Comments on: Electric cars of the future at the Web 2.0 Summit

Two of today's greatest innovators in transportation and electricity consumption chat at this year's Web 2.0 Summit. Find out what, or if, you'll be driving in 2014.

[mikeyaj]

Every such car should be subsidized by the Gov. to make them available to everyone.

[bob1xxxx]

more socialist pie in the sky feces

[marc_90292]

It appears that you do not understand that we MUST become energy independent especialy from hostile nations.
The cost saved by not buying oil from foreign nations makes richly up for the cost invested by the U.S. if needed.

[ericyen]

Forget saving the Big 3 American Auto manufacturers . . .. the government should put its money into Tesla Motors. Why do we still continue to hold on to the old ideas of the combustion engine. Its dead like the dinosaurs.

[marc_90292]

The answer is simple, Big Oil used to and still holds large amounts of stock in the automotive inductry as was evident when Wagoner recalled all electric cars and had them squsched (is that a word?)

[Joe Real]

Tesla is tanking, as well as GM and other US Car manufacturers. Toyota are not fan of plug-ins, and their plug-ins are guaranteed to drink gas if you need accelaration or power or freeway speed. Project better place business model will go against the grain and would need inordinate amount of capital.

The best car out there with the greatest potential for California Condition is the Aptera from Aptera motors. Google has invested on this company. Very efficient car whether pure electric (produced now) or hybrid mode (model produced later). And they don't carry the MBA executive kinds of pay rates, retirement pays, massive debts and other other entitlement payments that are bleeding the likes of GM and Ford. No union contracts either, and not a lot of overhead. Aptera is poised to succeed.

[NiraliSherni]

The Electric vehicle business model does not have to be so capital intensive; ZAP is one EV manufacturer that has hung in there for the past 13 to 14 years, and shown how to do it. In a market environment that has been distinctly hostile in the past, ZAP is producing a range of EVs for all requirements: cars, trucks, scooters, bikes off road vehicles. It will also be rolling out the much awaited sports model Alias next year.

[willdryden]

No they are not. They have one 3 wheeled car slightly better than an NEV (40 MPH) and a bunch of junk scooters. I own one and wish I didn't.

[shera89]

You know, ZAP cars aren't exactly comparable to freeway vehicles. The top speed is about 40 mph if you are on completely level ground. AND, show me any safety tests that hev been done on them. They are a great idea, as are all electric cars, but for having been around since 1994, you would think that they would have improved a bit on the glorified go-cart design, not to mention safety.

[marc_90292]

Tesla's business model, i.e. selling electric cars only to the rich, will not help us become energy independent, a national priority.
If Tesla cannot build cars fast enough and in large enough quantities, give me a no-luxury model and I will organize production in under 18 months, if needed in Koreo, China or any place where people understand that the profit from low cost cars can be higher than those of luxury models, given that the the latter has production figures of a fraction. We have done it with GM's German Opel division and can do it again!

[willdryden]

You have to start somewhere. Right now, only the rich can afford the cost of the battery pack. As the cost of the batteries comes down, the cheaper models of cars will become available. That is the problem with the Chevy Volt. They wanted the price of the car to be "around $30,000", but the current cost of the battery pack is still $32,000. GM may get a break on cost in quantity and the price may go down by 2010, but not enough to make a profit at $30,000. so they have upped their target to $40,000. moving it out of general population consideration into the yuppy status symbol market with BMW. It could be a hard sell for a Chevy.

[kevinskrause]

@ wildryden

Yuppy? Seriously? You must have confused BMW with Mercedes. I have always said there are two types of BMW owners; "those that have an unequivocal passion for driving" and "those that should have bought a benz." I will admit, there are a number of posers on the road that use a car like this to flex their capital muscle. But don't forget the select few who fully understand what these cars are; "The Ultimate Driving Machines."

[carbon_14--2008]

You say Tesla Motors faces an infrastructure challenge, but it?s Agassi?s Better Place that has the big problem with infrastructure. They have to build battery swapping and proprietary charging stations everywhere, just as dense as gas stations. With Tesla?s plan, the vast majority of charging occurs in the home, or at any standard 110V or 220V outlet, and a much smaller number of charging stations are needed for longer trips. A charging station can be as simple as a dryer outlet, or maybe four times that power level for quick charging.

There are about 150,000 gas stations. Since 78% of all driving is less than 40 miles in one day, which requires about an hour of charging from a dryer outlet, nearly all charging can occur at home overnight. Even a more extreme 150-mile commute can easily be handled with an overnight charge. So, charging stations are only needed for long distance road trips.

The US has about 42,000 miles of interstate highways, so with just 500 charging stations, the maximum distance between charging stations could be under 100 miles, which would easily enable cross-country trips in EVs having a range of 200+ miles.

That?s a tiny fraction, a third of a percent, of the existing gasoline infrastructure and far less than what Better Place would need to enable ubiquitous battery swapping stations.

Also, Elon Musk did not ?create? Tesla Motors, that was done by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpening. Musk came along later with a big checking account and is now running the show.

[picoallen]

Better Place cars will give you the best of both worlds. You'll be able to plugin your car to recharge to keep you going for short trips, or swap batteries at exchange stations for longer trips.