Just came across a Tesla S review at Winding Road Magazine, it's a roadtest from trip from Texas to Wisconsin. [Article 4, Issue 148]
Lots of interesting details about real world use of the Tesla, for example:
How Far Can You Go Each Day?
Our total trip was 1300 miles, plus or minus a few mistakes and detours. So in principle we needed to recharge five times. That is, we started with 250 miles range and once that was used up, we had to recharge enough to go 1050 miles. That's 4.2 charges at 250 miles each. Or if you count the number of times we had to recharge, it is five recharging events, in theory. Also in theory, if recharging were instantaneous, we could travel say 60 mph for 24 hours or 1440 miles. Thus, we could have done our trip in one day.But, it doesn't really work that way. The first limit is recharging time. With J1772 chargers, full recharging takes 14 hours. Again using our 60 mph average, we could go 240 miles every 18 hours (14 recharging hours plus 4 hours of travel). That means, theoretically, our maximum distance per day is 320 miles. Our 1300 mile trip should take a little over 3 days.
In practice, we did it comfortably in 4 days. There is some time lost because you don't necessarily take off exactly when your charging is done (for example, we didn't get up at 5am if that's when charging finished). There is also some time gained on the calculation above when you use a Supercharger. But 300 miles per day is a reasonable rule of thumb.
They found that charging at Whole Foods and other places was all free, however:
Note that with the extra time required for recharging, and the resulting extra hotel and restaurant charges, our free electricity didn't save us money. In fact, this trip cost more than it would have in a gasoline powered car. Economy is not the raison d'etre for EVs.
Related Stories
Janet Vertesi, assistant professor of sociology at Princeton University, tried to hide from the Internet the fact that she's pregnant as marketing data for a pregnant woman is particularly sought after by advertisers. She ensured there was no mention on social media, used cash when buying baby related items and even used Tor to browse baby related websites.
Purchases on Amazon were done using gift cards and delivered to nearby lockers, although buying $500 of Amazon gift cards using cash did raise a red flag. When her husband tried to buy the Amazon gift cards with cash in order to get a stroller, a notice at the Rite Aid counter said the company had a legal obligation to report excessive transactions to the authorities."Those kinds of activities, when you take them in the aggregate ... are exactly the kinds of things that tag you as likely engaging in criminal activity, as opposed to just having a baby," she said.
Furthermore, since we don't log IP addresses in access.log, and IP's run through Slash are turned into IPIDs, its hard to get an idea of where our userbase is (the general feeling is the vast majority of us are based in the United States, but even then, that's more because our peak hours of traffic are between 4 and 10 PM EST). We've wanted to get a better idea of what our traffic and userbase are, so we're asking permission from the community to install piWik, and embed its javascript tag in the footer of each page, which will give us a wide berth of solid information to work from.
Tesla Motors have opened up their patents to "anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology". The company's goal has always been to innovate and facilitate accessible sustainable transportation for global community. This move seems be another step towards delivering on that promise.
At Tesla, however, we felt compelled to create patents out of concern that the big car companies would copy our technology and then use their massive manufacturing, sales and marketing power to overwhelm Tesla. We couldn't have been more wrong. The unfortunate reality is the opposite: electric car programs (or programs for any vehicle that doesn't burn hydrocarbons) at the major manufacturers are small to non-existent, constituting an average of far less than 1% of their total vehicle sales.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mojo chan on Thursday June 05 2014, @07:32AM
If you want to go on a long trip where there isn't a supercharger network just rent an ICE car. You can always find routes that early EVs are not suited for, but equally the vast majority of the time the Tesla is fine.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @12:01PM
The perfect solution for people who do long trips in addition to a regular commute - not uncommon for people in the US or my home in Australia.
If we really want to make a difference in emissions we need to deal with coal fired power... EASY aren't necessarily a solution for that.
(Not to be critical about hiring an IC car - eminently practical)
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Thursday June 05 2014, @12:39PM
Having an EV for short trips and renting an ICE for long trips sounds an eminently sensible idea... but in that case, wouldn't it make more sense to have a cheaper, compact EV for day-to-day use, rather than a luxury full-sized sedan like the Tesla?
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Thursday June 05 2014, @01:06PM
Depends if you have a family or not I suppose.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Thursday June 05 2014, @01:52PM
Wouldn't it make more sense to drive an Elantra than a Corvette?
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Thursday June 05 2014, @02:48PM
I think you'll find a lot of Corvette owners have a second, smaller car for weekday use... I mean, we're not talking about Tesla in the context of poor people struggling to keep one car on the road.
(Score: 2) by emg on Thursday June 05 2014, @03:23PM
People don't buy Corvettes to save money on fuel.
The electric car's big selling point is that it's cheaper than buying gas. A supposed advantage that rapidly disappears if you have to rent another car any time you want to travel further than your electric urban econo-box can manage without recharging.
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Thursday June 05 2014, @05:17PM
Not so much if you factor in the price premium of buying an EV versus a gas-powered car, the limited lifespan of the batteries and the probable greater value depreciation (batteries + rapidly improving tech).
Reducing greenhouse gasses significantly is dependent on electricity coming from nuclear or renewable rather than coal/gas/oil.
Reducing smog is a more convincing argument.
The real Unique Selling Point, though, is that all the reports from people who've actually driven decent EVs seem to agree that they're much nicer to drive than ICE cars - which makes it a big drawback if you have to 'downgrade' to an ICE for longer trips.
Plug-in hybrids seem like a good compromise - although I'm slightly baffled as to why cars like the Prius use a complicated mechanical drive train from the ICE to the wheels, rather than just using the ICE as a generator.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Thursday June 05 2014, @05:56PM
why cars like the Prius use a complicated mechanical drive train from the ICE to the wheels, rather than just using the ICE as a generator.
I can't say about all "cars like Prius," but Prius does not have a complicated mechanical drivetrain. It has no gearbox, for example, or a clutch. The only gears in Prius are in the Power Split Device, and they are permanently meshed. The CVT is implemented with two motor-generators and a power transfer circuit between them. As the ICE is mechanically connected to the wheels, you gain the highest possible efficiency, until losses in the electronics can be reduced to below the losses in a drive axle. I have a feeling that someone at Toyota found a calculator once and figured it out. It also helps that Prius is a front wheel drive car, so you don't gain much from replacing a short, spinning metal rod with an expensive electric motor. The Volt has a more complicated drivetrain [plugincars.com], but we find that there, similarly, "the engine is used to partially drive the wheels when the car calculates that it will be a more efficient use of the engine's power."
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday June 05 2014, @06:32PM
Limited lifespan of batteries is better than most manufacturers claim.
I suspect nobody has ever replaced a battery in a Tesla. (I have no facts, just a guess).
Even the much-longer-available Prius has seen battery replacement costs plummet over the years since they were introduced. In 2008, The MSRP for a battery pack for a first-generation Prius is $2,299, while the MSRP for the battery pack for the second-generation cars, those from the 2004-2008 model-years, is $2,588. [greencarreports.com]
There is also a salvage value to the battery. And wrecked Prius cars bring high salvage prices because if the battery is not damaged in the crash it is easily resalable.
Many people are reporting nearly twice the estimated life of Prius batteries. Some studies have verified this. [aol.com]
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @07:28PM
> I'm slightly baffled as to why cars like the Prius use a complicated mechanical drive train from the ICE to the wheels, rather than just using the ICE as a generator.
That is exactly how the chevy volt and its cadillac cousin work.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Thursday June 05 2014, @02:52PM
wouldn't it make more sense to have a cheaper, compact EV for day-to-day use, rather than a luxury full-sized sedan like the Tesla?
If you have $100k to spare, no, not really. The Tesla is much nicer to drive, and also much, much safer. It dominates all the crash tests. A cheap, compact EV would not do as well in a crash with a Hummer. No, it's not quite as efficient with electricity as a Smart EV, but if you have $100k to spend on a car, that's probably not a big concern of yours; having a really nice car for driving around town is, and the fact that it doesn't burn oil is a bonus.
What kind of computer do you have? Could you save a little money by switching to a tablet, which uses less electricity? Or a tiny-screen laptop? Why don't you?
(Score: 0) by gawdonblue on Thursday June 05 2014, @08:10AM
So if you drive an EV around your town 250 miles a day and get free charging that wouldn't be economical? Looks like this report is written by someone with an axe to grind. (Or even a raison d'etre.)
(Score: 2) by WizardFusion on Thursday June 05 2014, @08:26AM
Of course it was, every petrol-head in the US wants these to fail. Just look at what the dealerships are doing.
Tesla should shut up shop in the US and move to a country where people actually want these cars.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday June 05 2014, @02:54PM
They should move to Norway. The Norwegians love them. They're starting to become really popular in the other Scandinavian countries too, plus Germany.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday June 05 2014, @06:41PM
How popular can they be when there have only been about 30000 ever produced [greencarreports.com].
That's about the same as the typical yearly production run for a Chrysler 300.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @07:24PM
> How popular can they be when there have only been about 30000 ever produced.
The Model S is the most registered vehicle in 2013 in eight of the 25 most expensive ZIP codes [forbes.com] in the US. And it is No. 1 in more top 25 ZIP codes than any other vehicle.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday June 05 2014, @08:03PM
Big fish. Small pond.
No matter how you slice up 30,000 cars, there are only 30,000 cars.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Friday June 06 2014, @07:14PM
Yup, it's a luxury sedan not a popular people carrier. Tesla is moving down the markets, starting with a sports car, then a luxury sedan, next is the CUV market.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday June 05 2014, @08:35PM
"""
So in principle we needed to recharge five times. That is, ... . Or if you count the number of times we had to recharge, it is five recharging events.
"""
He needed an intermediate step to get from "recharge five times" to "five recharging events"
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday June 06 2014, @02:49AM
The Model S is popular here. They have sold every one they have produced, with a waiting list. They are ramping up production as much as they can, but they still can't match the demand for their product. When the Model X comes out, and the mass-market car after that, it will be game, set, match for the ICE car companies. They know it, too, because they're all introducing their own EV models. Nissan is the only one taking it seriously with the Leaf so far, because they are striving to get its range to be more like Tesla's. But the others are coming in at a range that undershoots what the Lead had years ago.
I have been waiting for the chance to switch over to an EV for years. I test-drove the Leaf a couple years ago and it was a much more pleasant vehicle to drive than my ICE. I loved how quiet it was, and I swear it accelerated faster than my Honda. But the range on it is not quite there, and the recharging options are not as fast or as plentiful as they are for Teslas. Once Nissan either gets its range up or its recharging network to where Tesla's is, or Tesla gets its price point down to where Nissan's is, then I will immediately trade in my ICE while it still has value.
One other thing--for me the final nail in the coffin for ICEs was after Hurricane Sandy. The gas supply was disrupted so severely lines reappeared I hadn't seen since I was a kid in the 70's. Had I had an EV, I would have been right as rain.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday June 06 2014, @10:20PM
It would be shocking if it DIDN'T accelerate faster than your Honda. That's another great thing about EVs -- more torque at lower RPMs. Not needing to shift gears probably helps slightly too.
Tesla has some graphs on their site showing this really well. The ICEs have a profile where the torque varies pretty significantly depending on the speed; but for electrics it's pretty much a flat line.
http://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/Torque-Curve2.png [teslamotors.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bradley13 on Thursday June 05 2014, @08:44AM
I don't see why you think the author has an axe to grind. They just point out that the Tesla is the wrong car for a road trip, unless you only want to drive four hours a day.
Of course an electrical vehicle is fine for your daily commute, shopping or other little trips around town - by now everyone knows that.
Free charging isn't. The "free" charging at a hotel is like a "free" breakfast - it's simply included in the room charge. Whole Foods expects you to shop there, so your "free" charging is covered by the money you spend in the shop. Try charging your car without buying anything - they won't be terribly understanding...
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 4, Informative) by mmcmonster on Thursday June 05 2014, @10:13AM
I own a Tesla.
Free charging at a J1772 charger during the day isn't going to help you much. For every hour of charge you get something like 50 miles or so (I don't remember exactly, it was a month ago I last did it). The point is, you're not going to hang out at a Whole Foods for the 3-4 hours you need to charge. Even worse at a BMW dealership.
Better bet is to make sure your trip intersects a Tesla Supercharger. (I use this map: http://supercharge.info/ [supercharge.info] ) The second thing to do is stay at a place where the garage has a J1772 (us this map: http://www.plugshare.com/ [plugshare.com] ) so that you 'fill up' while sleeping.
Worst case scenario is to plug into a standard 110v outlet at the garage where you sleep. But then you only get 6 miles for every hour of charge.
The other option is to rent a car with an Internal Combustion Engine (ICE). But I would never trade my Tesla for any other car. Planning my trips is worth it by far.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Thursday June 05 2014, @01:55PM
How about mounting a small diesel generator in the trunk?
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by emg on Thursday June 05 2014, @03:26PM
Or you could mount it under the hood, remove the batteries, and have it drive the wheels directly.
(Score: 1) by Buck Feta on Thursday June 05 2014, @01:56PM
> room charge
Oh man, now we have to charge up the room too?
- fractious political commentary goes here -
(Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Friday June 06 2014, @07:17PM
I think it was more that it wasn't good for a south to north cross country trip yet, as the early superchargers serve the east/west routes. A road trip on one of the east/west routes would be fine, and hassle free. And as the network grows, other routes will become easier.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by edIII on Thursday June 05 2014, @09:04AM
That's what it sounded like to me. Every one of the points was sheer stupidity. No reasonable person would assume free electricity, or fast charge times initially. You know these things going in, unless you are a very stupid consumer.
The whole point of a pure electric is to make every day travel of about 150 miles possible and more economical, given the consistently high cost of gas these days. That's assuming a lot of stop and go travel, and about 8 hours of charging per day. You can top off on the weekend.
This is like writing an article to complain about how a hammer is a not a good tool to work with screws.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 4, Informative) by mmcmonster on Thursday June 05 2014, @11:18AM
They seem to get the home charge times wrong.
In real world, if you're going to buy a Tesla and own a garage, you'll get a 240V line in the garage. Mine cost $450 including labor.
On a 240V line you can charge at 30 miles for every hour of charge (~8 hours for a full charge).
In reality you keep the car plugged in when you get home every evening and wake up in the morning with a full charge (though they actually recommend 90% charge -- 240 miles -- unless you're planning a road trip). I'll tell you, it's fantastic getting in my car every morning and know that I've got 240 miles to go.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @12:25PM
Oh please. Make travel more economical? Stop the lying. This car starts at $71,000. There is NO WAY for it to ever be as economical as the average 30-40 MPH sub-$20,000 car, internal combustion or otherwise. Gasoline isn't printer ink.
People who buy Teslas thinking they're being economical, currently, are spoiled rotten self-deceptive brats. You are wasting many thousands of dollars now and over the course of the vehicle's life. Money that could be spent on making the world a better place. These are called luxury cars for a reason, and economy has NOTHING to do with it.
This equation may change once Tesla, eventually, maybe, offers more economically priced models.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by theluggage on Thursday June 05 2014, @01:13PM
Except that Tesla have made a hammer that looks like (and costs as much as) a screwdriver. They're selling a luxury full-sized sedan and bragging about the maximum range and the national network of superchargers. That's not the feature list of a car for the daily commute. Then they (and/or their fanbase) are crying foul whenever anybody dares to point out its shortcomings for long road trips, even when the article in question goes out of its way to point out what a great car it is in other respects.
250 miles typical range is more than you need for a commuter car that gets charged every night - and you're paying $$$ for that battery capacity - but its not enough for long trips without a really good, fast recharging network. If they can get it up to 250 miles minimum and set up a supercharging network that doesn't just cover a few popular routes then colour me interested. They've made good progress - don't spoil it by pretending that its perfect.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday June 05 2014, @06:25PM
I'm most certainly not pretending that it's perfect. Being perfect is not the point.
Those that deride it saying it costs more from a luxury perspective, are completely missing the point as well. Who gives a shit? If we are going to rage about economy over the entire purchase price and operating costs of the vehicle, then those posters better be driving mini-smart cars or be labeled hypocrites.
Yes, it's a luxury vehicle. I will stipulate that. Being economical has nothing to do with the luxury status of your vehicle, but how much it costs to operate.
I don't know how anybody in their right mind can be complaining about or pointing out that it's not a great car for long road trips. Of course it isn't. I sure as hell wouldn't want a full electric without the ability to charge it out in the middle of nowhere. In a regular car I can carry a 5 gallon container of gasoline. Tesla would need to give me solar panels on the roof and a promise that just a few hours in the sun could get me down the road to the next supercharger if necessary. That's unlikely for something has heavy as the Tesla.
You are paying for that battery capacity, but OTOH, I know a couple of people that have plug-in Prius with solar on their house. They pay zero $$$ for electricity, and every time they charge up are getting some pretty serious ROI on their solar installation. It costs $70 a pop right now to fill up my tank with gasoline. It adds up pretty quick. If I was purchasing a Tesla, I would also be making a major investment in full solar and batteries on my house.
I'm not defending Tesla, I'm defending the progress of a full electric vehicle. Luxury or otherwise. I always considered it a replacement for a commute car, not an all around vehicle for vacations and road trips too.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Friday June 06 2014, @01:04AM
I know a couple of people that have plug-in Prius with solar on their house. They pay zero $$$ for electricity, and every time they charge up are getting some pretty serious ROI on their solar installation.
As matter of fact, I have a 6 kW solar panel, and I have a standard Prius (not a plug-in.) I definitely enjoy paying nothing for electric power, and since I have some excess it helps others too. However I wouldn't be better served by a plug-in Prius because 11 miles of an EV range are not even enough to get me to the office. I may easily drive 60-70 miles per day. Besides, this is a hilly terrain here. I am perfectly comfortable filling my car up every other week for $25, as I do not drive much, but telecommute instead.
One could say "Then you need Tesla, it has lots of range" - but how soon will it pay for itself if I drive 60 miles once per week, and 1000 miles once or twice per year? The rest of the time this Tesla will be sitting in the garage, plugged in and "conditioning" the battery (in other words, drawing power for no reason at all.) I was thinking about Tesla more than once, and still I cannot calculate a scenario where it becomes financially justified. (Of course, one can buy a Tesla just because he wants an EV.) On one hand, an EV cannot be driven for too long without recharge; on the other hand, it has to be driven a lot to recoup the purchase price. This is hard to reconcile, unless it's a 24/7 taxicab that you can always drop off at the depot for recharge and grab a charged one instead. A $50K of price difference can buy today 12,500 gallons of gas, and any half-decent car will give you 500,000 miles off of that fuel. That is not even counting the "pay as you go" for gas vs. the lump sum payment for the car. And that's not even counting the cost of energy and chargers. I cannot imagine that I will even want to drive 500,000 miles in any one car, as there are no miracles, and the wheels (brakes) will start falling off way before that mileage is reached. You'd need to drive about 70-80K miles per year for 10 years before, all things considered, Tesla becomes cheaper to use than an average $20K no-name modern car. This mileage is possible, but it's not very typical for a city commuter. It's more typical for a car that is used commercially.
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Sunday June 08 2014, @04:05PM
Well, its a good thing that Tesla don't make any claims about saving money [teslamotors.com] or point out how fun and easy it is to take a road trip [teslamotors.com] on its website. Oh, wait...
The second of those links really shows how Tesla are in deep denial about the current limitations - in case you don't get it (or the pages are region-locked), this is from the fully localised British Tesla website (prices in pounds and everything) and consists of a happy-clappy animated infographic entitled "How do I take a road trip?" saying how you just start driving then, after 2-3 hours, have lunch at a supercharger... its then followed by a map showing that the nearest supercharger is in the Netherlands (Hint: that's not in Britain - if you live close to one of the east coast ports and get the car ferry then you might just make it, but its a bit of a detour if you wanted to go to... well... anywhere in Britain,).
Tesla are doing a great job pushing the envelope with their EVs, but they're still only practical for people who live in the right place and have exactly the right driving requirements. If early adopters buy them and help fund the development of technology and the establishment of a charger network then that's terrific - as I said, set up a good supercharger network and make that 250 miles a minimum range and we're cookin' with... er... electricity.
However, a spot of realism about the status quo would help their credibility no end: these issues aren't straw men - as the links above show its Tesla saying that you'll save money and that road trips are no problem.
For the price of a Tesla you can get a comparable vehicle, luxury-wise, and have enough change to fill it up hundreds of times. Plus, you don't have to leave it in the garage and rent another car every time you want to travel more than 100 miles.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 07 2014, @09:32AM
ok, so it's not ideal for long road trips where fast charge won't be available.
it's probably not going to be your first choice for pulling a horse float along an uneven gravel road either.
so what? the whole thing seems like a bit of a straw man designed to raise emotions in the fanboys and haters.
for the rest of us, it's still great at what it is designed to do, and the best thing to happen to shake up the car industry and get us out of the ICE rut we've been in for 80 years since the popular success of the Prius.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @02:48PM
Did you read the summary? Or even the headline? The article was talking about a road trip. Don't take a sentence out of context and extrapolate from that that the author is biased.
(Score: 2) by RedBear on Thursday June 05 2014, @10:24AM
I am in no way in the target market for a Tesla yet, but I was poking around their website the other day just for fun, checking out their new crossover SUV, the Model X. Pretty cool, built on the same chassis platform as the Model S. Then I checked out the page on their Supercharger stations that can give you 170 mile range in 20 minutes. Right now there's just a single line of Supercharging stations across the center of the country, but they're projecting in just two years to have them plastered all across the US top to bottom, and on up into Canada. Before too much longer they'll all be powered at least partially by solar awnings too.
Something tells me similar articles written a couple of years from now will have a decidedly different conclusion about how much money will be saved on such a trip. God forbid we also save the environment while we're saving on gas.
¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
(Score: 4, Informative) by bradley13 on Thursday June 05 2014, @10:58AM
Don't forget to run the math. A Tesla Supercharger provide 120kw of power. If we assume zero losses, 20% efficient solar cells and constant summer noon-time sun: you need 800 square meters of solar cells per car. If it's not summer, not noon or not sunny, well...
Solar in applications like this is only to make you feel good. The real power will be coming off the grid, where it will be generated by...coal? natural gas? oil? Take your pick, the one thing it won't be is significantly greener than an efficient internal combustion engine. Burning fuel to make electricity, transmitting the power across the grid, charging a battery, and finally using the battery to produce motion - the cumulative inefficiencies are huge.
I know it's heretical, but burning fuel directly to produce motion is more efficient.
Mind you, I find electric vehicles attractive. There are reasons to buy one - having to do with pollution (displaced to large, central plants that can deal with it better - any anyway, I am pro-nuclear), having to do with convenience, having to do with the general sexiness of nice technology. However, overall efficiency is definitely not an argument in favor of EVs
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by iwoloschin on Thursday June 05 2014, @11:10AM
What about "cleanliness" instead of efficiency? Right now the grid is not particularly clean, lots of coal/gas/oil plants, but it could, in theory, be moved to a mix of nuclear/hydro for base loading, and solar/wind/tidal combined with flow batteries for peak generation. Then, even if you're loosing a lot of power in the grid, it's kind of irrelevant because you are significantly "cleaner" than directly burning fuel to move.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by geb on Thursday June 05 2014, @11:20AM
You can reduce the size of the solar panel required by quite a bit if you assume the charging station isn't going to be in use 100% of the time, and include some storage capacity.
I don't know whether there are any plans to put batteries in them, but Tesla are getting into position as a major manufacturer of batteries, so they could if they wanted to.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Thursday June 05 2014, @02:57PM
You don't need storage capacity. That's what the grid is for. When no one's charging their Tesla, pump the generated electricity into the grid. When people are charging, get the power from the grid.
(Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Friday June 06 2014, @08:24PM
That's exactly what they do. And overall the network puts slightly more back into the grid than it takes out.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 1) by cblood on Thursday June 05 2014, @12:21PM
Actually stationary power plants are MUCH more efficient that you typical ICE car.(70% vs 20%) Even allowing for transmission and storage, you are still ahead.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bradley13 on Thursday June 05 2014, @02:08PM
Check your efficiencies:
- Power plant efficiency of 70%? As far as I can discover online, a base load coal, oil or nuclear plant running optimally may touch 45% [mpoweruk.com]; a realistic overall average including peak generation, etc. is about 35% [eia.gov].
- Power is transformed up to high-voltage, rectified to DC, transmitted, run through an inverter, transformed down again. Total losses can be surprisingly large, especially if older equipment is in use. I've seen figures claiming anything from 50% to 95% efficiency, so let's take a generous 90% efficiency.
- Rapid battery charging, 80% in the best case, probably a lot less for Tesla's Supercharger.
- Efficiency of electric motors on the EV, around 90%
Multiply it together: 35% x 90% x 80% x 90% = 23%
That's the same ballpark as internal combustion. TANSTAAFL.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by emg on Thursday June 05 2014, @03:30PM
"That's the same ballpark as internal combustion. TANSTAAFL."
Modern direct injection gasoline engines are closer to 40% efficient. And they generate waste heat that you can use to heat the car in the winter so you don't need to waste battery power to do so.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @10:17PM
Remember when calculating the efficiencies for ICE you should include the the energy it takes to refine fuel and transport the fuel to petrol stations.
Of course if you are to include that then you need to include similar things for EVs so Energy to move fuel to power stations. If the issue is not Efficiency but C02 release carbon capture can be used to reduce the impact.
Maybe the only fair way to judge is to calculate the total energy cost over the life of the vehicle and calculate distance_travelled/Energy (including production and fuel distribution) or distance_travelled/CO2_emissions. There are probably other metrics that would also be useful.
Although in fairness I would have thought that the the Li production and battery manufacture would send an EV so far into the red an ICE would have to try very hard to be that bad. I have no numbers or facts to back this statement up. Will have to google around a bit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 07 2014, @09:57AM
your plant numbers are way too low. gas turbines are much much more efficient. and it's all about the natural gas now, and will be in the US for the next 40 years.
23% efficient [yes, these are actually much better than that] hydro (pacific northwest) or wind and solar (most of the netherlands and germany now) is still a 100% win over diesel and gas cars, since any line losses from renewable sources are basically free from a materials cost and environmental point of view.
(Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Friday June 06 2014, @07:26PM
Tesla's solar superchargers taken together are net energy positive. They put back slightly more into the grid than they take out. I guess they benefit from the bays not being constantly used, and I suppose they must have a some extra solar panels out there somewhere to add to what is built into the canopy.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 07 2014, @09:44AM
In the part of the world where I live the grid supply is 100% hydro for 1000 miles in all directions. So your blanket statement is simply wrong by way of narrow thinking.
It's pretty hard to compete with the energy density of gas and diesel, but even with transmission line losses taken into account a dirty CO2, SO2, and NOx belching coal power plant in good running order will have scrubbers and be a much more controllable point source polluter than ten thousand ICE cars which maybe get a tune up once every few years and otherwise burn their fuel at a much lower efficiency than the centralized fossil fuel grid power station.
It turns out that the math is still in favor of EV. Look it up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @01:43PM
Save the environment? Save on gas?? These horribly wasteful and expensive cars are currently an enormous drain on the world's natural resources and big wallets. You can NEVER recover in savings the extra $80,000 or so you paid over the cost of a reasonable car. It's a delusion, currently. One hopes that will change.
(Score: 1) by bzipitidoo on Thursday June 05 2014, @02:58PM
The issue is not electric motor vs combustion engine. Electric already won that battle, and handily. It's gas tank vs battery.
This article is only another reminder that batteries aren't there yet. Batteries are still so bad that an inherently complicated and inefficient combustion engine with a gas tank can beat the far more efficient, steady, reliable, economical, compact, and simple electric motor. The combo of electric motor plus battery wins in only a few niches, like small powered tools and golf carts. The battery doesn't have to get as good as or better than the gas tank, it only has to get closer. Full recharge in a hour plus reasonable lifespan and not too expensive materials and maintenance and replacement costs might be good enough. So far, it hasn't happened.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @03:09PM
All of which is why, barring any from-left-field breakthrough, fuel cells are going to win out. All the convenience of petrol with the efficiency and climate benefits of electric.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @04:39PM
Or just drive a car with an ICE and use synthetic gas/diesel. This could be a nice way to use surplus wind power at night (use it during the day to run all the AC units and at night to drive a synthetic gasoline plant?)
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday June 05 2014, @08:50PM
You do realise that we're a whole freaking order of magnitude away from that target?
Hot-swappable batteries which can charge off-line seem a far more sensible goal for actually being even vaguely practical.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @09:34PM
What if we made a way to recharge the batteries quickly using some kind of chemical reaction? I think adding that kind of energy to a storage system quickly could be kind of dangerous, so I suggest breaking it down so that the liquid goes into a holding tank and then the part that does a chemical reaction to convert the energy of the liquid into usable force be done in a separate component (made of say iron, steel or high strength aluminium.)
This would be really nice if we could send the resultant spent chemicals from the reaction to a giant storage area and then later use electricity to reverse the reaction and create more "battery recharging liquid."
For those of you who figured I am suggesting we continue to use ICE vehicles, think of the advantages we would have in not rebuilding our entire auto and logistics infrastructure if only we could find a cheap and effective way to make the creation and use of gas/diesel a closed loop system!
(Score: 2, Interesting) by tftp on Friday June 06 2014, @12:10AM
Hot-swappable batteries which can charge off-line seem a far more sensible goal for actually being even vaguely practical.
"Better Place" tried exactly this, in Israel's weather (mostly dry and clean.) They are bankrupt now. Essentially, battery swap stations are expensive, but the people are not willing to pay far more than the usual costs. Additionally, the swap network is stuck with owning all the bad batteries, and the customer has no incentive to go easy on a rental battery pack. To make it worse, the swap network is forced to charge the batteries fully, which reduces their usable life, or else the customers see reduced range and become unhappy. A home EV user can charge to 80% if he only plans for a short trip; a commercial charging service cannot customize the charge, especially because it costs a lot to replace the battery.
The efficiency of EVs is further undermined by their high cost - which translates into high consumption of resources and production of harmful waste during manufacturing of the car and later during its recycling.
An EV is an entirely acceptable car ... as a second or third vehicle. If it is not charged up yet, or if it is not capable of a given trip, you simply take another car from your large garage. But too few people can afford this, and as such they do not matter statistically. A much larger group of people simply buys modern ICE or hybrid vehicles - they achieve good efficiency, and they produce little pollution, and you need only one such car to serve all your needs. Going past that is a path of diminishing return. It may be a viable fleet vehicle, for example, with well defined radius of operation, with chargers at the home base, and with several vehicles to pick from. USPS carriers may benefit from an EV on their fixed and not too lengthy routes. But a common man needs a universal vehicle because he does not know where he will *have to go* even tomorrow, and he'd hate to be unable to do so. For him, an EV is a fair weather vehicle that operates on its own schedule - like those vintage cars/bikes that people fire up once every few weeks to drive them around the block. An EV is practical only if you are willing to bend your life around its limitations. Naturally, most people are quick to reject the offer.