Willravel

http://www.oncars.com/video/494/2011...-1-of-3-Design

This is the Tesla Model S:

There's seating for 5 adults plus 2 kids in the trunk, and the storage is in the front (20 cubic feet!). How can they do that? The batteries are under the floor and the engine is between the two back wheels, meaning a very low center of gravity and more room above the floor (also known as the "skateboard" design). The base model goes from 0-60 in 5.6 seconds, and the performance model is under 5 seconds. It has a range of 150 miles for the base model and 300 for the performance model. The center console is a large touchscreen, which means firmware upgrades like your iPhone.

The price is expected to be around $57,400 ($49,900 after $7,500 federal tax credit).

If this car is successful, Tesla will move ahead with it's BlueStar project to create a $20k range electric vehicle.

Thoughts? Is this an iPod on four wheels, soon to revolutionize the car industry or a massive failure waiting to happen?

777

Tesla Motors was featured on the PBS documentry series, Nova. That episode deals with companies that are building energy efficient cars.

Here's the link for that episode on Hulu:

http://www.hulu.com/watch/63742/nova...ure#s-p1-so-i0

If you'd like to skip ahead to the Testla Motors segment, it's at the 41min. mark. Most of the Testla cars are made from carbon composite matrials, which are light as plastic and strong as steel. There's a segment on those earlier in the program, so I recommend watching the whole episode.

Personally, once they bring the price down on these cars to meet the needs of the middle class (unlike the $90,000 Testla Roadster) and extend the range for a long road trip (around 300miles), it's totally going to take off. But can Testla keep up with demand?

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LoganSnake

It's not going to revolutionize anything at that price.

Look-wise it's pretty attractive on the outside.

However, the interior is a far shot from sporting a 57.5K price tag. I also dislike full touch screen for the dash and the dials. I like my physical needles and buttons. But, if they make it open source, I can see mods being created for the themes as long as they pass the safety inspection or whatnot by the Tesla company or whoever has to approve such things.

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shakran

shades of Aston Martin in the design. Very nice looking.

But who the hell's gonna pay over 50 grand for a car that's less practical from a time management standpoint than a $30,000 Acura? The rich guys that can pay for a 50 thousand dollar car are by and large not going to worry about paying for gas.

That's not to say that I don't think Tesla is on to something. It'll just be nice when they start making cars that the average commuter can afford.

Willravel

It's designed to compete directly with Mercedes, BMW, and Audi, thus the price. They decided to design the company from the top down, I guess, starting with the performance vehicle, then the luxury sedan, then the budget coupe (the aforementioned BlueStar). It sounds like you'd be in the market for the BlueStar, Logan and shakran.

It'd be fun to see the Tesla S run Ubuntu.

Martian

The problem across the entire Tesla line-up is the charge time. It takes several hours to fully recharge the battery pack, versus several minutes for a gas tank. This severely limits the practicality of the vehicle for anything but short commutes or urban runabout driving.

This is not a problem that has a foreseeable solution.

I believe that in transportation hydrogen is a much more practical energy storage medium than any sort of electric battery. There are problems there too, but electric is getting all the love right now and I think it's a bit shortsighted.

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I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
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MSD

^^^ At a recent charity event I saw pictures of, they decided it took too long to charge, so they turned on regenerative braking and towed it around the track for half an hour when the batteries got low.

I'd rather have the roadster. Either way, a joke someone on another board made about what he'd do if he had a silent car like a Tesla is worth repeating.
Swap in a train horn, paint it flat black, put IR-only bulbs in the low beams, put on night vision goggles so you can see the IR, sneak up on pedestrians in a poorly lit area at night, flip the high beams on, and lean on the horn.

Tully Mars

That's a lot of work and expense for a practical joke... It would be a killer joke though.

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Willravel

One word: capacitors. The next generation of electric vehicles won't be powered by batteries but capacitors which can be instantly charged, store more energy than batteries, and are substantially lighter in weight.

shakran

Not instantly. It takes time to charge one, but it's much faster than a battery. The trouble is that capacitors aren't especially good at then releasing that energy slowly over time. They're much better at releasing it all in one burst. We need a battery that charges like a capacitor.

In the interim, the solution is on your deck, hanging off of your barbeque grill. It's very difficult to find propane filling stations anymore. They all do the "tank exchange." Why not a similar program for electric cars? You're running low, pull into a station and swap your discharged batteries for their full ones.

(edit)

This would of course require a modular battery pack that was quickly and easily removeable, which would require a redesign on just about every electric car out there, but it shouldn't be too hard.

777

OMG, it's a stealth car that goes from 0 to 60 in 4.4 seconds!

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"I don't know that I ever wanted greatness, on its own. It seems rather like wanting to be an engineer, rather than wanting to design something - or wanting to be a writer, rather than wanting to write. It should be a by-product, not a thing in itself. Otherwise, it's just an ego trip."

Roger Zelazny

Martian

That brings recollections of when I used to work in a warehouse. We used electric ride-along palette jacks and had a battery room with a setup similar to what you're proposing. The actual change process only took a couple of minutes, but then that was with palette jack batteries, which are much smaller and easier to move around. Even those were about 3 feet tall by a foot wide by maybe 4 feet long, and weighed enough that if for any reason they came off the machine we weren't moving them without a forklift.

If such a system could be devised, it would solve the issue. However, the logistics are baffling to me. You would need purpose-built vehicles and service centres, which could run into issues involving a lack of standardization. Imagine having to go to your dealership and pay whatever price they choose to set whenever your tank ran dry.

It could also end up being more of a 5-10 minute process, which would be akin to changing your oil a couple of times a week. Still not anywhere near the ease and convenience of liquid fuel.

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I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame

shakran

it will require standardization, yes, but then so did the internal combustion engine. Engines can be designed to run on anything from bunker fuel to gasoline to kerosene, to steam, and so forth. In the early days of cars, you had kerosene, coal, wood, gas, and other fuels powering vehicles. Yet all cars today run on the same fuel, most on the same octane level of that fuel, thanks to standardization. (yes, I know about diesel but there still aren't enough of those to count). Tesla, being the forefront of the "this isn't a toy" electric car world, is in the position to set that standard.

Just off the top of my head, what if the batteries were mounted on a skidplate on the bottom of the car. The skidplate could have deployable landing gear (casters). Hit a button in the car, the landing gear deploys, a flap or door opens in the side and the filling station employee tugs on the battery cart, pulling it from the vehicle. He then rolls a charged cart into place, clicks it in, and the car retracts the landing gear. We'd have to go back to more of a 1950's model of fuel stations, where an employee fuels the car, but that wouldn't be such a bad thing anyway. I'm tired of cleaning my windshield myself

Yes, it would take more time and effort than sticking a gas nozzle in the car, but it would also save the consumer a lot of money while not requiring him to pull over and twiddle his thumbs for 3 hours every 150 miles waiting for a charge.

The best solution right now, anyway, would be some sort of slow-release capacitor that would either directly feed the motor(s) or that would be rapid-charged at the station, and then charge the batteries at normal rates. We'd have to get around the fire hazard, of course.

But it's also important to remember that most people use their cars most of the time to go 5-10 miles to work, and then 5-10 miles back home, with maybe a stop at the store on the way. If an electric car's price point was low enough, it'd be good to have an electric commuter car, with a gas-powered car for those long road trips.

Imagine how much fuel savings there would be if we only used gasoline for long trips. All those cars belching fumes and drinking gas in rush hour replaced with electric. That seems like a pretty good goal to go after, to me.

Martian

The electric commuter/urban runabout has existed in European and Asian markets for years (see also: G-Wiz). Tesla is attempting to compete with the sedan and sports car market, which means that they need to be able to match the versatility and convenience of gasoline powered cars.

I think you're underestimating how much the battery packs in these cars weigh. Castors or no, the system is going to have to be automated, which adds considerably to the cost/complexity involved. Making the battery easy to remove and replace is also likely to require a form factor that will either substantially increase the size of the car or result in a trade-off in cabin space.

I'm not saying these are insurmountable issues, but this is the major hurdle with a system like the one you're proposing. It would require a lot of people to commit to developing and instituting it in order to be successful. I don't think it's likely to get that kind of support, and I see hydrogen as a better answer because it's more of a drop-in solution. It also has it's problems (mainly storage/transport, but also on the production side), but they seem more easily dealt with.

__________________
I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame

Willravel

We don't get the G-Wiz over here. I doubt I could fit inside it anyway.

Martian

The G-Wiz is not in the American market because American laws make it difficult to implement. Regardless, I don't see there being much demand for such a thing in North America, although that's just a gut thing and I could be mistaken.

Regardless, the point is that such things exist, and have existed for the better part of a decade at least. I see Tesla as trying to do something different, which is noble but risky.

I also don't see a lot of people paying $50 000 or more for a commuter car.

__________________
I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame

Willravel

I think it's supposed to be a luxury sedan, not just a commuter car. It's clearly designed to perform well considering it's 0-60 times, and I've heard from Tesla that it's supposed to compete with BMW. Bearing that in mind, the $50k price tag isn't totally outrageous.

Anyway, as more and more electric cars are on the market, I have no doubt the price will drop off. When hydrogen fuel cells are ready (which should be soon), we'll see even further competition to drive down prices and refine design.

Martian

A luxury car with the functionality of a commuter car is not a luxury sedan. If all I'm able to use it for is trips around town, then I would argue that no matter how much they dress it up it's not going to be able to compete.

For me to get from here to Toronto is about 75 miles, or 150 round-trip. If Tesla can actually deliver on the 300 mile range they're claiming, then it would be suitable for that. But the reality is that this isn't really that far of a drive, and I'm skeptical that the Tesla will actually achieve anything close to that in real world conditions.

When you get right down to it, the whole point of having a car is for mobility. A car without sufficient range therefore isn't terribly practical except for certain specialized uses. Internal combustion engines are quick and easy to refuel, meaning range is limited only by your wallet. Anything designed to compete with those types of cars needs to offer the same functionality.

And none of this addresses the fundamental flaw of hydrogen and electric cars both, which is that they simply offset the energy production rather than replace it.

__________________
I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame

Tech

i think this is a great question, especially to those of you who answered it with comments about the Model S costing too much.

Remember the first iPods? remember how much they cost? $399- $499. that was a ridiculous amount to pay for a portable electronic device, yet here we are.

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FuglyStick

Until Tesla can mass produce a car that retails for 25k, it's nothing more than a grand experiment and toy of the wealthy.

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Willravel

Luxury is a bit subjective.
Better performance than a non luxary car? Check. 0-60 in 5.6 seconds is fast.
Better construction precision? Check. The use of carbon materials is quite precision-centric.
Comfort? Hard to say, but considering the pictures it seems quite more comfortable than your average sedan.
Design? Most people I've talked to think it's gorgeous.
Technological innovation? Nothing but. From the skateboard batteries to the touch screen, this thing screams innovation.
Brand image? We'll have to wait and see on this one.
Status? For $50,000, I'd say so.

It seems discretionary in nature, not normal or bland.
It's not for people that drive a lot. Not yet. The average American doesn't break 40 miles a day, though. Doesn't this seem like a good option for the well to do American that doesn't drive a ton?
Actually, by simply plugging this thing into my wall I'm already using 20% green energy. California gets about 20% of it's energy from renewable sources. Hopefully this trend will continue.

shakran

Until we figure out a way to get pure hydrogen for less energy than we get out of the pure hydrogen, it's not really a viable solution. Currently hydrogen is cracked from (usually) methane molecules, and it takes more energy to do that than you get when you use the hydrogen. (Interestingly enough, the oil industry is pushing hydrogen, because methane has high profit margins, since it's expensive, but is easy and pretty cheap to extract from. . you guessed it. . .old oil wells. Make of that what you will). So I'm not holding my breath on the hydrogen thing until that major energy equation hurdle is overcome.

I know there would be (possibly insurmountable) issues with battery swaps, but if we could figure out how to make it a 5-10 minute process rather than a 3 hour charge wait time, electric cars would become useful for longer trips.

But whether we do that or not, they'd still be excellent for the daily commute, if only the initial price would come down. I would LOVE to have an electric car, but for 50 grand, I want more usability than an electric would give me.

I'm kinda keeping my eye on the Zap Alias. $35,000 with a 75mph top speed and a 100 mile range. If they make enough of them, perhaps the price will drop to something reasonable. I'd love to have that as my commuter car, saving the MR2 for road trips and car-guy weekends (though I imagine the Zap would get more attention on those weekends )

Bottom line is that we are going to have to do something to drastically cut our fuel use - and by drastically I don't mean claim that 38mpg hybrids are impressive, and I don't mean claim that ethanol is the answer to our prayers.

We need to get local driving down to zero or near zero gasoline use, both by encouraging people to buy electric cars (why are there huge subsidies for the ethanol industry, and almost no help to get people to buy electric commuter vehicles?) (don't bother answering that, it's rhetorical, I know it's because of the corn lobby) and by massively upgrading our public transportation infrastructure. It is possible to go anywhere in DC quickly, safely, and efficiently by riding the Metro light rail system. Why are other cities, after seeing the success of the Metro, busy building 16 lane superhighways that still get clogged with traffic? We have to get rid of the stigma of public transportation (only poor people ride it) and we have to get rid of the idea that government paying for it is bad - after all government is also paying for those 16 lane freeways that would be unnecessary if more people were on efficient public transportation.

ASU2003

It does come down to the batteries, but I'm don't need to drive more than 25 miles a day for 97% of the year. The 9 days I do need to travel, I could either go by plane or rent a car.

I also liked John McCain's proposal during the campaign to offer $300 million to someone who created this next generation battery. I personally would like to see our nuclear waste be used to make radiation batteries. It would be small enough and well shielded that it wouldn't cause problems, but the half-life of some radioactive isotope that wouldn't be useful in a large scale reactor, but is still powerful enough to power a car would fix a lot of problems. It would cause a lot of traffic problems, but you could drive where ever without worrying about the gas price.

Martian

I think it's possible for hydrogen to be viable as a net energy loss solution. The trick is to find a cheap, abundant source of electricity to produce the hydrogen, as well as finding more efficient ways to produce the hydrogen.

Iceland is a good test bed for all of this, because they have massive energy reserves and most of it is renewable (hydroelectric and geothermal, if I recall right). With a few gains in photovoltaics and/or wind energy, or a similar cheap and sustainable source of energy, the net loss of hydrogen becomes much less of an issue.

I believe that hydrogen is properly viewed as a form of energy storage, rather than an energy source. This puts it in direct opposition to batteries in terms of transportation. Comparing either to fossil fuels directly becomes a losing proposition, because neither one can claim any real energy efficiency in contrast to that. The expense is variable, and will be reduced as the technology matures. The deciding factor is going to be convenience and simplicity, and I honestly think hydrogen has the edge there.

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I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame

yournamehere

I agree, but I've kind of softened my view of Tesla.

Now I compare electric cars to computers of the 80s and early 90s - at first, they were very expensive and not very efficient or impressive. As the technology improved, they became not only better, but also much less expensive.

So I can see the "from the top down" approach.

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ASU2003

I agree with that. There are people building them in their garages because companies don't want to take a risk that will pay off in the long term.

And the battery technology isn't quite there yet. But CPUs weren't all that good until the 2000 time frame.


The issue is that gasoline prices go down and it kills the whole scene. If we had to pay for all the tax dollars we spend getting and securing oil fields around the world in the price of a gallon of gas, we might see a bigger EV adoption rate.

n0nsensical

I've seen a few of the 2-seat model around San Francisco, it looks really cool, you can look under the hood and see the heatsinks on the battery packs.

That describes 90% of the driving I do anyway in my gasoline-powered vehicle.. My next car will probably be a plug-in hybrid.

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Martian

n0nsensical: While that's true for most people, we still need a solution for the other 10%.

If I make a trip to the city every two months, and I'm shopping for a vehicle, those bimonthly trips are going to factor into my decision. The city is just far enough away that I would be seriously pushing it to go there and back on one charge, based on the numbers that Tesla is giving (and it's highly probable that the real world performance will be 50-75% of what they're claiming, which makes it even more difficult). If I wanted to buy an electric car, this would mean I'd have to purchase and maintain a separate vehicle just for those occasional trips, or otherwise find a different means of transportation for those occasions. This is what keeps the Tesla from being a practical vehicle; for anyone who wants to make even the occasional trip, the Tesla is at best a secondary vehicle. That substantially drives up the cost of ownership. Granted, given the segment they're marketing it to this is less of a concern, but if they want to break into the economy market this will need to be addressed.

__________________
I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame

vector_1979

Where will the electricity be generated from? Coal, Nuclear, Oil?? Renewable energy only consistutes 1% of world power generation. Electric cars would only take off for the mass market, if it can solve the problem off where to get the electricity from.

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Willravel

It depends on where you are. About 20% of power in California comes from renewable sources and that number is increasing daily. It's not good enough, of course, but at least it's headed in the right direction. Overall in the US, as of 2007, about 7% of US power is renewable (biomass, hydroelectric, wind, geothermal, and solar).

PulpMind

This is the kind of argument that's always made by people working for the companies that have an interest in not changing.
The reality is that we don't live in "the world", we live in communities within this world. Here in Portland, Oregon you can elect to have 100% of your household electricity come from clean energy sources. You can even specify specific clean sources, like wind and solar. The car isn't going to be sold in rural China or Somalia - it's going to be sold in places that have the technological capacity to make it work. In time, that means the source of energy will work, too.

Also, don't forget that anyone can install solar panels on their home. With these, you're off the grid within 10 years.

QuasiMondo

More like a four-wheeled Segway. Truly revolutionary innovations are the ones that aren't overhyped when introduced.

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Martian

Tesla is making some interesting claims regarding the range and charge times.

I'm curious as to how the 5 minute battery swap works, and how it's possible to charge the battery pack within 45 minutes. I'm assuming it'd need a 480v connection to achieve that charge time, but I thought they were using L-Ion batteries for the Model S, which makes me wonder how they can do that without damaging the battery pack over time. I'm guessing the QuickCharge isn't meant for daily use, at the very least, and probably represents something like an 80% charge rather than the full thing.

If they can actually deliver on that, though, it will go a long way towards making this a practical vehicle for a lot of consumers.

Until they actually prove it, all of it is hype.

We'll see how this goes.

On the subject of the battery packs, I just had an idle thought. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable on Tesla's way of handling this with the Roadster can enlighten me.

A Lithium Ion battery has a useful life of roughly 400 charge cycles. Does this mean that I'm going to be replacing my battery every 18-24 months? And just how much of the cost of the vehicle is represented by the battery pack?

I suppose the maintenance involved there is offset by the lack of all the ugliness of an internal combustion engine. No oil or transmission fluid or belts or pulleys or any of the other things that wear out on a usual car. Still, if it's going to cost the buyer several thousand dollars every couple of years, that could make it more difficult to market. Less of a concern in the Model S segment, again, but how will this be addressed for Bluestar I wonder?

__________________
I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame

bobby

earth population...2010...6 billion

earth population 2040...12 billion

...............does it really matter what you drive?

xoxoxoo

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