OT: New Tesla Roadster

[Black Dog]

Originally Posted by RoadWhale

This^^^^^

Unless Tesla will rely on "computer assisted" driving to guide that missile, many people who have the financial resources but not the driving skill will learn just how fast 60-0 is possible.

Go on youtube and there are many many videos of rich morons wrecking supercars who's performance far exceed their ability to drive. This will be no different.

[alancw3]

i guess sometimes in life it takes a leap of faith to move forward from the same old same old. as much as i like what elon musk has accomplished i still hold out for the hydrogen fuel cell as being out best alternative to fossile fuel.

[William]

Originally Posted by Black Dog

Go on youtube and there are many many videos of rich morons wrecking supercars who's performance far exceed their ability to drive. This will be no different.

"Slow cars driven fast are always more fun than fast cars driven slow."

https://jalopnik.com/5829059/top-ten...to-drive-fast/


Video...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0MjVlQP8hU




William

[alancw3]

i guess sometimes in life it takes a leap of faith to move forward from the same old same old. as much as i like what elon musk has accomplished i still hold out for the hydrogen fuel cell as being out best alternative to fossile fuel.

[Black Dog]

The Nikola is a way better machine on every level. Hydrogen fuel that is produced with solar power is a win win + a 1200km range. Non of the downsides of heavy batteries and limited load and range that the Tesla is promising. A established and growing network of hydrogen fuelling centres and a 15 minute fill time. So much better than long charging periods. The Tesla would work in a situation where the cargo runs are short haul and repeating. I would prefer a switch to hydrogen powered cars and electric cars. Not this head long rush to electric without any thought for rapid change batteries and swapping stations. electric cars are like bottom bracket "standards" for bikes. If we want to move away from ICE cars we need a way for people to actually go places without extended charging stops, having to plug in everywhere they park etc. This means standardization. We did it with fossil fuels and we can do it with electric and hydrogen cars.

[providence]

Originally Posted by providence

As someone who works in the transit industry, that tractor is a nonfactor as currently outlined in the US market. Progress? Sure. But that battery range is woefully short to take this announcement seriously. Not to mention charge time and the logistics of availability of stations to recharge.

Since this probably isn’t common knowledge, drivers have 10hrs of drive time and a total of 14hrs of On Duty (nondriving time - used for breaks, loading/unloading at customers) per day. After shutting down for a total of 10hrs, a driver has his hours back for the following day and can drive again. There’s more to driver hours but this is the jist.

You can see how the claimed 300-500mi range would be an issue.

The tech is headed in the right direction. Just not enough to be used to make drivers or companies profitable. Range needs to go up significantly and weight of the tractor needs to come down substantially to scale he weight needed to haul common goods that these companies are hauling.

[AngryScientist]

Originally Posted by providence

Since this probably isn’t common knowledge, drivers have 10hrs of drive time and a total of 14hrs of On Duty (nondriving time - used for breaks, loading/unloading at customers) per day. After shutting down for a total of 10hrs, a driver has his hours back for the following day and can drive again. There’s more to driver hours but this is the jist.

You can see how the claimed 300-500mi range would be an issue.

The tech is headed in the right direction. Just not enough to be used to make drivers or companies profitable. Range needs to go up significantly and weight of the tractor needs to come down substantially to scale he weight needed to haul common goods that these companies are hauling.

i was thinking it might make a dent as far as port operations or other "close haul" trucking needs. ever hang out around a major port when a large container ship comes in? it's an endless coordinated string of trucks coming through as the crane(s) unload the ships, then drop them nearby for future moves. the game is to get the ship unloaded as quickly as possible.

in this type of scenario, there could be a "bank" of charged tractors waiting somewhere and a driver could use a tractor till battery dead and just grab a new one and continue work.

would do wonders to reduce the emissions locally in this scenario.

obviously i only gave this a passing thought, but in the right circumstances, with the right clean air incentives, these could work.

for long haul trucking, probably not there yet.

just some thoughts.

[Anarchist]

Originally Posted by AngryScientist

i was thinking it might make a dent as far as port operations or other "close haul" trucking needs. ever hang out around a major port when a large container ship comes in? it's an endless coordinated string of trucks coming through as the crane(s) unload the ships, then drop them nearby for future moves. the game is to get the ship unloaded as quickly as possible.

in this type of scenario, there could be a "bank" of charged tractors waiting somewhere and a driver could use a tractor till battery dead and just grab a new one and continue work.

would do wonders to reduce the emissions locally in this scenario.

obviously i only gave this a passing thought, but in the right circumstances, with the right clean air incentives, these could work.

for long haul trucking, probably not there yet.

just some thoughts.

Port jeeps are not $200,000+

[AngryScientist]

Originally Posted by Anarchist

Port jeeps are not $200,000+

understood. hence the incentives part. if port cities get serious about cleaning up their air quality, this could be an option.

definitely not thinking we are ready for prime time here, but i see this as progress.

[csm]

Originally Posted by Anarchist

Port jeeps are not $200,000+

Depends on the port. CA initiatives have forced many independents to run new trucks. There was an article in the WSJ or USA Today recently about it.
I see trucks like this working for short haul operations. The technology really isn't much different than equipment used in the dc. Electric lift tucks, etc have all but replaced propane-fueled equipment where I work. We've got a huge footprint from LTL to regional/OTR, local and final operations to warehousing, freight-forwarding, etc. Much of what we haul for our customers is well below 25k lbs in a 53' standard van and less than 350 miles total for a day. Something like this would fit very well. The recharge time and battery life would be a concern.


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[Richard]

Originally Posted by Louis

A buddy of mine at work told me a while ago that it takes more energy to make any given photo voltaic cell than you'll ever get from it in it's entire lifetime.

I don't know if that's true or not, but if it is, then PV cells are merely a means of shifting the environmental damage / cost of the energy produced from the end-user (say, US or Europe) to the location where they're made (say, China).

That's somewhat true regardless of the ratio of input to output, but for the earth's environment as a whole that would truly be galling.

Does anyone know if the "you'll never get out more than you put in" statement is true?

The statement is categorically false. Studies have shown that, depending on the technology of the actual panel, it takes between 1 and 4 years to result in a net zero of energy to manufacture vs. energy produced. Given that the panels will continue to generate for another 20 to 25 years, there is no issue.

[merlinmurph]

Originally Posted by AngryScientist

i was thinking it might make a dent as far as port operations or other "close haul" trucking needs. ever hang out around a major port when a large container ship comes in? it's an endless coordinated string of trucks coming through as the crane(s) unload the ships, then drop them nearby for future moves. the game is to get the ship unloaded as quickly as possible.

in this type of scenario, there could be a "bank" of charged tractors waiting somewhere and a driver could use a tractor till battery dead and just grab a new one and continue work.

would do wonders to reduce the emissions locally in this scenario.

obviously i only gave this a passing thought, but in the right circumstances, with the right clean air incentives, these could work.

for long haul trucking, probably not there yet.

just some thoughts.

I was thinking exactly the same thing. I'm in Savannah GA right now which has a huge port. There are tons of trucks doing short hauls with the containers 24 hours a day. I would think that's a pretty good place for first gen electric trucks.

[jlwdm]

Originally Posted by FlashUNC

The problem with that Randian ideal is if Tesla goes belly up, taxpayers will be one of the many constituencies holding the bag.

It's the classic privatizing of gains, socializing of losses. Forget the people who don't have cars or don't have support for those cars, the fallout would go a lot further than Musk's personal bank account and those aggreived customers.

At some point, the company will need to produce at scale. They're showing little evidence they can do what other car companies mastered a long time ago in production.

On the other hand Tesla has forced the other automakers to up their games regarding electric cars for the good of society.

Jeff

[sand fungus]

That is fantastic numbers for a truck moving 80,000lbs.

But what is not stated is that it takes a huge battery pack to do that. If we assume for a vehicle of that size power required is roughly 1kWh/mi that would mean that the pack has to be at least 500kWh... these packs will cost a lot and weigh a lot. But 500kWh is probably on the low side, typically Lithium-ion packs don't like to be used in the top 20% and bottom 20% of their charge as that reduces their life, so to get 500mi the pack would need to be ~800kWh to get 500mi of range that is claimed. But here is the kicker typical trucks get about 7.5-8.5 on average when assuming no off cycle loads (idling) and using 139,000 btu /gal of diesel the energy per mi is more like 5kWh per mile so the pack to get 500 miles would need to be considerably bigger or have an extensive amount of regeneration figured in. I used the 1kWh estimate which based on all this is a very conservative number in the following calculations.

Cost - Tesla stated that their batteries cost $190 per kWh back in 2016 so that means the cost of a 800kWh pack alone is $128K just for batteries. But lets assume they are getting cheaper with the new factory, call it $110/kWh that is still $88K in batteries alone. A typical class 8 diesel tractor like shown by Tesla would be in the $120K range.

Weight -Tesla claims that 85kWh pack weights 1200lbs or 14lbs/kWh which would be 12,000 lbs for a 800kWh pack but as the weight increases so will the structure to support it so I would estimate closer to 20Lbs or 16,000lbs. A typical 15L diesel engine only weights ~3,500 lbs. That means a truck operator would haul ~10,000lbs less in load which is how they get paid...

So you can get Zero emissions but the truck will have to cost significantly more and weigh considerably meanly less payload and that is using my conservative estimates. What if it is closer to 3kWh, then triple all those number.

Definitely interesting but I think we need to see more of the actual details to see how this will pan out for Tesla and or actual test data from the evaluation trucks to see if it will pan out. Lots of showmanship here which is typical for Tesla/Elon.

[Louis]

Thanks guys - that is good news and I'll tell him that when I see him next week.

Originally Posted by NHAero

In much of the US, it's under two years for the embodied energy of a PV system - it depends on available sunlight and the efficiency of the system.

https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/conten...ics-Report.pdf

Originally Posted by Richard

The statement is categorically false. Studies have shown that, depending on the technology of the actual panel, it takes between 1 and 4 years to result in a net zero of energy to manufacture vs. energy produced. Given that the panels will continue to generate for another 20 to 25 years, there is no issue.