Not for same reasons you do. You want a battery-powered Tesla Roadster because it’s a way cool car boasting bleeding edge technology. Or maybe you just like sexy sports cars. Or perhaps you’re looking for massive eco-auto props. As a free marketeer, I’m good with any of these motivations. As a Porsche Boxster S owner, I’m not bothered (I’ve already found my dream date). But as the publisher of this website, I want a Tesla Roadster BAD. I want to reveal the truth about the EV– whatever that may be.
The Tesla Birth Watch was born a fit of journalistic pique. It galled me to see my colleagues repeating the aspiring electric car company’s claims for their Roadster’s range, recharge time, safety and performance as fact. This before they'd turned a single wheel in anger. It made these media outlets– including mainstream publications that should have known better (I’m looking at you Forbes)– not-so-silent partners in the company’s PR and fund-raising efforts. The words “unproven” and “claimed” were conspicuous by their absence.
What’s more, Tesla’s Devil-make-care insistence that their unproven lithium-ion battery technology would deliver the claimed results (see how that works?) struck me as the worst kind of corporate arrogance– especially for a start-up. If BMW announces that their new twin-turbo 3.0-liter six will deliver 300 horsepower, accelerate the 335i from zero to sixty in 5.4 seconds and deliver 17/26 mpg, I have every reason to believe them. If a newbie named Tesla says their high tech Roadster will go from zero to sixty in under four seconds, travel 250 miles between charges and recharge in three hours, I say show me the money.
So I started the Tesla Birth Watch. If you go back and read the various installments, you’ll soon find the common thread: delays, disambiguation and disappearing claims. Transmission problems have forced the company to deep-six its sub-four second zero to sixty time. The 250-mile range is now 211 miles in “EPA Combined”- despite the fact that the EPA doesn’t have an electric vehicle mpg protocol. And no one– I repeat no one– has tested the Roadster’s batteries’ recharge time.
When Frank said we should pronounce T.O.B. (Time of Birth) on the Tesla Roadster and end the series– as the manufacturer claimed to have delivered a vehicle to a paying customer– I wanted proof. Given Tesla’s credibility (or complete lack thereof), the fact that this customer wants to remain anonymous doesn’t pass the smell test.
And if there is any wiggle room in our definition of “customer delivery of a production car,” I’m confident Tesla’s using it. For example, Tesla says it will retrofit the Roadster with a new transmission just as soon as they figure-out how to build one. Would we call a Ford Flex a proper production vehicle if it had to have a post-sale tranny swap? I don’t think so. As TTAC commentator PCH101 points out, “Even Vector delivered one vehicle. Technically, they’re still in business. It remains one of our oldest and best known vaporware companies.”
But you don’t hire a world-class Managing Editor, and then tell him he’s full of shit (at least not often). So I’ve deferred to Frank in this case. But I insisted we start the Tesla Death Watch. Think of it this way…
Tesla says they’ll deliver 400 cars by next March. Let’s assume they make, build and sell twice that and then some: 1000 cars per year, or 20 cars a week (pausing to note that Audi plans to sell 1k similarly-priced R8’s stateside in the car’s first year.) Let’s also assume they clear $20k per $100k car. So that’s $20m in ostensible net profit. Is there anyone reading this who thinks Tesla hasn’t already burned through $20m?
Now we know Tesla’s raised a lot more money than that, but that’s not the point. At some point, they’ll need to, you know, take in more money than they spend. At the same time, the Roadster runs the very real risk of catching “everyone who wants one’s got one” disease. It’s no wonder the company’s beginning to shift focus onto the WhiteStar EV– or partial EV– sedan. They need something to sell. To investors.
In truth, Tesla Motors is no more likely to produce and sell a viable, profitable, competitive, mass-market electric-powered sedan than General Motors. Given Tesla’s history of over-promising and under- (as in not) delivering on the Roadster, I reckon they don’t have a hope in Hell of achieving this goal. But that won’t stop them from raising tens of millions of dollars for their cushy offices and healthy salaries, and making a killing with an IPO. Nor will it stop us from telling the truth about Tesla, test car or no.
[Once again, we call on Tesla to provide a Roadster for third-party evaluation.]
RF, If i were a rich man, I’d use my rich guy skills (money) to get you a roadster. In my sick sense of humor though, I’d get you a pink one.
ZCline:
As I’m a red-green color blind social liberal who’s raised four Barbie-loving girls, I’ve got no problem with pink. Thanks for the kind thoughts.
The 250-mile range is now 211 miles in “EPA Combined”- despite the fact that the EPA doesn’t have an electric vehicle mpg protocol. And no one– I repeat no one– has tested the Roadster’s batteries’ recharge time.
Given the price, interior space, and stiff (aka “sporty”) ride, I can almost guarantee you that every [future] Tesla owner will have multiple vehicles.
Charge time: 20 seconds flat! 10 seconds to plug it in at night and 10 seconds to unplug it before your drive off in the morning. If you forget to plug in, then just take one of your multiple other vehicles instead.
Range: Rich people rarely drive themselves 200 miles in a single day. Given the interior space and stiff ride, these same people will probably want to take a huge SUV for such a trip anyway. The range might be an issue for a racetrack, though.
I’m more intrigued that they haven’t resolved the transmission problem. That to me means you can’t call it fully birthed yet. How fast does it accelerate with the 1-speed anyway? Would it be humbled in a straight line by a $27k Mustang? How about a Lotus Elise?
I insisted we start the Tesla Death Watch.
I prefer “Tesla Afterbirth”
Sunnyvale: How fast does it accelerate with the 1-speed anyway?
They’ve increased the voltage draw, so even with the one-speed transmission, they’re quoting 0-60 in 3.9 seconds.
Paul Niedermeyer:
They’ve increased the voltage draw, so even with the one-speed transmission, they’re quoting 0-60 in 3.9 seconds.
I assume that would eat into range, BIG style…
SunnyvaleCA :
Range: Rich people rarely drive themselves 200 miles in a single day. Given the interior space and stiff ride, these same people will probably want to take a huge SUV for such a trip anyway. The range might be an issue for a racetrack, though.
It’s not the facts that bother me (much), it’s the constant misrepresentation of the facts. The entirely theoretical not-to-say completely misleading 211 EPA range is on their website.
“And no one– I repeat no one– has tested the Roadster’s batteries’ recharge time.”
Again with the charge time. I don’t see what the big deal is. I’ve said this before, but I guess it’s worth repeating here:
The charge time is just a simple math problem. The battery pack holds about 53 kWh of energy. So if all you’ve got is a wall outlet, say 120 Volts at 15 Amps (which gives 1.8k Watts), it will take about 30 hours to fully charge the pack from a state of depletion. To get a full charge in 3.5 hours, Tesla’s home charging unit would have to provide about 15kW of power. At 240 Volts, that’s less than 70 Amps, which is perfectly reasonable for a unit that’s professionally installed by an electrician. Of course if you’re using the car for your daily commute of say 50 miles, you’d rarely be charging from empty.
I’d be skeptical of companies that claim 5 or 10 minute charge times. The equipment (cables, electrical isolation, safety interlocks, feed from the power plant, etc) you’d need to safely carry electrical energy at that rate is impractical in a home setting.
doug:
The charge time is just a simple math problem. The battery pack holds about 53 kWh of energy. So if all you’ve got is a wall outlet, say 120 Volts at 15 Amps (which gives 1.8k Watts), it will take about 30 hours to fully charge the pack from a state of depletion. To get a full charge in 3.5 hours, Tesla’s home charging unit would have to provide about 15kW of power. At 240 Volts, that’s less than 70 Amps, which is perfectly reasonable for a unit that’s professionally installed by an electrician. Of course if you’re using the car for your daily commute of say 50 miles, you’d rarely be charging from empty.
Prove it. If not you, them.
RF,
Having watched a LOT of aviation companies go through the exact same process as Tesla, and then having them fail, I share your pain.
I lost sales to these scammers. Both because people were watching and waiting, or they gave the idiots their money, or they refused to put down a deposit on one of our new designs despite the fact that we had a solid track record.
What’s amazing is that some of us can seemingly see through the delays and ofuscations, and some cannot. I made a bad call on one of my competitors who actually did make it to market, but their plane is still having problems. OTOH, I made the right call on over a dozen players in only a few years. Why do people want to bet so much money on such long odds for something that really isn’t all that revolutionary?
RF: I assume that would eat into range, BIG style…
No more than with the two speed. It takes x amount of current to accomplish, either way. They just found an electronic way around the initial perceived benefits of a two-speed tranny. They should have done this in the first place. Certainly, fast driving runs down the range.
“Prove it.”
I thought I just did.
doug, charging a battery is not like filling a tank. You can’t just take the energy capacity of the battery and divide it by the power input to get the charging time. IIRC, the way most batteries recharge is logarithmic. That is, a dead battery will charge rapidly at first, but as the charge approaches 100%, the charging rate will decrease. Now, if Tesla said something like “the battery can reach an 80% charge in 3 hours”, that would be reasonable (many mp3 players make similar claims). However, for that large a battery to be fully charged in 3 hours? pretty unbelievable.
Great editorial.
I, too, would like to see a sexy EV like this get to market and be successful. Albeit at about one-quarter of the price.
The PR situation they are in is unenviable. They’ve positioned themselves in this corner and now they’re running like hell to get out. They should have been more honest from the start. Get the car right…then start to take deposits AND make committments for deliveries.
I’m glad I’m not one of those depositors sitting on the waiting list. Can you imagine? That’s gotta suck.
Robert:
“Prove it.”
doug :
I thought I just did.
I think Doug did just prove it, if only to a mathematical “best case”. I think Robert is looking to see a real world example much like seoltrain mentions above. I suspect that Tesla’s 3 hour recharge might be better read as “average daily recharge time, given average use” – a bit of liberty with the truth, perhaps, though most of us don’t drive our cars until they are completely empty, nor do we fill them to completely full all the time (well, at least I don’t always – if I’m in a rush!). However, I would argue that the real 0-100% recharge time is relevent as soon as a second (third, fourth, etc) EV is available, so that a proper comparison can be made….
Guys, the charging time issue is a bit of a red herring. Keep in mind that Tesla uses bulk commodity cells from China, essentially the same cells in your lap top. This is the big difference from other proprietary advanced li-ion car batteries being developed for BEV (Volt,etc).
The charging rate of Tesla’s commodity cells is extremely well known, since its not a proprietary item per se. Whatever Tesla says regarding charging time is more than likely correct.
doug: “Prove it.” I thought I just did. Real world. It’s one thing to build a car on a napkin or a spreadsheet, another to make it work in reality. (Paul: A laptop is not an EV with hundreds of cells linked together and cooled.) And range IS important. If a $100k li-ion, carbon fiber Tesla Roadster (two passengers, no luggage) travels no further GM’s EV1 in “normal” driving, say, 100 miles, then, well, WTF? I am prepared to accept ALL Tesla’s claims– just as soon as they’re verified by a qualified, independent source.
seoultrain and RF, I think that what Doug was pointing out is that the physics backs up at least the possibility of fast charging with current technology (pun intended!).
The Tesla is built with scads of laptop-style batteries, right? Well, consider a baseline experiment of hooking each of those batteries to a conventional laptop charger. Voila! Charging in parallel in a few hours just as I’m doing now as I type this.
Doug then pointed out the house power requirements. Yeah, they are pretty high. But if you are buying a $100k toy vehicle, maybe you can spring another $20k to upgrade the electrical system of your mansion, too.
How about if the batteries overheat during charging? As a rough proxy, consider the discharging situation. Presumably you could run down the battery in 2 hours. Let’s hope it doesn’t overheat with that! (That would be a much bigger problem for a sports car.) So, if the batteries can survive 2 hour discharges, they should be able to handle 4 hour recharges even if the chemical un-reaction produces 2x the amount of heat. Again we can look at the case of laptop batteries, where a 2-hour run followed by a 3 or 4-hour recharge is normal operating procedure.
Suppose the best-case recharge is 4 hours, the good case is 8 hours, and the case of just swapping the plug with your centralized air conditioner is 16 hours. That seems entirely reasonable. I’d be far more skeptical of a spritied 2-hour discharge than a 4 hour charge.
Tesla, For for God’s sake, give the man a Roadster. Otherwise he’ll destroy you, just like every other car company that provoked his ire. At least this way you’ll have a fighting chance.
Seoultrain & RF,
I wanted to keep my explanation in the realm of high school physics and relatively simple. The main point I was trying to make was that in this case (in part because the of the very fact that the battery pack is so large) the limiting factor in the charge time really is the voltage and current available from your source and not so much the batteries. The overhead built into the Tesla home charging unit (240V, 70A, 16.8kW) makes the 3.5 hour charging claim unremarkable.
Better questions might be:
Is your home electrical service configured to handle that kind of load. If not, you’ll have to charge at a slower rate. If you’re charging over night, does it matter if it takes 4 hours versus 8 hours?
Do you even want/need to charge to 100%? The calendar life (different from the cycle life) of a Li ion cell is shorter if stored with a 100% charge than say with an 80% charge. If you don’t need the full range, you’re better off not charging to 100%, thereby extending the lifetime of your battery pack.
Etc.
RobertFarago If a $100k li-ion, carbon fiber Tesla Roadster (two passengers, no luggage) travels no further GM’s EV1 in “normal” driving, say, 100 miles, then, well, WTF?
The EV1’s original lead-acid batteries had a capacity of 18.7 Kwh. The later Nimh batteries capcity was 26.4 Kwh. The Tesla’s battery capacity is 53 Kwh.
The efficiency and aero drag of both of these vehicles is very similar. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that the Tesla will have at least twice the range of the EV1, given that it has two to three times the electric storage capacity (at equivalent driving speeds).
Robert, you certainly have the right to want to see third party verification, but with EV’s, if you know the total aero drag, rolling friction and efficiency of the electrical components (which usually don’t vary much), it’s fairly easy (and accurate) to project the range.
Do you request third party verification when you buy lightbulbs?
Tesla has its challenges, but I don’t think these are the ones.
Do you request third party verification when you buy lightbulbs?
I have to take issue with this, because Tesla’s playing games with numbers that are independently (EPA at the very least for mileage) verified for every other vehicle on American roads. If you provide numbers, they damn well better be demonstrable. I’m all for what Tesla’s doing, but not how they’re doing it, and I think that’s where Robert’s coming from.
Computer hardware manufacturers played the same games in the 90s and early 2000s, refusing to let the hardball reviewers take them out of a controlled setting to test them. It was stupid for a sub-$1k piece of equipment, and it’s downright maddening for a $100k car. Yeah, they’ll all sell, but if the consumer’s being fleeced, that’s a big, fat, gold-plated middle finger to the world.
It’s sad to me that a rather niche (sorry guys) website is one of the few to take them to task over their unproven claims.
With something new and crazy like the Tesla, a good way to evaluate it, without actually thrashing it, is to evaluate its “complexity.” Computer architects know all about this. You make a bunch of design decisions, way up front, about your complexity budget. You’re prepared to do only just so much innovation between the last product and the next product so you can guarantee you get the damn thing out the door on time.
What are/were Tesla’s innovations? Crazy battery pack. New transmission. New electric motor. New carbon-fiber body. However, they were smart enough to basically take a stock Lotus Elise chassis, suspension, and all that.
You would have thought, way in advance, that the two-speed transmission would be no big deal and the battery pack would have been staggeringly hard. So far as we can tell, they got the crazy battery pack working and it was the transmission that caused them all the grief.
Forget about how long the thing will run until it runs out of juice. I’m far more interested in whether the battery pack can survive in Death Valley or some other hot climate. When a lithium-ion cell gets too hot… boom!
Do you request third party verification when you buy lightbulbs?
If the light bulb had just been invented, then I certainly would. Especially a $100,000 light bulb.
I’m sure when the Tesla really does get here, there will be all sorts of conditions and disclaimer explaining why the claimed specs can’t be met. For those who were in support of the GM’s EV-1, there were a few being running around in the Vancouver BC area. Most people manage to ignore the pitfalls of the electrical vehicles. Vancouver has lots of hills, rains a lot, in the winter, gets very cold and the days are short (headlights on). In the winter, The EV was lucky to get 10 miles on a full charge.
Even if the Tesla roadster gets anything close to their claims, I would be interested to know what mileage a Tesla gets in any other jurisdiction outside of California.
A $100,000 light bulb? Robert, I love your humor! Seriously, since day one everything has been a big secret when it comes to outside evaluation. This is where the head scratching comes in. Anybody can make claims. Proving they are accurate is something entirely different. By the way, who in this age of arrogance and celebrity worship would’nt want their 15 minutes of fame as the first Tesla owner? Unless you were told when you bought the car not to let the neighbors know the recharge time. “Just tell ’em its great!”
If Zcline ever gives you that pink Tesla, maybe you could give that silver Porsche you won’t be needing to me? :)
romanjetfighter:
If Zcline ever gives you that pink Tesla, maybe you could give that silver Porsche you won’t be needing to me? :)
Nice one. No.
I hope you get your Tesla Roadster to trash. But I will take whatever you say with a huge grain of salt. Your attitude towards Tesla does not concede anything to the hard work and engineering effort to launch this car. In fact, it reminds me of how the various investment houses treated Google when they took their company public via a Dutch Auction. So called analysts announced that the stock was priced too high at $80 per share. Now the stock trades at $580.
Sure, if Tesla is able to build an electric car with a decent range and good performance it will prove that the oil age has truly ended. That may be a threatening thought to some people. Their entire paradigm will have to be reworked. But, to me, Tesla is a finger in the eye to GM, Ford, Exxon, Dubya, and all the other suckers who should just shrivel up and blow away.
“But, to me, Tesla is a finger in the eye to GM, Ford, Exxon, Dubya, and all the other suckers who should just shrivel up and blow away.”
Electric cars will probably happen, but I highly doubt Tesla will lead the charge. Who is going to put up with cars engineered with the same slapdash attitude computer and personal electronics are built with? You can’t just pull over on the side of the road, call tech support in India and try to reboot the darn thing when it suddenly freezes up.
carlos,
There is a big difference between your Google example and the Tesla. First, what makes you think RF didn’t want them to succeed? Does Robert have some vested interest in them failing? I don’t think so. The investment houses had a huge interest in seeing googles IPO fail. They were directly threatened. If Tesla really had the best new mousetrap, it would help RF’s business because people would be looking all over the web for more info on the great new thing.
Sorry, but your argument is off. I have no reason to think that RF wouldn’t eat crow, and be glad to do it. Everything he has said so far seems spot on and perfectly supportable as far as Tesla is concerned.
Carlos my friend, you are wrong. We would love to see Tesla succeed. I wont drink the Kool Aid yet. Something has been fishy since day one, and no, even if I had the money my deposit would be in my bank account until there were some proven (not prototype test mules) cars on the road. Check me if I am wrong, but it is after March 18th and there are not any on the road. No, I dont know about the “unidentified” owner of car #3. Who knows if it even exists.
Look here is an easy way to figure on the range. Taking into account relative ICE and electric efficiencies, somewhere near 10,000 watt-hours equals what one gallon of gas will get you at the rear wheel with either power plant. So if the car, a Lotus basically though heavier, had 5 gallons of fuel to work with how far could you get. I think at that weight you’re looking at 35 mpg for normal driving. So that is 185 miles. Drive faster with gas or battery and it will be less. Drive a bit slower than normal and somewhere around 200 miles is plausible.
Now yes, plausible and feasible are still not proven. The devil is in the details and any number of details could keep your car from meeting the plausible levels of performance. That is where Tesla is looking shaky. They announced barely plausible performance, and without producing anything act as if it is a done deal. It isn’t, and probably won’t be. But this is what makes this situation interesting. Their claims are plausible, possible, and they are asking big money for it. Will it or won’t it happen. Are they just a complex investment scam that might manage to be barely legal or genuine in their aims having a hard time actually producing something on the edge of the currently possible?
Time will tell. I do agree the birth watch should not be ended. Maybe the owner wishing to remain private is real. Even then, to the wider world, verifiable birth of the Tesla has not happened. Surely the next couple will be public enough to confirm.
Technologically, there’s nothing wrong with Tesla’s claims. If anything, they’re below what they should be. The guys are not making anything impossible – any university college team can reproduce the results with that kind of funding.
I’m more concerned about production taking so much time. If roadsters don’t start hitting the beach at the rate of at least two per week by June, then you know they’re yet another Vector. Making a superb EV is easy, organizing logistics to mass-produce it is what’s making or breaking a company.
BTW, I estimate their per-car production costs to be around 40K. Everything else goes towards covering their fixed losses. Given such ridiculous margins, I don’t see why they can’t spend another 5K a car just to get some more alternative parts sources and just get the assembly line rolling. Any delay will cost them big, A380 style. Heck, another 2-3 years and their cells will become painfully obsolete. End result will be a lot of pissed-off customers who paid a hundred big ones just to see their janitor buy a 20k electric kit-car that has better range and performance.
As someone who works in a development environment, I know first hand that tests find defects, things get sent back to the developers, and delays are part of the process.
We are not talking about GM here. It is not as if Tesla is going to be able to release another plastic clad hulk with a 1986 pushrod engine on schedule, ready for rebates and lot rot. They have to deal with a federal govenment headed by two oil men. Do you think Bush’s minions are going to make things easy? Oil-think fuels this administration and I would not be surprised if paperwork gets lost now and then.
I have never seen anything positive written by RF about either the Tesla, Prius, or any alternative vehicle. He seems ready to nit pick over the range, over the delivery dates, ready to start the “death watch.” Hey, here’s an idea: How about a death watch for the internal combustion engine?
I think that people like Sergy Brin of Google, one of the main Tesla investors, are smarter than most of us. If he believes in Tesla, then I am at least intrigued. On the other hand, if Bill Gates was the main promoter; I would have grave doubts.
I hope electric technology filters down and I can buy a decent plug in electric sedan with a 200 mile range, swapable power pack, and decent performance for 25K by 2020. But I know such a car car won’t be provided by the current roster of companies whose fortunes are tied to fossil fuel engines. Nor do I expect that automotive journalists who eat, sleep and excrete fossil fuel cars to be in the best position to judge electric vehicles.
For these reasons I am grateful for visionary investors like Mr. Brin, who perhaps can help change the world for the better, one roadster at a time.
carlos,
as someone who sells products that are often stll in development, or unproven, I can tell you that all companies face delays and unforeseen problems. I can also tell you that the bad players make it really tough for the good players to succeed. I can usually tell the difference based on the marketing and PR. Not everyone can.
TTAC also likes to attack “flying cars” or roadable airplanes, but I don’t see a conspiracy or bias. Why? because there is this SOB named Moller who has been fooling investors and the main stream press for DECADES and has never made his car fly (I mean really fly, not float in ground effects no better than an electric vacuum hover craft built by a ten year old).
I can tell you that Tesla appears in every way to operate like Moller and other companies I have known that are empowered by the folks who look past the suspicious behavior due to their belief and/or hope in a particular technology. It doesn’t matter if they are dishonest or fooling themselves. What matters is results.
If RF is skeptical, he has good reason to be. History is on the side of the skeptics. Besides, he would not be the same writer if he were not skeptical. In hindsight you can say the Prius is a success, but how many other electric cars never really made it to the mainstream? Hint: all the other ones.
The Moller example is germane — an investor-funded hobbyist who’s been playing people for years, and has “wowed” print and TV journalists alike with a tethered “flight”.
Tesla (sorry, Nikola) is losing credibility by the day – it’s not the technology, but the real intent of the company that’s becoming a concern.
I can’t help but wonder if Tesla Motors would ever want to give Robert a car, simply because they’re having so much trouble getting anyone cars. Surely they don’t want to hand their $100,000 product to a hardened skeptic when they know it’s unlikely to do them any good.
That being said, I think there are a few things that are pretty obvious, and indeed well known.
(1) One of the auto magazines that tested it got about 100 miles on a charge during spirited, auto magazine style driving. I would expect 200 miles would be reasonably feasible if you’re not driving like auto magazine testers do. I certainly think it’s reasonable to say that a typical Tesla, on a typical day, will get at least 100 miles per charge. This would seem to make it an ideal commuter car, especially if you can charge it at work.
(2) Everyone who has driven it says it’s an absolute blast to drive. I don’t think this should be overlooked. People who have tried it really seem to love it. To me, this is a strong indication that the company has a future, even if it’s imperfect, and even if it doesn’t meet all of its ambitious goals. People will still love the car and they will still pay big bucks for it.
So I don’t think this is such a bad business – plenty of people want it and are willing to pay sizable sums for it. Pretty good business — if, at least, you can make a few hundred a month instead of ten. Let’s just hope Siry is right and production will ramp up in the next month or so.
I don’t think that “anyone can make a great Electric sports car”. I think that took an enormous amount of time, treasure and hard, hard work that should be appreciated. If they can’t produce it, that’s an enormous problem, but it doesn’t mean their achievements to date should not be appreciated as significant.
In a recent speech, Siriy did say Tesla was interested in linking up with an existing automaker … maybe that’s what has to be done. I hope not, personally, but we shall see …
Tesla Birth or Death Watch continues.
D
David Dennis: If Tesla provides us with a vehicle, we would hand it over to a [mutually agreeable] independent scientific organization for full testing. Here are the main issues we’d like analyzed… 1. Range under normal, real world driving conditions, from full charge to no charge, including an indication of when “limp home” mode occurs. 2. Range from full charge to no charge on a rolling road, using the EPA protocol. 3. Recharge time, from no charge to full. We also want to know the exact energy required to perform a full charge. 4. Performance. The usual measurements, including zero to sixty, quarter mile and braking distances. 5. Safety. An examination by an expert in battery safety to ascertain the efficacy of Tesla’s cooling systems, and monitor the battery pack’s safety during operation and recharge.
I have to agree that TTAC’s take on “alternative vehicles” is a somewhat negative one. There is the exception of the Accord Hybird review, but that particular hybrid bird flew into the glass pane of market reality. It was too early (when gas was cheaper), too bland (it should have been a separate model that bragged of it’s hybridness), not sporty enough for hoons and not cheap enough for misers.
The criticisms of Tesla on it’s inability to deliver the product I support; I have no love for vaporware.
The question is more whether it’s an UNFAIRLY negative view. I’m a bit divided. Part of this negativity is the enthusiast slant – I’ve driven a Prius (and gotten 50 mpg, city AND highway, in flat Florida). It’s boring, beyond boring, distinctly unfun to drive. But so is a Camry. Hybrids are still fairly new and some aren’t as refined they could be. So that’s another place where there is a justified criticism.
The Tesla here just doesn’t really exist – with no car to review, it’s no good. TTAC is right on that one.
It’s just that sometimes I get the feeling that TTAC is a bit over-protective of the the ICE. Don’t get me wrong, I love a nice engine, and so far I haven’t met a hybrid or alternative with the character of a good, simple ICE. The future, though, belongs to the alternatives, though practical electrics may still be 10 or 20 years out. Gas WILL become more expensive – Chinese and Indian demand is simply too much too soon for even aggressive exploration and production efforts to keep up with. It’s also dirty – cleaner than ever before, but you still don’t want to inhale exhaust fumes. Even leaving aside the greenhouse gas stuff, gas is STILL bad. Sometimes I wonder if TTAC has forgetton these things.
TTAC, in keeping with it’s mission of critical inquiry, has done a good job of pointing out the failures (of Tesla) and weaknesses (driving dynamics of the Prius) of alternative vehicles. I just think that sometimes these cars deserve a little more credit.
has anyone mentioned the thing costs $100.000.00
REAL RELEVANT automobile for who??????
Just let the stupid rich buy the damn car…if ever and lets get on to something else!
BuckD :
Tesla, For for God’s sake, give the man a Roadster. Otherwise he’ll destroy you, just like every other car company that provoked his ire. At least this way you’ll have a fighting chance.
The other day I commented about the attitude of TTAC toward Tesla being less than tactful. Robert (rightly so) reminded me quickly that’s not TTAC policy. Thus the reason I come to this site regularly like others here. But I felt that way at the time because I have a strong desire for trusted information about this car, and there’s no other site I’d trust more than TTAC.
From reading comments, I know Daryl Siry reads the comments and contributes sometimes.
Daryl, I have no doubt whomever on TTAC would review your car would give you a fair shake, even if some attitudes are what you might consider less than positive. Even if your car only delivered 80% of what is promised, I think everyone would give you and the car a lot of respect for putting any differences aside with TTAC and putting the car out there.
Some of us are well-off, some in the middle, and some of us don’t have two dimes to rub together. So yes, we might only account for a few future sales, but think of the publicity for “car people in the know” if TTAC had positive attitudes toward the Tesla, a litimus test for the well-informed if there ever was one. So I implore you to give Robert, or somebody associated with TTAC, a shake at the car. If your car is close to everything claimed, only good can come from it.
Autobloggreen seems to have the latest scoop about Tesla production…Click Here.
Landcrusher: Why do people want to bet so much money on such long odds for something that really isn’t all that revolutionary?
People are very good at deceiving themselves about stuff. There’s a whole field, economic psychology, that studies this kind of thing.
(2) Everyone who has driven it says it’s an absolute blast to drive. I don’t think this should be overlooked. People who have tried it really seem to love it. To me, this is a strong indication that the company has a future, even if it’s imperfect, and even if it doesn’t meet all of its ambitious goals. People will still love the car and they will still pay big bucks for it.
I’ve ridden in the thing, and it is VERY impressive. I suspect that their acceleration claims are not exaggerated. But Landcrusher’s comments comparing the Tesla PR with taht of the Moller flying car give me the strongest sense of anything I’ve read that this thing is unlikely to be mass produced. Before I read that I was hopeful. Now, I’m really not.
I would like to point out one thing about the TTAC ‘bias’ against alternative propulsion vehicles.
Yes. It is. TTAC is a editors and commentators know and use the word hoon. About themselves. This is a community of drivers. What is being jealously guarded is not the ICE, but the driving experience.
TTAC is about as concerned with new and exciting technology for the sake of new technology as autobloggreen is concerned with the handling difference between the BMW x-drive system and Honda’s SH-AWD.
The bias is not against the technology per se. More a different set of values. Reference, the discussion about the GT-R or IS-F, the auto vs manual tranny discussion, the SUV/CUV vs wagons issue, even the dislike of Detroit compacts.In each case there is some experiential issue. Some driving experience has been sacrificed for some other benefit feature. Do these features a better car make? Depends on your values. Is something being given up, yes. That’s the truth about cars.
It is up to each of us to decide what these facts mean as far as our decisions go.
David,
I recently read a book about behavioral economics, which I think is just another name for what you said. It was really fascinating stuff, and I couldn’t stop saying “ahhh!” and “aha!” the whole time I was reading it.
I think you are correct though, it’s a basic thing that we all fall for some of the time because of the way the brain is wired.
David and Landcrusher, has a flying car company ever delivered an actual product to a customer, or even prototypes? Have customers ever been allowed test drives?
Tesla has an actual assembly line and although they don’t seem to be great at building cars on it yet, it does verifiably exist, and the cars have passed all tests required for them to legally run on the road.
That’s a substantial achievement and I don’t think Moeller got anywhere near that far.
From my viewpoint, this saga has passed through most of the steps of another real, ground-breaking project, the RED Digital Cinema Camera. I think I have mentioned this parallel before and it seems to be holding true.
RED was also set up to do the impossible – to create a digital cinema camera that would be superior to anything else out there at 1/3 the price.
If my memory serves at about this stage in production RED had built their first 100 cameras, and their lens mount (perhaps comparable in importance to Tesla’s transmission) was seen not to work right. They designed a new lens mount and retrofitted all the old cameras. Sound familiar?
The only radical difference is that RED was dreamed of and financed by one person: Jim Jannard, founder of Oakley. He even has a similar amount of money to Elon Musk, about $2 billion. Elon Musk fired his visionary, Martin Eberhard. Jim was quoted as saying that at times, he wanted to fire himself when things weren’t going well, but of course he could not!
RED is highly successful. The overwhelming majority of customers love Jim and would follow him to the end of the earth. They have just introduced two new products and there is no question both will face huge demand, not only because of their raw advantages over the competition, but because people believe in Jim’s integrity and vision.
I think a lot of people believe in the vision Martin founded and Elon is attempting to carry on. Problem is Elon’s integrity seems a bit in doubt, and that’s not good if you’re selling a $120,000 product. If you don’t trust someone who sells you a $2 toothbrush, you still might buy the brush, try it out and if it doesn’t work try another brand. That doesn’t really work with cars, even when you’re super-rich and have a garage of five other vehicles.
I do think that when the story of Tesla is written, for good or ill, that Martin’s firing is not going to look good. But I still have high hopes that Tesla will survive. Prices are high, demand is there and the cars perform wonderfully. That’s way further than any flying car has ever gone.
If Elon’s people can make cars, that might just be good enough.
D
Mr. Dennis,
I believe that Tesla is planning for the assembly lines to be at someone elses factory. They will be built by contract when full production begins.
I am not sure if you want me to compare Tesla to the guys honestly trying to build a roadable aircraft (it has been done), or to guys like Moller claiming to build flying cars.
My point is that Tesla has acted to this point, just like Moller. (Yes, moller built a “working” prototype which he has tried to sell.)
It is good that Tesla passed certification, but unlike car certification, aircraft certification requires that you meet many of the specs in the owners manual or POH. A car can pass without actually being able to reach 60, ever.
If you actually read my earlier posts, you will note that I pointed out how hard it is to tell the scams from the real mccoy because even good companies have these problems. Thanks for coming up with an example, proves nothing. It’s usually apparent who the scammers are by the way they act rather than the challenges they must overcome. It’s not a small point.
You are incorrect about roadable aircraft. They have flown and operated just fine. And, in greater numbers than customer registered Teslas. The hurdles to make a roadable aircraft are in someways tougher, and in others less challenging than meeting Tesla’s claims. However, and here is the point you have to understand:
Wait for it…
…In aviation objective testing is not optional. Anyone who refuses it, will not ever get even a prototype to legally fly. No one here believes Tesla cannot build a car. What is at dispute is how close they will make it to their ever shrinking claims.
Tesla’s marketing seems to keep writing checks the rest of the company can’t cash. Maybe Cerebrus should buy them, integrate the technology into one of their crapmobiles, and at least get it into production.
You are right that Tesla is using the Lotus assembly line to produce cars, although the batteries will be put in at a Tesla-owned facility in California.
The fact that they are using already trained factory workers to build the cars, and that the portion of the Tesla assembled in Hethel is very similar to their existing Elise does make it puzzling that it’s so difficult for them to assemble cars.
Okay, you’ve piqued my curiosity. I had never heard of a functioning roadable aircraft before reading your message. Can you fill us in?
I thought the crash testing you had to go through to build a car is pretty objective, although as you say you can make whatever acceleration and range claims you want.
(Actually you can’t if you make a gas vehicle since the EPA tests fuel economy pretty strictly. But there seems to be considerable wiggle room with the Tesla.)
D
ROB: I commented in cardomain about this.
The functioning roadable aircraft that are actually being legally used are all currently kits. Except the ones from decades ago. I think a couple have expiremental prototype certs that were somehow changed to a new experimental ticket (likely exhibition).
There is one that is a gyrocopter that they will be putting into certification as an LSA you can buy prebuilt. I will have to hunt for the web site, but I have read reviews from credible sources that they operate just fine, and can be licensed as a motorcycle for road use, and an LSA gyro for flight. They look silly though. You basically land, change a gear fitting to disable the pusher prop, and engage the road wheels. You also tie the rotor blades so that they are straight forward and back, and off you go on what looks like a big funny flying wheelchair thingy.
LSA allows a LOT cheaper certification than traditional certification standards, but also strong restrictions. After LSA came out, there have been many new companies going down this road. Most will not make it, but the LSA standards make it much more economically possible. The technology is not new, as there were working prototypes forty or fifty years ago. They just were not very sellable.
The big difference with aircraft certification is that most of the performance figures are also safety figures, and must be demonstrated (just about everything must be shown to be at least close to the claimed stats in the book).
Yes, crash safety for cars is objective, but acceleration and range aren’t usually issues. The mpg is, but I am not sure what they do about that with electric vehicles.
ROB: Sure, you are well-versed on the Tesla’s development and the issues Tesla Motors had, and your criticism has validity BUT…
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Tesla Motors is a startup company making their first car. Even more difficult, they cannot rely on established principles of internal combustion or drivetrain design which would give a similar company building the first conventional car a distinct advantage.
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Light miles beyond all that, Tesla Motors is developing a car that the Auto Industry REFUSES to develop, and it’s obvious that with their comparitively vast resources, any number of established auto makers could have pursued EV technology development much more easily and effectively if they wanted to… but they haven’t.
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You’re being tough on Tesla and it’s coming across as a thinly veiled bias against EV technology. Sure, Tesla has had to delay and some things hadn’t panned out as they predicted. That happens. They’re developing a complex machine from scratch. They’re also a small company that is struggling to keep things rolling however they can.
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Even considering all that has transpired as you detailed, Jay Leno was impressed with the Tesla. Maybe I’m wrong but I get the sense he has a clue about cars. Sure as hell looked like he was having fun in that Tesla.
gtwildfire,
Given all the hurdles you mention, should not have a responsible company been more humble and more cautious with their claims? That is really what this is about. Had the guys at Tesla made less overwhelmingly confident, but took a more cautious marketing approach, then the criticisms might show a prejudice. However, I believe, had Tesla behaved better, the criticism would not have been offered. When a man says he will try to climb everest, he will get less criticism for failure than a man who says he will climb everest, on the first try, and he is looking for a book deal in advance.
I also believe your Jay Leno argument misses the mark. Did he come out in support of the company, or did he just like the car? Did he live with it for a few days, or just go for a spin? Did he believe the hype, or get to test it?
I think Jay Leno just enjoyed driving the car. I didn’t see any evidence that he’d gone more than 50 or so miles in it. It’s possible that pretty much every inch he drove in that car was documented in the video, in which case it could be even less.
People should remember that film is inherently a deceptive medium. Once you have created the raw footage, someone sits in an editing suite trying to paste it together in the most convincing way possible, without any particular respect to what actually happened. Time is routinely stretched and shifted in an effort to create an entertaining package.
So you get the impression that Jay spent a lot of time with the car and that impression may well have been wrong. If you watch the video again, look at how uncomfortable Elon Musk was about anyone touching his precious vehicle!
However …. Landcrusher, as you have previously said with considerable frustration on your part, it’s the company that makes the brash claims that gets all the publicity and orders. I think they probably felt that they wouldn’t get anywhere without being brash, and I suspect they are right.
I believe they did some tests that were similar to EPA mileage tests and got the stated range of something like 225 miles, down from 250. If those tests were not conducted in at least a pseudo-honest way, they would not have reduced the range claim. This probably means, then, that 225 miles is a realistic claim for “normal” driving.
You are probably going to say that hey, these cars are designed to be driven aggressively so the 100 mile range auto magazines got is more realistic. But we are trying to get comparable figures here. The Porsche 911 does not get its EPA mileage figures by aggressive driving; it goes through the same automated testing cycle as a Toyota Camry does.
If you put me in a Tesla Roadster, I would start enjoying its performance on one of our bendy roads here and then I’d be stuck in back of a trash truck for 30 miles. My combined economy and range would not be that bad under that real world scenerio! Furthermore, I would most likely have a balance of city, curvy road and highway driving.
On the other hand, if I’m an auto reviewer testing the Tesla, I’m going to be very aggressive in my driving, weight my driving heavily towards totally unused twisty roads and generally behave in the way that would get the worst mileage possible. And I would avoid trash truck routes like the plague.
So in the real world I expect the range to be greater than the buff books gave their drivers, and worse than the official specifications. EPA fuel economy figures, after all, are comparable from car to car, but they are somewhat optimistic in the real world. Tesla’s just doing the same thing.
What I believe is that the Tesla figures have been optimistic, but not outlandish.
It’s not impossible to say that Elon blew $40m plus of his own money, plus his investors’ unknown amount, to make the electric car look like a more viable option than previously thought. If so, it seems to me he’s done a genuine service. Now Chevy has the Volt, and I doubt that they would have without the pressure from Tesla.
I think there’s a difference between being optimistic and being wrong, and out and out lying. As far as I can tell, Tesla is guilty of the former but not the latter, at least concerning the performance of the car.
Finally, that was interesting about flying cars. However, you have basically admitted that those flying cars were kits that were not authorized for retail sale. (The LSA you mention is not legal yet.) It would have been illegal for me to buy an assembled flying car. It’s legal for me to buy an assembled Tesla. So there’s a big difference in terms of the regulatory hurdles.
D
David,
Agree with the Leno stuff, good point about films.
You are also correct about the brashness thing. Here is the problem though. It is unethical and foolish. If you have to maximize the performance claims in order to get people to give you deposits and investment so that you can then build the car and test your theory that it will work, then YOU SHOULD NOT DO IT. First, if you fail, you can be rightly called a con artist. Also, if you succeed to a lesser degree, you may still fail because your market forecast depended on the exagerated claims. You now have a working product that no one wants for whatever reasons. No matter what, should anyone be called prejudiced for pointing out the emperor’s lack of clothes. If they are entitled to optimism, then TTAC is entitled to skepticism.
Back to flying cars. It would not be illegal for you to buy one. I can build one, and then sell it to you, unless they find I am building it for the express purpose of selling it to you. It’s a loophole that they constantly police. At any rate, building many of these kits can be done by most people willing to try. If you can fix your car, you can build an aircraft.
We know we can build a roadable aircraft, just like we know we can build electric cars. So, in this perspective you are correct, they are similar attempts. The difference is that you can tell the roadable aircraft scammers right off because they will claim that they can sell a lot more than they likely can if only they can solve a couple of engineering problems. Tesla’s problems will surely be solved, as will one day Moller’s. That will not make them into men of integrity. Had they worked harder, and asked for funding based on solving the problem and THEN using the application, it would be different. Instead they use the smoke and mirrors of the application to keep everyone from analyzing the investment they are really making.
They deserve the drubbing and skepticism.
for the tesla haters…
(1) look at the GM EV1, their published range was like 50 miles, but a lot of users got 100 miles out of it. Its range was so short because it used lead acid batteries. I think the skeptics are stuck in that era, not believing the Tesla’s range because they are thinking of lead acid batteries. Those are from three generations ago guys. Current technology is lithium ion. It’s $20,000 for a battery pack, but it gives you a lot more range. Now if you go to an electric conversion service, and tell them you want your gasoline powered car converted to electric, they will probably tell you it will have a 50 mile range. That’s because they are using car batteries (lead acid). You can request lithium batteries, to get a 150+ mile range, but like I said, it will be $20,000 just for the batteries. This will eventually change as more electric cars come on the market and lithium ion batteries are produced in much greater quantities.
(2) more importantly…as of today, 20 July 2008, Tesla has already delivered cars to the customers, and the transmission problems are solved. So all of the haters are proven WRONG!!!!!!!!!
GM et al are still using gasoline not because electric can’t work, but because they are doing just fine with gasoline (well, until gasoline got to $4.50+/gallon), and it takes years to develop and deploy a new car when you’re a big company. It’s like phrase famously applied to IBM, “elephants can’t dance”.
Gasoline engines might be more “manly” and electric might be more “nerdy” but electric is still more efficient and ultimately cheaper. Fewer moving parts and more automation makes it easier to make the cars and easier to employ Americans to make them. The Tesla Roadster is made in England, but their next car is going to be made here in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Our Governator, Arnold S., made a good tax deal with Tesla to get their assembly plant here (the alternative site was New Mexico).
If Detroit can’t adapt to a superior technology, it is time for them to step out of the way lest they get run over by SILICON VALLEY.
Step off, gearheads and jocks. Computer nerds have proven that we are BETTER!!! revenge of the nerds! lol :-)
The Tesla makes me a proud Silicon Valley resident and a proud AMERICAN!!!!!!!
LONG LIVE THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION!!!!!