A more "affordable" Tesla

[Harry P.]

Cheaper than the previous roadster, but still not "cheap."

Very cool looking, though. I'd take one of these over a Chevy Volt in a heartbeat.

http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2012/07/20/quick-spin-2013-tesla-model-s/?intcmp=features

[Fat Brian]

There is a guy who drives the older Elise based Tesla around Charlotte, it looks pretty cool and its odd to drive beside since it's completely silent.

[Wayne Buck]

Thanks for the interesting article, Harry.

Although I am a DIE-HARD fan of internal combustion engines, I found this to be a pretty interesting read. If we were one day all forced to buy these electric vehicles (I PRAY that day never comes), I'd look at this one for sure.

I agree that this is a pretty sharp lookin' car.

[Harold]

I was on Tesla's website a few weeks ago- you can option one out virtually. Not bad looking at all, but I love the Fisker more because you don't have to plug it in. It has a 2liter gas engine that comes on to charge the batteries when needed.Think diesel-electric locomotive.

[Ace-Garageguy]

I really like the lines on the big one....agressive but in an understated and sophisticated kind of way. Interesting that the designers kept the vestigial grille opening. I wonder if it serves any purpose at all, other than esthetic resemblence to the familiar, on an electric vehicle like this.

[Harry P.]

I really like the lines on the big one....agressive but in an understated and sophisticated kind of way. Interesting that the designers kept the vestigial grille opening. I wonder if it serves any purpose at all, other than esthetic resemblence to the familiar, on an electric vehicle like this.

I think you hit the nail on the head. A grille is "expected" on a car, necessary or not.

[Harold]

And to show there's nothing new under the sun...

[Cato]

Some reservations:

Some things can be too 'techy'-starting the car by just sitting in the driver's seat-'I just wanted my sunglasses!'.

No mention how much it (or any of these types) costs on your home electric bill when you have to charge it for 57 hours. Does that and the huge entry price negate the gas / electric debate?

Edited July 20, 2012 by Cato

[Ace-Garageguy]

The numbers are out there. It simply is a matter of looking up the cost per kilowatt hour in your market and figuring out the re-charge cost, depending on the re-charge rate.

An unfortunate truth about the appeal of electric vehicles is that the average consumer is often lulled into thinking electric energy for vehicles is somehow free, without carbon emission or petroleum-cost penalties. Without widely deployed wind farms, or solar generating capability (either photovoltaic or steam), the electricity is produced mainly by burning coal or natural gas. Coal emissions can be cleaned up pretty well, but utilities are dragging their feet, preferring to trade carbon credits than to make the heavy capital investment necessary.

Burning natural gas to produce electricity to re-charge electric vehicles is, frankly, stupid. It is a wasteful, inneficient use of a resource, all American, that makes a wonderful motor-vehicle fuel, and that could be burned effectively by the existing vehicle fleet using relatively straightforward retrofits.

There is so much ignorance, apathy and politization surrounding the energy problem however, that no real rational solutions are being brought on line. What we are getting is knee-jerk political rhetoric, and marketing.

Edited July 20, 2012 by Ace-Garageguy

[cobraman]

Maybe I am alone on this but I think their cars are not only overpriced but ugly. This one looks like and Infinity IMO. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder however.

[mademan]

Maybe I am alone on this but I think their cars are not only overpriced but ugly. This one looks like and Infinity IMO. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder however.

yuck, does not want

Ill stick to my Camaro, and Nova thanks

[1930fordpickup]

Getting closer for us to buy ! that would be a great car if you were a cat burglar !!!!!

[charlie8575]

If they can find a way to get that charge cycle down to a little more reasonable time, I would seriously consider something like that.

I can see the growth in demand for solar-powered charging stations, which, as Rick pointed out, is, for intents and purposes, really the only way for an electric car to be as environmentally positive as its proponents would like us to think it is.

Charlie Larkin

[Art Anderson]

The very first electric cars came about approximately 115 years ago or so. The selling point then was ease of operation, and of course, reliability. If one thinks about it, there was no need for the driver of one to be at all mechanically or technologically skilled or talented, indeed one need not have the muscles of a weightlifter in order to start one (back in the day of hand-cranked, often stubborn internal combustion engines!). That is what made them fairly popular with early female drivers, those who could afford one. Here in Lafayette, we had an elderly woman who was still driving her 1912 Baker-Raulang Electric into the early 1950's, for that very reason--it was a car she could operate (in 1912 she was perhaps in her mid-30's, so by the early 50's aged in her middle 70's). As for the car itself, it was virtually silent, save for a slight buzz from the Diamond Roller Chain (think large bicycle chain here), no gears to clash, no clutch to depress--just a controller for speed along with "forward or reverse", a footbrake, and a small pedal for a gong which served the same purpose as a horn. For her occasional outings after dark, basic headlights and a single taillight. Of course, she was a rather well-to-do widow by the time I (perhaps 6 or 7 when last I saw Mrs, Perrin and her "Rolling China Cabinet"), and had a hired handyman to take care of her large brick home, and probably charging up that Baker, but the principle of what I said about that car and her remains: Ease of operation, and very little in the way of mechanical sense needed.

Now, I am fully aware that there are costs involved to drive a car (not counting the obvious maintenance, insurance and licensing). The one cost that everyone here is bringing up is for whatever energy source is being tapped. No matter what type of energy is used to power a vehicle, it's somewhat costly. The notion that somehow, years ago, gasoline was dirt-cheap is, IMO, a myth--it's never been for the most part, even back around 1900 when the stuff was an almost undesireable byproduct of kerosene production from crude oil. Rationed gasoline (during WW-II for those too young to remember or lacking the historical knowledge of those times) at 15-cents a gallon in 1944 compares to the $4000 my parents paid for the house I grew up in (I was born in July 1944!), and even the comparison with the price Dad paid for a brand new 1946 Plymouth Special Deluxe 4-door sedan in December 1945 (I want to say that Dad paid about $1,100 for the privilege of getting a brand-new car just 3 months after VJ Day), all on an annual salary of perhaps $2500 a year (plus Mom's salary of perhaps $1500 or so as the office manager of a seed improvement company here)--so the cost of operating two cars (Mom still had her cherry 1932 Chevrolet Confederate Coupe at the time!). By November 1957, I (a 13yr old 8th grader!) got the math assignment of calculating the cost for gasoline for an epic trip from West Lafayette IN to San Carlos, AZ to spend Christmas with an Aunt & Uncle whom we seldom got to see back then--I used the princely sum of 25-cents a gallon, and highway mileage of 19mpg in our 1954 Hudson Hornet Twin H-Power (mileage figured on a trip to Chicago and one to Indianapolis from here, which I had to learn do do!). I can still remember my folks literally counting pennies to come up with a budget just for gasoline for that trip (BTW, it was a "straight-through" trip, no stopping at motels for the night--Dad outfitted that big old Hudson with a set of bunk beds for my two little sisters, me, and whichever parent was not driving!). In comparison to today, the relative costs are not that much different.

Now of course, that trip would have been impossible with anything but a gasoline powered car--no way could we have done that 4500 mile round trip in 3 weeks time if we'd had to stop at every one-horse town (or even a decent sized city!) along the way coming and going--in fact, we couldn't have done it, given the much longer distances between points of civilization once we crossed into Texas! Which brings me to another point:

Most of us do not drive more than say, 10-15 miles to work every day, in fact, in much of the US, the daily commute is only a few miles (not everybody lives in LA, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago or certainly the East Coast "Megalopolis" which stretches from about Baltimore to the northern 'burbs of Boston. No, we don't!) It's the huge percentage of Americans who live in small to medium sized cities whose daily driver needs are just a few miles each way each day, home-to-work and work-to-home with the periodic stops at the Supermarket, or a shopping center for the necessities of life. So, for people such as these, an electric car can make real sense. And this leads me to another point:

Tesla and others who have at least attempted to bring electric cars to market in this modern era have either concentrated on the strictly utilitarian (little more than glorified golf carts) or the flashy and "exotic" (exemplified by Tesla). Both types of cars miss the mark, in my never-to-be-humble opinion. Really now! Does a tire-burning battery powered slot racer really do it as a commuter car? And conversely, does a tiny little, boxy "glorified golf cart" do it either? Nope! At least not in my opinion! People want, and need, or so it seems to me, a car that at least meets the needs for getting around, a few creature comforts, but at least practical. Neither the "golf cart" miniboxes I've seen, nor the 2 or 3 Tesla sports cars that are on the streets here (all three are owned by professors at Purdue University, where incidently, I work) have much at all in the way of utility value--they are little more than a glorification of the electric scooters used by elderly and disabled persons--but with room for perhaps a couple of bags of groceries, and that's about it, albeit in the case of the Tesla, there is an excitement factor somewhat akin to the excitement of having that Pontiac Tempes that could fry the tires, burn channels in to the asphalt on the way to work, school, the supermarket (remember the GTO?). But, where is the minivan concept, the utilitarian vehicle that can transport Mom, Dad, and 1.5 kids from here to there, to work, to the store, whatever, at least locally? Nonexistent in the electric vehicle world, sadly.

Finally, the dollar costs. Energy is expensive, always has been, and always will be, even given the tremendous advances in lighting, energy efficient appliances and the like. And yes, the production of energy is costly, no matter the fuel source (be that coal, oil, natural gas, or nuclear--even so called pollution-free energy from solar, wind or water power is expensive (somebody has to pay for those solar panels, wind turbines, hydroelectric dams!. In short, there is no such thing as a "free lunch"--somebody, somewhere will be paying the price. But if there is one thing I see for certain, it's that pollution is far more easily controlled, indeed captured and reduced, at a power plant as opposed to a myriad of tailpipes on cars (I can't imagine gasoline powered cars having, each and every one of them, some sort of bag attached to capture the CO2 and other pollutants from the tailpipe. Yeah, there is nothing like the sound and fury of a big block Hemi thundering down the dragstrip or on the street, nor the scream of a small displacement engine ripping along the highway, but is that really the only way to get around town? Not in my book. Yes, I relish being intrigued by cars with real piston engines, always have and always will to the end of my days (and I just turned 68 yrs old!), but in so many ways, there have to be better, cleaner, ways to get from here to there, particularly around the town in which I live. But in the bottom line, I see it as a matter of how to do that in a clean way, not arbitrarily tied to just one way, the piston engined way. I can see having an internal combustion engine for long trips, but wherever and whenever possible (realizing that not every person in this or any other country can afford an electric commuter car) matching the type of vehicle, and a form of energy to power it, to the job at hand.

Whew, one of my longer posts!

Art Anderson

[Ace-Garageguy]

The Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) powered Honda available in California was arguably the cleanest vehicle on the planet. Cleaner than gasoline-electric hybrids and cleaner than pure electrics using electricity produced from burning coal in conventional plants. It may still be....I'm a little out of the loop for now. CNG is an extremely clean burning fuel, allows higher compression ratios than gasoline, and is already widely distributed nationally with an in-place infrastructure. It'll work fine in a Hemi or a flathead, suitably modified. It also vastly extends engine life because of zero fuel-dilution of the oil, and being a gaseous fuel, it doesn't wash the lubricant off of the cylinder walls and rings like gasoline tends to. We also have a lot of it, right here. Burning natural gas to generate electricity in utility plants, to recharge battery powered cars is wasteful because every time the FORM of energy is converted from one to another, there is a net LOSS. It is more efficient to burn natural gas in a car to power it directly.

Hydrogen as a direct fuel for vehicles makes sense as the move after CNG, if we lived in a rational world. Hydrogen will run fine in an internal combustion engine. It makes no significant emissions ofher than water vapor. Honda has again led the pack here, demonstrating a rooftop solar array capable of producing enough hydrogen to fuel a typical commute each day, from wastewater or rainwater. For those of you who were sleeping in science class, if you pass an electric current through water, you get hydrogen and oxygen bubbling out. The solar photovoltaics supply the electricity, and a small compressor stores the resulting H2. Although Honda's system was aimed at a fuel-cell powered electric car, which is complex technology, it will work nicely to fuel an internal combustion engine.....a technology that is widely available and understood. No need to reinvent everything.

The single biggest problem facing pure electrics is battery weight and storage capacity. Note that the big Tesla weighs 4600 pounds. A Comparable Honda or Toyota IC powered car will weigh closer to 3000. Weight is the enemy of range. Although battery technology has advanced tremendously in the past 20 years, there's still a long way to go.

As Art so correctly points out, there is no perfect answer for every application, and every form of energy has costs: economic, environmental and social. The real difficulty is the lack of a cohesive energy policy anywhere, and the widespread belief that someone else will fix it.

PS. In terms of total-life-cycle energy use, (which includes the energy required to produce a car, and to dispose of or recycle it) it's far more efficient to drive a well-maintained 1993 Geo than it is to buy and operate a hybrid. I suspect the old Geo would have an edge on the Tesla product as well.

Edited July 21, 2012 by Ace-Garageguy

[Harold]

I still like the Fisker....

[Ace-Garageguy]

Man, that's a pretty car for a 4-door. I haven't seen one before now, but like I said, I've been out of the clean-car loop for a while.

[Cato]

I still like the Fisker....

I think if this appeared in model form first-instead of 1:1- people would think 'Cool little Hot Wheels toy...'

[Harry P.]

On a related note, I think I heard somewhere that the Chevy Volt is an absolute sales dog. NOBODY wants one, and in fact the government has bought most Volts, not the general public, in a blatant PR move to boost sales numbers and make the Volt seem more popular than it actually is.

Anyone else hear that? Is it true?

[cobraman]

Didn't they stop the production of the Volt ? I thought I read somewhere that they were suspending production for a while.

[Harry P.]

I think that was earlier in the year. They shut down Volt production due to basically not enough consumer demand. Don't know what the current production status is, though.

I know there was some sort of problem with them starting on fire, which obviously didn't exactly drive consumers flocking to the dealer to get their hands on one!

[jbwelda]

nobody will want that new tesla. its their death warrent, just watch. the elise based one was great, thats from a lotus-biased guy, and was the only electric car i have seen that had even a modicum of sport to it. those mass market ones are made or at least designed for jane the office secretary or state worker and just look so generic. thats fine for jane but i have always wanted a bit of style and sport to anything i drive and this new tesla is a major step backward if you ask me.

[Joe Handley]

I think that was earlier in the year. They shut down Volt production due to basically not enough consumer demand. Don't know what the current production status is, though.

I know there was some sort of problem with them starting on fire, which obviously didn't exactly drive consumers flocking to the dealer to get their hands on one!

I think they're back in production now, seen a few running around St. Charles in the past several months now too. IIRC their sales picked back up when gas prices started heading back up past $4 a gallon. I heard of the fires and even looked to see what I could a few months back. The ones that NHTSA managed to start on fire were wrecked for side impact into a pole test had the case for the batteries punctured when the driver's seat mount welded to the floor was struck during the impact with the pole, which shoved the mount into the battery tunnel collapsing it into a somewhat vulnerable portion of the pack. They then left the whole car or the now damaged battery pack removed from the car (I've heard both) upside down outside for nearly a month without discharging them before the batteries shorted out from the leaking coolant actually caught fire. Considering how those cars are constructed, to get that exact same wreck to happen in real life would probably take some pretty incredible odds (like sole mega billions lotto winner odds) to actually happen.

Here's one of the tests that caused the damage to the battery.

And here's what GM did to fix the problem.

I had also found some garage fires that when I had last checked were Volt related because there were Volts in them at the time of the fires. One was a million dollar home with an attached garage that caught fire and what they had found in the investigation was that the fire had started on the opposite side of the garage from where the involved Volt was charging and had the big Titan P/U based Infinity SUV separating the two sides. One thing that was found during the investigation was that the car had been charging during much of the fire until the computer involved in the charging process noted things were getting too hot (likely do to the fire approaching the car) and shut it off. I do remember reading that GM and Nissan were involved in that and some of the right wing members tin foil hat set figured that GM pressured that finding into happening (I'm not buying that though) and I'm not sure why Nissan was there, unless they're using some of the same components as GM for the Leaf or because an Infinity was also involved.

The second one was also an attached garage on a 40+ year old home with it's original wiring and a Suzuki Samari that was also converted to 100% Electric Power. Apparently the owners had set the garage up for 240v service themselves (again with wiring that was original to the house) and were "fast charging" both the Volt and the Sammi at the same time. When I last looked into it, it was beginning to sound like they suspected that the wiring the garage portion of the house was severely overloaded by trying to fast charge both vehicles at the same time and the wiring went up taking the garage and vehicles with. Luckily there was at least a double layer of drywall between the garage and the rest of the house, which saved the home portion of the structure.

[Joe Handley]

I was on Tesla's website a few weeks ago- you can option one out virtually. Not bad looking at all, but I love the Fisker more because you don't have to plug it in. It has a 2liter gas engine that comes on to charge the batteries when needed.Think diesel-electric locomotive.

That's why I like the Karma and Volt over the Tesla's, Leaf's, and that little Mistubishi being built in the Bloomington/Normal plant that used to build the "Diamond-Star" cars! When the battery goes away, you still have the on board gen-sets to make the electricity

[charlie8575]

If someone did that Fisker in plastic, I'd buy one. That's a pretty car.

On the subject of all-electric cars and range, it suprises me that the manufacturers aren't building photo-voltaic cells into the roofs. The prices of those have started to come down dramatically, and would, at worst case, give you a limp-home mode until you get to your house, office, mall or a plug.

Charlie Larkin