Slatterz writes
"The Tesla Roadster has almost mythical status among electric car enthusiasts. It's fast, with high torque over a wide RPM range, and can beat a Ferrari in terms of acceleration. Now Tesla has released new video of its upcoming new electric car, called the Model S, which Tesla Motors claims is the world's first mass produced fully-electric vehicle. Unlike the Lotus-Elise based Roadster, the Model S is a traditional sedan of the type millions of commuters might actually drive. Tesla claims it will fit seven people (if two of them are 'children under 10'), and has mounted a rather large 17in LCD in the dash. Key to Telsa's future will be the evolution of lithium-ion battery technology. Tesla Motors claiming the new Model S can travel up to 300 miles on a single charge, but the battery will still take 45 minutes to quick-recharge." (And for those in countries where it matters, this article mentions that it should also be available in right-hand drive.)
Model S not T (Score:3, Informative)
At $50,000 do they think it is too expensive to call it the model T? Do they think calling it the model T would be too arrogant? Maybe the next one will be cheaper and then they will go ahead and give it the next name. After all we would all like to see the model T version of the electric car that will get us off of expensive oil.
Re:Model S not T (Score:4, Interesting)
"After all we would all like to see the model T version of the electric car that will get us off of expensive oil."
For that to happen, early adopters must drop the cash on much more expensive vehicles, just as they did before Henry Ford produced the Model T. Early adopters will be more likely to forgive faults that buyers of an econobox would not.
At fifty grand for a beta version, I'll be better off letting the rich folks purchase those.
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Re:Model S not T (Score:5, Interesting)
The Blackstar (Roadster) was the 'infinite money' car. The White Star (Model S) is proof it can be mass produced.
The Bluestar (Model T?) will be the $20K 'car of the masses'.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Early adopters make economies of scale a realize goal. People who bought the roadster showed that there was continuing interest in a cheaper, more massly produced vehicle. People who buy the model S will do the same. Tesla does want to create a car that they can sell for $20k to $30k. If you have the money why not become an early adopter? Right here is hopefully the future of the automobile industry.
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Every manufacturer test-marketed electric vehicles in the California market, not just GM.
None of them panned out because the cars were ridiculously expensive to build so they had to lease them at a fraction of cost.
GM is bankrupt. How would building yet another unprofitable vehicle help them?
Anyone know the economics on these? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's great to see an electric car this cool for so cheap. I mean, $50k isn't cheap, but it's cheap in comparison to their other car, an it seems generally more practical. If I were going to buy a car, I might consider this, but I might very well decide that $50k is just too much.
I'm wondering, though, does anyone know what kind of profit margin Tesla is getting on these? Is the government subsidizing these at all (for environmental reasons)? Are they in the sort of situation where, as they start selling, Tesla will enjoy economy of scale and prices will go down substantially? Or is this price pretty firm?
Re:Anyone know the economics on these? (Score:5, Insightful)
Purely on economics, the Fit hybrid or any economy-oriented turbodiesel car will beat out the Tesla Model S, no doubt about it.
But none of those are capable of doing 0-60 in under 6 seconds. The Model S is a luxury sedan meant to compete with the offerings from BMW, Mercedes, Jaguar etc., not with econoboxes.
Your $10,000 vehicle conversion will be nowhere near the same quality nor performance as a Model S, you're being silly.
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Re:Anyone know the economics on these? (Score:5, Interesting)
I used an electric bike a couple years ago that wasn't high tech in any sense of the word. The batteries were basically UPS batteries in expensive casings. Besides that, the electric parts were basically grafted onto a conventional bike chassis. It reached residental street speeds and did so for distances far longer than I could pedal. The bike cost about $500 CDN.
I think we're trying to solve the wrong problem. We're trying to reinvent the car as a car, when we need to re-invent our concept of a vehicle altogether.
I imagine a good electric vehicle being had for less than 2000 dollars, and being a 3-wheel, 2 seater with a lightweight basket capable of carrying a couple bags of groceries. It would have to be weather-proof, but that could (and should) be accomplished using something cheap and effective like tarp and plexi-glass and aluminium. It'd have a small enough footprint to use bike paths and to store like a bicycle, a long enough distance to use as a commuter(at least 100km on a charge), high enough speeds to use residental streets, and low enough cost that people like me don't need to point out it's uneconomical to own. Such a vehicle would require a fraction of the energy to move, it would require a fraction of the materials to build, and overall could actually be a practical solution that doesn't need a technological deus ex machina to happen.
The tesla motors paradigm is still too inside the box. They're trying to make an electric car in a world where electric cars aren't useful. We need to think outside the box, to what we actually want, so we can escape the limitations of the automobile.
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You prob want a rest after 300 miles (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:You prob want a rest after 300 miles (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not for me. 4 hours is nothing in the midwest. I currently live 5 hours from my parents house. When we drove to NYC last year it took 12. 15-20 minutes max for a break, otherwise your journey takes for ever.
I'll stick to my Diesel Jetta which can run on Diesel, Biodiesel created from waste oil, crushed soybeans, algae, liquefied natural gas (GTL), or liquefied coal gas (GTL), any one of a number of renewable resources. If I stretch it I can get 800 to a TANK and still refill in 5-10 minutes.
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Re:You prob want a rest after 300 miles (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not for me. 4 hours is nothing in the midwest. I currently live 5 hours from my parents house. When we drove to NYC last year it took 12. 15-20 minutes max for a break, otherwise your journey takes for ever.
Still, that's not too typical for most people's day-to-day routine. And like the previous poster said, I would expect that most people can live with a 45 minute break every 4 hours on long car trips. You stretch your legs and maybe get something to eat, and then you're ready to go.
Actually, the funny thing in my mind is that, given your examples, I would probably be much more frustrated with the 5 hour trip than the 12 hour trip. If you're already taking a 12 hour trip, adding an extra hour or two of rest time doesn't seem that extreme to me. Hell, you might even think of it as a safety feature to help prevent road-hypnosis.
But imagine your battery lasts for 300 miles and you regularly make a trip that's 320 miles long. To have to stop 20 miles short of your destination and recharge for 45 minutes then would be pretty annoying. On the other hand, I would suppose you could just charge for 10 minutes and keep going. If it's like most batteries, it recharges most of the way pretty quickly, and then takes a long time to get that last 10% of charge.
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Re:You prob want a rest after 300 miles (Score:4, Insightful)
The thing is, unless they're rich, people don't buy a car based on their day-to-day routine. They buy a car based on how well it can handle all their driving needs. If a car that suits their day-to-day driving needs can't handle an annual 12 hour drive to grandma's for Thanksgiving, they're not going to buy a second car just for that one trip. They're going to eliminate the electric from consideration and buy one car that can handle both needs.
I've proposed that people rent a car for their once-a-year trips, and the common reply is that it'd be a "waste of money" when you "already own a car." Not to mention rental cars would be in short supply with jacked up prices around holidays like Thanksgiving. The fiscal benefit of an electric car for day-to-day travel would have to outweigh the cost of renting for that once-a-year trip. A decent rail system would also fill this need for intermediate trip lengths, but alas the U.S. has sacrificed its rail system for freeways. Plug-in hybrids are also a good solution, since they can fill up at a gas station if need be. But then you're carrying around all that weight of an ICU which is only used a few times a year.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If a car that suits their day-to-day driving needs can't handle an annual 12 hour drive to grandma's for Thanksgiving, they're not going to buy a second car just for that one trip.
But:
People's needs are really more fluid than they like to admit. I don't think a 45 minute break every 4 hours is going to be a deal breaker for most people. If it is, it might be more psychological than based on real need. Ther
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Exactly! Earlier this year, I needed a cargo van to move a furnace up from Missouri. So I rented one. I need a cargo van about once every year. Does that mean I should buy a cargo van, make it my daily commuter? Nobody would ever suggest that. But then they apply that exact same logic to EVs.
Personally, in terms of range extension, I'm fond of towable generators. Range-extended when you need it, and not when you don't. And it'd be so trivial to set up a genset rental shop once such vehicles are on t
Re:You prob want a rest after 300 miles (Score:5, Interesting)
The battery pack you get for $57.4K (the cheapest model) is a 160 mile pack, not a 300 mile pack.
And you aren't going to be able to fully charge it in 45 minutes. LIons just won't stand for it. You should be able to put 85% of the charge in in 45 minutes, but since it such rapid charging reduces the lifespan of the battery, Tesla doesn't recommend you charge it in 45 minutes (at least they don't recommend it for the Roadster, this has a similar pack so I presume this is the same).
Acceptable range is kind of a tricky idea, if you had a charger everywhere, then this might be okay. But instead, you are likely to drive to your range and find there is no place to charge it at your stopover or destination.
Here's an example of how the difficulties in recharging an electric car makes it less useful than a gas car.
http://www.teslamotors.com/blog5/?p=68 [teslamotors.com]
This guy took a 40 hour trip and spent 8 hours of it waiting for his car to charge. 4 hours walking (twice) around an RV park waiting for his car to charge to 88%.
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Oh, now I'm going to rent a car? So now I don't need a rest?
People are ready to make all kinds of excuses as to why short range cars are okay. Many of them are even accurate. The problem is that consumers don't seem to agree with the arguments. People are using to paying a little and getting more car than they need. Getting them to warm up to the idea of paying a lot and getting less car than they need is going to take a lot f convincing.
In the mean time, turns out 300 miles is not sufficient range, which i
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It'd work best as a second car in a two car family. Neither my wife or I even remotely get close to 100 miles in a day. We only go longer on vacations, in which case we'd be together.
So yeah...I'd buy one of these and use my wife's gas powered car for long trips.
I'm not sure you can say "consumers don't agree" because consumers haven't really had the opportunity to buy an electric car that performed like a gas one, even ignoring range.
The article says 80% charge in under 10 minutes. (Score:4, Interesting)
The article is optimistic in my opinion.
Let's assume they're talking about the same pack as in the Roadster (even though the pack you get for $57.4K is lesser capacity). That means you're putting in 45kWh in 10 minutes. That's a charge rate of more than 270kW. That will require 440V power (3-phase) at 600A! And that's assuming 100% efficiency!
There's going to be a lot of places where you can't get that much power. And even if you can, the amount of waste heat giving off by the charger, and in the pack will be very difficult to manage. Also, the charging cable would be a bit of a hassle to wrestle because it's going to be very thick.
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Tesla Roadster test drive report (Score:5, Interesting)
Executive Summary: Oh. My. God.
Systems Lacking: 4-point harnesses, sufficient handholds for passenger, automated system to maintain directional control during GLOC on launch, earplugs to block whimpering sounds from passenger seat
Re:How about better range? (Score:5, Informative)
Instead of wasting energy making it accelerate unnecessarily quickly, how about giving it a usefully long range
Why would you assume they can trade battery life for low end torque? One property of electrical engines is they allow for faster acceleration on the low end. It's not like they can somehow get rid of this acceleration while still having an electrical motor with the same top speed and I don't see how they can get more battery life out of the same either.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It's about the torque. Those electric motors have full torque when they start moving, unlike the internal combustion types that need to spin up to a certain RPM to maximize torque. The transmission tries to even this out, but with an electric, you just have more acceleration from a stop by the nature of the design. I'm more interested in how fast they can go from 60-100 mph, like when you need to pass someone. In theory it would be similar, but not better.
If I had the money, it would be a no-brainer for me.
Re:How about better range? (Score:5, Informative)
> Instead of wasting energy making it accelerate unnecessarily quickly, how about giving
> it a usefully long range?
This is electric, not gas. That isn't a tradeoff. Any electric motor capable of acceptable performance at highway speeds will accelerate very well: it's the way electric motors are. If you put in a feeble motor barely able to go 65mph on the level you would only gain a little range, and nobody would buy it. And it could still lay rubber.
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Europe (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Europe (Score:5, Insightful)
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Adding in four oil changes a year at $40/each and that's $160/yr or $1600 lifetime.
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Can you guys quit the high-fiving and general atmosphere of butt-massage therapy so we can get back to businness and have a decent f*cking flamewar? What the hell are you people doing on slashdot? Were you not told it was mean to ruin the fun for everyone else? Jesus H Christ in a Tesla. We're trrying to have a having automobile piss contest here. WTF?
And happy independence day, doo-doo heads.
Re:Europe (Score:5, Funny)
Can someone just put this into a car analogy for me? I'm not really sure what this Model S is supposed to do. What is it used for?
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Re:Europe (Score:5, Funny)
It's like a car.
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Re:Insane price (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Insane price (Score:5, Informative)
It's important to note where the cash burn came from. Initially Tesla was looking at a car that'd only cost $60k to build; they discovered, through an audit partway through development, that it actually cost over $120k to build. They jacked up the price to $109k and have been optimizing it for a while, and finally have it down to where they make about $10k per Roadster -- not a lot for a car that expensive, but not pocket change either. At the same time, as a company, they're still losing money, as they're pumping a lot into Model S development. But they got the loan because they met the DOE's requirement to have a profitable core business (in this case, the Roadster).
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Re:Insane price (Score:5, Insightful)
What you really mean is: after the $7,500 more in taxes that other people, who can't afford this car, will be paying on behalf of the person who can afford it. That's nice. So progressive.
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Re:Insane price (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, it's the tax break for borrowing money to buy a house that we're really talking about here. And yes, it bugs the hell out of me. Local jurisdictions might want to provide some sort of financial incentive for people to buy property in their area (and some do - with the provision that the buyer occupy the house personall for some period of time), but forcing a taxpayer renting an apartment in Wyoming to help a guy in New Jersey buy a house is
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Re:Insane price... For taxis a no brainer. (Score:4, Insightful)
And it's still going to be a lot of fuel, burned somewhere else to make this car's electricity. We need nukes, since the wind and solar things will never put a dent in a massive shift to cars like this.
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Re:Memory Effect (Score:4, Informative)
So the Tesla Roadster actually has better acceleration than the Rapide, and considering Wikipedia quotes the Rapide at $240k USD compared to the $110~120k USD for the 2009 Roadster, I'd say the roadster wins on bang for buck there. The Model S in tfa is set to cost ~$49k USD and is still one helluva luxury car. And more than just the initial price, the Model S (supposedly according to Tesla marketing anyway) will cost only $4 dollars to fully recharge from empty.
I could probably rant all day, but the point is, the offerings from Tesla Motors puts an electric car with performance as high as the gas equivalent in the price range of mere mortals and doesn't require you to be an Apple stock millionaire or sell your ocean front property just to buy the damned car...
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Re:Memory Effect (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Lithium Ion battery safety? (Score:5, Informative)
STOP THAT NONSENSE! Lithium is CHEAP. You can extract it from the saltwater for $50-70 per kg. if all else fails, but right now it's just easier to buy it for $20 per kg. in Bolivia.
Lithium so far is SO CHEAP that it makes no sense to make geological surveys specially for it.
Also, it's almost perfectly recyclable.
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Re:Lithium Ion battery safety? (Score:5, Informative)
Lithium scarcity is one of those myths that just won't die. It's based on a few misguided notions: 1) that lithium makes up most of a lithium-ion battery (it doesn't); 2) it's its most expensive element in a lithium-ion battery (it isn't); and 3) a gross misunderstanding of how reserve figures work.
In reference to the latter case, everyone needs to get in their heads that reserve figures are based on A) what's been found, at B) the current price, and C) current technology. In reference to lithium, A) people haven't really been looking for it because it's so cheap; B) it's dirt cheap; and C) the tech to produce it cheaper hasn't really been needed so it hasn't been worked on.
Even with current tech, a figure of li-ion EVs could easily be sustained through seawater extraction indefinitely. Isn't that the beginning and end of the issue right there?
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Re:Top Gear found... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Top Gear found... (Score:5, Informative)
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I don't know, the aptera seats 2 (3 if one is an infant), goes 120miles on a charge and runs 30k for the electric model. The model S seats 5 (7 if you put two dead 10 year olds in the trunk), has a 300 mile range, and runs $60k. If you had to take 4 people on trips regularly, the model S is a better deal. It's also more likely to be accepted at you local country club, where people tend to have 30k+ to drop on a second car.
The Volt is dead on arrival, imho, as a real "alternative" vehicle. 40 miles on a cha
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Cars around most (though not all) of the world are specificlaly designed so that the driver is as close to the middle of the road as possible. This is a safety feature; it makes it easier to control where you are relative to oncoming traffic. After a few years of driving you probably don't even notice anymore (I don't) but new drivers have a real tendency to try and put themselves toward the middle of the lane. On a left-hand drive (in the US) this means they end up taking a bit of the shoulder, or lane goi
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More accurately, it's 5+2 seating -- two mini rear-facing seats in the back. Not many believe those will actually make it to the production version, but it's another in a long line of pretty shrewd marketing efforts by Tesla to break all of the EV stereotypes one by one (they're slow, they can't go very far, they're small, etc). They're also shrewdly pushing its after-tax-credit price rather than its before-tax-credit price like many others are doing.
Reality check can't be cashed (Score:3, Informative)
notice the 45 minute quick charge.
I don't think it's possible that you could get 300 miles on a 45 minute charge off of a regular household power line.
my estimate:
to push a honda accord shaped object at 55 mph through the air takes over 30KW of energy. that would take 5.4 hours. to to recharge that would take 220 KW of power assuming no conversion loss.
if you used a 220 volt line that would be 1000 amps for 45 minutes. There's no way they would use a 480 volt line since those are catastrophically unsa
Re:Reality check can't be cashed (Score:5, Insightful)
Another interesting point: My current vehicle can travel almost double that distance on a tank of gasoline, and takes seconds to refill. This is important because it's almost 500 miles to the next city from where I live -- I can travel to the next city with one tank of gas, but I'd need to refill the battery 3 times to comfortably make it by electric car, since I'm not going to let my batteries run to 0%.
Will the 8 hour drive to the next town become a multiple day journey? Will I need to start planning to visit hotels where now I can just ignore the towns? Will we see a re-emergence of small refueling towns, as we saw in the age of coal-based rail, thanks to the significantly reduced range of our vehicles?
Or, much more logically, will we see people using their electric cars for the daily everyday travel and simply use other options for long-range travel? I don't get the emphasis people are placing on these over 200 miles trips. How often do you drive that much? If the answer is 2 or 3 times a year, then the electric car should suit you just fine the vast majority of the time. If the answer is, "very often" then the electric car isn't for you, but it still is perfect for 99.5% of the driving population. It's not like gas cars are going to disappear overnight because kickass electric cars are finally here.
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Re:Reality check can't be cashed (Score:4, Insightful)
That's not how people weigh choices. They will wonder "Will I ever need to travel more than 200 miles? Yes? Ok, that rules out the Tesla." That would basically be my thought process. Unless there is some huge benefit to driving a Tesla, it would simply not even be worth considering; if I bought one, I would then have to turn around and buy a second 'real' car.
It's your money, and you can use whatever thought process you want as to how to spend it, but that doesn't make it logical. If you only need to make a few over 200 mile trips a year, the money you'll save on gas will pay for the car rental. So the only thing that makes sense to ask is, "is this a better car for the majority of my driving needs and is there an alternative I can easily take for those exceptions where this car just isn't suitable?"
For me, the answer is yes on both counts. The only thing preventing me from buying the car is that I'm not in the market for a new car, much less a $50,000 one. The range isn't an issue at all.
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Re:Reality check can't be cashed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Quick battery change stations (Score:4, Informative)
so if you drive a car for 5 hours at 30KW then want to recharge it in 10 minutes that means you need 900KW of power. it also means the wires in the car need to be able to handle 30 times the typical driving load.
if the connector was a 208V connector then that's about 4000 DC amps for ten minutes.
you'll be able to degauss your hard drive while you wait!
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Re:Quick battery change stations (Score:5, Insightful)
the electric car is not for you, get over it.
there are plenty of people like me who barely ever travel more than 100km in a day and for us an electric car is perfect. No one is trying to sell one to you. Go and troll some other article.
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