For reasons best known to them, the Tesla motor company agreed to let a NT Times reporter drive their $60,000+ family sedan from Washington DC to Boston and back to New York. It’s devolved into a shouting match and accusations. Tesla says the reporter didn’t follow their instructions like driving 45 mph in the right lane of I-95 in the winter with the heat off. He went through the Lincoln tunnel instead of the George Washington bridge!
There are only two charging stations in operation on the route capable of doing the super fast battery charge. One is in Delaware and the other is in Milford, CT – about 10 minutes from where I used to live.
I-95 used to be a toll road, and Milford has several truck stops and a bunch of restaurants and a large shopping center. It is also where the high capacity electric lines that connect the NE corridor run. If you had to recharge your Tesla at home, it would take all night or much longer. A full charge is 85 kwh of electricity. If you remember science 1khw is 1000 watts of power for an hour. At 220 volts, 1kw is about 4.5 amps. On a typical 100 amp circuit, if all you were doing was charging the car, it would take 6 hours, but that’s not realistic. 12 hours would make more sense.
The Milford “on the road” charging station uses 480 volts and charges the 1000 pounds of batteries in about 60 minutes. It’s located in the rest areas which are a legacy of having been a toll road. Under perfect conditions, that might take you 250 miles. Washington DC to Boston is about 440 miles and takes about 8 hours. Of course, stopping twice for an hour to recharge turns it into a 10 hour trip. Tesla says you would have stopped at that McDonalds for an hour anyhow, so stop whining. And so what if you aren’t allowed to use the heater on a 30 degree day, not drive at night, not use cruise control, and drive only 55 mph – and only the driver in the car and don’t put weight in the trunk.
He just barely made it to Milford with all the alarms warning that the car was about dead. But he did not make it to Boston. He stopped at Stonington Connecticut and it became apparent he was going to have a problem. With the car stored overnight at 10 degrees, the batteries lost most of their power. What little they had left has to be used to warm the batteries so they can release more energy. They found him a charging station that wasn’t a supercharger, and he could have spent all day in Norwich hanging out at the sewage plant – but he thought the batteries had warmed enough that he was okay, but he wasn’t. With the 10 degree wind as he drove down the road, the car didn’t make it far, went into emergency stop and died. Call the tow truck.
After dragging it from Branford to Milford (16 miles) and charging for 80 minutes, the car still only showered 219 miles of range. I know from the iPhone that letting the lithium ion battery get very cold drastically reduces its capacity, in theory only temporarily. Getting it too hot destroys the battery. As long as the car never leaves your heated garage it has great range!
So Tesla is accusing the reporter of doing a “fake” test. I believe Tesla is creating a fake car. If you want a car that you store in your heated garage and drive in the Spring in Virginia on level ground during the day to go buy groceries, this will work for you. If you want a car in Minnesota where it is -20 overnight and drive it 50 miles into town with the heater and headlights on, this is not the car for you.
The average daily traffic count on I-95 in Milford is around 20,000. Let’s say 10% of future cars are using Smart Green electrical power from the solar panels on the roof of McDonalds. At a reasonable peak hour, my guesstimate is we need around 300 cars at a time charging. At 85 kw/hr, that’s 25 Megawatts. That’s a lot of wind turbines and solar panels.
By the way, we are on the hook for $435 million in loan guarantees.
Compressed or liquified natural gas is here today and easily adapted for use by existing cars and trucks. Republicans, why are you silent?
Shucks! There’s not no problem at all. All ya gotta do is build a far’ in the passenger seat on those ‘real’ cold days, always carry you a handy cell phone loaded with podcasts instead of using the radio, stop frequently whether you want to or not, and just be careful you don’t elektra-cute nobody when you plug in the car. This would be a huge cost savings for people and help save the environment. That’s the main thing of course. How much does one of them there Tesla’s cost? I wuz thinkin’ of gettin one this year.
Of course, the Electric cars aren’t paying excise taxes on gasoline, so once we’re all smart, there won’t be any money to repair those millions of bridges falling down
In all fairness, the majority of the road damage is from trucks, rather than light cars, motorcycles, bicycles, or pedestrians. Sure, some of the effects are from time itself but most of it is a function of weight. Roads actually slide down hills over time because trucks break to slow down, etc.
I have been slow on my paperwork but in November I found out I have four more years to get it in for my taxpayer guaranteed loans for my green business.
It is a startup with the highest paid friends I could find. We are following the Tesla lead and their converting cars from fossil fuels such as gasoline and natural gas to battery power, but we have found an even bigger market with greater economic impact-
Our government loans will be to convert homes and businesses from fossil fuel heat to battery heat. We need the government loans to hire the best lobbyists on K Street to get the incentives built into the tax code.
The big money will be building a pipeline to pump water from the great lakes to Arizona
On my map its all downhill, from the top of the map down to the bottom, so it shouldn’t talk much government “investment”.
I can’t wait to get a look at the Canadian faces when I walk across the Niagara River without a tightrope the way the folks in Arizona do across the Colorado River. lol [ That will teach them for still using those legacy single flush toilets, rather than the two flush models mandated down here by Washington. 😉 ]
This was a big political issue when I lived in Michigan. Every reasonable estimate is that we can’t keep emptying the aquifer under the Midwest and the population shift (and all the golf courses) point to diverting water is a logical solution. However, the Great Lakes are at the lowest level since 1918 when we started keeping accurate records. Part of the reason is dredging in shallow water just speeds up the movement of the water downstream
I’m on the east coast and we get 40″ of rain each year. We are more apt to flood than to have brown grass.
It was much to my amusement to get to know someone that had moved here from a dry area and was doing everything she could to conserve water. It reminded me of the century old architectures in the southwest USA that were designed to maximize air flow and breeze through buildings.. not something you’d do in Chicago and Michigan. 😉
BTW- The government had straightened out the Kissimmee River in Florida only to find it created more dramatic variations in the water level of the
Everglades, where the river terminates. The slow winding river had provided a more steady and predictable source of fresh water, so the government is trying to undo their previous project. 🙂
Dude: Tesla is Back ! He just hit Russia with a High powered laser or a Meteorite.
They had pics on TV this morning, right before the mothership asteroid lands on DC today. (or flys by and takes a satellite or two out).
Thats why congress left last night, and didn’t vote on Chunk Hagel ( in know I spelled chunk). (But Hagel is retarded)
Anyhoo, all this stuff happening, Pope resigning and Art talking about Tesla right before he made his triumphant return. It’s a sign : )
I told my wife when she went to work, Take the jeep today, in case some kind of mechanical beastie comes up out of that meteor crater, or if one lands in New jersey.
I said I will call her and she better get her butt home, quick.
we’re out of here
I like my new tin-Foyle hat (spelled in honor of Foyle who post here sometimes 🙂
You all have a good one, See you on the other Side !
… 2X – 2L to CQ, 2X-2L to CQ, Come in CQ .
Parrott
What’s your radio show, man? I think I already listen to you but you use a different name on the radio, right? 😉
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Okay – not sure what you wanted to say, but here is what you said:
CQ
CQ
DE
ART
CQ
K
If it is any use (not likely as I am pretty far over the hill)
Call: CQ CQ, CQ DX
Means: Calling Out, Calling Out, Calling Out Distant Stations. From there, you are on your own message.
De is “from” in Spanish, K?
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WordPress corrected a lot of of your characters, making it harder to pretend I can read it
I wonder if anyone has written an app that would let a phone read Braille?
We have a 2011 Prius and it get 53.6 miles to the gallon. The car is comfortable, heats and cools well, and has no problem in cold weather, rain, or snow. I love it!
Hmmm, Well, We have a 2011 Infiniti QX56 with a big honkin 5.6 liter V-8 that rolls out 400 horsepower with a seven speed transmission that will smoke the tires at a stoplight(if you let it), gets 20mpg and eats ‘Prius’ for snack : )
It will pull my motorcycle trailer down the interstate with ease, and it will pull stumps as well .
Have a good one
Parrott
That is (gets)…
Linda, what’s the comparison to your monthly car payment versus if you bought an Accord, or something equivalent?
I’m driving a ’97 JGC that is rusting-out, the paint’s peeling off, I have to hot wire the ignition switch to start it. The engine and drive train are fine, plus, the monthly payment is very sweet!!!
Found this crony capitalism and had to share it:
http://www.wired.com/business/2013/02/chevy-volt-battery-factory-cranked-out-video-game-high-scores-but-no-batteries/
Buying a used Tesla is like buying a used battery. I don’t know if AAA can help if you run out someplace remote.
Emergency responders also need training on what to do when they find one on fire. 1000 pounds of lithium ion batteries could get problematic.