Reality: Different battery chemistries have *very* different properties. Excepting Tesla and their partners, the types of batteries you find in EVs are *not* the same type you find in laptops. They're a chemistry chosen specifically for dramatically greater stability and longer life (at the cost of some energy density). And even in Tesla's case, they put *way* more safety measures into their batteries than you find in a laptop pack. Each cell is kept inside of a "can" to prevent failures from propagating to other cells, for example.
Considering that Tesla has the only production electric vehicle with a battery other than a lead-acid battery, that is a pretty bold statement to make. Yes, I'm aware of the fact that different battery chemistries have an impact in terms of the stability of the storage medium, but all cell types have advantages and disadvantages that all have to be accounted for when working on something like an automobile.
I'll openly admit that there are several companies who have experimental battery concepts including multiple approaches in terms of chemistry and elements used in those cells. There are even some promising technologies that might even be uniquely suited to automotive applications where their use in ordinary consumer devices is not appropriate or too complicated.
My point is that the safe charging of an electrical power storage device that is to absorb well over 25 kilowatt-hours of energy in less than 4 minutes is hardly a trivial application, and I would indeed be concerned about the safety of doing that. Assuming this is a 220 Volt circuit, it is still about 1700 Amps, or about 17 time the maximum power rating for electrical energy going into servicing my entire home. Comments about having access to a neighborhood power sub-station seem very appropriate when viewed from this perspective.
If you don't think those kind of power and charge loads are a wholly different domain than a home recharger, I am helpless to explain anything different here. To safely recharge an automotive battery, it takes time.
I certainly think extreme skepticism is very much in order here and the burden of proof that this is a safe procedure is something that would have to be furnished by the group asserting that this is a safe process when in fact any other application of this kind of energy load... particularly in the form of electrical energy... is something that is automatically considered dangerous in any other context and something only a professional electrical engineer specializing in power systems ought to attempt, much less a skilled master electrician.
Any time electrical energy on this magnitude is being switched at a power sub-station or for something like an electrified train, it happens in either a place with a locked door or behind a chain link fence with barbed wire on top and at least a ten foot perimeter from any potential on-looker from even being close to that equipment. And you expect me to believe that you would let a two year old hang out in a car where electrical connections to a vehicle are being connected within inches of that kid's car seat with those same voltages and power ratings?
So you are suggesting that a vehicle built for people living in NYC is a single solution appropriate for the rest of the country too?
I've often said that people living in New York think that the western border of America appears on the Hudson River. New Jersey is a foreign country and the rest of America might as well not exist. Sentiments like this tend to make that kind of statement seem all that more appropriate.
Of those that I've met who lived in NYC and then got out of that place to see the rest of America, most of them had to take driver's education when they left the Big Apple as the need for owning and operating your own private automobile simply wasn't there. An electric car vs. an internal combustion engine is not really a debate that is valid when neither is something that is being used.
I will note that California has an infrastructure that is largely built around an automobile, with three hour commutes (in each direction) quite common as well. I'll also note that California has more people than both the New York and Boston metro areas combined. Yeah, it can make a difference, and there are more people in the "rest" of the country than these two regions of America combined as well.
Hydrogen the worst fule in the world by energy density? Hardly. Why else is it used as a fuel source for rockets going into orbit? The Hydrogen/Oxygen reaction actually gives one of the highest ISP ratios of nearly any kind of rocket fuel available, and is the primary fuel component for the Space Shuttle, being used in the SSMEs. That big orange tank on the bottom of the orbiter is mostly filled with hydrogen. Still, not everybody needs to use hydrogen even in that kind of application. Furthermore, it also requires cryogenic fuel storage as the hydrogen used in rockets tends to be liquid hydrogen in order to compress the fuel to be useful.
In terms of automotive fuel storage, there may be a point to hydrogen being more of a problem for energy densities in terms of watts per m^3. It becomes an issue due to the fact that the storage device generally weighs much more than the fuel itself. So in terms of practical fuels for an automobile, it might have a lower energy density than other fuels and energy storage devices.
BTW, in terms of battery technologies, one of the most promising that seems to be a real kicker is a Zinc-ion battery If this researcher is to be believed (and there is some serious money getting thrown at this researcher to make it happen), it promises to have over ten times the energy storage as Lithium-ion batteries. That could be monumental in terms of making electric vehicles practical and conceivably gives something like the Tesla Model S over a thousand miles of driving range on a single charge. If that happens, the need for these recharging stations is pretty much thrown out the window at least for remote and isolated locations far from major population centers.
It is a mistaken notion that what you put into your tank is a energy source as opposed to an energy storage system. Gasoline and Diesel fuel, as well as most other "energy sources" have to be processed, refined, and extracted through various means as well in order to get them to whatever it is that you need that energy. Gasoline certainly doesn't come out of the ground in a form that is useful to stick inside of the tank ready for you to use.
I do agree, however, that hydrogen is in particular a tough nut to crack precisely for the same reasons it makes a very useful fuel: As an energy storage system, hydrogen compresses very well and contains pound for pound more energy than most other energy storage systems. The raw components can be found in numerous places, but all of those have the hydrogen already attached to other elements in some manner that makes it an endothermic process to extract the hydrogen.
One highly efficient hydrogen generation process that I've seen is to dump water down a geothermal vent and have the water hit magma at a high enough temperature that it disassociates the hydrogen from the oxygen. The "steam" comes up in a form that is not only useful for its thermal properties, but as the hydrogen is already "cracked" from the oxygen, it can be shunted off to some storage tanks for later use or for external processes.
There are other useful applications for cracking hydrogen, including through genetic engineering (using plants that produce hydrogen as a by-product of photosynthesis.... yes it happens) and using solar cells to generate hydrogen. Again, this is applying the principle of using hydrogen as a storage medium and leveraging its ability to be stored in something that is easier to build than a huge battery.
The problem with hydrogen in an automobile is that it is a very corrosive gas, particularly when it gets to a state where it reaches combustion temperatures. This can be compensated for, but it does require vehicles built for that purpose.
It turns out that Palladium is an excellent material for storing Hydrogen (one of the reasons it is used for "cold fusion") and there are other storage systems that seem to work reasonably well too. The major problem is that the supply chains and the distribution systems don't exist for hydrogen, and no strongly compelling reason to switch to hydrogen when other energy distribution systems are already in place.
In terms of safety issues, it turns out that hydrogen is much safer than gasoline for similar quantities of energy. There are also only two kinds of compounds that are produced with hydrogen when it burns with oxygen: water and hydrogen peroxide. Some Nitrogen compounds can form in an internal combustion engine (mainly ammonia) , but those are also relatively simple to work with as well. So there are some advantages to hydrogen vehicles, particularly if you want to maintain an internal combustion engine distribution system but want to avoid the pollutants caused by burning hydrocarbons.
The electric vehicles that are going into production have a conventional power train with an ordinary differential on the wheels. There are multiple reasons for this, and significantly it applies to the handling of the vehicle. When you mount an electric motor to individuals wheels, you get all kinds of problems with the torque, balancing the power load on each wheel, and trying to cope with rotational inertia on the wheels as well.
This blog post from Tesla Motors does a pretty good job of explaining the situation:
The electric heater in the Tesla Roadster is a simple electric space heater type like a home space heater that draws power from the battery system. This includes the "defroster" for the windshield.... so there isn't a "warm up" period to get it to work like is found with an internal combustion engine. There is also an air-conditioner, but that is a simple electric pump with vehicle grade refrigerant... again more like something you would have at your home. To me, it would seem as though the air conditioner would be more efficient as it wouldn't have to be fighting the heat from inside of the engine compartment like it does with an internal combustion engine.
There is a cooling system for the battery pack, and I'm not entirely sure if some of that heat energy from the charging/discharging of the batteries can be used within the cab or not. For those times you would need that heat, I'm not entirely sure it would be sufficient for heating up the cab of the car when it was useful or necessary. Based on what I've read about the Roadster, however, that doesn't seem to be used at all and what cooling is needed for the battery pack is dealt with through a separate radiator.
In terms of miles per dollar, that is a real tricky number to come up with. Here are some thing to compare:
Vehicle costs (electric vehicles costing more than ICE vehicle) Taxes (electric vehicle coming ahead, but not enough to offset the price of an ICE vehicle) Insurance (unknown if that makes any difference at all comparing vehicle types) Maintenance ("pure" electrical vehicles having fewer parts and needing less general maintenance, particularly near the end of life of the vehicle) Lifetime of the vehicle (unknown if an electric vehicle lasts as long or longer than ICE vehicle)
Generally, per mile driven the cost of electricity even at residential rates is cheaper than the gasoline engine. The real killer comes from the expense of replacing the battery. This is done on an ICE engine periodically too, but an ICE battery is trivial in comparison. A Tesla Roadster battery has a cost on the order of $10,000-$15,000 and needs to be replaced at an interval of about every 5-10 years. I don't know what the Model S battery will cost, but it can't be all that trivial.
What this really means is that a whole lot of variables go into the calculation of miles per dollar, and sometimes the comparisons are not as straight forward as they would seem. From my own back of the envelope comparison, I think it is now pretty much a wash in terms of which kind of vehicle is actually cheaper to operate in terms of a dollars per mile comparison. If you purchase used vehicles and are barely getting by paycheck to paycheck, an internal combustion engine vehicle of some type is currently the best way to go. If you are wealthy and are buying a new vehicle anyway, it might make more sense to put the money up front and buy an electric vehicle instead but that is mainly something as a "cool" factor rather than as a way to save money.
In the long run, it may turn out that electric vehicles may be cheaper to build and to operate, especially if petroleum is harder to find and the price of it goes up substantially. There is also reason to believe that electrical power rates may stay steady or even decline depending on various technological breakthroughs that may or may not happen. As a hedge against future inflation, buying an electric vehicle might just be the best route to go.
I live in the western USA, and 300 miles for a trip is really just a day trip that I do at least once a month or more. I even know people who routinely do a daily commute of that distance and more, so it isn't entirely uncommon. There are some that I know personally that drive over 150 miles just to get groceries. Driving distances of over 1000 miles in a single day are not uncommon either, although I'll admit that is some hard and long days for driving.
I won't get into rail transport in the west, other than to note that once upon a time there was very efficient rail service for most of the western USA, but that has been since torn up and discarded with hundreds (thousands?) of train depots that have either been condemned and torn out or converted into non-transportation businesses. I have to drive over 100 miles just to get to Amtrack, which only comes by once every other day or so at that and you have to head into a part of town that you need to hire a private armed body guard just to make sure you can get to the platform alive (perhaps exaggerating a bit, but not too much). Travel by rail simply stinks.
It should be pointed out that for a typical oil refinery, about as much energy (actually a fair bit more) is consumed in the form of electrical energy for the refining process than can possibly be recovered from the refined gasoline if it is burned at 100% efficiency. Yes, it is possible to burn oil instead of using electricity for some of that, but then again the same principle applies in terms of fuel efficiency for the refining process.
In other words, even if you have something operating at 100% efficiency for gasoline consumption, it still is more efficient in terms of the "carbon footprint" and overall fossil fuel consumption to directly use the electricity for powering vehicle.
The main difference between a purely electric vehicle and one with a gasoline engine of some sort or another is the added weight and maintenance costs associated with the upkeep of that gasoline (or other fuel) engine. An electric engine has relatively few moving parts, and those parts which do rub up against each other are relatively easy to replace or repair. The same can't be said about gasoline engines, particularly ones that are pushing the envelope for efficiency. Instead of just one engine that needs to be fixed if it breaks down, you have two engines that give you twice the headaches when things aren't working correctly and will impact each other too.
The real key here is going to be energy storage devices, where hopefully there can be some progress in terms of increasing the energy density of those devices. While it certainly isn't improving at the rate of doubling every 18 months, there has been a fairly steady rise in energy densities from electrical storage devices over the past 30 years as the demand is certainly there for those companies who want to push different concepts. It is a large enough market that it gets the attention of Wall Street investors in a real hurry too. Even a 10% improvement is rewarded.
Nuclear waste really isn't a problem.... as long as those who are involved in processing that waste can be trusted to not concentrate the waste products into bomb grade by-products along the way. That really is the main concern and worry about the issue, not really the disposing of the waste itself.
Breeder reactors and some good centrifuges for separating different metals (particularly processes that cope with rare earth metals) is essentially all that is necessary for efficient and safe re-use of nuclear materials. Consistent recycling of the materials and being careful with the by products can substantially minimize the waste to the point that existing facilities for handling nuclear waste are all that are ever really necessary. Most of that would be "low level" radioactive waste which is much harder to reprocess in this manner.
The largest problem with most of the nuclear reactors is that they tend to be one-off prototype facilities that do something very different than other nuclear power plants. This was certainly the problem with Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, where in both cases some sound nuclear engineering would completely avoid the problems that both of these facilities faced that caused problems. Japan and France at least have the right idea where they have come up with a "standard" reactor design that has a proven safety record and they are using that design repeatedly in a number of different facilities. This is also what the U.S. Navy uses for its nuclear powered ships.... about the only kind of new nuclear power plants that have been built in the USA.
Just where do you think some of these quick charge stations are going to be located? In some National Forest Service campground bordering a federally designated wilderness?
This would be something that would presumably be installed together with other kinds of energy sources at a convenience store where you currently can buy gasoline, natural gas, propane, and other sorts of fuels. Where I live at, the building permit alone to perform a remodel would be about $15k+, and $100k for a simple remodel to change the facade of the store would be comparable.
Seriously, I don't think this would be a huge problem in terms of somebody willing to invest that kind of money, other than it would be tough to convince an owner of such a business that they would be able to recover the investment for that kind of service. On the positive side, there are a fairly large number of electric vehicles that are starting to be produced by multiple companies (Nissan Leaf, GM Volt, Tesla Model S... to name a few right off the top of my head) where infrastructure is already starting to be put into place.
For an interesting blog entry on how this is already happening at least on a smaller scale, I would suggest reading this:
Presumably this is going to be something that would be installed in a commercial business where the recharging station would be something that would justify the expense and infrastructure access for industrial power consumption. The research is also being done in Japan, where issues of getting the raw infrastructure necessary for this to happen are not really a problem either as long as you have the money (again, not in short supply for business purposes in Japan).
I've used as much as a megawatt for industrial purposes on a single machine before, and that particular facility didn't really have any significantly different power supply than most other medium to small factories for the city that I live in. I've certainly seen similar power supply boxes that serviced convenience stores that typically dispense gasoline, so "upgrading" to something like this would be relatively trivial.
I honestly think this is a very valid concern, considering the energies involved and in particular noting that most electrical storage devices that work in this manner have had run-away discharges and other problems that have caused burns with even something as simple as a laptop recharger. For an electric automobile, it is about 100x the energy and even larger problems considering the voltages involved here.
So again, why did you think slashdotters were "better than this"?
For me, it sounds like somebody who actually has a clue about stuff like this raising a legitimate question for unproven technology.
I depend on trusting my fellow traveler every day.... particularly when I'm drying on a highway. A 3000 pound motor vehicle traveling at relative velocities of over 120 miles per hour can certainly be a powerful weapon, especially if the only thing separating that vehicle from my own is a painted yellow line identifying what side of the highway both vehicles should be driving upon. That is but one example, and it is an everyday example too which is more than mild trust but one that can be taken to an extreme.
I subscribe to the philosophy that government governs best when it governs least. Unfortunately, not everybody agrees with that philosophy including many of those who are lawmakers and judges.
BTW, the correct term to be used here isn't "sheep" vs. "citizen". It ought to be "subject" or "serf". Yes, I do feel like I'm becoming a subject of an imperial power when draconian actions such as what happens in airports goes on.
It is a crying shame that you roll over whenever somebody tries to stop you from trying to correct articles like that in the first place. There certainly are a bunch of cyber bullies on Wikipedia, and there is an attempt to be a check on their actions, but it does take some effort and standing up to those bullies in the first place.
Something completely missing from this article is nothing about the history of the high altitude tests and some of the significant concerns raised about those tests.
Perhaps more significant is the rapidity with which the Partial Test Ban Treaty was negotiated, approved, and ratified when the full impact of these tests were finally realized. It is important to note that both the USA and the Soviet Union were involved with these tests, and it wasn't just a one-sided thing. The largest problem is that continued testing of nuclear weapons would have essentially ended manned spaceflight for awhile until the radioactive materials would dissipate from the upper atmosphere... potentially taking as long as a hundred years or more if it was really pushed.
BTW, if you are complaining about islands, atolls, and other underground and surface tests, nearly every nation who has detonated a nuclear bomb has been involved with this sort of contamination including "enlightened" countries like England and France. Opposition to other countries getting nuclear weapons isn't restricted to the USA either, but America is painted as the bad guy usually. Most countries who can afford nuclear weapons, such as China, India, and Pakistan, already have them. Countries like Kazakhstan, the Ukraine, and Belarus even gave up nuclear weapons that they had at one point. South Africa even had nuclear weapons technology at one point. The number of countries with nuclear weapons or at least the capabilities of having them is quite a few. Some countries like Japan certainly have the wealth and the technology base to build them, but don't for very deliberate political reasons (not that I blame them for that attitude either).
Technically as long as they were on public land, they're allowed to do whatever they please -- same as you or me (assuming you're in the states; within the limits of the law, ofc.. though as with everything YMMV).
I hate this explaination, or the claiming of private corporation status for what is an organization that likely has (as most mass transportation enterprises) massive amounts of public funding derived from tax revenues to pay for that organization. By all practical viewpoints they are almost always a public government agency that just happens to have an "independent" board of directors that is making some extra money at the cost to taxpayers. Perhaps that company is doing the job for a bit cheaper than something controlled purely by a political process would do, but claiming private property status is really trying to play both sides of the political process and only using that status when it is convenient. If you ever get into an eminent domain fight with a transportation company, they will always pull out the "public necessity" and "public utility" nature of what it is that they are doing, claiming such land grabs as being done under government authority and for the public good.
I could go into numerous examples of mass media, particularly television shows but other kinds of media as well, which even go so far as to make light about what you should do with hijackers. Typically the long-standing joke with American television is that if a hijacker comes on board, you get a free trip to Havana and get to try out some genuine Cuban cuisine as a change in pace.
I'm sure that when the flight personnel of the first couple of airplanes on 9/11 were confronted by Al-Queida, that is precisely what they thought was going to happen. Give in to their demands, let the hijackers act like damn fools, and when the plane runs out of fuel they will try to land the plane. Particularly because of the weapons that those hijackers were holding, the box cutter knifes, really didn't pose too much of an actual threat.
I'd have to agree: Don't cooperate with hijackers on an airplane, particularly in a post-9/11 world. Beat their brains out or at least knock them unconscious so they can't do anything else. Look at what happened with the Shoe Bomber, and those would-be airplane terrorists should realize that this avenue for attack simply isn't going to be tolerated any more. Reinforce that and give rewards to the general public for stepping up to the plate to stop that kind of behavior.
Pre-9/11 airport security was plenty for what was needed, other than actually doing some real supervision over the security personnel and setting up some training and operational standards. That perhaps was needed, not necessarily a federalization of what was previously a local law enforcement issue (frequently outsourced even by local police authorities). I really don't think the TSA was even necessary in the first place.
The free world isn't so free anymore...... Because we've all been stupid enough to demand 100% safety and security from our nations (I'm European myself).
Correction: Those of us who are in supposedly representative republics have somehow let ourselves let those who support these 100% safety measures to either remain in power or come to power and perform these actions. Rarely have I seen a strong cry for more public safety, as it almost always comes from a very small but extremely vocal minority. Saying "no" to increased security measures generally has little direct impact on a political campaign, particularly in America (where I'm from).
It does cost you in terms of campaign contributors as those who sell security equipment know full well that their continued existence depends on government contracts to pay for their services. This also includes police unions, and from that it also can involved organized labor in general... unless major labor conferences stand up with an contrary policy towards campaign contributors. It also includes the major corporations who make the equipment for security organizations. In American terms, this means effectively the leading fundraiser arms of both the Democrat and Republican parties, or folks who are from "both ends" of the political spectrum but generally favor larger government.
Keeping the police in check and just large enough to ensure general domestic tranquility (which is not the same as public safety) but not too much larger is always a tough line to determine. Generally, if the police force is too large you won't know about it until it is too late... and ditto for if you have too small of a police force. Striking that happy medium is incredibly difficult to do, particularly when there isn't anything else that is generally trying to limit the size of government in general.
BTW, I do find many people (at least those who I associate with) that are not exactly thrilled at the increases in political power that "security" organization have found, but trying to decide on what it is that they are going to stand upon and say "NO" to is difficult even for these kind of political movements. For example, when I press those who I am acquainted with about airport security, it is almost universally hated and even alarming about how far it has gone in terms of silly rules. They will quietly (certainly not at an airport) mention that it has gone too far. Still, they won't publicly denounce the security efforts and are almost afraid to stand up to abusive searches. Afraid because if you stand out, you will get kicked down real fast.
There is almost no common parts between the Lotus Elise and the Tesla Roadster. That the Lotus manufacturing plant is being used to make the chassis of the Roadster is true, but it really is a clean sheet design that has very little in common between the two vehicles.
Wonderful advise. Had anybody listened to you, they would have lost their shirts and nearly 100% of any such investment into shorting Tesla at the IPO price.
While I do think that the price of Tesla shares will drop after awhile (perhaps even slightly below the IPO price), it is not a good time to short right after the IPO. At least wait until after the stock settles down into roughly predictable trading patterns before you do something stupid like shorting a company that has massive buzz about it.
Elon Musk originally wanted to put the tZero into production, but AC Propulsion blew him off when presented with the idea. Indeed it was because of AC Propulsion that Musk became acquainted with Martin Eberhard and went on to make Tesla what it is today. I'm sure that Elon Musk is intimately familiar with the tZero and what was done with it.
In terms of the towed engine, Tesla has stated that they might put in some sort of adapter in the rear of the vehicle to support a trailer, any sort of engineering or design would have to be done as a after-market product by a 3rd party. Tesla is especially interested in supporting aftermarket companies that come up with original products that can support their vehicles, but they aren't interested in doing the engineering or design work themselves.... or getting DOT approval for those kind of devices that are at best a niche market on what is already a niche market.
The $50 million of Tesla stock was going to be based upon the IPO price... or "market price" subject to later negotiation. This was a necessary part of the negotiations between Tesla and Toyota due to the pending IPO at the time the deal was made.
Essentially, if the price of Tesla shares continues to go up, Toyota is going to have a smaller share of the company. The Toyota shares are going to be new shares so it will be in addition to those sold with the IPO, but it is cash that can be used for developing the Fremont, California manufacturing plant above and beyond what came from the IPO.
Considering that Tesla thought they were only going to get between $50 million and $100 million from the IPO, it is good news that they were able to get considerably more from the markets.
It will be interesting to see how Tesla deals with this situation. They have a number of local offices, including full automotive repair shops that are there to perform annual maintenance, and for those places where they have established these offices I believe they have dealership licenses to operate there. Tesla is certainly large enough to have their own corporate lawyers that are working to make whatever it is that they do legal, and I'm sure they are not getting their legal advise off of slashdot.
Tesla stores are located in a number of places both within the USA and in Europe. All of these are 100% owned by Tesla, although I'm sure they may be set up as separate LLC corporations or something along those lines to be legal. There may be problems with individual states but I don't think it will be a major issue. The largest markets in America certainly are well covered and have a local service center.
One advantage that Tesla has is that they have already been through the whole cycle of trying to get a vehicle from initial concept through to full U.S. Department of Transportation certification and formal production. Yes, that is not a trivial process and it does cost quite a bit of money.
It should be noted that the Model S is already at the engineering prototype stage where working vehicles are already being tested, including the final tweaks that will be necessary for formal DOT approval (including crash tests and other related tests to see if the vehicle will meet safety standards for highway use). Typically most electric car companies don't get even this far, so it is a valid point to raise in terms of the capital requirements for getting a new car into production will entail.
One thing going for Tesla is that they are a small company operating with essentially a shoestring management that is also lean in terms of salaries and overhead. Only now is Tesla even worrying about actually getting the production facilities built. As for suppliers, Tesla is also trying to build most of the parts in-house, and certainly more than they have done with the Roadster. If they are their own supplier, issues of contracts with "incumbents" is not really going to be an issue, is it? They already have established supply chains and a vehicle already in production, so they certainly are aware of what challenges they are facing and people who are dealing with those issues.
If this IPO represented two guys, a cardboard box with a business plan, and a small office rented in an office park, I'd agree that this would seem like a real silly idea and that they would be considered dreamers. Fortunately for Tesla that is not their situation.
One of the real ground breaking technologies for Tesla, BTW, is the engine design itself. It was based on an engine design originally done by Nikola Tesla (hence the name of the company) and really has some interesting characteristics that can offer a competitive advantage over other electric car manufacturers. This is also something that Tesla (the company) has kept completely in-house, and is covered with enough patents that it would be difficult for other companies to copy at least for a little while. The design is an alternating current induction motor that has some benefits that include some very high efficiency even compared to other electric motors. The energy storage method is certainly interesting and innovative, but the advantage that Tesla has there is that Tesla system is the only Lithium-ion storage system that has DOT approval so far.
Slashdot Mirror
Reality: Different battery chemistries have *very* different properties. Excepting Tesla and their partners, the types of batteries you find in EVs are *not* the same type you find in laptops. They're a chemistry chosen specifically for dramatically greater stability and longer life (at the cost of some energy density). And even in Tesla's case, they put *way* more safety measures into their batteries than you find in a laptop pack. Each cell is kept inside of a "can" to prevent failures from propagating to other cells, for example.
Considering that Tesla has the only production electric vehicle with a battery other than a lead-acid battery, that is a pretty bold statement to make. Yes, I'm aware of the fact that different battery chemistries have an impact in terms of the stability of the storage medium, but all cell types have advantages and disadvantages that all have to be accounted for when working on something like an automobile.
I'll openly admit that there are several companies who have experimental battery concepts including multiple approaches in terms of chemistry and elements used in those cells. There are even some promising technologies that might even be uniquely suited to automotive applications where their use in ordinary consumer devices is not appropriate or too complicated.
My point is that the safe charging of an electrical power storage device that is to absorb well over 25 kilowatt-hours of energy in less than 4 minutes is hardly a trivial application, and I would indeed be concerned about the safety of doing that. Assuming this is a 220 Volt circuit, it is still about 1700 Amps, or about 17 time the maximum power rating for electrical energy going into servicing my entire home. Comments about having access to a neighborhood power sub-station seem very appropriate when viewed from this perspective.
If you don't think those kind of power and charge loads are a wholly different domain than a home recharger, I am helpless to explain anything different here. To safely recharge an automotive battery, it takes time.
I certainly think extreme skepticism is very much in order here and the burden of proof that this is a safe procedure is something that would have to be furnished by the group asserting that this is a safe process when in fact any other application of this kind of energy load... particularly in the form of electrical energy... is something that is automatically considered dangerous in any other context and something only a professional electrical engineer specializing in power systems ought to attempt, much less a skilled master electrician.
Any time electrical energy on this magnitude is being switched at a power sub-station or for something like an electrified train, it happens in either a place with a locked door or behind a chain link fence with barbed wire on top and at least a ten foot perimeter from any potential on-looker from even being close to that equipment. And you expect me to believe that you would let a two year old hang out in a car where electrical connections to a vehicle are being connected within inches of that kid's car seat with those same voltages and power ratings?
So you are suggesting that a vehicle built for people living in NYC is a single solution appropriate for the rest of the country too?
I've often said that people living in New York think that the western border of America appears on the Hudson River. New Jersey is a foreign country and the rest of America might as well not exist. Sentiments like this tend to make that kind of statement seem all that more appropriate.
Of those that I've met who lived in NYC and then got out of that place to see the rest of America, most of them had to take driver's education when they left the Big Apple as the need for owning and operating your own private automobile simply wasn't there. An electric car vs. an internal combustion engine is not really a debate that is valid when neither is something that is being used.
I will note that California has an infrastructure that is largely built around an automobile, with three hour commutes (in each direction) quite common as well. I'll also note that California has more people than both the New York and Boston metro areas combined. Yeah, it can make a difference, and there are more people in the "rest" of the country than these two regions of America combined as well.
Hydrogen the worst fule in the world by energy density? Hardly. Why else is it used as a fuel source for rockets going into orbit? The Hydrogen/Oxygen reaction actually gives one of the highest ISP ratios of nearly any kind of rocket fuel available, and is the primary fuel component for the Space Shuttle, being used in the SSMEs. That big orange tank on the bottom of the orbiter is mostly filled with hydrogen. Still, not everybody needs to use hydrogen even in that kind of application. Furthermore, it also requires cryogenic fuel storage as the hydrogen used in rockets tends to be liquid hydrogen in order to compress the fuel to be useful.
In terms of automotive fuel storage, there may be a point to hydrogen being more of a problem for energy densities in terms of watts per m^3. It becomes an issue due to the fact that the storage device generally weighs much more than the fuel itself. So in terms of practical fuels for an automobile, it might have a lower energy density than other fuels and energy storage devices.
BTW, in terms of battery technologies, one of the most promising that seems to be a real kicker is a Zinc-ion battery If this researcher is to be believed (and there is some serious money getting thrown at this researcher to make it happen), it promises to have over ten times the energy storage as Lithium-ion batteries. That could be monumental in terms of making electric vehicles practical and conceivably gives something like the Tesla Model S over a thousand miles of driving range on a single charge. If that happens, the need for these recharging stations is pretty much thrown out the window at least for remote and isolated locations far from major population centers.
It is a mistaken notion that what you put into your tank is a energy source as opposed to an energy storage system. Gasoline and Diesel fuel, as well as most other "energy sources" have to be processed, refined, and extracted through various means as well in order to get them to whatever it is that you need that energy. Gasoline certainly doesn't come out of the ground in a form that is useful to stick inside of the tank ready for you to use.
I do agree, however, that hydrogen is in particular a tough nut to crack precisely for the same reasons it makes a very useful fuel: As an energy storage system, hydrogen compresses very well and contains pound for pound more energy than most other energy storage systems. The raw components can be found in numerous places, but all of those have the hydrogen already attached to other elements in some manner that makes it an endothermic process to extract the hydrogen.
One highly efficient hydrogen generation process that I've seen is to dump water down a geothermal vent and have the water hit magma at a high enough temperature that it disassociates the hydrogen from the oxygen. The "steam" comes up in a form that is not only useful for its thermal properties, but as the hydrogen is already "cracked" from the oxygen, it can be shunted off to some storage tanks for later use or for external processes.
There are other useful applications for cracking hydrogen, including through genetic engineering (using plants that produce hydrogen as a by-product of photosynthesis.... yes it happens) and using solar cells to generate hydrogen. Again, this is applying the principle of using hydrogen as a storage medium and leveraging its ability to be stored in something that is easier to build than a huge battery.
The problem with hydrogen in an automobile is that it is a very corrosive gas, particularly when it gets to a state where it reaches combustion temperatures. This can be compensated for, but it does require vehicles built for that purpose.
It turns out that Palladium is an excellent material for storing Hydrogen (one of the reasons it is used for "cold fusion") and there are other storage systems that seem to work reasonably well too. The major problem is that the supply chains and the distribution systems don't exist for hydrogen, and no strongly compelling reason to switch to hydrogen when other energy distribution systems are already in place.
In terms of safety issues, it turns out that hydrogen is much safer than gasoline for similar quantities of energy. There are also only two kinds of compounds that are produced with hydrogen when it burns with oxygen: water and hydrogen peroxide. Some Nitrogen compounds can form in an internal combustion engine (mainly ammonia) , but those are also relatively simple to work with as well. So there are some advantages to hydrogen vehicles, particularly if you want to maintain an internal combustion engine distribution system but want to avoid the pollutants caused by burning hydrocarbons.
The electric vehicles that are going into production have a conventional power train with an ordinary differential on the wheels. There are multiple reasons for this, and significantly it applies to the handling of the vehicle. When you mount an electric motor to individuals wheels, you get all kinds of problems with the torque, balancing the power load on each wheel, and trying to cope with rotational inertia on the wheels as well.
This blog post from Tesla Motors does a pretty good job of explaining the situation:
http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/nikola-tesla-everywhere
It describes why hub motors is a bad thing for electric motors and why a conventional power train really is better.
The electric heater in the Tesla Roadster is a simple electric space heater type like a home space heater that draws power from the battery system. This includes the "defroster" for the windshield.... so there isn't a "warm up" period to get it to work like is found with an internal combustion engine. There is also an air-conditioner, but that is a simple electric pump with vehicle grade refrigerant... again more like something you would have at your home. To me, it would seem as though the air conditioner would be more efficient as it wouldn't have to be fighting the heat from inside of the engine compartment like it does with an internal combustion engine.
There is a cooling system for the battery pack, and I'm not entirely sure if some of that heat energy from the charging/discharging of the batteries can be used within the cab or not. For those times you would need that heat, I'm not entirely sure it would be sufficient for heating up the cab of the car when it was useful or necessary. Based on what I've read about the Roadster, however, that doesn't seem to be used at all and what cooling is needed for the battery pack is dealt with through a separate radiator.
In terms of miles per dollar, that is a real tricky number to come up with. Here are some thing to compare:
Vehicle costs (electric vehicles costing more than ICE vehicle)
Taxes (electric vehicle coming ahead, but not enough to offset the price of an ICE vehicle)
Insurance (unknown if that makes any difference at all comparing vehicle types)
Maintenance ("pure" electrical vehicles having fewer parts and needing less general maintenance, particularly near the end of life of the vehicle)
Lifetime of the vehicle (unknown if an electric vehicle lasts as long or longer than ICE vehicle)
Generally, per mile driven the cost of electricity even at residential rates is cheaper than the gasoline engine. The real killer comes from the expense of replacing the battery. This is done on an ICE engine periodically too, but an ICE battery is trivial in comparison. A Tesla Roadster battery has a cost on the order of $10,000-$15,000 and needs to be replaced at an interval of about every 5-10 years. I don't know what the Model S battery will cost, but it can't be all that trivial.
What this really means is that a whole lot of variables go into the calculation of miles per dollar, and sometimes the comparisons are not as straight forward as they would seem. From my own back of the envelope comparison, I think it is now pretty much a wash in terms of which kind of vehicle is actually cheaper to operate in terms of a dollars per mile comparison. If you purchase used vehicles and are barely getting by paycheck to paycheck, an internal combustion engine vehicle of some type is currently the best way to go. If you are wealthy and are buying a new vehicle anyway, it might make more sense to put the money up front and buy an electric vehicle instead but that is mainly something as a "cool" factor rather than as a way to save money.
In the long run, it may turn out that electric vehicles may be cheaper to build and to operate, especially if petroleum is harder to find and the price of it goes up substantially. There is also reason to believe that electrical power rates may stay steady or even decline depending on various technological breakthroughs that may or may not happen. As a hedge against future inflation, buying an electric vehicle might just be the best route to go.
I live in the western USA, and 300 miles for a trip is really just a day trip that I do at least once a month or more. I even know people who routinely do a daily commute of that distance and more, so it isn't entirely uncommon. There are some that I know personally that drive over 150 miles just to get groceries. Driving distances of over 1000 miles in a single day are not uncommon either, although I'll admit that is some hard and long days for driving.
I won't get into rail transport in the west, other than to note that once upon a time there was very efficient rail service for most of the western USA, but that has been since torn up and discarded with hundreds (thousands?) of train depots that have either been condemned and torn out or converted into non-transportation businesses. I have to drive over 100 miles just to get to Amtrack, which only comes by once every other day or so at that and you have to head into a part of town that you need to hire a private armed body guard just to make sure you can get to the platform alive (perhaps exaggerating a bit, but not too much). Travel by rail simply stinks.
It should be pointed out that for a typical oil refinery, about as much energy (actually a fair bit more) is consumed in the form of electrical energy for the refining process than can possibly be recovered from the refined gasoline if it is burned at 100% efficiency. Yes, it is possible to burn oil instead of using electricity for some of that, but then again the same principle applies in terms of fuel efficiency for the refining process.
In other words, even if you have something operating at 100% efficiency for gasoline consumption, it still is more efficient in terms of the "carbon footprint" and overall fossil fuel consumption to directly use the electricity for powering vehicle.
The main difference between a purely electric vehicle and one with a gasoline engine of some sort or another is the added weight and maintenance costs associated with the upkeep of that gasoline (or other fuel) engine. An electric engine has relatively few moving parts, and those parts which do rub up against each other are relatively easy to replace or repair. The same can't be said about gasoline engines, particularly ones that are pushing the envelope for efficiency. Instead of just one engine that needs to be fixed if it breaks down, you have two engines that give you twice the headaches when things aren't working correctly and will impact each other too.
The real key here is going to be energy storage devices, where hopefully there can be some progress in terms of increasing the energy density of those devices. While it certainly isn't improving at the rate of doubling every 18 months, there has been a fairly steady rise in energy densities from electrical storage devices over the past 30 years as the demand is certainly there for those companies who want to push different concepts. It is a large enough market that it gets the attention of Wall Street investors in a real hurry too. Even a 10% improvement is rewarded.
Nuclear waste really isn't a problem.... as long as those who are involved in processing that waste can be trusted to not concentrate the waste products into bomb grade by-products along the way. That really is the main concern and worry about the issue, not really the disposing of the waste itself.
Breeder reactors and some good centrifuges for separating different metals (particularly processes that cope with rare earth metals) is essentially all that is necessary for efficient and safe re-use of nuclear materials. Consistent recycling of the materials and being careful with the by products can substantially minimize the waste to the point that existing facilities for handling nuclear waste are all that are ever really necessary. Most of that would be "low level" radioactive waste which is much harder to reprocess in this manner.
The largest problem with most of the nuclear reactors is that they tend to be one-off prototype facilities that do something very different than other nuclear power plants. This was certainly the problem with Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, where in both cases some sound nuclear engineering would completely avoid the problems that both of these facilities faced that caused problems. Japan and France at least have the right idea where they have come up with a "standard" reactor design that has a proven safety record and they are using that design repeatedly in a number of different facilities. This is also what the U.S. Navy uses for its nuclear powered ships.... about the only kind of new nuclear power plants that have been built in the USA.
Just where do you think some of these quick charge stations are going to be located? In some National Forest Service campground bordering a federally designated wilderness?
This would be something that would presumably be installed together with other kinds of energy sources at a convenience store where you currently can buy gasoline, natural gas, propane, and other sorts of fuels. Where I live at, the building permit alone to perform a remodel would be about $15k+, and $100k for a simple remodel to change the facade of the store would be comparable.
Seriously, I don't think this would be a huge problem in terms of somebody willing to invest that kind of money, other than it would be tough to convince an owner of such a business that they would be able to recover the investment for that kind of service. On the positive side, there are a fairly large number of electric vehicles that are starting to be produced by multiple companies (Nissan Leaf, GM Volt, Tesla Model S... to name a few right off the top of my head) where infrastructure is already starting to be put into place.
For an interesting blog entry on how this is already happening at least on a smaller scale, I would suggest reading this:
http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/oh-canada-our-tesla-roadster-arrives-british-columbia
Presumably this is going to be something that would be installed in a commercial business where the recharging station would be something that would justify the expense and infrastructure access for industrial power consumption. The research is also being done in Japan, where issues of getting the raw infrastructure necessary for this to happen are not really a problem either as long as you have the money (again, not in short supply for business purposes in Japan).
I've used as much as a megawatt for industrial purposes on a single machine before, and that particular facility didn't really have any significantly different power supply than most other medium to small factories for the city that I live in. I've certainly seen similar power supply boxes that serviced convenience stores that typically dispense gasoline, so "upgrading" to something like this would be relatively trivial.
I honestly think this is a very valid concern, considering the energies involved and in particular noting that most electrical storage devices that work in this manner have had run-away discharges and other problems that have caused burns with even something as simple as a laptop recharger. For an electric automobile, it is about 100x the energy and even larger problems considering the voltages involved here.
So again, why did you think slashdotters were "better than this"?
For me, it sounds like somebody who actually has a clue about stuff like this raising a legitimate question for unproven technology.
I depend on trusting my fellow traveler every day.... particularly when I'm drying on a highway. A 3000 pound motor vehicle traveling at relative velocities of over 120 miles per hour can certainly be a powerful weapon, especially if the only thing separating that vehicle from my own is a painted yellow line identifying what side of the highway both vehicles should be driving upon. That is but one example, and it is an everyday example too which is more than mild trust but one that can be taken to an extreme.
I subscribe to the philosophy that government governs best when it governs least. Unfortunately, not everybody agrees with that philosophy including many of those who are lawmakers and judges.
BTW, the correct term to be used here isn't "sheep" vs. "citizen". It ought to be "subject" or "serf". Yes, I do feel like I'm becoming a subject of an imperial power when draconian actions such as what happens in airports goes on.
It is a crying shame that you roll over whenever somebody tries to stop you from trying to correct articles like that in the first place. There certainly are a bunch of cyber bullies on Wikipedia, and there is an attempt to be a check on their actions, but it does take some effort and standing up to those bullies in the first place.
Something completely missing from this article is nothing about the history of the high altitude tests and some of the significant concerns raised about those tests.
Perhaps more significant is the rapidity with which the Partial Test Ban Treaty was negotiated, approved, and ratified when the full impact of these tests were finally realized. It is important to note that both the USA and the Soviet Union were involved with these tests, and it wasn't just a one-sided thing. The largest problem is that continued testing of nuclear weapons would have essentially ended manned spaceflight for awhile until the radioactive materials would dissipate from the upper atmosphere... potentially taking as long as a hundred years or more if it was really pushed.
BTW, if you are complaining about islands, atolls, and other underground and surface tests, nearly every nation who has detonated a nuclear bomb has been involved with this sort of contamination including "enlightened" countries like England and France. Opposition to other countries getting nuclear weapons isn't restricted to the USA either, but America is painted as the bad guy usually. Most countries who can afford nuclear weapons, such as China, India, and Pakistan, already have them. Countries like Kazakhstan, the Ukraine, and Belarus even gave up nuclear weapons that they had at one point. South Africa even had nuclear weapons technology at one point. The number of countries with nuclear weapons or at least the capabilities of having them is quite a few. Some countries like Japan certainly have the wealth and the technology base to build them, but don't for very deliberate political reasons (not that I blame them for that attitude either).
Technically as long as they were on public land, they're allowed to do whatever they please -- same as you or me (assuming you're in the states; within the limits of the law, ofc.. though as with everything YMMV).
I hate this explaination, or the claiming of private corporation status for what is an organization that likely has (as most mass transportation enterprises) massive amounts of public funding derived from tax revenues to pay for that organization. By all practical viewpoints they are almost always a public government agency that just happens to have an "independent" board of directors that is making some extra money at the cost to taxpayers. Perhaps that company is doing the job for a bit cheaper than something controlled purely by a political process would do, but claiming private property status is really trying to play both sides of the political process and only using that status when it is convenient. If you ever get into an eminent domain fight with a transportation company, they will always pull out the "public necessity" and "public utility" nature of what it is that they are doing, claiming such land grabs as being done under government authority and for the public good.
I could go into numerous examples of mass media, particularly television shows but other kinds of media as well, which even go so far as to make light about what you should do with hijackers. Typically the long-standing joke with American television is that if a hijacker comes on board, you get a free trip to Havana and get to try out some genuine Cuban cuisine as a change in pace.
I'm sure that when the flight personnel of the first couple of airplanes on 9/11 were confronted by Al-Queida, that is precisely what they thought was going to happen. Give in to their demands, let the hijackers act like damn fools, and when the plane runs out of fuel they will try to land the plane. Particularly because of the weapons that those hijackers were holding, the box cutter knifes, really didn't pose too much of an actual threat.
I'd have to agree: Don't cooperate with hijackers on an airplane, particularly in a post-9/11 world. Beat their brains out or at least knock them unconscious so they can't do anything else. Look at what happened with the Shoe Bomber, and those would-be airplane terrorists should realize that this avenue for attack simply isn't going to be tolerated any more. Reinforce that and give rewards to the general public for stepping up to the plate to stop that kind of behavior.
Pre-9/11 airport security was plenty for what was needed, other than actually doing some real supervision over the security personnel and setting up some training and operational standards. That perhaps was needed, not necessarily a federalization of what was previously a local law enforcement issue (frequently outsourced even by local police authorities). I really don't think the TSA was even necessary in the first place.
The free world isn't so free anymore... ... Because we've all been stupid enough to demand 100% safety and security from our nations (I'm European myself).
Correction: Those of us who are in supposedly representative republics have somehow let ourselves let those who support these 100% safety measures to either remain in power or come to power and perform these actions. Rarely have I seen a strong cry for more public safety, as it almost always comes from a very small but extremely vocal minority. Saying "no" to increased security measures generally has little direct impact on a political campaign, particularly in America (where I'm from).
It does cost you in terms of campaign contributors as those who sell security equipment know full well that their continued existence depends on government contracts to pay for their services. This also includes police unions, and from that it also can involved organized labor in general... unless major labor conferences stand up with an contrary policy towards campaign contributors. It also includes the major corporations who make the equipment for security organizations. In American terms, this means effectively the leading fundraiser arms of both the Democrat and Republican parties, or folks who are from "both ends" of the political spectrum but generally favor larger government.
Keeping the police in check and just large enough to ensure general domestic tranquility (which is not the same as public safety) but not too much larger is always a tough line to determine. Generally, if the police force is too large you won't know about it until it is too late... and ditto for if you have too small of a police force. Striking that happy medium is incredibly difficult to do, particularly when there isn't anything else that is generally trying to limit the size of government in general.
BTW, I do find many people (at least those who I associate with) that are not exactly thrilled at the increases in political power that "security" organization have found, but trying to decide on what it is that they are going to stand upon and say "NO" to is difficult even for these kind of political movements. For example, when I press those who I am acquainted with about airport security, it is almost universally hated and even alarming about how far it has gone in terms of silly rules. They will quietly (certainly not at an airport) mention that it has gone too far. Still, they won't publicly denounce the security efforts and are almost afraid to stand up to abusive searches. Afraid because if you stand out, you will get kicked down real fast.
There is almost no common parts between the Lotus Elise and the Tesla Roadster. That the Lotus manufacturing plant is being used to make the chassis of the Roadster is true, but it really is a clean sheet design that has very little in common between the two vehicles.
Wonderful advise. Had anybody listened to you, they would have lost their shirts and nearly 100% of any such investment into shorting Tesla at the IPO price.
While I do think that the price of Tesla shares will drop after awhile (perhaps even slightly below the IPO price), it is not a good time to short right after the IPO. At least wait until after the stock settles down into roughly predictable trading patterns before you do something stupid like shorting a company that has massive buzz about it.
Elon Musk originally wanted to put the tZero into production, but AC Propulsion blew him off when presented with the idea. Indeed it was because of AC Propulsion that Musk became acquainted with Martin Eberhard and went on to make Tesla what it is today. I'm sure that Elon Musk is intimately familiar with the tZero and what was done with it.
In terms of the towed engine, Tesla has stated that they might put in some sort of adapter in the rear of the vehicle to support a trailer, any sort of engineering or design would have to be done as a after-market product by a 3rd party. Tesla is especially interested in supporting aftermarket companies that come up with original products that can support their vehicles, but they aren't interested in doing the engineering or design work themselves.... or getting DOT approval for those kind of devices that are at best a niche market on what is already a niche market.
The $50 million of Tesla stock was going to be based upon the IPO price... or "market price" subject to later negotiation. This was a necessary part of the negotiations between Tesla and Toyota due to the pending IPO at the time the deal was made.
Essentially, if the price of Tesla shares continues to go up, Toyota is going to have a smaller share of the company. The Toyota shares are going to be new shares so it will be in addition to those sold with the IPO, but it is cash that can be used for developing the Fremont, California manufacturing plant above and beyond what came from the IPO.
Considering that Tesla thought they were only going to get between $50 million and $100 million from the IPO, it is good news that they were able to get considerably more from the markets.
It will be interesting to see how Tesla deals with this situation. They have a number of local offices, including full automotive repair shops that are there to perform annual maintenance, and for those places where they have established these offices I believe they have dealership licenses to operate there. Tesla is certainly large enough to have their own corporate lawyers that are working to make whatever it is that they do legal, and I'm sure they are not getting their legal advise off of slashdot.
Tesla stores are located in a number of places both within the USA and in Europe. All of these are 100% owned by Tesla, although I'm sure they may be set up as separate LLC corporations or something along those lines to be legal. There may be problems with individual states but I don't think it will be a major issue. The largest markets in America certainly are well covered and have a local service center.
One advantage that Tesla has is that they have already been through the whole cycle of trying to get a vehicle from initial concept through to full U.S. Department of Transportation certification and formal production. Yes, that is not a trivial process and it does cost quite a bit of money.
It should be noted that the Model S is already at the engineering prototype stage where working vehicles are already being tested, including the final tweaks that will be necessary for formal DOT approval (including crash tests and other related tests to see if the vehicle will meet safety standards for highway use). Typically most electric car companies don't get even this far, so it is a valid point to raise in terms of the capital requirements for getting a new car into production will entail.
One thing going for Tesla is that they are a small company operating with essentially a shoestring management that is also lean in terms of salaries and overhead. Only now is Tesla even worrying about actually getting the production facilities built. As for suppliers, Tesla is also trying to build most of the parts in-house, and certainly more than they have done with the Roadster. If they are their own supplier, issues of contracts with "incumbents" is not really going to be an issue, is it? They already have established supply chains and a vehicle already in production, so they certainly are aware of what challenges they are facing and people who are dealing with those issues.
If this IPO represented two guys, a cardboard box with a business plan, and a small office rented in an office park, I'd agree that this would seem like a real silly idea and that they would be considered dreamers. Fortunately for Tesla that is not their situation.
One of the real ground breaking technologies for Tesla, BTW, is the engine design itself. It was based on an engine design originally done by Nikola Tesla (hence the name of the company) and really has some interesting characteristics that can offer a competitive advantage over other electric car manufacturers. This is also something that Tesla (the company) has kept completely in-house, and is covered with enough patents that it would be difficult for other companies to copy at least for a little while. The design is an alternating current induction motor that has some benefits that include some very high efficiency even compared to other electric motors. The energy storage method is certainly interesting and innovative, but the advantage that Tesla has there is that Tesla system is the only Lithium-ion storage system that has DOT approval so far.