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You may have heard about Tesla's "insane mode," which accelerates a sedan from 0 to 60 mph in a mindboggling 3.2 seconds. But Tesla is already moving ahead with something even better: A "ludicrous mode" that sends you from 0 to 60 in 2.8 seconds.
Shaving off half a second may not sound like much. But the $10,000 option on the Model S shows off some of the advances in battery technology that Tesla is building into its newer cars. Under ludicrous speed, said Musk, the car will accelerate at 1.1 times the force of gravity.
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The Model S is also getting a battery capacity upgrade from 85 kilowatt-hours to 90 kWh, an increase of around 6 percent that will cost existing owners about $3,000 if they choose to upgrade. Not everyone should be upgrading every year, though, as Tesla expects to add around 5 percent capacity to its batteries every year on average. That translates to a roughly 5 percent annual increase in range. Musk said he expects most customers to upgrade batteries once every three to four years.
Not too much longer before "range anxiety" becomes an ICE problem.
Original Submission
(Score: 3, Insightful) by theluggage on Saturday July 18 2015, @06:20PM
Not too much longer before "range anxiety" becomes an ICE problem.
No, the reason ICE doesn't have a range anxiety problem is that the rate of consumption is fairly predictable, there are gas stations everywhere, it only takes 5 minutes to completely refuel, if you do run out you can hitch a lift to the next gas station and get a can full, and if you're really going out into the wilderness you can strap a couple of jerry cans to the back.
Frankly, the range of Teslas is already reasonable (some small cars or gas guzzlers have less) provided both your home and your destinations have power sockets and, if its more than 150 miles or so, there's a supercharger or two en route in locations where you don't mind spending an hour. A 40 minute break in a 200 mile drive is just common sense. However, matching the flexibility of ICEs is still going to be a challenge, vis:
"AreWeThereYet?AreWeThereYet?AreWeThereYet?AreWeThereYet?AreWeThereYet?"
Why yes kids, just another 10 miles, but we're on 30% charge and I can't be sure that there will be a power socket at the campground, so we're going to have to park on this boring industrial estate for an hour and get a full charge just to be sure.
Also, its fine if you want a full-size luxury sedan, but once you go smaller and cheaper the ranges get a bit more restrictive - and some of that is just going to be a matter of physical space for batteries.
Kudos for Telsa for investing in charging networks and investigating rapid battery change stations, though - as well as making cars that are desirable in their own right.
Incidentally: I'm not a hater - I'm whining because I really, really fancy an electric car, but I need a small-ish car that's won't need me to keep a second car for long trips or keep renting an ICE.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 18 2015, @07:25PM
Why?
I drove 300-600 miles every day for years and rarely felt a need to take a break. When I did, 10 minutes was adequate. Think of it this way, driving for 5-10 hours is the same as sitting attentively at a desk for 5-10 hours. Can you do that?
(Score: 2) by gringer on Saturday July 18 2015, @08:45PM
No, I can't. I get headaches if I go too long without food, and I'm not allowed to eat in my office (because it's part of a laboratory). I also work better if I have a few breaks between different jobs; my best sit-down performance lasts for about 2 hours before I need a short break (maybe a couple of minutes).
Ask me about Sequencing DNA in front of Linus Torvalds [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Sunday July 19 2015, @11:54AM
I get headaches if I go too long without food
those headaches are actually a sign of withdraw because you have become addicted to refined sugar and i'm not even joking. if you remove the sugar from your diet (not an easy thing to do), after a day (or three, depending on your susceptibility to addiction) you will have broken from the habit. if you have weight issues, this will solve them quite quickly.
(Score: 2) by gringer on Sunday July 19 2015, @09:28PM
those headaches are actually a sign of withdraw because you have become addicted to refined sugar and i'm not even joking.
I'm pretty sure that's not it. My family uses about a 1/2 cup of refined sugar every couple of weeks for pancakes and biscuits, and that's it. We use bananas instead of sugar when making ice cream, and buy yoghurt without sugar. Almost all the sugar we cosume is from unrefined sources; we eat lots of fruit, but that probably doesn't count as "refined sugar". I can understand if it's sugar withdrawal (because that's how the body works), just not refined sugar withdrawal.
Ask me about Sequencing DNA in front of Linus Torvalds [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Sunday July 19 2015, @03:47PM
Think of it this way, driving for 5-10 hours is the same as sitting attentively at a desk for 5-10 hours. Can you do that?
There's a difference between "can", "should" and "would choose to If I could possibly avoid it".
Also, last I checked, my desk couldn't cause a fatal accident if I zoned out for a minute (some people's desks might).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Sunday July 19 2015, @02:51AM
Well maybe there are where you live and frequently go, but that is not universally true. And maybe you have the ready cash to completely refuel on every occasion, but many people don't. In Western America there are many stretches of road, long stretches of road, where there are few gas stations; if you're driving in the middle of the night there can be even fewer you can use. And as a poor college student there were many times when I sweated the miles because running out meant dipping into grocery money and not eating for a week. If your only vehicle is a gas-guzzling pickup those issues are exacerbated.
When I was a kid in the 70's we ran out of gas a lot during the oil embargo in '73 and the oil shock in '79 because the gas stations didn't have any gas; there were echos of that a couple years ago when Hurricane Sandy knocked out the infrastructure in New York and nobody could get any gas. So I have had plenty experience with range anxiety, and it is forever indelibly linked with the internal combustion engine running out of gas, not with electric cars.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 19 2015, @04:07AM
Low grade subterfuge. Hurricanes knock out infrastructure but conveniently leave your power socket intact? GTFO.
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Sunday July 19 2015, @04:06PM
In Western America there are many stretches of road, long stretches of road, where there are few gas stations
...but those long, lonely roads have supercharger stations every 30 miles, right? No, didn't think so. Also, did I not mention the "jerry can full of gas if you're going out into the sticks" option?
And as a poor college student there were many times when I sweated the miles because running out meant dipping into grocery money and not eating for a week.
<sarcasm>If only you'd had an $80,000 Tesla, your money problems would have been solved...</sarcasm> (Thanks - I wanted a chance to find out what the <sarcasm> tag did)
When I was a kid in the 70's we ran out of gas a lot during the oil embargo in '73
Yup, we had the 70s here in the UK too (plus a coal miner's strike) - guess what we also had as a result: power cuts.
There was always a power cut on Saturday night half-way through Doctor Who... Anxiety? you don't know the meaning of anxiety!
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday July 20 2015, @02:13PM
You don't need a supercharger. You need an outlet. It will take longer, but it might be enough. Every place in rural America has electricity. Not every place in rural America has a ready gas station. Also, we're not talking about a 30 mile range. We're talking about a range of 400+ on a full charge. Thus my original quip.
<sarcasm>Yes, because electric cars will be priced at $80K for all time and remain beyond the reach of the average person, in exactly the same way that gas-powered cars are only driven by millionaires today because nobody else can afford them. Oh, and there will never, ever be an aftermarket of used electric cars because as of 2015 humans have totally stopped wanting to upgrade to the newest shiny and pass along their cast-offs to somebody else...</sarcasm>
And as the world moves to locally generated, renewable energy supply shocks from a fossil fuel will not bring down the whole system, and could in fact spur greater, faster adoption of distributed power generation. That's a different discussion, but for now it boils down to this: we can get electricity from a lot of sources to the same outlet, but we can only move our cars with oil.
As to having your power shut off in the middle of a Doctor Who episode, yes that would be deeply scarring. Especially if the Daleks were about to "Ex-terminate!" someone.
Washington DC delenda est.