Mark Morford on the Tesla Roadster:

[MindPilot]

Oh my God do they ever lie.

All of them: Big Auto, Big Oil, BushCo, Pennzoil and Havoline and Saudi Arabia and crusty Alaska Senator Ted Stevens and the oil lobbyists and lackey scientists working for the Department of Energy and all the rest, on down the line and right up to your garage door.

(snip)

See, they lie. And they've been lying for years, decades. They lie about how difficult it is to replace the internal combustion engine. They lie about how unfeasible it is to eliminate auto emissions without sacrificing real performance (the 130-mph Roadster's lithium-ion battery system is estimated to be twice as efficient as a Prius and three times as efficient as a hydrogen fuel cell. Not to mention Tesla's fabulous solar option).

But they lie, most of all, about how much we still require foreign oil, because these billion-dollar corporations claim they can't possibly afford to develop sufficiently advanced technology in your lifetime to create a 100-percent emissions-free, oil-free, ultragreen vehicle that still has all the comforts and performance of a regular car.

Nice pipe dream, they say. Here, have a bloated SUV, they say. Sorry about all your dead kids in Iraq, they add, smirking like a chimp and blowing their noses into a big pile of Halliburton profits.

www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2006/08/02/notes080206.DTL&feed=rss.mmorford

[yurbud]

1. vote this up.

[yurbud]

2. Did he mean to say 'lick' in the title?

[Dead_Parrot]

8. Count on it.

Morford's style is so off the wall it's on the other side of the room.
:D

[ptolle]

50. wonderful

You are, of course, correct about morford's style still it's a wonderful expression.Another example I pulled from the article where he describes the auto in question handling like Michael Schumacher's wet dream. Trouble here is most people especially murcans couldn't handle a car that drove like any of Michael's dreams wet or not.Perhaps some of the more technologically knowledgeable could help me here.What about the possibility of transferring some of the technology from this roadster to a hybrid especially perhaps to a plug-in hybrid?

[ClintonTyree]

40. Lick.....as in "beat"

My Dad can lick your Dad, type of stuff. Although I'm sure a little double entendre was intentioned as well. ;)

[RonHack]

47. As in "use your tongue" lick

Of course, we all know what happens when you put that wet muscle on a live, high-voltage circuit.

Don't we, boys and girls?

:tinfoilhat: leads to :nuke: which might start :think:

(Sorry, that' the best I could do without :electrocute: .

[LunaSea]

3. kay&are

Yeah, I'd lick it......

[Canuckistanian]

4. Yep, they lied, all right

K&R

[tinrobot]

5. This line makes me sick....

Did you already calculate that if even a fraction of the $300 billion -- a truly staggering amount -- we've wasted on BushCo's failed and disgusting war could have gone to revolutionizing our nation's energy infrastructure (like, say, funding large-scale development of the Roadster's technology), instead of annihilating a pip-squeak nonthreatening nation over its oil reserves while simultaneously serving as the most successful terrorist-recruitment poster in world history, the United States could be considered the epicenter of integrity and invention once again? Of course you did.

What a waste...

We could be saving the planet rather than destroying it.

[ClintonTyree]

41. That's not in "the best interests" of our country though.

Only by feeding the Corporate greed machine can America sustain it's consumer driven economy. Ours is a nation of rampant consumerism based on oil. Everything, in some way, is touched by the gooey, slippery hand of Big Oil and they want it to stay that way as long as is humanly possible.
The days when the PEOPLE of our country actually controlled the government, instead of the reverse, are LONG gone and, barring any sort of popular revolution among the PEOPLE, will never return. Corporations run this country hence GREED runs this country. And GREED has never been a good neighbor, has never had a social conscience, will never do what's best for the people or our environment. Greed will always do what's in it's own self interests no matter how many lives it costs, not matter how polluted it makes it's own back yard.
Money IS the root of all evil. Not the love of money,as some would say, but money itself. Because as long as the almighty dollar exists there will be greed. Period.
I share your disgust and disdain for the "power brokers" that have created and maintain this charade. As long as these evil men and their corporations exist this problem will never be reduced, let alone solved. Our entire economic structure is to be blamed and as far as I can see there will never be a solution to it. All for money, all for greed. They'll sacrifice the future of the entire world so they can have more; more of everything.
It's sad, so fucking sad. They've taken paradise and irreversibly doomed it to extinction because of their greed.

[immoderate]

6. K&R'd

Thanks.

--IMM

[Boo Boo]

7. Nice car. Morford is a little over the top with his rant, though.

This car really isn't a suitable replacement for an ordinary car. You can use it for commuting, but with its limited range you couldn't tour very far in it. By comparison, a deisel Benz goes over 700 miles on a tank of gas, and you can "recharge" it in about five minutes. The thing that has limited electric cars is batteries, not "lies."

Certainly, auto manufactureres are going to be recalcitrant when it comes to tooling up to produce a new type of car. They already have a huge investment in building internal combustion autos. But, they would do it if the economics made sense. This "Tesla" company has produced a 2 seat commuter that costs 80,000 dollars. They gave it a sportscar body and compare it to a Porsche in order to make that cost seem more palatable, but this is, in the end, nothing but a rich persons toy. Schwarzenegger is the perfect customer. (BTW, no rinky-tink company building their first auto is going to come anywhere close to Porsche for quality. You're not going to be getting much value for your 80 grand.)

When somebody can produce an electric "city car" (that's what that a 250 mi. range is good for) that costs what a Honda Fit costs, then we'll have something worth getting excited over. Smart is now making an electric version of their little city car; I have no idea what it costs, though. An electric Honda Fit that costs the same (or close to) what the current gas version costs might get me in a buying mood. OTOH, when the Lithium-ion batts need replacing (and they will, just like a laptop PC) I'd be pretty bummed. That's going to be very expensive, and you'll be doing it more that once.

Morford sounds like he's more than a little "out of the loop" as far as technology is concerned.

[mojowork_n]

9. Awwwww, come on, every startup needs an attention-getter

Something that will raise the new investors some fast cash. I for one don't mind them making a few bucks, and raising some eyebrows.

So that they can then turn around and harness some of that 0 to 60 in 4 seconds available energy, into a more commuter-friendly, city-go-kart-with-doors-and-glass practical vehicle.

One step at a time.

[krkaufman]

19. Also, this, succinctly put by Baywatch babe Alexandra Paul ...

And Alexandra Paul, a former Baywatch star who has become an electric-car activist, says performance electrics will change minds, blowing the notion "to smithereens that an electric car is pokey or doesn't have range."

From USA Today article: Electric cars lighting up again

The Tesla Roadster and other high-end performance electrics will help to break the mindset of electric cars as glorified go-karts, and will help to develop the technologies necessary for mass production.

This is great news.

[eppur_se_muova]

27. Well, here's some attention ...

(This car was much discussed in E&E forum a few weeks back.)

[lindisfarne]

10. Additionally, battery technology has been greatly improved in the last

10 years (even the last 5).

That's not to say that had the auto makers been committed to battery-operated vehicles, they couldn't have improved battery technology much sooner.

[arcane1]

11. I don't know... aside from vacations...

who travels more than 250 miles per day in a car? I'd think, based on my experience, anyway, that most drivers travel less than that in a day's time

[ProudDad]

66. That's about how far I drive

in a week!

There was a line in the promo for that movie, "Who Killed the Electric Car" when Ed. Begely, Jr. said, "The electic car's not for everyone, just 80% of the population."

The range will come when the R&D budget is there...

The main problem is how to make the electricity. Every energy creation method has drawbacks.

Nuclear -- dangerous and dirty as hell in the LOOOOONNNNGGGG run.

All coal and oil -- nuff said.

Wind and passive solar require some manufacturing processes which produce toxins that have to be dealt with as well as taking some energy in the process.

One thing that's certain is that more local production of energy is what's needed -- we have to do away with the multi-national oil company model...

[Aviation Pro]

12. I respectfully disagree....

...no car is meant for 700-mile trips and those who take them - the trip - are part of the problem. A car like this is meant for folks who have 60-mile roundtrip commutes everyday and who eschew the indiscriminant use of automobiles (need to do some shopping at the local strip mall or, God forbid, Walmart, put on a pair of comfortable shoes and walk the mile to the store, it will do you good).

There are very few things I'd like to see more than the US weaning itself from the petroleum teet and this sounds like a good first step in the right direction.

[krispos42]

46. excessive simplification, I fear

Cars like this are the trend of the future, of that there is no doubt. They are not the cars of the present because the technology has lagged behind demand. Thanks to the billions of personal electronics in the world, all being bought by folks who are always on the hunt for more battery life, the technology behind batteries has finally started increasing at a fast pace.

Note the lithium-ion battery pack. That's new because I believe the Prius and others like it are using nickle-metal-hydride batteries, which I understand have about half of the energy storage per pound as lithium. Ten or twelve years ago it would be a nickel-cadnium battery. A couple of decades ago it would be lead-acid batteries, like the standard 12-volt in your current car. That's a lot of heavy metal floating around out there.

None of this was a driving factor when gas was cheap. No company was going to push something that there was no market for yet. While sometimes you can create a product that fills a demand that nobody was aware was there, cars like the Tesla didn't have a place beyond curiosity until gas prices spiked and battery technolody improved.

I would like to note that in Europe, motor fuels are incredibly expensive. Yet such big names as Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Volkswagon, and other European carmakers didn't have any mass-produced electric cars. They made very efficient gasoline and diesel engines instead.

Watching CNN right now, I see numerous reports of the power grid failing under the strain of the summer heat. And that is without having to recharge 300 million automobiles. But I digress...

I have posted before on the DU what we need. We need cars, minivans, and light SUVs that are made like the Tesla here, with a high-energy-density lithium-ion battery pack and a high-effiency motor. However, these hypothetical vehicles of mine will be able to plug into your standard 115v, 15 amp wall outlet or a 230v 30-amp outlet like the kind used for a clothes dryer or electric range, so you can charge it anyplace, like, say, while visiting Auntie Cemetic for the weekend. Just bring a long extension cord. The 230v service could pump nearly 7,000 watts of power into the battery.

These hypothetical vehicles will also have an auxillary generator that would burn either gasoline, E85, diesel/biodiesel, or propane/natural gas. No flex-fuel crap; ethanol has a 115 octane rating that flex-fuel engines does not take advantage of. Make a high-compression engine for the E85 so you get the better thermodynamic efficiency to make up somewhat for the lower energy density of ethanol.

Anyway, make sure it's air-cooled, 4-stroke, high-efficiency, extremely low emmissions. Probably a Honda small enginre, say, about 10 or twelve horsepower, with a 5-gallon tank. The engines would be mated to a 230v alternator that would be tied into the same charging ciruit as the wall hookups used. In other words, to the car the power coming from the auxillary and the power coming from the wall outlet would be the same.

In this fashion, the driver could drive much longer distances than a basic electric car, and it would also have more charging flexability. For example:

Driving long distances the driver would activate the auxillary as soon as he leaves the driveway. The auxillary would attempts to keep the battery fully charged while driving on the highway. While a 12-hp engine can't overcome the air resistance at 70mph, it can drastically cut the discharge of the battery pack, turning a 250-mile range into perhaps 400 or 450 miles. That's damn near seven hours at cruising speed, and if you get stuck in traffic or a toll line, the auxillary would be able to partially recharge the battery.

As you stopped to eat, use the restroom, go shopping, or rested in a motel, the auxillary would be busy charging the battery pack. Or if you final destination was someplace remote, like a rustic cabin, sandy beach, or isolated campsight, you would be relying on the auxillary for your battery power. Of course, once you got to Auntie Cemetic's house you'd just 'borrow' some juice from her.

If you knew you were not going to need your auxillary (which would be most days as you kept under the 250-mile battery range limit), you would just flick a switch on the dashboard to "Local", and the engine will stay silent. You will be solely on battery power, charging the car while parked from the electric power grid.

The auxillary could also provide a voltage boost during extremely cold temperatures, like those experienced here in Minnesota. The Tesla site mentions heating coils to keep the battery pack warm. Well, if the battery pack in my vehicle started to get low keeping itself warm, the auxillary would kick in to keep the battery charged. This way the battery would be warm and ready for action while being fully charged, even if where you are there is no power grid available.

With this setup I can imagine a tank of gas lasting many months. Heck, based on my driving habits I would not have needed to fire up the auxillary once in the last 11 months.

I would also like to note that my vehicle could be used as a remote power source for camping or blackouts. You could, for example, run the fridge, microwave, TV, stereo, and PS2 off of the car battery, and the auxillary would fire up as needed to maintain power.

Well, my eyes are about to fall out from fatigue, so it's time to this the hay. Hope I've given people some food for thought. Thanks, and don't forget to tip your waitress on the way out!

And give yourself a brownie point if you got the "Auntie Cemetic" joke... lmao

[mwooldri]

53. Understood the greater point...

... but not Auntie Cemetic. Oh well.

An auxillary engine does sound like a nice idea, especially as there are people who are going to run the electric juice quite dry.

But yep, there needs to be more combination of technology. This car, coupled with solar power and battery changing stations and an auxillary motor would mean that we could build cars that are pretty much pollution free, that are cheap to run, and don't cost an arm and a leg.

And reading from their blurb on their website, I can see where they mean by electricity being a universal fuel since it can be made from pretty much anything from hydro, solar, wind energy as well as coal, oil and nuclear power also.

Mark.

[krispos42]

57. You have that right...

Auntie Cemetic... Anti-Semetic... Mel Gibson's relative?

I personally envision a world where wind turbines are used to power ethanol distilleries and biodiesel processing plants, and that is how the Midwest will be able to export our untapped wind power without spending billions building and upgraded electrical network. Export the wind energy in liquid form instead of electric form.

Later on we can used wind turbines and other non-polluting means to produce hydrogen, which we will use in fuel-cell vehicles.

It's a matter of mass-production. Some sixteen million cars a year are sold in the US, and the replacement of the long-established production lines here and in Europe, Japan, and Korea. That's a tall order, ramping up production of 250-hp electric motors, charging systems (which must include a DC-to-AC and AC-to-DC power converters), and half-ton or more battery packs.

Eight million tons of lithium-ion battery packs. And how much does the average cell-phone or PDA lithium-ion battery weigh? 2 ounces? Less? I would like to know how many tons of Li-ion batteries we are selling in this country now, but I would guess it's far below that much.

There is now a demand in this counry for this kind of technology, and the market will respond.

I think that the first thing the automakers need to do is introduce selective supercharging as an option instead of larger engine options. Let's face it; most of the time you aren't using the horsepower the engine is rated for. When you're cruising on the highway, you're only using like 30 or 40 horsepower to break the wind resistance. You only need maximum horsepower when accelerating, merging, or climbing steep hills.

The Chevy Colbalt has two engine options, a 140-hp I-4 and a supercharged 200-hp I-4. The supercharged I-4 gets 40% more horsepower with only a 10% drop in fuel economy. If that supercharger was on an electric clutch, or perhaps even on that new NuVinchi CVT, then that car could have the greater fuel economy of the regular engine with the temporary power of the supercharged engine.

Image the Ford Fusion with the 30-mpg economy of the 151-hp I-4 but has the verve of the 221-hp V-6 on tap simply by flooring the gas pedal or pushing a button on the dash. I envision the button being labeled "On, Auto, Off", so you don't have surprise power surges on ice or snow.

[mwooldri]

51. We can always have battery changing stations.

Hey, we already got a network of gas stations, no big deal then to convert them to a battery swap station - say $25 to swap your dead battery with a new live one. Stocks can be kept small enough provided they can be recharged relatively quickly. Oh and if the cars come with the solar option then re-charging doesn't have to happen so often as it would always happen on the go, so to speak.

And I hate to say it but Nuclear energy would reduce those greenhouse gases like anything. It's just what to do with the waste from nuclear energy that is problematic. Maybe clean coal would be the solution (emission free coal with the carbon getting buried again (may be to be converted back into oil in a few thousand/million years))

Of course this would need some collaboration (e.g. a "standard sized" battery pack, etc).

Mark.

[Heywood J]

54. Disagree.

no car is meant for 700-mile trips and those who take them - the trip - are part of the problem.

A populace which has the option of mobility is part of the problem? What fascist nonsense do you live in?

Because I or someone I know might want to take a vacation once a year, and that the cheapest way on a lower income is to do it by car (we can't all afford $1000 worth of plane tickets and Amtrak barely serves anything anymore), we're "part of the problem"? I'll tell you what: next time I come up for vacation - you pay for the plane. Put your money where your mouth is.

Consider what you say before it comes out next time.

[Lautremont]

60. It's too bad there aren't sensitivity classes for reducing sensitivity.

You could use one.

[ProudDad]

67. You haven't considered inter-modal travel

If it were a rational world, we'd have a network of long-distance, high-speed electric trains that could also carry your "short range" electric car to the vicinity of whereever you might need to go.

Then you just motor on your way once you get close...

[tinrobot]

14. Not a diesel Benz

A 300D gets about 22mpg and has a 20 gallon tank... that's 440 miles, not 700. A diesel VW TDI might get you that far...

I'm waiting for biodiesel hybrids... like these:

http://www.wired.com/news/autotech/0,2554,66949,00.html

But... electric is still a better way to go. If you commoditize this Tesla car and slow it down a bit, you could get something for $20-30k that could run you around town for 250 miles between fillups. Even at a higher initial cost for the car, the fuel savings would more than make up for the extra cost.

Battery technology is getting a LOT cheaper thanks to laptops and cell phones. The cost of Li-Ion is half of what it was a few years ago and still dropping. Plus - LiIon is totally recyclable, so that would also drop the cost of replacements (which are at about 100K miles)

[comtec]

55. KM not miles

My wife (we're current in The Netherlands) has a VW Caddy (a very kewl 2-seater with a huge covered payload) and it gets 800km per 50 liters of Diesel, or 800km on a tank. It's likely that is what teh person was thinking. sadly the way they measure fuel here is totally non-sensical. it's done xl fuel per 100 km. Not a very useful measurement.

but 800/50 comes out to 16km per liter or 37.85 MPG. nothing to sneeze at to be sure of.

I have heard of a ceramic engine at least since 1989 on a show called beyond 2000. A engine that was extremely heat (and power) efficient and light as hell. I want to know where my ceramic engine is!

One last point, grease cars are ILLEGAL here in THE NETHERLANDS! (for those of you who think this is a bastion of liberal ideas come live here for a bit. I'll smash nearly all those preconceptions)

Used grease/oil provides about 10 odd percent less energy (as shown on Mythbusters recently?). That is still nothing to sneeze at for a product already used once! If you could make a hybrid diesel/grease car you could save boundless amounts of money on fuel (the new bio diesel can be made from yard waste using a enzyme from termites).

One last note on electric/hybrids/diesels. a great deal of energy is lost/wasted in transmission from power plant to home. If you want a truly less-impacting fuel system go hybrid. Use grease which is recycling at it's purest and much less polluting. If you want an even better solution buy solar panels. No you won't save a great deal of money, and it'll probably take you 5-10 years to pay it off, but you will be doing a great deal of good!

For those of you interested, I got my neo-bio info from the current? issue of Popular Science popsci.com . i'll warn you now almost half the issue is ads, but the actual science content is really good and broken down into byte sized pieces. The current issue goes about 10 ways we can reduce oil dependency and pollutants.

[tinrobot]

59. Grease cars are also illegal in the US as well.

From this article:

http://www.lexisone.com/news/nlibrary/n072406c.html

------

The problem is that laws governing the Environmental Protection Agency require that motor vehicles be certified before they are sold, and no one has ever even tried to certify a car or truck running on vegetable oil. To the E.P.A., fuels and vehicles are guilty until proved innocent.

But the E.P.A. says it has never fined anyone, and some state officials, who also enforce clean-air regulations, said they could not recall any enforcement actions.

''I strongly doubt they would ever throw the book at anybody,'' said S. William Becker, executive director of the State and Territorial Air Pollution Control Administrators. ''If they ever caught up with someone doing this, they probably would read them the law and regulations and say, 'Go away.' ''

But that is not to say vegetable oil is harmless. Margo T. Oge, director of the E.P.A.'s Office of Mobile Sources, said that vegetable oil was denser than the diesel fuel designed for cars and trucks and that it had a lower cetane rating, a measure of how well a fuel burns; lower numbers do not burn as well. Those are two factors that her engineers suspect would make the vehicle produce more soot particles.

----------

You're much better off using biodiesel, which is EPA approved and much better from a pollution standpoint.

[chchchanges]

15. The technology has been there for a long time....

There were already cars that offered what you asked for, Toyota had the electric Rav4, Honda had a four seater EV, and GM had a two seater electric car. Problem was that they were not interested in selling them, so you could only lease them. They were slightly more expensive than a normal sedan, but you made the cost in less than a year due to cheap electricity and lack of need for servicing. So in the end the cost was about the same.

However, car companies only offered these cars because they were mandated by the State of California (By law, manufacturers had to offer a % of 0 emission vehicles in order to be certified in the state), and they made their damnest to discourage people from getting these cars. I leased the Honda version for about 2 years. I went to the State assembly to see the hearings for the 0 emission laws, and it was sickening to see each of the representatives for the major car companies complaining that there was simply no demand for electric cars. It was a bald faced lie, and we called them on it. At that very date (late 90s), there was a waiting list for the EV1 of almost 1 year. And GM's CEO said with a straight face that no one wanted that car, that they could not sell them and that they could not move them out of the show rooms. I guess GM's CEO was either a piece of shit as a human being, or he completely missed the class about supply and demand when he was studying for his MBA. There must have been few vehicles ever that generate such interest as to have a 1year wait list.

This is the reason, the technology is there. In fact overall an electric car is cheaper to produce than an internal combustion engine. The average modern engine is orders of magnitude more complex than an electric motor and battery system, so the production costs are lower. However, and this is the reason why big auto corporations are not interested in electric cars, it is this very same simplicity that presents a thread to their business model. A car, at least modern cars, does not have a single price (as in sticker price) it has a cost of ownership associated with it: You have to buy the car, you have to maintain the car (oil changes, transmission maintenance, air filters, engine parts, etc, etc), and on top of that you have to pay for the gas. Those are three major sources of maintenance, with a whole industry built around that paradigm. They are not interested in changing that, and an electric car changes two of those sources of income significantly. Namely an electric car needs far less maintenance, and obviously the fuel is shifted from being supplied by the oil companies to the electric companies.


Assuring the success of the electric car is relatively easy. For the most part people are barking at the wrong tree, they expect oil companies to be interested in alternative fuels, which they are not. It is like asking the wolves if they are interested in changing from hunting sheep to do farming, it is just not going to happen. Same goes for the traditional auto industry, they are not interested in losing those revenue streams associated with the wear and tear of their crappy technology. So the solution is go to the people who have the most to gain from this: traditional manufacturing, and the electrical companies. Traditional manufacturing needs new markets, since foreign heavy industries are eating their lunch, and electrical companies can grow and have larger benefits than their oil counterparts. In the end it is all about making money, you just need to know which tree to bark to, IMHO.

[TroubleMan]

17. Welcome to DU, and great first post

You're right - the maintenance and parts business are the main reasons the auto makers stick with combustion engines. Also, other than getting hit by power surge, a well built electric motor last a very long time. It's not in the best interest of "shareholders" to make cars that last so long. They need you to buy one every five years or so. To be fair...not just car makers do that, but in the last 10-20 years or so, nearly every industrial machine maker has been doing the same thing.

I wish some electric motor manufacturer like Baldor, Marathon, or AO Smith would roll with this idea. They don't even have to make a car. They can just make electric motor/battery/charger replacement kits for popular vehicles. Some small companies are actually already doing this.

[Johnny Noshoes]

38. ..."a well built electric motor last a very long time"

That is so true and I have the proof right in the window next to my desk. Its a fan that I bought in the summer of 1974 - yes that's right 1974. Its beat up, paint stained but it still works full speed. Oh by the way it was AMERICAN made - now I think if the company is still around its no doubt made in China. Practical electric cars are possible if this company can attract attention with this car great. That would get people thinking about the idea and maybe we could get this whole thing moving in the right direction.

[TroubleMan]

62. LOL....you quoted my grammatical mistake.

There are still good motor manufactures in America: Baldor and Marathon Electric are two that come to mind. I believe AO Smith is also American made, and maybe GE (but I wouldn't trust GE for anything).

[krkaufman]

20. "no demand for electric cars"

Chuckle. Yeah, try to tell me that. It took me 6 1/2 months to get my 2006 Prius. (Ordered the Monday morning that Katrina hit, and received in mid-March.) And I would have been in line for an electric back in the 90s had GM offered them in my state, instead of putting all their focus on their big profit-margin SUVs.

[karlrschneider]

25. Hi chchchanges, welcome to DU and most excellent first post!

I believe you have correctly identified much of the "problem", as it were, and wonder if you care to
speculate on -why- the big oil companies are (apparently) NOT interested in alternative fuels. I've been peripherally in the "oil business" for 45 years but not connected to the big players...surely they are aware of the finite supply of their cash cows and it puzzles me why they're seemingly unwilling to invest in other technologies that could (would, probably) extend their profitability way beyond the point when petroleum is either exhausted or becomes economically unfeasible.

I'm an engineer and a professional pilot, not a bean counter, but it still escapes my fairly eclectic education and outlook why they relegate huge potential future profits to the back burner (if not off the stove altogether)

What are your thoughts about this, if you care to say?

[chchchanges]

28. Short term profitability

Hello there, I am an engineer too.

I believe the problem resides with the fact that most large oil companies are publicly held. Stockholders are interested in quick returns. For most 2 quarters in the future is way too long, never mind years or decades... Ergo most oil companies do not care about renewable sources, because it takes lots of investment and time. They are more interested in maximizing their profits now, period... not in the future, not in the past. They will play lip service to renewable energy, but it is mostly as a publicity stunt to get their bad rep, no more no less.

Just because they are big and powerful does not mean they really have any wisdom to them, and I think it is dangerous for us to wait for big oil to put their weight behind renewable technologies. My analogy with the wolves was about them being more interested in the now: i.e. eating the sheep, than thinking about their future... if they keeping eating their sheep w/o either branching to farming or becoming shepherds themselves they will eventually run out of sheep. However that is not how the wolves operate, and that is how we need to see big oil. It is not a sustainable business model, however they are simply interested in getting as much profits as they can, which is the main existential reason for most corporations.

That is why, at least in the case of the electric car, it makes no sense to pander to big oil. Simply make the case to the electric companies, which are the ones who have the most to gain from this shift. This model has been fairly successful in Europe regarding wind generation. It turns out that a wind generator, basically pays itself in 2/3 years, after that it is mostly profit (wind is free, and maintenance is minimal). Once banks and electric companies figured out what a good investment that was, wind farms started popping like crazy. So it all comes down to make the case for renewable energies as being a good investment to the right people. Wasting energy on the oil companies and major car manufacturers to get their shit together is a waste of time IMHO. Plus some of the people at the helm are monsters, literally... if not witness the fact that most oil companies were gun ho about having carte blanche in a post war Iraq. Trying to expect these people to assume they want the best for the survival of our people and nation, is not only naive... but borderline stupid.

[karlrschneider]

31. If you're right, and I suspect you are, the future looks pretty damn bleak

And sometimes I wonder why I even care...I'm 64 and won't be around too much longer, I imagine, and
don't have any progeny but my brother and sister do and I can't help thinking about them, but there's always the inevitable end of the planet and probably the universe as well - one way or the other but that's another discussion.

Back in the 1970s I had close connections with several quite 'powerful' political and
industrial leaders (and still do have some)- I tried to persuade a number of them at the time
to investigate potential new energy sources without much success. Looking back, I can recall
a similar mindset..."get it while the gettin's good." Not much interest in the long term even
back in those days. I guess I was too idealistic to recognize the uber-entrepreneurist
meme that existed then and has only increased since.

Maybe the real question is "is it even worth trying to fix?" I confess I don't know the answer.
I've been optomistic for many years but I'm starting to think there's no pony in the horse-shit.
Ah, well...

[chchchanges]

35. Future is bleak for this country not the earth

Well, I am barely in my 30s so I still have a way to go. This country is definitively screwed, however other parts of the world have their shit together, so it is always the same meme: The sunset of an empire becomes the sunrise of another.

In the end, it is also a matter of the newer generation showing the boot to the previous fat lazy bastards. And I am sure it will happen, as I said... once we stop pandering to big oil to clean their act, things will be much more interesting. We need a left with actual teeth in this country, I find sad that most policies from the previous president (Clinton) were mostly to the right of Nixon. That is quite disturbing to me, the realization that Republicans have managed to get most of the population to vote against their interests. Most R policies are only benefiting 10% of the population tops, yet they still manage to get the votes of a lot of people that are not benefited at all by Republican policies. This shows two things: the incredible political acumen of Republicans (being successful politically does not negate the evilness of their policies, just making that clear), and the complete failure of Democrats to get their message out.

There needs to be a few things in place, for this society to survive: 1) An Educated population is harder to manipulate, and even harder to be made into voting against their interests, Education also promotes a general level of common sense among the society, 2) Labor movements need to clean up their act, there are more middle/lower class Americans than Upper class, once the common man realizes it and stops bitting into the whole "American dream" crap things will be much more realistic (Right now Billy Bob in the trailer park is voting Republican and paying the debt, while the repugs are getting tax cuts and laughing to the bank, because somehow Billy Bob is enough of a moron to believe that someday he will too become a millionaire and he better not mess the tax cuts on the rich folk because who knows maybe one day... hey it is the American way!), 3) Americans need to realize that America is: Jim, Ann, Mary, Bob, etc. Not Exxon, Intel, GM, etc. If a corporation is going to be dealt with as a person... then corporations need to be held accountable to the same rules. Period.

Look sooner or later, somebody will figure out how to make globs of money with renewables, greed works in mysterious ways. And when that happens, Oil will go the way of the dodo. It may not come from America, but the rest of the world is not waiting to get our act together. There are plenty of people trying to make it big, and hopefully someone will come and blindside these greedy bastards. And he will become even more of a greedy bastard, except that this time his/her product will not ruin the planet (as much). And the cycle will continue, nature works in these mysterious ways.

[krkaufman]

18. NO ONE is saying that the Tesla Roadster is *the* replacement

The guy, however over the top in his effusiveness, is saying that we sure as heck could've spent some of the $300 billion lost in the Iraq war (to the MI complex) to subsidize the Tesla (and similar) efforts to MAKE the technology more accessible to the common man.

And then consider, the *actual* cost of this war (current & hidden future costs) is purportedly going to be in the trillions of dollars, along with lost US revenues due to decreased foreign investment and lost billions continuing the flow out of the country for foreign oil. We're going deeper and deeper into the hole, instead of accelerating alternative technologies that would energize our economy in the new millenium. How much could have been accomplished? How much time and opportunity have been squandered?

[pelagius]

32. It's not a "practical" car and that's why it's brilliant

Electric vehicles have a dowdy, low-performance image. By building a high-end, status car Tesla is turning that image on its head and opening up people's minds to the possibilities. There will be a low-end Fit-type vehicle before too long.

>BTW, no rinky-tink company building their first auto is going to come anywhere close to Porsche for quality

The actual building of the car is subcontracted out to Lotus, who has some experience in the field.

[mwooldri]

52. Lotus is owned by Ford.

However AFAIK the local management have more say so than the parent company for some projects. Also Lotus can learn from this project too.

Carbon fibre body will mean less steel and aluminium being needed. And combined with no oil required means that this car is a double whammy against existing industries.

Mark.

[jmowreader]

36. This isn't exactly a rinky-tink company

They did something totally unexpected for a car company building a whole new kind of car--instead of developing one from the ground up, they bought a car that's already finished and stuck the essential bits in it.

This makes a lot of sense. There are thousands of parts in a car. If all you're interested in doing is developing a new powertrain, why bother with choosing seat brackets and hood hinges? Start with a whole car someone else made.

There is a reason why the Tesla looks like a Lotus Elise: when they started, that's what it was.

[ptolle]

64. not new

Not exactly a new idea. It's a repeat of Carroll Shelby's taking the AC chassis and dropping the Ford V8 in it which was a repeat of several people taking the Allard chassis and dropping various American big inch engines in them.The interesting thing for me is that it was uniformly english chassis chosen for their engineering and combination of handling and ride characteristics.I'm not exactly sure what that says about our native auto industry, I'm just pleased to see someone taking a good solid whack at creating a real electric car.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

61. The point is that a good electric car is possible.

They just went overboard with the performance.

[Nestor Mahkno]

13. This movie looks to be a must see

Who Killed the Electric Car?

http://www.sonyclassics.com/whokilledtheelectriccar/electric.html

[krkaufman]

22. Along with the movies recommended by the article's author ...

... also check out 'Tucker: The Man and His Dream' (1988), for how Big Auto -- and their government toadies! -- did the same thing to Preston Tucker back in the late 40s.

(I'd love to see one of the electric car companies name one of their cars after Tucker.)

[Touchdown]

29. It is a must see. Saw it last month.

Pertty much rebuts all the poo-pooing (or boo-booing;) ) of electric cars on this thread. The average distance in the US on a typical commuting day is 60 miles. 250 miles per charge is more than enough.

Fascinating film. I had no idea that Ford made an electric Ranger truck, or Toyota's RAV4 had an electric version, practical cars. Watch the scened where the little GM EV-1 out runs an RX-7 and a Miata.

[originalpckelly]

16. THANK GOD SOMEONE SAID IT!!!

They are full of crap. The only reason Americans are not now driving some sort of alternative energy vehicle that costs the same as a regular car, is the fact that the oil companies don't want to find another racket!

[jmowreader]

58. Whutchoo talkin' bout, Willis?

The oil companies HAVE another racket. It's called chemicals.

Chemicals has a nice feature: steady demand. If gas gets high enough, people will find ways to not buy so much of it. They'll carpool, buy bicycles, walk to the store, something. But chemicals is like insulin: if you need x amount of it, you NEED it.

[Pierre.Suave]

21. he misses some important points

namely, the need to upgrade our national electricity producing capability if we are to ever move to electric cars on a large scale. Hell, even Air Conditioners can bring the grid down, what would happen if we all plugged in our cars?

Second, we need a cleaner way to produce that electricity. Nuclear or some other way, otherwise we are just spewing the same pollutants in the air out of a different pipe.

Just some things to think about.

[krkaufman]

24. Agreed, mostly. However, it's a bit of a chicken/egg scenario ....

... re: production capacity. We definitely need to begin REGULATING the production of more, cleaner electricity.

Regarding pollution, even if we were powering the electrics off of coal-fired plants, we'd still be better off than today, since the coal plants would produce less total emissions from day one and would allow for a single point on which to focus development for cleaner production. In parallel, of course, we'd want to begin implementing more wind and solar.

And, don't forget, we also need to get off foreign oil -- so we can stop killing people.

[Norrin Radd]

33. We should use the wasted space along highways for solar panels,

and that would employ people to maintain them.

[Shallah Kali]

34. I like that idea! Also get sponsors to pay $ put their name on it

use them instead of billboards to cover up front cost and maininence.

[Pierre.Suave]

43. Good god no

That would be ugly...

[Shallah Kali]

63. I would rather look at solar panels making clean energy

with a small sign naming the sponsor than the huge billboards allowed in many states, but that is just my opinion. By using sponsors to help pay for the instilation of panels it will cut down the protests over cost which might acutually make these reality instead of a day dream posted on the internet. We all know America and the rest of the world can't stand to use as much energy as we currently do and create it in ways that sicken us all, not to mention global climate change. the solution will not be one magic bullet but many smaller actions. And so I would rather look at solar panels on the nations freeways and turnpikes than deal with the global warming which might ruin the earth for most of human life in my lifespan.

[TreasonousBastard]

44. I'm not so sure about that...

because coal is just about the dirtiest fuel we have.

Not only are there sulfur, mercury, and other nasties from unscrubbed coal stacks, but coal is just carbon, making even cleaned up emissions almost entirely CO2. At least when the dual-use plants are burning natural gas, there's four times as much water vapor emitted as CO2 and far fewer pollutants. Similar with cars-- although the thermal efficiency of even diesel engines isn't enough to make up for the efficiencies of plugging into the grid, modern cars are remarkably pollutant free and do emit a lot of water vapor with their CO2.

Of course, if we expanded the grid and reduced emissions at the same time...

Something we actually could do if we wanted to.

[Pierre.Suave]

45. But

to feed the electricity needs of a large scale move to electric cars would require the building of MORE of those coal burning electric plants. When we all turn on our AC and cause rolling blackouts, imagine what would happen if we all got home, plugged in our cars, and then turned on the AC...

[Canuckistanian]

26. Tesla offers a solar package, as well

You can buy and install a solar panel for your house (through their partners) that can charge up your car and have a little left over to put back into the grid.

Yeah, I know, even more money to put up, but then you have complete independence from any outside power source.

[Touchdown]

30. A few things to consider.

Most of these cars are going to be recharged in off-peak hours in their garages (when it's also recommended to run your dishwasher), so the grid wouldn't be taxed as much. Also, the charging stations in California are solar powered, making good use of that shaded shelter.

Regarding the cleaner electric plants, it's true that we need to get off of Coal power, which is still 60% of our energy production...but it is a domestic fossil fuel, so that solves the dead soldiers for oil problem. Also, US power plants run at around 90% efficiency. Even the most efficient internal combustion engines in cars run at 35% efficiency...much more polluting with less energy benefit. Re-burning and other technologies make coal burning cleaner as well (the just need to be installed), so in the mean time when we can explore wind and solar renewable plants. Someone on another thread said something....It's also easier to regulate and keep clean 5000 power plants than it is to clean up 100 Million cars.

Just food for thought.:hi:

[ekwhite]

49. Electric cars would mostly use 'off-peak' power

Electric cars would not necessarily require new generation capacity, as they would be plugged in at night, during 'off-peak' hours, when air conditioners run less. If new generation capacity is required, the net pollution effect is much less, as it is easier to control smokestack pollution in new plants than it is to control it in automotive tailpipes.

[BrklynLiberal]

23. Kick!! I have been sending articles about this car to everyone I know.

CNET.COM had a slide show and article about it as well.

[ThoughtCriminal]

37. Wired this month

Has an article about the Tesla car this month.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.08/tesla.html

(And Steven Cobert on the cover!)

[Up2Late]

39. He's almost exactly right, on everything, except for...

...his quick dismissal of the Hydrogen fuel cell, which would work nicely with the technology in this car. Good to see another Auto writer wake up, but his quick dismissal of the Hydrogen Fuel cell says to me that he still doesn't understand that Hydrogen is not a fuel, but a way of storing energy, and if integrated with this type of technology, could extend the electric cars range almost indefinitely.

I like this part too:

...Did you already calculate that if even a fraction of the $300 billion -- a truly staggering amount -- we've wasted on BushCo's failed and disgusting war could have gone to revolutionizing our nation's energy infrastructure (like, say, funding large-scale development of the Roadster's technology), instead of annihilating a pip-squeak nonthreatening nation over its oil reserves while simultaneously serving as the most successful terrorist-recruitment poster in world history, the United States could be considered the epicenter of integrity and invention once again? Of course you did.

But oh wait. Such an obvious, lucid redirection of resources and ideology would require someone with true vision in the White House. Someone with integrity. And intelligence. And fearlessness. And an articulate understanding of complex ideas. And a Congress to match. Never mind....

<http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2006/08/02/notes080206.DTL&feed=rss.mmorford>

[liberal N proud]

42. How will they kill this electric car?

[TreasonousBastard]

48. I'm still smelling a scam here...

like a few others I've seen over the years. Even assuming it's not a scam, it ain't easy to start a car company. Ask Bricklin about that. So I'll believe it when I see it actually being sold and driven.

The concept does make sense-- buy a certified car and put new guts in it. Backyard machanics have been putting electric motors in Corollas and Escorts for years, so why not a Lotus?

And, making the first one the expensive one to put money in the bank makes good business sense. You get a lot more PR with a sports car than an econobox. Besides, it's probably easier to talk Lotus into selling you engineless cars than Honda. And, it's not the sort of thing that would be your only car.

But, let's see if they're around next year talking about more affordable models.

[IronLionZion]

56. Performance and racing technology trickles down to passenger cars

and that's why this Tesla is absolutely brilliant. Obviously, I don't have the means to buy one, but it's nice to know it exists to turn conventional wisdom on its head.

The mind-blowing speed from a small engine is only due to the ultra-low weight. The gas powered Elise is also wicked fast. I'm a strong supporter of more lightweight cars. It's disgusting seeing these big heavy SUVs on the road driven by people who don't know how to drive them and think they are invincible until they skid and roll over.

My main concerns are: running out of charge without a charging station nearby, coal pollution, lack of satisfying engine roar, lack of gears, and the severe risk of electrocution in case of a wreck. That battery can and will kill you.

Other than that, here's to hoping for a new generation of alternative fuel vehicles and maybe better railroad systems too.

[rasputin1952]

65. Just as an aside; Years ago on the old Tonight Show...

sometime back in the 70's, the same guy who had developed the 8 Track Tape player, had also come up w/a mini-steam engine that could propel a good sized Ford/GM car up to 80 mph. The unit was hand carried on by the guy, and maybe the size of a dinner plate. Naturally, this was seen as something of a "woo-woo" item, but it sparked interest for a couple of months.

What was fascinating was that this was a self contained unit, and while I can't recall many of the details now, it sounded like it had some promise. Some 35 years later, we've moved into the absolute opposite of energy conservation, and have left any "good" ideas behind. It is all about money, and those that have huge reserves are more than willing to use some of it to suppress new technologies.

It takes a great deal of perseverance to see anything new come from established practices and businesses. The "Million Mile Tire" was lost years ago, simply because it was realized that one would by one set of tires every 10 years, and tire companies would go broke. The public and humanity itself suffers from the greed of the few, we need to have a complete change in how we view "corporatism" and supply and demand. What it comes down to, is that some are more than willing to destroy the very earth they live on, just to make another dollar.

[Blue_Tires]

68. ttt !!