

Elon Musk: Tesla network to triple by July, cross country travel by year’s end - kjhughes
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/05/30/elon-musk-says-a-roughly-30k-tesla-in-3-4-years/

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skriticos2
"Musk then spoke about how we might be able to terraform Mars by using
greenhouse gasses to warm it up. ”Mars is a fixer-upper of a planet, but we
could make it work.” he added."

I thought that would be difficult because the Mars has a very week protective
magnetosphere and any kind of atmosphere is blown away by the solar winds. Am
I missing something?

~~~
edwinkite
Giving Mars an atmosphere that you or I could breathe is science fiction. It
would require designer microbes, or enormous energy input.

Extending life beyond Earth - establishing a simple biosphere that's mostly
plants - is much simpler. It's an engineering problem.

Loss to space is geologically slow [1]. Photochemical degradation of
greenhouse gases is a bigger problem, but not a likely showstopper. Optimal
mixes of greenhouse gases are so powerful that the output from one mine and
one factory could be enough to dramatically raise temperatures [2]. We know
where the halogen deposits are [3,4], and already have most of the technology
to mine and process them robotically [5,6], but it would be expensive. The
problem is to make it cheaper.

[1] <http://www.cesr.fr/~genot/M2/article_science.pdf>

[2]
[http://www.climatefutures.com/doc/marinova_et_al_journal_of_...](http://www.climatefutures.com/doc/marinova_et_al_journal_of_geophysical_research_2005.pdf)

[3] <http://aram.ess.sunysb.edu/tglotch/TDG18.pdf>

[4]
[http://astronomy101.jpl.nasa.gov/files/Keller_Dissertation20...](http://astronomy101.jpl.nasa.gov/files/Keller_Dissertation2006.pdf)

[5] <http://www.iaarc.org/news/a_news_2012_09_11.pdf>

[6] <http://www.nautilusminerals.com/i/pdf/2012-Q2-FactSheet.pdf>

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ck2
Are the chargers going to remain free even for used, 2nd/3rd owner Tesla cars?

Because I could see that as a very positive reselling point.

~~~
joshdance
All the published info seems to point to Tesla car = free Supercharger use.
Which is a huge reselling point.

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pixie_
Waiting 30 minutes is still a dealbreaker for a lot of people. How about
switching out those batteries like propane tanks. I'll let someone else figure
out the technical details of that.

~~~
kiba
You're going to complain about taking a 30 minutes break after a 2 hours
drive? Also, if you charge your car every night, you should have enough range
to drive to work.

~~~
1123581321
A typical person in the US used to driving distances would have no trouble
driving eight hours in a row stopping only for 1-2 gas breaks and one
bathroom/food break. Edit: and two such people in a car could easily drive
12-24 hours alternating. For example, my friends drive between Texas and
Illinois and expect to complete the trip in under 24 hours.

It's okay that the Tesla isn't going after that market yet, but getting them
to change their habits for the car is unlikely to happen. That's okay!

~~~
nknighthb
> _my friends drive between Texas and Illinois_

That could be anywhere from ~430 miles, in which case you can probably get
there by starting with a full battery and making a single charge stop, to more
than 1400 miles.

Please be more specific as to the origin and destination.

~~~
1123581321
I was thinking of a distance for which arriving in under 24 hours would be
doable but not without frequent stops.

To use a specific example, these people drive from Chicago to Kerrville which
is about 19 hours according to Google Maps. Arriving in 24 hours would
probably not be possible even if no time was wasted getting into and out of
charging stations.

Edit reply: it's a few refills but each is quick and lasts longer than a
battery charge. Would estimate 5 minutes for human needs every 3-6 hours is
reasonable. I don't believe this is unusual long-distance driving behavior.
And again, I don't think Tesla should be judged right now on their ability to
cater to that market; we should be looking at how well Tesla serves those
driving a couple hundred miles or several hundred miles in a more leisurely
fashion.

~~~
nknighthb
First, the only likely way to make that trip with only one stop for gas is to
do it in a car getting better than 40mpg, so unless they're in a good hybrid
and haven't loaded it down too much, I'm pretty sure they're going to get gas
twice.

Second, I don't know about you, but unless I'm dehydrated, I pee rather more
often than once every six hours, and I definitely stop more often than that on
the occasional ~800 mile road trip I take.

Assuming this game of telephone hasn't gone too badly awry, your friends are
extreme outliers, not "a typical person in the US used to driving distances".

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1123581321
I replied in edit but said the wrong thing. Corrected version:

Edit reply: it's a few refills but each is quick and lasts _shorter_ than a
battery charge. Would estimate 5 minutes for human needs every 3-6 hours is
reasonable. I don't believe this is unusual long-distance driving behavior.
And again, I don't think Tesla should be judged right now on their ability to
cater to that market; we should be looking at how well Tesla serves those
driving a couple hundred miles or several hundred miles in a more leisurely
fashion.

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rdl
I wonder if he intended to announce it after all, or if that actually was a
misstep on stage.

The one drive I'd be likely to make at all frequently which kind of makes me
wary of relying on a Model S would be SFBA to Yosemite. Not far enough south
to hit the Harris Ranch station, but far enough to need to recharge. And few
of the places around there would have 230v, or even available 110v charging.
"Rent a car just for that trip" would be fine, though.

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codex
“It was clear that we were not going to see electric cars from incumbent
manufacturers,” says Musk."

Clear, perhaps, but not correct. Ford, GM, Nissan, Honda, Mitsubishi, Mercedes
and Toyota all sell electric cars (though the latter two use Tesla's
batteries). BMW is about to start. California has almost single-handedly
willed these cars into existence.

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Florin_Andrei
This appears to be the full video:

[http://allthingsd.com/20130530/tesla-ceo-and-spacex-
founder-...](http://allthingsd.com/20130530/tesla-ceo-and-spacex-founder-elon-
musk-the-full-d11-interview-video/)

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dram
Some video - <http://allthingsd.com/category/d11/>

~~~
justin66
I don't follow the tech press very closely but I saw this and the Tim Cook
interview. Those two are really, really mediocre interviewers.

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timjahn

       .~#>'k

Hgdaa

