Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 79 posts

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

#51

Post by krrrh »

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…

Car2Go has solar panels on the roofs of a good number of the gasoline powered Smartcars in their fleet. This helps to keep the cars' battery from wearing down while powering the onboard cellular data and GPS. The panel however is promoted as only 100W which is enough for this purpose but wouldn't go far in terms of locomotive power, and it seems that newer models have forgone PV in favor of moonroofs and regular (presumably more durable) rooftops.

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

#52

Post by kgermino »

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.

Depends on where you go. For instance, I've looked at driving Milwaukee to SF and would plan on doing it in 2.5 days. On the other hand, I've driven Chicago to Yellowstone and we took 4 days to get there.

The biggest difference I see is that 80 is he most mind numbingly boring road in this country whereas (at least until Utah, even where Wyoming is a pretty drive there's not too much worth stopping for) along 90 or 94 there are many more spectacular views and places to check out along the way. Not to mention that the back roads on the northern end are far more interesting than driving the mile grid through cornfields :)

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

#53

Post by R_Edward »

simias wrote: post #40
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 r…

A) Consider the technological acumen of the average filling station worker. Is that the guy you want to be in charge of determining whether any given battery is fit for reuse?

B) Consider the weight of an average automobile's starter battery. Not the sort of thing that a petite woman like my wife would be able to sling around on her own. If you hire battery jockeys to swap them in and out, that increases the cost.

C) Now consider the fact that an electric car requires a LOT larger battery than a starter battery. After all, the starter battery only has to turn the starter motor for a few seconds; the EV battery has to turn the entire drivetrain for the entire time you're traveling between charging stations. If you broke the battery modules up into easily manageable pieces, it would take just as long to pull them all out and replace them with fresh ones as it would to just charge them up in place.

D) Consider that because an EV battery is so large, they tend to be located in fairly inaccessible places--under the passenger compartment, molded into the frame... Thus, it is not a simple job to remove and replace.

There are probably other obstacles to implementing a battery swap scheme that I'm not seeing off the top of my head. And none of these are truly insurmountable, but the solutions tend to involve the movement of pieces of green paper, or the big hand on the watch dial.

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

#54

Post by slantyyz »

timdorr wrote: post #3

The big question is when he's going to take that trip. They're supposed to have the cross country capacity only at the end of the year. Why announce it now and wait 4 months to actually do it?

I'd love for him to do it during the coldest months of the year in the Northeast, like February. That will either shut up all the naysayers about cold weather distance driving, or it will shut him up (unlikely) about how good the battery is when it's really, really cold.

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

#55

Post by simias »

R_Edward wrote: post #53
simias wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 r…

A) Consider the technological acumen of the average filling station worker. Is that the guy you want to be in charge of determining whether any given battery is fit for reuse? B) Consider the weight of an average automobile's starter battery. Not the sort of thing that a petite woman like my wife would be able to sling around on her own. If you hire battery jockeys to swap them in and out, that increases the cost. C)…

For all those points I imagined the process would've been automated, like those automatic car wash stations. Obviously manhandling the batteries seems difficult to achieve.

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

#56

Post by methodin »

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…

This isn't about how annoying it is to stop for 1.5/hrs a day, it's about quelling the notion that some people don't even think it's possible.

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

#58

Post by alphakappa »

DanBC wrote: post #17
avar wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, I love stopping at random places when I'm on the road. Having to spend 1.5hr per day at a gas station is not a random stop however, and having to spend 1.5hr per day at one in lieu of stopping somewhere more interesting takes some of the fun out of driving and stopping at interesting places on the road.

Won't the interesting places want to attract people who can afford expensive cars? Won't they start to add charging points?

The inferesting places are not always private properties that are trying to attract people. On my road trips, I often end up stopping and stretching my legs at scenic overlooks, hiking trails, lakes etc, none of which are likely to sprout charging stations any time soon.

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

#59

Post by stcredzero »

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…

> if it took 1.5 hrs to fill it up each time

Disingenuous? That's 1.5 hours scheduled per day, not each stop.

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

#60

Post by wiredfool »

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…

Sightseeing at the supercharger station? Count me in.

I'm sure they've got them on the North Rim, and one near Devil's Tower, and Moab, and Yosemite, Yellowstone near Old Faithful, and on the Going to the Sun Highway. Conveniently right by the trail heads. Or not.

Post reply on HN