Recent Comments:
Judging the Tesla Roadster and Chevy Volt by different standards {Autoblog Green}
May 10th 2008 3:07PM AMcA, yes it does say something. It says that finally someone has made an electric car that appeals to billionaires, celebrities, and car freaks.
As long as electric cars resembled glorified golf carts, that only most ardent tree hugger woould drive, they could never go mainstream.
We need to replace our gas vehicles with something better. Like it or not, most people are not going to give up a regular car to buy something with three wheels that only goes 25 mph, just to have something that's better for the environment.
They still need to get the price down, and we still need to work on the people that want to fly around in private jets all the time. But a desirable electric car is absolutely a good thing for curbing oil addiction, pollution, and global warming, regardless of who buys it.
Judging the Tesla Roadster and Chevy Volt by different standards {Autoblog Green}
May 10th 2008 2:59PM Did that. 40 hits, half of them intentionally started to show how unsafe the batteries are. Compared to 15,600 gasoline vehicle fires.
Speaking of intentionally started battery fires, you should read the Tesla white paper about their battery pack, or ESS as they call it, and all the safeguards they put in.
Cooling, fuses protecting cells, more fuses protecting groups of cells, lots of monitoring, and thermal isolation. They even wrapped a heating coil around individual cells deep inside the ESS and heated up the cells to the point where they combusted, just like in half the videos of lithium battery fires.
The ESS worked exactly as designed, the cells burned up, but the fire did not spread to adjacent cells, and didn't escape from the ESS casing.
They also crash tested the cars, and the ESS stayed intact, and cells didn't fry.
Tesla put a lot of work into getting the ESS right. In the process, they kind of overlooked the importance of getting the transmission right, causing a big slip in the production schedule.
Judging the Tesla Roadster and Chevy Volt by different standards {Autoblog Green}
May 9th 2008 2:07PM "There's currently no way to get to affordability with EVs"
In the short term, I agree, but in the long term, I disagree completely. You could have said the same thing about big screen TVs when they were at $10,000, or with VCRs when they cost $1500, or with cell phones when they were $500. Or with computers when they were $1,000,000.
The way to make affordable EVs is exactly the same process that made all those other products affordable. Sell a small number of first generation product at outrageous prices to those who will buy it regardless of the cost. That's where Tesla is now.
Then, make each successive generation of the product a little less expensive by refining the design, improving the production process, and increasing the production volume. It will take at least three generations, maybe five or more, but over time the product will become more and more affordable until it becomes mainstream. Yes, profits might be slim to none in the first stages, but the important thing is to keep going. That's why GM killed the EV1, the path to profit was too long for them, especially when they had huge short term profits available with big SUVs.
Certainly NEVs can continue their path in parallel. My only problem with them is that they condition people to expect that electric cars can never be more than that. That's why Tesla is important; they showed how false that myth is.
Judging the Tesla Roadster and Chevy Volt by different standards {Autoblog Green}
May 9th 2008 9:43AM Hey jimmy, go over to youtube and type in "car fire".
15,600 hits, so there's plenty of fire potential in gasoline powered cars too. I'll bet the Tesla is considerably less likely to catch fire than the car you're driving right now.
Hyundai/Kia cancels plan for U.S. pickup {Autoblog}
May 9th 2008 9:19AM "unibody" and "pickup truck" do not go together at all.
Unibody car-made-to-look-like-a-truck is more like it.
But tha'ts ok, people love those things, just like the RAV4 car-made-to-look-like-an-SUV.
Why hasn't anyone created a 2.0L DI turbo Fiero? {Autoblog}
May 7th 2008 5:49PM Isn't this what the Lotus Eagle is supposed to be?
Obama picks worst car ever to come out of Motown {Autoblog}
May 7th 2008 4:01PM After I wrecked my mom's 1970 Ford Fairlane into a deer, she got a used AMC Ambassador. I thought the Ford was carp, but the AMC was far worse, always in the shop, and sucked gas worse than any Hummer.
In high school I learned to drive on a Chevette. Not sure you could even call that a car, more like a enclosed go kart.
Artega GT production beginning this summer, convertible version planned {Autoblog}
May 7th 2008 7:35AM I didn't mention a thing about CO2. Why don't you go away? You can always recognize the people ranting about CO2 because they complain about big trucks and SUVs.
I was just saying, doesn't it seem like suddenly everyone and their brother is coming out with sports cars? Hey they are great, I have one, and wouldn't mind another or two, but sports cars always were and always will be a niche market.
How can like 100 companies think that they can all be Porsche?
Artega GT production beginning this summer, convertible version planned {Autoblog}
May 6th 2008 8:49PM Sports car overload! I love 'em, but just how many of these cars can the world support?
Collected for your ease of use: 104 eco-driving tips {Autoblog Green}
May 6th 2008 4:07PM Some of these are useful, a lot of them are really horrible. A great many of them will totally annoy other drivers in rush hour, probably causing many others to burn even more fuel in order for you to save a little. They may even contribute to accidents. When an accident occurs on a busy road in rush hour, a huge amount of fuel is wasted as drivers sit idling for hours.
I'm very surprised that telecommuting 1 or 2 days a week isn't mentioned. If you have a job that can support it, it's a great way to fuel consumption by 20-40%, painlessly.
