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Electric cars?

Would you buy an electric car?

  • Already own one

    Votes: 10 5.1%

  • Yes - would definitely buy

    Votes: 43 21.7%

  • Yes - preferred over petrol car if price/power/convenience similar

    Votes: 78 39.4%

  • Maybe - preference for neither, only concerned with costs etc

    Votes: 38 19.2%

  • No - prefer petrol car even if electric car has same price, power and convenience

    Votes: 25 12.6%

  • No - would never buy one

    Votes: 14 7.1%
  • Total voters
    198
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sptrawler said:
I agree with you completely, however it is a bit of a hen or egg story, mass infrastructure won't be rolled out until there is a demand.
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Check out Tesla's latest charging station.

40 Charging bays,

watch at 1.50 minutes mark of this video.
 

Westfields give you 3 hours. That's a bit more time to run down and get out than 5 minutes.

Don't know much about Tesla, but it seem that they might be trying to do a gaming console model where they lose money on the car itself but grab back the cash on software, parts and repairs.

Or the Apple model where they sleek up the hardware, overpriced the shiny plastics and also profit from the ego-system.

For small item toys like phones and tablets it might work, for bigger items like PC, laptops or a family car... people want some fancy bits but mainly focus on the price, operating costs. That's why Windows beat the crap out of the Macs.
 
luutzu said:
Westfields give you 3 hours. That's a bit more time to run down and get out than 5 minutes.

.
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And Tesla give you as long as it takes to charge your car, you can even slow that rate down if you want to game the system, Tesla don't want you using there spot longer than it takes to use the charging service, and Westfields don't want you using there spot longer than it takes to do your shopping, both fees are penalties trying to stop you parking there to long.
 
SirRumpole said:
40 stalls ? I thought EV's didn't stall.
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Also, I just wanted to point out that the roof over those charging bays are covered in solar panels, So a decent chunk of the power being used to will be from direct solar power, not to mention power drawn from the grid also contains a growing amount of renewable, so that answers part of your concern about whether we are just replacing oil for coal.
 

Just some math, not trying to start an argument.

IF a charging bay were covered in solar panels, 30M * 30M which is 900 m2, the rough size of a service station. Current PV gets around 150W per m2 so that works out at around 135 KW.

In victoria we have an average daily insolar value of 4KWH. SO each day a charging station will put in 540 KWH of energy, although this is seasonal.

The P100D has a 100KWH storage capacity, so a charging bay such as this will charge on average a total of 5.4 cars. If you only half charged them, you'll still only get 11 cars charged per day on average. More in summer, less in winter.

Making a 100M * 100M charging bay still only charge around 110 cars @ 1/2 charge.

Covering 1km * 1km of a shopping centre in solar panels will net around 150 MW / 600,000 KWH / day of energy, enough for 12,000 cars per day ( @ 50KWH). This is what ALL councils should be striving to plan for. However, economically 1,000,000 m2 of solar panels @ $100/m2 will cost $100,000,000 ( very conservative ). Double that for installation costs and infrastructure.

The bottom line is that it will cost around $16,666 per car times cars charged a day just to supply and install the panels and infrastructure, more if you need land.

This is the scale of the challenge. I'm all for it if it can help avert us wiping ourselves off the planet. I am eagerly awaiting the model 3 and i have loaded my house with panels.
 
DaveDaGr8 said:
Just some math, not trying to start an argument.

IF a charging bay were covered in solar panels, 30M * 30M which is 900 m2, the rough size of a service station. Current PV gets around 150W per m2 so that works out at around 135 KW.
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I am pretty sure the site in the video has more than 30M*30M, but I am not claiming that its totally powered by solar. Each canopy seems to be about 24*9 (could be bigger if they overhang the car spaces) and there are 5 canopies (three across the front and 2 at the side).

I am just pointing out that Electric cars in general are not all Coal powered, more and more they are being powered by renewables.

It's a constant theme among detractors to say things like, "Well you are just switching from Oil to Coal" and while this is partly true in a country like Australia, it's not a switch from 100% Oil to 100% Coal.

Especially in places like where this Tesla charging station is, Not only is some of the power directly from solar, a lot of the imported power is coming from renewables and nuclear.
 
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Pretty much every modern vehicle has that sort of stuff so the same issues apply to petrol or diesel engines (with the added problem of the engine itself producing a lot of heat).
 
Everything this guy does is maximally disruptive. He takes enormous leaps ahead whilst others take steps. This truck is 50 years ahead of its time. The sheer number of highly significant tech breakthroughs in a single vehicle is astonishing.

 
If this is being achieved now, who knows where this will end up in a few generations????? Hopefully the tech will keep up to stop too many wrapped around trees
 

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That was a nice bit of maths Dave. Great contribution.
Clearly the solar panels on top of the canopy will contribute a drop in the ocean of what will be required for large scale use of electric cars.

The best way of course is overnight charging because, in fact, current coal fired power stations need to operate 24/7 anyway so one might as well use the juice.

On the larger scale however if/when we substantially move to electric cars we will need to massively increase our electricity production. In that context using every sq metre of built infrastructure to help do that will be invaluable.

Perhaps by 2020 that will be achievable at less than current costs of coal fired electricity. Maybe...
http://www.nexttechstock.com/dye-transform-mini-tesla-solar/
 
A lot of investment funds getting thrown at this venture. It is a business and businesses need to make a profit but that is several years away at current cash burn rates. It is the start of the transition to electric cars so there is a lot to be revealed in the years ahead. Exciting times.
 
Wysiwyg said:
Isn't the Roadster autonomous driving?
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For $US200K I'd stick to a Ferrari or a couple of old Mustangs.

I like my sports car to go vroom. None of these click and tap tap on a monitor with autonomous driver assist business. Though I'd drive the wife's Tesla's for the normal family duty though.
 

Yeah, exciting that's for sure.

There's a whole bunch of EV in the works with scheduled released over the next couple of years. Just in time for an excuse to replace the current family clunker.

At current burn rate of some $4B a year, their new mass market (cheaper) EV better get pumped out real quick before other more experienced car manufacturers takes their lunch.
 
Smurf1976 said:
Pretty much every modern vehicle has that sort of stuff so the same issues apply to petrol or diesel engines (with the added problem of the engine itself producing a lot of heat).
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Hope so. Teslas have a massive screen and plenty of sensors and other cool gadgets. There's a reason you don't put your PC and electronics in direct sunlight.
 

I guess $0.45 a minute is more effective than dirty looks and tut tut

But come one man, you got to admit it's a nice and cheap way of making more money from their customers too. Not that there's anything wrong with that of course.
 
luutzu said:
I guess $0.45 a minute is more effective than dirty looks and tut tut

But come one man, you got to admit it's a nice and cheap way of making more money from their customers too. Not that there's anything wrong with that of course.
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I don't think making money on it is their goal, and I don't think it will actually generate revenue, people won't leave their cars there.
 
Moved this here from the Elon thread.

Tesla should be putting 1000km range batteries in their mass production vehicles. .
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For 99% of people, a 1000Km range battery would add significant cost for no benefit.

not many people regularly drive that distance with out stopping to stretch the legs, use the toilet and have some lunch. So having a smaller eg cheaper and lighter battery with say a 500 km range is more practical, and on the day you do that 1000km road trip you just charge up during you break.

on road trips, by the time I have gone to the toilet myself, given my dog a toilet break and some water, bought some lunch etc, I would have easily given the car 25 - 30 mins charge, and that allows about 250 kms of driving.

if I started with 480kms of range, and added 250 after my first break, I am already at 730 km's range, and by then probably ready for another break, which would push me to near the 1000km range.

So charging during your natural drive/rest cycle, means you don't need a super high capacity battery, even for road trips.
 
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