Tesla reveals Supercharger network, Free Fill Ups • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla reveals Supercharger network, Free Fill Ups

#271

Post by rossjudson » Wed, Sep 26, 2012, 1:18 AM UTC

sixQuarks wrote: post #121

I would say Elon Musk is the greatest entrepreneur of the past century - even more so than Steve Jobs. He simultaneously created three separate companies, all in extremely complex industries, and combined all of them into one overall strategy. The precision manufacturing they learned with Space X is incorporated into the Tesla S. Their aim is to make the Model S the most reliable and problem-free vehicle due to this…

I'm waiting for Musk to take the first Tesla car ride on the moon. Solar powered.

Re: Tesla reveals Supercharger network, Free Fill Ups

#272

Post by hristov » Wed, Sep 26, 2012, 1:21 AM UTC

tjoff wrote: post #81

Osiris wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At $0.11/kWh, the Roadster at 53kWh would take almost $6 to completely fill. Though if these stations charge using solar power and store the power in a battery pack to discharge when a car hooks up, it could potentially cost them a lot less than $0.11/kWh, depending on the cost of building the station itself.

Solar will hardly be efficient enough, unless you'd have a whole solar farm beside each station... Also add maintenance of all those batteries and I bet you'd have a really hard time to motivate solar for economical reasons.

The way solar works in california for small installations is you just produce it and use it and whatever you do not use just send it to the electric company. If you need power you are not producing then you just take it from the electric grid. The electric company has to take your excess power (by law). The electric company then subtracts the power you put in from the power you use and only charges you for the difference.

So currently you do not have to worry about batteries or storage. You only have to worry about producing on average about as much as you use. The electric company does not have to worry about storage either because times of high sunshine always coincide with times of high electricity demand (due to air-conditioning).

So currently one can easily install and use solar without ever worrying about batteries or storage. If we ever get to the point where we rely exclusively on solar and wind, we will have to start worrying about storage, but this point is far off for now. Also, at that point the responsibility for storage will likely fall on the electric companies.

Re: Tesla reveals Supercharger network, Free Fill Ups

#273

Post by sjm » Wed, Sep 26, 2012, 1:55 AM UTC

walkon wrote: post #237

reitzensteinm wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never? You're telling me that in a thousand years, we won't have electric cars able to sustain a 300 mile daily commute? This isn't a discussion of if . It's a discussion of when .

With 1,000 years, feel free to think bigger: teleportation!

Beware the telefrag.

Re: Tesla reveals Supercharger network, Free Fill Ups

#274

Post by chris_mahan » Wed, Sep 26, 2012, 3:35 AM UTC

jblow wrote: post #267

sliverstorm wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to this web page: http://www.consumerenergyreport.com/2012/03/21/what-makes-up... It takes about $0.20 to refine a gallon of gas, so ~2kWh/gal. Except, It obviously actually takes less electricity than that, because there are other costs to refining. Not a bad investment in energy terms, when a gallon of gasoline contains ~36.6kWh worth of energy.

Don't forget the cost in electricity of finding deposits, mining them, transporting the pre-refined gas, transporting the post-refined gas, and lobbying Congress.

I just imagined the Congressional Cattle Prod, wrapped in $100 bills.

Re: Tesla reveals Supercharger network, Free Fill Ups

#275

Post by gubatron » Wed, Sep 26, 2012, 4:04 AM UTC

I think this conversation should be less about the electric vehicles and more about the idea of creating a decentralized solar grid. And one that will encourage existing gas station owners to do the same and bank on all that lost solar energy.

Re: Tesla reveals Supercharger network, Free Fill Ups

#276

Post by jaggederest » Wed, Sep 26, 2012, 5:11 AM UTC

reitzensteinm wrote: post #176

jaggederest wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, electric cars are never going to be completely practical for people with a daily commute beyond 150 miles or so. But if you're commuting 3 hours a day total, you have bigger issues with your life, to be honest. Move closer to where you commute!

Never? You're telling me that in a thousand years, we won't have electric cars able to sustain a 300 mile daily commute? This isn't a discussion of if . It's a discussion of when .

No no, I'm saying a three hour commute. Regardless of the distance there's still going to be 24 hours in a day. Spending 12% of your day commuting is bonkers.

Re: Tesla reveals Supercharger network, Free Fill Ups

#277

Post by mdonahoe » Wed, Sep 26, 2012, 6:20 AM UTC

reitzensteinm wrote: post #176

jaggederest wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, electric cars are never going to be completely practical for people with a daily commute beyond 150 miles or so. But if you're commuting 3 hours a day total, you have bigger issues with your life, to be honest. Move closer to where you commute!

Never? You're telling me that in a thousand years, we won't have electric cars able to sustain a 300 mile daily commute? This isn't a discussion of if . It's a discussion of when .

I hope that in a thousand years we don't commute at all.

Re: Tesla reveals Supercharger network, Free Fill Ups

#278

Post by scottmcleod » Wed, Sep 26, 2012, 6:24 AM UTC

I'm glad theres at least one entrepreneur whose denting the universe versus profits, Musk for president.

Re: Tesla reveals Supercharger network, Free Fill Ups

#279

Post by patrickk » Wed, Sep 26, 2012, 11:00 AM UTC

marshray wrote: post #256

patrickk wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not so hard to move the energy out of the desert either. It's tougher than you realise. Energy is lost when transmitting power over long distances - like from a desert to an urban area. I'm not an expert but as I understand it there are major challenges. A lot of solar installations tend to be located where the power is used (next to data centres, on people's roofs).

A lot of data centers and aluminum smelters tend to be located next to where the power is. If you build it they will come. Considering all the infrastructure that goes into keeping a fossil or nuke plant fed and cleaned and its power output distributed, I think if a solar installation has a net payback time of similar period we ought to be willing to invest a little in the distribution as well.

> aluminum smelters

Why aluminium smelters? I haven't heard this before.

> we ought to be willing to invest a little in the distribution as well.

I agree. I've read that's it's a huge challenge though, which is one of the factors holding up the development of large scale solar installations in the desert. Another challenge is the variance and relative unpredictability of power generation which means batteries are needed to smooth out the peaks and troughs to balance supply and demand.

Re: Tesla reveals Supercharger network, Free Fill Ups

#280

Post by omegant » Wed, Sep 26, 2012, 5:04 PM UTC

Why not a small trailer with battery packs for long trips? or if you don´t want-need to go green, it could go with an engine and a generator. You connect it to your car and that way you can add range in an easy way. It´s also fast to swap at the e-station, just 2 min...