PayPal's cofounder hopes to produce a practical $30,000 all-electric car in four years.
Comment: Fareed, you can throw away your car a get the solar powered one, not me. Come on let us face the facts that there are so many set backs in the solar powered car and it is just a play thing. It is obviously expensive,not practical and not reliable when you really need it.
Comment: I think Mr Musk has hit the nail on the head. I have just purchased a Prius, which I love at 50+ miles per gallon, but I am sure that in 10 years people will be saying the same thing concerning electric vehicles. It is no longer a matter of choice; we will be foreced into it. John L.
Comment: The electric car has been demonstrated to be practical for short commute in California. It is time to bring them back to production soon. A plug in hybrid is also desirable, the only disadvantage is that with the additional batteries, the car will be heavier than the current hybrid and the gas mile may not be as high as the current hybrid. The problem seems to bolt down to the development of light weight batteries to store electricity, which may not be easy.
Comment: Instead of inventing a bigger and bigger battery, why don't we just get the government to lay an electric wire down the freeway. The ev extends a rod that touches the wire (like the bumper cars at the amusement park) and we can go coast to coast without even refueling? We just need a battery for the last 10 or so miles to our destination. I don't think this should be that hard!
Comment: Elon Musk is great.
Zakarear is an American hating loser.
Comment: Tesla is on the right track, but so are many other companies. Electric drive vehicles will win out because we already have the electric infrastructure in place to refuel them. Electricity will be produced from increasingly cleaner sources, and if Al Gore's new propsal takes hold, we can be getting 100% of our electricity from renewables within 10 years. Just visit websites like http://EVtransPortal.com to see the many companies offering electric drive vehicles now.
Comment: How about we try the imperfect solutions available to us now and improve as we go along? The idea that any proposal must start out as the perfect, exclusive, and final solution to every problem in every climate and for every person is wrong. Put a car out with less than perfect batteries - then swap them out as battery tech improves. Put a car out with less than perfectly efficient solar panels on its roof - then swap out the panels as panel tech (and auto electric systems) improve in their efficiency. Even if a car is only perfect for the overwhelming majority of us who travel less than 50 miles a day and we have to use another car for our infrequent longer trips (or take a train/bus/plane) - so be it. If its only good for those who let their cars sit in a sunny lot while they work - so be it. If it helps more in the summer than in the winter - so be it. If it only cuts your gas consumption by 75% - so be it. We should have been charging ahead with this transformation years ago so lets get going - enthusiastically. There are lessons to be learned in integrating the parts, mass producing, and marketing that are worth learning even as the parts themselves can be improved. Its a miracle we have planes and cars at all, much less reached for the moon, with these kinds of attitudes. What has happened to the American spirit? No wonder we are getting our butts handed to us all over the world by people who were inspired by our past accomplishments.
Comment: The article title is not misleading at all. With a solarcity panel on your roof you can make enough electricity to power your electric car.
Comment: ............PRESENTLY TOYOTA IS STARTING TO OFFER THE OPTION OF SOLAR PANELS ON THE ROOF OF THE PRIUS............................IT IS ONLY ENOUGH TO POWER THE A/C!
Comment: To begin the topic for this article is very misleading, the Tesla is an electric car not solar. Furthermore, current solar technology is not very efficient (there is a high cost of both energy and money to produce the cells). The energy yield of solar cells is barely above what is necessary to create them, a very inefficient power source. This route is far from a miracle cure for the world's oil dependence.
Comment: The topic for this article is very misleading, the Tesla is an electric car not solar. Current solar technology is not very efficient (there is a high cost of both energy and money to produce the cells). The energy yield of solar cells is barely above what is necessary to create them, a very inefficient power source. This route is far from a miracle cure for the world's oil dependence.
Comment: The thing that bothers me is this: http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2008/january9/nanowire-010908.html
This technology will be available in the next year or two and if the same size battery can get you 10 times the charge why can't the car go 3,000 miles without a charge or 600 miles and have a quick charge. I sent e-mails to Tesla motors, all divisions, and got no response. My question is, are these people paying attention? I hope they see this and actually put this technology to use in their next versions. If the writer of this article would do us readers a service and follow up with Elon Musk it would be appreciated to see if Tesla Motors is even aware of this technology. I would appreciate not thinking things like "oh they must know about it" or "They are an electric car company how could they not be aware of this". I have seen it all to many times in my industry, people get busy and it's like wearing blinders they are so focused on the goal they miss things, yes even big ones. Even Elon mentioned in the interview that battery technology has not progressed but 8 or 9 percent over the past 30 years, This is 1000% this year! Toshiba is going to bring this to life so it's not a farce or speculation it's fact.
Fareed Zakaria Please follow up with Elon and check to see if they are aware of this.
Thanks for your time everyone.
This is the revised wording not major change, just a more clear thought.
Comment: The thing that bothers me is this: http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2008/january9/nanowire-010908.html
This technology will be available in the next year or two and if the same size battery can get you 10 times the charge why can't the car go 3,000 miles without a charge or 600 miles and have a quick charge. I sent e-mails to Tesla motors, all divisions, and got no response. My question is, are these people paying attention? I hope they see this and actually put this technology to use in their next versions. If the writer of this article would do us readers a service and follow up with Elon Musk it would be appreciated to see if Tesla Motors is even aware of this technology. I would appreciate thinking like "oh they must know about it" or "They are an electric car company how could they not be aware of this". I have seen it all to many times in my industry, people get busy and it's like wearing blinders they are so focused on the goal they miss things, yes even big ones. Even Elon mentioned in the interview that battery technology has not progressed but 8 or 9 percent over the past 30 years, This is 1000% this year! Toshiba is going to bring this to life so it's not a farce or speculation it's fact.
Fareed Zakaria Please follow up with Elon and check to see if they are aware of this.
Thanks for your time everyone.
Comment: The thing that bothers me is this: http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2008/january9/nanowire-010908.html
This technology will be available in the next year or two and if the same size battery can get you 10 times the charge why can't the car go 3,000 miles without a charge or 600 miles and have a quick charge. I sent e-mails to Tesla motors, all divisions, and got no response. My question is, are these people paying attention? I hope they see this and actually put this technology to use in their next versions. If the writer of this article would do us readers a service and follow up with Elon Musk it would be appreciated to see if Tesla Motors is even aware of this technology. I would appreciate thinking like "oh they must know about it" or "They are an electric car company how could they not be aware of this". I have seen it all to many times in my industry, people get busy and it's like wearing blinders they are so focused on the goal they miss things, yes even big ones. Even Elon mentioned in the interview that battery technology has not progressed but 8 or 9 percent over the past 30 years, This is 1000% this year! Toshiba is going to bring this to life so it's not a farce or speculation it's fact.
Fareed Zakaria Please follow up with Elon and check to see if they are aware of this.
Thanks for your time everyone.
Comment: You should always add the words "at 70 degrees F when talking about range. I am waiting for the all electric that will give me 305 mile range so that I can go from Chicago to Minneapolis when it is 34 degrees and raining mixed with some snow (front and rear defroster on, lights on, radio on, pushing through light slush in bumper-to-bumper traffic as I leave Chicago). I will gladly stop at the Wisconsin Dells for a 45 minute recharge.
Comment: You should always add the words "at 70 degrees F when talking about range. I am waiting for the all electric that will give me 305 mile range so that I can go from Chicago to Minneapolis when it is 34 degrees and raining mixed with some snow (front and rear defroster on, lights on, radio on, pushing through light slush in bumper-to-bumper traffic as I leave Chicago). I will gladly stop at the Wisconsin Dells for a 45 minute recharge.
Comment: I'm all for innovation, bolts of mental brillance, and so on, but I am skeptical of pure battery cars covering longer distances. We are not even close to solving the battery challenges. Battery shorts particularly on powerful batteries are a a cataclysmic catastrophy. Ask any submariner. or witness the battery short circuit problems on laptop computers, and similar items. I be this guy's cheer leader as he experiments, but it is going to take some HARD work and intelligence solid engineering to pull it off. For the moment hybrid cars work and are necessary.
Comment: This would lead to war if it works this fast. Too many countries in the Middle East will have their only income producing commodity taken away from them (unindustrialized nations don't have the money to take up the slack). Countries in the Middle East can't export sand.
Comment: ................IF YOU MEAN THAT THE MIDDLE EASTERN COUNTRIES MIGHT ATTACK THE U.S.A.................THERE WAS 9/11......................AND THE 1967 WAR W/ISRAEL WOULD PROBABLY TELL HOW SCARY THEM MOUNTING AN OFFENSIVE AGAINST US WOULD BE!
Comment: I suppose $100,000 or $50,000 high-performance electric cars are quite nifty but for most people struggling with the current price of gas, they are not an option. Not everyone is going to be in a position to drop even $30,000 on a new car in four or six years, either. I've seen a handful of kits available today to convert older subcompact cars (geo metros, VW beetles, etc) to all electric for about $3,000 [and the cars themselves (pre-conversion) being sold for just a few thousand dollars]. If you care to, you can spend a few thousand for a small solar panel on a home roof/carport/garage (or donate some money to a green energy company) and - voila - you can be driving carbon neutral in what appears to be a production car. These hobbyists have pioneered a brilliant idea using low tech solutions. How about local garages getting into the entrepreneurial spirit by trolling the junkyards and upgrading discarded cars to electric to sell at a profit? How about garages offering affordable conversions ($2,000 plus parts for a job that takes a few hours) if a customer brings an old car in? If we up the tech and spend just $15,000 then perhaps a pretty decent performing all-electric refurbished car is a reality today for a large segment of the population. I still believe in the American spirit and bet the talent and the market is there to be exploited for those that have the courage.
No legislation contemplated and no technology in the near future promises to solve the carbon issue alone. Every comprehensive proposal I've seen depends on people taking responsibility and doing what they can as expeditiously as possible to reduce their carbon consumption. The question may not be so much one of technology and government programs (which will develop slowly over time) but of willpower , ingenuity, and discipline. Perhaps the solution to the challenges of the future is adopting the character of generations past.
Comment: We need to keep the carbon based fuels along with Mr. Musk's dream of all electric. Solar isn't good all over the USA. I agree solar should be on every building in the west, south and southwest, but it has a long way to go here in Wisconsin.
I don't believe in carbon credits either. That is another gimmick to make someone rich at the expense of the working man. Where do you think companies get the money to buy credits? They give less to their employees if they have to buy something to keep the plant in operation.
Let's just use our natual resources like gas or coal liquification, while we find our alternatives and then the carbon will eventually go away on its own. Mother Earth has a capacity to clean herself up without our putting everyone out of a job.
Comment: Elon Musk is one of the few visionaries we have in this country. Is Tesla ready for mainsteam America? No, not by a longshot, even said by Mr Musk himself. Just because current technology isn't at the state it needs to be viable, that doesn't mean that will always be the case. Someone has to take the forefront and Elon Musk and his small startup company is doing what the big car companies aren't or can't do. As far as cost goes, look at the cell phone. When it first came out it was bulky and expensive, only the very wealthy could afford one. As time goes by and technologies improve the cost will come down too.
Comment: Volvo created an all electric powertrain that does not require transmission. As a result you get a 94% energy efficiency ratio. Additionally a set of 4 x15HP motors gives you as much acceleration at the low RPM as a V10 460HP gasoline engine.
The car is still a hybrid - however is uses its diesel engine for electricity generation only. Its polimer battery is way lighter than ion-lithium and recharges faster as well. It hink it is the future as this powertrain is way less complex than current hybrids or even a standard gas engine with a transmission...
Comment: I think the only valid reason to purchase an electric car is because one doesn't know better. They cost too much, the battery replacement cost is rediculous, the environmental harm from battery disposal is still unknown. There are mid to full size vehicles with 4 cylinder engines that get over 30mpg, are roomy, drive and perform great and are affordable. Much of the public sneers at 4 cylinders because they haven't tried them, we all dislike change, but if we can convice them to try them they're in for a pleasant surprise. They'll find they have to give up very little or nothing to enjoy a pleasurable and affordable vehicle.
Don
Houston,Tx.
Comment: I understand that this wouldn't provide enough power to run the car, but the principle is already used to recapture energy lost through braking( regenerative braking), It's not just the energy created by moving air. You've already used energy from the battery to get the vehicle moving, most of which is wasted through mechanical inefficiency. In reply to LIKIETIS, the reason wind turbines sit on a tower is so that they have a constant source of wind. It might be possible to use this small amount of extra power to extend the range of the car . Lithium-ion batteries require a lot of cooling, so air will have to be ducted around them. Why not put this airflow, which would otherwise be lost, to good use.
Comment: we must do something in the next 10 years or we are doomed.
Comment: Thomas, Not a bad idea at all, it just isnt a solution. You definitely could capture energy in the way you are talking about, the problem is that it isnt a "net positive" source of energy. As in, you would expend more energy gathering it in this way then you would gain. That is the big hurdle to alot of potential solutions, which ultimately makes many of them not practical. This is why we typically look to sources with alot of stored energy in them which we can extract ultimately with little expenditure on ours.
And to help it make more sense, you will always lose energy in the process, we just look to harness energy from sources were we directly invested little energy into. For example, oil. It takes compartively little energy to get oil out of the ground, ship it, refine it, sell it, and ultimately burn/explode it, in order to get at the actual stored energy. But the energy thats actually released pales in comparison to the energy that was expended in the process of converting kerogen to oil. The same with solar, wind anything. The actual energy e capture from a given volume of moving air pales in comparison to what was expended in order to get the air currents moving in the first place, the same with solar, hydro, anything. It all boils down to what we have to directly expend ourselves.
Comment: Thomas, Not a bad idea at all, and you certainly could capture energy in this way. The problem is that it would not be a "net positive" capture of energy. As in, you would use/lose more energy collecting it then you would gain. Again, its a good idea, but this is the big energy challenge. It is easy to come up with ways to harness energy, but the hard part is to not expend more energy in the actual harnessing then you gain. That is the reason that we often resort to deriving energy from products/sources that have alot energy potential stored in them (i.e. - wind, solar, carbon based fuels, hydroelectic)
Comment: Here's an idea, for free! Why not equip these vehicles with mini-turbines,built into scoops or fairings under the vehicle, that would charge the battery using the slipsteam created by moving through the air at highway speeds( yes, legal highway speeds) This would appear to be an overlooked source of energy.
Comment: YOU FORGOT TO ATTACH THEM TO A "SKY HOOK"!.......................LOL!
Comment: Electirc cars are the way to go! Electiricty can and should be mostly produced by Nuclear Power, Wind, and Solar. All are clean and do not require OIL. We do not need a carbon tax! We already pay taxes on gasoline, crude oil, and diesel. The government makes more money in taxes on oil, gasonline and diesel than oil companies do in profits. Why don't people complain about excessive taxes on gasoline? Fix our tax system, 2nd worst in the corporte world, that exports American jobs and results in importing everthing from food to energy! If you like the mess we are in do nothing, it's working. If you want to fix it, replace the dipsticks in Washinton, and implement the FAIR TAX PLAN!
Comment: There is also a huge market for the recycling of guzzling SUV into all-electric vans. SUVs have a lot of space available for batteries, and therefore could have a better autonomy than other electric cars, if converted. Otherwise most SUVs will end as garbage in the countryside.
Comment: Would you like to see a carbon cap-and-trade system in the United States?
I'm actually a bigger fan of a carbon tax,
QUESTION: DOES THAT "CARBON TAX" APPLY TO CHILD BIRTHING.......................AFTER ALL EVERY CHILD PRESENTLY BROUGHT INTO THE WORLD NOW JUST BRINGS WITH IT A TAX DEDUCTION..................................WHEN IN REALITY THE BIRTHING OF A CHILD IS THE BEGINING OF A GRANDEOUS AND TRUELY INFINITE CARBON "TRAIL FULL OF CARBON FOOTPRINTS"!
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