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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 RedBear on Saturday July 18 2015, @11:20PM
No matter how you might try to resist it, you and nearly everyone you know will own some form of electric vehicle within 10-15 years. I guarantee it.
It will either be fully electric, or a hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle (which takes H2 and makes electricity and has a battery pack, so it's still an EV), or it will be a "strong" hybrid with a battery pack large enough to give you at least 100-150 miles of electric driving plus a small range extender engine to bring the range up to 300-400 miles. Like the Chevy Volt, but better. But most people will be driving BEVs, fully electric vehicles, and there will be quick charge stations almost everywhere. The minimum base range available in 10-15 years in even low-end affordable BEVs will most likely be 250 miles. We will already have at least three 200-mile vehicles on the market by 2018. Teslas and other higher-end BEVs will most likely have ranges of 350-400 miles in 10-15 years.
Within 15-25 years it will start to become extremely difficult to obtain a fossil-fuel passenger vehicle that is not at least some sort of strong hybrid that will allow you to do at least 95% of your driving on batteries. Why, because the commie liberals are going to take away our gas-guzzlers? No, because most of the market will simply no longer be interested in buying them, so all automakers will have shifted to making nothing but electrics and hybrids by that point.
Some of this may seem a bit fanciful but I am confident that this is exactly what will happen, based on what has been happening during the last 15 years. The electric vehicle market is poised to go absolutely bonkers within the next five years. And once people go electric they have a strong tendency to never want to buy another fossil-fuel vehicle for as long as they live. Quite a few car companies are going to have a lot of catching up to do once the tidal wave finally hits.
¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
(Score: 2) by RedGreen on Sunday July 19 2015, @01:10AM
I do not drive gas guzzlers even ~40 years ago when I first got my license I was into fuel efficient smaller cars as I said I am cheap SOB always have been I believe in getting damn good value for my money. Electric cars will not be there (cheap to purchase and maintain) in my lifetime I am confident of that from the cost of the batteries, motors .. all that will if they as you say commie liberals get their way become increasing expensive as they drive up the cost of extraction and refining the materials needed by their war on carbon and cheap energy. I have never owned a new car hell I have never owned a car less than 10 years old for someone like me and there are lots of us your pipe dream of all electric is never going to happen. The used vehicles at that point will require massive layout of cash to replace the trashed batteries so I cannot see it happening like you say unless they are going to outlaw personal vehicle transport as people will never be able to afford to buy, maintain and run them.
"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Sunday July 19 2015, @03:08AM
Actually if you network around a bit, it's possible. But the electric car may require some work. A friend of mine just by being interested and hanging around with a group of electric car builders, scored a 1980 Datsun 310 that had been converted to electric for $1.00 US. He had to get new batteries (golf cart batteries) for less than $500.00, and do some other stuff. But he wound up with a car that does 35 mph and has a range of ~30 miles. That is plenty for running errands around town.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 2) by gnuman on Sunday July 19 2015, @03:49AM
I am confident of that from the cost of the batteries, motors ..
The battery is the only expensive part of an electric car. Motors are much cheaper, more efficient and more powerful (never mind no maintenance) than any internal combustion engine. And that has been a fact for almost a century. Energy source for the motors is what the problem has been for the entire reign of the ICE vehicle.
(Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Sunday July 19 2015, @01:24PM
EVs will start filtering through to the used car market soon enough. Heck they've been selling the Nissan Prius for 18 years now, so plenty of them have been sold second hand. Battery packs on those last to around 15 years, and cost around $1750 to replace with a reconditioned one. An ICE car of that age would be ready for scrap, but if you wanted to keep it going would be requiring transmission and/or engine replacement.
Pure EVs haven't been around quite so long, but for example the Nissan Leaf is 5 years old now, so will be starting to enter the used car market. As for cost, Robert Llewellyn (Kryten from Red Dwarf) has one, and it's already had a lower cost of ownership than an equivalent ICE car. Whilst it was more expensive to buy, most of the fuel has been free, as he mostly charges it from solar panels on his roof.
Despite your Fox News ideas about Commie Liberals, the price of batteries, and therefore the price of EVs is continually coming down and the range is going up.
EVs taking over from ICE vehicles is inevitable over the next 2-3 of decades. Whether that is within your lifetime, I wouldn't know.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!