid of it. So for them, lifetime costs of the Hyundai would be cheaper than that of the Tesla even if the Tesla had zero energy cost per mile driven.

Re:Profit before subsidy?

[fermion]

Many vehicles are subsidized. For instance, one reason there were so many Hummers on the road were because of the tax rules that applied to the purchase for business use. While passenger vehicles are depreciated at a normal rate, something like a Hummer can be depreciated much more quickly. And while something like and F350 is clearly a utilitarian vehicle, a Hummer is simply a loophole to have the taxpayer fund your luxury vehicle.

Re:Profit before subsidy?

[flink]

Ha, well 40mpg is highway. My commute is 16 city miles round trip, all of then city miles, where I get substantially less than 40mpg. What it boils down to is I'm paying $200/mo car payment + $120/mo for gas. If I could trade that for $300/mo for the car + cost of electricity, I think it would come out basically even, especially if maintenance cost are lower or the car lasts longer than a comparable gas vehicle.

Re:Profit before subsidy?

[khallow]

It'd be $400/mo since you're doubling the cost of the car.

I think it would come out basically even, especially if maintenance cost are lower or the car lasts longer than a comparable gas vehicle.

The big unknown with electric cars is that battery pack. I gather that's roughly a quarter to a third of the cost of the Tesla presently. Maybe the "Gigafactory" will knock that down a lot.

Re:Profit before subsidy?

[drinkypoo]

while something like and F350 is clearly a utilitarian vehicle, a Hummer is simply a loophole to have the taxpayer fund your luxury vehicle.

I wish I knew what percentage of F350s were actually ever used for something you couldn't do with a Tundra or a Taco, but I'll bet you it's pretty goddamned low.

Re:Profit before subsidy?

[Fnord666]

I just did the calculation for myself, and compared to my $15k 40mpg Hyundai, and given the amount of gas I go through on a weekly basis, if I pay sticker price for the model E it will be just about at the break even point. Any subsidy is just gravy. My current car is only 2 years old, so I won't be in the market for a while, but I'll definitely take a long hard look at a Tesla when I am.

Don't forget to factor in maintenance where the all electric vehicle will be cheaper. The estimated cost for 4 years of maintenance on a Tesla S is $1900. Compare that to $3316 for the Hyundai Sonata Hybrid and $3417 for the regular Hyundai Sonata. Maintenance costs for the Hyundais are from cars.com's "Cost of Ownership" page for each model. Maintenance costs for the Tesla are from Tesla motors. For more equitable "levels" of cars, the Hyundai Equus has a 4 year maintenance cost exceeding $6000.

Re:Profit before subsidy?

[maz2331]

It does compare quite nicely to my $45k BMW, though. I'd be a potential buyer at the $30k price point in a couple of years, once my current ride is paid off.

Re:Profit before subsidy?

[damnbunni]

You might be surprised. Pretty much everyone I know with a fairly new car that's been well maintained and has over 100,000 miles says they expect to get to 200,000 easily.

Cars simply last a lot longer these days than they used to.

Re:Profit before subsidy?

[blindseer]

A perfect example of why we need to dispense with the electric car subsidies. The argument for the subsidies was that they were a temporary measure to assist in the development of the electric car so that we could reduce our collective carbon footprint. Now that electric car prices have come down, and gasoline prices have gone up, electric cars just plain make sense for a significant portion of the population.

However, the closest thing we have to immortality is a government program. We'll see electric cars subsidized for decades after whatever new technology comes along to replace them.

Not Aluminum? Not a good sign.

[drinkypoo]

Aluminum is as cheap as steel if you make very many vehicles, because of various advantages in the production process. It's also cheaper to recycle than steel, which in addition to its many other advantages is a big reason why the industry is headed in that direction. Ford is even going Aluminum for the F-150, and other models are likely to follow as they have become pretty well bloated and bringing the weight down is mandatory for meeting future mileage targets.

If they plan to make many cars, then Aluminum should not really make the car cost more, especially starting from a blank sheet. And it really is a superior material in every way except repairability, and who repairs cars with any notable damage any more anyway? They just get written off and broken down for parts.

Re:Not Aluminum? Not a good sign.

[Rei]

It's weaker, so the weight savings on major structural components isn't as great there. But I agree with you, I find this an odd move on their part. Unless they've got something out of left field in mind, like a composite frame.

I really despise steel. I just got back from walking over to a muffler repair shop to have them fix a flange that's rusted away for my pickup. : One of many, many parts that's had to be swapped out over the past year due to rust damage. Oh, I better go back out and spray bolts on my Insight with some rust remover after I submit this post... got to do that daily now for a week or so or those rusted-to-hell bolts are going to strip when I remove the cover to change out the gasket. And the Insight is an "aluminum" car - but the engine is still mostly steel.

I'm building a house now and am even looking to avoid steel in the concrete. For the foundation, we're just going to use fiber for reinforcement. For the walls (assuming the engineer signs off on it) we're going to use basalt fiber rebar. Most people don't realize that when you design a concrete wall, you decide how long it's going to live. The cement carbonates at a relatively constant rate (give or take somewhat depending on various factors like moisture), a given depth per year, which brings it down to a more neutral pH, which then when it gets to the steel allows the steel to rust (the highly basic environment normally protects it). When steel rusts it expands nearly tenfold, and thus the wall spalls out and is ruined. The lack of use of pozzolan in concrete because everyone wants it to harden super-fast so they can finish and move on to the next project only makes the problem worse. Roman concrete (with a volcanic ash pozzolan and no steel) has lasted for thousands of years, but little that we build today with concrete will last even 100, and in hostile environments (for example, bridges near the ocean) you may only get a couple decades. Basalt rebar should hopefully allow for the durability of ancient concrete while allowing for the tensile strength of modern concrete (my home is also going to have a vaulted structure to keep as much force as possible as compressive force, which concrete naturally tolerates well), and I'm going to use a pozzolan (basalt dust), which minimizes the CO2 footprint as well as increasing ultimate strength, durability, and watertightness. Oh, and my gravel/sand will also be basalt, and it's being built on basalt bedrock. ;) Mmm, lava....

Re:Not Aluminum? Not a good sign.

[khallow]

I'm building a house now and am even looking to avoid steel in the concrete.

I'm not an expert, but the steel is protected from corrosion in most forms of concrete due to the mildly alkaline chemistry of the concrete. And if you throw on sacrificial metal, you can keep that steel corrosion-free indefinitely.

Re:Not Aluminum? Not a good sign.

[Rei]

I'm not an expert, but the steel is protected from corrosion in most forms of concrete due to the mildly alkaline chemistry of the concrete.

Gee, I wish I'd written something like:

The cement carbonates at a relatively constant rate (give or take somewhat depending on various factors like moisture), a given depth per year, which brings it down to a more neutral pH, which then when it gets to the steel allows the steel to rust

;)

And if you throw on sacrificial metal [wikipedia.org], you can keep that steel corrosion-free indefinitely.

Galvanic protection of concrete is rather tricky versus something like a ship's hull, the electric potential depends a lot on its environment, even where it is in the structure, and if there's too little it doesn't protect and if there's too much you cause electrolysis of the water in the cement (it's a hydrate), which leads to hydrogen embrittlement of the steel. And it's usually not some single electrode, it's generally a lot of separate cast electrodes or are applied to the concrete as a coating, so it's a big issue to replace/redo. And if you don't, it rusts and falls apart.

I strongly prefer passively stable structures. :) Something that could be completely forgotten and still be there after a thousand years.

Re:Not Aluminum? Not a good sign.

[khallow]

Sorry about the reading comprehension fail in my previous reply. It's clear you've given this a great deal of thought and have ambitions beyond the normal horizons for a typical modern building.

Re:Not Aluminum? Not a good sign.

[khallow]

Sorry about that. I realized my mistake about a couple minutes after I posted, but I couldn't issue a correction at the time due to the "Cowboy" timeout.

Re:Not Aluminum? Not a good sign.

[Herder Of Code]

Like the parent said, the ph of concrete become more and more neutral as the years go by. Here in Quebec pretty much all the old bridges, pedestrian bridges, etc built in the 60s-70s need to be teared down because they're basically 100% concrete and the rebars have swollen make them lose chunks all the time. As you can imagine that's not a very positive experience for cars going under those bridges.

As for sacrificial materials, well the whole point is that they get "sacrified" ie: eaten up before the metal you want to protect. At some point depending on conditions, your anode will have been fully corroded, galvanized or whatever the reaction is. So, it's not going to be indefinitely. I had a to swap the anode on a 4 year old water heater for example because of the water composition here.

Re:Not Aluminum? Not a good sign.

[drinkypoo]

And the Insight is an "aluminum" car - but the engine is still mostly steel.

Well, I sure hope I one day get to the point where I get to enjoy driving it instead of regretting my purchase, but this is why I bought an A8. It's almost all Aluminum, except for subframes. Even where I've seen corrosion on hardware, it's come off easily. On the other hand, I've already had to do two heli-coils on the engine. One of them might have been my fault, but I don't think so. The other I'm quite sure wasn't, I was nowhere near the spec when the threads stripped.

I sure hope this Aluminum F150 kicks off a trend, too, because I'd really like an Aluminum pickup. Most of the nifty modern engines are all-Aluminum now. My F250 is just too heavy for what it does, and it's a 1992 which is kind of a sweet spot (I guess 1993-1997 somewhere is actually best, depending on who you ask) in terms of capabilities and weight.

Re:Not Aluminum? Not a good sign.

[khallow]

I had a to swap the anode on a 4 year old water heater for example because of the water composition here.

This. The anode can be replaced in certain situations. I know they do it for bridges (at least when the anodes aren't stolen for the metal content).

Re:Not Aluminum? Not a good sign.

[maz2331]

Steel can be a quite good material if it is properly protected. And there is no excuse for a vehicle exhaust system to not be made from stainless steel that doesn't easily corrode. Hell, I had a Chevy Cavalier in 1992 that was built that way.

Re:Not Aluminum? Not a good sign.

[Rei]

No problem :) I first did my own research, then met up with the president of the Icelandic Concrete Association, who's pretty excited about the project, to discuss it further. The project is going to be unusual in quite a few ways, for example, it's going to be what's called an "umbrella earth home", and we're going for a natural cave/steampunk look to it (based on an idea that the concrete guy had, we're going to use high pressure water on the interior after the concrete sets to remove the outer layers of cement from the gravel, leaving it looking like rough rock on the inside). It may not be a first in the world, but it'll be a first for Iceland. :)

I've been thinking about the long term on everything with the project. For example, instead of drilling a well to pump from, I'm having the cold water come from a persistent natural spring up on the mountainside about half a kilometer away, naturally filtered through gravel and sand (my excavator operator is working on it as we speak, actually), so it takes no power to run and should last very well. Wells are standard where I am but I found I could get water from the spring for about the same price, maybe even less.

Re:Not Aluminum? Not a good sign.

[wisnoskij]

"One of many, many parts that's had to be swapped out over the past year due to rust damage." Which I think is were the costs saving come in. You do not get ongoing revenue generated from deteriorated parts when the parts are made of something that does not rust.

Re:Not Aluminum? Not a good sign.

[Rei]

None of those things apply to the design. There's no drywall; the plans for the home are of a "steampunk" style, with conduits for wiring/piping visible but done decoratively. Hence replacing them doesn't involve ripping out drywall. It's a highly open floor plan; anyone in the future can put up additional walls if they want smaller rooms, but otherwise it's wide open.

As for why? If I'm building something, I want it to outlive me. I want future generations to see it. When most everything else from our current era is long gone, I want that which I did to still be standing. Is that so strange? It's like planting a sequoia. You'll never live to see it be a giant. But if you plant it in a place where it can thrive, it'll endure for people to enjoy for hundreds of generations.

Re:Not Aluminum? Not a good sign.

[Rei]

Normally I'd disagree with you, because most manufacturers these days buy so many of their parts from 3rd party manufacturers, they're the ones that profit from replacements. But given how much Tesla manufactures in-house, and how with each generation they keep putting more emphasis on keeping it all in-house, there may be some truth to that.

Re:Not Aluminum? Not a good sign.

[Twinbee]

When you talk about steel etc. in the concrete, do you mean as a mixture, or as rods/pillars of solid metal inside the concrete?

How would aluminum, titanium, or carbon fiber compare to basalt fiber rebar?

Re:Not Aluminum? Not a good sign.

[drinkypoo]

Normally I'd disagree with you, because most manufacturers these days buy so many of their parts from 3rd party manufacturers, they're the ones that profit from replacements.

Doesn't matter. They mark the parts up like crazy, and they often have agreements that the parts not be sold by the manufacturer directly for some period, or in some cases, ever. For example, if you need a new PCM for an Audi, you can't just go get one from Bosch. You can either get one from a rebuilder, buy one used, or buy one from an Audi dealer.

Re:Not Aluminum? Not a good sign.

[Rei]

I've never seen any studies of aluminum or titanium rebar. That'd be pretty darned costly, though, especially titanium.

Carbon fiber rebar seems to outperform bassalt rebar, though it's a lot more expensive. They're both very similar in form and how you work with them.

More common than either of them is fiberglass rebar. But the performance benefit of basalt rebar is a lot better than glass rebar, and it's not that much more expensive. Also, fiberglass can suffer slow degradation from moisture - not as fast as steel-rebar concrete degrades, but it's a known issue. Both carbon and basalt fiber are very resistant to this, and experience little to no degradation with time.

Two attempts to deal with rebar rust have been plastic coated rebar and stainless steel rebar. By and large, plastic coated rebar has proven to be a failure - in some places it's even shortened the concrete's lifespan. Stainless rebar usually offers some increased lifespan, but not as much as you might expect, and it's really expensive.

I mentioned earlier that how you work with composites versus metals is different. With metals, they're very heavy; the composites are light and easy to transport. Metals need tools to bend; the composites you can bend by hand. However, composites can't do sharp corners like metals can; you have to cut them and then bind the cut pieces together, or purchase premade corner pieces. But thankfully composites are much easier to cut than metals. The metals handle much higher temperatures than composites, due to the plastic binding. However in practice it doesn't affect fire resistance much, the huge thermal mass of the concrete and the fact that it outgasses generally prevents excessive fiber delamination. The biggest problem is experience. Few construction crews have experience working with non-ferrous rebar. Fiberglass has been researched the longest, nearly half a century, and while it's proven itself, the construction industry is generally very slow to take up new technology. Basalt fiber rebar has only been in pilot projects for a 20-30 years. While by all standards it appears to be more long-term durable than fiberglass (in addition to being stronger to begin with), it'll probably be even longer before you start seeing it in widespread use.

Not only do I like the stats it presents, especially versus its price point, but I also like helping promote new technology that I like. Also, there just seems to be something fitting about a home built in Iceland being with basalt rebar, basalt dust pozzolan, with basalt sand and gravel, and built on basalt bedrock ;)

Re:Not Aluminum? Not a good sign.

[badkarmadayaccount]

That's my dream house! :) Love the idea, what do you do for a living though? I could quite get it. ;)

Re:There is no model E

[haruchai]

Since that announcement, more than a few car forums have taken to calling it the Gen 3 or Gen III.

Who designed this one?

[damn_registrars]

The model E looks awful in comparison to what we've seen from Tesla so far. The Roadster, the S, and the X are all great looking cars. The E looks like it was co-designed by Nissan or Kia. If they shortened the E by around a foot by lowering the roof line it would look much better.

I do like the idea of finally seeing a RWD sedan for $30k or less for sale in this country again, though. The big 3 have been completely ignoring this market for a long time and the Asian car makers have basically never even acted as though it ever existed.

Re:Who designed this one?

[Anonymous Coward]

The model E looks awful in comparison to what we've seen from Tesla so far.

That's an interesting opinion, considering the planned revealing is at the Detroit auto show in 2015.

Re:Who designed this one?

[Nemyst]

I'm puzzled... Where did you see the E? It's not in either of TFAs and a cursory Google search provides no results either.

Re:Who designed this one?

[Rei]

Shortening a car is usually bad for aerodynamics, which is bad for range. Lowering the roofline reduces the frontal area, which increases the range, but are you sure there'd be enough headroom if you did that?

Re:Who designed this one?

[jo_ham]

Can I borrow your time machine please?

Re:Who designed this one?

[EvanED]

To be fair, it's pretty freaking stupid for an article about the Model E to have a picture of the Model X with a caption "The Model E will be launched after the firm's Model X SUV, pictured here." It would be pretty easy to miss the "pictured here" bit.

Re:Who designed this one?

[R3d M3rcury]

Only if you promise not to go back in time and kill Hitler. It's so noob.

Re:Who designed this one?

[BasilBrush]

The Model X is a crossover utility vehicle - you'd expect a compact saloon such as the Model E to have a lower roof.

Gull Wing Doors?

[ssufficool]

Can't wait for someone to park too close so I can't get in or out. And being a tall guy, I LOVE twisting and gyrating to get out of cars without bumping my head. Ugh, we haven't learned from the 80's have we?

Re:Gull Wing Doors?

[blueturffan]

Nope - those are "Falcon-wing" doors on the Model X. Look it up on Tesla's website and I think you'll find that someone parking too close shouldn't be a problem.

These are not your gull-wing doors of the 80's, and yes we have learned.

Re:Gull Wing Doors?

[mobby_6kl]

Why does everyone assume gull-wing doors are somehow particularly bad at this?

Here's a video of a guy opening one next to some truck or a wall. If it does require any more space than a regular door, it's not significantly so, but I doubt even that is the case. Remember that a door is maybe 10-15 cm thick, so that's the minimum you'll need to have for a single mm of clearance with a regular door, not to mention all the inches for your fat ass.

Re:Gull Wing Doors?

[BasilBrush]

As other people point out, the gull wing doors need less horizontal space than traditional doors. But even if they didn't, they are for the rear doors, the driver's door open's conventionally.

The main problem with all elec

[YrWrstNtmr]

The main problem with all electric cars, so far, is needing to have a personal garage to park it in to recharge. If I live in apartment, I can't charge it. If the garage of my single family home is otherwise taken up with 'stuff', I can't plug it in.

Eventually that issue will change. But for today, how can I buy an all electric if I have no where to plug it in?
Even if it were sold for $300, I still cannot plug it in!

Re:The main problem with all elec

[EvanED]

I don't know anyone with a personal garage who doesn't park their car in it - and apart from apartment style condo owners, if you own a dwelling, you have a garage.

I've seen it a lot. One of the houses I spent several years in as a kid had a 1-car garage that I'm pretty sure was basically never parked in -- it was used as a workshop and such.

And there are also areas around at least here and probably plenty of other places in the country where, if you look at MLS sale listings, garages are less common than no garage. There was even a million-dollar lakefront listing with no garage!

Re:The main problem with all elec

[EvanED]

And just to clarify, I'm currently in WI and grew up in PA. So unless you're Canadian, Alaskan, Russian, etc., it gets cold where I am too.

Re:The main problem with all elec

[YrWrstNtmr]

When I bought this house, I had a minivan. Kids, etc. There was zero stuff in the single car garage, besides the water heater, washer, dryer. Which is where that stuff lives in this market.
Day 1, I opened the garage door, pulled the minivan in..."OK, this isn't going to work well"

lawnmower, bikes, tools....or the car. One or the other. The cars, being hardshelled devices, survive outside much better than all the other things.

Re:The main problem with all elec

[YrWrstNtmr]

Where I live (mid Atlantic) leaving the car(s) outside is very, very common. So common that many people convert the actual garage into actual living space. Removing the garage door and walling it off. Adding insulation and flooring. Man cave, or workshop/toolroom.

Re:The main problem with all elec

[mojo-raisin]

Umm. No.

I drive a all electric Nissan Leaf, and I don't even have a garage. I have outlets on the outside of my house, and the Leaf charging cable is prob at least 15 ft long.

I charge at night with no garage.

Re:The main problem with all elec

[runningduck]

I generally agree with the challenges with an appartment, but a garage is not necessary. I live in an older neighborhood where there are no garages and several people have Leafs. People generally install charge stations on the side of their houses and plug the cars in while in their driveways.

I have seen a couple of newer appartment comlexes provide a row of charge stations as well. I believe that even providing a row of low cost 110 outlets is sufficient for most daily driving.

Re:many are missing something important.

[CohibaVancouver]

And yes, when driving across the US, you DO have to be concerned about range

How often do you drive across the US?

Out of all your friends and family, how often do they drive across the US?

I hope they're planning another model after that

[ArcadeMan]

The compact Model E aims to be competitive with the Audi A4 and BMW 3-series, which both start in the low $30,000 range.

So... is there going to be a compact Model LC for the sub-30K$ market? A car for the majority of drivers?

20% smaller? Not likely

[twasserman]

As a San Franciscan, I'd love to have a smaller and less expensive Tesla, even if the range were considerably less than the 200 miles of the Model S. But 20% smaller is unlikely, since that would make it the same of a Mini Cooper. If they are going to compete with the BMW 3-series or the Audi 3 in the $30K price range, then the Model E should be 8-10% shorter than the Model S. At 196 inches, the Model S is about 20 inches longer than the new Audi 3 sedan. Typical extras on the German cars puts their sticker prices closer to $40K (or even above that). But a Model E measuring around 180 inches and selling for $35K would make it my first choice to replace my old Honda, especially when you consider that a Chevy Volt, with only a 40 mile range, lists for more than $40K.

Re:many are missing something important.

[Rei]

I saw a Tesla store in Reykjavík the other day. Haven't seen a Tesla on the roads, but still, neat to know that they're here. :)

Re:I hope they're planning another model after tha

[jo_ham]

The compact Model E aims to be competitive with the Audi A4 and BMW 3-series, which both start in the low $30,000 range.

So... is there going to be a compact Model LC for the sub-30K$ market? A car for the majority of drivers?

I'm sure they are. They started with the premium sedan Model S, then next is the Model X SUV, then this 30k Model E. The trend is definitely towards more affordable vehicles. You just need to establish yourself as a solid manufacturer first with high-profit sales. The success of the 70k+ Model S has helped to fund the factory to allow them to build the cheaper models to come.

It just takes some time.

Re:There is no model E

[Ol Biscuitbarrel]

It's Tesla Motors, so why not "Model T"? Oh, wait...

Re:many are missing something important.

[itsdapead]

How often do you drive across the US?

Why does it have to be across the US?

The problems start when you have to drive more than about 100 miles. Yeah, you can do 200-300 miles in a Tesla (depending on model) but then you have to start to think about things like do you need a heater/ air con/lights? Will you be able to recharge at your destination? If not, is there a supercharger en route? How much distance does that add? Hoe much time does that add?

So, forget trans-USA road trips. Just imagine a 100 mile each-way trip to a meeting somewhere (there and back in a day), with no guarantee of a power point at your destination, with no guarantee of 'goldilocks zone' weather.... and you're already worrying about range, whether there's a supercharger en. route, and having to leave an hour earlier.

That said, Tesla's fast battery swap looks like a much more practical alternative to a gas station. The 'charging station' idea doesn't scale if EVs get more popular: if you sometimes have to queue at a gas station with 15 pumps and a 5-minute turn around time, a couple of charging bays where people park and then head off for a meal just isn't going to cope.

Re:I hope they're planning another model after tha

[ArcadeMan]

It's gonna take a long time until I can get a Tesla moped...

I'm awaiting model "i"

[erroneus]

I would be "inexpensive." I know we're a way from that at the moment. But while we note that progress is being made and at the same time, the slow (!) march in progress of more affordable, inexpensive, mass-produced solar and other at-hand, non-centralized power continues, I always feel we're on the cusp of a major paradigm shift. Still... we're beyond the year 2000, no flying cars and no serious advancement since the 80s really. I may be dead before real change is allowed to occur.

Iceland = poster child for EVs

[itsdapead]

You should offer a service: if one of us is feeling guilty about burning gas, but we're not sure if using electricity from gas, oil or nuclear, we can offset our carbon footprint by buying you a Tesla that you can run on 100% guaranteed green* Icelandic geothermal power.

(*well, all those volcanos and geysers probably pump out obscene amounts of CO2 and radioactive shit, but that's not humanity's fault and they're still gonna do that if you don't harvest the energy).

Re:Iceland = poster child for EVs

[Rei]

Haha, brilliant! ;) It's a carbon offset program! ;)

I want an electric Model T

[marciot]

Yes and I want it in black.

Chevy Volt is a good compromise

[foxalopex]

For folks who want an electric now, the Chevy Volt is basically one for about 40 miles and then it switches over to gas for longer trips. It's a little small for some folks but being a hatchback, you can actually carry quite a bit of stuff provided you are not carrying passengers and price wise it's actually pretty close to $30K as well. I've owned mine for the last 2 years and it's turned out to be a much better car than I even thought.

Re:many are missing something important.

[CrimsonAvenger]

How often do you drive across the US?

Let's see...

I make 500+ mile trips 8-12 times per year.

In addition, about once a week, I have to drive 100 miles or so.

An electric car (other than a Tesla) would require me to rent a car 60 times a year (plus or minus a few), a Tesla would require me to rent a car 8-12 times a year.

Somehow, I can't see spending $70K on a car and still having to rent one maybe once a month, or spending $30-40K on a car and still having to rent one weekly.

Re:Smaller?

[zwede]

Another consideration is the size reduction, 10% smaller is not a good thing for Americans. I weigh about 200lbs and because of the way the steering wheel adjusts in the model S I can't physically fit in the driver's seat. I have actually sat in the car so I think the steering wheel could be designed to tilt instead of just going in and out a few inches. The model S is not a large car to begin with, if you make things smaller still you are greatly limiting your market from the majority of Americans.

Huh? The MS has tilt and telescoping steering wheel. The MS is a big car. It doesn't look it, but the interior and trunk space is of a full-size car.

Re:Tesla's Ugly Duckling

[zwede]

I thought Tesla had turned the corner when it comes to electric car styling. I see that thought was a bit premature.

It seems that when vehicle manufacturers cheapen up a car, the first thing they throw out is looks. I understand why attractive women are expensive, but I don't see why the same rule has to apply to cars.

Interesting comment considering no one has seen the Model E yet. Can I borrow your time machine, please?

Re:In Germany, I will not buy an electrical car

[zwede]

Just centralizing pollution, horrid efficiency (fossil base to movement) and further stress on power grid. An electrical car is tolerable as soon as it's operated FULLY on renewable sources, e.g. the sun AND has an acceptable range (600km at 140km/h == 86 m/h).

Has been debunked already. Even when operated on 100% coal power, the Model S produces 1/2 the pollution of a small economy gasoline car.

Re:I'm so glad...

[DaveTaylor8308]

Well, since the ground-level ozone created from your exhaust drifts far into the countryside, we're glad, too.

Re:20% smaller? Not likely

[R3d M3rcury]

Well, figure a Model E will be around 157 inches if that 20% number is accurate. So the more accurate comparison would be with the Mini Clubman.

Not $30K

[lamer01]

Comparable to A4 and 3? They start in the low 30s with no options..You can't get into a decent version for less than $39K

Re:I hope they're planning another model after tha

[characterZer0]

1. Buy one of several sub-$2000 electric mopeds on the market.
2. Put a Tesla badge on it.
3. ????
4. Profit

Re:many are missing something important.

[BasilBrush]

Range anxiety seems to be something that's suffered by people who don't have EVs. If you actually had one, you'd be aware where the superchargers within 100 miles of you are, and even if you didn't, the map on the console would show you.

Still waiting...

[Lost Penguin]

If they built an electric sports car, with graphene super capacitors instead of batteries...

Tech likely to disrupt:

[fyngyrz]

Ultracaps. So far, in the field, they're no threat WRT energy density. Pretty much everything else, though, they blow batteries away.

There are plenty of in-lab efforts ongoing right now that bring the energy densities up to par. It remains to be seen which one(s), if any, can make it to market in such a way as to displace the role of batterie; that's all about expense, presuming energy density is licked.

Bottom line, though, is that battery tech isn't likely to continue to hold its ground for much longer, barring some disruptive discovery in its own domain.

Re:Tech likely to disrupt:

[Rei]

I don't get the obsession with ultracaps. Yes, they're advancing, but not faster than batteries. And they're 1 1/2 orders of magnitude behind on energy density, and even more on price. So why do people always seem to think they're the solution to everything?

Bottom line, though, is that battery tech isn't likely to continue to hold its ground for much longer

Citation needed. I follow battery tech pretty closely, and I see absolutely no signs of it slowing down; if anything, it seems to be speeding up, at each step, from theoretical concepts all the way own to commercialization of new technologies (for example, silicon anodes used to be only a lab tech, now they're starting to increasingly be used in commercial cells). There's many dozens to hundreds of majority improved li-ion anodes, cathodes, electrolytes, and membranes in the lab, in various stages of commercialization, from brand new to company-with-funding-is-setting-up-production-lines. And then there's a couple dozen different next-generation non-li-ion technologies. Li-air is usually the most heralded of these, offering the potential for greater range per kilogram than gasoline (even ignoring how dramatically smaller and lighter electric drivetrains are than gasoline drivetrains - not sure why people always ignore this when comparing "range"). However, li-air isn't my favorite; at least in the shorter-term, I'd say my favorite is probably lithium-sulfur. There's actually been a couple prototype devices powered by them, such as a solar airplane; they have superb energy density already but they need to get the lifespan up - which is precisely what's been happening in the lab.

Re:Tech likely to disrupt:

[fyngyrz]

I don't get the obsession with ultracaps.

No? Here's the litany, then:

Near-instant charging. Much higher discharge rates, so much higher instantaneous power availability, and that without developing significant heat, because their series resistance is negligible, and that in turn means less energy spent as waste heat. Enormously more charge/discharge cycles than anything in battery tech - so many more, you could will ultracaps used in a vehicle context to your children, and they to theirs. No more replacement concerns. Much wider range of usable performance over temperature; much colder, much hotter. Much less need for recycling because of the comparatively much longer lifetime. They can't be overcharged at their rated voltage, they simply stop taking charge. Consequently, they can be infinitely trickle charged, so for instance, solar panels on the roof can help keep a vehicle topped up. They have completely predictable, and 100% stable, discharge curves, so a five year old ultracap performs just as well as a brand new one, plus the predictability and stability enable trivial measurement of consumption, hence permanently accurate gauges that tell you your remaining range, etc. Without having to take age or usage patterns into consideration. These are just the advantages the ultracap has over chemical batteries. Ultracaps also share every significant advantage batteries offer: power distribution system already in place (compare to building a hydrogen infrastructure); it's trivial to implement a bucket brigade style of charge storage so that the grid can be tapped when there is (presently) excess capacity; much more efficient use of power with electrical motors and centralized generation as compared to IC engines; ability to acquire and use solar power; agnostic as to where the power comes from, so as sources get greener, so do battery and UC uses of electrical power; no air pollution in operation; relief of pressure on petrochemical supplies and consequent relief of remaining dependence on foreign petrochemical supplies.

The show-stopper is insufficient energy density, or to look at it from the other direction, sufficient energy requires too much weight and space. The hope is that with so many attempts being made to solve that, it will happen sooner rather than later.

UC's have many characteristics that make them inherently superior to batteries. They have only that one failing. Fix that, and there would no reason at all to go with a battery.

Re:Tech likely to disrupt:

[Rei]

Near-instant charging.

Irrelevant. You're still limited by supply rates and feed wire heating. Top end li-ion cells can charge in a matter of minutes on the small scale. In practice it's supply rate and cooling that limits you.

Much higher discharge rates

Irrelevant. What, you think cars have multi-megawatt inverters and motors? And again, top-end li-ions can have couple minut discharges.

and that without developing significant heat, because their series resistance is negligible

Slow charge and discharge of li-ions (normal usage) is usually over 99% efficiency. Fast charge is usually 94-97%. Fast discharge is irrelevant because the rest of the car can't handle using multiple megawatts at once (what, you think the car's going to get 0-100 times measured in milliseconds?) Older supercaps are less efficient than older li-ions due to an increase in the internal resistance (more in this in a minute)

Enormously more charge/discharge cycles than anything in battery tech

10 years-ish isn't good enough for you? Fine, reduce the depth of discharge to get 15-20 years. You'll still be an order of magnitude higher energy density than ultracaps.

you could will ultracaps used in a vehicle context to your children

You've been way overstating (and repeating a common mythology) about ultracaps. They don't actually last that long. Here's an info sheet from an ultracap manufacturer. Scroll down to "Life Expectancy".

The life expectancy of supercapacitors is identical to aluminum electrolytic capacitors ... Supercapacitors operated at room temperature can have life expectancies of several years

It's pure nonsense that they last forever. Some are rated for longer. For example Ioxus rates theirs at 10 years. But 10 years is pretty common for higher end EV battery packs, too.

This concept that ultracapacitors are something that you can "gift to your children" is just bull. They degrade, too. Following an exponential degradation curve dominated by increasing internal resistance.. So please stop with this nonsense.

Much wider range of usable performance over temperature; much colder, much hotter.

As per the above, operating out of the ideal temperature range cuts your ultracap lifespan. Commercial ultracaps aren't generally rated for wider temperature operating ranges than high-end li-ions, as you'll see from the various linked caps in this post, which are just a random sampling (for example, the Cooper Bussmann aerogel caps are only rated down to -25C, which is not impressive at all). And there's only a rather small range that's necessary for human-operated vehicles on the surface of the Earth. The ambient temperature outside isn't going to reach cold enough to liquify oxygen or melt zinc.

Much less need for recycling

Show me a single type of ultracap which can be recycled at all.

They can't be overcharged at their rated voltage

Overheating of the supercapacitor can occur from continuous overcurrent or overvoltage charging. Overheating can lead to increased ESR, gas generation, decreased lifetime, leakage, venting or rupture. .... General Safety Considerations: Supercapacitors may vent or rupture if overcharged, reverse charged, incinerated or heated above 150C

The

Re:Tech likely to disrupt:

[fyngyrz]

Irrelevant. You're still limited by supply rates and feed wire heating.

LOL. No, you most certainly are not. Supply for the vehicle is from local storage, charged slowly over time, ready for fast discharge when needed; inevitable because of the requirement to move the load to the times when the plants have available generating capacity. You can't just pull at peak times, think about the consequences. What you're missing is the dynamics of supply. As for feed wire heating, that's absurd. At these lengths, and these voltages, it's simply not a problem. Then there's the obvious: you can always make the plug bigger, or use more plugs if charge rate limiting was a problem, which of course it isn't anyway for a vehicle in the weight range of a car, pickup or SUV. Commercial trucking might present some minor design challenges, but not serious ones. They're more likely to be resolved with conventional gearboxes than untoward amounts of raw power anyway. Now, an oceangoing vessel power plant, that might be interesting. However, then we have long times in port, so perhaps not even then.

Irrelevant. What, you think cars have multi-megawatt inverters and motors?

I know that with multiple high energy motors, motor peak current demands can be very high, particularly in the case of high power motors that batteries aren't good for, and that semiconductors can be arranged for very high parallelism.

10 years-ish isn't good enough for you?

Oh heck no, not even close. We own three vehicles; all are older than ten years, and none show any signs of needing anything more serious than the windshield wipers and tires needing replacement from time to time. I have no intention of replacing them in the next ten years, either, unless EVs real;ly take off. Furthermore, if the ones I have now were electric and UC powered, I'd just move the UCs to the next vehicle. There are plenty of vehicles on the road that are far older than ten years; the need to replace a huge battery pack at ten years has a serious impact on TCO and resale value (yeah, it's nine years old, in a year you're going to need a $10k pack. I'll give you the car for $500, how's that?). I expect to be able to replace the batteries in my vehicles with UCs, in fact, well before electric cars become common. Heck, I could do it now in the pickup, if I wanted to take up some space in the bed. The electronics required are trivial. It's tempting, too... -40 is quite a challenge for batteries, we have to keep a heating pad going under them in order to keep them working decently. Montana's not a great environment for batteries at times. I'd have to rig a cover for it all, probably lose 6 inches of depth in the bed. Hmmm. :)

The life expectancy of supercapacitors is identical to aluminum electrolytic capacitors

As it happens, I'm a collector of old audio gear. When kept in service, electrolytics run for many decades (lots of mine are from the 1970's, so that's 45 years so far) and they hold up, too. It's only when they are unused for long periods of times that they don't. Recapping is pointless if the unit has been kept in service -- I've put this to the test many times. The idea that their lifespan in use is ten years is a complete myth. Furthermore, check the cycle rate: the charge/discharge rate for a UC in vehicular motive service is doing so (perhaps) once a day. They allow for millions of cycles before any performance change is encountered. So use in a vehicle, as long as they keep being used, is many times the ten year underestimate. I've also got a bank of fifty of the early Maxwell UCs here in my radio room, they're well over fifteen years old and they're still just fine, every one of them. Because I *use* them. So I'm not buying any claims that they're much different than electrolytics (although I would expect that,

Re:Tech likely to disrupt:

[Rei]

Irrelevant. You're still limited by supply rates and feed wire heating.

LOL. No, you most certainly are not. Supply for the vehicle is from local storage, charged slowly over time, ready for fast discharge when needed

LOL yourself. You were crediting ultracapacitors with fast charging. Now your "counter" is saying that no, you're talking about slow charging. Well, make up your damned mind.

As for feed wire heating, that's absurd. At these lengths, and these voltages, it's simply not a problem.

At the *thousands of amps* needed to surpass the charge rate capacity of li-ions, yes, you bloody well are talking about wire heating problems.

I know that with multiple high energy motors, motor peak current demands can be very high, particularly in the case of high power motors that batteries aren't good for, and that semiconductors can be arranged for very high parallelism.

Oh, please, get real. The supercar-performance Tesla Roadster uses a 215kW motor peak, max 100kW sustained. To drain the whole pack with the pedal to the floor constantly (which, as noted, the car doesn't support) would take over 15 minutes. The fastest you can actually drain it without overheating the car is about 45 minutes. And this is for a car that does 0-100 in 3,7 seconds.

Learn to admit when you make a mistake and move on. The concept that there's sort of car performance limitation from not being able to instantly discharge the whole pack is utterly absurd.

Oh heck no, not even close.

Then follow the instructions in the very next sentence that you ignored. But given that few car parts last longer than 10 years, and most ultracapacitors don't last that long, I think that's an unreasonable demand.

Montana's not a great environment for batteries at times. I'd have to rig a cover for it all, probably lose 6 inches of depth in the bed. Hmmm. :)

Montana? You did see that one of the supercap info sheets linked showed that they're only rated down to -25C, right? Why would you choose that over good li-ions which go down to -40C (some varieties go even lower)? Are you fond of getting stuck out in the cold?

It's only when they are unused for long periods of times that they don't.

In fantasyland, perhaps. Check the specsheets for actual real-world ultracaps, like the ones I linked. They explicitly state that capacity declines from having energy stored in them. So unless your plan is to fully discharge your car after every use, yeah, good luck with that.

The idea that their lifespan in use is ten years is a complete myth.

Yeah, what do those stupid nuthead supercap manufacturers know about their own products? fyngyrz, you tell them what's what!

Yes, yes, of course you can break them if you misuse them

You can break them by precisely the same method you said that you can't, as per the spec sheets of the manufacturers.

UC won't overcharge if a continuous supply is applied to them that is under their rated voltage.

The spec sheets explicitly contradict that.

Show me one in continuous, low cycle rate use that needs to be.

The spec sheets all explicitly describe the exact same internal resistance rise with time. There's tons and tons of peer-reviewed research on it. But no, no, we have fyngyrz here to correct all those stupid boffins!

According to all manufacturer information out there, the primary loss mechanism is not cycling but energy storage. You can cycle them tons without problem, but each second you leave them charged raises their internal resistance. The higher you charge them and th

Re:Tech likely to disrupt:

[Shirley Marquez]

Life expectancy is an issue in some applications. If you wanted to build an electric bus, for example, where the battery would likely have to withstand multiple charge-discharge cycles every day, the current lifespan of batteries is a problem. You might well have to replace the battery annually.

Mixed power catenary-standalone bus rapid transit systems (like the airport branch of the Silver Line in Boston) are an even more extreme case. Currently the MBTA uses electric/diesel dual mode buses on that route; they use electricity from overhead wires while in the underground busways and a diesel engine for the above-ground parts of the route. It would be more environmentally friendly to replace those with pure electric vehicles that charged while operating in the busways and discharged on the above-ground segments, but that vehicle would see as many as 50 deep charge-discharge cycles every day. How deep the cycles would be depends on the size of the battery or capacitor, but you would probably want to keep it relatively small to keep cost and weight down.

Obligatory

[fyngyrz]

rimshot.

Use case

[fyngyrz]

For someone who only occasionally uses the vehicle, a roof full of solar panels would keep it fully charged and ready to go for the weekly trip to the grocery store. I no longer drive a great deal, and I've been thinking this might be just the thing for around-town use about 8-9 months out of the year here (can't see a sedan as a practical winter vehicle.) And it can charge while moving, and while you're in the store or other place doing what you need to do. Not too bad!

The only thing is that it has to be mostly parked. Otherwise, not enough power in as compared to power out, and then you're back to a tethered, cost-plus vehicle.

Re:Not American, but...

[itsdapead]

For fuck's sake, read your choice of the article, the summary, or the title before posting. This is a $30,000 mid-range vehicle that would fulfil, entirely, the commuting needs of a vast segment of American commuters (who don't drive long distances or haul boats or other large things).

For fuck's sake, red and comprehend your choice of the article, the summary, or the title before flaming.

Nowhere in TFA does it say that the model E will cost $30,000. Telsa say that the E will be "realistically priced" (whatever that means) against the BMW 3 series and Audi A4. Whoever wrote the summary has helpfully looked up the starting price of an Audi A4 for you.

The Tesla E hasn't been launched yet - its unclear from TFA how far advanced the design is. There's no clue what the range is going to be, but if they're using heavy materials and have less space for the battery 'less than the Tesla S' would be a good bet.

Hint: BMW 3 and Audi A4 are already premium-priced cars. The E is still going to cost more and have less utility because of range limitations.

My next car will be electric

[pablo_max]

Yup, that's right. Our next car will be an electric. Even here in Germany, where electricity is WAY more expensive than in the US.

However, for us, it is perfect. My wife works only 2 miles from home and I work 12 miles from home. My house, which has a simple A-frame style roof which faces North/south. On the south side, I have 1/2 solar electric cells which bring me money from the grid and the other 1/2 is hot water cells which has reduced my oil usage by 50%.
Both of our current cars are diesel, which as you know are really bad for driving short distances. Especially since they have particulate filters. It would great to charge up once every couple weeks. I just hope the battery tech lets them last a long time.

Re:many are missing something important.

[itsdapead]

If you actually had one, you'd be aware where the superchargers within 100 miles of you are

I've looked. There isn't one.

To be fair, I live in the UK and they're only just starting to roll out. Last time I looked, the nearest one was in the Netherlands, but now there's one in London, which is about 125 miles away. However, the problem is that it is in London. With London traffic, even if your home or destination is in another part of London, that's not a lot of use. According to the Tesla site they'll have about 10 stations around England by the end of the year - but if they are likewise in the middle of major cities rather than motorway service areas they will be of limited use.

Looking at the US map, there are plenty of states with no chargers.

I've also looked at what I could do with a Leaf or something: there is actually a pretty comprehensive network of 'fast' chargers at motorway service areas, hotels etc. so in theory I could make my most common ~200 mile journey with a mid-way recharge and lunch break... except there's one small problem: these stations typically have one "fast" charger (go and have lunch) and one "slow" charger (check in to the nearest hotel). If you arrived for your charge and somebody had already plugged in and buggered off for a 4-course meal, you'd better hope that you've got enough juice to get to the next one - which means you're going to end up stopping for a top up ad every single bloody charger you pass 'just in case'.

The BMW i3 with range extender looks interesting - especially as the UK/EU version has a bigger petrol tank than the US one (which has been gimped to qualify as an EV in California) - but it costs a fortune compared with other small cars.

Re:many are missing something important.

[Rei]

It varies, but I think I figured out that on my land it's going to work out to about 6-7 cents per incremental kilowatt hour. Power in my area is primarily geo, though in Iceland as a whole hydro makes a lot more. I think the conversion for gasoline prices is about $7.50 per US gallon.

Re:many are missing something important.

[BasilBrush]

To be fair, I live in the UK and they're only just starting to roll out.

To be even fairer, they were only launched in the UK a month ago. So you can't really expect a Tesla specific supercharger network just yet. But most of the existing UK charging stations will charge a Tesla as well as a Leaf - though of course it won't be as fast as a Tesla supercharger.

Do you watch the Robert Llewellyn Fully Charged vodcast? He drives various review EVs and his regular Leaf around the UK, and doesn't seem to have a problem.