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Evening Tech Bits

[Feb 14, 2013, 8:33 pm ET] - Share - Viewing Comments

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Re: Evening Tech Bits

Feb 16, 2013, 01:10

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eRe4s3r wrote on Feb 15, 2013, 22:50: The funny thing is that an Audi A6 is terribly out-dated and in-efficient. Compare the Tesla to a Toyota Prius and things look very different... Also your math is kinda flawed. a 85kw battery for the Tesla for example, needs to be charged with 102kw since about 20% is lost on charge. Any way you look at it, a tesla is a terrible idea. Less range, higher cost. There is also the tiny problem that trying to find a recharge location is going to be very challenging in the rural areas.... It's still a maturing technology though. If you don't work at it, it'll never "get there". The supercharge stations are a big step forward, bringing your charge time down to reasonable levels. The physics is there. Electric cars are insanely efficient from a physics standpoint. Last I heard something like 98% efficiency at the top end, and 90% or higher efficiency is totally achievable, vs the 20-30% efficiency of modern combustion engines. They're also a fraction of the size and weight of a modern internal combustion engine. What's not there is the battery technology, the chemists, but that's improving. Ten years ago batteries didn't perform like they do now, in another ten years the chemistry will probably be there to eliminate a lot of the issues with modern batteries, or we'll have moved onto something else. Tesla is the first "practical" electrical car line that has hit the market. Is the technology mature? Not really, but that we've gotten to this point is a good thing. Personally, I think that the solution in the long term is probably to ditch most batteries and run induction cables through the road so that you're pulling power from a very smart grid instead of storing power in your car. If you need to travel off the grid, internal combustion or a small fuel cell would be adequate.

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