Comments on: Tesla Motors CEO: Model S is cheaper than it looks

In a missive to customers, Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk argues that the $56,400 price of the Model S electric sedan is equivalent to $35,000 with $4-per-gallon gasoline.

Interesting news about the Tesla, but electrics didn't work at the dawn of the automobile era and will not work in the near future because battery technology is too immature and expensive.

The Norwegians understand this and have opted to look to Hydrogen power rather than battery power for their automotive needs.

Their HyNor project of 360 miles of Hydrogen "pumping" stations from Oslo to Stravanger is very forward thinking considering Norway is one of the worlds leading exporter of petrol products.

My money is on Hydrogen, not electricity for the next 25 years. After that time, batteries may become sufficiently sophisticated to effectively power mainstream automobiles.

As it exists now, the Tesla and Volt products (if it survives GM) will be purchased by the wealth, not by the majority of US drivers.

With so many gas powered cars in service today, even at $5 per gallon gas, a $2000-$5000 "beater" gas powered car will alway be provide a cheaper TCO than electrics. Also with Tata in India producing a $2000 small gas powered "world" car electrics will not see the light until 2030.

Retro-fitting a gas car for Hydrogen is cheap compared to the batteries costs of electrics. The only issue is how to fill your car with hydrogen, this is what the Norwegians are betting on.

Lastly, before some of you start talking about the explosive nature of hydrogen, please note that gasoline isn't exactly inert when exposed to fire/heat...Besides, who wants to get burned by an exploded lithium ion battery either.

[mgordon33]

Hydrogen is doomed to failure.

The process of electrolyzing hydrogen wastes the vast majority of the energy involved. Not to mention the gas is EXTRMELY difficult to transmit and store in a tank. In absolutely no way it is an improvement over diesel or gasoline.

Burning hydroen in an internal combustion engine is the very worst, as then you still have all the disadvantages of internal combusion engines (low efficiency, especially at idle...)

But even using hydrogen in a fuel cell to generate electricity for an electric car is a FAR worse solution. The process of making hydrogen, particularly from "clean" sources like hydroelectric, nuclear, or solar, wastes more than half of the energy. Not to mention refrigerating, compressing and storing the fuel wastes even more. Hydrogen as an energy storage medium, from power plant to wheels, will net you no more than 25% efficiency at best.

Electric on the other hand will give you significantly higher:

(85% power grid efficiency) * (85% LiIon Charging/discharging Efficiency) = about 75% of the electricy from the plant actually makes it to your car.

The electric motor will be the same whether it is powered by a battery or a fuel cell so I didn't inlcude it.

[frobots]

I love electric cars because:
1) I DON'T WANT ANY MORE NOISE ON THE STREETS
2) I DON'T WANT THE SMOKE UNDER MY NOSE, TAKE IT SOMEWHERE ELSE
3) I DON'T WANT TO SEE PEOPLE BURNED TO DEATH IN CRASH ACCIDENTS (I'M SICK OF CARS EXPLODING IN MOVIES TOO)
4) THEY WILL BRING ALTERNATIVES ON HOW TO GENERATE THE ELECTRICITY. THIS WON'T BE CARS PROBLEM ANYMORE.

[Yardsale1x]

Does anybody notice how much the Model S resembles a Masarati?

[Joe Real]

Martin,

I think that the Tesla Model S as planned WILL NOT QUALIFY for tax credit of $7,500. The reason is that the batteries will be ON LEASE! You will only be qualified for the tax credit if you will purchase the car INCLUDING its battery. Leasing the battery is not the same as owning the battery. A nice reference to the exact wording of the electric vehicle battery incentive should be printed here, to prove or disprove my understanding of the tax credit incentive.

Granting that the battery pack for that range is about $30,000 the actual cost of the Tesla S is $86,400 minus the tax credit, and that brings it down to $78,900 if you have taxable income.

AS it is, the price would still be $56,400 not including the battery pack! And you don't qualify for the tax rebate for a car that do not have a battery pack!

Can you clarify with Tesla the real deal here about the Tesla S?

Thanks,

Joe

[kajral]

>>Traction motor, brushes, bearings, thermal insulation repacking, cleaning, adjustments,
voltage regulators, replacement batteries, cabling, etc, etc.
You're not saving money on maintenance- you're only changing the types of parts involved.
And don't even think about the cost if you ever get your car flooded.<<

Wait a minute! Most of the items you mention sounds like part of a motor itself, which could be designed as a modular piece. And that would just be swapped out for another motor, or subsystem.
You know, it seems all you Tesla naysayers are too emotional about gas/oil/internal
combustion engine mystique, that you can't get past accepting this new, evolving technology.
That's right: evolving!
You see as engineers, some of you will have to realize that (just like other new technologies)
the car is just going to keep getting better, and cheaper as it is re-designed and as people
start buying it. Don't live in the past. It happened with the old calculator, the computer,
big-screen TV, etc. "On to the Future!!"

kajral

[theBike1945]

You can dismiss musk's nonsense about the cost of his car being equivalent to a $35K gas powered vehicle. Electric cars are many things. Low cost is not one of them, at least not for anything made in this country. To find value we need to look to China (you know, those people foolish enough to lend us the money so we can waste it on impractical cars like Tesla's). Musk forgot to mention (EV guys awlways do) that you need to own TWO vehicles if one of them is a Tesla. You know, to obtain a driving radius greater than around 75 miles for the (expensive)low priced version. Musk just got hit with a couple million dollar judgment from an irate judge who took exception to Musk and Tesla trying to run a much better competitor (Fisker) out of business. And the idea of battery swapping, in which the system requires several of those very expensive ($30K) battery packs for every customer on a trip, shreds any idea of EVs being cheap. Lots of nonsense here. Nothing to see here, people. Move along.
Go buy a Volt and do the environment some good. Musk uses the environment as a sales tool. Nothing more.

[scoates2482]

Screw China. It is thinking such as this that is resulting in the US losing it's ability to make its own products. Sounds great and cheap at first but at some point a country has to have something real to sell. If you don't know how to do it yourself it is even more expensive - and very, very foolish. It won't matter how many resources you have - such as iron, etc - because you'll have to ship it to another continent to do anything with it. And as much as I hate to think about it, the US would be hamstrung in the case of another major war - and I'm not talking about bombing the hell out of 3rd world countries.

Forget China. We have to make it work here.

[st1300a4]

This Musk moron must have us confused with moronic Europeans who will pay f**king idiot prices for unproven cr#p. So the people who could truly benefit from this will never be able to afford it. F**cking priceless!

IDIOTS at TESLA!

[italiandon]

st1300a4 you have no idea what you're talking about! Have you ever been to Europe? If you haven't . . . don't come. I live in Italy and pay about $5.50 US per gallon. Of course European countries don't give massive tax breaks to gas companies either so the REAL price difference isn't as great as you would think.

Maybe you could give an example of, "Europeans who will pay f**king idiot prices for unproven cr#p." Ah, don't have one do you?

[mahal2y]

I was just in Japan and the price of only one liter of petro was 370 yen about $3.70, Now its about 4 liters to make a gallon of gasoline so a gallon would be about $11.80. Compared to the price of electric power I would change to a Telsa any day. If you think gaoline is low now just think of a terrorist attack on a pipe line or a refinery break down and the price of petro will go sky high. Thank goodness for Telsa but I just wish the price was a little lower to purchase there vehicles.

[scoates2482]

There are valid concerns on both sides here. Obviously they are going to pump up this car as better than it is, but that doesn't mean that it should not be taken seriously.

I have often wondered how we will be able to generate enough electricity for everyone to own and drive an electric vehicle. There might be hydroelectric in some places, but most of our electricity in the US is generated through burning coal, which is highly toxic. Or nuclear which creates poisonous, permanent waste. It will be interesting to see how well we are able to adapt renewable resources to supply the power that will be required.

I'm not trying to be negative, I'm just saying let's make sure we look before we leap. That said, we should continue down this road (carefully) as this is only way to promote the technology and innovation that will be needed.

Last note: maintenance costs will NOT be low for this vehicle. We're talking about expensive, low volume electronics that are not cheap or easily obtainable for the end-owner. And you can forget about being a do-it-yourself-in-the-garage kind of guy; it's hard enough now with all the new electronics in gas-powered cars.

Anyhow: forward into the future. If any country can solve this problem it is the United States of America.

[jetson1953]

electric rails instead of cross country pavement. elevated to 3 or 4 ft won't have to be snowplowed. on and off ramps transition to to individual power sources. city traffic jams replaced with sensor spacing and speed

[scoates2482]

The cost of electricity will go up with the dramatically increased demand. Again, I'm not being negative - just be wary of miracle solutions like the electric car saving you any money. Someone bigger than you is going to exploit for all you can afford just like they do now with gasoline.

[George_Marenco]

Save your money, the economy will get a lot worse.

[rgsumm]

Thank God someone has the courage to actually build a car that is NOT dependent on fossil fuels to operate! If our "BIG THREE" were doing the same thing, the American public would not mind bailing them out!

[scoates2482]

The Big Three are doing it and they have decades more experience in design and manufacturing. Not bad to get some fresh ideas from a smaller, and therefore more flexible, company, though.

[pickupsm]

(courage to actually build a car that is NOT dependent on fossil fuels) so what is coal anyways

[scoates2482]

Another point: the largest talent pool for manufacturing in the US is in the northern mid-west. The cost of living in CA is at least 5x higher. How will Tesla attract the best educated engineers and managers and best skilled operators, maintenance, supervision, skilled trades, etc, etc required to operate a mfg plant without offering wages that will upset their plan to build an affordable vehicle?

Instead of moving the mfg base to CA it seems that it would be much easier - and cheaper - to move the entrepreneurs to the mid-west.

Any thoughts?

[hazy07]

Nobody would have a power service at their home that could charge this thing in less than hours and hours. The stress on the power grid would be meltdown.

[scoates2482]

I agree. We have to find a way to provide all of this power efficiently and at a reasonable price. Also we have to way the consequences of pollution created by those power sources. However, we shouldn't let this point stop us from trying to solve the problem. If any country in the world can do it, it is the USA...

[Scarrab]

We will need oil for an estimated 30 more years. The US should be using as much of our own oil and natural gas as we can during our transition to clean fuels. The technologies will be changing and improving all the time. It is the opinon of some people that the only way to force a faster tranition will be to inflate the price of fuel. That has already started by ending all the permits to drill for domestic oil.

Many people beilive that man made global warming is a fraud that will force up the price of electricity gas and oil. Whether it is or isn't; that is what is happening before our eyes. Cap and trade will cause the cost of electricity to skyrocket. Good intentions will be bringing very negative economic consequences to us. It doesn't need to be that way, we can tranition to clean fuels without all the negative consequences. We made it to the moon in ten years.

[scoates2482]

Amen. But I don't see anything wrong with applying a little pressure to get it done. As a matter of fact, I wonder if it would EVER get done without something to motivate the masses and the state.

Moon in 10 years. Why not renewable energy and independence from oil in a similar time frame? If any country can do it it is the USA.

[Scarrab]

Why do we have to have a negative incentive like higher prices to acheive our goals. Why not put tax credit incentives to the new green technologies. They could be sold the same way as Gores carbon credits.

Give industry and the public a positive incentive and then get out of the way, for the most part.

[scoates2482]

I agree with you: these positive incentives are the way to go. The only problem being human nature seems to require a bomb to be lit under us in order to make us change. Not rational, I know, but it seems like that's how it is. The only reason that we any gaining such momentum now is because of the disasters that are striking us. That said, I'm all for incentives.....

[greenfuture]

Why is Tesla being given a $350 million dollar loan to develop this car? They should be given a grant.

[scoates2482]

Provided he actually knows what he's doing. Mass production is a whole different ballgame - especially siting in such a high cost of living state such as CA. A loan is a good hedge and incentive to Tesla; tax breaks can come later, after they've proven themselves.

[TerrinBell]

I am more excited about the air car.

http://zeropollutionmotors.us/

[scoates2482]

Funny-looking, but interesting...

[Pro Grammar(sic)]

Tata motors, makers of the nano, will soon come out with a 3000 dollar electric car with all frills. The problem with companies like Tesla is that they cater to the super rich who want to look cool, not to the common public.
And these sophisticated arguments on total cost of ownership that the CEO is making are bull, who cares and who knows what costs may develop in the future. Its the sticker price that matters.
American companies seem to have lost the ability to keep the longer term in perspective, all they want is quick results and prospects, making a quick buck and pleasing the investors is all that matters. Very Sad.

[scoates2482]

Let's hope we learn and change because allowing all of our goods and products to be manufactured overseas is a dead end road for our country. The cost of this technology should come down over time - just like any other new technology - and the lessons learned with these cars may be applied to future models. Also, don't forget that any car sold in the US will automatically be more expensive due to costly regulatory requirements, such as the high safety standards expected here that are not a priority in developing countries.

[telecinesys]

On the Tesla motors website it pretty much explains everything, including how the car seats 7 passengers.

5 adults and two child seats

http://www.teslamotors.com/models/index.php

Info is under UTILITY