An Electric Car Loses Its Juice

The innovators are not the upstart electric car companies. The innovators are the ones producing breakthrough energy storage. The top of the pack is EEStor Inc who will produce an energy storage unit (aka battery) that will allow a car to drive for 300 miles based on a charge that only takes 5 minutes. That will change the world....not some strange silicon valley automotive experiment/marketing challenge.

Read it now or read it later. But you will read it: TheEEStory.com

The innovators are not the upstart electric car companies. The innovators are the ones producing breakthrough energy storage. The top of the pack is EEStor Inc who will produce an energy storage unit (aka battery) that will allow a car to drive for 300 miles based on a charge that only takes 5 minutes. That will change the world....not some strange silicon valley automotive experiment/marketing challenge.

Read it now or read it later. But you will read it: TheEEStory.com

I think the goal may be a flying vehicle. :) An internally fought battle mostly, but sometimes these internal battles manifest themselves externally. :) I'm commonly known as "Einstein", by the way. Or, Albert, as in Einstein. :)

Boy, some people sure are butthurt. The truth isn't pretty, people...

Unconventional energy conversion systems are under development in several countries. Those inventions that become practical products may prove to be tapping never previously commercialized, renewable, abundant sources of energy. They are likely to prove inherently cost-competitive with all existing energy systems. Not only can they be used to power homes and businesses of every variety, but also to make practical electric cars that need no batteries or recharge.
Advanced designs will soon be capable of producing torque and/or electricity on a self-sustaining basis. Devices without moving parts are comparable to an inexhaustible electric battery. One Proof-of-Concept prototype was evaluated by Lee Felsenstein, EE. He concluded it to be analogous to the early work on the transistor, which eventually led to a Nobel Prize and the creation of Silicon Valley.
2,000 watts is the maximum amount of power that can be drawn from a 110 volt wall outlet to recharge the battery of a plug-in hybrid car. Generators we are developing are expected to generate this much power and demonstrate replacement of the plug needed by a plug-in hybrid car, within a year. This will be a harbinger of automobiles that need no conventional fuel. With normal progress, prototype new energy conversion systems are anticipated to replace an automobile engine within three years. That goal might be achieved in less time if development involves four teams of engineers and technicians working on a 24/7 basis. Vehicles powered by these technologies will never require conventional fuel of any kind.
Cars can become a source of income. Vehicle to grid (V2G) power was demonstrated during 2007. It was recently estimated that selling power to the grid from future production hybrid electric cars might earn the vehicles??? owner $4,000 each year. This assumes that power will be drawn by utilities from the car???s batteries, using a two-way, plug. In the future, cars powered by new energy conversion systems are expected to earn much more, as these generators are anticipated to replace both batteries and car engines. Therefore, they are expected to produce far greater amounts of electricity. No plug will be required. Over a reasonable period of time, payments to the owner may be sufficient to reimburse the purchase price of many vehicles.

Even if the price of well-performing electric-only cars drops below the plaything-of-the-rich level, they are still not the solution. The reason is that our creaky, already overloaded power grid wouldn't be able to handle the massive new burden of a large-scale switch to plug-in cars. That's not likely to change any time soon with mindless NIMBYism, knee-jerk oppose-everything eco-zealot lawsuits, and death by a thousand regulatory papercuts getting in the way of any and every new power plant.

Also is it really all that great for the environment to have HUGE heavy lead-acid batteries being hauled around our roads and manufactured on an industrial scale, not to mention being powered by COAL, by far our largest electricity provider?

Until we get fusion power plants giving us cheap and vastly plentiful electricity, all-electric surface transportation is a solution before its time.

Thus the real way forward for the near and midterm is the Energy Victory plan put forward by former NASA engineer Dr. Robert Zubrin, which is to require that all new cars sold (not made) in the US have flex fuel capability.

Flex fuel vehicles are just like normal current gasoline autos of any size, shape, function, or performance level with one CHEAP ($100~$200, unlike hybrids which cost thousands more) but critical difference: they have an additional internal fuel sensor and modifications to the fuel line and electronic fuel injector software allowing them to also use alcohol fuel (such as methanol), in the same fuel tank, in any mix (or none at all) with gasoline.

Alcohol fuel burns cleaner than gasoline - no particulate emissions hence no smog; no CO2 hence no global warming, etc. Also if spilled from supertankers or leaked from underground storage at gas stations alcohol fuel dissolves readily in days into harmless components; whereas the Exxon Valdez is still killing wildlife.

The reason we need a mandate is to break through the chicken and egg dilemma. Even though alcohol capability is cheap to add and make cheaper fuel available, few customers know about it or bother to ask for it because few gas stations have an alcohol pump. In turn, few gas stations will bother switching a pump to alcohol when only 3% of cars on the road have flex fuel capability.

With a mandate, we'd have 50 million FFVs on the road in 3 years. All would be able to fill up on gasoline if they can't find alcohol, making them a PRACTICAL bridge technology. But having a vehicle that can burn CHEAPER, safer, higher-octane, cleaner-burning fuel that does NOT fund our enemies abroad will spur demand for gas station owners to add alcohol pumps. At that point wealth is massively redirected away from the Saudis, Iranians, Venezuelans, and Russians and toward peaceful farmers and domestic coal miners (yes, coal can be made into methanol too!).

I expect more from Newsweek. Perhaps an unbiased look at the company. But this article is a waste of time. Next time please get a reporter that can do a balanced look at the company and the roadster.

sorry, the link in my previous comment was wrong

this is the right link: http://www.NewSpaceAgency.com/

many compares the Tesla&SpaceX's Elon Musk to Steve Jobs and his garage-born Apple, but it could be true (in part) for PayPal co-founded by Musk, but not for Tesla and SpaceX, that, since, after selling PayPal to eBay, Musk has over $700M (some sources say $1.5 Bn) in CASH and a further $500+ million from NASA (for the COTS program) and COTS investors, so (now) it's (relatively) EASY to buy an electric-cars company like Tesla and hire a bunch of former NASA engineers to develop and launch a rocket!

the TRUE and ONLY Apple-like Space Company around (that I'm trying to start from ZERO) is MY "ads-funded" NewSpaceAgency: http://www.NewSpaceaAgency.com/

but, unfortunately, my ("unique in the world" and "never seen before") effort hasn't (so far) the media coverage it need to succeed

You have to be kidding. Compare the $150MM that has been invested into a shipping car that the owners love with the $Billions spent on experiments like the EV1 and the Volt. It is one of the fastest accelerating production cars on the road and costs equivalent to or less than a high-performance internal combustion sports car.

Quirky personalities aside, Tesla has achieved what no Detroit car company could have dreamt of achieving.

Tesla does not get big loan guarantees from the government. Individuals took risks, and didn't ask for bailouts. That is real American capitalism, not a giant Detroit jobs project.

I just received Tesla #000000016 and I can tell you it is an amazing car. It's fast, tight and looks stunning. It charges up quick and it seems to get the promised range (although a little less if you drive it fast and quick... which anyone who owns this car will be tempted to do).

The car hurls itself from 0 to 60.... one minute you're at the free way entrance and the next you're flying down the highway. it's like a roller-coaster more than a car frankly.

The company may have had problems but I can tell you as one of the first 20 customers the product does not. It is the best car I've ever owned and my last car was the Corvette C6 (known as the best corvette ever made). This is way better than the Vette.

rock on! jason

Misery loves company; eh Xebra, Zenn, City-el.......... my silicon valley City-el EV lasted a whole 3 months!

Typo,it can well be...

The important thing with Tesla is to be financially succesful,a healthy company that can make America proud.

I can well be the "electric Porsche " of the future.

If government helps just a little,then it is ok...

Sounds more like they are building cars the Detroit way - with too much ego, too much waste, and not economically sound.

In the immortal words of Yogi Berra, its de ja vu all over again.

The electric car is the car of the future and the folks at Tesla are visionary in their efforts.
Lets face it electric cars practically eliminate two of the greatest problems facing the US and the world.
Global warming and our dependance on foriegn oil,
If only electric cars were available within 10 years both problems would be a faint memory.

$109k to feel good - huh? The auto industry is a little tougher than Tesla expected - funny how a company that goes out to beat Detroit at its own game opens an office in Detroit to be a sucker-fish to the whales of the industry...not too mention the talent that they're trying to pull out of the US automakers. 40 cars? there's more cars parked on my street and a good share of them will have to have the prime-mover replaced? I'm all for Tesla succeeding, but reviewing the comments of so many saying 'let Detroit go down' - I'd say that it will affect your life too when America loses in manufacturing base - then Tesla would likely go down too. Hope not.

I stand by my original comment about preferring a loan go to Tesla rather than GM. Those "hundreds of thousands of people" would go to work for Tesla or its subcontractors.

You'd rather give Tesla money than a proven automaker?! That's right....let's punish hundreds of thousands of people dependent on the US Automotive companies because a few fatcats receive big checks. I'm sure people are going to be standing in line to purchase a $100,000 vehicle that will cost thousands to insure and who knows how much to maintain. Be careful what you wish for.