Your car uses lead-acid batteries. These are a completely different chemistry than managense spinel/amorphous carbon cells (like the Volt uses), which are in turn completely different from the LiCoO2/graphite cells your laptop and cell phone uses (to poor lifespan), which are again in turn a completely different chemistry than the NiMHs that the Prius uses (to excellent lifespan).
Your argument is like claiming that because a piece of cotton cord burns at a certain rate, so should a piece of det cord. After all, they're both cord, right?
That's what car preheating is for. Even the EV1 supported *that*. You set a time for when you want to get in, and the car will make sure it's already readied itself for you. On grid power. Some of the new EVs let you do that remotely via a smartphone.
Flattening out the peak/off-peak demand curve, which is what EVs do, *drops* electricity prices. It means grid operators can sell more power on less generating/transmission hardware.
Interesting laptop you have that only runs its pack at 50% DoD and uses a carefully climate-controlled manganese-spinel chemistry instead of the standard laptop cell (18650) LiCoO2/graphite chemistry in an unventilated, nearly 100% DoD pack sitting right next to your CPU.
Oh, wait, you just assumed that a battery is battery is a battery, right?
Here's a hint for you: Li-ion is an entire family of chemistries. The only thing they all have in common is that they involve the movement of intercalated lithium ions across a membrane. They range from the energy dense but unstable and short-lived LiCoO2/graphite cells, popular in consumer electronics, to the less energy dense but fire-resistant, high power, and very long-lived cells, which on the extreme are represented by the titanates -- a chemistry so stable that it is used in grid load balancing applications where it charges and discharges nonstop at high rates for years on end.
Prepare to be surprised. I've known several people who've asked their employer what they'd think about letting them charge there during the day, and not a one of them said no. One required a Kill-A-Watt meter (so they could bill the employee for it), while the others just let them charge for free.
Still, at some point the battery is going to need replacement when it's out of warranty.
Why? No, seriously, *why*? Why is there this huge insistence that EV battery packs are somehow inherently going to die before the rest of the car? You've got good odds of your transmission dying in an ICE car before it meets the scrapheap, yet people act like EV and hybrid battery packs somehow *must* all die before the car does.
Ever heard of the Baker Electric? Jay Leno has one from the early 1900s. It still runs on its original nickel-iron batteries. Companies pick battery chemistries, sizes, arrangements, cooling, depth of discharge, etc in order to best meet the need of the product they're making it for. Laptops aren't expected to be used for much more than a few years, so battery packs for them are optimized more for capacity, reduced weight, reduced volume, etc. That's why your laptop pack dies after a few years. That's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about LiP or manganese spinel cells. These have ten times the longevity of your typical laptop or cell phone battery. GM isn't warrantying their pack for ten years for the fun of it.
Look at the Prius. For God's sake, even many first-gen Prius *taxis* are still operating on their original packs. By all standards, the pack will outlive the car for most owners. That's what you get with a sizable, low-DoD, cooled NiMH pack in typical hybrid driving conditions. We're not talking about high-DoD lead-acid or cobalt/graphite li-ion (excepting, in the latter case, Tesla -- and even then, they've done some major tricks to up lifespan). We're talking about far more stable packs than that.
Where does this myth that the batteries are fundamentally going to have to be replaced come from?
And *even if they do have to be replaced*, you're talking about battery prices *ten years from today*, not today's prices. Look at how much the Prius's NiMH pack fell in price. I'd be surprised if a Volt pack replacement ten years from now costs any more than a transmission replacement does today.
1) "A lot of things that aren't good for the environment"? Name one. Here's a rough recipe for your typical LiP cell. 1) Lithium carbonate (as found in mineral water); 2) Phosphoric acid (as found in soft drinks) 3) Iron powder; 4) Sugar (regular old sucrose, burned to make the cathode's carbon binding); 5) Graphite or amorphous carbon (for the anode); 6) A porous polyethylene membrane; 6) One of several typically nontoxic electrolytes (BYD's pres likes to show off by drinking his company's electrolyte); 7) casing, wiring, etc.
Which of those do you have a problem with? The only reason you can't throw traditional (laptop-style) li-ions in the trash is because of the cobalt and the fire hazard. LiPs and manganese spinels (what almost all EV makers are using, with the notable exception of Tesla) have neither. Plus, they're all setting up systems for their packs to be recycled -- not because of either any particular value to the raw materials nor any significant environmental consequences to their disposal, but to assuage the fears of people like you.
2) "Give me a TDI motor any day": Oh please. Even the cleanest commercial diesels, like the Jetta TDI, can barely meet modern US emissions regs. Show me a single SULEV diesel. Heck, have they even managed to make a commercial LEV diesel yet? Diesels emit less CO2 than gas cars, sure. But EVs emit less CO2 *and* less of every other pollutant except PM. And, the pollution that they do emit is displaced, no longer at street level in crowded areas, but at altitude and generally in less population dense areas.
Plus, that's on our current grid. Electricity is getting cleaner (42% of new capacity added to the grid last year was wind, and most of the rest, natural gas), while oil is getting dirtier (increasing share of syncrude and high-energy sources as the easy-to-get stuff gets used up -- think Athabasca bitumen)
You drive 20 miles to work at 250Wh/mi at $0.11/kWh, that's $0.55/workday (~$143/year). Not exactly a huge perk. If we get into a smart grid/V2G situation, the business could potentially get that power for free or even get paid for it.
Since the US DOE says we have about 1087 Gigawatt total production capacity this suggest we will be short by 2 thirds.
BZZZT, try again! You mixed up gigawatts and gigawatt hours. That's 3,000 gigawatt *hours* per million vehicles per year. The US consumes about 4,000 terawatt hours per year.
That's peak demand. We tend to cut it close on peak demand, but have gobs of unused off-peak capacity (the US averages using less than half the energy we have the capacity to generate). So right off the bat, by primarily charging offpeak, which most EV owners do, you help balance that out. EVs also tend to be stable, steady loads, rather than noisy loads like air conditioners. Both properties are a boon to grid operators, as they can sell more power at little extra cost to themselves. This gives them the capital to spend on improving the grid and their generation infrastructure. Unless of course they continue to cut it close on purpose to maximize profit to their shareholders, but then again, that would just be the status quo. EVs certainly don't make the situation *worse*. It's not like there's a realistic cap on how many power plants we can build total.
The fact that this loan is *specifically* for the Model S and was preconditioned on Roadster profitability has been widely reported for months.
I do, however, know that batteries for all electric devices have been improving across the board, and the most efficient ones commercially available (in terms of energy density) are found in laptops and cell phones.
The latest battery improvements don't help Tesla re. the Roadster, because they started development before they existed. The Roadster's pack, hence, is made up of standard cobalt/graphite 18650s, because those are what was available when they started.
They simply had to address the new issue of scale
Absolutely not! The average cobalt/graphite 18650 will last 1-3 years. Their pack has to last at least 5 years in typical usage (they've gotten it up to 7 years). That's a huge feat. Furthermore, they have to have a far greater cell failure tolerance and fire tolerance than consumer electronics. This involved engineering a system of thousands of "cans" that isolate cell failures and fires without adding significant weight and damage propagation; bulk cell monitoring and charge redistribution; three layers of groupings; a powerful cooling system designed to cool each cell in their cans (even when the vehicle isn't running) when temperatures would cause poor lifespan (and heating for low-temperature charging); develop their own charge optimized reduced-DoD charge profile; and a host of other factors. Then they had to test these big, expensive, heavy packs through all kinds of failure conditions.
Getting a pack of thousands of cells that normally last 1-3 years and catch fire easily to last 5-7 years and resist fire even in car accidents is a huge engineering task.
Nowadays, are people rushing to take Tesla's approach? Hardly; they're just adopting the longer-life, more stable chemistries. But those weren't widely available when Tesla started.
They also patented the technology, so it's not like the public would benefit
Yes, that's called being a company in today's modern business world. Almost everyone patents what they develop. It's suicide to spend years developing something and then just let your competitors copy your work.
Plasma TVs were sold primarily to companies/corporations/organizations at first
The first plasma *displays* were sold to companies, but those were old orange monochrome things that never really took off. The first plasma *TVs*, which are what we think of a modern plasma display, were 42" TVs from Fujitsu and Philips in 1997, and they *were* marketed at high-end consumers (with a $15k pricetag).
Blu-ray isn't technically luxury
Sure it is, compared to DVD, which is luxury compared to VHS. Whenever a new tech comes out, it's expensive, the high-end consumers buy it first, then it trickles down until it becomes common, then they introduce a newer, better high-end tech. You bring up $100 blu-ray players; they started at $700.
[quote]You could also consider the PS3 a luxury product by that standard[/quote]
And how much does it cost now compared to when it came out?
[quote]and certainly the iPhone when it came out, but in absolute terms, their initial price wasn't astronomical[/quote]
Launched at $600, down to $200, no?
Perhaps you're not thinking of these as significant price reductions, but if you apply that to a Roadster, that'd be a $36k supercar.
The Red5 is currently used mainly by production companies. You don't see individuals carrying them around and taking vacation videos.
Your average camcorder purchased at Wal-Mart in three years will have approximately its capabilities. And when it comes to cameras, there's no clear delineation between commercial buyers and individual buyers, as there's a lot of people who buy the high-end stuff who don't have a company that they use it for. Look at DSLR sales for an example. Your average DSLR buyer is just as likely to simply be an indivi
Says who? Are you privy to their balance sheet? You're clearly talking about the Daimler deal, but that was not just cash in -- they had to spend money to meet their obligations, too.
No, they actually are building over 100 cars a month now. You obviously haven't been following the scaleup. The previous production announcement was at just under 100 cars a month.
When most places learn how little it costs to charge an electric vehicle, you'd be surprised how many of them let you do it for free.
As for places that will give you higher power sockets: RV parks, fire stations, welding shops, laundromats, and municipal utilities are great places to start. Now, some of them (such as RV parks) will typically want money. But just plugging into a 120V at your local fast food joint or what not, as long as you grab lunch there, you'll find most of them are okay with that. Oh, and rest stops have ample exterior 120V/20A outlets, too. Use a Quick220 on them for double charge rate.
Yes, the Roadster is a joint venture. Why does that somehow disqualify them as an automaker? Your assertion that "they are an IP company through and through" is simply false. They engineered and build the ultra-complex battery pack. They improved upon the AC-150 powertrain, and manufacture it. And they do final assembly of the vehicle. Lotus produces the chassis, but contrary to popular myth, it is not simply an Elise chassis; it only shares a small percent of parts with the Elise. It had to be reengineered for the different space and weight distribution of the Roadster, and uses a lot more carbon fiber.
1) They were not given "bailout money". They landed a loan from a program set aside for loans. 2) The Roadster has nothing to do with the loan except to prove that Tesla isn't blowing smoke out their collective arses. The loan is 100% for the Model S. To get the Loan, Tesla had to show that they'd be profitble on the Roadsters on their own. 3) It's not true that Tesla "didn't bring anything truly innovative to the table". They dramatically improved on the AC-150, and point me to a single battery pack made before them like the marvel that they engineered. 4) The GP was correct; most products start at the high-end and move their way down to the low end. You think that plasma TVs were something being pushed by businesses? Blu-ray? Smartphones? It doesn't matter whether something is for high-end consumers or businesses; they still start out expensive and become cheaper over time. And it doesn't matter the field. Today's Red5 camera will be tomorrow's Sony camcorder.
I think Tesla looked at the problem and made a very reasonable decision. With the tech available when they started, they could make a $60k low-end sedan or a $100k supercar. They realized that the market for the latter was a lot more solid.
Wow, you can spend $10k on a used car with a poorer chassis (less carbon fiber, higher door sills, etc) to reach the Roadster's 0-60 time? You don't say.
You can also do an EV conversion of a Ford Pinto and get 0-60 in 3.5 seconds (it's been done). But it's still a Ford Pinto.
The Tesla Roadster (~3.9 sec) and Roadster Sport (~3.7 sec) have about the performance of a Lamborghini Murcielago (3.6 to 4.0 sec, depending on model) -- and that'll run you about ~$400k. $109k-$129k for that kind of accel, stock, new is good deal.
The tax rebates were GM's doing, not Tesla's, and came into being long after Tesla started selling cars.
The GP is correct; Tesla became profitable despite a disastrous start (which required basically a redesign and a big spike in their prices) because of the unexpectedly large demand for their vehicle. And they're profitable now even *with* the Model S devel consuming a lot of their money. The government loan is to accelerate the devel of the Model S; it has nothing to do with the Roadsters.
Yeah, amazing how many people here missed that;) I figured most Slashdot geeks who follow CERN news would have heard it. Instead, my post got a bunch of replies criticizing the imprecision of Alpinekat's lyrics, as though rhythm and rhyme structure weren't constraints.
I would add some more -- the big relationship breakers:
#1: Don't cheat. This sounds obvious, but...
#2: Don't think that you could never cheat. Cheating in marriage is incredibly common, and most people who ended up cheating were people who thought that they could never cheat on their spouse. Recognizing that humans are hardwired to be at risk for cheating, that humans are still capable of falling deeply in love with someone other than their spouse during marriage, is the first step toward prevention. The second step is if you develop feelings toward someone else or someone else develops feelings toward you, end contact with that person immediately. The absolute worst thing you can do is to discuss your feelings with them; that will only amplify the feelings, especially if they reciprocate.
#3: Avoid spouse-approved sexual experimentation involving others (X-somes, etc) and so-called "open relationships". They impose too great of a risk for devolving into emotional attachments with the others that can strain the original relationship or unintentionally causing resent by your partner, even when both parties begin by insisting that they're okay with it. Follow the KISS principle: Keep It Simple, Stupid.
#4: Stay in tune with your spouse's needs. Absolutely do NOT expect that this will just happen on its own. Talk with your spouse at least once a month about their feelings, whether they're happy with their life, etc. It's an awkward topic to bring up, so most people just avoid it -- but that just leads to people suppressing the things that they're unhappy with. And when they're not having a need met by the relationship, they're at risk for turning elsewhere to get that need met. Don't let these conversations lapse as the relationship goes on; they become more important with time, not less!
#5: Help your spouse stay in touch with your needs. Don't pester, and be very gentle about it, but if you have a long-running issue, bring it up. If it's a sensitive subject, use extra caution when talking about it. However, don't let resentment on some issue fester inside of you.
#6: Money is the root of all evil. In most divorces, money is at least a partial cause. In particular, the issue is debt. Buy a smaller home, fewer cars, take fewer vacations, etc than you think you can afford, keep off of ebay, etc, and you'll relieve a lot of that potential monetary strain by keeping your debt levels low to begin with. The most stressful situation is when you're already deep in debt and you find that you need something expensive, be it replacing an air conditioner, medical bills, or whatnot.
Yes, you can store energy in strained magnetic fields -- so-called "spin batteries". But it's poor energy density. Magnetic "batteries" are still trying to get up to the energy density of supercapacitors, which are in turn still trying to get up to the density of lead-acid batteries, which have been left in the dust by techs like lithium ion batteries. But it's a very new tech, so we'll have to see where it goes.
Given the reduced energy: Re, the Higgs Boson (that's the one that everybody talks about): Is that still the one sure thing that this machine will sort out? If the Higgs exists, will they still see it right away, and if it doesn't, will the scientists still finally say, "There is no Higgs, we need new physics to account for why; things have mass, something in our standard model went awry"?
Itis $20-33k without a battery. Call it insane if you want. The Volt only has 40 miles electric range. Many people want a pure EV for the lower maintenance and longer electric range (for example, for a commuter car).
Contrary to popular myth, EVs aren't currently expensive just because of the batteries. They're also expensive because many of their components are not produced in bulk. Handmade motors, chargers, inverters, etc aren't cheap. That'll change over time, but if you want the first gen...
Slashdot Mirror
For the 861st time this thread:
A battery is not a battery is not a battery!
Your car uses lead-acid batteries. These are a completely different chemistry than managense spinel/amorphous carbon cells (like the Volt uses), which are in turn completely different from the LiCoO2/graphite cells your laptop and cell phone uses (to poor lifespan), which are again in turn a completely different chemistry than the NiMHs that the Prius uses (to excellent lifespan).
Your argument is like claiming that because a piece of cotton cord burns at a certain rate, so should a piece of det cord. After all, they're both cord, right?
That's what car preheating is for. Even the EV1 supported *that*. You set a time for when you want to get in, and the car will make sure it's already readied itself for you. On grid power. Some of the new EVs let you do that remotely via a smartphone.
Flattening out the peak/off-peak demand curve, which is what EVs do, *drops* electricity prices. It means grid operators can sell more power on less generating/transmission hardware.
Interesting laptop you have that only runs its pack at 50% DoD and uses a carefully climate-controlled manganese-spinel chemistry instead of the standard laptop cell (18650) LiCoO2/graphite chemistry in an unventilated, nearly 100% DoD pack sitting right next to your CPU.
Oh, wait, you just assumed that a battery is battery is a battery, right?
Here's a hint for you: Li-ion is an entire family of chemistries. The only thing they all have in common is that they involve the movement of intercalated lithium ions across a membrane. They range from the energy dense but unstable and short-lived LiCoO2/graphite cells, popular in consumer electronics, to the less energy dense but fire-resistant, high power, and very long-lived cells, which on the extreme are represented by the titanates -- a chemistry so stable that it is used in grid load balancing applications where it charges and discharges nonstop at high rates for years on end.
Wait, so you're comparing used non-Volt cars with new Volts in order to argue that the Volt is a bad buy? Great comparison there.
Prepare to be surprised. I've known several people who've asked their employer what they'd think about letting them charge there during the day, and not a one of them said no. One required a Kill-A-Watt meter (so they could bill the employee for it), while the others just let them charge for free.
Still, at some point the battery is going to need replacement when it's out of warranty.
Why? No, seriously, *why*? Why is there this huge insistence that EV battery packs are somehow inherently going to die before the rest of the car? You've got good odds of your transmission dying in an ICE car before it meets the scrapheap, yet people act like EV and hybrid battery packs somehow *must* all die before the car does.
Ever heard of the Baker Electric? Jay Leno has one from the early 1900s. It still runs on its original nickel-iron batteries. Companies pick battery chemistries, sizes, arrangements, cooling, depth of discharge, etc in order to best meet the need of the product they're making it for. Laptops aren't expected to be used for much more than a few years, so battery packs for them are optimized more for capacity, reduced weight, reduced volume, etc. That's why your laptop pack dies after a few years. That's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about LiP or manganese spinel cells. These have ten times the longevity of your typical laptop or cell phone battery. GM isn't warrantying their pack for ten years for the fun of it.
Look at the Prius. For God's sake, even many first-gen Prius *taxis* are still operating on their original packs. By all standards, the pack will outlive the car for most owners. That's what you get with a sizable, low-DoD, cooled NiMH pack in typical hybrid driving conditions. We're not talking about high-DoD lead-acid or cobalt/graphite li-ion (excepting, in the latter case, Tesla -- and even then, they've done some major tricks to up lifespan). We're talking about far more stable packs than that.
Where does this myth that the batteries are fundamentally going to have to be replaced come from?
And *even if they do have to be replaced*, you're talking about battery prices *ten years from today*, not today's prices. Look at how much the Prius's NiMH pack fell in price. I'd be surprised if a Volt pack replacement ten years from now costs any more than a transmission replacement does today.
1) "A lot of things that aren't good for the environment"? Name one. Here's a rough recipe for your typical LiP cell. 1) Lithium carbonate (as found in mineral water); 2) Phosphoric acid (as found in soft drinks) 3) Iron powder; 4) Sugar (regular old sucrose, burned to make the cathode's carbon binding); 5) Graphite or amorphous carbon (for the anode); 6) A porous polyethylene membrane; 6) One of several typically nontoxic electrolytes (BYD's pres likes to show off by drinking his company's electrolyte); 7) casing, wiring, etc.
Which of those do you have a problem with? The only reason you can't throw traditional (laptop-style) li-ions in the trash is because of the cobalt and the fire hazard. LiPs and manganese spinels (what almost all EV makers are using, with the notable exception of Tesla) have neither. Plus, they're all setting up systems for their packs to be recycled -- not because of either any particular value to the raw materials nor any significant environmental consequences to their disposal, but to assuage the fears of people like you.
2) "Give me a TDI motor any day": Oh please. Even the cleanest commercial diesels, like the Jetta TDI, can barely meet modern US emissions regs. Show me a single SULEV diesel. Heck, have they even managed to make a commercial LEV diesel yet? Diesels emit less CO2 than gas cars, sure. But EVs emit less CO2 *and* less of every other pollutant except PM. And, the pollution that they do emit is displaced, no longer at street level in crowded areas, but at altitude and generally in less population dense areas.
Plus, that's on our current grid. Electricity is getting cleaner (42% of new capacity added to the grid last year was wind, and most of the rest, natural gas), while oil is getting dirtier (increasing share of syncrude and high-energy sources as the easy-to-get stuff gets used up -- think Athabasca bitumen)
You drive 20 miles to work at 250Wh/mi at $0.11/kWh, that's $0.55/workday (~$143/year). Not exactly a huge perk. If we get into a smart grid/V2G situation, the business could potentially get that power for free or even get paid for it.
Since the US DOE says we have about 1087 Gigawatt total production capacity this suggest we will be short by 2 thirds.
BZZZT, try again! You mixed up gigawatts and gigawatt hours. That's 3,000 gigawatt *hours* per million vehicles per year. The US consumes about 4,000 terawatt hours per year.
That's peak demand. We tend to cut it close on peak demand, but have gobs of unused off-peak capacity (the US averages using less than half the energy we have the capacity to generate). So right off the bat, by primarily charging offpeak, which most EV owners do, you help balance that out. EVs also tend to be stable, steady loads, rather than noisy loads like air conditioners. Both properties are a boon to grid operators, as they can sell more power at little extra cost to themselves. This gives them the capital to spend on improving the grid and their generation infrastructure. Unless of course they continue to cut it close on purpose to maximize profit to their shareholders, but then again, that would just be the status quo. EVs certainly don't make the situation *worse*. It's not like there's a realistic cap on how many power plants we can build total.
The fact that this loan is *specifically* for the Model S and was preconditioned on Roadster profitability has been widely reported for months.
I do, however, know that batteries for all electric devices have been improving across the board, and the most efficient ones commercially available (in terms of energy density) are found in laptops and cell phones.
The latest battery improvements don't help Tesla re. the Roadster, because they started development before they existed. The Roadster's pack, hence, is made up of standard cobalt/graphite 18650s, because those are what was available when they started.
They simply had to address the new issue of scale
Absolutely not! The average cobalt/graphite 18650 will last 1-3 years. Their pack has to last at least 5 years in typical usage (they've gotten it up to 7 years). That's a huge feat. Furthermore, they have to have a far greater cell failure tolerance and fire tolerance than consumer electronics. This involved engineering a system of thousands of "cans" that isolate cell failures and fires without adding significant weight and damage propagation; bulk cell monitoring and charge redistribution; three layers of groupings; a powerful cooling system designed to cool each cell in their cans (even when the vehicle isn't running) when temperatures would cause poor lifespan (and heating for low-temperature charging); develop their own charge optimized reduced-DoD charge profile; and a host of other factors. Then they had to test these big, expensive, heavy packs through all kinds of failure conditions.
Getting a pack of thousands of cells that normally last 1-3 years and catch fire easily to last 5-7 years and resist fire even in car accidents is a huge engineering task.
Nowadays, are people rushing to take Tesla's approach? Hardly; they're just adopting the longer-life, more stable chemistries. But those weren't widely available when Tesla started.
They also patented the technology, so it's not like the public would benefit
Yes, that's called being a company in today's modern business world. Almost everyone patents what they develop. It's suicide to spend years developing something and then just let your competitors copy your work.
Plasma TVs were sold primarily to companies/corporations/organizations at first
The first plasma *displays* were sold to companies, but those were old orange monochrome things that never really took off. The first plasma *TVs*, which are what we think of a modern plasma display, were 42" TVs from Fujitsu and Philips in 1997, and they *were* marketed at high-end consumers (with a $15k pricetag).
Blu-ray isn't technically luxury
Sure it is, compared to DVD, which is luxury compared to VHS. Whenever a new tech comes out, it's expensive, the high-end consumers buy it first, then it trickles down until it becomes common, then they introduce a newer, better high-end tech. You bring up $100 blu-ray players; they started at $700.
[quote]You could also consider the PS3 a luxury product by that standard[/quote]
And how much does it cost now compared to when it came out?
[quote]and certainly the iPhone when it came out, but in absolute terms, their initial price wasn't astronomical[/quote]
Launched at $600, down to $200, no?
Perhaps you're not thinking of these as significant price reductions, but if you apply that to a Roadster, that'd be a $36k supercar.
The Red5 is currently used mainly by production companies. You don't see individuals carrying them around and taking vacation videos.
Your average camcorder purchased at Wal-Mart in three years will have approximately its capabilities. And when it comes to cameras, there's no clear delineation between commercial buyers and individual buyers, as there's a lot of people who buy the high-end stuff who don't have a company that they use it for. Look at DSLR sales for an example. Your average DSLR buyer is just as likely to simply be an indivi
Says who? Are you privy to their balance sheet? You're clearly talking about the Daimler deal, but that was not just cash in -- they had to spend money to meet their obligations, too.
No, they actually are building over 100 cars a month now. You obviously haven't been following the scaleup. The previous production announcement was at just under 100 cars a month.
When most places learn how little it costs to charge an electric vehicle, you'd be surprised how many of them let you do it for free.
As for places that will give you higher power sockets: RV parks, fire stations, welding shops, laundromats, and municipal utilities are great places to start. Now, some of them (such as RV parks) will typically want money. But just plugging into a 120V at your local fast food joint or what not, as long as you grab lunch there, you'll find most of them are okay with that. Oh, and rest stops have ample exterior 120V/20A outlets, too. Use a Quick220 on them for double charge rate.
Yes, the Roadster is a joint venture. Why does that somehow disqualify them as an automaker? Your assertion that "they are an IP company through and through" is simply false. They engineered and build the ultra-complex battery pack. They improved upon the AC-150 powertrain, and manufacture it. And they do final assembly of the vehicle. Lotus produces the chassis, but contrary to popular myth, it is not simply an Elise chassis; it only shares a small percent of parts with the Elise. It had to be reengineered for the different space and weight distribution of the Roadster, and uses a lot more carbon fiber.
1) They were not given "bailout money". They landed a loan from a program set aside for loans.
2) The Roadster has nothing to do with the loan except to prove that Tesla isn't blowing smoke out their collective arses. The loan is 100% for the Model S. To get the Loan, Tesla had to show that they'd be profitble on the Roadsters on their own.
3) It's not true that Tesla "didn't bring anything truly innovative to the table". They dramatically improved on the AC-150, and point me to a single battery pack made before them like the marvel that they engineered.
4) The GP was correct; most products start at the high-end and move their way down to the low end. You think that plasma TVs were something being pushed by businesses? Blu-ray? Smartphones? It doesn't matter whether something is for high-end consumers or businesses; they still start out expensive and become cheaper over time. And it doesn't matter the field. Today's Red5 camera will be tomorrow's Sony camcorder.
I think Tesla looked at the problem and made a very reasonable decision. With the tech available when they started, they could make a $60k low-end sedan or a $100k supercar. They realized that the market for the latter was a lot more solid.
Wow, you can spend $10k on a used car with a poorer chassis (less carbon fiber, higher door sills, etc) to reach the Roadster's 0-60 time? You don't say.
You can also do an EV conversion of a Ford Pinto and get 0-60 in 3.5 seconds (it's been done). But it's still a Ford Pinto.
The Tesla Roadster (~3.9 sec) and Roadster Sport (~3.7 sec) have about the performance of a Lamborghini Murcielago (3.6 to 4.0 sec, depending on model) -- and that'll run you about ~$400k. $109k-$129k for that kind of accel, stock, new is good deal.
The tax rebates were GM's doing, not Tesla's, and came into being long after Tesla started selling cars.
The GP is correct; Tesla became profitable despite a disastrous start (which required basically a redesign and a big spike in their prices) because of the unexpectedly large demand for their vehicle. And they're profitable now even *with* the Model S devel consuming a lot of their money. The government loan is to accelerate the devel of the Model S; it has nothing to do with the Roadsters.
Yeah, amazing how many people here missed that ;) I figured most Slashdot geeks who follow CERN news would have heard it. Instead, my post got a bunch of replies criticizing the imprecision of Alpinekat's lyrics, as though rhythm and rhyme structure weren't constraints.
I would add some more -- the big relationship breakers:
#1: Don't cheat. This sounds obvious, but...
#2: Don't think that you could never cheat. Cheating in marriage is incredibly common, and most people who ended up cheating were people who thought that they could never cheat on their spouse. Recognizing that humans are hardwired to be at risk for cheating, that humans are still capable of falling deeply in love with someone other than their spouse during marriage, is the first step toward prevention. The second step is if you develop feelings toward someone else or someone else develops feelings toward you, end contact with that person immediately. The absolute worst thing you can do is to discuss your feelings with them; that will only amplify the feelings, especially if they reciprocate.
#3: Avoid spouse-approved sexual experimentation involving others (X-somes, etc) and so-called "open relationships". They impose too great of a risk for devolving into emotional attachments with the others that can strain the original relationship or unintentionally causing resent by your partner, even when both parties begin by insisting that they're okay with it. Follow the KISS principle: Keep It Simple, Stupid.
#4: Stay in tune with your spouse's needs. Absolutely do NOT expect that this will just happen on its own. Talk with your spouse at least once a month about their feelings, whether they're happy with their life, etc. It's an awkward topic to bring up, so most people just avoid it -- but that just leads to people suppressing the things that they're unhappy with. And when they're not having a need met by the relationship, they're at risk for turning elsewhere to get that need met. Don't let these conversations lapse as the relationship goes on; they become more important with time, not less!
#5: Help your spouse stay in touch with your needs. Don't pester, and be very gentle about it, but if you have a long-running issue, bring it up. If it's a sensitive subject, use extra caution when talking about it. However, don't let resentment on some issue fester inside of you.
#6: Money is the root of all evil. In most divorces, money is at least a partial cause. In particular, the issue is debt. Buy a smaller home, fewer cars, take fewer vacations, etc than you think you can afford, keep off of ebay, etc, and you'll relieve a lot of that potential monetary strain by keeping your debt levels low to begin with. The most stressful situation is when you're already deep in debt and you find that you need something expensive, be it replacing an air conditioner, medical bills, or whatnot.
Best of luck!
So I says, "Super collider? I just met her!" And then they built the super collider. Thank you, you've been a great audience.
Yes, you can store energy in strained magnetic fields -- so-called "spin batteries". But it's poor energy density. Magnetic "batteries" are still trying to get up to the energy density of supercapacitors, which are in turn still trying to get up to the density of lead-acid batteries, which have been left in the dust by techs like lithium ion batteries. But it's a very new tech, so we'll have to see where it goes.
Given the reduced energy: Re, the Higgs Boson (that's the one that everybody talks about): Is that still the one sure thing that this machine will sort out? If the Higgs exists, will they still see it right away, and if it doesn't, will the scientists still finally say, "There is no Higgs, we need new physics to account for why; things have mass, something in our standard model went awry"?
It is $20-33k without a battery. Call it insane if you want. The Volt only has 40 miles electric range. Many people want a pure EV for the lower maintenance and longer electric range (for example, for a commuter car).
Contrary to popular myth, EVs aren't currently expensive just because of the batteries. They're also expensive because many of their components are not produced in bulk. Handmade motors, chargers, inverters, etc aren't cheap. That'll change over time, but if you want the first gen...