Telsa Roadster - A Battery Powered Supercar

[Allen]

Have any of you seen this?

http://www.teslamotors.com/

I'm surprised there's no mention of it at all on these forums with the amount of petrolheads on here!

Anyway, it got me thinking, if they can make a car that sounds this good (i.e. it's performance, reliability and cost to run using just electricity) why are there no cheaper and slower alternatives being mass produced by other companies or why is the government not trying to push car manufacturers to go electric?

Maybe I'm missing something? Maybe this car is completely crap and doesn't live up to what it says it can do? I dunno, just thought I would show you guys if you haven't seen it.

[Howard]

why are there no cheaper and slower alternatives being mass produced by other companies or why is the government not trying to push car manufacturers to go electric?

)

They are.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_Insight

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius

http://www.lexus.co.uk/hybrid/index.aspx

OK so they have conventional internal combustion engines to assist, but still!

[awm]

From what I've heard its an amazing car. Having done stuff with EVs the only thing keeping them from becoming main stream is the batteries (expensive and are likely to need to be replaced before the car - bad combination). Other than that you get cheep running cost, good reliability (if its mass produced, current one offs can't be compared to production), and best of all really good performance (look at the torque curve on an electric motor, you'll see the dream of any IC engine).

[directhex]

worth a look at if you can afford a £80k supercar like the Tesla is the ~£120 Lightning GT.

what does £40k buy you?

10 minute charges instead of 3.5 hours, that's what

[Butuz]

worth a look at if you can afford a £80k supercar like the Tesla is the ~£120 Lightning GT.

what does £40k buy you?

10 minute charges instead of 3.5 hours, that's what

You could do 10 min charges in the Tesla as well as the Lightning - the problem is for both, you would have to have an industrial type mains power supply into your house as a normal house supply will not be able to supply enough amps to actually do a 10 minute charge. Thus, most people in the world will not be able to do a 10 minute charge, even if they fork out an extra £40k for the Lightning.

Butuz

[TheAnimus]

or this:
http://www.fiskerautomotive.com/

£40k, hybrid. Not bad performance on paper either.

[GAteKeeper]

Actually the Lithium-Graphite technology in the Lightening is what enables the seriously faster charging but no doubt the tesla would be faster on 3phase.

GK

[Vimeous]

I'm surprised there's no mention of it at all on these forums with the amount of petrolheads on here!

The lack of petrol maybe?


To better answer your question however Nissan have announced they will not go hybrid - they're going straight to electric. Expect this to also mean Renault as their sister company. I suspect they aren't the only ones either.

There have been other pure electric vehicles in the recent past (e.g. Peugeot I believe) in standard bodyshells.
The killers issues have always been range, charge time and weight. In addition there is the question over which you can make more efficient - central electricity generation (35% approx efficient for coal fired stations in europe) or the car itself.

The adoption of lithium batteries for automotive use is the current critical factor. The remaining challenges appear to be making lithium batteries reliable and producing enough to make them cost effective - or indeed simply to supply the expected demand.
Lithium batteries will give ranges of around 200miles, short charge times for an 80% fill and a big reduction in size and therefore weight.
It seems 2010 is the key year. Nissan want to start selling pure EV's that year. The next Toyota hybrids will switch to lithium in 2010 as well.

Of course this leaves some wider issues. If we move to pure EV's emmisions reduction can be focussed on one type of polluter - the power stations. However they're very difficult to make efficient.
Then what lifespan should batteries have? If you take other lithium applications such as laptops they still suffer memory issues or damage if perminantly left on-charge or only ever short-charged. Typically car users expect a fillup to take seconds not even minutes so most batteries will only ever see 80% charge resulting in reduced overall range and a permature end to their useful lifespan.
Also can we make enough? Will they be cheap to replace? How safe are electric cars in an accident - a fire even?

Regardless, after many false starts I believe EV's and certainly hybrid EV's are just beginning the start of a long journey to dominance.
Shame I prefer the synthetic methanol economy solution to the worlds car pollution issues!

[Mithrandir]

Car looks nice.

Also excellent name (Tesla: He is the father of our modern world)