TESLA elec car

[MikeP]

I've been following this for a while and now it appears they are seriously trying to sell cars.http://www.informationweek.com/news/...leID=216401108

But IMHO, their advertising that it is "the only car you need." is a bit silly. I can certainly see that it would be fine as a daily commuter that gets plugged in every night back home. But with a 300 mile max range, I can't see it being of any use as a replacement for "regular" car. You couldn't take any trips without stopping to recharge every 300 miles and how do you do that, run an extension cord out of the motel room window? Sit at a gas station with your extension cord plugged in for 4 hours? Last August I drove from Las Vegas to Annapolis in 3 days. In that car it would take at least 10...

I admire the technology and am very impressed with the acceleration figures, though I'm not sure how many times you could run off some max acceleration to say 70MPH and still have a battery left but it is a good start.

I just don't think it is anything but a status thing or a toy...yet.

[Pascal]

Mike

you're right, I drive quite a bit too have made dozen of long trips over the last 10 years including a few coast to coast.

one thing that always surprised me is how few "drivers" cars are the road... Interstates are full of trucks, minivans, SUVs and a few towncars/caddys but you rarely see "real" cars.

that tells me that few people take long road trips meaning that 200 to 300 miles range will indeed be enough for a majority of drivers.

they claim a 45min charge time on 480V connection, not bad. wonder what the charge time is on 120v or 220v...

[SeaEric]

Pascal, I agree. Most of what is being driven on the road these days is some type of truck. But what would you define as a real car?

[MikeP]

Pascal,

Good point - when I did that drive, it was literally all semis on the road. I was amazed at the number of trucks for the whole trip compared to the number of cars. What the heck ever happened to trains as deliverers of goods?

Re Tesla charging, I found this, quoted out of an article:

The Roadster's battery has a capacity of 53kWh. Tesla quotes a charge time of 3-3.5, but that is based on charging from a 220V 80A circuit. If, on the other hand, you plug the car into a typical outlet in your living room, you would only have 15A flowing at 110V. That's 53,000W / (110V * 15) = 32.12 hours. So if you plan to get yourself a plug-in electric car with any kind of serious range, be prepared to have an electrician install a high current outlet to charge it. At the very least you'll want a 220V/40A circuit for overnight charging in 6-7 hours.




"But what would you define as a real car?"

Ferraris and such, of course!!

[SKYCHENEY]

Pascal,

What the heck ever happened to trains as deliverers of goods?

Unions.

[Boatsb]

Just to be safe I apologize to any tree hugging morons on the site for my next comment.

Shifting the fuel from gas to electric doe nothing in the final equation unless the electric comes from a renewable resource. How many panels will you put on the house to charge this so you can look self righteous and make people think you are making a difference?

[MikeP]

I don't disagree with that at all. It seems to me that charging the car just transfers the impact, it doesn't remove it. Heck, I'm wondering if it doesn't increase it. Is it really less of an environmental impact to move a 3500 lb car with elec than it is with gasoline?

Frankly, what attracted me to the car in the first place were the very rapid acceleration times for the sports version.

[Pascal]

Eric,

it's a subjective thing... anything that puts a smile on my face when i'm at the wheel or when i see it drive by... anything FUN! Down here in Miami you can't go a few blocks without running into a 911, Ferrari, SL, XK, etc... even Lambos, Bentleys, Vipers are pretty common. Yet once on the road you never see any of these.

kinda odd, isn't it?

Mike is right, the appeal is not about looking like you're doing something about the environment, it's about the performance, the technology and not having to gas up! s---w the tree huggers!

[thoward]

They had it on Top Gear not too far back. It has issues! Charging took a long time and if you do not keep your foor out of it it shuts down quickly. When it shuts down it shuts down all at once.

[Brian Degulis]

Electric cars have a future for 2 basic reasons. First your local power plant produces power much much more efiecently than your car or any internal combustion engine they are horribly in efiecent. Even with the losses in bringing electricty to your home it still beats the crap out of a gas or diesel driven car.

The other reason is that as new technology develops to produce electricity and power plants get replaced or upgraded electric cars will benifit from that. That's easier than everyone having to go out and buy a new car to take advantage of improvements.

The big problem is the grid it would have to be up graded to handle the load of millions of cars requiring charging power.

Brian