Nice looking electric vehicle!

[Wagz]

Electric cars have existed for years. What makes you guys think this car is going to be anymore successful than an EV1?

 

The guy who wrote that article is a moron. This thing' date=' if it even sells 1000 units, will do absolutely zero to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Fuel cost will not be zero because electricity is expensive. The car will not be zero emissions because it will still be charged by an electric plant fueled by some type of fossil fuel or nuclear power.

 

Face it, all these guys did was put a bunch of lap top batteries and an electric motor in a Lotus. Big whoop. Cushman has been doing it for decades.[/quote']

From the Tesla site: the EV1 is known for a 60 mile range, the EV2 slightly better, the Tesla has 250 mile range. A 250 mile range is very usable as a daily driver, commuter car.

 

It uses Lithium Ion battery technology instead of the usual (and toxic) lead-acid or nickel metal hydride batteries. So, from that respect a better car to.

 

True, you are moving the production of power from its own internal combustion engine to some other source, but the sources are fewer and are supposedly more efficient at reducing emissions. From the Tesla site:

Electric power generation in the USA does not use oil. Coal, hydro, nuclear, solar, and natural gas are typical sources for generating electricity. Power generation plants, even coal burning ones, are inherently more efficient and less polluting than vehicles due to economies of scale and the ability to more efficiently remove pollutants from a smaller number of much larger fixed locations. Also, an electric car is far more efficient than a gasoline car, so the amount of pollution generated by producing the electricity to drive an EV a given distance is much less than the pollution from the gasoline to drive an internal combustion car the same distance.

I agree about the author of the article. I stopped reading his rant after a few paragraphs, but I did spend some time cruising the Tesla web site. I think these guys are onto something.

 

The car appears to be far more usable than the EV1/EV2 cars from GM (if we can believe the marketing hype). It has much better range and fairly impressive performance specs. Electricity isn't cheap, but it's cheaper than gas when you look at costs per mile driven. You get the benefits of economies of scale with respect to greenhouse emissions when using far fewer power plants to produce electricity over millions of gas burning cars. My choice would be to purchase the Solar charging units Tesla offers that they will have installed at your home. It's a great option if you live in the southern parts of the US.

 

Will this particular car be any more successful than the EV1/EV2? Nope. Not at that price. But, if the marketing can be somewhat trusted, the Tesla is a big step in the right direction.

 

I may live in Oregon, but I'm no Geenpeace card carrying, tree hugger. I own a Ford truck with a big V8 that is my daily driver and I like to put big old V8s in little sports cars and drive 'em like I stole 'em. However, dependence on foreign oil and the ever increasing environmental issues have my attention. This car may lead to other advances that will eventually produce a car the masses can afford and will want to drive.

[MusPuppis]

I dunno, looks like another fly by night deal to me.

 

You say 80k isnt much with no fuel bill yes? What about re-charge costs? The electricity that thing sucks is most likely extremely substantial, so how will your electric bill be effected? Also keep in mind, even IF the gas was 0 and the recharge cost was tiny tiny, ts a whole ♥♥♥♥-ton harder to qualify for a loan that large than one for say, 15k to get into a little Focus or the like.

 

Also, it says it charges over night, cool, so you better make sure you plan exactly what you'r doing, how and when. Now, a 250 mile range is way more than you'd need day to day, but 'm just making the point that its not the same as a car you pop into a gas station, 5 minutes later you'r back on the road with a tank full of gas and a 300+ mile range, etc.

 

It boasts some nice performance numbers, nice range etc, but its ultra light, this technology starts to fade heavily in the face of larger cars meant to deal with a family and the day to day ass-kicking required out of a vehicle like that.

 

I want electric cars (or any manner of alternative fuel vehicles) to succeed but theres no single solution, I think our salvation lies in a number of different and strongly supported options from gas, ethanol, bio deisel, hybrids, pure electrics, deisel, the garbage oil manufacturing process, etc etc etc.

 

Its a neat little experiement, but its nothing special, just a niche little car that shows the electric concept is functional if any and all factors are perfect, which in the day to world, they rarely are.

 

Little thing looks sexy as hell though.

[Dave88SS]

From the Tesla site: the EV1 is known for a 60 mile range' date=' the EV2 slightly better, the Tesla has 250 mile range. A 250 mile range is very usable as a daily driver, commuter car.

[/quote']

 

And the EV1 would have a lot better range with modern batteries. Electric cars have been figured out for years, it's powering them that still needs more development for them to become practical.

[AK-Z]

Electric cars have existed for years. What makes you guys think this car is going to be anymore succesfull than an EV1?

 

The guy who wrote that article is a moron. This thing' date=' if it even sellls 1000 units, will do absolutely zero to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Fuel cost will not be zero because electricity is expensive. The car will not be zero emmissions because it will still be charged by an electric plant fueled by some type of fossil fuel or nuclear power.

 

Face it, all these guys did was put a bunch of lap top batteries and an electric motor in a Lotus. Big whoop. Cushman has been doing it for decades.[/quote']

Werd. still wouldn't mind having one. Its less suspicious to have an extension cord coming from a neighbors house than, you syphoning out their gas. lol

 

EDIT: Shouldn't this thread be in the Non-tech section?

[Pop N Wood]

Werd. still wouldn't mind having one. Its less suspicious to have an extension cord coming from a neighbors house than' date=' you syphoning out their gas. lol

 

EDIT: Shouldn't this thread be in the Non-tech section?[/quote']

 

LOL. That would make it cost effective. Knew a guy in SoCal who had an electric car and plugged it in during the day at the company parking garage. The company even highlighted his commuting choice in the company newspaper. Guess it never dawned on them who was paying the bill.

 

A gallon of gas contains 36 KW-Hrs of energy. Right now BGE electric rates are 11 cents per kilowat hour. That is about $4 a gallon for the equivalent amount of electrical energy. Electric motors are more efficient and have the option of regenerative braking. From what I have read figure it takes half the electricity as gas, so at BGE prices the “fuel†costs for an electric charger is about the equivalent of paying $2/gallon for gas.

 

And forget a solar recharger. When the Hydrogen threads were circulating, I figured with efficiencies of today’s solar panels it would take something like a 20 foot by 30 foot solar cell to have any hope of generating the equivalent of even 1 gallon of gas a day. Something like that would costs 10’s of thousands of dollars. It would also require your car to be at home during daylight hours to recharge

 

250 mile/charge is pretty good, but only if you drive it like a Prius on a fair day. Turn on the AC and my guess is you will probably get half that range. The first time the snow flys figure maybe a fifth or even a tenth of that range. These numbers will go down as the batteries age.

 

My guess there is a reason they put these higher capacity batteries in and $80K car. Could it be because the batteries themselves cost too much to get in a $20K car? And what is the life expectancy of those batteries? What will the replacement costs be?

 

US electricity is generated primarily from non-foreign oil. But the US electric grid is hardly bursting with excess capacity. In this age surge power is generated primarily from natural gas powered generators. Unfortunately natural gas is made from foreign oil. I don’t buy the non-polluting aspects of coal electric plants (those bastards are dirty!) and people still turn rabid at the thought of building nuc plants.

 

Cute car but don’t buy the sales hype.