Quote:
Originally Posted by baddog
Bingo. When did driving become limited to "need?" That is no fun. Driving doesn't get interesting until you are 300 miles from home.
|
Whilst it is understandable if you like to road trips that this car isn't from you yet, it still does not take away from the potential of the car. Your one point seems to be that the range is not sufficient enough, so let me dispel why this isn't such an impossible deal in the relatively short term.
The first point that needs to be made is that you do NOT need an electric charger at every single gas station. You can not refill your gas at home, and thus there needs to be a gas station in every village, town, etc. Usually multiple to handle the load. This is what a lot of people completely neglect to take in to account. 90% of the time individuals will charge at home, at night, in off-peak times. This requires no upgrade to the grid (since off-peak power usage is so low), and the existing grid can support over 100 million electric cars charging off peak. As you do with your mobile phone you will simply plugin your electric car at night and wake up to a fully charged car every morning.
With this said, and as users adapt to this model (and technology morphs to make sure you never forget to charge at night - think wireless charging, mobile phone notifications, etc) it becomes a non-issue on a car of 300 mile range to drive around anywhere within the city for the day more or less.
Now, as you like to road-trip. Lets talk about CURRENT technology. Tesla's DC fast-charging network (which is being rolled out next year) can add 100 miles range in 20 minutes. So an hour to add 300 miles. Grab yourself something to eat, stretch your legs, watch a TV show/movie in or out of your car (Tesla has a 17 inch screen in the console) and you are ready to roll. If you only need an extra 100 miles to get to your hotel, it will require even less then this. Keep in mind this is current technology, and it will only get better.
Now for the kicker. There are 46,000 miles of highway in the US. Tesla plans to start with distances of nearly 300 miles between charging stations along highways, and move down. With a charging station at every 200 miles, along every highway in the US, that is a total of ONLY 200 charging stations to cover the entire US. Hardly an impossible task.
There is a lot of work to be done, and naysayers like yourself don't help, but as the thread started stated the days gasoline cars are numbered. For everyone a Tesla does not make sense today, for many it does. In as little as 5-10 years (with the reduction in price of battery tech at CURRENT pace), the build out of fast charging infrastructure, and the numerous benefits of electric (cheaper to run, cleaner, quieter, less maintenance, more room, etc) it will be common sense. The original gasoline cars didn't get on the road without work or issues either. This technology is the future, and the near future at that.