131–140 of 169 posts
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How much does a new electric motor for a Tesla cost versus a new gas motor for a similar car? I'd guess it would be significantly cheaper, but I certainly could be wrong. I don't know that much about cars. Downvoted an honest question stated in a reasonable manner? Come on .
$10-20,000 for a 400hp electric motor. A gas engine would cost a couple hundred bucks.
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That comment has so much bullshit in it - here is a sampling: >The statement that electric motors have fewer moving parts so they last substantially longer is a fallacy No, it is true on all counts. I'd explain in detail, but this is so weird I dont really know where to start. >90% of a vehicle's maintenance has nothing to do with its motor Rubbish. In a gasoline (or diesel) powered car, the majority of maintenance i…
I know all that. I don't agree with the original comment, and was not defending it. I was defending the right of its author to have his comment seen and discussed. I disagree on the downvoting response to the comment. The answer to a flawed argument shouldn't be downvoting. The answer should be a dismantling of the assumptions and the argument. Downvoting is a tool for silencing a comment. Some comments should be sil…
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It's not that easy in the US, the residential areas are much less dense and parking lots are huge.
Less dense increased the chances of off street parking doesn't it? Also I don't see how the size of a parking lot changes things, if anything it means you could incentivise by having the EV slots closer to the attraction, plus have solar roofs to harness some cheap power.
Out of curiosity - what does it cost to have an electrician install a 240VAC outlet in your garage? Has anyone out there done it and can give an idea? Teslas can charge off a 110 outlet, but they recommend using the 240 volt faster-charging unit. But most houses don't run 2-phase power out to the garage. And what if you don't own a house? What do apartment and/or house renters do for charging?
My electrician in the Seattle area quoted me $700, including parts and permit, to install a weather-shielded 240V outlet with separate breaker on the outside of my house directly above the electric meter, next to where a car is parked, and on the opposite side of the wall where my breaker panel lives for another purpose. (I don't have a garage so it would have to go outside if I did want to charge a car.) The cost pr…
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The statement that electric motors have fewer moving parts so they last substantially longer is a fallacy that electric car proponents have been spreading for years. There are still many, moving parts which require servicing and can fail at a rate of similarly serviced gas engines. In fact servicing (rewinding) is quite a labor intensive and expensive operation, given the price of copper or other conductive material…
> yes electric motors need oil changes too "Oil change" for an electric motor is fundamentally nothing like the oil change you do for an internal combustion engine. A piston engine operates at much higher temperatures, and cannot fully isolate leakage from oil compartment, causing a tiny amount of oil to get burned with fuel as it operates. "Oil change" in an electric motor is much more like lubricating other moving…
For all the parts that are removed there are a couple added, in the recombinant braking system, power control systems and programmable suspension.
The grease in the sealed bearings will break down at some point. A spinning motor especially one in a magnetic field has a very low tolerance for vibration and balance. There is also a great deal of heat generated at high torque. I hear the S is going to have liquid cooling. So there is another system that will need to be addressed.
I would hardly call a Tesla a simple design. Its in fact very complex.
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My source is an industrial electric motor supplier. Google "400hp electric motor" I'm not saying tesla's require oil changes as a gas engine does... oil will last quite a long time when not contaminated by hydrocarbons. But even sealed bearings need to be repacked after so much wear. To parts can't move against on another without generating heat, which will degrade a lubricant and allow wear.
The mistake you're making is assuming that the single unit price of a low volume device like an industrial electric motor in any way reflects its component costs. High tech low volume engineering is dominated by R&D costs, one off manufacturing costs and margin. You could apply your logic (it would cost me $25,000 to buy one so therefore it costs Tesla that as well) to almost any item of consumer electronics and you'…
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This manner of cost estimation is not convincing to me, for reasons that should be obvious to anyone. There are plenty of small things that cost a lot of money, because, perhaps, of the precision or techniques required to manufacture them or their components, or the dearness of the materials that compose the minority of the object. TL;DR: What is a sub-one ounce object made mostly of silicon that costs more than a th…
>TL;DR: What is a sub-one ounce object made mostly of silicon that costs more than a thousand dollars. (intel i7) In that case, you are paying for the IP, not the silicon. The Tesla motor is a simple design, no magnets, no brushes. I assume they are hand-built. Some, but not too much precision machining required. Think about how much precision goes into a 2TB hard drive that costs $100 retail.
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My source is an industrial electric motor supplier. Google "400hp electric motor" I'm not saying tesla's require oil changes as a gas engine does... oil will last quite a long time when not contaminated by hydrocarbons. But even sealed bearings need to be repacked after so much wear. To parts can't move against on another without generating heat, which will degrade a lubricant and allow wear.
disclaimer: I have no idea what I'm talking about. I'd kind of like to see an elaboration of this, though: > oil will last quite a long time when not contaminated by hydrocarbons as I was under the impression that oil consists 100% of hydrocarbons.
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Here's one on Ebay for $10k.. Ebay! http://www.ebay.com/bhp/300-hp-electric-motor General Purpose 350HP motor. $25K http://www.globalindustrial.com/p/motors/ac-motors-2-phase/3... In general these motors have tight tolerances and aren't the motors in your electric shaver The entire car cost $70K...
Referring to your 350 hp example: 1. That motor is a low speed motor, as such it is massive. It weighs 3044 pounds. The Tesla motor runs at nearly 10 times the speed, and ought to be roughly a factor of 10 lighter. 2. See how the price drops by almost 10% when you buy more than 5 of these motors? Now imagine you are buying 20,000+... 3. You can bet the manufacturer of the motor (Baldor) did not get $25k for it. I ima…
I have also ran similar calculations in my head. I think what I'd want to be convinced is a thorough analysis from a mechanical/industrial engineer on how much you can expect to save from a fully electric car on maintenance. The claim I've heard from Tesla is that, since there are much fewer moving parts within an electric motor, the car will last substantially longer. While this makes intuitive sense, I would love t…
> fewer moving parts I think auto makers use this to distract potential buyers from what's really going to be replaced: the battery. Just like laptop batteries, the charge life of the car battery is going to decrease with time. Tesla did have this on their website, but the link this is quoted from is broken: "A Battery Replacement Option will be available for purchase soon. The option allows you to pre-purchase a new…