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Tesla to build new 5 BILLION dollar factory in Nevada; Another Blow to California
Topic Started: Sep 4 2014, 09:41 AM (1,942 Views)
High MX
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Karl Brauer — a senior analyst at Kelley Blue Book, an automobile valuation firm — said in an email that the Gigafactory will give Tesla “a real shot at producing a $30,000 electric car with a 200-plus-mile range.”

If Tesla can do that I would purchase one.
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Rondawg
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High MX
Sep 5 2014, 10:27 AM
Karl Brauer — a senior analyst at Kelley Blue Book, an automobile valuation firm — said in an email that the Gigafactory will give Tesla “a real shot at producing a $30,000 electric car with a 200-plus-mile range.”

If Tesla can do that I would purchase one.
That's great, I did not hear about that.....surely lots of folks would buy one!

Tesla holds thousands of patents and is not keeping them to themselves. They have offered share these patents to advance the technology!
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/12/us-tesla-patents-idUSKBN0EN23J20140612

And they cant catch a break from the Federal Gvt!
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/10587/20140716/tesla-not-getting-much-love-from-white-house.htm
Edited by Rondawg, Sep 5 2014, 11:13 AM.
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Freeman
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The Family Man

I'd like to see a rise in public transportation. I know it seems a little off topic, but I feel the talk of electric cars is sort of similar. I'd be willing to give up a good amount of convenience if it had a large amount of pay back (environmentally). I don't go out much, mostly just to and from work. If there was a bus (preferably clean and non-hostile) that could get me to work in 30 minutes, I'd ride it. It's only a 10 minute drive, so I don't think that's too much to ask for. But our local bus system takes a hour to a hour and a half to go this distance.

Same thing would apply to an electric car. I think I could live with the range limit and such. But the price point and longevity are something I am not particularly fond of. An engine rebuild is cheaper than a battery pack, right?
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perfesser
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Elite Member - Former Metro owner

There's also a lot to be said for a 5-minute tank fillup rather than a 5-hour charge in the (unlikely ;) ) event you aren't close to a battery swap station while traveling across the fruited plains to grandmother's house for the holidays.
Edited by perfesser, Sep 5 2014, 12:58 PM.
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Freeman
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The Family Man

I was talking strictly replacing them. haha. But yes, long road trips would not work.

I work in a warehouse. We have a small electric fork truck (2 ton limit). That thing is awesome inside. It turns in under 0 degrees (literally moves backwards if you crank it all the way, hard to explain) Anyways, it is super cool and gives off no odor. However, when it dies, it dies. There is no pull up to the gas pump or swap tanks. You have to plug it in and wait.

With that said, we have several diesel fork trucks around.
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Coche Blanco
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Electric cars are the future. I hope.
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Rondawg
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Coche Blanco
Sep 5 2014, 02:29 PM
Electric cars are the future. I hope.
I hope so too. But ya gotta think of how we will charge them. Last year with the harsh winter some days we were running at well over 90% of our power generating capacity. With the new mandates to close down a bunch of coal fired power plants I wonder where the power will come from??
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Coche Blanco
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Rondawg
Sep 5 2014, 03:16 PM
Coche Blanco
Sep 5 2014, 02:29 PM
Electric cars are the future. I hope.
I hope so too. But ya gotta think of how we will charge them. Last year with the harsh winter some days we were running at well over 90% of our power generating capacity. With the new mandates to close down a bunch of coal fired power plants I wonder where the power will come from??
I'm a fan of nuclear power, myself. Solar seems good too if they can get the cost down...

I also think the electricity used to charge a car is much less than many people assume, but I'd have to do more research to give you a halfway educated statistic.
Edited by Coche Blanco, Sep 5 2014, 03:48 PM.
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z34-5speed
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Formerly "Tech Certified"

+1 For Nuclear
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myredvert
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myredvert

Mr. Fusion Home Energy Reactor
:cheers
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Akagi
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The Genius Who Descended Into the Metro

Coche Blanco
Sep 5 2014, 02:29 PM
Electric cars are the future. I hope.
Only if they find some way to get around the rare earth metals/catalyst problem and find a way to scale up electrical production commensurate with demand increase.

Our national electrical grid is already being taxed to capacity as things currently stand. Throwing the energy requirements of our auto fleet on to it is a recipe for failure without an aggressive plan to expand and engineer the grid to handle it.

Quote:
 
I'm a fan of nuclear power, myself. Solar seems good too if they can get the cost down...


I would be a fan of nuclear if they abandoned the PWR design that leads to events like Fukushima and go with LFTR reactors that default to a powering down instead of a runaway meltdown that leaves a toxic legacy for the world to inherit. If they made good on their promise in the past to have a way to effectively deal with the nuclear waste problem which they reassured us some unspecified technology was supposed to already have a way to handle by now, then I wouldn't have as many reservations. But with nuclear, you have to account for the human element, and the cost of 1 major fuck-up is so disproportionately damaging that the only sane way to go about it is with designs that default to a shut down.
Edited by Akagi, Sep 5 2014, 06:31 PM.
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perfesser
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Elite Member - Former Metro owner

There is a perfectly good long-term nuclear waste storage facility in Nevada just sitting waiting for the first shipment, but Harry Reid, who was for it before he was against it, won't allow it to be opened. And the eco-Nazis will not allow the material to be safely shipped to it, preferring instead to store massive amounts of high-level waste in what are essentially giant swimming pools located across the country at each reactor site.

Yes, there are better designs than are presently used, but no one has been able to get a license to build a commercial nuclear plant in this country since the '70s. At least the design we have in use handles a LOCA (Loss Of Coolant Accident) like Three-Mile Island better than Chernobyl's design did!!
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Cobrajet25
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Rondawg
Sep 5 2014, 03:16 PM
Coche Blanco
Sep 5 2014, 02:29 PM
Electric cars are the future. I hope.
I hope so too. But ya gotta think of how we will charge them. Last year with the harsh winter some days we were running at well over 90% of our power generating capacity. With the new mandates to close down a bunch of coal fired power plants I wonder where the power will come from??
This is going to be a huge hurdle for electric cars, and it's something their adherents really haven't thought out yet. The same people who are proponents of electrically-powered vehicles are the same people who are against any source of electricity other than wind or solar.

That just ain't gonna work, boys and girls.

I am all for electric cars, but they have a LONG way to go before they are practical enough to replace petroleum-powered vehicles. And our electrical grid has a LONG ways to go before it is capable of allowing millions of them to be plugged into a wall socket for six hours every night.

Our society is gonna be running on 87 octane Chevron for a while yet, no matter what rules and regs the greenies somewhat myopically advocate for.
Edited by Cobrajet25, Sep 6 2014, 12:38 AM.
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perfesser
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Elite Member - Former Metro owner

Cobrajet25
Sep 6 2014, 12:36 AM
The same people who are proponents of electrically-powered vehicles are the same people who are against any source of electricity other than wind or solar.
NEWS FLASH - Windmills kill rare and endangered birds!!! Environmentalists outraged!!

Film at 11:00 ...
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Metromightymouse
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Powdercoat Wizard

Update - Solar energy plants burning rare and endangered birds right out of the sky!! PETA screams foul!! The shocking video at 12:00 ...
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