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Elon Musk To Traverse The U.S. Using A Model S In 6 Day Trip

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Re: Elon Musk To Traverse The U.S. Using A Model S In 6 Day Trip

#31

Post by dredmorbius »

Keyframe wrote: post #9
avar wrote: post #7

> At 1.5 hrs/day, we will only ever need to > charge when stopping anyway to eat or sightsee, > never just for charging itself. I'm all for the development of electric cars but downplaying having to stop at what's effectively a gas station in the middle of nowhere for 1.5 hours per day is pretty disingenuous. You wouldn't get a lot of people buying a normal gasoline powered car if it took 1.5 hrs to fill it up each t…

Hopefully more efficiency in battery capacity as well as in solar cells down the road will alleviate some of that with built in solar panel in hood and part of the roof as an option. I'd have to run numbers, but of top of my head says with ideal weather conditions and 1m2 clean hood panel you'd gain about extra mile or km a day which isn't all that great now.

The cost of solar cells, the limited size, the exposure they'd have on a car (impacts, rocks, hail), the percent of time spent out of sunlight (under trees, carports, indoor garages), and the very limited power supplied even when decking over the entire vehicle, vs. the cost of plugging into an outlet (which itself can be powered by a larger, permanently active, and optimally oriented PV array) makes solar-on-car pretty much a non-starter.

Perhaps a small array for auxiliary electronics, but even that's really not particularly cost-effective.

Re: Elon Musk To Traverse The U.S. Using A Model S In 6 Day Trip

#34

Post by rthomas6 »

mrich wrote: post #6
wtvanhest wrote: post #2

He should do it in 7 and take some breaks to see some stuff. Source: I've done it in 6 and 7 days, 7 was way more fun, way more relaxing and I learned more.

That's more than 700km per day. So given the speed limit it means you are spending most of the week in the car. How is this fun?

Haha, "speed limit".

Edit: I feel like I should explain that I'm referring to driving on the rural roads with no cars around, in the middle of nowhere.

Re: Elon Musk To Traverse The U.S. Using A Model S In 6 Day Trip

#35

Post by Keyframe »

dredmorbius wrote: post #31
Keyframe wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully more efficiency in battery capacity as well as in solar cells down the road will alleviate some of that with built in solar panel in hood and part of the roof as an option. I'd have to run numbers, but of top of my head says with ideal weather conditions and 1m2 clean hood panel you'd gain about extra mile or km a day which isn't all that great now.

The cost of solar cells, the limited size, the exposure they'd have on a car (impacts, rocks, hail), the percent of time spent out of sunlight (under trees, carports, indoor garages), and the very limited power supplied even when decking over the entire vehicle, vs. the cost of plugging into an outlet (which itself can be powered by a larger, permanently active, and optimally oriented PV array) makes solar-on-car pre…

I didn't mean as a sole energy source, auxiliary. Somewhat like brakes converting kinetic energy to electric current.

Re: Elon Musk To Traverse The U.S. Using A Model S In 6 Day Trip

#37

Post by melvinmt »

avar wrote: post #7

> At 1.5 hrs/day, we will only ever need to > charge when stopping anyway to eat or sightsee, > never just for charging itself. I'm all for the development of electric cars but downplaying having to stop at what's effectively a gas station in the middle of nowhere for 1.5 hours per day is pretty disingenuous. You wouldn't get a lot of people buying a normal gasoline powered car if it took 1.5 hrs to fill it up each t…

Obligatory Louis CK link: http://touch.dailymotion.com/video/x8m5d0_everything-is-amaz...

Elon Musk is on the cutting edge of changing our society and tries to make the best of the hiccups along the way and you're complaining about the slightly degraded experience of charging your car with... renewable energy??

Give Elon some slack, I'm sure he'll find a way for you to reduce the charging time to an acceptable time in the near future, but in the mean time try to be a little amazed by what's he accomplishing here: making electrical cars a part of our society.

Re: Elon Musk To Traverse The U.S. Using A Model S In 6 Day Trip

#38

Post by brianbreslin »

Anyone know if he is only charging at tesla stations? What's the route he is planning on taking? Is the idea to get food at each stop? Lastly, doesn't he have like 5 kids, how will they all fit in the tesla???

Edit: He does have 5 kids. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk#Family

Re: Elon Musk To Traverse The U.S. Using A Model S In 6 Day Trip

#39

Post by cobrausn »

matznerd wrote: post #18
Ntrails wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is PR, so spinning the charge time as nothing more than a good opportunity to grab a bite to eat is smart. One assumes that the charging stations are located in places with a variety of nearby amenities for this purpose? To me the fact that any journey would have to be planned with charging stations as waypoints is more obnoxious than the actual stopping itself.

It's obnoxious to use gasoline...it's just the norm so it doesn't seem so.

No, it's not. Every 300 or so miles you stop and pump gas for a few minutes at any number of available locations, and then you move on. You don't have to plan your trip around gas station locations. If charge stations become ubiquitous so that isn't a requirement then this is ameliorated somewhat.

I've always had this silly idea for an electric car company that sells cars but 'loans' out the batteries. When you want to recharge, you pull up to a station and a trained technician swaps out your entire battery setup for a freshly charged one in a few minutes, basically meaning you are paying to rent a set of batteries. Not sure how economically and technically viable this plan is, but it does seem convenient from a consumer perspective.

Re: Elon Musk To Traverse The U.S. Using A Model S In 6 Day Trip

#40

Post by simias »

avar wrote: post #7

> At 1.5 hrs/day, we will only ever need to > charge when stopping anyway to eat or sightsee, > never just for charging itself. I'm all for the development of electric cars but downplaying having to stop at what's effectively a gas station in the middle of nowhere for 1.5 hours per day is pretty disingenuous. You wouldn't get a lot of people buying a normal gasoline powered car if it took 1.5 hrs to fill it up each t…

I've seen the idea of simply replacing the batteries with charged ones in stations thrown around quite a bit in previous discussions and it always seemed the perfect solution to me. It's even faster than pumping gas (if done correctly) and you don't have to worry about your battery capacity degrading (when the station detects a battery won't hold less than a certain amount of charge it'd but the battery offline for recycling).

What's the flaw in this reasoning? Or the hidden cost, more likely.

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