There ain't no such thing as "free power", unless you're talking about using one of these...
Do you have $60-80,000 to pay for an electric car? The Nissan Leaf, backed up by a major multinational company, is only about $19,000.
There's the answer! Free Power! Along with Free Housing, Free Food, and Free Medical Care, we'll be All Set. Well, with Free TV and Free Internet, of course.
Free power? Perhaps it is free if you pay for it years in advance, when you buy the car. Even then it's not likely to be free. Even if the raw power is somehow free, the maintenance of the network isn't.
EVs are good vehicles for a very rich country where citizens don't have even a single worry in their lives and who can easily pay $30-40K for a car. I don't know where such a country might be located; I suspect it's not in this Universe. The USA is mired in one recession after another, jobs are disappearing, taxes are rising - and these guys pop up and offer a car that not every millionaire can afford. A car that doesn't have any advantage over the gasoline car at this time.
The customer benefits from buying an EV as late as possible because the technology is bound to improve; and perhaps within a few years we may get a usable EV that is not as hobbled as today's EVs. But today there isn't anything on the EV market that would make sense to buy. There are EVs, and you can buy one or two, but it would be simply an act of charity toward inventors and businessmen who work on EVs.
The market of EVs will rise only when a common man can run the numbers and say "yes, this will save me money right now." Sell those EVs today for $10K and they will be gladly bought, with all their problems, because the price would match the value. Today's EVs are short range, city cars, you use them if your daily mileage is 20-30 miles at most. However they cost so much that you cannot cover enough miles in any reasonable time to realize the savings on gas. If you start driving them far then you will lose too much time charging them every 100 miles (if you can find a charger, that is.) EVs today are specialty cars, for a very narrow niche - and they are a poor fit even there.
I understand that without someone working on EVs we will never get one. However we don't practice jumping just because we want to visit the Moon. You make a simple calculation on the back of the envelope and discover that jumping will not work. The same should apply to EVs. You calculate what a battery can do, you calculate what it will cost, and you then stop right there and say to yourself: "Self, this is a ridiculous price. Hardly anyone will buy. Why don't you do something else until the situation changes?" But no, they went ahead, built cars, and now wonder how to sell them. That's a thought that should have visited them far earlier.
No such thing.
No matter what the cost on these things the fact is they are status symbols.
The lower end market of electric vehicles is for people who already have cars but are looking for a status symbol.
At the higher end of the market, where you find Tesla and Fisker, you find more exclusivity and flashing the car “You can’t have, cuz you can’t even afford the price tag”.
Still, I was at the grocery store on Friday and a Tesla snuck up on me. Mind you, I’ve sat in both vehicles, which have showrooms at our local mall and was impressed with how luxurious and feature rich these vehicle contain.
If I didn’t like fast cars I could take anywhere I’d get a Tesla or Fisker myself.
But, I didn’t hear that Tesla sneak up on me....at all.
Quiet at a church mouse...
If I lived in the Magic Kingdom or the World of Make-Believe I might be interested in one of these.
This is shocking news!
There ain't no such thing as "free power", unless you're talking about using one of these...
100% electric?
Bull...it’s coal powered...
A few cars after 465 Million in US government loans. A rolling Solyndra, thats all it is.
Kudos to Tesla for making an electric car that actually looks like a car ... not another egg on wheels. Now if only they could make it affordable.
If they actually had a marketable idea that was worthy of bringing to the market, why couldn’t they find investors outside the political realm.
Theres a reason that they had to go to the government for the cash.
Yeah, I think we all see the flaw here.
Dream on knucklehead.
I’ve never understood the almost automatic disapproval many FReepers exhibit regarding electric vehicles or even gas/electric hybrids.
Having some percentage of vehicles on the road relying on a different energy source is a good thing. It’s that much closer to being able to tell the mullahs to kiss off.
It’s a nuclear powered car. Or coal, or hydroelectric.
So, it’s expensive. New tech nearly always is. That will change over time with broader adoption, economies of scale and further advances.
They’ll likely always be more urban but that’s OK by me.