Paul. . . I would suggest that having 6800 Li-ion cells in the car should make you more confident in the battery pack, not less confident. That's massive redundancy. If one cell fails. . . so what? If a dozen fail. . . How much will that reduce the car's performance or range? You won't even be able to tell. A few bad cells are perfectly acceptable. Furthermore, even if one cell were to catch fire they've made sure the fire won't spread and destroy the battery pack. The pack also has a liquid-cooling system to control temperatures and extend the life span of the cells. The battery pack is where Tesla have put a large portion of their engineering efforts -- so I feel pretty good about it.
Posted by: Tony Belding

Tesla designers and engineers have gone to great lengths to ensure that not only is the Tesla Roadster safe to drive, but also when charging the performance electric car, at home or on the road. Their goal is to not only meet, but to surpass the rigorous standards of the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, or FMVSS, as implemented by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

So next time you roll up behind a Hummer, or an Escalade, or any other gas-guzzling dinosaur lumbering towards its rendezvous with destiny....wave and smile as you pass 'em in style....It's time to say Good-bye, EV1. So long, GEM. Sayonara, honorable Prius. Make room for the new king of the road, the next big thing, the must have rocket car to the future! Nikola Tesla himself would weep with joy to have been honored by this sleek, sexy, powerfully hot, bitchin', SuperCar loaded with torque and state-of-the-art technology! We've seen the future and IT'S ELECTRIC, BABY!

Although I have a lot of respect for the Tesla guys, I would not describe what they are doing as revolutionary, as a technology to build. They essentially took a project that ACP had been working on for many years, brought in more talent and capital and connections, manufacturing and marketing and are finishing the job. And they're doing it when the time is right. Battery technology is making the needed advances, and the public is finally catching on that petroleum is for losers and for the willing non-free--not Tesla's market. They're also a typical Silicon Valley start-up: do some state-of-the-art engineering to advance something, then farm out all the production to much more experienced and better-equipped contractors. It's almost hard to see how they can lose for technological reasons. They could get eclipsed, or pull a DeLorean, but I doubt it. I'd almost say you're more likely to get stranded buying a GM or Ford, because of their gashog commitments.

Tesla's ambition to then take it to the next level will be more challenging. They could easily get eclipsed. Let's wish them success.
Posted by: P L Schager

The car is expensive because it contains a lot of Li-ion cells, because its bodywork is carbon-fiber composite, and because it will be assembled in small numbers by Lotus. A Lotus Elise also costs about twice as much as a Mazda Miata, doesn't it? So yes, I'm sure it's possible to manufacture an electric sports car at a lower cost, with some compromises -- but that simply wasn't Tesla's strategy for this car.

The planned four-door car will, I'm sure, be produced in larger volumes and benefit from cost reductions. Exactly how much it will benefit depends on decisions they make about its design, its performance, where it will be assembled, etc. Keep in mind the batteries in the Tesla Roadster cost the company probably around $20,000. Although that's a lot of money, it doesn't automatically require a four-door car to be sold for $100,000.

I would also point out that the Tesla Roadster is arguably rather a bargain compared to conventional gasoline-powered sports cars in its performance class -- particularly when you factor in their fuel consumption and requirement of premium gasoline, and their demanding maintenance schedules. With an electric car you need to think about spending more money up front but having a lower cost of ownership.

I really don't understand why anybody would "cringe" when thinking about the Li-ion battery pack. Tesla's engineers have done their homework on battery safety, and they are completely up-front about the expected life span of the battery pack. I can't imagine where you got this idea of "cars dying on the road". I've seen nothing yet to suggest that is likely to happen at all.
Posted by: Tony Belding

Just to comment on the Tesla Roadster batteries. I'm not a battery expert. But I've worked with some people who are. They always told me that the reputation that batteries have for being fickle is well-deserved. They are trickly little buggers, and they never work like you expect them to.

For example, WaveCrest Labs had a devil of a time with the batteries for their TidalForce bicycles. As I understand it, they still do. People in the middle of a ride suddenly finding that their bike motor will no longer move. The problem always turned out to be the batteries.

And Tesla is using laptop batteries in its car. That's what makes me cringe. I bought an IBM Thinkpad in 2000 that has a three-cell Li-ion battery. I'm on my fourth one now. And it seems to need replacement. Not only have the batteries been short-lived and unreliable, the heat the battery generates when charging or discharging is surprising. It's definitely not usable on my lap -- it gets too hot.

That's three Li-ion cells. Tesla uses 6,000. I "cringe" because I think of all the problems you can have with that many cells. And the tremendous amount of power that needs to go in and out of those cells every day. And the stress testing that will be put on that battery system as the cars are used every day.

How long have we been using Li-ion cells in laptops? About ten years? You would think the technology would be mature by now. And still just last month I see on the news a clip of a laptop in flames because of a battery problem. And Sony's customers having to recall hundreds of thousands of Sony-made batteries, not just for the bursting into flames problem, but just recently because some could not hold a charge.

As I say, I love the Tesla Roadster. What a great little car. And I'm not a battery expert, so I cannot confidently predict a problem. Maybe Tesla has designed around any and all battery problems.

But I have been a lawyer in Silicon Valley for almost 30 years, working with a lot of new technologies. My gut tells me that in five years the Tesla Roadster is not going to be considered the gem of an electric car that we all hope it is. And I think batteries will be the thing to have put it in its grave, along with the Edsel and the EV-1.

Posted by: Paul Peterson

Provided the goverment support the programme by building a recharging points at every car park, this car will defenitely have no more problem with range. We'll really feel the worthiness of paying parking fee. Didn't we pay council tax, road tax? Then why parking is not free?

Talking about exploding batteries. Well, how many of us own a laptop or mobile phone with Li-ion batteries? Have you actually encounter a mishap with exploding batteries? Batteries only explode due to abuse; short circuiting the batteries by intention or exposing them to extreme heat.

Fact: How many gasoline car have you seen/ heard exploding for no reason so far? I bet you hear those more than few dozen of times, radiator blasting or even caught on fire and explode.

IF THERE IS NO MORE OIL LEFT. I am sure that ALL automobile manufacturers and even governments will try to convince the public that Electric Car is better than Internal combustion engine cars, then we will see a very cheap EV on the roads.Of course G. Bush cs and his Arabs relatives will start to divert their family assets to EV too.
Posted by: An Engineer

Anyway, since you are a lawyer,why not start sueing IBM for supplying low quality batteries that don't hold charge? In that way I will bow and salute your profession.

China do make a very low quality stuffs to a very high quality stuffs depending on the request from their customers. You pay peanut you get peanut.
Posted by: An Engineer

I'll not argue with An Engineer about lawyers. I hate them too. And although I've been a lawyer for decades, I've never set a foot inside a courtroom. Nor do I plan to. Before becoming a lawyer, I had a more honorable profession, and have a BS and MS in EE.

Even so, I do not speak from a battery expert's viewpoint when I worry about the Tesla Roadster's practicality. But I do worry. We are heaping praise on a car that looks good on paper. But it hasn't earned that praise. And I don't think it will.

Not that I mean to criticize. I admire the Tesla people and investors for their courage. But what if the Tesla Roadster has its problems? One of the reporters at the big Tesla event at the Long Beach airport said that the Roadster prototype he was being given a ride in became motionless out on the runway. Someone had to be called by radio to come out and fix it, which they did. What about when that happens on the real road to George Clooney next year? Is that going to get people on the electric vehicle bandwagon?

Maybe I'm being a worrywart, and everything will turn out fine. But I still worry. If something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. Battery technology defeated even Thomas Edison. Could it defeat Tesla too?
Posted by: Paul Peterson

I'm no battery expert either. My guestimate is that your possibly right but probably wrong. My experience of batteries comes from building electric bikes and sharing information with others doing the same. Overall my own experience has been very postive and the times when it hasn't has more often than not been due to my own ignorance. Yes batteries can be tricky but if used within the right parameters can be very reliable. They also make a very useful scapegoat for other problems.

For example a car starter battery can last for 5 years, but if bad connections put a small drain on the battery it may die much sooner. Its quite complicated to check for these. Most mechanics i've known just blame and replace the battery.

Laptops are anothter good example. lithium battery life is sensitive to high temperature. Its possible to design a cooling system that will keep the temperature of the whole laptop very low, but at what weight and cost penalty? Perhaps better to sideline these issue's afterall consumers will just blame those fenickity batteries.

As a side note your laptop battery shouldn't be getting hot on either charge (li-ion charging is endothermic) or discharge. You might have some other problem there. The sony li-ion recall is perhaps another good example. I'm don't know technical story of what happened but its a safe bet to assume that sony and dell were under pretty strong commercial pressure to increase the battery runtimes and reduce costs. Constant reformulations of the chemistry to squeese out those extra few minutes and boost those all important specs. lithium is pretty reactive stuff, and maybe they just took there eye off the ball. Not such a big deal, after all consumers will just blame those wild fiery lithium batteries.

I've got a good feeling about Tesla. Partly because one of the founders was a battery engineer. But also because unlike the EV-1, politics hasn't got anything to with it
Posted by: Nick Flynn

Nick,

You may well be right that the Tesla Roadster will turn out to shine. I did not know that one of Tesla's founders was a battery engineer. I did know that Tesla spent a lot of time -- Martin Eberhard said in his intervies on this BBC Radio program that it was 40% of the engineering time -- on the batteries. And your point about company politics is right on. Unlike GM, Tesla did that right. They have had, and still have, a clear vision that they all follow, with no one in the company trying to sabotage the effort.

Like you have a good feeling, though, I have to admit that my gut feeling is bad. Who was it, Hans Solo in Star Wars that used to say, "I've got a bad feeling about this"? I think Tesla is another Webvan in the making. At the same time, I applaud the effort of the Tesla team and hope for their success.

And I have to say that this BBC Radio program was excellent. It struck a thoughtful balance between optimism and skepticism. Well worth the time to listen.
Posted by: Paul Peterson

And laptop batteries don't live long because they get too much heat from the laptop itself (processor, graphic card, ...).
I've had a Nokia cell phone from my company for five years and the lithium battery showed no noticeable loss of capacity in this time.

Regards, Skarrin
Posted by: Jens Schacherl