Electric sports car

Caught this the other morning and just wanted to share

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/03/earlyshow/main4230793.shtml?source=search_story

(CBS) If you were told a sleek sports car is hitting the road that can go from zero-to-sixty mph in 3.9 seconds, that might catch your attention.

If you were told it's totally electric, you might be shocked.

Not only does the brand new Roadster from Tesla Motors look good, it's totally green.

It has a watermelon-sized electric motor -- not a engine -- and that motor produces no emissions as it kicks out 250 horsepower. It's also totally silent.

Tesla veep Darryl Siry showed off a Roadster on The Early Show plaza Thursday.

With a price tag of about $100,000 and only 600 being made for 2008 model year, don't expect to see many of them on the road, but every one from this year has already been bought in advance.

The car can travel 220 miles on a single charge of its lithium-ion battery pack. You have to plug it in for three-and-a-half hours to get a full charge.

The Roadster gets the equivalent of 135 mpg.

Tesla plans to make 1,800 Roadsters for the 2009 model year, of which 500 have already been reserved.

Any thoughts?

it would be really great once the battery technology catches up

I imagine that newer Lith-ion batter packs are better than what was used in, say, the EV-1, or first gen hybrids. Or I could be totally wrong.

One downs side to electrics I am still waiting to be remedied is the range issue. Good for commuting, but stick to your gas car for long trips, unless you have a place to recharge on the way, and the 3 1/2 hours to kill while it recharges.

Yeah. I heard about this a few years ago. They're working pretty hard to make this thing ready for mass production - but the batteries are so damned expensive still. But they'll come down. They updated the motor and completely changed the transmission too. Now, I think it's a single speed tranny versus the two-speed (clutchless - obviously) transmission from the past.

The two-speed version is in Project Gotham Racing IV, if you are interested in playing with it.

Most hybrid cars are using NiMH battery packs - not Lithium Ion. Totally electric cars such as Toyota's Rav 4 EV used large NiMH batteries, but when the patent for that specific type of battery was purchased by Texaco / Chevron (along with the company that originally held the patent), the technology was shelved and the manufacturerer was forced to take back all of the vehicles that were made (over 1,000) when the leases expired and crush them.

neon4891 wrote: One downs side to electrics I am still waiting to be remedied is the range issue. Good for commuting, but stick to your gas car for long trips, unless you have a place to recharge on the way, and the 3 1/2 hours to kill while it recharges.

I cannot remember which university is working on this, but there is a fast-charge Li - Ion battery on the horizon. Using new annodes and cathodes, they are able to eliminate the dangerous over-heating problems of previous generations of batteries which means that the batteries will last longer and can be completely charged in just a few minutes.

If the larger NiMH batteries were still in production, we could still be buying electric vehicles that have quite useful ranges. The Rav 4 was kinda cool: you could take it on the highway, and it went a good distance. Our hybrids would also be much better since they'd be able to store more electrical energy.

neon4891 wrote: I imagine that newer Lith-ion batter packs are better than what was used in, say, the EV-1, or first gen hybrids. Or I could be totally wrong. One downs side to electrics I am still waiting to be remedied is the range issue. Good for commuting, but stick to your gas car for long trips, unless you have a place to recharge on the way, and the 3 1/2 hours to kill while it recharges.

The EV1 was capable of fairly long ranges. I have a road test of one that managed around 140+ miles on a charge. It's a rather interesting read, as it's written by a guy that drag races electric cars (and has an old Datsun electric car that runs 10 second quarter miles...)

cool article...

Tesla HQ is about 3 miles from my house. Prototypes have been running around my town for several years now. I have met a couple of people who work there. The roadsters are cool. I am really looking forward to seeing the 4 door sedans they have on their drawing boards.

neon4891 wrote: I imagine that newer Lith-ion batter packs are better than what was used in, say, the EV-1, or first gen hybrids. Or I could be totally wrong. One downs side to electrics I am still waiting to be remedied is the range issue. Good for commuting, but stick to your gas car for long trips, unless you have a place to recharge on the way, and the 3 1/2 hours to kill while it recharges.

Watch that "who killed the electric car flick." All that stuff is addressed. This dude talks pretty extensively about the batteries that would've doubled(?) the mileage of the EV. IIRC, GM bought controlling shares in his company, then killed the project:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_Ovshinsky

I have spotted that movie at Boarders, but I might ask a friend with netfilx to request it.

These cars look really cool, I have read some reviews from people who have driven them and its supposed to be damn fun.

Electric motors do sound fun... I just joined my schools formula hybrid team, basicly like FSAE for those who know, but with hybrid drive trains so hopefully I'll get to give it a try some what soon

Chris_V wrote: The EV1 was capable of fairly long ranges. I have a road test of one that managed around 140+ miles on a charge..

140 Miles is a fairly long range? Ok for a commuter, I guess.

From the article: " -- not a engine -- "

How'd that get past the grammar nazis at CBS?

140 miles is plenty for a city car, which is what the EV1 was designed to be. Drive it around town all day, recharge overnight.

Now if you're loading up the tribe for a trip cross country, the Family Truckster is the vehicle for you.

I'm sure the truckster has room for plenty of battery packs if you wanted to run an electric motor

Tanner Foust did a segment on the Tesla car on that show that he hosts on Speed. There also this other company that builds custom e-motors into Shelby Cobras and into new Mustangs.

Drivers have agreed that electric motors have a different feel, as they deliver constant torque from 0 RPM all the way to its "redline". People also notice, that because the power delivery is instant, the car is a little jerky.

Most car guys on other forums have a tendency to think anything but gasoline combustion is stupid, but I'd love to see more alternative energy sports cars in the future.

silverbullet wrote: Most car guys on other forums have a tendency to think anything but gasoline combustion is stupid, but I'd love to see more alternative energy sports cars in the future.

Yeah, but the only thing they have ever driven that is electric is probably a beat-up, piece of crap golf cart that's governed to 19 mph. They've never driven an electric vehicle that could light the tires on fire from 0 mph to 80.

I am surprised this JUST got on national TV, it has been on all the car rags covers nearly 2-2.5 years ago

Tim Baxter wrote: 140 miles is plenty for a city car, which is what the EV1 was designed to be. Drive it around town all day, recharge overnight.

Hell, it's plenty for most commuters. And if you can get a plug-in at work, you're looking at a possibility of commuting 280 miles round trip a day. That's rare. I only commute 15 miles a day round trip. An EV1 would last me all week on a charge.

silverbullet wrote: Drivers have agreed that electric motors have a different feel, as they deliver constant torque from 0 RPM all the way to its "redline". People also notice, that because the power delivery is instant, the car is a little jerky.

It takes alot of practice to be smooth with an electric motor, both with acceleration and decceleration. You also don't have the "creep" of a modern car when you take your foot of the brake. After years of idling around corners in large crowds I was a bit uncomfortable having to accelerate towards people instead of creeping up on them with my foot over the brake.

'Idle creep' has been engineered into the Tesla. I've been reading coverage of the car for over a year now - check out the production team blogs at http://www.teslamotors.com/blogs.php for some pretty interesting reading about the development of a production EV.

I'm sure most of you have seen this: http://www.fiskerautomotive.com/

It's the fisker Karma, a hybrid that actually performs and looks effing sweet.

Wall-e wrote:

silverbullet wrote: Drivers have agreed that electric motors have a different feel, as they deliver constant torque from 0 RPM all the way to its "redline". People also notice, that because the power delivery is instant, the car is a little jerky.

It takes alot of practice to be smooth with an electric motor, both with acceleration and decceleration. You also don't have the "creep" of a modern car when you take your foot of the brake. After years of idling around corners in large crowds I was a bit uncomfortable having to accelerate towards people instead of creeping up on them with my foot over the brake.

Sould be able to program non-linearity int the throttle pedal

Also believe that it will require huge investments in infrstructure, even if you recharge after peak hours. People get home in the 5-6 when it's still hot (at least on the west coast,) and plug in the car for the night. only way to avoid id to delay charging until after midnight. Maybe put people on time metered power to delay when they charge

I could swear I've seen that Fisker body somewhere else. Maybe some show car from a few years back.

twentyover wrote: Sould be able to program non-linearity int the throttle pedal Also believe that it will require huge investments in infrstructure, even if you recharge after peak hours. People get home in the 5-6 when it's still hot (at least on the west coast,) and plug in the car for the night. only way to avoid id to delay charging until after midnight. Maybe put people on time metered power to delay when they charge

Most modern EV designs account for customizable charge times with the understanding that these days many places have rates that changed depending on time of day and day of week. So you're right, you'd plug the car in when convenient for you and the system will automatically charge for ideal conditions (either at minimum price/grid load or by X time depending on priority).

There's talk (but I don't think any actual execution on a company scale yet, only individuals) of using the battery pack to put power back into the grid during peak times and recharge during off-peak times at a profit to the EV owner/charge location. This is a pipe dream right now considering the number of EVs out there, but in the long term if there were large numbers of EVs the storage capacity could actually be augmented to improve the stability of the grid by doing more charging at night (increasing demand) and putting power into the grid during the day (decreasing demand). Like I said, a long way off, but if there were ever enough EVs to actually strain the grid, that would also mean there's enough EVs to help the grid.

Bryce

Hi Nashco,

Just keep in mind that only about 85% of the energy will make it through each transition so a grid-battery-grid exchange will only leave about 72% of what you started with. If energy is cheap (nuke, etc.) and battery technology has developed to the point where charge / discharge cycles aren't an issue, then using electic cars as a load balancer would make sense.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of electric technology...super reliable, less mess, no shifting yet tons of torque (geesh, I've got to row six gears to compensate for my RX-8's modest 159 Lbs.)...I'm totally ready to embrace electric without pining for the good old days of growling engine sounds but we need to be realistic about real "cradle to grave" resource consumption.

Reven, with modern chargers things are in the 90-95% efficiency range, but I get your point. Obviously the biggest holdup is that there aren't any electric cars out there, which is because the things are friggin expensive, I said up front it's still a pipe dream. Hopefully, over time, EVs become more common...then the grid stuff would be worth considering, but that's definitely a fringe benefit compared to the rest. The well-to-wheels efficiency is the real long term gain with EVs compared to regular gas stuff, especially if you can diversify your grid power supply with nuclear, wind, solar, hydro, etc....the shiftless, quiet, monstrous torque is the short term gain.

Bryce