Monday 11th January 2010

Tesla: Charging Anxiety Is 'For The Weak'

Tesla employees show faith with trans-continental drive

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Still wearing the dust and stains from a 3,600 mile drive from Los Angeles to the Detroit motor show, this Tesla roadster has been flying the flag for electric power.

The travel-weary look isn't quite as evocative on an electric runabout as it might be on an unwashed 24hr Le Mans race victor perhaps, but Tesla reckons the drive across America has added extra credibility to its claims that the car is more than a novelty.

18 Tesla employees took part in the marathon, with promotional stop-offs along the way to help raise awareness about electric cars.

"It proves the Roadster is tough, durable, and range anxiety is for the weak", the company now boasts.

Electric power is looking like a big theme of the Detroit motor show this week, with a selection of battery-powered machines from small builders vying for attention - from wacky city cars to performance-orientated machines like the Tesla.

We'll post a few pictures of some of the sportier lookers later, but with the major industry players also piling into the electric sector with new concepts at the show, you've got to wonder how long the small fry will be able to keep carving out a niche.

[Beefmeister]

I'd wager that every single step, stop-off and recharge was planned to the exact km though...

[soad]

Good on them, even if it's for a bit of publicity.
Nice to see it being used properly.

Who's going to volunteer for a car-wash?

[pacman1]

Beefmeister said:

I'd wager that every single step, stop-off and recharge was planned to the exact km though...

Quite. And neither does it say how many charges it took in order to dispel the anxiety.

Edited by pacman1 on Monday 11th January 13:55

[cs02rm0]

I think it's a reasonable achievement, but how long did it take?

[glazbagun]

Well done. Although it's nothing a £500 banger couldn't do these days, it can still only be a good thing.

[Kazlet]

I wonder what the shortest practicle time would be to drive the Tesla from Los Angeles to the Detroit motor show.....two weeks?

[Ozzie Osmond]

IMO the price of Tesla clearly identifies the car as suitable only for the "terminally" stupid.

[sanctum]

This would be more interesting if they gave more details, such as simple power consumption plots during the route overlaid on a routemap so we could see where the car was most efficient and where it guzzled.
Would also be nice, but less likely to get a timeline too, so we can see how long it took to cover that distance and how long it spent plugged in and out of action.
Some figures I dredged up off wikipedia, for interest only, not debate:
244 mile range - so minimum 14 recharges after the initial.
3.5hrs recharge time using a 70amp! hose.
So it was isdle for 3.5*14=49hrs
If the trip averaged 30mph, that's over a quater of the travel time spent immobile.
On a more practicle point, 70amp charging hose! on a 13amp household system in the Uk that would equate to a 19hr charge time.

[Beefmeister]

Unless they got people to drive around the clock, one can assume they did 244 miles per day.

At this rate, it would've taken them 2 weeks.

Still not bad, and i guess it shows the reliability.

I just wish they wouldn't use that 'for the weak' bulls**t.

It was a planned exercise, with every stop carefully planned so it no doubt included a 3-phase socket.

I wish Tesla all the best, I really do.

[snotrag]

[cynic] I'd be interested to see some calculations based on the charging current as seen, the total charging time, total kWh used during the trip. Also the cost in terms of kWh used and then the relevant C02/emissions/"Carbon hoofprint" calculations based on those figures.

[/cynic]

ETA - I'm actually not one of the people completely against electric cars, nor am I one who flatly refuses to listen to anything regarding MMGW etc. I dont necceasarily believe it, but i'm happy to hear to both sides of the coin.

[leon9191]

I would imagine they would have had an extensive support crew along for the ride and dare I say it probably a truck with a generator on board so they could drive until it was dead then recharge anywhere the wanted.

That’s how I would do it.

[infradig]

Wonder how many 'real' cars accompanied it?

[cazzer]

leon9191 said:

I would imagine they would have had an extensive support crew along for the ride and dare I say it probably a truck with a generator on board so they could drive until it was dead then recharge anywhere the wanted.

That’s how I would do it.

Or just left the tesla plugged into the genny all the way there

Drivin with an umbilical cord

[Kazlet]

A high power American power outlet (120V 20Amps) has a usable 16Amps rating which would mean over 30 hours to recharge!!

[[AJ]]

infradig said:

Wonder how many 'real' cars accompanied it?

Enough to carry at least 16 people apparently.

So the moral of this story is.. If you want to drive a Tesla across North America you can.. you just need 17 mates to help you do it.

[ctallchris]

Ozzie Osmond said:

IMO the price of Tesla clearly identifies the car as suitable only for the "terminally" stupid.

Not realy - it's cheaper than an XKR as a company car due to low tax. It's much quicker at the legal side of 60 than most cars (3.7s is comparable to the claimed 0-60 time of a ferrari F50) at 109k it is pretty cheap. plus 220 miles of range is a good 4 hours drive check your average speed on your commute I travel 20 miles on the M3 and it takes me the best part of 30 minutes most days. I like to stop well before i have driven for 4 hours. Generally to have a meal and complain about having to drive all the time.

Edited by ctallchris on Monday 11th January 14:40

[Marf]

snotrag][cynic said:

I'd be interested to see some calculations based on the charging current as seen, the total charging time, total kWh used during the trip. Also the cost in terms of kWh used and then the relevant C02/emissions/"Carbon hoofprint" calculations based on those figures.

[/cynic]

ETA - I'm actually not one of the people completely against electric cars, nor am I one who flatly refuses to listen to anything regarding MMGW etc. I dont necceasarily believe it, but i'm happy to hear to both sides of the coin.

Happy to be corrected(my understanding of the mathmatics is probably quite simplistic) but from doing some googling I've found the following

http://enochthered.wordpress.com/category/electric...

"The battery in the Tesla takes 3.5 hours to charge from zero charge, and stores 53 kWh of energy. Efficiency of the charging electronics is 86%, so 62 kWh of electricity is needed for a single charge."

"In February 2008, Tesla Motors reported that, after testing a Validation Prototype of the Tesla Roadster at an EPA-certified location, that those tests yielded a range of 220 miles (354 km) and a plug-to-wheel efficiency of 199 Wh/km"

http://www.swivel.com/workbooks/18161-Carbon-effic...

According to this producing 1kWh of electricity emits 0.346kg of CO2 if generated from coal.

So 62kwh x 0.346Kg CO2 = 21.452Kg CO2 per 220miles.

According to this, my MR2 Turbo would put out 5.51tonnes of CO2 doing 10,000 miles a year averaging 26mpg

http://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx

So the Tesla over the same mileage would put out 975kg of CO2.

Surprised it was that much lower to be honest.

[snotrag]

Cheers. Of course, to be awkard, I have a figure here of 0.538kg of CO2 per kWh produced (presumed also from coal based supply its a UK figure i think).

But still, interesting.

[KMT]

Can anyone answer me this? - the amount of use I get from a new mobile phone battery goes well off the boil after some reasonable use (say 6 months) - am I safe to assume the same for electric cars? If so aren't these stats/calculations a little "idealistic" given that an average car age is measured in years nowadays?

[Marf]

snotrag said:

Cheers. Of course, to be awkard, I have a figure here of 0.538kg of CO2 per kWh produced (presumed also from coal based supply its a UK figure i think).

But still, interesting.

Yeah I found a few different numbers for kg/kWh, just decided on the link I used above as the numbers apparently came from a DEFRA report.