I gave you a chance to discuss your concerns about the grid and you waffled it.

LOL!!

Who doesn't like waffles?

Yes, that's what we've been told for at least a decade. Who makes a fuel cell vehicle that I can just buy right now? How do I fuel it?

The way I see it I do about 25k miles of commuting a year, a mission easily accomplished by an EV such as the Tesla S. If I want to go somewhere farther than 100 miles away I could drive my Porsche, take a commercial flight or even fly myself there.

My only real problem with cars like the Tesla S is that it will run you $65k for a car that will be technically obsolete in 3 years and will probably have an useful life of 5-8 years. To me it's more of a car you buy for social reasons rather than economic reasons.

What's the P&L look like on this?

Well I have a friend in the PCA here that tore his battery up on his Model S recently doing 50 over a ditch and he paid 15k for the replacement part pus $180 in labor.

So we remove the labor since "some machine" will be doing the work and use today’s numbers for the parts since costs (like everything in this world) will go up from here.

So 15k per pack upfront for the packs today. We pump 388 million gallons of gas per day and I'll pick and average number of gallons per car to be 15 gallons. Meaning that about 25 million people per day refuel their cars.

The gas station that I looked up sells 5000 gallons before they have to resupply. So 5000 / 15 = 333 cars (rounding down)

Let’s say you need half that in battery supplies since you can always be recharging a certain portion of your inventory every 10 hours. So 150 batteries to service your customer * 15k per battery is 2,250,000 in inventory costs up front, plus this mechanical system to change them, plus some verticle storage system which is an unknown and of course the cost per KW of power to recharge.

So to buy your "battery station" you have an upfront investment around 3.5 million since I have to swag for the equipment, it's an unknown as far as I can find.

Now let’s assume that you constantly need new batteries as well, I mean the cordless drill example above seems pretty accurate to my experience. They last a few years, and maybe less given frequent recharges like these would be subject to.

Let’s say 10% of your inventory is "maintenance" (15 batteries per quarter) @ 15k per pack = 225,000 in maintenance plus whatever this recharge factor is. Maybe one of the EE's here can give us the cost to recharge 150 packs per day at current rates.


Now, gasoline is wholesale at 3.23 per gallon? I think? * 5000 gallons means your cost per 300+ cars is $16,150 + maintenance on your "station" which I have no clue on. (attendant, power, real estate, etc.)

If we know the cost for the power to recharge the packs we can figure the P&L from there based on what it costs to refuel a gas station today I suppose. One funny think I can think of that I know gas stations make a lot of money on people buying sundries in the attached store. Will they still do this if they don’t have to get out of the car?

again a lot of guess and assumptions here, and I price IT projects not gas stations.

the ONLY thing good about the Tesla is that it doesn't use gas. the fact that it uses batteries/electricity is AWFUL and makes absolutely zero sense. where the **** do people think electricity comes from? Am I the only person in the US who gets the 'please reduce your electricity usage' messages from the power company?

Exactly. Anyone who wants an EV for the sake of being green should know that burning coal isnt that cool either.

Plus, one has to consider the resources used when making an electric vehicle vs a conventional vehicle. It tends to mean you have to drive half way to the moon and back.

BBC News - How environmentally friendly are electric cars?

electricity comes from hydro, wind and solar

where the ***** do YOU live?

oh - BTW - electricity from a centrally located power plant will generate less pollution than scads of mobil sources (cars) running around

Scott - you make a profit by charging a fee for your need to charge, store and replace battery packs

if they are standardized, then you do not need to store very many as it will be 1 in; 1 out - time to recharge is a few hours or LESS at a commercial swapping station which would have a high V charger

I would LOVE to see more hydroelectric power here. Of course that would be cleaner, cheaper, and much better than the hydrocarbon burning power plants that we have, but the enviros put the kabosh on new hydro power. Something about some stupid fish. Meanwhile, Sammy's 2010 prediction that we'd see 60% rise in electricity power with no new additional power generation capacity has come true.

hydro can indeed be hell on fish esp. when combined with clearcutting and housing developments

wind can be bad for birds and bats if not sited carefully

PV solar... spendy right now

Natural Gas has 1/2 the CO2 impact of coal and no mercury releases (Hg is a neurotoxin) - it is an xlnt. transitional fuel.

Conservation/Efficiency solves everything

I wasn't adding in the fee for the exchange because I have no way to estimate it without understanding the kilowatt requirements of the charging facility. I also don't know about any consumables, or maintenance required for such a station either and those are normally your largest costs over time.

Anyone have an idea?

Well, you need to be realistic about this. If a car were made that allowed for quick change cells then the government would subsidize "fill" stations to whatever level necessary to make them feasible. Live and learn my friends... Normal/real economics don't come into play in these matters.

dunno Scott, but for cap. costs or rent, the foot print is about the same as a car wash

labor should be low as they use an automated roller track for the car to sit on

In the real world. Solar and wind....that's not even close to accurate. It's pie in the sky wishful thinking. If either were viable we would be inundated with both instead of just seeing the occasional federally subsidized fantasy based social statement.

Here's your wind and solar per us dept of energy......
Energy sources and percent share of total electricity generation in 2012 were:
Coal 37%
Natural Gas 30%
Nuclear 19%
Hydropower 7%
Other Renewable 5%
Biomass 1.42%
Geothermal 0.41%
Solar 0.11%
Wind 3.46%
Petroleum 1%
Other Gases < 1%

up in the PNW we are blessed with a great hydro electric grid. how much is shared i don't know but the cars sure make sense here. the infrastructure is not in place for long distance driving, yet

I asked for a P&L, not a lot of anecdotal nonsense.:rolleyes:

Just back up your statement with simple math.

According to your table, (37+30+19+7+5+3.46=101.46%) +Petro1%+ Bio1.42% + other1%+... but this is not the my point... :D

My Point #1 is that 101.46% of energy (according to the table), PRODUCED LOCALLY... = more jobs here in USA, and is NOT imported from BAD terro-guys

My Point #2 is that LOT tons of CO2 been created while ICE engines idling in the traffic, while financing BAD terro-guys...

My Point #3 is that most of the commutes are under 40 Miles, round trip (at least in USA)

So, TESLA or any other EV addresses those my points...

Also, one could own more then 1 car, as most of us do here on the forums...

Just my 2c... SmileWavy

It can't be answered, there are two many "X's" to solve for accurately. The only thing you can safely say is that 100 batteries for a "service station" will set back that station 1.5 million. Take another guess, 750k for the robots?

The start up cost for a gas station is about 200k.

Convenience Store Gas Station Sample Business Plan - Company Summary - Bplans

Net profit of this example is just over 6% Do you need a calculator to see which will be more profitable?

Of course as mentioned above the cost of the battery station will be covered by you and me as the taxpayer however.

That's based on your $15k anecdote of retail price for a quantity of 1 purchase. That's not realistic for a volume purchase by a non-retail customer.

Since nickle and cobalt are climbing very quickly, 15k is likely not enough.

USGS Scientific Investigations Report 2012–5188: Metal Prices in the United States Through 2010

New demand should bump those numbers up quite a bit as well.

even in the dirties coal fire plant, electricity can be created and transported much cleaner then inside a piston engine in a car.

Here more about Clean coal technology - Clean coal technology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

it cost more vs conventional coal energy plants, but it would be less then $3T already gone, by the way... The Three Trillion Dollar War

Clean coal is a bit of an oxymoron - I hope their CO2 sequestration plans work, but sorta doubt it.

It is really an R&D program right now.

Don't forget to include antifreeze, oil and other lubricants that are needed to run today's vehicles as opposed...

Hey, here how fast can you fill the tank?

Try to compete with Tesla, ha :D

<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/68832891" width="400" height="300" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe>

Well lets see, driving up I70 to go skiing in my Tesla X I would think the refill time would be the length of time for the tow to a plug, then the recharge time. So about five hours I suppose?

Have you watched the video before writing your comment?

PLUS, If whole SWAP station fit under the stage, it should be not too expensive to build.... Oil Co will not like it tho...

Yes, it was on WSJ.com the other day. It's laughable at best. Tell me when does the Tesla owner put his credit card in the charger and where? You have to love Elon Musk, he's like Bernie Madoff and PT Barnum all rolled into one little chubby package.

The people that fall for this stuff, I just don't know anymore.

Speaking of Credit Card, dipped... - I think it will be far less then dip it into the gas station pump, + giving money to the bad guys... look at Europe's Gas Prices :eek:

And if Competition present, as we can see on the electronics market, we will see almost FREE charging stations around the country...

PLUS, as Elon said in the video, TESLA SUPERCHARGERS ARE FREE TODAY... :D http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger

...the demostration was only last night.

one question still is how tesla will certify the condition of the swapped pack. and if a used pack will still be replaced under warranty as if it was your original pack. and how many packs will the station keep in storage. and of course we're not at the point yet to say how much the swap costs. 85kwh worth of electricity can vary between $5 offpeak and $25+ peak. but even then that's still cheaper than a tank of gas

Story has been out for a week. And nothing is "free."

I think you're leaving out taxes.

There are many way to do it, such as:

You can have your original pack stored for you while you are traveling across the country or the world on leased packs, that you let say you've subscribed to, and all this packs tracked by RF chips with SN#, so you can see on line what packs you were using during your trip...

AND this could be implemented with today's technology with NO PROBLEM!!!

I am doing this kind of things for a leaving, look at my sig...

my 2c, -Y.

well two questions answered.
http://news.yahoo.com/electric-car-maker-tesla-unveils-90-second-battery-055736289.html

Return trip from where?

returning trip from wherever you went to....presumably you are coming back from your destination that was more than 250miles away from home.

and just remember that tesla charging stations (not the battery swap service) are always going to be free. you can't leave your gas car at the pump for 20 minutes while you get lunch and get 5 gallons of gas for free.

There is a lot of misinformation in that video. Misnamed processes, misleading statements about the processes, etc.

The implication that this is light years ahead of other automotive plants is not correct.

If you ever test drive Tesla you will understand what is the difference between Gas Cars and EVs are... Lot of people I know do not want to go back to driving gas cars...