Tesla breaks world distance record!!

[mafia_boy]

On Tuesday 27 October 2009, Simon Hackett, Managing Director of Australian national broadband company Internode, who owns the only Roadster in Australia, has driven it with with co-driver Emilis Prelgauskas, to a distance of 501 kms (313 miles) on a single charge.

The world record-setting distance for a production electric car on a single charge was achieved as part of the Global Green Challenge (http://www.globalgreenchallenge.com.au) .

There is much more information about the event and our experiences crossing the outback with this car, here:

http://blog.internode.on.net/category...

(and yes, we figured out after we made the video that the caption says 'Global Green Challenge 2010' - its actually meant to be 'Global Green Challenge 2009' ! )

Watch & enjoy. An amazing record by Simon (an Aussie!! ) and hopefully a sign that in the not too distant future we will be able to go as far as any petrol powered vehicle with an electric car!!

What's your thoughts about this achievement and do you think we can get further than 501km in a Tesla??

 

[daan]

Wow! So they drive at 30mph for hours and end up stranded in the middle of nowhere?

hopefully a sign that in the not too distant future we will be able to go as far as any petrol powered vehicle with an electric car!!

But how long do you have to plug it in for so you can do the same distance again?

 

[Bram Turismo]

But how long do you have to plug it in for so you can do the same distance again?

This.

It's fantastic how manufacturers have evolved this technology, but it just doesn't work. Yet.

 

[Jay]

Do they give you the truck with giant generator to follow you around when you buy this car?

So thats what internode is doing with all our money.

 

[the Interceptor]

You can increase the mileage to awesome levels in any car by driving very economically. No big deal, other than noone had tried it in an official event with a Tesla before.

 

[Dave A]

But how long do you have to plug it in for so you can do the same distance again?

And here is the problem with electric cars. Driving 300 miles on a single charge is no good if I have to drive 400 miles, which is something I have to failry regualrly. And I'm sure there's alot of people who every now and then need to drive over 300 miles in a day. Sure most of the time you don't, but when you need to an electric car suddenly becomes a majoy hinderance.

 

[Neal]

At the moment plug in only electric cars are mostly novelty toys for rich guys or part of a city based scheme with a limited infrastructure for recharging. Using a 3-Phase electricity supply significantly reduces the time it takes to charge the batteries but it still isn't practical with current battery technology to recharge in a garage as it takes too long.

As battery technology develops the aim is for the structure and body of the car to made from the battery itself therefore reducing weight by having one component perform multiple tasks (As pioneered by Colin Chapman). It is also hoped that batteries will be able to be recharged in a few minutes rather than an hour or more as is the case now. Until this is viable the most likely solution to recharging car batteries without plugging in to a socket or using an internal combustion engine is a hydrogen fuel cell. This is already being trialled around the world but until the infrastructure is in place for hydrogen filling stations this technology won't take off.

Personally I think a solution to this problem can't come too soon so that normal road cars stop using petrol and diesel. There is a limited amount of oil left on the planet and I want it to last as long as possible so we can keep running all the fantastic cars from history...Goodwood wouldn't be so special if the cars weren't being driven!

 

[Jim Prower]

At the moment plug in only electric cars are mostly novelty toys for rich guys or part of a city based scheme with a limited infrastructure for recharging. Using a 3-Phase electricity supply significantly reduces the time it takes to charge the batteries but it still isn't practical with current battery technology to recharge in a garage as it takes too long.

As battery technology develops the aim is for the structure and body of the car to made from the battery itself therefore reducing weight by having one component perform multiple tasks (As pioneered by Colin Chapman). It is also hoped that batteries will be able to be recharged in a few minutes rather than an hour or more as is the case now. Until this is viable the most likely solution to recharging car batteries without plugging in to a socket or using an internal combustion engine is a hydrogen fuel cell. This is already being trialled around the world but until the infrastructure is in place for hydrogen filling stations this technology won't take off.

Personally I think a solution to this problem can't come too soon so that normal road cars stop using petrol and diesel. There is a limited amount of oil left on the planet and I want it to last as long as possible so we can keep running all the fantastic cars from history...Goodwood wouldn't be so special if the cars weren't being driven!

3-phase is typically reserved for industrial motors, and the electric company won't likely install it just so you can recharge your car...and even then, if it takes 3 hours to recharge under 1-phase, it'll still take an hour under 3-phase. (I think that's how it'd work.) Besides...the Electric Company will charge you through the nose to have that installed, and then charge you higher rates for charging your car. I still see in the future electric companies being bullies to electric car owners.

The problem with HFC is that we're still reliant on electricity to get Hydrogen. The only way to get pure hydrogen on a large industrial scale is to split water molecules (so that when we burn them, either in an IC engine or fuel cell, we get water back...and perhaps trace amounts of some other compounds that are from impurities in the air.) The only way to split water molecules is through electrolisys, which is easy to do in the lab, but a bit hard to scale up. This means, yet again, more strain on the electrical grid, though less than if everybody drove plug-in cars.

One solution is to use fuel cells that run on methanol. The fuel cell burns the hydrogen in the Methanol to make electricity. The problem, though, is similar to all alcohol-based fuels...there's just not enough capacity at the moment to satisfy the needs of energy. The advantage, though, is that IC engines, Diesel or Gasoline, can be converted easily. Tractor pullers run alcohol all the time in their Super Stock Diesels.

 

[niky]

Propane is still the only way, baby. (it costs half as much as gasoline and is widely available...)

Interesting... 300 miles when you hypermile it... when most people can drain the battery in much less than a hundred in regular driving.

Despite my misgivings about electric cars (impractical... battery-handicapped), and about the "I can't believe it's not vaporware" Tesla, I've got to admit, the Tesla is an excellent example of the species.

 

[Neal]

3-phase is typically reserved for industrial motors, and the electric company won't likely install it just so you can recharge your car...and even then, if it takes 3 hours to recharge under 1-phase, it'll still take an hour under 3-phase. (I think that's how it'd work.) Besides...the Electric Company will charge you through the nose to have that installed, and then charge you higher rates for charging your car. I still see in the future electric companies being bullies to electric car owners.

The problem with HFC is that we're still reliant on electricity to get Hydrogen. The only way to get pure hydrogen on a large industrial scale is to split water molecules (so that when we burn them, either in an IC engine or fuel cell, we get water back...and perhaps trace amounts of some other compounds that are from impurities in the air.) The only way to split water molecules is through electrolysis, which is easy to do in the lab, but a bit hard to scale up. This means, yet again, more strain on the electrical grid, though less than if everybody drove plug-in cars.

One solution is to use fuel cells that run on methanol. The fuel cell burns the hydrogen in the Methanol to make electricity. The problem, though, is similar to all alcohol-based fuels...there's just not enough capacity at the moment to satisfy the needs of energy. The advantage, though, is that IC engines, Diesel or Gasoline, can be converted easily. Tractor pullers run alcohol all the time in their Super Stock Diesels.

I work in the electric distribution industry and have managed the installation of hundreds of power supplies with the different regional electricity companies in the UK. 3-phase supplies are generally used by commercial and industrial customers as they require the increased capacity but it is quite normal for a domestic customer to have a 3-phase supply if their load will be more than about 21kVA. A 3-phase supply is fed via the same mains cable as a single-phase supply, the difference being that you have all 3 live phases rather than just one of them. The initial installation cost for 3-phase and single-phase is practically the same as the only difference is the service cable which is only up to 10m, you still have to do the same amount of digging. The average cost for a new supply in the UK is about £6,000 but an upgrade would be much less as you only have to replace the service cable so would likely be less than £1,500. You will have a very similar electric meter and you will still only pay for the units (kW h) of electricity you use at the same cost per unit.

It will still take a while to charge even with a 3-phase supply and your guestimate is about right!

Hydrogen production is far from easy and is one of the many problems that would resolving before HFC cars could become viable.

How is methanol produced? Isn’t it from fossil fuels and therefore a non-renewable source?

 

[Jim Prower]

Usually natural Gas or coal is used, specifically for the Methane content in each...Methane is something produced in other venues, such as landfills and meat farms, particularly hog and cattle farms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanol

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct-methanol_fuel_cell and here's the technology that uses it. Unsure that it can be scaled up...but it can be scaled down for your computer...doesn't seem to be hugely efficient, either.

 

[niky]

From natural gas, but methane (and hence, methanol) can be produced through biological means. One of the more interesting ways is through a biological reactor (bacterial action) utilizing sewage as a feed source.

Big issue: Methanol eats aluminum.

My money is still on propane and biopropane as a transition fuel. Though biopropane production is still experimental, at least the stock of "fossil" propane we have is still plentiful and cheap. And modifications to use propane in engines aren't as radical as those needed for methanol... or even E85. (okay, so it needs an entirely different fuel system, but it doesn't have the same oil dilution and water contamination problems that alcohol enriched gasoline does... and fuel economy is slightly better... and... again... it's really cheap, even compared to subsidized ethanol)

 

[eSZee]

and hopefully a sign that in the not too distant future we will be able to go as far as any petrol powered vehicle with an electric car!!

Seeing as electric cars are not the future, why would we be excited about that?

 

[homeforsummer]

Incidentally, the Japanese broke this record a couple of weeks after the Tesla crew... This Tesla one is pretty old news actually.

And here is the problem with electric cars. Driving 300 miles on a single charge is no good if I have to drive 400 miles, which is something I have to failry regualrly. And I'm sure there's alot of people who every now and then need to drive over 300 miles in a day. Sure most of the time you don't, but when you need to an electric car suddenly becomes a majoy hinderance.

Fair enough, but then a vast majority of people probably do significantly less than even 100 miles a day. On the very rare occasions you need to do more, you could hire a petrol car for significantly less money than you'd have saved from not filling your electric car up with petrol all the time.

The problem with electric cars is not range, it's infrastructure and prejudice.

Seeing as electric cars are not the future, why would we be excited about that?

Go on then, humour me. What makes electric cars not the future?

The only way to split water molecules is through electrolisys, which is easy to do in the lab, but a bit hard to scale up. This means, yet again, more strain on the electrical grid, though less than if everybody drove plug-in cars.

Err... not strictly true. Given the same amount of pure EVs and hydrogen fuel cell cars, it would take significantly more energy to produce hydrogen from electolysis than it would be just to plug in an EV and take power straight from the grid.

 

[the Interceptor]

The problem with electric cars is not range, it's infrastructure and prejudice.

I like electric cars, but I have accepted the present downside of the technique: energy storage. If you compare petrol to electricity, you immediately see where the problem lies:

Petrol car:
engine: ICU, large, heavy, not very efficient, needs to be maintained
fuel storage: tank, weighs not much more than fuel itself, will get lighter when used, will refill within minutes, no regeneration during driving

Electric car:
engine: electric motor, pretty small, quite efficient, almost maintenance-free
fuel storage: battery pack, is large and weighs a lot, does always weigh the same, takes hours to refill, mild regeneration during driving

So as long as the battery problem is not solved, I do not see the electric car as the future of automobiles. The hydrogen fuel cell might solve that, but it seems it is not ripe enough to go on the street just yet.

 

[homeforsummer]

My personal view is that hydrogen is just an irrelevant distraction in the meantime rather than a serious potential outcome. I could be wrong of course, but extracting hydrogen from anything is way too energy intensive to be relevant in a culture that's moving toward energy reduction.

EVs certainly aren't ready yet, but then they're really pretty early in their development. Li-ion batteries brought about a huge change over lead acid and other options because of their reduction in size, weight, favourable recharging characteristics and greater capacity. Even over the last few years we've seen fairly big advances in both performance and range at the same time. And of course, as manufacturers discover ways to make the cars themselves lighter without the cost rising too much, the relative weight of batteries isn't as important.

Battery weight and size will come down eventually anyway as new ways are discovered to store their energy more efficiently.

 

[the Interceptor]

My personal view is that hydrogen is just an irrelevant distraction in the meantime rather than a serious potential outcome. I could be wrong of course, but extracting hydrogen from anything is way too energy intensive to be relevant in a culture that's moving toward energy reduction.

I kind of agree, I don't see hydrogen as the ultimate answer either. But I think it's better than lugging huge batteries around. Also, stationary production of hydrogen could be based on renewable energies and thus pay off in the long run and with advancing extraction technologies.

EVs certainly aren't ready yet, but then they're really pretty early in their development.

Well, the ICU has had a century of constant advancement as opposed to the EV, which more or less has been forgotten. And I am certain that we would have better battery technology today if we would have kept the EV concept alongside the petrol-powered car. But we didn't, so the EV will have to do some catching up now. To do so, we need cars like the Tesla, thus I welcome its general popularity.

Li-ion batteries brought about a huge change over lead acid and other options because of their reduction in size, weight, favourable recharging characteristics and greater capacity. Even over the last few years we've seen fairly big advances in both performance and range at the same time.

Agreed! 👍

And of course, as manufacturers discover ways to make the cars themselves lighter without the cost rising too much, the relative weight of batteries isn't as important.

I am very anal about the weight of a car (I ripped loads of stuff out of my Bimmer to make it lighter), and I'm afraid I don't see where cars got lighter in recent years. If anything, they are getting heavier. I only know of a handful of cars that weren't heavier than their predecessors. I would very much welcome lighter cars, but I don't see any.

Battery weight and size will come down eventually anyway as new ways are discovered to store their energy more efficiently.

Still, a problem that persists is the process of recharging.

Let's assume that in a few years we will have a battery pack that will be as light and as compact as a petrol tank and will be able to store 150 kWh, which is almost thrice of what the Tesla Roadster's battery pack can cope with. Great for the car and its range, but in order to recharge that battery in a reasonable amount of time, you need to push in enormous currents. Let's assume it takes 15 minutes, which probably would be acceptable for the average driver. 150,000 Wh in 15 minutes is only possible with industry standard power supplies, which still doesn't solve the problem of cooling the battery during the process and providing a plug and a cable that are easy to use as well as safe and that can cope with the necessary currents.

A battery swap station in combination with better batteries would probably be the best solution, but that would need standardized cars as well as changing stations and thus a completely new infrastructure. But since we need that anyway whichever way we go, we probably should just see where the future takes us.

 

[Sureboss]

Go on then, humour me. What makes electric cars not the future?

Because our electricity supply will still be fossil fuel reliant for the forseeable future.

Though I would love to know what kind of energy uses there are between the two methods. Say, doing 300 miles on a single charge, and how much electricity that uses, and how much fuel we need to make that electicity, compared with the, say 8-9 gallons of fuel that your typical road car would use to do 300 miles.

 

[mafia_boy]

Seeing as electric cars are not the future, why would we be excited about that?

Go on then, humour me. What makes electric cars not the future?

Yes, humour us dave_sz, what makes you so sure that electric cars are not the way of the future?? Every single manufacturer is using hybrid technology with electric motors, so the next step will be a full mass produced electric car with proper range.

 

[Keef]

That distance is about 2/3 what my old Civic could do on a tank of gas. A small, cheap tank of gas.

 

[Eric.]

Well, the ICU has had a century of constant advancement as opposed to the EV, which more or less has been forgotten. And I am certain that we would have better battery technology today if we would have kept the EV concept alongside the petrol-powered car. But we didn't, so the EV will have to do some catching up now. To do so, we need cars like the Tesla, thus I welcome its general popularity.

But the big thing with EVs, the main problem, is energy storage. Namely batteries. And battery technology is constantly advancing, whether its for a car or not. So in that sense it isn't really needing to "catch up" from some kind of abandonment.

 

[Keef]

Batteries have been advancing for decades too, and this new lithium advancement has made a huge impact on it. The physics behind it aren't promising though. You simply can't fill up a 400 mile battery in 2 minutes like you can a tank of gas.

 

[eSZee]

Yes, humour us dave_sz, what makes you so sure that electric cars are not the way of the future?? Every single manufacturer is using hybrid technology with electric motors, so the next step will be a full mass produced electric car with proper range.

LOL, the next step? The electric motor in those hybrids almost never works alone, and when it does it runs out of juice within a few miles miles.
Majority of cars on the road in the early 1900s were electric cars, that didn't work out. Then we had the EV from GM, that didn't work out. Our nuclear, solar, wind, whatever power plant infrastructure CAN'T handle mass production of the batteries that will be needed for these cars. This tesla car going 300 miles while driven in a way no one would ever drive, is a joke. Drive it normally and the range gets cut by half. It's not that I love paying the Saudi's for their precious black gold, it's just that I'd have to pay 10x more for electricity if EV cars become the norm. No matter what becomes the standard, the consumer will get screwed by whatever companies we're going to rely on to provide that power. Until someone makes an engine that runs on rain water, I won't be happy.

 

[the Interceptor]

But the big thing with EVs, the main problem, is energy storage. Namely batteries. And battery technology is constantly advancing, whether its for a car or not. So in that sense it isn't really needing to "catch up" from some kind of abandonment.

Yes, battery technology did advance as well. But there'll always be the difference of how eager mankind is for new technologies. If we would have stuck to the electric car and thus would have had to improve battery technology greatly, I am sure there would be better batteries now, simply because there would have been a lot more and much better funded research and development.

 

[mafia_boy]

LOL, the next step? The electric motor in those hybrids almost never works alone, and when it does it runs out of juice within a few miles miles.

That's funny, the Prius I was in the other day drove completely on the electric motor because of gentle takeoffs and not gunning the throttle and it didn't die in the ass after a few miles.

 

[homeforsummer]

Still, a problem that persists is the process of recharging.

Let's assume that in a few years we will have a battery pack that will be as light and as compact as a petrol tank and will be able to store 150 kWh, which is almost thrice of what the Tesla Roadster's battery pack can cope with. Great for the car and its range, but in order to recharge that battery in a reasonable amount of time, you need to push in enormous currents. Let's assume it takes 15 minutes, which probably would be acceptable for the average driver. 150,000 Wh in 15 minutes is only possible with industry standard power supplies, which still doesn't solve the problem of cooling the battery during the process and providing a plug and a cable that are easy to use as well as safe and that can cope with the necessary currents.

A battery swap station in combination with better batteries would probably be the best solution, but that would need standardized cars as well as changing stations and thus a completely new infrastructure. But since we need that anyway whichever way we go, we probably should just see where the future takes us.

Batteries have been advancing for decades too, and this new lithium advancement has made a huge impact on it. The physics behind it aren't promising though. You simply can't fill up a 400 mile battery in 2 minutes like you can a tank of gas.

Okay, lets assume, like the vast majority of consumers (in the UK at least), that you do less than 100 miles a day, which seems to be par for the course for new EVs.

Lets assume that your 100 miles is done at a (high) average of 50mph. You'll therefore spend about two hours in the car.

Couldn't you charge your car in the other 22 hours of the day that you aren't using it?

Robert Llewellyn, of Red Dwarf and Scrapheap Challenge fame, is currently running a Mitsubishi i-Miev. Although he's clearly talking a little tongue in cheek, he makes a good point in this video:

​

How long does an EV take to charge? About five seconds, the combined time it takes you to plug it in and unplug it...

Now obviously, once you make a one-way journey that's longer than the car's range then you'd obviously want a much quicker recharge, but then I covered this earlier - the money you'd save over a year in "fuel" costs would easily be enough to hire a car several times over.

It's quite simple, if range is an issue, then don't buy an EV. But there are a lot of consumers for whom range really isn't an issue - and that's who EVs make sense for.

Because our electricity supply will still be fossil fuel reliant for the forseeable future.

It's been mentioned several times over that the required emissions used to produce enough electricity for a single charge are far outweighed by those produced from a tank of petrol - not least before you consider how much energy fuel takes to drill for, refine, transport etc...

Though I would love to know what kind of energy uses there are between the two methods. Say, doing 300 miles on a single charge, and how much electricity that uses, and how much fuel we need to make that electicity, compared with the, say 8-9 gallons of fuel that your typical road car would use to do 300 miles.

Again, such an equation would have to take into account how much energy has had to be used to create that 8-9 gallons of fuel, right from the point the crude oil leaves the ground.

Majority of cars on the road in the early 1900s were electric cars, that didn't work out.

Figures? I'd like to find out how you worked out that the "majority" were EVs. There was quite a mix actually, with EVs, petrol cars, steam cars...

The only reason they didn't work out is because petrol was incredibly cheap and companies like GM and Ford gave up.

Then we had the EV from GM, that didn't work out.

The EV was widely praised by everyone who drove it. It was good even on lead acid batteries - it would be very good on modern Li-ions.

The only reason it didn't work out is because GM killed it and crushed all the evidence. I've no doubt that people would still be driving EV1s now if they hadn't all been destroyed.

Our nuclear, solar, wind, whatever power plant infrastructure CAN'T handle mass production of the batteries that will be needed for these cars.

First, you make the mistake of assuming that all cars on the road would have to be EVs.

Secondly, you're forgetting that not only is electric energy over-produced, but that there is also vast spare capacity at night, for example. And night time is more than likely the time that everyone would be charging their EVs.

Unfortunately I can't find the video, but somewhere on youtube there's a vid of a guy in California who owns one of the old Toyota RAV4 EVs they produced a dozen years ago. He has solar panels on the roof of his house and even those are enough to power his entire home, his car, and still have enough excess energy to sell the power back to the grid. That would of course be another option.

This tesla car going 300 miles while driven in a way no one would ever drive, is a joke. Drive it normally and the range gets cut by half. It's not that I love paying the Saudi's for their precious black gold, it's just that I'd have to pay 10x more for electricity if EV cars become the norm. No matter what becomes the standard, the consumer will get screwed by whatever companies we're going to rely on to provide that power. Until someone makes an engine that runs on rain water, I won't be happy.

Clearly. Some people are never happy unless things are being handed to them on a silver platter.

It's just as well really that companies like Tesla are at least attempting to work with new technology rather than just giving up because they can't match a technology that's had over a century of constant development...

Let's assume that serious EVs have been under development for, I dunno ten years. That's probably a little under-estimating, but we've probably not had proper EVs on sale for too much longer than that.

The first motor car was released in 1882. I wonder if the EVs available now are roughly comparable with the petrol cars in 1892? If nobody bothered developing things then they'd have given up before the 1900s because horses were still so much quicker and easier to run.

 

[the Interceptor]

Okay, lets assume, like the vast majority of consumers (in the UK at least), that you do less than 100 miles a day, which seems to be par for the course for new EVs.

Lets assume that your 100 miles is done at a (high) average of 50mph. You'll therefore spend about two hours in the car.

Couldn't you charge your car in the other 22 hours of the day that you aren't using it?

My car surely stands around long enough to be recharged. But where would I do that? I have no garage, and there is no parking space in front of my house. I have to park on a side street to where I could not possibly lay a cable from my house. What I would need would be some kind of "recharge meter" on the sidewalk which I can plug my car into and pay when I'm done in the morning, like the EV1 had. But is that theft-safe? How do I know that some other guy won't charge his car on my station during the night?

Everyone has to review his very personal situation and ask whether an EV would work. I personally come to the conclusion that an EV would actually work well in my life, and I wouldn't mind owning one. The question of how to recharge it would need to be solved though.

 

[homeforsummer]

My car surely stands around long enough to be recharged. But where would I do that? I have no garage, and there is no parking space in front of my house. I have to park on a side street to where I could not possibly lay a cable from my house. What I would need would be some kind of "recharge meter" on the sidewalk which I can plug my car into and pay when I'm done in the morning.

Everyone has to review his very personal situation and ask whether an EV would work. I personally come to the conclusion that an EV would actually work well in my life, and I wouldn't mind owning one. The question of how to recharge it would need to be solved though.

Oh, I agree absolutely. But then that isn't something that isn't already in the process of being implemented. I know that several European and UK cities and towns are beginning to implement recharging points - there are two or three in the car-park that's literally thirty seconds walk from my flat, and there are a few more in the middle of town. Okay, so my city is reasonably proactive for this kind of stuff, but then I'm sure there are other places too. And obviously, once recharging points are being produced in greater numbers (just like the cars, in fact) the price will start to come down.

As things are at the moment, I think I could get away with an EV too. Even the longest journey I do reasonably regularly is about 90 miles, which most EVs should be able to manage.

I see you edited your post just after I posted. In response-

The guy trying to steal your electricity would also have to move your whole car, presuming the charging point cable wasn't able to stretch over a car's length down to the next parking space...

This is the sort of thing we have in the UK:

It has a little coiled cable that extends from point to car. There are no cables lying across the pavement or anything like that.

 

[Neal]

The solution to the slow recharge rate of current EV batteries and the subsequent problem of where to recharge them could be carbon nanotube batteries as they can be recharged much quicker than lithium-ion batteries and have a similar and potentially higher energy density. The technology has developed further recently and nanotube batteries can now be made out of paper and fabric. Potentially the structure of an EV could be formed from a composite made of nanotube battery material therefore saving weight by negating the need for a separate battery. The main benefit though would be the viability of charging the EV at a filling station as it would take minutes rather than hours.

The implementation of this technology is still a few years away but does look like it will be solution to making EV’s viable for the masses.

 

[Robin]

There is the BYD e6, a Chinese car which will enter production soon which can charge to 50% capacity in 10 mins on a normal household supply and go 249 miles on one charge which would be the furthest of any current production electric car in the world.

This car has some really some impressive stats so cars which can eventually fully recharge as fast and filling petrol are not that far off. Some battery manufacturers have got Li-ion batteries down to 5 mins for a 95% charge!

As for the Tesla thats a really impressive record, I wonder how the Model S (eventhough its still a concept) would do on a similar endurance run.

Robin.