Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

Was walking down the sidewalk in front of 345 Hudson St. in Manhattan. The Tesla approached from the front. Driver made a left hand turn onto Charlton, and floored it.

Holy ****, that thing is fast.

That is all.

kotomile

iTrader: (24)

I've always had a thing for electric cars, and then I watched "Who Killed the Electric Car" and it opened my eyes as to why the electric car has not been allowed to sell well yet (in modern days anyway).

They're especially awesome when they're faster than their gasoline counterpart in a straight line.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

I was just reading an article on them on the plane today

wayne_curr

iTrader: (8)

Top Gear made me want one less. Less.

ZX-Tex

iTrader: (15)

They are fast, no doubt. High torque at zero RPM. Still range limited. I keep wanting to build one, but every time I do the math, it would either be slow and heavy (lead acid) or too expensive (advanced batteries) for the range I need for my commute.

I have not seen a Tesla in person yet though, very cool Joe.

ismael_pt

iTrader: (1)

Tango FTW

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

top-end ftw. needs a second gear, ill stick with gas for now.

sixshooter

iTrader: (12)

I saw one on a trailer in a Waffle House parking lot right off of the interstate in 1995. I talked to the owner/promoter for about ten minutes. Not much to talk about when you get past the weight and the "how fast will she go" and "how far will she go" questions. That one was orange if I recall...

zoomin

iTrader: (16)

The Tesla Roadster wasn't released until 2006, how did you see one in 1995?

Endat

After seeing the Top Gear review of it.. it SEEMS tempting if it were lighter on batteries and didnt cost so much. Hopefully they'll be able to put a hydrogen fuel cell in it some day

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

May 8, 2009:

"The message has been hinted at before, but the federal government is now serious about shifting the focus away from hydrogen and onto plug-in vehicles. In an important statement yesterday, Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu said that hydrogen vehicles are still 10 to 20 years away from practicality and that millions in federal government funding for hydrogen programs will be cut from the 2010 federal budget. Chu said, “We asked ourselves, ‘Is it likely in the next 10 or 15, 20 years that we will covert to a hydrogen car economy?’ The answer, we felt, was ‘no’” (well, duh)."

Obama, DOE slash hydrogen fuel cell funding in new budget | Eco Friendly Mag

George W. Bush's $1.2 billion plan to develop cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells was eliminated by President Barack Obama on Thursday.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu said the government preferred to target more immediate energy-saving solutions.

"The probability of deploying hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles in the next 10 to 20 years is low," Energy Department spokesman Tom Welch said in an interview today.

http://www.autonews.com/article/2009...905089965/1186


Thank goodness that someone has finally admitted the obvious truth. Hydrogen fuel cell technology for passenger automobiles, at least for the foreseeable future, is nothing more than a political buzzword. Producing, distributing, storing, and fuel-cell conversion of hydrogen is, by many orders of magnitude, more expensive, less energy efficient, and more polluting then centralized power generation, AC distribution, and battery storage.

(Here's to hoping that DOE remains on-track for approving the nearly 30 new domestic reactor plants currently in the pipeline.)

bryanlow

iTrader: (10)

Meh. I see them all the time.

I guess living 5 miles from the factory helps.

Don't care for the front end more. The elise looks waay more agressive. The S sedan looks good though. It reminds me of a Maserati.

sixshooter

iTrader: (12)

Prototype headed to a show/demonstration/testing I'm guessing. I'm sure they've been courting possible investors for years. They've apparently been working on it for quite a while.

UrbanSoot

iTrader: (24)

i pass by testla dealership every time i go to work and then back home. seen them many times on streets too.

kotomile

iTrader: (24)

Thank you!

Hydrogen was a good tool for the oil companies to hint at forward thinking without actually having to sell any cars that don't use gasoline. It's like the mechanical rabbit at a dog track. "Hey look everyone! Electric cars didn't work (through no fault of our own, cough cough) so we're totally doing this Hydrogen thing!"

elesjuan

iTrader: (11)

Joe, you *KNOW* I'd be the last person to ever challenge you... But I just wanted to point out something...

Honda doesn't seem to think so:



While I greatly dislike Honda automobiles, honestly in a way its kinda cool. The very same Top Gear episode that made me no longer want a Tesla they also showed and tested the Clarity. Love it or hate it, while Hydrogen is the most prevalent element in the universe it has a nasty little problem. Damn thing always seems to have something else stuck to it.. Last I checked its still a pretty polluting process to strip elements from Hydrogen, so its a little counter productive... Similar in MY opinion to the Nickle mining required for batteries in so called "Hybrids."

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

YES! And this is the dirty little secret that nobody seems to be picking up on.

I'm not saying it's impractical to build a car to run on hydrogen (though I'd prefer to burn it in a combustion chamber than react it in a fuel cell) nor would it be terribly difficult to distribute and store hydrogen. Heck, you can fill up with CNG at 3,600 PSI at a lot of stations in California (self-serve, just like a regular pump) and nobody seems to be dying in horrible fireballs as a result of that.

But actually getting hydrogen in it's pure form is, as you pointed out, somewhat of a bitch. While it is in fact pretty abundant, you can't just drill a hole and suck hydrogen out of the ground, or grab it out of the sky and purify it through a filter.

In a commercial environment, the most common way to get hydrogen (far eclipsing all other methods combined) is to extract it from fossil fuels. Yup, All that hydrogen Honda and everyone else is putting into their cute little fuel cell vehicles was produced by steam reformation of hydrocarbons, most prominently natural gas, which is desirable due to it's high methane content. Apart from consuming a fair amount of energy to perform the conversion, the principal byproduct of this reaction is carbon monoxide. Oh, and you get less potential energy out of the resultant hydrogen than you put into the process to obtain it in the first place, never mind the perfectly good fossil fuel that you wasted in the process.

Yay.

But wait! Isn't water mostly Hydrogen? Sure it is. And you can extract that hydrogen by electrolysis, which produces zero pollution (the byproduct is oxygen). That's all well and good, except the energy-efficiency of this method makes burning old tires for energy look "green". Currently, about 4% of worldwide hydrogen is produced this way, and the majority of it is an incidental byproduct of the manufacture of chlorine. Yummy.


I agree that gasoline probably won't be around forever. But hydrogen isn't the answer. The only way for it to be both economically viable and "green" would be if the energy used to produce it came from a sustainable source with no carbon footprint. Of course, even if that were the case, the equivalent cost per mile would still be far greater than simple battery storage using even today's battery technology. (Now we just have to figure out to do with all that spent lithium-cobalt oxide. On the plus side, recycling for these batteries approaches 100% conversion efficiency. On the minus side, it still requires energy.)

Bring on the nukes.

96rdstr

iTrader: (4)

I think they are cool, but I also think Tesla will be gone in a matter of time. There was a good write up about them in last month's C&D. It takes a full 37 hours to charge one completely when a standard 120v cord is used. A 240v cord from Tesla is 1500 bones. They do sell a quick charge unit that will charge the car in 4 hours. It cost an additional 3k for the unit alone. That does not include the contractor to redo the breaker box and electrical wiring needed to hook it up. The review said that the quick charger draws as much power as a laundromat. Exaggerated? Perhaps, but if not, that is a lot of juice. I think I would get a Prius, actually a few of them for the 126k the Tesla cost. At least Toyota will be around for a while.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

I'd rather be stabbed in the face than drive Prius.

elesjuan

iTrader: (11)

IMHO There always seems to be a dirty little secret with this whole energy situation, especially when you're talking about being "Green." Every one of these so called "Green" energy solutions costs 10 times the bank roll and produce 10% the energy a Non-"Green" solution would offer.

ROFL.