[X] My Assistant

[crabbsaline]

I'm not sure when the countdown page went up, but looks like the first peek will come on July 20:

Tesla Motors Homepage

Random thoughts:

• I wonder how similar the batteries are to those used on the MERs.
• I wonder what the replacement costs of the batteries will be.
• I wonder what the best disposal of the batteries will be.
• I wonder when they will reach a price range that I can purchase one.

As a related matter, check out the competition:

Wrightspeed Homepage

I'm glad that Doug has this chat section. This seems far enough from the subject matter of UMSF that I worried about posting it. Five degrees of separation on this topic, I suppose...UMSF : Launch Vehicles : Falcon : Elon Musk : Tesla Motors.

[edstrick]

What we want is cars that run off zero-point energy... or perpetual motion engines... or wishfull thinking...

The pure-electric's not going to hack it despite wacky agenda-full documentaries from people who's science and engineering grasp is the average level of a sociology student at the Peoples University of Berkeley <I'm being nasty> Pure electric autos will require battery technology (or supercapacitor... or... or) that can hold humongous charge safely and recharge FAST.

Fuel cells have a way to go but are a real candidate for a solution to replace the infernal-combustion engine for most uses. They're still "fussy" and I think tend to deliver low currents for practical systems, but could be used in fuel-cell/battery-electric hybrids.

The big question is the fuel. Hydrogen is not an energy SOURCE, it's an energy STORAGE MEDIUM... like a battery. Hydrogen storage technologies are lousy, and we've only had incremental improvement. Methane/Propane fuel cells are better, but then we're back to carbon containing fuels.

We'll get there, but it's going to take serious engineering, and time. And politically driven engineering like the big 1990's push to the pure electric car won't get us there any more than the space shuttle gave us the future we expected it to.