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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

#231

Post by scythe »

cletus wrote: post #159
Bud wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Changing. Rapidly. That doesn't negate my point. > And perhaps you forgot, but building tens of thousands of gas stations all over the place wasn't easy You're not the only one to bring this up and it confuses me why. The gas infrastructure has already been built . It's a sunk cost. EV infrastructure most certainly is not. > Tesla's range is already over 250 miles; this is getting very close to that of many gas guz…

>The gas infrastructure has already been built.

And it works very well: for gasoline. Hydrogen cannot be contained in a rubber hose. Ammonia will eat away copper pipes (see http://encyclopedia.airliquide.com/Encyclopedia.asp?GasID=2#... ). CNG works fine, under pressure, which requires retrofitting everything, but natural gas is a fossil fuel. Biofuels come with a whole host of other problems.

The simple fact is, whatever we use, we're going to have to rebuild stuff. There's no way to reuse the gas infrastructure for any fuel that isn't a non-oxidizing hydrophobic liquid, which rules out approximately everything. Hydrogen fueling stations aren't retrofitted gas stations: they're a totally new thing:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_fuel_station#Hydrogen_...

>However, this does not begin to replace the existing extensive gasoline fuel station infrastructure, which would cost a half trillion U.S. dollars in the United States alone.

This is not cheap.

Re: 2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

#232

Post by ericd »

lancewiggs wrote: post #229
jamesmcn wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I think it is more accurate to compare electric vehicles to the Motorola DynaTAC phones ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_DynaTAC ). They are expensive, and are ext…

That's a little unfair I feel (comparing the Tesla S to the original brick mobile phones). However the point remains though that we are seeing the future, and only the wealthy can afford it for now.

Yep, and cell phones were originally only affordable by the rich as well.

Re: 2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

#233

Post by Fando »

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…

Good one!

Re: 2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

#234

Post by richardw »

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…

EV's certainly haven't already won, but I do think there are many cases where they're (almost) perfect.

For the person/business who doesn't drive far and can plug it in at home/work, they've now saved a detour to the petrol station. I'd love that. I suspect many businesses that have delivery cars within a city could make that work, assuming all the other costs lined up.

I think making batteries portable is very possible, but it'll take a generation or three to get that right, assuming the above market segments are saturated and Tesla sales are limited by this issue.

What remains a problem for me are the lifetime of batteries, and the need to drive outside of coverage areas. I like to drive cars for a while rather than replace them often, so don't like the idea of replacing a large part of the cost. And I don't want to worry about charging stations when going on holiday. But again, for a city-based business that replaces cars more quickly than the batteries would last, those issues might not be relevant.

One strong driver for innovation is that battery technology would become important to (at least) both the IT and auto industries. Research and innovation would accelerate and be useful to both industries via cross-pollination.

Re: 2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

#235

Post by lloeki »

lambda wrote: post #195
Bud wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> the original comment was saying that they are too heavy now.

I beg to differ:

> The Tesla Model S is a great-looking car but, unlike some, I still don't see electric cars as being the future.

The comment is arguing that electric cars are not the future because batteries and energy delivery and what not is not ready now. Guess what, now is not the future. It would be like arguing that ICE cars were not the future in the 19th century.

Re: 2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

#236

Post by ericd »

cobrausn wrote: post #95
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 would disagree. I think the personal commuter vehicle will move to an electric power system if Tesla (or their competition) manages to scale down price and ramp up production. I think heavy work and utility vehicles, however, will remain fuel powered. I, for one, am happy that we finally have a choice other than gasoline or diesel. Given enough money I'd love for my family to have both an electric and gasoline (or…

I think heavy vehicles are actually more likely to switch - the torque characteristics of electric motors are generally a lot better. I may be missing something important there, though.

Re: 2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

#237

Post by kayoone »

When cars were introduced gasoline was cheap, today that is very different. Electricity today seems to be cheap, but how will that be in 100 years ? In Germany i already pay twice what people in the US pay for electricity (about $0.28 per kwH) and its only getting more expensive.

Of course, gasoline is a fossil fuel which will run out some time, but dont forget that most of our electricity is still generated by the same fuels (coal!) and with rapidly rising electricity usage i dont see a complete fossile-fuel free electricity infrastructure anywhere near. Even if thats possible with lots of wind/solar/whatever power, i highly doubt its going to be cheaper as we already pay a premium on "green-energy" today, governments move away from nuclear power etc.

Re: 2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

#238

Post by MarkMc »

salimmadjd wrote: post #31

Tesla is still a niche luxury car, and I still think they will not remain in business in their current form. Several top-name brands are hot on their heels which will put a lot of pressure in their customer acquisition prospects. As for the Automobile endorsement, I don't like how they are misleading consumers with their data. The test vs. M5 was designed to take account Tesla's sweet spot of performance, "...drag ra…

Yes, Tesla is still a niche luxury car. But in 2007 the iPhone was still a niche luxury phone.

Despite clearly being far superior to competitors, the iPhone was often dismissed because of it's price tag and small market share. Here's what Steve Ballmer had to say in 2007: "Would I trade 96% of the market for 4% of the market? (Laughter.) I want to have products that appeal to everybody. Now we'll get a chance to go through this again in phones and music players. There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It's a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I'd prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get." [1] (In my opinion this quote is Exhibit A in the case for firing Steve "No Chance" Ballmer).

Tesla 2012 seems to be Apple 2007. Other motor industry players should be very worried.

[1] http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/20...

Re: 2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

#239

Post by baq »

cbsmith wrote: post #224
scythe wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What will change is the source of that fuel. It may be some kind of hydrogen-rich fuel (methane or ammonia) or it may be making the necessary hydrocarbons from the air and/or seawater. There isn't any such fuel. Hydrogen is dangerous and corrosive, ammonia is hygoroscopic, hydrazine is super-toxic, boranes destroy everything, and that's the end of the story. Synthesizing hydrocarbons is highly inefficient, ditto fo…

You didn't mention methane. I hear there is lots of that stuff and some places find transportation of it so simple that they have pipes that deliver it right to people's homes... ;-)

also, best of both worlds, methane fuel cells have excellent efficienty. (at 600 Celsius... but that's a different problem)

Re: 2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

#240

Post by varjag »

confluence wrote: post #122
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 :/

It's more efficient than blowing it up in your engine. ICE engines are ~15% efficient at converting energy to movement. You must also include the cost of transporting, refining and drilling for the oil (coal is cheaper to get). This should push it down to ~10% burn to road. Main stream coal power plants are ~30-39% efficient, electric transmission lines are ~95% efficient, battery charging is ~88% efficient and elect…

Also, sizable portions of electric energy worldwide are generated from renewables (hydro, nuclear), so the efficiency is even higher.
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