Test Driving the Tesla Roadster

stacybro writes "Wired has an article about the Tesla Roadster. It is similar to other electric cars that we have seen in that the electric engine's serious torque will allow it to do 0-60mph in about 3 seconds. Part of what is different about this is that they are using over 6,831 laptop-type lithium-ion batteries. They are claiming the range is about 250 miles. As the battery tech for laptops improves, so will the range of these cars. The car will run about $80,000, which is about par for an exotic two-seater. So who is doing the poll on which tech CEO will be seen driving one first? My guess is one of the Google or E-Bay guys, since they are investors. It is nice to see more companies serious about helping to getting rid of our oil dependency. It is odd that the big car companies aren't more on this track!"

Lithium-Ion?

[Midnight Thunder]

I would hate to see the devestation after a head on collision.

Pricy, but....

[Sergeant Beavis]

A 250 mile range gets an electric car into the "very practical" range IMO. Now the challenge is to get the price down to something acceptable. Range has always been the biggest downside of electrics and the reason I would never consider one. However if I can have something with the sized between a Mini and a Civic and be able to easily commute to work AND not pay through the nose for it, I'm in.

Re:Pricy, but....

[Bryan Ischo]

You can get used to a lower range, easily. My Honda motorcycle has a range of about 150 miles. It doesn't bother me one bit. Every one of those miles is 1000x more fun than any car-driven mile, even if I do have to fuel up once per week instead of once every other week.

Fuel economy could be better though. 35 MPG isn't much better than many cars.

Forget batteries, go with Ethanol

[Anonymous Coward]

If we here in the United States are serious about removing dependence on foreign oil, shouldn't we follow the Brazillian model and switch 100% to ethanol rather than wasting time with batteries?

More info:

-NPR [npr.org]
-Carnegie-Mellon [sciencedaily.com]
-ABC News (why corn ethanol is not so great) [go.com], and which points out:

For consumers, switching to ethanol would cost only about $100 per car. Kammen said all it takes are some new hoses and a new gas cap. "This is actually a switch we could make very easily and very quickly," he said.

Kammen is working to get an initiative on California's November ballot requiring that all new cars sold in the state be flex-fuel ready within five years. According to UC Berkeley, in 2004, ethanol-blended gasoline accounted for just 2 percent of all fuel sold in the United States, though nearly 5 million vehicles are already equipped.

"Converting to fuel ethanol will not require a big change in the economy," Kammen said. "We are already ethanol ready. If ethanol were available on the supply side, the demand is there."

An interesting report on "locking down CO2 emissions" can be found at
The News Hour with Jim Lehrer [pbs.org]

80K?+batteries once a year

[fermion]

I would wager that this vehicle is more like a Lotus Elise, or a Corvette, or even a S2000, all of which can be had for under 50K. Any performance benefits over those sports cars can be attributed to the natural advantage of this car, namely that you can go from 0-60 without switching gears, and it is easier to get it perfectly balanced without an engine. Anyway, The true test of a sports cars, as opposed to just a fast car, is the handling, which was not mentioned in review. Without proper handling, it becomes a Mustang at 30K.

Which is to say we are still in the same world, in which low volumes and other issues cause electric cars to be 50%-100$ higher than traditional cars. All that seems to have happened here is that an electric car has been targeted to the high end market and priced accordingly. It is kind of like taking the hummer, putting a cheap truck base on it, calling it an H2, and pretending that it still has the dubious value of the original.

Oh well, I suppose if they can build a sedan for 35K I would be impressed. We would also have to look at maintenance cost of the vehicle, which would be dominated by the battery replacement. A sports car car easily run 20 cents/mile in maintenance. Knowing that laptop batteries can only handle a couple hundred charge cycles, one can image where the long term maintenance cost could approach three or four time that amount.

I wish we had electric cars. I think the technology is there, and the pricing could be reasonable. But even companies that could be using the electric car to revive themselves, for instance Mazda and Ford, still seem to be married to the antiquated internal combustion engine.

Re:Umm...

[gnu-sucks]

You know what's odd about this -- that's roughly $10/battery.

I saw we buy one and part it out on ebay...

Re:where are the flying pieces of cars?

[Waffle Iron]

I shudder to think of how those will get disposed of, eventually.

They will be recycled. Almost all lead-acid batteries get recycled today, and lithium is far more valuable than lead.

Electric Cost Per Mile is Cheaper

[sanman2]

Just imagine how much you'd save. Firstly, cost per mile is cheaper, based on what you pay for electricity out of your socket compared to buying gas. Nextly, electric motors are a simpler setup that don't need all that maintenance. You could drive that thing for a much longer time without even needing any repairs. No lube jobs needed, and with

All you have to do is replace the batteries, probably once a year. And if the newer-technology ultra-capacitors get used, then you wouldn't have to replace them ever. You could have a vehicle that might require no maintenance at all for the life of the car.

But gee, I'd hate to get hit from behind because I didn't hear the damn thing coming. You'd have to build some kind of noise-maker into it. Also, what about accidental electrocutions? Could you get electrocuted in an accident? Could people maliciously misuse that kind of mobile power source to zap people they don't like?

Re:80K?+batteries once a year

[palndrumm]

Anyway, The true test of a sports cars, as opposed to just a fast car, is the handling

The good news there is that he was hiring lots of engineers from Lotus - they've been the guys you call when trying to develop a good handling car for a long time now...

Problem: recharging

[momerath2003]

Li-ion batteries have a limited number of charge cycles on them, somewhere around 300, before their capacity starts to decrease. You would have to replace all of the batteries at some point after this when your car's range is decreased to the point where you can't stand it. This means, what, most of the value of the car after 100000 miles? Is it worth it?

Re:80K?+batteries once a year

[Sinistrad_D]

I would wager that this vehicle is more like a Lotus Elise

The vehicle will be built by Lotus. In fact the designers were wooed away from Lotus and Tesla had to sign an agreement not to steal any more workers in order to have Lotus build the car.

Re:Global "Dependencies"

[superdude72]

Yes, I'm aware of Nucular, Hydro, Wind, Tidal, Natrual Gas. Doesn't matter. Coal is the most popular choice today.

The US has vast reserves of coal. We wouldn't have to rely on the Middle East. And it is easier to cut pollution from relatively few centralized sources than it is from hundreds of millions of cars. And if something better than coal comes along, it's easier to switch relatively few power plants than hundreds of millions of cars. Etc, etc.

I'm going to give you a pass on "nucular" because a dictionary guy I heard on the radio said it's a regionalism, not barbarism that is like nails on a chalkboard to educated people.

Re:Global "Dependencies"

[Alien Being]

So simple, yet so wrong.

Cleaning up the emissions from a hundred million cars means telling a hundred million peons that they are responsible for maintaining one vehicle. That's simple compared to telling a hundred lobbyist-paying energy companies to maintain one power plant.

Just look at the White House's Clear Skies program. It allows antique coal plants, which were supposed to be phased out in favor of cleaner ones, to increase their capacity without being subject to the regulations on new plants.

Gasoline cars in the U.S. are cleaner than electric power plants.

Re:Pricy, but....

[mad.frog]

Depends on your use case. Two-car households may differ.

My wife and I have two cars, but one of 'em is used 90% of the time just for commuting over the Bay Bridge and back... let's say 25 miles roundtrip. I could easily make do with a 100 mile range for that car. 250 would be even better. 3 hours to recharge? That's what "overnight" is for.

A car like this sounds appealing. If this guy can keep production quality high (unlike, say, the Corbin Sparrow), he can probably sell as many as he can make.

Re:Solve the Battery Problem = Die Rich

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoever comes up with a significant advance in battery technology will die a very rich person.

Life doesn't work that way. There will be a handful of people who invest their time and money into organizing a lot of people to make better batteries because no one person can do it alone.

Li-Ion batteries have excellent amp-hour ratings for their size, but like all other batteries are still pretty limited

These cars get 250 miles on a charge, while other, lead acid based cars get a max of 80. That's a big difference and thus a big deal. Plus, they are using 6800 laptop batteries, not batteries designed for the car. When there is enough demand for ANY electric car, there will be a battery made for it, increasing that range again for ALL electric cars.

Acceleration/Torque for electric cars is not a problem. High performance capabilities are there if you want them. However, you are playing battery energy against performance against distance, and all electrics, or fuel-electric hybrids have been designed to be "green" in their approach. (Any Hummer oweners want an environmentally aware vehicle?)

This is true only for conventional fuels but not for fully electric cars. Electric motors are highly efficient at whatever speed/acceleration.

Right now the weakest link in many electronic systems is the energy source.

It's the only weak link. The problem has always been a matter of energy storage. We can make cars, we can make electric motors to power them, we've had all of this other tech for ages. But a battery that can hold a lot of energy at low weight and volume as well as give that energy back quickly and consistently has only existed in recent times. Some would argue we still aren't there yet, especially when weighing in safety concerns as noted by other posters. However, there are batteries in development that are safer and as we all know, batteries get better all of the time (statistically about 5% greater capacity every year). If cars did that, we'd have our 80 mpg cars today.

What is shameful is that governments around the world haven't pooled massive quantities of money together to make better batteries. This should have happened immediately after the first embargos in the 70's. If it had, we wouldn't be spending the gargantuan sums we are today trying to protect all that middle eastern oil, nor would my laptop run out of juice in the middle of a meeting or on a plane flight.

J

Range

[rs79]

The 250 mile range is almost a non-starter though. It'll get relegated to "commuter car" or "city car". I have to drive 300 miles one way next week. I'm supposed to stop in the middle for 4 hours while this thing charges at a non-existant 220V 70A charger?

How bout a little (bio)diesel generator so you could have the option of charging while you drive. I doubt one small enough not to be stupid would not make electricity as fast as it's used but it should extend the range enough to be useful.

I also worry, frankly, about the lack of noise. How many times, as a kid, did you hear a car coming and get out of the way? Sure you can see it too, but anything else that helps you aviod a human-vehicular collision is a good thing. And this is a car that can get to 60 in 3 seconds? I have a bad feeling this fuckker is gonna kill people with its silence.

Damn cool car though. Me want.

Re:but are coal plants worse than millions of cars

[rainman_bc]

(not to mention it's a lot more efficient, as technology progresses, to upgrade emissions controls on a few power plants, than every car on the road)

Have you a clue how many power plants will have to be built in order to satisfy demand for electricity needed if the entire US converted to electric cars? I don't, but I've heard it's lots.

Ever driven from Salt Lake City to Reno? There's an entire valley with a permanent cloud over it in the desert. Absolutely disgusting. Consider the environmental damage that one plant is causing.

Re:Global "Dependencies"

[this great guy]

Nuclear? Too much radioactive waste. Yes I realize we've made some vast improvements in nuclear tech.

Do you have any idea of the volume of radioactive waste produced by the whole world over a 1-year period ? It is much smaller than what you think. Search for it and I'll promise you will change your mind after knowing it. No I won't give you the response here, I want to make you change your mind by yourself ;-)

Re:Electric Cost Per Mile is Cheaper

[shawb]

"All you have to do is replace the batteries, probably once a year." From the summary, the car runs on 6,831 laptop style lithium ion batteries. A quick froogle search reveals that a replacement lithium ion laptop battery runs around $90 - $150. Let's assume $100/battery. Since you'd be buying in bulk and using batteries designed for this purpose, I'll give you a 90% reduction in cost (overly generous) which puts you at $10/battery. That means your annual battery replacement is almost $70,000 (I.E. most of the price of the car.) And we haven't even charged the batteries yet. Most people I know with anything approaching a reasonable car fill up maybe once a week for under $50.00/tank. That puts you at $2,500 annual fuel cost, add in a quite generous $1,000 for maintenance and repairs, and $1,000 a month for insurance and loan payment brings you to a little over $15,000 annual cost of driving a relatively decent newish car. So, assuming a lithium ion battery pack lasts four years, it would still be cheaper to own and operate, and insure a gasoline powered internal combustion vehicle than to simply change the batteries on this car. And I'd be willing to place a decent size wager that trying to outfit any significant portion of U.S. vehicles (Let's say... 10%) with lithium ion batteries will cause a tremendous surge in demand for lithium, driving prices sky high. In fact, I'll do the math. Lithium has a specific energy density of up to about 200 Wh/Kg. Many major electric vehicles use around 300 Wh/mile, so I'll be generous and say 1 Kg of lithium storage will get a driver 1 mile before recharging. American passenger vehicles drive around 2.5 trillion miles per year, which works out to around 6 billion miles a day driven by americans (An average day's driving being the absolute minimum charge you would want in a car) which means we would need 600 million Kg lithium to make enough batteries to replace 10% of passenger cars. That works out to a bit over half a million tons of lithium. In the year 2005, only 18,000 tons of lithium were mined WORLDWIDE. That means we would need over 25 times the current annual worldwide lithium production just to make enough lithium batteries to give ten percent of U.S. passenger vehicles (cars, light trucks, SUVs) enough charge to drive for one average day, with pretty generous rounding in favor of lithium storage at almost every step I took. That's not even touching the semis, construction equipment, mass transit, airlines and ocean liners that actually keep our society running. And then there's the issue REPLACING the batteries, although I assume there would be large scale lithium recycling implemented.

So I don't foresee lithium being a long-term cost effective material for energy storage in our transportaion system.

Re:Global "Dependencies"

[Anonymous Coward]

Gasoline cars in the U.S. are cleaner than electric power plants.

I subscribe to my power company's optional wind power program [xcelenergy.com]. This means that the electricity I use at home was sourced from a windfarm.

How is that not cleaner than burning gasoline? I'd love to be able to plug my next car in overnight and never have to visit a gas station again - and knowing that my day-to-day energy use was 100% sustainable.

Although admittedly the power company wouldn't have the capacity for this if everyone had an electic car, their windpower allotment is already currently full. But stuff like this is a start.

Re:Range

[AGMW]

I also worry, frankly, about the lack of noise.

That's gotta be the simplest thing to resolve. Bung a subwoofer in the vehicle somewhere and a bunch of little speakers and before you set off decide what you want your car to sound like. I think I'll drive a Cobra today. Lovely.

Even more fun than downloading ringtones to your 'phone, downloading car sounds. It could be made to sound like anything!

Short Term Solution

[MrRee]

I work at one of the "Big 3" automakers and I have to comment. The electric car is a short term solution. While it does reduce the consumers dependence on oil it does little to reduce polution. Why? Because most of the power produced in this country is done with coal or oil. So in essence you are merely displacing who is poluting. Additionally, the batteries themselves are hazardous waste and most be replaced and disposed of. For these reasons the electric car is a short term solution.

I'm intrigued with the fuel cell ideas but am worried that they will be too complicated and expensive to maintain. Hydrogen looks good until you consider it takes more energy to produce hydrogen then what you get out of hydrogen. I believe steam is the proper way to go but haven't seen any development in this arena. Anyone who thinks a steam car is impracticle or unworkable should look up [wikipedia.org] the Doble steam cars.

Re:Global "Dependencies"

[Kjella]

Has already happened in my home country, which generates 79% of its energy in nuclear power plants.

Yeah, and over 99% of ours is by hydroelectric power (Norway), but you need some more global scale to get it going. That is, if you could increase your nuclear power plants enough to actually meet demand. Around here we have too little power, but gas power plants are polluting so we export gas and import electricity *rolls eyes*. Apparently pollution doesn't exist if it's not domestic.

Re:The time is right?

[Will_Malverson]

Do the math on it. Imagine that GM had access to some magical technology that would double (triple?) gas mileage, or allow them to create an electric car with a 300 mile range and a 2-minute recharge time. Figure out how much that technology would be worth to GM -- and therefore how much you'd have to pay them to not use it. Figure out how much profit an oil company (or parent company with an interest in oil) would lose if such technology were introduced, and therefore the maximum that they'd be willing to spend to supress the technology. Under any reasonable set of starting conditions, the former is always greater than the latter.

Maybe they wouldn't need to be bribed. Maybe threats or captitalist solidarity would cause them to choose not to put the new technology in their car. In that case, though, Ford might. Or Kia. Or BMW. Or Ferrari. Or Honda. Or some car company in India that you've never heard of. Or John Deere might find out about it and get into the car business. There are easily a hundred companies in the world that could exploit such a technology if they knew of its existence.

Re:Electric Cost Per Mile is Cheaper

[kabocox]

...we would need 600 million Kg lithium to make enough batteries to replace 10% of passenger cars. That works out to a bit over half a million tons of lithium. In the year 2005, only 18,000 tons of lithium were mined WORLDWIDE. That means we would need over 25 times the current annual worldwide lithium production just to make enough lithium batteries to give ten percent of U.S. passenger vehicles (cars, light trucks, SUVs) enough charge to drive for one average day, with pretty generous rounding in favor of lithium storage at almost every step I took. That's not even touching the semis, construction equipment, mass transit, airlines and ocean liners that actually keep our society running. And then there's the issue REPLACING the batteries, although I assume there would be large scale lithium recycling implemented.

So I don't foresee lithium being a long-term cost effective material for energy storage in our transportaion system.

You had me at the first part with your dollar value cost benefit analysis, but then lost me at the mining part. I maintain a fleet with about 30 laptops mounted all lithium batteries. Now, I'll tell you the really dirty secret of them. Nearly all laptop batteries have only a 1 year warranty on the battereies. We generally get 3-4 years out of one in a mobile environment, but they are out of warranty after the first year. How much do they cost to replace? It varies from $150-$250. (I believe the $150 is the reman price from an off brand vendor. The $250 is what the laptop man. is charging for battery replacements.) I don't think your mining part really holds water though. I'd really have to look up the "difficulty" of mining lithium, but I'd say that if there was a sudden demand for millions of tons of lithium rather than only a few thousand pounds then we'd see more companies start mining if only for a cash crop. You don't think the long term looks good mainly from a minerals/price point. I want to know what cost reducations all lithium batteries would have if there were suddenly millions of tons of lithium ready for industrial use. Would those $150-$250 batteries drop to $15-$25?

Re:Lithium-Ion?

[Locutus]

As much as I dislike NiMH due to their rapid self-discharge rate, they look like a safer bet for automobiles.

Unfortunately the oil industry owns the patent on NiMH and has already attempted to shut down Toyotas use of the battery tech. Lucky for Toyota that the Prius currently is 49% electric and 51% ICE powered. This is because the license for NiMH only allows upto "D"-cell sized batteries when used in vehicles predominantly powered by electric power.

So, if you want to make an electric vehicle with NiMH batteries, you're going to lose alot of space between all those D-cell batteries you'll need. IMO.

LoB

Winds biggest problem...

[daniel422]

No, winds biggest problem isn't that it isn't reliable -- I've seen many windmill farms set up in permanently windy mountain pass areas that work great -- its the environmentalits who scream about the number of bird kills on windmill blades and the homeowners who feels windmill farms are unsightly (a la Cape Cod hippocrites). Never mind that bird kills occur in the same amount for any tall structures....

Re:Today is where it's at, like it or lump it

[Anonymous Coward]

snip
I'm not trash-talking the Tesla. It looks like a lot of fun, but like all sports cars, it's a toy and not a good comparison for commercial trucking. Most of a car's weight is itself, be it gas or electric. Most of a truck's weight is it's cargo.

/snip

The soloution, then, is to rework the transport infrastructure so you are railing cargo in containers for any distance greater than @100+ miles. Then you can power the *trains* with electricity. That is OldTech. The main reason the electrification was pulled out on the railroad from Chicago to Seattle, USA was that the company that owned the line was doing poorly in the 1970s recession. Accounting decided that they could make more money from selling the copper than the fuel cost difference.

Electric long distance rail is efficient. We simply are too lazy to do what needs to be done.

Transport should be done using more efficient rail, period.