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Tesla To Unveil Its $35,000 Model 3 In March 2016
An anonymous reader with the news, as reported by Ars Technica, BGR, the WSJ, and more, that Tesla, in the course of the company's most recent earnings call, has announced plans to show off its much-anticipated Model 3 in March, 2016, and somewhat more tentative plans for actual availability; "late 2017" might be optimistic, but it's a start. You can listen to the whole earnings call here. Other bits gleaned from this call include a "late summer" planned delivery for the Model X SUV, and the fact that the PowerWall household battery is sold out until the middle of next year.
Maybe they need more factory capacity. I suggest adding 21% more to the Gigafactory...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
What's this constant crap about a boutique car factory that doesn't even sell 5000 cars a month? Give em a break and some time away from the spotlight to get their act together. Geez, it is worse than the iphones.
Hmmm maybe because /. community is interested in tech and electric stuff? And if you want more "business oriented" news may I suggest Forbes's website?
Elok
I suspect that since the Tesla S is much closer to a true clean-sheet design than cars from existing automakers, it's going to have more nifty-factor. Granted, Tesla got some experience with their dealings with Lotus for the first car, but if I remember right, they were upfitting electric drivetrains into existing car bodies, not even building those car bodies. In that sense, if Tesla is successful, they'll be the first 100% electric upstart to truly compete against the large automakers without resorting to internal-combustion vehicles. Besides, the point in the Model 3 is to be a mid-line car, priced so that the middle class can afford it.
We're going to pay attention to this simply because my wife's fourteen year old car crossed 160,000 miles on it last month, and she'll probably seek to replace it around the time it hits 200,000 miles, so the timing is good. Get the first units out and into the real-world, let their bugs get worked out with the early adopters, then look at what a more stable version of the product looks like, cost-wise. Our main panel is fairly close to where she parks, so running some EMT along the ceiling and down the wall in front of the car to a subpanel or charging station wouldn't be any trouble either.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Because when something like this becomes more accessible to people, it will sell more than 5000 cars a month?
(I can haz DIY build-your-own-Tesla kit? Pretty please?)
Some people don't believe in fairies. I don't believe in The Patriarchy.
Come up with a Tesla motorcycle and a Tesla light pickup truck, and then we'll have a conversation. Especially a motorcycle.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Here's to hoping that they actually go into production:
http://www.eliomotors.com/
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
Can't wait to see what this game-changer look like. If the car can live up to my expectation (including a drop in the price of battery pack), I'll certainly be more than interested.
And also think the success of this new model 3 will be necessary if Tesla ever want to enter the major league. With they business model of prepaid and get your car later (closely similar to how aircraft maker operate), Tesla depend on a huge cash entry to be able to multiply their assembly line and manufacture an decent number of car.
Elok
no it does not make sense. Because it's wrong. 39% comes from coal.
http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/...
The summary isn't about 'tech' and 'electric' stuff, but about an announcement of the price of a car model during an IR event. Copypasted not from Forbes, but from WSJ.
Wait what? Your answer isn't making any sense. Did you really understand what I've wrote?
Elok
Elon Musk built this car in a cave!!! WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!!!
That's why.
Say what you want about the man, but he's probably the closest thing to a real-life Tony Stark as we're going to get. In a world that seems to otherwise be content with the status-quo, he's pushing the envelope and bringing us the future of things. THAT'S why.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
| Please someone who understands the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics better than I, tell me how I am wrong.
Centralized generators run more efficient thermodynamic cycles than internal combustion engines which need to emit a widely varying power output over short time periods.
Centralized generators often run on hydroelectric and natural gas, which produce less emissions than coal or petroleum, and a few are solar, nuclear and wind-powered which have no emissions.
The end-to-end comparisons have been done with quantitative accuracy and show advantages to electric vehicles in many situations. You are hardly the first person to think of this consideration.
I think he's more like a Max Zorin, but Christopher Walken is still cool...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Up here in Ontario Canada our electricity comes from nuclear, hydro and wind. It's a slam dunk for us.
100% of gasoline powered cars rely on fossil fuels
~66% of electricity in the us is generated using fossil fuels, 39% is from coal
In some sense we are trading the smoke-plumes around, but keep in mind it is vastly more efficient to regulate and control the pollution out of one stack than one million different little stacks.
PR is news for nerds ... now
GP's answer is making perfect sense, actually. The summary and the linked articles are about as 'business-oriented' as they can be. A news release about a new BMW model would be just as inappropriate as this slashvert.
The summary isn't about 'tech' and 'electric' stuff, but about an announcement of the price of a car model during an IR event. Copypasted not from Forbes, but from WSJ.
Wait what? Your answer isn't making any sense. Did you really understand what I've wrote?
No mention of increased range, capabilities of new battery packs, options, nothing. Just an estimated price and delivery date. Oh, and some hyped up BS that a battery pack is sold out now.
The parent is right. This kind of bean counter shit hardly whets my tech appetite. Not sure how it satisfies yours.
Ok, ok, I know Ford would sue the bejezus out of Tesla if they did it, but... I so hoped that after the Roadster ("Model R") and the Model S (...well...), the affordable car for the masses would be the Tesla Model T. Can they at least spell out "Three" on the nameplate, with a big capital "T"??? Please ?? :)
I think not...(*poof*)
Forget all those hydro-electric and natural gas power plants, those are just in you dreams! Solar too, there is NO SUCH THING as solar power. It's just a sci-fi fantasy from that shitty movie about the lady who rallies the good people against the evil solar power conglomerate!
This is the NSA, we're gonna geet U h@x0r5! Also, what is a h@x0r5?
We're fixing one link in the chain. Just because the chain has multiple breaks doesn't mean we shouldn't start fixing any single one of them.
Only difference is the guys camping out the day before release at the mall entrances are millionaires ;-)
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Add to the list:
ICE cars produce emissions when they are idling at a stop light, electric cars don't.
Electrics have regenerative braking to increase efficiency, ICE cars don't.
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
In 2014, 39% of US Electricity came from coal, and that percentage is declining.
http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/...
Coal isn't competing well with natural gas, and they're closing down a large number of older coal plants, and aren't building new ones. Most new plants are natural gas or renewables.
http://about.bnef.com/content/...
That said, it's still easier to control emissions at a single source than at thousands.
As long as the answer to that is "Fossil Fuels" (and particularly, coal), then we are doing nothing but trading one smoke-plume for another.
One thing electric cars are accomplishing is adding a layer of abstraction to the power. Sure, lots of electricity comes from fossil fuels, but that can change. The same car that can be charged by electricity produced by fossil fuels can also be charged by the solar panel on my roof.
Some newer model diesel ICE cars now shut down when stopped.
There is also one more benefit that you sort of touched on a little, but maybe could use some elaboration.
One gasoline-powered car runs on gasoline. You can bend the gasoline a little by putting something somewhat comparable like ethanol in it, but in the end, you can't stray far from the basic formulation, and that formulation is made not just from fossil fuels, but from one specific fossil fuel. Synthesizing gasoline from coal or natural gas is theoretically possible, but expensive and impractical barring a crisis.
One electric-powered car runs on electricity. You can bend the "formulation" of electricity a number of ways (AC vs. DC; various frequencies, voltages, currents, phase counts) and interchange them pretty efficiently. The electricity itself can come from coal, several grades of oil, natural gas, wind, solar, nuclear, hydro, biomass, whatever. Effectively, an electric car runs on whatever is available.
For bonus points, an electric motor has torque where it counts: at the bottom of the curve. You need the torque to get the car moving, preferably before the motor has come up to speed. Electric motors will do that. ICEs, on the other hand, need you to temper your load by feathering the clutch, or using a torque converter or hybrid drive system.
Electric cars also have features in common with hybrids, to wit, regenerative braking and no idling.
www.wavefront-av.com
Literally five seconds on Google gets you here:
http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/612/are-electric-cars-as-environmentally-friendly-as-we-think-they-are
Yes. EVs are a lot--a LOT--more efficient than internal combustion vehicles.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
In the U.S., the vast majority of electricity still comes from Coal. As much as I inherently love the idea of a totally-electric car (actually, a true fuel-cell car would be even nicer!), I just can't get past the fact that everyone in the U.S., at least, has to be (conveniently) overlooking the reality of where the electricity comes from. As long as the answer to that is "Fossil Fuels" (and particularly, coal), then we are doing nothing but trading one smoke-plume for another. And worse yet, losing overall efficiency in the process. Please someone who understands the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics better than I, tell me how I am wrong.
Alright, I'll take the bait.
First, if your logic is that the US should wait until it's energy is green before making electric car (and therefore, electric company should wait for electric car to get greener), I doubt never anything will change. Either way the world (except maybe China) is taking a green route and US isn't an exception.
Second, afaik Tesla doesn't sell it's car only in the US. I live in Quebec where over 90% come from hydroelectricity, therefore green.
Third and finally, your whole argument is about debunking that a Tesla isn't "that" green. Which is quite low on my "reason to buy a Tesla" list.
CEL
Elok
From your linked chart, 39% from coal, 27% from natural gas, for a total of 66% fossil.
Start with a few facts rather than opinions pulled from the nether regions:
Coal accounted for 35% of electricity production in the US in 2014. This is down from 50% in 2005.
http://www.eia.gov/electricity...
Thermodynamics:
Efficiency: Large power plants (such as coal powered plants) are very efficient. Internal combustion engines are very inefficient.
"According to a range of studies doing a ‘well to wheels’ analysis, an electric car leads to significantly less carbon dioxide pollution from electricity than the CO2 pollution from the oil of a conventional car with an internal combustion engine.[1][2][3] In some areas, like many on the West Coast that rely largely on wind or hydro power, the emissions are significantly lower for EVs. And that's today. As we retire more coal plants and bring cleaner sources of power online, the emissions from electric vehicle charging drop even further. Additionally, in some areas, night-time charging will increase the opportunity to take advantage of wind power -- another way to reduce emissions."
[1] Union of Concerned Scientists. “State of Charge: Electric Vehicles’ Global Warming Emissions and Fuel-Cost Savings Across the United States.” April, 2012. http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/d...
[2] MIT Energy Initiative. "The Electrification of the Transportation System." April, 2010.
[3] Electric Power Research Institute and Natural Resources Defense Council. "Environmental Assessment of Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles." 2007. Cited February 16, 2011.
I charge my electric car from solar panels... YMMV
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
and you never import dirty power from quebec or the usa...
In what bizarre world you're living to think that Quebec's power is dirty? It's over 90% hydro electricity, you cannot really get more green than that.
Elok
The Tesla is a car which feels like it was teleported from 10 years in the future.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
I'm probably in the same low-end car market you are, but a $75k car is not eye-poppingly expensive. A whole bunch of cars on the road cost that much, and many cars cost much more.
If I earned, oh, maybe twice as much then I'd be in the market for $75k cars. If Tesla offers a car at $35k, I'll get on the waiting list (and save up).
Tesla had announced some time ago that they wanted to work towards an electric sedan in the $30-40k MSRP range. You could argue that has been a large component of their general strategy for some time, really. There have been photos of the model X SUV on the web for some time as well.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
You left out nuclear. A good bit of US power still comes from Nuclear which is low carbon "No power source including Solar is carbon free".
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
But you do have conversion losses at each stage.
The big benefit is that electric cars use less power over all because they have no idle along with charging over night when you are using surplus power.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Their gross profit per car is about 28% (i.e. about $25,000 per car).
The company lost money because it is spending everything it makes on new factories (Gigafactory, etc.) and developing new models (X, 3).
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Maybe because electric cars are a piece of revolutionary technology that we are all watching be developed right under our eyes. Many advancements these days require real specialized knowledge to fully appreciate. These guys are actually *shipping* cars. And the last barrier to mass adoptions has been price. A 35k electric car is within reach for probably half of the population. It's going to be a very disruptive technology. Everything from urban planning to electric grids will be affected. So yeah, we all want to know about this stuff and discuss it. Many of us will probably even *buy* this. Some ./ are in a financial position to own one of Tesla's existing production cars and talk about their experience. As I don't know anybody who owns one, I find that to be interesting.
If there is news about Toyota, then submit it to slashdot and maybe it will make the front page. If you want to know why we haven't seen anything about Toyota on the front page in a long time, just think about how long it has been since they released a car in the US that couldn't have been cross-marketed as a cure for insomnia.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I don't think there is any doubt EV is better if the battery range and battery life-cycle issues get to a better place both economically and environmentally. Take care of range limitations to a sufficient extent, and lower the overall cost of ownership and their would be little reason not to go EV, unless of course the price of electricity skyrocketed, which could happen if enough generation is not added at the same time EV attains mass adoption.
Of course, the most cost effective, no carbon emission large capacity generating technology is nuclear. Add enough nukes and we won't be subject to the huge price swings that can result from influences (be they events or manipulation) on the natural gas supply chain.
We are getting closer.
When the Prius was high tech, we talked about it a lot. Toyota was (and perhaps is) on the cutting edge of hybrid technology. My next vehicle will probably be the Avalon hybrid although I would love if a RAV4 hybrid were available for purchase. When Toyota used the ring and planet gears, I marveled at it. Now it's yesterday's news. If Toyota and BMW add some interesting new technology (iPod docks are definitely not exciting), I hope that you will write a summary and submit it!
They're investing a lot into infrastructure - charging stations, R&D, the giant battery factory - it's not surprising that they are losing money on paper right now.
It's obviously a gamble, but one they are hoping will pay off. They're still in the early stages.
You don't understand finance do you? Start with 'capital accounts' vs. 'cash flow'.
They can't legally write off those costs in a single year.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Some of us have spouses and kids and so we already have more than one car. Making one of them electric is just the sensible thing to do. Especially for things like the daily trip to the grocery store where ICEs are terribly inefficient. In my neighborhood, NEVs are already popular. A family with to adults and a young kid may have to gas cars and a NEV. We are talking now about one gas car and one Tesla instead. For about the same amount of money. In fact I bet most households already have more than one car. The only people from whom this *doesn't* make sense are those who are no longer living in their parents basement, but not yet married. Not sure if we can find anybody on ./ who meets that criteria, but if we can, their comments would probably be interesting.
By that logic nothing has happened in computers in the last 60 years. After all, there were computers 60 years ago.
Why does a car need to be kept in a garage?
Kid-proof tablet..
In a way, so you have with a gasoline car.
Fuel has to be transported from the refinery to the depot, then distributed from depots to the stations. And then fuel has to be burned (a huge conversion loss).
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
When computers went from being the size of a house to something that you can have in your house, the world changed dramatically. Right now, electric cars are going from something that has limited applicability to something with large-scale applicability.
They're a small, growing company hoping to release an entirely new manufactured line in just a couple years. It would be bizarre if they were making money on a quarterly basis under these circumstances. I imagine if they were content being nothing but a niche player, they could be turning a profit.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
Right.
That's why they "lost money" in 2014.
My point was that they make money on every car they sell which the OP didn't seem to understand.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Everyone's usage is different. The longest road trip we take in a typical year is under 200 miles. If we were to go farther, having to stop for half an hour at a Supercharger station isn't terrible.
For my family, having a Model S for trips and a second car for around town such as a Nissan Leaf would be ideal. We have no need for a gas vehicle.
But have they been actively developed during that time? Have they had the kind of development effort that the internal combustion engine has enjoyed?
It varies based on your electricity source.
That isn't the best article, but the chart makes it very clear how much this varies. Be aware that in many states in the US, you can choose your power provider. So if you really care, pick a power provider who uses mostly renewables.
I think it's FANTASTIC that an American company is making THE "it" car of the last few yrs! BMW obviously makes damn good cars too & you have to assume Toyota will ship one under the Lexus label to "keep up w/Joneses" but in the mean time Tesla is an (unfortunately increasingly rare) excuse for a good old fashioned "USA! USA! USA!". we currently have two Lexuses (Lexi?) but Tesla will be the 1st place we look when one of them needs replacing. LS & S are basically already same price & it sounds like the 3 will be same as ES & X will presumably be comparable to RX so for same $ why not go Tesla?
I rode in one a couple of months ago, and it seemed like it was only a couple of seconds. It felt very strange for the car to go completely quiet on every red light.
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a 747 filled with CD-ROMs.
Synthesizing gasoline from coal or natural gas is theoretically possible, but expensive and impractical barring a crisis.
There's no need to synthesize gasoline, when bacteria will make Butanol for you. It's a 1:1 replacement for gasoline. The same process which produces it also produces ethanol and acetone.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Why does a car need to be kept in a garage?
In a city, so it's not stolen, and so it lasts longer. In the country, so it lasts longer and so you don't have to traipse through the wilderness before entering your vehicle.
You don't have to garage vehicles, but it's really much much better.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Do you happen to know how long they have to be stopped before they shut down?
My Prius? Something like two seconds. That was one of the hardest things to get used to; it felt like "the car stalled at the light." A non-hybrid, I'm more dubious about. Maybe they just have to have a beefy enough starter motor that it can start out electric for the second or two it takes the regular engine to get going.
In the U.S., the vast majority of electricity still comes from Coal.
As much as I inherently love the idea of a totally-electric car (actually, a true fuel-cell car would be even nicer!), I just can't get past the fact that everyone in the U.S., at least, has to be (conveniently) overlooking the reality of where the electricity comes from.
As long as the answer to that is "Fossil Fuels" (and particularly, coal), then we are doing nothing but trading one smoke-plume for another.
And worse yet, losing overall efficiency in the process.
Please someone who understands the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics better than I, tell me how I am wrong.
Fossil-fuel internal combustion engines in commercial vehicles are very inefficient. Electric power plants are very efficient. The dirtiest coal-burning power plant is many times more efficient (and emits less carbon per unit of energy) than the most efficient fossil-fuel powered commercial car. Therefore, an electric car using electricity derived from a coal power plant is still more efficient or "green" than a regular commercial fossil-fuel car. The equation gets even better when you consider our electric grid's power is on average only 39% derived from coal, and shrinking.
(I can haz DIY build-your-own-Tesla kit? Pretty please?)
Start with a bicycle or go-kart and work your way up. People have certainly done it. Get yourself a bunch of reclaimed laptop cells, build a pressure welder, and go to town on 'em. The powertrain (that is, motor and controller) can reasonably be sourced from eBay, or acquired via surplus.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Just wondering, since I've been waiting for this model to finally come out, now that I've switched to 100 percent green power and bought four solar panels through Seattle City Light.
Be great to know if it can cope with the winters in the Rocky Mountains of Montana, Idaho, BC, and Alberta.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Mine does it when I put the transmission to neutral and release the clutch (its a manual).
So... about 0.5 seconds?
In a lot of the US and Canada we have these things called winters, and batteries and other components don't work so well when it's way below 0 C.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
In the U.S., the vast majority of electricity still comes from Coal.
If my address was 1153 U.S. Street that would mean something. Meanwhile in Washington State where I live:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wi...
For those who don't like images...
Renewables:
Hydroelectric: 76.6%
Nuclear: 8.0%
Wind: 5.6%
Biomass: 1.4%
Fossil Fuels
Natural Gas: 4.7%
Coal: 3.2%
?Other: 0.5%?
Okay, at $35k, it's got to do one thing:
It's got to, hands down, performance and handling-wise, beat out the 3 series.
If it can't do that, it's an expensive Nissan Leaf.
Go ahead, downvote me, but EVERY car that makes it UP to the $30-$40k mark has to pass this test, no reason Tesla should be any different.
Maybe he never heard of Hydro Quebec.
Synthesizing gasoline from coal or natural gas is theoretically possible, but expensive and impractical barring a crisis.
There's no need to synthesize gasoline, when bacteria will make Butanol for you. It's a 1:1 replacement for gasoline. The same process which produces it also produces ethanol and acetone.
Except that Butanol is also destructive to engine internals and seals like Ethanol is in high concentrations, you can't just fill your tank with Butanol and call it a day. The statement "Butanol at 85 percent strength can be used in cars designed for gasoline (petrol) without any change to the engine (unlike 85% ethanol)," is referring to fuel/air mix and compression ratio, it doesn't take materials into account.
Amazon doesn't survive due to selling "zero emissions" credits that it gets from the Californian government to other manufacturers. I'd like to see Tesla make a profit without all the cronyism and end user tax credits.
What is an NEV? I get the EV part, but not the N.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
In a lot of the US and Canada we have these things called winters, and batteries and other components don't work so well when it's way below 0 C.
They work just fine. Range suffers a bit because you use part of your charge for heating, but everything functions fine.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
An electric car? Do you want to charge it in the rain?
There's absolutely no problem with charging an electric car outdoors in the rain.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Here is a country comparison: http://news.engineering.utoron...
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
I just can't get past the fact that everyone in the U.S., at least, has to be (conveniently) overlooking the reality of where the electricity comes from
1997 called, and they want their FUD back.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
No, I ask because I was one of the first beta testers of GPS units, and when I would go into mountains and park all day to go skiing they would freeze and take 2-3 days to reboot. When I was in the CAF Army we had similar problems operating in the Rockies and in Northern BC and the Yukon - a lot of stuff doesn't work well when it gets wicked cold. Like -20 C or below. At -40 C (also -40 F) a lot of stuff just stops working.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Maybe California, which does not consider hydroelectric a renewable source, hence it is dirty.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Neighborhood Electric Vehicle. Basically fancy electric golf carts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N...
Which is why we are all so interested. It's way less fun to watch the movie if you already know the ending. Of course, most movies are so predictable you might as well know what happens. Here is a story where we have to keep guessing. But as people interested in technology, we see the benefits that a mass-market electric vehicle will bring and hence the interest.
... or people who live in a condo or apartment, and don't have any place that they could actually park a second car.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Do you happen to know how long they have to be stopped before they shut down?
My Prius? Something like two seconds. That was one of the hardest things to get used to; it felt like "the car stalled at the light." A non-hybrid, I'm more dubious about. Maybe they just have to have a beefy enough starter motor that it can start out electric for the second or two it takes the regular engine to get going.
I don't know about a Prius, but on my rental Chevy, it starts as fast as it stops. I think they keep the fuel-rail pressurized, and so it is very ready to start.
You are simply wrong. You have to amortize capital costs. They lost money while writing off only a fraction of their development and build out costs.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
In my experience, when one lives in an apartment building, one usually does not have the luxury of having more than one parking spot, and street parking is often severely limited.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
An electric golf cart.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
No, Amazon survives by evading paying sales tax. The difference, of course, is that Amazon actively evades collecting sales tax. Although Tesla takes advantage of the ZEV tax credits, they didn't lobby for them. California originally *required* all car companies to sell a certain % of zero-emission vehicles. A tax credit was provided to make it easy and encourage technology development. None of the exting car manufacturers could achieve that goal. Tesla rose to the challenge. So the law achieved exactly it's purpose. Whether that was a good idea or not is up for debate, but the California legislature set out to create a subsidy that would encourage ZEV sales and the law achieved its purpose. I don't see how we can fault anybody for that. I remember years ago people complaining that they couldn't buy California PZEVs if they didn't live in California. Duh!
Except that Butanol is also destructive to engine internals and seals like Ethanol is in high concentrations, you can't just fill your tank with Butanol and call it a day.
So, you will need fuel injection, you may need to change your fuel pump, and you will need to change any soft lines over to greenshield or similar, available at your local Napa store in injection pressures. You may have to replace the seals on your FPR. What am I missing? Besides, lots of vehicles now have barrier lines on the fuel system, ever since ethanol became prevalent.
It's no more than needs be done to run biodiesel in most diesels, and that's considered viable.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
1hp == about 650 watts.
You do the rest of the math. It won't be a small generator, at all.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
They amortize r and d on a product they haven't released yet, and of course they don't amortize profit. You know just enough to be even more wrong.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
Funny, they collect tax in PA. (And in 23 other states.)
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
"And worse yet, losing overall efficiency in the process."
This is where you are dead wrong. Please don't state as fact your opinions that are not based on research.
My Volt is about 4x more efficient running on electricity than a similar ICE car. A gallon of gas is equivalent to 33 kWh of energy, and will propel a compact sedan for 30+ miles (let's say one mile per kWh just to round off the numbers).
Driving my Volt around town, I get on average 4 miles per kWh. The battery capacity on a full charge is 11 kWh, good for 40-50 miles of driving.
The reason for this is that the electric motor is far more efficient at converting stored energy into mechanical energy. For one thing, very little energy is wasted as heat.
The power utilities are also much more efficient at converting fossil fuels into stored energy or mechanical than your portable generator or gas-powered vehicle due to efficiencies of scale.
This is why EV's are so compelling--they are literally a breakthrough in efficiency.
That's less than 50%. All of the other retailers their size collect in all 50 states where they do business.
Maybe because California is out of water... But Quebec is not going to run out of water any time soon. It has 3% of the world freshwater, which is a lot given that it's only 0,1% of the world population.
The 3 will be a market changer for the low-end of electric vehicles. If they hit $35K with 200+ mile range, it means all the other electric vehicles in that range, such as the Nissan Leaf, will also have to hit 200+ miles or drop below $25K.
Right now there are a number of cars with 80-100 mile ranges in the $30K-$35K range. They won't be able to compete with the 3 without some major improvements.
This also will shake up the used market. Right now 80%+ of Leafs are leased, so about the time the Model 3 comes online all the Leafs on the road today will be for sale. That's a lot of cars, all with 80-mile-ish ranges. Now if new cars at $35K have over double the range, the price of the used cars will be much lower. So if a 80-mile range is sufficient (perhaps for your second or third car in the family), then you'll be able to go electric at a fairly reasonable price in two or three years.
I think the long-term impact will be that most people who have a good place to charge their cars at home will consider electric cars after the Model 3 has had a couple of years to shake up the market. I would guess in five years it will be typical for families with more than one car to have at least one electric, and in ten years the majority of new cars will be electric.
Fair enough. There is a period of life between when the marriage happens and the kids come. You can still live in single people housing like condominiums. Once the kids come, though, its two cars and the suburbs. I realize not for everybody, but it generally happens, partially for the reasons that you cite. Not being able to park a second car doesn't work well when somebody switches jobs and they are in the opposite direction. Or when its necessary to drop the kids off at school. Or one parent takes maternity/paternity leave, etc. At some point, life's challenges make people two-car owners. And having one of them be an electric makes a lot of sense.
Third and finally, your whole argument is about debunking that a Tesla isn't "that" green. Which is quite low on my "reason to buy a Tesla" list.
No, I was challenging EVs in general; I wasn't trying to pick on Tesla, per se.
In fact, I would love to have an EV; but I won't do it if it means that I'm just moving the smoke plume out of my locality and into another.
overlooking the reality of where the electricity comes from.
A couple of things:
1. Coal power is a declining percentage. Stepping up the electric car infrastructure now as coal is declining seems to make sense. In any event, it is much easier to regulate a handful of power plants than thousands of individual cars.
2. Even "dirty" sources of electricity are beneficial in certain areas. Los Angeles is constantly suffering air quality due in large part to the number of ICE vehicles on the road. Even if a coal plant supplies the power, the coal plant can be located somewhere more suitable.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Of course, it's not like Canada has a population base to really matter to most people, so of course it makes a whole lot more sense to just mod my comments as flamebait rather than think I may actually have some kind of point.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Maybe because its so obvious to everyone else. Since we are talking about cars, lets use a computer analogy- is it easier to update and maintain a software application on a single very large server that serves a lot of people? Or is it easier to update and maintain that same application on 100,000 different computers? If you do decide your application needs an update (or tightening of emissions in this context), you only have to modify one source, rather than 100,000.
Yes, if you make several 200+ mile trips per year, it will still make sense to own a gasoline car...
But keep in mind that, first of all, many people don't regularly travel that far, especially people who live in large urban centers. If you only go that far a couple of times a year, renting or borrowing a friend's car is perfectly acceptable.
Also keep in mind that it's already very common for families to own more than one car. If both a husband and wife work and they have kids who are old enough to drive, it's very likely they have two, three, or even four cars, and you really only need one of your cars to be capable of long-range trips.
That's before you take into account superchargers; if your trip is taking you along a highway that has a supercharger, it doesn't matter, anyway. You can take a break to stretch your legs and have a snack for a few minutes while you charge your car.
I don't know the exact statistics, but I, at least, would be perfectly capable of selling my old car and living only with an electric car that has a 200 mi range.
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
I would buy an affordable tesla just to avoid dealing with car dealerships.
Not all condos are aimed at single people... There are several families in my building, for instance.
It's almost impossible to find parking on my street most of the time, which is a problem that we routinely face when having visitors... a second car would just not be viable unless we could live in a detached home... the price for which is pushing about a million dollars where we live, and quite out of our reach, and we don't even live in the expensive part of the metro area. Housing start getting more affordable once you get about 2 hours out of town or so... which is more than half of this economical Tesla's range. Perhaps some people like spending half of their day on a daily commute, but definitely not me... nor my wife.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
The 3 will be a market changer for the low-end of electric vehicles.
Maybe. Hopefully. Never a good idea to declare a product to be a market changer until you can actually get your hands on one. Tesla has done some really good work so far (the Model S is an awesome car) but it is still very possible they could drop the ball in some way. I'm hoping they hit it out of the park because I think it would be a shakeup that that the auto industry needs but I've seen too many failures before to be confident of it.
If they hit $35K with 200+ mile range, it means all the other electric vehicles in that range, such as the Nissan Leaf, will also have to hit 200+ miles or drop below $25K.
I certainly hope the do this. A vehicle that can't cover 100 miles can never really be more than a toy or a test bed. I hope Tesla can keep pushing the state of the art in electric vehicles because no one else is really trying or at least not competently trying. The Leaf is swell but it's the very definition of a niche vehicle. All the rest have thrown their effort at hybrids which is cool too but not going to push certain key technologies like fast charging.
Which in my case, it usually doesn't... or at least not one anywhere past about the first quarter or so of the trip.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
There's no need to synthesize gasoline, when bacteria will make Butanol for you. It's a 1:1 replacement for gasoline.
And why would we want to do that? Butanol has some advantages but the feedstocks are the same as for ethanol and has the same ultimate problem of little/no net energy gain. You burn a bunch of fuel farming feedstock so you can make butanol/ethanol/etc which provides no more fuel at the end of the day than if you had simply burned gasoline/diesel without all the extra work. You still have the pollution problems, you haven't closed the carbon cycle and you've spent a lot of money for no actual energy gain at the end of the day.
I've got nothing against bio fuels but I have seen very little in that industry that is anything more than a subsidy to the farming industry at the end of the day.
It might not be a tech orientated announcement, but I would argue it is news for nerds. I know quite a few nerds who can't quite afford a Model S (myself included), but who are waiting with bated breath for some more news on the Model 3.
I don't think a car needs to be all things to all people - we have hundreds of models and sub-models available to us. As it stands right now, no single manufacturer has even 20% of the market - individual models are in the single digit range.
In my family, a cheap electric car with perhaps 40 mile range would be ideal. My wife's commute is 5 miles, all congested local roads. The headroom on the battery would only be necessary for heat/AC while sitting in traffic and to account for decreased range with age. Such a car does not yet exist, but there seems to be progress. We would still have our minivan for my slightly longer commute and long trips.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Except that, when the "little stack" is sitting in your driveway, it isn't consuming ANYTHING, nor producing ANY pollution, whereas the "big stack" WILL be running 24/7, and at many times, will be actually CONSUMING and PRODUCING without actual NEED.
What do you mean "producing without actual need"? There is a need, it just isn't your need. Just because you aren't using the lights in your home doesn't mean someone else isn't. The amount of electricity the power plants generate has to pretty closely match the amount actually being used or else bad things happen to the grid.
If you are trying to make an argument that automobiles are in any way efficient, you're failing miserably. They are terribly inefficient, dirty and wasteful.
Amazon doesn't survive due to selling "zero emissions" credits that it gets from the Californian government to other manufacturers. I'd like to see Tesla make a profit without all the cronyism and end user tax credits.
Tesla doesn't make a profit because it reinvests everything into R&D and the capital equipment it needs to scale. It would be a bad sign if they did make a profit, as it would mean that they don't have any ideas on where to spend money on growth.
As long as the answer to that is "Fossil Fuels" (and particularly, coal), then we are doing nothing but trading one smoke-plume for another.
In some cases that is technically true, but it's an overgeneralization that overlooks several fundamental differences:
1) Fungibility. By offloading power generation from the vehicle, we've decoupled the use of power from its source, meaning that we can swap in different types or sources of power. So, if you have solar or geothermal power at home, you can use that to charge your car. Or you can make use of an industrial-scale source such as hydroelectric or nuclear. You're no longer locked to a particular type or source of fuel.
2) Efficiency. Contrary to your claims, in cases where you're relying on a grid that's powered by fossil fuel, the efficiency is still higher with centralized power than with per-vehicle ICEs, even after taking into account the losses for transmission (both in power on the grid and in moving gas from one place to another). Industrial-scale ECE steam turbines running off of coal are typically upwards of 40% efficient, whereas gas-powered ICEs in typical cars get to about 35% efficiency at their best. And again, there's nothing locking you into using the grid to power your car, so as the grid becomes increasingly decentralized with renewable sources being used at each home, these cars are able to take advantage of those changes.
3) Safety and convenience. By removing the ICE from the car, we've removed a gigantic hunk of metal that generally doesn't crumple very well during a crash. It's freed up all of that room to use as additional storage space and as a massive crumple zone in case of a crash. Plus, though lithium ion batteries can release a lot of energy when punctured, they're still nowhere close to how dangerous gasoline can be when a tank gets punctured.
4) Economic. Reducing the number of moving parts in the vehicle by orders of magnitude results in lower maintenance costs and less downtime. Additionally, as far as costs go, gasoline is far less competitive than power from the grid or from a home-based source.
5) Redundancy/Reliability. We no longer have a single point of failure in the supply chain. Previously, an inability to acquire a single resource had the ability to impact an entire nation almost immediately. Now, an inability to acquire a single resource would simply mean shifting to a different one.
All of which is to say, a shift towards EVs brings about a number of benefits, only some of which I've detailed here. Fuel cells, at least as they are today, really don't do much for us, since we'd just be trading one resource for another, when what we really need to be doing is trading one resource for any while also making the vehicles themselves better.
No mention of increased range, capabilities of new battery packs, options, nothing. Just an estimated price and delivery date. Oh, and some hyped up BS that a battery pack is sold out now.
The parent is right. This kind of bean counter shit hardly whets my tech appetite. Not sure how it satisfies yours.
So there is something wrong with going into your slashdot preferences and filtering out every article about Tesla?
Seriously this car you probably hate, will never ever ever be seen on your computer screen ever again. And that should make you very happy, not being botherd by stories of things you don't want to see. Life will be good.
amazing the number of people who try to demand that others do their censoring for them.
Don't wanna see them? Physician, cure your own problem.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Keep in mind, adding features linearly drives price up logarithmically, almost without regard to cost to manufacture. The Model-S is a luxury car with all of the features of a luxury car. I expect that a mid-line car will have less interior amenities, less electronic gadgetry at least as far as what the driver can interact with, and will probably be less powerful in the driving performance. So long as the range is kept decent then these other reduced features may not be an issue for most drivers.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Maybe because electric cars are a piece of revolutionary technology that we are all watching be developed right under our eyes. Many advancements these days require real specialized knowledge to fully appreciate.
I suspect thet the people who bitch about "Why we r keep zeein stuff from Tezla?" are just the same people who simply hate them, because kids are on their lawn.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Tony Stark is a fictional engineer, like most fictional engineers he does the work of large teams working years, overnight without assistance.
I blame Hollywood and the comic book industry.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Coal power is a declining percentage.
While it is true that we are using a smaller percentage of coal in the last few years, it is largely because we have replaced it with cheap natural gas which is still a fossil fuel and while cleaner, still pretty dirty. Renewables (solar/wind) have had significant growth but they have replaced less coal than gas has in recent years.
Here's the thing about coal in the US. The US has VAST reserves of coal, just under a quarter of the worlds reserves. We are to coal what Saudi Arabia is to oil. For better or worse I do not see any reasonable scenario whereby coal as a source of power will not continue to be a substantial percentage of our power production for the next several decades at minimum.
> Start with a bicycle or go-kart and work your way up.
That's actually how JB Straubel, Tesla's CTO, started when he was a teenager:
https://www.crunchbase.com/per...
75 mph is "limping"?
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
Plus, we haven't talked about the energy required to built batteries, nor the energy required to recycle them after they die in about 5 years.
Tesla's been selling electric cars for 5 years. You would think they would notice.
Not only that, but Tesla warranties their batteries for 8 years unlimited miles. I guess they're going to lose a lot of money when all those batteries go bad in 5 years of use.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
Look, HornWumpus, I agree with you. You are right. They lost money because they invested a lot of money in new factories, etc. and the accounting rules, etc.
However, that is not what the OP and I were discussing when you inserted yourself into this thread. The OP said that they were losing $3600 on each car they made. I pointed out that they made money on each car they made but the company lost money because they spent all the money they made on each car plus other money on investing in new factories and new models.
It seems that you have enough understanding of economics to know the difference between losing money on each car you make and having the company lose money because they are investing in the future... this is a big difference. I would be worried if they lost money on each car (the car cost more to make than they sold it for). I am not worried (and most of the investors are not worried) that they lost money because of their investing in factories and new models.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
You can ignore capital investments when evaluating the continued viability of a product already in production. The fact that Tesla makes $25k/unit shows the potential long term future profits. The fact that Tesla makes $25k/unit shows they can pay the bills and makes it easier for them to raise capital for future R&D, assembly line modifications and expansions, etc.
Amazon was in business for 20 years before they were profitable tax wise, but they were never not making money; they were just spending more on additional investment than they were making. Likewise, it's not necessary for Tesla's Model S or Model X to completely pay for their own R&D, since much of that R&D will apply to larger volume products. This is the same way Volkswagen can afford to make and sell things like the Bugatti Veyron, a car with a $2m that costs more than $6m to produce when you amortize R&D. ... but again, that only works if you pretend that the R&D spent making the Veyron wasn't applicable to any other products in the Volkswagen Audi group.
Some women have higher silicon contents than others
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
Hydro-Quebec (wonder where that name comes from) generates most of its power using, guessed it, Hydro. We also had Gentilly which was a Candu nuclear plant (shut down in 2012). What's nice about that design is it can use waste fuel from other reactor types
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
Even my humble Leaf is faster than most cars I meet from standstill since it has instant torque from 0 rpm.
Something like Chevy's Volt but with *way* more range on electric alone.
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
It's still pretty outrageous to claim that they survive on the few percent they are saving by not collecting in the few states so small that they don't have a presence there.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Parent should be modded informative, not Troll.
-- Julien Pierre http://www.madbrain.com/blog
Crappy single phase AC motors have sucky low end torque because they dont have a second phase to produce and offset magnetic feild. They have to fake this second phase using capacitors, split coils, shaded poles etc, and those virtual second phases are quite weak.
Three phase AC motors have no such issue. They can produce high torque at low speeds, and can have quite consistent torque over a large range of speeds. This is perfect for a car as it gives you smooth acceleration.
I have an EV and a solar PV system which supplies 90% of my household annual electricity consumption, including the relatively small amount it takes to charge the car.
The remaining 10% electricity comes from the California grid which is rather clean compared to the rest of the country.
So no smoke plume here, locally or anywhere.
-- Julien Pierre http://www.madbrain.com/blog
AFAIK they don't provide any warranty for battery capacity. So they don't loose anything if these batteries get to 50% capacity in 5 years for some odd reason.
Just how many >200 miles trips do you do a year by car that you won't stop ?
Stopping 30 mins to charge every 200 miles isn't the end of the world.
200 miles is at least 3 hours of driving and probably much more depending on traffic.
I know my bladder would be an issue long before the battery would. I would need to stop before 3 hours.
The Tesla S range is a bit more than 200 miles also, I think 240.
I think it's fairly realistic to use a Tesla S if there are Superchargers available on the route you are taking.
-- Julien Pierre http://www.madbrain.com/blog
I have charged my Leaf in the rain just fine. For the little rain that we get here, that is.
-- Julien Pierre http://www.madbrain.com/blog
This car does exist - my Nissan Leaf with a degraded battery and when using the heat or AC and driving freeway at 65mph has approximately a 50 mile range.
In a few years it will be closer to 40 miles. But it will be someone else's problem as it's a lease which I will return next January.
Not sure what my next car will be, though, since Tesla 3 specs are not known, or avilability.
-- Julien Pierre http://www.madbrain.com/blog
When Toyota or BMW makes a nice electric sedan that can outrace Porcshe 911, than we'll give Tesla a break :)
Biodiesel can be run in most diesels without any modification at all.
HAHAHAHAno. Congratulations, you just forefeited this argument. But I will educate you anyway. Biodiesel will attack return lines and seals, and also tank linings in many older vehicles, as well as any other flexible fuel lines.
The thing with either is that they don't lubricate the injectors or pump as well as dino diesel,
Wrong again, dildo! Both of them have more lubricity than dino diesel does. It's been proven in independent testing that biodiesel is a more effective lubricity enhancer for dino diesel than any of the lubricity enhancers on the market, too.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Says a guy that keeps his car in a garage.
Types a guy who doesn't know how to create a complete sentence. I mostly have kept my cars outside. And that's why I've had one stolen, in SF.
Maybe try parking near where you are going, you know, the same general area that a garage would be in.
I have to walk through a certain amount of mud to get to the nearest convenient place to park, because I'm using my carport as a work space and I don't park there. Says the guy who lives in the country and knows what that's like, apartment boy.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
This car does exist
Well, except for the "cheap" part :)
When a Leaf is $14,000 like the similar Versa, I'm in.
(In all fairness, the build quality is better and the performance is maybe closer to a $16,000 Sentra but with more low-end grunt. But you get my drift...)
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
You need to learn to read financial reports. Tesla indeed makes a unit profit on their cars even without the government incentives. They are just spending a ton developing two new cars (X,3) and building one of the largest factories ever built.
About 8 to 10 a year.
Not at all... except that unless you are driving south of about the 49th parallel, the routes you can take are extremely limited... instead of taking a direct route from A to B, you must drive a distance that can get to be two or even three times as far.
Traffic is not a huge issue on the freeway.
It takes 5 minutes for a rest-stop, maybe 10 minutes to fill up a car with gasoline, and 30 minutes to charge at a Tesla supercharger station. The latter might not sound too bad if you do it once every three hours or so, and you could still clock in 1000km in a day with that, but that time does not account for how long you may have to wait in line just to use a supercharger. Because of how sparsely they are distributed particularly in Canada, in practice, there is going to be a wait time as well... which can be upwards of half an hour all by itself.
Further, It's my understanding that map I linked to includes all currently planned supercharging stations, and not just all currently existing ones, so that map represents about what one can expect for at least the immediately foreseeable future. Want to drive from Calgary to Regina. for example? Fuhgeddaboudit in an EV....
Trips from Vancouver to Calgary are feasable, as long as you are spending the night in Calgary, and can use an overnight charging facility when you arrive... but it's utterly unworkable to drive from Vancouver to Edmonton via Jasper, since there are no superchargers in Alberta north of Red Deer, and no superchargers in BC north of about Kamloops anywhere along that route.
Yeah.... *IF*. Or did you miss my parenthetical remark about recharging...?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
This is where you are dead wrong. Please don't state as fact your opinions that are not based on research.
That's not opinion; it's physics.
It is physics-ly impossible to convert energy from one form to another with zero loss. Even superconductors have SOME resistance. Resistance equals heat. Heat equals loss.
The reason for this is that the electric motor is far more efficient at converting stored energy into mechanical energy. For one thing, very little energy is wasted as heat.
It had BETTER be more efficient, since your "tank" only holds the equivalent of about a litre of gasoline, energy-wise!
I know this probably doesn't make enough of a difference to matter; but did you know that, as motor windings heat up, the resistance goes up; and as the resistance goes up, the heat goes up. And as the heat goes up, the resistance goes up, and as the resistance goes up... It's called I squared R loss, and it's the same thing that causes the voltage-drop in a long extension cord if the wire gauge is too small. I'm not an expert on ICE, but I'm pretty sure that they get more efficient as they heat up, not less, like electric motors do.
You see, in a former life, for about 12 years, I designed industrial motor controls for a living; so what I am saying is not all opinion.
BTW, since I drive about 42 miles a day to work and back, I would get REAL tired of always worrying about finding an outlet at each end of the journey, especially since it would be basically impossible at the "work" end.
In other half of the US we have such thing called "Sun", that makes car very hot and uncomfortable. Than we have rain. It feels much better when you don't need to get wet getting in or out of the car. OK you can have covered parking space attached to the house instead of garage. But these look ugly most of the time.
Best think about Tesla that you don't need to deal with these new car salesmen again. They are worse than used car salesmen. And no, you don't need to change oil in EV, thank you very much. Maybe GM will catch up some years later but they have exactly zero for fast charging network right now, and it is almost the same for all other competitors.
You asked and I answered. FYI, I've been driving a Nissan LEAF for the last three years, in the mountains of Colorado and Utah. It gets cold here. Car works just fine.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Precisely - we have a drought! Building a few more dams would be GOOD - it would help retain that water that's flowing down our rivers unfettered. If we could get a few MW of power at the same time, how would that be a bad thing?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Well, my neighbor who has a Telsa also has a solar array to charge it, so there's that
And when we all have that, it will be a much different situation.
But it simply isn't even close to that, now.
So it sounds like you're one of the edge cases for whom owning a single, electric car would not be viable. That is unfortunate for you, but not a major impediment for everybody else.
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
As long as the answer to that is "Fossil Fuels" (and particularly, coal), then we are doing nothing but trading one smoke-plume for another.
In some cases that is technically true, but it's an overgeneralization that overlooks several fundamental differences:
I want to thank you and congratulate you: You are the ONLY Poster who actually UNDERSTOOD what I was looking for: That is, a RATIONAL explanation as to WHY I was all wet!!!
DAMN, THANK YOU!!!
And, as a bonus, I understand your arguments, and they also seem quite reasonable and well-presented...
You do realize that the mere existence of the Model S, with an AC motor directly coupled to the wheels and doing 0-60 in a little over 3s, proves that you have absolutely no idea of what you are talking about? Seriously, find any graph of torque curves for AC motors.
Even my humble Leaf is faster than most cars I meet from standstill since it has instant torque from 0 rpm.
I will cede that I have almost zero experience with Vector-Drives; and it is possible that they can seriously enhance the torque curve of the motors in the Model S.
Plus, we haven't talked about the energy required to built batteries, nor the energy required to recycle them after they die in about 5 years.
Nobody talks about that.
Because... the batteries do not die after 5 years.
I admit I was surprised to find that Tesla is warrantee-ing their batteries for 8 years. Maybe things are getting a little better...
Crappy single phase AC motors have sucky low end torque because they dont have a second phase to produce and offset magnetic feild. They have to fake this second phase using capacitors, split coils, shaded poles etc, and those virtual second phases are quite weak.
Three phase AC motors have no such issue. They can produce high torque at low speeds, and can have quite consistent torque over a large range of speeds. This is perfect for a car as it gives you smooth acceleration.
As I said in another response, I have basically zero experience with 3 ph. AC Motors and Vector Drives. But, as a former motor-controller/motor-drive developer, I know enough about them to understand that that IS a whole-nuther ballgame!
That's less than 50%. All of the other retailers their size collect in all 50 states where they do business.
You may want to report them for fraud, then. Not all 50 states have sales tax, and a few that do only collect for food.
It's an impediment for anyone who makes highway trips almost anywhere in Canada... Unless you are only ever doing such driving in southern BC, or between Montreal and Toronto.
Of course, it's probably a whole lot simpler to say that Canadians that actually travel in Canada are just an edge-case, and don't matter than it might be to consider that my concerns have any validity for people in my geographical region.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
You must be a MBA.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
A used Leaf already costs less than $14,000 .
Nissan has plenty of Leaf SL/SV from 2011/2012/2013 coming off leases to unload right around that price
Even a new one is not much more, if you buy the entry level model Leaf S.
MSRP on a Leaf S is $29,010 .
Factor in the $7,500 federal tax credit and you are at $21,510 .
If you live in California, you also get a $2,500 CVRP check for buying a car, or leasing one for at least 36 months.
Some other states have similar incentives as well.
That brings it down to $19,010 .
And of course, you may not pay MSRP for the car.
-- Julien Pierre http://www.madbrain.com/blog
Traffic is certainly an issue on the freeways here in California. Probably not so in Canada which has population in the same range as California, but spread over a much larger area.
I agree with you that the Tesla supercharger network is not all it could be. It is not the only option to charge, though, but other options are much slower (level 2, level 1) and not suitable for long trips unless it's your last charge of the day (overnight).
If I had to go to Canada I would likely fly though, as I wouldn't be able to afford to take the time it would take to drive, even if it were feasible with the existing network. I don't have a Tesla S anyway, I have a Leaf, and I make 0 trip per year >200 miles.
-- Julien Pierre http://www.madbrain.com/blog
Falsified that for you?
I'd like to see Tesla make a profit without all the cronyism and end user tax credits.
Similarly, I'd like to see other automakers compete with them when they and their primary fuel source isn't supported by all the cronyism and tax credits too. For example, the direct government subsidies (eg: bailouts whenever they fail, import duties, oil exploration tax breaks. Ethanol subsidies, corn price controls, etc) and indirect subsidies (eg: Huge military (and life!) spending to protect supplies. They get to dump their waste products into the environment for free, and the rest of us have to pay the price of cleaup or non-cleaup).
In the meantime, I have to look a little askance at folks who point at the new upstart tech and loudly complain about the splinter in its eye while ignoring the log in the old one.
That's why car batteries are massively overspecified. A lot of diesel trucks have two batteries when they can start on one just fine... in nice weather. If you just keep them charged, ordinary wet-cell batteries can take extremely low temperatures. And then there's replacements like Optima.
The big problem with traditional car batteries is that they require fiddly maintenance for long life, and meanwhile, most batteries are built very cheaply and they are at risk of coming apart due to being shaken around. Consequently, it's viewed as not being worth servicing them, so they are now sometimes built without even the facility for servicing and it's very rare that they're designed to be convenient to work on. Why is this even relevant, and worthy of such a massive paragraph? It's common that just one out of six cells cooks off, and then behaves differently from the other cells. The voltage regulator in the alternator will "try" to charge the battery up to its normal operating voltage, and succeed — by placing a surface charge on the battery. In the process, it will be overcharging all the other cells, reducing their lifespans. At night, the surface charge will drain off, and in the process the low cell gets drained even further — changing its chemistry more towards being normal water. This cell will then expand and split the case of the battery when the underhood temperatures drop.
Many EV packs have temperature management, and they work just fine in the cold — especially the ones that need active cooling management. They produce waste heat anyway, so they have no trouble operating. You just stop circulating the coolant (or operating the cooling fan, or what have you) and they warm right up.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
A used Leaf already costs less than $14,000 .
A used Versa is correspondingly cheaper.
I don't live in CA, but that $2,500 brings it down to almost sensible from an economics perspective. Certainly close enough that if you like it, you'll find a way to justify it.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
That last point is key.... and why decent range (or, as I said, a respectable network of superchargers so that longer trips are viaable) is important up here. There are 50% more superchargers in California than there are in all of Canada, but Canada has roughly 8 times the land area. If Canada had even half of the density of superchargers that there were in California, getting around by EV would probably not be a problem up here... Because of how large Canada is, that would mean Canada would have about 4 times as many chargers as California, but still only about half of what the USA has. I realize that to some extent, you need a decently sized population base to support a charging network, but in the end, the geographical proximity between the nearest two superchargers is still going to be a problem. whenever you want to travel any respectable distance. The fact of the matter is that simply owing to the vastness of this country alone, larger distances are going to be more likely to be needed.
In my experience, there is plenty to be gained just from making the journey... and I actually enjoy such long drives for their scenery and a greater appreciation for just how big this country really is, even though places as far as the other side of the world can often seem just microseconds when using modern telecommunications devices.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
It's not that people *like* commuting it's that life's circumstances tend to force them into it. When you or your wife gets offered a promotion or big pay increase that requires you two to commute in opposite directions, it's likely that you will find yourself in a situation where you are a two-car household. Or perhaps you will have a kid. And one of you will take paternity/maternity leave. Is the non-working parent going to stay home with no transportation whatsoever? It *could* be done but most likely not. I'm not saying that *you* will end up in the typical situation, but that *most* people end up in two-car households. And in this scenario, having one of them as a Tesla would be just fine. You can actually commute the full-range of the Tesla if you can charge at the other end. Not *every* household will be a good potential customer for this vehicle. But that's not necessary. The point is that the target market is sufficiently large for this to be a practical item not a niche product.
This is where you are dead wrong. Please don't state as fact your opinions that are not based on research.
That's not opinion; it's physics.
Are you ignoring my point or do you really not get it? Of course some efficiency is lost when converting energy from one form to another. What I am telling you is that FAR MORE energy is lost burning gasoline to obtain mechanical energy than storing electricity to drive an electric motor.
The OP was stating the obvious, but the implication was that electrical cars lose more energy than ICE vehicles, which is far from true.
I know this probably doesn't make enough of a difference to matter; but did you know that, as motor windings heat up, the resistance goes up; and as the resistance goes up, the heat goes up.
Yes, all circuits have resistance. But the heat lost in most electrical circuits is far far less than the heat from a gasoline motor.
BTW, since I drive about 42 miles a day to work and back, I would get REAL tired of always worrying about finding an outlet at each end of the journey, especially since it would be basically impossible at the "work" end.
The Chevy Volt is made for drivers like you. Plug in where you can, burn gas if necessary.
Jeff
The Chevy Volt is made for drivers like you. Plug in where you can, burn gas if necessary.
Oh, yeah. I forgot that they supplanted their joke-of-a-range with the ability to run on gasoline.
Guess it was the only way to make a "product" out of it.
So, with the use-cases:
1. Long commutes (Read: Everyone in California) - Gasoline
2. Vacations - Gasoline
3. Any running-about-town > approx. 40 miles - Gasoline
That's a lot of exceptions to the "ideal" use-case.
Now, get that range to the 150-250 mile-mark, and we're talkin' !!!
That's why I like the idea of TRUE fuel-cell vehicles, like the one Mercedes is working on. Hydrogen and (I think) Salt-Water in. Power and Water Vapor Out. And according to Wikipedia, they already have a range of 250 miles, and are closing in on 450 (with a 10,000 psi H2 Tank!!!)
Now THAT's the way to build an alternative-fuel vehicle!
Why is it so many of you people seem to have been born completely deficient in any sort of sense of humor, and instead someone substituted this rediculous level of absolute literalness? For fuck's sake, loosen up! People like you give me a headache.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Or one of us wiil take public transit to work... which is what we do currently... and what is generally likely to continue to be the case, since most of the jobs in my area are based downtown, and there is very good transit service from almost anywhere in the greater metro area where I live into the downtown core.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
In order for someone to refer to Tesla as a "boutique car factory" is not only clueless, but to be pitied for never having the singular exhilaration of having his/her internal organs slammed against their spine for ten seconds or so, without the interruption of shifting gears or having the experience diluted by the din of engine noise. There are... I don't know... probably a hundred thousand or more of us that have had such experience either from a Tesla or other EV. Should you take a drive in a model S (P85D would be best of course, but even the "mildest" S is extraordinary), you will understand that those who have had the EV experience look forward even to such simple facts and figures as delivery dates-- not unlike a Clippers fan listening on the radio for the final score of the latest game. Odds are extremely high that no matter how irritated you might feel by the relentless encroachment of EVs today, you'll soon realize it is that looming tsunami you spy in the distance, and it will be enveloping you quickly enough: ride with it.
The interesting part is if you do a lease, as those credits/incentives can be claimed too.
The $7500 federal tax credit gets claimed by the dealer on a lease, but they apply it as a downpayment.
This is how you can get a Chevy spark EV for $139/month with $0 down on a 39 months lease.
And if you leave in CA, you also get the $2500 state incentive, which brings the cost down to $75/month for the life of the lease.
This is for a new car.
As long as these federal and state incentives continue, you could just lease a new one every 39 months for this price.
Your total cost for three 39-month leases would be $8775 and you would get to have 3 new cars over 10 years (9 years and 9 months actually).
The Leaf S will still cost you more on a lease. I haven't test driven the Spark EV. It is not available in many states, whereas the Leaf is.
-- Julien Pierre http://www.madbrain.com/blog
The Tesla AC induction motor has a fairly flat torque curve to around 6000RPM where it starts to drop off gradually. There are no permanent magnets in the Tesla motor. The synchronous motors seem to drop off faster in their torque curves from what I've seen.
As far as the energy required to build batteries, Tesla's gigafactory will be solar powered. They also last a lot longer than 5 years as has been shown with the original Roadster batteries, which are lasting much better than they expected. The model S batteries are much improved over the original Roadster batteries as well. If they die after 5 years, why would Tesla offer an unlimited mile 8-year warranty. From some of my conversations with Tesla they should last well over 8 years for most people. If the full cycle range were limited to only 3,000 cycles that's still well over 600,000 miles for the 85KWh battery pack since you get well over 200 miles per charge. Owners have already exceeded 100,000 miles and not seen any significant drop in range or performance. Recycling the batteries takes even less energy than it does to produce the batteries using virgin material. The batteries also contain only around 3% lithium. The other materials are pretty common, carbon, cobalt and aluminum.
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Well, I admit I am VERY impressed with this anecdotal "evidence"; and I TRULY hope that this truly signals a significant improvement in the somewhat disappointing last several decades of battery evolution.
Battery evolution has been moving along at a fairly steady pace averaging around a 5-8% improvement in capacity per year. In addition, the longevity has been steadily increasing and charge times have been steadily decreasing and cost have been dropping fairly rapidly, much faster than predicted.
If you compare today's batteries used in cars compared to those a decade ago there is really no comparison. Today's batteries have much higher capacities, much longer life and at a much lower cost.
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blo...
Here's a chart from 2012. Tesla is selling their grid storage battery packs at around $250/KWh and with the gigafactory the prices will be further reduced. This is the price point where BEVs start to become price competitive with gasoline cars.
http://www.mckinsey.com/insigh...
Battery prices are already at or below where they were predicted to be in 2020 just a few years ago.
http://theenergycollective.com...
On average, battery energy doubles every ten years.
http://kk.org/thetechnium/2009...
http://electronicdesign.com/po...
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Even though leases make my skin literally* leap from my body in disgust, I have to admit that the numbers look very nice in your case. There is no disputing that getting a car for less than $1000/year is a good deal.
*Obviously, it would figuratively leap from my body, but I'm going for effect.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
No mention of increased range, capabilities of new battery packs, options, nothing. Just an estimated price and delivery date. Oh, and some hyped up BS that a battery pack is sold out now.
The parent is right. This kind of bean counter shit hardly whets my tech appetite. Not sure how it satisfies yours.
So there is something wrong with going into your slashdot preferences and filtering out every article about Tesla?
Seriously this car you probably hate, will never ever ever be seen on your computer screen ever again. And that should make you very happy, not being botherd by stories of things you don't want to see. Life will be good.
amazing the number of people who try to demand that others do their censoring for them.
Don't wanna see them? Physician, cure your own problem.
At a $35,000 price point for one of these I, like many others, am interested.
However, I heard this MSRP "news" a year ago. As I said before, dunno how this bean counter shit gets anyone here excited, but it apparently does.
I guess Apple should have waited another 6 months to release their watch. After all, with this logic, customers will be perfectly happy for months staring at a price tag, merely wondering what the product does.
that is pretty much what I said.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.