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."
So what? (Score:1, Insightful)
So what? You say that like they SHOULDN'T be required to handle it. Who wants a car that can't handle turns or climb hills?
Cool! (Score:0, Insightful)
I'm sure at least *one* of the four people still holding a job might be able to afford one.
That bad, eh? (Score:3, Insightful)
313 miles is almost exactly the range of my '99 Subaru Outback Legacy (15-gallon tank), which is worth about $2500 now. Except I can easily refuel that and keep going. The trip to my folks' house is 365 miles.
I had assumed that with all the talk of new technology Tesla was going to be comparable with the hybrids. This article helps re-adjust my expectations, but it also gives me hope that by time they're generally affordable the range will be there too.
Now THAT is an electric car. (Score:5, Insightful)
What happens if a battery catches fire? (Score:3, Insightful)
The tesla has hundreds of laptop batteries in it, each with the energy of a hand grenade. What if something goes wrong...?
Re:Now THAT is an electric car. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not everyone does long-distance highway travel more than once or twice a year -- I don't, anyhow, and when I do, I rent a car rather than putting the miles on mine anyhow.
Range may legitimately keep electric cars out of some markets, but certainly not all of them.
Re:So what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Though to be fair, that race course was a mixture of twists, turns and hills
So what? You say that like they SHOULDN'T be required to handle it. Who wants a car that can't handle turns or climb hills?
TFS is comparing the performance of Roadsters in different races. While this Roadster set a new record, the course that it set the record is sufficiently different from the course where the previous record was set. Hence the "to be fair" comment: the earlier course "was a mixture of twists, turns and hills", so you can't really compare the two records as an apple-to-apple comparison.
Re:Now THAT is an electric car. (Score:5, Insightful)
That makes a lot more sense than trying to make an electric car into something that it can't be.
Until we get that 20 times improvement in battery technology it makes more sense to optimise electric vehicles for commuting, not long distance.
Re:Electric cars are not better for the enviornmen (Score:4, Insightful)
Even if there was 0% coming from clean power, the efficiency rate of electric cars is such that fewer emissions are put out per mile from a coal power plant fueled electric car than a gas burning regular car. The sad fact is that gasoline combustion engines are not very efficient with their fuel, whereas electric are much more so.
Also, do you just think that suddenly in 1 year everyone will just be driving electrics with no chance for the grid to adapt? It is these "lets take todays infrastructure and apply some hypothetical load to it" guesses that just drive me nuts. As people switch to electric, obviously the grid will be expanded to handle the new load.
Re:What happens if a battery catches fire? (Score:5, Insightful)
How does the energy of hundreds of laptop batteries compare with the energy of 60 litres of petrol?
Re:That bad, eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
I had assumed that with all the talk of new technology
Next time try reading up on it instead. Some people assumed with all the talk of new technology that by the year 2000 we'd all be driving flying cars and we'd have colonies on the moon...
Re:To be fair? (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, I wouldn't be so sure. Urban driving means low speeds, which means lower air drag. Also, stop and go gives regenerative braking a chance to do its job. I wouldn't be surprised if an electric car would go further in city driving than on the highway...
Re:Electric cars are not better for the enviornmen (Score:3, Insightful)
You are right ... screw improvements until we can find perfection!
Re:To be fair? (Score:2, Insightful)
The laws of thermodynamics state that regenerative breaking can only capture *some* of the energy lost in slowing down. One will never get as much range in city driving than in highway driving. Mainly because in this house, Lisa, we obey the laws of thermodynamics.
Re:To be fair? (Score:3, Insightful)
The regenerative braking doesn't involve a heat engine, so in principle you could get arbitrarily close to 100% energy recovery given sufficiently advanced technology. IIRC, hybrids do get better range in urban driving.
Re:That bad, eh? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why not just rent a specialized vehicle when you need one?
Hauling stuff to the dump / stuff from Home Depot / stuff from a big box store? Rent a van for $20.
Traveling a few states to visit family? Taking a long road trip? Rent an appropriate car.
The little extra utility most people get on rare occasion from having a Canyonero (or even a smaller SUV/minivan) is ridiculous... far better fiscally to drive a commuter car and rent a special purpose car when one is needed. Especially once you factor in wear-and-tear from those "special need" trips.
Re:To be fair? (Score:3, Insightful)
One will never get as much range in city driving than in highway driving.
Definitely not true with hybrids. Reason is that at highway speeds the gasoline engine is always on, whereas if I keep it under 60km/h, the electric kick in which is more efficient.
Re:That's nice... (Score:5, Insightful)
and that when I'm out of power I can stop and have full power again (either through rapid charging or a battery swap) within 15 minutes or less
Personally, I'm looking forward to the time when I go to my electric car after work that has been parked in the parking lot all day, and the battery is fully charged for free from the solar panels. THAT is what the oil companies are really afraid of.
Re:Forget About Batteries in Cars (Score:5, Insightful)
Good luck putting 53kWh of energy into a battery in "a matter of minutes".
Technically, Lithium batteries can be charged to 80% capacity in only a half hour. The main reason for the Roadster's slow charging is that household plugs can't output more than 1800 Watts for a standard socket, at that rate it would take 30 hours to charge the Roadster.
If you wanted to charge it within 1 hour, you would need a 53000W power source, that's about 240Amps@220Volt, 480Amps@110Volts. Considering that the main circuit breaker to my house is rated 200Amps, I could never charge the Tesla at my house in 1 hour, even if it had super capacitors or whatever else you wanted.
If you want to charge it in "a matter of minutes", say 10 minutes, you would need a 318000Watt power source. If you wanted to charge your car in 3 minutes, you would need a megawatt power supply... for that you'd need a dedicated power station to supply this kind of power otherwise the whole city would have a brownout every time some prick decides to recharge his Tesla. I don't know about where you live, but there aren't dedicated electric stations that can supply a megawatt of power anywhere near my house.
So: batteries? supercapacitors? ultracapacitors? it doesn't matter the least bit if you don't have the power infrastructure to charge it.
Re:Electric cars are not better for the enviornmen (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Electric cars are not better for the enviornmen (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh yeah, the USA is everybody! I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but there are many countries where greener sources are the main source of energy. Around here, over 90% of our electricity comes from dams. In France, around 75% of the electricity comes from nuclear powerplants with 16% from hydroelectricity (meaning around 90% comes from much cleaner sources than coal and oil). I'm sure there are many other cases where this also holds true.
Point is, it's not because the US is using antiquated, pollution-heavy sources of energy that everyone on the damn planet is. Neither does it mean the US can't change. All it does is eliminate one hurdle to a cleaner future: now we only have to fix powerplants and cars will be fixed at the same time. I call that a great improvement.
And before anyone asks, nuclear is cleaner than coal and oil by miles. There is waste, but it's ridiculously smaller than the impact oil/coal have.
Wow for a geek site most seem anti technology (Score:5, Insightful)
Does a car have to be nuclear to get people excited around here? I'm not even hearing any new arguments. Until it can be instantly recharged and cost less than an average car few people are interested and most are outright hostile? If any one is interested check out "Who Killed The Electric Car". Every person that got their hands on one loved it and they did no more than 50 miles per charge, the Tesla can do around 240 with normal driving. The real joke is what they seemed to like most WAS the convenience. They loved the fact you didn't have to stop by a gas station just plug it in when you got home.
"Gee they are only for the rich." Well I've got a shocker for you when calculators first came out they were large and cost around $400, more like a $1000 in adjusted dollars. Also all they did was basic math. Within ten years they were under $10 and you could soon after that find them built into pens. You won't find that radical a change with batteries but they will come down. I'm more concerned with the weight since that is hurting performance. The battery weight is all that is keeping a Tesla from blowing away a $200,000 sports car. Basically they have the potential to blow away a car twice the price and can already do it in the straightway. Just imagine the weight cut in half and the mileage doubled?
"But once a year we drive to Grandma's house". Man am I tired of that argument. How many drivers drive more than 200 miles a day? Damn few. Here's a shocker, how many people that could aford an electric car are single car families? Near zero. Point being if the thought of not being able to take a long drive makes you hyperventilate then make one car gasoline or hybrid.
Christ I've even seen blind people complain because of the LACK of noise. They do make sound just not as obnoxious as cars and trucks do. Picture this, once the prices start to match regular cars you can fill up for a $1 to $3. And it's a myth that we'll each have to have our own nuclear plant. The average house could charge one daily just by switching their existing bulbs to compact florescents. Once LEDs get as cheap the savings would be enough to charge two cars. We won't have to build a single coal plant and if you just took the gas savings and put solar panels on the roof then there would be no increase you'd actually drive for free once the panels were paid off.
Last century saw the end of horse drawn carriages let's make this the century we get rid of gas guzzlers. They are starting to look as primitive as carriages.
Re:That bad, eh? (Score:2, Insightful)
When you put the $100k in context, are any of those general purpose? The closest you'll get is the M5, which is tame enough to be a daily driver, or maybe one of the super-lux BMW 7 series or MB S-classes. But who wants a $100k SUV, barring certain people's Hummers?
Granted, my auto magazine subscriptions may have skewed my perception about what exactly is out there for $100k, but I scarcely think you'll find people looking for general-purpose in that range. General purpose is a term best applied to practical cars suitable for driving every day. I'm thinking $30k to $50k or so. And if I spend $100k on a car, at that point, it can be an investment, and it doesn't depreciate nearly as much with age, if at all, depending on your choice of car. Which means I'm in no rush to put hundreds of thousands of miles on it as a daily driver. It means I'm going to take it out on the weekends to have some fun.
Re:That bad, eh? (Score:3, Insightful)
HUGE sale on extension cords...
"sale"? You, my friend, have never been a service station off an interstate that extorts the hapless souls who trudge in and who are in need of a gas can.
Re:To be fair? (Score:2, Insightful)
IIRC (and be kind if I'm wrong on this last point-- college physics was so long ago....) the force of air resistance increases as the square of the velocity.
Of course, a car running on a standard gasoline engine is generally more efficient on the highway because it has no way to recapture energy spent accelerating.
Re:If crash then (crushed AND electrocuted) (Score:3, Insightful)
... because the lightweight frame will fold like a piece of tissue.
You WANT the frame to fold. Ever hear of crumple zones?
Which is why I won't buy one of these things until the frame is a carbon fiber composite stronger than steel or titanium. Expensive.
The advantage of CF is weight, it is not much stronger than steel (if at all, depending on application). So while more and more components of mainstream vehicles will be made using CF, the main reason is for better fuel economy (less weight = less fuel needed).
In the meantime, I plan to continue to drive a gas guzzling heavy framed car that keeps me safe from the dimwitted morons on the road.
Your heavy and inefficient vehicle is not only a danger to others, but to yourself as well. You equate a heavy and inflexible frame with improved safety, but this is not reality, and (if you haven't noticed) the exact opposite direction that car manufacturers have taken ever since safety standards were put in place.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/uptospeed/2009/09/iihs-crash-chevy-malibu-bel-air.html [latimes.com]
Just remember (Score:2, Insightful)
The obama administration is talking about a "smart power" rewiring of the electric power lines. They plan on being able to remotely control when you can run your dishwasher.
Now, with these worries about the limited power concerns, where do all these electric cars fit in?