JG Pasterjak said: My dream, both as a consumer and a car-industry person, is that alternative drivetrains become precisely that—alternatives to each other. I'd love to see gas, diesel, electric, hybrid, fuel cell, all participating in the marketplace and vying for consumers based on doing what they do best.
I very much like that idea. We keep hearing that electric power will replace gas, that nobody seems to consider that they may co-exist. Can't we all just get along?
JG Pasterjak wrote: My dream, both as a consumer and a car-industry person, is that alternative drivetrains become precisely that—alternatives to each other. I'd love to see gas, diesel, electric, hybrid, fuel cell, all participating in the marketplace and vying for consumers based on doing what they do best.
+2. No single idea or technology will solve our energy problems. But a number of ideas combined may do the trick.
I want a car with a turbine motor that turns an electric generator.
Sky_Render wrote: I want a car with a turbine motor that turns an electric generator.
Running on kerosene or biodiesel
Original journalist responds:
http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/14/that-tesla-data-what-it-says-and-what-it-doesnt/
Sky_Render wrote: I want a car with a turbine motor that turns an electric generator.
Jaguar actually tried this when they decided to bring their CX75 concept into production, but they had to swap the turbines for an Ecotec, because the micro-turbines were too expensive. For a supercar.
Sounds to me like the Tesla S is not yet at the point of being the ideal new technology. Big step in a potentially good direction? Yes. Are we there yet? Not quite.
Doesn't sound like the guy drove the car in a crazy or unreasonable manner. He ended up in less than ideal conditions, didn't drive it exactly as the engineers would have wanted, at the car wasn't quite up to the challenge. I mean, the list of "do's and dont's" that Tesla gave journalists to test the car were pretty exact, and the testers repeatedly contacted Tesla for guidance on how to use the car. Can you imagine GRM being given the latest Lexus or whatever and being told, "Okay, you need to cruise at this speed, don't drive in traffic, and don't run the air conditioning. Contact us a couple times each day to be sure you're driving it correctly."
I do not want to buy a car where I need to stay in contact with the manufacturer in order to make a 300 mile road trip.
I do think they have done a good job on an electric commuter car that will get you around a metro area all day and then gets plugged in to charge overnight. The people buying one will probably have a second car for when they want to take longer trips.
GameboyRMH wrote:Sky_Render wrote: I want a car with a turbine motor that turns an electric generator.Jaguar actually tried this when they decided to bring their CX75 concept into production, but they had to swap the turbines for an Ecotec, because the micro-turbines were too expensive. *For a supercar.*
Also they're rather inefficient
Sky_Render wrote: I want a car with a turbine motor that turns an electric generator.
We tested a number of these for a while. Unfortunately either the powerplant of batteries were most likely undersized so they would run out of power on hills and bridges from time to time. They are an interesting concept, being very quiet and smooth running. Them seem to be successful elsewhere but from what I read these were their first attempt at a 40 foot bus and we tend to run our buses a lot longer than most places without any kind of recovery time.
The CNN guy doesn't seem to have had much trouble. http://money.cnn.com/2013/02/15/autos/tesla-model-s/
carzan wrote: The CNN guy doesn't seem to have had much trouble. http://money.cnn.com/2013/02/15/autos/tesla-model-s/
It was also a lot warmer when he drove it. Not that I am saying that the nyt guy was right, but looking at Tessa's response and the nyt response to that, I don't know. If I have to call tech support and baby a car on a road trip how good is the car?
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