Tesla Electric Roadster

[Griff]

0 to 60 in four seconds seems to be a good way to break oils hold on us. Of course, I'm relying on you early adopters to foot the bill for the next few years.

[xoxoxoBruce]

250 miles on a charge may be max when not doing 4 second runs or 120 cruises. Stats are deceptive unless they're tied together.

I saw it on TV yesterday being test driven by the governator. Arnold liked it but he's a politician. Cute sports car for $100 grand but they said three more years development for a small sedan.

The MIT nano batteries may make it practical but it's still a question of where does the juice for a recharge come from?

I'm skeptical because there have been so many broken promises in the past, but hopeful somebody has finally got it right. I suspect somebody said, hey electric has a lot of good points but people won't even try it because all the electric cars to date have looked terribly uncool. Build a cute sportscar to win them over, then build something practical to sell.

[Griff]

Getting rid of shifting should be part of the pitch as well. I saw some car being advertised as having no "shift shock" and immediately thought, hey electrics don't have that.

[Undertoad]

Electrics don't have a standard gearbox?

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Electrics don't have a standard gearbox?

Originally Posted by http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/19/business/19electric.html

It goes from zero to 60 miles an hour in four seconds, “wicked fast,” said the company’s chairman, Martin Eberhard. Because it is an electric, the driver does not have to shift into second gear until the car hits 65, he said.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Electrics don't have a standard gearbox?

You could conceivably have direct drive due to the electic motors high rpm. This car's motor is capable of 13,500 rpm.

As far as getting electricity, my first concern is weakening the power of the oil rich Arab states. That means everything is on the table coal, nuke, wind, solar, tidal, geothermal, if it makes steam do it.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Griff

As far as getting electricity, my first concern is weakening the power of the oil rich Arab states.

Which is totally irrelevant and not the problem. Energy problem occurs when we do not do more with less energy - when we don't innovate every decade. When an economy stop innovating, then not only does recession loom. We even have citizens acting like children - crying about the price of energy. Crying in part because citizens encouraged and therefore helped create problems.

Why is gasoline at $3+ per gallon? Look at innovation in the 1990s - or better, notice how much innovation was stifled in those 1990. Government provided $100 million to produce a hybrid in 1994. Where is te hybrid today? Instead those $100 million masked GM no profits and impending bankruptcy. Remember, GM was only four hours from bankruptcy in 1991 - their innovation has been that pathetic for that long. With stifled innovation, then economics punishes society 10 years later.

Arabs are not the problem. A society dominated by those who most successfully stifle innovation - the MBA and the lawyer - are the problem. Hybrid is but another technology stifled for so long that eventually it appeared in Japanese products. As a result, we even have higher energy prices, excessive energy consumption, increasing interest rates, increasing trade imbalances, average incomes that don't even keep pace with inflation, etc.

Where did Arabs create any of this? Nowhere. A trophy of that problem is a 1968 technology vehicle called the SUV. Another trophy is GM engines that still don't even have 1970 technology - the overhead cam. Arabs didn't do any of that. We consumers who failed to buy using free market economics - we created the problem. For example, many of us so hated America as to buy Chevys, Buicks, Pontiacs, and GMC products. Vehicles so bad as to not even routinely exceed their EPA Highway mileage ratings in real world driving. Products so bad that such vehicles must have two extra pistons to only equal what overseas competition did routinely last decade.

Only realistic solution is doing more work with less energy. Everything else is hype and myth.

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by tw

Another trophy is GM engines that still don't even have 1970 technology - the overhead cam. Arabs didn't do any of that. We consumers who failed to buy using free market economics - we created the problem. For example, many of us so hated America as to buy Chevys, Buicks, Pontiacs, and GMC products. Vehicles so bad as to not even routinely exceed their EPA Highway mileage ratings in real world driving.

CarChip says my 1998 Saturn SC2 is getting 38mpg with its 1.9l DOHC engine.

Maybe they only sold them to lesbians.

[Griff]

tw you ignorant slut. You are addressing (improperly I might add) the wrong problem. The problem is national security. Half-steps, like increasing the efficiency of our use of an enemy controlled comodity, in the face of the rapidly increasing Chinese import of same, is pointless.

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by Griff

0 to 60 in seconds seems to be a good way to break oils hold on us.

Cool. How would you be planning to charge the batts? Nuclear power?

Amusing that they named it after Tesla...

Originally Posted by http://www.keelynet.com/energy/teslafe1.htm

But it is a mystery car once demonstrated by Nikola Tesla, developer of alternating current, that might have made electrics triumphant.

Supported by the Pierce-Arrow Co. and General Electric in 1931, he took the gasoline engine from a new Pierce-Arrow and replaced it with an 80-horsepower alternating-current electric motor with no external power source.

At a local radio shop he bought 12 vacuum tubes, some wires and assorted resistors, and assembled them in a circuit box 24 inches long, 12 inches wide and 6 inches high, with a pair of 3-inch rods sticking out. Getting into the car with the circuit box in the front seat beside him, he pushed the rods in, announced, "We now have power," and proceeded to test drive the car for a week, often at speeds of up to 90 mph.

As it was an alternating-current motor and there were no batteries involved, where did the power come from?

Popular responses included charges of "black magic," and the sensitive genius didn't like the skeptical comments of the press. He removed his mysterious box, returned to his laboratory in New York - and the secret of his power source died with him.

Speaking of early adopters: Have you Hugged a Hummer Today?

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by MaggieL

Speaking of early adopters: Have you Hugged a Hummer Today?

"Energy cost per mile" in dollars?

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

"Energy cost per mile" in dollars?

Oh...do you get your energy for free? In that case don't worry about it; it doesn't apply to you. :-)

[glatt]

A more useful unit of measure would be overall pollution emitted into the atmosphere for each mile driven.

A hybrid uses more energy in manufacture, where emmisions reduction equipment like scrubbers are able to limit pollution. A Hummer uses more energy on the road, where only a little catalytic converter is able to do anything with pollution, and that's only after it's had a chance to heat up.

I bet the Hummer pollutes more, even if it uses less energy overall, (a claim I'm skeptical about.)

The article is correct though, that

Originally Posted by article

Hybrid vehicles' overall energy costs exceed those of comparable non-hybrids

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by MaggieL

Oh...do you get your energy for free? In that case don't worry about it; it doesn't apply to you. :-)

It seems like if you're measuring the amount of energy it takes to construct and operate it, dollars isn't the proper unit. What question does that answer?

End user costs? The retail cost of most Hummers is more than most hybrids, even if you take into account a $3000 subsidy that Ford is losing per car, according to the article. The operating cost per mile will vary based on gas costs, but it's more for Hummers. So for the consumer, the hybrid is cheaper.

Environmental reasons? What difference do dollars make? Either measure total energy use or total pollution created. Converting it to dollars just seems obfuscatory.

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

Converting it to dollars just seems ofuscatory.

Well, not every erg costs the same. A kilowatt-hour bought off the electricity grid will have a different cost than when bought as gasoline in Hawaii. I think using cost as a rough measure of scarcity makes sense.