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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

#171

Post by confluence »

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #166
confluence wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no one would ever make a single statement Maybe that would be a good thing. Most people don't know jack about economics, physics, finance, engineering, artificial intelligence, the future, technology or pretty much anything outside of their day to day job. You'll notice that whenever someone like that does open their mouth in your field without knowing jack about it - you immediately understand that he has no idea…

"Those who know do not speak; those who speak do not know." ... Remember that the next time you are listening to a discussion of complex field - where none of the participants have degrees, industry experience or in depth on the ground knowledge of said fields. If those who know do not speak, how could we ever listen to any other type of discussion?

It's a heuristic not a law. Use it to protect yourself from the adverse selection of stated data in complex fields from highly incentivised agents (including me).

Follow it, or don't at your own peril/gain.

Re: 2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

#172

Post by abhimishra »

No one is mentioning Hydrogen fuel-cell cars that have been in trials, such as the Honda FCX Clarity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_FCX_Clarity).

Relative to battery-powered fully-electric vehicles, some advantages are: - Quick re-fueling (like with a gasoline vehicle) - No loss of range in cold weather (and seems like earlier freezing issues have been addressed) - No deterioration of a battery's performance over time

Some disadvantages: - Hydrogen economy is not here yet and may be difficult to make efficient relative to electricity delivery (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_economy)

Re: 2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

#173

Post by incision »

tsotha wrote: post #132
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…

Uh huh. How much did you spend on your Roadster, and how much is it going to cost to replace the battery pack when it wears out after only ten years or so?

>How much did you spend on your Roadster, and how much is it going to cost to replace the battery pack when it wears out after only ten years or so?

Is this a fact, expensive battery replacements after 10 years and all?

I really have no idea, but I took a few minutes to try and look it up.

At a glance, it looks likes replacing a Prius battery today runs about half a much today as it did 10 years ago. Folks on the Tesla forums claim that you can pre-pay for a an eventual replacement to the tune of about $12K or 11% of the price of a new Roadster. That's a bit less half of of the current Tesla battery replacement cost I've seen thrown around and in line observed reduction in price of Prius batteries.

Spending 11% of a car's new price on a such a major repair, 10 years down the road is not bad at all. In fact, in my experience that's right in line with a basic import and cheap for anything could be considering sporting or luxury.

Unless I'm way off, this doesn't seem like a big issue at all.

Re: 2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

#174

Post by rossjudson »

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…

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?

Re: 2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

#175

Post by marcamillion »

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…

Couldn't disagree more. What's more portable than a solar-powered charging station? Solar energy is getting better and better - i.e. producing more KwH per unit of time of sunlight. That will likely continue - as most technologies tend to do.

Let's assume for a minute that Tesla survives the next few months and is able to ramp up production and deliver vehicles to it's 13,000 clients that it has received deposits for, it is mind-boggling how significant that impact will be on costs of everything.

The costs of production of each car, each battery used in each car, each car part, etc. will all fall. The cost of production of solar panels used at the Tesla Superchargers around the country, will fall.

I wouldn't be surprised if Tesla starts selling franchises on the superchargers - say 7/11, etc.

At some point in the next decade, just from Tesla alone - again, assuming they survive and continue on the current trajectory - you can reasonably assume that you will be able to travel much cheaper (if not free) than current gasoline. Not to mention that they will likely start selling Solar powered kits for home charging.

The question about an electric car performing in a flood/water is similar to the question of a combustion engine performing in a flood/water. They both will likely have trouble - although, I would be more willing to bet that the Tesla design could handle it better.

Everything you are seeing now is just the tip of the iceberg. This is just the model T of EVs. With the Model S, the EV is finally coming of age. The future looks bright, and I am excited.

If anyone can bring that future forward, I would stack my chips on Elon Musk.

Re: 2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

#176

Post by Lewisham »

hellgas00 wrote: post #158
devcpp wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really the same. You can take a dozen jerrycan of gas that will last you for a long time, and that does for the same price as the gas you'll buy at the station, which is precisely what people did before you could find gas stations every few miles. Not so for electricity: charging and taking 10 batteries with you on a trip is much more of a hassle and quite expensive. Fuel is really the deal-breaker for the buyers…

I believe these problems are already somewhat solved. The Chevy volt uses a hybrid system. Runs off electricity exclusively, with a small gas powered engine to charge the battery pack when need be. The backup engine can perform at its most efficient rate of rotation, and electric motors are so much more efficient than their combustion engine counterparts. As a Mech eng, I would be willing to bet that burning gas in a…

My guess is that the Volt is a stopgap, whereas Telsa are skating ahead of that puck. The Volt works for now for most people for most of their trips, which is awesome. However, you are still dealing with a whole host of moving parts and my guess is maintenance costs will be higher than either a pure EV or pure gas powered.

Given the rate Tesla are going, I think the plug-in hybrid (or indeed any hybrid) is going to look fairly quaint in 5-10 years.

Re: 2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

#177

Post by Lewisham »

lobster_johnson wrote: post #168
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…

While I'm all for EVs and would happily change if I could afford to, this strikes me as off: > ... 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. The Model S has a range of about 400 km (250 miles). For long highway-type trips, that's probably about 4 hours of driving. Which is not much. It won't get you from Köln to Berlin or…

It won't get you from SF to LA either, but that's why Tesla are building those 30 minute charging stations.

My guess is that Tesla license the technology out, and road stops on common long-distance corridors start offering the charging stations in their parking lots to dominate the competition, you stop at their place for lunch, and then others will have to install too to compete. Job done: superchargers everywhere.

It looks like this is already happening in San Francisco (albeit with the city bootstrapping it): there are parking garages with EV spots and those without. Given a higher EV usage, those garages are going to do better, and the others will need to install in order to win that custom.

Re: 2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

#178

Post by beau »

I've owned an electric car for about two years now. The article missed a few points:

1. The regenerative braking means you do not need to replace your brakes nearly as often. (Tires are a different story.)

2. There are far fewer moving parts than a normal car. This decreases the amount of maintenance you need to do.

3. Since there are no moving parts, it's less damaging to the car when drive it hard. Accelerating quickly with non-electric sports cars wears out very expensive components very quickly. With an electric car, you can get that 0-60 performance every single time you accelerate without wearing anything out. (Except the tires.)

When you're comparing the annual fuel bill to the extra cost of the Tesla, don't forget that you are buying a premium sports car. Something like a BMW M5 gets 14/20 MPG, and expects that you feed it premium fuel.

Re: 2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

#179

Post by Bud »

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…

Fair enough. You say that batteries are "too heavy"; I pointed out that they are getting steadily lighter, which is true. It's also true that they are plenty light, right now, to make the Nissan Leaf and the Tesla. To me, it's self-evident that batteries are therefore not "too heavy" to make a viable product.

Part of EV infrastructure is already built, too, and you know this. Yes, we do have to build 9 megashitloads of charging stations, over time. But we may see a model where lots of that charging occurs at home, and the consumer upgrades their own infrastructure, or the power companies offer a free or cheap charging station in return for selling lots more electricity to the customer. I don't see this as an insurmountable issue at all.

Yes, the cost is currently higher, but the obvious point is that it's coming down rapidly per unit of vehicle range. Shelf life of the Prius batteries has proven very very good so far, although that's a hybrid and not a pure electric.

Yes, power is down to an extent not seen since the 19th century. But gas deliveries are affected in a major way, too. Anecdotally, I have tons of friends telling me how hard it is to find gas.

The use case for charging at night already encompasses most drivers in most situations. And with a range of 250-300mi with one-hour recharge at free Tesla stations for longer trips...the use case is getting broader all the time.

What's the deal? Did you buy $1M of Hummer stock and lose your Charles Schwab password? This tech is clearly valid right now and getting more attractive by the year.

Re: 2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

#180

Post by abhimishra »

confluence wrote: post #167
abhimishra wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hydrogen vehicles are just plain stupid from an efficiency stand point - where are you going to get the hydrogen exactly? Purifying it is too expensive - and since it's lighter than air - there is no economical source of hydrogen on earth. It'd be cheaper to fuel your car with coal. No, it is expensive _today_. Which is different from saying it would be expensive at scale.

Oh for the love of all that is Science! > According to former U.S. Department of Energy official Joseph Romm, "A hydrogen car is one of the least efficient, most expensive ways to reduce greenhouse gases." Asked when hydrogen cars will be broadly available, Romm replied: "Not in our lifetime, and very possibly never." The Los Angeles Times wrote, in February 2009, "Hydrogen fuel-cell technology won't work in cars. ..…

I'm glad you are skilled at being snarky and rude, but it has no place here on Hacker News (or really anywhere).

Now onto your post: Writing off something as DOA because of current technologies is not a good argument at all. People made similar arguments about electric cars just a few years back (as shown in 'Who Killed the Electric Car'). A long time ago, no one ever thought computing would be cheap enough to be inside consumers' homes. There is always the possibility of a break-through technology, of a reduction in cost, increase in efficiency, etc.

The quote above cherry-picks some statements in 2008 regarding GM and Toyota's views at the time on fuel-cell vehicles. However, there is a long list of companies who have publicly talked about their investment (and upcoming production vehicles as well) in the fuel-cell space just this year (2012!). A quick search through fuel-cell news this year brought up the following: Honda, Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz aka Daimler, Audi aka VW, Toyota, GM, BMW. There are probably others as well, but that already covers the vast majority of vehicle manufacturers.

Secretary of Energy and Nobel Laureate Steven Chu reversed his view on fuel-cell cars and noted recently (mentioned towards the end of your quoted text as well) that there may be a higher feasibility for fuel-cell-based vehicles now.

There is ample proof that fuel-cells deserve more attention and research before closing the discussion. It is worth investigating this space if only to have alternatives - electric vehicles have some issues (range, cold weather performance, environmental impact of producing batteries) that perhaps other technologies could address.

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