Electric cars anyone? (vehicle, 2011, auto, sedan)
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Has anyone purchased an electric car from Tesla Motors? I'm leaning toward buying one, myself.
They're taking order reservations for their new Model S car which will be available in 2011. It costs around $49k and gets 300 miles per charge. A full charge takes about 45 mins. and it can be done from any standard outlet.
The Model S is the car I'm looking at. It's a nice looking 4 door sedan that seats 7 and has ample storage space. Plus, it's a really handsome looking car.
They are nice looking cars. In my opinion though I'd wait a couple years. Let them work out the kinks and see what kind of problems people run into (being stuck somewhere with no place to charge or even being allowed to charge). I'm not saying the electric cars are good or bad...just wait and see till they are proven. Now that I think about it, I'd actually wait about 5 yrs before I'd seriously consider buying one...not to mention price. I'm curious on the unknown maintenance on the batteries and other stuff we don't know about because I'm sure there is even though they say its virtually maintenance free because there's no need for oil changes anymore. Will we be able to change our own brakes if we can like on a Ford or Toyota or will we HAVE to bring it in for a $500 service job just for brakes? Like I said I don't know and I want to hear more about what the everyday person has to say about it....not these celebrities that are buying the car.
I would LOVE to know how they expect a "standard" outlet to fully charge a battery pack that is large enough to power a vehicle 300 miles in only 45 minutes. That is a load of BS if they are talking the "standard" 15 or 20 amp 120 volt outlet. Simple physics dictates that you cannot gain that much power in that time frame from what everybody considers a standard outlet. They may be talking about an industry standard outlet with MUCH higher amperage and voltage.
Just downloaded their owners manual from the site. a 12 amp 120 volt recharge will take 40 hours (the ONLY option for charging with a 120 volt outlet.) The fastest charge is the 70 Amp 240 volt charge and that takes 4 hours. This can be found in their owners manual on page 5-2. which is page 35 of 115 when you are viewing it with a PDF reader.
Now if you do the math that highest/fastest charge will consume 16800 watts of electricity per hour which is 16.8 kilowatts/hour which means you will use 67.2 kilowatts of electricity to charge the vehicle enough to go maybe 300 miles (their own manual states "over 200 miles" and not the 300 mile figure). So splitting the difference between the hype and the manual figure 250 miles between charges. Average electrical charge (not including delivery charges) in the US is $0.1186 per kilowatt (Electric Power Monthly - Average Retail Price of Electricity to Ultimate Customers by End-Use Sector, by State) which is $7.97 per charge. This is assuming 100% efficiency and zero loss which is not realistic but we'll run with it anyway to make the vehicle look better. Depending on your area and your power company, the delivery charges can be close to, or equal to, the actual electric rate. Even if it is 1/2; that works out to $11.96 per charge in order to go around 250 miles. At the average regular unleaded price of $2.637 a gallon (U.S. Retail Gasoline Prices) it is going to take a LONG time to see any payback on the premium for driving the vehicle. Plus you have to figure how is the electricity generated in your area and how the increase in electrical usage/generation is going to affect the environment for the whole picture.
@Bydand, I'm unable to read their PDF file. I'm almost blind and use a screen reader. PDFs are not web accessible (e.g., a screen reader cannot read it).
I don't know that much about cars (ex husband always took care of that stuff). My Father is deceased, so I really don't know any "guys" to ask questions like this, of.
So really, any advice and/or information you guys have is very gratefully appreciated.
And now you're saying to yourselves ... umm ... she's nearly blind and is driving LOL. Well, not actually. I'd be buying the car but my sighted Mother that lives with me, would be driving it. My son and I would be passengers.
OK, so if you had $50k cash to buy any car with, what would you suggest? I don't want foreign crap. I want an American car built here in US auto factories. I've never owned a foreign car anyway, and probably never will either.
I would LOVE to know how they expect a "standard" outlet to fully charge a battery pack that is large enough to power a vehicle 300 miles in only 45 minutes. That is a load of BS if they are talking the "standard" 15 or 20 amp 120 volt outlet. Simple physics dictates that you cannot gain that much power in that time frame from what everybody considers a standard outlet. They may be talking about an industry standard outlet with MUCH higher amperage and voltage.
Exactly. It takes longer than that to charge the battery on my cordless Makita drill.
I'm looking forward to the day when there is a feasible, affordable, usable electric car that will be used by millions of people to commute to work every day.
OK, so if you had $50k cash to buy any car with, what would you suggest? I don't want foreign crap. I want an American car built here in US auto factories. I've never owned a foreign car anyway, and probably never will either.
Get a brand new Chevy Malibu LTZ. You can get one for around $25,000 (maybe less, considering how desperate dealers are). It is highly rated, and gets mid-30s for highway mileage.
Thanks for the info. I had no idea Ford had one out already.
I've read that there's a shortage on the Earth minerals used in the production of electric cars, ipods, computer chips, etc. -- and that China has control of 95% of the only place in the world these minerals are found. So, it may become very hard for the US to even compete in that market.
However, I read another article last year on sciencedaily.com about a new product called graphiene that's supposed to conduct electricity near the speed of light.
They're hoping to be able to mass produce the product to power appliances and batteries with this new technology. I'll look up the article later today and post the link if any of you are interested to read it.
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