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 ...
Just a few details made me see “boondoggle” in this whole thing anyhow, the biggest one being the word “subsidy”. The article reads like a sales pitch, about as shallow and transparent as those pitches used to attempt to sell the Chevy Volt.
Yuk yuk yuk...
ooh you look so weird.
She said, man, there’s really something wrong with you.
One day you’re gonna self-destruct.
Youre up, you’re down, I can’t work you out
You get a good thing goin then you blow yourself out.
Silly boy ya self-destroyer
You don’t know WTF you are talking about.
Top 10% pay over 70% of federal income tax.
Percentile 11- 50 pay only ~26% of federal income tax.
Percetile 51-70 pay ~2%.
The bottom pay nothing.
Nice song and dance jingle ya there slick...
((Too funny))
The technologies actually have evolved, but unfortunately the cost / benefit equation has improved very little if at all. It was interesting that the author started the article discussing the whizzbang control screen. I believe if the government is spending hundreds of millions of our tax dollars... they ought to be concentrating on basic transportation not super expensive play things.
When we finally do get to the point where hydrocarbon based fuel sources actually do start to get prohibitively expensive... it is not too difficult to imagine people switching over to glorified golf carts to commute and run their errands. That will be far enough in the future that the Tesla vehicles will probably be just a footnote in the annals of government waste records.
We currently do not have the power generation facilities or the grid to support such a transition. That is where it would make sense to spend the money. I don't see electric utility companies and golf cart manufacturing companies currently getting huge subsidies. That is because in our system when companies turn out useful products they don't need giant governement subsidies.
BTW, stay our of my PM...
If ya got something to say to me, keep it public, right here junior.
BTW, stay our of my PM...
Who ever is holding the bottle really needs to cut you off.
Amen to that!
As I said, stay out of my PM
Ya got something to say to me, say it right here on the open forum sonny.
And feel free to call and whine to the (AM) hall monitor again!
Hehehe...
As I said, stay out of my PM
Actually, you said “BTW, stay our of my PM... “
I haven’t sent any Private Messages to you since before your odd, slurred post #127.
You may want to call for medical attention. If you’d rather not, at least lay off the booze. You’re an embarassment.
I love it!
How cute. Really.
You’ve spent your entire life trying to remake reality.
You’re amused, but that part has always come so easily.
How sad.
You numb your senses far too often and play your peculiar little games. It makes you feel a bit better, but it’s still all a bizarre little fantasy.
In the end, it’s all just dumped into a cheap wood box.
Is there anyone who will bother to visit and leave a few wilted flowers?
LOL!
Have a few more drinks. You’re less annoying when you pass out.
You’re a hoot!
I hate to say it, but for all the hype about electric cars, Tesla did something right that GM completely flubbed:
No-one’s gonna add $20,000 to the price of a $10,000 car for it to be electric. But those who would already buy a $70,000 would pay $90,000 for it to be electric, if being electric meant it had the most kick-ass performance ever.
Tesla was aiming for under $50,000. That they had to go as low as 40 kwh to make it $50,000 means they failed badly. And yet, they will still be profitable and pay those loans back. At $100,000 a car, it doesn’t take too long to pay off $1 billion startup costs.
Frankly, I think Tesla’s big mistake is battery management. I sure as hell wouldn’t pay for a car that I couldn’t even visit my folks in. Using Battery swaps at refueling would defer costs to Tesla down the road, but allow you to travel more than 250 miles in a day.
The problem is that much of that energy is lost, anyway, in the conversion INTO electricity.
The great advantage of electric cars is that you don’t have to carry a power plant and fuel around with you, allowing the energy to be from Thorium, coal, solar, whatever.
“Electric cars use less energy “
Um, two cars that weight the same going the same speed and having accelerated at the same rate used the same amount of energy reglardless of their powerplant.
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