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Could someone explain to me what the big deal is with Tesla cars? I saw one yesterday parked by my office, and I peeked inside. It just seems like a typical lux

Could someone explain to me what the big deal is with Tesla cars? I saw one yesterday parked by my office, and I peeked inside. It just seems like a typical luxury car that's electric. Kind of like the Porsche version of the Prius. Why is it going to be huge?

rheide 13y ago
Because it is a typical luxury car that's electric.
btilly 13y ago
Because if Elon succeeds, Tesla is the future of the car industry. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5681695 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5681695 for my explanation of why. (Which is just an application of a well-known theory from a well-known book.)
w1ntermute 13y ago
Because it's all-electric without the usual compromises, other than range (which is supposedly going to be solved in the next few years).
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
andrewtbham 13y ago
The Tesla BlueStar slated for release in 2016 or 2017 will be a $30,000 electric car that competes with Honda Accord and Toyota Camry. Because it's electric, the cost of fuel and maintenance is likely to be significantly lower that gas powered cars.
- jnw2 13y ago
  With the level of enthusiasm Consumer Reports showed for the Model S, and the lack of interest in building electric cars on the part of all the legacy automakers, I doubt there is going to be enough production capacity for 200+ mile range electric vehicles in 2017 for Tesla to keep up with demand if they price the car that cheaply.
ChuckMcM 13y ago
Test drive one. btilly made an excellent comment as well on how it fits the 'new tech eats the old tech' model. The upshot is that at some point in the future all cars will be electric, period. The reasons are pretty clear, its a superior way to build power trains if you can get the performance, range, and refueling issues solved. Tesla has, basically solved those problems for a market that is somewhat price insensitive. What is funny is he is playing out of the 1901 Automobile handbook, where, if you recall, Standard Oil started putting up gas stations everywhere even when people didn't have cars. Because it encouraged people to get cars. Elon is putting up supercharging stations along popular driving routes because who doesn't want to drive to visit when the gas is "free" ? Nobody who has heard his plan doesn't think that if successful he will be one of the worlds top automakers. The only question is whether or not he can pull it off. And as more and more hard problems are shown to be overcome, the more people believe he will. And the stock goes up because its really under priced for what, in the fullness of time, will be a 100B company :-)
- paganel 13y ago
  > The reasons are pretty clear, its a superior way to build power trains if you can get the performance, range, and refueling issues solved. Don't want to nitpick, but I think we're still a long way from "refueling issues" being solved world-wide in the near-term (15 to 25 years), only because electric power transmission is a damn-hard problem to solve at a global scale. I remember reading an article linked from here a couple of months ago about how one big UK power company was handling the almost instantaneous switching on of millions of tea kettles after some BBC show had ended (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5018560 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5018560). Now imagine the same scenario in a country like Nigeria (population approaching 200 million), or Brazil, or Indonesia, but with cars instead of mundane tea kettles and with a not so top-notch electrical infrastructure instead of the mature UK power grid. I do hope though that Tesla will end up being a $100+ billion company, if only to demonstrate that true innovation can still bring big financial gains in this day and age.
  - ChuckMcM 13y ago
    Nitpicking is good, it helps to clarify the conversation. So my reference to refueling was around the time issue the GP mentioned, typical electric vehicles take a lot of time to transfer the same number of joules of energy that a gasoline car can transfer in a couple of minutes. That said, lets look a bit more at your concern. You wrote : "only because electric power transmission is a damn-hard problem to solve at a global scale." You are absolutely correct that a generalized solution for global power distribution of electricity is an unsolved problem. However you must be careful applying the general problem to a more specific case. Car charging has some nice features, one you can start and stop the electricity to it over the course of a charge and it won't notice (it will just take longer), its a constant load vs a varying load. These two aspects of it combine to make some creative solutions possible. One of them is fuel cell recharging. Fuel cells can generate energy reliably from hydrocarbons but they really don't like rapid changes in load, they are most efficient when they can deliver a steady stream of current. So from an engineering perspective you could build a fuel cell based 'supercharger' type station, where you pour in 10 - 20 gallons of gasoline and plug in. Finesses both the long distance transmission of power and the availability. But its just one of a number of creative ways to fuel cars which want electricity rather than gasoline. One of my favorite nuclear power 'hacks' was to build a 10GW nuclear plant in the middle of the desert, and next to it build a solar panel plant. Using using power (and heat) from the nuclear plant you melt silicon, refine it into crystals, smelt aluminum and build solar panels which you then truck off to places that need power. You are essentially putting the scary nuclear plant far from humans in a place they don't want to live anyway, and making a way to generate power which you then transport to places where you want power. If you put enough solar panels in your village in Nairobi to charge up your Tesla truck over the course of a week then once a week used your truck to carry goods from the village into the city, I still think that would be a benefit to the village, but I cannot prove that.
pbreit 13y ago
You can't think of any more reasons? First, that it is electric is at least interesting. 2nd, it just got the highest rating EVER from Consumer Reports. 3rd, it got that rating on the VERY FIRST CAR it ever designed and manufactured! 4th, the battery being built into the chassis lowering the center of gravity makes it very performant. 5th, no gears. 6th, seats 7. 7th, the entire area under the hood is empty for storage (again, because it is electric). 8th, free "fill ups". 9th, software in the car. 10th, and on and on. It doesn't seem like you tried at all to understand the interest.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- walkon 13y ago
  No gears? That seems incredible (and false).
  - pbreit 13y ago
    There's one gear. So, yes, no gears.
    - walkon 13y ago
      I would classify one as more than none.
      - whatusername 13y ago
        When I was 7 I got my first "bmx bike". It was awesome. When I turned 12 I got a "mountain bike" with 18!! Gears. I went from a bike with no gears to one with 18. I think general usage of the term means that it fits Tesla -- even I f it's not technically correct
  - klinquist 13y ago
    When you have electric motors that produce torque at any RPM, then as long as you can manufacture a motor to spin fast enough, you don't need gears. The Model S is direct drive... so no gears.

rheide 13y ago

Because it is a typical luxury car that's electric.

btilly 13y ago

Because if Elon succeeds, Tesla is the future of the car industry. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5681695 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5681695 for my explanation of why. (Which is just an application of a well-known theory from a well-known book.)

w1ntermute 13y ago

Because it's all-electric without the usual compromises, other than range (which is supposedly going to be solved in the next few years).

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

andrewtbham 13y ago

The Tesla BlueStar slated for release in 2016 or 2017 will be a $30,000 electric car that competes with Honda Accord and Toyota Camry. Because it's electric, the cost of fuel and maintenance is likely to be significantly lower that gas powered cars.

jnw2 13y ago
With the level of enthusiasm Consumer Reports showed for the Model S, and the lack of interest in building electric cars on the part of all the legacy automakers, I doubt there is going to be enough production capacity for 200+ mile range electric vehicles in 2017 for Tesla to keep up with demand if they price the car that cheaply.

ChuckMcM 13y ago

Test drive one. btilly made an excellent comment as well on how it fits the 'new tech eats the old tech' model. The upshot is that at some point in the future all cars will be electric, period. The reasons are pretty clear, its a superior way to build power trains if you can get the performance, range, and refueling issues solved. Tesla has, basically solved those problems for a market that is somewhat price insensitive. What is funny is he is playing out of the 1901 Automobile handbook, where, if you recall, Standard Oil started putting up gas stations everywhere even when people didn't have cars. Because it encouraged people to get cars. Elon is putting up supercharging stations along popular driving routes because who doesn't want to drive to visit when the gas is "free" ? Nobody who has heard his plan doesn't think that if successful he will be one of the worlds top automakers. The only question is whether or not he can pull it off. And as more and more hard problems are shown to be overcome, the more people believe he will. And the stock goes up because its really under priced for what, in the fullness of time, will be a 100B company :-)

paganel 13y ago
> The reasons are pretty clear, its a superior way to build power trains if you can get the performance, range, and refueling issues solved. Don't want to nitpick, but I think we're still a long way from "refueling issues" being solved world-wide in the near-term (15 to 25 years), only because electric power transmission is a damn-hard problem to solve at a global scale. I remember reading an article linked from here a couple of months ago about how one big UK power company was handling the almost instantaneous switching on of millions of tea kettles after some BBC show had ended (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5018560 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5018560). Now imagine the same scenario in a country like Nigeria (population approaching 200 million), or Brazil, or Indonesia, but with cars instead of mundane tea kettles and with a not so top-notch electrical infrastructure instead of the mature UK power grid. I do hope though that Tesla will end up being a $100+ billion company, if only to demonstrate that true innovation can still bring big financial gains in this day and age.
- ChuckMcM 13y ago
  Nitpicking is good, it helps to clarify the conversation. So my reference to refueling was around the time issue the GP mentioned, typical electric vehicles take a lot of time to transfer the same number of joules of energy that a gasoline car can transfer in a couple of minutes. That said, lets look a bit more at your concern. You wrote : "only because electric power transmission is a damn-hard problem to solve at a global scale." You are absolutely correct that a generalized solution for global power distribution of electricity is an unsolved problem. However you must be careful applying the general problem to a more specific case. Car charging has some nice features, one you can start and stop the electricity to it over the course of a charge and it won't notice (it will just take longer), its a constant load vs a varying load. These two aspects of it combine to make some creative solutions possible. One of them is fuel cell recharging. Fuel cells can generate energy reliably from hydrocarbons but they really don't like rapid changes in load, they are most efficient when they can deliver a steady stream of current. So from an engineering perspective you could build a fuel cell based 'supercharger' type station, where you pour in 10 - 20 gallons of gasoline and plug in. Finesses both the long distance transmission of power and the availability. But its just one of a number of creative ways to fuel cars which want electricity rather than gasoline. One of my favorite nuclear power 'hacks' was to build a 10GW nuclear plant in the middle of the desert, and next to it build a solar panel plant. Using using power (and heat) from the nuclear plant you melt silicon, refine it into crystals, smelt aluminum and build solar panels which you then truck off to places that need power. You are essentially putting the scary nuclear plant far from humans in a place they don't want to live anyway, and making a way to generate power which you then transport to places where you want power. If you put enough solar panels in your village in Nairobi to charge up your Tesla truck over the course of a week then once a week used your truck to carry goods from the village into the city, I still think that would be a benefit to the village, but I cannot prove that.

pbreit 13y ago

You can't think of any more reasons? First, that it is electric is at least interesting. 2nd, it just got the highest rating EVER from Consumer Reports. 3rd, it got that rating on the VERY FIRST CAR it ever designed and manufactured! 4th, the battery being built into the chassis lowering the center of gravity makes it very performant. 5th, no gears. 6th, seats 7. 7th, the entire area under the hood is empty for storage (again, because it is electric). 8th, free "fill ups". 9th, software in the car. 10th, and on and on. It doesn't seem like you tried at all to understand the interest.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
walkon 13y ago
No gears? That seems incredible (and false).
- pbreit 13y ago
  There's one gear. So, yes, no gears.
  - walkon 13y ago
    I would classify one as more than none.
    - whatusername 13y ago
      When I was 7 I got my first "bmx bike". It was awesome. When I turned 12 I got a "mountain bike" with 18!! Gears. I went from a bike with no gears to one with 18. I think general usage of the term means that it fits Tesla -- even I f it's not technically correct
- klinquist 13y ago
  When you have electric motors that produce torque at any RPM, then as long as you can manufacture a motor to spin fast enough, you don't need gears. The Model S is direct drive... so no gears.