Posted on 02/12/2013 10:36:07 AM PST by Sir Napsalot
The Obama administration’s electric-car fantasy finally may have died on the road between Newark, Del., and Milford, Conn.
The New York Times’s John M. Broder reported Friday that the Tesla Model S electric car he was test-driving repeatedly ran out of juice, partly because cold weather reduces the battery’s range by about 10 percent.
Broder’s trip turned into a nightmare, including a stretch with the conked-out car riding the back of a flatbed truck.
Tesla chief executive Elon Musk fired back on Monday, tweeting that Broder’s report is a “fake” and that “vehicle logs” show he “didn’t actually charge to max & took a long detour.”
The Times is standing by its story. My take is that even if Musk is 100 percent right and Broder is 100 percent wrong — which I doubt — Musk loses.
Who wants a $101,000 car that might die just because you feel like taking “a long detour”?
President Obama repeatedly declared that, with enough federal aid, we can put a million electric vehicles on the road by 2015. His administration has invested about $5 billion in grants, guaranteed loans — including $465 million for Tesla — and tax incentives to buyers.
Yet Americans bought just 71,000 plug-in hybrids or all-electric vehicles in the past two years, according to GreenCarReports.com. That’s about a third as many as the Energy Department forecast in a 2011 report that attempted to explain why Obama’s goal was not preposterous.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Since he can print the money, he's not going to stop and nobody's making him stop.
Should be called the coal car.
-—the laws of physics prevail again—
Electric car boondoggle vs. the New York Times — with WaPo as referee?
Popcorn, please.
Lol, I see what you did there.
It never got to Newark, DE if you want to know, nor New Castle, either. The fact is, it never really got beyond the gate of the factory in Newport, where the workewrs’ parking lot is always empty. I’ve driven by it six or eight times weekly for years.
The MPGe ratings that the EPA puts out for electric vehicles never take into account real world conditions - such as playing the radio, headlights, wipers, heat/AC, etc.
These, when in use, significantly reduce the operating range of eletric vehicles.
Electric cars have superior attributes except for two principle drawbacks: Energy storage and Cost.
Electric cars are an order of magnitude simpler mechanically, convert energy to mechanical motion with 90 plus percent efficiency, etc, etc.
The bugaboo of energy storage (battery, fuel cell, what have you) at a reasonable cost is the final problem to solve. I don’t mind private industry researching this. As it relates to National Defense I don’t mind the Feds doing this. I do mind subsidizing some well off aging greenie buying such cars.
Non sequitur. Normal cars can run out of gas on "a long detour," you know. And no, I'm not a fan of electric cars. I'm just calling the WaPo writer a fool (but aren't they all). (Side note: I'm guessing the car didn't actually 'die' but just ran out of energy - so much for journalistic acumen.)
-PJ
This article is about Obama&Co's insistence that we should still pour the enormous amount of fed money (quote ‘Obama investment’) as one of the top priorities to solve our economic woes.
The author pointed out the shortcomings of ‘real world’ electric cars, and the unlikelihood of instant breakthroughs.
If Obama&Co don't own up their mistake, how does he steer the ship of state out of our present predicament?
You just gave me an idea for a coal powered mobile recharging station. When these “cars” run low on juice we just pick you up and charge your car while driving you on to your destination.
I bet there is some grant money out there for that. /sarc
“Normal cars can run out of gas on “a long detour,”
Well of course they can, and when they do autoclub can show up with a can of gas and you are off again in seconds. You cannot have someone deliver a can of electricity. If you run out of juice in an electric car, your only solution is a tw.
Tow
Expecting the New York Times to own up to reporting errors, lies, or omissions is as futile as expecting Obama to do the same.
Like any other member of the criminal class, "That's my story and I'm stickin' to it"...
Actually, yes you can - just on technical principle. Of course, these days AAA et al. aren't geared to do so (though they have, of course, electrical systems that can give you a -slow- charge). Imagine a road service with a high-capacity on-board electrical charging unit. Technically very do-able, just not available.
Let's not confuse current (heh!) availability (what you are referring to) with what is technically possible.
But as it stands today, I would not buy a purely electrical car (or even a hybrid - but that's just me looking at what is offered on the market).
Oh, the Tesla works fine. You can have hundreds of miles of range... all you have to do is get a gas or diesel generator on a utility trailer to pull behind it. Run the generator while you're rolling down the road, and voila.
As usual, the guys over at Top Gear are all over it:
The car is redesigned and named the "Hammerhead Eagle i-Thrust." The redesign includes extra batteries, along with a diesel generator to recharge the batteries while the car is in motion. The presenters then took their new car to the MIRA Proving Ground in order to test whether it would pass the EU-required tests that would make the car road legal. The tests consisted of a two crash tests to test safety, a drag race to test speed, a cobbled road to test ride comfort, a steep hill test and a quality test around the MIRA test track, in which the presenters used various tricks to have their car "pass", including using the three presenters as crash-test dummies and crash-testing the car at a very low speed and playing back in fast-motion; cheating at the pendulum test by raising the pendulum from the car and then playing the footage in reverse, and having the car tested by an "independent test driver" (James wearing a fake moustache). The car is also taken for an endurance test by "the Stig's vegetarian cousin" (who is entirely green, has solar panels on its helmet, and wears sandals) - who is killed after 35 minutes by fumes from the generator after the exhaust fell off.
A distinction without merit. If the car don't run, she's dead.
And, besides, cars don't really "die", do they. Let's not overthink this. Good article from a sometimes-coherent lefty.
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