What are your thoughts on this car?

I've been reading a lot about it lately and I really want one now. The 12 month waiting list is a bitch though. I've yet to see one in person and don't know anyone that owns one (yet).

Tesla Roadster - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tesla Motors

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the battery is an array of hundreds of lap top computer, lithium ion batteries.

to charge them up at home, with 240 volts & 100 amps=24KW, would take at least 10 hours & cost about $50, unless i have made a mistake in arithmetic.

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On my ass, as usual.

According to Tesla, to do a full cycle charge it only takes 3.5 hours, with partial charges taking considerably less time.

The car comes with a charging station that's to be installed by an electrician, but it also comes with a mobile charging cable with multiple ends you can use anywhere.

Uses 6850(!) 18650 form factor Li-ion cells. http://www.teslamotors.com/display_d...terySystem.pdf

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the charging station is plugged into your house power and is continously charging up it's humongous battery/capacitor array, so it is building up charge, while you are driving the car.

at .20/KWh, that still would cost ~$50 for a full charge, which might only last a day, depending on how many miles you drive.

again, my arithmetic could well be wrong.

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On my ass, as usual.

From Tesla Motors - charging & batteries :
Nothing concrete as far as $ per kwh they are using for their calculations or what they consider "electical company's incentive pricing"

Right now, for me:
$0.22 per mile

Tesla (from their website)
$0.01 per mile

Hell, even if it's $0.05 per mile that's a helluva a lot of savings in consumables not to mention no oil changes, tune ups and other maintenance work associated with internal combustion engines.

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i'm all for it. don't get me wrong.

connecting thousands of batteries, regenerative braking & DC motors, is not state of the art.

lets see what things look like after a year on the road.

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On my ass, as usual.

Ehh.. why not get a TREX and save yourself the hassle. It uses a bike engine which should net you 60+ mpg if you cruise and is cheaper/simpler than any electric car.

I also drove the Lotus elise which shares the same chassis with this car only its lighter and I didnt particularly care for the handling dynamics of the stock elise. Lots of understeer and obviously the feeling of having no weight up front was a far cry from what I'm used to. Drive an elise at least before you buy if not trying the tesla its self.

I just dont see the purpose of any electric car at this point.

arial atom!

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BUY MY CAR!

The purpose is that they are the immediate future of automobiles until we find a legitimate alternative fuel source. Realisticly speaking the Telsa is still far from what we want, and last I knew they couldn't keep a transmission in one long term. Now that said, I think its cool. But if I were be buying a car for the purposes of cheaper transportation, first of all a bike is the smart way, but a bike engine powered car is the next best thing. 50mpg, none of the Bs, and it has been around long enough to work well consistantly.

Dan,

I am with you on this one, I don't see how its going to cost that little to run it, and what about when you are cruising down the highway in the middle of east bumfuck and run out of power? Its not like you can hitchhike to the next gas station get a can of gas and come back, nor is it like you can call AAA for a quicky. I don't think we have the infrastructure RIGHT NOW to support it. The thing that amazes me is how different America is in terms of transport from the rest of the world, we are not all confided to cities, the average American is driving ~30 miles a day! Thats alot considering what you see in european countries. We are absolutely reliant on our vehicals, thats not the case in other places. Public transportation is not the answer here, to be honest unless you live in a MAJOR city and I'm not talking even something like Rochester/Buffalo/Syracuse/Binghamton/Albany for a big state like NY, with some large cities, you almost have to have a car. I lived in Rochester, there is a bus system, Bighamton same... well when I lived outside of the limits of the busses... by 20 miles.. now what? Thats not uncommon. See if you are in the city, ok you CAN ride the bus, I don't want to, but its there, but where I grew up outside of Binghamton you had no choice but to have vehical, my brother was commuting 40miles to his job everyday, I was at 126miles round trip for a while, you can't do that on a bus out there. The Telsa may or may not get you to and from work, now what? If you are in a major city, you have public transport, hell NYC I wouldn't own a car, but thats not most of America.

For me the Volt from chevy has potential to be what we need, the actual "experts" are claiming that the 40miles on the battery alone would really be more like 60 which would cover the large populations daily commute, but with the gas powered back up you can see a 500mile range, MUCH more realistic.

I love the car, but I think they really messed up on battery selection. I would really want an altair nano battery before I started considering purchase. I want the Volvo C30 ReCharge. Its like the Volt, but not ugly and made by Volvo (and therefore amazingly comfortable!) and uses PML Flightlink wheel motors.