Last night a host of fancy society-types, car buffs and our good friends from AutoBlog got a unique chance to check out Tesla's electric sports car. The zero-emissions whip (it's so green it doesn't even have a tailpipe) will get about 250 miles on a single charge, and reaches speeds of about 130-miles per hour, with a 0-60 time hovering around a pretty impressive 4-seconds. Stop driving it long enough to peek under the hood and you'll find a 3-phase, 4-pole AC induction motor and a Power Electronics Module at the heart of this slick ride. Don't run out to the car dealership yet, as these babies aren't hitting the streets until mid-2007, and when they do, they'll run you somewhere between $80,000 and $120,000. It sounds like a lot, we know, but just think of the looks you'll get as you drive by at 124-mph, completely silently. Plus, it'll be a great place to install your new
Bluetooth-enabled head unit. Check the source link for a lot more pictures and even video from the big unveling.
posted July 20th 2006 9:15AM
everyone needs to see the movie "Who Killed The Electric Car" I wrote a post in my blog about it and how auto companies and oil companies are hurt by electric cars.
GM officials and engineers already responed to the "Whole Killed the Electric Car" claims, simply put the programs weren't profitable. The EV in fact lost GM lots of money and overcoming inhernet engineering problems and liability claims proved too costly to continue the program. The movie made many claims that were simply false and belongs with the "we didn't land on the moon" documentary and other looney conspiracy theorists claims.
Back to reality, an another advantage of the Tesla is that it would likely be charged at night during off-peak hours when powerplants have excess capacity so it's emission would be alot smaller than you think.
Simon Potter... that was about the dumbest thing I read on this whole page.
At your assumption of $40 per gas tank and a $40,000 premium for this technology, there's no way you could recoup your investment on gas savings. I'll be generous and say that we'll keep the car for 10 years, though if you're spending $80,000 on a car, you're not keeping the same car for ten years. But at 10 years, you're looking at 100 tanks of gas per year in your hypothetical situation.
That's fill up every 3.5 days, that's 100 miles a day in a standard fuel-economic 2-door coupe. Now granted, I know a few people that drive that far for work, cause well... I'm in New York/New Jersey so people commute, but you have to add into the equation the cost for charging it each day and the charge for replacement batteries... and that's all while allowing for 10 years of ownership.
This car is not a cost-saving car. This is a luxury car with an eco-friendly mind (which is smart given how many celebs are now eco-friendly). What this car does do is (1) provide proof that it can be done, (2) provide a basis for technology to advance and allow costs to drop.
You might see this technology in mass-market cars in about 10 years... until then people will stick with hybrids, flex-fuels, etc.
My solution? Live a mile from work... Gas prices don't bother me one bit.
I would love an electric car, but I live in an apartment. So "pluggin in" is not an option.
Nice, however it is a "custom lotus", then they went on about how it has a "custom" engine, carbon fiber body, etc, etc... each time he said the word "custom" it added 10k to the car. That being said, I can't wait for the mass production of vehicles like this, most people commute 250 or less round trip, plug in at home, rinse, repeat... all i can say is... Way to go!
"I would love an electric car, but I live in an apartment. So "pluggin in" is not an option."
Talk to your landlord. Maybe you can work something out. At least if yor car was electric there's be one less vehicle dripping oil all over the place...
Of course, I'm guessing that even as custom as this vehicle is it probably uses fairly pedestrian hydraulic/brake/steering/transmission fluid(s).
Well...pedestrian for a Lotus anyway...
This video on YouTube says a lot guys, you should watch. I'm stoked about this car, if only we could get all car companies developing this tech. No one in their right mind out there in the public is 'demanding' petrol cars, we want these ones. At the right price of course.
If I had a buck for every time someone came barked some BS about polluting the environment because we are all charging our cars for fossil fuel electricity or that Li batteries will have to be replaced all the time I would be able to afford this car tomorrow!!
Why don't some of you do some VERY simple research before you spew BS all over and let the world know just how ignorant you are.
Bottom line... the batteries will outlast most peoples ownership of a car! The US barely makes half it's electricity from fossil fuel. The majority of time these cars will be charged is overnight. Who cares if it takes 15 minutes or 8 hours??? How long does it take to charge your cell phone???
As far as range is concerned... How often do any of you travel more that 250 miles in a day?? Maybe once or twice a month. Considering that the majority of households in the US have 2 cars then guess what? On that one or two occasions a month when you need to travel over 250 miles, take the gasser!!!
I drive an all electric S-10 for over 90% of my driving needs. I have 2 other gas cars that I only drive when I figure if I don't, the engines will quit because they haven't been started in so long. In fact, my 3 year old Chrysler wouldn't start last month because it had been so long since I drove it the battery was DEAD!
My electric bill is about $10 more per month since I've been driving all electric. Almost a year now and nearly 10K miles! For about $100 in electricity! The year before when gas was about $2.65 I spent almost $1700 in gas!
Electric cars have been around for decades. You just don't know it because they look just like other cars on the road and you can't hear them... http://www.austinev.org/evalbum/
Here's a small sample (several hundred) of some conversions around the world.
Watch out, that might be an EV passing you.
I am afraid that "Skeptic" is totally wrong here. Even when electricity is produced by coal or oil the scientific world has calculated that a battery electric vehicle is 97% cleaner than the cleanest "dino" powered car. This calculation has been made time and time again. The answer is always the same.
Now for those people who are concerned about "only" 250 miles of range, my reply is that no one is ever satisfied. The complaint here in the EV1 days was, "well what if you want to drive to Vegas?". Well now one can drive to Vegas. Besides that, after 250 miles in a vehicle I am generally ready to take a 20 minute break. With the right power source, in that 20 minutes the Tesla would be able to take you another 250 miles. Fortunately I don't drive to Vegas so the question is academic. Besides, I have a Prius in which even my wife gets 52 mpg in highway driving. It goes from here to San Francisco without refuelling but I still have to stop in San Luis Obispo or Fresno for a break, no matter which route I take.
Neat car. Tesla did a fantastic job in marketing this car, with the long-hyped announcement and putting Schwarzenegger in the passenger seat. First time I've seen an electric car get this kind of attention.
But the technology is nothing new. Put in 6,000 lithium cells? Pricy, but not innovative. Volvo put 3,000 lithium cells two years ago into their prototype car. The basic car comes from Lotus. The motor from AC Propulsion. Nothing really came from Tesla. They are just having Lotus put together a "plug and play" car of Tesla's design.
Not that there is anything wrong with that. Even with Silicon Valley's reputation for high-tech, my 20 years here in the Valley tells me that marketing and salemanship count much more than technology. As with other industries, so with the car industry.
But something tells me that Tesla is going to be a dud. Look at GM and its electric car. Yes, everybody has his or her own bias in viewing the GM story. "Who Killed the Electric Car" makes a reasonably good movie, but has no profound insights. What killed the EV1 was that so few people put down the fairly modest amount of money GM asked for to drive one.
To me, at least, it seems clear that few people are going to buy a $100,000 electric version of the Lotus Elise. Just like few people leased GM's EV1. Look at how hard, and long, Toyota has had to work to sell its Prius. And even Toyota has yet to see whether it will be able to keep penetrating the market.
My guess? Tesla will sell a few cars. But it will bleed money, and make a loss on every car even with the $100,000 price tag. And its upcoming sedan? Vaporware.
In fact, this all reminds me of Webvan, the Internet grocery store that flamed out in a hurry. Although to give them credit, the Tesla people have not burned through an unreasonable amount of cash (they claim to have raised only $60 million, and to still have some left). Not bad, compared to over a billion dollars for Webvan.
Before people are going to buy their groceries over the Internet, habits will have to change. At best, that will take time. At worst, it will never happen.
Same with electric cars. For people to buy electric cars will require a big shift in habits. Maybe it will happen. Maybe not. Tesla's Roadster, though, is not going to help much. Like the Wrightspeed, it is nothing but a high-priced toy. Lots of fun, if you can afford it. But you buy it for the fun, not for transportation.
Just plug this thing into nuclear power and we will finally have guilt free auto races.
doesn't the power for the car come from a power plant that runs on fossil fuels, electric cars are in no way green unless their power is coming from a non-polluting energy source.
Electric Vehicles produce NO WASTED FUEL AT STOP SIGNS, IN BUMPER TO BUMPER TRAFFIC, OR AT ANY OTHER TIME A GAS/DIESEL/HYDROGEN FUELED VEHICLE IS IDLING. Less waste=superior efficiency.
"waaa! waaa!! Electricity is made from coal" I'm getting sick of this. Coal plants can be up to 50% efficient with the use of combined cycle. Compare this to a real efficiency of 20% for a petrol engine! Centralised thermal generation is a much more efficient process than distributed thermal engines and that’s a fact. Another bonus is by centralising your CO2 production you have a much better opportunity to do something with CO2 such as sequestration. Fusion or tidal power will save us all anyway.
there's a new documentary on it's way that might raise a few questions as to why this car wasn't around 10 years ago.
http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony/whokilledtheelectriccar/
there's too much money in oil for world governments and the 'big oil' companies to let it go before every drop is bled from the planet and sold at a good profit.
pretty much every fossil fuel going has a more efficent more environmentally friendly alternative, but not one single one of them is anywhere near as profitable, so until there is no more oil, things will stay the way they are.
the only thing that remains to be seen is whether or not the planet can take the strain of the environmental pollution caused by the leftovers of burning all that oil or if we're goiong to kill ourselves before enough people realise it and make the changes needed.