Tesla vs Lotus Elise on Top Gear...

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 7:02 pm

...and the Tesla kicks the Lotus' arse all over the road!

$12 Billion for General Motors? Screw them! We should be giving Tesla Motors $12 Billion to help them design an electric car anyone can afford.

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impuresoul2k3 · Post by **impuresoul2k3** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 7:40 pm

A $100,000 car is hardly something everyone can afford. I would like to see this produced tho, they do seem like a great idea.

Executioner · Post by **Executioner** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 9:01 pm

LOL 6,000 laptop batteries.
3.9 seconds from 0-60. Great!
Handling sucks around corners
Prince: $100k. Sucks

Wonder how long it will take for them to make a car like this affordable with a price around $15/20k?

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 10:10 pm

This is a specialty sports car like a Lotus, and priced accordingly. Tesla is working on a sub $50K car for the average consumer.

THAT'S what we should be investing government bailout money on, so that they can crank them out for $20K.

These guys are WAY ahead of Detroit in electric drive technology. They're using direct drive for one thing.

Err · Post by **Err** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 1:00 am

I think that once fuel cell technology comes of age, we'll see much more electric cars. Until then, cars like the Volt where you have a generator to compensate for the depleted battery is the way to go. I wonder what a small car like the Smart would get mileage wise if the car had electric motor driven drivetrain powered by a generator?

Pugsley · Post by **Pugsley** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 9:07 am

Well the plain diesel version of the smart gets around 70. And VW was going to make a diesel electric that would do around 80 and still be fun.

wvjohn · Post by **wvjohn** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 10:04 am

All your laptop batteries are belong to us!

nexus_7 · Post by **nexus_7** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 10:51 am

That is what the VOlT is...but it wont die on the side of the road.

gets 40 or so miles on electric alone and then the gas motor turns on to recharge it. Very smart idea...only i would have done it a little differently.

Diesel or a 2-3 cilinder motor. Tee Geo Metro had a nice little 3.

Greg

impuresoul2k3 · Post by **impuresoul2k3** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 7:16 pm

There is far, far less lithium reserves in the world than oil. Think of all the lithum we are going to need for billions of cars. Also are you going to want to replace a $10k battery pack every year or two. How many of you have had a laptop battery last longer than 1-2 years. Now throw in extreme temps(hot and cold) and see how far you get. I think cost is the huge limiting factor and I don't see that changing any time soon unless lithium goes way cheap, or we get another battery tech with a better life cycle.

I mean I had a 9-cell dell battery that would power my laptop for 5 hours. It was brand new 1.5 years ago. Now one of the cells shorted out, it will only charge to 66%, and lasts about 1.5hrs.

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 11:21 pm

I believe that they are working on a different battery tech for just that reason (can't recall right now). But you're right, Lithium is not the way to go in the long term.

RubberDuckie · Post by **RubberDuckie** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 11:51 pm

I wouldnt want my $100,000 car to do this:

impuresoul2k3 · Post by **impuresoul2k3** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 9:20 am

normalicy wrote:I believe that they are working on a different battery tech for just that reason (can't recall right now). But you're right, Lithium is not the way to go in the long term.

Ok cool, I'll have to look into that

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 11:17 am

Silver Zinc (PDF file) is one alternative, but I know that most manufacturers are looking at fuel cells.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 2:27 pm

Yes Lithium is scarce AND also only available in quantity from unstable countries in Africa.

Long term we need a better storage solution.

Ultimately it may be Ultra Capacitors. They should never wear out (not within the life of the vehicle), should be more efficient and charge faster:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercapacitor