Posted on 06/23/2012 4:39:20 PM PDT by grundle
Of all the new cars unveiled this year, none will be as hotly anticipated as the Model S from Tesla Motors, a luxury sedan doubling as a brash, billion-dollar bet that the era of the electric car has arrived. As the first journalist to test-drive one, I can report the Tesla Model S successfully challenges a century of assumptions about what a great car can be.
Unlike gas engines, electric cars generate their maximum power at start -- and no electric car has ever had as much power as the Model S, whose Performance edition is good for 417 hp. The zero-to-60 mph run ticks by in an impressive 4.4 seconds (5.9 seconds for the 362 hp edition)
the Model S can even do long drives — up to 285 miles in the edition launching today
The revelation of what Tesla has accomplished sunk in when I returned to a gas-powered vehicle. Other luxury cars will keep pace with the Tesla, but after driving the Model S, suddenly you notice the lag between accelerator and power, the exhaust noise, all the energy necessary to keep those parts hurtling forward. It makes a fossil fuel-powered car seem to be working so much harder than necessary. Which is the point.
(Excerpt) Read more at autos.yahoo.com ...
You seem to be a battery/coal powered car fan. I’ll ask you the same question I very much want all the talking heads on TV raving about the Volt or electric cars in general to be made to answer. “How do you like your Volt?” Or Lief or other battery powered car. I dare say that none of them drive one. Perhaps you do.
I’m happy with my 4-cyc PT. I paid $12.5 as a one-year old vehicle. It meets my needs, gets good mileage and I can drive it for 20 hours in a day if ever the need arises.
I suggest you look up the specs from 0-60 mph.
Failure from inception. Let’s quit subsidizing this crap. Sure, it can be done, but for what purpose? It won’t save energy, it won’t replace the internal combustion engine and it is waste of money
Then I asked him how many miles a similar gasoline powered car got per gallon. He shrugged and said maybe 30. I said that, for the sake of argument, we should say a compact car gets 50 miles to the gallon.
Then I asked him how long it takes to charge the batteries of an electric car. He said maybe 12 hours. I explained that based on our agreed benchmarks. His electric car would take about 12 hours to deliver the equivalent of one gallon of gasoline.
He argued that you could have a set up where you could swap out batteries. I commented that rechargeables hold a little less each time you charge them and the battery is the most expensive part of an electric car. You might swap your brand new battery for an old used up piece of crap. I asked him if he ever swapped propane tanks. He replied that only an idiot would do that. They never seem to give you anything as good as the one you turn in.
...and that's when the light turned on in his head.
You still have a problem with comprehension? “Specs” are not set in stone; they are operator-dependent as well as traction-dependent. (Yes, they are that variable.) And the internal-combustion-engine cars are not government-subsidized as the Tesla is.
Off the line ain’t exactly the finish line. Electric motors suck bigtime in vehicles. There is no accelerator feedback for one thing. You’ll be rear ending the guy in front of you at the redlight
I’m holding out for the model powered by moon beams and unicorn farts.
Kind of want one.
How will people be able to afford to charge their electric cars when electricity rates necessarily skyrocket according to Obama?
OK, you win, the Detroit cars as faster than the S, from 1-60 mph.
In your dreams.
OK, you win, the Detroit cars as faster than the S, from 1-60 mph.
How about a cross country marathon?
The problem with electric vehicles is that the battery becomes less efficient over time. The more charge/discharge cycles, the fewer miles the battery can produce before having to be recharged...IOW more energy is required to get the same mileage over time. This decline in efficiency of the battery increases with the number of cycles, and of course the battery ultimately has to be replaced.
If you add all that up, plus the amount of energy required to pay for and replace the old battery, there’s no way an electric car can be more efficient than an ICE, which will get approximately the same gas mileage over the life of the engine.
BTW...none of this includes the amount of energy that is lost from a battery that is just sitting. A battery is either charging or discharging, nothing in between. When you park that cool looking electric car, the battery discharges. May not be much (of course this also will increase over time), but it does discharge none the less. Gas powered cars don’t do that.
Yes, the working poor/lower middle class pay payroll taxes but not income taxes..
The wealthy pay income taxes.
You’re full of crap with that comment. You were ok with the poor part, but the middle class pays dearly
The electricity to run these vehicles is free, it comes off the trees or something.
The only logical justification in this century is to stop importing oil from middle east tyrants.
Saw in the news in the past few days that Gulf Coast refineries will no longer import light sweet crude oil. We are supporting our own needs domestically for fuel.If the Gov will back off, we may not need to import any oil
Get yourself a jeep or 550.
Ya pal, I'm a leftist for saying battery technology is making great advancements, lighter, more effective etc.
You work for the A-rabs? Mobil?
Corvette ZO6 105,000?
And ya have to fill the tank every other day.
How many years does the battery last? And how much does it costs to replace?
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