Tesla Motors Is Delivering Cars 520
jamie found the news that Tesla Motors is delivering roadsters in California. (We've been following developments on the Tesla front for a couple of years now.) According to a letter from the CEO, "9 production Roadsters have arrived in California, another 3 arrive this weekend, and they will keep arriving at the rate of 4 per week... In fact, currently there are 27 Roadsters in various stages of assembly." The early owners must be proud, but there could be complications.
Awesome (Score:5, Interesting)
Despite any flaws, I think they're an absolute breakthrough and a sign of things to come in the next decade.
Not only do they have performance, but they also go the distance and I believe they're also astoundingly cheap. If I had a spare $100,000 laying around and they were shipping to Australia, I'd buy one in a heartbeat!
The price of carbon fibre is declining faster than predicted and battery production is ramping up in line with Toyota's ramp-up of hybrid powertain cars and GM's announcement to mass-produce an electric car so hopefully the price of batteries will come down a lot as well.
Things are definitely looking good. Now we just need to start building a bunch of nuclear power plants so they'll be ready in time for when the plug-in hybrids and pure-electric vehicles hit critical mass.
Re:Complications only if you can't plan ahead (Score:4, Interesting)
Our electricity infrastructure needs to have a service a bit like USB. You plug in and get 100mA or so. Then your hardware negotiates with the network and arranges to pay for a full feed of charging current.
Re:Now only if... (Score:5, Interesting)
don't blame them. Blame GM, Ford, VW, BMW, PSA, Toyota. I don't find it surprising that, all of a sudden, various car-makers are developping electric cars and fuel-cell cars, ... why couldn't they do that 10 years ago? I am waiting for those a long time now.
Performance after Time/Distance (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Complications only if you can't plan ahead (Score:3, Interesting)
Given that it will be a while before gasoline cars go away, surely you could "jump start" an electric car to get 12v out of a gas car's alternator and use that to give you a charge for a while, just enough to get home.
Re:Greenies don't like nuclear (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd say that the infestation of Earth with the "parasitic" cyanobacteria 2.5 billion years ago was bad for almost everything else. By poisoning the atmosphere with a deadly chemical (oxygen) that they carelessly released as a byproduct of their energy system, they killed off most of the dominant life on earth. :p
as pogo said... (Score:1, Interesting)
we have met the enemy, and he is us;-}
the pp is obviously a product of our marxist-infiltrated public school system, parroting the party line of blaming business, when in reality (also obviously foreign to the aptly-named p-red;-) people demanded gas-guzzlers...
some-1 mentioned the edsel: proof-positive that the evil car marketeers can make us buy things we don't want or need;-}
Re:Complications only if you can't plan ahead (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't think the recharging infrastructure is as technically difficult as we tend to think. The problem is the way we tend to envision solving the issue, which is stuck in the gasoline mindset.
We imagine pulling into a filling station and attaching a cable to our car and filling the battery; the problem is that you need to either (a) deal with dangerously high currents or (b) deal with dangerously high voltage. However, I think it would make sense to swap the entire battery. If we got to the point where an electric vehicle recharging infrastructure were needed, it would make sense to standardize battery formats so you can swap it out. Since the batteries are heavy, it'd be done robotically. You could be in and out of the filling station faster than with gasoline.
The batteries would have microprocessor monitors on them that estimate remaining capacity and efficiency; you'd only pay for the energy the battery has the capacity to deliver within certain parameters, and you'd get a credit for the remaining energy in the battery you swap out. If you needed extra range, you could ask for a fresh battery and pay a bit more. If you wanted to save money, maybe you'd get a discount for using a partially charged battery from a busy charging queue.
Re:Complications only if you can't plan ahead (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Complications only if you can't plan ahead (Score:3, Interesting)
If they are anything like laptop batteries, after a year they will get down to 50% charged and then suddenly pop up the low battery warning, and the shut off before you can do anything about it. My biggest problem is when are battery charge indicators ever close to being correct. At least with a floating meter in the gas tank, I can count on it to tell me how much further I can go.
Re:so what happens when you DO run out on the road (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Complications only if you can't plan ahead (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Now only if... (Score:5, Interesting)
Prove it. Find 5 patents that are owned by "Big Oil". Also, define "Big Oil".
http://www.uspto.gov/patft/index.html [uspto.gov]
Carbon fiber (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Complications only if you can't plan ahead (Score:3, Interesting)
Drain a gas tank and the engine stops. It's very simple.
Fully drain a battery and the battery is rapidly destroyed. That's the reason for the very complicated controllers in most EVs and Hybrids. I understand my wife's Prius only uses 10% of its battery capacity at any given time, which is why it's cheap battery is guaranteed for ten years. Lead acid batteries respond similarly, you can drain a little charge out to start an IC engine thousands of times, but it's unlikely the battery will survive leaving the lights on till it dies more than a couple times.
I suspect an EV for the average moron would normally not drain the battery down to the bitter destructive end but would have some emergency mode where it'll drain all the juice, at the cost of massively shortening the battery lifetime.
Probably the charge and discharge controllers will be very carefully designed to destroy the battery about six months after the battery guarantee expires.
EV charge and discharge will be the usual survival of the fittest, morons will suffer, intelligent people whom can plan ahead will be rewarded with a ten year battery life, etc. Unfortunately due to typical human behavior, the stupidest people are usually the loudest, so after the fools destroy their batteries by abusing them, we'll all have to hear about it over and over and over, and very loudly.
Re:Complications only if you can't plan ahead (Score:1, Interesting)
Last week, the Portuguese government signed a partnership with Nissan-Renault that aims to provide electric cars at the same price and comfort as current gas models by 2011/2012. A whole national infrastructure is planned and the concept is based on swapping batteries, a process that will take around 5 minutes.
Re:Complications only if you can't plan ahead (Score:3, Interesting)
It's a nice idea, but unless we get solid and pro-consumer legislation in the early stages of electrical infrastructure buildout, it's not gonna happen.
Re:Greenies don't like nuclear (Score:5, Interesting)
"Greenies don't ... like any form of power generation."
Really? I haven't heard many people advocating that. Sounds like a load of crap to me, most likely written by someone who hasn't got the faintest idea what they're talking about.
As someone who considers themselves a 'greenie', I'll list the power generation methods in my preferred order.
1. A tie between solar and wind. Both can be diffuse, and can be built right where they're needed, reducing transmission costs and inefficiencies.
2. Tidal. Can be used to supply base-load, and add consistency.
3. Hydro. yeah, you lose a valley, but it's better than those lower in the list. You at least get reliable power as long as you continue to get rain.
4. Nuclear. There is a case to be made for _some_ nuclear power plants. Unfortunately, a lot of people seem to think it's a silver bullet that will solve all our problems, conveniently forgetting that it still needs to be mined, refined, distributed. disposal of nuclear waste remains an unsolved problem, and it is linked with weapons production capacity.
5. Fossil. We're not yet ready to put these completely behind us, but we need to very soon.
Of course, this list represents my own views only. I wouldn't do something as stupid as try to speak for all greenies.
You got it (Score:2, Interesting)
That solves the range problem now until batteries get better, especially for any theoretical cheaper all electrics. They need to get the 50 mile range much cheaper commuter cars out there now, then the generator trailer option for trips-plus handy to have said generator around the house. And the generator could be run on home made biodiesel for that matter.
Re:Now only if... (Score:5, Interesting)
BS... just last week I was reading an analysis on new tech being developed by Nissan along with Ford and a few others, a Variable Compression Ratio [nissan-global.com] (VCR) system.
This tech would would dramatically improve the performance of turbo charged engines not just in terms of power output but also in terms of fuel effective, and it would make the engine run much much smoother.
I guess I don't understand how combustion engines are supposedly tapped out. Keep in mind that most of the engine's performance characteristics are still very much mechanical and are basically "hard coded" for a good median of power output and fuel economy since they don't have the technology to dynamically change the characteristics when one is needed over the other.
Even Variable Valve Timing is in it's infancy and the current methods for that are crude at best, there are alternative methods under development that could theoretically give you a Corvette when you stuff your foot into it and a Prius when you're just cruising on the highway or around town.
Even the engineering techniques are just starting to get interesting... engines developed completely new in the last decade mark the first engines completely prototyped in a virtual environment as opposed to the old method of just building something similar to what's been done before and making slight improvements through real world testing. Chevy's LS series motor (found in the late 90s Camaro, Firebird, and Corvettes) marks one of the first of such motors and with a 6-speed sees an impressive 31MPG with 330HP. And even over the last decade they've been able to make small tweaks to that power plant in terms of both power output and fuel economy. And there's still a world of possibilities that can be done to improve things still.
In short... If you're just looking at the explosion in the chamber and the resulting torque then yes, combustion engines are already "pretty good" in terms of effency. However that neglects the fact that conditions change mili-second to mili-second in terms of air-pressure, air-temperature, load on the engine, and numerous other things. Engines aren't dynamic enough to work as good as they could in every possible scenario so they're built for a best average across the board.
re: battery swapping (Score:3, Interesting)
You have a good suggestion, but I think it would pose complications too. For example, say a vehicle has a worn out or defective battery that barely holds a charge? A less than honest driver could "unload" the bad battery, getting a free upgrade to a good one, just by dropping by the "charging station".
Conversely, the recipient of the dud battery would be inconvenienced, angered, and might even go as far as filing a suit against the charging station - claiming they owe him/her a new battery.
(Granted, your proposal of having microprocessors on the batteries would *theoretically* offer a solution to this dilemma. A station could refuse to swap a battery that was "out of spec" without paying a fee. But how long do you think it'd be before someone programs false values into the chip to cheat the system? We do it now with ink cartridge refills for printers as a matter of course!
Re:so what happens when you DO run out on the road (Score:3, Interesting)
If you can cruise at 2hp you're driving a moped, and an efficient one at that. For an American car with a "normal" drag coefficient, cruising at 65mph requires around 20–30kw (~25–40hp). And the reason an elevator can use such a small motor is because it has a counterweight balancing the load.
The Tesla is very lightweight, and has a low drag coefficient, so I'd expect it to use as little as 10kw (~12–15hp) cruising at 65mph. Which is still very good, on par with a small riding mower or dirt bike, but you sure won't find a 10KW generator the size of a house cat.
Re:Now only if... (Score:5, Interesting)
The battery makers...While people who didn't have to buy them LOVED them, anyone who was forced to pay for them balked (with a very low percentage of exceptions).
The batteries were to expensive and gas was too cheap. Plus the range was still low.
Now things are much different...batteries are MUCH cheaper, gas is Much more expensive and the range is getting comparable.
Re:Complications only if you can't plan ahead (Score:1, Interesting)
When my car runs out of power, the recovery mechanism is somebody (possibly a passing motorist) bringing me a jug of fuel. It's cheap and easy and I quickly get on my way. I'm pretty sure that it's no problem to "recharge" my current car at 1MJ/sec (1MW).
With an electric car the charge time is much slower, so I have to have my vehicle transported to a charge site and wait for sufficient charge to be transferred. There's just no way that there's going to be a 1MW charger (1000V @ 1000A) handy (my whole house can only supply 32kW), so it'll be a long wait. And what if the transporter takes you to a charge site that's farther away from your house than the range of your car?
Besides, planning ahead won't help with the things you can't plan for. What happens when there's a blizzard, and you have to spend an extra hour sitting in traffic with your headlights, windshield wipers, radio, and heater on -- all in freezing temperatures that reduce the battery's output? I suppose it doesn't snow where you live, though.
dom
Re:Now only if... (Score:5, Interesting)
I cant name 5 patents but I CAN name one very important one. Try making and selling Nickel Metal Hydride batteries suitable for electric cars and see how far you get. You will likely be sued by a company you haven't heard of called Cobasys for violation of their patent on NiMH battery tech. What the lawyers probably WONT tell you is that Cobasys (and the NiMH battery patent) is actually controlled by Chevron (not the largest oil company but big enough).
Chevron makes a lot of noise about how they aren't just an oil company any more, they are an "energy company" but all the work they are doing is just replacing one fuel source (crude oil) with another fuel source (hydrogen, tar sands, oil shale, coal liquefaction/gasification, gas-to-liquids etc)
Big Oil doesn't care if its gasoline, diesel, LPG, natural gas, corn ethanol, biodiesel, hydrogen, liquid coal or whatever else. They just care that the worlds cars continue to run on fuel of some kind (fuel that they can continue to sell from their station forecourts). Plug-in vehicles threaten that monopoly as the provider of the source of energy for our cars.
Re:Greenies don't like nuclear (Score:4, Interesting)
I agree with your list, in general; however I'd like to make three points.
Minor nit-pick, Tidal can not be used as base-load. Because of it's cyclic nature there are two points during the day when tidal produces zero energy; so, you'd have to have stored energy or another source to fill the hole.
There are things you can do to make nuclear more palatable. We are still using, what is effectively, a 50 year old reactor design. There are currently available, more modern designs which are safer and "burn" a higher percentage of the available fuel. There is research being done which could lead to significantly higher percentage "burn", reducing the waste to something with half-life of decades instead of millenium, which would resolve most of the storage issues. Finally, there are techniques which can effectively poison the fuel for weapons use.
If we look at the sum total of all energy usage (including transportation), based on what I have read, I don't believe there's enough wind, solar, and hydro power to replace all of the fossil fuels. We will still need a mix of fossil (or bio-fuel) and/or other forms of stored energy for peak usage and will have to have nuclear plants for base-load.
Asthetics too... (Score:3, Interesting)
Every other electric or hybrid till now is just plain fugly....Prius for example, I rest my case.
Re:Now only if... (Score:5, Interesting)
Exactly. GM was busily working to undermine and kill off the CARB mandate as fast as they could. The fact that they sold off their battery rights should speak volumes to how much they actually wanted to be in the business of building EVs. They had already shut down the lines at that point.
GM never wanted to be building EVs, and was all to happy to ditch the program and shuttle it down into the memory hole, only bringing it up in passing to spin it as a "failure" so that they wouldn't be pushed into doing it again. Their timing was impeccable... impeccably bad. Whether it's fears of global warming, fears of "running out of oil", high gas prices, a distaste for shipping oil overseas, a strengthening green movement, rapidly advancing battery tech, or just outright trends, virtually everything has been moving in the direction of EVs and PHEVs. And with hybrids reaching US shores from Japanese automakers, GM ensured that they had the worst image possible as they steadily lost market share from falling SUV sales.
Such horrible management.
Re:Greenies don't like nuclear (Score:3, Interesting)
I think you're thinking of tidal energy being synonymous with wave energy generation. True, that does fluctuate, but in places where it would be deployed, not so much as it would be a concern. Also, "tidal" is not necessarily wave. It's tidal FLOW power. Inlets fill and drain twice a day. However, using baffles, the flow can be made to be continuous (drains slower than fills, etc) Also, power can be saved into charge systems, allowing over-generation, and power on demand (similar to solar/water capacitors). The delay between inlet and outlet can be made to be near zero (the generators won't stop spinning).
Nuclear can be safer, but it simply costs too much. I fact, it's the most expensive of the alternative options. Safe or not, it's only a stop gap until other systems are running.
There IS enough energy to easily replace fossil fuels. It's not to be found in ethanol, but in Wind Fuels. Using water and wind energy, we can make massive amounts of H2. By itself, H2 is difficult to store, ship, and is relatively unsafe. However, combined in a chemical process with waste CO2 and solid carbon, we can make hydrocarbons, aka gasoline and all similar substances, which can easily be pipelined or trucked anywhere using today's systems.
The infrastructure can be built, and it is profitable. Doty Scientific released a statement (now that all their patents are locked in) on Friday anouncing it. Check out DotyEnergy.com.
There is enough wind in the texas coridor alone to power more than 20% of north america. Offshore wind and more, and we can easily do this. If we focus the wind on generating H2 (and as a backup instant energy source when needed), burn liquid fuels, sequester the CO2, combine it back with the H2 (using solar or more wind power to do so), then we have a closed cycle. More solar, water, geothermal, and a small spattering of existing nuclear plants, and we can make 100% clean renewable energy without using a single acre of farm land, and without drilling any more oil or coal. (and we can do it for 60-80 a barel)
Comment removed (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Carbon fiber (Score:3, Interesting)
The stuff I saw about boeing's CF wings suggests that the reason they didn't test them to failure was probably because the failure point would be so far outside normal operating parameters for such wings that it wasn't worth it.
You are correct, sir. Who cares what load your wings break at if you know the fuselage will snap in half first? Wings are pretty useless when you have no fuselage.
For the record, I am a Boeing engineer.