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Most Awesome Electric Car . . . ever?
geckahn
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I give you, the Tesla Model S:
More pictures
Production will ramp up to 20,000 units annually by the end of the first year of production (starting Q3 2011); after the $7,500 tax break, the Model S will start at just under $50,000 – $49,900 to be exact; and 440-volt charging will be available. That base price is for the 160-mile range pack; a 230-mile range pack and a 300-mile range pack will also be available.
* The car fits seven people and their luggage: five adults and two children in rear-facing seats under the hatch inside, with luggage in the boot up front.
* If not people, it can fit a mountain bike with its wheels still on, a surfboard and a 50-inch television at the same time.
* The dashboard screens were installed to rid the interior of buttons. The 17-inch main display is fully 3G and Internet capable.
* The 300-mile range is possible (vs the Roadster's 244-mile range) because the S has 8,000 battery cells vs. 6,000 in the Roadster, the batteries have been improved in mass and volumetric performance, and there is more advanced cell chemistry in each cell, and the S has a cd of about .27 vs. the Roadster's drag coefficient of .35.
* On a 220V outlet, the car can be recharged in 4 hours.
* Option packages are being decided, with the only initial option being the battery pack. Customers will also be able to buy the 160-mile pack and rent the long range pack for a trip.
* They are finalizing the warranty, and expect it to be 3-4 years for the car and 7-10 years for the battery pack. They expect replacement battery packs to come in at "well under $5000" according to Elon.
* The quickness: the standard S will get to 60 in 5.5 to 6.0 seconds. A coming sport version will get to 60 in "well under five seconds," Musk says.
* The car will get a single-speed transmission.
* The body panels and chassis will be primarily aluminum, with a total weight of just over 4,000 pounds, about 1,200 pounds of that being battery mass.
* For infrastructure, Tesla is working with a government-affiliated partner to set up battery changing stations at various locations. They will be able to change the battery in 5-8 minutes, "quicker than filling up your car with gas."
Personally, I am blown away by these numbers. If they hold up, I think we just found (part of) the future of American car manufacturing.
This is awesome, so let's discuss how awesome this is, and how crippled Detroit is - there is no way they ever could have come up with something like this.
More pictures
Production will ramp up to 20,000 units annually by the end of the first year of production (starting Q3 2011); after the $7,500 tax break, the Model S will start at just under $50,000 – $49,900 to be exact; and 440-volt charging will be available. That base price is for the 160-mile range pack; a 230-mile range pack and a 300-mile range pack will also be available.
* The car fits seven people and their luggage: five adults and two children in rear-facing seats under the hatch inside, with luggage in the boot up front.
* If not people, it can fit a mountain bike with its wheels still on, a surfboard and a 50-inch television at the same time.
* The dashboard screens were installed to rid the interior of buttons. The 17-inch main display is fully 3G and Internet capable.
* The 300-mile range is possible (vs the Roadster's 244-mile range) because the S has 8,000 battery cells vs. 6,000 in the Roadster, the batteries have been improved in mass and volumetric performance, and there is more advanced cell chemistry in each cell, and the S has a cd of about .27 vs. the Roadster's drag coefficient of .35.
* On a 220V outlet, the car can be recharged in 4 hours.
* Option packages are being decided, with the only initial option being the battery pack. Customers will also be able to buy the 160-mile pack and rent the long range pack for a trip.
* They are finalizing the warranty, and expect it to be 3-4 years for the car and 7-10 years for the battery pack. They expect replacement battery packs to come in at "well under $5000" according to Elon.
* The quickness: the standard S will get to 60 in 5.5 to 6.0 seconds. A coming sport version will get to 60 in "well under five seconds," Musk says.
* The car will get a single-speed transmission.
* The body panels and chassis will be primarily aluminum, with a total weight of just over 4,000 pounds, about 1,200 pounds of that being battery mass.
* For infrastructure, Tesla is working with a government-affiliated partner to set up battery changing stations at various locations. They will be able to change the battery in 5-8 minutes, "quicker than filling up your car with gas."
Personally, I am blown away by these numbers. If they hold up, I think we just found (part of) the future of American car manufacturing.
This is awesome, so let's discuss how awesome this is, and how crippled Detroit is - there is no way they ever could have come up with something like this.
geckahn on
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So one claim against, say, the Prius, is that the manufacturing side of things kind of negates the environmental benefits of the finished unit (you're swapping heavy metals problems for carbon problems, in sum). How does this stack up against a similar criticism?
I want one of these soooo badly.
Pretty much the same way, instead of actually giving it consideration the solution is to shout down anyone suggesting your $50,000 sportscar isn't magic.
[ed] @joh: geckahn's bullets say $5,000 for a replacement pack on the batteries.
Cat: yeah it's still just as bad for the environment.
Motors in the wheels for when you start moving or are reversing, everything else is straight from the motor to the wheels.
Yup.
The only solution to that going forward is to change how we mine and process nickle. If I ever own one of these, I'm pretty sure I'm going to get it for the fact that I'll never have to buy gas again, it's fast, and sexy. But I'm sure you'll get plenty of olol environment people.
uh, there will only be one gear reduction in the transmission, plus one at the differential (I'm assuming RWD)
It's important to remember that an electric motor can go to a much higher RPM than a normal car engine. You wouldn't have to shift out of say, second gear if your engine was capable of spinning up to 20,000 rpm.
$3-5 a day to save away for a battery replacement?
It may be cheaper to come up with a fossil fuel replacement. Although that's on par with filling up, you'd still need to pay for charging, and I'm sure those 8 minute charging stations aren't free.
"No petrol stations" is a pretty big environmental drawcard, though. The contaminated-lands issues the damn things cause alone make these cars worth it, forget about all the resources that go into their construction and maintenance.
Depleted battery land fills, I'm sure, will probably take up more space than the contaminated land from a gas station.
Yeah, but think about what electricity costs compared to gasoline. Pennies on the dollar. Also, there's the social benefit of leaving our dollars away from oil terrorist's hands!
I'm not really sure why, chemically, you couldn't recycle a battery just fine. Yeah, it costs a bit more money, so throw on a battery tax and pay for it. That way, we don't have to tear up new parts of the earth for more metals, and we get to save our drinking water. EVERYBODY WINS!
But similar environmental problems arise with how the fuel cells are made and how the hydrogen is formed to use as fuel. If there are huge environmental issues with "environmentally friendly" vehicles then it's not really a good idea.
If Tesla find a better way to create and dispose of their fuel cells though they've pretty much got a clean process for running a car.
Phasing out gas-stations isn't going to increase the amount of space occupied by dead car bits exponentially?
Some of them would just convert over to electric. It's not like gasoline cars would disappear overnight.
I'm curious as to the maintenance benefits of an electric vs combustion vehicle. I take it there is no oil to change, right? That's a plus as no more filters, fuel nor oil, need to be changed out every few months.
took out her barrettes and her hair spilled out like rootbeer
Lithium Ion batteries are very recyclable, you can render it down into lithium carbonate, and nearly the whole battery can be rendered down into it's base elements (nickel cadmium, nickel metal-hydride, mercury,cobalt). There's not much scrap as I understand it. There aren't many companies that do it right now though.
Would they? Companies that try to start up to convert existing cars to use non-gasoline energy reserves get no press in the face of status symbols like the one at the top of this thread. Those businesses need to become viable or what's actually going to happen is we'll just keep using gasoline and the Tesla remains irrelevant.
While they do have long range packs you can rent for trips, I just don't see the benefits right now. I can see the government awarding them with sole patent rights to cover the costs, but it still needs to be improved. This needs shit tons of funding from the government because they are very clearly on the right track.
Notice the "change" bit there, that doesn't mean charge:
http://technologyinfo.wordpress.com/2008/07/07/tesla-roadster-30-hour-charge-time/
http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/environment/2008-03-03-tesla-electric-car_N.htm
Although I think they're putting in 440V fast charging stations in some places.
http://www.teslamotors.com/efficiency/charging_and_batteries.php
It'll take around 3.5 hours to charge at a station and a night to fill at home.
Can trade TF2 items or whatever else you're interested in. PM me.
I'd also like to know what kind of fucking car takes more than eight minutes to fill up with gas. o_O
Can trade TF2 items or whatever else you're interested in. PM me.
Are you willing to wait 3 hours to fill up your car at only certain selected fill up stations?
SUVs have tanks up to 40 gallons. That will take a while to fill.
You're also forgetting that there are no quick recharges with the Tesla. It can take 3 hours to recharge a 300 mile battery pack. I don't know if this quick charge is as quick as anyone says it is.
Also, here's a Tesla blog about energy consumption with the car, tis a good read.
http://www.teslamotors.com/blog4/
It says the quick charge stations will be able to do it in about 8 minutes.
I'm questioning that myself, though.
The quick change stations. For changing the battery, not charging it.
I have no idea how theyd work out the used up battery issue with this.
We're not talking SUVs, we're talking cars. Take your SUV bullshit and get to soccer practice.
Anyways, yes, they can change the battery for you in 5-8 minutes. That's not bad, but it's not the best solution. What if you pull up and they're still charging batteries? What if they're underhanded and give you a half charged battery and you can''t even make it to the next battery change station?
I'd much rather have quicker recharge times over battery swaps.