Another Tesla? – preferably not.
Thanks to Peter and Simon for their posts last week.
Has Tesla really killed of the myth of rubbish electric cars as Simon says? And are we just trying to make another Tesla as Peter says?
Tesla’s big success has been to convince so many people that they’ve actually done it. That their car is on the road and does what they say it would. I think they’ve created a new myth (for the few), that the Tesla works. It’s a great piece of PR. Hasn’t killed the old myth though (for the many).
Behind the PR - $150 Million spent so far, running 2 years late, only one car just delivered to the CEO - and this with the ‘gearbox problem’. New plan is to fix this later. Performance will drop. But we knew that, because the numbers don’t add up anyway.
Do we want to make another Tesla, no we don’t. But we share similar goals.
The current myth of electric cars lives on and it will be years before Tesla, or anyone else, gets it together in the UK (if they ever do). So we’re stepping up. It needs doing because it has not been done yet and we don’t actually have any time to lose.
If all cars in the UK were electric (and wind powered) we’d cut CO2 emissions by 12.5%
Cheers.
If Ecotricity could combine such packages with an electric car which is made from recycled materials and which is largely recyclable at the end of it’s life… then you would have one of the greenest driving experiences on earth!
Comment by Chris — May 16, 2008 @ 2:58 pm
The great shame with Tesla is that the price / performance is still outstripped by the relative high cost here (and the fact that they are not planning to provide service centers in the UK, makes the ownership proposition a tricky one).
If you can work with the Norfolk company on something like the Tesla, but that can fit into an existing dealership network, you’ll be onto a winner.
Add to that an 80% charge capacity in 4-5 mins and a 200 mile range - I’d have one tomorrow.
Comment by Alex — May 17, 2008 @ 10:05 am
Comment by Mike Butcher — May 19, 2008 @ 12:28 pm
Wind powered vehicles seem one of the few truly sustainable mobility options, that we could still be doing in 1000 years time. The trouble with cars is the sheer mass compared to the passenger. If I ride my bike, thats around 15kg. If I rented a car, that’ll be around 1500kg. So the car weighs 100 times as much! Yet car designers do all they can to hide this. They try to disguise the bulk by clever styling, make the steering light and effortless, and give us quiet diesels that allow a 2.5 ton 4×4 to feel like a much smaller car.
I think what I’m getting at is the kWh needed to make a car “accelerate faster than a Ferrari” - it must be a lot! OK, if we are at stage where we have excess renewable energy, then great. But we’re nowhere near that are we?
Comment by Mark Young — May 19, 2008 @ 3:38 pm
Comment by drivin98 — May 19, 2008 @ 5:59 pm
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Pingback by Electric Exige?? - Tesla Motors Club Forum — May 19, 2008 @ 7:18 pm
As for the numbers, all but the first couple of dozen production cars will meet the original spec of 0-60 mph in 3.9 seconds. The interim box will be swapped out for the first cars for free. The range is 220 miles per charge. The numbers not only add up, they have all been demonstrated.
So I applaud what you are setting out to do, but I think it would just be easier for you to buy a Tesla.
Darryl (from Tesla)
Comment by Darryl — May 19, 2008 @ 7:29 pm
=-)
Comment by James — May 19, 2008 @ 8:38 pm
Comment by Chris — May 20, 2008 @ 10:41 am
Comment by Darryl — May 21, 2008 @ 3:00 am
@Alex – There is a link there. We first approached Lotus to build an electric car for us over two years ago now, at the time, though we didn’t know it, they were deep in negotiations with Tesla. We were working up the wind farm plan with them (three turbines by the way) and had the idea. The Lotus is an ideal platform for an electric car, small, light, basic – and potentially fun. Time passed by and we were unable to resolve certain aspects of the commercials with Lotus. We’re pursuing a non factory route now.
I agree with you though, if we could make a car with Lotus that would be a big advantage, there’s still that possibility if we come up with something suitable – they’re good guys and we have a lot of time for them.
I’d also have one tomorrow if you could charge it in 5 minutes and do 200 miles – but from what I know, that’s PR pie in the sky – stuff they use to keep us all excited, and not possible, not today anyway. Cheers.
@Mike Butcher – I hear you Mike. If there was even one electric sportscar on the road right now I’d agree with you more. But I do understand your point. Thing is this stuff has to start somewhere and as the technology is expensive, high performance cars are the place it can best be made to work. The move to more everyday cars will surely follow. It has to start somewhere though.
Don’t know if this is what you have in mind when you say ‘retrofit’ – but something I’ve not explained yet is that our project is about taking a car off the road, stripping out its petrol engine and associated gubbins, electrifying it, and returning it to the road. If we produce more it would be on the same lines, not new cars – but one for one swaps. Transforming existing cars. There’s some real merit in re using stuff that’s already been built, one of the three R’s after all. Cheers.
Comment by dale — May 21, 2008 @ 8:26 am
But sports cars don’t impress me. Cars are just utilities which have been “fetishized”. We need real electric cars for real people and real families.
Comment by Mike Butcher — May 21, 2008 @ 10:49 am
We have raced electric hybirds and bio-ethanol powered cars at Le Mans 24hrs as technology demonstrators… we’d like to talk about how we could help with your project, like your project race cars are all about efficiency.
You can find my contact details on our website http://www.kwmotorsport.com
Looking forward to hearing from you….
Comment by Kieron Salter — May 21, 2008 @ 11:32 am
One of the first of the new generation of electric cars is the Mitsubishi iMiEV which is highway speed capable and has range of about 100 miles. It should be coming to England next year but in very limited numbers. If you’re seriously interested you should register that interest with Mitsubishi at this webpage, http://www.mitsubishi-cars.co.uk/i-ev/register.asp
(I think the price will be about 15,000 (BP).)
Comment by drivin98 — May 21, 2008 @ 1:32 pm
I hope that the Tesla indeed does or will do 220 miles on a tank, the 0 to 60 is less important, but if you say it, you should deliver it. My concern is that exaggerated claims will damage the credibility of electric cars, and I feel your claims may be hard to deliver – and I think your experience to date backs that up. I hope you do it though. Truly I do.
But should I really just buy a Tesla? – I’ve a better idea for you – I live close enough to Lotus’s factory, how about letting me take one round the test track there for an hour or two – see how far it really goes? And if you’re right - I will buy one, assuming of course the waiting list isn’t years… and that I can live with LHD…
How about it, talk is easy, you up for proving it? – I’m willing to eat my words.
@drivin98 – It’s both really. The first one is a one off, but we have it in mind that if it does what we think it will, there could be interest from other people – in which case we’d want to go into limited production. And if it still was in demand after that, bigger scale production. But a one off first. If that makes sense.
@markjyoung – I hear what you say, The focus on Ferrari type performance looks wrong, it’s designed for a diff audience. The problem isn’t caused by people that use bikes instead of cars – people like you, it’s caused by the most of us that are hooked on the stuff (for diff reasons) right now. To have a hope of making a significant change we need to offer clean cars (not bicycles), something the mass of people will take as a serious option for them now. It’s a step and a big one if we can run cars on wind energy.
PS - the UK has enough wind energy blowing past us everyday – to power the whole country 3 to 4 times over, so yes in theory we do have an abundance of renewable energy. OK we have to harvest it yet…
@James - cheers for the support.
Comment by dale — May 21, 2008 @ 3:59 pm
I’m prone to a bit of spanner bending myself so would feel confident in my ability to install a properly developed kit….perhaps retrofit conversions could be a good market for a few years until purpose built cars become affordable? Ok, so converting a heavy old car geared for an IC engine isn’t ideal but it may be a way to speed the transition and also avoid the environmental cost of scrapping millions of perfectly good cars just to replace with brand new “green” ones.
Comment by Tony Smith — May 22, 2008 @ 1:48 pm
However Citroen/ Peugeot from about 96 to 04 built vehicles like the SAXO Peueot 106, Partner and Berlingo Electriques. I now own a working Berlingo and a few more for spares. Its truely brilliant. In the last month of driving I have clocked up over 800miles. Charging over night this costs me approximately 2p per mile as against about 11p per mile for my diesel vehicle.
So whats the problems, well PSA (Citroen peugeot) have little support for the vehicles, and in the UK have delibertely kept the replacement battery cost high and virtually unavailable from the actual manufacturers owing to a restrictive contract. I can do just over 40 miles with a good reserve, travelling at about 45mph with quite a bit of hills. A good result. A number of local authorities have supported my requests for charging locations on an ad hoc basis and are now considering more permanent facilities.
We need good accessible charging points, and the current standard is based upon the humble 13amp plug. This is woefully inadequate and were never designed for heavy current draw for some hours. The UK desperately needs to get some standards set for good workable charging points. This isnt happening, and no Government assistance is taking place. I guess they dont want to lose the massive cash they are making on fossil fuels.
Long live the electric vehicle, and may the use and facilities expand.
Comment by Grumpy-b — May 23, 2008 @ 3:40 pm
Everytime I see something thats really inspiring and makes me smile, I find something else better! First the whole Ecotricity concept, then your magnificent time-lapse videos of the construction of the turbines, then the wind-powered racer, and then the awesome wind-power car!!
Thinking about the racer, does that appear in a Range Rover advert? I’m sure theres something that looks like it?
I may have missed it on previous blog entries, (still reading) but hopefully when the electric car did go into limited production, what kind of figure would you be looking at? Hopefully a lot lower that Tesla?!
I have to say I’m blown away (sorry) by everything your company does. Now it’s the excellent petrol station idea - great! I’ll me a keen reader here from now on!
Comment by Scott — May 24, 2008 @ 9:36 am
Comment by dale — June 6, 2008 @ 10:08 am
Thanks for finding out about the land yacht. It was only a brief clip, but the way the advert was shot and the colours used, it looked very much like your Greenbird.
I’m really inspired about Ecotricity, might have to see if you have any jobs available
Comment by Scott — June 10, 2008 @ 10:29 am
on a related note, this article (from almost 10 years ago) is great reading for those with fast electric car dreams - http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.03/drag.html
Comment by ron — August 8, 2008 @ 9:10 pm
Comment by dale — August 11, 2008 @ 2:37 pm