Tesla, the absolute best car!

jesse said:
Problem is until the **** hits the fan the motivation won't be there for people to move quickly enough. It's going to be a nasty day when there isn't enough power for people to run their A/C...which is scary close. Our power grid is basically totally hacked right now by Russia, Iran, etc. We're way behind on cyber defense as a nation. The next big war is going to be rather nasty, and the worst of it will be delivered virtually.
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You haven't even thought about the water aspect. You think it will be bad when the A/C goes out? We're gonna be out of enough potable water to sustain the population right around 9 billion people. The change in infrastructure is really required to use the waste heat from all our power generation which we currently throw away to distill water. Once you have it distiller and you have an electric plant right there already, rather than throttle it up and down losing efficiency and opportunity to grid demand and lack of, you can take all the off peak time, stay running full efficiency, and store the electricity and water for shipping and demand use. We'll triple the sellable output of our current infrastructure as well as add water to the product list, hot water at that.

The next big war will be over water, and billions will die in it because they will have to because the earth can only support the resource demands of a billion without help. We do well at agriculture however agriculture uses a lot of water. We are doing very little about the problems of the reduction of useful water for irrigation on a global scale. Aquifers are going down, drought cycles are spreading further and lasting longer. The key to being able to produce food is to provide water.

We could avoid all this, we have the technology, we have the resources. We have deemed it not worthwhile because it is not as profitable as maintaining status quo. How will you trade your money for food when there is no food?
 
CTLSi said:
Batteries, even the magic ones in a Tesla are affected by cold temperatures. Whether garaged or in the open. When the temps get below freezing, battery performance reduces exponentially.

And worse? No electric anything, even a giant electro-motive railroad diesel get over mountains well. They just can't generate the torque needed to do it without a LOT of fuel - and in your case a LOT more electrical power sucked from your laboring batteries.
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Tesla has been one of the top selling cars in Norway. Yeah, the batteries don't work as well in cold weather but it appears they work well enough. In fact the person owning the most Teslas is in Norway.

link here

They also seem to make it over mountains. Yep, they use more power to do it but they clearly have the torque. There is a video review of a mountain test but I couldn't find it. Needless to say the car did well. I doubt you have driven the car if you claim it can't climb hills. My car is no wimp. It has a 429 HP V8. The Tesla I drove would easily take it in a hill climb test.

As far as the discussion on nuclear reactors, electric cars have the potential to get cleaner over time as the production of electricity gets cleaner. If you live in Oregon or Washington the car already uses almost totally clean energy.
 
$126,000?

Good God, you can buy an Escalade and another $40,000 car for that.
 
peppy said:
Tesla has been one of the top selling cars in Norway. Yeah, the batteries don't work as well in cold weather but it appears they work well enough. In fact the person owning the most Teslas is in Norway.

link here

They also seem to make it over mountains. Yep, they use more power to do it but they clearly have the torque. There is a video review of a mountain test but I couldn't find it. Needless to say the car did well. I doubt you have driven the car if you claim it can't climb hills. My car is no wimp. It has a 429 HP V8. The Tesla I drove would easily take it in a hill climb test.

As far as the discussion on nuclear reactors, electric cars have the potential to get cleaner over time as the production of electricity gets cleaner. If you live in Oregon or Washington the car already uses almost totally clean energy.
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Norway is a laugh. They are full of greenies and socialists. You have no data a Tesla does well in Norway.
 
txflyer said:
$126,000?

Good God, you can buy an Escalade and another $40,000 car for that.
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Actually the base Model S-60 goes for $69,900. With both Federal and California tax incentives combined, I could get $10,000 in tax deductions. The $126,000 must be the top of the line Model S-P85 optioned with everything you can get. The top of the line P-85 starts at $93,400.
 
CTLSi said:
Norway is a laugh. They are full of greenies and socialists. You have no data a Tesla does well in Norway.
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You have no data that they don't. Teslas are sold all over the world now (Imagine that, and American export to Europe, Japan, Korea and China instead of the other way around!) in all climates and the only people I have read complaining about performance are people like you that have never even sat in one.

You really should get over your "greenies" and socialists crap. It just makes you look really stupid. Truth is, many, many people are buying the Tesla because it is a better car and don't care where the electricity comes from. Lots of us would rather start giving less money to the oil companies and have had enough of the ICE.

That's OK though. You can bang your head against the future and continue telling us all how it'll never work. Carry on...
 
An objective review of the Model S

A recently funded startup that plans to field a fusion power plant within five years.

A Thorium powered reactor that ran 6000 hours without a problem, and from which the operators could unplug all electrical power and just walk away. The reactor goes to sleep until they come back and plug it back in. And after you run it a few years you have more fuel than you started with!

But maybe burning up our big inventory of spent light water reactor rods would be a good way to make electricity.

There are many safe and efficient ways to make electricity. Most were discovered back when the government and industry could cooperate with each other with the objective of getting something done.
 
Dav8or said:
Actually the base Model S-60 goes for $69,900. With both Federal and California tax incentives combined, I could get $10,000 in tax deductions. The $126,000 must be the top of the line Model S-P85 optioned with everything you can get. The top of the line P-85 starts at $93,400.
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Yeah, in the video one post above my last post they said the car had every available option on it. Even heated back seats. $126,000.00 I think.

He got down on it a time or two, and the woman on the passenger side was giggling.

I'd like to see some of those utube acceleration vids of 'bodacious' scantily clad women in a Tesla... that'll tell me what they can do .. :lol::goofy:
 
CTLSi said:
[FONT=ARIAL,VERDANA,HELVETICA][SIZE=+7]Solar plants scorch thousands of birds from sky...

[FONT=ARIAL,VERDANA,HELVETICA]Where your Tesla [FONT=ARIAL,VERDANA,HELVETICA]power comes from...[/FONT][/FONT]
[/SIZE][/FONT]
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Oh wow!! Jeez! I had no idea. That solar power sure is scary. Thanks for pointing it out. We should all just continue extracting, refinining and burning crude oil because that is proven to be 100% safe for all animals and human beings, right?

:mad2:
 
If you favor windmills and huge solar powered boilers then you hate eagles.

If you hate eagles , you hate America!
 
Dav8or said:
Oh wow!! Jeez! I had no idea. That solar power sure is scary. Thanks for pointing it out. We should all just continue extracting, refinining and burning crude oil because that is proven to be 100% safe for all animals and human beings, right?

:mad2:
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6ef5ada8e486605c828e45fb857145e9.jpg
 
denverpilot said:
6ef5ada8e486605c828e45fb857145e9.jpg
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Oooo... Wow! I got zinged! I never thought of it that way! Thanks for helping, I really can't think things through without visual aids.

I'm so glad I get to buy gasoline every week. It's clearly better for the planet, animals, people and internet forums than anything else. Yea!!

I love cartoons. They are so truthy. :mad2::loco:
 
Dav8or said:
Oooo... Wow! I got zinged! I never thought of it that way! Thanks for helping, I really can't think things through without visual aids.

I'm so glad I get to buy gasoline every week. It's clearly better for the planet, animals, people and internet forums than anything else. Yea!!

I love cartoons. They are so truthy. :mad2::loco:
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It takes the same amount of energy to move your butt around in a Tesla as anything else the same size, weight, and frontal area.

Don't really care if you think there's an argument to be had, nor does the physics. There's not.

Just buy whatever you like and don't bother rationalizing it. Doesn't bother me. I like coal plants.

They pay nice dividends and aren't paying execs four times what they're worth in the energy industry like the privately owned and generally unregulated solar and wind divisions of big oil.

Our largest wind farm here is owned as a subsidiary of BP. Second largest is a private entity paying angel investors a lot of money when it finally sells to a BP competitor. The rest of our State is coal-fired.

There is a Jaguar car dealer building a small wind facility in the southeast corner of the state. His King Air takes folks out there weekly to work on it/oversee his investment, according to FlightAware.

He will catch some at the car dealership and some via their electric bills, but he'll never run out of money coming in from either one.

Nothing new under the Sun, as they say.
 
denverpilot said:
It takes the same amount of energy to move your butt around in a Tesla as anything else the same size, weight, and frontal area.

Don't really care if you think there's an argument to be had, nor does the physics. There's not.
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As a physicist I just have to mention that there is a little bit more to it than that. Gasoline has a lot higher energy density than batteries do (about 15X by volume); hence the range advantage of internal combustion engines. However, electric motors are much more efficient at converting energy to motion. Most energy in a gasoline engine is lost as heat. About 62% of the energy is lost in the combustion process. Add in drive train losses and in the end about 15% of the energy is translated to motion. The Tesla roadster drivetrain conversion is about 88% after losses. Also, vehicles can vary a lot in what it takes to reach and sustain a given speed. As you mentioned, mass is a factor (a=F/m) as is wind resistance. As far as the Tesla is concerned, the heavy battery pack hurts it for mass but allows a very flat bottom and small front air intake which result in an exceptionally low drag profile.

As for the cute cartoon, I mentioned before that as the generation of electricity becomes cleaner the electric car gets cleaner. If you live in the northwest the cartoon needs to be modified to show a hydroelectric plant.
 
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The difference is in fuel adaptability. Your cage has to have gasoline, which has to start with necro-dinosaurs in the ground by way of a refinery. The Tesla can derive its energy from petrol as well, any kind. Or from coal. Or sunlight. Or wind. Or hydroelectric. Or nuclear. Or fusion. Or the Dew of the Universe, if that's what we wind up using. It does have to do through a electrical generation step, but we've already got the infrastructure for that. That's why electric cars are a good thing, and why I hope to see more of them. I'm not exactly holding my breath though.
 
Nissan is expected to offer a Leaf with a range of 120-150 miles next year. Not that long ago, I might see one or two on the way to church. Last Sunday I counted 15. By the time I got home the count was at 38 but that included a trip to soccer and some geocaching. My next door neighbor has two. I rarely see the BMW being driven. The guy across the street also has a Leaf. Me... I have a big V8 but I do hate pulling up to the pump each week.
 
peppy said:
Nissan is expected to offer a Leaf with a range of 120-150 miles next year. Not that long ago, I might see one or two on the way to church. Last Sunday I counted 15. By the time I got home the count was at 38 but that included a trip to soccer and some geocaching. My next door neighbor has two. I rarely see the BMW being driven. The guy across the street also has a Leaf. Me... I have a big V8 but I do hate pulling up to the pump each week.
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The LEAF and the PRIUS are nice products. But again, the electricity is not free and comes from C02 producing sources. Studies have proven that all electric cars have double the carbon footprint of small, high efficient gas burners like the Corolla or the Nissan Juke.

The Chevy VOLT is an abortion...you know Obama's car company products.

Hybrids make more sense, but you are replacing a really expensive battery as part of your ROI on that product.
 
peppy said:
As a physicist I just have to mention that there is a little bit more to it than that. Gasoline has a lot higher energy density than batteries do (about 15X by volume); hence the range advantage of internal combustion engines. However, electric motors are much more efficient at converting energy to motion. Most energy in a gasoline engine is lost as heat. About 62% of the energy is lost in the combustion process. Add in drive train losses and in the end about 15% of the energy is translated to motion. The Tesla roadster drivetrain conversion is about 88% after losses. Also, vehicles can vary a lot in what it takes to reach and sustain a given speed. As you mentioned, mass is a factor (a=F/m) as is wind resistance. As far as the Tesla is concerned, the heavy battery pack hurts it for mass but allows a very flat bottom and small front air intake which result in an exceptionally low drag profile.



As for the cute cartoon, I mentioned before that as the generation of electricity becomes cleaner the electric car gets cleaner. If you live in the northwest the cartoon needs to be modified to show a hydroelectric plant.
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All correct. None of which refuted the pragmatic statement.
 
denverpilot said:
All correct. None of which refuted the pragmatic statement.
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Actually, it refutes this statement:

It takes the same amount of energy to move your butt around in a Tesla as anything else the same size, weight, and frontal area.
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Energy conversion efficiency matters and in the case of gasoline vs. electricity there is a big difference. If you limit yourself to a car then the energy consumed is much lower for electric vs. gas. If you view the entire chain then it is more problematic. I don't know the answer off hand but I would hazard a guess that a nuclear plant generating electricity to be stored in a battery and converted to motion is much more efficient than pumping oil out of the ground shipping it then refining it then shipping it again to be burned in a car engine.
 
CTLSi said:
The LEAF and the PRIUS are nice products. But again, the electricity is not free and comes from C02 producing sources. Studies have proven that all electric cars have double the carbon footprint of small, high efficient gas burners like the Corolla or the Nissan Juke.
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Reputable source please.
 
CTLSi said:
The LEAF and the PRIUS are nice products.
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Hey No Joy, you do know that the LEAF is all electric with only batteries and functions exactly as the Tesla does, right? It's just a cheaper, crappier Tesla. Why not the hate for the LEAF?
 
How Green is a Tesla Anyway?

Not a bad article, it contains actual numbers. If your electricity comes from coal then that Model S driving down the street is the least of your worries.

If your electricity comes from fracking, dams, or nuclear power then you Model S is super clean.
 
JimNtexas said:
How Green is a Tesla Anyway?

Not a bad article, it contains actual numbers. If your electricity comes from coal then that Model S driving down the street is the least of your worries.

If your electricity comes from fracking, dams, or nuclear power then you Model S is super clean.
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Interesting article. What I want to know is what method they are using to compute the emissions of gas powered cars. Are they just using the emissions which come out of the tailpipe or are they using the total emissions from when the oil is drilled, transported to refineries, refined then transported to your local gas station. If they aren't doing this then they are comparing apples to oranges.
 
I don't hang on every word out of Musk's mouth, but he boldly proclaimed 3 years ago that most cars "in 20 years time will be electric or hybrid electric". That's 17 years to go.

I think he will be right.

There's no doubt that gas has amore energy density. But due to the extreme inefficiencies of combustion engines, batteries will never need to match the energy density of gas. All they need to do is get 25% of it and then it will be all over for the combustion engine. It's going to happen and it's going to happen quick once the tipping point is reached. Like digital cameras - remember those? They used to cost $5000 for a 2MP camera 15 years ago. Only the early adopters with lots of cash indulged. Then they got better and cheaper and it was the end of film cameras overnight. Literally. It happened crazy quick. When did you last see anyone send in film to be developed (unless they were a professional)?

So, ever the futurist, here's my prediction: I would look really hard at car companies in about 2-3 years time and if they don't have very advanced or proposed electric/hybrid developments in place, they will go out of business as sure as I'm here. Adapt or die. Sell your stocks now. Look what happens to Kodak or Nokia and companies that cling to an old business model. Don't matter how big you are, you'll fail. One of the car companies I'm really worried about is Jaguar. I drive a Jaguar myself and I like the brand. But I haven't heard a word about a hybrid or an electric outing from them. Zilch. They're plowing on in the same tracks as they've always done. They could very well be marching themselves into oblivion as we speak.

Same for oil companies. If the gas companies and gas stations don't start offering charging in about 2-3 years time, they will not survive. Be the easiest thing in the world for 76 or Shell to do, but so far - nothing. Oil is not the future, nor are gas stations. Sell your stocks.
 
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Instead of trying to do direct carbon footprint comparisons of a developing technology why can't we just admit that use of fossil fuels is not sustainable? The use of electricity to power vehicles means, for one thing, that we have various options on how to initially produce the electricity.

Despite the current difficulties in battery technology development, the electric drive makes absolutely perfect sense. Take for instance your favorite 4x4 off road vehicle. An electric motor at each wheel with maximum torque right from a stand still launch and ultimate traction control from software. No differentials or transfer case, no drive lines, far less weight and complexity.

For some time I've wondered if it might be possible to standardize electric vehicle batteries into some sort of quick change cartridge format that could be swapped in a matter of minutes at a fueling station of the future. The charge state of the removed battery could be determined and you'd pay for the difference between that and a fully charged replacement. I know the batteries are large and heavy, there would have to be some sort of automated machine to do the swap. :dunno:
 
One thing everyone always forgets in these "are green cars really green" comparisons: To refine oil you need high heat. Heat comes from electric. It takes 3-6kw (depending on who you ask) of power to refine 1gal of fuel, roughly. That electricity comes from coal, most likely. So what is better, use that 3-6kw/gal to refine oil that you then truck out and burn in an engine that's 25% efficient, or just use the 3-6kw directly in your car?

So already there the game is lost from an environmental and efficiency standpoint.
 
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stratobee said:
One thing everyone always forgets in these "are green cars really green" comparisons: To refine oil you need high heat. Heat comes from electric. It takes 3-6kw (depending on who you ask) of power to refine 1gal of fuel, roughly. That electricity comes from coal, most likely. So what is better, use that 3-6kw/gal to refine oil that you then truck out and burn in an engine that's 25% efficient, or just use the 3-6kw directly in your car?

So already there the game is lost from an environmental and efficiency standpoint.
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3-6 kW over what period of time?

Or is it 3-6 KWh?
 
stratobee said:
One thing everyone always forgets in these "are green cars really green" comparisons: To refine oil you need high heat. Heat comes from electric. It takes 3-6kw (depending on who you ask) of power to refine 1gal of fuel, roughly. That electricity comes from coal, most likely. So what is better, use that 3-6kw/gal to refine oil that you then truck out and burn in an engine that's 25% efficient, or just use the 3-6kw directly in your car?

So already there the game is lost from an environmental and efficiency standpoint.
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This is fair.

How much energy/carbon footprint does it take to build the motors & battery packs?

What I'm really curious about is the end to end energy costs (and other environmental factors) in manufacture, maintenance and disposal for 1) gasoline powered cars, 2) diesel powered cars, 3) hybrid cars, 4) pure electric cars, all over a typical lifetime (so include battery pack replacement, tires, oil & filters, etc.).

I haven't seen anybody try to compare all that.
 
jsstevens said:
This is fair.

How much energy/carbon footprint does it take to build the motors & battery packs?

What I'm really curious about is the end to end energy costs (and other environmental factors) in manufacture, maintenance and disposal for 1) gasoline powered cars, 2) diesel powered cars, 3) hybrid cars, 4) pure electric cars, all over a typical lifetime (so include battery pack replacement, tires, oil & filters, etc.).

I haven't seen anybody try to compare all that.
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Neither have I, but I suspect energy costs are similar. I doubt the engine and power source are going to change the energetic input to manufacturing dramatically. Also, electric vehicles tend to be smaller and lighter, adding to savings in manufacturing energy. Put simply if there were truly that much more energetically expensive to manufacture than they could not be built economically, since you would be combining increased energetic input with increased R&D costs.
 
Palmpilot said:
3-6 kW over what period of time?

Or is it 3-6 KWh?
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It should have been 6 kwh per gallon. Actually it should have been 21,000 Btu of heat which might not come from electricity. Also, there are other byproducts of making the gallon of gasoline so I am not sure it is fair to place all of this on the gasoline produced. That said, the fact is that if you are going to count power plant emissions against an electric car then you need to include the refining, shipping and pumping agains gasoline.
 
Palmpilot said:
3-6 kW over what period of time?

Or is it 3-6 KWh?
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There seems to be a confusion about KW and KWh in general. 6KW is the power used per gallon in the example. If it takes you an hour to refine that gallon, then it's a 6KWh source. If it takes you only 30 mins to refine it, then you're still using only 6KW, but from a 12KWh source.
 
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stratobee said:
There seems to be a confusion about KW and KWh in general.
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That's what I'm pointing out.

6KW is the power used per gallon in the example.
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Over what period of time? Power is energy per unit of time. What we need to know is the energy required to produce a gallon, not the power.

If it takes you an hour to refine that gallon, then it's a 6KWh source. If it takes you only 30 mins to refine it, then you're still using only 6KW, but from a 12KWh source.
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That doesn't make any sense. It sounds like you have kW and kWh backwards.
 
Palmpilot said:
That doesn't make any sense. It sounds like you have kW and kWh backwards.
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I agree. 6KWH is roughly 21,000 btu which is what it takes.

You have to be careful when looking at sources. I see kw used when kWh should be used in numerous articles.
 
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