2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

http://www.automobilemag.com/features/awards/1301_2013_automobile_of_the_year_tesla_model_s/viewall.html

by chanux • 14 years ago

447 280 14 years ago

automobilemag.com

chanux• 14 years ago

Did I see user emails in comments there?

tocomment4• 14 years ago

Is that why TSLA stock is up today?

zalew5• 14 years ago

doubtful. it's not a real award like COTY or International Engine Of The Year.

jeremyarussell2• 14 years ago

Err, exactly what makes those awards more real? Just how many people would concede the point?

mncolinlee11• 14 years ago

I would guess a mix of the positive jobs report and short covering from margin calls is at fault. Right-leaning investors have seemed to want the company to fail for months, but Tesla is looking resilient with their good backlog and a strong economy. They're paying back their DOE loan early.

tocomment4• 14 years ago

What do you mean by short covering from margin calls? What's causing the margin calls?

brc2• 14 years ago

>Right-leaning investors have seemed to want the company to fail for months, but Tesla is looking resilient with their good backlog and a strong economy. They're paying back their DOE loan early.

Seriously? You think people are prepared to lose money to make a political point?

patrickgzill2• 14 years ago

Good for Tesla. I have seen and sat in, the Model S at their showroom in the Park Meadows Mall in Denver (well, south of Denver). It is an impressive looking car and everything just feels right. I have not driven it, however.

thematt• 14 years ago

That screen in the center console is huge. Was it on and if so how was it to use? Looks pretty useful for mapping.

moystard• 14 years ago

I find it way to huge, and kind of out of place as the rest is subtle and clean.

patrickgzill2• 14 years ago

It was huge! I didn't pair my phone to it, but all the features were very cleanly laid out (you control many things, from music, web, to climate control , fan speed, etc. from it).

In trying to imagine what it would be like to use while driving, I can see that it would work just fine.

nealabq• 14 years ago

When will the Google self-driving fleet include a Tesla?

elchief• 14 years ago

Tesla is actually the perfect partner for google's robocars, as the other big manufacturers are bound to lose from declining number of autos, tesla could in fact gain.

timdorr4• 14 years ago

Considering both Sergey Brin and Larry Page are investors in Tesla, I would think that's a distinct possibility.

bobbles• 14 years ago

Self driving, electric car that goes and finds a charging station, re-charges and returns while I eat some pancakes? Yes please!

martythemaniak• 14 years ago

Even if Tesla do not survive, ten years from now every new electric car will be a descendant of the Model S in all the major ways - floor-mounted battery pack, lack of physical buttons, etc.

correctifier• 14 years ago

The Model S is a revolutionary car, but I really hope the the big touch display without physical buttons doesn't become the norm. I really prefer the feedback you get from them while keeping your eyes on the road, especially for common functions like the temperature and basic stereo control.

People will disagree with me, but I have really grown to like the current iDrive system which lets me keep my looking up high while my hand sits in a comfortable position.

moted• 14 years ago

I prefer tactile response as well, however I'd guess that good voice activated controls will be introduced soon enough.

brc2• 14 years ago

I believe the new display being (been?) developed by Cadillac has got tactile feedback.

Otherwise, yes, I agree with you. Touchscreen displays are as dangerous as texting while driving.

CamperBob26• 14 years ago

I'm a big Tesla fan, but I disagree. The only way electric cars can possibly make sense is if the batteries are swappable. The electric cars being built now are evolutionary dead ends, IMHO.

kalininalex• 14 years ago

The battery on Model S IS swappable, in fact quick-swappable, at least per Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/18/idUS24518959652011...)

Xcelerate4• 14 years ago

If room-temperature superconducting ever becomes a reality, then each car will be loaded with a SMES unit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_magnetic_energy...) that charges instantly.

jblow18• 14 years ago

The "Supercharger" already works pretty well. It's the first attempt at such a thing. I would expect that maybe subsequent attempts would be even better?

So I don't understand why you are saying "the only way they can possibly make sense" is if the batteries are swappable. There is already sort of an existence proof otherwise, in California, right now.

mncolinlee11• 14 years ago

As an electric car owner, I haven't found a need for swapping batteries. Consider this: if a refueling station offered battery swapping they would also need to exhaustively test your batteries to determine that they were not abused and to determine how much credit to offer for their current capacity. How does that save much time from just using a quick-charge station?

Today, I have plenty of range to get to and from work and most activities driving a car with 1/3rd the EPA range of a Tesla Model S. Consider that you can still do long road trips simply by stopping at a quick charge station for a meal and a fillup or you can use some small part of the money you're saving on fuel to rent a car. Given how few road trips I take, I could probably take a limo every time if I wanted.

fghh45sdfhr3• 14 years ago

I am big electric engines for cars fan, I just thing we should use fuel cells and fill them with something very similar to gasoline just generated from wind, sun, tides, or nuclear sources.

warrenmiller• 14 years ago

does anyone else think that screen is a bit too much?

ChuckMcM• 14 years ago

I thought so, but when I got to see one 'in action' its a lot less of an issue. In terms of surface area the intrument panel on most cars is about equivalent, its just shaped into a long dashboardy kind of thing.

I worry about glass shards in a side collision though.

joezydeco• 14 years ago

It looks a lot nicer and less ambitious than the prototype that they showed at CES earlier this year.

http://pictures.topspeed.com/IMG/crop/200903/tesla-model-s--...

firefox• 14 years ago

From what I know, the screen is optional!

pearle• 14 years ago

I think so. And it's probably something that will look very dated in a few short years.

rdl2• 14 years ago

If they can get to volume production, I think the $50-60k models, leased, could be great sellers. The really interesting thing would be to rip off Better Place's model and lease the cars at a discounted monthly payment plus a per-mile "fuel equivalence" charge. It's just accounting, but you could basically price the Model S at BMW 3-series lease rates (or even Toyota Avalon!), plus a per-mile fuel cost which was 10-20% less than gasoline. Combine that with the quality of the Model S, the environmental/status benefit (90+% of the girls I've polled would be more impressed by a Model S than a 2-3x as expensive Ferrari), and HOV lane access, and it would be great.

The Leaf, which basically sucks by comparison as a car, is essentially free in California ($200/mo lease, $2500 California incentive tax credit covers the first year, fuel, HOV lane, and toll savings vs. a less-efficient gas car pretty much cover lease payments IMO).

I'd have a Leaf as a hold-over until Teslas ship in quantity if I had a second parking space.

zalew5• 14 years ago

> (90+% of the girls I've polled would be more impressed by a Model S than a 2-3x as expensive Ferrari)

maybe in SF (or US in general, I don't know). around most of Europe flashy loud cars are still cool, fortunately.

arjunnarayan• 14 years ago

In general, you should be careful in choosing which set of girls you want to impress.

Adirael• 14 years ago

I guess it depends on the country. Rare stuff sells. Depends on the type of person too. I've lived in Marbella and there's a lot of Ferraris and really expensive cars there, almost more than normal utility cars.

Now when I see a red Ferrari is like: oh nice, you've got the same car every rich guy has in the same fucking color, good for you!

tocomment4• 14 years ago

That's a really great idea. It's kind of like the Solar City model applied to cars. I wonder if anyone has thought of that?

timdorr4• 14 years ago

Considering Elon Musk is both CEO of Tesla and Chairman of Solar City, maybe he has.

BenoitEssiambre• 14 years ago

Why are they giving away Leafs in California? I had read multiple articles about the new lower prices and went on the nissan.ca website to price one here in Canada and it's almost $700/month for a 48 month lease! What up with that?

rdl2• 14 years ago

The car prices are high ($35k or so, at which point I'd prefer to just spend the $50k on the low-end Tesla), but the leases are really cheap. I think it's a combination of tax incentives (federal and state, plus some CARB things) and corporate average fuel economy (selling some EVs makes your average better...). Also, I'm pretty sure Nissan (which has one of the best CEOs in the car industry, Carlos Ghosn) thinks EVs are the future, and wants to be an early strong competitor, just like Toyota did really well with the Prius.

jeswin• 14 years ago

Now the galleries would look a lot better if they used normal photographs; instead of hideous HDR and heavy photoshopping.

MiguelHudnandez• 14 years ago

In one in particular, there is a fake depth-of-field effect which makes it look like they took a picture of a toy car on the ground.

This is the image: http://image.automobilemag.com/f/features/awards/1301_2013_a...

Edit: Whoops, it is actually the car's key, laying on the ground. See this link for the key shown in someone's hand: http://www.forbes.com/sites/hannahelliott/2012/07/24/a-quick...

MatthewPhillips2• 14 years ago

They need a lot more dealerships. Look at the map of their dealers and there's a huge hole in the middle of the country. A couple in Chicago, one in Denver, and one in Houston. That's it. If you live in say Tennessee you're looking at close to a 10 hour drive to even see one.

http://www.teslamotors.com/locations

dangrossman• 14 years ago

They need something to sell first. All those showrooms can do right now is sell reservations for a possible 2014 sale.

jcfrei• 14 years ago

remember, tesla is not actually selling cars inside their "dealerships". customers still have to do this themselves on the tesla homepage - and even then it's just a reservation. source from a previous hacker news thread: http://autos.yahoo.com/blogs/motoramic/tesla-plans-short-cir...

MatthewPhillips2• 14 years ago

You can't buy a Roadster?

timdorr4• 14 years ago

Tesla's strategy for retail is designed by George Blankenship, who created Apple's retail strategy. As a result, you should expect a similar approach: Stores built out near major population centers first until you have 80-90% of the country within a 100-50 mile range of a Tesla location.

sahaj• 14 years ago

It's a population thing along with limited monetary resources.

prostoalex4• 14 years ago

Tesla will not do dealerships, only direct-to-consumer sales http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/tesla-approach-distributing-...

jonknee2• 14 years ago

They're called flyover states for a reason. I wouldn't expect a big push into red states for quite a while.

cvanderlinden• 14 years ago

Wow, I hate that top navigation bar following me everywhere. I'm trying to read your article not navigate your site! If I want to change pages, I know where to go, back to the top.

salimmadjd• 14 years ago

Tesla is still a niche luxury car, and I still think they will not remain in business in their current form. Several top-name brands are hot on their heels which will put a lot of pressure in their customer acquisition prospects.

As for the Automobile endorsement, I don't like how they are misleading consumers with their data. The test vs. M5 was designed to take account Tesla's sweet spot of performance, "...drag race to 100 mph with a 560-hp BMW M5". At 0-60 M5 will beat Tesla, and Telsa hits the top speed 130 mph and M5 is limited at 155. So it's really around 100-120 mph where Tesla has the edge. This doesn't even include racing them on a track to include handling aspect of a car. I would have preferred the article stating something like:

in one aspect, Tesla is even faster than the BMW M5, the drag race to 100 mph.

In general I'm seeing a downtrend among publications when it comes to educating consumers, especially educating them on how to think about data. This will have a long-term consequence on how consumers can be duped by faulty advertising, especially with political ads.

bryanlarsen3• 14 years ago

The M5 may beat the Tesla at 0-60 on paper (3.7 seconds vs 3.9), but in practice the Tesla will beat the M5.

A 0-60 is measured from the time the car starts to move. If you measure from when the accelerator is depressed, the Tesla gains a huge advantage and will beat the M5.

EDIT:

Here's a 0-100 video:

http://ca.autoblog.com/2012/10/09/sport-sedan-shootout-tesla...

Now unless there's some tricks in the video, it's quite obvious that the M5 does much better at the latter half of the drag than the first half. So if a Tesla can beat an M5 at 0-100, it will destroy it at 0-60.

gniv• 14 years ago

That's an interesting observation. Intuitively, I believe it, but do you have a source?

kerryfalk4• 14 years ago

This is very strange and foreign reasoning to me. I competitively raced cars in an amateur series.

You are claiming that the Tesla's superior throttle response makes it faster 0-60. The car needs to move the weight, so measuring it from when it starts moving to when it hits the desired speed seems like a perfectly reasonable metric.

Throttle response needs to be measured separately.

The M5 comparison is more than enough to get an idea for the car's capabilities. I've never driven a Model S. I've driven several cars in the area of the M5. If the Model S is in that class, it's a beast!

DanEdge• 14 years ago

There's something very odd about that video. It looks like the M5 is driven off the line from tickover which is not how you would launch it in practice. C.f. http://youtu.be/E-xVVPO8L8s

kayoone2• 14 years ago

the point is to give an example how fast the Tesla really is, and it doesnt matter if its only faster in one area than a BMW M5, but the fact that it is even able to keep up with the pinnacle of pertrol performance sedans is very impressive!

to3m• 14 years ago

The Tesla driver will probably suffer less from range anxiety, too.

MarkMc• 14 years ago

Yes, Tesla is still a niche luxury car. But in 2007 the iPhone was still a niche luxury phone.

Despite clearly being far superior to competitors, the iPhone was often dismissed because of it's price tag and small market share. Here's what Steve Ballmer had to say in 2007: "Would I trade 96% of the market for 4% of the market? (Laughter.) I want to have products that appeal to everybody. Now we'll get a chance to go through this again in phones and music players. There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It's a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I'd prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get." [1] (In my opinion this quote is Exhibit A in the case for firing Steve "No Chance" Ballmer).

Tesla 2012 seems to be Apple 2007. Other motor industry players should be very worried.

[1] http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/20...

rscale• 14 years ago

Great to see this. There are exactly three automotive companies that excite me these days: Tesla, Better Place, and Google.

Tesla has done a magnificent job of making electric cool and sexy, and that's almost absurdly important with a purchase as emotional as a car.

phildeschaine• 14 years ago

That's a pretty sexy car, I'd take one in a second if I had $60k+ to drop, and I'm not even in the market for ANY car (bike commuting ftw). That said, I'm holding out for a Model X. The falcon wing doors are just SO badass.

cletus2• 14 years ago

The Tesla Model S is a great-looking car but, unlike some, I still don't see electric cars as being the future. Batteries are still too heavy, take too long to charge, are too expensive and require materials that in widespread use will probably become far more of a problem than fossil fuels in terms of scarcity.

Of course, there can be and no doubt will be technological innovation in this space but (IMHO) the future of personal powered transportation will still be fuel-driven.

What will change is the source of that fuel. It may be some kind of hydrogen-rich fuel (methane or ammonia) or it may be making the necessary hydrocarbons from the air and/or seawater.

Portable fuel supplies are just too convenient. The relative simplicity of the internal combustion engine (or some derivation thereof) is just too advantageous compared to even optimistic long-term alternatives.

EDIT: the amount of cognitive dissonance when it comes to electric cars is mind-boggling eg:

A: the benefits are too numerous to list

B: can you use it in an apartment?

A: no...

Or the amount of infrastructure retro-fitting that needs to happen (power to parking garages being just one). Or ignoring issues or range and recharge times. Even with swappable batteries, even if that were a thing that people would do (there are security, weight and cost issues), the recharge time is still an issue.

Power is not free. An electric vehicle still needs to get power from somewhere and that power requires all the normal transmission infrastructure.

Someone brought up what's happening in NJ but if you had an electric car you'd be even more screwed. At least now you can transport gas to people.

Seriously, out of cost, weight, range and charging time all of them need to get an order of magnitude better to even be on par with fuel-driven vehicles.

How exactly have electric vehicles "already won"?

revelation• 14 years ago

Internal combustion engines are not at all simple. Sleek animations might make it seem like that, but when you are blowing stuff up, that tends to complicate things.

In comparison, electrical motors are extremely simple and maintenance-free. All while being on a level of efficiency that just can't be reached with a combustion engine.

mibbitier3• 14 years ago

Burning coal to make electricity, then transmitting that electricity all over the country, wasting some of it along the way... Then using that to charge a battery, then using that to power a motor.

I'm not sure it sounds particularly efficient unless you completely ignore all the work that goes into making the electricity :/

r00fus3• 14 years ago

> Portable fuel supplies are just too convenient. The relative simplicity of the internal combustion engine (or some derivation thereof) is just too advantageous compared to even optimistic long-term alternatives.

We've spent way too long ignoring the externalities of our fossil-fuel energy supplies. Besides, moving to electric is a great common platform for future energy sources. It makes a whole lot of sense, for example, separating the power plant (ie, gas engine vs. remote nuke plant charging your batteries) from the propulsion mechanism (motors).

jblow18• 14 years ago

Those of us who own electric cars know that electric cars have already won. They are just too good compared to regular somewhat-junky gasoline cars. The benefits are too numerous to list.

The only problem that I have with my Roadster is that if I want to take a long road trip, there has to be a big stopover in the middle, which makes trips much longer. The Model S solves that. Therefore, EVs have won. They are here now, they are real, and they work. All that needs to happen is for the cost to come down, but there is nothing preventing that.

If you have parking at home, an EV is way better than gas or hydrogen because you never need to take your car somewhere to fuel it, ever (unless on a very long road trip). You just come home, park, and plug it in. It is hard to communicate how good this feels until you've had an EV for a few weeks and you're driving past all these gas stations and kind of laughing because you don't need them.

chc• 14 years ago

Aren't EVs totally unusable if you live in an apartment? That was my impression when I looked into them. Like, how would I charge a car in my parking stall?

hyperbovine2• 14 years ago

So to get an electric car that affords me as much freedom as a fossil burner I /only/ need to drop $102k? Sign me up! /s Electric cars will have won when normal people can afford them. I hope that'll be soon, but it's definitely not the case right now.

tsotha6• 14 years ago

Uh huh. How much did you spend on your Roadster, and how much is it going to cost to replace the battery pack when it wears out after only ten years or so?

abhimishra5• 14 years ago

How does the Model S solve the longer trips issue? On a road-trip I might drive 500 miles in a day. The priciest Model S gets 300 miles at 55 miles an hour. And with climate control on that is likely to be less in reality. If this trip were in cold weather (ski trips and such) the range would be SIGNIFICANTLY less.

As a comparison, my gasoline-hybrid can squeeze out over 500 miles on a tank at 55 miles an hour. And I never worry about being 'stranded' as I might with a fully-electric car.

Another issue I have with battery-based solutions is the potential lifespan of the batteries - they are warrantied only for 8-years. A new pack costs ~30k (pulled this unofficial figure from discussions in the Tesla forums).

lobster_johnson• 14 years ago

While I'm all for EVs and would happily change if I could afford to, this strikes me as off:

> ... if I want to take a long road trip, there has to be a big stopover in the middle, which makes trips much longer. The Model S solves that.

The Model S has a range of about 400 km (250 miles). For long highway-type trips, that's probably about 4 hours of driving. Which is not much.

It won't get you from Köln to Berlin or from Paris to Lyon or from New York to Toronto, to pick a few random examples that slightly exceed 400 km. Those are distances that people would consider "long trips", and quite reasonables ones, too.

Obviously a 400-km-range car is plenty for most people, but we can't pretend it doesn't limit our options or force us to find alternative transportation for some trips that would otherwise not be a problem with a gas-powered car.

I assume you at least partly financed the Roadster with income you earned through Braid, by the way. If so, good for you, and I was glad to contribute! :-)

jlmendezbonini• 14 years ago

Did your electric bill increased significantly? Have you measure how many Miles/dollar,or some other similar metric, you get?

jblow18• 14 years ago

... and on the battery chemistry issue, Teslas use Lithium-Ion batteries, just like we have been using in laptops for forever. They are not exotic.

mibbitier3• 14 years ago

You mean the ones that typically only last a year or 2?

cobrausn• 14 years ago

I would disagree. I think the personal commuter vehicle will move to an electric power system if Tesla (or their competition) manages to scale down price and ramp up production. I think heavy work and utility vehicles, however, will remain fuel powered.

I, for one, am happy that we finally have a choice other than gasoline or diesel. Given enough money I'd love for my family to have both an electric and gasoline (or diesel) vehicle.

ericd2• 14 years ago

I think heavy vehicles are actually more likely to switch - the torque characteristics of electric motors are generally a lot better. I may be missing something important there, though.

sry_not4sale• 14 years ago

IMHO electric cars will survive batteries and move toward other storage mechanisms e.g. supercapacitors

jellicle2• 14 years ago

How's gasoline working out now in New Jersey? Not well.

There is currently a massive amount of land and a massive amount of infrastructure (thousands and thousands of tankers, for one) devoted to making gasoline available on every corner, nearly worldwide. If a similar amount of land and infrastructure were devoted to, say, swappable electric batteries, electric cars would have no problems in the "long trip" department.

How can we get there from here? One easy way would be for the government to mandate every gasoline station to include one alternative refueling station - station owner's choice what that might be, but you have to have one. Bootstrap using the current gasoline network.

pork• 14 years ago

What an unfortunate comment/comparison by you.

http://updates.jalopnik.com/post/34669789863/more-than-a-doz...

mburns• 14 years ago

And then you have to sell the public on why you raised gas prices to help push forward your liberal agenda.

confluence9• 14 years ago

You have literally no idea what you are talking about but that's OK because technology doesn't care about what you think - it just happens (cf. computer adoption, robotic automation, AI automation, cars, trains, trucks, looms, engines, planes, ships).

ICE vehicles are relatively complex and not actually cheap going forwards. We're past peak oil and emissions are now being priced (CO2 pollution is no longer free). That means the only way prices are going for ICE vehicles is up.

Electric cars on the other hand don't care what fuel source powers them, are riding the battery-cost curve down, are highly efficient, are relatively simple in operation/maintenance, cheap to run and have no emissions that need to be priced.

Hydrogen vehicles are just plain stupid from an efficiency stand point - where are you going to get the hydrogen exactly? Purifying it is too expensive - and since it's lighter than air - there is no economical source of hydrogen on earth. It'd be cheaper to fuel your car with coal.

Warren Buffett has a famous saying: Don't make statements outside your field of competence - lest you look accidentally foolish.

pirateking2• 14 years ago

I agree with your post and general outlook on electric vehicles - they are definitely the future.

However, I do not agree with Mr. Buffett's statement - if it were the case, no one would ever make a single statement.

abhimishra5• 14 years ago

> Hydrogen vehicles are just plain stupid from an efficiency stand point - where are you going to get the hydrogen exactly? Purifying it is too expensive - and since it's lighter than air - there is no economical source of hydrogen on earth. It'd be cheaper to fuel your car with coal.

No, it is expensive _today_. Which is different from saying it would be expensive at scale.

tsotha6• 14 years ago

>It may be some kind of hydrogen-rich fuel (methane or ammonia)...

Unlikely to be ammonia. Ammonia is dangerous in the kind of concentrations that would make it useful for fuel. When ammonia was used in refrigeration whole families would occasionally die when their refrigerator sprang a leak.

Osmium2• 14 years ago

There's no way a car running on a new, alternative fuel source (e.g. methane or ammonia) is anywhere remotely closer to commercial, viable reality than electric cars. It's a hard problem to crack, but we're close. Anything else is 20 years out at least.

pkulak2• 14 years ago

Imagine if we were the other way around. Everyone was driving electric cars and someone was trying to get us on gas.

I charge my car every night. You're telling me I now have to drive to a "gas station" every time I need to recharge? And we need to ship gas all over the country now? And gas costs _how_ much!?

And then I also have to bring it into the shop every few months to "change the oil"?

And look at the thousands of moving parts! That thing is going to start breaking down after 5 years, tops. Look at all the scheduled maintenance? Shit, replacing just the timing belt will cost me thousands!

And if I turn it on in my garage it will literally kill me and my entire family? No other product I own is nearly that dangerous.

What a joke. I'm keeping my electric car.

devcpp• 14 years ago

Not really the same. You can take a dozen jerrycan of gas that will last you for a long time, and that does for the same price as the gas you'll buy at the station, which is precisely what people did before you could find gas stations every few miles.

Not so for electricity: charging and taking 10 batteries with you on a trip is much more of a hassle and quite expensive. Fuel is really the deal-breaker for the buyers who won't go with an electric car until "fuel" is available everywhere. The other points are moot until this issue is solved.

freehunter6• 14 years ago

The difference is, the money spent on gas infrastructure is already spent, paid for, and profitable. This happened a long time ago. The infrastructure to allow the same number of cars to park for 30 minutes+ to recharge has not been invested in, not been paid for, and not been profitable for decades. If it had been, your argument would make sense. As reality stands, though, you're just furthering the case as to why electric cars are fighting a losing battle.

I have to leave my car parked where? For how long?

Bud2• 14 years ago

It's hard for me to even enumerate how many ways this is wrong. But I'll try.

Batteries are still too heavy

Changing. Rapidly.

take too long to charge

Improving, rapidly. Much more rapidly than, say, gas mileage.

(batteries) are too expensive

Sorry to be a broken record, but this too is improving rapidly.

require materials that in widespread use will probably become far more of a problem than fossil fuels in terms of scarcity

This assumes that battery tech will remain static, and use the same materials, forever. Bad assumption, there.

Or the amount of infrastructure retro-fitting that needs to happen (power to parking garages being just one).

This is already starting to happen and will only accelerate. I'm working on a gigantic office building project which will have hundreds of charging stations in its parking area. This will be the norm, very soon. And perhaps you forgot, but building tens of thousands of gas stations all over the place wasn't easy, either...nor is maintaining them. We already have a beefy electrical infrastructure; we just have to keep working on that.

Or ignoring issues or range and recharge times.

Tesla's range is already over 250 miles; this is getting very close to that of many gas guzzlers. And again, this is rapidly improving, even though we're not working very hard on it as a society. Imagine what would happen if we tried!

Power is not free. An electric vehicle still needs to get power from somewhere and that power requires all the normal transmission infrastructure.

Yeah, and we already have that infrastructure. By the way, gas isn't free, either. Nor is it nearly as efficient as electric power can be.

Someone brought up what's happening in NJ but if you had an electric car you'd be even more screwed. At least now you can transport gas to people.

Uh, you can transport electricity to people, too. We have power lines for that.

Seriously, out of cost, weight, range and charging time all of them need to get an order of magnitude better to even be on par with fuel-driven vehicles.

Er, no. Do you know what an order of magnitude IS? Cost: we're within a factor of 2-3 of this being affordable, even if you use the very expensive Tesla as your test case. Weight: Already at parity with many cars. Range: Already discussed above; near parity with many gas vehicles. Charging time: This doesn't have to get much better at all; you can recharge at night.

cletus2• 14 years ago

> Changing. Rapidly.

That doesn't negate my point.

> And perhaps you forgot, but building tens of thousands of gas stations all over the place wasn't easy

You're not the only one to bring this up and it confuses me why. The gas infrastructure has already been built. It's a sunk cost. EV infrastructure most certainly is not.

> Tesla's range is already over 250 miles; this is getting very close to that of many gas guzzlers.

For significantly higher capital cost, with (probably) much lower shelf life. And when the "gas guzzler" hits its range, what does it do? Spends a few minutes filling up and does it again (as opposed to recharging for 8 hours).

> Uh, you can transport electricity to people, too. We have power lines for that.

Yes, that was my point. Look at all the people in NJ/NY/CT without power.

> Er, no. Do you know what an order of magnitude IS?

Yes, but we're talking about the battery tech and the batteries are only some portion of the total cost of a vehicle.

> you can recharge at night.

Given a fairly narrow use case, sure.

lambda• 14 years ago

> Batteries are still too heavy

> Changing. Rapidly.

It doesn't matter how rapidly they are changing; the original comment was saying that they are too heavy now. You can hypothesize about where they will be in 5 years, but that's uncertain and doesn't apply to cars that are available now.

>take too long to charge

> Improving, rapidly. Much more rapidly than, say, gas mileage.

Again, rate of improvement doesn't have much to do with what's available now. And even if it is improving now, where will it top out? I can fill my tank in a minute and a half at the pump; will I ever be able to fully charge a car in that amount of time?

> Sorry to be a broken record, but this too is improving rapidly.

And again, it doesn't matter how fast it's improving; what matters is whether in the end, it will wind up such that it's cheaper than fuel-powered cars.

> Tesla's range is already over 250 miles; this is getting very close to that of many gas guzzlers. And again, this is rapidly improving, even though we're not working very hard on it as a society. Imagine what would happen if we tried!

This doesn't matter to me if I need to take a 500 mile trip. Then, instead of just filling up for a minute or two at the pump, I have to wait for hours for a charge every couple hundred miles.

> Uh, you can transport electricity to people, too. We have power lines for that.

It's a lot easier to clear a road to get trucks past than it is to repair a full power grid.

> Charging time: This doesn't have to get much better at all; you can recharge at night.

No, I can't. I don't have a parking space where I live. I have to park on the street, and can't rely on being able to park in front of my house. Unless we get recharge stations installed at every parking space, an electric car will never be practical for me.

cweiss• 14 years ago

> Power is not free. An electric vehicle still needs to get power from somewhere and that power requires all the normal transmission infrastructure.

My understanding is that Tesla's new SuperCharger stations are solar based, charging a a local battery that's used to supply customer Teslas, then feeding any excess back into the grid, making it a "negative carbon footprint" source.

marcamillion• 14 years ago

Couldn't disagree more. What's more portable than a solar-powered charging station? Solar energy is getting better and better - i.e. producing more KwH per unit of time of sunlight. That will likely continue - as most technologies tend to do.

Let's assume for a minute that Tesla survives the next few months and is able to ramp up production and deliver vehicles to it's 13,000 clients that it has received deposits for, it is mind-boggling how significant that impact will be on costs of everything.

The costs of production of each car, each battery used in each car, each car part, etc. will all fall. The cost of production of solar panels used at the Tesla Superchargers around the country, will fall.

I wouldn't be surprised if Tesla starts selling franchises on the superchargers - say 7/11, etc.

At some point in the next decade, just from Tesla alone - again, assuming they survive and continue on the current trajectory - you can reasonably assume that you will be able to travel much cheaper (if not free) than current gasoline. Not to mention that they will likely start selling Solar powered kits for home charging.

The question about an electric car performing in a flood/water is similar to the question of a combustion engine performing in a flood/water. They both will likely have trouble - although, I would be more willing to bet that the Tesla design could handle it better.

Everything you are seeing now is just the tip of the iceberg. This is just the model T of EVs. With the Model S, the EV is finally coming of age. The future looks bright, and I am excited.

If anyone can bring that future forward, I would stack my chips on Elon Musk.

dancesdrunk3• 14 years ago

I agree with the statement that electric cars are not the future, but for a slightly different set of reasons.

My MSc thesis / project was studying future engines and fuels - long story short:

- IC engines have efficiencies of anywhere from 70% to 5%; depending on a huge range of factors and types (rotax at 3000rpm on diesel vs v12 carb at 8000rpm on 98-ron, outside temp and pressure etc).

- Over 100 years of research has gone in to them.

- Almost the same time has been spent on building up our infrastructure around the production of fuel for IC engines.

- They can run on anything from ethanol to vegetable oil to human waste (after a certain amount of refining of course).

- Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. Not to mention the lightest. It just so happens to be incredibly flammable/volatile too.

My solution? Replace petrol with Hydrogen for internal combustion - much alike the conversions we already do for LPG.

I spent roughly half a year on the theory behind it, and then another couple of months actually in the lab with an old FI 500cc motorcycle parallel twin engine (they're tough as hell). I converted it to LPG, replaced all the tubings, modified the injectors and started pumping in various blends of fuel (5% ethanol, 80% 91-Ron, 10% LPG, 5% Hydrogen etc). On some blends it ran smoother, on others there was horrible knocking, one some it just kept cutting out.

Unfortunately I was only allocated a year and never got a chance to finish - the amount of trial and error involved day in day out was gruelling. Not to mention at least once a week I'd have to rebuild the whole engine.

The future for me isn't electric cars, not at all. They'll hit the same constraints of raw materials that you mention, and it's wether they hit that constraint just as the technology is getting to a point where mass adaption is possible. Not to mention the charge time, the life cycle of a battery etc etc. It is hydrogen powered cars - wether that would be fuel cells or IC engines I don't know, but I'm leaning towards IC engines.

klinquist3• 14 years ago

Where'd you find an 'old' FI 500cc motorcycle engine? Motorcycles didn't get FI until the late 90s, and some STILL have carbs!

Or did you convert a Suzuki EX500 to FI?

henrikschroder4• 14 years ago

A plastic bucket of gas contains more hydrogen than a bucket of liquid hydrogen, and if you put a lid on it the gas will happily stay in the bucket, whereas for the hydrogen you need a pressurized corrosive-resistant container.

Hydrogen is not the future, because it's incredibly difficult to handle, we don't have the infrastructure for it (unlike gas and electricity), and the energy density of hydrogen is really bad compared to gas and batteries.

The engine is a part of the puzzle, but infrastructure is a much larger piece that has to be solved in a reasonable way.

lispython• 14 years ago

But electric cars are not just about batteries, they need a whole new kind of electric and mechanism. Although it is not so convent to recharge today, when other kind batteries get mature(like Fuel Cell Battery), nearly all Tesla develop today can be used.

lancewiggs3• 14 years ago

I'm somewhat astonished that members of a community dedicated to building products to disrupt incumbent industries upvoted this comment to the top slot.

One way to think about this is that electric vehicles (EVs) are at the iPhone 1 stage, with the Tesla S being the first to demonstrate to a lot of people that it can all be put together in a compelling, yet expensive and not quite perfect package.

As with the first iPhone, the prescient community can see vast potential, but recognise that there are still a few issues to deal with.

Those issues are summed up as "battery energy density". Once we have battery energy density that allows us to power cars at road speeds for 10-15 hours, then we will have completely solved the riddle of the recharging station. We can still charge at work an home for shorter trips, and can charge at carparks and paid accommodation for longer ones. Luckily battery energy density is continually getting better - and is the main reason that we are seeing the emergence of the EVs we have today.

As an aside, we can probably forget about developing recharging stations as the ranges will be too long and the logistics of journey interruption poor. Let's think instead about developing products to help hotels, car-parks, businesses and households set up their own (pay accepting) charging stations. Obviously these will all use the existing electricity grid, with capacity freed up by general electricity efficiency efforts and smarter grid technology.

It's clear that the next generation of EVs will create major and overdue auto-industry disruption. It's almost as clear that the current auto manufacturers, perhaps Toyota aside, are incapable of rapid enough change.

So yes, with the Tesla S it's not clear that EVs will win. Bring it on.

jamesmcn2• 14 years ago

> One way to think about this is that electric vehicles (EVs) are at the iPhone 1 stage, with the Tesla S being the first to demonstrate to a lot of people that it can all be put together in a compelling, yet expensive and not quite perfect package.

I think it is more accurate to compare electric vehicles to the Motorola DynaTAC phones (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_DynaTAC). They are expensive, and are extremely limited in their functionality. They are only viable for people who can throw massive amounts of money at them and have limited demands.

Like the cell phone, electric vehicles may continue to develop to the point where they can adequately replace a landline. In cell phone terms, that would be the early Nokia candybar phones.

[The iPhone is a fairly poor phone, but a great mobile internet device. If you gave me an iPhone instead of a Nokia candybar phone a decade ago, I wouldn't have cancelled my landline. Now that people use email and instant messaging for most communication, a poor quality phone isn't such a big deal.]

damian2000• 14 years ago

As EVs become more popular and the batteries become smaller and lighter, I can see a market for a 'battery exhange' which could be located in existing gas stations ... this would negate the problems with range and recharge ... as usual it would only appear when they become more popular.

scythe2• 14 years ago

>What will change is the source of that fuel. It may be some kind of hydrogen-rich fuel (methane or ammonia) or it may be making the necessary hydrocarbons from the air and/or seawater.

There isn't any such fuel. Hydrogen is dangerous and corrosive, ammonia is hygoroscopic, hydrazine is super-toxic, boranes destroy everything, and that's the end of the story. Synthesizing hydrocarbons is highly inefficient, ditto for biofuels.

The range of hydrogen vehicles is not particularly impressive:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazda_RX-8_Hydrogen_RE

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_7

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peugeot_Quark

If you're willing to spend more, you break even with electric cars:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_FCX_Clarity#Specification...

Electricity works because it's cheap, and only getting cheaper: powering my house already costs me less than fueling my car. The correct answer to your three-line conversation is yes, you can use it in an apartment. You need a plug in your parking garage, maybe, but that's remarkably easy: a drill and a long copper rod can deliver energy through a solid concrete wall (just an example).

Batteries aren't too heavy; ~500# is counterbalanced by the simpler engine. 300-mile range has been demonstrated with lithium-ion batteries and longer is possible with lithium-sulfur. We're not going to run out of lithium, either:

http://gas2.org/2008/10/13/lithium-counterpoint-no-shortage-...

Lithium-sulfur batteries have been my bet for a while. They're light and they could be commercialized in less than a decade. Plus, the specific power is huge, which means way faster charging times.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/7382272v1u32m381/

cbsmith2• 14 years ago

You didn't mention methane. I hear there is lots of that stuff and some places find transportation of it so simple that they have pipes that deliver it right to people's homes... ;-)

cbsmith2• 14 years ago

With some reasonably cost effective (compared to the cost of a car) installation, electric, fuel cell, and CNG vehicles can have their "fuel" delivered right to your home in a very cost effective manner, allowing you to refuel overnight. This is a distinct advantage over gasoline & diesel that goes a long way to mitigating, and for some people completely obliterating, the disadvantage of slow "refueling" times.

Fando• 14 years ago

Good one!

richardw• 14 years ago

EV's certainly haven't already won, but I do think there are many cases where they're (almost) perfect.

For the person/business who doesn't drive far and can plug it in at home/work, they've now saved a detour to the petrol station. I'd love that. I suspect many businesses that have delivery cars within a city could make that work, assuming all the other costs lined up.

I think making batteries portable is very possible, but it'll take a generation or three to get that right, assuming the above market segments are saturated and Tesla sales are limited by this issue.

What remains a problem for me are the lifetime of batteries, and the need to drive outside of coverage areas. I like to drive cars for a while rather than replace them often, so don't like the idea of replacing a large part of the cost. And I don't want to worry about charging stations when going on holiday. But again, for a city-based business that replaces cars more quickly than the batteries would last, those issues might not be relevant.

One strong driver for innovation is that battery technology would become important to (at least) both the IT and auto industries. Research and innovation would accelerate and be useful to both industries via cross-pollination.

mncolinlee11• 14 years ago

How the heck did this ignorant post reach the top? It's as if YC readers are tied to the horse and buggy whip and refuse to do any actual reading about the state of electric cars today. I personally kicked gas over six months ago and haven't looked back.

The 600lb battery on my 2012 Nissan Leaf will weigh 350lbs and store 25% more energy in the 2013 Leaf using the new lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide cathode (NMC) battery chemistry. Not only does it weigh less than most automotive engines, but it also costs much less when the total cost of ownership is considered, including replacement at eight years. They already ARE an order of magnitude better than the car I bought and I'm not dissatisfied with my car today.

http://insideevs.com/nissan-ceo-carlos-ghosn-second-generati...

For the record, I cannot imagine a case where the 280 mile range of the Model S would not be enough. Your car does not need to go 1000 miles without stopping for awhile. If it does, catch a flight or rent a car. As I pointed out, I could afford a limo for road trips for the amount I'm saving on gas.

Also, I heard the major disaster and blackout excuse even before the hurricane happened. The problem everyone fails to consider is that it takes electricity to pump gasoline. The pumps are not siphons and they do not continue to operate without power. Electricity infrastructure is a superset of gasoline infrastructure.

xutopia• 14 years ago

You forget that horses are still cheaper than cars and yet...

willyt• 14 years ago

When I'm driving 600 miles, I usually stop for lunch.

In the UK, all you would need to immediately make most long distance journeys viable is charging bays at about 5 or 6 existing strategically chosen service stations on trunk routes[1]. Remember, you can recharge fully in less than an hour.

Supplying power to charging points is not going to be a big deal. 85kWh battery charging in 1 hour will draw 1.4kW, less than half the maximum for a standard UK domestic plug, in fact less than a plug-in electric heater[2]. So I can also fully recharge in an hour at anyones house, just by running an extension lead out the window at a push. And, it's only going to cost me in the order of £10 to recharge at day rate electricity prices (about £5 on night rate). My current car does about 650 miles on a full tank of diesel driving at 70mph but this costs about £80 and it's much less efficient for city driving due to engine idling and no regenerative braking.

OK so the tesla costs about £46k($70k) and I can't afford that, but that's around what you'd pay for mid to high range BMW estate car. There are enough of these around to make me think there is a seriously large market for this car in Europe, easily enough to jump start the economies of scale in manufacturing needed to drive down the price for lower end models.

[1] Say, M6 Cumbria, M1 Warwickshire, A1 Northumbria, M90 Perthshire, M5 Somerset, M20 Kent

[2] e.g. http://www.johnlewis.com/230843376/Product.aspx

SeanLuke2• 14 years ago

The Fisker Karma was their 2012 Automobile of the Year. In 2011 it was the Volt.

hudibras• 14 years ago

The title of this submission is misleading because when you say "Car of the Year" you think either Motor Trend or Car & Driver. Automobile Magazine is a distant, distant third place in prestige and respect; I didn't even know that they did an annual award.

thetrb• 14 years ago

That's not true, in 2012 The Audi A7 was their car of the year. So that shows that they're not just always picking an electric car no matter what.

The original article also mentions that the Fisker Karma won their "Design of the Year" award in 2012, but not the "Car of the Year".

SeanLuke2• 14 years ago

> The Audi A7 was their car of the year.

Sorry, you're right. The Karma was the "Design of the Year".

kin• 14 years ago

This is good news considering I've been hearing Tesla as a company has been having trouble.

Besides it being an EV, what really appeals to me is the maintenance plan. 600$/year covers everything. Having a car hit the 100k mark and having everything break down unless you replace it entirely is such a pain and is expensive.

confluence9• 14 years ago

Here are some video reviews of the Model S (notice the gas-heads gushing at how awesome it is to drive/look at/fun):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kCG-WqpVnI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOdsTuaJEfc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoFVO31CbE0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpySOCBqntI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEkIMmAX1iM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9SsUbBqOkY

abhimishra5• 14 years ago

No one is mentioning Hydrogen fuel-cell cars that have been in trials, such as the Honda FCX Clarity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_FCX_Clarity).

Relative to battery-powered fully-electric vehicles, some advantages are: - Quick re-fueling (like with a gasoline vehicle) - No loss of range in cold weather (and seems like earlier freezing issues have been addressed) - No deterioration of a battery's performance over time

Some disadvantages: - Hydrogen economy is not here yet and may be difficult to make efficient relative to electricity delivery (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_economy)

beau• 14 years ago

I've owned an electric car for about two years now. The article missed a few points:

1. The regenerative braking means you do not need to replace your brakes nearly as often. (Tires are a different story.)

2. There are far fewer moving parts than a normal car. This decreases the amount of maintenance you need to do.

3. Since there are no moving parts, it's less damaging to the car when drive it hard. Accelerating quickly with non-electric sports cars wears out very expensive components very quickly. With an electric car, you can get that 0-60 performance every single time you accelerate without wearing anything out. (Except the tires.)

When you're comparing the annual fuel bill to the extra cost of the Tesla, don't forget that you are buying a premium sports car. Something like a BMW M5 gets 14/20 MPG, and expects that you feed it premium fuel.

CrankyPants• 14 years ago

Interesting observation, though I think you're missing a few points in your analysis:

1. Engine braking + looking ahead to see when I need to lift = I seldom need to replace brakes. And my driving is quite spirited. (I go through brakes far slower than does my wife, who doesn't drive with as much zest, but accelerates towards red lights, etc.)

2. Yeah. It'd be nice to not have to worry about oil changes. But besides that, good modern drivetrains are incredibly reliable.

3. Not if it's engineered well. There are sports cars that can be driven hard for the better part of a decade with nothing but oil, filter, and tire changes. (This is from experience.) Sure, there are plenty of lousy sports cars out there, but the causes of their poor reliability are more rooted in lousy engineering than in their having internal combustion engines.

rickdale• 14 years ago

Dear Elon Musk:

Want to make cars? Need a lot of workers? Space?

How about old car factories in an old car factory town. Come to Flint, Mi man, Change the world.

djt• 14 years ago

The workers required to make Teslas are no doubt different to the ones used to make cars the old way.

Would be interesting to see what the unions would say about Tesla workplace practices

dchichkov• 14 years ago

One of the things that I really, really like about electric vehicles, is that, with a widespread distribution we are also getting a well-distributed accessible reservoir of electric energy!

See: http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100106/full/463018a.html

hans• 14 years ago

Good thing Romney keeps wanting to throw Tesla under the bus, way to support innovation, way to cheer for jobs n0t.

stretchwithme4• 14 years ago

Valuable innovation doesn't need to be on life support. Technologies that can only exist with subsidies destroy capital and jobs.

I'm all for dealing with problems like pollution, but a tax on the polluters is the way to go. The federal government should not be picking replacements and throwing money at them.

If electric vehicles cannot yet compete with gasoline vehicles that are taxed to pay for their pollution, then its too early for them.

kayoone2• 14 years ago

When cars were introduced gasoline was cheap, today that is very different. Electricity today seems to be cheap, but how will that be in 100 years ? In Germany i already pay twice what people in the US pay for electricity (about $0.28 per kwH) and its only getting more expensive.

Of course, gasoline is a fossil fuel which will run out some time, but dont forget that most of our electricity is still generated by the same fuels (coal!) and with rapidly rising electricity usage i dont see a complete fossile-fuel free electricity infrastructure anywhere near. Even if thats possible with lots of wind/solar/whatever power, i highly doubt its going to be cheaper as we already pay a premium on "green-energy" today, governments move away from nuclear power etc.

2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

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