Tesla Model S, Third Fire

[Corporate666]

Most American cars have piss poor handling. Some even have leaf springs like a postal carriage. Over here someone has Chrysler sedan with a big V8. On a road with some roundabouts my little Mazda with its diesel engine literally runs circles around it. I don't even need to try hard or push the engine.

Another total fallacy perpetuated by the willfully ignorant.

One of those cars that has leaf springs is the new Corvette.  And the Corvette will easily outhandle a Ferrari 458, anything ever made by BMW/Audi/Mercedes including the SLS, SLR, M3, M5, M3 CSL, Audi RS4, etc, anything Porsche makes, the GTR, anything Lamborghini makes, and more.  Forget about any lesser car manufacturers like VW, Mazda, Nissan, Toyota, Honda - they aren't even in the same league.

People confuse ease of pushing a car to handling ability.  But the people who make that mistake are those that do not know how to drive and who are incapable of driving a genuinely fast car.  I used to race my Corvette on road courses, and I used to always laugh at the guys in M3's and Miatas and VW GTI's who thought that Corvettes don't handle, probably because they heard that on Top Gear   A lot of these cars - like the Corvette - is not an easy car to drive at it's limit, but those limits are miles and miles ahead of any Miata - not even in the same league really.

[SLJ]

Fuel Cell will be the way to go I hope.  Rather fill up with water than electricity.  Until then the Tesla I want is only $113,000 US.

[senso]

Fuel Cell will be the way to go I hope.  Rather fill up with water than electricity.  Until then the Tesla I want is only $113,000 US.

And hidrogen and oxigen get separated via $DEITY magic trick, so you can use the energy when come back together?
Electrolysis is a very inefficient process.

[Robomeds]

Most American cars have piss poor handling. Some even have leaf springs like a postal carriage. Over here someone has Chrysler sedan with a big V8. On a road with some roundabouts my little Mazda with its diesel engine literally runs circles around it. I don't even need to try hard or push the engine.

Which American car has leaf springs?  The last US car with a Hotchkiss rear end was, IIRC, a full size 1981 Chrysler.

[johansen]

That's because the next oil shock hasn't happened yet. It will, bet your house on it.

Most people in America, (if they had a soul to sell), should bet that on it because their entire way of life is going to end around the time the next oil shock shows up in the form of the world telling the federal reserve to go F themselves.
This will be followed by some kind of compromise.
America's leaders will sell themselves and the corporations under them (you reading this: your ssn) to whoever holds the keys to hell at that time.

So give it about 3-6 months of chaos and out comes a new federal mandated work ID that is merged with required HHS authorization to get medical care, which will be connected to your SSN. this will last for about a year?
After some kind of false flag cyber attack, this entire system will go down. permanently.

After another say, idk what the estimates are, 3-6 months? of chaos, and a:  Failed American Revolution 2.0
You'll need the new and improved rfid 3.0 implant. oh, and it will have dna improvements to it.

next up the world will slowly accept their new overlords, or starve.

btw: The United States Has More People In Jail Than High School Teachers And Engineers

[senso]

Don't hate horse carriage suspensions....
Lots of manufacturers went back for them, because they are cheaper..

[johansen]

Fuel Cell will be the way to go I hope.  Rather fill up with water than electricity.  Until then the Tesla I want is only $113,000 US.

Electrolysis is a very inefficient process.

80% when you do it at 3000 psi and use the electrolysis process itself to compress the hydrogen and oxygen generated.
but what do you do with the oxygen? This process requires very expensive differential gas regulators.
You could bottle the oxygen and sell it but its already very cheap due to the high nitrogen demand, and they just pull both right out of the air and sell the argon to welders on the side.

[zapta]

There are lots of things in society that are subsided by the tax payer, and I for one think that the future of our energy needs ranks pretty high up there on importance. To not at least see to some degree shows a level of ignorance and short shortsightedness in the needs of our society and the finite nature of our current petroleum resources.

Dave, everybody thinks that their pet cause deserve other people money and we are $17T in the red.

So far, many predictions of the environmentalist lobbyists were proven false, be it global cooling of the 70's, unrealistic temperature rise projections, decline in fossil fuel reserves, algae fuel, or the  carcinogen MTBE that they pushed in California.

As for assuming that only ignorants will disagree with you, two thumbs down ... ;-)

[EEVblog]

Dave, everybody thinks that their pet cause deserve other people money and we are $17T in the red.

A sustainable energy future and the protection of the ecosystem that keeps us and future generations alive is hardly a "pet cause".

[Rick Law]

Fuel Cell will be the way to go I hope.  Rather fill up with water than electricity.  Until then the Tesla I want is only $113,000 US.

SLJ,

Toyota agrees with you.  Their chief tech believes that we will never get there with battery cars.  They have created a team of the size of the current electric car team (500 engineers) and begun (restart?) development of a fuel cell based vehicle which they will high-light at the Tokyo Motor Show this late November.

 ....

Battery Cars: 'Loss Makers'

Koei Saga of Toyota is a short, sturdy man who speaks very openly, but preferably not in English. The 62-year-old is part of the generation of Japanese business executives who prefer using an interpreter. Saga spent about 10 years working on hybrid drives before becoming the carmaker's chief developer last year.

Saga is standing in a reception room at Toyota's administration building in Nagoya, speaking loudly and confidently. Battery development has brought Toyota to the "half-point to our target," he says, but he doubts this goal will ever be attainable. Electric cars based on today's battery technology, says Saga, are "loss makers."

More on that article from Spiegel
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/toyota-develops-new-fuel-cell-car-a-930834.html

[nctnico]

@Whales: you are comparing apples & oranges when comparing the efficiency of an electric motor versus combustion engine. Depending on where the electricity is coming from an EV (Tesla S, Leaf, Volt) can produce over 200grams of CO2 per km (if your electricity is coming from coal powered power plants). For comparison: my 14 year old diesel produces about 142 grams of CO2 per km. If you want an EV to be clean you have to source low emission electricity from somewhere.

You keep repeating this inaccuracy.

The fact is that EV's produce less CO2 than combustion cars - period.  The only way that is not true is if you compare the most CO2 efficient of combustion engines against an area with exceptionally high CO2 from electric production.

Unfortunately most people live in places where the CO2 production per kWh is exceptionally high. In China for example one kWh produces 800 grams of CO2 (180grams of CO2 per km for the average EV). Add to that that most cars in Asia have efficient 1.0 to 1.3 litre engines which produce very little CO2 per km. Besides that the world wide trend is to make car with IC engines way more efficient. AND don't forget bio-fuels are about to emerge. EVs are very much hyped nowadays but bio-fuels which have no impact on food production are here sooner than the battery technology required to give EVs a range which is acceptable for the majority of people. Bio-fuels are also a solution to polution problems because they burn cleaner than fossile fuels.

[mtdoc]

Dave, everybody thinks that their pet cause deserve other people money and we are $17T in the red.

Hmm, you mean like that $1.9T $3T pet cause of the oil industry and their neocon lackeys

A sustainable energy future and the protection of the ecosystem that keeps us and future generations alive is hardly a "pet cause".

Careful Dave, you wouldn't want to be accused of being one of  those "environmentalist lobbyist" - perhaps like this guy:

[Robomeds]

Don't hate horse carriage suspensions....
Lots of manufacturers went back for them, because they are cheaper..

Trucks are the only vehicles I can think of that would use traditional "leaf spring" suspension, the type that could be considered carriage like. 

[tom66]

Fuel cells are worse than battery cars for several reasons, but the main one is they cost an absolute fortune to get anywhere near reasonable power levels. If you were to require 200hp (150kW) - a not unreasonable requirement for a small car - a hydrogen fuel cell would cost on the order of $600,000!

Prices may fall but the great benefit with electric is the price has already fallen. A 50kWh Tesla battery due to the commodity type construction may be produced for under $15,000 per unit. Stick on an electric motor, inverter, drivetrain, body, cooling system etc and you've got a $25~30k practical 220 mile car.

If you want to support hydrogen there's nothing stopping electric cars being powered by hydrogen power stations...

[dfmischler]

Every time I have visited the states I have looked in the local papers and there has been a report or two of rollovers on the interstate or some other main road, I belive that one of the Ford SUV's was infamous for rolling over.

Ford Explorer AKA Exploder.

[nctnico]

Fuel cells are worse than battery cars for several reasons, but the main one is they cost an absolute fortune to get anywhere near reasonable power levels. If you were to require 200hp (150kW) - a not unreasonable requirement for a small car - a hydrogen fuel cell would cost on the order of $600,000!

Are you nuts? 30kW is more than enough for a small car especially if that power is available over a wide RPM range. An ICE only delivers its full power at high RPM. Below that its much less.

impractical

Demonstrably wrong.
Tell that to the people who use them and have the usage scenario that fits them.

To me that sounds much like 'people can do without cars and use public transport and bicycles'. There are practical reasons why people buy car. Worse, they buy a car based on requirements which only apply for 1 or 2 journeys a year (like hauling a caravan or drive very long). As long as EVs don't fit those requirements the majority of the people won't buy them.

Over here in the NL the fuel prices are the highest in the world and buying & driving a car is heavily taxed. Even though EVs are tax free and the 'fuel' for an EV is cheap nobody is buying them.

[free_electron]

Fuel cells are not the way. I do not want to keep paying for my hydrogen ! Besides hydrogen is produced industrially from oil... so it solves nothing. you are still dependent on big oil.

Wind and Solar energy are free ( apart from an initial installation cost ). Charge battery with solar or wind. Use battery to drive. I'm willing to pay a fee for the distribution of electricity. i need electricity anyway for lots of other things. The money will flow to the local electricity producers.  Good for a countries economy.

I've had enough of the cartel corporations , under control of foreign countries , that pull prices willy nilly. Whenever someone farts in the middle east the whole world has to pay more for the oil. They can grind the entire world to a halt if they simply decide to shut of the oil stream or double the prices. All industry would come to a halt, transportation would come to a halt. plenty a country is not self sufficient when it comes to the black gold. Think about it. People are scared of countries with nuclear weapons... If the middle east closes the valve it would be world chaos !

I come from europe where we pay through the nose for fuel. It may be cheap in the US now, but i have known it way cheaper. When i moved to North carolina in 2000 Regular unleaded gas , cheapest  was 0.98 $ per GALLON. 0.98 DOLLAR PER GALLON. !!!! put that in your head... Drinking water ( Crystal geyser) was 1.1 $ per gallon ! I just filled up my car ... 3.78$ per gallon. Compared to 14 years ago that is a 280% INCREASE !

Time for each country to become self sufficient. There'd be less wars and quarrels as well...

California just turned on the worlds largest solar plant a couple of weeks ago ... 377 Megawatt ! Built in the mojave desert. There's lots of desert out there... i say glaze it all !

[tom66]

Fuel cells are worse than battery cars for several reasons, but the main one is they cost an absolute fortune to get anywhere near reasonable power levels. If you were to require 200hp (150kW) - a not unreasonable requirement for a small car - a hydrogen fuel cell would cost on the order of $600,000!

Are you nuts? 30kW is more than enough for a small car especially if that power is available over a wide RPM range. An ICE only delivers its full power at high RPM. Below that its much less.

A sports sedan like the Model S pulls around 30~35kW electrical power from the battery when cruising (@70mph), but when accelerating can sustain up to 320kW. A small car would draw less, but if you truly limit the power to 30kW, you will have a car which takes 25~30 seconds to reach 60mph and has a top speed around 70 mph, or up to 80 mph if you don't need window wipers and headlights.  You would have created a Fiat Panda for the price of a P85+ Signature Model S. Good luck selling that.

[free_electron]

Are you nuts? 30kW is more than enough for a small car especially if that power is available over a wide RPM range. An ICE only delivers its full power at high RPM. Below that its much less.

Keep in mind the weight of the battery pack. The Tesla has a 416Hp motor... that's 310 kilowatt... 10 times what you claim is needed... 30Kw is not feasible unless
you want a matchbox sized white 2 seater plain car without airconditioning, heating , avigation or power steering or anything else nice.
Any grandma with a zimmer-frame could waltz by that 30Kw car ...

Not something i am willing to give up. There is no need to that. That tesla motor is the size of a watermelon. So it is not like it is big...

[nctnico]

Fuel cells are not the way. I do not want to keep paying for my hydrogen ! Besides hydrogen is produced industrially from oil... so it solves nothing. you are still dependent on big oil.

Wind and Solar energy are free ( apart from an initial installation cost ). Charge battery with solar or wind. Use battery to drive. I'm willing to pay a fee for the distribution of electricity. i need electricity anyway for lots of other things. The money will flow to the local electricity producers.  Good for a countries economy.

Time for each country to become self sufficient. There'd be less wars and quarrels as well...

That is totally counter productive. If you continue your reasoning you'd end up growing your own food and if your crops go bad you die because your neighbour won't trade his food for your goat.

You can achieve much more if you work together. For solar (CSP plants) and wind energy to really work you'd actually need an electricity grid which spans the entire globe. The sun is always shining somewhere.

[nctnico]

Are you nuts? 30kW is more than enough for a small car especially if that power is available over a wide RPM range. An ICE only delivers its full power at high RPM. Below that its much less.

Keep in mind the weight of the battery pack. The Tesla has a 416Hp motor... that's 310 kilowatt... 10 times what you claim is needed... 30Kw is not feasible unless
you want a matchbox sized white 2 seater plain car without airconditioning, heating , avigation or power steering or anything else nice.
Any grandma with a zimmer-frame could waltz by that 30Kw car ...

Not something i am willing to give up. There is no need to that. That tesla motor is the size of a watermelon. So it is not like it is big...

But that watermelon needs water cooling as well... Anyway, the reason a Tesla Model-S is build the way it is is to at least give people one thing which is better than most ICE cars: accelleration. Its not that 300+kW has to be standard on every electric car. Its total overkill. If Tesla ever produces a small affordable car (IMHO their next logical step) I bet it will be a whole lot less powerful than the Model S but has 3 times its range and charges in 5 minutes at a supercharger station.

[tom66]

Have you see the size of the Tesla's radiator? It's at least a quarter the size of a conventional small car radiator. Most of the cooling is for the battery pack, especially important during supercharging. (135kW+ with a few percent of losses produces a lot of heat...) The inverter and motor are around 97% efficient... the battery is about 90%.

If Tesla do make a cheap car ($30k ish) it needs to compete with other cars in that price range, meaning minimum 200hp but ideally 250hp+. And a 0-60 below 7 seconds.

[nctnico]

Have you see the size of the Tesla's radiator? It's at least a quarter the size of a conventional small car radiator. Most of the cooling is for the battery pack, especially important during supercharging. (135kW+ with a few percent of losses produces a lot of heat...) The inverter and motor are around 97% efficient... the battery is about 90%.

If Tesla do make a cheap car ($30k ish) it needs to compete with other cars in that price range, meaning minimum 200hp but ideally 250hp+. And a 0-60 below 7 seconds.

200hp is still overkill. My previous car had a 44kW engine. My current one 66kW. Thats enough power even when driving in Germany.

[ovnr]

But that watermelon needs water cooling as well... Anyway, the reason a Tesla Model-S is build the way it is is to at least give people one thing which is better than most ICE cars: accelleration. Its not that 300+kW has to be standard on every electric car. Its total overkill. If Tesla ever produces a small affordable car (IMHO their next logical step) I bet it will be a whole lot less powerful than the Model S but has 3 times its range and charges in 5 minutes at a supercharger station.

Cooling: The Tesla has an aircooled motor; the power electronics and batteries are watercooled, though.

And this isn't an ICE, as stated! Even if you have a 300kW motor, it's not going to run like shit at lower loads. Yes, you have somewhat larger losses, but nothing like an ICE. And as for range: That is dependent on the aerodynamic efficiency (where the Model S excels already) and tire loss (where weight factors in). Whether you slap a 30kW or 300kW motor in, you're talking maybe 50 kg difference even with the power electronics, and I doubt a 2% weight difference matters that much at this point.

As for range: Tripling the range will triple the battery weight. Faster charge usually means less energy density, at least with today's batteries (LiFePO4 vs ordinary Li-Ion; Li-Ion has higher energy density).

And in general, arguing that we shouldn't use EVs because people run coal-fuelled power plants is ridiculous. Campaign for nuclear, then! Greenest power supply you can find that doesn't suck! And if half the world suddenly switched to EVs, the coal plants will just look even worse, likely prompting someone to do something about that atrocity.

[johansen]

And this isn't an ICE, as stated! Even if you have a 300kW motor, it's not going to run like shit at lower loads. Yes, you have somewhat larger losses, but nothing like an ICE. And as for range: That is dependent on the aerodynamic efficiency (where the Model S excels already) and tire loss (where weight factors in). Whether you slap a 30kW or 300kW motor in, you're talking maybe 50 kg difference even with the power electronics, and I doubt a 2% weight difference matters that much at this point.

i would speculate the tesla motor hits peak efficiency at 30-60KW.

also, who are the noobs expecting a fuel cell powered car to dump the battery pack?
unless the fuel cells are free, you build the car exactly like a series hybrid.
fuel cell-battery-motor.
the challenge is developing purpose built high discharge cells just large enough to be functional.
a 30Kw fuel cell would be plenty when combined with a battery capable of dumping 100Kw.
my 4400 pound truck has a 100hp engine in it, and that is enough, people are so damn used to running their cars at the traction limit of their tires lol..