3 ms·

A $95K Tesla Model S has plenty of range to qualify as a single car solution but it just costs too darned much money. Even assuming I can get the advertise

by kylec 13y ago

A $95K Tesla Model S has plenty of range to qualify as a single car solution but it just costs too darned much money. Even assuming I can get the advertised 265 miles from the Tesla, it's still too short, especially considering the long recharge times and the rarity of the supercharging stations. My parents are a 4-hour car drive away, and I probably drive up and visit them a half a dozen times per year. I wouldn't want to have to give that up, or to have to arrange alternate transportation. (There are no superchargers along the route, and even if there were I still wouldn't want to have to add an additional 30-45 minutes each way) Maybe this is an edge case, but I suspect that a non-trivial number of people have edge cases like these. An electric car might serve well as an everyday vehicle, but it can't truly be a single-car solution at the current time. The article does mention a hypothetical battery that's twice the capacity and 10x the recharge rate. If that comes out, and if there is a significant buildout in the supercharger network, I could probably switch. However, battery technology has never increased at an exponential rate, and I suspect that it will be a lot longer than 2 years before we see cars that have those properties.

sukuriant 13y ago
How far away is 4 hours?
- kylec 13y ago
  Interestingly, it's about 270 miles, just outside the quoted range. I might be able to make it by hypermiling, but I fear that Tesla's numbers are under ideal conditions. If it were cold out, or if I were going faster than 55 mph, I probably wouldn't make it, and I'd be stuck in the middle of nowhere, so I'd probably have to proactively find a place to charge it about halfway.
  - sukuriant 13y ago
    Yeah. That's getting in the scary "I don't want to run out of juice" range, especially if there's any range of problems. I actually thought the range of the Tesla was 300 miles and 265 for 'real' driving; but, again, all it'd take is for you to have too much fun for a little bit of the drive, and you're out of range 10 miles before you get home. A bit of a bummer. Grabbing a meal halfway through there (if there were a supercharger more than 100 miles into the trip) and back might not be /that/ bad. That's an individual preference, though. Actually, if they're not charging from flat, it might not even be 30-45 minutes.
  - pbreit 13y ago
    Are there conventional charging stations? A 20 minute stop on a 4 hour trip doesn't sound horrible.
aetherson 13y ago
On the other hand, my parents live only 90 miles away; my mother-in-law lives about 20 miles away, and my father-in-law lives 3,000 miles away -- I'm not driving to reach him. I think that people who have relatively routine commitments more than 250 miles away but less than 500 miles away are a small enough segment of the market that you could reasonably describe the market as "disrupted" if those people remained on gasoline cars and most other people went to electric. That said, I don't buy even a little bit that we're going to go from "no commercial versions of this technology at all" to "being produced in car-battery-sizes and gigantic numbers" in two or three years. If Li-ion batteries aren't good enough, then any electric car disruption is at least 5 years out.
pkulak 13y ago
Actually, if they had a super charger on the way, you'd only have to stop for 5-10 minutes tops (since you'd only need about 50 more miles of range to be comfortable). I'd rather stop for 5 minutes than pay for a whole tank of gas. Doesn't seem like a deal breaker to me. Hell, I'd do it right now in a Tesla and stop at a level 2 somewhere for an hour. Maybe get some lunch. Road trips are adventures. :D
lotsofmangos 13y ago
You don't need breakthrough batteries if you can push the margins close enough to the cost of the materials used to make the lithium ones.
ChuckMcM 13y ago
Interesting, this is the thing though; "I wouldn't want to have to give that up, or to have to arrange alternate transportation." Lets say that lots of people had all electric cars, and they had the same restrictions as the current model S. How long do you think it would take before someone opens a business where you drive your electric car there, park it and plug it in, and drive the gas powered car that is already parked there to your destination, when you return you park the gas powered car, walk over and get into your own electric car and go home? Think Zipcar for the Tesla Set. Pre-arranged membership, fixed price rental on a daily or hourly basis. Different kinds of cars (small, medium, van maybe). You provide gas and damage insurance and a small annual 'retainer' fee. That kind of business emerges when you have a large cohort of electric car users in a specific geography. I'd start one in the Bay Area if I was bored.

by kylec 13y ago

sukuriant 13y ago

How far away is 4 hours?

kylec 13y ago
Interestingly, it's about 270 miles, just outside the quoted range. I might be able to make it by hypermiling, but I fear that Tesla's numbers are under ideal conditions. If it were cold out, or if I were going faster than 55 mph, I probably wouldn't make it, and I'd be stuck in the middle of nowhere, so I'd probably have to proactively find a place to charge it about halfway.
- sukuriant 13y ago
  Yeah. That's getting in the scary "I don't want to run out of juice" range, especially if there's any range of problems. I actually thought the range of the Tesla was 300 miles and 265 for 'real' driving; but, again, all it'd take is for you to have too much fun for a little bit of the drive, and you're out of range 10 miles before you get home. A bit of a bummer. Grabbing a meal halfway through there (if there were a supercharger more than 100 miles into the trip) and back might not be /that/ bad. That's an individual preference, though. Actually, if they're not charging from flat, it might not even be 30-45 minutes.
- pbreit 13y ago
  Are there conventional charging stations? A 20 minute stop on a 4 hour trip doesn't sound horrible.

aetherson 13y ago

On the other hand, my parents live only 90 miles away; my mother-in-law lives about 20 miles away, and my father-in-law lives 3,000 miles away -- I'm not driving to reach him. I think that people who have relatively routine commitments more than 250 miles away but less than 500 miles away are a small enough segment of the market that you could reasonably describe the market as "disrupted" if those people remained on gasoline cars and most other people went to electric. That said, I don't buy even a little bit that we're going to go from "no commercial versions of this technology at all" to "being produced in car-battery-sizes and gigantic numbers" in two or three years. If Li-ion batteries aren't good enough, then any electric car disruption is at least 5 years out.

pkulak 13y ago

Actually, if they had a super charger on the way, you'd only have to stop for 5-10 minutes tops (since you'd only need about 50 more miles of range to be comfortable). I'd rather stop for 5 minutes than pay for a whole tank of gas. Doesn't seem like a deal breaker to me. Hell, I'd do it right now in a Tesla and stop at a level 2 somewhere for an hour. Maybe get some lunch. Road trips are adventures. :D

lotsofmangos 13y ago

You don't need breakthrough batteries if you can push the margins close enough to the cost of the materials used to make the lithium ones.

ChuckMcM 13y ago

Interesting, this is the thing though; "I wouldn't want to have to give that up, or to have to arrange alternate transportation." Lets say that lots of people had all electric cars, and they had the same restrictions as the current model S. How long do you think it would take before someone opens a business where you drive your electric car there, park it and plug it in, and drive the gas powered car that is already parked there to your destination, when you return you park the gas powered car, walk over and get into your own electric car and go home? Think Zipcar for the Tesla Set. Pre-arranged membership, fixed price rental on a daily or hourly basis. Different kinds of cars (small, medium, van maybe). You provide gas and damage insurance and a small annual 'retainer' fee. That kind of business emerges when you have a large cohort of electric car users in a specific geography. I'd start one in the Bay Area if I was bored.