Clean but mean electric car is creator's dream come true

The Australian ^ | August 12, 2006 | Chris Ayres

[tessalu]

IT can keep up with a Ferrari, travel 400km on an empty fuel tank and is completely silent. The latest boys' toy for Silicon Valley multi-millionaires is a full-blooded American sportscar - only its blood is electricity, not oil.

The Tesla Roadster, which can go from zero to 100km/h in about four seconds, is named after Serbian electrical engineer Nikola Tesla, who invented alternating current.

The car is assembled in England and the electric motor is imported from Taiwan. The cars will be sold only in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, New York and Miami.

The first deliveries are expected to begin next northern summer, after the car passes rigorous federal safety tests.

Martin Eberhard, who founded Tesla Motors in 2003 with Marc Tarpenning, said: "This is what we hoped to achieve when we started the company: to build a car with zero emissions that people would love to drive.

"It didn't make sense to sell a car that only goes 90miles (145km) on a charge. You'd spend more time charging the old EVs (electric vehicles) than driving them. Lithium-ion technology ... has allowed us to achieve exactly what we thought it would in terms of power, range and efficiency."

Those who part with the $US100,000 ($130,000) for a Tesla will be given a home charging system, which, the company claims, will fully recharge the car in about three hours.

The Tesla marks a resurgence in electric car development in California, after the state quietly dropped a law that would require car companies to develop models with zero emissions. Infamously, this resulted in General Motors recalling and destroying its fleet of EV1s - a pioneering electric vehicle beloved by owners.

Other electric car companies operating in California today include Phoenix Motorcars and Universal Electric Vehicles, which also makes convertible sportscars.

Even petrolheads, however, may struggle to understand the specifications of the Tesla Roadster. Unlike a traditional V8 engine, with its eight pistons, eight connecting rods, crankshaft, valves, oil pumps and other mechanicals, the Tesla's engine has only one moving part. This gives it an efficiency rating of about 95 per cent, compared with the 20 per cent (or less) of an internal combustion engine.

As for torque, the sweet spot of power for an engine most loved by car enthusiasts, the Tesla's has been described as virtually instantaneous. The car is powered by a "3-phase, 4-pole AC induction motor" and a "two-speed electrically actuated manual transmission".

Instead of a fuel tank, there is an energy storage system, with 6831 non-moving parts all of them lithium-ion cells, regulated by a cooling system and a computer that shuts down the entire battery pack in emergencies.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

How long does it take to charge?

[thackney]

In my part of the country we get 70% of our electricity from nuclear power plants.

Where are you at? (What State?)

Chicago

Illinois generation capacity is only 25% nuclear power.

Annual Electric Generator Report by State from 1990 to 2004, EIA.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Never mind, just re-read it. 3 1/2 hours minimum.

Works for city driving only but few people do city driving only.

[thackney]

Well I wonder what the 95% is supposed to refer to?

My guess it refers to the lack of research and understanding by the journalist.

[glorgau]

Only 130 grand for the privilege of saying you own an EV

Yeah, but this is where the truly well-to-do separate themseves from the merely posturing Prius owners.

I predict lower smug ratings throughout the Bay Area. ;-)

[theBuckwheat]

Yes, you may get 70% from nukes, but that leaves 30% from other sources. Even so, battery powered electric cars mean the burning of at least some coal or other hydrocarbons.

Even so, the capacity of the electric grid and local distribution system will have to be doubled or tripled to handle any widespread use of these vehicles.

Enviros go into apoplexy over high voltage power lines. They cannot have their emission-free electric cars without more power lines. Because these cars are not emission-free, but emission-deferred, or emission-relocated, the power must be hauled in from some distant power plant. And the number of power plants of whatever source will have to be doubled as well.

An electric car used for commuting to work will roughly use as much electric energy as a central air conditioner uses in a entire day. Only the car will only be recharged at night, when just about every other car will be recharged. This could lead to the need to get a clearance for recharging from the utility.

[theBuckwheat]

This raises the issue of life-cycle cost, which translates into cost per mile. Then we need to throw in the increased cost of electricity that will be caused by the need to double the number of generating plants, especially if those plants are capital-intensive nuclear ones.

Electric cars are not going to cheap to buy or drive. And they will have their own form of environmental costs.

[wmfights]

"Even so, the capacity of the electric grid and local distribution system will have to be doubled or tripled to handle any widespread use of these vehicles."
_______________________________

You're right. The alternative will be to go backwards as a civilization. We won't build addition pipelines to bring in more natural gas. We won't build more refineries to process oil. We won't explore for more oil. We probably won't build more nuclear reactors and upgrade our distribution grid. Somewhere along the line we have to grow up and tell the "greens" sit down and let the adults run the show.

[theBuckwheat]

I would love for electric cars to be viable. Why is talking frankly about the consequences of mass adoption of these vehicles considered being against them?

Enviros love to lecture the public that the US is not paying the "full cost of oil", yet they have not wanted to talk about the "full cost" of their darling technologies.

Electric cars mean coal fired cars. I would really like to burn less coal than burn more. I think that there is less environmental burden to converting coal to a liquid fuel and in the process refining the mercury, radioactivity and sulfur out.

We presently cannot support converting even 10% of the vehicles on the road to electric. We cannot build the power plants fast enough. Fast-build new plants would not be nuke- they would be gas fired turbines with their own pollution and supply problems.

We have more energy in the form of coal under Illinois than Saudi Arabia has in oil. We have more energy under eastern Utah and western Colorado in the form of oil shale than Saudi Arabia has in oil. We have the technology to convert coal to liquid fuels. We can convert shale to liquid fuels.

What are we whining about? What are we waiting for? We don't have to rush any new technologies at all. We don't have to disrupt markets or household budgets one bit. Just allow the free market to rationalize the value of these hydrocarbon assets we have by the billions of tons.

We can adopt electric technologies as they develop and become economical in an orderly manner, rather than rushing in and causing waste of natural resources and waste of personal financial assets.

It took about 100 years to convert from wood to coal. It took about the same to transition from consuming the oil from whales to light lamps in homes to oil from coal. The only way the transition was made was because over time, the reasons for doing so became compelling and obvious to everyone. A transition to any technology that is better than the internal combustion engine will not take place until the same thing happens to it. The only other way to make it happen involves the destruction of liberty because we will get armed government agents involved in a sugar-coated scheme that is really coercion. (That is the honest truth anytime we pass a law or regulation to force people to choose something they would not otherwise voluntarily choose.)

[theBuckwheat]

It is not that we cannot build these facilities. I think we don't have to because, as I have posted elsewhere on this topic, we are afloat on hydrocarbons just waiting to be converted to liquid fuels. We have decades worth of these fuels, if we would only access them.

We cannot draw lines on a map, outlining areas were we refuse to drill for oil, and then honestly claim that we "depend" on foreign oil. It is just silly to do so!

I would love to stop burning hydrocarbons, especially coal for generating electricity. But nothing beats gasoline for energy density. Liquid fuels are wonderful for mobile energy needs. If we use batteries, the laws of physics demand that we recharge them by some source. That today means mostly coal. Coal, IMO, is the last thing we should be burning for anything. But coal is a vast source of hydrocarbons for converting to clean liquid fuels.

[theBuckwheat]

I have two problems with nuclear power:

1) A security issue. Nuke plants must have a certain level of armed guards. They are no-fly zones for aircraft. They invite terrorists to either attack or more likely to try to steal fuel rods out of the spent fuel pool to help them to achieve a better reward in the afterlife.

2) Because of the heavy burden of regulation and security, the plant size balloons to make the business side of the plant economically viable. This blows up the capital investment, and thus the cost per KW. It also means that the utility company must be at least a certain size before it can raise the funds in the financial markets, aside from the requirement of the unique management that a nuke facility needs. The total construction cycle is very long, so the cash flow on the project is negative from day one and the first billable kilowatt is almost a decade out. This only means one thing: much higher cost electricity.

These two factors combine to mean that the utility business case for a nuke plant tends to make for big projects with big issues about where the plant site can be.

The present electric distribution system is configured like a big tree. The home is fed by the line running down the street. That line is fed by a sub-station, which is fed by a bigger sub-station and so on. All the demand "rolls up" the line to aggregate in at the source.

When the only way you can build a nuke is by making it a big one, then the business model forces the utility to aggregate a lot of demand in order to use the power the plant generates. This means we have a single point supply point, that when it fails, the supply must be made up from somewhere else. I think we unnecessarily introduce power failure vulnerabilities when we have a few big plants.

Consider the implications of using hybrid vehicles that can not only generate their own power, but can feed power back to the power company. This would turn the power grid into a two way street. The utility would request that your vehicle sell power back into the grid. This reduces the vulnerability and increases the utility's ability to supply power where it is needed. It reduces the need for large plants and large power lines to bring load to them. It would mean that a neighborhood could be self-sufficient in electricity. If we learned anything from the nationwide "Y2K" drill and the disruption we suffered in the wake of 9/11 and the Gulf Hurricanes, that we are better off as a society when we are more self-sufficient. Big nuke plants make us more dependent, not less. They are take us in the wrong direction for civil disaster preparedness.

This change in the use of the power grid can be started right now, with hybrids that are being sold right now. And this would allow the transition to fuel cell hybrids as the technology and economics allow them to be viable.

(I doubt this is of any interest to the enviros, who love centralized command-and-control because they hope to impose their "solutions" on people who do not accept them.)

[Rate_Determining_Step]

Superchargers are not a contributor to the goal of efficiency. Turbos are the way to go. There have been very few turbo/supercharger dual forced induction cars and none that were production if I recall correctly.

Diesels generally do well in the torque low-end department so that's another reason a supercharger would be redundant and wasteful. Your 1 liter theoretical engine size does make for a challenge, but you also mention a cv transmission. If you can get 2500-3000 rpm, then a turbo will provide the necessary power.

Bottom line, superchargers are an inferior technology except in two areas. Controlled boost and no holds barred boost. So, you'll see TRD selling superchargers because they won't boost above 8 PSI and not cause significant warranty claims caused by overboosting. And you'll see them in top fuel where the 600HP parasitical drag is acceptable when the hemi engine ends up putting out 3000 HP.

[theBuckwheat]

Let me quickly add there is another factor to "security" for nuke plants: They are a blackmail target because if they are hit with a nuclear weapon, there is far more radioactive material in the plant core than in the bomb- and it all becomes fallout.

There is an example of this: downwind of Chernobyl. Almost 10,000 square miles has been contaminated.

see:
http://wired-vig.wired.com/wired/archive/4.03/day.after.html

Compare this to the test site where the first US bomb test was conducted. The site is open to the public twice a year and you can stand at the very spot the bomb went off.

"Radiation levels in the fenced, ground zero area are low. On an average the levels are only 10 times greater than the region's natural background radiation. A one-hour visit to the inner fenced area will result in a whole body exposure of one-half to one milliroentgen."


see:
http://www.atomictourist.com/trinity.htm

There are areas near the Chernobyl plant where it is not safe to spend more than a few minutes.

[Rate_Determining_Step]

One fact never mentioned is the transmission losses for electricity. The last figure I remember is 50%. Nothing has happened in the last 10 years to change that number.

No. The number is at most 15%. Although chassis dynomometers are most common, engine-only dynos have consistently shown the entire drivetrain losses to be at that level.

[FastCoyote]

"The plant will burn the coal more cleanly than the car could."
Let's guess a goal plant has 60% efficiency versus burning gasoline.
But then you have those pesky transmission line losses, battery charging losses, battery discharging losses, and only finally do you get to that efficient electric motor.

even if every step is 90% efficient, you still have .6 x .9 x .9 x .9 x .9 = 37%
Or about the same as an auto. And my figures are generous.

[tpaine]

I don't "get it".. --- Are you really against the entire concept of a usable electric car?
Why?

It took about 100 years to convert from wood to coal. It took about the same to transition from consuming the oil from whales to light lamps in homes to oil from coal.
The only way the transition was made was because over time, the reasons for doing so became compelling and obvious to everyone.
A transition to any technology that is better than the internal combustion engine will not take place until the same thing happens to it.
The only other way to make it happen involves the destruction of liberty because we will get armed government agents involved in a sugar-coated scheme that is really coercion.

Whatever. -- Needless to say, I believe our transition to electric autos only needs some technology that works. -- The market would then take care of the details, regardless of 'gov't agents'..

[Toby06]

Silly Australians. We just have summer. They have their summer and Northern summer.

[Sir Gawain]

Let the market decide.

[wita]

Probably not, since the operative word is U S A B L E. That means to me, minimal down time for charging, about as quick if you will to fill a fuel tank, range of 400 miles, proof positive regarding zero emissions, or failing that, an accurate estimation of percentage of pollution produced by the plant it is sucking off of. Price consistent with other vehicles of the same size and power, whether infernal combustion or otherwise.