Electric vehicles will never be more than a fringe technology until we find a replacement for batteries.
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disagree. musk’s batteries go 250 miles. the issue is the cost. musk is now working on building a multibillion dollar battery plant to drive the cost of his electric battery down. So that the price of his cars will fall from 70k to roughly 35k. Musk expects his electric production to move from 22k in 2013 to 500k in 2020. The test will come about 2016-7 when his new battery factory opens. We’ll see.
250 miles per charge, and how long to charge? How much weight and volume used by the batteries? How common are the materials, and how cleanly and cheaply can they be extracted?
Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot to like about electric power trains. Electric motors are far lighter, need much less maintenance, provide effective torque over a much wider range of RPMs and hence need much simpler transmissions, but batteries simply aren’t ever going to power the bulk of vehicles.
If electric vehicles ever supply more than a few percent of ge vehicles on the road, they’ll be powered by fuel cells or capacitors, not by batteries.
A person from an exurb could barely make it to work and home with stops at the store, the doctor and the kids play without getting close to a dead battery.
How long must he charge to get an effective round trip in? How much will his electric bill be spiked while owning this coal fired automobile?
Also how effective are they in a cold weather climate? How do they operate in real World subfreezing temperatures for two months straight in the winter in Fargo or Minneapolis?
These cars are cool. It is nice that someone made an effective vehicle that can be relatively reliable for those with the funds and the time to recharge every night. The are a long way from replacing or even competing with a vehicle that gets 350+ miles to a tank and can be refueled and on it's way again in ten minutes or less.