Practical in the sense that it has $100,000 car looks and performance. But not practical in the sense that normal people can afford it. I have been thinking about getting one -- when put in terms of a chunk of money down (from selling a paid-off HCH for instance) and a $1500 car payment a month, it's doable for someone like me who drives less than 10k miles a year and doesn't drive daily to commute to work and spends $2300 a month on student loans. It would just mean cutting back on school loan payments to afford the car payment. Of course, I worry about insurance. Even though I'm 30, I'm paying $140 a month on my HCH, which seems terribly unreasonable on a slow four door sedan.

But when the price of entry is a straight-up check for $100,000 for a car you're not going to see until next summer at best, that puts it completely out of my price range, especially when Dell recently had to recall 40 million batteries and there can be no real idea now how long the battery packs are going to last in real world driving conditions.

I keep trying to get my brother to buy one, since unlike me, he's got that kind of money, but he says he'll stick with his FEH.

 

thats my situation also. I'm almost willing to take out a loan to give them the $100k and start making payments now.

 

DT, I guess my point was that 250 miles between charges on ANY electric vehicle, is unheard of. They have obviously figured out some new technology nobody else knows about. I still am very skeptical about it. I guess I will believe it when I see it. But I hope it's true.

 

I think the only people who are going for a ride are the VCs and the people dropping 100K on something they might get two years from now. I hope it works, but I'm not hopeful it will.

 

There is nothing at all mystical or suspicious about the 250 mile range. The T-zero on which it is based had a 300+ mile range.

The new technology is nothing more than replacing 140 year old technology (lead acid batteries, that for some reason everyone thinks is still state of the art for EVs?) with 10 year old technology (lithium-ion).

Lithium-ion holds 6x the amount of energy per weight than lead acid, so take the range of any lead-acid EV and multiply it by 6 to get the range it would have if converted to LiIon. (BTW the next Prius is meant to be LiIon too.)

 

EV1s got about half of Tesla's range and that was from a company that had no interest in their success. The scare here is the overheating of some batteries like the recently recalled Dell laptop batteries. Other than that, this is bound to be a question of marketing.

You have a large Middle America population that like to drive big American made cars. Tesla would be most effective at marketing to these people based on the domesticly produced energy they consume. A little exploitation of terrorist fears seems to go a very long way and would be 100% based on facts here.

Of course you have us environmentalists, we'll buy electic any way we can so don't even bother marketing to us

Next, theres the young people who drive Acuras and Civic SI, etc. They can't afford the roadster so you'll need a somewhat affordable car that at least looks fast for them. Your marketing there would be based on the fact that its completely silent (like a ninja?) and will do the quarter mile very fast.

I could go on here but I think I've made my point. Done correctly, I really think Tesla could revolutionize the failing American auto industry the way GM could've done had they actually made an effort.

 

Yup, clett is right. I looked around on his link and read all the way to acproposion website. Their T-zero went to Las Vegas wih one charge and some left over:

http://www.acpropulsion.com/ACP_tzero/SEMAtrip2003.htm

I also read (somewhere following link from clett), that Li-Sulfur technology is comming which add even more energy density to batteries than the lith-ion that the T-zero and Teslamotor uses.

Also, http://www.europositron.com is very interesting, but dont know if that is real about Aluminum battery that would revolutionize EV and make it viable for the rest of us.

 

I also am talking about Lithium Ion batteries. I just don't think they can get that range. I know of some real world cars using these that only get about 40 miles. That T-zero Go-Kart MAY have gone that far (I find it hard to believe even after reading the article), it would not pass federal crash tests and stuff and is knowhere near a production vehicle. I just don't see 250 miles out of an EV right now. Sorry but I'll believe it when I see it for myself. (Not just claims from the company itself).

 

250 miles at 5 miles per kWh (the T-zero got 6 miles per kWh) would require 50 kWh of onboard storage. The Tesla has about 52 kWh of onboard battery storage, so 250 miles seems fair enough.

Back in the middle-ages of battery technology, using NiMH batteries, a Solectria 4-seat family-sized EV managed to go 373 miles on one charge on a highway route. If that switched to lithium, they could probably get 1,000 miles on a record attempt (as the Koreans are attempting right now using their own LiIon cells).

 

250 miles was assuming an EPA highway driving cycle, which is quite slow on average. Speed changes won't affect it much, so that will skew results far more than the EPA highway test does for gasoline vehicles. Their reps even claimed that for more realistic highway driving (California highway driving) the car would receive closer to 200, though I'd expect between 150 and 175, especially if driven where there are lots of elevation changes, at 70mph+.

The all-important key for range is going to be how fast is the average speed, since the drivetrain is so efficient, driving it "too slow" and needing to gear down won't be a problem as with gasoline vehicles. Accelerating hard won't change much either (efficiency difference between full output and low output is minimal), the main factor in range will be the air resistance. I imagine with a more aerodynamic designthey could have achieved a much longer driving range, without sacrificing any of their handling or performance characteristics.