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Originally Posted by xG35c
Hydrogen powered electric vehicles have tremendous potential. Unfortunately, producing it requires as much energy as you get out of it, meaning a huge investment in dedicated alternative energy power plants to produce it. Getting it to the gas stations will require another huge investment in new distribution and delivery infrastructure. And the logistics of storing it in your vehicle, either at near absolute zero in liquid form or under tremendously high pressures in a special tank, don't look too good or safe either right now.
Since our economy is built on the concept of generally doing things as cheaply as possible, this may never happen in our lifetimes. However, if we could pull this off in the next 10 - 20 years I do believe that stopping the shipment of all of our dollars overseas to quench are insatiable oil thirst will solve nearly every single problem our country has!
THINK ABOUT IT!
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Yeah, the biggest problem with hydrogen is safety. Cryo storage is hard both from a cost perspective and an energy perspective (which obviously boils down to cost). Pressurizing it and chilling it to liquid form basically negates any of the benefits. I mean, not really, it's still not fossil fuel, thus is better, but if you need megawatts to run your car, point being it gets out of balance fast.
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Originally Posted by Dozhdbog
Incorrect. Nuclear has much more, and hydrogen does as well.
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Nuclear for sure. Gaseous hydrogen has far and away higher specific energy (energy per unit mass), but much much much lower energy density (energy per unit volume). Which is the real problem - the fundamental limit becomes how large the car must be to house the hydrogen tanks. Of course, that only impacts range, which for a fuel system that can be rapidly replaced like gasoline or hydrogen, is sort of irrelevant. Sure, people will bitch that they have to fill up every 200 miles, but if the infrastructure is there, it's not ACTUALLY an issue, whereas range on BEVs is everything since it's to be assumed that a fillup means a break in trips.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael Schott
Tesla's marketing strategy is to go after the luxury car buyer. The less powerful, less range, less money market is covered by the Volt and Leaf.
That said, if Tesla made a 3 series size model that had a 200 mile range with a net cost of $40K, I'd be very interested.
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Well, their ultimate strategy is to get to the everyman. They just planned on starting with high cost luxury cars knowing that the people who could afford them would be all over it, building up their business and status. Which is a pretty darn good plan, if you ask me. Look at what they've done: the S is a much, much better car than the roadster, and they've managed to knock down the starting price tens of grand. They're definitely on the right path, and at a good clip.
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Originally Posted by gds52
I don't like the name Tesla !!! Tessssssslaaaaaaa.....
Don't know if i will like the car....lol
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Tesla was a mothereffing BOSS. In his time, what he practiced was basically magic, not engineering. By any formal definition, Tesla's work was far into the spectrum of magic as any human's has ever been in history.
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/tesla
Also, by virtue of the Red Alert games, the name "Tesla" sort of gives you the idea that your car can shoot bolts of lightning at other annoying drivers on the road, which, even if wildly off base, is a super fun thought.
I have to say, I probably won't end up with a tesla (unless the next model after the X is a compact sedan that will do 400 miles on a charge and 0-60 in <6s). But that's only because I fully intend that my next car after my current 3 will be 100% designed and built by me. A BEV as well, even, unless some better energy storage is commercialized by then (I've got my eye on a couple technologies, but they likely won't see consumer availability for another 10y or so).
In the mean time, I'll probably end up getting a Zero motorcycle and some solar panels to charge it as my daily driver. I don't generally go more than 100 or 200mi in an average week, so that should work out great.