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Elon Musk Predicts 1,000km EV Range In Two Years, Autonomous Cars In Three
An anonymous reader writes: Speaking with a Danish TV show, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk made a couple of interesting statements about Tesla's future. The company's Model S sedan advertises a range of 200-300 miles (322-483 km) depending on variant, average speed, and tires. Musk says the company will produce an electric vehicle capable of breaking the 1,000km (621 mi) mark by "2017 for sure." Later, Musk went even further, saying he expected "full autonomy" for Tesla vehicles to arrive in "approximately three years." He doesn't expect them to be legal at that point, as regulations will take time to catch up.
If the price is right 1,000 km range electric cars will signal the beginning of the end for IC engined cars.
If I was Elon Musk, I'm not sure that I would be gloating that the Model S cars that my car company is producing will be completely obsolete just three years from now.
I understand that people need to be visionaries (and shills), however, with respect to autonomous vehicles, all these press releases, CEOs, VPs, and shills are either lying through their teeth or mean a very specific meaning of the word "autonomous" (e.g., drive only on specific streets, be able to take over within 2-5 seconds, don't drive at dusk/dawn due to lighting messing up camera thresholds, drive only in clear weather 'cause water and snow messes up a lot of other sensors, drive for at most 3 years [because they won't maintain the software longer unless you pay them a lot of subscription money], etc.). To date there exists no autonomous vehicle technology that is tested and dependable enough to be put on an arbitrary section of a road in North America under arbitrary driving conditions and that would meet Automotive Safety Integrity Level (ASIL) A as required. Period.
Yet, let the public dream of their autonomous vehicles that zip around. It gives you eyeballs and people drooling over it. The fact that they talk about autonomous "cars" and not autonomous freight trucks (for which the safety is much simpler) already shows you that they are just shilling for their company and eyeballs.
To his defense, he said "they *should* have fully autonomy". Yes, they *should* have that already today, but they don't.
This from the guy who said the Model X would be rolling off the line in 2013. He probably will deliver, just not that soon.
Give us a 300km electric car with 4 seats that has a base model retail of $19,995 and you will freaking change the world overnight.
80% of the american population does not have the income to afford a car that costs more than that. 70% cant afford a car that costs more than $14,995. and with rent at criminal levels along with wages being doubly criminally low..... you need to offer a very low cost economy version for the poor people in the bottom 80%.
Make it charge from 120V 15A outlet only and these same poor people will be able to afford to charge it.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
It's because the media is a piece of fucking garbage and take practically every goddamn thing that's said by anyone out of context. Oh, and the folks who run Slashdot do effectively zero checking on anything they post. /rant
Now the explanation: Prior to the answer Musk gave indicating that Teslas would do 1000km on a charge, he was talking about a recently set record where a dude (Casey Spencer) did 500 miles (~800km) in a Tesla Model S, driving at something like 24mph for like 24 hours. In that context, Musk said that similarly, a 1000km could be achieved in a Tesla by 2017, given battery density improvements of 5-10% annually. All that would be necessary would be a 20% improvement on the record by 2017. I might add that the dude who did this was in a 85kWh car going downhill for a decent portion of the drive and took into account weather effects, temps and whatnot to achieve his 500 miles. I wouldn't be surprised if the latest 90kWh Model S as is could do another 100 miles if tightly controlled in the right conditions (high altitude, ideal temp/wind), so really a 5% improvement in both 2016 and 2017 is all that's really being predicted here.
Just attach a trailer full of batteries to a model S and you get your 1000km.
I would like to see what the range is in non ideal conditions. With the radio on/ phone charging/ GPS running + heating/cooling the car
The radio, phone, and GPS use a negligible amount of electricity.
The heater and AC use far more power, but still don't affect the range as much as you might think, because they do very little heating/cooling. My wife has a Tesla, and you can barely tell that the AC is even turned on. This isn't a big deal for us, because we live in San Jose, where the weather is perfect 90% of the time.
My wife also has a Tesla S85. On the freeway at 65 mph the range is about as advertised, 265+ miles. AC on a very hot day reduces that about 5%.
Around town, stop and go 0-40 mph actually has better range, approaching 350 miles.
I think that ten years from now, not a single wealthy person under 21 or over 70 will be driving a car. In 20 years, replace "not a single wealthy" with "only very wealthy American", as we flee the dangerous practice of allowing humans to drive on public roads.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
where do i sign up?
An autonomous car is still useful even if it's not legal for it to operate fully autonomously -- it can prevent you from inadvertently running a red-light and getting T-boned in an intersection, or could keep you from crashing into a bridge pillar when you fall asleep at the wheel.
I'd love these California dwelling CEOs to come up to Canada (or even, *gasp* Buffalo) in the middle of February and see how their "self-driving" cars do. Winter is a 6 month reality here and I'm not very interested in a "self-driving" car that works or less than half the year.
Who's sick of this guy's brainfarts being endlessly repeated & tweeted & written about like they were.... not brainfarts?
You mean "this guy" who has a long-established history of talking about futuristic things, then developing them, then shipping them???
Factor in Musk time dilation factor. When he says 2017, you have to be pretty precise about the gravitational lensing his ego has created in the room that particular day. It's normally around 2071 or so
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Only speed primarily matters. IIRC Musk said that driving 250km/h (allowed on German autobahns) Tesla will make only 80km for a charge.
Flow battery - the latest one with non-toxic electrolytes and long lasting membrane. Minor detail is you'd need four tanks (one for each electrolyte charged and spent) but the recharge process would be much faster - filling station removes spent electrolyte pair and replenishes with charged, recycling the spent electrolyte with its own bulk charger - and it would remove the elephant in the room that nobody mentions when talking about electrical vehicles: The cost of replacing the hideously expensive, highly reactive and toxic LiFePO cells every 500 or so recharge cycles. It also removes the fuel cell issue of storing hydrogen. Filling stations may be able to make a profit from "fuel" instead of relying on cans of coke and sausage rolls, too.
A bigger elephant is that it just moves emissions from the exhaust to the power station but I suppose it may be easier to sequester the output if it's in one place or, at least, manage the release. Filling stations could supplement their income with microgeneration on site feeding the bulk charger, which would help bring the ecobollox down to a dull roar.
Resistance is futile. Reactance buggers it up.
Teslas actually do very well in the snow, better than most other cars. Even the RWD version is excellent already, but definitely the AWD has incredible traction.
Programmers are not infallible, so I say an autonomous car can also cause you to run a red light, or crash into a bridge pillar, whether you're sleeping, or not.
The success of automation in the aviation industry makes me think that autonomous cars will be a *lot* more reliable than human drivers. No technology is perfect, but it's almost certain to be better than people.