Tesla Model S: 0-60 In 4.5 Seconds 426
thecarchik writes "We already know a lot about the all-electric 2012 Tesla Model S sedan — but at a press event ahead of tonight's exclusive VIP event at the former Toyota NUMMI facility in Fremont, California, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced Tesla was making a faster Model S for those with a sporty side. Cutting the brisk 0-60 time of the standard Model S from 5.6 second to under 4.5 seconds, the sportier version features the same 85 kilowatt-hour, 300 miles-per-charge battery pack found in the 2012 Model S Signature series. 'That's quicker than a [Porsche] 911 [Carrera],' joked Musk. 'Not bad for an electric luxury sedan.' But if you thought 300 miles was the maximum range a Tesla Model S could do, you'd be wrong."
320 miles (Score:5, Funny)
Summary cut off right where it got interesting, announcing 320 mile range. The Tesla is of course useless because a 320 mile range means I can only drive for 10 continuous hours without a brake in 32 MPH stop and go traffic and I love having a five hour commute each direction. In fact, everyone knows that not only does the average american watch TV 8 hours per day, they also commute 10 hours per day.
Re:320 miles (Score:5, Funny)
I can only drive for 10 continuous hours without a brake in 32 MPH stop and go traffic
So how do you deal with stop-and-go traffic without a brake?
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But how do you stop in stop-and-go traffic without a brake? Doesn't regeneration require a brake?
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Yes, kind of.
"Regenerative braking" is just another way to brake (ie: slow down) a moving vehicle, with the benefit of storing some of that energy as electricity. Other common methods using discs or drums lose dissipate all of the energy as heat.
A similar braking system is used on the small(ish) AC-powered compound miter saw that I have, which rapidly stops the blade after releasing the trigger. But instead of using the stored energy of the forward-moving vehicle to charge a battery, it gets dumped throug
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>>No, regeneration uses the electric motors to shop.
Damn, no wonder the Teslas are so expensive.
Re:320 miles (Score:4, Funny)
A cattle catcher?
I don't drive thru walmart parking lots, thank you
Re:320 miles (Score:5, Funny)
Re:320 miles (Score:4, Funny)
Not to split hairs, but that's a genuine off-by-0.01 error right there.
Re:320 miles (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, in 32 MPH stop-and-go traffic, you'd probably get more like 400+ miles range. Li-ion EVs excel in those conditions. The optimum steady-state speed for the Tesla Roadster is 15-20 mph. Stop and start causes loss of efficiency, but not nearly as much as highway-speed travel. The Roadster's nominal range would be met at approximately a steady-state of 55mph, if I remember the numbers correctly. Since most people drive faster than that on the highway, most people reported lower achievable ranges.
Good to see they're offering an aero wheel mod. Go Tesla! :)
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Actually, in 32 MPH stop-and-go traffic, you'd probably get more like 400+ miles range ... Stop and start causes loss of efficiency ...
Right.... so a loss in efficiency causes the range to increase. Not to mention Tesla has consistently exaggerated the range of their vehicles. Not to mention headlights, heater, ac all subtract from range. Even then I really don't see how a $50,000 electric sports car is really the solution to anyone's energy crisis. Sure it will make rich California businessmen feel better about their carbon footprint, and thank god... wouldn't want them to feel guilty or anything. I don't have anything against Tesla spe
Re:320 miles (Score:5, Insightful)
Expensive and useless toy for rich people like ... the first cars, the first motor boats and the first airplanes. Give it a few years. We'll all be driving electric cars soon enough.
Re:320 miles (Score:4, Informative)
The mileage range is something determined by the U.S. Department of Transportation based upon "typical" driving conditions. Believe it or not, there are standards which apply in this situation which don't come strictly from some marketing executive.
Your concern is legitimate, but the automotive business in America is so heavily regulated that there isn't much wiggle room for claims like this... especially if you have a production certificate from the D.O.T. for serial production. There is a lot of vaporware in the realm of electric vehicles, but eventually you have to put something out there to actually be tested in the real world. Tesla has done that.
BTW, driving range also applies to internal combustion engine vehicles as well, although most automotive manufacturers usually don't make that a key selling point.
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BTW, driving range also applies to internal combustion engine vehicles as well, although most automotive manufacturers usually don't make that a key selling point.
Depends on the manufacturer and the market they're advertising to... the new VW Golf Diesel, for example, is being advertised quite heavily around here for having a 1100km range. I also remember an episode of Top Gear (the real one) where Jeremy drove over 800 miles on a single tank of gas in a Jaguar diesel. (London to Edinburgh and back. don't kid yourself into thinking the "challenges" they do on Top Gear are anything other than advertising for that particular car)
Some cars are designed to go really fast
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Goddammit I just cleaned this laptop and now it's covered in spit!
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So what? They'll just make Apple users their target market.
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Probably uses the same type of batteries as the iDevices too ;-)
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I think you mean "Apple management."
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Wow. In one out of ten trips you take with you car, you are driving over 300 miles?
This is a 'luxury sedan': why would you buy it just to drive to the supermarket?
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Because that's what he said?
"The 300-mile range Tesla would suffice for about 90% of my driving. 90%, but not 100%, so I still have to own another vehicle for the remainder."
I'm not sure how else to interpret that statement without stuffing words into the author's mouth.
How about a Model T? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Impossible thanks to regulations:
1. emission standards (euro V or whatever) 2. safety standards (abs, esp, airbags, etc). you can't even put a car the market without those.
Try to comply with all on this list http://www.nhtsa.gov/cars/rules/import/fmvss/index.html [nhtsa.gov] and it will cost you a fortune.
Re:How about a Model T? (Score:5, Interesting)
I was looking at a 10,000$ Kia, sure that didnt have AC, power anything or even an AM radio, that car had the highest safety rating of that year, 40MPG. I ended up getting a 15 grand model and that even had a MP3 player.
Meanwhile at the GM dealership I could get a lower quality car, with less features, less gas mileage, less power and a much lower safety rating for damn near 10 grand more than the IMPORT. So its not impossible to make a low cost car, sure not 3 grand like the OP suggests but the American companies are not even trying.
Its been over a decade since I bought a domestic car, and now that almost all the imports are being made in the USA, I get to have a quality product for a reasonable price without hearing the "dey took our jobs" horse shit.
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Keep in mind the magic "carbon tax credits" and other ways that the market is being skewed. I know of more than a few automobile manufacturers who sell their vehicles at a slight loss and make up for it with sales of pollution tax credits to luxury auto companies. Still, your point is well taken so far as an arguably better vehicle costing less than an inferior vehicle which is "made in America". It isn't a surprise that foreign auto companies have been making inroads into the America auto market for dec
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Actually, the graphs I have seen put Korean cars at roughly the same long term reliability as GM and Chrysler. Which is somewhat worse than Ford, and light-years away from a Toyota or a Honda.
It is amazing how well the import companies are managing to beat American ones even using American workers. At least partially because they build their factories in Tennessee or Kentucky where they don't have to deal with union laws.
Re:How about a Model T? (Score:5, Informative)
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http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7213 [gutenberg.org]
(My Life and Work by Henry Ford)
Re:How about a Model T? (Score:4, Funny)
You're seriously making the claim that emissions standards are holding back cheap electric cars?
Re:How about a Model T? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:How about a Model T? (Score:5, Funny)
I already drive a '93 Saturn SL1, how much lower can I go?
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I already drive a '93 Saturn SL1, how much lower can I go?
'85 Geo Prizim?
Re:How about a Model T? (Score:4, Funny)
I already drive a '93 Saturn SL1, how much lower can I go?
'85 Geo Prizim?
'76 Gremlin
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Touche'.
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Huh. I drive a '96 saturn SW2 for nearly the same reason good car, damn cheap when they were new. $12k in cash. Good mileage too, right up around 44mpg. To be perfectly honest I would buy a cheap car without any of the crap in it, if it was cheap. But automakers seem to have this "HOLY SHIT LETS PACK IN CRAP" mentality.
Re:How about a Model T? (Score:4, Insightful)
The Ford T has no air conditioner, seat belt, airbags, computer assisted direction and engine or sophisticated electronic gadget. The Ford T was essentially a golf cart, and 3000$ is about right for a modern electric gold cart. If you want a revolution, peoples will have to change what they are expecting from a automobile. We can't no longer afford a 'living room' on wheel. The automobile need to return to its minimalist roots and focus on getting us from point A to point B with the less power possible.
Clearly we think we can.
What I'm tired of seeing are people with big vehicles of their own choosing (not out of necessity) who are weeping about gas prices. We Americans still have some of the cheapest gas in the world even though prices have doubled since 2004 (when I bought my first car and started really paying attention). But we expect to be able to buy a big SUV or minivan as soon as we have our first kids. Or lift our pickups and put mud tires on them. If we have had $5 gasoline, what prevents us from having $6 or $8 gas before it's time to get a new car?
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A 50cc scooter will get you from point A to point B, making 100MPG. Has all the safety features of a Model T, too.
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As to "resource-constrained", it's worth noting that the perception of resource-constrained doesn't fare well when subject to reality. For example, many people do afford "living rooms" on wheels (ie, SUVs), even whole houses on wheels (recreational vehicles). In fact, I see no "winding down" of l
Re:How about a Model T? (Score:5, Insightful)
You clearly don't understand this is a luxury sedan and not an everyman car.
How many years or decades was it from the introduction of the auto to the availability of the Model T? The price you quote for the Model T in 1925 is relatively accurate but the car had been in production for SEVENTEEN years by that time and its price of $850 in 1909 would be equivalent to about $22000 today
Do you seriously think the availability of a low-cost EV will take the same length of time?
Re:How about a Model T? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Chinese have them. In fact, Daimler sued a Chinese car maker in 2006 for making a copy-cat Smart car with an electric engine and battery. And the Chinese had already been using electric cars for real since the mid 90ies. - Not that anybody cared or noticed back in the stagnated [wordpress.com] (that is, not developing) countries.
The key is to understand, that electric cars have no market as luxury items unless and until they have been established as cars for everyday users. Before that, there just won't be the infrastructure it takes to make proper use of them. But in order to get to this point, they need a price point that makes it possible for people to use them as single-purpose vehicles, alongside the traditional ones. (E.g. getting one person and a suitcase to work and back)
$3000-4000 for a light-weight two-person car with limited range (80km/50miles) and speed (below 80km/h or 50mph) is entirely possible to achieve. Weight, range, acceleration and speed are the main determinants of the size of the battery (and its weight!), which determines the price of the battery and thus the price of an electric car. Such a car could actually have reasonable charging times (One tenth the total capacity means one tenth the time to charge) and such a car could do some 90% of the driving for a lot of people. But because of the limited performance nobody is going to bother buying such a car unless it's really cheap. (Meaning: unless it has a price that makes it reasonable to buy without being an eco-freak.)
But then again, you don't get to pay gas prices of $8/gal (as in Europe) until you realize that the USA will collapse if it continues to pretend that cheap oil is only a matter of military power.
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There are two sides to the gas prices argument.
The question nobody ever asks is this: Why is gas so much cheaper in the United States than everywhere else? The drilling is international. The costs are the same. The refining is the same. (Additives are different. I suspect that blending costs are HIGHER in the US than just about everywhere else, but ignore that for the moment.) Pipelines, storage tanks, gasoline tankers, and gas stations are the same everywhere.
So why are Europeans paying twice as much
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It has long been known that in the long term the absolute price of gas/petrol is not as important as the short term fluctuations. Basically higher prices cause long term structural changes in the economy, i.e. I move close to work, buy a more fuel efficient vehicle etc. The amount you actually spend on fuel as a percentage of your income is not that different between the USA and Europe.
The killer is the short term price fluctuations. Having high fuel duty cushions this, so if the price I pay is 50% tax, the
Re:How about a Model T? (Score:5, Insightful)
Until now, most of the car companies have been blocking the path of a mass-market EV that could compete. Chevron managed to scoop the NiMH patents and their subsidiary Cobasys won't accept any orders for car-sized batteries below 10k units. If you're going to travel above 25 mph, you can't be considered a low-speed vehicle anymore and you suddenly have to meet a lot of additional requirements for safety.
And, yes, US attitudes against small, odd vehicles that can't do the 1/4 mile in 15 secs and cheap gas is a big factor.
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I see quite a few REVAs [wikipedia.org] on the streets of London. It's been panned by the Jeremy Clarkson club, and it has a fairly limited range, but clearly it is selling. The mayor of London has been supporting electric car ideas [guardian.co.uk] for a while, and now he's pushing replacing the city's fleet of 22,000 taxis with zero-emission vehicles by 2020 [guardian.co.uk], which might mean electric vehicles. But as you say, the cost of petrol in the US isn't providing an incentive, and apparently nor is air quality, all compounded by the greater dr
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There's a reason modern cars are more expensive. You are getting a much, much, <i>much</i> better product for your money. Abso
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In general it has to be invented before it can be mass produced at a low cost. Tesla is still in the invention stage.
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I'm not sure we could build a Model T for $3K today, and consumers have higher exceptions than they did in 1925.
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The Model T was introduced in late 1908. You're talking about where Tesla would be in nearly 2030.
Back in 1908, the Model T cost $850, or over $20k today. But remember that the part count in such a vehicle was many orders of magnitude lower than that in a modern car. Here's what a 1908 Model T [hfmgv.org] looked like under the hood. Not much there! Also remember that the Model T was hardly the first gasoline car produced in America.
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It worked great for the Volkswagen Beetle as well.
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Re:How about a Model T? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:How about a Model T? (Score:5, Insightful)
Thanks for the link but you'll get a better comparison if you use the Model T's price of $850 in 1909, instead of the cost after being in production for 17 years.
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As compared to the consumer price index. There's nothing to prevent gold from crashing back to pre-2007 levels ( expect the horrible state of the Western economies ) but will that drop the cost of everything you buy to what you were paying 4-6 years ago?
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http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%24240+in+1925+dollars [wolframalpha.com]
Inflation has been far from steady.
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Using the phrase, "rule of 72" makes you sound like either a charlatan, or an old timer who doesn't realize that you can get a pocket calculator capable of doing exponents and logarithms for under $10. Sometimes you can even find them on sale at gas stations....
Wait for Top Gear (Score:2)
I remember all the claims Tesla motors made about the original sports car. Top Gear UK tested it and most of the performance claims turned out ot be less than 1/2. It was utter junk. I would like to see Top Gear (who I trust) test this new Tesla (who I no longer trust).
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'On our track, it would run out in (number) miles' "
It's an extrapolation (not a fact) given to harm the company the statement is about. In Florida or Texas, that will land you in court (if about a "protected" industry), and no, truth of that statement doesn't matter in the US for those cases. And the truth is not a an absolute defense to libel in the UK, as it generally is taken to be in the US.
Re:Wait for Top Gear (Score:4, Informative)
They also showed the crew pushing it into the garage by hand implying that the batteries were totally flat, when the car's systems never recorded the battery dropping below 20% with a voice over saying "we wanted to do more shots, but... look what happened".
The script was pre written (literally) - they knew how they were going to shoot the piece, and they told some massive porkies at the end for no good reason, since it was a pretty decent review up to that point.
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Re:Wait for Top Gear (Score:4, Informative)
You actually trust top gear to make a fair review? They are there to entertain you, not be accurate.
You really need to get your facts somewhere else before you cast a judgement.
Re:Wait for Top Gear (Score:5, Informative)
It doesn't take nearly as long as Top Gear pretended it does, and they knew that. On the standard Tesla charger, a *full* charge (not a daily commute charge, but a "I just drove 200 miles" charge) takes 3 1/2 hours.
Top Gear also pretended the vehicle overheated (it didn't), that they were without a working vehicle at one point (they weren't), that the vehicle ran out of charge (it didn't), and that it would run of charge abnormally earlier than comparable gasoline vehicles (it wouldn't; all-out with a Roadster on the track may only get you ~40 miles, but all-out with a Veyron will only get you ~60).
Top Gear is an entertainment show that doesn't care much for the truth.
As for your "transferring carbon production", the DOE has already extensively studied this (as have many, many other groups). In every case, the conclusion is that even on our current grid, EVs are notably cleaner than gasoline cars. Meanwhile, oil keeps getting dirtier (tar sands, deepwater, etc), while the grid gets cleaner (new power infrastructure in the US is primarily NG and wind).
Math (Score:3)
>>On the standard Tesla charger, a *full* charge (not a daily commute charge, but a "I just drove 200 miles" charge) takes 3 1/2 hours.
So you have to spend between 2x and 4x as much time driving the car charging it? That's not a good selling point.
>>the DOE has already extensively studied this (as have many, many other groups). In every case, the conclusion is that even on our current grid, EVs are notably cleaner than gasoline cars.
I'd like to see a citation for this. But in lieu of one, let's
Re:Wait for Top Gear (Score:4, Informative)
So it doesn't take hours to recharge the batteries? Oh wait...
RTFA http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1066795_breaking-tesla-making-faster-2012-model-s-0-60-in-under-4-5-seconds [greencarreports.com]
When the batteries are depleted, Tesla says even the 300-mile range Model S will be able to recharge from empty to full in under an hour thanks to its new direct current external charger. The 90 kilowatt units will be installed by Tesla at suitable rest-stop locations or hotels alongside arterial freeways such as I-5 between Canada and Mexico.
Re:Wait for Top Gear (Score:4, Insightful)
When the batteries are depleted, Tesla says even the 300-mile range Model S will be able to recharge from empty to full in under an hour thanks to its new direct current external charger. The 90 kilowatt units will be installed by Tesla at suitable rest-stop locations or hotels alongside arterial freeways such as I-5 between Canada and Mexico.
Wow, I'll be able to recharge in under an hour every 300 miles, so long as I find the 'suitable' location where electricity will probably be priced at $1 a kWh because they know that I have no alternative other than to pay the price or pay for a tow.
I'll stick to my Civic, thanks, which can travel about twice as far, fill up in two minutes and do so at any gas station we pass.
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Until electric cars can be recharged in about the same time it takes to fuel up an internal combustion car, they won't be practical replacements.
Why not? If you drive a few miles to work everyday and come home everyday, why can't you just top up overnight? How often do you need to refuel that you really need to have it done in minutes? If it's really that often, you might want to consider moving closer to where you work or getting a better car.
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Moreover, why do we need to adopt Highlander Rules here? An electric car is a practical replacement for people whose driving habits don't require a fuel station on every corner. That doesn't work for everyone, and those people shouldn't buy a pure electric car.
However, complaints about the range issue do highlight one of the real problems in selling electric vehicles: discomfort in giving up some capability regardless of how often you actually use that capability. I owned my first car (quite the beater)
Re:Wait for Top Gear (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wait for Top Gear (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember all the claims Tesla motors made about the original sports car. Top Gear UK tested it and most of the performance claims turned out ot be less than 1/2. It was utter junk. I would like to see Top Gear (who I trust) test this new Tesla (who I no longer trust).
I love Top Gear, but you have to be pretty dumb to believe a review of an electric car done by someone who has on numerous occasions said he doesn't like them.
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Seriously? The appearance on Top Gear was infamous for being unfairly staged! Top Gear hates electric cars!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/mar/30/tesla-sue-top-gear [guardian.co.uk]
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How far do you think a Veyron would go at all-out track duty? Seriously, you drive a vehicle with the pedal to the floor, expect your range to suck, no matter what your powertrain.
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Re:Wait for Top Gear (Score:5, Informative)
Top Gear has a record of out and out faking when "reviewing" Tesla cars. As an entertainment show, I am not sure how much credence I would give them for any brand, when it comes to Tesla they are on record as lying.
http://articles.businessinsider.com/2008-12-29/green_sheet/30080624_1_electric-car-drag-race-lotus-elise [businessinsider.com]
Robert Llewellyn has pointed out that Top Gear's roadshows are sponsored by Shell (who are invested in hydrogen as the alternative fuel of the future) and that Top Gear has talked up the potential of hydrogen as superior to electric vehicles.
Robert Llewellyn is of course a very vocal electric car advocate. I recommend his web series Carpool: just as entertaining as Top Gear, but in a different way.
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he also has a podcast called fully charged that's worth watching. it's about electric/hybrid technology.
http://www.youtube.com/user/fullychargedshow [youtube.com]
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Where did you hear this?
Hydrogen will never be the future technology. I have visited BMW at the University of Birmingham, and have met their engineers many times, and these are the facts about hydrogen.
It is expensive to manufacture hydrogen, difficult to transport and almost impossible to store in large quantities. It take 20 minutes to fill a 'tank' on a hydrogen car, and because they are small tanks as it is hard to store the fuel, you get no more than 150 miles per refill, and if you do not use your car
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Top Gear is full of shit.
They have been caught staging events to make better (more interesting/sensational) TV.
It's entertainment, not science.
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It's bad. Our unionized-coddled-public-sector employee mandatory augmented lunch break scheme, and general socialist hatred of efficiency don't help, of course; but they just keep dumping more work on us. It's even harder because half of the conspiracies directly contradict the other half(we've had to let three spin-doctors retire with generous disability pensions due to workplace-induced vert
The imporant question (Score:2)
How long will the battery last? It's all great and exciting, but if one has to replace a ridiculously expensive (10,000$+) battery every 5-6 years, this is a nonstarter.
Re:The imporant question (Score:5, Insightful)
The Tesla Roadster has an expected battery life of 7 years, and you can pre-order a new one for $12,000 (it'll be delivered in 7 years).
No doubt the prices for new batteries will have gone down by 7 years from now, and the Model S has a swappable battery (for those who don't want to wait for it to charge).
Yes, this is an expensive car. But it's half the price of their previous car, and their next one is supposedly going to be cheaper again.
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battery life depends on use and charge cycle. normal driving/charging will give much more than 5-6 years use. for many drivers the fuel savings over 5-6 years would pay for new batteries twice over. Anyway, it's a premium car with a premium price, the buyer won't care.
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I've never driven a car whose gasoline engine crapped out after only seven years.
I don't even own a car that is less than 12 years old now, and all of them have engines that are in fine shape.
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Oil changes are $20-$30 in the US (assuming you don't want to do it yourself), which makes $420 worst-case for the oil changes.
I just picked up a set of sparkplugs for my Mazda6 at Autozone for $18. And they were the fancy iridium ones, too. Even if you had to buy a socket wrench, spark plug socket, and extender for both changes the total can't be over $100.
Sure, getting a timing belt done is relatively expensive, but they're generally an "every 100,000 miles" item, and no more than $300 on any car I've o
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Stating a true fact you don't like hearing doesn't make me wrong. I had a '67 Bug with over 300,000 miles. The engine crapped out on that one when someone stole the engine out of the car while it was parked at my dad's place. But that doesn't mean that gasoline engines don't take a s
Re:The imporant question (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, the Volt's pack is going to be *warrantied* for ten years, soo.... Plus, A) EV battery packs can often have parts of them replaced individually, and B) evne a reduced-capacity pack still has value (say, on grid load balancing)
Battery life is always going to be limited by *design*. You can have any sort of lifespan you want out of a battery, from nanoseconds to tens of thousands of years. It's all about tradeoffs. The better the chemistry, the better the temperature regulation. the gentler the charge/discharge curve, the better the charge management, and the lower the depth of discharge range, the longer the lifespan, by orders of magnitude. As for Tesla's design approach:
* Chemistry: nothing special -- same as in laptops
* Temperature regulation: top notch -- a far cry from an unregulated battery pack sitting right next to your CPU.
* Charge management: very good -- detailed computer monitoring and balancing of hundreds of individual subcomponents.
* Charge curve: The most common case (~3.5 hours per full charge) is a little gentler than an average laptop charge. The mild case (a 120V socket) is exceedingly gentle. The rare case (fast charging on a long trip, ~1 hour) is worse than for most laptops.
* Discharge curve: Unless the vehicle is being put through track duty, gentler than a laptop.
* Depth of discharge: It's hard to generalize between laptops. Telsa does not charge to 100%, nor allow down to 0%, and the most common discharge case usually only uses a few tens of percents charge before recharging. So in general, well gentler than for a laptop.
Different vehicles vary. The Leaf uses a better chemistry, but poorer temperature regulation. The Volt uses both a better chemistry and good temperature regulation.
Automation (Score:5, Interesting)
This is the future of American manufacturing. They can make anything. It's almost 100% vertically integrated, which means everything from plastics and metals to batteries, electronics, motors and component assembly is done here, with flexible multi-purpose robots. Every car can be different, with no retooling, because the robots can do anything. It's just software.
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60 miles per hour is 88 feet per second. Given constant acceleration, we have 88 feet per second divided by 4.5 seconds, which yields about 19.6 feet per second squared. Using the formula d=0.5*a*t^2, and taking 1320 feet as a quarter mile, we get 1320=0.5*19.6*t^2. Solving for t gives us about 11.6 seconds.
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Where you've assumed constant acceleration throughout? And at the end of that time the car would be going 155mph - I highly doubt that acceleration is anything like constant from 0-60 and it certainly won't be at higher velocities, as drag is proportion at v^2. If it were, you could have one of these babies hit light speed in about a year and a half...
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Ah, the dangers of extrapolation. Thank you.
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That's nothing! It'd run its 320 mile range in sqrt(320 miles * 2 / (19.6 ft/s^2)) = 6m 55s.
Too bad the braking will be a bit complicated at 6.92 minutes * 19.6 ft/s^2 = 5,548 mph.
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Air resistance plays a relatively small role on acceleration times. The faster you accelerate, the smaller the role.
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This vehicle is being designed for freeway driving..... which implies not just 0-60 in a quick start but sustained driving at 70+ mph for an extended period of time. Obviously freeway driving will suck juice out of the batteries faster than driving at a slower speed, but it isn't as bad as it seems.
I've heard of more than a few people who have driven from the SF Bay area to Lake Tahoe and back with a Tesla Roadster (presumably recharging overnight in Nevada). Figure that out for yourself what that implies
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This vehicle is being designed for freeway driving.....
Why would you want an electric car for freeway driving? Electric cars only make any kind of sense in situations where you don't have to sit and wait for them to recharge (e.g. a daily commute where you can recharge overnight).
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It's worth pointing out that they've chosen the most favourable acceleration statistic to quote. Electric cars are extremely quick at lower speeds, but their acceleration tails off more q
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I'm no expert. Based on Wikipedia, and verified by external sites, I've compiled the following information for comparison:
Normal high end cars get a zero to sixty of a little under 6 seconds. Expensive exotic cars get 3-4 seconds. The worlds fastest street legal car (the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport) does 0-60 in 2.46 seconds (that car costs the equivalent of over 2.5 million US dollars!).
The Formula One race cars (which trade some safety of street legal cars for extra speed), can get 0-60 time of around 2.3
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If America is to compete with other country sponsored industries - i.e. China massively funding most of their new technologies, then it's not unreasonable.
Yes it is unreasonable. If there are truly worthwhile investments to be made in these technologies then the private sector will make them at the time when it's most appropriate.
Just like the Big Three built reliable, safe cars with good emissions, while the Japanese were eating their lunch? Oh wait, the free market failed to keep up in this country, and we had to raise federal crash test standards to the point where only massive pieces of steel or expensively engineered ones (e.g. Smart ForTwo) can pass them, in order to disqualify most of those vehicles. In the end, we got government intervention specifically BECAUSE the Big Three automakers are incapable of keeping up. So no, th