Posted on 04/07/2009 3:48:34 AM PDT by Scanian
President Obama revealed what he might think we should be driving when he visited Tesla Motors , a firm building electric cars in San Carlos, California, while on his Tonight Show trip to the Coast.
Unlike political rhetoric read from a teleprompter, cars are real. You can touch them and drive them and determine whether or not they're good, bad or indifferent. And the reality is that electric cars don't match the performance of conventional vehicles you're driving now.
There's one major shortcoming, which manufacturers never seem to cover in detail, illuminated in a March 26 Silicon Valley Mercury News driving review.
Reporter Matt Nauman spent an afternoon "thrashing" a Telsa Roadster on the two-lane roads in the hills behind Palo Alto, California. The Roadster is based on the excellent Lotus Elise bonded aluminum chassis. The two-seater has an electric motor powered by 6831 lithium ion cells.
Initial performance is impressive, according to Tesla, with 3.9 second 0-60 times and top speed is 125 mph, but it's a little pricey at $109,000. Fast when fully charged.
But how far can you drive on a charge?
According to Nauman, repeating the company's claims "... you can drive nearly 250 miles between charges." But when he elaborates, his own experience is different.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
heck just about 6 miles south of me it is legal. old fogies all over the place driving those things, running red lights and such.
If it had the performance of the Tesla and recharged in 10 minutes or less (preferably less), I’d buy one.
Well, in defense of the mileage rating, if you do a lot of quick accelerations that would definately cut down on the mileage. It does the same for a gasoline car.
That said, it is a very expensive vehicle for less performance. It might be good in an urban environment, but not on the open road. How long does this baby take to recharge? It only takes me about 5 minutes to get gas these days. Where is the power going to come from? Solar??? :-)
No.
Next question?
He continues, “When I handed the keys back. . . .the range estimator said it had enough juice left for about 80 more miles.” So his driving range, had he continued, was about 180 miles, yet the manufacturer claims a 250 mile range. That's a big your-mileage-may-vary discrepancy.
Tesla also plans introducing their four-door Model S sedan. The 4000 pound car will have a 160-mile battery pack standard, with 230 and 300-mile packs optional. Once again, there's no explanation of how driving conditions might affect these mileages. So the question is: could you, you wife and child, plus luggage, load up and drive 286 miles from Los Angles to Las Vegas on a single charge? And can the Model S maintain the typical 80 mph cruise on I-15 that distance?
What no one mentions is that as batteries discharge through current flow to the electric motor, they deliver less power. Consider leaving your car lights on. Over time, the lights dim because the battery can't maintain the current flow for normal brightness. So the lights dim and then go out. They don't stay bright, then go dark as if the switch were turned off.
So with a full charge, the Roadster may do a 3.9 second 0-60, but near the end of its range limit, a 0-60 test would take much longer. You would also notice the power decline in passing and going up hills.
My family recently took a road trip in our humble Ford Focus station wagon. We covered 306 miles on one tank and averaged 30 mpg. Plus, with traffic flow, we never saw under 60 and typically cruised at 75-80 on the interstates.
Now, the question is, why would I want to buy an electric car that can't match the performance of a humble econobox?
Not me!
It's over priced and stop and go won't work for me.
Still THIS is what our ignoramus has in mind for you and YOU get to fund it.
Same here... I have a house on a golf course in FL. Some of them forget which vehicle they are driving, so it is not uncommon to find a Lincoln stuck on the fairway!
Accelerating from 0 to 60 in 3.9 seconds uses a lot of energy. If the writer’s Ford Focus could do that it would empty its “tank” pretty quickly as well.
Different tools have different advantages and disadvantages.
Currently electric cars can’t reliably go great distances.
That doesn’t mean they aren’t useful or that they can’t be economical for typical everyday use.
It should come down to economics.
If the car costs less to operate for everyday use then does it pay for the added initial expense and then some? If it does then it makes sense. If not then it will have to wait until it does. Eventually it will.
When they make one that can pull my 5th wheel maybe.
The emission of arsine gas from all batteries is something nobody wants to look at... Multiply that times a few hundred million and we can all die of cancer by age 30...
Amen. Electric golf carts are an already known quantity. When they start replacing cars for trips to the store, and there are giant parking lots around the quickstop full of recharging stations, then maybe I’d consider it less than stupid to own an electric vehicle except for golf. Up till now economics has played a pretty good role in dictating our transportation choices. Going electric is a step off the cliff of stupidity.
I would only buy an electric car if it offered a genuine economic advantage to me and would still do everything my real car did.
I live in a house built in the 20s.
We have 40 amp service.
I have to do it someday, but upgrading to 200amp, or even 100 amp will cost several thousands, last time I checked.
Not sure how many people are in this same boat, whole neighborhoods in my city, I suspect, and those are the same people who would be most likely to be able to utilize a short-range vehicle like a pure electric.
That doesn’t even begin to consider if the local electrical infrastructure could support a sudden increase in capacity like that on a large scale. The telephone infrastructure is still subject to squirrels chewing off the insulation causing shorts, so I doubt the electric is much better.
DC power storage has huge issues with arsine emissions... electric cars are a really stupid idea...
Coal or Nuke electricity for POWER is and has been a winner since .... whenever they developed it.
I wake up in the morning, hit the electric alarm clock, wash in electric warm/hot water, get my electric auto-brewed coffee, turn on my electric TV (news) and PC (porn ... I mean FreeRepublic) .. and my entire day is run, enhanced or eased by something electric.
That's all this average whiter guy knows about the subject.
Arsine is a major problem with dc power storage...
Buy one???...I thought Obama was giving them to us?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.