Tesla Model S

[Dimman]

Originally Posted by serialk11r

Seeing how ethanol is still not that cheap, probably not good. Still waiting on the day I can enjoy the glorious power of a corn juice fed car.

I think I could live in a future where my sports car has an ethanol fueled, screaming IC motor and my commuter is a quiet, smooth electric.

[serialk11r]

Originally Posted by Dimman

I think I could live in a future where my sports car has an ethanol fueled, screaming IC motor and my commuter is a quiet, smooth electric.

Quiet and smooth? Is the hearing loss and arthritis kicking in already? :P


I think that the biggest problem with electric is that it's not cheap enough, and probably will never be cheap enough. Even if battery service life became as good as mechanical engines, sophisticated material tech for batteries can't beat good ole lumps of metal for cheapness. By default, at the same price point, you give up other features in the car by going electric, and for people who don't drive much, the savings in fuel cost might not be worth it.

At any rate, like I said there isn't the infrastructure for electric cars, so the price of electricity will go up if everyone starts driving electric cars, and that will eat up some of the savings.

[Dimman]

Originally Posted by serialk11r

Quiet and smooth? Is the hearing loss and arthritis kicking in already? :P


I think that the biggest problem with electric is that it's not cheap enough, and probably will never be cheap enough. By default, at the same price point, you give up other features in the car by going electric, and for people who don't drive much, the savings in fuel cost might not be worth it.

When I was your age...

I've been semi-commuting with the Supra since I bought it (Legacy has a few issues I've been too lazy/cheap to fix while the Supra's insured). I reaaally don't like it though, especially in the rain with retard drivers around. In my youth I may have hooned a bit more, but now I'll settle for smooth and quiet to work. Supra is neither at the moment. Fuck old age...

[serialk11r]

Originally Posted by Dimman

When I was your age...

I've been semi-commuting with the Supra since I bought it (Legacy has a few issues I've been too lazy/cheap to fix while the Supra's insured). I reaaally don't like it though, especially in the rain with retard drivers around. In my youth I may have hooned a bit more, but now I'll settle for smooth and quiet to work. Supra is neither at the moment. Fuck old age...

Haha nah, as much as I want to get used to the wind noise (top up windows closed on stupid ragtops is just as loud as window open in a normal car), road noise, 3500rpm on the highway, and horrendous seats, I still feel exhausted after driving this thing more than 20 minutes, and I think that won't ever change. Maybe with the accelerated hearing loss I will start minding a little less.

And my clutch is super street friendly too...idle only fluctuates 200 rpm, and usually only one panel is rattling (no balance shafts ftw)! I'd probably have more objections to driving that Supra than you do.

[BRZfan]

Originally Posted by blur

Then what? Wait a number of hours to charge your car? Supply and demand isn't the solution.

"Then what?" Consider this: Sooner or later NASCAR will be racing with e-cars. How's that for technology optimism?

[Dimman]

Electric, to me, seems to be the penultimate in driving 'appliance-ness' that people seem to want, as long as it's not an actual electric car. So the resistance is weird in a way. But logic and car buying seldom mix. Like buying an 8 passenger SUV, because you need the space for in-laws, the few days in the year they actually visit.

[serialk11r]

Originally Posted by BRZfan

"Then what?" Consider this: Sooner or later NASCAR will be racing with e-cars. How's that for technology optimism?

Doesn't mean battery tech is going to move along any quicker.

[rice_classic]

"Those who don't like change will like irrelevance even less."

In that vein, I'm looking forward to the electric future. Remember folks, our power grid won't always be based on burning hydrocarbons. Battery technology will improve dramatically in the coming decade(s). I'm looking forward to our electric future.

Technology moves very fast. In 10 years the electric car and battery technology in general will be quite different. It will get better.

What I was hoping that would replace fossil fuels in cars was hydrogen fuel that was combusted the same way petrol is, but instead produced H20 as the result. That would have been great because we still get the engine noise etc, but I believe the logistics involved were unrealistic on a mass scale.

I see a spike in vehicle-vehicle and vehicle-pedestrian accidents once our vehicles no longer make any noise.

[serialk11r]

Originally Posted by rice_classic

Technology moves very fast. In 10 years the electric car and battery technology in general will be quite different. It will get better.

What I was hoping that would replace fossil fuels in cars was hydrogen fuel that was combusted the same way petrol is, but instead produced H20 as the result. That would have been great because we still get the engine noise etc, but I believe the logistics involved were unrealistic on a mass scale.

I see a spike in vehicle-vehicle and vehicle-pedestrian accidents once our vehicles no longer make any noise.

Not quite so simple. With hydrogen using fuel cells is probably smarter since the efficiency is much higher than burning it in a usual engine, and that will make the car silent. Batteries have horrendous energy density right now, and yes they will improve, but they have a theoretical maximum energy density 10 times less than gasoline (3 burning it at 30% efficiency). Remember that your tank of gas is actually pretty heavy!

900 pound battery packs of now are not going to become 300 pound battery packs tomorrow, because their capacity needs to go up to increase the competitiveness of electric cars. With close to ideal batteries, total drivetrain mass will only just match the average gasoline drivetrain now at the same range.

But the batteries themselves are only one side of the equation. What about refueling? Your car idling at ~0.3 gallons per hour is consuming as much energy in fossil fuel equivalent as your entire house or more. Ever thought of how much fuel energy goes into your tank when you refuel? Let's say batteries got good enough to tolerate being charged in 20 minutes reliably. To replenish the Tesla's 85kWh battery in 20 minutes is to charge at 265kW. Like I said, the 10 story math/econ building at my university uses 400kW average to power 8? elevators, hundreds of computers, and tens of thousands of lights. I think the last Chevron station I filled my car at had 8 pumps.

Not to mention 20 minutes is an awfully long amount of time to be waiting for your car to charge, compared to the <5 minutes it takes to fill your gas tank.

[einzlr]

Originally Posted by rice_classic

I see a spike in vehicle-vehicle and vehicle-pedestrian accidents once our vehicles no longer make any noise.

This is actually the easy part. First off, electric cars are not completely silent; there's still noise from the tires and so on. And if that's not enough to alert others, there's talk of adding noise makers for safety. Hopefully they'll add fake engine sounds and not some kind of annoying beep or whine

[rice_classic]

Originally Posted by serialk11r

Not quite so simple.

Interesting thought on charging is that there are ways that we haven't considered to get electrons into those batteries. We have 8 pumps at the station now but in the future those could be 8 quick charge stations or even "charged battery swap-out" stations... who knows. Imagine you pay a $50/mo charge to Shell Electric Stations (just a theoretical) and when you show up a service man comes out, pops open the battery hold door, slides out the rack of depleted batteries, throws them on his charging rack and slides in a already fully charged rack of batteries back in your car and you're on your way.

Wireless charging is something we can now do with phones, so we could do with cars maybe in the future. Some stretches of highway would have "charging lanes" during rush hour where your car would charge wirelessly off the in-road grid. Many parking places at offices, shopping centers etc etc would now have charging outlets. How about a retractable roof mounted micro wind turbine (shaped like an egg) that can generate electricity in wind from 1-20mph. (GE has something like this for home use) Self charging cars seems like a novel idea.

Of course I'm thinking WAY in the future and I'm not limiting my imagination strictly to technology available today.

I also don't see IC engines becoming a "thing of the past" for a very long time but honestly electric cars that use IC engines (like tiny turbo diesels) purely as a generator and not as the drivetrain makes is absolutely logical. My buddy who has a Chevy Volt drives 15 miles each way to work in his Volt but yet if he wants to go on a road trip across the country he can. He told me that never keeps more than 2 gallons of fuel in his gas tank because "what's the point, why carry around the extra weight?" He did a calculation of his Kw costs at home (where he charges) and how much fuel he's purchased since he's owned the car and compared it how many miles were on it and he figured he's seen better than 350 miles per gallon (conceptually). Gotta say, that's very cool and since he lives in the PacNW, none of his home electricity is from Coal-Fired plants.

Anyway, enough of the online pontification.. time for bed. Just say, the electrical future doesn't have to suck and the Tesla probably is deserving of CotY.

[serialk11r]

Originally Posted by rice_classic

Interesting thought on charging is that there are ways that we haven't considered to get electrons into those batteries. We have 8 pumps at the station now but in the future those could be 8 quick charge stations or even "charged battery swap-out" stations... who knows. Imagine you pay a $50/mo charge to Shell Electric Stations (just a theoretical) and when you show up a service man comes out, pops open the battery hold door, slides out the rack of depleted batteries, throws them on his charging rack and slides in a already fully charged rack of batteries back in your car and you're on your way.

The other ideas you had there weren't so feasible, although I do agree with the series hybrid being the future thing. I think more attention needs to be paid to the power electronics and batteries if they want to use it to its full potential though, because storing energy in a battery and then using it has significant losses involved.

The problem with swap out stations is that all cars need to be designed with some sort of standard battery pack that's interchangeable, and that's not going to happen until everyone is making electric vehicles and batteries have gotten good enough that reduced capacity with use and other durability aspects are no longer concerns. Aside from that, the battery swap station would need to have a reserve stockpile of batteries, and that could be a little problematic due to the crappy energy density.

Long live liquid fuel bahahaha

[RaceR]

Originally Posted by einzlr

Wait, what happened with diesel? I thought the urea additive for modern diesel cars cleaned up their exhaust. Guess I need to get myself better informed on that. I'm pretty sure if something like that happened here there'd be a huge revolt and the government would be forced to do something like exempt people who bought diesels during the time they were encouraged.

It's kind of interesting what's been happening here in the US with regard to diesel. Decades ago, the only passenger cars that ran on it were Mercedes, and you could smell them from a mile away On the other hand, diesel was available at nearly every filling station and cost 2/3 what petrol cost. Now there are more diesel cars than ever, but they're from VW not Mercedes, and diesel costs more per gallon than petrol but it's available at only maybe one filling station in ten :P

There was no big change in diesel cars taxes, but a little. Diesel is still cheaper here and available at every gas station. Looking at the used marked there are 60% more diesel cars for sale. That should represent what is on the road too. But I think petrol engines are starting the pick up now. The improvement in fuel consumption and low down torque almost like the diesel engines makes them more attractive.

A typical modern petrol engine emits 30mg NOx per km. A typical modern diesel emits about 150mg NOx per km. But older diesel engines are MANY times worse.

Diesel efficiency are still improving tough. New generation Golf Bluemotion will only emit 85g CO2 per km/ 88.3mpg (UK gallon).
That is impressive for a 108bhp car with 184lb ft of torque from 1500rpm.

As I posted in another thread. The whole new and upcoming Golf lineup is quite impressive. But it shows one thing. There is not a technology that seems to be preferd. They are just making one of everything.
-Golf (140HP turbo petrol only emits 109g CO2. Impressive number for the most powerful petrol engine)
-Golf Wagon
-Golf Plus
-Golf Alltrack
-Golf Bluemotion (85g CO2, 110hp diesel)
-Golf Plug-In Hybrid
-Golf CNG (gass)
-e-Golf
-Golf GTD
-Golf GTI
-Golf R
-Golf Convertible (I don't think its announced yet)

In terms of emissions output in the US, what are the government doing? I always have the impression that the US is quite far behind/ quite loose in terms of making fuel efficient cars attractive/making gas guzzlers expensive.
I find it funny when US people say that the FR-S is very fuel efficient at 181g CO2 per km. Or that they bought the FR-S to save fuel.

[Dorb]

Originally Posted by SVTSHC

1. Speak for yourself
2. There is a dealer at the mall 9 minutes from my job and 25 minutes from my house

If I owned a house or lived in an apartment building with a garage charging station and was in the market for a dedicated Daily Driver this would actually be at the TOP of my list.

Fair enough, they have to sell a few of them. But I still really think if someone handed you that much money you would pick something else too.