Not wanting to sound cynical, because I love all this stuff.
But if/when the supercharger stations get going in Victoria, I assume they’re going to be running off the electricity grid? If so, they’ll likely contribute more fossil fuel emissions than most regular new cars because of all our brown ‘good for humanity’.
The overall effect on humanity wouldn’t be worse than the effect the current primary resource (ie: oil) currently has (ie: wars and sht).
True enough. Hadn’t really considered the energy security side of it.
But still, it won’t help reduce emissions in Vic until we switch off some brown coal plants - at the moment, running a Tesla vehicle in Victoria produces more than double the emissions of a Prius, and about 50% more than a diesel Golf (source: http://theconversation.com/teslas-in-victoria-arent-greener-than-diesels-40834). Of course there’s the potential to run them fully off renewables in the long term, and that would be great.
The home batteries are awesome, too.
Not wanting to sound cynical, because I love all this stuff.But if/when the supercharger stations get going in Victoria, I assume they’re going to be running off the electricity grid? If so, they’ll likely contribute more fossil fuel emissions than most regular new cars because of all our brown ‘good for humanity’.
Supercharger stations are solar powered
True enough. Hadn't really considered the energy security side of it.But still, it won’t help reduce emissions in Vic until we switch off some brown coal plants - at the moment, running a Tesla vehicle in Victoria produces more than double the emissions of a Prius, and about 50% more than a diesel Golf (source: http://theconversation.com/teslas-in-victoria-arent-greener-than-diesels-40834). Of course there’s the potential to run them fully off renewables in the long term, and that would be great.
The home batteries are awesome, too.
I dislike this argument. People are so content with hundreds of thousands of little power plants driving around on the roads. How many thousand cars can you run off one power plant? Wouldn’t it be easier to replace all the little ones that are powered off one unclean plant, then replace the unclean plant?
True enough. Hadn't really considered the energy security side of it.But still, it won’t help reduce emissions in Vic until we switch off some brown coal plants - at the moment, running a Tesla vehicle in Victoria produces more than double the emissions of a Prius, and about 50% more than a diesel Golf (source: http://theconversation.com/teslas-in-victoria-arent-greener-than-diesels-40834). Of course there’s the potential to run them fully off renewables in the long term, and that would be great.
The home batteries are awesome, too.
I dislike this argument. People are so content with hundreds of thousands of little power plants driving around on the roads. How many thousand cars can you run off one power plant? Wouldn’t it be easier to replace all the little ones that are powered off one unclean plant, then replace the unclean plant?
Yeah, I completely agree. I’m only really making a very limited, specific point - in Victoria, in the short term, with the vast majority of our electricity coming from brown coal, these cars will probably increase emissions if they are charged using the grid.
@benfti : I think there are a few solar-powered stations at the moment, but it wouldn’t be more than a couple of percent of them overall. Not sure if the Australian ones will be - apparently they might be but I can’t find anything definite. Do you know?
So how is this battery and the technology any different to what is currently available on the market now? As far as i'm aware lithium ion is pretty much the 'go to' battery and I can see this one is bigger and how it gets charged etc, but honestly is the battery really that good? Also the 150 year claim is laughable without any facts. How was this tested?To me keeping with the apple theme it’s more ‘we see what you have out there with mobile phones but we’ll just implement it better’. That coupled with sheer volume and capacity to make loads of it for a cheap price means there will be more uptake, more information to get out about it etc…
It should all come to light pretty quickly as they are open sourcing the designs, but my understanding is it does a much smarter job at managing the loads in peak times, thus improving the life cycle of the battery considerably. It’s Telsa though, and bear in mind there track record for Battery innovation is pretty astonishing. There cars despite using less batteries get over twice the range, with more power, and a 1/4 of the charge time except for Fisker who literally stole the drive train and battery concepts (the guy who started Fisker was the guy employed by Tesla to design the model s, and just took the specs and ******* off)
Anyone who has ridden in or driven a Model S will tell you it’s the future of motoring. So I’m expecting the same level of innovation and quality with these things.
Musk has never done anything half arsed.
Didn’t Tesla just recently release all of their patents on their technology with the intention of opening the market up and getting more competion etc to help bring the costs down long term?
EDIT: Yep
I read a costing study on the Model S Tesla a couple of weeks back, and despite costing around 100k at the entry, if you used it for daily use over a 6 year period it ends up as a similar cost over that time to something like a 3 series (its the same driveaway price as the active hybrid) or a 300c. The performance is insane for that money, its Ferrari Fast off the line for 3 series money, and if you cant manage a 502km range then your a douche. I desperately want one.Just a few questions .
What is the expected life of a Tesla car battery ?
How much does a replacement battery cost ?
How much will it cost to recharge each 502km.
They warranty the battery at 9 years, and expect replacement at 20
Hard to say, its going to boil down to the declining costs of Lithium Ion, at todays production cost, around 6k but after the gigafactory is built 4.5k as soon as the second one is built and the inevitable Chinese market arrival, in 20 years who knows.
Its going to depend on how you do it, through a regular wall socket, $25, through the rapid charger house fitment. $17, supercharger station, nothing. add a 7kw solar panel to your home rapid charger, nothing also. The supercharger station is the best method.
If you are looking for the cheapest running cost, my advice is wait till mid 16 before you buy, by then the supercharger network will be running very well in Melbourne and its the fastest way to do it and its free.
that also being said, feel free to get 502kms of range out of your car off 25 bucks of juice.
Can you give me a reference for your costings ?
Reading articles in US motoring press replacement battery would be $US 20,000.
Cannot accept their 9 year warranty as my experience with Lithium Ion batteries used in power tools is at most 2 years . Accept that Tesla may have different tech but ALL rechargeable batts are quite erratic. Many fires in laptops although amperage requirement is very low. Have used many rechargeables of all types for years in radio control cars, planes and boats and although tech is improving as far as power is concerned failure of cells is still major problem. Do you know how many cells a Tesla battery pack has ?
Last L-ion pack I used in a r/c Car 14.8v 6500mah had 2 cells fail after less than 3 hours running time. Granted that these packs do not have the protections of Tesla cells but r/c use is extreme and definitely tests battery technology to its limits. I must look into Formula E and see what their experience with batteries is. I hope that battery power does come on board, but I also wonder what damage 60 million battery cars sold each year would do to the worlds eco through mining, waste disposal etc. Just look at the ghastly situation at the rare earth mines in Mongolia.
Any way keep up with your info you seem to be keeping up to date wiyh Tesla at least.
Just hope Tesla last longer than most start up car companies.
AY, i know your not a subscriber to all things climate related, but this thread is suppose to be more about the tech than anything anti coal/oil
also, its worth noting when gauging the life cycle of an EV, its not about years of use, its about miles/kms covered. If it was driven only to church on sundays, it would probably last 50 years, I have an old Nokia 3310 that has a lithium battery and it still fires up, but I have not used it seriously in 10 years.
Now we know that the first model Tesla (the roadster) was still showing 85% capacity at the 100,000 mile mark (http://www.plugincars.com/tesla-roadster-battery-life-study-85-percent-after-100000-miles-127733.html), so thats 160,000kms, now considering that the model S is newer and has more battery saving technology in it, it think its reasonable to suggest that the battery should last the lifetime of the vehicle, you would assume that most owners would not be hanging onto the car at 200,000kms or if they did they would probably have replaced the battery.
You have to sift through the media when it comes to these things, people who dont like what EV’s stand for tend to compare them to things like laptops when it comes to the life cycle of a battery, but they are cars, their measure should be the same as any other car, and thats kms covered before you have to rebuild or replace the engine. A mate of mine replaced an engine in a Merc SL500 2001 and it cost him just over 16k to do that. That car was $122,000 when new and is 15 years old, but talk about replacing a battery that is nutted at the same age point for a car of similar age and people use it as a point of ridicule. The engine component on the other hand will go on for practically ever because it has no oil or water in it and it only has one moving part.
They’re all worthwhile questions though. Lithium isn’t exactly nice stuff. If they can do something awesome with their battery management that triples or quadruples the life span - that’s great.
But Li-ion has been around 5-10 years now and used in a lot of different industries, with billions thrown into development - and they haven’t given anywhere near the sort of life spans he’s quoting. So they’re absolutely valid questions.
And you know where I stand on AGW and most enviro issues.
AY, i know your not a subscriber to all things climate related, but this thread is suppose to be more about the tech than anything anti coal/oil
Your right about my Co2 doubt but my interest in electric drive and tech goes back 35 years, mainly through my hobby interests. My concern about the environment is more in degradation of habitat .
My worrry is about unexpected or unplanned outcomes eg.Cane toads. If we can get those farking diesels out of the system we’ll all be a lot better off. And I now drive a Fiat 500 but only to cut down on fuel cost.
If you’re interested in electrics look up some of the tech on the Williams/Spark battery used in Formula E.
200kw /200kg recharge in 1 hour. LIPO type. I’m looking for info on practical application experience by the teams using the technology but all detail appears to be close held. My concern about the price of Tesla battery comes down to pure practicality.
The Nimh battery from the Prius costs about $US 4000 to replace and apparently the Prius uses more rare earth product than anything apart from an airliner.
Battery tech is the required breakthrough. At the moment IMHO the Tesla is just a step on a very tall ladder.
They're all worthwhile questions though. Lithium isn't exactly nice stuff. If they can do something awesome with their battery management that triples or quadruples the life span - that's great. But Li-ion has been around 5-10 years now and used in a lot of different industries, with billions thrown into development - and they haven't given anywhere near the sort of life spans he's quoting. So they're absolutely valid questions.And you know where I stand on AGW and most enviro issues.
yeah true, I cant answer that question in detail though, because im still waiting on the full tech specs to be released. What we can pay attention to though when it comes to Tesla, is the results they get from what they use. Some how, they use the same amount of battery power as a Nissan Leaf, but get 502kms rage vs 170, 4.2 seconds to 100kms vs 13, and a charge time of half. So it must have something to do with the efficiency of use.
in a bit of a side track, im really curious to see what happens when Tesla introduce the use of super capacitors, considering Elon Musk litterally wrote the book on them, its only a matter of time.
lol
but to try and answer the question, the cost of replacement batteries after the 9 year warranty that Tesla offers was based on the inflation price of lithium- ion and their prediction that there will be 2 gigafactories producing batteries by 2025, and the purpose for the gigafactories was not to increase their profit on production but make it possible to reduce the cost of production and in turn reduce the prices.
I hope it’s ok to post this here. It shows that even muscle car enthusiasts have embraced battery power to launch their cars down the 1/4 mile.
Exciting times.
DARK HORSE
THE STORY OF A RECORD-SHATTERING, ALL-ELECTRIC ’68 MUSTANG
BY MICHAEL ZELENKO
The world’s most expensive supercars can hit 60 miles per hour in less than three seconds. The fastest production car in the world, the Hennessey Venom GT, does it in 2.7; Lamborghini’s 602-horsepower V-10-powered Huracán has been unofficially clocked at 2.5. If you were sitting in a Huracán right now, you could go from zero to 60 in less time than it takes to read this sentence. But somewhere in a Texas garage sits a strange car that’s even quicker: a 1968 Mustang fastback known as the Zombie 222, and it’s entirely electric.
Tapping an array of giant motors, controllers, and batteries — cast in a fluorescent green with blue LEDs for effect — the Zombie 222 produces over 800 horsepower and a mind-numbing 1,800 pounds of torque. Those numbers translate into a 0–60 time of just 2.4 seconds, a remarkable eighth-mile time of 6.8 seconds at 101 mph and an estimated quarter-mile time of 10.7 seconds at 125 mph.
Full story here
Just want to point something out -Steve Jobs and Elon Musk have almost nothing in common. Aside from both being visionary in their own ways. Jobs was purely into building a profitable business. All about the ‘perfect company’. Tapping into what people wanted and were willing to pay for.
“Love what you do”.
Yeah Steve, try telling THAT to the factory workers in China you smug ■■■■.
Yeah Apple are the worst at hiring Chinese workers.
Didn’t say they were.
Anyone following this?
Quite relevant to the above discussions about battery durability and breakthroughs. Not sure how close they are to getting the voltage up to suitable levels though.
Anyone following this?Quite relevant to the above discussions about battery durability and breakthroughs. Not sure how close they are to getting the voltage up to suitable levels though.
- Aluminium is cheaper and safer than Lithium to obtain
- Batteries aren’t going to blow up on a plane/car
- Recharge time is infinitely less
- Amount of recharges appears to be a lot higher.
Elon Musk doesn’t like it! Power/energy insufficient. Still, from little acorns big trees grow. Hmmm, good song title.
IMHO lots of claims from lots of people about improvements in battery tech but we won’t really know until they hit the market. Musk’s claim of potentially 125 year life on his batteries was tested how?
Anyone following this?Quite relevant to the above discussions about battery durability and breakthroughs. Not sure how close they are to getting the voltage up to suitable levels though.
- Aluminium is cheaper and safer than Lithium to obtain
- Batteries aren’t going to blow up on a plane/car
- Recharge time is infinitely less
- Amount of recharges appears to be a lot higher.
Elon Musk doesn’t like it! Power/energy insufficient. Still, from little acorns big trees grow. Hmmm, good song title.
IMHO lots of claims from lots of people about improvements in battery tech but we won’t really know until they hit the market. Musk’s claim of potentially 125 year life on his batteries was tested how?
Its not that surprising he isn’t that keen, but he is right about the energy density I guess.
The testing, at a guess, would be done by testing the output over continuous recharges. The amount of recharges it takes before it declines to an unsatisfactory level would then be divided by the expected use per year to give you its life. Thats how I would do it.
Anyone following this?Quite relevant to the above discussions about battery durability and breakthroughs. Not sure how close they are to getting the voltage up to suitable levels though.
- Aluminium is cheaper and safer than Lithium to obtain
- Batteries aren’t going to blow up on a plane/car
- Recharge time is infinitely less
- Amount of recharges appears to be a lot higher.
Elon Musk doesn’t like it! Power/energy insufficient. Still, from little acorns big trees grow. Hmmm, good song title.
IMHO lots of claims from lots of people about improvements in battery tech but we won’t really know until they hit the market. Musk’s claim of potentially 125 year life on his batteries was tested how?
