Tesla Model S

[Dimman]

Most of the algae stuff I've seen have been traditional photo-synthetic bio reactors. This is interesting, but it adds another step, which doesn't sound efficient. They would need to grow the sugar stock to feed the algae, and that puts us at pretty much the same point as ethanol, right?

And E85 powered vehicles sound a whole lot more exciting than B20.

[einzlr]

Originally Posted by Dimman

Most of the algae stuff I've seen have been traditional photo-synthetic bio reactors. This is interesting, but it adds another step, which doesn't sound efficient. They would need to grow the sugar stock to feed the algae, and that puts us at pretty much the same point as ethanol, right?

And E85 powered vehicles sound a whole lot more exciting than B20.

Well not being directly involved, I'm not even going to try to guess which is more efficient. My understanding is that the Solazyme folks are convinced that there's a higher energy return by letting algae turn the sugars to oil than by letting yeasts turn them into alcohols; and that it also beats out letting photosynthesizing algaes turn sunlight into oil directly. Eventually the answers will bubble to the top - there'll be this or that meta-factor that makes one or the other preferable, or, and methinks more likely, a combination of multiple solutions will exist side-by-side each with pros and cons with no clear winner.

[Dimman]

Just Wikied Solazyme, and they look like they've got some good partners: Chevron, Honeywell, and some big agri-business company called Bunge I haven't heard of (I only recognize Monsanto in that industry).

[Dadhawk]

Originally Posted by Dimman

I heard someone comparing the Volt and Prius. They commented that the Volt is engineered to how people should drive, and the Prius on how they do drive. Interesting perspective..

I guess it varies by the person. I've driven both, and I could easily live with a Volt as a commuter, a Prius comes no where near meeting how I drive. Too slow, too ugly, too, well Prius. Also, I prefer the Volt because if I'm going to have an "electric" car, I want the final drive to be the electric part. Just my thing I guess.

On a slightly different subject, the one thing that drives me batty about the plug-in only cars is if the folks that buy them went into the dealership and the car was gasoline, here's the conversation:

SalesGuy: Yea, the Leafgas gets 100mpg, Oh, but the gas tank will have to be refilled every hour because it's only 0.75 gallons. But hey, it only takes 30 seconds to fill it back up"

Buyer: What do you mean I have to stop every hour for gas?!? Why would I want to do that, even though there is a gas station every 3 blocks!"

Yet, they are perfectly willing to drive an hour and weight for 8, because it plugs into the wall.

[Dimman]

Originally Posted by Dadhawk

I guess it varies by the person. I've driven both, and I could easily live with a Volt as a commuter, a Prius comes no where near meeting how I drive. Too slow, too ugly, too, well Prius. Also, I prefer the Volt because if I'm going to have an "electric" car, I want the final drive to be the electric part. Just my thing I guess.

On a slightly different subject, the one thing that drives me batty about the plug-in only cars is if the folks that buy them went into the dealership and the car was gasoline, here's the conversation:

SalesGuy: Yea, the Leafgas gets 100mpg, Oh, but the gas tank will have to be refilled every hour because it's only 0.75 gallons. But hey, it only takes 30 seconds to fill it back up"

Buyer: What do you mean I have to stop every hour for gas?!? Why would I want to do that, even there there is a gas station every 3 blocks!"

Yet, they are perfectly willing to drive an hour and weight for 8, because it plugs into the wall.

And that Leaf example is what the Volt tries to beat with the gas engine. But buyers of pure EV seem to be pre-sold and just the fact that it is EV is the factor. Tesla buyers are probably the same. I doubt the Tesla will compare well to other big dollar sedans like S-Class Mercs and 7-Series Bimmers on a pure luxury car scale.

The Volt is kind of a transitional vehicle to get 'normal' buyers more comfortable with EV-type vehicles.

I think I'm in the commuting situation that GM product developers were targeting. I haven't bother to measure, but I'm around 20km from work, so about 200km per week (120 miles) in driving I don't care about. Then on the occasional weekend I'll head out to my local speed shop, or to my buddy's place which are both out in the 'burbs.

This is a situation that the Volt would be perfect for. However there are a few issues.

First is that low amount of mileage means I don't actually spend very much on gas, and gas here is probably the most expensive in North America. So I don't think the payoff to go to a rather expensive hybrid is worth it.

Second, a lot of big city people in a similar commuting situation to myself are urban/apartment livers. And my older apartment has no outlets at the parking stalls. And getting one installed just for me won't happen. Funny thing is that this is probably just a Vancouver issue in Canada, since the rest of the country is used to plugging in their gas cars in the winter for block heaters.

So these two points also mean that if I owned a Volt, I would have to take my car into account when looking for a different place. Distance and charging ability.

Third is GM. Just a cheap shot.

Fourth is me being cheap. If it really mattered to me financially, I would look for a EG Civic VX, or a Metro/Firefly/Sprint/Swift. Car and Driver matched a Prius' mpg with a Geo Metro under their normal driving route.

Fifth is if saving gas for environmental/political reasons were my priority, I would go with the Prius from a 'fun' perspective. Not because they are fun to drive, but because I would have fun modding it to be fun. There are plug-in mods that allow the Prius to act like the Volt, with an added battery pack and ECU mods. Plus I think I could put together some handling mods to liven it up in the corners.

I guess that is my Dr. Jekyl thinking on cars.

[serialk11r]

Originally Posted by Dimman

First is that low amount of mileage means I don't actually spend very much on gas, and gas here is probably the most expensive in North America. So I don't think the payoff to go to a rather expensive hybrid is worth it.

Second, a lot of big city people in a similar commuting situation to myself are urban/apartment livers. And my older apartment has no outlets at the parking stalls. And getting one installed just for me won't happen. Funny thing is that this is probably just a Vancouver issue in Canada, since the rest of the country is used to plugging in their gas cars in the winter for block heaters.

I think this is the exact problem with electric cars. They are best suited for short distance commuting, but short distance commuters are exactly the people who don't really care about fuel economy. If they were cheaper than regular cars, it would still be a problem because one could just buy an older small car if they really wanted to spend less on fuel. If you want to be environmentally friendly it makes more sense in a lot of cases to adjust driving habits, modify what you already have, or pick up an old vehicle, rather than buying a brand new vehicle.

They say you can drive 100 something miles or whatever on one charge for the Leaf, but in reality if you have a 40 mile one way commute and you run your battery down that low everyday, your battery life is pretty fucked. That's basically like 250-300 full battery cycles a year, and while car batteries are cooled and all, that's a lot of cycles. The Volt on the other hand doesn't go far enough on electricity for a lot of folks to justify the high price tag.

Maybe in Europe it would make more sense, since taxes and high prices at least give a pretty good economic incentive. I have a 1.8L engine which is about as small as you can get in the US, but in Europe it would be considered gargantuan. I could swap my transmission for a Corolla spec C59 for a 10% fuel economy gain at probably something like 1000 dollars. Even if I drove 3 times as much as I do right now, it would pretty much never pay off. Now if gas cost 2 times as much, then maybe in a few years... A Volt is 15000 dollars more than a comparable compact. No chance in hell that's ever paying off.

[Dadhawk]

Originally Posted by Dimman

...The Volt is kind of a transitional vehicle to get 'normal' buyers more comfortable with EV-type vehicles.

Actually I think of it more as an EV-type vehicle for real people. You know, people that can afford (or only have room for) one "good" car, and don't want to have one for in-town, one for vacation, etc.

Pretty much what you describe in your section where you say you are the target audience. I drive 40miles one way to work so I would really need a 100 mile range for EV to make sense for me. But, as you can probably tell, I'm not going to be y a 100 mile range EV if that's all I can do with it.

Originally Posted by Dimman

Third is GM. Just a cheap shot.

I respect a good cheap shot, but I have to defend GM a little. I've owned a lot of GM cars, so I can't take that cheap shot. In fact, I've owned two that have gone well over 250,000 miles (one almost 300,000) and 3 others that were still running fine at 150K miles when I sold or gave them to a family member.

Originally Posted by Dimman

Fourth is me being cheap. If it really mattered to me financially, I would look for a EG Civic VX, or a Metro/Firefly/Sprint/Swift. Car and Driver matched a Prius' mpg with a Geo Metro under their normal driving route.

That's my problem too. An EV would need to be the same cost as a similar vehicle (or maybe 10% more) before I would bite that hook. Honestly, cost is all I care about. The math just doesn't work to satisfy me.

I also really don't believe trading a perfectly good, running car for an EV is any better for the environment in the long term. The little bit of "green" you get out of not burning gas/diesel is offset by the production/disposal of the batteries, the generation of electricity in coal burning or nuclear plants, etc. Plus, unless you have it crushed/recycled, the old car is still doing its thing somewhere. Heck, even the 300K miles Astro I sold when I bought the FR-S is still running. The guy that bought it stuck a crate small block V8 in it and is using it as a DD for his family.

Originally Posted by serialk11r

I think this is the exact problem with electric cars. They are best suited for short distance commuting, but short distance commuters are exactly the people who don't really care about fuel economy. If they were cheaper than regular cars, it would still be a problem because one could just buy an older small car if they really wanted to spend less on fuel. If you want to be environmentally friendly it makes more sense in a lot of cases to adjust driving habits, modify what you already have, or pick up an old vehicle, rather than buying a brand new vehicle.

Exactly.

[Dimman]

@Dadhawk

The GM cheap shot comes from a few things: personal experience with a 3/4 ton 2wd with a 305 TBI and TH400(? 350?), the bailout fiasco, the fact that they show they can make a world class car with the Corvette but put zero effort into their normal line up and how they handled their EV1. (But maybe I would have responded the same, somewhat petulant, way if I was being legally required to build a car that consumers didn't want.)

[einzlr]

Originally Posted by RaceR

Just read Tesla already have over 1000 orders on Model S from Norway! Delivery is for most customers unknown but about a year. Price is still not set, only rough estimates, and I guess basically none of the customers have been able to get a test drive.
Population here is 5 million.

How'd I miss this post

Now that I know how popular the Tesla Roadster was/is in Norway, this no longer comes as a surprise It'll be interesting, though, to see when the cars are actually delivered. Tesla has been saying that they are aiming for total production of something like 2'000 cars this year, 5'000 next, and 20'000/yr after that, and last I heard they were behind that schedule.

They've also been saying they're running a buyback program here in the US, trying to lure Roadster owners to trade in for a Model S.

[Dimman]

On the electric topic, I just picked up a Racecar Engineering mag that featured the Pikes Peak EV cars. Interesting stuff. The Toyota (Radical based chassis) was fast enough that it would have won overall, and beaten Monster Tajima's record in 2008 (but this year was all paved).

It was still 4th overall this year.

It had a 48kWh battery pack that managed to be able to be fully charged in 30 minutes, but through a DC to DC system, which I don't have enough electrical knowledge to understand.

Why is battery to battery charging so much faster?

[serialk11r]

Originally Posted by Dimman

On the electric topic, I just picked up a Racecar Engineering mag that featured the Pikes Peak EV cars. Interesting stuff. The Toyota (Radical based chassis) was fast enough that it would have won overall, and beaten Monster Tajima's record in 2008 (but this year was all paved).

It was still 4th overall this year.

It had a 48kWh battery pack that managed to be able to be fully charged in 30 minutes, but through a DC to DC system, which I don't have enough electrical knowledge to understand.

Why is battery to battery charging so much faster?

Probably because mains doesn't give you as much amperage as a monster size battery. I look into the circuit breaker box in my house, I see a bunch of 20A, some 30A breakers. Add them up you have maybe like 40kW. By contrast the Tesla Roadster battery can supply 200kW to the motor alone.

[Dadhawk]

Originally Posted by einzlr

...(i.e. Tesla is building a whole network expressly for owners of their cars, where they will be able to recharge for free) but not much elsewhere. Until this is solved, electrics will be a tough sell in the US.

There's more to it than that. You know all those "free" roads we drive on? They are paid for by gasoline taxes for the most part. As the fleet of "alternative fuel" cars grow, and MPG or eMPG continues to grow, someone/somewhere has to pay for the roads.

The recharge may be free now, but it can't stay that way forever. Tesla may not charge anything for the electricity, but it will cost money.

[serialk11r]

Originally Posted by Dadhawk

There's more to it than that. You know all those "free" roads we drive on? They are paid for by gasoline taxes for the most part. As the fleet of "alternative fuel" cars grow, and MPG or eMPG continues to grow, someone/somewhere has to pay for the roads.

The recharge may be free now, but it can't stay that way forever. Tesla may not charge anything for the electricity, but it will cost money.

Speaking of which, I noticed at night time when there were no cars around, when a semi pulled onto the highway in front of me, I would start to hear rocks hitting my car...damn those semis do a lot of damage to the road?

[Dadhawk]

Originally Posted by serialk11r

Speaking of which, I noticed at night time when there were no cars around, when a semi pulled onto the highway in front of me, I would start to hear rocks hitting my car...damn those semis do a lot of damage to the road?

Trucks, just because of weight, do most of the damage to the roads that isn't done by weather (the major culprit) but it is more likely they are throwing up junk on the road a car doesn't throw that far up.

Also, shipping pays a huge percentage of the fuel taxes so I guess they really do own the roads, although even that consumers pay as embedded taxes in the cost of goods.