This is exciting. All around positivity around this. Hope it succeeds and kicks on and changes everything. By everything I'm including geopolitics too. Thoughts?
Tesla
What's the carbon footprint of manufacturing one?
I remember for the original Prius you had to drive the thing for years before the reduced emissions would compensate for the higher initial emissions footprint vs the commercial-to-scale compact car competitors.
I've watched a video where one of these things effortlessly out-drags hotted up street cars. Impressive.
If they want to sell these, Tesla will need to get charging stations organised pretty fast in my part of the world where driving more than 300km in a session is pretty routine.
With the ban on the sale of petrol and diesal cars coming here (and France) by 2040 I think more people will start thinking about the switch and you'll get more manufactures thinking about accelerating the switch too. On street parking means I can't charge my car overnight so it's not something I can consider yet sadly.
Tesla got me interested when I saw more and more of them here in Stockholm from about 18 months back. They seem to be absolutely beast cars, for sure.
Burnsy, the carbon footprint in manufacturing is ridiculous. Despite being electrical cars, all things considered they are WORSE from an environmental point of view than most other cars, and the manufacturing process is where all that is at.
Oh, and from what I can tell from more than a year back, they go beyond 600 kilometers without needing to be charged again. The capacity is ridiculous.
Rex wrote:Burnsy, the carbon footprint in manufacturing is ridiculous. Despite being electrical cars, all things considered they are WORSE from an environmental point of view than most other cars, and the manufacturing process is where all that is at.
Really? I remember reading an article a while back that suggested that Tesla's had a marginally worse carbon footprint in the manufacturing process (15%), the loss was significantly outweighed by the benefit of a lack of emissions on the road.
I think the end result, which also took into consideration of how the electricity was being generated, was a net benefit of over 50% when compared with your average combustion engine.
Burnwinter wrote:What's the carbon footprint of manufacturing one?
There are two main problems the way I see it. The first is that lithium is rare and the environmental damage in order to mine it is huge. We're already reaching a point where the demand is starting to become unsustainable for laptops and cellphones. There's literally no way to launch electric cars on a world-wide scale without inventing new technology. From what I remember sodium batteries seemed like the most realistic option 6-7 years ago, but sodium ions are larger than lithium which means they're slower and make the batteries deteriorate faster.
The second is the question where your electricity comes from. It's not gonna be a significant enough change if the city where you're docking your car still uses a coal-fuelled power plant. Any future with electric cars would have to involve improved nuclear power plants, which you could argue is something we're already in desperate need of. We need an evolution in reactor technology; not just for electric cars but to be able to maintain and create more equal societies. Cheap, easily available electricity is the single biggest difference between rich and impoverished nations. It's key to everything from higher living standards and increased life spans to education.
I watched a BBC Horizon documentary a year or two back where they talked to scientists who were working on accelerators that will shorten the radioactive decay of nuclear waste down to 100 years or so (instead of the 30-90 000 years we're looking at today) by breaking the big elements down into smaller particles with a shorter half-life, but it's not moving along fast enough. The stigmatization surrounding the subject is too great.
Phew. This went south fast.
Renewable energy for the grid, and vast improvements in passenger logistics in urban areas—for example, bus or minibus versions of ridesharing platforms—are probably important.
On the materials front, here's a bit of a read about the Model S battery and its ingredients.
https://electrek.co/2016/11/01/breakdown-raw-materials-tesla-batteries-possible-bottleneck/
Prediction: US pushes for "regime change" in the Congo in 2025 …
A mate has one of these on order, with delivery due late 2018. I'll get back to you all then.
one of my workmates put a deposit down as well. he doesn't even have his license, he just loves elon musk 
:opti:
There's a 'showroom' in canary wharf - used to be an Austin Reed...
Cars are brilliant.
Next to the DLR station? Yeah I was in there a couple of weeks ago. My oldest wouldn't let me leave.
Yeah, down the escalator from the lewisham platform. They also have a couple of models outside of the slug and lettuce, on the way to the Jubilee line - the rep always looks amazingly sheepish when you approach. I imagine that he gets told to do one on a regular basis.
I love electric cars but probably would only really look at one for purchase when graphene batteries are done.
Lithium aside, I would expect the manufacturing process to become far more efficient after they launch the Model 3. Tesla is still a juvenile company and is plagued by many of the same problems other young companies have, some only exasperated by a CEO who favors ridiculous deadlines for a luxury item.
If you're into driving / cars and haven't driven a Tesla yet, do everything you can to get in one. They're absurd and the Model 3 will be a game changer as it will be quicker than most luxury sedans (high end BMWs, Audis, Mercedes, etc.) with instant acceleration (literally) compared to the delay from gas powered combustion.
It's a shame Tesla can't cope with their orders, I would trade my A6 for it rightaway if it is available in my country.
MistaT wrote:If you're into driving / cars and haven't driven a Tesla yet, do everything you can to get in one. They're absurd and the Model 3 will be a game changer as it will be quicker than most luxury sedans (high end BMWs, Audis, Mercedes, etc.) with instant acceleration (literally) compared to the delay from gas powered combustion.
It's not manual though, don't think I could give that up to be honest. Don't think I could give up engine noise either.
I've spoken to a few people who've driven the model S and they thought it was great and all, but it felt a bit "clinical." No sound, no shifting, and the power curve is "too" smooth.
Not a huge fan of autos, but that sort of thing sounds a bit like audiophiles talking about "analog warmth". I understand the response but I believe it's more about habit than long term incentives.
A perfectly smooth power curve and the ability to gun anyone at the lights is going to turn a lot of ordinary car enthusiasts on.