[andrebaros]

http://www.teslamotors.com/

[Leonardo]

Okay, I really want one but a $100k I won't be feeling guilty driving my 10mile/gallon camaro

[Miles]

1000 pounds of Li-Ion battery..... hope they've got a good battery management system....

[Dexel]

another *eco* drive here
http://www.loremo.com/index_en.php
surfacing on modo forum these days; americans did not favour the acceleration rate... but where do you want to race anyway?
i'd take the slow model

[andrebaros]

Competition in the market is only a good thing, and each new company entering the market has the possibility of being the Google of cars...

[Mihai]

From the FAQ on their page:

Does the Tesla Roadster's stereo have a mini jack so I can plug in my iPod?

This is important. Important enough to be in the FAQ.

[Mihai]

Btw, video of the unveiling:

http://www.autoblog.com/2006/07/20/excl ... unveiling/

I wish them luck

[Thomas An.]

260 miles between charges and 3.5hours to charge ... not too practical.
If I want to drive from NewYork to Boston, there will be a mandatory 3.5 hour pit stop.

[smeggy]

260 miles between charges and 3.5hours to charge ... not too practical.
If I want to drive from NewYork to Boston, there will be a mandatory 3.5 hour pit stop.

Also, you'd need to persuade someone to let you suck the power grid dry from their socket....

[Mihai]

260 miles between charges and 3.5hours to charge ... not too practical.
If I want to drive from NewYork to Boston, there will be a mandatory 3.5 hour pit stop.

I don't see that as a big minus, I mean how many times a week do you make that trip? Or per year? 90% of the time you use your car for shorter trips. Consider also this car is ment for high performance rather than efficiency.

I've been reading a bit about the batteries used and thanks to laptops and cellular phones, battery development during the last years almost follows Moore's law of computing power. Say for example in the next 5 years we see a doubling of battery efficiency. The great thing about their system is it doesn't need special recharging stations.

And a BIG plus, driving in it and thinking finally it is you who is giving the middle finger to the oil companies and not the other way around About freaking time... Exxon just recorded the largest profit ever of any US company in history...

Anyway I really admire their initiative and the fact they chose to remove the electric car=golf cart perception that most people have.

[Thomas An.]

And a BIG plus, driving in it and thinking finally it is you who is giving the middle finger to the oil companies and not the other way around About freaking time... Exxon just recorded the largest profit ever of any US company in history...

Anyway I really admire their initiative and the fact they chose to remove the electric car=golf cart perception that most people have.

... Yes, on the idealistic level I agree 100%
The technology, initiative, and implementation are exceptional. I really like that vehicle overal.

About the trip range ... it is still a factor. Does it mean we have to buy a second car for these kind of trips ? ... do we just use the train ? do we eliminate those trips at all (however infrequent) ?

Ideally, the recharge time should drop from 3.5 hours down to 5min and have metered outlets in the gas stations. So we could use the existing infrastructure ... we just don't pump gas.

[jdp]

I recently discovered the "Electric Bike World Championship". This motorcycles are completely electric powered, max speed is 160 km/h.
Afaik the championship is almost entirely italian; this is the team-constructor champion:

www.bettimoto.com

... here we are definitely crazy for riding!

[Voidmonster]

The range of the Tesla Roadster is more than enough for my needs in California, and I have to drive a lot. If I needed to do San Diego to San Francisco, I'd just use mass transit or rent a car. But I don't need to make trips like that very often, and the savings on daily use and operation more than make up for that.

My reservation about it is the cost of replacing the battery array. They're estimating between 100,000 and 120,000 miles of life for the batteries. They say it's got several thousand laptop batteries. Conservatively, I'd guess that a complete replacement of the battery will cost well over $15,000. Probably more like $25,000 depending on the batteries used.

Of course, most cars are to the point of requiring siginificant mechanical work after 100,000 miles, and that's likely to be about 5-6 years of driving life on the Tesla car, during which time, battery tech may well improve significantly, and petroleum fuel costs are likely to see an explosion in cost.

Gas prices are going to become very, very bad rapidly. We've almost certainly passed the peak extraction for petroleum now, which means that oil is no longer a buyers market, and never will be again. I really wouldn't be surprised to see fuel costs double within two years, and beyond that they'll increase more rapidly still.

Even at the luxury sports car price (though, being an all-electric vehicle, it doesn't have a luxury car tax!), I find this car pretty tempting. Sadly though, I'll probably just get a Prius. Though, having been reading up on the worldwide science of oil extraction, I start to wonder if it wouldn't be a good idea to sell the house and live in sports car....

I want off this treadmill.