Great data!
Can you provide some consumption data for the headlights, radio, seat heaters, cabin heater, air conditioner, etc.? I understand that the heating/cooling components will have a variable duty cycle, but it has often been stated that using the seat heaters is “far” more efficient than heating the cabin. It would be interesting to analyze that. and the overall impact of accessories on range.

Regen?

JB,

Thanks so much for posting this information! We appreciate the time you must have taken to present this information so clearly. This helps us understand how our cars will work and how to get the most out of driving them on the rare occasions when range is an issue.

Tom & Cathy Saxton

A wonderful early gift for the holidays. Thanks JB!

About Clarkson’s 55 miles, I’m not defending him, but these graphs are from steady-speed data points. On the track, they accelerate hard (which of course uses more energy than gradually accelerating, and far more than steady-speed driving, even at 120 MPH.) They also brake very hard, likely hard enough that regen is maxed and they’re using friction brakes, so energy is wasted there. (Though the above graphs wouldn’t take regen into account at all if they’re steady-speed.)

So what would be interesting to see is a worst-case range figure achieved by flooring it to max speed, then braking as hard as possible to stop, and repeating until the battery is depleted (preferably on a wind-free day.)

Any owners willing to give us this figure?

JB, thank you very much for this data. It goes a long way toward putting my mind at ease. My experiments were consistently getting 6-10% worse results than expected and I was beginning to think there might be a problem with my car. But perhaps my discrepancy can be explained by a combination of having the lights and stereo on, possible light winds, slightly under-inflated tires, and the turn-around in the middle of my test. Each of those factors individually are pretty small but it’s possible they might add up. And I’m (barely) within your 10% confidence level anyway.

Now when can we have those nano-silicon batteries with 10x the energy density and stop worrying about these details

This solves my service trips problem from Phoenix to LA! I simply have to lose 50 pounds, wait for a windless day and drive 20 mph for 20 hours!

Previous talk about making a hybrid roadster have suggested that it would need a motor almost the size of an original Elise, but I’ve been wondering about if it would be possible to make a hybrid Roadster using a small gas turbine from the aero industry.

This generates 12.5 Kw and weighs 24Kg, which is not a huge amount of extra weight:
cgi.ebay.co.uk/Lucas-Aerospace-Generator-200V-400Hz-12-5kW-Gas-Turbine_W0QQitemZ280292867990QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_CPV_Aviation_SM

According to the figures above, it would keep the roadster going at 55mph if the battery was completely dead. I imagine the overall package would probably be no better than a conventional gasoline setup, but this is only intended for emergencies or especially long journeys. Ideally you wouldn’t need to carry the generator on journeys when you didn’t need it, but it would require some sort of exhaust and air intake modifications to wherever you fit it in the car.

Please note, Nubo, that Clarkson was in the UK. Therefore the wall plug he was using was 13A, 240V (50Hz). Oh, and the top speed is limited by the maximum RPM of the motor, but is electronically limited under that (Around 80-90% IIRC) to prevent issues of wear on the motor and drivetrain.

Topic: New product idea.

Category: Battery charger

Problem: Looking at nice and slick car, i just do not see big electrical cable for charging battery being “sexy”.

Solution: Design math that you will put on the floor in the garage, drive car over it (park) and wirelessly transfer energy for battery charging.

Note: if you have any additional questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Engineering question: So…the idea is to use the car to run 20 minute sprints on a road course; Given that you need to modify the suspension, add racing tires, etc. How much of the battery would you be able to remove if you ran 2 minute laps and swapped out the battery between sessions? What would be the tech weight of the car with this reduced battery weight?

I see that your tire pressures are 30/40 front to back; what is the front to back weight ratio and what would it be with the reduced battery load?

I watched the TG presentation and was not impressed with the comments by the host. You car has proven what it set out to prove…simply that electric cars are viable for everyday usage.

JB, can you say anything about the possible use of the newer 18650 cells that are coming onto the market - i.e. Panasonic’s 2900mAh which are used in the Asus eePC or their previously announced 3600mAh cells?

Have you modelled their use in the car? Do you know if they are able to support the charge and discharge rates or lifetimes needed in the Roadster? It would be fantastic if the 3600mAh cells could boost the car’s EPA range to around 400 miles, but I’m sure it isn’t a simple swap.

errr …… driving like a Top Gear presenter clearly does put you near the 55 miles range, as it happened! Real world driving its not, but the occasional ’spurt’ built in to a days driving would be more realistic. What we need is the engine management memorising all of its driving data and downloading it to a central server so as to determine a true set of mean values. Surely being stationary is only a drain when its dark and winter?

Robert Munro,

you realise that generator you linked to is the generator (alternator) only?
despite the listing, it is only 12.5kva, at PF 0.8, so only 10kw avail.
it doesnt include the prime mover.
the funnel at the front is for cooling air for the windings, since most APUs are in enclosed spaces.
gas turbines are only efficient when run for at least 10x their heat up time.
the amount of gas required for the 4 or 5 hrs this would require is enormous, and heavy.

Matt

I have not seen the specs for the high power plug what makes this charge in only 3.5 hours ? what kinda load would
this put on a power grid compared to a 240v 13 amp plug ? and how long is the charge time from a 13 amp plug ?
why is the high power charger not mentioned anywhere i can find in the specs or the faqs ?

what about solar charging ? how long would charging from 12-18 volt panels take ? and at what amperage ?
would you have to wire up tons of series panels to use this realistic and not get weeks of chargetime ?
is there an input in the car for charging with lower voltages like 12 v ? (or would one have to dissect the batteries
to get to the modules directly ?) i guess a dc-dc charger for any voltage would be useful to match the load

what if the dc-dc power / high voltage power in the battery burns out ? thats the most likely unit to fail, would that toast the whole battery pack or is it an easy swap to replace this ? also using 2 fuses pr cells seems like a waste of money and weight.
why not use one fuse pr tube of cells ? if a cell opens and fails you will lose a whole tube anyway and if the
cells burn up in the tube it will hardly have any safety issues i see. worst case it will cool down in minutes
no way a short can do serious damage unless a whole module is shorted out. 3-4 cells carry rather limited juice
that never could damage adjacent tubes/cell packs
shorts in the dc-dc powers/diodes is the only real issue i see with the battery system which would blow out the fuse
for a whole module, hopefully that can be replaced easy ? also is there an easy replacement if a tube/cell goes ? im hoping
this is not a costly repair ? seems to me its simple to yank out a tube of cells and replace it rather than buy a costly new
battery pack ? how many cells would be lost if a cell opens ? to me a design plus would be easy to change dc-dc
powers and fuses for the module packs without having to dissect the whole pack.

also what is the cost of the battery since it needs replacing every few years ?

the graph shows clearly why the top gear presenter only gets 55 miles or so that seems to match pretty good
with the hard accelleration and max constant speed which will surely burn tons of juice.
what are the actual figures for more regular average driving ? (few people run 125 mph constant i guess)
any drivers that can share their average mileage ? also list if its city driving or freeway or other type as the patterns
will be very different

Thanks for the honesty of the information provided. It is rare to see a manufacturer who has the guts to deal in facts and to handle the head-on.

Constructive criticism is great, but too many good ideas and products are shot down by critics who miss the point and focus on negatives.

Perhaps the question which should be asked is what percentage of the population travels less than, say 120 miles a day? And that becomes your target market as those people will probably be very happy to use a vehicle with such low- cost per mile and a much lower environmental. (And they will probably be able to drive the 120 miles with headlights, air-con, roof down, wrong tire pressure and in rush hour).

When I look at the Tesla, I see much more pros than cons. Keep up the great work and focus on the positives as that is the formula to success and ‘Never, never ever give up’ (Sir Winstoin Chuirchill)

When electricity is cheap, clean and abundant, and when batteries / capacitors / hydrogen is/are cheap, light, small and rapidly rechargeable, no one will care about efficiency. They will only care about styling and utility. I look forward to seeing the exotic vehicles that will appear after we’ve fully converted to renewable sources of energy.

I would have thought that the best way to enable long distance touring in the Roadster and Model S is to design a REEV (Range Extended Electric Vehicle) trailer. This would be a trailer with a small (Smat Car?) engine and fuel tank attached to a generator with a special trailer plug that talks directly to the PEM. If you used a flat 4 (Subaru?) motor you could even have extra luggage space on top.
You could hire this from Tesla when you wanted to go touring and place your roadster into a 4′th mode REEV. The ICE would then turn on at a pre-determined battery level and top-you-up as you drive giving almost a whole day of highway cruising.
Has Tesla Motors considered this?

Why hasn’t anyone developed a generator using the rear end axal housing to contain the system? This could be a long (length) generating system that would use the movement of the wheels to generate electricity; feed to the main batteries, and if need be you could also generate electricity off the front wheels around the disc brake system. Presently these are concepts; but doable. Just braingas with some possibilities.

This topic of range, and people’s reactions to it (in this and other forums), is really fascinating. We have a Maxima and a Quest van. My max has 143K on it and i the past few years I have taken maybe 4 trips longer than 200 miles in it. The van is newer - maybe 45K on it - and we have taken 4 or 5 trips in it as well. So the question is “would I be willing to rent a car for those 8 or 9 trips in order to have a ZEV for all other driving situations?” The answer is absolutely, undoubtedly, resoundingly YES. That is such a small price to pay that it is hardly even a factor in my decision making process. As for range during aggressive driving, an EV performs exactly like a gas-powered car: if you rag on it, your mileage is worse. This has been the same since the invention of the ICE, but all of the sudden it’s a big deal? An EV isn’t for everyone. Complaining about these shortcomings is like complaining about the trunk space of a Lamborghini or the skid pad rating of a suburban.

hi there
i have not seen the TG program on the Tesla but i did see the one with the Ford GT that Clockson actually bought, i think that had a range of about 75 miles on the test track, surely 55 miles (73% of the Fords range) from the Tesla is outstanding and only helps to confirm its viability as a performance electric car.

Dave Fisher, Tesla Roadster does not burn oil. Generating electricity **might** burn oil, and manufacturing some parts might, but car itself doesn’t. So it is not false to say that Roadster does not burn oil.

Additionally even if we just plain start burning gasoline in power plants generated electricity would be cleaner than burning that same gasoline in cars. Even with using **only** coal to produce electricity and then drive EV with it would be cleaner than any gas engine car.

Electricity can be produced completely without oil, and soon it will. Nuclear, hydro, wind, geothermal and solar are all clean sources of electricity. In fact there is no other reason to use fossil fuels than that those are cheaper then renewable sources. Geothermal alone has potential for several thousand times world energy need, and solar is potentially practically infinite.

Please get your facts straight before making this claim again.

Elliot Boyle, those Toshiba batteries have very poor energy density, so they would be useless to electric cars, but batteries do advance and fast. If you have some university access Sciencedirect Journal of Power Sources is great place to read what is happenng in battery tech. 450Wh/kg prototype battery has been already made (LiFePO4 cathode, Si anode battery), and that isn’t best potential battery I have seen.

Re: “Burning no oil”

Dave you seem hell bent on getting Tesla to change the wording of their statement that “It burns no oil.” I don’t understand your beef?

Many purchasers of the Roadster are also buying the solar panel kit that is available and - over the course of a year - that will mean that they will purchase no electricity (for charging the vehicle). Some have already said that they are actually selling power back to the electric companies.

Of course you could REALLY stretch it and point out that polymers come from coal and/or oil so Tesla is again guilty of false statements because of the materials from which their vehicle is made.

Or there again you could just accept that “Burns no oil” is not just a figure of speech and is simply a regurgitated old chestnut.

Peter J Hedge
Victoria,
BC

Sandor: The Tesla Roadster uses a 3 phase induction motor www.teslamotors.com/blog4/?p=45 www.teslamotors.com/blog4/?p=67

Kristian Solstad wrote on December 23rd, 2008 at 2:02 am
I have not seen the specs for the high power plug what makes this charge in only 3.5 hours ? what kinda load would
this put on a power grid compared to a 240v 13 amp plug ? and how long is the charge time from a 13 amp plug ?
Tesla charger is 75A at 230V so 13A would take 3.5hrs * 75/13 = 20 hrs.
why is the high power charger not mentioned anywhere i can find in the specs or the faqs ?
Can’t answer that.
what about solar charging ? how long would charging from 12-18 volt panels take ? and at what amperage ?
forever.
would you have to wire up tons of series panels to use this realistic and not get weeks of chargetime ?
yes. you want about 10kw of panels.
see the white paper about batteries www.teslamotors.com/blog4/?p=59
Two fuses does seem extravagant, but they are different types and one comes built into the battery.
They are wired in parallel, not series in a tube. This is so if one fails, then it has minimal impact on overall performance. You are correct that if they were in a tube, series wired, one failure would make the whole tube useless. A lot of work has gone into the design to make it safe and robust.

Anatoly, you said that battery EV:s are not race cars. I say that they can be. It is only matter of how fast you can “recharge” your car. F1 fuels in about five seconds. You could make high energy density swappable primary battey pack for EV that does the same. Or you could use battery to battery charging, but then you couldn’t “recharge” quite that fast.

Question: how often does diesel-powered car goes to pitstop in Le Mans 24h race and how long does one stop take? I bet we could create EV that gets similar result as some Porsche using battery to battery charging. If not yet, then soon.

A VERY HAPPY & PROSPEROUS YEAR TO EVERYONE AT TESLA MOTORS!!!!!!!
I am hoping the new Prez. & the new year will be beneficial for Tesla…

I wrote to Elon just before Christmas, by post, awaiting reply. I have been looking at increased mileage from a different point of view. If my idea works I think it will advance electric cars dramatically. I believe that Porsche are trialling an electric 911 but the batteries and weight are enormous. I did not say too much in my letter because if it is useful then I think the Tesla would be the ideal development because of its power. On the other hand if it doesn’t work it is just another idea for the bin.
I live in London and I feel that it would sell well here.

This is probably not blog material.

Dave, you again make that false claim that BEV CO2 “manufacturing and supply process…might add up more than conventional car”. it DOES NOT. Not even close. That is very very far from true. Conventional car causes several times more pollution than BEV INCLUDING manufacturing and supply process.

So I again urge you to get your facts right before making this claim again.

You also make funny claim that renewable energy sources might not be enough for BEV:s. That is just plain silly. Like I wrote earlier geothermal alone has potential for several THOUSAND times world current use of electricity. Solar is even greater source. Only reason to stay in fossil fuels is that those are cheap.

What happens to battery prices? Well, only really rare material is lithium itself, and that is recycleable and there are way more than enough of it for world battery need, also batteries develop so where now you need to use x amount of materials you soon need x/5 amount of material. Then you only need manufacturing plants. So,yes, their prices will go down.

Even with batteries current prices you win compared to gas during car life cycle.

One question, Dave: which gas company gives you money for distributing these plain wrong informations?

This document:
www.ferdinand-motor.no/images/tesla/EuroSpec.pdf
says:
“Motor 3-phase, 4-pole electric motor, 300+ bhp peak (225+kW)…”
Is this 300+bhp/225+kW figure correct for US spec roadsters also?

Congratulations to CJ & the team
I am nearing 65 & live in Johannesburg, South Africa. For as long as I can remember I have dreamed that one day a competitive
battery driven vehicle would be built.
You guys have made my dreams & others become a reallity. What you have achieved is fantastic. The lines are just beautiful, the technology cutting edge, something all enthusiasts will be proud of.
Keep up the good work, forget the nay-sayers, you are the future
Ray Bailey

To Timo, who asked me:
” which gas company gives you money for distributing these plain wrong informations?”

Gas companies BAD. Electric car companies GOOD.
I thought it was clear that I am speculating, hence I say: “manufacturing and supply process…might add up more than conventional car”. “might”
Far from offering facts (I’m not an expert on any of this), rather I am trying to encourage sober thought and careful research before jumping on the bandwagon.

You seem to be offering as absolute fact that the electric pollutes far less than the conventional car. You may be right. I’ve heard arguments of both sides of the electric vs internal combustion argument. In the controversy over whether the Hummer is actually less polluting than the Prius, “dust to dust”, computer models predict the Prius should pollute less than the Hummer. It would be interesting to see what the prediction would be comparing the Prius with a gas-efficient conventional car in the same weight class. EPA rated the Prius at 55 MpG. Consumer Reports says the Prius figures are 20% higher than actual. In fact I’ve never gotten more than 45 MpG. The VW Golf gets 38 MpG, not too far behind. Should we dismiss the possibility conventional cars can be made just as low polluting as electrics, just because they have a tailpipe?

No question the electric car gets better mileage. However, the burden of proof is on the engineers, manufacturers, electric power companies and battery recyclers, that electric cars will significantly reduce greenhouse gasses globally.

It seems the electric car was killed by the combined forces of big oil, Detroit and deregulation, involving deceit and misleading marketing. Those forces see “Burns no Gas” as an affront. If threatened, they might try to tear apart such a statement, and could easily do so. They are grand masters of marketing. Don’t hand them the opportunity. Do more than just figure out how to sell an electric car to the conventional consumer interested in protecting the environment. Present irrefutable facts based on actual data. Now there’s an innovative marketing strategy!

- Dave

when will you guys be in the East Coast?

To answer my own question about MPG vs GPM is this site, which states the case for
measuring gallons/fuel per X miles to compare vehicles

www.mpgillusion.com/

Apparently, stating consumption this way makes it clear that removing inefficient vehicles is
much more effective than improving efficiency in overall energy usage (hence the illusion).

Whatever the facts of EV versus Petrol/Diesel powered cars.We need to focus on the fact that oil might run out sooner than we think.So we are then faced with the dilemma of how we produce all of the other items that sustain our ever demanding lifestyles that are products of oil.
Can we think of any modern product that are not made or produced from oil !!!!!
Our life has been subsidised by oil for generations -Without oil this planet could not sustain the current population.
The arguments are not purely “Green” - they should be about conservation of a precious resource. it is interesting that the oil rich nations are building nuclear power plants -they know that one day it will run out and they are being prudent and building for the future.
What I am trying to say is that we need oil but lets give other technologies the investment that has been given to the I.C.E( internal combustion engined ) car manufacturers.
Governments are at last seeing the light and creating an environment where the gas guzzlers are taxed out of existence. Tesla have proven that it is possible to build a sports car that is fun to drive without consuming vast quantities of oil.
The other fact that is dis-regarded when folk go on about the oil being used to produce the electricity to charge E.V is that often the car batteries will be re-charged overnight on off- peak electricity as it used to be called.This is the electricity that is being produced regardless of demand when most people are asleep. I know that there will be people saying that this is ramped down at night tomatch demand but the generators are still running!
Let us embrace new technology -Those who don’t evolve end up extinct . Future generations will curse us for squandering all the oil reserves.
E.V’s are getting there and the I.C.E car manufacturers are worried and so they should be!

About Prius efficiensy :

Efficiensy increase in Prius comes from regenerative braking - basically reuse of energy from brakes or from going downhill. But on the other hand constant use of electricity on large scale during driving introduce extra energy conversion with associated losses.

So we have a balance of two factors with reletive significance determined by driving pattern. If you are driving mostly on freeways and do not use brakes almost completely regenerative braking would not be used but energy losses of electric transmission would still be playing. Under that conditions it is hard to see how Prius could make better mileage.
But for example for taxi driving with many starts/stops because of traffic ligths and just random but short commutes advantages of regenerative braking make it much more efficient.
Basically such dependence on driving pattern makes it harder to compare just mpg numbers introducing wide variety of opinions about Prius efficiensy.

One question i think might be worth thinking about. When we are freewheeling down a hill -presumably the regenerative braking is happening in an electric car due to the fact that the power is not applied and the motors act as generators. This will have an effect on distance travelled as any kinetic energy is tranferred to the battery with associated losses. Has anyone considered if by declutching and rolling down the hill it might be possible to travel further (obviously without recharging battery).
Basically what I mean is:- does the regen energy produced + distance travelled using this regen energy = distance that could be achieved by just freewheeling down a long hill.
Anyone knows that by throttling off when driving down a hill declutching and rolling saves petrol. Could this be employed in an electric car with some clever electronics to disengage drive during certain conditions. i do not know the answers but it might be worth exploring.Perhaps an economy mode switch?

mark,
The Roadster has regeneration on the ‘gas’ pedal. This means that when you let off the pedal, it goes to a neutral point and if you let it off even more, regen kicks in. At the neutral point, the electric motor freewheels and produces no drag and no thrust, just like declutching an ICE (Internal Combustion Engine). This allows you to determine whether you are freewheeling or using regenerative braking by simply backing off on the ‘gas’ pedal.
As you surmise, regeneration isn’t generally as efficient as just letting kinetic energy build up through speed. There is, of course a speed where the air drag losses exceed the losses of regeneration. Therefore, for optimal efficiency, one would use regeneration if there was a maximum speed that you don’t want to exceed and there is probably a speed at which you should probably start using regen to maintain since you wouldn’t store much additional kinetic energy anyway. I don’t know where that speed is but from JB’s graphs above, its probably around 90 to 100 mph.

How about powering the PGE grid to a special lane on the freeways, that would transfer electricity by direct contact or induction as the car travels in the lane. The power would be transfered by a dropdown induction coil or drag unit that would induce energy by the movement of the car from the center cable / or copper grid, to the vehicle for charging as it traveled. With the car moving along in the special freeway lane, a large induction coil moving along close to the power cable or copper center rail, would charge the car. These charging lanes can be installed very cheaply on the special lane, and could extend throughout the state. The vehicles could enter and leave these lanes as needed along the freeways. Induction coil technology would be ideally used for this process, and the technology is available today off the shelf. This would be much better, and cheaper than battery stations everywhere, and would charge right off the grid as the car moves.

Underground high voltage induction cable that charged the vehicle as the car moved could be installed as well.

ron w/

I don’t see future in battery swapping model. That would require that batteries for all cars are similar and no new inventions in battery tech happens, which for now is just opposite. Of course you can make “Tesla Model S -battery swapping station” but how would you make this financially viable? There will never be enough “Type S” -cars in close proximity of swapping station to make that profitable. Even that Tesla will be first in business, there are others that follow, and I would be VERY surprised if they had same configuration as Tesla for their batteries. What you would end up with is station with several full battery packs for each model year and each model type and each manufacturer for it to be able to service all that come to get new batteries. Batteries also lose capacity over time, so that is another loss for that model.

What you are using in EV is electricity, not batteries. Swapping batteries is like swapping gasoline tank. What you should do is to figure out how to make battery to battery recharging using high voltages safe. Some batteries can be recharged in just few minutes, so it only depends how high in voltages and amps you can go safely to make battery recharging fast. 15-30 minutes for 100-200kWh battery pack should be considered fast for a car that _only_ uses those stations during very long road trips. That would require 2000V 200A charging system.

Battery to battery recharging model is cheaper (basically same components, only a lot cheaper because you need only one big cheap stationary battery instead of multitude of expensive car batteries), can be used with any battery tech that will ever be invented, and can be used without any standard battery model, only recharging connection would require standardization.

leo wrote on January 11th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
I live in Stuttgart, around the corner from the main railway station. I want to travel to Munich

If you look at JB’s table above the Tesla uses around 280WH/mile or so at 65MPH (110Km\h) the Tesla with a 55kWh battery would theoretically go (55000/280) = 196 Miles or 315Kms. A quick calaculation of the distance between Stuttgart and Munich Railway stations comes up with about 200Km.
Looks like even with hills you would be able to do this trip without problems.

CM: how would you make battery swapping station profitable? Car batteries cost something like five times as much as stationary cheap battery where battery to battery charging could be made. Also who would allow swapping to older versions of their car batteries? I bet no-one. It severely hurts battery development. You would need to have always that latest design in battery swapping station _with_ all older designs too. Are you planning to keep this same design for potentially 10-15 years? Just plain shape of the swappable battery is a restriction that there should not be.

Getting different EV companies to choose same battery design would prove to be impossibility. Tesla has their own design, Fisker theirs, etc. That would lead to multitude of different designs. What kind of standard would you choose? Where to put it in 18-wheeler and roadster? How to swap that? How about some more exotic work vehicle? Bike? How about having old type S batteries and then going in swapping station to get five times better batteries? How much would you pay for those batteries? What if you don’t want to pay anything extra, and you are satisfied with your current batteries? What if you go to place where there is no _your company_ battery swapping stations? What then?

Battery swapping is like swapping gas tank. It just doesn’t make any sense when you can fast recharge your car using electricity. Just standard three-phase high-amp connector could charge Roadster-size battery pack in something like half a hour, and you can go much higher voltages safely. Those charging stations would be used only by long-range road trips so if you wait for half a hour every eight hours to get your car charged it isn’t that bad. Get a cup of coffee while waiting. Electricity is cheap and people charge their cars at their homes, so getting those stations profitable is a challenge. You can make them profitable only by attaching other services to them. Like restaurants.

Hi everybody.

I am reading these forums for quite some time but I rarely write something. The thing made me write now are the charts and the data provided by Tesla. Guys this is gold mine for me, I like all the technical stuff and all the calculations that can be made. Here are some of my thoughts.

1. Forget already about Battery Swapping and powered roads. It just CANT be made now. May be in 20-50 years we can have power roads, swapping batteries is totally not viable so stop proposing it almost every day.
2. Although the main problem of the battery cars is the range achievable, I think the bigger problem is the recharging. The more range you put to your e-car the more Kw/h you will need to recharge it and we are getting to BIG numbers here. even 50 kw/h in 10 mins is so hard to do, imagine bigger battery packs (when new batteries are developed). Until we figure this out there are 2 paths for EV’s

1. Keep the recharging at home and hopefully the range is enough for you. (Even 100 kw/h battery pack could be recharged in about 8-12 h at home). That would mean you have to reach destination before battery depleted
2. Make the EV’s consume less energy for mile. Thats the hard part but I think there are things that can be considered here and the benefits are great. As we can all see from the charts the Aerodinamic drag is the greatest force you need to overcome at highway speeds. So any breakthrough or new designes there will bring fruits for the EV’s. I can think of some right now. Some Italian designer removed all screen wipers and used a glass that is repelling water so the water just slides during raining. That only brings down the drag by 5%.
Another things are small but still improving like incorporated door handles, flat underbody (which is easy achievable by EV), I even saw a concept of a car which roof was lowering if there is only one passenger in the car making the car lower and with lower Aerodinamic profile.
Another thing I saw lately was a breakthrough in the Aerodinamic models and simulations. Some MIT scientists figured out the 3d simulation for fluids which can bring to new inventions that reduce Aerodinamic drag.
Thats the correct way all EV’s should orient by my opinion. Efficiency.

Another thing I noticed is that Auxiliary takes about 200Wh energy (even with no lights no AC, no blowers etc). I am guessing this energy is going for the battery pack cooling and on board computers, dashboard etc. If you use batteries that doesn’t need managing that will lower the Auxiliary power needed. You can also take advantage of the latest electronics, and use for example ULV processors and parts for the computers. You can use more effective LED lights in future, you can use PV paint on the car for additional power from the sun.

All these problems make me think that in the future cars will be smaller, more compact and highly efficient. May be we will see a lot of 2 seat cars (one behind another), making the profile of the car half size thus allowing not only 2 vehicles using 1 lane but also reducing the power needed to travel at highway speeds almost in half.

We cant make a global Electric power stations in just few years, that’s not very hard to figure out. However we can see a lot of new EV vehicles released in the next 2-5 years (may be hundreds). So instead of thinking how to make global recharging stations (which is unbeliavably expensive) we better start thinking out of the box and use every idea we have. Because Every Wh energy counts, and the more EV’s are out there the more Electricity we will need and we need to compensate it somehow or add it to our calculations.

May be in near future we will all have 2 vehicles. One small 2 seater (one behind other) city vehicles which will double the density in the cities and one family saloon car for the long trips. The 2 seaters will also greatly help with the parking problem all Europe and I am sure all the world is suffering. And the cars will get more and more (as the people get more and more)

At the end of this long write up I want to wish you all a good health for the new 2009 and let it bring us some great inventions and products that we can use sooner.

Thank you

About battery swapping :

In the consumer electronics we could see something like video compression standards for example common for all the products. So nothing prevents to set a standard of voltage, sustained power and peak power for a battery pack regardless with what flavor of Li-ion or NiMh battery chemistry is utilized. Geometry of battery pack may be standardized too including mechanical and electrical sockets. The only difference between battery packs in that case based on chemistry would be total capacity. Sure it could be created a market to make different battery packs by different manufacturers according to standards like these.
Based on the same set of standards different EV could be made. It is possible to modularize the standard so that by using say 1 to 4 modules all the differences in total energy capacity requirement between cars could be covered.
Altogether assuming set of standards is maintained and some significant number of BEV hit the road it appears that we have a model in which we could put any battery pack into any BEV making logistics of battery swapping no so bad as you described.

In terms of business model we could assume that all the battery packs are the property of some big business company. This would be legally similar to how people use Microsoft software under Windows. Microsoft stays the onwer of the software and just lease some installation and use rights to cistomers paying money for that software. So you end up with the model in which you buy the service to replace your battery pack with some energy capacity by another battery pack with bigger energy capacity stored in it. It is feasible to develop some algorithm how much that should cost you. For example it would be a fixed charge for single battery module swap. It would be also cost per kWh of extra energy you got by such swap. I guess it should be also a history of recharges stored in the microcontrollers of the battery pack and readable by some standard protocol. Time of keeping battery pack from previous swap would be also taken into account similarly via microcontroller of the battery pack itself.

As long as you trickle charge at home or any other way you do not pay for battery pack swapping. But otherwise with swapping of leased packs questions of battery life limitations, slow charge and other complications of batteries could be solved in a way that regular BEV drivers should not handle them much. They would pay services for swapping batteries and they are allowed to trickle charge batteries without swapping as many times as they like. Both of these modes of usage seems would solve most of the logistical issues related to batteries including slow recharge.

Having battery swapping stations based on described common standards arranged together with car rental services near airports would expose many people to BEV driving without forcing them to spend a lot of money for “scary new technology”. Same centers could provide services to park BEV for a day or few days. In that case you BEV would be stored without battery pack reducing fee for keeping that pack inside without use etc.

Under all described conditions battery swapping appears to become become fairly routine operation and questions of battery pack design, age etc would be solved by the fact that battery pack is not the car driver property. Sure it exist a question of mechanically robust sockets to fix heavy pack in the car and many other questions. Sure it exist a question of customer acceptance of described use model in general. Sure it exist a question of defining all the right standards I mentioned enabling the model.

But just in general I do not see that answers to all these questions are so certain and obvious that anyone could definitely exclude battery swapping as a potentially reasonable option for BEV. May be this would be the way to go to get rid of oil but still keep conveniences of personal transportation.

Has any thought been given to using micro capacitors instead of batteries. They don’t have capacity loss over time, can release their energy more quickly, can be charged more quickly and so on… Also has any thought been given to dividing up the baqttery into sections that can be removed for less weight or added for greater distance or replaced individually to lower replacement cost, or even have a spare set that you can swap out, so the car is always charged for emergencies?

Dan, capacitors, even ultracapacitors, have a much lower energy density than even lead acid batteries. A capacitor bank big enough to store the same 53 Kwh that the Roadster battery holds would weigh about 6 tons and be the size of a semi truck trailer. Also, because of the low energy density, the cost per Kwh stored would be much higher.

Dividing up the battery pack into removable modules wasn’t considered for the Roadster, due to the cooling requirements of the battery, and also because a smaller battery offers less power - not good for a sports car! There is a possibility a modular battery pack might be used for future models, if certain technical problems are solved and it proves to be practical.

I have some things that have been on my mind since the gm electric car was killed in the 90’s . 1. Why not put a generator of sufficant size on an electric car connected to the drive train so as the wheels turn ( dams have been useing this technology for more then my or your lifetime ) it will be charging the battery by creating eletricity giving the car an almost unlimited distance . Safegards could could easily be put into place to keep the battery from being overcharged . This to me seems elementery . 2. As far as the overheating problem with batteries that I have read about real or not , why not devlop a battery cooling technology . Heat rises draw the heat off the top of the battery is one suggestion . wrapping the battery is anther possible suggestion or both working together . Disregared if you already have a cool battery technology . Better battery tech is always being devloped . 3. Make the recharge connection compatable with existing tech such as sumething as simple as a 440 plug for your home if you do not have that now . I have ideas all yhe time some good some not , and i’m always available at this e-mail address . If you have any questions . I really really want to see this car and your company succeed . By the way have you capitalized your compavy , and is your company on the NYSE , and whay are your call letters , and your exact company name . Thanks John Hill

I live in Lansing, Michigan. On Wed., Jan. 21, 2009, I had the pleasure of meeting a gentleman (at the dentist office) & in our conversation, he told me that his son is an electrical engineer for your company. This gentleman’s name is Paul, I do not know his last name. We had a great conversation, and I think he was surprised that I was aware of Tesla…….

My significant other and I have both been laid off from our employment and are looking to relocate, hopefully to California. We check the employment site often, and are very interested/pleased with your manufacturing success………..

We remain - Stuck in Michigan for now. Thank you.

I have become interested in learning more about this fantastic car after seeing it on an episode of Future Car. I believe that the Tesla offers some real insight and potential for future automotive development. However, despite the real advantages offered by the Li-on batteries, what is to come in future battery production; speaking in more readily available materials, that will allow further range, lifespan, use, and development. Certainly, as technology and scale of economy comes into play, the cost will come down; but it seems the biggest factor in future development remains the materials required to produce batteries. What real world alternatives may come into play to aid expansion and increased use of electric vehicles?

Additionally, many have posed thoughts of extending range, or aiding charging via use of petroleum based power plants; what about the addition of a small biodiesel engine to assist in extending battery range by either taking over active devices during high demand conditions, such as blower motors, audio, and lighting? Perhaps even providing a small charging capability to extend range, if only a matter of a couple miles, to reach a recharging station?
Added benefit to this could also be the use of a heat exchanger to aid cockpit/battery heating in cold climate conditions which would aid reducing the demands on vehicle batteries as it could provide the power to it’s own electric fan, boosting it own efficiency. It also helps to keep the Tesla highly independent of petroleum based products, and fuel could be obtained at any supermarket.

These are thoughts and don’t diminish the accomplishment of this vehicle. Since my interest has be piqued, I would love to own one of these; I just have to wait until I can afford one.

how do the chargers cope with different supplies ?
are they adjustable or made for a certain amps/volt ?
dc-dc/ac converters could charge from pretty much
any electric source even solar panels if you have plenty
of them. (anything over 3-4000 watts should be nice)
wind mills could also charge the batteries with free electricity
would be neat to have a charger adjustable for any voltage 12 volts or more
although the 200+ amps would be a challenge on the parts
Perhaps a 48-240 volts charger ?

I am concerned about the high rpms for the motor, most gas or diesel motors
max out about 5-6000 rpms, would not 13.000 rpms wear out the motor parts faster
what is the epected lifespan for a motor ?

what if the dc-dc power supplies in the battery burns out ? thats the most likely unit to fail,
would that toast the whole battery pack or is it an easy swap to replace this ?
shorts in the dc-dc powers/diodes is the only real issue i see with the battery which would blow out the fuse
for a whole module, hopefully that can be repaired easy ?
can blown fuses in the battery be replaced easy ?
to me a design plus would be easy to change dc-dc powers and fuses for the module packs without having to dissect the whole pack.

what is the cost of the battery since it needs replacing every few years ?

About electric race-cars they do exist, one used about 6000 cells wired in panels
that could be quickly yanked out and replaced. to make the guiness record they had
to finish 2 round-trips in under an hour and had to replace all the cells for each run

What is the Tesla’s body constructed of?

I am surprised that the new Roadster Sport doesn’t have improved batteries, at least as an option. The existing batteries are 18650 form factor 2.2AH and although much more expensive, there are better batteries available such as industrial.panasonic.com/www-cgi/jvcr13pz.cgi?E+BA+3+ACA4001+NCR18650+7+WW which are Panasonic’s NRC18650 rated at 2.9AH. Since they are the same form factor, building battery packs with these should be easy. The software for control and charging would have to be changed. For those who can afford it, this would offer a 31% increase in range.

The LED-daydriving-lights of the Brabus TeslaRoadster should be standard - especially for the european version with some countries which permits to turn on lights also in bright daylight. There they not only look cool but as a “side effect” actually enhance range!

All those numbers are great, but what about up here in Minnesota. It gets -40 in the winter and having your car stop in between two towns is not a great way to start your day. How many miles up here?

Formerly on long trips you used horses and when they were tired you changed them. Could you do the same thing with your Tesla either change after say 150 miles to another Tesla or another battery or charge your Tesla fast (3-phase) at a chargingplace for an hour while taking a meal or just relax? You must not be in a hurry all life!
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Phil Johnson.

Yes it would (work well). Car has been tested in Sweden for cold climate and how well it behaves in slippery roads.

Heater is (if I recall correctly) 3000W unit, but it wouldn’t need to run with full power very long to heat air in small cabine, seat heaters less than 100W and headlights on would consume another less than 100W so you would have reduced range, less than that promised 200 miles, but it should still be sufficient for 125 miles: battery pack is 53kWh battery, so car uses about 53000*60/200 = approx 16kW / h so with all accessories running at full power you would be using about 17-19 kW /h instead. That gives you about 190-160 mile range. At summer that would be pretty much same situation, only cooling. Using these appliances is not out of performance, just range.

125 miles is about 70% of full battery capacity, so with home recharging unit that would be approx two and half hour to recharge, or 37kW with about 90% efficiency from just about any outlet (depends of voltages and amps you can get out from it).

For me I want to see an Electric car that can do 600km in the depths of winter and the hieghts of summer. If I can get that I will have sufficient range to do all but my longest trips without recharging (I don’t see charging stations in Algonquin Park or the Gov’t dock near my relative’s cottage appearing any time soon). The first electric car that can do that for less than $60,000 Canadian dollars will get my attention and its manufacturer will probably get my money.

Cablechewer wrote:
## For me I want to see an Electric car that can do 600km in the depths of winter and the hieghts of summer.

It doesn’t take long. Best batteries today already offer that range if used like batteries in Roadster battery pack are used (but they cost more). Soon you might get 1000km range with half the price if battery tech advances like it seems to do.

I too require about 700-800 km range, or charging stations, before I seriously consider getting EV. Just small city car or expensive toy like Roadster is not enough to me.

I don’t like the idea of swappable batteries. At least not before someone can prove to me that it is viable system marketwise in long term (meaning 10 or more years). Especially when you can do pretty much that same cheaper with battery to battery charging where you transfer only electricity which is constant and non-changeable.

Hello JB,

A power saver for your energy input/output ratio models: 50% less juice for the same amount of Rock’n Roll in your Tesla whilst cruising the CA streets at:

www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/permalink/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20090210006226&newsLang=en

Cheers,
/peo

Hello Tesla guys!

I have a little offtopic question.
What PCD and OFFSET does the forged Tesla Roadster rims have?
Maybe they are fitting for my car.

Best regards.
Christian

I have read articles that say that maybe you, or someone who wants to set up a business off of your car, by setting up a station that will change out the batt. and get you back on the road, on your trip. That way you can drive around on your trip and not have to wait every 200 miles while your batt. gets charged up. You will normally charge up at home, but if on a trip, you will change out the batt.
If the above is all true, do you have people ready to move on this idea?
Also, if you want a test site, we are retired and will volenteer to ues your car and drive all over Minnesota and test it out. I am a retired Sub Sailor who has done 3M and SUBSAFE. Sandie does paperwork even better then I do. We will be able to deal with all of the paperwork to show how your car stands up.

RawSteel, you have few facts wrong. First of all you don’t need one feet cable for 200kW, you would, if you use low voltage and high amps. Normal household three-phase 100A connection cable is way smaller than that, and gives you about 40kW connection. What requires thick cables is amps, not volts, so if you increase volts you can have that same cable serving five times that wattage. 100A 2000V would be nearly same cable thickness except that you need better insulation. 200A 1000V makes that same thing but cable needs twice the copper. You only need to solve how to make 1000V connection safely. Because normal three-phase is already about 400 Volts that’s not hard thing to do.

200kWh battery pack would be useful, even for longer trips. Just calculate how long you need to drive to get it drained. That 200kWh equals about 800 mile range. With _average_ 60mph (which will almost never realize) that is 13 hour drive. Not many of us are willing to drive that long without stopping for food and sleep over. You could stop for food and charge say 50kW connection for a hour at about every 400 miles (6.30 hour drive) and extend you range to 1000 miles, which gives you second hour stop at 800 miles which extends it further to 1200 miles. You time in the road is extended by two hours. 1200mil / 60 mph is 20 plus those two hours: 22 hours. You have only 24 hours a day, so I would be looking for nights sleep at that time. Eight hour sleep charging with low 25kW (normal three-phase with 65A fuses) and you have full battery pack at the morning.

Of course 200kWh is slightly overkill. 600mile range would be enough for almost all which would equal about 150kWh battery.

You don’t need power station, just battery to battery charging for high wattage charger. Changing batteries is worse. You would need that same amount of power to charge those swap-batteries / car served, and those car batteries cost a lot.

About small and big cars. Efficiency calculations there need to include people carried. It is true that you lose a lot if you use big SUV to transport one person, but for energy usage it would be most efficient to use train or a bus full of people. Small cars will not solve traffic jams even that they would have lower cost to drive / car. Tesla model S with four people on board would be more energy efficient than Roadsters two even with only 75% range.

You wont get much bigger drag with bigger car as long as it is aerodynamically shaped. It is the car frontal area times cars drag coefficient that matters, and car frontal area doesn’t actually get much bigger for aerodynamic five-seater than it does to two-seater. In fact you might easily get lower drag coefficient with larger car, which in turn makes that difference even smaller. What _does_ increase is rolling resistance, but that has more to do with weight than with size. You can’t get much smaller than Roadster for frontal area but you might be able to lower the drag coefficient quite a bit. Roadster does actually have quite a bit drag coefficient, it is far from perfect for that.

Roadster does not have real gearbox. It does have one “gear” with very low energy consumption. Roadster drivetrain is pretty much optimal for a sportcar with single high power engine (hub-motors are worse for high-power car). For 4WD Range Rover -kind of car hub-motors would be _very_ nice, but for normal family car they are not that good. There are few very promising hub motor designs, but not good enough for now. At least that is what I have let people to tell me.

(one tiny thing that bothers me in your writing and I just need to say it: it is “kWh”, not “kW/h”)

Timo,

correct on the
kwh = energy
kw = power

not really sure what the kw/h designates, maybe just a typo.

Ken;
In a word, no. You’d be using more electricity to generate less. Not smart.

With the work being done by companies such as Fulton Innovation, WiPower, and Powercast, how long before we see the dreams of Tesla realized? Wouldn’t it be great to have induction grids or RF transmitters installed beneath our roadways supplying Tesla Roadsters (and hopefully a wide array of other choices) with all the power (and range) they need?

Li-ion Batteries permanently lose capacity with time, the amount lost depends on the storage conditions, i.e. temperature and charge percentage.

What loss percentage is estimated for the Tesla’s battery pack over the years?

Timo wrote on March 2nd, 2009 at 2:43 pm
RawSteel have you seen TopGear episode where they drove three-wheeled motorcycle and car mix?

Timo someone else is already doing that. See www.flytheroad.com

New battery tech to reduced charge times by 18 times with no loss of capacity.

Full article here news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7938001.stm.

The news that came out this past week said that the new tech. on batt. will allow you to re-charge your, Tesla Motors, battery in 5 minutes. . . from you pushing the car to the re-charge station, to cooking out of there at 140mph in under 5 minutes.
Now all we need is to set up places to re-charge. I think that every 200 miles of driving you pull over and re-charge for 5 minutes is faster then we are now with gas engines.
Phil

Mr. Strubel/Musk:

Have you considered installing air intakes with two or more small fans attached to a generator to recharge the battery while the car is in motion? It seems that the wind pushing against the vehicle could be put to good use.

Larry

I am a high school student writing an electric car blog. I have several questions regarding electric cars and Tesla vehicles in particular.

1. I would think wide tires on the Tesla Roadster would help with lateral acceleration, but have you calculated the efficiency/ range loss v. using narrower tires?

2. What is the total weight and lifespan of the Roadster batteries and can they be recycled?

3. I live in Maine and was wondering about the loss of battery power and range between freezing and -10 or -20 degrees F?

4. If Tesla makes a car all-wheel drive, how much efficiency/range might be lost?

5. Has Tesla tested the safety of these cars to passengers and first responders after they have been damaged in accidents, and how great is the risk of electrocution?

Thank you very much.

Liam M.

Nathanael: I think headlights, heaters etc. don’t cut your range much (maybe about 5%-10% max), but icy and wet road surface might do worse. That increases rolling resistance quite a bit and those Yokohama low resistance tires would be hazardous to use on icy road. Haven’t calculated, but I bet someone has experimented that. You might lose something like 20% of max range in worst case.

Liam Mullen: for point five: Tesla has fully crash-tested their cars, and their ESS cuts all power off in case of accident. Electrocution danger is probably less than burning in gasoline fire. Tesla Roadster has also been in real-life accidents (just look at google) and it turns out to protect their passengers very well.

Larry Troutman: any wind turbines in front generate more wind resistance than they generate electricity, so those would be worse than useless. There is no free energy.

I have been intersted in your car design since i heard about on npr. Reading about this car and the state of the art tec. you are using i thinkit is great. I do have an idea if usable have you though about scaveging what from the moter and using it to help heat the car. Just a thought Terry Pokorny

First question why don’t you use Lithium-titanate batteries? Second question, why don’t you use in-wheel motors? It would dramatically reduce some 30%-40% power loss due to the need of mechanical transmission. By placing in-wheel motors you get rid of both extra weight and gear mechanical transmission power loss, thus increasing efficiency. Theoretically this would also extend range / charge. Also, the Lithium-titanate battery would drastically speed up the re-charge process.

I don’t know how long Lithium-titanate battery have been around, i suspect they’ve been around for some time, seeing as the company that makes them is 50 years old. It may be that you were trying to save costs for the consumer. I think I heard a figure of the battery costing $100,000. If so I can readily see how the could be a sticking point.

I know that in-wheel motors have been around for at least a century though. I could only assume that investors were wanting a very quick turn around from investment time to production time.

If these questions have already been discuss don’t hesitate to contact me and inform me of my wicked ways.

Kevin Cardinale

Las Vegas DUI Lawyers Yes I have a vested interest in your success. Come hell or high water, my next car will be all electric.

Thanks so much for the link to the data. I’ve been scouring the web for data like this for my master’s research project, and this hit the spot. I love the openness with which Tesla conducts business - it is so hard to even get a drag coefficient out of the likes of Honda and Ford.

Way to go, and best of luck with the “S”-

AP

Kevin Cardinale: In-wheel motors may reduce transmission losses about 30% of less than 5% what it is now. So you end up with 3% energy loss instead of 5%. No big deal. In-wheel motors are weaker and less efficient than Tesla one motor solution so you would actually lose some efficiency. Weight is also not a issue here, transmission + shafts don’t weight much.

What could be useful is in-wheel motors in front wheels and single motor in back. In that way you could get better regenerative braking energy recovery and add some power to car.

Battery charging speed is really not limited by batteries, you can’t fast charge 50+kWh battery pack very fast unless you have nuclear power plant at home. 50kWh needs with (un)usual 100A fuse 500V in order to charge it in a hour. Pretty much any modern battery can be charged in a hour. What should be looked at are energy density, safety and price of the batteries.

Roy, what range do you think is the breakpoint for EV making ICE obsolete? You mention 800 miles in your answer to Kevin.

I think it is 600 miles. That means 10 hour drive with 60mph average speed. If you need to drive longer you need charging station, but I think for that half hour or even one hour charging for additional 200+ miles is fast enough (you take one hour brake in driving while car is charging). That would give you that 800 mile range with ~14 hour driving (14.20 to be exact).

For 1kWh/kg energy density that 600 miles means something like 180-200kWh battery for ordinary sedan assuming ~300Wh/mile with 60mph average speed.

That would weight then about that 180-200kg and take space about same as 100liter gas tank or less. That is small enough that combined weight of battery + engine + transmission + controlling units + cooling takes less space and weights less than ICE + transmission + gas tank.

I think that long-haul truckers need charging stations that work as restaurants as well. Those can then be used with normal sedans too. When truckers change to BEV ICE is gone for good.

I’ve seen the car perform and it’s really a step in the right direction for cars
I was wondering if anyone thought of using a air ram to charge the car as it’s being driven
they are a safety feature in the airbus planes maybe it would be a way to increase the range of the car

A few words about range and fast charging.

1. Energy density and range - article about future batteries chemistry : www.batteriesdigest.com/lithium_air.htm. The theoretical energy density is 3.6 KWh / kg (while the practical estimations are 25% of this ). The 0.9 KWh/ kg increases a Roadster range by 5 times to 1220 miles.

2. Fast charging - fast charging of Roadster battery ( e.g. in 10 minutes ) requires a 300 KW. In case of several vehicles charging simultaneously the power required can be a problem for potential charging locations. But there are several technologies that can provide enough power by using some kind of accumulation, e.g. using flyweels as it used in this www.pentadyne.com/site/our-products/technology.html

I was curious as to whether this technology could be used to power a vessel on the water. Say the vessel is large enough to carry two sets of batteries, (50 ft in length, with hydrofoil capacity,) and has a small generator on board to recharge the batteries not in use at the time. (For instance using the port batteries while the starboard batteries are being charged by the small generator, and vice versa.) Understandably there are different forces at work on water than on land, but is this conceivable to say building a 100 ft aluminum hulled vessel with the hydrofoil capability to moving swiftly over the water at speeds in excess of 86 knots with twin propulsion drives such as this, and how much larger would these motors have to be? With each motor attached to a dual propeller drive system such as say Volvo’s IPS system has.

I just got my latest Nature volume and it had quite interesting article about magnetism that makes possible to build “spin batteries” that convert magnetic energy directly to electric energy.

However that article is somewhat difficult to understand. It is like reading a script of new Star Trek movie where “particle of a day saves the day”. If someone here understands what is being said in there in plain English (meaning potential Wh/kg or W/kg or something like that) I would very much like to have translation for dummies.

Full article is here: www.nature.com/nature/journal/v458/n7237/full/nature07879.html

# Timo wrote:
## Nuclear powered big ships are all electric.

Actually I think many just use steam from the reactor to run steam turbines.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Naval_reactor
quote:
“U.S. Naval reactors are pressurized water reactors, which differ from commercial reactors producing electricity…”
“The Russian, US and British navies rely on steam turbine propulsion, the French and Chinese use the turbine to generate electricity for propulsion.”

Fukushima: Unfortunately I don’t understand Japanese, and could not find the article listed in the English section. If it is very new, then maybe it just isn’t translated yet. Lithium-Air batteries have long been known for their extremely high energy density, but only as primary batteries. That is not rechargeable. Is this new design rechargeable?

Timo: I agree with your analysis exactly. I think a battery for a car would have to be rated at 800 miles, before a driver would go 600 without anxiety The Tesla is rated at 244 miles but practical range is about 190 so for this factor, 800 -> 622 miles.

Carl Scharnhorst: Read Something for Nothing in www.teslamotors.com/blog2/?p=24 How can air ram charge be a safety feature in an Airbus?

Timo: Possibly this link will help in understanding magnetic storage www.physorg.com/news156011642.html . Can’t say that I follow it that well myself, but looks like nano-scale inductors can efficiently store and return large amounts of electricity. If you think in terms of large scale, an inductor, capacitor pair will resonate at a certain frequency and stores power while resonating. In practice the resistance in the circuit robs energy and the resonance will die to zero, but if it was made of super-conductors, it could store power for a long time.

Yes, the M-S is beautiful. With exceptional features.

A simple question, Can the vehicle be recharged whilst in motion?
If so, can’t a portable generator be mounted to a tow-bar and charge the car whilst in motion?
This really come in handy especially if you going to drive a long didtance.
Thanks.

Fukushima’s article seems to translate well enough with the Bable Fish to be able to at least get the basic gist of what is covered… it is a proposal for a new electrolyte and packaging format for a Lithium-ion battery. There are multiple markets for high energy density storage devices, so it seems reasonable to keep pushing the technology. Apparently this “discovery” is being announced next week at a Japanese energy conference, and this is sponsored in part by the Japanese government (the Japanese corporate culture is a bit weird compared to America/Europe on this point, and I think the sponsorship issue is lost in translation). It is the sort of incremental progress that I would expect for a battery manufacturer, but the amount of improvement obtained here seems a little too good to be true. Time will tell, although it looks like there are some people with some deep pockets to get this technology built if the theory holds true when scaled on a commercial basis.

The Tesla strategy is to not be dumping the money into the battery technology. There are plenty of people who are working on the next generation of battery storage devices that it would be a waste of time and money for Tesla to gamble what few dollars it has into some crazy speculative energy storage technology. The standard Lithium-ion batteries exist today, and one of the genius moves by Tesla was to take off-the-shelf Li-ion batteries and put them into a production vehicle. That is the hard part…. where alternative storage devices would certainly be capable of being swapped in for what Tesla is already using.

You want to prove your device works so well? Buy a production Tesla Roadster and put your cool little device or Mr. Fusion machine and demonstrate how you can travel from NYC to LA on a single charge. That would impress a whole lot of people. Heck, Los Angeles to Las Vegas and back would be impressive enough.

Congratulations to this blog and the Tesla-Motors-Company as well!

For me as an average German citizen the current dicussions are a little astonishing.
While you are discussing range, duration, power, effectiveness of the Tesla car on a high technical level,I would be interested in
just everyday consumer experiences, although the roadster is not comparable to an avarage family car.

For mass circulation of EV for the consumer is determing if he or she can drive to work an back, shopping or lunch in between maybe,
in city and on highway and country road as well without charging. And if one has a long distance trip, where to charge in between?
E.g. the way to work in Germany averages 1 jour drive, appr. 30 miles.
I tell this long story, because TODAY a german motor magazine (”autobild”: www.autobild.de/artikel/tesla-model-s_875572.html)
published an article about new Tesla Model S, and I thougt immideately “thats my next car!” I came to know Tesla Motors maybe 2007,
and I loved the design of the roadster, but I find roadster impractical an too expensive. But the Model S seems to become a very useful car,
it is affordabe (for european standards) and nevertheless the design is stunning!

I am displeased about the automobile industry, because they failed to develop innovative engines. Although the german brands
built very effective motors and (expensive) features like using brake energy for electricity, LED for headlights, start-stop engine and so on,
but alternative drive can hardly be found. Only LPG and Hybrid Drive (mostly in Japanese cars). So you find only few blogs
in Germany on topic. and there I find the belief that EVs still are small and ugly, or ineffective. People seem not to know (or don’t
belive?!) that an EV can drive faster than 80 mph, or longer than 2 hours! Therefore I sometimes get the impression the diffsion progress
is beeing constrained. Even the Tesla is unfamiliar to most people, or they smile about. The electric drive ist not taken serious in Europe, yet.
I would like to see Tesla go on further developing thir engine and maybe more models. And please launch your cars to Europe! (PS: why Munich?)

I love the extensive design that has gone into this. Recently I read something about the old steam engine cars. The article said that if they were designed today that with today’s technology they could be very efficient. I thought to myself that TeslaMotors can extend the distance of their vehicle with a electric/steam hybrid. If done right, it might be able to make the car run indefinitely by having the steam engine power the car and charge the batteries. It seems that everyone is stuck in the Gas/Electric hybrids; maybe it’s time to break the paradyme. Any thoughts on this?

Do you have or plan to have any licensure programs for auto repair of Tesla vehicles? As a future customer how would I ensure it’s upkeep and maintenance? Are there certified repair shops in NYC?

WOW !! I live in Miami and just got back from L.A. where I had the opportunity to test drive the Roadster. OMG it was the best experience ever. While the roadster is not practical for a family, I am excited about the new S model that is coming out. Lets see, I could buy a Chevy Volt or a Tesla Model S…let me think about that for about a 1/2 sec. BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ I choose the Tesla Model S there is no comparison. Good by GM FORD LONG LIVE TESLA MOTORS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ken: Tesla Motors decided not to make a “plug-in” hybrid, as their battery only design achieves a fairly good range, and with “less than one hour” charging could be practical even for long trips. If Tesla had decided to make a plug-in hybrid, there are many possible choices for the “range extender”, including standard piston engines, wankel engines, gas turbines, stirling engines, and steam. Of those options, steam is the least satisfactory, for automotive use steam isn’t very efficient, consuming more fuel, and car radiators are too small to condense all the steam which means frequent stops for water fill-ups.

Bruce: I imagine the air conditioning works very well. Like most hybrids on the road, the A/C is electrically powered and the compressor is completely sealed, making for a very reliable low maintenance system.

I do not understand how you can claim to get 244 miles per charge with the Roadster when GM’s volt and others are claiming 40 miles per charge with the same Lithium Ion battery technology. Where is the disconnect.

# Joe Simone: ” I do not understand how you can claim to get 244 miles per charge with the Roadster when GM’s volt and others are claiming 40 miles per charge with the same Lithium Ion battery technology. Where is the disconnect. ”

Battery size in kWh. Plain and simple. GM and some others also use weaker energy density batteries than Tesla.

GM Volt doesn’t exist yet, so it might be that it doesn’t get any miles per charge before GM goes bankrupt.

Joe Simone: The Tesla battery is more than 3 times bigger, and heavier than the Volt battery.

Joe Simone, seems that you found out yourself how big GM Volt battery is.

16kWh/375lbs = 16kWh/170kg = 94Wh/kg vs 53kWh/450kg = 117Wh/kg
16/53 = 0,301
40/244 = 0,163

Weaker energy density, and much weaker range probably because car itself has aerodynamically poor design and it has to drag along excess weight from internal combustion engine. With same design as Roadster it should have nearly 80 mile range.

I’d say that car is obsolete before it is even born.

It is interesting to see what can be done if you optimize for an all electric vehicle as is the case of the Roadster. The VOLT and other plug in hybrids are talking of a range of about 40 miles after which the internal combustion engine kicks in, and they are burdened with the extra weigh of that engine a generator and a gas tank.

You have to consider the logistics of how you replenish your charge after you exceed your vehicles range, since there are now no electrical recharging stations available. With a plugin hybrid you can always stop at a gas station. I believe the thinking is that the plug in hybrid has an unlimited range since there are gas station everywhere. If the average commute is 40 miles than all energy comes from the power grid. If the average commute is 80 miles half the energy comes from the power grid. So you have an unlimited range and an average saving of 50% to almost 100% on the use of gasoline. In the future it would be desirable to install recharging or battery swap stations. One has to consider the recharge time. It also may not be practicable to swap out a 1000 pound battery, and maybe you might prefer to keep your own battery (it may be newer).

One also has to consider that when we start getting a large amount of our vehicle power from the power grid we would have to substantially increase it capacity. Right now our electrical power is supplied from 50% coal burning, 20% natural gas and 20% Nuclear and the rest from hydro, oil, wind solar. Coal is very very dirty and clean burning coal is a long ways off. Nuclear energy would provide the cleanest form of almost unlimited electrical energy allowing us to charge our vehicles.

I have read much of this blog but have not sees any discussion concerning the development of superconductive materials and how that might affect the viability equation. One can try to increase the energy available or try to reduce the energy consumed. Is Tesla motors looking into this subject?
Bravo for all the hard work you’ve done thus far. All electric is the way to go. I am also glad to hear that EVs are viable in cold climates like Montreal.

Hallo, meine Frage in Deutsch: Wie sieht die Energie-Effizienz (Reichweite) aus, wenn im Winter Sitzheizung, Klimaanlage, Kabinenheizung und Scheinwerfer benutzt werden?
Danke!
U. Schreiber

Ken;
What boils the steam? Burning logs? Hunks of coal?
Matthew-J;
TeslaMotors will own and operate all outlets and service depots.
Joe & Timo;
The Volt is not pure electric. The other motor and its fuel make a mass and volume trade-off. It has a 1 L. 3-cylinder engine “range extender”.
Joe;
coal plant output is far lower than equivalent auto pollution per unit energy. It is far easier to work on plant smokestacks and burners. The “long tailpipe” argument is bogus.

Have you guys thought of running the AC and radio of the solar panel that could be a part of the hood. I know the look maybe bad but it could improve the range while listening to music or running the AC.

While Tesla’s achievements are laudable, there is a better solution than bigger and more expensive batteries. I’m talking free energy storage (really). Hint: gravity can be your friend. Dave Johnson, Power Zone Deployment LLC.

Here are some interesting facts regarding EV impact. The US consumes 390Million (per EIA) gallons of gasoline a day. Gasoline is mainly use for automobile travel. One gallon of gasoline contains 37Kilowatt hours of energy. This translates to the US consuming 14 Billion kilowatt hour per day in the form of gasoline for automobile travel.

Presently the US consumes (per EIA) about 10.5 Billion Kilowatts hours per day of electrical energy.

For now let us ignore the efficiency of converting “gasoline energy” to miles traveled and the efficiency of charging EV batteries and transferring the stored energy to miles traveled. These efficiency differences can’t skew the result that much. Now if we were to convert all gasoline consuming vehicles to battery operated vehicles we would need to draw another 14 Billion kilowatt hours per day from the power grid or about 2.3 times more energy than we currently draw.

Presently electrical power is supplied from 50% coal burning, 20% natural gas,20% Nuclear and 7% hydro and the rest from oil, wind and solar. I would guess the power grid probably has at about 50% extra capacity during off peak hours for charging EV batteries. That is almost what we need. However to generate full power from this underutilized equipment during off peak hours we will need to burn additional coal and natural gas. Nuclear plants probably have constant energy output. I do not think they shut them down during off peak hours. The question now is what is cleaner the coal burning portion of the electrical power grid used to charge the EV batteries or plain gasoline powered travel. . Electrical power generation from natural gas is relatively clean other than the CO2. Coal generates a lot of pollution and clean coal is a long way off:
www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/coalvswind/c02c.html
If that coal burning energy was converted over to nuclear there would be no question that the nuclear would be cleaner than gasoline powered travel. Wind and solar represent about 2% of the electrical power generated now. We have a long long way to go before it becomes a significant contributor.

There are two issues one is pollution the other is energy independence. The US uses 20Million barrels of petroleum a day. It imports 12 Million barrels of petroleum a day or 60%. About 46% of the petroleum goes into gasoline after refining. I we would consume 40% of what we do now we would be energy independent and would not need to import petroleum. Of course the US petroleum reserve is finite and have to think of the future. If we cut automobile gasoline consumption by 40 % we do not address the other 54% (100-46) of the 60% imported petroleum products derived from the refining process. Some of that is diesel fuel, heating oil, lubricants and other products.

Timo,

We currently manufacture 100hp magnetic couplers for diesel generators…mostly to eliminate torsional and harmonic vibrations. We do have geared magnetic transmissions in use in Australia, they power solar pumps in remote locations. They are pretty efficient, in fact they are 99.9% efficient in transmitting power, that is 22% more efficient than gears. And they never break down.

So far the geared transmissions are only used at around 1000 rpm - low power, but the magnet holders are only made out of plastic. If we would switch to alloy holders and stack the discs, we could easily increase the power transmitted. We have a magnetic gear box drawn on CAD and so far the static tests look good. There are a few tricks we could use too, these are still on the “hand sketches” stage but the way things are going I wouldn’t be surprised if they would actually work.

Joe Simone: There is a very serious flaw in your argument, it assumes that both gasoline engines and electric motors are equally efficient, and they most definitely are not. A car powered by an gasoline internal combustion engine has a “pump to wheel” efficiency of about 15%. A car powered by batteries and an electric motor has a “plug to wheel” efficiency of about 76%, making BEVs 5x more efficient than gassers. Note that those efficiency differences are the same regardless of size, whether it is a truck, a big SUV, a sports car, or a tiny sub-compact.

So, switching from a transportation system using 14 billion Kwh worth of gasoline per day to all electric transports that uses 1/5 as much energy means it would use only 2.8 billion Kwh per day - a much smaller increase in electrical energy demand.

Also, coal fired power plants can use efficiency boosting devices too large for automotive use, their efficiency is arount 45%. So, between the higher efficiency of generation, the higher efficiency of the electrical grid (compared to truck and railroad shipped gasoline) and the much higher efficiency of BEVs mean that the electric option is still cleaner than gassers even when powered by coal, and the increasing use of renewables will make BEVs ever cleaner.

On another note, a recent Government energy report stated that California gets 20% of its electricity from renewables (wind, solar, geothermal), another 20% from hydro, and only 20.1% from coal. There is considerable potential for renewables to replace coal for electricity generation.

I have a solar multipanel 900 watt charger that is just DC to DC, direct connection, not using the Tesla AC charging box. Is this something that other owners would be interested in? It charges faster due to no loses and minimal components. It could be useful for having at work to charge 1 or 2 Tesla’s during the daytime. Just wondering…

Does Tesla have any plans to use solar cell technology with their cars to constantly charge the battery while driving? Also, do you have a generator that creates a charge while driving on battery to give longer life to the battery charge as well?

Thanks you!
Jack

Jack,

If the power system in the Roadster is anything like the battery power systems I have worked on in the past, then it is not possible to discharge the batteries (driving, using electronics, etc) and charge them at the same time. The current used to charge the batteries flows on the same conductors used to discharge them, so the net current results in discharge OR charge. However, solar panels might be able to provide parallel current, thus reducing the energy demand from the batteries and effectively increasing range.

The subject of solar cells comes up frequently. Tesla is correct in stating that the return on investment for solar cells on the car is almost zero. They recommend you put solar cells on your house or garage and use that to charge the car. They have a working agreement with SolarCity and there is a link in the left hand column.

Matthew: Hybrids like the Volt do generate electricity to charge the battery while the electric motor draws power. To put a fine line on it, it does not charge and discharge simultaneously, but generated power goes directly to the electric motor and any extra charges the battery. If the demand is greater than the generated power, then all generated power goes to the electric motor plus required extra discharged from the battery. I cannot conceive of any way to improve on this system. Let’s say you have two batteries, and the generator charges one while the electric motor uses the other. This would be less efficient than the standard arrangement as there are energy losses in charging and discharging the battery. Read Something for Nothing in www.teslamotors.com/blog2/?p=24

Actual Trip time:
I would like to see a graph posted showing the time it takes to travel a given distance with the 45 minute charges included. For example, it takes x amount of hours at 80 miles per hour to travel 500 miles because the are 3 charges required, vs x amount of hours at 55 miles per hour because there are 2 charges required.

Andrew May: Wheels don’t produce energy, but they can be connected to a generator that converts the forward momentum of the car into electricity, slowing the car down. That’s how regenerative braking works. Tesla Motors has a clever way of converting the electric motor into a generator whenever the car needs to slow down, and that partially recharges the battery. However, it just wouldn’t do to try and drive with the regenerative brakes on all the time!

As for the “hood scoop wind generator” idea, its been proposed hundreds of times before. You’ve underestimated the amount of drag it would produce and you’ve overestimated the amount of electricity a tiny wind turbine can produce. The increased drag would drain away more power than the wind turbine could produce, reducing the driving range. Sorry, its a step backwards. Much better to put the wind turbine on a tower at a windy site where “wind drag” doesn’t matter.

This company is exactly what the America needs.What I have read ,I hope to see this company go far.My question to the engineers is this; is there a way to connect a generator to the main motor so when the battery charge reads (a) certain volt(s), the circut to the generator closes starting the generator and opens the circut between the battery and the motor closing the circut between the generator and the battery? With the generator producing electricity sending it to the battery,can the motor in turn be used to produce its own power for a time or receive power from the generator.I did use generator and not alternator because I understand that this is direct current power.Thank you and may your success continue to grow.

Does Tesla have plans to incorporate the new Nano Ball Lithium Ion battery technology from Toshiba that could potentially recharge the cars batteries to 80% in minutes? (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanobatteries).
And is the company looking into technologies that recharge the car while driving such as the MIT Genshock (techfragments.com/news/415/Tech/MIT_Team_Creates_Shock_That_Recharges_Your_Car.html) or regenerative braking?

Hello Gentlemen;
I love your work, I hope for a day I can afford your product. I write this today because I have had ideas that I can not afford to pursue myself. I just wish to give to the society in which I live. It may have intellectual property value. My perception of the current issues related to your type of products is the use time is quicker than the charge time. I have seen and try to keep up with the chemical and electrical battery side of leading science but find it could be awhile. I have a varied background and do not have the credentials of anyone I have read on here. The varied background crosses several industries and as a result has lead to some crossover thinking.
I believe using the Bernulli principle in combination with permanent magnet motor/generator placed in a vehicle where the accelerated air was then applied to the generator via helicopter blading that had been calculated to offset the weight of the generator and exit the air into the vertical that it would not add exceesive drag.Also with simple helicopter blading (i.e. maintain blades attached to the generator in autorotative condition and constant rpm via pitch control ) you can have an onboard charging system that would at the very least extend your range further.I hope your engineers will review this idea. The lift equation can be used to calculate blade size to offset the permanent magnet alternator/generator weight. Your design easily would take on wind scoop to venturi portion of the system.An electrical engineer can do the math on what the neodymium magnets spinning all the time can do for you. Also if you changed that a bit more and ran with a Halbach array for the magnets in the generator you may not have to wait on the battery science. I wish you guys the best and I am sorry our on government is sabotaging your business bailing out the old school guys. Have a great day. Hampton Price

Curt Helland, Tesla is continuously checking new technologies for batteries and selects what is best compromise between price, reliability and energy density. They might not be using best batteries tech-wise but they are using a very good compromise.

Those MIT Genshock shocks generate very little energy. They generate some, but to keep things simple, I’d prefer reliable and cheap ordinary shocks. I think best way to “charge while driving” would be using inductive coils under pavement (another MIT/Intel invention allows wireless energy transfer up to 75% efficiency to one meter distance). Unfortunately this would also increase road maintenance costs a lot, and it brings up a question how to determine who charges his/her car and how much. Also because car is using quite a bit energy while driven it might be that those coils might not be viable source of energy. Roadster uses 13-14kW at highway speeds. That is quite a lot of energy to transfer wirelessly.

To all that suggest wind generators to get indefinite range, just try it yourself. Build a toy car with electric engine and windmill in top of it. Spin that windmill blade with your hand to get initial boost to electric engine and see yourself how far your car goes.

We can’t create energy any more than we can destroy it. We can ONLY convert it to different forms. In batteries energy is in electric potential. There that potential it is transferred to electric motor which converts electricity thru magnetism to kinetic energy. Windmill converts kinetic energy to electricity, but *there are always losses* NEVER opposite. Otherwise you are talking about perpetual motion machine. IT JUST ISN’T POSSIBLE. You could get some energy from actual *wind* (not that air displacement that car causes when it moves like people here suggests) using sails if wind is blowing from behind, but I don’t think you want sails in fast sportcar.

So please just stop it.

Timo;
In a way it’s kind of fun to try to explain to the free-energy doofi that TANSTAAFL, but it’s kind of a waste of time. They have a deep intuition that if they’re just clever enough they can cheat physics and arithmetic. I suspect childhood trauma, probably causing lesions in the left temporal lobe.

I had an idea. If you put generators around the axles you could generate some electricity when you accelerate. You would simply be turning some of the mechanicle power of the car into electricity. Im not sure if this would be good enough to keep a batery charged but it could help.

I just read that your factory is planning to produce a gas electric car. It is disappointing to hear that that because your factory is the leader in electric vehicles. I have also read what inconvenient can be a gas electric compared with and all electric car, that someone says your company posted in your home pagem, and it sounds contradictory.

However, if you are planning to move into gas electric vehicles, why don’t you use a compressed air motor instead, just like the one designed in Australia, to drive the electric generator? It is small and can move a heavy load.
pesn.com/2006/05/11/9500269_Engineair_Compressed-Air_Motor/

you are making the best and nices cars in the world.
my best regards, hopping your company gives more good news to the world.

Is that Nathan for real? We have had a Nathan who made sane comments earlier; maybe he was just trying to be cute here and give us an example of the witless reasoning of the free-energizers?

On the off chance that it’s serious: Nathan, your suggestion is about as smart as driving with the brakes on to generate heat to boil water to turn a steam turbine to turn the wheels to generate heat from the brakes to boil water to …

fabian;
See the comment immediately preceding yours.

I notice when I am in the mountains, I have a lot of up hill driving, and then a lot of down hill driving. When you go up hill, you would use the normal battery power to move the car. While going down hill, because of the inertia of the car going down, by energizing two DC Generators, one in each wheel, you would be using the inertia of the car going down hill to charge the batteries. This is a little like regenerative breaking, where you generate electricity when you put on the break and slow down, but different in that you use the inertia of the downward pull of the car as your car travels down hill for 1/2 an hour to an hour, to charge your battery pack, thus use the generated power going down hill, without use of breaking, to charge. Existing cruise control devises can be put in place on your downward direction to control your speed, as so you don’t have to ride the breaks all the time. When the car leveled out, those generators would be electronicly turned off, and they would be in free spin mode, creating little or no drag on the battery system, other than the actual weight difference of the casing of the aluminum generators, and windings. The more passenger weight you have in the car, the more electricity generated on your down hill quest. With this type system, you still would have to charge on occasion, but less often. If you took a short straight freeway to the top of a hill where you work, and then took the lazy windy downhill road home, that took you 1/2 hour longer, you may never have to charge your car, or at least less often. By utilizing a 240 or 480 volt generator, you would recharge the batteries quicker than using a 120 volt system. Your batteries are literally in charge mode as you coasted down hill, and would not be used but only charged by the inertia. This is a little like an electric light, attached to your wheel on a bicycle. While you are pumping along on the level you need to use the battery or your legs to pump the bike, but the light is on all the time. When you go down hill, you no longer have to pump, but just coast for miles ,and the light works all the way down the hill, using the inertia of the weight of the bicycle to generate electricity to propel you along, and light the way. If you have ever ridden a 10 speed bicycle down the Feather River Canyon in the Sierra’s, you are shocked that you can go almost all the way by coasting. Can you imagine how much power can be generated on that down hill ride, that could get you farther on your way when you get to the bottom. This is not an example of free energizing, but of using the inertia of the weight of the vehicle to run a charging system to increase your distance between charge.

“CM wrote on April 4th, 2009 at 11:56 pm
Joe Simone: Tesla is currently using a 54 Kwh LiIon battery pack with a cobalt oxide cathode with higher energy density and a lower cost per Kwh stored. The GM Volt will be using a smaller 16 Kwh LiIon battery pack with a manganese spinel cathode, the energy density is a little lower and the cost per Kwh stored is higher, but since the battery is a lot smaller the total cost is lower, but because it is smaller it must withstand 6 times more charging cycles to go the same distance as the Tesla Roadster, and it does.
The result is that Tesla and GM are using radically different approaches for plug-in cars, and that requires different batteries.”

In an article about Tesla gas electric venture they indicated the need for a different battery technology than the all electric. What is the different characteristics required of a battery in a gas electric verses an all electric other than smaller KWH storage for gas electric.

Ronald Wose, what you describe is basically regenerative braking which Tesla already has. Tesla approach is not using actual brakes for regenerative braking, but “engine brake”, so if you lift your foot from the gas-pedal you switch on regenerative braking. IOW this behavior you suggest is automatic in Tesla configuration.

Type S in 4WD configuration might be even better in that, because it can use more active braking with front-wheels too. I wonder if they have regenerative braking also from brake-pedal in Type S, and ordinary friction brakes are used only with very high deacceleration needs (kind of emergency brakes).

YOU EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE, GREETINGS!
WHERE WERE YOU RIGHT AFTER WORLD WAR II, DEVELOPING YOUR CLEAN BEAUTIFULL CARS AND REPOST STATIONS ALL OVER.
IMAGEN HAVING LUNCH IN A LONG TRIP WHILE YOUR CAR GETS RECHARGED IN ONE OF THOUSANDS OF “RECHARGEDINNERS” OF DIFERENT MENUES ALL OVER A CLEANER WORLD WHILE OIL BE DEDICATED TO NOBLER CAUSES LIKE FERTILIZERS AND OTHER NECESARY PRODUCTS!
WE WOULD LIVE IN A DIFFERNT WORLD.
i NOW LIVE IN CUERNAVACA (MEXICO) AND OFCOURSE THERE’S NOT A SHADOW OF YOUR GREAT AND BEATIFULL PRODUCTS AROUND. HOW MUCH WOULD COST TO BECAME ONE OF YOUR BRANCHES (SALES AND SERVICE) IN MEXICO?.
ONCE MORE, I, FOR ONE, LUST FOR A COUPLE OF YOUR CARS, A ROADSTER AND THE TYPE S…

is it possible to show the consumption of energy allong with an addiditon of energy from a thin film solar panel that is working at a possible efficiency of eighty percent of max for that panel? additional juicing in the middle of driving could enhance range so would it be possible to print the film right on the exterior body parts?

The future is electric cars, yes we can.

Edmund, It is possible to use thin film solar panels in car, but energy gain from those is minimal and cost is high. Even at best case you would be getting something like 1000W/m^2, and thin film solar cells have about 15% conversion rate, so with 3m^2 of panels in car you could get max 3*1000*0.15 = 450 W. That is the best case. In practice you would get way less than that. Roadster uses 15kW at 60mph, so you would give it less than 10% increase in expense of high price paint job. In practice less than 5%.

It would be better just to put better batteries in car. At the roof of garage that thin-film solar cell would serve better purpose.

I have sometimes thought about very large folded thin-film solar cell in car trunk that you could unfold as a kind of tent for that car when you park your car for a longer times in places where there are no electric plugs where you could charge your car. That would cost quite a lot, but could be useful to get your car charged “on road”. Even if it could give only one kW of power you could get few miles out of it during a day. 10 hours would give you about 50 miles worth of charge.

This company will do much better in EU (or Japan) than in USA because of smaller distances between cities and gasoline price. Next good think for Tesla in EU is 220-240W power supply system (hopefully one day US will switch on this system too). Also EU people like small cars because of chronic lack of parking space and presence of narrow streets. From experience a can say that Europeans are concerned for environment more than Americans. (Californians developed strong environmentalist movement, but rest of US is really ecological “retarded”;-( ).
However, it is puzzling why the EV concepts never get life in Japan, EU or even Israel (even these countries have more reasons for EV development than we are, at still all aspiration to do so were immediately stopped in begging of development).
I have seen many improvisations in the third world countries in the term of developing the alternative source for car powering. Probably the most successful is use of bio diesel in Brazil, alcohol in Cuba and primitive models of EV buses in India.
Natural gas is getting very popular in EU lately. It is cheaper and more environmental friendly than diesel and gasoline. (This concept was successfully developed in private garages in Balkans during a war, it pouffes chipper and safer than a regular gasoline module).
However EV is king of all concepts so far, it is our future and it should spread all over the world. In the term, this to be done, EV should be much cheaper than it is today. Hopefully we will see muss production of EV-s oversees soon.
p.s. Since, the graph shows an air resistance as the biggest enemy to EV’s durability i would like you to think little bite how to reduce it. For instance the shack skin concepts seems interesting idea.

www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2005/03/66833
www.autoblog.com/2008/06/10/bmw-gina-light-visionary-model-revealed/

Calvin Jones; yes you are right, you get a bigger range with solar panel roof…about 1% bigger range for very good case. If you park your car in parking slot in a sunny day you might even get 10% more range in ten hours.

Solar cells are much better used in buildings and solar power plants than in cars. Assume there is 30 cars in parking lot in typical office building, which is as large in sideways as the parking lot and is square in shape with usable roof for solar cells about 30% you get about 3600m^2 * 0.3 = 1080m^2 surface area compared to about 30m^2 surface area in those car roofs. Use that power to those cars and you have much better kW for charging.

Solar radiation is about 1kW/m^2 at a good sunny day. Cheap thin film solar cells give maybe 10% efficiency in converting it to electricity. That’s 100W /m^2. 1080m^2*100W/m^2 is 108000W or 108kW. Divided by 30 (cars) gives 3.6kW / car compared to about 100W / car. With the price of $3 / watt you get $300k for those panels. Divided by 30 car owners you could get $10k to pay. You could divide that to several years, maybe five to reduce it to $2000 / year or $166 / month.

For typical office day you can then charge 36kWh in your car (worth maybe 100 miles) and rest of the day you can sell that electricity to the grid. You might actually start to *gain* some money after a while, because not all cars charge that much during a day. Your office building becomes a power plant.

BTW nanotech is again showing interesting development in this field as well as batteries. I just read about solar cells with nano antennae that can convert *80%* of the sunlight to electiricy and it would theoretically even be cheap (can be produced using printing tech like newspapers are made).

Type S FAQ talks about fast charging and says that car can be charged to 80% as little time as 45 min. Which battery pack? Smallest one? Any specs about that charger? Cost?

80% out of 160 miles is 128 miles. 80% out of 300 miles is 240 miles. Am I right if I assume double time for larger battery pack? 1.5 hours? 540 miles is close to breakpoint, but it would be better if you wouldn’t need to charge at all before 600 miles.

In one of the media pages someone (forgot who) says that Model S has 85 kWh battery pack. Since that is 37% bigger battery pack than Roadster battery pack and Roadster can go 240miles I assume that one was 300 mile version? 80% out of 85kWh in 1.5 hours needs 45kW connection. That is quite huge connection. Charging page says it can be charged with 480V so that gives roughly 94 amps. No household connection to grid can handle that, so how has it been made? Battery to battery charging? If so, how large is that charger? Which kind of batteries? Can those be upgraded? How much it costs?

I am still waiting a response to my question…
Has Telsa Motors ever published on-road performance tests of their battery packs, testing end of useful life of the packs”? If yes where can the public read the results?

I will rephrase my question.
Has Telsa motors ever completed on-road tests of their battery packs to end-of -useful-life. Where can we see the results?

Lab testing or even simulated road testing does not represent the real world of driving the EV, until the batteries fail to deliver the published 300 MPC or the 240 MPC.

My second question:
How does Telsa charge their battery packs to 80% SOC in 45 minutes.

That is impossible to do using a household power grid connection. So when a person buys a Telsa EV, what does Telsa suggest they do to get the vehicles charged to 80% in 45 minutes?
Take the EV to a specially constructed 480V connection ….but where are these connections.
One may find them in SKY Harbor Airport in Phoenix where they fast charge EVs for service work on the airport.

I can gas-up my Honda Ridgeline in less than 5 minutes to get 370 miles before my next 5 minute fill-up.

Third question:
How long to charge Telsa battery packs to 100% SOC.

I am flabbergasted that none of the financial supporters of Telsa have not asked or demanded answers to critical issues of useful life of battery packs, and fast charging.

All the marketing hype in the world will not sustain any product when customers discover its short comings.

The EV graveyard is filled with high flying EV start ups, including GM’s infamous EV1; they produced 1170 EV1’s, and leased them. But finally took them back and crushed them.

Fourth question:
Where does Telsa publish the “cost of maintenance” for their EVs, for example replacement battery packs, wear and tear and repair due to accidents.

I only wish Telsa great success. But unless Telsa can provide more real world performance testing on their battery packs, then down the road they will find plenty of room in the proverbial EV graveyard.
GC

People on this blog have mentioned battery to battery charging and high grid power charging. A better way to do this would be capacitor to battery charging. The capacitors bank could slow charge from the grid and quick charge to the battery rapidly speeding the recharge time. While not ideal for home use it is great for recharge stations which could use a combo of wind and solar technologies to slow charge the capacitors. This method would solve many of the range problems of EV’s and could start as a slow moving infrastructure expanding from each Tesla dealer much like the marriage of the big three and big oil. We could have big EV and big wind& solar. this could happen soon here in the US if the politicians could uncover their eyes and become less greedy.

The best way for people to make a difference is to work at the local level to create the infrastructure need for Tesla and other EV makers to grow.

The reason I would choose capacitors at the charge site is due to there quick charge/ discharge time and their operational life. From what I have read LI ion batteries have a life span of 5 years or so; capacitors have a life span of 15 years. This will allow stations to have a longer life of service between replacement time. With a three times the life span this would cover the slightly higher cost of capacitors. The cable size would roughly be 1.5 inches in diameter to handle a 200 amp @ 1700 V this would charge the a 85 Kw vehicle in about 15 min. As for safety the typical driver would not perform this task. Workers at the station would be need and would ask the driver and passengers to wait in the store front of the station until there number is called or name or what ever system the station would use. So for drivers in New Jersey nothing would change since all the gas stations are still full service. Second layer of safety would be the charger it self . The Charger and the car would talk and confirm a safe connection and the line is clear for power to be transmitted. If at any point the processes would become unsafe then the charger would stop power. Hmm I think i just described the recharge safety already built in the all Tesla models and add an extra layer to the high voltage charging unit. As for the car side of the high power charge the power systems designers could look in the a second recharge power loop to handle high power recharge applications. Remember if you have battery to battery charging one battery needs to be charged which means the once the station has used all of it batteries for charging it will close for the day limiting the number of cars that can be charged. While the capacitors banks could be charged in a matter of 30 after recharging a car and would only need close for regular business hours. the other problem with battery to battery is that order to completely fill an empty battery you need the charger battery to be twice the capacitance of the empty. Capacitor technology is moving ahead faster than battery tech and should be looked at for recharge stations.

Any way we find to provide a infrastructure to support EV transportation would be a step in the right direction. Remember that when the model T debuted in 1908 you only could by gas at the refinery. in the 20’s and 30’s you could buy it in hardware stores. It wasn’t till the 50’s when you saw gas stations as we know them today and that infrastructure wasn’t complete till the 60’s.
You could make the car have a 2000 mile range and people will still complain that they cant charge when they want to quickly.

Daimler has acquired 10% of Tesla as everybody should now know. In press release Tesla (Elon Musk) says that it is mainly interested about Daimler battery tech. Does anybody know what tech that is? Best I could find was this: www.zsw-bw.de/info/current/365Orte/Barenschee.pdf

That shows that they have 200Wh/kg battery that has excellent cycling capability (over 2000 cycles with 90% capacity which equals about 400000 miles running in Roadster). Energy density isn’t that high. 200Wh/kg is not anything extraordinary. With Roadster 450kg battery pack, assuming 100kg casing, that would be 350kg*200Wh/kg = 70kWh battery pack. That is only 23% improvement. Of course that battery seems to be rather durable so it might not need as heavy casing and complex environment control system. If I drop 50kg out of that equation I get 80kWh which is about 33% increase. 240 * 1.33 =~ 320 miles.

I do expect at least 400Wh/kg batteries appearing in the market in next two years. When Type S is ready it should have 600 mile range, not 300.

It might be that main benefit from this co-operation is that Tesla is getting those batteries in discount prices.

I think the battery tech that Daimler has that Tesla whats to test is the new SCib battery from Toshiba I read in an article a week ago that I cant find now that Toshiba had given some of these batteries to major car makers in the US and Europe to test for use in EVs.

www.autobloggreen.com/2007/12/11/toshibas-new-scib-battery-charges-in-5-minutes-releases-march/

Timo and Michael you mentioned gyros for the charging station I don’t see who they would work efficiently for electrical power transfer or storage. You would waste a lot of energy going from electrical to mechanical and then back to electrical to charge the car. Batteries would also have a similar loss due to their internal resistance. Capacitors do not have internal resistance and are there for more efficient. The way the charge stations would be profitable would be from as you said a restaurant , food mart, Arcade, or some other store front, or mechanics shop. They could also make money by providing power back to the grid when not charging cars. Three of these capacitors per charge bay would be enough to charge a car www.maxwell.com/ultracapacitors/products/modules/bmod0063-125v.asp. Though I share my name with the company I am not affiliated with them in any way its just a happy coincidence.

All this talk about charge stations needing to store power is just not reasonable. Electric power companies provide 3phase 480V power to millions of factories world wide and can easily do the same for charge stations. At the last company I worked at they made school buses and factory was about 80,000 sq.ft. (small by most factory standards). It had a 600 amp service. This power supply is 480 x 600 x 1.73 = 498kW.

Evonic (Daimler) batteries are far superior to Toshiba’s scib. Evonic are Lithium Manganese Polymer as are Chevy Volts, Tata’s Indica EV, Kia, Hyundai. Toshiba may be trying to flog these batteries to auto companies but no one is buying because they are much lower energy density.

Joshua Maxwell; Flywheels have very high efficiency: about 95-98% (basically electric engine/generator efficiency). Also batteries have that same high efficiency. You do have losses, but they are not big ones. Flywheels do not have any capacity degradation over time, are relatively cheap / Wh and very easy to maintain which is their main benefit over pretty much any other energy storage method. Main point is that they are cheap over time.

Also: read that Maxwell ultracapacitor data sheet. Energy capability of one of those is 101.7Wh. That means you need about 850 of those to get one Type S 85kWh 300 mile battery charged. Not three. One unit weights about 60kg. That is 60kg *850=51000kg. One unit has dimensions of 762 x 425 x 265 mm (~0.085 m^3) so 850 of those is about 73 m^3 or about 2m*6m*6*m. That is for one car. And that doesn’t count necessary air caps between units.

I don’t think Daimler or Tesla would be using SCiB batteries. They have lousy energy density of about 67Wh/kg which is little bit over half of what Tesla is using now. Only good thing in those is that they can be charged fast, but because charging speed is really limited by connection that doesn’t matter.

Lihium shortage? Is it possible?

I think it is. Current estimates of easily accessible lithium is between 8-20 million tons. Lets get optimistic and say 15 billion kg would be what we have. There will be about one billion cars out there soon (China and India are fast growing in this). One billion cars with 200kg battery packs is 200 billion kg. Even if we assume that only one tenth of that is lithium it is still 20 billion kg. Even if we recycle every bit of lithium it might not be enough.

It might be that lithium ion -based batteries are not “savior of the future” after all. We might need some other method of storing energy if we want to use EV:s. Fuel cell cars maybe if non-polluting cheap method of generating hydrogen is invented, or ultracapacitors if they ever get near batteries in capacity. Superconducting magnetic storage? Maybe in distant future with high temperature superconductors. Nuclear fusion? Not entirely impossible if something like Focus Fusion concept can be miniaturized in car-size energy source.

Aluminum as replacement for Lithium? That could solve pretty much all problems for abundance, but I haven’t seen realistic aluminum battery concept. Europositron claims that they have invented one, but that is very likely to be just a scam to collect money.

Anyone seen any feasible battery concept that isn’t based on lithium? It would need to have at least 400Wh/kg potential to be realistic replacement.

Christopher Kiely; We have to use batteries for now. There just isn’t any other feasible alternative. In future there might be, but as you can see from my post to Joshua Maxwell current ultracaps have two-three orders of magnitude too weak energy density, and there is nothing in sight to show that they get much better than that. In fact I don’t believe they ever will get close to even NiMH batteries. In automotive use higher efficiency is nullified by increased weight. One good thing is that they really can be used to collect nearly all braking energy, but OTOH so can best batteries too.

Don’t get me wrong, I do hope that something like EEStor system could be viable, but as it is now they lack necessary energy density to be useful. *IF* EEStor is real then we might have alternative very soon, but I’m pretty sceptical about that.

Tesla Power System Conversion for 1960 MGA

I have a 1960 MGA that is begging for an electric conversion.
How does one convince Tesla to sell its power train/control system to Antique Car Hobbiests??????

Just now, I started visiting this blog. What’s striking is your Range Vs. Speed curve, which is equivalent to vehicle efficiency vs. speed. Whether this represents human transportation efficiency (if you consider driving time unproductive) or not, the fact is that drivers actually spend most of their driving miles at low speeds. Think about stop-and-go driving. As an engineer with a transmission (IVT) invention, I’ve studied vehicle kinetics and demographic statistics to get a feel for real-world practical applications of transmissions; this study revealed that American drivers go only 11 m.p.h. on average! This is probably a surprise to most readers here. Now look at the Tesla Roadster ‘Range Vs. Speed’ curve again; maximum efficiency is at ~18 m.p.h., but at American average speed of 11 m.p.h. it’s efficiency is ~94% of maximum! That’s excellent! It is as though the Tesla was intentionally designed for our real world driving. Does this mean we should expect 11 m.p.h. range, on average? No. Our mix of driving speeds includes 65 m.p.h (or more), and one should consider the *distribution* of our speeds. As the CTO explains, such efficiencies fall off drastically at low and high speeds because of nonlinear effects, such as parasitic losses, and high order functions of aerodynamics & tire drag. But in total, high efficiency is obtained optimally here. Drivers have little choice about their driving speeds, so this efficiency is fortuitous. American driving speeds are likely representative of world-wide driving, approximately. Tesla is doing what other auto engineers should have done long ago. Consider reality!

I just read an article about a recall on the roadster. It seem that the rear suspension may have had its bolts torqued incorrectly.
www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2347873,00.asp

If any owners could shed some light on this issue it would be help to hear about Tesla’s customer service.

hello. what about the safety of these cars? the safety about the electricity and about airbags or the braking system.

Auke Hoekstra; Thank you very much about that link. It seems that my info about lithium shortage was simply wrong. I thought that easily accessed lithium reserve is very limited, but if you can get it from seawater with just $30/kg, then we have way more than enough lithium for those batteries.

Also that you need only 1.5kg of lithium for 1kWh battery that means that it costs $45 to get 1kWh battery. Lithium battery price comes from something else than materials.

So, lets get those 2kWh/kg batteries at $1000. 500Wh/kg very near future and more shortly after

(I assume you did mean to write about lithium, not silicon. Silicon is, if I recall correclty, second most abundant mineral in earth crust. Ordinary sand is mostly silicon).

No I don’t have a blog. I work at university so I have access to all kinds of scientific materials that you usually would need to buy for free, and I’m just read a lot of those.

Dimitris; Tesla ESS is very safe, and designed to disengage in case of accidents. Cars are also otherwise safe too, there has been real life accidents already with Roadster and those have shown that they are safe cars to drive.

Tesla ESS is a lot safer than gasoline, except maybe in case where you drive your car into lake. In that case I really don’t know what happens.

Brakes are just ordinary friction brakes, so no difference there. Regenerative “braking” is actually engine brake, and engages when you lift your feet from accelerator, not when you press the brakes.

Timo: Let’s see; you are interested in Tesla (Menlo Park), and you live in a city with 1M. San Jose? Academic. E.E. or M.E. student or prof? SJSU? Whatever. I used to bicycle to work in Silicon Valley, about 13 miles each way, and would pass my car-driving coworkers several times during the trips. City driving is slow. You are painfully right in suggesting that many Americans use cars for short distances, where infrastructure like Caltrans, BART or bicycles would be more efficient. Cars mean freedom & independence to Americans. This cultural bias must change. Car companies have historically responded with accomodation, not leadership; this is the moral equivalent of a drug dealer dispensing heroin. We haven’t embraced our light-rail commuting in droves. American drivers prefer to lug around thousands of pounds for the convenience, privacy & security of driving. Tesla’s challenge is to persuasively nudge those habits into more efficient modes for us. A Roadster that can go 0-60 in 4 seconds and125 mph tops is only a marketing tool to dramatically introduce us to a solution.

The goal of electric cars should be to produce vehicles that are light and efficient enough for city driving *and* long, fast trips. Few car buyers will want two specialty cars, each. We should be persuaded that compact cockpit volume, light weight and some discomfort are attendent to more necessary economy. This will require imaginative car designs that significantly reduce aerodynamic drag, and provide sufficient performance & best economy at low & high speed. If Tesla does this progressively, Americans will adapt by buying their cars.

Great post! This is an excellent read and a great website. Thanks for the information.

It is obvious to most that a generator and the electric motor are basically opposites. If the electric motor is turning a generator then why do you need a lithuim battery? What most don’t know is a lituim battery causes more pollution to the environment then gasoline. Basically what I am saying is why do so many companies try and pretend that they are not intellegent enough to place the battery on a relay and run the motor off an alternate electrical source when the motor is in motion, meanwhile charging the battery back up like the basic opperation of todays automobile? Don’t get me wrong I really like the Tesla Products but I think it is a bit of a copout to deny people the reality of what transportation should be.

Now i was just wondering. It says here that the Tesla will reach a top speed of 125 mph. Is there anyway that you can make it go faster than that. i was told a while back there is a way and that they do go faster than 125 mph.
Answer back

RomanKorvinus; You said:

“It is obvious to most that a generator and the electric motor are basically opposites. If the electric motor is turning a generator then why do you need a lithuim battery?”

What would you benefit from that? You need energy storage in some form, energy is not free. That’s why lithium battery.

“What most don’t know is a lituim battery causes more pollution to the environment then gasoline.”

That is just not true. Care to explain why do you believe so?

Roman is clearly deeply confoozed.
The batteries are almost entirely recyclable, and the power they store is generated far more cleanly and efficiently than gasoline can achieve.

So he’s blowing smoke thru his hat out his posterior orifice.

Hey guys your cars look awesome! The “S” may just be my next car purchase. I was wondering how is the car heated?
I live in Toronto Canada and a car like this will need to perform well in the cold. How much will the range be reduced with the heater
operating in the winter?

T.

Perfection, i think that Nikola Tesla would bee proud that a factory and a car like this has his name. Reading these comments and ideas i got one my one, regarding better consumption of accumulated energy. The prime idea and genius of Tesla`s electromotors is the simplicity, one rotor one stator and miracle, energy, my idea is to make a rotor of almost every moving part on the car ex. tires and transmission that until now had only a passive (spending) role. This is way to create a amount of energy that can bee used for peripherals like stereo, car lights, etc. or maybe even more. Ok this will cost you one Tesla roadster joke maybe . Everything best from muther land of Nikola Tesla, good work and good luck.

Timo and Auke Hoekstra:
Actually the Lightning claims are not consistent one article claims a 90mile range on a 10 minute charge see:

www.autoblog.com/2008/07/09/lightning-gt-ev-sports-car-coming-this-month/

Another claims a 250 mile range on a 10 minute charge see:

www.motorauthority.com/700hp-lightning-gt-electric-car-available-for-pre-order.html

Neither is 300 miles per Timo or 300 km per Auke. Lots of numbers!

It really does seem that a lot of people are missing the point.
The entire world is moving towards renewable energy sources. To blame Tesla for the total lack of forethought in the energy program of The USA is foolish. The fact that most of the power in the USA comes from either coal or nuclear technology is insane. Bottom line is that there is no alternative but to move to renewable energy sources. This may be solar, wind or even tidal power stations. It will happen, it’s just a case of when.
As for those of you who are trying to solve the range problem with combustion engine solutions, (one demented soul actually proposed a Subaru engine driving a generator mounted in a trailer, which would drastically reduce the possible range due to increased drag) you are totally missing the point.
THIS IS A ZERO EMISSIONS VEHICLE!!!
A more obvious solution is solar panels on every painted surface.
Of course battery technology is moving forward in leaps and bounds, and this type of vehicle will drive that technology to advance at a much greater rate due to demand and supply.
My only concern is the magnetic fields produced by the motor, and the possible adverse effects on the occupants.
I assume Tesla are aware of such concerns, and are using a frequency that is not detrimental to human health. i.e. 55/60 Hz
Rife technology, and the Bob Beck protocol could be employed to actually cure diseases when driving the vehicle, having a positive effect, and actually curing disease whilst driving.
Please follow this up Tesla, because it would be a huge selling point.
I have also seen types of motor that are nearly 100% efficient using fixed magnets, and even heard some rather out there claims of motors that are up to 400% efficient using fixed magnets that move in and out of shielded positions, greatly increasing efficiency…
Yes I realise that most of you see these as crackpot ideas, but a quick Google search will reveal that a great many people hold this theory in high esteem, and many are trying to market it.
Surely worth at least researching to prove or disprove.
Don’t forget that the claims made by the Tesla Motor company were totally rubbished by much of the scientific community.
I would have loved to see their faces when they realised they were so so wrong.
Well done Tesla!
I am saving for my own Tesla car in 2011, and will mortgage everything just to have one!

Have you given any thought to adding an alternator to the design? That way, you will never have to stop for a recharge, and you can use a smaller capacity battery.

If you consider that this is a transformation from a 36 volt forklift to a 240 volt roadracer, you might begin to understand that this technology has been around for many decades. You must , also, stop to concider that there may be something else that you missed. I am not talking about regenerative braking, or using a motor as an alternator when you apply the brakes. I am talking about adding a dedicated alternator. And, before you condem me, you should really take a closer look at the schematic, to see how it would fit in.

Tesla has done a great job in demonstrating what an all Electric Vehicle (EV) can be. However the all Electric Vehicle at this time in history seems to cater to a niche market. There are few if any charging stations and no effort in progress to install them. Owners of EVs would have to limit their trips to 200 to 300 miles round trip so they can recharge at home. I call this an “absolute range limitation”. Such owners would have to own or rent an additional internal combustion vehicle to accommodate longer trips.

The REEV (range extended Electric Vehicle) like the Volt and the PML mini www.treehugger.com/files/2006/08/the_hybrid_mini.php offer a viable alternative to the EV for reducing dependence on foreign oil without the “absolute range limitations”. One could buy such a vehicle and use it for both everyday commutes as well as longer trips, since there is presently a network of petroleum fueling station across the country. These vehicles run on all electric till the batteries run low and then switch in an ICE motor generator to provide electrical energy to drive the motors or recharge the battery. This motor generator is the size of a spare tire in the PML mini’s case. The advantage of this serial concept over the ICE direct drive parallel concept is the elimination of gearboxes and dual drive mechanisms. They allow the vehicle to maintain the clean architecture of an electronically controlled electric motor power train. The ICE motor can also run at a single rpm for optimum performance while generating electricity. While running off the ICE regenerative breaking could still be active to provide additional battery charging

The main advantage of the REEV vehicle is that even with a reduced all electric range (from smaller battery) they would provide a big if not total reduction on our dependence on foreign oil. Since the average commuter distance is about 40 miles the REEV could on average get almost all of it energy from the power grid. Since the power grid derives only 1% of its power from petroleum products the REEV greatly reduces consumption of petroleum products. The major power grid fuel comes from: 49% coal, 20% natural gas and 19% nuclear, 7% hydro and 3 % from wind/solar (solar being the smaller). Right now our automobile fleet is a major consumer of petroleum in the form of gasoline and diesel fuel. We do use petroleum for other products such as plastics etc. By reducing our usage of petroleum to 40% of our current use allows us to only use our domestic petroleum production eliminating oil imports.

I know you EV purest feel this is heresy. But it is better to refill at a gas station rather than call a tow truck. The range extender weight is offset by reducing the battery to better optimize it for the average commute distance. The range extender is dead weigh just like the extra battery capacity is dead weigh when not used for the average commute distance. The ICE is pretty reliable these days and would only get used for long trips. They pollute only on those rare long trips. It is an interim crutch till charging station catch on.

We may not be able to count on GM to develop it Volt due to its financial situations. Tesla would have a good size market if it used its technology to develop such a product.

Something too simple for intellectuals to understand?

By the way, I am glad you inquired about the schematic that I was refering to. Oops, I forgot that nobody seems to have the necessary curiosity to ask the right questions.

For all the would be engineers out there who devise ways to recharge batteries while in transit. The mean must follow these rules:
1. Energy flows from high potential source to low potential sink. ( ie Positive terminal to ground)
2. There is always energy loss due to heat. ( yes even in wires they have resistance )
3. the source and sink must be out side the object doing work. ( ie the battery is independent from the motor)

With these rules you can not charge the battery and run the motor from the battery concurrently you do one or the other.

Many scientific and engineering concepts like balance and equilibrium have been known by man for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Circular motion has been understood since the invention of the wheel. Variable frequency has been understood at least since the invention of the vacuum tube. Two wheels and a rope can be used to make a “Block and Tackle” to lift objects that are too heavy for us to lift by ourselves. A lever and fulcrum become a seesaw at a children’s playground. All of our current technology has been constructed from simple concepts that we now take for granted. Only a nefarious, modern day, pirate could create the label of THERMO-DYNAMICS, and then claim that nobody can understand the principles of YIN and YANG as well as he does.

There are companies that have been using power inverters and variable frequency drives to control traction motors in electric forklifts since the 1970’s, or earlier. Instead of the automotive companies acknowledging that they are catching up to 40 or 50 year old technology, these intellectual neophytes are trying to convince us that they are creating this technology for the first time, and that it has been a very difficult undertaking.

I have found a solution that is “hidden in plain sight” within the automotive electrical system. This solution will allow a person to drive an electric vehicle across the nation without having to stop and recharge the battery pack or switch over to a gas powered generator. This solution also makes it possible to build a generator system for your home that will completely eliminate your monthly electric bill. A small, 5 volt, portable generator system can be built for use with your cell phone. If you are honestly searching for an alternative energy source, there are many more possible applications to consider, even in the aerospace industries.

If your engineers and technicians can not figure out how to accomplish this from the concept that I have presented in my previous posts, I would be more than willing to demonstrate this solution in person, for a price. Of course, you could always practice the teachings of Toyota, and Gemba Research, and steal the ideas from your sources, and demonstrate a fundament lack of respect for the principle of diversity. While you’re at it, make sure to erase all of these posts before anybody else can read them, and commit an act of piracy against you. (Edison vs. Tesla all over again?)

I am not the one putting a government grant, or future sales, at risk. Also, understand that this system can replace a $12 billion nuclear reactor. Make your choice. Make an offer. Otherwise, I’ve got no future, and I’ve got nothing to loose. Do you?

P.S. There is no room for sarcastic adlibs, and commentary, in any serious negotiation or decision making process. Wouldn’t you agree?

BShumberger, our attention was elsewhere, we were not deliberately ignoring you, and we don’t mean any disrespect. So, if I understand you correctly, your proposal is to use the drive motor to spin the alternator, which in turn would provide the electrical power for the motor? That is a very old idea, darn near every schoolboy thinks of that when they first learn of motors and generators.

Problem is, it takes some mechanical effort to produce electricity and the amount of mechanical effort needed is directly proportional to the electrical power produced. Try one of those hand cranked flashlights some time, and you’ll see what I mean. If an alternator was connected to the driveshaft, the drive motor would have to work harder to mechanically power the alternator and the motor would require more electrical power, thus draining the batteries faster. Now, if both motor and alternator were perfect and 100% efficient, that alternator would produce exactly the same amount of extra power the motor needed, there would be no gain and no benefit at all! But it is worse than that, no motor or alternator is perfect, there is always some friction and electrical resistance wasting a small amount of power as heat. The result is, adding an alternator the way you propose would actually waste power and energy, reducing driving range and performance. Not a good idea, I’m afraid.

Ken, 10000 miles without stopping at 80mph is just impossibility. Supercapasitors you suggest have very poor energy density, so they are poor solution to capture energy, also practical shape car uses about 10-15kW power at 60mph just to fight air resistance, at 80mph that is much worse. That one is power used that just can’t be removed by improving efficiency. Efficiency can’t go over 100%, and Roadster already is about as close to 100% as you can get. You always lose some power to air and rolling resistances as well as ancillary systems.

Only way to extend range over battery capacity is to bring energy to car from outside of the car using something like solar panels. However solar panels are quite poor source to energy: roof covered with one would give something like 100-400W power, which is about 1-2% range extension and they are expensive. You gain more with just watching your power usage “driving easy”. There are other ways like inductive coils into road and that sort of things, but they just are too expensive and can’t be used everywhere.

Of course you could get huge range with huge battery, but that would also give you huge price-tag. In near future you can get batteries that give 1000 mile range with reasonable price, but not quite yet.

1. First law of thermodynamics

Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. It can only change forms.
In any process, the total energy of the universe remains the same.

2.Second law of thermodynamics

The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium.A way of thinking about the second law for non-scientists is to consider entropy as a measure of disorder. So, for example, a broken cup has less order (more entropy) than an intact one, and it is more difficult to repair a broken cup (reducing its entropy) than to break an intact one (increasing its entropy). Likewise, solid crystals, the most organized form of matter, have very low entropy values; and gases, which are very disorganized, have high entropy values.

In all mechanical systems there is friction which converts mechanical energy into heat.

1,2 Law copied from Wikipedia

Ken, ultracaps are more useful than ordinary regenerative braking only at emergency braking-fast energy gains. Tesla Roadster engine can convert energy at about 200kW power, which, if utilized fully, would cause wheels to lose grip. Just ordinary regen braking is quite enough. You could gain slightly more by adding hub-motors to front wheels too, but not much more. Ultracaps are heavy, so if you use them to capture energy you might actually lose range because of increased rolling resistance.

Problem with range is not efficiency (if you look at the top of this page, only drivetrain losses are something that can get significantly smaller). Problem is energy storage. That storage needs to be high energy density batteries, otherwise you just don’t have enough energy to get anywhere.

Range comes from energy storage capacity / energy losses at certain speed. Even if we eliminate all drivetrain losses you would still have air resistance, rolling and ancillary losses, and with Roadster at 80 mph you would still use about 250Wh/mile which translates to about 220 mile range.

Only practical way to radically increase range is to get higher energy density cheap energy storage system. Efficiency increase is, of course, welcome, but it just wouldn’t increase range much because current systems are already quite energy efficient.

To Tesla Engineering and top dogs there:

I contacted Fortum (Finnish/Swedish energy company) in order to question if there are any of the charging points they are building between my home and my parents home and what voltages and amps they use. Answer was that they are currently using 1~ phase (230V /16A) ja 3~ phase (400V / 16A) and there is not any yet, but they also informed me that, and now the important point:

There is Europe-wide standardisation for those going on, and they think that they get it done by the end of the year.

They are also investigating techs that allow very rapid charging (10 min charging was mentioned, but not how big battery pack could be recharged that fast). No specifics were told.

In case you are not aware of this development I think you should contact Fortum (www.fortum.com). This could affect your Europe sales quite a bit. You should definitely have compatible system with them for Europe models.

Random edit notes:
Main text: “just the opposite it true!” –> “just the opposite is true!”
Timo: “hydrogen molecyle is basically just two protons surrounded by two electrons, ” No, that’s helium. Hyrdrogen is half the size. And “molecycle” –> “molecule”. But I do wonder what it would be like to ride around on a molycycle!
Anatoly; it’s spelled “efficiency”. No esses in the word, please! About battery cost: at $12,000 per 100,000 mile pack, that’s $0.12/mile, which is indeed quite a bit. Costs will have to drop. Of course, perhaps that comparison should be made against the cost of maintenance and depreciation for an ICE car for 100,000 miles.

Timo again: battery “form factors” are much more easily matched than internal design. Better Place ( www.wired.com/autopia/2009/05/better-place/ ) now claims its swap stations are versatile enough to cope with a number of types. (40 seconds fastest so far, btw.) Ultimately, ownership of the batteries would be part of the dealer/recharge system, so that the car owner would not care so much about the condition of the new pack he was getting each swap, as long as it had enough charge to get where he needs to go.
Daniel: aero drag; maybe car skins should take a page from the new swim suits that use fine grooves the length of the body (”shark skin”).
Rachel; Detroit auto workers have been rooned by gen’rashuns of union membership. Minimum work for maximum pay is not compatible with the mentality of a world-challenging startup.
TJD; about affording one: the $50,000 Model S would lease and run for about the same total cost as a $30,000 ICE car.
Carl; air ram — only suggested about 50 times. Problem: costs more energy to overcome its addition to drag than it can generate. Consult works by Newton for the reasons.
Timo; the Nature article basically says that electric resistance and charge result from movement in a magnetic field, and that a way has been found to translate “spin” motion into EM motion, hence into charge. So storing and draining spin could create an energy-dense battery setup, or sensitive detection devices. I think.

Brian H.
You wrote about Anatolys post:
—–
About battery cost: at $12,000 per 100,000 mile pack, that’s $0.12/mile, which is indeed quite a bit. Costs will have to drop. Of course, perhaps that comparison should be made against the cost of maintenance and depreciation for an ICE car for 100,000 miles.
—–

If we estimate that you go to change oils, spark plugs etc. in every about 5000 miles and average cost of maintenance is about $200 more than BEV you get $4000. If car consumes about 17mpg (BMW 750i, comparable to Model S) you have 5882 gallons used for 100,000 miles and average one gallon costs about $2.7 (which is really cheap compared to our 1.25 euros / liter) you have $15882. Roadster uses about 250Wh/mile so 100,000 miles you have used 25000 kWh. If one kWh costs about 10 cents that is $2500. 15882 - 2500 = 13382.

Combined $17,382. BEV is cheaper, but not that much cheaper. Also paying that $12,000 at any one time is too much for many people. Fortunately battery tech is advancing and it can be assumed that those prices go down quite a bit in near future.

—-
Better Place ( www.wired.com/autopia/2009/05/better-place/ ) now claims its swap stations are versatile enough to cope with a number of types. (40 seconds fastest so far, btw.)
—-

That is still double to 20secs that it takes to plug your car in and out of a charger. What happens between those doesn’t count because you use that mostly at home at night and in longer road trips when you are taking a break anyway. In longer road trip it doesn’t matter if it takes 40 seconds or one hour if you use it maybe once a year. Battery swapping just isn’t viable business, there will be too few customers to keep it alive. It might be viable *now* when batteries have still too low energy density to give 600+ mile range with reasonable price. That changes soon: making 180kWh battery pack from that prototype 540Wh/kg battery would weight 333kg which makes it about 100kg smaller than Roadster battery pack (90kWh should give 300 mile range to Type S -size car).

I’m very interested in this style of TRANNSPORTE, and I want to be part of this project, I want to be part of your team. YOU CAN GET TO BE REPRESENTATIVE IN ARGENTINA, IN ANY WAY TO SALUTE YOU, VERY CAREFULLY GABRIEL QUIROGA

How much Mony i must pay for a Teslar-Poster. And can you me send posters to Hannover in Germany?
I am the biggest Fan of Teslar in Hannover.
Herzliche Grüße . . . .the Painterman-Claus Heuer

Wayne P. Bishop: Your “rocket engine” analogy is flawed. The thrust of a rocket engine is determined by a simple formula, M*V^2, where M is the Mass of the exhaust, V is the exhaust Velocity, and ^2 means the velocity is squared. The speed of the rocket doesn’t affect the thrust, as the exhaust velocity is measured in relation to the rocket itself, not anything outside the rocket. Note that a rocket is a self-contained system, it does not need to “push against” anything outside it, which is why it works fine in the vacuum of space. A car is different, it relys on friction with the road to provide the “thrust”, the slipperiness of the surface makes a big difference, it relys on the road and is not “self-contained”. For the rocket analogy to work, the car “thrust” would have to be independent of the road and determined solely by torque and rotational speed of the wheels, which is obviously not the case, otherwise the speed of the car would have no relation to the rotational speed of the wheels! (well, maybe on a very icy road…)

Power in a mechanically rotating system is determined by the formula T*R, where T is Torque and R is rotational velocity. Any system that increases the RPMs without changing the power must reduce the torque, and vice versa. So, any system with a high torque low RPM input and a high RPM output must also have a low torque output as well. So, your hypothetical “All Speed Transmission” with a high torque low RPM input would have a high RPM low torque output. Sorry, no way around that, it applies to any sort of mechanical, hydraulic, pneumatic or electrical transmission design. You’ve made an extraordinary claim, and I’ll need to see extraordinary proof from you before I’ll believe. If you can prove your impossible claim, you'’ll be a serious contender for a Nobel Prize in physics.

Power consumption of an electric motor is determined by the power output, T*R, not just the torque only. There is no real efficiency advantage to a “high torque low RPM only” design, except perhaps for a fraction less friction, and that advantage would be lost to friction in any variable speed transmission.

To engineering:

I’m curious about similar data for Type S. You don’t need to include range, because batteries will develop still, but base losses are my interest.

Type S looks more “slippery” than Roadster, but is also bigger car. From some webpage I got an impression that 300 mile version has 85kWh battery pack. Using data from this page shows that for constant 60mph speed Roadster needs 75kWh pack to get that same range. That means that Type S has about 12-13% bigger losses. Aerodynamic or rolling? Looking more slippery could mean that aerodynamic doesn’t increase as much, but being heavier would mean rolling resistances do increase. That would also mean that there might be some high speed treshold where Type S has actually more range than Roadster (rolling resistances stay relatively constant, while air resistance is exponential). Which speed would that be? 85mph? 125mph? 200mph? speed of sound?

Any improvements in range or speeds or somesuch for 2.0 version of Roadster? At least PEM is smaller (fox news report), which intuitively would mean better efficiency, weight and thus range.

I have what I believe is a symbiotic add on technology that will help solve one of your most pressing battery engineering needs of substantially increased range.

By adapting your best current vehicles to accept a tracked overhead mobile umbilical power feed cable capable of not only powering your EV, but also charging your batteries while you are attached to this overhead dollie lane built into the national freeway arteries.

Such overhead feed lanes could be built for both passenger vehicles and separate EV semi-trucks like the new ones at Long Beach harbor.

It’s almost as simple as building an upside down elevated Hot Wheels slot car track, then hanging retractable power feeds from them and plugging it into your EV below it. The small overhead dollie would track and pace the EV below, capable of emergency disconnect via signal or tension on the umbilical tether reel above on the dollie.

The best aspect of such a system is the logical expectation that the federal and state highway depts would be obliged to build the umbilical dollie grids into our interstate system, and that your product can adapt to it with minimum modifications to it.

The guys that run the Mammoth Mountain ski resort are interested in building a very basic overhead umbilical dollie run that can power electric mountain bikes going up their ski runs in the summer months.

It can be done quite easily with current technology, becoming a new X-treme game sport that’s all electric.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated guys!

Best regards,

Jon Mooring
San Diego, CA

I work along side this company and not but pure professionals! Well built EV’s and incrediblt talented individuals.
-Mo.

To JB Straubel or anyone involved with powertrain development at Tesla,

With reference to my comment on July 19, 2009

Thanks Timo and CM for your resent comments concerning my ASTM (All Speed Transmission Motor) concept.
However I’d like to give special thanks to CM for this comment - “You’ve made an extraordinary claim, and I’ll need to see extraordinary proof from you before I’ll believe. If you can prove your impossible claim, you’ll be a serious contender for a Nobel Prize in physics”. ( I’ll remember that when I except the award.) lol But seriously CM you at least showed an open mind enough to say you would like to see proof before you would believe it. I commend you sir. Anyway, the fact is I CAN show(prove) how it is possible to apply a low rpm torque(motor) to a higher rpm system(wheels) with approximately the same torque (some losses due to friction,etc). I know from a power standpoint of T*R it doesn’t make sense or even seem possible but I have figured out a way to do it. And because the ASTM’s low rpm output torque can be applied to the vehicle wheels when at speed(with NO gearing up) you will save the energy that is now needed(wasted) just to get the motor up to the wheel’s speed even before it can begin to apply torque to the moving wheels. Lower rpms not only saves energy, which extends range, but as an added benefit reduces or even eliminates motor “whine”. Runs quiet yet torque is there.
Let me know if Tesla is interested in learning more about the ASTM propulsion technology. Take care all.

I figure that all necessary lights are already in LED technology. (including the brake-lights, rear lights)
The only lights that would be necessary to have in non-LED are the xenon headlights/bixenon. However, maybe you can
manage somehow to use the high mca LED’s and some focusing method to replace the xenon? That would give you another few miles at nighttime. Just a thought.

Wayne P. Bishop

Your ASTM isn’t just keeping torque it is mystically generating energy from nowhere. Basically you are claiming that you have invented perpetual motion machine. That is why CM said that comment about Nobel Prize.

Think about it: if you can keep torque and increase RPM in same time you are generating more power, which means more energy.

So lets start with lets say 15W electric engine that runs with high torque and low RPM. Here comes your magical transmission and changes that to high RPM without losing torque. Now, attach a normal transmission which increases torque and drops RPM back to what it was by normal gearing and use that to run 20W generator. Now you only need to loop that and you get perpetual machine that gives out 5W power. Repeat as many times as you want.

You can start with hand-cranked 5W motor and end up giving energy to entire world.

Call me sceptic, but I don’t think so.

Timo:
Referring to your statement when you said - “Think about it: if you can keep torque and increase RPM in same time you are generating more power, which means more energy.” and that is like getting energy from nothing and I understand that. And I agree with you. However how do you explain this. If you have a wheel with say two small rocket jets located at opposite sides so as when they thrust they put say a 10 ft-lb torque on the wheel. As you said, or know, the rockets will always apply the same thrust(and therefore torque) to the wheel regardless of it’s rpm. It has 10ft-lbs of torque on it at 0 rpms and at 100 rpms and at thousand (1000) rpms right? Then where did all that extra energy come from when it is now at 1000 rpms with the same torque. The rockets are burning(expending) the same amount of fuel every second and thrusting with the same force, and therefore the same torque, as it did at the lower rpms and even at 0 rpms. Where does the extra energy(power) come from due to higher rpms? I am really asking because this has me puzzled and wish somebody could explain it to me. What I’m I missing? help!

Thanks for the positive feedback CM.

I’d like to take modest little babysteps with my smart dollie overhead rail system by building a small subscale example course on Mammoth Mountain that powers electric mountain bikes up ski runs. Ideally two side by side course runs would enable two riders to compete in the sporting event sense of a timed uphill race.

I think it would be a commercially viable means of showing the CARB officials the system’s potential for interstate applications for both semi-trucks and passenger EVs.

A new x-treme biking event utilising clean electric full suspension mountain bikes in California would sure help raise the awareness of EV potential in our younger generation.

The electric bike’s power to weight ratio would certainly make for a thrilling uphill ride, complete with all natural rushes of adrenalin.

We need to show the public that clean new EV technology is superior to yesterday’s polluting relics in every sense, faster, lighter, better handling and quieter.

Once CARB is convinced the system works and could be applied to our interstates, it becomes a symbiotic relationship between the state, private EV owners and commercial trucking companies going green.

There’s an all electric battery powered semi-truck being tested right now at Long Beach Harbor cargo terminals here in CA.

Thanks for the feedback CM.

To engineering: About touch screens.

Have you tested how well those touch-screens behave in very cold climates when car has been parked for some time? Both Type S and Roadster utilize touch-screens for multitude of functions (including typing PIN-code to start it). If temperature is somewhere in -25C region do those work at all? I kind of don’t trust on touch-screens in cold weathers. Do I need to carry portable hair-dryer in order to melt that touch screen first before I can start the car?

In Type S that center console touch-screen is huge. I would prefer more standard set of controls so that I know where my hand is without needing to look at. It is safer that way. Could you provide Type S without touch-screen controls for AC/fans/radio/stereo etc? It looks cool but I’m not convinced that it is practical. In fact I believe it to be anything but practical. Screens should be mainly for information, controls should be accessible without needing to look at what you are doing.

I got a chance to test-drive a Roadster recently, and was very impressed. But it has one driving trait that I hope is not passed on to the Model S (I am customer #717 for the S). That is the rather high built-in regen braking that occurs when you take your foot off the gas. It feels like very pronounced engine braking, like when you wind out a gas-powered car in a low gear, and then back off the throttle:

I would very much like to see a driver-adjustable “engine-braking” regen setting for the Model-S. Set it high for performance driving, low for regular driving. Long downhill ahead? Turn it to just the right setting. Heck, turn it off altogether and coast. Some might argue that we need every bit of regen braking, but I don’t see how this kind of aggressive built-in regen helps all that much–if the excessive regen causes a more rapid deceleration than you want , you just have to step on the gas to get back to the speed you wanted to go, using up the regenerated power. With regen turned off, you get no regen, but on the other hand the car coasts along and doesn’t need more engine power to maintain speed.

It seems to me that the best kind of regen braking is that generated by the brake pedal–which the Roadster doesn’t have. This is a major design flaw. Even the Prius has brake-pedal-actuated regen braking. I hear that one problem the Prius has is rusty brake rotors; driven gently, the car virtually never uses its brakes to stop.

So here’s my plea for you Model S engineers: pedal-actuated regen brakes, plus a driver-adjustable built-in “auto” regen to simulate the feel of engine braking when you back off the throttle.

Timo;
Agree about the touch screens. Attempting to make car controls sexy graphic electronic is asking for trouble. If the screen fails, e.g., the car is unusable.

Forget digital displays etc. for basic control and driving functions. They are not robust enough for real world demands.

Two replies about touchscreen in two days.

To tomthemd: Touchscreen does not give you any feedback of where your hand is, ordinary controls do. It would be much harder to make adjustments to for example CD-player volume or cabin temperature setting if you don’t even know what the setting is or where it is. Especially if that screen has multiple modes which means there is no fixed place for any control. I don’t mind having that screen, I just don’t like the idea that it replaces all ordinary center console controls.

I also don’t think touchscreen is eye-friendly in dark roads. Even bright backlight of ordinary speedometer gets annoying when you are driving in dark roads, not to mention something that is many times bigger and needs backlight to show you what you are doing. You should be able to turn it off and still be able to make adjustments to settings.

Then there is that question about very cold weather. Does it function at all? How about adjusting something wearing gloves? How about with mittens? What is the freezing point of the screen?

CM,

Thanks for your comments on battery swapping. If it’s going to take longer to swap a battery pack including drive time than it does to charge at home and be more expensive too, I agree that charging is better, for the commuter anyway at the present time. I hope that changes in the future. Until it does, I hope the concept of charging can be sold to the public at large.

The public at large is used to pulling into gas stations for fill ups that take a couple of minutes rahter commuting or taking a long drive. Whether charging or swapping, I think people are going to want a “fill up” of an electric car to take about the same amount of time whatever form that “fill up” takes. This is the age of instant gratification after all.

People could probably get used to charging if they could try it before they buy it. Getting folks to buy it wilhout trying it for several charges will not be easy especially when an electric costs more than a gas car, the battery pack does not last forever and I assume replacing a battery pack is not cheap.

I’ve read about the 45 minute quick charge. That’s certainly better than three to five hours and gives me hope that something like a five minute quick charge may be possible in the future.

By the way, why is it a battery pack can be charged 80% in 45 minutes while a full charge takes three to five hours? I have yet to come across anything that explains that. Is there a heating issue with trying to quick charge to full capacity?

Thanks again for responding.

Wayne P. Bisho