Tesla Roadster Breaks Distance Record For Electric Car 392
An anonymous reader writes "The CEO of an Australian ISP has driven his Tesla Roadster into the record books, completing 501km on a single electric charge in the 2009 Global Green Challenge — beating the Roadster's official specifications, which rate the all-electric sports car as being capable of a maximum of 390km per charge. The previous record was held by another Roadster in the 387km Rallye Monte Carlo d'Energies Alternatives in April this year. In a race specifically designed for alternative energy vehicles (such as hydrogen and electricity), the Roadster was the only vehicle to complete the entire course. Though to be fair, that race course was a mixture of twists, turns and hills."
That's nice... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:To be fair? (Score:4, Informative)
To be fair, these cars were expected to turn, and go up and down hills. Something no mere mortal car would dare perform...
I think what they mean was that it requires less electricity to remain straight on a flat plane going at a fixed speed. When you slow down to complete an S-curve or start going up a hill, your fuel consumption is drastically affected. The driver of the Tesla Roadster kept the speed as close to 55 kmph as he could to achieve the best efficiency event though that's a modest pace and not really a racing speed. This wasn't a course making long straight lines through the salt flats and that's probably important to note. I don't think "race" is a good description for the course. It's more like a realistic challenge with completion time hardly a factor.
Re:Electric cars are not better for the enviornmen (Score:3, Informative)
So what's your solution? Extinction [vhemt.org]?
Re:Tesla Motors ftw? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Electric cars are not better for the enviornmen (Score:5, Informative)
Yes they are. Even the most inefficient plants are still vastly more efficient than a car's engine, with transmission losses accounted for.
Batteries are very recyclable, and are designed to last the life of the car.
Re:Electric cars are not better for the enviornmen (Score:2, Informative)
The statistic was that even after manufacturing costs and other hidden energy consumption... the electric car is still less of an enviromental impact. the dirty energy you speak of is still cleaner than even the most finely tuned fossil fuel engine. The net effect over the life of the car is a decrease in pollution.
Re:Forget About Batteries in Cars (Score:3, Informative)
What is really cool is that I am home almost 12 hours every night, and I drive well under 300 miles a day. Now, this wouldn't work for my vacation trips, but as an every day commuter this would suit me perfectly ( if I could afford it).
Re:That bad, eh? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:To be fair? (Score:2, Informative)
Wrong. Just because thermodynamics has "thermo" in it doesn't mean the laws only apply to heat.
Re:Now THAT is an electric car. (Score:5, Informative)
I don't know about you but when I travel long distances on the highway I expect a 500 km trip to take about 4.5 hours, not 9 hours.
Where did speed come into this? The Tesla has a max speed of 200km/h - more than enough for any sane road trip.
Re:390km per charge? (Score:3, Informative)
horsepower fortnight
Re:That bad, eh? (Score:3, Informative)
Hauling stuff to the dump / stuff from Home Depot / stuff from a big box store? Rent a van for $20.
FYI, that $20 is only if you keep it in the parking lot of the place you rent from. I just rented from U-Haul a couple weeks ago and despite that big "rent me for $20" emblazoned on the side the charge on my credit card was approx $95. Plus I had to stop off at a gas station to put $5 worth of gas in it before returning it because they charge something like a $30 penalty if you return it with less gas than it had in it when you rented it. I guess some U-Haul places may also sell gas, but this one didn't so it was an extra stop and more time wasted. That's on top of the time spent driving to and from the U-Haul place which amounted to an additional half hour of driving that I wouldn't have done if I'd had my own vehicle that could haul the one item that I needed to transport.
If you only haul stuff once a year it's still a savings, but if you're carting stuff around a few times a month it's very easy for truck rental to exceed the monthly loan payment on a small/midsize SUV or mini-van.
Well really... (Score:1, Informative)
Actually it seems the event mentioned was more of a test how the cars would perform under normal driving conditions than a race. I invite any and all readers to watch the documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car". There are several web site where you can watch this interesting video, it can be rented from NEtflix, and it is available for sale online.
The documentary details how the very successful GM EV1 electric car (and others) were killed by the automotive industry and the oil industry. I truly believe that if sales and research and development of electric cars had continued, today we would have practical and affordable electric cars available to pretty much everyone. If you watch the video, pay particular attention to the fact that Chevron now owns (and is sitting on) the patent to the highly efficient NiMH batteries that were used in some electric cars at that time According to the statement of a Chevron employee, Chevron is determined never to let these highly efficient batteries power any electric car again.
Just another case of the patent system being abused to the detriment of of consumers.
Re:To be fair? (Score:4, Informative)
You will get more range in the city than highway, unless you drive as slow on the highway as you do in the city.
The reason that city driving in a hybrid or electric vehicle can be more efficient than highway is because the inefficiency of the regeneration is overpowered by the reduced wind resistance.
Re:To be fair? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Now THAT is an electric car. (Score:3, Informative)
Electric cars are much more efficient than combustion engines at all speeds however the efficiency falls off faster for electrics than is does for combustion engines.
To understand this you need to seperate the energy consumption of the vehicle into two categories: energy that propells the vehicle (propulsion) and energy that operates the machinery (overhead).
With the vehicle turned on but at a stop, all the energy is overhead you are operating at a minimum possible efficiency. As the speed increases the overhead remains relatively constant so the propulsion energy becomes a larger and larger fraction of the total. Efficiency increases until the point where the efficiency improvement gained by reducing overhead (as a fraction of total energy used) equals the efficiency lost by wind resistance.
Since the overhead is so much smaller for electric vehicles they reach their maximum efficiency at a slower speed then combustion engines.
Re:If crash then (crushed AND electrocuted) (Score:3, Informative)
A) how many accidents have you been in?
B) There are several perfectly safe non gas guzzlers.
Really, you are just afraid of change for some reason..possible due to your small penis.
Re:If crash then (crushed AND electrocuted) (Score:1, Informative)
You actually want more of the sheetmetal to buckle, not the frame. If the frame structure fails, you die. Look at how rigid and strong the A-pillar is on modern cars. If that part of the frame fails, in many serious accidents (like the Bel-Air example you gave) you die. Crumple zones are only useful to dissipate energy so the instantaneous accelerations that the passengers experience is lessened. However many cheap car companies take this too far. If there is too much deformation (crumpling) the doors won't open anymore. It doesn't matter that the car saved you from instant death if you end up bleeding out or burning in a post-crash fire because you can't get out of the car. Mercedes and Volvo are really good about this. I've seen some horrendous accidents involving Volvos, and almost always, the passengers can get out.
Tesla race blog (Score:3, Informative)
For those who are interested, the blog for this internode entry, detailing the event so far is at;
http://blog.internode.on.net/ [on.net]
Simon and Emilis are experienced glider pilots too, and credit the experience they have from glider energy management as one of the factors in acheiving the record.
MOst amazing thing is the article spelt Emilis surname correctly!