First Look at the Tesla Roadster

This doesn't really have anything to do with fusion, but most of the visitors and regulars here, in addition to being Philo-files, are also well aware of the contributions that Nikola Tesla has made to electrical science.  And this doesn't really have anything to do with Tesla, either, except that his name is being used as the marque for a new, 100% rechargeable electric car called the Tesla Roadster

One of the editors PC Magazine has had a chance to examine one of the prototypes and reports his findings here:

Due on the market this fall, at a price of $92,000, the Tesla is powered by the same lithium-ion battery cells that drive the average laptop or smartphone, and you can charge it from an ordinary wall socket. There's even a grate under the rear fender where the car expels hot air, just like the typical desktop PC.

Several prototypes are already assembled, and last night, I was invited down to the company's Silicon Valley offices for a spin down the freeway. No, I didn't get to drive. Each prototype was built at a cost of over a million dollars, and only the lucky few covered by the company insurance policy are permitted behind the wheel. But I did get the rush of sitting in the passenger seat of this Lotus-like two-door convertible. And what a rush it is!

On second thought, maybe there is a fusion connection to this story.  I mean, if we're going to have a world of non-polluting electric cars, the electricity is going to have to come from somewhere, and unless we find some source other than coal or gas fired generators (and fission reactors), there will be no net-gain in reduced emissions if the cars are the only things running on electricity.  So the sooner somebody comes up with practical fusion generation, the sooner cars like the Tesla Roadster will make  any kind of real environmental sense. 

Link: Tesla Roadster: Test Driving Your Electric Dream Car - News and Analysis by PC Magazine.

Comments

[Tesla Fan Boy]

Oh there's Tesla in the Tesla. The nod comes in the form of that 70lb, 3 phase-4 pole induction motor producing 185KW.

[Ian Monroe]

Coal power plants are cleaner then oil-burning combustion engines. Its just common-sense efficiency of scale. Even with the current infrastructure just expanded to meet the extra demand, we'd be better off with electric cars.

I'm not sure about electric sports cars though. :) The benefit I suppose is proving that electric cars can be snappy.

[Tesla Fan Boy]

Ian: Pure electric is impractical for other than commuter use; probably will stay that way for a long time. Its simply impractical to take a trip requiring a 'refill' charge in transit. The problem's not so much in the vehicle, its in the electric 'filling station'; you would need multi-megawatts per car per station. There's a lot o' juice in a gallon o' hydrocarbon.

[jon]

The points made here are refuted at:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/07/20/MNGT7R3OH81.DTL

"A study released Thursday by the Palo Alto-based Electric Power Research Institute and the Natural Resources Defense Council confirmed what advocates of plug-in vehicles had long suspected: Hybrid electric cars, if widely adopted in the United States, would yield huge reductions in greenhouse gases over today's fleet of gas-fueled cars and hybrid vehicles."

[Paul Davis]

It's either fusion, or thorium breeder fission or one helluva lot of solar cells and wind plants for the future, take your pick. Recoverable coal in the practical sense probably has no more than seventy five years to go till depletion. And that opinion of the time till depletion is based on a rather specialized knowledge of coal geology in the Eastern US, due to nearly twenty years of work as a lab tech for Peabody Coal Co.