And cost in Australia will be stupidly out of reach.

-PB

overpriced junk. doesn't hold a candle to the quality of Mercedes Benz BMW etc.

ABS braking used to be only available in luxury cars and now it's standard. (Along with a thousand other examples.)

This car and its features can only be a good thing.

http://www.drive.com.au/new-car-comparison/tesla-model-s-p85d-vs-bmw-m5-nighthawk-comparison-review-20150921-gjrnbq.html

No wonder then that the Model S offers up ballistic performance in the form of a claimed 3.3 second zero to 100km/h sprint with the aforementioned "Insane Mode" activated. Unlike a lot of manufacturers who make bold claims that are hard to repeat in the real world Drive's own testing returned a 3.4 second 0-100km/h run.

More autonomous, better road holding, faster, safer & cheaper than anything Mercedes or BMW can do.
What a sad indictment on the engineering 'capabilities' of the entire internal combustion industry Tesla has been.

Edited by Murdoch Rags Ltd: 30/9/2015 09:20:00 PM

Thousands less moving parts in an electric car vs a combustion based car too.

If they can sort the battery issue out it's not an exaggeration to say it'll be a "game changer". Whole industries will be redundant virtually overnight.

the game has already change....Tesla has effectively (started ) killing off 30% of the world oil supply needs... we see this already with the decisions made by US government to effectively pull out from the Middle East and to deny Keystone Pipeline base on environmental issues :lol:

Agree completely.

Can see that with air conditioning and electric windows.

Just think it's initial launch here in Aus will make it too much.

-PB

The newer P90D does 0-100 in 2.8s and is quicker over 0-50 than the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport, which holds the production car world record for top speed, for one tenth of the price

Edited by Murdoch Rags Ltd: 1/10/2015 07:51:04 AM

Yeah, the game changer will happen in 2017/18 when Tesla finishes construction of their massive gigafactory in Nevada. Around 2020, mainstream electric cars will be cheaper than mainstream combustion cars, due to economies of scale of batteries. The oil & coal industries are going to be decimated.
But "Coal is good for our future"! Hey righties, here's a lesson in poor business management & industry vision, from only 2005

Optimistic :lol: They need to refine better batteries first.

In Oz the Tesla's would be charged using a coal fired grid anyway so...............

You weren't aware that renewable sourced grid fed energy has been available since last century in Australia?
What about solar panels? And now relatively cheap battery storage for that solar power is coming this year so you can go totally off grid
http://www.teslamotors.com/en_AU/powerwall

Yes but our idiotic government has 1) limited the number of panels you can have and 2) slashed the rebate making solar a far less attractive proposition.

I got a few quotes a few months ago and worked out that it would take me like 9 years these days to pay off my panels.

Tesla uses those lithium batteries don't they? I remember seeing a doco on some random south American country having mass deserts loaded with Lithium. Extraction is simple and non-toxic.

I don't know much about electric cars - is the expectation that if/when they become common that we will need charging stations (eg like petrol stations) or is the thinking that the power and range of the batteries will be such that you would only need to charge it at night at home?

9 years? Ripped off! With the sunshine in QLD, you should be able to get panels that are paid off in 5, if not sooner. Get quotes for panels with their own micro inverter - the older style with the single inverter meant that shade on one panel caused the entire daisy chain of panels to drop output.
As for lithium, yes its far less toxic than nickel metal hydride, lead acid & nickel cadmium - its what the Teslawall uses (other major power companies are rushing to release their lithium battery storage in Australia this year also)
South America is estimated to have the largest lithium deposits, but Australia has massive deposits also.

Tesla have already installed charging stations along the Hume Highway so you can drive in a Model S from Melbourne to Sydney, with only 1 or 2 stops needed. Most electric cars are charged at home, as the shorter range still meets 95 - 99% of their daily driving range needs, in a given year.

How long do they take to charge?

30 mins to 80% from 'flat'

Not great but also not too bad. I'm sure 30 mins doing nothing wouldn't be great for a family with screaming kiddies.

The Tesla is about 45 minutes to a full charge but the Tesla is cutting edge and multiple times the price of a base model electric car.

Ordinary electric cars are 4 to 6 hours.

There was talk of a "swap and go" system for electric cars like your gas bottles for the barby.

Pull up, swap out your battery, go.

Obviously there are issues with that.

There's some way to go yet. I think it'll be hybrid electric for a while and then eventually full electric and/or hydrogen.

There's one moving part in an electric car and that's the driveshaft so obviously from a maintenance point of view these cars are infinitely easier to look after.

Presumably in the future you'll drive them to work, charge them at work, drive them home, charge them at home. (From the batteries attached to your house to store your solar charge that you've collected through the day. This is the other massive change coming.) If these house batteries come down to a reasonable price Ben you won't worry about your feed in tariff, you'll just store it and use it.

Electricity companies are shitting themselves about this next wave of technology an people who are going to go off grid given the 10's of billions of dollars they have invested in the extraction, generation, infrastructure and distribution network.

With regards range of electric cars 90-95% of all car travel is for a ridiculously small amount of kms. (In the 10's. Can't remember off hand.)

The other aspect to consider will be the revolution brought on by autonomous vehicles.

Services like Uber would be ridiculously cheaper than they already are with no humans to pay, and there are thoughts of bringing in a "subscription model" so you have a car sitting out the front of your place ready to go to work each day etc. These would go and charge on their own.

If we move from an ownership model to a subscription/hire model the charging issue becomes irrelevant.

What are the ranges for electric cars - Teslas look like around 400-500 kms??? Is that better than other brands?

400-600km for the high end ones. Way less for the cheaper electrics.

This sort of thing will be the step in between now and what's coming.

http://www.chevrolet.com/volt-electric-car.html


An interesting aspect of the cars with regenerative braking installed is you can arrive at the top of a mountain with, say, 20kms left in the battery and when you return to the bottom you'll have more charge in the cell/battery than you arrived at the top with. (Say 40kms for example depending on how heavily you brake.)

Not a bad trick.

Handy website for Oz.

http://www.aeva.asn.au/

And a cool story off the site.

Australian EV racecar ELMOFO makes history!

An Australian made electric supercar rewrote a bit of racing history at Wakefield Park Raceway, Goulburn, by being the first electric Supersport vehicle to compete in a race against equivalent petrol powered cars, and win both races. Not enough? How about setting a round-smashing 57.687 second lap record?

Driver Garth Walden set the cracking pace on August 17th at the NSW Supersport state championship, under the auspices of CAMS. Elmofo, one of AEVA's corporate members, are an electric motorsports team and performance EV parts supplier based in Newcastle, NSW. Brett Sutherland, owner of the vehicle and PV installation firm Solar Power Australia, says he is immensely proud of the teams achievements. "We have changed a lot of people's perception of electric cars, and even had devout petrol head racers come up to me at the track on the weekend and say things like 'I wasn't a fan of this thing before....but I'm certainly on-board now'." He said.

What next for Elmofo? The Supersport race format does change from time to time, including longer races which would leafe the Elmofo a bit short on range. Brett remains optimistic about the future though; "It would be nice to take it overseas to run in some of the high profile events like Pikes Peak."

The Australian EV community can't wait to see what's next!