Tesla Founders Blog

Congratulations Martin!!!!!

Finally! I was beginning think that this day would never arrive. I am incredibly happy for both you and Carolyn… I sure that it must be a great relief for both of you, knowing that your Roadster is sitting safely where it should be… in your garage. Take some time to enjoy your new car before worrying about posting any first impressions, you deserve it!

All the best,

Chris H.

Tom,

That’s very cool you ordered an Aptera – when do they expect to deliver the first ones of those? What are the color choices, or are they all white?

Excellent news.

Yeeeeessssss! I am soooo glad to see that you finally received your dream car. Can’t wait to hear more as you “break it in”! And I hope Carolyn will post her impressions after making you occupy the passenger seat.

Congratulations!!!!!

I’d also like to hear about how the Targa top works out. I drive a honda Del Sol with a Targa and it squeaks horribly unless I spray it down with silicone on a semi annual basis. The car is 13 years old, but nearly everyone who owns one complains about it – even comments from early in the model’s life suggest that it squeaks from body flex.

Martin sez:

One interesting qualitative way to experience the unique chassis stiffness issue of any convertible is to reach outside the car and put your finger across the gap between the door and the rear quarter-panel while the car is being driven. You can really feel the gap open and close while the car moves – even on a really good, stiff sportscar. Try it on a cheap car – particularly on a model that was originally designed as a coupe, and you will be amazed by the flex!

Hi Martin, I just signed up here to say congratulations, hope the struggle was worth it!

Like to see some Roadsters in Australia one day…

Congratulations Martin!

I have stop-blocks in my garage, but –like Mark anticipates– every once in a while I stub a toe on them when moving around the cars and knock them out of position. I think I’ll try what my father-in-law does. He has a tennis ball dangling on a string from the garage ceiling. It is positioned just right so that, when he pulls in and it touches the windshield right in front of his face, he knows he in the correct spot. Maybe you’d opt for that solution…?

Martin sez:

I was thinking of bolting the block to the floor. It’s kind of a tight squeeze, and I don’t want to move the table saw into the garage further. I just barely have enough clearance to rip an 8-foot board.

I am curious about Carolyn’s comments on being too short. When my wife, Joyce and I test drove VP10 a few weeks ago I had no issues driving the car at 6′4″, but Joyce at 5′3″ had some issues – She ended up having to wad up my leather jacket and shove it behind her back. She would very much like it if the seat were more adjustable.

We are busy trying to figure out what options we have so that she would feel comfortable driving the car as well, while still allowing me enough space. It would seem silly to have to carry around a “booster seat” for her all the time. Hopefully we will have time to figure this all out before our car is delivered.

Congratulations on receiving your car!
-g

Congratulations Martin!

Unfortunate they didn’t deliver you the car at the Menlo Park opening, but I guess you will be there soon enough for the drivetrain upgrade… (I presume your car for now is 2nd-gear-only?)

And do you have your custom plates yet? (’RCHRGBL’ is waiting at the DMV for my Thunder Gray #108…) After all the hard work you’ve put in over the past years, there is no one more deserving of having the world’s best car.

Congratulations on the delivery of your beautiful roadster. Let me join your other fans (and future Roadster owners) and express a hearfelt THANK YOU for all your hard work and for your vision in bringing this car into being!

I was fortunate to meet you briefly at a couple of different events at the San Carlos office early on, and I enjoyed our conversations tremendously. Although I am of course glad that the company is moving forward, as evidenced by more Roadster deliveries and the opening of the Menlo Park store, the event tonight just wasn’t as great as it would have been with you there.

Anyway, congratulations once again, and best wishes for many enjoyable driving experiences to come. I look forward to reading about some of them!

Congratulations

The whole accident thing raised a lot of questions with me but Tesla came through. Good for them. Be sure to mail the picture of the plugged in car to every oil exec just in case they are still wondering for whom the bell tolls…

Very cool Martin. What a great way to spend a Saturday. Hope you can enjoy the car for years to come. Please publish a front view of the car when possible.

My God it’s been a long time coming, but this is the delivery I’ve been waiting to hear about.

Congratulations Martin. Your vision, drive and persistence have achieved what very few believed possible.

You have given yourself the car of your dreams; Tesla, a hell of a product to follow and the auto industry its biggest wake-up call in decades.

Not bad for five years of work.

Here’s to your next five. Best wishes to your family.

Can you post a shot of the VIN?

You might pull a stunt on those current TM execs and just slowly drive by the new store while invited people were having a party.

Or hire a large truck and brake sharply in front of P1

Finally….

Congratulations!

Thank you Martin for creating the car of your (and our) dreams. For all of us, please have as much fun as possible with it.

congrats for the car looks cool but stop also yourself the bad blood Sir

“I am curious about Carolyn’s comments on being too short.”

http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/news-articles-events/1374-deafening-rumble-shook-trees-pulled-up.html#post9953

Martin,

“Yayyy!” I exclaimed aloud a few minutes ago when I read you finally got your car! Form the looks of it, many of us EV nuts share your happiness, even if most of us can’t afford a Roadster. Enjoy!

Malcom: “hire a large truck and brake sharply in front of P1″ Bahahahaaaaa! That’s funny!

Congratulations with finally getting the car. Hope you get endless hours of fun with it.

Cobos

Fabulous news Martin. Way overdue.

Martin-
You consider to inspire with your maturity in conflict but your boyhood enthusiasm. I can’t say it better than almost all the other posts above. Certainly you deserve it, but because of you we all will benefit from it!
Cheers, Ian

PS-How long ago did they come and install the garage power unit and how long did it take?

Martin sez:

I installed it myself – it took me a couple of hours because the space I had was kind of tight and because I am picky about workmanship

o.jeff,

You make an interesting point, but if you consider that both GM and Tesla are more integrators of existing tech, as opposed to developing everything from scratch, it’s understandable that they would work at the same pace.

Tesla started with licensing the EV design from AC Propulsion and the chassis design from Lotus. GM has much of the tech from the EV, but they still must develop / test a new battery tech from two new vendors, which simply takes years to prove their safety and long term reliability.

Thanks for blogging about this right away, although nobody would have blamed you if you had put the article off until you had spent several days with your new “baby.” Then again, I suppose you would have had a few hours to kill while the Roadster was recharging, anyway.

I hope to see you and your sharp looking car on a Bay Area road one of these days. For now, congratulations on the realization of a dream you shared with us.

Martin,
Congratulations for the long awaited Roadster!! It’s finally a relief that you were able to receive the fruition of all your hard work. And let the adventures begin! I hope to see more pictures of your wonderful Roadster!

Brilliant idea to go with a custom paint job. Yet another red or black car would not stand out like yours will at events and in the millions of photos that will appear on these internets.

Like the Dark Knight we will be able to track your every movement in it. (sorry for the geeky movie reference)

Congrats to the both of you. It’s weird to have an arrival of a car be about tantamount to the arrival of a child, but this “it’s-only-a-car” gives me hope for the future, so I think it is apropos.

I gotta say, in part because of the weirdness at Tesla, I wound up putting a deposit on the Fisker Karma instead. As I start to see Teslas rolling around quietly here in Los Angeles, I might change my mind. Please do keep us all updated as far as how much your energy use increases with the addition of the Roadster to the family. I have read somewhere that you have solar panels already, but it would be nice to know what happens.

As for the Dark Night, it was a movie definitely worth watching. If you need someone to look after the Tesla while you watch it, I’d be more than happy to make the trip up US 1 to meet you, and I’ll promise to stay far away from any trucks that happen to be on the road

Great news! Now I can look forward to reading these blog pages again. Regular posts please and a lot of pictures. Congratulations.

Congratulations! It looks great I want to drive it one day

How does your cars battiers work with your solar equipent?
How much miles do you “produce” do it yourself in average weekly?
How long does recharging take in the real world to full after lets say a mornings drive of 20 – 30 and after 100-120 miles.

How have you set up your connection from car / grid / your solar power roof?

Martin sez:

The recharge rate is about 80 miles per hour… Inotherwords, if I plug in for an hour, I get about 80 miles’ driving range. Empty to full itakes about 3 hours, maybe a little more. (I actually don’t know the exact number; it’s full when I wake up in the morning.)

Martin,

I can’t stop smiling myself for this great news… Congratulations!

Hector

stevejust,

What are the color options for the Fisker? Have they given you a target delivery date?

Congrats Martin!

The car looks absolutely incredible!!!

One question, is the handwriting on the ‘founders series’ tag just a generic font? Or is it a copy of your handwriting?

I had a eVespa – whenever approaching a hill the gear very soon stopped – downhill many motors died (these ebicicles where China made crap.

- How is the Tesla responding powerwise when approaching a hill with 50% power used?

- is there any degredation in general power / respond in relation with % of batterie used?

This was also a big drawback in the eVespas – as longer yopu drove, the slower they got.

- AND finally:
What is your emergency plan when getting stranded without battery. Is there anything that can help?
Like a spare car battery in the trunk or some other more elegant solution?
I mean you have to plan for a not so rare situation – just in case – or is there only a pickup truck towing you the way?

Thanks for your kind reply indeed

Martin sez:

Until I get my mobile charge cable, I will be very conservative about my driving distance so as not to get stranded

Martin Eberhard: Where do you go from here here? Let’s get serious. Do it again. Starting as soon as possible. Reasons? You had the idea in the first place, and took it from dream to hard reality. From what I’ve read in the fortune article, you made practical decisions, and were overruled. And your financier had his hidden (now not so hidden) agenda, and you were not a part of his future, his coming glory, his future emulation of William C. Durant. He did not need to have you at his elbow reminding the world that it was your idea. Robert Kennedy said “Who says life is fair?” I was impressed in the account of this adventure published in Fortune that you made decision based on engineering factors. Serious engineering factors. So here it is from an old guy in Canada who has done an awful lot of things, so many it is embarrassing when I have to reel them off; it sounds like boasting. There are serious companies out there who’d welcome having you come on board to head up a division devoted to electric cars. You have my eMail address. Get in touch. Nothing to lose. Time is going, young fellow, and legions of eager folks are on the move.

Regarding the mobile charging, I wonder how long it would take to get a couple of miles worth off of just a truck’s alternator – like a jumpstart. I don’t know how many amps a 12v alt can sustain in addition to running the car.

Back when my friends and I did stereo setups with 2000 or more peak watts, we normally installed a cap. Which makes me think you might be able to draw 2kw off a good size alt – meaning that six miles would need an hour (2Kwh = 6 miles).

Thoughts?

Congratulations, Martin! We Roadster-owners-to-be are so very happy for you (and somewhat jealous, too!). I saw your car in Hethel, UK, at the Lotus plant. I’m very glad to know it is now safely in your hands.

It was a pleasure meeting you in the early days, and it will always be a pleasure driving one of your dreams.

All the best to you and Carolyn … enjoy your Roadster. My wife and I hope to meet you at a Telsa ralley some day!

Regards,

Ken (#73) Jacobs

“An Internet troll, or simply troll in Internet slang, is someone who posts controversial and usually irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, with the intention of baiting other users into an emotional response[1] or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion.[2]”

“The basic mindset of a troll is that they are far more interested in how others react to their (posts) than in the usual concerns of … accuracy, veracity, comprehensiveness, and overall quality.”

“Trolling is a game about identity deception, albeit one that is played without the consent of most of the players. The troll attempts to pass as a legitimate participant, sharing the group’s common interests and concerns….”

“Trolls can be costly in several ways. A troll can disrupt the discussion …, disseminate bad advice, and damage the feeling of trust in the … community.”

Hi Martin,

congratulations and… have fun!

Steve S.,

I will ask you again, what is new in that article, that we didn’t read when it first came out over one week ago?

It’s great. It’s great. It’s great….

Re: What’s in a name?

I was wondering why Martin picked Orange as opposed some other colour for his car’s detailing so I looked up “Eberhard” to see if it was possibly of Dutch extraction.

No, it’s German. But I found out that the meaning of the name in English is: “Courage of a boar.”

Congratulatins on your new car Martin. Have you or your wife given it a “pet name” yet?

Next time you’re on our island I’d love to see it

Peter J. Hedge
Victoria, BC

Hey Martin,
I emailed you the other night after I saw you on the freeway. Again I hope I didn’t scare you at all, I was just so excited. Also when I wrote to you I mentioned 1994, it should have been 2004. Maybe I will see you at Buc’s sometime, we go there to eat sometime.
ENJOY!!!!!!!!!!
Bob Magni

Martin sez:

For a sec, I thought you were talking about a person when you asked how I was getting along with the perpetual creep of the Roadster!

LOL! Strange. I don’t often miss a setup like that. I must be reading too many TJ posts

Thanks for that. So what does the N position do on the 1.5 gear stick? Does that get rid of the creep? (If only).

Thanks for your detailed answer Martin,

one more question: is there a “safety lock” in the charging port of the roadster?… in other words, can the roadster be started while it is plugged in?… what will happen when a Hollywood star forgets to unplug it?

Martin sez:

1. The car won’t drive (the parking lock in the transmission won’t unlock) if the charge door is open
2. Same thing if the car detects the presence of a charger at the connector (several ways to detect this.)
3. The home charging unit has a strain-detecting mechanism that will cut power (at both ends) if the cable gets a good yank
4. The home charging unit’s cable has a break-away design so that if you managed to yank the cable clean off, no dangerous voltages are exposed.

CONGRATZ MARTIN! I’m a bit late but I’m sure u are still enjoying it immensly. I’m so glad u actually got it and haveing it delivered to your door is kind of neat, a special service altho I think you would have liked the fanfare – they were worried about controversy. Doesn’t matter, you have that awsome car now and can drive pollution free in an era of High gas prices. That CNN newslady Gerri Willis wants a ride, I bet u call her and you could be on CNN if u wanted. Way to go man!!!!!!!!

If you can’t find another engineering or business gig you like, you could always buy a couple of the roadster VPs and opening a little track. I’d pay a bill to spend half an hour out there on the turns with nothing but that sweet sweet squeal.

My friend used to borrow his co-workers 97 Miata. It was such a crappy car, but perfect for late nights in abandoned parking lots. I swear we must of have cost that guy at least two sets of tires.

Martin,
I see you are listed as an adviser to Coulomb Technologies. They seem to have a pretty decent technical architecture concept. However, their commerce model seems lacking in my view. If EVs and PHEVs really take off, then there may be many companies providing charge points. If each one of them has a unique an incompatible subscription model–like Coulomb proposes–then it will be a real nightmare for vehicle owners. I would beg all would-be charge point providers to please include a simple credit/debit card reader to allow for immediate payment via standard payment mechanisms. Certainly, I would understand if credit/debit card users had to pay more than subscribers for electricity, but at least they would be able to use the charge point!

When I drive around the country on trips with my 2011 Chevy Volt, I want to be able to recharge regardless of what company provides the charge point.

I still want to know what Martin will do next (retire early ?- because where the heck would you find major investors-and trustworthy ones too? Martin has EV street cred going to waste, for what that’s worth.) . I’m still intrigued with the concept of the Martin SpaceCar- since the sketch looks fawn-TAS-tic: jah, iz no girly car. It allows something SUV/crossover-ish to survive in the EV/plug-in world via aircraft grade light weight and maybe near Aperta-like CD. So you still get the “sitting up high” SUV-ish feature in an EV. Guess it’s not possible to scan the SpaceCar sketch and put it up here-or is it? I have a scanner on my printer, but never used it.

MARTIN:
Thanks for your thoughtful response. My take is that there will be a two tiered (or more) market, with a very fragmented manufacturing market at one end, possible with shared designed platforms, and parts from several parts makers (Intel Inside X fifty). Electric power will dominate. and because electric powered autos are simpler to make than combustion engined autos, I foresee several countries out of national interest promoting their own auto industries and discouraging imports. Thinking about this possibility, I’m highly confident that developments will be along these lines, one way or another, and that it come along pretty quickly. Regrettably, Detroit is toast. What you posit about Chrysler and the missed opportunity of doing a Steve Jobs/Apple clean sweep revival, is dead on. The daily “Deal Book” blog in the Business Section of the New York Times had an interesting discussion on this very topic some time ago. Check it out; gow to the NY Times, navigate your way to Business then to Deal Book then in the Deal Book search box, type in “Chrysler.” You’ll find it interesting. We live in dramatic times, to say the least.

Mannheimer- I don’t think Detroit is toast, but they are always getting toasted, or at least lightly browned no ? The head of Ford used to be with Boeing (maybe was CEO, I forget)-this is good. The new Ford Fiesta, to be built in Mexico, looks quite nice. As for Martin comment on “new management at Chrysler doing something different” -forget it, not only aren’t they car guys, they’re rats: Robt. Nardelli, CEO of Chrysler, was driven out of Home Depot, where he was CEO, by stockholder outrage-he was one of those rat U.S. CEO’s paid an absolute fortune ( he was one of highest paid in U.S. at Home Depot) and, similar to the rap on Musk, he wasn’t nice to employees on top of it. Yet look how he landed on his feet (something is rotten in the state of Denmark, and one further west, Horatio). As for Cerberus Co. CEO John Snow, he is ex- U.S. Treasury Dept. head under Bush-which makes him another rat , by association in this case. As for the REAL founding/ owner head of Cerberus, Steve Feinberg (who they say likes to stay very much out of the spotlight) -he’s only about 46 years old or something like that and worth about $45 billion (via hedge funds or whatever- “I may be wrong” but I don’t think he made all this cash “by accident”-more likely by insider info. from higher order banking “powers that be”, so that he can thereby be “a trusted associate” who appears to have made it on his own- similar to Michael Milken and George Soros situations, no doubt). Dan Quayle heads a Cerebus Co. division in Europe-yes THAT Dan Quayle (Holy Halibut, Batman !- see how the Ratmen look after their own). Another Cerebus Division now runs the privatized Walter Reed Army hospital- which has been totally mismanaged/botched-but Cheney and Rumsfeld invested in this wonderful “make money off the maimed troops” operation. Rodents to the left of us, rodents to the right-we’re surrounded-take it from moi: a recreational rodent tracker. Therefore, no Steve Jobs types anywhere at Chrysler, filtering to the top at least. Anyone posting on this blog would make a better Chrysler CEO than Nardelli. Rats don’t care about reinventing companies, they just care about “Who Moved Their Cheese” and where in the maze it’s now at. Except they’re allowed into the “inner circle of maze” to start with, as opposed to regular Joes like us and Martin. Chrysler no doubt was sold to Cerberus via some sort of “powers that be” inside job. They say Cerberus’ M.O. is turning a company around just far enough to sell the spruced -up shell for some kind of profit. But the Japanese have their problems with the rat race too-it was lately in the news about 2 Toyota execs. who died from overwork-they have a special word for this in Japan (another word that starts with a K, besides Kaizen) , seeing as how it’s popular over there-they take their rat racing seriously. Like was mentioned, I think that with the simpler mechanicals and coming “novel 21st century style excitement factor ” of EV’s , more companies, like Th!nk, Aptera can get somewhere and hang around-particularly with a healthy world economy making for enough of that so-called “discretionary income”. I like that little Aptera, if I were one rung up on the income level and living in a stable economy (now wrecked by the usual gang of idiots Wall Street greed mongers like Nardelli )-and had a bigger garage- I’d buy one. Something different, something neat-and it rewards the little guys, which is a nice concept-that a booming economy would certainly help. But noooo !- saddled with [Cabbage] George for 8 years thru half the country’s infinite wisdom (scratch that: insert “stupidity”), dragged down by a money pit of a war du jour, and the abovementioned idiots as well to top it all off-”only in America” (literally,no ?)

Hi Martin,

On the utility of ultracapacitors, I would think that their ability to absorb energy quickly might come in handy when it comes to rapid regenerative braking. When exiting a freeway offramp, for instance, the Roadster’s batteries aren’t able to absorb all that energy that quickly, but a small bank of ultracaps may be able to handle the load, and then gradually discharge to the battery.

Not to mention, you’ll need the ultracaps to power the passenger-side ejector seat. (you know, for when the creep gets to be too much.)

I second the comment by Ben July 22, 2008 @ 10:45 pm.

Martin!

Whenever you drive on on of the many electric bus, metro or other public transport systems today (especially in urban public transport well developed Europe) chances are the drivetrain you ride upon is already supportet by a capacitor system similar to the one Ben has described.
If that would not be sound & proven efficient no public founded and paid for transport system would have incorporatet that recuperative system based on capacitors ever.

As much as I agree with you Martin on many of what you said (and feel what happend to you:-(, concerning this very argument, werde spit 180 gr. I cannot follow you.
Capacitors are simply great for (extreme) heavy electric loads in short timeperiods, batteries simply cannot handle today.
No matter capacitors kilogram/power ratio is still below the one of batteries – their benefit lies in other values they have and where batteries cannot come up with.
So they make perfect companions to batteries today already – and tomorrow also in private cars e.g. Teslas.

Whatever is said as argument for non effective recuperative braking & slow loading when fast loading is needed (and possible) – its not holding water.

My 2 cents

Martin sez:

Even from my earliest specs for the charging system, we specified a series of safety interlocks:

1. The car won’t drive (the parking lock in the transmission won’t unlock) if the charge door is open
2. Same thing if the car detects the presence of a charger at the connector (several ways to detect this.)
3. The home charging unit has a strain-detecting mechanism that will cut power (at both ends) if the cable gets a good yank
4. The home charging unit’s cable has a break-away design so that if you managed to yank the cable clean off, no dangerous voltages are exposed.
………………
Spoken like a safety person!
………………
FYI, to T.J.: Alan Mulally was CEO of Boeing’s airplane division, through the first part of development of the 787. When McNerney came in as the overall corporate CEO, Mulally left and went to Ford.

Martin,

What exactly will you be doing as entrepreneurs in residence (EIRs) for Mayfield Fund?

Regards

Martin sez:

You found me out. What I am doing mostly is learning.

>It had become apparent that a clear
>coat-over-carbon fiber was impossible,
> and I still wanted something unique.)

I really like the look of the roll bar which appears to be done this way. Can you elaborate on why this is not possible for the full body? I assume because the joins between panels would not look attractive?

Martin sez:

The painted body panels are built with a low-pressure injection molding process, and as such both sides are tooled. But the lay of the CF is not perfect (from a visual point of view) and the thickness and transparency of the resin is not good enough for clear coat.

Someone named Nan Mooney just wrote a book called “(Not) Keeping Up With Our Parents”. In a magazine interview she said: “The share of family income devoted to fixed expenses like rent has increased from 53% to 75% in the past two decades…housing prices in most major metropolitan areas have risen six times faster than household incomes, and household debt has ballooned to over 130% of disposable income.”-yeah, no wonder.Of course real estate people always jack the prices up just to the absolute limit. Like when Silicon Valley was the hottest job-wise, the home prices went thru the roof. In most of “mainstream” Cailf., people are “mortgage poor”. What a huge waste of money that could be spent on more progressive things than a dumb house/apt. to live. Yeah-the quotes by this author is part of where the problem is. What a drain on the economy of money that could go to purchasing a lot of other things-including the coming more expensive EV type cars, and home solar-which would help the economy and the environment. The problem of people stupidly racking up credit card debt adds to it all, as usual . Finally we have the fed. govt. which, unlike most of the rest of the “first world” doesn’t allow for free college or health care or child care, and has racked up a debt that’s threatening a Social Security problem-and they didn’t regulate Wall St. and the mortgage industry either, leading to the current little problem-to go with the ongoing little complete waste of a war debt problem. Too many of our so-called leaders are terrible. One way, at least, that things could be made better is via huge rebates and incentives for all things green-since it is a brand new issue without all the entrenched, hidebound luggage that goes with the other issues above. THAT, like I’ve said before, could make a really big difference when fully instituted. Gore thinks it’s possible to be almost 100% green powered in 10 years. Yeah, it’s possible without a congress composed of at least 50% expletives deleted-and with a JFK caliber president. But neither of the candidates is that. So here we’ll go with half-measures again, and the continued basically economic crunch/stagnation which what, like two thirds of the country has to put up with-or is it really closer to 75% ? A GDP growth rate in this country of, say, 5% per year (or 6% ?) via a huge green boom and the trickle down that would go with it sure would be in order- but Obama (the likely guy) will wimp out-and even if he didn’t , with all the republicans still in congress from the retrograde states- dare I say “the midwest & south largely” (dare on , Garth) it’s hopeless. Rather than “gaining traction” this country will just keep on stupidly spinning it’s wheels.

Another thing to do re. an economic boon would be for the fed. govt. to get everyone with a bad or killer high rate/adjustable rate mortgage into a nice normal rate 30 year one. On PBS “Now” show was a program on a Calif. millionaire who, as a charity/ hobby basically, set up a company that got people into good mortgages-since he knew of people in bad situations re. this in the past . He set up a computer system to verify their finances, find banks/mortgage companies, and homes, with professional advisors that worked with them all the way down the line. The default rate on the mortgages via this guy’s system was like 2%. He now has an improved system that he wants to pitch to the fed. govt.,-he’s getting some interest in it from some members of congress. Of course some say (sometimes with southern accents) “you just can’t bail all these people out and excuse their bad decisions/whatever”. Oh yeah-well we’ve bailed the entire bleeping country of Iraq out to the tune of what could be up to $2.8 trillion. Past time to look out for #1 here. “But lordy, lordy-how would we ever pay for it all ?” Read my lips: ” pull plug, war-ASAP”. Don’t like that answer ?, read again : “and/or tax the rich & corporations more/close loopholes”. Even Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have said that they’re definitely undertaxed-and they wouldn’t mind being taxed more. Microsoft offers “trickle down” to the economy but Gates already has a 45,000 sq. ft. house and all the cars he needs (plus clothes & food)- he and others, in boats that are smaller than his, offer precious little further trickle down potential. Besides, life is short-and when so many people are stuck with a daily, critical basic housing problem issue, to halibut with waiting for trickle down or similar. Re. the war expense drain, many say we went into Iraq for the oil. Actually it was more about making money for the military/industrial complex and the big bankers, as usual per bogus war M.O.’s. Here are the top 3 countries where where we get most of our imported oil from (in thousands of barrels per day): Canada- 2265, Saudi Arabia-1604, Mexico-1209. Iraq is #7 at 583, Kuwait is #13. So we really should have invaded Canada, ay? -heck we should have thrown in Mexico too while we had the military machine fired up (economies of scale an’ all that)-then we’d really be set.

Finkenbusch,

The LIFEcar is not a car that is going to produced in the near future… it is to work with hydrogen and we all know that “fool cells” are expensive, less efficient and very unlikely to be better than a battery some time in the future.

I don’t think Martin said that the capacitors are not better than batteries to capture the energy from the regenerative breaking … but they are not required for practical proposes. What would be the real advantage of using capacitors in the roadster?… a few more miles, much more risk and much more expense?… more than a few miles are gained every year as batteries improve.

Capacitors could be practical someday as well as fuel cells… but not now.

Regards

You guys keep panhandling for the “next big thing”, then turn your noses up when hydrogen / methanol fuel cells continue to penetrate the market. Do you want to catch the next wave or not?

Given your inability to embrace the next big thing, just by some crappy land and plant some Jatropha Carcus, so that you can generate bio-diesel for trucking companies.

Martin sez:

Jason, I gather that you’ve started a hydrogen or methanol fuel cell company then? If not, why have you turned your nose up at this technology?

Hi Martin,

Congrats once again on the delivery of your new baby! It was such a thrill to see the Roadster at Alice’s on Sunday and it was a pleasure to meet and chat with you. Here are the pictures I took, in case you’d like to have a look

I’m sure I don’t have to say it, but… enjoy!!

All the best,
Tom

Hi Martin and Carolyn, its great to see you have the car finally! If you ever need a recharge (car and human) at the south end of Skyline please drop in… I might even get my noisy polluting Elise out for a ride.

Also you should try out the handling at the upcoming Lotus club Autocross (see http://www.gglotus.org). Its the safest way to get sideways…

Martin sez:

The club website is the first I’ve seen of the new Evora. Wow, it sure seems like Lotus is borrowing design cues from Tesla now! Look at the shoulder vents and the under-door cutaway, for example. It appears to have a rear wing that’s very similar to Tesla’s too.

Martin,

At this point, I believe the Asians (Japan, Taiwan, S. Korea) are already far enough along on fuel cell tech for small applications, so I wouldn’t start a fuel cell company, but I would instead follow the Tesla Motors model of taking their existing small fuel cells, cobble them together and embed them in an existing chassis.

Were I to do anything, I would grab up some of this crappy Florida soil, and plant Jatropha Curcas, then in the off season, going prospecting out West per those “Finding Gold” youtube videos to strike it rich.

Martin sez:

Re: free promotion

It seems kind of . . . ironic . . . that in spite of his “problems” with TM an EM, Martin is, in some ways, probably doing more to promote the Roadster (albeit in the short term) than the company itself.

On another note, why bother with personalized plates? surely everyone will recognize whose car it is from “miles away”?

Peter J Hedge
Victoria, BC

Martin sez:

I already have customized plates, they are currently on another car, and belong on a Tesla!

Lotus Evora is o.k., except for Tesla features , as in regard to concept of “been there, done that-should have done something different”. One photo shows a “GM style” ridge “crease” down middle of door: yuck ! Design is o.k. , which means actually it isn’t really o.k.: should have kicked it up a notch, with aspects in in another direction. The thin point where roof connects with body is “different”- but kind of funky. To think that GM once owned Lotus and sold it to Malaysian co. “Proton”. GM took forever to come out with front wheel drive Elan at the time, which supposedly didn’t handle that well due to front drive. So a Malaysian company can revive Lotus where GM, with their overpaid top management, couldn’t-sad commentary there. At the time the Elan was a nice looking car though . The original model of the Elise was pretty-then they added those funkier long thin headlights (like Evora has too) and added vents & scoops all over with Batman type black plastic fins: all too much, the car was nicer as lean, simple and clean.

Latest news: California today banned all transfat in restaurant food. Denmark did this about 50 years ago-only they banned it in everything. Wonder if this has something to do with GM not being able to make something of Lotus, per concept of progressive thinking. Probably.

ok Telsamotorsclub.com down and Teslamotors.com too boring.
So that leaves your site Martin as the defacto open Tesla forum.
whodathunkit!

Your stripes are groing on me. At first I thought too gaudy/loud but after seeing the all orange one
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28767137@N07/2683833835

and then the black… then the green. You gotta go with lighter colors that show the shape/shadows of the beauty.

I love the old Jaguar roadsters and found this one you might like
http://www.jcna.com/library/news/2003/jcna0153.html

My wish.
In 10 years when the Tesla roadster is the classic EV and you and Elon have moved on and cashed your chips on TM stock. Tesla could come out with an Eberhard Edition. Stripes for everyone. (in limited quanties and small markup of course);-)

How does Oliver know 00006 has crashed? I heard that car 00007 has already been resold-to someone who works for the english govt.-the car has been sent back to Lotus for “some special outfitting”-whatever that means.

I smell photocrap. An accident or two are going to happen. but this one i call out… look at angles/wheels/damage/other car in accident.
The first photogaraphed accident is an undamged Tesla uplifting an undamaged Mercedes???

After additional viewing of the pics I noticed two things:

i.) the Roadster has no license plate, which would suggest that it is a newly delivered car… OUCH!

ii.) the accident appears to be in a parking lot, with the Merc apparently backing out of it’s parking space, which would suggest the Merc backed into the Roadster… double OUCH!

This looks like it may have occurred near the Draper, Fisher, Jurvetson offices at 2884 Sand Hill Road…

Time will tell.

vfx,

now wouldn’t that be “Karma”… LOL

All the best,

Chris H.

Re: Who was the driver?

Both Martin’ car and the latest one in a fender bender were, “Being driven by a technician”.

I wonder if they/he/she are still working for TM?

Peter J Hedge
Victoria, BC

Martin sez:

If this is true and with around 20 so far assembled, they seem to crash 10% of customer’s cars on public streets. The mind boggles.

If you go to maps.google and type in 1348 Geary Blvd, SFO, CA, then use street view and turn clockwise you’ll see the same view shown in the first of the two accident photos. My 2c: This is a Founders’ Series car (emblem is present), probably NOT Elon’s (unless he removed the dealer plates (I don’t understand why he left them on the vehicle for at least several weeks), newly delivered to a VC. Unlikely it’s another technician accident. Speculation the driver (not necessarily owner) is the asian man standing next to it; less likely: the young man in white T-shirt , sneakers and baseball cap.

Speculation: Tesla driver wants to turn left; C-class Merc is partially blocking him (although it looks like there’s enough room) or he changed his mind. White Toyota brakes too late, pushes Tesla under Merc (its bumper is pushed under the frame (as shown by the piece that sticks up at a 25 degree angle on the rear left quarter panel).

Martin: please email me directly.

How could a Tesla driver (of all drivers) get in an accident, with car’s superior brakes, etc. ? Rule #1 with any car iz be extra careful till you get used to driving it . Guess someone also doesn’t get the critical time-honored concept of “drive defensively” -including the technican driving Martin’s car.

Well I hope you do work with your old friends on a similar project. But then here is the best compliment we can give you Martin:

http://www.teslambo.com

This is an all-electric 600BHP 4-wheel drive supercar running on removable supercaps and Li-Poly.

To us, Martin Eberhard is the father of the modern all-electric supercar.

Thank you always.

HP announced (on BBC News) that it wants to put billions ( & eventually trillions) of super cheap nanosensors all around the planet- a program called CENSE (central nervous system for earth). A guy named Williams working on this at HP said “we’ve got to realize that the planet is sick and the disease is us”. They plan to start putting out sensors in about 18 months. Looks like the start of “planet management” which I mentioned a few times before as maybe, like a good thing to do “someday” (you think !?). Eventually maybe this can lead to “slapping the appropriate humanoid creatures around” worldwide in detected problem areas. Of course the biggest issue, as usual, and hardly touched on or talked about by anyone-strange as that may seem- is population control. All sorts of talk by Gates & Bono and others about improving human health & life span worldwide. Just recently Gates and N.Y. Mayor Bloomberg announced a $375 million plan to try to reduce smoking in the less developed/developing countries. My question to these guys iz: why in the name of halibut don’t you put equal effort/P.R. into population control as you do health issues ? Talk about a blind spot: what’s with these guys anyway? If they do happen to be doing anything worth much in this regard, it sure as heck gets zero P.R. The ultimate in “planet management” would eventually involve fixing human life related trouble areas as well as human-caused environmental trouble areas. But this would require people being a heck of a lot better informed and less professionally conned- as per the concept of “certain forces” will lie , con & manipulate for absolutely as long as they can possibly get away with it. What, you expect something different from some members of a species that is like 95% chimp genes? -expect on, Garth.

Here’s a link to a two hour plus video about the development of the Lotus Elise: http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&q=elise&btnG=Google+Search&lr=&dur=&so=0&num=100#

Disclaimers: you may need to be a car guy to enjoy it. You may have seen it before–it’s been around Google video for about nine months. It consists of two episodes, both of which were evidently shown on the Discovery channel. It probably helps a lot if you’re a longtime Ducati V-twin owner like me. One the bright side, it shows how difficult producing a new car is, and by extension reveals much of the marvelous technology shared by the Tesla roadster.

Martin you are just about the only person who can turn any one of these ‘Big Three’ auto manufacturers around – and save thousands of jobs in Detroit. Why have they not approached you? Or have they?

Lastly, could you comment on in-wheel motors such as the Hi-Pa? The unsprung weight affects handling on a race/supercar too much. But I think it would work well on a ’superleggera’ SUV.

Martin sez:

Generally, I don’t understand what problem hub motors are supposed to be solving.

# David Kosowsky wrote:
## I fail to understand the need for any specific life of the storage system beyond convenience.

Perhaps I am being overly adamant about this, but I think people will think less of a vehicle that has some componentry that will be known to fail in time. Many people would like to think that their vehicle could potentially last forever without any major maintenance. I know in practice, many ICE vehicles end up having to have engines rebuilt or replaced after a while, so there is some precedent for selling a vehicle that you know could require major replacements to stay on the road. I suspect that many Roadster sales will go to customers who plan to use it as a “weekend fun car”, and not their primary vehicle. Some even as museum pieces. In those cases, the calendar lifespan of li-ion makes pack replacement come much sooner than I would want. Aside from the downtime, and expense of replacement, there is also the thought that a lot of extra energy will need to be used to manufacture the replacements, and recycle the used.

Martin sez:

EVERYTHING will fail eventually. The likelihood of failure of a complex thing is the product of the likelihood of failure of every component, except where you have redundancy working for you. If your car has a doodad with a 20% chance of failing in the first 5 years, and there are 10 such doodads on the car, then the chance of the car failing is (1 – (1-0.2)^10) = about 90% chance that the the car will fail in that 5 years! Complexity breeds unreliability.

Martin & TEG,

I agree on the hub motors. Lots of flash and little substance except maybe for offroading or ultra-performance. I’ld also add to their detriment, the fact that they are located below the suspension. For normal transportation, it just doesn’t make sense to put 4 expensive and precise components on the abusive side of the suspension. They would have to be monitored very well and if one failed or became unreliable then the cars firmware would have to be programmed to shut the troubled motor down and adjust the control algorithms accordingly. Too much risk for too little gain.

As far as the battery. I wasn’t considering shorter useful life translating into a greater likelihood of complete failure. This would not necessarily be more or less likely to occur. End of life will most often be when the owner decides the battery no longer delivers an acceptable range. It goes without saying that longer battery will be prefered but what will people be willing to pay for it? Beyond the enthusiasts, patriots, and environmentalists they will be will probably be willing to pay an ICE plus cost of comparable gas use minus electricity. So minimizing $/lifetime usable KWh will get electrics into the hands of more people sooner, IMO. Current cars have batteries that last 3 yrs (in Florida heat), alternators that go bad, cooling system failures, etc. People buy them and understand that these things happen. I don’t think a battery designed to last 3-7 years will be a problem if it lasts what it’s expected to and people understand this up front. Like I’ve said before, for me I’m confident the spent battery will still have value and batteries will continue to improve. This is where large volume production would help people feel more comfortable buying products with a lot of unknowns.

Martin sez:

If it turns out that the optimum is for a short-lived battery, then the replacement(s) required for the life of the car need to be factored into the total cost of driving the car – either as part of the cost of the vehicle, or as part of the “fuel” cost, or somehow as service. And this needs to be made simple enough that consumers will buy it.

Anybody know what is up with the teslamotorsclub website? I keep getting a “bandwidth limit exceeded” error message. I tried to post this question on the teslamotors blogs, but it appears the moderator did not allow it to be published.

GSP

It means they need a fatter pipe.

Who needs the Tesla club site when there’s this one ? – which is simple, easy, don’t have to join/ anyone can log on -and no “keep things in line” style “moderation” going on either-as at Tesla Motors site ? “USA Today” has article titled “Tech Giants Rush to Solar”-talking about IBM, Intel & National Semiconductor. Quotes: ” ‘We have a classic Silicon Valley land rush’… says CEO of Cypress Semiconductor. Drawing the stalwarts is solar’s 40 % annual growth”. If this keeps up, in a few years you really will be able to charge your elect. car, via solar cells on it, in the parking lot while you work. Eventually as an expensive car option, later as a more affordable option. Now, if the next pres. would just get with it (JFK style, as they all keep saying )-but don’t hold your breath. Just today McCain was again pitching nuke plants, apparently without mentioning solar. Quite impressive (not). Some pundits have been suggesting Caroline Kennedy as Obama V.P. But that would be going too far for mainstream America (don’t suppose Gore would like that easy job again)- but she and RFK Jr. (who has the experience/track record re. the environ.) would be good as Energy Dept. or EPA head. But I don’t think either wants to be in govt.

CNET said that Aptera has 3,300 car orders so far. Also, they just got $25 million more to put into their plant. Wonder how much it’s cost them so far to make the cars. Seems like they’re doing good without “all that much” money. If they sold car outside of Calif., in U.S., they’d have, what, 10,000 orders by now ?- or even double that ? Add europe and they’d really be rolling (especially with plant there , so no exchange rate problem).

Rex- yeah, Martin could run Chrysler (with appropriate help, lacking at Tesla) no matter what Elon thinks. However the problem is that Martin isn’t an invited charter member of Team Rodent (an employment requirement).
Comment by TJ July 27, 2008 @ 6:31 pm

God help the autoworkers then, relying on ‘Team Rodent’ for their family’s future – and their day-to-day needs.

That is why I admire that Martin stood up for what is right rather than what is more profitable or ’safe’ on a personal basis. Just as if a certain Powell could have stood up for what was right, then a lot of youngsters wouldn’t have died thousands of miles away and our economy may not be in such dire straits as it is now.

Who then is the real hero of Tesla Motors? The rock on which it was founded on of course.

I hope Martin does not have any restrictions on working on another all-electric supercar.

Thanks for the reply TJ and Martin on hub motors. I still maintain that it would be a good choice for superlight urban SUVs that many of us are so found of.

Regarding the hub motors… it has been said before that electric motors are more efficient the bigger they are… hub motors are less efficient than one “central” motor.

Regards

On that subject I recently ran across the following, which makes me think of the original Volt concept:

How to design a Chevy

1. Make it boxy. The most popular Chevies ever were the mid-fifties sedans now known affectionately as “shoeboxes”.
2. Use the largest diameter wheels and most extreme aspect ratio tires available. They’re a favorite of the youth gang criminals who are such important style-setters. Think of an automotive cheap baseball cap worn backwards.
3. Apply very wide horizontal trim strips, front and rear. Rumor: Chevy is investing heavily in holographic research to enable the trim strips to appear to stick out at least a foot on each side, without actually injuring anyone.
4. The smaller Chevy, the tackier Chevy. Smaller cars are driven only by the poor and downtrodden, who wouldn’t know quality if it bit them in the butt.
5. Ignore any executives from your own company who ridicule the very poor wind tunnel numbers. They wear suits and don’t understand style.
6. Remember: enthusiasts will still buy the car, no matter what it looks like, if it’s available with the excellent small block V-8.

I think hub motors are getting a bad rap here. Remember there is no transmission and you can regen down to stop even with backup friction brakes. So overall I am not sure this arrangement would be less efficient for an EV (from a net energy to wheel perspective, it could be better). The mini tech demo did 0-60 in 4.5 seconds and lightning is expected to be comparable to the tesla roadster so performance is not an issue.

Regarding brake heat, this is not a problem that needs solving. Friction brakes are for emergency use only and would never typically be used.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=h5bhuI7Hduw

Hub motors can provide a safer vehicle. So far people claim that the unsprung mass difference will destroy handling but I am not convinced. Let’s wait for the real world results. See the handling of the lightning etc. and then make the call. For the mini demo, the unspung weight increased less than 2 kg.

I am not saying that hub motors are the best solution but they do have their advantages and the advantages are not insignificant:
- 4 wheel drive
- traction control
- 100% regen to stop
- no transmission losses
- ability to create a larger front / rear crumple zone for enhanced safety (no shafts / motors taking up space)

We should look to all possible solutions to getting EVs on the road. Personally, I can’t wait for mech. brakes to go the way of the dodo. And mirrors; don’t get me started on mirrors.

My ideal EV has no mirrors and no friction brakes (at least supporting regen to stop).

Rex, your 30% / 70% motor arrangement would certainly be more efficient on the 30% motor alone, with gasoline engines, but it would be hard to sell to ordinary drivers without elaborate computer controls. The efficiency advantage with electric motors would be much less, but I’m not the best person to answer the question of how much. Fortunately, a world class expert on the subject is often available here.

Thanks Steve S. for the reply.

We are converting an original Gallardo into an EV – see http://www.teslambo.com and have decided on 30/70 split for the two induction motors totaling roughly 600HP. The 70% motor will be shutdown completely at low speeds to extend range, but will come alive automatically if the pedal is pressed hard.

We are currently testing ultracaps, but only to absorb the slack part of regen braking (i.e. not peak force). Tricky stuff. For now we are sticking to our Lambo/Brembo brakes.

It is very funny how much of this project is turning into a refrigeration and packaging problem. We’ve also decided to make 80% of the batteries quickly replaceable by a single person (with a custom ‘device’) in under 10 minutes.

I wonder how Martin and Ian Wright (i.e. WrightSpeed) are getting along today. The power electronics on this project is driving us nuts. Right now, Ian seems to be the only one with the expertise. We’re not interested in licensing whatever TM has now that Martin has left.

Suggestions are welcome.

I think AC propulsion did the heavy lifting on Wright’s X1. He took an established chassis (Atom) and used the AC-150 http://www.acpropulsion.com/technology/gen2.htm

As to not wanting to work with them because of Martin’s departure from Tesla motors, remember Tesla is a customer (licensee) of AC Propulsion not the other way around.

Steve :

Your numbers are almost perfect, except constant deceleration from 80mph to zero in 3.5 seconds is 1.04 g’s. That pumps up the motor/gen needed to 555hp. My guess is that the Lightning is a bit lighter than 5k lbs.

I agree that getting the number of moving parts in a car down to 4 does not need to be a top priority, but hub motors are definitely something to consider, at least in the long term. (I’m leaning away from hub motors right now because a single motor is cheaper and easier, not to mention retrofits!)

Take care,
-Ed

I agree that getting the number of moving parts in a car down to 4 does not need to be a top priority, but hub motors are definitely something to consider, at least in the long term.

Ah, if someone were only to invent a one-wheeled car, the hub motor would be a no-brainer.

Did everyone see Project Better Place’s unveiling of their (& Renault-Nissan’s) car in Israel today? CNN has a report on their video site:

http://www.cnn.com/video/

It appears to have the same style of conductive connector as the Tesla, and the PEM looks suspiciously like an AC-150 from AC Propulsion. If that is the case, then that would be great news for ACP.

Ed, it looks like both our numbers were a little off again. After I finally got enough sleep to think more clearly, I started being able to remember some stuff I worked out many years ago about quarter mile drag racing acceleration. For that I used constant horsepower, which is a good approximation, and worked out the rule of 1350, which is that the elapsed time and speed in mph, multiplied together, will result in the number 1350 with constant horsepower. It reflects real world numbers surprisingly well. For instance, a ten second elapsed time on a good run will result in a speed of about 135 mph. I also worked up equations to find the horsepower required to achieve a given speed or elapsed time with a given vehicle weight, which maybe I’ll try to do again just for fun.

For braking deceleration and for acceleration with extremely powerful cars, constant acceleration is a better model. Fortunately, that makes the math amazingly simple compared to constant horsepower.

The kinetic energy parameter “work” is a force (F) exerted trough a distance (S). Keep in mind the very important equation, F = MA, mass times acceleration. If the force changes over the distance, W equals the integral of F dS, but for constant acceleration, and F = MA, mass and acceleration are constant therefore so is F, and W = FS. Incidentally, for an acceleration of one g, mass times acceleration is just the weight of the car, so F = weight.

Power is the rate of work done with respect to time: P = dW / dT. So, P = F dS / dT, since F is constant. But dS / dT is just the rate of change of distance over time, which we call velocity or speed. So, power at any instant is given simply by P = F V, or the weight of the car times the speed at that instant! For a typical four door sedan loaded with four big people and luggage, the horsepower required for one g deceleration at 80 mph is 117.3 ft/sec times 5000 lb. divided by 550 ft. – lb. / sec = 1066 hp. The motor power required for one g deceleration decreases linearly with speed reduction, so the average power required from 80 mph to zero is half of 1066 or 533 horsepower, which is what I was approximating at 520 using road test numbers.

For a fairly light sports car like the Tesla with only the driver aboard, the initial braking power requirement for an emergency stop at 80 mph is only 640 hp, and that decreases rapidly as the car slows down.

Martin:

In the scenario I was picturing, the friction brakes would still be there as the last resort and would have the same braking power as unboosted hydrolic brakes. The E-brake would still be cable driven to the back wheels. Are boosted brakes required nowadays as part of the safety system?

I’m personally afraid of things like drive-by-wire steering etc. and would never remove a simple braking system from the car. I might reduce it’s part count and size, and have motor braking take up the slack.

(BTW It’s pretty scary when the seal on the master cylinder piston fails (personal experience) – and even if it’s redundant, you don’t get a warning that the first one failed) (If any of you reach 317K miles on a car, be proactive and replace the master cylinder )

Martin sez:

Yeah – the master cylinder failed on my ‘75 Chevy right as I was pulling up to stop behind a school bus! Fortunately the Parking Pawl held. CLUNK! I was quite surprised by the sudden, complete failure without warning. Seems like a hole in the redundant systems concept, doesn’t it?

Now that’s an automobile! Good job! Any difficulty getting insurance coverage?
Enjoy

Martin sez:

Nope. State Farm. (I got some extra coverage because of the special value of my car as a low production number one.)

Ed, your comment: “Anyhoo, it looks like because of emergency braking, a car is still going to need a beefy mechanical braking system in order to be safe: I can’t think of another way to safely absorb energy at a 0.7 MW rate, can you?” is exactly what I was trying to show, by pointing out that the converse is absurd. I can’t think of another way and neither can Pete, although he seems to have constructed a futurist fantasy which makes it not only possible now but inevitable in the future. That’s in spite of the fact that every fixed wing jet aircraft uses friction brakes, and I haven’t seen any mention of anything different. Maybe they could use million horsepower generators.

I didn’t make any comments about drive by wire, although I agree with you and Martin on the subject, so I’ll leave responses to most of the claims on that subject to others.

http://www.avweb.com/avwebflash/news/B2_spirit_crash_update_198056-1.html

Fighter planes are purposely designed to be aerodynamically unstable for increased maneuverability, so computer help is needed. They have ejection seats, which wouldn’t be a bad idea for any cars ever equipped with steer by wire. Most jets can be flown by the human pilots.

Wires aren’t the problem. Ever hear of a computer crashing or a software bug or a power failure or a sensor failure?

Here’s a futurist replacement for your family companion: http://www.bostondynamics.com/content/sec.php?section=BigDog

Since Pete suggested reading a futurist book, I’d like to suggest that he spend more time learning about physical reality (science and engineering) than reading futurist books, before he makes a bunch of pronouncements about technological inevtiability.

I do, however, recognize the value of ABS. It’s saved my butt a couple of times on slick surfaces. I especially like driving on glare ice now because it drives the system crazy, making enough noise in operation to drown out the radio. A lot of bang for the buck. Usually it just waits silently in the background for me to get into trouble.

The jury is still out on throttle by wire. I avoided that for a long time because when BMW first implemented it, the throttle transducers almost all failed. There were two per car and they cost about $600 each. I didn’t see the advantage over a throttle cable.
Then the Japanese car I wanted had had throttle by wire, so I accepted it. Those guys do their homework. I have to say that it’s completely transparent to the user, except once in a while. I used to do a lot of autocrossing and time trialing, so I like getting sideways now and then. On this car, when I crank the wheel on a wet surface and gas it up, it won’t open the throttles. The damn car won’t let me get away with anything.

Martin sez:

““minimizing $/lifetime usable KWh” is just the right measure, so long as failure is predictable – a failed battery strands nobody. I am actually not sure where this function is optimal – is it cheaper per usable kWh to make a battery that lasts a couple of years, or is it cheaper per usable kWh to build one that lasts longer? The answer is not at all obvious, and the answer will change with changing technology.

If it turns out that the optimum is for a short-lived battery, then the replacement(s) required for the life of the car need to be factored into the total cost of driving the car – either as part of the cost of the vehicle, or as part of the “fuel” cost, or somehow as service. And this needs to be made simple enough that consumers will buy it.”

Agreed. It seems like a very complicated decision as to which battery to choose. There are many circumstances to consider. I respect TEG’s opinion and he’s certainly not alone in believing that long life is extremely important to the success of EV’s. I have seen this in many places, most notably with the Chevy Volt. One of the primary parameters they placed on the Volt’s development was that the battery must last 10 years minimum. While this an admirable and valuable goal, I just don’t think it necessary. They have let the targeted price increase substantially (from below $30K to most recent hints at close to $40K) while sticking to 10 years battery life. To acheive this life they are planning to have a 16KWh battery and use 35%-85% SOC. Perhaps, this is the most ideal solution but I hate to think they have chosen a lessed valued path just to maintain 10 years battery life.

I also believe that not only battery properties and vehicle specific characteristics should be the explored in battery selection. Strategic options should also be investigated. For example, GM has mentioned they have had discussions with utilities about being involved in the possible lease of the Volt’s battery. This is a very interesting concept that changes the battery picture. If the battery only needs to be able to power the car for 5-6 years before being “put to pasture” in the utility’s facility, then other options come into play. Consider a utility such as FPL or PGE. They are investing significantly in renewable energy such as solar and wind. While “retired” batteries from EV’s would have value to all utilities for peak power, spinning reserves, and regulation; they should be particularly valuable to those utilities that are activly implementing intermittent renewables. I forward thinking utility could benefit from day 1 from being the leasing agent with V2G services. They would have control over their asset and set a future cost for valuable energy storage. The additional market knowledge of battery locations could help them target businesses to install daytime charging stations. Afterall, daytime charging fits perfectly with Solar as you well know. Being able to reasonably predict this load and implement Solar in conjunction would have great value to the utility. The net result would 5-6 years of battery use for the vehicle owner at a drastically reduced price. The kicker is that in all likelihood the replacement battery for the vehicle will be cheaper and have longer range. The synergies are tremendous.

TEG, for very low speeds it might be possible to train the computer to use reverse to stop completely.

Speaking of X 1/9s, I once bought two totals, one hit in the front and the other with an engine fire, and made one good car out of them. I put a lot of happy miles on it, and made good money when I sold it. It worked out to about 5 cents an hour.

My strongest memory was having the left rear tire suddenly delaminate at 90 mph on route 1 north of Santa Cruz. The tread made so much noise slapping the wheel well that I almost had a heart attack.

I’ve always like mid and rear engined cars and spent a lot of time in them, from Fiats to Ferraris, from Toyotas to Porsches. The quickest was a Ginther-prepared 914-6 at Sears Point on race tires, which was a revelation. The all-around best was an NSX. So far.

Thanks for that info. I knew the system would run fans for cooling, but I didn’t know about the A/C. Back in the day when I used the garage for things other than parking vehicles (wood working, etc.), I did have my previous garages insulated so I could use the space year around. Now that I’m an old geezer (who can’t spell his own name right it appears), I just use the garage for vehicle storage. Looking forward to the time when I have only my golf cart and my roadster parked in there. Thanks again.