Din ding ding, I agree.

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wptrx7

I wonder how long that battery packs are going to last. It is going to be SERIOUSLY expensive to replace them when they die.

As for bike engined cars, there are downsides to them as well. First the clutch/transmissions aren't meant to be used in something as heavy as a car, so the gearing is goofy and you usually have to baby the clutch to keep from frying it. There also aren't many good reverse options.


If you want extremely good gas mileage for your commute get a bike or even better a scooter.

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Chris Sanders
1991 Galant VR4 daily driver.
1993 montego blue FD swap project

My room mate has a Honda Ruckus. I freakin love that thing. Gets 120 MPG and is fun to ride.

BTW...if Tesla had used the batteries from altair nano, they would most likely have a life longer than the car (probably 400k miles).

The batteries would have a longer life, but they don't have the stamina of Li-ion batteries. The range for nanosafe batteries in EVs is 110 miles or so.

The 10 minute charge time is definitely an eye opener, but when you realize it takes 440V and huge capacitors to power the charging unit, a home based charger is out of the question.

The batteries are warrantied for 100,000 miles. After that, it's close to $10k to replace it. There are individual modules inside the main battery pack so "collecting" some as time goes on would be the best bet instead of shelling out 10 grand for a set later.

The motor is a 3-phase AC unit. What are the downsides of multiple batteries and regenerative braking? I understand the multiple points of failure among several thousand cells, but I'd rather have a row go out than a complete module.

From an electronics background, what would you do differently?

EXACTLY! I just saw on the news while I was at lunch that truckers in London are protesting by parking their rigs in the middle of traffic. They're paying approximately $10USD per gallon over there for diesel.

The Tesla Roadster is the first EV that has comparible acceleration, top speed and range to todays gas burners and it looks GOOD.. Yes, my truck has a 410 mle range, but my RX-7 had a range of 260 miles or so which is not far off from the Tesla.

So far the Tesla is unique in that besides the comparisons above, it can be charged from any standard electrical plug from 110v to 220v and comes with the umbilical to do so. If you drive 150 miles to work, park it, plug it in and drive it back home in the evening.

One problem with bikes or bike-based cars like the Ariel Atom - bad weather.

I'm kinda pro-Tesla for a couple of reasons... #1. Nikola Tesla is one of my heroes. #2. A car like the Tesla Roadster HAS to take off and become a hit before we see cars, even hybrids, utilize more electric power and less gasoline.

I like ICEs just as much as everyone else, but when I sat down and looked at the numbers the other day I realized that I spend on average $700 per month in gasoline, where 10 years ago I would use $200 in fuel for the same amount of travel.

That's just silly. Ten years and it's almost four times as expensive.

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would do nothing differently, because i do not know enough about it.

and will add that DC to AC inverters are also nothing new.

if i were buying a new car this year, i would probably go with a toyota hybrid.

it still makes no financial sense, in terms of payback, to pay the difference in price between my older cars & a new hybrid. perhaps at $10 gallon i does. $10/gallon is not out of the realm of possibility.

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On my ass, as usual.

Math is wrong. The car takes a bit over five dollars to charge at the average US rate of twelve cents per killowatt hour. Five dollar "fill up" or ninety dollar gasoline fill up.... To bad the car is outrageously priced, 109 grand for a base 2009 model, laugh.

The savings aren't enough to justify the cost of the car vs any standard car out there, but at $.22 per mile it costs $22,000 in fuel alone to drive my truck 100,000 miles.

For the Tesla - $1000

Of course, I'm comparing it to a full size truck with a V8...

What if we compare it to a similar car:

Lotus Elise - 240HP
Cost - $64,890
MPG - 24avg
Cost per mile - $0.17 only if the price of 93 stays at $4.10 per gallon
Fuel cost @ 100k miles - $17,000
TCO @ 100k miles - $82,890 (including $1000 for oil changes)


Tesla Roadster - 248HP
Cost - $109,000
MPG - 135 (wtf?)
Cost per mile - $0.01
Fuel cost @ 100k miles - $1000
TCO @ 100k miles - $110,000

The Tesla costs $27,110 more to operate over 100,000 miles than a Lotus Exige SC. In the grand scheme of things, that's not that bad. This is the first production run and the prices are expected to drop once new models are introduced. Once you get over the sticker price, the cost of keeping it running is quite nice actually

For someone who puts 10,000 miles on their car a year - not a good choice. For someone who puts on 30,000 miles or better per year, it's definitely something to look into.

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so, how many KWh does it take to charge those batteries? you need to know that, in order to do the arithmetic. 1 Hp is about .75 KW. what is the KW rating of the battery pack?

then we can do the arithmetic.

we know that household voltage is 240 max & at that voltage, 100 amps is about max.

so the maximum charging power is 24 KW. now divide that into the rating of the battery pack & then multiply by the charge per KWh.

that is what i thought i did.

always ready to be shown my errors, though.

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On my ass, as usual.

Dunno about it's charging rate. According to http://www.popularmechanics.com/auto...s/4215681.html it uses a 56kwh li-ion battery. (Their numbers are a little stale there. They're quoting fuel prices of $2.55/gallon

Their numbers round out to $0.022 per mile, which doubles the numbers above. I'd still like to know where Tesla got their $0.01 figure from - what "incentives" are they talking about?

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For those that do/don't like LiIon packs, have you ever compared the main (reasonable) technologies in batteries? The only other one that comes close in Ah and cycle capability is A123, and those are heavier and more difficult to package, plus they (A123) have a little more "punchiness" in that they hit hard on full charge, but have an appreciable power drop partially through the discharge cycle vs. LiPo/LiIon, though it's nowhere near as bad as NiCad/NiMH cells.

I fully agree that the Tesla isn't perfect, but for the first real mainstream release of an electric "performance" car, it seems to do a good job.

I'm really curious to see what the charging structure looks like. I play a lot with Lithium Polymer packs in my radio control cars, and the charging/control for them is very, very touchy for getting maximum life. The electrical system for charging that many batteries properly (with one charging lead "tap" per cell, or at least one tap per series bank, there is a lot of complexity there). That said, properly cycled lithium polymer/ion batteries will last a LONG time with no appreciable degradation. It's all about proper charge/discharge cycles, and not exceeding the max rated amp draw on either cycle.

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Blake

2006 Crew: Team Spiderman/Hulk Top Fuel Motorcycle
8 Time World Champions, World Record Holders for 1/4 E/T: 5.799