

Tesla Roadster reaches the end of the line - jkuria
http://money.cnn.com/2011/06/21/autos/tesla_roadster_selling_out/index.htm?iid=HP_Highlight

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bugsy
$58,0000 for 160 mile range, $80,000 for extra batteries to bring it up to 300
mile range, which is $22,000 more. The extra weight of the batteries reduces
mileage slightly so the extra pack doubles the battery capacity. Now battery
cost is the big problem, so the $22,000 pack is being sold at near cost. So a
300 mile range battery pack from 0 mile range is $44,000, this is the cost of
the two packs. Batteries need to be replaced every 3-6 years depending on use,
so figure $9000/yr battery cost for this machine, not including the $1000 or
so fees for disposing of the toxic waste (lithium batteries are not accepted
at the dump).

So yes, you save on gas driving this machine and save the environment by not
emitting as many fumes. But it costs $9000 a year to maintain the batteries,
which are a serious toxic waste disposal problem.

Not harping on Tesla here though, this is the basic problem with electric
cars.

~~~
IgorPartola
I'm pretty sure you save nothing by driving this car. Think about this:

1\. Energy and materials for manufacturing the batteries

2\. Energy for recycling the batteries

3\. Energy to charge the batteries

4\. Energy to mine the coal (most common fuel in the U.S.) to produce the
electricity

5\. Energy losses on the power lines, transformers, etc.

If you are after saving the environment, buy a used Geo instead. However,
Tesla makes damn cool cars.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
This is a really good point: if you are going to buy a car anyway, it _might_
be better to buy an electric car (though I, personally, doubt it, and would
love to see the actual environmental impact), but if you want to help the
environment, buy a used car. Almost any used car will be better for the
environment than the best new car.

~~~
csomar
I'm missing some point here. Isn't a new car more environment friendly?

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stonemetal
I would think it depends on the new car and the old car and usage, but the
idea is that a large amount of resources goes in to making a car so saving
that initial outlay of resources by reusing an older car would more than cover
the difference in fuel consumption.

~~~
csomar
_..but the idea is that a large amount of resources goes in to making a car so
saving that initial outlay of resources.._

If so, then why work? Isn't that a waste of Energy, time and resources? We
could simply live on like humans did thousands of years ago...

~~~
RickHull
> _If so, then why work?_

Most people need to pay the bills. Room, board, that sort of thing.

> _Isn't that a waste of Energy, time and resources?_

Work for work's sake -- perhaps. If you rather receive something desirable in
proportional exchange for your labor, then no.

> _We could simply live on like humans did thousands of years ago..._

Whaddya mean _we_? All 7 billion of us? Not a chance. 7 million, maybe. I, for
one, am getting up at 8am tomorrow.

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RexRollman
Something I've always wondered, and I bet someone else here has thought about
it, is what happens if electric vehicles do become popular?

It seems to me that we would have a huge surge in electrical demand and that
would make electricity more expensive. Could the electrical infrastructure
even keep up? And wouldn't we just end up shifting where waste comes from
(from Cars to power plants). And battery recycling would certainly become a
very important thing.

~~~
jacquesgt
If the cars are mostly charged overnight, it won't be a big deal. The biggest
strain on the power grid and generation capacity comes in the late afternoon,
when people's air conditioners are cranking at full blast. That's when the
most expensive and dirtiest energy is generated (coal energy is great at
ramping up to meet peaks in demand, and power companies will obviously keep
their most expensive generators in reserve for peak loads). Adding more
consumption at night is actually a great thing, because it lets power
companies get more use out of the big capital expenditure on their power
plants. Obviously this depends on people actually charging at night, but that
can be handled through financial incentives.

And, of course, centralizing the generation of emissions can be a good thing
in that you just need to upgrade a few generators to improve efficiency/reduce
emissions vs upgrading millions of cars.

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wisty
I don't think that's really true. I though coal is quite slow at ramp-up. Gas
(sorry, UK English, I mean gaseous hydrocarbons like propane) is much more
responsive. Coal is cheap (especially if you already have the infrastructure,
built when labor was cheaper), that's its advantage.

Anyway, even coal is more efficient than car engines. IIRC, coal is something
like 60% efficient (and it really can't get better, due to the laws of
physics), cars are more like 30% efficient. OK, coal power still needs to be
distributed and then there's some loss in the electric engine, but it's
minimal, and petrol also needs distribution. Thus, coal creates less carbon
emissions than petrol.

~~~
ams6110
Coal in a modern generating plant is burned quite efficiently. It's pulverized
into a powder, then blown into the combustion chamber with a lot of high
pressure air. The burning coal is literally a fireball under the boiler.

The old image of heavy black smoke pouring out of the stacks is not the way it
is anymore.

[http://www.canadiancleanpowercoalition.com/index.php/downloa...](http://www.canadiancleanpowercoalition.com/index.php/download_file/-/view/46/)

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checker
Quoted from comments and decided to analyze: "A family sedan for $80,000. That
will work."

At an average of 15K miles/year, 30mpg, and $3/gal of gas, that's $1500 in
gasoline a year. Over 5 years, that's a savings of $7500 ($10000 for $4/gal).
We're not quite at that point where it offsets completely from a pure 'gas vs
electric' POV (I'm not sure if the car has a Mercedes-comparable interior or a
Toyota-comparable interior).

I don't think this means it won't work, but I was interested in the gas
savings over time. I would buy one if I could afford an $80000 car.

~~~
cube13
Let's assume that it's a high-end luxury sedan, not a low-end family sedan.
Unless gas goes up to $100/gallon, there's no way you'll save money by buying
the Tesla over a affordable mid-size like a Honda Accord or Ford Fusion.

So let's compare that to a Mercedes E-class. According to US
News([http://usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/cars-trucks/Mercedes-
Be...](http://usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/cars-trucks/Mercedes-Benz_E-
Class/)), the average price out the door is about $48,000 for the model with
the fewest options. Let's round that up to $50,000, because we want alloy
wheels or some other additional feature.

The mileage of the car is 24 highway, 17 city, so let's average that to about
20(a bit more city driving than highway). So that's $15,000 in gas over the 5
years(30/20=1.5). So the total cost of the car, not counting other
replacements, is around $65,000.

That's still $15,000 less than the $80,000 on the Tesla, and you're not going
to spend $15,000 on car washes and other parts(brakes, oil, etc.) in that
time. It should also be noted that if you need to buy replacement batteries in
that 5 year period, the cost increases to $100,000.

EDIT: I didn't include the cost of electricity, or the electrical work needed
to get the extra 220 volt circuit out to your garage.

~~~
nradov
Edmunds estimates the total cost of ownership for a Mercedes-Benz E-class
sedan at $77K for five years. [http://www.edmunds.com/mercedes-
benz/e-class/2011/tco.html?s...](http://www.edmunds.com/mercedes-
benz/e-class/2011/tco.html?style=101350134)

~~~
khafra
Unless the Tesla doesn't depreciate or need repairs, most of that extra cost
is going to be similar.

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AndyKelley
One thing that seems unaddressed is how quickly the car recharges. For
example, if I am going on a road trip in a gasoline car, when I run out of
gas, I can quickly fill it up and be on my way. With an electric car, an
electrical recharge probably takes several hours.

~~~
btucker
Electric swap stations (eg. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfdYU7gk8fs>)
strike me as one of the most promising concepts for electric vehicles. Imagine
if rather than ever owning a battery you're just perpetually rent the use of
one (perhaps with a small per-swap fee). Alas it would seem we're still many
many years away from seeing anything like this rolled out in a real way.

~~~
wmf
Tesla seems to be going in the opposite direction, making the battery pack a
structural component.

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Spines11
Tesla's next car, a sedan, will cost $58,000. What is it that makes electric
cars so expensive? I don't know much about cars, but I thought electric cars
had fewer parts than a gas car. Is it just that the parts for electric cars
haven't reached economies of scale yet?

~~~
btilly
Batteries.

In _The Innovator's Dilemma_ there is an analysis from the 90s presented about
when pure electric cars would be economically viable for a mass market. Based
on then-current technology projections, it would happen around 2020.

The critical combination that their analysis found necessary is price below a
certain level, sufficient acceleration to merge into an Interstate, sufficient
range, and fast enough recharge time. The Tesla currently fails on price and
recharge time. It over-delivers on power, and has about the right range.

~~~
Corrado
OK, but why are batteries expensive? 20 years ago rechargeable AA cells were
very expensive, now they are cheap, plentiful, and work better than ever.

Will electric vehicle cells follow the same curve? If not, why not? Is it
because they contain precious materials? Lack of economies of scale? ???

~~~
btilly
The long and short of it is, "Moore's law is ubiquitous."

In _many_ very different industries for a _long_ time, once there was an
agreed upon and measurable criterion for "better" they delivered exponentially
improving performance for periods of decades. What is exceptional about
transistors is the rate of doubling, but not the general shape of the curve.
(More normal rates of sustained improvement are 5-10%/year.)

Lithium-ion batteries have been on a sustained path of improvement since the
first commercial ones were released in 1991. If that curve is projected
forward to 2020, you hit a price-performance point where electric cars are
likely to be competitive.

Incidentally if the history of innovation is to be trusted, I would not look
for the first successful mainstream electric cars to be from major auto makers
or from companies like Tesla. Successful disruptions tend to come up from the
bottom of the market. Look at companies like Club Car that sell things like
electric golf carts that are already appearing on the road. It is much easier
for companies to expand upmarket than it is to strip products down. There is
no reason to believe that this has changed.

~~~
wooster
There are examples of markets being disrupted from the top. The iPod is a
notable example. It started at a very high price, then dropped into the range
where it has become ubiquitous.

The trick seems to be that the company who establishes a high-price and high-
margin product needs to be willing to cannibalize their own sales with lower
priced offerings.

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HoyaSaxa
The number one thing Tesla has to do if they want to become part of the
mainstream is to get the United States Government to establish standards for
car batteries. The downside to this is that it limits innovation. However,
without the ability to swap batteries at "battery (gas) stations" electric
cars will stay in the "early adapters" phase indefinitely. The alternative is
to develop a cost effective battery that can last for a very long time (read:
500+ miles) which actually might be in the near future. On a side note, I wish
Tesla sold gas hybrid cars because I love the design.

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csomar
Electric cars doesn't solve the problem if we are using oil to produce
electricity. That is, we need to solve that problem first. Actually, by
replacing oil with some sort of renewable energy or safe-to-use nuclear energy
is already a step to reducing oil consumption.

I'm not here saying that Tesla cars are useless. I didn't try them, but from
the design, speed and mileage they seem pretty decent. They are the future,
but it's important to look at the energy that runs them and get to solve that
problem first.

~~~
sixtofour
Electric cars are one step in the direction of reducing oil use. And, we
cannot solve the oil problem by solving the oil problem first.

The great thing about electric anything is that it's a flexible energy source.
You can generate electricity with many different fuels. So you can work on the
end user energy needs a bit at a time, without requiring the entire economy to
shift all at once.

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Machine1962
Innovation would cease to exist if all we did was figure out how/why NOT to do
something. Most have not had the pleasure of experiencing the thrill of this
technology before commenting. Tesla's real issue is that Musk is really only
interested in developing, selling his technology and driving their stock price
up so he can get out of the car biz. NOT saving the world, one car at a time.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing.

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mmphosis
Here are the three primary components of my future electric car, ordered by
the most costly first:

1\. Power generation: lots and I mean lots of cheap solar panels on the roof
of my home, and a small wind turbine. $25000

2\. Power storage: compressed air tanks. $10000

3\. A light weight vehicle that meets my own specifications of a small but
practical delivery vehicle. $5000

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shawnbaden
Breaking into the automotive industry is tough. Tesla (or any new
manufacturer) should expect to slog along for 10+ years before seeing any
significant sales and impact.

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mkramlich
nooooo! I had a personal goal of buying a new one in the next few years.
Hopefully they bring it back and/or a similar all-electric sports car comes
out.

