Tesla Model S Beta Revealed
I came across this article (which includes video, btw) on the unveiling of the Tesla Model S. This is the electric car that Tesla is intending to release for the mass market. Although it is still expensive ($57,400, or $49,9000 with a U.S. federal tax credit) there is no denying that it looks cool. So, my question is, if Tesla can make a car like this, why are big companies like Nissan producing glorified golf carts like the LEAF? I have two thoughts:
1 - This is a great example that American innovation and entrepreneurship are still intact. A new start up company was able to produce an electric car that people might actually want to own (granted though, it is more expensive than the still pricey $35,000 LEAF. )
2 - This is a mirage and Tesla will never be able to produce them in any kind of quantity.
Thoughts? Has Tesla produced a viable electric car, or is it just too expensive to ever catch on? Would you want to own one?
Update: After reading the responses from my fellow Ricochet readers and considering the issue some more, I've decided that electric cars are doomed. I've written more on this at my blog in the post "Why Tesla is doomed to extinction and electric cars are the real dinosaurs".
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Aug '11
Re: Tesla Model S Beta Revealed
Tesla has received $465 million in federal subsidies. And sold fewer than 1,200 cars.
Furthermore, battery replacement after five years is estimated to cost $30,000, so the car will have zero resale value.
Edited on Oct 3, 2011 at 5:39pmJul '10
Re: Tesla Model S Beta Revealed
David Nordmark
Thoughts? Has Tesla produced a viable electric car, or is it just too expensive to ever catch on? Would you want to own one? ·
I guess they think the transmission problems are solved. Tesla's Roadster has gone from a 90k car in 2007 to a 130k today, so I'm pretty skeptical about their prices.
By the way, how's that range coming?
I wouldn't be inclined to buy one. Where do I get it serviced? 'Course I'm an auto cheapskate driving a 1998 Corolla.
Apr '11
Re: Tesla Model S Beta Revealed
$54,700 for the 300 mile battery, which as has been alluded to, might have a 150 mile range for 'normal' driving with hills and starts and stops, etc.
I wasn't aware that battery life is only 5 years. That is pretty ridiculous and just goes to show how far off these pipe dreams really are. Double the range and double the battery life and you might have a viable product. Otherwise, it's just a toy for rich feel good'ers.
The styling is fantastic and drew me to the car 3 years ago or so. They've already slipped production a few times, so are they really ready for prime time?
The good news is that someone finally made an electric car with some interior/trunk space that doesn't look like crap. I'd say we're 5-10 years off from viability.
Let's all remember that the electricity has to come from some place (coal) and the equivalent non-electric car would be much less, so there is little financial benefit to owning one at the present time.
Sep '11
Re: Tesla Model S Beta Revealed
All of the above, and...
Oooh. It's electric. Ooooooh, it's green. Oooooooh, it'll save polar bears.
Yeah, except...
It ain't green. It ain't even CLOSE to green. 44.9% of electricity generated in the United States comes from coal. Hydro provides 6.9% of the grid load, and "other renewables" amounts to 3.6%. (See this Wikipedia chart for more.)
Electric utilities are writing tariffs to ensure that electric cars get charged overnight, using base-load generating capacity--which almost always means coal and nukes.
If I'm not mistaken, Tesla is limiting sales, at least initially, to the southern California market. Which means Edison International's coal plant in Reno, NV, and high-sulfur Powder River Basin coal; with strip-mining to boot.
That "green" roadster is better described as a coal-fired, strip-mined, polar-bear-drowning eco-travesty.
Where's James Deligpole when you need him? This madness must be stopped--who will speak for the polar bears? My God, man! Who will speak for the Maldives?
Edited on Oct 3, 2011 at 6:25pmMay '10
Re: Tesla Model S Beta Revealed
I still prefer the Audi R8 convertible. Mr. S won't get me one for my 50th birthday next March. Poor me.
Jun '10
Re: Tesla Model S Beta Revealed
Does it come with a V12 option?
Aug '10
Re: Tesla Model S Beta Revealed
My Honda Civic cost 1/4 that price, can be refueled anywhere at any time in 5 minutes, and is almost as reliable as death and taxes.
I question Tesla's definition of "mass market" at that price point, given the known costs of ownership over an electric car's lifetime.
David, you're right that Tesla is an excellent example of American entrepreneurship challenging established industries (government subsidies notwithstanding). But their broad market strategy can be summed up by this line from the article:
Aug '10
Re: Tesla Model S Beta Revealed
Anybody got any crash test data on the Tesla Roadster?
Nov '10
Re: Tesla Model S Beta Revealed
Mar '11
Re: Tesla Model S Beta Revealed
Pure electrics are still just a pipe-dream. You simply cannot change the laws of physics. There is no battery that has anywhere near the energy density of good ol' gasoline. If oil didn't come from the ground, we would invent it - very high energy density, stable, liquid, easy to transport, easy to refine into a multitude of useful products, easy to store, etc. Gasoline and the oil we get it from is quite simply a magnificent gift from God.
Dec '10
Re: Tesla Model S Beta Revealed
What that chassis and skin need is a centrally located super charged four cylinder engine with a displacement in the neighborhood of 2.5 L, mated to a seven speed sequential transaxle.
That is a car simply begging to be a mid-engined screamer.
Put a four banger with a huffer in there and not only would be it drastically more fun, but it'd be about $20k cheaper to boot.
Probably get 30 MPG as well.
I hate seeing such skill wasted on useless things. Somebody must put their body stylists and chassis guys in contact with the good fellows in Maranello.
Ferrari will know how to put their talents to proper use.
Edited on Oct 4, 2011 at 2:06amDec '10
Re: Tesla Model S Beta Revealed
You say that is if there is something inherently wrong with this one particular mining method.
Strip mining is not, as most people think, simply stripping all the rock off a coal or ore seam and leaving a giant hole in the ground.
It's called "Strip Mining" because mining progresses across pre-surveyed "panels" or "blocks" in "strips" of finite width.
The initial move is to dig a pit called the "keyhole" which gives a place for the next strip's overburden to be moved into. The material from the keyhole is stock piled and used to fill the hole left when the last strip in the panel has been removed.
The overburden (dirt, rock, etc on top of the ore being extracted) from the working strip is blast cast into the hole left by the previous strip, moving most of the material through explosive force. Dragline excavators (some of the largest machines men build) are used to remove the remaining overburden from the ore seam, and then the ore is drilled and blasted for breakage.
After it's been broken, the ore is removed via electric shovel and truck haulage, leaving a hole for the next strip's overburden to be cast into.
When a whole panel has been mined, the ground is left in the same shape it was before mining started, just lower in elevation by however thick the removed ore seam was.
After reclamation, you'd be very hard pressed to know that anything happened there at all.
Open pit mining is the closest method to the stereotype of strip mining, and even it falls far short of the supposed horror.
Much of the material that is removed from the pit will be tailings (non-ore-bearing rock) and overburden, both of which are stock piled and returned to the pit at the end of the mine's life as backfill. Many open pin mines actually get reclaimed as deep freshwater recreational lakes. I've seen several turned into very nice golf courses as well.
Don't let the leftists define the debate by using their misleading and/or false terminology.
Nomenclature is power!
Edited on Oct 4, 2011 at 2:23amJun '10
Re: Tesla Model S Beta Revealed
CoolHand, how are you getting 300 words plus when the rest of us are restricted to 200. If you have some way of overriding the restriction, please let the rest of us know how to screw with the code that we might share the bonanza.
Apr '11
Re: Tesla Model S Beta Revealed
I once heard someone say on an NPR show (!), in a discussion about electric cars, "You know, we don't use gasoline because of some sinister conspiracy among the oil companies. We use it because it's good."
And, re the Tesla Model S: so pretty! But no thanks...
Edited on Oct 4, 2011 at 7:00amNov '10
Re: Tesla Model S Beta Revealed
I second that!!
Nov '10
Re: Tesla Model S Beta Revealed
Tom Paine: Tesla has received $465 million in federal subsidies. And sold fewer than 1,200 cars.
Furthermore, battery replacement after five years is estimated to cost $30,000, so the car will have zero resale value. · Oct 3 at 5:08pm
Edited on Oct 03 at 05:39 pm
Excellent points Tom. The battery replacement issue is a huge problem I think.
Jun '11
Re: Tesla Model S Beta Revealed
Amen, FCC.
And, we have crude oil reserves on this globe that will last for hundreds of years. I have no time for mindless petrophobia. Put a V-12 in that Tesla, cut the price, and it is worth a look. Maybe.
Re: Tesla Model S Beta Revealed
The only place I've ever seen Teslas (and a number of them) is driving around the guilty rich neighborhoods of Brentwood, Santa Monica and Pacific Palisades, Calif. And it's usually the third or fourth family car, behind the big bombing Navigator and the V-8 7-Series BMW Sedan. The only people who consistently drive ecologically sound cars around here are are the housekeepers and nannies in their Corollas.
Mar '11
Re: Tesla Model S Beta Revealed
Complete, utter waste of time and money.
I work in this industry, and I heard a senior VP of DaimlerChrysler in 1998 tell me that the entire fuel cell thing was just for marketing. Which I already knew - but it was good to see that people in the industry weren't entirely stupid.
Electrics only will work in the marketplace inasmuch as they have no "pure" electric range. Energy storage costs dominate, and always will. Fuel is the best energy storage medium we have.
So hybrids - yes. Pure electrics - no.
And if it is to be hybrids, then the best path is a series hybrid. Ultimately, that is the only hybrid path that can offer the same car for the same $ as an internal combustion engine.
Mar '11
Re: Tesla Model S Beta Revealed
I would add that I have lots of respect for Elon Musk. What he has done with Space X is simply magnificent.
The US government should use this model to outsource all kinds of things that it currently does "in house".
But Tesla Motors is a fail.
Edited on Oct 4, 2011 at 8:37am