Tesla's Elon Musk shows the world his D ... and it's a monster Tesla Motors has revealed twin-engined, 691 HP, all-wheel-drive beast versions of its model S electric car. The new Model S 85D and 60D were launched at an evening event in Los Angeles on Thursday by CEO Elon Musk, who explained that the rumoured "D" stands for "dual" as the cars has two electric motors: one at the front and …
Tesla Motors has revealed its newest model: the 691 HP, all-wheel-drive, twin-engined Model D.
Somehow to me engine always meant some sort of heat engine whether it be steam, Stirling, turbine, etc. The electric, pneumatic and hydraulic varieties of potential to kinetic energy conversion devices have always been motors. Twin engines I associate with boats and planes, twin motors can be in anything.
Listen, if I can't paint it black and have it drive me to the shops, then I for one won't be buying it!
More seriously, while autonomous driving is cool, the legislatosaurus will probably spend ten or more years wibbling about making it legal. As usual, the science is way, way, way ahead of the politics.
Could we set a donations group to get politicians moving faster? Money always seems to get politicians moving faster... for some completely unknown reason of course.
Could we set a donations group to get politicians moving faster? Money always seems to get politicians moving faster... for some completely unknown reason of course
No, no and no again! They already get enough of my money with all the taxes I have to pay!
Better option: Let's start an El-Reg party, and get some normal, intelligent, forward-thinking, incorruptible (I hope) people in power!
As usual, the science is way, way, way ahead of the politics.
Amazingly enough, this is not quite the case. For example, Washington, D.C. recently enacted legislation to account for self-driving vehicles.
Interesting that they went with two motors. It means they still have to mess about with differentials, whereas a four motor design can do all the power distribution electronically as well as use smaller motors which would be easier to cool.
I am still not interested in an all electric vehicle - their max range is not much more than where the low fuel warning light comes on in a regular car.
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Interesting that they went with two motors. It means they still have to mess about with differentials, whereas a four motor design can do all the power distribution electronically as well as use smaller motors which would be easier to cool.
A safety issue? If something went wrong with the control of four independant motors the car would suffer an enormous turning torque and would become completely uncontrollable. In contrast if the distribution of power between front and rear motors went haywire, there's a decent chance the driver could deal with the problem (at least if he's not going round a corner at high speed when it happens).
Similar to the way civilian aeroplanes waste fuel when cornering and generally can't turn sharp corners, because they are built to be highly stable and self-correcting onto straight-line flight. In contrast, military aircraft these days are designed completely unstable, and can't be flown without the avionics. That's because for military use, failure to dodge incoming fire is a much more likely failure mode, than avionics failure sending the plane tumbling out of control.
On a racetrack we may get to see four independant electric motors in action. On the public roads, I doubt it.
> I am still not interested in an all electric vehicle - their max range is not much more than where the low fuel warning light comes on in a regular car.
For Teslas, yes. Something which was unimaginable only a few years ago.
With that said, how often do you do trips of over 500 km? Mind, I do cross Europe by car every two/three months (that's 1000 to 2000 km depending where I'm going) and the only thing I'm waiting for is for Teslas to get all the safety and comfort kit that I have in my current car. Even if I don't use it on cross-European trips, it can actually do all my other driving.
I might buy a Tesla as a lark if I was rich as Larry Ellison. I am not a car guy though.
However, I *am* seriously considering a Zero SR-1 motorcycle. It's expensive as hell, but it's got good range, and is far more drivable than a stumbling, lurching, over-lean internal combustion engine hobbled by EPA regulations. I have to add Power Commanders to all my bikes to get around the crap fueling caused by the EPA.
I test drove one (and a Brammo Empulse) and expected them to be complete shite, and they surprised me.
thing is, the standard Model S is already two motors, they sit end to end and power a common shaft that goes to the differential from there. It's how Saleen "tuned" the Model S and making more accelleration by dropping the single gear ration.
So this new one, probably has 4 motors, replicating the rear drive unit and moving it forward. At the very least, three.
http://hooniverse.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/tesla-drivetrain-small.jpg
I didn't get the roller coaster thing at first, then realised Tesla headquarters is in Palo Alto, just south of San Fransisco. The hills out there are insane enough (think any 1980s movie with a cop car chase flying over the tops of hills) that roller coaster would be entirely apt.
Maths is clearly not your strong point then.
Whilst road fuel does represent a large fraction of our energy consumption it is not the overwhelming majority of it.
The electricity grid currently(sic!) transfers about 30% of our total energy usage through it, one way or another.
A steady trebling in size implemented over the next 25 years is not far fetched. Not as far fetched as a light safe affordable 200KWh battery.
You're assuming high (peak) power output equals inefficient non-peak use of energy.
That was very true for old carburetted internal combustion engines. It's a lot less true with the new breed of one-liter 160BHp units with computerized fuel injection and high boost turbo/superchargers. And it's almost completely untrue for electric motors and control systems.
Likewise, aggressive driving in a conventional car means wastefully dumping kinetic energy into heating up the brakes. Far less so with regenerative electrical braking. And in any case, responsible owners of high-power cars don't drive aggressively for more than a tiny fraction of the time. The efficiency penalty with a six-liter "muscle car" is mostly fuel wasted while cruising, with the engine running at a tiny fraction of its peak power output, using fuel very inefficiently.
The bottom line? These days you *can* have your cake and eat (most of) it.
This isn't a problem for everyone.
Here in Quebec the head of Hydro-Quebec (our sole electricity provider) told us our grid could support a million electric cars, with no upgrades to the grid.
That was almost a decade ago, and improvements have been made since both in EV tech and our grid.
Maybe we're a special case though, we have plenty of renewable electricity from our hydro dams.
Petroleum products account for about 36% of UK energy consumption, which comes to something like 54 mtoe (million tons oil equivalent) per year. Electricity consumption at 27 mtoe/yr is about half this.
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/337452/ecuk_chapter_1_overall_factsheet.pdf
Off-peak and surplus capacity for electricity looks to be somewhat less than half of total capacity.
http://gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
So it looks as though at best the UK's presently available electricity generating capacity would provide for less than a quarter of our transport needs.
Hinkley Point will not be enough.
"Hinkley Point will not be enough."
Hinkley Point shouldn't be built at all. That's not from being anti-nuclear, but because boiling/pressurised water reactors are a bomb waiting to go off, quite apart fro the inherent inefficiency of the low heat level generated. There _are_ safer ways of building nuclear power stations and the best part is that they don't require the station be right next to a large body of water.
Are you measuring energy consumption by weight?
I'll make it easy. About 300 billion miles are driven every year. A Tesla Model S goes about 3 miles per kwh. So about 100 billion kwh or 100 million mwh or 100,000 gwh or 100twh. Compared to almost 400twh of electricity production per year.
So if we were to convert every vehicle to EV, it would be only a 1/4th increase in electricity use.
And don't forget, gasoline takes a lot of electricity to refine even 1 gallon.
Yes, there is displacement of pollution. Electric cars arent 'free'. Looking at the Tesla page (I presume thats 'spouting the same old rubbish', eh Piro?) and they recommend a 22kW charging link. Thats pretty much 88 Amps. Most domestic houses are rated at 100A input, so charging your Tesla stresses your input supply quite nicely. Or pay to get multi-phase supply in, if you can get it (not easy for a lot of people).
Oh did you want a second electric car? Or a third one? Then you'll have to get up in the middle of the night to swap the plugs over.
So whilst it would potentially reduce pollution by using up surplus nighttime electric power (but not from those solar panels folks!) we wouldnt be able to support mass changeover to electric.
As for Norway - there aint that many people there - population 5million, density 15.5 per sq/km.
Have you heard of somewhere called London? 8.5m, density 5300 per sq/km. There's another 56 million here too. You'll need grown-up power for this so yes there is an issue with pollution displacement and the need for beefed-up infrastructure.
Tesla offers an 80A twin charger, that is the fastest in-home charger. But you are under no obligation to use it. Lets put it this way, the average commute in the UK is 16.7 miles.
If you were to plug the car into a standard 240V @ 13A outlet. Your car would be topped off in less than 2 hours. So even if you have 3 cars you are only talking about using 39A at night. Aka no big deal.
Even if you drain your car to 0, you can still get over 100 miles overnight on a standard outlet. A 240V @ 40A can charge you to full over night from 0.
The twin charger is meant for people who need it, most don't really need it.
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