I plug the car into a regular 110V outlet. I typically get 30-50 miles of charge overnight, depending on what time I get home and when I leave. My commute is only 10 miles each way so it's 100% full most mornings when I get in.
I've verified the car can do 240 miles between cities but you have to set the cruise to 60 mph or below. I keep a gas car for long road trips and camping, etc., but I don't use it much.
The Tesla is very cool. Strangers stop me to talk about it multiple times per week. Customer service has been off the charts.
High recommend. Go buy one.
When you drive an EV, acceleration is instant. Like, at the same time your foot goes down, your shoulders get thrown back.
Gas cars often take 0.5-2 seconds to get response from the engine, depending on the car & current conditions at the time you accelerate.
You get used to the acceleration in the Tesla after a while. But one year in, I'm still loving the instant response. That's what I really miss when I'm driving the gas car. It's just awesome.
268 Miles (or slightly less according to the article) is just amazing - less C02, less environmental impact wrapped in a high performance car which - will no doubt - have some detractors as a first iteration against well establish models (comparing it to BMW and Mercedes who have been around for almost 90+ years is a big ask!)
None the less - it's ridiculously exciting at what's been achieved and what will be achieved in the next few years in this space. I give it no more than 3-4 years until these cars will be doing 400-500 miles or more.
Perhaps more interesting will be the transition time, that point where half the cars are self driving and half are manually driven. Will manual drivers become more aggressive because they "know" the robo-cars will get out of their way? I expect it will be less fun before it is more fun.
I don't think "many".
He was fired from Pay-Pal He didn't start Tesla Motors (that was Martin Eberhard) He didn't start spaceX
He is good at marketing though...
I don't think anything will eliminate range anxiety other than time. As more people get electric cars and start to build their lives around them, their acquaintances will start to see it as more normal.
It's almost like the very early days of the automobile, when each driver had to carry a ton of extra gas, since fill stations were few and far between. Like any bootstrap, it took a long time to create the virtuous cycle that mutually reinforces the value of the customers and the infrastructure. Electric cars will need to go through the same thing.
The other big issue is the time to refill. 30 minute quick charge is incredibly fast for electricity, but still incredibly slow compared to filling a gas car.
The average power needed for driving is very low, only 10-20 kW and the battery handles the peaks like when you need to climb a hill or overtake. For example in this article they used 78.2 kWh in 5 h, meaning average 16 kW. The small generator could be called a spare energy source.
Instead, all plugin hybrids have big expensive heavy four cylinder engines which defeats the whole point of building a hybrid in the first place. For example 1.4 liters in the Chevrolet Volt / Opel Ampera.
And then Tesla has no high energy density backup source which again limits the usability of that car (and forces you to keep another car). And raises anxiety...
But... Actually you are not far from something. This is actually an approach from Audi: http://green.autoblog.com/2010/03/01/geneva-preview-audi-a1-... From what I read though this approach was not approved in the mother company, VW. Let's see who wins at the end.
I think that will end up requiring both a social tweak and an infrastructure one. Once people are comfortable with the concept of an electric car, it will be only natural to start requesting (and the necessary civil authorities adding) charging ports in standard parking areas.
Imagine in NYC, a parking meter that also has a charging plug for the car. Raise the meter's rate just a bit and you can cover both the electricity and install costs.
If you didn't even have to plug it in, just drive it to work, park it, drive it home, park it and it could charge automagically in both parking spots - its much more convenient than petroleum and would potentially be a big plus FOR getting an EV.
1 - http://software.intel.com/en-us/videos/channel/general/wirel...
Perhaps self-driving cars are a solution: if the self-driving EV you're in runs out of power, you just jump out and grab another one. The transportation company worries about charging it.
I'm not sure if you have to pay for it, but I've certainly seen people use them.
Don't get me wrong, this is awesome for filling the commute hole, but many many people use their cars for longer trips as well. Until you can make it viable for both I'm not spending many tens of thousands of dollars on it.
Personally I just drive around the SF bay area. Maybe 120 miles on my longest driving day. For the one-two times a year I go farther, I suppose I need to rent a car, take transit. or have someone else drive. That seems like a reasonable price to pay to have the coolest car on the planet for a few years.
That doesn't however just make it "my problem." There aren't very many people buying any of these cars, so I assume it's a problem for more than just me.
The point I'm trying to make, is that if I'm spending 50-100k on a car, I want it to solve "the driving problem." i.e. if I need to drive somewhere, I'd like to be able to do it. Whether I do it often or not is irrelevant. In my case I actually do do it quite frequently, but I suspect that many people don't buy these not because they actually do this once every month or two like I do, but because they want to be able to if they want or need to.
Maybe it's vacation, maybe it's seeing family, maybe it's an emergency. You need to go somewhere and you want to jump in the car and go there. With this you can't, and instead have to go spend several hundred extra dollars and a have a huge hassle of renting a car. No thank you.
Don't forget that the Model S costs around $50,000. Most buyers can afford maintain a second car for the kinds of trips you're talking about.
Keep in mind that you don't get 250 miles of range unless the place on the other end can charge your car for you. You only get 125. That's really not that far.
I'd focus on 2+ car households. I would love to have an electric that doesn't suck and another car for the wife, traveling, hauling kids, etc. The Tesla doesn't work for me in this case because of its price and the other EVs are not interesting enough for me, but hopefully that will change as the prices come down and the tech spreads out.
What if someone made you a "range extender" module that attaches to the towing hitch? I'd design one on a detaching cart so no lifting would be involved to install.
Finally, not sure how this works, but it seems that "running out of gas" would be a much bigger problem. Can't just get a tank of gas and bring it out to the car. I assume you have to get the car towed to charging station? Are there any other options? Any easy way (i.e. something I can carry) to get a charge away from home?
Hats off to you if you can put up with that much time in a car, but personally I would take a plane.
Why isn't the Leaf doing better? when I heard about it I was super excited, and if I had to replace my Prius, it would be my first choice.
I think they hit the tradeoffs just right: for almost all daily driving, you'll never use gasoline. But if you have to do a long trip, you don't have to care about range.
What am I missing?
http://www.nissanusa.com/leaf-electric-car/range?next=ev_mic...
It costs twice as much as the Versa it's based on.
Basically, it's not a compelling package.
If I buy a home, the next car I buy will probably be an EV. Until then, i'm going to keep driving my Infiniti.
The program: http://chargepointamerica.com/program-info.php
Maybe you crossed it up with the Chevy Volt?
Yes the range is better than other electric cars but half the article is about range anxiety. Maybe not the best link title.
still an impressive car :-)
The regular production model that this is based on is the Model S Performance. It's identical, except it has different color and interior options (because its not limited edition). That runs ~$85k after the Federal Rebate, which makes it cheaper than the BMW M5 (a similar competitor in terms of performance, if not practicality).
The standard MS85 (the big battery) clocks in at ~$69,900 and is a bit slower than the MSP, but still as fast as a 550i GT, which is basically the same price and a similar car in terms of features.
There are cheaper options, but most buyers will be paying $60k and up for the MS60 (few seem to be interested in the MS40) so I can see how that can generate some sticker shock.
But hundreds of thousands of cars in this price range get sold in the U.S. every year and the Model S is a bargain in that segment, both in terms of its MSRP and especially in terms of its 5 year total cost of ownership.
This is not the Leaf that costs twice as much as its competitors. Model S easily will save its owners $10k+ over 5 years (and likely much more). The Model S is much closer to a $40,000 car in terms of how much money you actually have to have available to pay the monthly payment, insurance, taxes, gas and maintenance.
Still... if I had that kind of auto budget, I'd definitely buy one.
It would be nice if the all-electric vehicles provided a port in which you could plug an emergency battery that would take you, say, 20 miles or so, so you could get to a recharging station if you overdrive your range. Yes, you have a range gauge, so you never should get into that predicament, but we've had gas gauges for decades, yet we still see people trudging toward their stopped vehicles with newly-purchased gas can in hand.
In Germany, they write you a ticket for that.
You could say that about any luxury car. The vast majority of people simply don't drive more than 250 miles in a day.
