Went for a test drive in the prototype build… It starts indoors…
With no emissions and only the sound of a fan, the car can sneak up behind you. So I had to pitch the idea of downloadable “engine ring tones” coupled to the drive electronics and stereo. Their ice driving test video sounds like skiing…
(and, no, that is not a long extension cord running to the car 😉
Hot damn, that is one good looking car. Lotus did a great job of styling that thing.
i make it a point to never be jealous of anyone … well u sir, have made me a tad green with envy … something like the hulk .. lol …. that is an awesome awesome car … i cant wait to see more pictures !!!!
"Engine Ring Tones" would be awesome!
I can see it now: "Hmmm…I feel like Mercedes E55 today…or maybe Shelby Cobra."
That car looks so interesting that I Googled around a bit, and I found this quote from this article:
"The Tesla Roadster costs a penny per mile to drive," said Tesla CEO Martin Eberhard.
Tesla Motors estimate the energy consumption of this car to be about 128W.h/mile — i.e. 460800 joules/mile — and the range to be about 250 miles.
My rough back-of-the-envelope calculation of the cost of the Lithium-ion batteries (type 18650, 3.7v 2000mAh available e.g. on eBay, or direct from manufacturers like Panasonic and Sanyo if you’re an industrial client ordering large quantities 😉 needed to store that much energy is about US$ 40000.
If we assume that these Li-ion batteries (identical to the ones used in many laptop computers’ battery packs) will last about 300 charge/discharge cycles, i.e. 75000 miles, that gives a cost of 53.3 pence per mile.
That’s, er, about fifty times the cost figure quoted by Tesla Motors’ CEO.
Hmm (^^;
I don’t know about expense, but there have been huge strides in durability and speed of recharge. 85% left after 15,000 full cycles (That even happens at 10C charge/discharge rates.) is pretty amazing and would probably be something you would buy for one care then plug into your next car if battery technology hadn’t moved on. See peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Lithium_Ion_Batteries
With such extreme durability, it should be possible to get the real cost per mile down below ten cents per mile (not just energy costs, which I assume is the 1 cent per mile.)
True about the car purchase costs and normal gasoline endowed cars, but if there are ongoing maintenance requirements that cost more than the car over the life of the car, buyers count the maintenance requirements into the cost of the car and that goes into purchase decisions. This particular car, being a sports car (At least in appearance), is less susceptible to such cost calculations, however.
I’m very glad to hear they’ve licked battery longevity issues though. Are they advertising battery life expectations for the car, yet?
@nik: heh, let me know when *those* real Tesla are manufactured. 😉
@steve: if you were here in Buenos Aires now, I would be pulling your ear… like 40 times, asking you to make a wish while lighting up a candle on a big (cup)cake (me modest cooker, no good chef) ^_^.
And handing out a big huge package which says: "for Steve, Happy B…!"
But as you are there, and it is still feb 28, I can´t say anything yet, neither do the aforementioned.
Steve Jurvetson wrote:
> right, the penny is energy cost. We don’t typically factor in car
> purchase costs when talking about the price of gas.
Gas is a hydrocarbon, which chemically reacts with oxygen in the engine to yield useful motive energy. The process also creates a waste product (carbon dioxide). As you drive your car, the quantity of available hydrocarbon in your tank decreases, and the amount of waste produced increases.
As a Li-Ion battery goes through charge and discharge cycles, irreversible chemical reactions in the electrolyte, the anode and the cathode progressively decrease the available quantity of lithium ions that can carry a charge — i.e. perform useful work, — and increase the quantity of waste (degraded chemicals) in the battery.
From a chemical point of view, gas and Li-ion processes (progressive transformation into waste of a substance that can yield useful energy) are thus quite similar.
The difference, of course, is the time period over which this transformation into waste occurs, and whether the associated cash cost should be expensed — i.e. factored into the per-mile cost — or capitalized — i.e. ultimately accounted for as a depreciation, separate from operating expenses.
Alan Greenspan proposed a few years ago that software development costs should be capitalized. A lot of industry practicioners, on the other hand, prefer instead to expense software development costs.
Both views are reasonable, and would essentially hinge on one’s assessment of the time period over which the added value delivery, as well as the depreciation, take place.
As for Li-ion batteries, one’s view might be skewed by the first-hand experience of the surprisingly and irritatingly short life of these battery packs in mobile phones and laptops, compared to the manufacturers’ optimistic claims… (^^;
As far as the ringtones – I had the idea for engine ringtones about 6 months ago, when I read an article about too-quiet hybrids causing pedestrian accidents. So we started brainstorming – why stop with other cars? Why not a Tie Fighter, or a train, or a galloping horse? At christmastime, you could give your Tesla a "sleigh" sound.
Or the jetsons car, as a previous commentor mentioned, or a Semi tractor, or a motorcycle.
Or it could be a song, or the sound of electrical humming, or a bear growling, or a fog horn.
The list is quite long, and a lot of fun when you think about it 🙂
Hello, Steve,
Hope you don’t mind, but I "stole" your picture for my blog to promote an article I wrote for the Michigan Business Review on ethanol vs. all-electric, and to tease to an upcoming Q&A interview I did with Martin Eberhard.
Don’t know if you remember me, but at one time I was news editor for Small Times magazine and I always remembered what you told me about what makes a company VC-worthy — and that is it needs a product that can be incorporated into existing products and processes.
The Tesla, it seems violates that rule. What Eberhard is doing seems more revolutionary.
Hi, I’m an admin for a group called i500 Automobile Photography, and we’d love to have your photo added to the group.
An Argentinian Plane from the AAF (argentine air force) flew today with soya biofuel.. They say it smelled around as a kitchen, like a giant was frying potato chips
now that’s a flying flier
hlovy: yes. Changing an industry is difficult, especially in the context of an oligopoly, with capital intensive operations, and ever growing minimum efficient scale. Electronics is a classic example (I think molecular electronics was the example we discussed at the time).
The auto industry would appear to be identical to electronics in these respects, and so startups have not been abundant. But we recently invested in two electric car companies (Tesla at the high end, and Reva in India for the mass market). We had to think about each of the constraints, and how smart entrepreneurs might work around them. It seemed that starting a whole new car company was actually an easier route than trying to introduce radical change as a component supplier.
In the auto case, the "hydrogen economy" requires more of a change to “existing products and processes” than an electric car with sufficient range to allow individual purchase decisions without having to wait for new infrastructure.
johnbr: great ideas. I have come across a number of people who have the same epiphany. A few years back, it was the first thought I had when riding in a fuel cell car. (comment link)
Nice shot! – If this leads the 2007 ‘SUSTAINABLE DRIVE!’ line-up, there’s garage space in "FIRST – THE EARTH!" Photo-ART Competition / EXHIBITION. — So this is an invite! ** Closes APR. 17th … Judging Day – EARTH DAY – APRIL 22.** Details re ‘Invite only’ Judging Group, on sneak-peak EXHIBITION site – http://www.flickr.com/people/melcir-selfportraits-2006/ . – Mel
I think I’m in love.
This world-class image was found in Global Village 2
Commented with SIC
I would love permission to print this photo in our non-profit magazine published once every two months. It’s called "Plugged In" and is the member magazine of the BVS, the UK equivalent of the EAA. Do you think we could use it for a Tesla article if we cite you as photographer and send you a copy? Please!?
Thanks for sharing
A great image, much admired by Donna62 –,
a "FIRST – THE EARTH!" member – http://www.flickr.com/groups/first-the-earth/
An incredible feat of engineering, the Tesla. But I’m not too sure about the whole ‘driving in near-total silence’ thing. A car that looks like that ought to GROWL.
So here’s my solution. When I was about 9 years old, we would clothespin a baseball card to the front fork of our bicycles, so that the card would flap against the spokes. Seeing as how I was a bit of an experimenter, I calculated that if ONE card sounded cool, what would 25 cards sound like?
Well, it may have been a little harder to pedal (there was a lot of resistance against the spokes), but it sounded like a Harley on steroids! I was the envy of the neighborhood.
And there’s your solution for the too-quiet Tesla! 😀
this just in… Motortrend took a similar test drive (March 08 issue):
"I’m almost grimacing as I release the brake and pound the accelerator to the floor. Whrrrrrrr… There’s no wheelspin, axle tramp, shutter, jutter, smoke whiff, cowl shake, nothing. I’m being eerily teleported down the barrel of a rail gun, head pulled back by a hard, steady acceleration. Bizarre. And before too long, profoundly humbling to just about any rumbling Ferrari or Porsche"
I actually saw one in real life on the 101 heading to SF last week. Great to see it finally in the wild and the driver seemed to be having a lot of fun tearing through traffic – certainly couldn’t keep up in my old car.
Thanks for the heads up. I’ll check it out.
I wonder what kind of cost reductions Elon envisions for this technology over the next ten years, either through economies of scale or technological improvements.
And now, engine ring tones are a thing…
"Each setting also has its own volume level for the fake "engine" noise that Ford pipes into the cabin, which is more of a low-pitched thrum that actually sounds pretty good — better than the usual spaceship-like low-speed noises that most automakers rely on. You can turn it off if you don’t need to pretend you’re driving something nonelectric"
— apple.news/AfNPwKVwLQSi67c6dG5Nt1Q
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