Tesla Model S: The revolution is now

I told my friend a couple days ago that The Tesla Model S would be the turning point in in the automotive industry--the car that would be the sort of before and after of cars before the Model S and cars after. I wasn't really sure why I thought this--mainly it was just because of its strong sales numbers--sales numbers that are strong for a car in its class bracket (high end sports car) but especially for electric cars. One thing I have personally liked about the Tesla (and have been confused why more automakers don't do this, but maybe they do) is the location of the batteries--they're underneath the car, and since batteries are heavy, this gives the Tesla an excellent low center of gravity which improves handling performance and, perhaps more importantly, safety:

Begin online article:
Tesla Motors (TSLA) says its all-electric Model S sedan has received the highest crash test ratings of any car ever tested by federal regulators. Not only that: Tesla says it was nearly impossible to roll the Model S over during the tests, and that a machine used to crush roofs in another test broke because the Model S is so strong.

Palo Alto-based company and CEO Elon Musk takes pride in the fact that, to date, there have been no reported Model S or Tesla Roadster occupant fatalities.

"Of all vehicles tested, including every major make and model approved for sale in the United States, the Model S set a new record for the lowest likelihood of injury to occupants," Tesla said in a statement released late Monday. "While the Model S is a sedan, it also exceeded the safety score of all SUVs and minivans. This score takes into account the probability of injury from front, side, rear and rollover accidents."

http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_23901128/tesla-model-s-aces-crash-tests-federal-regulators

anyway, I hope this is a harbinger for future car designs and that the Model S sets a trend which many automakers will follow.

There is actually a Tesla dealership inside of the Washington Square mall in Tigard, Oregon. Yep - an indoor shopping mall. Because of this, I was actually able to sit inside a Tesla Model S and get a feel for it (though I didn't get to drive one; I'm not licensed yet and the car was kind of indoors at the time).

Pretty much the entire interior of the car is hooked up to the central computer system; this means that not only is the center console essentially an oversized, integrated touchscreen computer, the dashboard elements are this way as well, and you can adjust which indicators are visible at a time (though the speedometer is required to be shown at all times).

The salesperson I spoke to said that the integrated computer actually has 4G internet access (which I proved by surfing the center console to kittenwar.com and leaving it there). Unsure what it costs monthly, though, or if it does at all. I've heard of these sorts of luxury cars coming with mobile internet for life; I don't have a hard time believing that, either, because the model I was sitting in was priced at $65,000 (that's in American dollars, too!).

I really do like this huge push for electric-only vehicles. I hear tell that Volkswagen and Chevrolet are competing in prices for their electrics, and Smart is supposed to have one too. The state of Oregon is also starting to see a lot more of those "Blink" quick-recharge stations at regular parking lots. Every college campus I've wandered on to from Pacific University to Portland Community College has had parking lots with Blink rechargers somewhere. This is a good sign, in my opinion.

I actually thought this would be like the Tesla Cannon from RTCW because the video is titled "Tesla kills".

I at least thought of something like the P.E.P.S gun from Deus Ex HR, which is actually being made real, both as lethal and non lethal riot control.

Hot off the wire, Tesla reportedly to make affordable Electric car in a few years. But $65K for such a high tech sport car that's all electric is actually a really good price!

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162-57599474/elon-musk-tesla-to-make-affordable-electric-car-in-three-to-four-years/

Earlier this month, Tesla posted its second consecutive profitable quarter, more than doubling its operating profit from the first quarter of 2013. And then, last fall, the Tesla Model S was named Motor Trend's 2013 Car of the Year. It was the first time in the 64-year history of the prestigious honor that the winning car did not run on gasoline.

"I'm not trying to be disruptive for the sake of being disruptive," Musk replied. "That's not making people's lives better, but in the case of oil-based transport, there's no choice, we've got to disrupt that, we've got to have sustainable means of transportation."

It's a long way from 2008, when the fledgling company almost went bankrupt. Its critics called Tesla a house of cards that would collapse due to the lack of electric car charging stations and an unproven driving record.

Jessica Caldwell, of the car information Web site Edmunds.com, said, "I think what Tesla and Elon Musk are trying to do is go by those criticisms one-by-one and to very methodically address those: do we have good performance? 'Yes, Motor Trend says that we did.' Do we have good safety? 'Yes, (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) says that we are a very safe car'."

The Model S can go up to 300 miles on a single charge and the company plans to add to its network of superchargers along the East and West Coasts. The next challenge: making a mass market electric car more people can afford, not just those who can shell out more than $100,000 for a loaded Model S.

Musk said, "I think we can produce an affordable long-range compelling electric car in about three to four years."

Statements like that are no longer considered boastful. In fact, traditional car companies, such as General Motors have now formed teams to study Tesla and learn from its success.

Musk said, "I think the big American car companies kind of got complacent at a certain point and they just stopped trying to innovate, or they didn't think anyone could sort of outdo them and I think soon as you sort of have that, that attitude, then somebody's going to outdo you."

At only 21,000 production cars a year, Tesla isn't going to out-do Detroit in volume anytime soon. But when it comes to innovation, the company is cornering the market.

With oil becoming more and more expensive to extract and refine, I suppose an electric car was inevitable, even if oil companies try their best to prevent it.

Does anyone remember the GM EV1?

Is that car made off from damascus steel and nanocarbon tubes? :P

Electric car is a recurring fad, but it hasn't amounted to anything useful yet. 65k is frankly ridiculous and it's not going to get much cheaper unless it's possible to mass produce it. I also bet every electric car manufacturer of the past promised to build a network of charging stations, but those never materialized, so I'm sceptical. That problem only gets aggravated by the electric car's chronic problem with energy storage. Cheap, high capacity batteries are "around the corner" for who knows how many years, but they still remain one of the worst technology bottlenecks for humankind. Those "up to 300 miles" sound a lot like "down to 4l/100km" for regular cars - it's possible, but you'd better turn that AC off. And radio. And every other system you don't need for driving. Oh and drive at the optimum speed and do not deviate from it, please.

The electric car has a slew of other problems not usually mentioned in these promo articles. The batteries are really heavy and they're also vulnerable to extreme temperatures. Their capacity drops in freezing cold and I'd be surprised if the car operated at all at, say, -20C. At high temperatures the batteries function, but their efficiency drops dramatically.

Fuel cell cars are even worse off, by the way.

dew said:

Fuck progression, don't even try.

What'd you do with dew, BP!

Technician said:

What'd you do with dew, BP!

hahahahahaha +2

So... are you guys going to buy one? I'll read your blog faithfully if you do!

My friend drives this one and he says it's a mixed bag. Electric motor is much more responsive and yeah, it's completely silent, so you have to add artificial motor sound from a speaker, but look at those parameters. He has to turn off every system he doesn't need to keep the car operable and recharge management is a chore. Although I guess people got used to that in the age of the smartphone. Btw, just recently Skoda discontinued the car before it even went to series production, quietly backing from the electric car research.

So yeah, pardon my scepticism, but it is a toy, not a car.

Technician said:

Does anyone remember the GM EV1?

Apparently, good old Phil Karn remembers his very own fondly.

If you can spare the time, read the entire page. The EV-1 FAQ is pretty good too. My favourite one is this:

Can't you just carry a spare battery or something in case you run out?
This one really took me by surprise the first time I heard it. I was even more surprised when I got it again from someone else. The answer, of course, is that 40% of the EV1's curb weight of 2970 pounds is batteries. If somebody could make a portable battery that could store as much energy as the EV1's lead-acid pack (16.3 kW-hr), they'd totally revolutionize not only the automotive industry but many other areas of electronics. It would be one of the most significant inventions since the transistor.
I guess this question shows how we've all grown accustomed to the incredible energy density of ordinary gasoline. Burning a gallon of gasoline generates about 125,000 BTU, or 36.63 kW-hr of heat. By that measure, the EV1 has a "gas tank" that weighs 1175 pounds (over half a ton) but holds only half a gallon.

A fairer comparison would account for the inability of an internal combustion energy to turn more than about 20% of that 36.63 kW-hr of chemical energy per gallon of gasoline into mechanical energy. A storage battery and electric motor is roughly 4 times as efficient in "burning" lead, so the "equivalent capacity" of the EV1's half-ton "gas tank" is more like 2 gallons. That's just about right considering its 55-60 mile range and that a gas car of comparable weight and size would probably get 25-30 mpg.

The solar panel one is related, and also interesting. IMO, the concept of electric cars won't really work as long as people associate cars with concepts such as: long term ownership/intimate relationship with one's car, relatively long range and autonomy (good enough to plan an escape with), long lasting (perhaps several decades) and even the ability to do DIY repairs from time to time. Electric cars are exactly the opposite in all those fields, so they simply rub against people's expectations, if treated as drop-in replacements for traditional vehicles. They ain't.

In other words, you'll never see the electric equivalent of an old -but still running- redneck pickup truck parked in some remote backwater.

However, if in the future people will lease/share rather than buy a car, use it exclusively as urban transportation in a well-served metropolis etc. then it might work, as at least the high maintenance/electronic complexity and range problems will be swept under the carpet. But probably no electric pickup truck for the good old boys: they'll have/be allowed to stick to their Dodge trucks.

Technician said:

With oil becoming more and more expensive to extract and refine, I suppose an electric car was inevitable, even if oil companies try their best to prevent it.

Does anyone remember the GM EV1?

Hellbent said:

Who Killed the Electric Car?

I remember this "documentary" in its entirety. It makes Michael Moore look good and connects more with the likes of Erich Daniken.

Hellbent said:

Who Killed The Electric Car?

Physics, economics and chemistry, in no particular order. Wouldn't say they killed it, though. Rather, they made it their bitch.

dew and Maes contributed everything I could've to the thread. The Teslas are cool cars, but they're no revolution.

I watched an episode of Top Gear where they had a hydrogen powered car, which was much more efficient than any electric car. It was exactly the same as any petrol car; you fill it up at a station and drive off, and all that comes out the exhaust is water, since it's running off hydrogen, H which is bonding with oxygen, O₂ to make water, H₂O.

Sooo.... who killed the Hydrogen car? I remember arguments that the fuel was too volatile or something and it could explode.

Hellbent said:

Sooo.... who killed the Hydrogen car?

Oil companies.

I remember Shell and BP pushing for hydrogen in the Bush years; but like the electric cars of that era, they simply made a product to patten and bury. The majority of hydrogen cars on the road at the time were just prototypes that they had no actual intentions of reaching production.

Hellbent said:

Sooo.... who killed the Hydrogen car? I remember arguments that the fuel was too volatile or something and it could explode.

Physics, chemistry and economics, once again, in no particular order. Supposedly "incorrect" hydrogen reaction energies in mainstream chemistry textbooks and "suppressed" super-efficient hydrogen dissociation/extraction processes are a staple of kooks and conspiracy theorists.

Fuck cars. I want dense cities with more trains. So much less stress to know a train comes by every two minutes.

Hellbent said:

Sooo.... who killed the Hydrogen car?

That's a bit like saying who killed the flying car. Our current technology doesn't let us produce cheap and light fuel cells, and the necessary apparatus for them. Not for small cars anyways, but fuel cell buses are around in bigger cities if you look hard enough. They're not mass produced yet, but cities are usually proud to announce joining this test program or that.

Actually, as one Italian physicist once put it, the main problem with hydrogen cars (and hydrogen fuel, in general) is that there are no hydrogen mines/fields to harvest it from on good old Earth...

Maes said:

Actually, as one Italian physicist once put it, the main problem with hydrogen cars (and hydrogen fuel, in general) is that there are no hydrogen mines/fields to harvest it from on good old Earth...

Actually, there are. The hydrogen used in hydrogen cars is processed from natural gas, something the U.S. has an abundance of.

Sadly, this only encourages more hydraulic fracturing and that entails a grocery list of negative effects on the environment.

Technician said:

Actually, there are. The hydrogen used in hydrogen cars is processed from natural gas, something the U.S. has an abundance of.

Seems pointless to reform a perfectly usable and relatively clean gaseous fuel (for which engines and relatively economical car conversion kits already exist, BTW) into another, which is not as supported.

The "Columbus egg" here is managing to extract hydrogen in abundant quantities from some other cheap and normally non-combustible material -namely water. There's no economical way to do that yet, other than use hydrogen as an "energy carrier", rather than as a fuel -in other words, pump excess electricity into electrolysis plants or something.

Mercedes does Hybrid right! The 400+ hp S 500 plug in hybrid gets 78mpg (that's US mpg, not imperial).

Intelligent HYBRID: anticipatory energy management system
The second-generation S-Class hybrids feature an anticipatory energy management system and thereby improve energy efficiency. The operating strategy of the hybrid drive system not only accounts for the current driving condition and driver input, but also adjusts to the likely route (inclines, downhill stretches, bends or speed limits) for the next eight kilometres. Intelligent HYBRID uses the navigation data from COMAND Online to manage the charging and discharging of the high-voltage battery. The goal is, for example, to use the energy content of the battery for propulsion ahead of a downhill stretch in order to recharge it while going downhill using recuperation.

Read more at http://cleantechnica.com/2013/08/23/mercedes-s500-plug-in-hybrid-rated-at-78-mpg/#By2ljdz3Qme10WkA.99

When I think "Tesla car," I imagine an antique-looking electric car that's powered by huge Wardenclyffe/Tesla Coil towers for free at any point on the globe. As Tesla WOULD HAVE PREFERRED IT.