Tesla Model S (Electric Cars in General) & The Future of Motoring

Communities Blog
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Recently someone started a "dream car" forum and one of the dream cars suggested was a Tesla Model S. Now there is nothing wrong with that. The Tesla S is a great piece of engineering and I myself would love to own one. That being said, I thought we could have a bit of a discussion about it, electric cars and what, and even if, we'll be driving in the future. 

Warning massive wall of text inbound.

To be honest, I am really not that enthused by Tesla, Elon Musk or the Model S. Not only because they are the Apple of the car world (Did someone say lawsuits?) but because I really don't think it makes too much sense right now and I don't think in the future the battery powered electric car will have much more of a place unless some revolutionary technology that improves the electrical system comes around. 

To start, the Tesla costs $79,000. What do you get for that money? Well you do get a fabulous interior that is one thing but as for the actual car bits it falls down. 

You get a range of 230 Mi at 55 MPH as quoted by Tesla and 208 Mi as quoted by the EPA. While that is better than something like the Nissan Leaf or the Focus Electric it isn't outstanding. Long highway trips would be a pain in the ass if you had to stop every 200 miles (Most likely less) and recharge. Especially if you had to use a standard 120V socket which you would because fast charging points are few and far between. Plus, how much range do you really have? I've been in electric cars. There are so many factors that can determine how much range you have. From lights to climate control, traffic, terrain, speed.= and ambient temperature, not to mention phantom discharge which can be quite considerable. All of these can factor into the range. The little readout isn't very precise so you never truly know. Which makes driving difficult if you don't know how far you can actually go. 

Batteries, in addition to being incredibly damaging to the environment to produce, are heavy and take up space. The Tesla S weighs over 4600LBS. That is quite heavy for a car of its size. That means it isn't as efficient, fast or handle as well as it could. Plus it means more exotic materials, like carbon fiber, are needed to keep the overall weight down further driving up costs. 

Reliability? That is a bit up in the air at the moment. The Roadsters of a few years ago were terribly unreliable. But improvements have been made so we'll see. But I don't believe we'll be seeing too many by the side of the road bodge jobs with it or any electric car in general. Not to mention the fact that repairs and maintenance would be quite expensive. Especially if it can only be serviced by Tesla. No more comparison shopping different garages. 

Charging is an issue too. The batteries have a finite lifespan. In the case of the Leaf that is about 10 years under careful stewardship and using slow charging. Fast charging brings that down to 3-5. While I'm not saying the Tesla will see the same issues it is something to consider. Tesla does include an 8 year 125,000mi warranty on the battery which is good but still it is a factor especially for resale and older cars. 

Plus as a side note, I've talked to a fair amount of the Tesla folks at auto shows and it reminded me very much of the Apple Genius Bar. Many of them had little idea what they were trying to sell, could only repeat talking points and met any question with criticism and a general attitude of pompousness. But that really doesn't put me down on the Model S. 

Now some of these issues could be fixed. Battery technology could improve and we could see better infrastructure but battery powered electric cars don't really seem to be the answer. 

In my personal belief, I think hydrogen fuel cell powered electric cars will be the thing that saves us. Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, can be made cleanly from ocean water or even mined off world (SCFI here), and can be stored easily in tanks. While it is flammable, so is gasoline and with proper safety precautions it could be made just as safe. 

Furthermore hydrogen fits well with the infrastructure we already have today. Existing gas stations could be retrofitted to store and dispense hydrogen. California has already started doing this. Plus a fill up with hydrogen takes no longer than a traditional fuel stop so there isn't the issue of waiting on batteries to charge and you get water as a byproduct which could be captured and recycled to make more hydrogen. 

Hydrogen eliminates the need for heavy battery packs and could make the vehicle lighter and in theory once the fuel cell technology becomes more widespread, cheaper. 

Also it has to be asked if cars will even exist in the way we seem them today. Will we even be driving in 20 years time? 

Those are my personal beliefs and I look forward to hearing what the community has to say. 

At no point was this an attack on Tesla, the Model S or the bloke who pointed out it was his dream car. 

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I have to give credit to Tesla for taking the market and running with it. Tesla and the Model S has been brought up in both a business class I'm taking and a psychology class I've completed.

The business class came to the consensus that Tesla has a very smart business plan. They are riding on what people want (demand for 'energy efficiency' and the 'environment'), they aren't making as many cars as people want (slight scarcity of supply), and they're doing it for a price that is correct for their market (mid-upper to upper income individuals/families). Not only that, but I've heard tale that they have 'recalls' for things that aren't always actually wrong, some of the 'recalls' are just because something better was created, making people trust them more. What they're doing is smart business-wise.

The psychology class came to the consensus that Tesla's marketing is playing on today's key words (green, environment, eco, etc.). People want the Tesla because it's 'good for the environment because it runs on only electricity', and they're only worried about that because it is the 'in' thing and that climate change is 'scary', for lack of better words. Most people probably wouldn't buy a Tesla if they knew what goes into making a huge-ass battery like the one in a Model S, but people, for the most part, don't look all that deep. If it's not directly in front of peoples' faces, it might as well not exist to them. You can just watch the nightly news for an example of that. Not only all that, but it's also becoming a status symbol, like Beats headphones, iPhones, Macbooks, designer jeans, and crap like that. Human's are naturally competitive like pretty much every species in existence. We have an innate desire to be 'better' or have the 'best'; the more it costs, the 'better' it is perceived to be. On the other hand humans also have the ability to reason, so we can also forgo that desire if we catch it.

 

I also think that hydrogen powered transportation is smart. It has a very high stored potential energy for the volume, and it burns cleanly and efficiently. I looked into hydrogen powered vehicles once, and vehicles with engines optimized for hydrogen can be stupidly fast because hydrogen itself burns fast. That fast burning is why I'm assuming it's used in rockets and the Space Shuttles and stuff. It also has can be burned in an immensely wide range of concentrations (4-75% by volume in normal air). It also doesn't corrode much of anything as it's transported through tubes. The problem with hydrogen is that it is colorless and odorless in it's natural state, making leaks a pain to detect. My eight grade science teacher held up what we students thought was an empty glass tube. He then lit the hydrogen on fire and almost literally scared the crap out of some students. It was a pretty awesome day in science class.

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Very interesting response. I hadn't really thought of it that way in terms of the status symbol type thing. Now I realize though you're absolutely right. 

As for the hydrogen, while you can burn it that isn't what I was implying by the post. I was implying using it to generate electricity in a hydrogen fuel cell in a car like the Honda FCX Clarity or the dozens that GM and BMW have produced. 

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I honestly didn't read most of what you posted about hydrogen. I absolutely hate reading large amounts of text on my laptop, so I ended up skimming through the Tesla bit and more or less stopped at the hydrogen part.

Having said that, I wouldn't mind a hydrogen/electric hybrid. Something that had a an electric motor that would be perfect for around town, commuting, and short trips, but still having an actual engine with moving parts for longer distances.

An interesting concept I saw was a car that had electric motors inside the front wheels of a car with a CVT between them that was attached to a small hydrogen engine. The electric motors would power the car at lower speeds and during acceleration and the hydrogen engine would power the car once it got up to cruising speed or so. From what I understand, current electric motors work great for acceleration and lower speeds since the power and torque output is instantaneous, but engines work much better than electric motors at higher speeds and especially when cruising at a fairly consistent speed. And since it doesn't take much to keep a car going at the same speed, the hydrogen engine was less than a liter in size if I remember correctly.

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I don't think hydrogen is the way to go even If it's a hybrid water may be cheap but the engine design is complex so no doubt it'll be expensive.

a compressed air electric hybrid is alot more economical. not to mention safer. besides If you live in really cold places the water in your tank may freeze and I doubt putting antifreeze in a hydrogen engine would work as well as it would in a car that runs on gasoline. odds are they would nickle and dime you for a specal fuel made for cold weather.

with compressed air you'd loose some milage but it would still be useable.

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What we need is the Ford EcoBoost 1L turbo-charged engine and related engines in more cars. 

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I've got a few add-ons/counterpoints to add.



Firstly I've read and parsed as best as i could the verbage used by Elon Musk and he said that he was doing the electric car thing in stages. Roadster-S-then more cars at a lower price. I'd believe he;s taken into account the short comings of electric vehicle technology and the stages he set for Tesla are mainly to jump those hurdles. There are things that concern me sich as battery weight, and charging times, but the thing is, if we just keep waiting fort the technology to get there and not make a conscious effort to help it along then nothing will ever get done.

 



Now in terms of the tech being available/not available i think that one thing that would greatly help the distance of the electric car would be to have an active generator onboard. Granted the thing would add weight but perhaps it could cut battery weights in half while adding it's own. This way we connect the regenerative breaking tech to the generator and have it charge the batteries that way or even add power to the motors. I'm aware of all the losses that can and will be apparant with a system like this as well as the 3rd law of thermo dynamics that is always brought up when some one talks like i am but people keep doing impossible stuff in the science community every month. It's the naysayers that prevent other things from happening. The last thing I'd like to tach onto this is that graphene technology may not be the final piece in the energy storage space it proves that things can be done that would send thing like the electric car leaps and bounds ahead of gasoline or maybe even hydrogen powered vehicles.

 



I think Tesla is a kick ass first step and we need to stop trying pulling the rug out from under them.

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I wouldn't purchase a tesla model s. It's a good concept but electric cars in current form aren't attractive to me. Anyone else think it's weird the fix to all of those accidents also removed the ability for the car to lower itself on the freeway? I mean that was part of selling point of the car right to be more efficient? Maybe they should re test the actual mileage of the vehicle besides trying to sell a lie?

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The problem nowadays, in my opinion, is that the fundamental idea of the engine, the fundamental model, the basis, has remained about the same. There hasn't been a radical change in the basic design of the engine. Engines still have an efficiency of about 25% and about 80% of what comes out of the exhaust is still flammable. Electric cars are nice and all but they're the right answer to a different problem. There is improvement to be made in the gasoline engine. I am a renewable resources kind of person but I truly believe that there is a change available to the basic design of the engine that has yet to be made. Hydrogen is great but it still has its short falls. 

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thinking out loud here... Hydrogen is pretty neat stuff but not without its pitfalls. Hydrogen is said to be the most abundant substance in the universe.... Thats great but getting it in a usable form is the hardest part (lets translate that into most expensive part too). Then you have to transport it and currently the best way to get hydrogen is the convert Natural gas with some water to get Hydrogen (and CO2). Ok thats cool because we can have hydrogen anywhere now (as long as you have a Natural Gas supply) however now we are back where we started relying on a non renewable resource for our energy needs. We would need a better way of extracting hudrogen.

The Argument for electricity is better based off our current situation on technology and infrastructure. For Electric cars to flourish we need two things to happen... Power (Thorium based Nuclear power) and an inno-vention on battery technologys. Lithium ion has been with us for a long time and we need something to take over that is more efficient. Lithium is not the most abundant substance in the world however it can perform better as technology advances. Lithium-Air is said to hold as much energy as gasoline per unit weight but one huge downside its really cant be recharged, that’s out. They are developing things such as Sodium-Air which is best of both worlds, first Sodium is very abundant in the world vs lithium, Sodium Air has a much higher capacity than Lithium Ion, and the reaction between sodium and air becomes NAO2 (Sodium SuperOxide) which is much more stable than Lithium Ion and especially Lithium Air. The downfall: The number of times it can be recharged is not as many as Lithium Ion. Again we are hanging on technology to get better for us to move forward completely.

With those out of the way we would be on the right path to something that is sustainable and easy for people to use without too much involvement from the consumer. You add a Thorium based Nuclear power providing much of the needed generation for the added capacity to our electric grid, you build cars that have advanced batteries that can hold more energy and you have a nice solution to gasoline that consumers don’t really need to adapt to. We already have electricity coming to our homes where we could charge on a daily basis. On the go you could charge much like a gas station or even have it setup where the batteries are swappable.

I see the future with Solar panels on our homes (when they get to a respectable efficiency and price) that power most of our houses, the electric company providing power as supplementary power for the home and to charge our cars. 

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I like the points you raised and agree whole-heartedly. Our main issue right now is energy storage, once we jump that hurdle things will, again, advance exponentially. The next industrial revolution if you will.

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At 70,000USD I don't think any fuel savings are going to be financially viable (unless there are some crazy tax rebates or something...), saying that I think they are quiet cool. Saying that there are things like the Free-valve engine (without a camshaft which is substantially better in terms of performance and fuel economy), and things like the free piston, which has been envisionged to work alongside an electric system to suppliment energy usage. There was also an australian engine (can't remember what it is called).

I think we will continue to see further reductions in fuel consumption per mile, as weight continues to decline and engine efficency increases. I am guessing hybrid systems with features to reduce consumption will become more popular too, as a way of reducing operating costs, in order to provide more value and either command a higher price, or gain more sales. But I doubt we will see electric cars take off, without some sort of universally present charging station, and certainly not at those prices.

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First, if nobody actually goes out and does anything different, then nothing will change. So I commend Tesla on doing just that. 

The proof of concept on electric cars was proven long ago with the GM EV1. If anyone hasn't seen "Who killed the electric car?" I recommend watching it. That and "Revenge of the electric car."

Gasoline engines are horribly inefficient. Electric motors, on the other hand, are very efficient. Electric motors are the way to go. The main issue is battery technology. At the moment they are too heavy and do not hold enough capacity. They are good enough right now for people that have relatively short commutes/trips, but aside from that, until there are significant battery technology advancements, electric cars just won't catch on quite yet. The range needs to go up and the cost needs to come down. 

We are in a transitional state right now where implementation is taking place, but it's a slow process.

I'm a car guy and always will be. I've built and raced cars over the years and I love the noise and feel of an ICE (internal combustion engine). But I've come to realize that the basic operation of engines has not changed in over a century. As efficient as we've been able to refine the design of their operation, they are still very inefficient, wasting nearly half the potential energy of the fuel.

Regardless of how the energy is stored, electric is the answer.

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I agree with you. Electricity is the answer. I just don't believe batteries are the way to store it.