**Tesla Model S** The first nail in the internal combustions engines coffin?
- Thread starter jigger
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>100KW(*) seems like rather a lot to be supplying to a car. Can you get that at home?
* Taking regenerative braking into account, 4 miles per KWh charged beforehand is a reasonable estimate. 300 miles therefore requires 75KWh. 75KWh in 45 minutes would require 100KW with perfect charging efficiency, which doesn't exist.
* Taking regenerative braking into account, 4 miles per KWh charged beforehand is a reasonable estimate. 300 miles therefore requires 75KWh. 75KWh in 45 minutes would require 100KW with perfect charging efficiency, which doesn't exist.
A possible alternative is to detach the charging from the driving by swapping batteries.
i) Drive into a petrol/battery station.
ii) Swap discharged battery for charged one. Pay while a machine does the swap.
iii) Drive off.
There you go, a full charge from empty in under 5 minutes and functionality almost identical to refueling an ICE car (i.e. requires a station). With the possible extra option of a relatively slow charge in a garage at home being practical overnight, that would make an EV more practical than an ICEV.
There are practical issues to be addressed, but it's theoretically possible. The batteries could be charged in the station. If it has enough of them, it won't matter if it takes several hours to charge one.
Seems rather nice for that money. But I'm sceptical about them being able to bring it to market at that price. 75KWh of Li-ion batteries doesn't come cheap. Nissan caused a stir when they claimed they were only paying $375/KWh for the batteries in Leafs, because that is well below the usual price. Even at $375/KWh, 75KWh is $28,175.
Maybe they're talking about selling it for $50,000 without any batteries, with some sort of battery rental deal.
Soldato
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The price is the base model with 160 mile range. 300 mile will be the premium product and priced accordingly.
John wayland is putting 71.5kWh of Dow Kokam into his Insight... I think he has a sponsor though!
John wayland is putting 71.5kWh of Dow Kokam into his Insight... I think he has a sponsor though!
Not right now, no. The national grid couldn't handle it anyway. If everyone switched to EVs, the load on the grid would increase a great deal.
But the grid is being upgraded a great deal and generating capacity could be increased. Not right away, but it could be done quickly enough to handle EVs mostly taking over from ICEVs over a decade or two. It's doable.
A couple of questions:
How much revenue does the government get from the taxes on petrol and diesel?
How would they get it from drivers if many people switched to EVs?
I don't see them saying "Oh well, never mind, we didn't really want that tax revenue anyway", so they're going to get it somehow.
For that reason, I very much doubt if EVs will actually be cheaper to use than ICEVs are now. Petrol and diesel are actually very cheap - it's the tax that jacks the cost up, tax that will be added to EV use if it becomes more than an irrelevant rarity.
How much revenue does the government get from the taxes on petrol and diesel?
How would they get it from drivers if many people switched to EVs?
I don't see them saying "Oh well, never mind, we didn't really want that tax revenue anyway", so they're going to get it somehow.
For that reason, I very much doubt if EVs will actually be cheaper to use than ICEVs are now. Petrol and diesel are actually very cheap - it's the tax that jacks the cost up, tax that will be added to EV use if it becomes more than an irrelevant rarity.
If electric cars become mainstream how will they manage the charging process for massive numbers of cars? Will people rely on charging at home or will stations be needed, they would end up with huge queues while waiting 45 mins on each car in them.
That will be decades away though I expect
That will be decades away though I expect
Once the industry reaches some standardisation on battery pack configuration this is kind of how I see the whole thing heading as it also gets around the difficult issue of battery packs being expensive to replace and having a relatively short life.
Essentially rather than buying a battery pack you'd pay a monthly subscription to lease one, if yours is flat you swap it for another. The garages would then health check your old pack, if it's beyond it's serviceable life the supplier would replace it, if it's still good it gets recharged and is ready for someone else.
I saw a video of them road testing it and showing off the centre console screen. The screen looked amazing, they benchmark it against the Macbook Pro's 17" screen during production but it seemed laggy especially when zooming in and out of the navigation map. The guy saw this during the demo then quickly exited full screen mode.
I hope they do improve the speed of the display processor because that kind of lag/stuttering is damn ugly on a big screen.
I hope they do improve the speed of the display processor because that kind of lag/stuttering is damn ugly on a big screen.
I wouldn't say no.
The advancement in solar technology could mean charging stations can store power during the day at a much higher rate than previous solar technologies. Aren't current solar panels something like 75% efficient? And then there's that kid's innovation on panel array design (like a tree) which increases electricity generation by quite a bit.
Stuff like that will help. If you could buy a solar station for your home and install it ready for your electric car then each day it could store enough energy to charge the car at night.
