Tesla's scathing response accuses NYT of 'changing the facts' in Model S review

First, I'm going to say that I want an electric car. Badly. Electric motors are more powerful and responsive than a combustion engine and I want something fast!

So I've had an idea for a few years. There's probably some reason it wont wouldn't work or is dumb, but oh well, here it is: Why not have a universal battery for all the different makes and models that can be swapped out at "filling stations" for freshly charged batteries. And instead of using fossil fuel to generate the electricity, have huge wind turbines at each station charging the batteries. Of course, the batteries do need to be better than they are now; vehicles should, IMHO get about 400 miles roughly out of a charge- similar to the range of current combustion engines. Anyway, that's my idea. Fun, fast cars to drive and less fossil fuels. If anyone makes money off of this, remember, you heard it here first.

(I've got other ideas relate to ethanol too, just an FYI)

reply to post by chrome413


The problem with a "Universal Battery" or more likely, a "universal battery pack", for all ellectric vehicles, is that it would also virtually require a universal chassis, or platform.

Which would virtually dictate that all vehicles had to be of uniform size and weight.

For example: the current Dodge Dart is built on the same chassis, or more precisely, the same "platform" as an Alfa Romero sedan, because FIAT, which owns both Alfa Romero AND Chrysler (which owns Dodge) needs to minimize the design and tooling costs for is cars.

I've also read that the next generation Mazda Miata will use the same "platform" as a future Alfa Romero sports car.

To make your Idea work, you'd have to make ALL platforms essentially the same; not just all sports cars the same, but all sports cars would have to use the same platform as all sedans, and all trucks.

Or, the battery would have to be small enough/powerful enough to fit in any vehicle, regardless of the vehicle dimensions and layout (the "platform").


Also, having a huge windmill at every "re-charging" station might pose a serious threat to aerial navigation within the city; unless you limit the number of stations each city could have.

Which would make for some very long lines at those stations!

reply to post by Bhadhidar


I was right. Didn't take long for a know it all to rain on my parade.

Well played Tesla, well played.

ive been fortunate to drive a Nissan leaf which they have launched as the 1st all electric production car

every aspect of the car is good apart from its range which is around 100 mile mark per charge ...i also found using climate control and cd player ect greatly reduced the mileage ...

it would be a good second car for short journeys but at £25,000 it wasn't for me

if they can increase the battery life to say 400 miles ..then i would think most people would switch to an all electric car......petrol prices would go down if we all had electric cars that's for sure ...

though electric prices would go through the roof ..as it stands it costs around £2 per 1 hundred miles if charging from home ..but id expect that to be at the same level of petrol prices once everyone converts

Originally posted by sitchin
it would be a good second car for short journeys but at £25,000 it wasn't for me

though electric prices would go through the roof ..as it stands it costs around £2 per 1 hundred miles if charging from home ..but id expect that to be at the same level of petrol prices once everyone converts

You make great points here. Those who own the energy production will just make their money elsewhere. There will probably be price surcharges for recharging your car's battery or else they may increase the electric price across the board... And our entire lives will become extremely expensive if electricity will be the standard fuel for cars since it will also increase the costs of living for powering computers, TVs, fridges and water heaters - so whether you own a car or not you'll be footing the bill of less gasoline cars on the roads!

And yes, as it stands now, everybody who has one of these electric car novelty toys has a second real car running on gasoline.

I think the solution is having hybrid gas/plugin electric cars like the chevy volt or the plugin prius - that way we can balance the costs for short commutes vs road trips.

Not surprised, it's not the first time someone has changed the facts when it didn't suit what they wanted about Tesla's cars. I forget the name of them, but I believe it was a british car magazine/review group, forget the name, but I have them on youtube if I can find them again I'll post, but it was the same thing. They said that the battery wouldn't last nearly as long as Tesla stated because they changed what they were doing with the car instead of a straight run.

reply to post by DarkSecret


I thought by supercharger you meant forced induction. I'm with you now.

Back to the electric car - the only way we'll ever have a viable model is a replaceable battery system. I've seen a documentary years ago where the car would basically drive over something that looks like an oil changing station and from below you had a lift that lowered the used battery and replaced it with a charged one. Took only 5 minutes and would alleviate most issues related to supercharging or slow charging.

I would really like to see that documentary if you can find it. Makes a lot of sense. Have a surplus of batteries, when your car gets low swap it with another. I can see that working out well for consumers and for business. Unfortunately we need big business to be able to make a profit before we see change.

I agree that the materials associated with electric vehicles right now really outweigh the environmental benefits. A consumer may save on gas, the company producing the vehicle gets tax breaks (I believe) but there is not no gain from an environmental standpoint.

Sure your new car gets great gas milage, it may save you a few bucks in the long run but don't for a second pretend the thing isn't a disaster at the source.

I think the real answer is lighter cars, and smaller engines. At least until we figure out something better. My Father's Corvette got astoundingly good gas mileage even though it was turning out 400+ HP. He didn't just go off the computer, he actually did the math and it was about 30 mpg (vast majority city miles). My buddies insane 2500 Dodge got great mileage (diesel) and did 0-60 at a scary pace (I mean pants poopingly fast black smoke everywhere). My Mom's Lexus hybrid gets like 45 mpg and is small and gutless. I have no doubt that if we let folks build an engine that get's about 60 mpg or more and around 120 hp (old Honda power) we could stave off environmental decay and save everyone a few bucks at the pump. At this point I really think 60mpg is on the low end.

Americans (I'm only talking about American cars, know nothing about foreign nonsense) need to change driving habits and embrace smaller, practical cars. We have a bigger is better mentality, and I think that is a huge (pun? pretend it was a pun) problem. The majority of people driving don't care at all about performance, they just think they do. Is it worth raping the Earth for a quicker 0-60 time than the guy next door if you spend 95% of the time driving like a Grandma?

I am a huge hypocrite, my car gets about 12 mpg city and 18 hwy. I'm looking to buy a new one in the next month or two, and all the cars I've considered get at best 17 city and 35 hwy. But I actually do enjoy zoom on a daily basis.

Originally posted by Tuttle
Its really the car manufactures themselves that want nothing to do with electric cars because they just dont have the money to invest in research and production to make them especialy viable.

Well, many of the major car manufacturers have pumped quite a bit into R&D, and they nearly all have an electric car on the market. Here's 5 on the market:

www.express.co.uk...

Unfortunately, it seems nobody really wants to buy them. Battery technology just isn't there yet, and unless there are major advances, it looks like hybrids and ultra-efficient diesels will be choice for the near future.

The Tesla Roadster is a joke, and the company will be gone by the end of the year.

reply to post by FatherLukeDuke


Yeah I understand they may have an interest in them, but its just economic viability, we have our manufacturing and production set up for a design thats over a 100 years old.

It would take radical investment to begin changing.

Thing is though, its a bit off a con, as it stands an electric car costs around 20-30 thousand pounds here in the UK, now fair enough, manufacturers can only make a limited amount, hence the cost and R&D etc.

But id rather buy a second hand turbo'd RX-7 for 5 grand and have 20 thousand pounds worth of petrol to go with it than buy and electric car at that price.

And im not sure about the battery technology being there yet, submarines run on electric batteries, and the fact you can find electric cars from the 1800's in auto museums with full batteries or electric hybrid engines kinda suggests this technology has been around for a very very long time, just no one is exploiting it really.

The Tesla power source is *still* rated in kilowatts not megafarads so there is probably a chemical process involved.
Chemical processes usually are governed to some extent by thermal fluctuations. A Li ion battery discharging at highway speeds would generate enough heat to keep the power output in the envelope though.

I would bet the truth is that the NYT reporter knew the model S had an Achilles heel and let the battery pack freeze overnight. Hot off the charger a model S can beat a Dodge Viper in a quarter mile drag race (which is the big selling point), but when cold and low on charge performance would be sluggish. Tesla seems to be claiming that although the cold low charge performance was reduced to perhaps that of a Nissan leaf the battery was not "dead".

No one is to blame

The race car performance inspires wealthy owners to purchase the car. No doubt they will be worth a lot of money in 50 years as antiques. Obviously its a good test bed situation to work out the bugs of the technology.

reply to post by DarkSecret

I think the solution is having hybrid gas/plugin electric cars like the chevy volt or the plugin prius - that way we can balance the costs for short commutes vs road trips.

The Early Toyota Prius was a green car, the NiMH battery is safe, non-toxic, recyclable, durable, has adequate power and is capable of deep cycling on a daily basis. In the Prius hybrid application it boosted mileage to almost 90 MPG.

Someone decided that wasn't good enough so they started messing around with Lithium technology to get a higher energy density, but they may have lost some of their green customers with that decision.

Then the father of the Prius comes out with this discordant media announcement that electric cars will never be economically feasable? Next battery tech related story they ground the Boeing dreamliner in Japan over over lithium battery problems.

Tesla Motors gets in a debate over a NYT article about a similar Lithium technology and Russia experiences a Tunguska event. OK so maybe the Tunguska event isn't related.

Originally posted by Tuttle
Thing is though, its a bit off a con, as it stands an electric car costs around 20-30 thousand pounds here in the UK, now fair enough, manufacturers can only make a limited amount, hence the cost and R&D etc.

But id rather buy a second hand turbo'd RX-7 for 5 grand and have 20 thousand pounds worth of petrol to go with it than buy and electric car at that price.

Personally I'm staying with the proven ICE technology. I've heard that some municipalities are even considering taxing hybrids/electrics on the number of miles driven per year. That's because right now there is a tax included in the gasoline cost which is supposed to pay for roads. Basically whenever you fill up you pay a bit of the cost of fixing or building roads. People who drive plugins don't pay anymore so they govt may do away with the gasoline tax and charge us all by the miles driven and vehicle weight. Batteries tend to weigh a lot so I wonder whether it will be cheaper to drive a large gasoline car vs a small cramped hybrid when this tax hits...

So all those greens who think they'll get away with paying $1/day to get to work may have a rude awakening. They'll feel pretty silly when they realize the "investment" ends up costing them much more in the long run with the upcoming new proposed taxes.

Originally posted by Cauliflower
I would bet the truth is that the NYT reporter knew the model S had an Achilles heel and let the battery pack freeze overnight. Hot off the charger a model S can beat a Dodge Viper in a quarter mile drag race (which is the big selling point), but when cold and low on charge performance would be sluggish. Tesla seems to be claiming that although the cold low charge performance was reduced to perhaps that of a Nissan leaf the battery was not "dead".

Whether he did it on purpose or not it's still obvious that this car is not ready for roadtrips or spending any nights (especially cold ones) away from an outlet.

Those who say that the gasoline car started the same way with just a few gas stations are dishonest at best. You can always buy a barrel of the stuff and store it away for many months with the same energy performance, then fill up in minutes. Or AAA can bring you some gas on the freeway and you can drive off to the closest gas station.

You can't easily swap or recharge batteries in the Tesla and those batteries will also be impacted by the temperatures assuming there was ever an additional portable battery pack for these electrics. The alternative would be to tow a small portable gas/diesel generator which would take all the fun out of driving a sports car.

There's even a good review of electric cars and how they perform with the heating or cooling on. The heater halves the battery life while the AC takes a big chunk out of it too. Here's the link www.anandtech.com...