My Road

Top Gear's Quentin Willson tests the EV1

2008-12-02T14:39:03Z

It's 1997 vintage Top Gear; vhs quality but inspiring non-the-less, enjoy (it even includes the original GM ad.)

In England the mpg is much better

2008-11-07T01:02:53Z

When I came over to the US I left behind an Audi TT, a car that blended some fun performance with a sensible respect for the fuel bill. At 28mpg it was a little hungry but over here in the US, well, that's frugal.

I ended up with a MINI over here and have never been really satisfied with the fuel economy; it struggles to hit 30mpg and only when nursed along the smoothest of roads will it better that (36) so all this seemed a bit odd until I looked at the difference in mpg calculations between a fine British gallon of 95RON and a weak pot of US 93. There's more than I thought, here's a table of US versus UK mpg figures: Where are you?

(I'm not going below 8mpg US... you should be ashamed)

MPG US	MPG UK imperial
8	9.6
8.3	10
9	10.8
9.2	11
10	12
10.8	13
11	13.2
11.7	14
12	14.4
12.5	15
13	15.6
13.3	16
14	16.8
14.2	17
15	18
15.8	19
16	19.2
16.7	20
17	20.4
17.5	21
18	21.6
18.3	22
19	22.8
19.2	23
20	24
20.8	25
21	25.2
21.6	26
22	26.4
22.5	27
23	27.6
23.3	28
24	28.8
24.1	29
25	30
28.8	31
26	31.2
26.6	32
27	32.4
27.5	33
28	33.6
28.3	34
29	34.8
29.1	35
30	36
30.8	37
31	37.2
31.6	38
32	38.4
32.5	39
33	39.6
33.3	40
34	40.8
34.1	41
35	42
35.8	43
36	43.2
36.6	44
37	44.4
37.5	45
38	45.6
38.3	46
39	46.8
39.1	47
40	48
40.8	49
41	49.2
41.6	50
42	50.4
42.5	51
43	51.6
43.3	52
44	52.8
44.1	53
45	54
45.8	55
46	55.2
46.6	56
47	56.4
47.5	57
48	57.6
48.3	58
49	58.8
49.1	59
50	60
50.8	61
51	61.2
51.6	62
52	62.4
52.5	63
53	63.7
53.3	64
54	64.9
54.1	65
55	66

MPT

Electric cars with a 185mph range and a 10 minute recharge... science fiction, unfortunately

2008-07-31T00:01:00Z

Recently, articles in the press have made reference to electric cars powered by lithium-titanate nanoparticles, a development from the conventional lithium-ion cell; they boast a range of over 185 miles and take only 10 minutes to recharge. This leads readers to assume that a battery-electric car might be re-fueled at a local station as fast as a petroleum powered device and I'd like to think that's possible too but, and here's the but, the big J.Lo sized butt... that's more power than we have at hand.

Looking at the Tesla roadster, it consumes about 80A of current at 220v for 3½ hrs to charge up fully. That's 17.6KW for 3½hrs or a total of 52.8KWh of electricity.

If we look at dispensing that much power at 220v in just 10 minutes (21x faster than the Tesla charger) that's a total current of 1,680A, even at 440v that's 840A and that, regrettably is more amps that you get to your local distribution node.

Imagine the size of the wiring? 100A cable is difficult enough.

OK, another approach, the charge station uses local lithium-titanate nanoparticle batteries that it keeps charged like capacitors to dispense huge power on demand, well, the cables would need to be manageable so, assuming 100A ish the voltage of the batteries would need to be at least 4,000v. Now, that's not so difficult to manage as thick insulation can be made flexible but, imagine the connectors... in the rain?

Prove me wrong... please!

MPT

A grand day out: Tesla first drive

2008-07-06T23:56:20Z

How cool would it be to tell your grandchildren that you'd driven the prototype of Henry Fords Model-T? Well, I have a story for my grandchildren... That's me...

...driving the prototype of the Tesla Roadster; the first mass produced(ish) Battery-Electric Sports car... how cool is that?

As the owner to be of a Tesla, I and others where invited to a test drive in anticipation of the delivery of our cars next year.

Today, we met in Greenwich CT on a hot and overcast day at the Hyatt Regency hotel.

We met up at 11:00 to await the return of another owner out on a 'blast'. As each run takes 20-30mins so we have to wait.

Anticipation

While we wait, you have to remember that it's not the first Electric Car of course; battery powered cars where around long before the petrol powered cars today but, as a come-back car for electric, this is how it should be.

There are other battery electric cars around today in mass production (ish); the impish REVA 'G-Wiz' has become a popular site on the streets of London; No one in London cares that the top speed is only 45mph because all 900 of them are too busy running around at an average of just 10mph along with the rest of the cars there. Londoners are more pleased with the G-Wiz because it is very cheap to run and dodges the infamous (heading towards) $40/day city congestion charge that New York managed to avoid.

The Tesla came about after founder Martin Eberhard wanted to own an electric car. He asked AC Propulsion to build him a TZero, a running electric car prototype; when they refused he said ok, I'll build my own then. He formed Tesla Motors in 2003 with Marc Tarpenning and picked up investment from ex. PayPal founder Elon Musk.

As most of Tesla Motors staff are high tech geeks rather than mechanics, their first move was to engage an engineering company to help with the oily bits; they chose Lotus Engineering in the UK.

I've been a fan of Lotus engineering since I first saw James Bond drive out of the sea in a white Lotus Esprit... cool. The next time I encountered an Esprit was when I took the keys of my uncles S1 in 1985. At only eighteen years old this was amazing and though I don't think that I ever thanked him enough (cheers Dave!) I hope to repay the favour some day.

The 1980's Lotus was the crazy product of a bunch of mechanics in a shed in Hethel, somewhere in Norfolk in the East Anglia county of England, a place that is famous for, er, well, coastal erosion I think. What was so crazy was that they made the thing out of spare parts; it was a parts bin special comprised of GM engine parts, some switches out of old Fords, all bolted to a home grown chassis and clothed in fibreglass. It was still brilliant though but when I asked my uncle "Why don't you fix the broken radio aerial?" he replied "To get at the aerial you have to take half of the side of the car off... so, I have some cassette tapes instead." I realised that Lotus, whilst good might be a bit immature.

So, back to Tesla; they're a new, perhaps an immature manufacturer comprised of computer programmers rather than mechanics who went to Lotus for help in designing the car I've put a sizable deposit on... gulp.

So why am I so excited about the Tesla, why is it as ground-breaking as the Model T? Well, it's the first electric car to blend all of the good things about motoring without the bad things that drag down current electric vehicles, so we have no emissions, virtually no moving parts and almost zero noise but mostly, it's the performance. Unlike the city commuter 'G-Wiz' it's top speed isn't 45mph, it's 125mph and its acceleration isn't "just sufficient", it's "more than sufficient", "sufficient" being an amount that approximates just how quickly you'd like to accelerate at any given time.

And there we are

So there I am looking at the electrified product of an engineering firm that brought us the home-brew super-car. I need not have worried, it seems that in the last 20 years Lotus have been finessing their game and, as a techy myself I shouldn't have doubted the technology.

The car we have today is in Radiant Red with the Alcantara interior; it's a prototype; there are bits of wire hanging down from the dash and we're locked into 2nd gear of the two speed gearbox on the first generation gearbox, but I don't care, I'm looking at a car that you might have drawn as a child, a cross between the Ferrari 308 that Magnum drove and the Millennium falcon (without the broken bits). Loosely related to the design of the Elise it's Elise sized but not Elise appointed; when you get in the quality of the interior is a cut above the super-stripped-out Elise.

There are so many reviews on the Internet covering the driving experience that I'm not going to repeat it but for me, the things that stood out where the way in which it flows away from the line, no surge, no noise, no jolt from the clutch just the sublime transition from standing to moving. In traffic, you quickly pick up on the odd way that the other cars around seem to pause when the lights change, surge past you then drop back again. I guess that we're so conditioned to gears, even automatic that we no longer notice the kangaroo progress... anyway, apply a good solid prod to the accelerator and all the other cars instantly go into reverse anyway.

Watching the instrument display reveals a 'Fuel consumption' bar-graph and, so obviously, a battery gauge just like you'd find on a mobile phone - half full for me. The fuel consumption reads in amps; at 'idle' there are 1-2amps leaking out to drive the electronics and a motor cooling fan but as you pull away it jumps to 80-100amps but, the best bit, when you release the accelerator, up to 50amps flow back in through the regenerative braking effect... that feels good; free electricity. (sort of)

As we drove through the streets of Old Greenwich town along US1 you quickly get familiar with the car; it's just so little of a learning experience, they really have got the controls right; accelerate to go, release to slow down on the regenerative braking. The only nervous moment happened when I stopped at the lights; as I slowed down on regenerative braking alone I forgot that to actually get down to zero you still need to hit the brakes at the last moment.

As an homage to regular automatic transmission, the Tesla creeps forward when you release the brake; I'm not sure why and would like to know; it seems unnecessary, I think I'd like to turn that off if I could.

The rest of the drive was all Lotus tuned hard-core sports car. Quick turn-in, decisive lane changes and suspension that's a firm as it comes; great stuff.

It was all over too soon

A few more turns, a few more prods on the accelerator and we're back to the hotel, now I'm back to driving petrol powered cars, I have a year to wait for mine but I'm looking forward to it.

Rich K. in the Tesla setting off for his run.

And in the beginning there was the Aptera?

2008-02-07T20:31:00Z

Welcome to PlanetTesla

I've always fancied the idea of electric cars, and solar cells but one at a time. When I was thirteen I reasoned that by the time I was my dad's age I'd be designing electric cars for Ford Motor Company. Not so, it's nearly thirty years later, February 2008, I'm not designing cars and certainly not for Ford and Aptera have just refunded my deposit; apparently they'll only take deposits from Californian residents and I'm on the other coast. Not even a plea to them along the lines of "It's electric, what could possibly go wrong; please let me have one" would see them taking my deposit... ok so I groveled and begged more than that but that just makes me look sad.

I admired GM for the EV1; I first saw that on Top Gear in the 90's when Tiff Needell ran the batteries flat in a dodgy part of town and had to be killed by local hoodlums. Ok, that part was made up.

I despised GM for crushing them; I buy into the conspiracy because I see evidence of the same stuff going on all the time, want an example? See if you can find the oil change interval for a Ford, Volvo, GM, etc. on the USA and UK web sites... Can't? Why is that then?

We're back to the Aptera, I've committed to the whole electric car thing and they've turned me down, what next?

Sod it, I seem to have entered my credit card details into the Tesla Motors web site... So it begins.

MPT