[tintin]

I still think it won't succeed. Electric cars have been build since 1904. But range have always been a problem. Ofcourse charging your car becomes quicker. But I still think a lot of people won't buy an electric car because they are afraid of not getting home.

[gnaffle]

"I still think computers will not succeed. They have been built since the 50s, and the price tag, the space they take, the heat and energy consumption have always been a problem."

I think you fail to realize where electric cars are on its technological trajectory. They're still in its infancy, and it's not like there's no more innovation to be had in battery technology etc.

[tintin]

I do realize this. But I was talking about the Tesla in its current form.

Ofcourse it might get a success some day. Maybe we won't have to charge them because they all will have a small nuclear reactor.

My point is: a lot of people are still thinking 300 miles on one battery charge is not enough. And maybe this is true when you go on holiday or something. But most of the time people are fine driving an electric car from home to work and back.

[startupfounder]

Tesla at this moment in time is not a car company that is marketing its product to the average consumer. They realize the technology is currently not their, but their go to market strategy is to market their luxury product to people who can afford a $50k car. At this point it is not about the worry of charging or where. My assumption is that the vast majority of people who own Tesla cars have a charging station in their home and understand the limits of the product.

They purchase the car for status, just like every other luxury product.

300 miles become irrelevant when you can recharge your car in 5-10 minutes, and that is where the technology is going.

[aidenn0]

Charging a 300mile electric car in 5-10 minutes is not going to happen any time soon, and it's not because of battery technology:

The model S uses 85kWh to go 300 miles (at 55 mph, remember which is way slower than you'll go on the freeway in California). 10 minutes is 1/6 of an hour so:

85kWh * 6/h = 510kW. Do you really think we are going to have 1/2 MW charging cables? Obviously this is not going to happen with home charging. Can you think of a way of even getting 1/2MW to a commercial charging station in a populated area? What about on e.g. labor day when large numbers of people want demand. If 10 people want to do a 10 minute charge in the same city at the same time, thats 10MW, which is a lot of coal we are burning to supply that (or if you want green power, about 100 acres of photovoltaics)[1].

I'm all for electrics, but I know the power grid is going to need an overhaul if more than about 1/8 the population adopts them, and on top of that current trends indicate that most of the new capacity is going to come from coal plants, which largely negates the environmental advantages of electrics.

1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nellis_Solar_Power_Plant

[checker]

I'm not very experienced in electronics, but couldn't you constantly store the source electricity in some sort of storage (battery, capacitors) and then dump it quickly into cars? This may not be feasible due to the efficiencies or safety factors involved, but the car wouldn't necessarily have to draw directly from the source line. The recharging stations could draw line power to recharge their storage overnight while the use of their charging terminals is low. However, I imagine the storage would be extremely pricey for the home market.

[aidenn0]

The most economical way of storing electrical energy on-site is probably the lead-acid battery. Enough lead-acid batteries to store 100 car recharges would be 1200 cubic meters. I found estimates from $0.17 to $0.50 per watt hour which would put the cost at over $1M to handle 100 car recharges. Charging that up continuously would put the energy requirements at 440kW assuming 80% round-trip efficiency.

[ranit8]

> 1/2 MW charging cables

Cables are rated by the current they support, not by the power of the devices connected to it. A cable up to 10 Ampères supports 1100 watts on a 110V mains, or 2200W on a 220V mains. Quick charging on electric vehicles probably is done at high voltages.

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

EDIT: you are right about home charging not possible. And to the sibling, the best storage systems for fast charging are http://en.wikipedia.org/w/Supercapacitor and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flywheel_energy_storage

[gnaffle]

The current Tesla will succeed if there are enough people that want to, and have enough money to buy a high performance electric car. It's not so relevant what most people think about electric cars if you don't target the mass market. Most people that can afford a Tesla will probably afford another car to go on holidays (or they will be enthusiastic enough about their Tesla to plan their holidays around charging stations..)

[jonstjohn]

Funny, when I looked at the specs, I thought 160 miles on a charge was more than enough for me. I think a tesla, or electric car in general, fits nicely into the second car of a two-car family model. Now we just need more renewable energy to power these things.

[analyst74]

My phone cannot go for a whole day of heavy use without recharging, this is literally unthinkable 5 years ago. How can a phone be usable if you have to worry about charging it all the time?

Now, everyone is perfectly happy with carrying their chargers around. Maybe in a few years, people would get used to the idea of planning for charging their cars.

[andylei]

> everyone is perfectly happy with carrying their chargers around. Maybe in a few years, people would get used to the idea of planning for charging their cars.

that's because new mobile phones with crappy battery lives offer a lot more functionality than old mobile phones with much greater battery life. if this was the case with the electric car, then maybe yes, but i don't really see any significant benefits.

[lutorm]

I bet the people who can throw $60-80k at a car already have other cars they can use for long-distance drives.

[franklindholm]

I agree, also the price is to high. $49.9k for a range of 160 miles? 5h+ for full charge? With the super charger it still takes 30 min for 160 miles charge, but then you have to buy the $59.9k option.

Of course the cars could hardly be any cheaper since they are built with new technology etc., but this still is just a prototype of sorts, electric cars won't become really commercial until either the recharge and price problems are solved or when the price of gas is so high that no one can afford it.

[gnaffle]

Tesla is hardly a mass market car. I think the price is too high for a BMW 5-series as well, but if they manage to sell the cars at that price, that's my problem and not theirs. I think Tesla made a good choice to expand downwards in the market, that's the only sensible solution for a small company.

If you want a mass market car, you can get a Nissan Leaf for half the price. I agree that it's not for everyone, especially since the battery warranty is not as good as it should be.

[slykat]

What about the market for car sharing? At Google we have a fleet of electric (and normal cars that are offered to employees for personal & business use and it's never been a problem since they are used for short trips. If they can produce a cheap model, I can see a market for players like Zipcar for dense urban centers where a majority of trips are quite short.

[pedrolll]

Yes it's a problem when there are not enough charging stations around. In some countries the network is quite well spread already but I guess not in the U.S. so far. Once that gets taken care of, I don't see any reasons for people not buying electric cars.

[arethuza]

"I don't see any reasons for people not buying electric cars."

Almost all of my car journeys are from Edinburgh to various random locations in the Scottish Highlands to go skiing/cycling/walking - usually from 200 to 400 miles for the round trip - often parking in fairly remote spots. I just don't see an electric car being a sensible choice for our family any time soon.

[showerst]

You're not the market for this car.

Right now that market is upper-class commuters, who mostly go < 50 miles round trip and would likely use it as a second (or third) car.

I could see a decent market for these things from people who live in the US in VA/MD and commute into and out of DC, for instance. It's not a long distance, but it's a very slow trip because of traffic, and there's a culture of status-symbol cars.

[panacea]

It's still a 'chicken or an egg' problem, and charging times are not the same as filling up from a pump.

[yeswecan]

One can imagine the hypothetical scenario where a large filling station network would offer a battery subscription service of sorts, whereby you can stop at a station, swap in a charged battery, and drive off.

[szx]

This is exactly what better place (Shai Agassi et al.) is doing: http://www.betterplace.com/the-solution-switch-stations

[amac]

I don't see why this system can't replace re-fueling at a station. The retail store, restaurant, other services i.e the operator's profit, is all still there.

You just change the service/self-service oil option with the self-service electric vehicle battery switching option.

tintin, what is the difference in the logic behind 'afraid of not getting home' with regards to combustion and electric motors? Both run out of juice at some stage, you just make sure it doesn't run out right.

[ams6110]

Combustion powered cars can be refueled anywhere in about 5 minutes. Electric cars take hours and that's only for a partial charge.

Also I doubt our electrical infrastructure will support large-scale EV recharging. We have brown-outs and black-outs now in many urban areas during peak demand times. So we'd at least need "intelligent grid" capability to throttle or disable vehicle charging during peak demand hours.

Finally the whole issue of road tax is never discussed. This is a significant portion of the retail cost of gasoline. If/when large numbers of people switch to EV cars, we'll need a way to meter and tax the electricity for road maintenance, or find another way to fund that.

[gnaffle]

With quick chargers you can charge an electric car in about 30 minutes. Charging that takes hours is not a problem if you can charge the car at work or at home.

It's pretty clear that a large scale switch to electric would require us to upgrade the grid, make available metering solutions and add tax the electricity. It's not going to be easy, but it's not going to be impossible either. And the transition is likely to happen very gradually. 150 years ago people likely told the first auto makers the same thing: How are people going to buy your product when there it's so difficult to get fuel? The problem was solved piece by piece as the market demanded cars.

[ConstantineXVI]

a) Car batteries are massive.

b) The batteries are shaped to the car[1]; standardizing batteries would require sacrificing car design (aka: goodbye back seat).

[1] From http://www.teslamotors.com/models/features#/battery "...integrating with the vehicle in the same way, providing structural, aerodynamic, and handling advantages."

[gnaffle]

It might be possible to have some of the battery packs replaceable and some fixed, so that you can get to 40% charge or so instantly if you need it. I'm a bit more pessimistic on getting the car makers to standardize on a battery size, especially as long as battery technology is a competitive advantage.

[kingnothing]

Tesla cars are built with exactly that in mind. The battery packs can be swapped out in minutes.

[aidenn0]

source?

[edit] Wikipedia claims this, but their reference no longer exists on Tesla Motor's website. Searching everywhere in the OP yields nothing about this.

[ithought]

Already is and will. Check out Shai Agassi. (BetterPlace)

EDIT- Israel, Denmark, Australia and some US testing. Why is this downvoted? My point was a solution exists and is being implemented on a large scale.