What could be a better feeling than beating a world record? Beating
your own world record. The
Tesla Roadster has put an extra exclamation mark on its world-conquering single-charge antics by raising the bar from
241 miles back in April to an even more impressive 313 this week. As you can see in that homemade "world record" sign above, that's 501 kilometers in metric terms, or pretty much the exact distance between Paris and Amsterdam. The Global Green Challenge in Australia -- where this feat was achieved -- allows only production battery-powered vehicles to compete, meaning that the new record is down to driver skill on the part of one Mr. Simon Hackett, and not some newfound techno mojo. Kinda makes those
long recharge times seem like
less of a burden, no?
posted Oct 31st 2009 3:47AM
I would love to drive one of these bad boys; the acceleration is pretty beastly.
Never realized how small it was.
Too bad it handles like a Fiat Panda.
If that guy lost some weight, I'm sure it could go 414 miles on a single charge.
Looks like Engadget doesn't know their math "301 kilometers = 187.032729 miles"
O man... that's actually 501 kilometers ROFL!!!...... Why does it look like a 3 for got sakes....
it's 501 kilmeters... read the sign...
Baka....
I'm sorry, but I had to downrank you.
@ Atlantian: Heh you baka, stupid gaijin, only I know the true power of the yamato spirit *pulls out katana, wipes cheeto dust off of blade*
mmm cheetos
Am I late to the party? What did I miss, what did I miss??
I thought it looked like "301 KM" also at first.
Sir, I go down with honor! Down rank me!
Done with honour !!!
The weather in Australia is favorable for batteries. I wonder how far it would get actually trying to go from Amsterdam to Paris in freezing winter...
I wonder how far it would get if the driver laid off the Vegemite.
Oh burned.
Living in Amsterdam, I'd be more worried about the ring-road around Antwerp and Brussels :-)
500km in Australia probably doesn't even have corners.
Living in brussels, I'd be more worried about the Belgians crashing into me if I drove a car that expensive.
If you ride these babies the way they are meant to be ridden and not just gently fondle the accelerator like Mr. Simon Hackett has obviously done you will not go further than 150. That being said I'm all for going green...someday maybe 30 to 40 years in the near future they will get to the point that they can make a car or a mobike with a tiny fusion device which will provide clean endless energy.
And explode on impact, leaving just one big crater in its place ;)
150 miles is still a pretty long distance in terms of daily drives. The real problem isn't the mileage you get on a full "tank", it's the time it takes to get that full tank.
And to everyone who says that you're just shifting the pollution from cars to power plants, I'd rather have a few hundred power plants to make cleaner than a few hundred thousand cars.
Yeah, learning how to drive in order to get the most out of your car is too hard.
the thing is though, once you get a reasonable enough mileage, which btw would only be for trips like these where you're driving from one part of Australia to another, people need to stop thinking about the "how far can i go with a full tank" or "how long it takes to get a full tank" pradigm. im not saying that people should accept problems for the environment, no, what came up earlier on engadget comment chat was the fact that electric cars can virtually never be needed to taken to a gas station in the first place.
imagine when every mall parking, resturaunts, your office and obviously your garage all charge the car.
if there is a solar charging station set up in almost all personal and commercial parking lots, and the car charges off while its parked there, there almost would never be a situation when you need to go 500 kilometers without having even one point of charge. and in those kinds of situations, chances are there currently isnt a gas station there either.
what we need to do to get there is rather than promoting longer charges or mileages, which btw are awesome in themseleves, is to get faster methods of charging, and more importantly easier methods of charging. next thing you know electric cars would have the palm pre touchstone type of contact charging, and that could be implemented in roads. combine that with pizoelectric roads and..... oh damn. you didnt hear anything *starts filing patent*
part of driving an electric car is to use the regenerative breaking features to regain breaking energy, it's the point of the vehicle. In a gas car all that "acceleration" is literally burned off when you hit the breaks... it's simply lost as friction and you have no way to recover it.
The magic number is about 500 miles, that's what my mini-van does on a full tank of cruise-controlled highway driving. The real problem is the recharging. Once you burn up your miles, it can be up to 8 hours to recharge... that totally sucks versus 10-15 minutes at the service station to fill up gas. At this point fuel cells seem most interesting because they convert hydrocarbons chemically to electricity, which is 2-3x as efficient as burning the gas for mechanical energy. Because the conversion is controlled it's easier to control the environmental byproducts in fuel cells. Hydrocarbons (gas, diesel, ethanol) are still the best reasonable energy storage mechanisms for easy access to large amounts of energy.
I love blowing up the fusion powered cars in fallout 3, especially if they are all lined up, get a nice domino effect going :-D
Come on, give a bit of credit to Internode, http://www.internode.on.net/, the kick ass aussie ISP who actually broke the record
So that's what those silly stickers are..... Fascinating.
For those who don't know, Simon Hackett is co-founder and managing director of Internode.
And yes, Internode does kick arse.
Glad this was mentioned. The owner of the car actually has a lot more tech in him then you may think!
Congrats to him!
Just hitch your car to a couple of unicorns. They never get tired and they only need moonbeams for nourishment.
Oh, runs on Moonbeams you say? Must be why Antarctic Santa has to use reindeer for his December deliveries..
for the price youd have to pay for one of these things...youd have more luck finding a unicorn
This is still pretty irrelevant for normal people with a retail price of around $100.000.
Are you serious?
Stuff in 1993 $100,000 cars are now standard in Honda Accords. Of course it's relevant. Tesla isn't just going to make supercars... they are going to make cars that are totally attainable. These advances will make an impact on your life.
The race is actually open to non-electric cars. It's all about fuel efficiency as compared to the manufacturer's claims. It was being led by a V8 ute at one point, because although it was using a significant amount of fuel, it was the greatest percentage less than the manufacturer's claim.
So I can run it on a fuel truck? xD
No, long recharge times are still a burden.
Embrace the sensible units of measurements!
What you don't see in the article is that the other side of their sign says "Please help... out of gas".
They drove 501 km... but it is another 100 km to the nearest recharge station. bummer.
100km!? They wish!
Thats great, same as price of this beauty. Drop the price to 20k and I'll be next in line for them. I don't drive 500+km per day ;)
501km yes, but with a full load as well, seeing the corpulence of these two gentlemen..
If you think they're THAT fat, then you must have met like a dozen people in your entire life.
I do know they are not obese, it was, you know, humor.
They're middle aged IT guys. What do you expect?
501 kilometers is actually 311.3069 miles....
The real question is: How many sluts can you pick up in those 313 miles ?
Is it just my imagination or is that car very tiny.. like incredibly tiny??
I think it's just you. That is how big an elise (upon which the tesla is based) is.
The last time I drove in Oz, that was the wrong side of the road ;-D
just 2 more months and EEStor is supposed to deliver their ultracap power pack - it would mean 400mi before recharges and 10 minute (@440v) recharge times - the world will change overnight!
That is what I was thinking. Then again, if you are in the middle of nowhere in the Outback, you can pull over to whatever side of the road you want.
And I am waiting for new developments in the battery/energy storage industry. That is the only thing really holding EV cars back.
keep the spirit alive.
This roadster sucks. It's as useful as a box on wheels, which is useful if you're not
looking for performance. The top gear show review says it all. Buy a lotus exige instead and save your money.
Try the acceleration/response. Pretty much anyone who has driven it says it's unmatched by any other car on the planet. With the Exige, you have to shift down to access the max acceleration. With the Tesla, you just slam down on the pedal at any time. The closest thing is a twin-clutch gearbox, but even that is not truly instantaneous.
For a first effort, it really isn't bad. Give batteries some time to improve and the weight will go down, which will address the handling (which in general isn't that bad, it's still only 2700lbs). Cost will also go down. The weight balance can be improved, since because of the extreme rear weight bias they tuned the car for heavy understeer for safety. But the rear weight bias helps drag racing immensely (helps load the rear wheels during launch).
As for EV sports cars in general, in-wheel motors also allow for direct torque vectoring, which also has performance benefits. In general, I don't see a future of EV sports cars being that bad.
So how fast were they going on average? A two seater roadster driving 30 mph is not realistic in everyday life.
In other news..
They were hypermiling and averaged 35mph.
So when you get to Paris you only need 2 days to charge it again! Awesome.
Yeah, because there is no quick way to get around Paris and not have to worry about finding parking spots.
And it doesn't take two days to recharge. Even then, spending two days in Paris isn't too much of a problem.
Oh great...now they are stuck in the middle of nowhere with a dead battery and a car that goes nowhere...congratulations guys! Good luck getting home...
Saw a Tesla in a parking lot at a Tech company in San Jose, CA and they are TINY!
And that's right, folks: my claim-to-fame? I SAW A TESLA! PARKED!
no problem. here in winnipeg, lithium ions tend to freeze in situ.
Why was Steven Spielberg test driving it?
Maybe he's doing research for his new film: Batteries Not Included II
But it does look more like George Lucas. Look at the neck.
Was actually at the finsih line of the bi-yearly solar challenge yesterday (Photos up soon) and saw this vehicle in the flesh - as well as the 30 odd solar vehicles. The winner averaged about 100kph and came in a day earlier than the winner in the last race here in 07.
Was fascinating to see all the technology on display and to chat with some of the teams.
And FYI Simon is the CEO of one of the ISPs here in Australia.
Tesla got the same design of the lotus roadster + same size of the roadster...
Is that Steven Spielberg holding that sign???
Anyone given thought to how these guys are getting back home?
Looks like a perfect place to be without power, now they need the battery-recharge truck, so it'll be a long wait till that is invented and arrives.
Additionally here's a little tip for these guys, when planning to run out of gas take a nice girl not an unhealthy looking guy as passenger.
In fact when you know it's for PR consider just taking some attractive happening people to drive the damn thing.
Now someone will have to carry a car battery several miles to the nearest charge station.
Got some pikkies up at last.
Se the actual car at the bottom of this page here
http://jmbh.org/gallery/v/Events/sc2009/?g2_page=4
I just wanted to extend my congratulations to Steven Spielberg for setting this prestigious record!