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2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

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Re: 2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

#191

Post by lispython »

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…

But electric cars are not just about batteries, they need a whole new kind of electric and mechanism. Although it is not so convent to recharge today, when other kind batteries get mature(like Fuel Cell Battery), nearly all Tesla develop today can be used.

Re: 2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

#192

Post by cubicle67 »

haberman wrote: post #142
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 :/

Here in Seattle, we don't burn coal. Ok I lied, 0.52% of our energy does actually come from coal. But 96% of it is hydro and wind: http://www.seattle.gov/light/fuelmix/

yes, that's one of the things people forget about battery power - it decouples the generation of the energy from the storage. This means that you can switch from burning coal to solar, hydro or wind as an energy source with no changes at all to the car

Re: 2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

#193

Post by freehunter »

rossjudson wrote: post #174
abhimishra wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does the Model S solve the longer trips issue? On a road-trip I might drive 500 miles in a day. The priciest Model S gets 300 miles at 55 miles an hour. And with climate control on that is likely to be less in reality. If this trip were in cold weather (ski trips and such) the range would be SIGNIFICANTLY less. As a comparison, my gasoline-hybrid can squeeze out over 500 miles on a tank at 55 miles an hour. And I…

So how about you RENT A CAR once a year, for your 8000 mile trip across multiple state lines. Your daily commute is how far?

So let's do some math. I drive a Toyota truck that goes anywhere and does everything. It gets 20mpg average (I have a ScanGauge for monitoring this). It's 14 years old, and it cost me $5000 when I bought it. So at an average daily commute for Americans of 16 miles [1] (my commute is 5 miles one direction), that would give me an average of 400 bidirectional gallons used per year (16 miles one direction times 250 working days divided by the mpg) for work use. At $3.50 for a gallon of gas, that's $1400/yr, plus a one-time cost of $5000. Once per year, I take an 8000 mile journey, assuming that's bidirectional. That's another $1400 in gas. We're now looking at $7800 the first year, and $2800 every year after that. If I have the truck for 5 years, I'm out $19,000 in total.

Now instead, I buy a Tesla Model S. It costs $100k, but electricity is free at their chargers. Now I want to make my cross country journey, so I rent a minivan at 8000 miles, I'll be gone a week to fully enjoy the resort with the wife and kids. A minivan from Enterprise is $110/day plus gas. Looking at the fuel economy of a minivan [2], looks like I can expect 20mpg. I might get more, but that's what I'll budget for. Same as my Toyota truck, I'm spending $1400 in gas once per year, plus the $770 to rent the van for a week. Which means, in total, I'm spending $100k the first year, and $2170 every year after that. So unless you can spot an error in my math, in terms of fuel cost per year the poster boy electric car only saves me ~$700/yr.

Here's the results:

Toyota truck: $19,000 over 5 years.

Electric car plus a rental one week: $108,680 over 5 years.

Maybe you want to be more reasonable and go for the base Model S: $66,080 over 5 years.

Which one makes more economic sense?

[1] http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Traffic/story?id=485098&#38...

[2] http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/byclass/minivan2012.shtml

Re: 2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

#194

Post by lancewiggs »

freehunter wrote: post #189
pkulak wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine if we were the other way around. Everyone was driving electric cars and someone was trying to get us on gas. I charge my car every night. You're telling me I now have to drive to a "gas station" every time I need to recharge? And we need to ship gas all over the country now? And gas costs _how_ much!? And then I also have to bring it into the shop every few months to "change the oil"? And look at the thousand…

The difference is, the money spent on gas infrastructure is already spent, paid for, and profitable. This happened a long time ago. The infrastructure to allow the same number of cars to park for 30 minutes+ to recharge has not been invested in, not been paid for, and not been profitable for decades. If it had been, your argument would make sense. As reality stands, though, you're just furthering the case as to why e…

The gasoline infrastructure is not entirely free from cost. It costs of lot of money to staff gas stations, to deliver the fuel and to maintain everything. The sites themselves are in prime locations and could be repurposed to higher value activity. The fuel tank trucks are cumbersome and dangerous, and the refineries more so. Charging your EV at home and work is already sufficient for, I assume, the vast majority of passenger miles. While long-distance road trips are a lot less common, they are cracked by electric cars when batteries can power for 8-10 (and higher) hours per day and we can use hotel/motels/carparks to recharge. We are not there yet, but the power density curves are pointing the right direction.

Re: 2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

#195

Post by lambda »

Bud wrote: post #149
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…

It's hard for me to even enumerate how many ways this is wrong. But I'll try. Batteries are still too heavy Changing. Rapidly. take too long to charge Improving, rapidly. Much more rapidly than, say, gas mileage. (batteries) are too expensive Sorry to be a broken record, but this too is improving rapidly. require materials that in widespread use will probably become far more of a problem than fossil fuels in terms of…

> Batteries are still too heavy

> Changing. Rapidly.

It doesn't matter how rapidly they are changing; the original comment was saying that they are too heavy now. You can hypothesize about where they will be in 5 years, but that's uncertain and doesn't apply to cars that are available now.

>take too long to charge

> Improving, rapidly. Much more rapidly than, say, gas mileage.

Again, rate of improvement doesn't have much to do with what's available now. And even if it is improving now, where will it top out? I can fill my tank in a minute and a half at the pump; will I ever be able to fully charge a car in that amount of time?

> Sorry to be a broken record, but this too is improving rapidly.

And again, it doesn't matter how fast it's improving; what matters is whether in the end, it will wind up such that it's cheaper than fuel-powered cars.

> Tesla's range is already over 250 miles; this is getting very close to that of many gas guzzlers. And again, this is rapidly improving, even though we're not working very hard on it as a society. Imagine what would happen if we tried!

This doesn't matter to me if I need to take a 500 mile trip. Then, instead of just filling up for a minute or two at the pump, I have to wait for hours for a charge every couple hundred miles.

> Uh, you can transport electricity to people, too. We have power lines for that.

It's a lot easier to clear a road to get trucks past than it is to repair a full power grid.

> Charging time: This doesn't have to get much better at all; you can recharge at night.

No, I can't. I don't have a parking space where I live. I have to park on the street, and can't rely on being able to park in front of my house. Unless we get recharge stations installed at every parking space, an electric car will never be practical for me.

Re: 2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

#196

Post by sk5t »

abhimishra wrote: post #160
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…

How does the Model S solve the longer trips issue? On a road-trip I might drive 500 miles in a day. The priciest Model S gets 300 miles at 55 miles an hour. And with climate control on that is likely to be less in reality. If this trip were in cold weather (ski trips and such) the range would be SIGNIFICANTLY less. As a comparison, my gasoline-hybrid can squeeze out over 500 miles on a tank at 55 miles an hour. And I…

Running the air conditioning compressor creates more work for the engine, but not so with the heater--essentially it circulates the already-hot water+coolant through an additional small radiator.

Re: 2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

#197

Post by lancewiggs »

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…

I'm somewhat astonished that members of a community dedicated to building products to disrupt incumbent industries upvoted this comment to the top slot.

One way to think about this is that electric vehicles (EVs) are at the iPhone 1 stage, with the Tesla S being the first to demonstrate to a lot of people that it can all be put together in a compelling, yet expensive and not quite perfect package.

As with the first iPhone, the prescient community can see vast potential, but recognise that there are still a few issues to deal with.

Those issues are summed up as "battery energy density". Once we have battery energy density that allows us to power cars at road speeds for 10-15 hours, then we will have completely solved the riddle of the recharging station. We can still charge at work an home for shorter trips, and can charge at carparks and paid accommodation for longer ones. Luckily battery energy density is continually getting better - and is the main reason that we are seeing the emergence of the EVs we have today.

As an aside, we can probably forget about developing recharging stations as the ranges will be too long and the logistics of journey interruption poor. Let's think instead about developing products to help hotels, car-parks, businesses and households set up their own (pay accepting) charging stations. Obviously these will all use the existing electricity grid, with capacity freed up by general electricity efficiency efforts and smarter grid technology.

It's clear that the next generation of EVs will create major and overdue auto-industry disruption. It's almost as clear that the current auto manufacturers, perhaps Toyota aside, are incapable of rapid enough change.

So yes, with the Tesla S it's not clear that EVs will win. Bring it on.

Re: 2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

#198

Post by freehunter »

lancewiggs wrote: post #194
freehunter wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is, the money spent on gas infrastructure is already spent, paid for, and profitable. This happened a long time ago. The infrastructure to allow the same number of cars to park for 30 minutes+ to recharge has not been invested in, not been paid for, and not been profitable for decades. If it had been, your argument would make sense. As reality stands, though, you're just furthering the case as to why e…

The gasoline infrastructure is not entirely free from cost. It costs of lot of money to staff gas stations, to deliver the fuel and to maintain everything. The sites themselves are in prime locations and could be repurposed to higher value activity. The fuel tank trucks are cumbersome and dangerous, and the refineries more so. Charging your EV at home and work is already sufficient for, I assume, the vast majority of…

Electric may be the answer in the near future. I still don't believe it is now, but I do applaud companies and individuals for helping push that innovation forward. The electric market is in a catch-22: electric powered cars are expensive, and it will only get cheaper when more people start buying into it. I see cars like the Volt having more mass-market appeal for the next decade than the Tesla. I applaud Musk in everything he does, and the Tesla is a fine brand of high-end cars. But electric is, in my world, not a viable option at this time.

Electric is great. Batteries suck. And they're not getting better fast enough. The world got used to filling a tank in 5 minutes and forgetting about it until they've run their 300-400 miles worth of fuel. I say electric is fighting a losing battle because the best arguments I see in this thread consist of "it only needs to charge overnight", "it's about on par with the cost of a gas guzzler", and "you can fill it most of the way in 30 minutes". Sure, it's progress. But good enough isn't good enough when it comes to battling an entrenched competitor. We're looking at a decade before electric is no longer a fringe thing (basically 20 years after the mass market introduction), and in between then there's no reason something like a Volt can't provide more benefit than a Tesla or a Leaf. You might only drive hundreds of miles once per year, but do you really want to shoehorn yourself into a car that makes this virtually impossible in exchange for mild relative inconvenience as opposed to no relative inconvenience?

Re: 2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

#200

Post by matthewaustin »

freehunter wrote: post #187
jblow wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Really? The only argument? How about my family lives 575 miles away from me, and even with the ideal 250 mile range of a $100k Model S I would still need to add at least an hour and a half to my already 10 hour one-way trip when I visit them a few times per year? Meanwhile my $5,000, 14-year-old Toyota might only get 20mpg, but the tank holds 350 miles of fuel and I only need to refill once (rather than thrice) durin…

Congratulations - you are the 1% who this model fails for. The rest of us will be just fine, since 99% of us don't travel more than 250 miles a day.

And for the couple times a year we need to take road trips, we can rent a luxury sedan with the money we've saved on fuel costs.

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