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.
Title (Score:3, Informative)
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Apparently tagging it with the word "typo" will alert them to the mistakes. Yet 50million comments wont.
Re:Title (Score:5, Funny)
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You don't talk about "them", especially now that they've got a weapon that can penetrate the trusty tinfoil hat.
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Erm, the title has an error.
Quite uncommon on Salshdot...
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No no, Telsa Motors is a rival company that makes cars powered by magnetic slinkeys.
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.
Re:Now only if... (Score:5, Insightful)
They did occasionally but as long as petrol was cheap, there was not very much demand. Also, the car industry is a very conservative one which rarely tries something dramatically new. Most of them would rather wait for the competition to take the risk, and then copy the idea if it worked.
The last such attempt was Toyota releasing the Prius, which was a success. Now, various car makes have released hybrids or are working on them (which confirms the wait and copy attitude).
On the positive side, I think introducing hybrid technology is a breakthrough because it allows the industry to make progress in its traditional way of little steps. The "plug-in hybrid" is one of those: ;-)
Make the batteries larger and add a charger - nothing spectacular and risky here
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]
Re:Now only if... (Score:5, Informative)
Prove it. Find 5 patents that are owned by "Big Oil". Also, define "Big Oil".
Okay, Big Oil should be pretty easy. From this wikipedia page [wikipedia.org], you'll get ExxonMobile, Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and Total S.A. And they don't register these patents under their own names- they use subsidiaries. For example, Chevron owns Cobasys, a NiMH battery maker.
5 Patents? Hell, I can find you at least 40. [uspto.gov]
Do I get a cookie?
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:Now only if... (Score:5, Informative)
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 mean like the large-format NiMHs in the Vectrix scooters?
You will likely be sued by a company you haven't heard of called Cobasys for violation of their patent on NiMH battery tech.
Cobasys has repeatedly made it clear that they will deal in large orders for large format NiMH, but not small orders. There haven't exactly been people lining up around the block wanting large orders of large-format NiMHs, however. It's old tech, inferior in about a dozen different ways to the modern automotive li-ions.
FYI, Cobasys only holds the patent rights on said large format NiMHs in the US, not internationally. Oh, and they've cross-licensed their patent portfolios with PEVE (who they initially sued for making NiMHs for sale in the US without paying them); PEVE now has the right to make large format NiMHs for sale in the US. The fact that they haven't should speak volumes for the demand of said batteries.
NiMH was top of the line tech back during the original CARB ZEV mandate. It no longer is.
Early Lithium Ion sucks too (Score:3, Informative)
The most used Lithium Ion chemistry uses LiCoO2 cathodes. Disadvantages:
- Price (Cobalt is relatively rare and expensive). Acceptable for a notebook, not so good for a car that needs 500 times the capacity.
- Aging (will lose capacity even if unused, so you might have to buy new batteries halfway through the life of your car).
- can blow up when overheating or due to faults in manufacturing, see Sony laptop batteries...
Now there are some very interesting new developments in Lithium Ion technology, see
http://e [wikipedia.org]
Re:Now only if... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Now only if... (Score:5, Insightful)
Patents are public informsation...
Find 5 patents that would have led to ultra efficient cars and aren't being used.
If "Big Oil" has been buying up patents for 50 years than we have at least 30 years of inventions no longer under patent protection...where are those inventions?
The reality is that while Oil companies probably have tried to squash some tech, the basic laws of thermodynamics suggest that internal combustion engines are about as efficient as they are going to get.
Battery tech is also progressing very quickly (Microsoft, IBM etc are pushing for better batteries and can compete with oil companies) however most of the really efficient and high power batteries are due to nano-type materials, ultra pure processing and extremely fine manufacturing controls. Until very recently these techniques were impossible to test and those that were testable were prohibitively expensive to produce.
If you want to claim a conspiracy, you must offer some proof.
Re:Now only if... (Score:5, Funny)
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.
This guy is right. (Score:3, Funny)
I own an LS based engine. Let me tell you, I stuff my foot in it daily. The cars got 120,000 mi of this kind of driving. The engine performs almost as perfect as day 1. The only maintenance it gets is synthetic oil changes. 5-30 all the time. (in fact, I slid through a roundabout destroying a Mustang GT convertable of the same year this AM)
Lets not forget too though, that we blow a metric shitload of energy out the tailpipe in the form of heat. Making that heat useful by turning some sort of thermal
Re:Now only if... (Score:5, Informative)
According to Wikipedia, Cobasys and ECD Ovonics hold 125 patents for battery technology, particularly NiMH battery technology. They produced the batteries that powered the ill fated EV1. In 2001, Texaco (now Chevron) bought Cobasys. Since then, they have refused to sell automotive batteries or license the technology to smaller players. Since the big players were not interested in electric cars (perhaps because of influence from Big Oil), this effectively killed electric cars.
They have also actively used their patents to prevent others from selling NiMH batteries for automotive purposes in the US. In 2001, same year as they were bought by Texaco, they sued Panasonic EV Energy for patent infringement. The results were that Panasonic is restricted from selling commercial quantities of some batteries in the North American market until 2010.
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: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.
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, Insightful)
Re:Now only if... (Score:4, Insightful)
Honda Civic Hybrid, 4.8 years, $2,803 premium over Civic LX;
Mercury Mariner Hybrid, 6.4 years, $4,904 premium over standard Mariner;
Lexus' V-6 powered RX 400h hybrid SUV, 6.4 years, $4,407 premium over conventional V-6
powered RX350;
Saturn Vue Greenline, 7.1 years, $4,770 over Vue XE;
Ford Escape Hybrid, 7.3 years, $4,161 over Escape XLT;
V-6 Lexus GS450h, 7.7 years, $2,722 over V-8 powered GS460
http://blogs.edmunds.com/greencaradvisor/2008/05/soaring-gas-prices-shrink-hybrid-payback-period-boost-small-car-sales-and-sink-big-trucks.html [edmunds.com]
,br> Maybe you could do me a favor and point to a source that says 2 to 3 months?
Granted, I did not take into account the Tax Credits,
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But if you wanted to actually build such a device, you'd still have to license the patent that your patent improved on.
Re:Now only if... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Now only if... (Score:5, Insightful)
Guess what? I knew someone that bought an electric car back in I think 72!
Don't blame the car makers blame physics and customers.
The reason that liquid hydrocarbon fuels have been so popular for cars is because they are a great solution for powering cars.
Build an electric car that can take four people and luggage 300 miles on charge. Oh and the recharge time has to be five minutes, battery life has to be 150,000 miles and the cost? Under $20,000. That is what it would take to be a better car then a Mazda 3.
The real problem has nothing to do with the auto companies. It has everything to do with us.
People bought giant SUVs and Pickups just for style and the fact they felt safer. Everybody thought I was nuts because I actually like smaller cars. I don't have kids yet and I think smaller cars are more fun to drive.
Companies work on the premise that you should give the customer what they want. We wanted big SUVs and trucks and not small cars and minivans.
Now customers want more fuel efficient vehicles. It takes a while to make the change.
Now what I find funny is that back in 84 a car that went 0-60 under 10 seconds was quick.
Now that is considered slow.
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People bought giant SUVs and Pickups just for style and the fact they felt safer.
Actually, I have a pickup truck to haul things that won't fit in the trunk or on top of a car, or if they do would damage the paint job. (Try putting a load of 2X4s or a cubic yard of topsoil in your car). Also, my wife drives it when we get standing water in the streets during bad rain storms (her minivan has a tendency to stall in wet conditions).
I take the bus to work - but I won't give up my truck because it has come in handy over the years for various projects. (it is 6 years old)
It mostly sits in th
Broken link (Score:2)
The summary's second link is to http://tech.slashdot.org/hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/05/151234
I don't think that will work. :)
It's not a real Tesla (Score:5, Funny)
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Oh. My. God. I saw the Mythbusters episode where they made a steel beam deviate over a foot up and down with a computer controlled linear motor and a five pound weight... imagine a handheld version you could attach to the frame of someone's car?
I'm sorry, so so sorry if anyone is harmed by this. But it'll be -awesome-.
toys for billionaires (Score:3, Insightful)
now sergey and larry and elon have some toys to play with
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I expect motor/generator combinations in replacement hubs for oilburners in less than 10 years,
Batteries is the main problem now.
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I expect motor/generator combinations in replacement hubs for oilburners in less than 10 years,
Its a bit weird that this car has a two speed gearbox.
Re:toys for billionaires (Score:5, Informative)
Gearboxes are really for converting torque to rotation. IC engines have limited rpm ranges and "optimal" torque and power rpm bands. The gearbox is there to allow effficient use of these zones.
Electric motors have a very flat torque curve all along the rpm range (torque starts right after 0 rpm). Also Electric engines usually have a much wider rpm range and their efficiency in converting energy to mechanical energy is much more constant tha for IC engines where the efficiency drops very quickly when you approach max rpm. Hence a gearbox is only so useful for an electric car.
Mind you as well that electric motors have bags ans bags more of torque than IC engines and as such a reduction gear is not really necessary to get teh car in motion (as with a 1st gear in a regular car). This high torque is also a challenge for designers as traiditional design gearboxes flop with electric engines.
Hope that helps you understand why there are only 2 gears on this car.
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Hope that helps you understand why there are only 2 gears on this car.
Actually I was wondering why it doesn't have just the one ratio. I assume the reason was to get a nice high maximum speed, ie, the top gear is an overdrive.
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At high rotation speeds the metal of the axis and wheel will/could desintegrate, because of the centrifugal force.
Are you talking about the motor? Or the wheel?
The wikipedia page about the Tesla says that the motor only goes to 14000 rpm. If the driveline spins the motor much faster than the wheels then its maximum speed could be exceeded at 200km/h. Sports cars obviously drive at 300km/h without destroying their wheels.
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Was that a very poor attempt at joke, or do you just know nothing about cars and metals?
Assuming the same diameter of wheels, they would be be spinning just as fast at 200mph in an electric car as they would be in a combusion engined car. I would also expect that the axels would melt from friction before the metal 'disintegrated'. Metal doesn't even 'disintegrate' unless you count rusting. It's usually quite malleable and would simply deform if large stresses are places upon it.
Re:toys for billionaires (Score:4, Informative)
Actually I was wondering why it doesn't have just the one ratio. I assume the reason was to get a nice high maximum speed, ie, the top gear is an overdrive.
Yep. And they've decided to scrap it in favour of a single speed, slightly higher ratio gearbox on newer models, also. I think they'll start delivering those in about 6 months or so, from what I read on their blog.
Re:toys for billionaires (Score:5, Funny)
That alone is worth the price of admission to me.
Re:toys for billionaires (Score:5, Funny)
Are you from the french military ?
Re:toys for billionaires (Score:5, Funny)
non!
Re:toys for billionaires (Score:5, Funny)
When will this ignorant meme die?
It doesn't die, it just keeps surrendering.
Re:toys for billionaires (Score:4, Informative)
(torque starts right after 0 rpm)
Close, but the torque starts right at 0 rpm. Actually for most electric motors, the torque peaks at 0 rpm. Thats why there's no need to "idle" the electric motor when the vehicle is stopped, and also why there is no "torque convertor" as in automatic transmission equipped IC engines.
Besides, if there was no torque at 0 rpm, then it would never begin to move...
Re:toys for billionaires (Score:5, Informative)
Close, but not quite [machinedesign.com]. I don't exactly remember why the curve looks like that, something do to with inductive reactance.
Re:toys for billionaires (Score:4, Informative)
Those are AC motors.
Here's some info on DC motors. (Note the curves are theoretical, and simplified).
http://lancet.mit.edu/motors/motors3.html [mit.edu]
Torque is max at 0 RPM.
Telsa, not Tesla (Score:2)
The summary has it right, the caption does not. I was a little confused when I read that: "Telsa motors. Mmh. Maybe competition for Tesla motors or something."
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.
Greenies don't like nuclear (Score:3, Insightful)
In fact they don't like any form of power generation.
nuclear = [insert glowing green fluffy sheep horror stories]
fossil = [insert global meltdown story]
wind power = [insert migrating insert birds killed by blades sob fest] or [blot on lovely landscape rant]
tidal power = [insert moan about marsh habitat of less spotted wading snot gobler flooded]
Solar power = [insert some fucking rare tortoise issue]
hydro = [insert whinge about flooded valleys/woodlands/displace peasents etc etc]
You just can't win with this
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.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, you're a very reasonable man (or woman) but you have to admit that it at times seems like some of your fellow "greenies" are impossible to please. Maybe it's not all the same ones but no matter what form of power generation is suggested there's always a small and usually loud group ready to throw up signs and studies as to why that suggestion will lead to something terrible and unacceptable.
Re:Greenies don't like nuclear (Score:5, Insightful)
Inherently safer designs like pebble bed [wikipedia.org] reactors and molten salt [wikipedia.org] reactors are not being used, rather the same old Three Mile Island design is proposed for new plants.
Now of course, there are people who are against any sort of nuclear power, regardless. But I think that's largely because the past "Nuclear Power is perfectly safe" propaganda has made them untrusting of any statements about nuclear safety and/or dangers.
I grew up 13 miles downriver from Three Mile Island. So I know a lot of people with an axe to grind about nuclear safety; and most of them are not really "Greenies". Many of them still believe they haven't been told the whole truth about the accident there, much the way folks in the wider US population of a given age don't neccesarily believe they've been told the whole truth about the Kennedy assassination... So I think to win those folks over, you need a demonstrably safer design, and you need to really explain the details.
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It doesn't help that our country insists on rebuilding the same old, flawed design for nuclear power plants, rather than any one of a dozen or so better designs that are out there which are far safer.
From your listed homepage link, I think I can safely assume that "our country" refers to the US. The US hasn't built any commercial nuclear reactors in decades. These better designs almost universally post-date this total halt on construction.
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.
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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 capaci
You do realize (Score:3, Insightful)
that your reply was perfect in demonstrating the OPs case don't you.
That point is, you can't make all people happy but we are nearly stuck simply because with the current court system we might actually have to.
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
Re:Greenies don't like nuclear (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow.
Humans are a parasitic species and like a virus infestation on the Earth.
That's +5 Insightful (regarding the thinking of greenie wackos, that is).
And you thought "religious people" were dangerous.
Re:Greenies don't like nuclear (Score:4, Insightful)
Whether you agree with them of not, hippies' (sometimes overzealous) efforts to bring to everyone's attention the effect humans have on the world is not ignorable.
So what's their solution? Kill off the whole human race?
Sure, no power generation method is perfect, but we should be selecting the best options rather than rejecting all of them.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
For some of the more radical ones, it is. Really.
Doesn't seem to be a whole lot of point in saving the planet if there's no one around to experience it...
Re:Greenies don't like nuclear (Score:4, Insightful)
Also as unbelievable as it seems people are not going to go back to a hunter gatherer lifestyle living in teepies in the woods. They want electricity so the greens can either keep on rejecting every form of power generation and eventually they just end up ignored as a bunch of tedious ranting reactionaries who dish up endless problems but no solutions, or they start using what common sense they have and realise that the best option is sometimes a compromise.
Carbon fiber (Score:5, Interesting)
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Didn't Boeing say they won't be testing carbon fiber wings to the point of failure because they'd need to call in the hazmat team?
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. The standard health and safety requirements for cutting and breaking CF composites are that it should only be done in a well-ventilated area. I wouldn'
Re: (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.
Re:Carbon fiber (Score:4, Informative)
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Vaporware (Score:4, Funny)
Next thing you know they'll be telling me that these solar panel thingys are real too.
Complications only if you can't plan ahead (Score:5, Insightful)
About those alleged "Complications" ... well yes sure, if you run out of stored power then you're in trouble. However, this isn't exclusive to electric cars, but applies similarly to liquid-fueled vehicles. If you set out on a voyage of 500 miles with only 200 miles of gasoline and you can't find anywhere to refuel, then you're in trouble too. Fortunately, most people understand power and refueling constraints and know how to plan ahead.
Admittedly, electrical recharging infrastructure is almost non-existent at the moment. However, this isn't a total disaster nor an unforseen "Complication". It's thoroughly forseen, so any early adopter who can add and subtract won't be travelling further than the stored energy allows, minus a safety margin since nobody likes getting stuck. In many cases, it'll be a second car anyway, mainly for short hops around the local area and short office commutes.
But let's look at the worst case scenario as well. When the power runs out in between recharge points, will it be a total disaster? Well, it certainly will be a big annoyance, but that's where the recovery services come in. All it takes is a phone call and some waiting in the comfort of your car while you sulk at your arithmetic incompetence, but soon your vehicle will be sitting snugly on the back of the recovery truck, and remedial transport sorted out. This is normal today in the event of breakdowns, and it will be just as normal when cars go electric, both for breakdowns and for recharging mishaps. (The vehicle recovery industry will certainly boom for a few decades, until vehicle recharging infrastructure is widespread.)
So while "Complications" will exist in the short term, they're not exceptional ones. We already have similar issues today, and solutions to them as well. It's just a matter of degree. For the next few years, trips in EVs will have to be a fair bit shorter on average. We can cope with that.
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:Complications only if you can't plan ahead (Score:4, Insightful)
AFAIK, breakdown services (in the UK at least) bill you the full cost of delivering fuel to your vehicle / recovering it, since it was your own dumb fault for running out. I imagine that they'll pretty quickly start applying the same principle to electric vehicles, if it's not in their contracts already.
I'd venture that the big drawback is the slow charging, 3.5 hours on the Roadster. Forgetting to plug in at night means that you're either going nowhere in the morning, or you're going to have to cross your fingers and hope for a following wind.
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AFAIK, breakdown services (in the UK at least) bill you the full cost of delivering fuel to your vehicle / recovering it, since it was your own dumb fault for running out. I imagine that they'll pretty quickly start applying the same principle to electric vehicles, if it's not in their contracts already.
I dare say they will. However, if you've spent £50,000 or thereabouts on a second car (as this will be for almost everyone who has one, because the range isn't long enough for long distance journeys) that saves you money by being cheaper to run than your primary vehicle, are you going to worry about a few hundred quid for recovery every now and then?
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A person can walk to a gas station and buy 2 or 3 gallons of gasoline and carry it to their car. That isn't ever going to happen with batteries.
(that doesn't make batteries useless or anything, but there is a fundamental difference in the convenience and portability of the energy storage)
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Batteries don't suddenly run out of energy, like you can with gasoline tank. That doesn't make petrocarbons useless or anything, but there is a fundamental difference in the convenience and availability of the energy storage.
*wink*
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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.
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We'll adapt. Kids will throw out their lemonade stand signs and wait outside with an electron hose. :)
Besides, the Tesla has an optional "on the road" charger for the car that operates on normal household current so you'd simply need to find someone willing to "rent" you an outlet for a little while.
Cheers,
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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: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: (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: 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
Re: (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
Re:Complications only if you can't plan ahead (Score:4, Informative)
my grasp does not reach tesla (Score:2)
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i'm wondering how the second/third generation models are envisioned to ring up $$-wise
They're different cars. The second model will be a minivan type vehicle, and priced at the high range for that style of vehicle - which is much much less than the current Tesla.
The third model will be geared for, and I quote, "if you can afford to own any car, you can afford this one"
Why not sooner? (Score:4, Informative)
It looks like the thing that has largely fixed the EV issue is the laptop computer/mobile phone - which has justified the research effort into lithium batteries.
From a volume point of view in the short term the manufacturer to watch is Mitsubishi: they have a joint venture factory with Yuasa, and last week they delivered a test sample EV to a Japanese police force (they already have them with Tokyo utilities.) The Miev may not be as large and fast as the Tesla, but it is likely actually to be affordable. $100000 will only appeal to the rich who want a status symbol, as the payback compared to (say) a Mercedes Bluemotion clean Diesel will be forever. But a $30000 commuter vehicle may well make economic sense. I could justify one right now if oil reaches $200/barrel.
In fact, there are reports that sales of the EVs currently available are very poor, presumably because people who might have bought one as a third car are spending the money on new, efficient vehicles which will show a real cost saving in a sensible payback period.
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Look around on the highway at all the $30k+ cars that pass you - if there are that many rich people out there, you might want to adjust your definitions a little.
Ah, I guess that explains your perceptions. No middle.
CarAnalogies (Score:2)
Performance after Time/Distance (Score:3, Interesting)
Good Supercar (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm surprised folks are missing one important point about this car. Let's say you're rich and you want to buy a supercar. Most gas powered supercars use huge amounts of gas. After all they're not designed to save fuel. They're designed to go fast. This thing is an electric and generally very efficient so right away you've helped the environment there by not burning huge amounts of gas. At $100,000 the price is cheaper than most high end sports cars and being rare that will look good too. Sure it doesn't have much range but how often do you take your car on cross-country trips. Hell if you're rich, how often would you seriously want to spend hours driving across country versus taking a plane? It's range is great for most normal commutes in the city. It's also very likely highly reliable too being that it has very few parts. So yes, this isn't your common man's car but for the rich or enthusiast this seems like a good idea.
My horse gets me home even when I'm asleep (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of the comments here resemble the same kind of skeptical remarks that were made when the first automobiles came out. They were outrageously expensive. They got flat tires constantly. You almost needed to keep a team of horses on retainer to drag the thing home after one of the innumerable breakdowns. Et cetera. Et cetera.
No new technology leaps full-blown into existence without glitches, screw-ups and mistakes (yes, I know about the 100-year-old electrics, but a lot has changed). They're part of the territory, especially where a complete changeover in something as basic as personal transportation is concerned. What's needed is the vision and will to change, and the guts to persevere through inevitable problems to something that works. That's what seems to be missing these days.
I wonder what the smog situation would look like in a city where most two-car families included an electric for local jaunts and basic running around, and a regular car for longer trips? I recall seeing many parking lots with electrical outlets available at each space for block heaters, back when cold weather presented a starting problem for regular cars. Perhaps they might appear again to serve next-generation electrics. I have no idea what shape the actual solutions will take, but I'm quite confident that solutions would be found, once a decision is made to move away from gasoline-powered vehicles.
I'm certain of one thing: as long as those with a vested interest in the status quo are allowed to present every mistake as a disaster, every bump in the road as an insurmountable mountain, nothing will be accomplished.
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What do you mean? I've seen that guy posting all the way back in 1997.
You make sure you don't. (Score:2)
Anyway , come on , who runs out of fuel these days? read the friggin gauge! Plus if you did you could damage some modern fuel systems so you wouldn't be restarting your piston engine car either.
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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
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
One simple solution: Built-in tesla attack coil.
The SUV wouldn't stand a chance.
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You could say the same for any roadster.
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So now that we all want to switch to an electric car, I have to ask, how much more efficient is an electric car and also, roughly how much would one reduce my CO2 output?
According to the company website, if you extract a megajoule of natural gas (a major source of electricity) out of the ground, convert it to electricity, transmit it over the grid to your Tesla, you can travel well over 1 km. A VW Diesel rabbit ( a very small, efficient car) can get you a bit less than half a km on a Mj. So, this car is much more efficient if you are talking about moving a single person a km. You can probably squeeze four people into the VW, which would be approximately as efficient p
The EV-smokestack myth (Score:3, Informative)
Debunked. [evdl.org]
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If the batteries in these cars last as long as my laptop batteries have, the owners are in for some serious disappointment.
The problem with your laptop batteries is due to the fact that they haven't been looked after properly. In order to get serious lifetime out of li-ions, you need to keep them cool. The battery pack in a Tesla is air-conditioned. The battery pack in your laptop is slung right next to a ridiculously hot CPU and hard drive, and has almost zero airflow.
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Not true and/or true but irrelevant. Power plants and car engines are totally different, and, not surprisingly, power plants are much more efficient than your car engine. Power plants use efficient multi-stage steam turbines or which operate at near ideal conditions most of the time. Your car engine on the other hand needs to war