Tesla to Texas: How Do You Like Us Now?

[Trip McNeely]

One thing you have to keep in mind is the heavy machinery and transportation sector to set the bar for the future and right now they are leaning more on the CNG/LNG markets. I haven't seen too many Electric 18 wheelers out there, correct me if I'm wrong.

[Bputacoma]

How is it that the facility is supposed to cost $5B and Tesla is only putting in $2B? Who comes up with the rest? Better not be taxpayers.

Panasonic is reportedly putting up 1 billion and rest is from investors and other companies.

[talisman]

Some of you guys are acting like the first airplane that was ever built flew. Technology is always a learning process to achieve better and better performance. Why do you think everyone has a new cell phone every year? This stuff WILL be the way of the future, maybe not next week, but to completely discount it is ludicrous.

[Trip McNeely]

I'm not discounting it just saying it has a ways to evolve in the grand scheme of things with other technologies already in place or being developed.

[Frank]

Tesla is bringing technology we could have had decades ago had it not been for big oil. If you look 100 years ago...yeah let that sink in....there were more electric cars than gas. Obviously they had their limitations outside of a city and gas won out. Had the research and funding continued a steady pace without political restrictions, no telling where we would be now with electrics.

[JC316]

Negative. Just enjoying 11-12mpg. That is primarily stop and go. All highway will reward me with 14. Durango r/t awd.

Damn, that's bad. My sisters 95 Grand Cherokee 5.2L AWD gets 16.5 average and 20 on the highway.

[Forever_frost]

Tesla is bringing technology we could have had decades ago had it not been for big oil. If you look 100 years ago...yeah let that sink in....there were more electric cars than gas. Obviously they had their limitations outside of a city and gas won out. Had the research and funding continued a steady pace without political restrictions, no telling where we would be now with electrics.

Eh, during WW2 there were gasifier vehicles. I'd rather have that than electric as I could go all "Mr. Fusion" and dump trash off the road into it and keep rolling.

[jw33]

VW battery technology info

[Binky]

Considering my neighbor works for Tesla and delivers cars via an enclosed trailer in a three state area, I think you are full of shit.

[BP]

One thing you have to keep in mind is the heavy machinery and transportation sector to set the bar for the future and right now they are leaning more on the CNG/LNG markets. I haven't seen too many Electric 18 wheelers out there, correct me if I'm wrong.

No but just about every ship I've been on uses diesel engines to turn generators which ultimately power electric motors. Other than the really big ones our Navy uses that have nuclear reactors, which create steam that turns a generator that powers an electric motor.

The part that the naysayers are missing is that the final drive part is consistent on everything other than OTR trucks. It's pretty much settled that everything in the near future will have a final electric drive, what's up for debate and refinement is how that electricity is provided. Tesla provides the final platform and has adopted batteries but the cars can easily be adapted to fuel cells, fusion, whatever. I mean they could add a small diesel engine as a generator if they needed to but that's probably not where we are headed.

[Trip McNeely]

I can see Hybrids, sure. There's a plethora of bi-fuel powered vehicles out there. Problem is, nothing that seems to be standalone other than internal combustion gas has quite taken off yet. We run our fleet trucks at our company on CNG/Gasoline, they work great. More and more CNG stations are popping up so the infrastructure is coming for that market. I haven't seen the same for electric. I'm no expert, but being in the Energy Industry I do get a pretty good perspective on where we are headed on that aspect.

[BP]

\ More and more CNG stations are popping up so the infrastructure is coming for that market. I haven't seen the same for electric. I'm no expert, but being in the Energy Industry I do get a pretty good perspective on where we are headed on that aspect.

Then you aren't looking very hard. Go to a Walgreens, they nearly all have a charging station. Park N Fly has them, lots of Cracker Barrels, Fair Park has several stations and they are all over Arlington around the Cowboy's Stadium. All you need is a reliable source of 220v power and a kiosk and you can setup a charging station. Eventually the cities will get on board and you'll have parking meter/charging stations all over downtown.

I will concede that the DFW area is probably the most saturated market for electric cars though. Other markets like Chicago, DC and New York are sold on mass transit so they'll be late to the game.

[aggie97]

Tesla is bringing technology we could have had decades ago had it not been for big oil. If you look 100 years ago...yeah let that sink in....there were more electric cars than gas. Obviously they had their limitations outside of a city and gas won out. Had the research and funding continued a steady pace without political restrictions, no telling where we would be now with electrics.

I'm not buying your theory. The military and industrial organizations have been spending TONS of money on researching battery technology since the 1940's....yeah, the same guys that built the atomic bomb and many smarter ones after that. Either the end user costs were too high or the technology could just not be made feasible....like the current Tesla. You would be better off working out a safe way to have full scale "bumper cars" on the road with a grid above and below the car with little poles running everywhere....but wait, then you would over tax the electrical grid and we would be back at square one when the lights go out.

I also love the idea that the electric car will solve all of our energy woes....well, start thinking about rolling blackouts all over the country because we can't meet current demand from the increase in electronics use in the home and office.....now throw in a few million 230V chargers running at 40 amps all night long. Ooops. Now we have to burn more fossil fuels and build more electrical plants to compensate for the increased electrical needs.

The idea that electric cars will ever "hit it big" is a joke. They may become popular, like a FAD, and some people will buy them but the market is so limited, the infrastructure will be too costly and it will die on the vine, just like it did in the 80's. Better battery technology, no matter how much better it CAN become, will not save the electric vehicle. PERIOD. Has nothing to do with big oil. It has to do with practicality and profitability. The only reason Musk wants to build the battery plant is to sell batteries to other industries when his electric car business fizzles and he is using government money to finance his endeavor....and the idiots lined up to hand over the money.

[aggie97]

Then you aren't looking very hard. Go to a Walgreens, they nearly all have a charging station. Park N Fly has them, lots of Cracker Barrels, Fair Park has several stations and they are all over Arlington around the Cowboy's Stadium. All you need is a reliable source of 220v power and a kiosk and you can setup a charging station. Eventually the cities will get on board and you'll have parking meter/charging stations all over downtown.

I will concede that the DFW area is probably the most saturated market for electric cars though. Other markets like Chicago, DC and New York are sold on mass transit so they'll be late to the game.

How long does it take to charge the car? How much does it cost? As for the down town thing, real estate is too expensive and they are trying to get cars OUT of the downtown areas! You guys need to stop thinking like physicists in a vacuum. The costs to setup infrastructure like this are WAY too high and I can tell you that parking lot owners aren't going to be ripping up asphalt and running HUGE amounts of electricity to parking lots in downtown. I also seriously doubt the city of Dallas will buy into this when they are trying everything they can to sell DART to the general public.

[racrguy]

I'm not buying your theory. The military and industrial organizations have been spending TONS of money on researching battery technology since the 1940's....yeah, the same guys that built the atomic bomb and many smarter ones after that. Either the end user costs were too high or the technology could just not be made feasible....like the current Tesla. You would be better off working out a safe way to have full scale "bumper cars" on the road with a grid above and below the car with little poles running everywhere....but wait, then you would over tax the electrical grid and we would be back at square one when the lights go out.

I also love the idea that the electric car will solve all of our energy woes....well, start thinking about rolling blackouts all over the country because we can't meet current demand from the increase in electronics use in the home and office.....now throw in a few million 230V chargers running at 40 amps all night long. Ooops. Now we have to burn more fossil fuels and build more electrical plants to compensate for the increased electrical needs.

The idea that electric cars will ever "hit it big" is a joke. They may become popular, like a FAD, and some people will buy them but the market is so limited, the infrastructure will be too costly and it will die on the vine, just like it did in the 80's. Better battery technology, no matter how much better it CAN become, will not save the electric vehicle. PERIOD. Has nothing to do with big oil. It has to do with practicality and profitability. The only reason Musk wants to build the battery plant is to sell batteries to other industries when his electric car business fizzles and he is using government money to finance his endeavor....and the idiots lined up to hand over the money.

How long does it take to charge the car? How much does it cost? As for the down town thing, real estate is too expensive and they are trying to get cars OUT of the downtown areas! You guys need to stop thinking like physicists in a vacuum. The costs to setup infrastructure like this are WAY too high and I can tell you that parking lot owners aren't going to be ripping up asphalt and running HUGE amounts of electricity to parking lots in downtown. I also seriously doubt the city of Dallas will buy into this when they are trying everything they can to sell DART to the general public.

You seem to be awful hostile, man. Everything ok?