**Tesla Model S** The first nail in the internal combustions engines coffin?

When you say low cost.... what sort of number are your circulating here?

Easier to get a ICE car if your doing more than 300miles a day to be honest. I guess I'm one of those freaky low useage drivers than does between 45 and 90 miles a day though.
 
A full set of batteries for a Dutch house barge can be had for around 1-2k, so I'm using that to guestimate. I would put about 3-4k aside maybe a little more to get closer to holding 2 charges. It maybe a little more or less.
 
jigger said:
A full set of batteries for a Dutch house barge can be had for around 1-2k, so I'm using that to guestimate. I would put about 3-4k aside maybe a little more to get closer to holding 2 charges. It maybe a little more or less.
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What capacity and what technology? I bet the dutch house barge isnt rated to a 100kW discharge?
 
jigger said:
I would phone Rolls and order a set of batteries. Why is that silly? it would be a hell of a lot better than having a three phase supply brought to my house.
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No, it wouldn't.

The first problem is cost. If you were to do it now, you'd be spending over £50,000 on batteries alone(*) and you'd need to replace them about every 100,000 miles. That's more than 50p per mile on top of the cost of electricity and all the other costs of running a car. I'm being very generous there and assuming that you can get the batteries in the UK for the same price that Nissan claimed to have been able to get them in bulk for Leafs. Which is not at all likely - Nissan's claimed price is considered a bit unlikely anyway because it's 25% less than what other companies have to pay and that's buying in bulk and it's buying outside the UK and it doesn't include tax.

The second problem is charging the battery in the charging station. Since you're not allowing for a three phase supply to be brought to your house, you'd have to charge it from domestic mains. That would take about 45 hours. So you'd have to charge one of your batteries for 45 hours in order to use it to charge your other battery in 45 minutes.

If you move the goalposts and talk about a hypothetical future world where high-capacity batteries are far cheaper, then you may as well assume the existence of battery swapping stations and the issue of charging at home goes away.


* You're talking about 100KWh in the car and sufficient storage in the charging station battery to fully charge that 100KWh, i.e. a bit more than 100KWh because some will be lost in charging. Nissan's claimed cost is $375/KWh


EDIT: I've now seen a later post in which you say you'd be using a different battery tech, not Li-ion. So what battery tech would you be using which can store ~110KWh and discharge with a continuous output of ~145KW?
 
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PanMaster said:
Wouldn't the batteries cost a small fortune to run a 100kW motor for 2 hours/decent amount of time ?
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Yes.

1 AA NiMH battery with 2AH @ 1.2v x 10 in series x 10,000 in parallel would cost say £200,000
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The cheapest claimed price for high-capacity Li-ion is $375/KWh for batteries that could run a 100KW motor, no problem. To run it full whack for 2 hours would require ~220KWh of storage (assuming 90% efficiency). 220x375 = $82500. About £55,000.

That claim caused some surprise, because everyone else was looking at ~$500/KWh.

You'd also have to add tax, retail mark-up and the generally higher cost of things in the UK, but it would be a lot less than £200,000.

The other problem is that it would be too big to conveniently fit in a car and it would weigh about 2 tonnes.
 
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Jonnycoupe said:
Thats only one attribute, leaps and strides are being made with regard to automotive requirements : Weight and size. The YASA motor that is 13kg for 50kW is progress aswell as the engineering of EV Tractions motors that are not reliant on rare earth elements. Protean in wheel hub motor with the integrated inverter & cooling system aswell did not exist in a mature state 5 years ago either.
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Yes, there is scope for improvement. But not anywhere near as much as there was with the first ICEVs. Taking a few kilos here and there off the weight of a car is not a massive improvement.

I'm not saying that all the tech in an EV is already fully mature and has no scope for improvement. I'm saying that it's development of existing technology more than genuinely new technology and that it can't be improved as fast and by as much as happened with the first cars.

I'm also saying that the commonly used argument that EVs are wholly new and must inevitably improve as much and as quickly as the first ICEVs will raise false expectations that will not be met, which will tarnish the image of EVs and is therefore counter-productive as advocacy of EVs.
 
Jonnycoupe said:
What capacity and what technology? I bet the dutch house barge isnt rated to a 100kW discharge?
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It would be more than 100KW. The stated objective was a 100KWh charge in 45 minutes. That's 133KW plus charging losses, so ~145KW with a charging efficiency of 90%.
 
Still doesnt answer my question about barge batteries ;) were hardly in first gen EVs now anyway.

Evidently that case the numbers would'nt add up and of course you will need to ensure the buffer battery has a higher voltage than the charging battery as it approaches full SoC.

White Zombie owner John Waylands target for his Insight is 185 Wh/mile BTW. You quickly discredited my 5 mile/kWh reference last time this came round...
 
Jonnycoupe said:
Still doesnt answer my question about barge batteries ;) were hardly in first gen EVs now anyway.

Evidently that case the numbers would'nt add up and of course you will need to ensure the buffer battery has a higher voltage than the charging battery as it approaches full SoC.

White Zombie owner John Waylands target for his Insight is 185 Wh/mile BTW. You quickly discredited my 5 mile/kWh reference last time this came round...
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And then I rethought my initial dismissal of it. It's well past anything that exists today, but I was too quick to dismiss it as totally impossible.

The rating of the Tesla roadster is 333 Wh/mile, and that's an efficient EV.

I think that there simply isn't the scope for almost doubling efficiency, but I'll wait and see if he manages it.

Of course, if you add regenerative braking (which doesn't actually improve the Wh/mile figure, so it's misleading to claim that it does) and use techniques like slipstreaming behind larger vehicles, you might be able to squeeze the numbers up that far. But that's not really the same thing at all.
 
Since the car is fully electric and not powered by any kind of liquid fuel, are there many parts/components that are no longer needed?

No need for a fuel tank (obvious)
Engine oil?
Coolant? (do the engines still get really hot?)
Exhaust?
Catalytic convertors?
 
Killerkebab said:
Since the car is fully electric and not powered by any kind of liquid fuel, are there many parts/components that are no longer needed?

No need for a fuel tank (obvious)
Engine oil?
Coolant? (do the engines still get really hot?)
Exhaust?
Catalytic convertors?
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It won't need engine oil as in the typical sense, although it may need some kind of lubricating fluid for the motor, I don't know much about them though.

It'll definitely need coolant, the batteries and motor itself will get fairly hot.

No need for an exhaust or catalytic converter obviously as there is no combustion.
 
I know the charging station is far from ideal and for a lot of people is unrealistic to set up but its a way to hold a charge for the car should it be needed. The potential cost of setting up a 200amp class three phase supply at home could be more than the cost of buying the car.

Anyhow, if this is true we now have another option. At the current exchange rate Tesla Li-Ion packs would work out at £127 per kWh. In that case I would price up an order for a 260 mile model with two batteries.

http://www.autoevolution.com/news/cheap-batteries-will-make-tesla-s-model-s-profitable-29138.html

http://rumors.automobilemag.com/tesla-20000-model-sales-required-start-posting-profits-11763.html

http://www.dailytech.com/Model+S+Wo...+Already+Predicting+a+Profit/article20544.htm
 
jigger said:
I know the charging station is far from ideal and for a lot of people is unrealistic to set up but its a way to hold a charge for the car should it be needed. The potential cost of setting up a 200amp class three phase supply at home could be more than the cost of buying the car.
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As could the batteries for a charging station. You're also stuck with the fact that with only domestic mains it will take longer to charge the charging station than it would to charge the car, so you're looking at spending 45 hours charging the station in order to use it to charge the car in 45 minutes. That severely reduces its practicality, regardless of cost.

Anyhow, if this is true we now have another option. At the current exchange rate Tesla Li-Ion packs would work out at £127 per kWh. In that case I would price up an order for a 260 mile model with two batteries.
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The links you give go to unsubstantiated figures for what might be the cost, not definite statements of cost. The only stated figure that allegedly comes from Tesla itself (George Blankenship, Tesla VP for worldwide sales and ownership experience) is that every 70 miles added to the base range adds $10,000 to the price. Given that 70 miles of range is probably ~17KWh, that's a hell of a lot more than £127 per KWh. Unless, of course, Tesla is openly planning on blatantly gouging customers who want more range.
 
jigger said:
Everything about the car is hush-hush and unsubstantiated. We don't even know the size of the battery options yet.
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Yet you somehow knew the cost of them only a couple of posts ago, until I used your own sources to show some figures that don't fit in with the picture you're painting.
 
More good news in batteries. Next 5 years is going to be interesting. One of these many developments must make it to manufacturing

This is quite a simple but ingenues design
http://*****.net/tech/news/industry/32627-new-li-ion-batteries-offer-10x-capacity/

10x current capacity for first 150charges then 5x current capacity afterwards. For phones that would be great, for cars :eek: imagine having 5 times the range or more likely 2.5times the range and half the battery size.
And can charge faster as well, a phone battery would take just 15minutes at normal charge rate, not sure how that would corespondent to EV charging.
 
New super sports car from Mercedes
SLS AMG E-Cell
http://www.thechargingpoint.com/opi...Feed:+TheChargingPoint+(TheChargingPoint.com)
1326034985586.jpg

392kw(529bhp)
880Nm
0-60 under 4 seconds
2hr fast charge (2nd generation battery pack)
Rumoured 200mile range

3rd gen battery pack out early this year.
 
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