SpaceX just made history.

[svauto-erotic855]

Do you know how expensive those high voltage batteries are? I have never priced a Tesla battery but I know an S class hybrid battery is $18,000 and a Smart electric battery is $28,000. But at least they don't have to replace spark plugs and O2 sensors.

The Tesla battery pack has 3500 18650 cells that are higher than average quality. The best wholesale price I have ever seen is just under 5 bucks per cell for cells with comprable quality when you buy 10k or more. Musk is building a factory to make just the cells to bring the cost down.

Edit: I haven't crunched the numbers but I suspect that a battery cost about as much as the gasoline that would have been used for the equivalent milage driven while requiring about 2/3rd's more energy being expended to charge the battery vs just using the carbon fuel to move the car without having the power company as a middle man.

[red89notch]

I wouldn't "feel" that, just like I don't "feel" that with my smart phone. Years later, the car is just not charging as well, so you get a new battery. Not unlike any gasoline car today running worse after years of use.
Also, a significant reduction in moving parts in an electric system should help offset replacing a battery eventually. Gas cars will be replacing transmissions, fuel-related parts, spark plugs, emissions junk, etc.

Do you know how expensive those high voltage batteries are? I have never priced a Tesla battery but I know an S class hybrid battery is $18,000 and a Smart electric battery is $28,000. But at least they don't have to replace spark plugs and O2 sensors.

[svauto-erotic855]

Yet again you show your complete and utter lack if knowledge here. I can assure you that the electric motors you replace aren't even close to identical in any of the categories you mentioned to the motors in a Tesla or even a leaf.

And no one calls you out of your ignorance of low cost rocketry and their application because they either don't care, or they haven't worked with the former firefly guys. I'm sure they haven't been to the machine shops that had expensive parts made from superalloys sitting around never to be paid for. You are trying to crawfish from your original statements on rockets just like you're doing now bouncing all over the map on electric cars.

The motors I am referring to are THE EXACT SAME DESIGN AND MADE FROM THE EXACT SAME MATERIALS USING THE EXACT SAME CONSTRUCTION TECHNIQUES as the ones used in car, they are just smaller. You simply know nothing about them to be able to say that I am mistaken. I am not talking about conventional motors.

My information on the rockets came directly from NASA. Fireflys design was a copy of one designed by NASA to lower the cost so we could go to Mars. We never made that trip for the reasons I mentioned. I stick with every statement that I make.

[Ruffdaddy]

I guess that I should have also mentioned that the percentage drop is under ideal circumstances. If you live in the southwest your battery life will be about 1/3 of the life you could expect in a milder climate. Extremely cold climates will also cut your range by about 40 percent but will have a minimal effect on battery life. You are also making a very false assumption that electrical components never fail; they do and do so often. A great deal of the profit in my business comes from replacing failed electrical components including PM electric motors that are identical in construction, materials, and design to the ones used in cars. I have replaced 4 of them this week alone.

Yet again you show your complete and utter lack if knowledge here. I can assure you that the electric motors you replace aren't even close to identical in any of the categories you mentioned to the motors in a Tesla or even a leaf.

And no one calls you out of your ignorance of low cost rocketry and their application because they either don't care, or they haven't worked with the former firefly guys. I'm sure they haven't been to the machine shops that had expensive parts made from superalloys sitting around never to be paid for. You are trying to crawfish from your original statements on rockets just like you're doing now bouncing all over the map on electric cars.

[svauto-erotic855]

I wouldn't "feel" that, just like I don't "feel" that with my smart phone. Years later, the car is just not charging as well, so you get a new battery. Not unlike any gasoline car today running worse after years of use.
Also, a significant reduction in moving parts in an electric system should help offset replacing a battery eventually. Gas cars will be replacing transmissions, fuel-related parts, spark plugs, emissions junk, etc.

I guess that I should have also mentioned that the percentage drop is under ideal circumstances. If you live in the southwest your battery life will be about 1/3 of the life you could expect in a milder climate. Extremely cold climates will also cut your range by about 40 percent but will have a minimal effect on battery life. You are also making a very false assumption that electrical components never fail; they do and do so often. A great deal of the profit in my business comes from replacing failed electrical components including PM electric motors that are identical in construction, materials, and design to the ones used in cars. I have replaced 4 of them this week alone.

[mschmoyer]

Once you can recharge the battery in 5 minutes and refilling said battery doesn't effect how much power it can hold then energy density will no longer matter. Imagine how you would feel if every time you drained your gas tank to near empty and re-filled the gas tank it held 0.001 percent less gas just like a battery does.

I wouldn't "feel" that, just like I don't "feel" that with my smart phone. Years later, the car is just not charging as well, so you get a new battery. Not unlike any gasoline car today running worse after years of use.
Also, a significant reduction in moving parts in an electric system should help offset replacing a battery eventually. Gas cars will be replacing transmissions, fuel-related parts, spark plugs, emissions junk, etc.

[svauto-erotic855]

Lots of people drive trucks, which don't fare nearly as well as cars in that kind of comparison. The tesla and the leaf both have further ranges than my 87 chevy and my friend's 2009 F150. When you get into towing, that ICE range only shortens so that isn't much of a factor here either. So I have to question whether energy density is really all that much of a concern. The wife's toyota car will go 300 miles on a tank of gas. Its only a small step for electrics to do that, and according to Musk, that range is a current goal.

Once you can recharge the battery in 5 minutes and refilling said battery doesn't effect how much power it can hold then energy density will no longer matter. Imagine how you would feel if every time you drained your gas tank to near empty and re-filled the gas tank it held 0.001 percent less gas just like a battery does.

[aggie97]

The wife's toyota car will go 300 miles on a tank of gas. Its only a small step for electrics to do that, and according to Musk, that range is a current goal.

And a current nissan altima will do 550+ miles on a tank, refill in 4 minutes and costs $10k to 20k less... energy density has got dick to do with it.

[Gasser64]

There is not even a theoretical model for a battery that would be even close to the energy density of any carbon fuel and there never will be.

Lots of people drive trucks, which don't fare nearly as well as cars in that kind of comparison. The tesla and the leaf both have further ranges than my 87 chevy and my friend's 2009 F150. When you get into towing, that ICE range only shortens so that isn't much of a factor here either. So I have to question whether energy density is really all that much of a concern. The wife's toyota car will go 300 miles on a tank of gas. Its only a small step for electrics to do that, and according to Musk, that range is a current goal.

[svauto-erotic855]

And your point? I think everyone already knows this, but it still has nothing to do with the concept that there will maintain a push for continued battery development.

And comparing just energy densities between batteries and hydrocarbons is stupid. Gasoline does not allow for regenerative breaking, fuel systems and the difference in motor size alone will heavily shift the comparative relationship.

Like I said, you've proven to me that you don't know what the hell you are talking about when you started popping off your stupidity on rockets. All you're doing now is reinforcing it. I can now definitively say you're full of it...youve claimed a lot of dumb shit over the years but this finally sealed the deal. You're off your rocker man.

A hybrid does exactly what you are describing. The amount of energy being captured is so minor that it only matters when you have an extremely small storage capacity and are trying to make a sub standard design compete against a superior technology.

I feel compelled to point out that you are the only person in this conversation that did not understand what I was saying about rockets. Go back a re-read what I wrote. Maybe you will get it if you say the words out loud and very slowly.

[Sgt Beavis]

Gas is under 2 bucks a gallon. Don't expect any major breakthroughs in electric as long as that's the case. As Al said, so much of this technology is propped up with free money and tax credits. It's all bullshit.

The current price of gas is a temporary situation. Every manufacturer is looking at the long term forecast for energy production and acting accordingly. There are only two things holding electric cars back. One is price parity with ICE based cars. The other is range. The Bolt and Model 3 are proof that the price parity gap is closing. New battery tech and increased battery production are pushing a lot of those costs down. The range issue is also reaching parity as electrics are hitting that 200-300 mile range. IMO the only other thing these guys have to worry about are charging times and infrastructure.

BTW, Oil production is subsidized rather heavily by the federal state government as well. To the tune of roughly $20.5Billion. That doesn't include the huge amounts of money spent on keeping sea lanes open for oil transport around the world. Then there is the Ethanol subsidy which accounts for at least 10% of your gas at the pump (and I think we both agree that's pretty stupid).

I'm having trouble finding the total annual costs of the federal electric car tax credit. I'm sure someone else can find it but I'm betting it is significantly less. Also, the federal credit isn't unlimited either. It gets phased out after a certain number of cars are built by the manufacturer.

There were also loan guarantees for electric car companies. Those only cost the Feds if the manufacturer defaults on the loan. Fisker famously did exactly that. Tesla, however, had a much larger guarantee and paid it back after it's stock price rocketed up.

BTW, Elon Musk has said he would be just fine if the Electric Car credit disappeared entirely.

Subsidies are a fact of life for a lot of things in this country. You and I might not agree with it but we both directly or indirectly benefit from it. You wouldn't be enjoying airline flights if the feds hadn't created the air mail service to directly subsidize airlines. EVERY car manufacturer gets tax incentives to build car plants around the company. The entire military industrial complex is basically a socialist construct. The companies are privately owned but the feds, by in large, tell them what to build.

The space program is exactly the same thing but at least now they have adopted something similar the old air mail model which seems to be working well towards pushing us into a commercially viable space transportation system.

[Ruffdaddy]

Battery techs 1st limitation is physics, its other limitations are safety, cost, packaging, and environmental to name a few. There is not even a theoretical model for a battery that would be even close to the energy density of any carbon fuel and there never will be.

And your point? I think everyone already knows this, but it still has nothing to do with the concept that there will maintain a push for continued battery development.

And comparing just energy densities between batteries and hydrocarbons is stupid. Gasoline does not allow for regenerative breaking, fuel systems and the difference in motor size alone will heavily shift the comparative relationship.

Like I said, you've proven to me that you don't know what the hell you are talking about when you started popping off your stupidity on rockets. All you're doing now is reinforcing it. I can now definitively say you're full of it...youve claimed a lot of dumb shit over the years but this finally sealed the deal. You're off your rocker man.

[svauto-erotic855]

I would still expect advancements in battery tech which will ultimately be the key tech that drives a step change in electric car performance. This is because everyone wants improved battery tech (consumer electronics, automotive, aerospace...etc).

But new battery tech comes along very slowly and is obviously a huge safety concern.

Battery techs 1st limitation is physics, its other limitations are safety, cost, packaging, and environmental to name a few. There is not even a theoretical model for a battery that would be even close to the energy density of any carbon fuel and there never will be.

[Ruffdaddy]

Gas is under 2 bucks a gallon. Don't expect any major breakthroughs in electric as long as that's the case. As Al said, so much of this technology is propped up with free money and tax credits. It's all bullshit.

I would still expect advancements in battery tech which will ultimately be the key tech that drives a step change in electric car performance. This is because everyone wants improved battery tech (consumer electronics, automotive, aerospace...etc).

But new battery tech comes along very slowly and is obviously a huge safety concern.

[juiceweezl]

Gas is under 2 bucks a gallon. Don't expect any major breakthroughs in electric as long as that's the case. As Al said, so much of this technology is propped up with free money and tax credits. It's all bullshit.