2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S • Hacker News Board

Re: 2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

#281

Post by stretchwithme » Sat, Nov 03, 2012, 2:48 AM UTC

hans wrote: post #207

Good thing Romney keeps wanting to throw Tesla under the bus, way to support innovation, way to cheer for jobs n0t.

Valuable innovation doesn't need to be on life support. Technologies that can only exist with subsidies destroy capital and jobs.

I'm all for dealing with problems like pollution, but a tax on the polluters is the way to go. The federal government should not be picking replacements and throwing money at them.

If electric vehicles cannot yet compete with gasoline vehicles that are taxed to pay for their pollution, then its too early for them.

Re: 2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

#282

Post by twoodfin » Sat, Nov 03, 2012, 1:05 PM UTC

kamaal wrote: post #204

lambda wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Just imagine if people in 80's had a similar attitude about internet, where would we be now? If we were to wait for things to get perfectly ready. 90% of the things in this world would never get ready at all.

Note that no one had to be given a $5000 tax credit to buy a PC, a modem, and an AOL account.

Re: 2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

#283

Post by jread » Sat, Nov 03, 2012, 1:58 PM UTC

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…

> 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.

EV infrastructure, unlike gasoline, can be piggy backed onto existing facilities - service stations, restaurants, hotels... It is much simpler to deploy and maintain - no tanks to install, no gas to deliver, no hazmat, etc. - just a connection to existing electrical infrastructure at those facilites. Adding EV charging to existing businesses also has potential to increase sales as drivers shop, eat and purchase goods etc during the wait. As EV marketshare increases, this will provide motivation to existing businesses to add EV charging capabilities on their own dime and thus stimulate the build out of such infrastructure. Tesla has finally built a practical EV that people want, which can kick start this whole process.

Re: 2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

#284

Post by willyt » Sat, Nov 03, 2012, 3:19 PM UTC

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…

When I'm driving 600 miles, I usually stop for lunch.

In the UK, all you would need to immediately make most long distance journeys viable is charging bays at about 5 or 6 existing strategically chosen service stations on trunk routes[1]. Remember, you can recharge fully in less than an hour.

Supplying power to charging points is not going to be a big deal. 85kWh battery charging in 1 hour will draw 1.4kW, less than half the maximum for a standard UK domestic plug, in fact less than a plug-in electric heater[2]. So I can also fully recharge in an hour at anyones house, just by running an extension lead out the window at a push. And, it's only going to cost me in the order of £10 to recharge at day rate electricity prices (about £5 on night rate). My current car does about 650 miles on a full tank of diesel driving at 70mph but this costs about £80 and it's much less efficient for city driving due to engine idling and no regenerative braking.

OK so the tesla costs about £46k($70k) and I can't afford that, but that's around what you'd pay for mid to high range BMW estate car. There are enough of these around to make me think there is a seriously large market for this car in Europe, easily enough to jump start the economies of scale in manufacturing needed to drive down the price for lower end models.

[1] Say, M6 Cumbria, M1 Warwickshire, A1 Northumbria, M90 Perthshire, M5 Somerset, M20 Kent

[2] e.g. http://www.johnlewis.com/230843376/Product.aspx

Re: 2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

#285

Post by tomelgin » Tue, Nov 06, 2012, 2:59 AM UTC

twoodfin wrote: post #282

kamaal wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just imagine if people in 80's had a similar attitude about internet, where would we be now? If we were to wait for things to get perfectly ready. 90% of the things in this world would never get ready at all.

Note that no one had to be given a $5000 tax credit to buy a PC, a modem, and an AOL account.

No, but most of the early infrastructure for the internet was publicly-funded (between government labs and universities).

Re: 2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

#286

Post by rossjudson » Tue, Nov 13, 2012, 1:09 AM UTC

freehunter wrote: post #193

rossjudson wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

So let's do some math. I drive a Toyota truck that goes anywhere and does everything. It gets 20mpg average (I have a ScanGauge for monitoring this). It's 14 years old, and it cost me $5000 when I bought it. So at an average daily commute for Americans of 16 miles [1] (my commute is 5 miles one direction), that would give me an average of 400 bidirectional gallons used per year (16 miles one direction times 250 worki…

Have a look at a ten year history for gas prices. See if you think your $3.50/gallon is going to hold. Car leases are usually between 10k and 15k miles per year for a reason. Run the numbers with 12k miles per year, $5.50 gas over 5 years. Comparison to a Tesla is, of course, ridiculous (but you knew that). Consider separating the fixed costs from the variable costs.