Tesla, an important renewable energy company...

Today’s post: Wednesday, 11-12-2008


Why all electric cars are now so incredibly important:

1. Electricity can be generated by solar thermal, solar photovoltaics, wind, (& nuclear power to some extent, albeit with serious safety concerns.) None of these ways to generate electricity burn fossil fuels or release carbon dioxide or directly produce other air pollution while in normal operation. None of them burn petroleum, coal, or natural gas.

2. Even with today’s technology which itself is rapidly being improved, we can harvest more power for transport per unit area with photovoltaics than we can by growing biofuels.

(Source, http://www.nanosolar.com/blog3/
Going All-Electric August 7, 2008 By Martin Roscheisen, CEO
The following is one of my favorite charts: How far a car can drive based on either of the following forms of energy, each produced from 100m x 100m (2.5 acres) of land:
No biofuel listed was at or over 100,000 km in that chart. Photovoltaics plus a plug-in hybrid was 3,250,000 km. So, even if that 3,250,000 km is overstated by ten to one, photovoltaics can drive cars more than three times, or closer to five times farther per unit area of land used than biofuels. And, if it’s NOT ten to one overstated, that’s about 30 to 50 times farther using photovoltaics.)

3. So, if most cars and a majority of trucks soon become all electric or plug-in hybrids, we can begin to come close to running all our transport on electricity from renewable sources and sources that produce no CO2 or other air pollution. This will drive DOWN the cost of the remaining fossil liquid fuels still in use and delay the day we run out of petroleum entirely. It will also reduce the amount of vehicles running on liquid fuels enough to make switching them to mostly liquid biofuels much more doable because the size of the job will get much smaller. (We will likely need some kind of carbon tax and relatively long term subsidy for biofuels due to the dropping cost of gasoline and diesel from petroleum that will also cut the price the biofuels will be able to charge.)

Since our economy and our life support system on earth will collapse unless we do these things according to the information I’ve seen, I think we will wake up and do just that.

(Lack of breathable air may take a good bit longer.

But part of our current economic problems was already caused by the big jumps in fuel prices for transport.

And, if we run out of enough fuel to run our economy; make our weather enough nastier we have to pay extra for extra damage repair; it becomes three times less productive to grow food; and we submerge some of our most productive and most populated coastal cities all over the world – and all of these events happen at the same time – which we are currently headed towards, economic collapse is certain.)

The switch to renewable sources of electricity and to all electric cars and plug-in hybrids will be constrained somewhat in the short term by the need to provide liquid fossil fuels and liquid biofuels to existing cars and trucks. And, it will be constrained long term by the need to use liquid fuels in some applications and the dollar costs for all those batteries and solar collectors.

But it seems clear to me that our economy is and should be rapidly evolving towards a transport system world wide based mostly on renewable sources of electricity and all electric cars and plug-in hybrids.

So, that means that a competent maker of all electric cars is now an extremely important company.

And, with the car companies that make the cars that still run on gasoline all currently running virtually out of money, for smaller companies that are decently well financed that also make all electric cars, that goes at least double.

(The car companies that make the cars that still run on gasoline are finally beginning to build hybrids and will soon build plug-in hybrids. But most people could easily do half or more of their driving in an all electric car.)

This is where Tesla comes in.

People who like good performance or who simply need cars that will go fast enough to drive safely on the freeway or local highway, will NOT voluntarily buy cars that are modified electric golf carts, have marginally responsive controls, are ugly, and won’t go over 30 or 40 miles an hour.

Tesla’s first car, the Roadster, is a sports car and costs about $100,000. But it will accelerate to 60 miles an hour in under 4 seconds -- and likely, though I’ve not seen the test numbers, will accelerate to 100 miles an hour at times competitive, as it’s zero to 60 times are, with the other expensive sports cars that cost that much and more such as the newest, fastest Corvette or a Lamborghini.

So, that makes a high end all electric 4 door sedan made by Tesla doubly desirable. First, it will be an all electric car you can actually do normal driving in. And, it will be a car you’ll be proud to own similar to a Lexus or Mercedes.

Even though the recent credit crunch has slowed their plans to build their sedan, Tesla has recently raised $40 million; got its manufacturing plant approved in San Jose, California in the Silicon Valley near its initial location just North of there; and will get a large infusion of low cost Federal financing in about 8 to 10 months. In addition, it’s taking steps to control its costs and make its other sales profitable to ensure it can proceed with its plans to make the sedan.

Tesla was scheduled to begin production in of the sedan in its new manufacturing plant in 2010; and that’s been pushed back at least 6 months. So it sounds like it may be 2011 before you can drive one. But as 2008 only has a few more weeks to go, 2011 is only a bit two over two years away, or by perhaps three years from today, Tesla will be delivering its sedan to buyers.

Meanwhile, if you can afford an inexpensive to run, high performance sports car for about $100,000, you can get a Tesla now!