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2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

automobilemag.com

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Re: 2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

#101

Post by mibbitier »

revelation wrote: post #86
cletus wrote: post #79

The Tesla Model S is a great-looking car but, unlike some, I still don't see electric cars as being the future. Batteries are still too heavy, take too long to charge, are too expensive and require materials that in widespread use will probably become far more of a problem than fossil fuels in terms of scarcity. Of course, there can be and no doubt will be technological innovation in this space but (IMHO) the future…

Internal combustion engines are not at all simple. Sleek animations might make it seem like that, but when you are blowing stuff up , that tends to complicate things. In comparison, electrical motors are extremely simple and maintenance-free. All while being on a level of efficiency that just can't be reached with a combustion engine.

Burning coal to make electricity, then transmitting that electricity all over the country, wasting some of it along the way... Then using that to charge a battery, then using that to power a motor.

I'm not sure it sounds particularly efficient unless you completely ignore all the work that goes into making the electricity :/

Re: 2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

#102

Post by CamperBob2 »

jblow wrote: post #69
CamperBob2 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an electric car owner, I haven't found a need for swapping batteries. Consider this: if a refueling station offered battery swapping they would also need to exhaustively test your batteries to determine that they were not abused and to determine how much credit to offer for their current capacity. How does that save much time from just using a quick-charge station? Because the batteries wouldn't have to be tested…

I think this "electric grid can't handle it" is another piece of anti-EV FUD that is not representative of the situation in reality. Right now, peak electricity usage times are during the day. This is why in most urban areas electricity is cheaper at night: they want to encourage you to distribute your usage more evenly throughout the day. The NEMA 14-50 (a.k.a. standard appliance outlet that most people plug their d…

Oh, hey, this is JM from RAD. Didn't see your user name at first. :)

Re: 220V outlets, it's surprisingly hard to find the true average power consumption by a dryer, now that I just tried. I do know that the heating element in a dryer is usually rated for 5000 watts+, but you have to keep in mind that it doesn't run at a 100% duty cycle, even on high heat. (I can't find anything that talks about what the typical duty cycle on high heat is, so maybe I'll measure mine the next time I dry something.) I'm pretty sure it would more or less nuke your clothes if the dryer dissipated over 5000 watts all the time.

Point being, if an EV charger really does draw 40 amps at 220 volts, that is about twice the real power consumption of a clothes dryer. This is a non-trivial amount of juice. It would be a massive problem if half the automobile-owning households in the US started charging their cars all night long at those rates.

It's not just a matter of you not personally having any use for swappable batteries. It's a matter of electricity not being quite as trivial to generate and distribute as you suggest.

Nobody that I'm aware of, including me, is trying to spread FUD. I would gay-marry Elon Musk, if I were gay. I wish him all the success in the world. But the numbers behind his prediction simply do not work... unless he has something up his sleeve along the lines of the Better Place concept.

Re: 2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

#103

Post by jellicle »

cletus wrote: post #79

The Tesla Model S is a great-looking car but, unlike some, I still don't see electric cars as being the future. Batteries are still too heavy, take too long to charge, are too expensive and require materials that in widespread use will probably become far more of a problem than fossil fuels in terms of scarcity. Of course, there can be and no doubt will be technological innovation in this space but (IMHO) the future…

How's gasoline working out now in New Jersey? Not well.

There is currently a massive amount of land and a massive amount of infrastructure (thousands and thousands of tankers, for one) devoted to making gasoline available on every corner, nearly worldwide. If a similar amount of land and infrastructure were devoted to, say, swappable electric batteries, electric cars would have no problems in the "long trip" department.

How can we get there from here? One easy way would be for the government to mandate every gasoline station to include one alternative refueling station - station owner's choice what that might be, but you have to have one. Bootstrap using the current gasoline network.

Re: 2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

#104

Post by mibbitier »

jblow wrote: post #92
cletus wrote: post #79

The Tesla Model S is a great-looking car but, unlike some, I still don't see electric cars as being the future. Batteries are still too heavy, take too long to charge, are too expensive and require materials that in widespread use will probably become far more of a problem than fossil fuels in terms of scarcity. Of course, there can be and no doubt will be technological innovation in this space but (IMHO) the future…

... and on the battery chemistry issue, Teslas use Lithium-Ion batteries, just like we have been using in laptops for forever. They are not exotic.

You mean the ones that typically only last a year or 2?

Re: 2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

#105

Post by jblow »

mibbitier wrote: post #101
revelation wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Internal combustion engines are not at all simple. Sleek animations might make it seem like that, but when you are blowing stuff up , that tends to complicate things. In comparison, electrical motors are extremely simple and maintenance-free. All while being on a level of efficiency that just can't be reached with a combustion engine.

Burning coal to make electricity, then transmitting that electricity all over the country, wasting some of it along the way... Then using that to charge a battery, then using that to power a motor. I'm not sure it sounds particularly efficient unless you completely ignore all the work that goes into making the electricity :/

Burning coal / electricity / oil to explore, drill, transport, refine, and re-transport oil ... Then using that to fill your car, so you can blow it up inside an engine.

Sounds a little less efficient than the electricity thing when you look at the full sequence. And this is even in the case where electricity comes from dirty sources; some states, like California, have an energy mix where electricity comes mostly from renewables. (And this is something that can be improved as time goes on).

Re: 2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

#106

Post by jblow »

chc wrote: post #94
jblow wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those of us who own electric cars know that electric cars have already won. They are just too good compared to regular somewhat-junky gasoline cars. The benefits are too numerous to list. The only problem that I have with my Roadster is that if I want to take a long road trip, there has to be a big stopover in the middle, which makes trips much longer. The Model S solves that. Therefore, EVs have won. They are here n…

Aren't EVs totally unusable if you live in an apartment? That was my impression when I looked into them. Like, how would I charge a car in my parking stall?

It is definitely less convenient if you don't have a garage. But as mentioned, this is starting to be addressed. Also, the Supercharger-style charging station becomes a lot like a gas station would be for a normal car.

I do think that "I don't have a garage / dedicated place to park my car" is in fact the only current anti-EV argument that has any basis in reality. But it's addressable.

Re: 2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

#107

Post by kin »

This is good news considering I've been hearing Tesla as a company has been having trouble.

Besides it being an EV, what really appeals to me is the maintenance plan. 600$/year covers everything. Having a car hit the 100k mark and having everything break down unless you replace it entirely is such a pain and is expensive.

Re: 2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

#108

Post by mibbitier »

jblow wrote: post #105
mibbitier wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Burning coal to make electricity, then transmitting that electricity all over the country, wasting some of it along the way... Then using that to charge a battery, then using that to power a motor. I'm not sure it sounds particularly efficient unless you completely ignore all the work that goes into making the electricity :/

Burning coal / electricity / oil to explore, drill, transport, refine, and re-transport oil ... Then using that to fill your car, so you can blow it up inside an engine. Sounds a little less efficient than the electricity thing when you look at the full sequence. And this is even in the case where electricity comes from dirty sources; some states, like California, have an energy mix where electricity comes mostly fro…

Difference is though, with an internal combustion engine, the "turning fuel into power" happens inside the car.

Whereas with electric cars, it happens at a power plant... then gets sent to the car via electricity, with lots of it wasted along the way.

Personally, I don't see electric cars as solving anything. We should be looking at generating the power in the car, from things that are plentiful - water, dirt, garbage, sewage etc.

Re: 2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

#109

Post by jules »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #96
jules wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless we invent new battery technology, that prediction won't come true. There is simply not enough easily obtainable lithium in the world for the batteries. Lithium production in 2011 was 34 kilotonnes. For 50 million cars you already need ~2500 kilotonnes. So unless we can somehow increase production 70x while keeping prices low, we're going to need something else. Not to mention that at that with the total lithiu…

quoting from Wikipedia: According to a 2011 study conducted at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California Berkeley, the currently estimated reserve base of lithium should not be a limiting factor for large-scale battery production for electric vehicles, as the study estimated that on the order of 1 billion 40 kWh Li-based batteries could be built with current reserves.[71] Another 2011 stu…

Interesting. Unfortunately the paper is behind a paywall. According to Wikipedia lithium reserves are 13 million tonnes [1], but of course their 39 million could be due to a different interpretation of "reserve". I based my calculation on a Chevy Volt, which uses 1.4kg lithium per kwh for a total of 60kg per 40kwh, perhaps other cars are more efficient in their lithium use.

If we use those figures, 39 million tonnes / 1 billion cars comes down to 39kg per car; not too far off. According to this [2], there were around 60 million cars produced in 2011. Conservatively assuming that that grows to 100 million in 2025, that's 50 million electric cars per year according to Musks prediction. At 39kg per car that is around 2 million tonnes of lithium per year. Not too far off my 2.5 million tonnes. So my point still stands that we have to increase lithium production around 70x just for cars (and consider trucks, cargo ships, motorcycles, farming vehicles etc). Perhaps we will be able to do that without increasing prices significantly, perhaps not.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium

[2] http://www.worldometers.info/cars/

Re: 2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

#110

Post by javajosh »

Zikes wrote: post #45
moted wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer tactile response as well, however I'd guess that good voice activated controls will be introduced soon enough.

I'd really hate to have to have to say "increase driver side temperature by 2 degrees" when I could much more easily just turn a knob without looking, thanks to muscle memory & tactile feedback.

But, your car can take so many commands that one cannot make a physical knob for everything.
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