Tesla

[FrayAdjacent911]

If fuel cells were viable right now to provide the juice and the range. Maybe in the future.


I really like this vehicle. For the majority of Americans that commute to and from work every day, and electric car that can go up to 250 miles on a charge would work great! Heck, I commute about 5 miles every day, 10 or so if I go out for lunch. I could go two weeks on a charge. A month would only cost me a couple bucks to charge it.

I think this is the beginning of interesting things. Tesla is working on a sedan currently. I think I've read that if the Roadster sells well, production costs could go down, and the cost of the car will go way down.

Although, to satisfy people that think they need range, and don't want to be tethered by plugging it in often, Tesla should do what Burt Rutan suggested: A hybrid. But not the way hybrids work today - the opposite. All of the motive power would be electric, but the vehicle would also have a ~17hp generator that could run off of gas/diesel/e85, etc etc, with about a 7 gallon tank, and it could stretch the range to near 1000 miles.

[jeffgrant]

Actually, fuel cels for this DO exist right now... for the most part, it's the refuelling infrastructure that isn't there.

It's pretty interesting to see what Ballard and other companies have in their labs right now... of course, going from the lab to daily use requires a huge step(s).

[FrayAdjacent911]

Yep. The next few years will be very interesting, I think.


If cost of production goes down, and technology becomes more versatile, I'd definitely consider a plug in electric vehicle as a commuter vehicle. I'd probably pay up to about 20k right now for a little commuter type vehicle. It doesn't have to be as fancy as the Tesla Roadster, or as quick. Just comfortable, have a good range (150-200 miles) even with an air conditioner running, the ability to recharge on 110v wall sockets (if needed), and get probably 100k miles out of a battery pack that would be easily and economically replacable (read, not cost TOO much. I'd say $1k wouldn't be very bad).

I think we'll see things like that soon.

Oh, it's also great that Texas is getting the first two new nuke plants. More power to us!

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Good concept. Actually great concept. The limitation is still crappy chemical battery technology that hasn't changed or advanced appreciably since about 1930 or so. . .

Electrical energy storage is one area where technological advances are long overdue. I read a while back about some company that is using NASA-based technology in mag-lev-ed flywheels in evacuated cannisters. Electrical potential is used to accelerate the flywheels which spin at many hundreds of thousands of RPM (limited by tensile strengths of the flywheels themselves - go too fast and they explode). I haven't heard anything about this being made feasable to replace conventional batteries for something like an electric car. . . yet. . .

[jeffgrant]

I think they're called Gererators.

(in case you missed that thread, it's HERE)