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The Tesla Model S is a great-looking car but, unlike some, I still don't see electric cars as being the future. Batteries are still too heavy, take too long to

by cletus 14y ago

The Tesla Model S is a great-looking car but, unlike some, I still don't see electric cars as being the future. Batteries are still too heavy, take too long to charge, are too expensive and require materials that in widespread use will probably become far more of a problem than fossil fuels in terms of scarcity. Of course, there can be and no doubt will be technological innovation in this space but (IMHO) the future of personal powered transportation will still be fuel-driven. What will change is the source of that fuel. It may be some kind of hydrogen-rich fuel (methane or ammonia) or it may be making the necessary hydrocarbons from the air and/or seawater. Portable fuel supplies are just too convenient. The relative simplicity of the internal combustion engine (or some derivation thereof) is just too advantageous compared to even optimistic long-term alternatives. EDIT: the amount of cognitive dissonance when it comes to electric cars is mind-boggling eg: A: the benefits are too numerous to list B: can you use it in an apartment? A: no... Or the amount of infrastructure retro-fitting that needs to happen (power to parking garages being just one). Or ignoring issues or range and recharge times. Even with swappable batteries, even if that were a thing that people would do (there are security, weight and cost issues), the recharge time is still an issue. Power is not free. An electric vehicle still needs to get power from somewhere and that power requires all the normal transmission infrastructure. Someone brought up what's happening in NJ but if you had an electric car you'd be even more screwed. At least now you can transport gas to people. Seriously, out of cost, weight, range and charging time all of them need to get an order of magnitude better to even be on par with fuel-driven vehicles. How exactly have electric vehicles "already won"?

jblow 14y ago
... and on the battery chemistry issue, Teslas use Lithium-Ion batteries, just like we have been using in laptops for forever. They are not exotic.
- mibbitier 14y ago
  You mean the ones that typically only last a year or 2?
  - jblow 14y ago
    Tesla's EV batteries already in common use last a lot longer than that (7-10 years), so I am not sure what your point is.
  - Osmium 14y ago
    There's a lot of clever engineering that can be done when your battery doesn't need to be small enough to fit inside a phone or a laptop.
  - dandrews 14y ago
    My Segway LiFeMgPO4 (mfg by Valence) batteries are five years old with 7700 miles. They provide about 90% of the range they did when new. Your "year or 2" is well taken, but suggests cheaper (e.g. some Chinese knock-offs) cells or systems that aren't very smart about preserving battery efficacy. Long life is possible with appropriate care.
r00fus 14y ago
> Portable fuel supplies are just too convenient. The relative simplicity of the internal combustion engine (or some derivation thereof) is just too advantageous compared to even optimistic long-term alternatives. We've spent way too long ignoring the externalities of our fossil-fuel energy supplies. Besides, moving to electric is a great common platform for future energy sources. It makes a whole lot of sense, for example, separating the power plant (ie, gas engine vs. remote nuke plant charging your batteries) from the propulsion mechanism (motors).
jblow 14y ago
Those of us who own electric cars know that electric cars have already won. They are just too good compared to regular somewhat-junky gasoline cars. The benefits are too numerous to list. The only problem that I have with my Roadster is that if I want to take a long road trip, there has to be a big stopover in the middle, which makes trips much longer. The Model S solves that. Therefore, EVs have won. They are here now, they are real, and they work. All that needs to happen is for the cost to come down, but there is nothing preventing that. If you have parking at home, an EV is way better than gas or hydrogen because you never need to take your car somewhere to fuel it, ever (unless on a very long road trip). You just come home, park, and plug it in. It is hard to communicate how good this feels until you've had an EV for a few weeks and you're driving past all these gas stations and kind of laughing because you don't need them.
- chc 14y ago
  Aren't EVs totally unusable if you live in an apartment? That was my impression when I looked into them. Like, how would I charge a car in my parking stall?
  - jellicle 14y ago
    You are correct it is difficult. There is a strong push on now for new underground parking to be constructed with 240V electrical service roughed in to many of the spaces, to accommodate future charging stations.
  - jblow 14y ago
    It is definitely less convenient if you don't have a garage. But as mentioned, this is starting to be addressed. Also, the Supercharger-style charging station becomes a lot like a gas station would be for a normal car. I do think that "I don't have a garage / dedicated place to park my car" is in fact the only current anti-EV argument that has any basis in reality. But it's addressable.
    - freehunter 14y ago
      Really? The only argument? How about my family lives 575 miles away from me, and even with the ideal 250 mile range of a $100k Model S I would still need to add at least an hour and a half to my already 10 hour one-way trip when I visit them a few times per year? Meanwhile my $5,000, 14-year-old Toyota might only get 20mpg, but the tank holds 350 miles of fuel and I only need to refill once (rather than thrice) during the trip, costing me literally minutes of time. Finding a place to recharge overnight is a problem. But let's not pretend it's the only real problem. I already have enough problems charging my phone every night when I'm staying over at someone's house. Asking them to install an outlet so I can charge my car is asking a bit more than many people will stand.
revelation 14y ago
Internal combustion engines are not at all simple. Sleek animations might make it seem like that, but when you are blowing stuff up, that tends to complicate things. In comparison, electrical motors are extremely simple and maintenance-free. All while being on a level of efficiency that just can't be reached with a combustion engine.
- mibbitier 14y ago
  Burning coal to make electricity, then transmitting that electricity all over the country, wasting some of it along the way... Then using that to charge a battery, then using that to power a motor. I'm not sure it sounds particularly efficient unless you completely ignore all the work that goes into making the electricity :/
  - jblow 14y ago
    Burning coal / electricity / oil to explore, drill, transport, refine, and re-transport oil ... Then using that to fill your car, so you can blow it up inside an engine. Sounds a little less efficient than the electricity thing when you look at the full sequence. And this is even in the case where electricity comes from dirty sources; some states, like California, have an energy mix where electricity comes mostly from renewables. (And this is something that can be improved as time goes on).
    - mibbitier 14y ago
      Difference is though, with an internal combustion engine, the "turning fuel into power" happens inside the car. Whereas with electric cars, it happens at a power plant... then gets sent to the car via electricity, with lots of it wasted along the way. Personally, I don't see electric cars as solving anything. We should be looking at generating the power in the car, from things that are plentiful - water, dirt, garbage, sewage etc.
      - juiceandjuice 14y ago
        No, Gasoline is highly refined compared to oil. Diesel isn't as much. So "Turning fuel into energy" is really "Turning Oil into Fuel using chemicals and energy which in turn can be turned into energy" You still need a refinery and a very large distribution network consisting or trains, trucks, and pipelines. Your assumption of transmission energy loss is silly when you compare the required energy of transporting things like oil and water around.
cobrausn 14y ago
I would disagree. I think the personal commuter vehicle will move to an electric power system if Tesla (or their competition) manages to scale down price and ramp up production. I think heavy work and utility vehicles, however, will remain fuel powered. I, for one, am happy that we finally have a choice other than gasoline or diesel. Given enough money I'd love for my family to have both an electric and gasoline (or diesel) vehicle.
- ericd 14y ago
  I think heavy vehicles are actually more likely to switch - the torque characteristics of electric motors are generally a lot better. I may be missing something important there, though.
sry_not4sale 14y ago
IMHO electric cars will survive batteries and move toward other storage mechanisms e.g. supercapacitors
jellicle 14y ago
How's gasoline working out now in New Jersey? Not well. There is currently a massive amount of land and a massive amount of infrastructure (thousands and thousands of tankers, for one) devoted to making gasoline available on every corner, nearly worldwide. If a similar amount of land and infrastructure were devoted to, say, swappable electric batteries, electric cars would have no problems in the "long trip" department. How can we get there from here? One easy way would be for the government to mandate every gasoline station to include one alternative refueling station - station owner's choice what that might be, but you have to have one. Bootstrap using the current gasoline network.
- pork 14y ago
  What an unfortunate comment/comparison by you. http://updates.jalopnik.com/post/34669789863/more-than-a-dozen-fisker-karma-hybrids-caught-fire-and http://updates.jalopnik.com/post/34669789863/more-than-a-doz...
- mburns 14y ago
  And then you have to sell the public on why you raised gas prices to help push forward your liberal agenda.
confluence 14y ago
You have literally no idea what you are talking about but that's OK because technology doesn't care about what you think - it just happens (cf. computer adoption, robotic automation, AI automation, cars, trains, trucks, looms, engines, planes, ships). ICE vehicles are relatively complex and not actually cheap going forwards. We're past peak oil and emissions are now being priced (CO2 pollution is no longer free). That means the only way prices are going for ICE vehicles is up. Electric cars on the other hand don't care what fuel source powers them, are riding the battery-cost curve down, are highly efficient, are relatively simple in operation/maintenance, cheap to run and have no emissions that need to be priced. Hydrogen vehicles are just plain stupid from an efficiency stand point - where are you going to get the hydrogen exactly? Purifying it is too expensive - and since it's lighter than air - there is no economical source of hydrogen on earth. It'd be cheaper to fuel your car with coal. Warren Buffett has a famous saying: Don't make statements outside your field of competence - lest you look accidentally foolish.
- pirateking 14y ago
  I agree with your post and general outlook on electric vehicles - they are definitely the future. However, I do not agree with Mr. Buffett's statement - if it were the case, no one would ever make a single statement.
  - confluence 14y ago
    > no one would ever make a single statement Maybe that would be a good thing. Most people don't know jack about economics, physics, finance, engineering, artificial intelligence, the future, technology or pretty much anything outside of their day to day job. You'll notice that whenever someone like that does open their mouth in your field without knowing jack about it - you immediately understand that he has no idea what he is talking about. The real problem comes when he's talking about an industry you don't know - because for all intents and purposes you won't know either. > You can bullshit all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot bullshit all the people all the time. This is how MBAs (or Master Bullshit Artists) can exist. If you don't know much about tech, he can say pretty much whatever he wants and you will have no idea as to whether he is telling the truth unless you yourself have knowledge of the relevant area. > Those who know do not speak; those who speak do not know. -- Tao Te Ching Remember that the next time you are listening to a discussion of a complex field - where none of the participants have degrees, industry experience or in depth on the ground knowledge of said fields. Bullshit is everywhere.
tsotha 14y ago
>It may be some kind of hydrogen-rich fuel (methane or ammonia)... Unlikely to be ammonia. Ammonia is dangerous in the kind of concentrations that would make it useful for fuel. When ammonia was used in refrigeration whole families would occasionally die when their refrigerator sprang a leak.
Osmium 14y ago
There's no way a car running on a new, alternative fuel source (e.g. methane or ammonia) is anywhere remotely closer to commercial, viable reality than electric cars. It's a hard problem to crack, but we're close. Anything else is 20 years out at least.
pkulak 14y ago
Imagine if we were the other way around. Everyone was driving electric cars and someone was trying to get us on gas. I charge my car every night. You're telling me I now have to drive to a "gas station" every time I need to recharge? And we need to ship gas all over the country now? And gas costs _how_ much!? And then I also have to bring it into the shop every few months to "change the oil"? And look at the thousands of moving parts! That thing is going to start breaking down after 5 years, tops. Look at all the scheduled maintenance? Shit, replacing just the timing belt will cost me thousands! And if I turn it on in my garage it will literally kill me and my entire family? No other product I own is nearly that dangerous. What a joke. I'm keeping my electric car.
- devcpp 14y ago
  Not really the same. You can take a dozen jerrycan of gas that will last you for a long time, and that does for the same price as the gas you'll buy at the station, which is precisely what people did before you could find gas stations every few miles. Not so for electricity: charging and taking 10 batteries with you on a trip is much more of a hassle and quite expensive. Fuel is really the deal-breaker for the buyers who won't go with an electric car until "fuel" is available everywhere. The other points are moot until this issue is solved.
  - pkulak 14y ago
    My point is that you can find these terrible deal-breakers with every transition. It's not enough to just point them out.
  - hellgas00 14y ago
    I believe these problems are already somewhat solved. The Chevy volt uses a hybrid system. Runs off electricity exclusively, with a small gas powered engine to charge the battery pack when need be. The backup engine can perform at its most efficient rate of rotation, and electric motors are so much more efficient than their combustion engine counterparts. As a Mech eng, I would be willing to bet that burning gas in a modern power-plant would be more efficient than using the fuel in a car. So much of the energy is lost in the form of heat, that lost heat could be harnessed. These problems are already addressed; it’s about what you require out of your car that should determine what type of car you need. I don't travel outside of the city. If I do I use public transit (GO tansit, live in Canada). The future will require trade-offs, there is no way that the status quo is sustainable
Bud 14y ago
It's hard for me to even enumerate how many ways this is wrong. But I'll try. Batteries are still too heavy Changing. Rapidly. take too long to charge Improving, rapidly. Much more rapidly than, say, gas mileage. (batteries) are too expensive Sorry to be a broken record, but this too is improving rapidly. require materials that in widespread use will probably become far more of a problem than fossil fuels in terms of scarcity This assumes that battery tech will remain static, and use the same materials, forever. Bad assumption, there. Or the amount of infrastructure retro-fitting that needs to happen (power to parking garages being just one). This is already starting to happen and will only accelerate. I'm working on a gigantic office building project which will have hundreds of charging stations in its parking area. This will be the norm, very soon. And perhaps you forgot, but building tens of thousands of gas stations all over the place wasn't easy, either...nor is maintaining them. We already have a beefy electrical infrastructure; we just have to keep working on that. Or ignoring issues or range and recharge times. Tesla's range is already over 250 miles; this is getting very close to that of many gas guzzlers. And again, this is rapidly improving, even though we're not working very hard on it as a society. Imagine what would happen if we tried! Power is not free. An electric vehicle still needs to get power from somewhere and that power requires all the normal transmission infrastructure. Yeah, and we already have that infrastructure. By the way, gas isn't free, either. Nor is it nearly as efficient as electric power can be. Someone brought up what's happening in NJ but if you had an electric car you'd be even more screwed. At least now you can transport gas to people. Uh, you can transport electricity to people, too. We have power lines for that. Seriously, out of cost, weight, range and charging time all of them need to get an order of magnitude better to even be on par with fuel-driven vehicles. Er, no. Do you know what an order of magnitude IS? Cost: we're within a factor of 2-3 of this being affordable, even if you use the very expensive Tesla as your test case. Weight: Already at parity with many cars. Range: Already discussed above; near parity with many gas vehicles. Charging time: This doesn't have to get much better at all; you can recharge at night.
- cletus 14y ago
  > Changing. Rapidly. That doesn't negate my point. > And perhaps you forgot, but building tens of thousands of gas stations all over the place wasn't easy You're not the only one to bring this up and it confuses me why. The gas infrastructure has already been built. It's a sunk cost. EV infrastructure most certainly is not. > Tesla's range is already over 250 miles; this is getting very close to that of many gas guzzlers. For significantly higher capital cost, with (probably) much lower shelf life. And when the "gas guzzler" hits its range, what does it do? Spends a few minutes filling up and does it again (as opposed to recharging for 8 hours). > Uh, you can transport electricity to people, too. We have power lines for that. Yes, that was my point. Look at all the people in NJ/NY/CT without power. > Er, no. Do you know what an order of magnitude IS? Yes, but we're talking about the battery tech and the batteries are only some portion of the total cost of a vehicle. > you can recharge at night. Given a fairly narrow use case, sure.
cweiss 14y ago
> Power is not free. An electric vehicle still needs to get power from somewhere and that power requires all the normal transmission infrastructure. My understanding is that Tesla's new SuperCharger stations are solar based, charging a a local battery that's used to supply customer Teslas, then feeding any excess back into the grid, making it a "negative carbon footprint" source.
marcamillion 14y ago
Couldn't disagree more. What's more portable than a solar-powered charging station? Solar energy is getting better and better - i.e. producing more KwH per unit of time of sunlight. That will likely continue - as most technologies tend to do. Let's assume for a minute that Tesla survives the next few months and is able to ramp up production and deliver vehicles to it's 13,000 clients that it has received deposits for, it is mind-boggling how significant that impact will be on costs of everything. The costs of production of each car, each battery used in each car, each car part, etc. will all fall. The cost of production of solar panels used at the Tesla Superchargers around the country, will fall. I wouldn't be surprised if Tesla starts selling franchises on the superchargers - say 7/11, etc. At some point in the next decade, just from Tesla alone - again, assuming they survive and continue on the current trajectory - you can reasonably assume that you will be able to travel much cheaper (if not free) than current gasoline. Not to mention that they will likely start selling Solar powered kits for home charging. The question about an electric car performing in a flood/water is similar to the question of a combustion engine performing in a flood/water. They both will likely have trouble - although, I would be more willing to bet that the Tesla design could handle it better. Everything you are seeing now is just the tip of the iceberg. This is just the model T of EVs. With the Model S, the EV is finally coming of age. The future looks bright, and I am excited. If anyone can bring that future forward, I would stack my chips on Elon Musk.
dancesdrunk 14y ago
I agree with the statement that electric cars are not the future, but for a slightly different set of reasons. My MSc thesis / project was studying future engines and fuels - long story short: - IC engines have efficiencies of anywhere from 70% to 5%; depending on a huge range of factors and types (rotax at 3000rpm on diesel vs v12 carb at 8000rpm on 98-ron, outside temp and pressure etc). - Over 100 years of research has gone in to them. - Almost the same time has been spent on building up our infrastructure around the production of fuel for IC engines. - They can run on anything from ethanol to vegetable oil to human waste (after a certain amount of refining of course). - Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. Not to mention the lightest. It just so happens to be incredibly flammable/volatile too. My solution? Replace petrol with Hydrogen for internal combustion - much alike the conversions we already do for LPG. I spent roughly half a year on the theory behind it, and then another couple of months actually in the lab with an old FI 500cc motorcycle parallel twin engine (they're tough as hell). I converted it to LPG, replaced all the tubings, modified the injectors and started pumping in various blends of fuel (5% ethanol, 80% 91-Ron, 10% LPG, 5% Hydrogen etc). On some blends it ran smoother, on others there was horrible knocking, one some it just kept cutting out. Unfortunately I was only allocated a year and never got a chance to finish - the amount of trial and error involved day in day out was gruelling. Not to mention at least once a week I'd have to rebuild the whole engine. The future for me isn't electric cars, not at all. They'll hit the same constraints of raw materials that you mention, and it's wether they hit that constraint just as the technology is getting to a point where mass adaption is possible. Not to mention the charge time, the life cycle of a battery etc etc. It is hydrogen powered cars - wether that would be fuel cells or IC engines I don't know, but I'm leaning towards IC engines.
- klinquist 14y ago
  Where'd you find an 'old' FI 500cc motorcycle engine? Motorcycles didn't get FI until the late 90s, and some STILL have carbs! Or did you convert a Suzuki EX500 to FI?
  - dancesdrunk 14y ago
    I was given a 2001/2002 Honda CB500 twin (I believe it had over 80,000 miles on it - really worn piston and chamber; hence "old" to me). The carb was removed but the top had LPG injectors on the side and I was feeding it oxygen rich air (this was one of the controls set on 30% oxygen at 300 kelvins).
lispython 14y ago
But electric cars are not just about batteries, they need a whole new kind of electric and mechanism. Although it is not so convent to recharge today, when other kind batteries get mature(like Fuel Cell Battery), nearly all Tesla develop today can be used.
lancewiggs 14y ago
I'm somewhat astonished that members of a community dedicated to building products to disrupt incumbent industries upvoted this comment to the top slot. One way to think about this is that electric vehicles (EVs) are at the iPhone 1 stage, with the Tesla S being the first to demonstrate to a lot of people that it can all be put together in a compelling, yet expensive and not quite perfect package. As with the first iPhone, the prescient community can see vast potential, but recognise that there are still a few issues to deal with. Those issues are summed up as "battery energy density". Once we have battery energy density that allows us to power cars at road speeds for 10-15 hours, then we will have completely solved the riddle of the recharging station. We can still charge at work an home for shorter trips, and can charge at carparks and paid accommodation for longer ones. Luckily battery energy density is continually getting better - and is the main reason that we are seeing the emergence of the EVs we have today. As an aside, we can probably forget about developing recharging stations as the ranges will be too long and the logistics of journey interruption poor. Let's think instead about developing products to help hotels, car-parks, businesses and households set up their own (pay accepting) charging stations. Obviously these will all use the existing electricity grid, with capacity freed up by general electricity efficiency efforts and smarter grid technology. It's clear that the next generation of EVs will create major and overdue auto-industry disruption. It's almost as clear that the current auto manufacturers, perhaps Toyota aside, are incapable of rapid enough change. So yes, with the Tesla S it's not clear that EVs will win. Bring it on.
- jamesmcn 14y ago
  > One way to think about this is that electric vehicles (EVs) are at the iPhone 1 stage, with the Tesla S being the first to demonstrate to a lot of people that it can all be put together in a compelling, yet expensive and not quite perfect package. I think it is more accurate to compare electric vehicles to the Motorola DynaTAC phones (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_DynaTAC http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_DynaTAC). They are expensive, and are extremely limited in their functionality. They are only viable for people who can throw massive amounts of money at them and have limited demands. Like the cell phone, electric vehicles may continue to develop to the point where they can adequately replace a landline. In cell phone terms, that would be the early Nokia candybar phones. [The iPhone is a fairly poor phone, but a great mobile internet device. If you gave me an iPhone instead of a Nokia candybar phone a decade ago, I wouldn't have cancelled my landline. Now that people use email and instant messaging for most communication, a poor quality phone isn't such a big deal.]
damian2000 14y ago
As EVs become more popular and the batteries become smaller and lighter, I can see a market for a 'battery exhange' which could be located in existing gas stations ... this would negate the problems with range and recharge ... as usual it would only appear when they become more popular.
scythe 14y ago
>What will change is the source of that fuel. It may be some kind of hydrogen-rich fuel (methane or ammonia) or it may be making the necessary hydrocarbons from the air and/or seawater. There isn't any such fuel. Hydrogen is dangerous and corrosive, ammonia is hygoroscopic, hydrazine is super-toxic, boranes destroy everything, and that's the end of the story. Synthesizing hydrocarbons is highly inefficient, ditto for biofuels. The range of hydrogen vehicles is not particularly impressive: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazda_RX-8_Hydrogen_RE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazda_RX-8_Hydrogen_RE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_7 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_7 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peugeot_Quark http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peugeot_Quark If you're willing to spend more, you break even with electric cars: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_FCX_Clarity#Specifications http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_FCX_Clarity#Specification... Electricity works because it's cheap, and only getting cheaper: powering my house already costs me less than fueling my car. The correct answer to your three-line conversation is yes, you can use it in an apartment. You need a plug in your parking garage, maybe, but that's remarkably easy: a drill and a long copper rod can deliver energy through a solid concrete wall (just an example). Batteries aren't too heavy; ~500# is counterbalanced by the simpler engine. 300-mile range has been demonstrated with lithium-ion batteries and longer is possible with lithium-sulfur. We're not going to run out of lithium, either: http://gas2.org/2008/10/13/lithium-counterpoint-no-shortage-for-electric-cars/ http://gas2.org/2008/10/13/lithium-counterpoint-no-shortage-... Lithium-sulfur batteries have been my bet for a while. They're light and they could be commercialized in less than a decade. Plus, the specific power is huge, which means way faster charging times. http://www.springerlink.com/content/7382272v1u32m381/ http://www.springerlink.com/content/7382272v1u32m381/
- cbsmith 14y ago
  You didn't mention methane. I hear there is lots of that stuff and some places find transportation of it so simple that they have pipes that deliver it right to people's homes... ;-)
  - baq 14y ago
    also, best of both worlds, methane fuel cells have excellent efficienty. (at 600 Celsius... but that's a different problem)
cbsmith 14y ago
With some reasonably cost effective (compared to the cost of a car) installation, electric, fuel cell, and CNG vehicles can have their "fuel" delivered right to your home in a very cost effective manner, allowing you to refuel overnight. This is a distinct advantage over gasoline & diesel that goes a long way to mitigating, and for some people completely obliterating, the disadvantage of slow "refueling" times.
Fando 14y ago
Good one!
richardw 14y ago
EV's certainly haven't already won, but I do think there are many cases where they're (almost) perfect. For the person/business who doesn't drive far and can plug it in at home/work, they've now saved a detour to the petrol station. I'd love that. I suspect many businesses that have delivery cars within a city could make that work, assuming all the other costs lined up. I think making batteries portable is very possible, but it'll take a generation or three to get that right, assuming the above market segments are saturated and Tesla sales are limited by this issue. What remains a problem for me are the lifetime of batteries, and the need to drive outside of coverage areas. I like to drive cars for a while rather than replace them often, so don't like the idea of replacing a large part of the cost. And I don't want to worry about charging stations when going on holiday. But again, for a city-based business that replaces cars more quickly than the batteries would last, those issues might not be relevant. One strong driver for innovation is that battery technology would become important to (at least) both the IT and auto industries. Research and innovation would accelerate and be useful to both industries via cross-pollination.
mncolinlee 14y ago
How the heck did this ignorant post reach the top? It's as if YC readers are tied to the horse and buggy whip and refuse to do any actual reading about the state of electric cars today. I personally kicked gas over six months ago and haven't looked back. The 600lb battery on my 2012 Nissan Leaf will weigh 350lbs and store 25% more energy in the 2013 Leaf using the new lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide cathode (NMC) battery chemistry. Not only does it weigh less than most automotive engines, but it also costs much less when the total cost of ownership is considered, including replacement at eight years. They already ARE an order of magnitude better than the car I bought and I'm not dissatisfied with my car today. http://insideevs.com/nissan-ceo-carlos-ghosn-second-generation-battery-is-coming-online-now/ http://insideevs.com/nissan-ceo-carlos-ghosn-second-generati... For the record, I cannot imagine a case where the 280 mile range of the Model S would not be enough. Your car does not need to go 1000 miles without stopping for awhile. If it does, catch a flight or rent a car. As I pointed out, I could afford a limo for road trips for the amount I'm saving on gas. Also, I heard the major disaster and blackout excuse even before the hurricane happened. The problem everyone fails to consider is that it takes electricity to pump gasoline. The pumps are not siphons and they do not continue to operate without power. Electricity infrastructure is a superset of gasoline infrastructure.
xutopia 14y ago
You forget that horses are still cheaper than cars and yet...
willyt 14y ago
When I'm driving 600 miles, I usually stop for lunch. In the UK, all you would need to immediately make most long distance journeys viable is charging bays at about 5 or 6 existing strategically chosen service stations on trunk routes[1]. Remember, you can recharge fully in less than an hour. Supplying power to charging points is not going to be a big deal. 85kWh battery charging in 1 hour will draw 1.4kW, less than half the maximum for a standard UK domestic plug, in fact less than a plug-in electric heater[2]. So I can also fully recharge in an hour at anyones house, just by running an extension lead out the window at a push. And, it's only going to cost me in the order of £10 to recharge at day rate electricity prices (about £5 on night rate). My current car does about 650 miles on a full tank of diesel driving at 70mph but this costs about £80 and it's much less efficient for city driving due to engine idling and no regenerative braking. OK so the tesla costs about £46k($70k) and I can't afford that, but that's around what you'd pay for mid to high range BMW estate car. There are enough of these around to make me think there is a seriously large market for this car in Europe, easily enough to jump start the economies of scale in manufacturing needed to drive down the price for lower end models. [1] Say, M6 Cumbria, M1 Warwickshire, A1 Northumbria, M90 Perthshire, M5 Somerset, M20 Kent [2] e.g. http://www.johnlewis.com/230843376/Product.aspx http://www.johnlewis.com/230843376/Product.aspx

by cletus 14y ago

jblow 14y ago

... and on the battery chemistry issue, Teslas use Lithium-Ion batteries, just like we have been using in laptops for forever. They are not exotic.

mibbitier 14y ago
You mean the ones that typically only last a year or 2?
- jblow 14y ago
  Tesla's EV batteries already in common use last a lot longer than that (7-10 years), so I am not sure what your point is.
- Osmium 14y ago
  There's a lot of clever engineering that can be done when your battery doesn't need to be small enough to fit inside a phone or a laptop.
- dandrews 14y ago
  My Segway LiFeMgPO4 (mfg by Valence) batteries are five years old with 7700 miles. They provide about 90% of the range they did when new. Your "year or 2" is well taken, but suggests cheaper (e.g. some Chinese knock-offs) cells or systems that aren't very smart about preserving battery efficacy. Long life is possible with appropriate care.

r00fus 14y ago

> Portable fuel supplies are just too convenient. The relative simplicity of the internal combustion engine (or some derivation thereof) is just too advantageous compared to even optimistic long-term alternatives. We've spent way too long ignoring the externalities of our fossil-fuel energy supplies. Besides, moving to electric is a great common platform for future energy sources. It makes a whole lot of sense, for example, separating the power plant (ie, gas engine vs. remote nuke plant charging your batteries) from the propulsion mechanism (motors).

jblow 14y ago

Those of us who own electric cars know that electric cars have already won. They are just too good compared to regular somewhat-junky gasoline cars. The benefits are too numerous to list. The only problem that I have with my Roadster is that if I want to take a long road trip, there has to be a big stopover in the middle, which makes trips much longer. The Model S solves that. Therefore, EVs have won. They are here now, they are real, and they work. All that needs to happen is for the cost to come down, but there is nothing preventing that. If you have parking at home, an EV is way better than gas or hydrogen because you never need to take your car somewhere to fuel it, ever (unless on a very long road trip). You just come home, park, and plug it in. It is hard to communicate how good this feels until you've had an EV for a few weeks and you're driving past all these gas stations and kind of laughing because you don't need them.

chc 14y ago
Aren't EVs totally unusable if you live in an apartment? That was my impression when I looked into them. Like, how would I charge a car in my parking stall?
- jellicle 14y ago
  You are correct it is difficult. There is a strong push on now for new underground parking to be constructed with 240V electrical service roughed in to many of the spaces, to accommodate future charging stations.
- jblow 14y ago
  It is definitely less convenient if you don't have a garage. But as mentioned, this is starting to be addressed. Also, the Supercharger-style charging station becomes a lot like a gas station would be for a normal car. I do think that "I don't have a garage / dedicated place to park my car" is in fact the only current anti-EV argument that has any basis in reality. But it's addressable.
  - freehunter 14y ago
    Really? The only argument? How about my family lives 575 miles away from me, and even with the ideal 250 mile range of a $100k Model S I would still need to add at least an hour and a half to my already 10 hour one-way trip when I visit them a few times per year? Meanwhile my $5,000, 14-year-old Toyota might only get 20mpg, but the tank holds 350 miles of fuel and I only need to refill once (rather than thrice) during the trip, costing me literally minutes of time. Finding a place to recharge overnight is a problem. But let's not pretend it's the only real problem. I already have enough problems charging my phone every night when I'm staying over at someone's house. Asking them to install an outlet so I can charge my car is asking a bit more than many people will stand.

revelation 14y ago

Internal combustion engines are not at all simple. Sleek animations might make it seem like that, but when you are blowing stuff up, that tends to complicate things. In comparison, electrical motors are extremely simple and maintenance-free. All while being on a level of efficiency that just can't be reached with a combustion engine.

mibbitier 14y ago
Burning coal to make electricity, then transmitting that electricity all over the country, wasting some of it along the way... Then using that to charge a battery, then using that to power a motor. I'm not sure it sounds particularly efficient unless you completely ignore all the work that goes into making the electricity :/
- jblow 14y ago
  Burning coal / electricity / oil to explore, drill, transport, refine, and re-transport oil ... Then using that to fill your car, so you can blow it up inside an engine. Sounds a little less efficient than the electricity thing when you look at the full sequence. And this is even in the case where electricity comes from dirty sources; some states, like California, have an energy mix where electricity comes mostly from renewables. (And this is something that can be improved as time goes on).
  - mibbitier 14y ago
    Difference is though, with an internal combustion engine, the "turning fuel into power" happens inside the car. Whereas with electric cars, it happens at a power plant... then gets sent to the car via electricity, with lots of it wasted along the way. Personally, I don't see electric cars as solving anything. We should be looking at generating the power in the car, from things that are plentiful - water, dirt, garbage, sewage etc.
    - juiceandjuice 14y ago
      No, Gasoline is highly refined compared to oil. Diesel isn't as much. So "Turning fuel into energy" is really "Turning Oil into Fuel using chemicals and energy which in turn can be turned into energy" You still need a refinery and a very large distribution network consisting or trains, trucks, and pipelines. Your assumption of transmission energy loss is silly when you compare the required energy of transporting things like oil and water around.

cobrausn 14y ago

I would disagree. I think the personal commuter vehicle will move to an electric power system if Tesla (or their competition) manages to scale down price and ramp up production. I think heavy work and utility vehicles, however, will remain fuel powered. I, for one, am happy that we finally have a choice other than gasoline or diesel. Given enough money I'd love for my family to have both an electric and gasoline (or diesel) vehicle.

ericd 14y ago
I think heavy vehicles are actually more likely to switch - the torque characteristics of electric motors are generally a lot better. I may be missing something important there, though.

sry_not4sale 14y ago

IMHO electric cars will survive batteries and move toward other storage mechanisms e.g. supercapacitors

jellicle 14y ago

How's gasoline working out now in New Jersey? Not well. There is currently a massive amount of land and a massive amount of infrastructure (thousands and thousands of tankers, for one) devoted to making gasoline available on every corner, nearly worldwide. If a similar amount of land and infrastructure were devoted to, say, swappable electric batteries, electric cars would have no problems in the "long trip" department. How can we get there from here? One easy way would be for the government to mandate every gasoline station to include one alternative refueling station - station owner's choice what that might be, but you have to have one. Bootstrap using the current gasoline network.

pork 14y ago
What an unfortunate comment/comparison by you. http://updates.jalopnik.com/post/34669789863/more-than-a-dozen-fisker-karma-hybrids-caught-fire-and http://updates.jalopnik.com/post/34669789863/more-than-a-doz...
mburns 14y ago
And then you have to sell the public on why you raised gas prices to help push forward your liberal agenda.

confluence 14y ago

You have literally no idea what you are talking about but that's OK because technology doesn't care about what you think - it just happens (cf. computer adoption, robotic automation, AI automation, cars, trains, trucks, looms, engines, planes, ships). ICE vehicles are relatively complex and not actually cheap going forwards. We're past peak oil and emissions are now being priced (CO2 pollution is no longer free). That means the only way prices are going for ICE vehicles is up. Electric cars on the other hand don't care what fuel source powers them, are riding the battery-cost curve down, are highly efficient, are relatively simple in operation/maintenance, cheap to run and have no emissions that need to be priced. Hydrogen vehicles are just plain stupid from an efficiency stand point - where are you going to get the hydrogen exactly? Purifying it is too expensive - and since it's lighter than air - there is no economical source of hydrogen on earth. It'd be cheaper to fuel your car with coal. Warren Buffett has a famous saying: Don't make statements outside your field of competence - lest you look accidentally foolish.

pirateking 14y ago
I agree with your post and general outlook on electric vehicles - they are definitely the future. However, I do not agree with Mr. Buffett's statement - if it were the case, no one would ever make a single statement.
- confluence 14y ago
  > no one would ever make a single statement Maybe that would be a good thing. Most people don't know jack about economics, physics, finance, engineering, artificial intelligence, the future, technology or pretty much anything outside of their day to day job. You'll notice that whenever someone like that does open their mouth in your field without knowing jack about it - you immediately understand that he has no idea what he is talking about. The real problem comes when he's talking about an industry you don't know - because for all intents and purposes you won't know either. > You can bullshit all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot bullshit all the people all the time. This is how MBAs (or Master Bullshit Artists) can exist. If you don't know much about tech, he can say pretty much whatever he wants and you will have no idea as to whether he is telling the truth unless you yourself have knowledge of the relevant area. > Those who know do not speak; those who speak do not know. -- Tao Te Ching Remember that the next time you are listening to a discussion of a complex field - where none of the participants have degrees, industry experience or in depth on the ground knowledge of said fields. Bullshit is everywhere.

tsotha 14y ago

>It may be some kind of hydrogen-rich fuel (methane or ammonia)... Unlikely to be ammonia. Ammonia is dangerous in the kind of concentrations that would make it useful for fuel. When ammonia was used in refrigeration whole families would occasionally die when their refrigerator sprang a leak.

Osmium 14y ago

There's no way a car running on a new, alternative fuel source (e.g. methane or ammonia) is anywhere remotely closer to commercial, viable reality than electric cars. It's a hard problem to crack, but we're close. Anything else is 20 years out at least.

pkulak 14y ago

Imagine if we were the other way around. Everyone was driving electric cars and someone was trying to get us on gas. I charge my car every night. You're telling me I now have to drive to a "gas station" every time I need to recharge? And we need to ship gas all over the country now? And gas costs _how_ much!? And then I also have to bring it into the shop every few months to "change the oil"? And look at the thousands of moving parts! That thing is going to start breaking down after 5 years, tops. Look at all the scheduled maintenance? Shit, replacing just the timing belt will cost me thousands! And if I turn it on in my garage it will literally kill me and my entire family? No other product I own is nearly that dangerous. What a joke. I'm keeping my electric car.

devcpp 14y ago
Not really the same. You can take a dozen jerrycan of gas that will last you for a long time, and that does for the same price as the gas you'll buy at the station, which is precisely what people did before you could find gas stations every few miles. Not so for electricity: charging and taking 10 batteries with you on a trip is much more of a hassle and quite expensive. Fuel is really the deal-breaker for the buyers who won't go with an electric car until "fuel" is available everywhere. The other points are moot until this issue is solved.
- pkulak 14y ago
  My point is that you can find these terrible deal-breakers with every transition. It's not enough to just point them out.
- hellgas00 14y ago
  I believe these problems are already somewhat solved. The Chevy volt uses a hybrid system. Runs off electricity exclusively, with a small gas powered engine to charge the battery pack when need be. The backup engine can perform at its most efficient rate of rotation, and electric motors are so much more efficient than their combustion engine counterparts. As a Mech eng, I would be willing to bet that burning gas in a modern power-plant would be more efficient than using the fuel in a car. So much of the energy is lost in the form of heat, that lost heat could be harnessed. These problems are already addressed; it’s about what you require out of your car that should determine what type of car you need. I don't travel outside of the city. If I do I use public transit (GO tansit, live in Canada). The future will require trade-offs, there is no way that the status quo is sustainable

Bud 14y ago

It's hard for me to even enumerate how many ways this is wrong. But I'll try. Batteries are still too heavy Changing. Rapidly. take too long to charge Improving, rapidly. Much more rapidly than, say, gas mileage. (batteries) are too expensive Sorry to be a broken record, but this too is improving rapidly. require materials that in widespread use will probably become far more of a problem than fossil fuels in terms of scarcity This assumes that battery tech will remain static, and use the same materials, forever. Bad assumption, there. Or the amount of infrastructure retro-fitting that needs to happen (power to parking garages being just one). This is already starting to happen and will only accelerate. I'm working on a gigantic office building project which will have hundreds of charging stations in its parking area. This will be the norm, very soon. And perhaps you forgot, but building tens of thousands of gas stations all over the place wasn't easy, either...nor is maintaining them. We already have a beefy electrical infrastructure; we just have to keep working on that. Or ignoring issues or range and recharge times. Tesla's range is already over 250 miles; this is getting very close to that of many gas guzzlers. And again, this is rapidly improving, even though we're not working very hard on it as a society. Imagine what would happen if we tried! Power is not free. An electric vehicle still needs to get power from somewhere and that power requires all the normal transmission infrastructure. Yeah, and we already have that infrastructure. By the way, gas isn't free, either. Nor is it nearly as efficient as electric power can be. Someone brought up what's happening in NJ but if you had an electric car you'd be even more screwed. At least now you can transport gas to people. Uh, you can transport electricity to people, too. We have power lines for that. Seriously, out of cost, weight, range and charging time all of them need to get an order of magnitude better to even be on par with fuel-driven vehicles. Er, no. Do you know what an order of magnitude IS? Cost: we're within a factor of 2-3 of this being affordable, even if you use the very expensive Tesla as your test case. Weight: Already at parity with many cars. Range: Already discussed above; near parity with many gas vehicles. Charging time: This doesn't have to get much better at all; you can recharge at night.

cletus 14y ago
> Changing. Rapidly. That doesn't negate my point. > And perhaps you forgot, but building tens of thousands of gas stations all over the place wasn't easy You're not the only one to bring this up and it confuses me why. The gas infrastructure has already been built. It's a sunk cost. EV infrastructure most certainly is not. > Tesla's range is already over 250 miles; this is getting very close to that of many gas guzzlers. For significantly higher capital cost, with (probably) much lower shelf life. And when the "gas guzzler" hits its range, what does it do? Spends a few minutes filling up and does it again (as opposed to recharging for 8 hours). > Uh, you can transport electricity to people, too. We have power lines for that. Yes, that was my point. Look at all the people in NJ/NY/CT without power. > Er, no. Do you know what an order of magnitude IS? Yes, but we're talking about the battery tech and the batteries are only some portion of the total cost of a vehicle. > you can recharge at night. Given a fairly narrow use case, sure.

cweiss 14y ago

> Power is not free. An electric vehicle still needs to get power from somewhere and that power requires all the normal transmission infrastructure. My understanding is that Tesla's new SuperCharger stations are solar based, charging a a local battery that's used to supply customer Teslas, then feeding any excess back into the grid, making it a "negative carbon footprint" source.

marcamillion 14y ago

Couldn't disagree more. What's more portable than a solar-powered charging station? Solar energy is getting better and better - i.e. producing more KwH per unit of time of sunlight. That will likely continue - as most technologies tend to do. Let's assume for a minute that Tesla survives the next few months and is able to ramp up production and deliver vehicles to it's 13,000 clients that it has received deposits for, it is mind-boggling how significant that impact will be on costs of everything. The costs of production of each car, each battery used in each car, each car part, etc. will all fall. The cost of production of solar panels used at the Tesla Superchargers around the country, will fall. I wouldn't be surprised if Tesla starts selling franchises on the superchargers - say 7/11, etc. At some point in the next decade, just from Tesla alone - again, assuming they survive and continue on the current trajectory - you can reasonably assume that you will be able to travel much cheaper (if not free) than current gasoline. Not to mention that they will likely start selling Solar powered kits for home charging. The question about an electric car performing in a flood/water is similar to the question of a combustion engine performing in a flood/water. They both will likely have trouble - although, I would be more willing to bet that the Tesla design could handle it better. Everything you are seeing now is just the tip of the iceberg. This is just the model T of EVs. With the Model S, the EV is finally coming of age. The future looks bright, and I am excited. If anyone can bring that future forward, I would stack my chips on Elon Musk.

dancesdrunk 14y ago

I agree with the statement that electric cars are not the future, but for a slightly different set of reasons. My MSc thesis / project was studying future engines and fuels - long story short: - IC engines have efficiencies of anywhere from 70% to 5%; depending on a huge range of factors and types (rotax at 3000rpm on diesel vs v12 carb at 8000rpm on 98-ron, outside temp and pressure etc). - Over 100 years of research has gone in to them. - Almost the same time has been spent on building up our infrastructure around the production of fuel for IC engines. - They can run on anything from ethanol to vegetable oil to human waste (after a certain amount of refining of course). - Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. Not to mention the lightest. It just so happens to be incredibly flammable/volatile too. My solution? Replace petrol with Hydrogen for internal combustion - much alike the conversions we already do for LPG. I spent roughly half a year on the theory behind it, and then another couple of months actually in the lab with an old FI 500cc motorcycle parallel twin engine (they're tough as hell). I converted it to LPG, replaced all the tubings, modified the injectors and started pumping in various blends of fuel (5% ethanol, 80% 91-Ron, 10% LPG, 5% Hydrogen etc). On some blends it ran smoother, on others there was horrible knocking, one some it just kept cutting out. Unfortunately I was only allocated a year and never got a chance to finish - the amount of trial and error involved day in day out was gruelling. Not to mention at least once a week I'd have to rebuild the whole engine. The future for me isn't electric cars, not at all. They'll hit the same constraints of raw materials that you mention, and it's wether they hit that constraint just as the technology is getting to a point where mass adaption is possible. Not to mention the charge time, the life cycle of a battery etc etc. It is hydrogen powered cars - wether that would be fuel cells or IC engines I don't know, but I'm leaning towards IC engines.

klinquist 14y ago
Where'd you find an 'old' FI 500cc motorcycle engine? Motorcycles didn't get FI until the late 90s, and some STILL have carbs! Or did you convert a Suzuki EX500 to FI?
- dancesdrunk 14y ago
  I was given a 2001/2002 Honda CB500 twin (I believe it had over 80,000 miles on it - really worn piston and chamber; hence "old" to me). The carb was removed but the top had LPG injectors on the side and I was feeding it oxygen rich air (this was one of the controls set on 30% oxygen at 300 kelvins).

lispython 14y ago

But electric cars are not just about batteries, they need a whole new kind of electric and mechanism. Although it is not so convent to recharge today, when other kind batteries get mature(like Fuel Cell Battery), nearly all Tesla develop today can be used.

lancewiggs 14y ago

I'm somewhat astonished that members of a community dedicated to building products to disrupt incumbent industries upvoted this comment to the top slot. One way to think about this is that electric vehicles (EVs) are at the iPhone 1 stage, with the Tesla S being the first to demonstrate to a lot of people that it can all be put together in a compelling, yet expensive and not quite perfect package. As with the first iPhone, the prescient community can see vast potential, but recognise that there are still a few issues to deal with. Those issues are summed up as "battery energy density". Once we have battery energy density that allows us to power cars at road speeds for 10-15 hours, then we will have completely solved the riddle of the recharging station. We can still charge at work an home for shorter trips, and can charge at carparks and paid accommodation for longer ones. Luckily battery energy density is continually getting better - and is the main reason that we are seeing the emergence of the EVs we have today. As an aside, we can probably forget about developing recharging stations as the ranges will be too long and the logistics of journey interruption poor. Let's think instead about developing products to help hotels, car-parks, businesses and households set up their own (pay accepting) charging stations. Obviously these will all use the existing electricity grid, with capacity freed up by general electricity efficiency efforts and smarter grid technology. It's clear that the next generation of EVs will create major and overdue auto-industry disruption. It's almost as clear that the current auto manufacturers, perhaps Toyota aside, are incapable of rapid enough change. So yes, with the Tesla S it's not clear that EVs will win. Bring it on.

jamesmcn 14y ago
> One way to think about this is that electric vehicles (EVs) are at the iPhone 1 stage, with the Tesla S being the first to demonstrate to a lot of people that it can all be put together in a compelling, yet expensive and not quite perfect package. I think it is more accurate to compare electric vehicles to the Motorola DynaTAC phones (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_DynaTAC http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_DynaTAC). They are expensive, and are extremely limited in their functionality. They are only viable for people who can throw massive amounts of money at them and have limited demands. Like the cell phone, electric vehicles may continue to develop to the point where they can adequately replace a landline. In cell phone terms, that would be the early Nokia candybar phones. [The iPhone is a fairly poor phone, but a great mobile internet device. If you gave me an iPhone instead of a Nokia candybar phone a decade ago, I wouldn't have cancelled my landline. Now that people use email and instant messaging for most communication, a poor quality phone isn't such a big deal.]

damian2000 14y ago

As EVs become more popular and the batteries become smaller and lighter, I can see a market for a 'battery exhange' which could be located in existing gas stations ... this would negate the problems with range and recharge ... as usual it would only appear when they become more popular.

scythe 14y ago

>What will change is the source of that fuel. It may be some kind of hydrogen-rich fuel (methane or ammonia) or it may be making the necessary hydrocarbons from the air and/or seawater. There isn't any such fuel. Hydrogen is dangerous and corrosive, ammonia is hygoroscopic, hydrazine is super-toxic, boranes destroy everything, and that's the end of the story. Synthesizing hydrocarbons is highly inefficient, ditto for biofuels. The range of hydrogen vehicles is not particularly impressive: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazda_RX-8_Hydrogen_RE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazda_RX-8_Hydrogen_RE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_7 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_7 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peugeot_Quark http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peugeot_Quark If you're willing to spend more, you break even with electric cars: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_FCX_Clarity#Specifications http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_FCX_Clarity#Specification... Electricity works because it's cheap, and only getting cheaper: powering my house already costs me less than fueling my car. The correct answer to your three-line conversation is yes, you can use it in an apartment. You need a plug in your parking garage, maybe, but that's remarkably easy: a drill and a long copper rod can deliver energy through a solid concrete wall (just an example). Batteries aren't too heavy; ~500# is counterbalanced by the simpler engine. 300-mile range has been demonstrated with lithium-ion batteries and longer is possible with lithium-sulfur. We're not going to run out of lithium, either: http://gas2.org/2008/10/13/lithium-counterpoint-no-shortage-for-electric-cars/ http://gas2.org/2008/10/13/lithium-counterpoint-no-shortage-... Lithium-sulfur batteries have been my bet for a while. They're light and they could be commercialized in less than a decade. Plus, the specific power is huge, which means way faster charging times. http://www.springerlink.com/content/7382272v1u32m381/ http://www.springerlink.com/content/7382272v1u32m381/

cbsmith 14y ago
You didn't mention methane. I hear there is lots of that stuff and some places find transportation of it so simple that they have pipes that deliver it right to people's homes... ;-)
- baq 14y ago
  also, best of both worlds, methane fuel cells have excellent efficienty. (at 600 Celsius... but that's a different problem)

cbsmith 14y ago

With some reasonably cost effective (compared to the cost of a car) installation, electric, fuel cell, and CNG vehicles can have their "fuel" delivered right to your home in a very cost effective manner, allowing you to refuel overnight. This is a distinct advantage over gasoline & diesel that goes a long way to mitigating, and for some people completely obliterating, the disadvantage of slow "refueling" times.

Fando 14y ago

Good one!

richardw 14y ago

EV's certainly haven't already won, but I do think there are many cases where they're (almost) perfect. For the person/business who doesn't drive far and can plug it in at home/work, they've now saved a detour to the petrol station. I'd love that. I suspect many businesses that have delivery cars within a city could make that work, assuming all the other costs lined up. I think making batteries portable is very possible, but it'll take a generation or three to get that right, assuming the above market segments are saturated and Tesla sales are limited by this issue. What remains a problem for me are the lifetime of batteries, and the need to drive outside of coverage areas. I like to drive cars for a while rather than replace them often, so don't like the idea of replacing a large part of the cost. And I don't want to worry about charging stations when going on holiday. But again, for a city-based business that replaces cars more quickly than the batteries would last, those issues might not be relevant. One strong driver for innovation is that battery technology would become important to (at least) both the IT and auto industries. Research and innovation would accelerate and be useful to both industries via cross-pollination.

mncolinlee 14y ago

How the heck did this ignorant post reach the top? It's as if YC readers are tied to the horse and buggy whip and refuse to do any actual reading about the state of electric cars today. I personally kicked gas over six months ago and haven't looked back. The 600lb battery on my 2012 Nissan Leaf will weigh 350lbs and store 25% more energy in the 2013 Leaf using the new lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide cathode (NMC) battery chemistry. Not only does it weigh less than most automotive engines, but it also costs much less when the total cost of ownership is considered, including replacement at eight years. They already ARE an order of magnitude better than the car I bought and I'm not dissatisfied with my car today. http://insideevs.com/nissan-ceo-carlos-ghosn-second-generation-battery-is-coming-online-now/ http://insideevs.com/nissan-ceo-carlos-ghosn-second-generati... For the record, I cannot imagine a case where the 280 mile range of the Model S would not be enough. Your car does not need to go 1000 miles without stopping for awhile. If it does, catch a flight or rent a car. As I pointed out, I could afford a limo for road trips for the amount I'm saving on gas. Also, I heard the major disaster and blackout excuse even before the hurricane happened. The problem everyone fails to consider is that it takes electricity to pump gasoline. The pumps are not siphons and they do not continue to operate without power. Electricity infrastructure is a superset of gasoline infrastructure.

xutopia 14y ago

You forget that horses are still cheaper than cars and yet...

willyt 14y ago

When I'm driving 600 miles, I usually stop for lunch. In the UK, all you would need to immediately make most long distance journeys viable is charging bays at about 5 or 6 existing strategically chosen service stations on trunk routes[1]. Remember, you can recharge fully in less than an hour. Supplying power to charging points is not going to be a big deal. 85kWh battery charging in 1 hour will draw 1.4kW, less than half the maximum for a standard UK domestic plug, in fact less than a plug-in electric heater[2]. So I can also fully recharge in an hour at anyones house, just by running an extension lead out the window at a push. And, it's only going to cost me in the order of £10 to recharge at day rate electricity prices (about £5 on night rate). My current car does about 650 miles on a full tank of diesel driving at 70mph but this costs about £80 and it's much less efficient for city driving due to engine idling and no regenerative braking. OK so the tesla costs about £46k($70k) and I can't afford that, but that's around what you'd pay for mid to high range BMW estate car. There are enough of these around to make me think there is a seriously large market for this car in Europe, easily enough to jump start the economies of scale in manufacturing needed to drive down the price for lower end models. [1] Say, M6 Cumbria, M1 Warwickshire, A1 Northumbria, M90 Perthshire, M5 Somerset, M20 Kent [2] e.g. http://www.johnlewis.com/230843376/Product.aspx http://www.johnlewis.com/230843376/Product.aspx