Enough with the Tesla Roadster cost disinformation. 0-60 in 3.7 seconds! This is not a family sedan by any stretch of the imagination. The only cheaper comp is the Chevy Corvette at ~60K. Any of the rest ... if you have to ask, you can't afford it. The Tesla roadster is not a commuter econobox - the Nissan Leaf possibly is intended to be.
I expect we'll see more and more electric motors on performance vehicles due to the high low-end torque that electric motors can deliver and due to the ability to provide independently controlled torque on each wheel.
As far as the luxury market is concerned, it's smaller but what it lacks in volume it makes up in price. Eventually, you might be able to compare a Tesla SUV to a Lexus hybrid SUV ... Tesla's target price doesn't seem to be out of line.
Currently 90-100% of electricity is generated from fossil fuels. How will an electric car cut our dependence on fossil fuels? As electric cars increase in number, a greater burden will be placed on the Power Infrastructure, meaning more fossil fuel buring generators. So far, alternative energy sources have been laughable. The only thing this headlong rush to electric cars is doing, is shifting the fossil fuel burden from one sector to another. And may even increase dependence due to the energy lost from the now 2nd energy conversion. I think what we have here is the cart before the horse.
No, solar would never really be possible, but I did convert my lawn mower to solar. There's just enough energy to charge the batteries once a week, and that gives you an idea of how much energy you can collect from a 4 square foot panel. I never thought I'd recover the cost of the solar cells, but with current fuel prices I may even recover the cost of the SLAs too.
Their $109,000 Roadster is equipped with luxuries, Beth. I doubt that would be the case for a $30,000 vehicle. When a customer's battery recently died (it was the customer's fault) Tesla quoted him a $40,000 pricetag for a replacement battery, according to the NY Times. I don't know how they'd have room for luxuries, even if battery price comes down dramatically.
I realize this is probably a pipe dream, but is solar anywhere near to being a cost-effective way to re-charge or improve range ? I think the Toyota Prius has a solar option, but it is only enough to vent the hot air from the interior for a few minutes before driving.
Tesla's price point of $30,000 for its third-generation vehicle will still keep in the category of luxury EV maker as opposed to some of the mainstream EVs like the Nissan Leaf. That said, there is a significant number of folks willing to pay a premium for top-of-the-line cars and EVs will be no exception. Is the high price tag on Tesla vehicles directly tied to the battery or is it because they equip their vehicles with more luxury type features--leather seats, heated seats, GPS, and whatever else is considered standard fare in top-of-the cars?
Andrew Morris designed a circuit that could detect a stroke victim's groan and convert the sound into a signal so caregivers would know when help was needed.
New disc magnet motors fit into the design trend of stepping up to closed loop performance while maintaining the cost advantage of stepper motor technology.
At the Design News webinar on June 27, learn all about aluminum extrusion: designing the right shape so it costs the least, is simplest to manufacture, and best fits the application's structural requirements.
On April 21, NASA launched a novel project, putting into orbit three satellites that employ an off-the-shelf commercial smartphone as the control system.
From Dell / Intel® New Paradigms in Design Work Scott Hamilton, vertical market strategist for Dell Precision workstations, 5/2/2013 5
Early in my career, I worked as a draftsman and remember the days of drawing on vellum with numbered pencils and Mylar with plastic lead. This was a fun experience in the sense that I ...
I've been using workstations for more than 10 years and love finding ways to get more performance from my system. With demanding professional applications that require more power each ...
A lasting memory from my first job as an engineer in an auto assembly plant is standing on hard concrete at six in the morning, vending-machine coffee clutched in hand, listening to ...
For industrial control applications, or even a simple assembly line, that machine can go almost 24/7 without a break. But what happens when the task is a little more complex? That’s where the “smart” machine would come in. The smart machine is one that has some simple (or complex in some cases) processing capability to be able to adapt to changing conditions. Such machines are suited for a host of applications, including automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, computers and electronics, telecommunications, consumer goods, and so on. This radio show will show what’s possible with smart machines, and what tradeoffs need to be made to implement such a solution.
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