Santa’s Electric

23 responses to “Santa’s Electric”

1. 

   kirainet

   Dec 27, 2008 at 12:50 am

   it looks like you are talking about a computer instead of a car 🙂

   Is it relatively easy to change the motor?

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2. 

   sbove

   Dec 27, 2008 at 1:13 am

   Steve, Please call Obama and say simply: "Instead of Detroit, consider the capital allocation efficiency of Venture Capital and start-ups in Silicon Valley. Instead of bailing out 3 or 4 dead car companies, let several of the top VC firms deploy the same capital to found over 1,000 new CAR and transportation energy companies. Like KP’s first fund, if the right VCs were put in charge, most of the capital would be returned without having been invested, and the 30% that was invested would yield several important new industries, employ tens of thousands of people in the RIGHT kind of new jobs, go a long-stretch toward denting the global warming equation, get our country off the oil-spigot, and return a 40%+ IRR for the American taxpayer. Where is Tesla’s handout from the government? WrightSpeed’s? Bottom line: the top VCs in our little tech-bubble oasis need to get far more serious about representing the enlightened interests of America at the table in D.C. Vectoring the comparable oceans of cash being printed right now into the RIGHT hands for highly efficient allocation on the front lines of innovation should be the JOB of VCs…it is their core expertise and America needs it to be done! A coalition of the best and the brightest from Silicon Valley should be formed to move this agenda forward.

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3. 

   AGrinberg

   Dec 27, 2008 at 2:20 am

   What sbove said…

   Can’t even tell what I’m looking at here, but thanks for keeping us up to date!

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4. 

   menlo

   Dec 27, 2008 at 2:42 am

   Wow–wonder if the upgrade is available to individuals without your high profile? If so, they’re to be congratulated.

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5. 

   P^2 – Paul

   Dec 27, 2008 at 3:19 am

   6831 cells? What a strange number. 23 x 11 x 3 x 3 x 3. Tesla says pack voltage is 375V, so that would make it 69 strings of 99 cells. Does somebody at Tesla like the number three or something?

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6. 

   xouroborus

   Dec 27, 2008 at 3:24 am

   so…do I get to drive it now? 😉

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7. 

   Doug_Dirac_Delta

   Dec 27, 2008 at 3:42 am

   Steve, is this your car? I thought you had Signature Green.

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8. 

   Jim Rees

   Dec 27, 2008 at 4:42 am

   Each "brick" has 69 cells in parallel. 99 bricks in series makes up the battery. I was curious why they don’t make each cell 69 times bigger, then make a battery of 99 of these giant cells. Apparently it’s possible for a cell to go into thermal runaway, and it’s easier to contain if each cell is fairly small. The last thing you want in an electric car is a battery fire.

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9. 

   jurvetson

   Dec 27, 2008 at 5:05 am

   Doug: good eye. My car drove right under this one on the way out. This one offers a nice perspective as the battery pack has yet to be installed.

   kiranet: not too tough, as it’s a fairly simple system.

   P^3: think Rendezvous with Rama and TMR clues for the aliens

   Menlo: Yes, everyone gets the free upgrade.

   sbove: It would seem to make sense at some level, yet is scary to the status quo. Reminds me of a flickr post when I first became curious about politics and met Wes Clark and concluded that "the economic policies it takes to get elected are generally corrosive to the long term health of the nation. In the past, this could be absorbed by an economic juggernaut. Given the accelerating pace of technological change and the increasing percentage of the economy that is driven by technology, we can no longer afford to protect the past at the expense of the future."

   (I just love the flickr archive of my thoughts du jour)

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10. 

    TomiTapio

    Dec 27, 2008 at 5:18 pm

    Hmm… I like it!

    Reply
11. 

    sbove

    Dec 27, 2008 at 6:44 pm

    Steve, I’m observing the obvious, but the status quo is dead as Detroit. If the endowments that fund many venture firms have so much leverage they can controvert necessary breaks with the past, well, a new kind of VC fund is necessary.

    "VCs to D.C.!"

    PS: I am well aware that deploying D.C. sized capital through the VC model presents non-trivial scale problems, but it needs to be done and VCs re the right people to do it. If there were a "Manhattan Project" to bust America out of the mess it’s in, well, there is no better team to lead it than folks like Valentine, Doerr, Khosla, Moritz, yourself, etc…Strap that kind of brain power to a pack of emerging Oppenheimers and fuel it with a couple hundred billion newly minted American pesos and a new economic engine would be born to rival anything the rest of the globe can crank out.

    You all would have to quit your day jobs and wear king-fu garb though…

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12. 

    _basti

    Dec 30, 2008 at 12:00 am

    *pure envy*

    I’d like to have a Tesla too. 🙁

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13. 

    Niall Oswald

    Dec 30, 2008 at 2:57 pm

    Jim – The packaging/active material volume ratio advantages of larger cells are obvious – I suspect that cells of size suitable to make a 100-cell pack simply aren’t available at reasonable cost per unit storage with the reliability proven in millions (if not more) of laptop battery packs. I may be wrong…

    Out of interest, is the 185kW rating continuous*? If so, that’s very impressive power density for an air-cooled induction motor.

    *My suspicion is not, given that the similarly powerful Lotus Exige 240R has a maximum speed of 155mph vs the Tesla’s 125mph. Assuming P cubic with V, I’d estimate 100kW at 125mph – any idea what the actual figure is?

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14. 

    TEG2

    Jan 2, 2009 at 8:40 pm

    Niall, note this Car and Driver review:

    http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/hot_lists/car_shopping/green...

    "" Stay on the accelerator, and the Tesla will reach a top speed of 125 mph. But it won’t sustain it. After four minutes, due to rising powertrain temperatures, the car gradually slows to a sustained cruising speed of about 105 mph. That’s likely not an issue in most markets, which suffer from lower speed limits. ""

    ""The Tesla was not engineered to be a top-speed car,""

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15. 

    TEG2

    Jan 2, 2009 at 9:37 pm

    Some ballpark stats

    105MPH: ~400amps @ 375V =150kW (120kW to the wheels, 30kW heat to reject with air cooling).

    They would do better if they had water cooled motor on the German models.

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16. 

    P^2 – Paul

    Jan 3, 2009 at 12:36 am

    Water cooling isn’t the answer here. At 150 kW, you’ll only get 15 minutes out of that battery.

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17. 

    TEG2

    Jan 3, 2009 at 1:25 am

    Yup…

    I think EVs are better suited to large city/metropolitan environments, not out on wide open Autobahns.

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18. 

    TEG2

    Jan 3, 2009 at 1:28 am

    The Roadster _was_ designed for Steve’s commute! :^}

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19. 

    jurvetson

    Jan 6, 2009 at 6:29 pm

    Sure seems that way! =)
    But 280 is as close to an Autobahn as we get around here, and it’s a lot of fun there.

    As for the specs, I have not dug in, but just referenced the Tesla tech specs page.

    Road & Track just came out with a fun data panel as well (Feb 09 article).

    Reply
20. 

    MysteryStevenson1

    Jan 25, 2009 at 2:53 am

    Hi, I’m an admin for a group called Anti Gravity, and we’d love to have this added to the group!

    Reply
21. 

    Niall Oswald

    Feb 11, 2009 at 10:29 pm

    I had my macro lens with me today, thought it might be interesting to share this photo here:
    

    These can control a few kW of electrical power – quite incredible given their size.

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22. 

    jurvetson

    Mar 1, 2009 at 6:00 pm

    looks like they doubled up on the power rails… Reminds me of my power lines sparking down the street…

    P.S. if you want to see some cool insider Tesla photos, check out one sock‘s stream:

    

    Reply
23. 

    Bill York

    Mar 2, 2009 at 8:25 am

    It’s amazing that they could skip the need for the mechanical transmission completely! After all, gears are so two-centuries-ago.

    Reply