Video See the Tesla S at the Detroit International Auto Show (Video) 143
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The weather in Detroit was frightful and Slashdot editor Timothy Lord was nine hours away. No problem! He loaded his camcorder and a bunch of other stuff in his car and drove to Detroit for the 2012 International Auto Show. In today's video he looks at the Tesla Model S. Next week we'll have more video highlights of the auto show for you, so stay tuned...
Very cool car (Score:5, Informative)
I saw it there, and it's one of the few cars on the floor that shows you all of the mechanicals (Ford did it with their trucks, which was also really cool). The mechanics of this car are incredibly simple. This should significantly reduce ongoing maintenance costs and make car ownership easier for the majority of people.
Re:Not interested... (Score:3, Informative)
The Roadster was not an Elise with a different nameplate. Yes, the chassis was made at the same factory for both vehicles, but that is pretty much where the similarity ended.
Re:Very cool car (Score:5, Informative)
For components that matter and are in areas that need to be protected, I'm pretty sure Tesla uses milspec components, and Elon Musk publicly announced that for most of the interior components they use stuff found in more ordinary consumer electronics.
The really complex part electrically is the battery monitoring system, where Tesla has a dedicated system monitoring the voltage levels and maintaining consistent heat levels in an attempt to keep the Li-ion battery pack from overheating or "melting down"... as sometimes happens with the technology. The cells are isolated with the system in a way that if one cell burns up, it won't take the whole battery pack out with it. That is mechanical engineering, but it doesn't have moving parts.
As for the moving parts themselves are concerned, the Tesla vehicles have a simple electric motor (AC variable frequency induction motors) with a transmission to match wheel speed.... and the transmission is rather simple compared to internal combustion engine transmissions. The hard part there is simply getting a transmission built that would handle the torque put out by the electric motor. Going from 0-60 in under 4 seconds (the Model S appears to match this same performance spec that the Roadster also had) is a whole lot of torque to put onto the drive shaft. An auto mechanic would have no problem recognizing or repairing the transmission. Electric motors are quite famous for being rugged, and would likely outlast the chassis of the vehicle it is mounted in.
The other miscellaneous gizmos you are talking about are what you would find on any luxury automobile. Yes, they are potential points of failure, but it won't stop the vehicle from operation and they are also repaired quite easily. Replacing those components is no different than trying to change a bulb inside the dash of a more ordinary automobile. None of those components should take more than an hour to replaced even if your were a novice mechanic.
Seriously, I fail to see where the complexity is at, other than simply putting together the whole thing. Compared to modern ICE automobiles, it is significantly less complexity. Compared to a hammer or a crowbar, yes it is more complex. What is your standard here?
Re:Yay! Government funded luxury wanker mobiles! (Score:4, Informative)
So the reason why Toyota decided to make a major cash investment into Tesla Motors and had the CEO come to California to meet with Elon Musk was because they already were the world leader in electric vehicle transportation and didn't need to copy or learn anything from Tesla?
Seriously, please explain that one.
BTW, it was the CEO of General Motors who met with Martin Eberhardt when Tesla was in Detroit (doing a sales demo in that city) that was the clinching case to build the Chevy Volt. The Roadster really was the inspiration for getting the Volt built. The Volt was also the only new vehicle project that survived the GM bankruptcy as well. I think that says Tesla was a bit more than a "boutique electric car manufacturer".
I could get into more details, and certainly the inspiration to use standard Li-ion cells was something that neither Toyota nor Daimler ever got the gumption to try out. Keep in mind the EV-1 used ordinary Lead-acid batteries, and until Tesla came out with their battery packs it was not even considered something possible to try Lithium technology for automobiles.