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Tesla Motors Electric Cars – Prove there is No such thing as Peak Oil.

California car company Tesla Motors is manufacturing it’s Tesla Roadster. The all electric car that is faster from 0-100kms than a Porsche or Ferrari .

Australian Simon Hackett [pictured] has one on order. Simon is the managing director and founder of technology company internode.

In the weekend read section of Business Spectator Simon writes:

Driving an electric car feels like stepping into a jet aircraft after a lifetime of flying little bug smashers with propellers. Eerily quiet, they have a flat torque curve from zero rpm. Putting your foot down -- at any speed -- commands an instant kick in the back. They operate with ease at US highway speeds.

The EV’s only real challenge was range, as a function of the available battery technology. As anyone who watched the movie knows, GM couldn’t kill them off fast enough as soon as CARB lost their nerve in the face of extensive political lobbying from the car industry at the time.

Fast forward to today. Tesla Motors have created an electric sports car for today. It’s the first full production EV since the EV I era and like the EV I, it rocks: 0-100 km/h in less than four seconds. Over 360 km range -- far more than most Australian cars in the real world. Silent. Pretty. Zero tailpipe emissions. Able to be charged from solar panels on your own roof.

image Tesla Roadster

I had been wanting to buy an EV ever since I was hooked on the GM EV I, all those years ago. So it was no surprise that I became the first (and to date, the only) Australian to order a Tesla Roadster. Mine gets built in Q1 2009.

Why are the world car manufacturers concentrating on building hybrid cars when companies like Tesla can build all electric cars that use no oil what so ever?

You can only guarantee one thing, this technology will get better and better and within the next decade we could see the combustion engine the same way as we view the steam engine, as museum pieces.

Those that carry on about ‘peak oil’ as they did in the 70’s will once again discover that man’s ability to develop new technologies to replace what was once considered a scarce natural resources (oil) means we never have peak anything.

The electric car’s faster than Porsche and Ferrari

(thanks to Agmates reader Alan)

Have your say!.

Tags: Business Spectator, electric cars, internode, Peak oil, Simon Hackett, Tesla motors, Tesla Roadster

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 16th, 2008 at 10:17 am and is filed under Agmates News, Climate Change, Environment, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Comments on “Tesla Motors Electric Cars – Prove there is No such thing as Peak Oil.”

shane l says:

December 14, 2008 at 8:55 pm

wading through above to get the comments about the cars
… some mention of recharging from coal-elecricity? valid consideration. my local paper just touted a fellow that rebuilt an elec car, no discussion about what happens when he plugs into his wall socket!!

but, have seen other articles etc where up to a dozen PV and/or mini-wind turbine work fine for recharging a similar type of car. guess if you leave it plugged in for a weekend, would get you through the week, rather than separate battery-storage to get around day/night use/charge situation.

next step to look out for though, might be the fuel cell to get rid of the ‘conventional’ battery – apparently, thin-film graphite can be impregnated with hydrogen to greater concentration than just a tank like LPG…
look fwd to donating my wheels to a museum

Don Miller says:

November 26, 2008 at 7:50 pm

Yes Jeff,

A quick lesson in Island Arc formation. When two plates collide, as is happening here under the islands of Vanuatu, one will be subducted under the other. The friction of this creates magma which rises through the over thrusting plate and forms the volcanoes Vanuatu is famous for, and which created the islands.

The volcanoes are on the over thrusting plate and this plate tends to gradually rise, probably due to a process known as plating – gunge collecting under it on the contact zone and lifting it up.

You should read “Gaia”. It is right up there with Flannery.

In this case the Australian plate is the subducted plate sliding underneath the Pacific Plate. The volcanoes are on the edge of the Pacific Plate and so are gradually rising. If you look at the islands of Vanuatu you will note that many of them show signs of episodic uplift – terraces for example. Futuna has an almost flat top where coastal erosion completely removed the above-sea part of the volcano before it was lifted up to its present height of several hundred metres by the gradual uplift that is a fundamental part of Vanuatu’s formation. Check out “GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTER, VOL. 20, NO.8,PAGES 655-658, APRIL 23, 1993″ if you doubt me. This rate of uplift varies from island to island, as does the degree of volcanic activity.

And take my advice – keep well clear of the active volcanoes here as there are more serious accidents than the tourists are made aware of.

Jeff says:

November 26, 2008 at 12:52 am

Hi Don Miller,
Your invitation to read Lovelock’s ‘Revenge of Gaia’, I’m afraid I must renege on. Having just gone and re-read the reviews. No further comment!!!

Re Vanuatu’s tectonic state:
Today 25/11/08, another earthquake, 4.5 Richter, 5:03pm EADT
(USGS)
Nice easy read: Dr George Pararas-Carayannis
Jan 2. 2002 earthquake.
http://tinyurl.com/5agrgh – Tectonic Setting

Cat.Inist Abstract- Descending Australian plate beneath central part of New Hebrides Island Arc
http://tinyurl.com/5hgwab
Descending plate?

Don Miller says:

November 25, 2008 at 5:21 pm

Margaret,

I think you will find we agree on a lot more than we disagree on. I have come from working in SE Asia where it was “Look how many new massive coal fired power stations we built last week” in every newspaper. Compared to those excesses the absurdity of applying a fart tax appears just laughable. Note what the NZ voters thought of it earlier this month!

Rather than blindly attack the “others” look for the chinks in the argument.

I speak as a foreigner with limited local knowledge, but what would happen if the cattle were removed? Would the grassland remain in a rank ungrazed state for long? How long would it be before a natural fire occurred? What would this do to the sequestered carbon? Would more trees be lost than in the grazed situation.

What was the situation before man arrived? Did the megafauna emit methane? The termites sure did.

Of the approximately 600 million tons of methane emitted each year I note that ruminants account for about 85 million tons, wetlands 145 million tons and termites are responsible for about 20 million tons (These are 1985 figures). Will the general public support the widespread destruction of wetlands and the mass poisoning of termites around the globe? How green would the ferals be then?

Farmers may be an easy target, just don’t make yourselves an attractive one as well.

Regards
Don

Margaret says:

November 25, 2008 at 3:21 pm

I am sure the economic downturn and people closing their wallets here and across the world will massively cut down pollution of all gases.
We don’t need another TAX to kill of buisness completely. You must want the Australian economy to collapse absolutely.
And I have got a science degree in biology and the carbon climate science is ROT – IT IS A RACQUET

Don Miller says:

November 25, 2008 at 3:07 pm

Give the readers some idea of your science background, Margaret. I assume that you make your pronouncements from some knowledge base
other than just heresy or beligerance.

Farmers do indeed have a potential contribution they can make to carbon sequestration. But what is to be achieved by making the assumption that Australian farmers (I assume that you are an
Australian) know it all and the majority of scientists have it wrong, I just cannot figure.

I have spent a lot of my life working in
agriculture and with farmers. Until I started reading this blog I had assumed that Australian farmers were as intelligent as Kiwi ones. Now
I realise that you are doing all that you can to polarise your situation in relation to the general population. Good luck with that. You seem to be succeeding well.

Unfortunately you are, for no good reason I can understand, increasing the resentment an increasing
number of the population seem to feel against you.

Please explain what you are trying to achieve? Note that my first message on this site was one in which I backed the farmers against the irrational behaviour of the ultra green invasive plant extremists. Now I am starting to understand the perspective of the ultra greens.
-

Sue says:

November 25, 2008 at 3:39 pm

Thanks Don I thought it was just me- She’s turned my attitude from “farmers get a raw deal” to “they get what they deserve” too.

Reply
- John Michelmore says:
  
  November 25, 2008 at 4:28 pm
  
  It is unfortunate the this subject creates so much emotional response in blogs all over the world.
  Unfortunatley the science relating to global warming is still quite young and definitely not in the same realms as the physics and chemisty proven centuries ago. The jury is still out on anthropogenic global warming and its significanace.
  The issue here is whether a tax on carbon can have an impact on global warming at all.
  
  Is it worth the massive financial effort?
  
  Why is there a headlong rush to introduce carbon trading schemes?
  
  Will an ETS be rorted by big business and government to the detriment on the minorities in the world?
  
  Is carbon trading going to push food prices out of the reach of those who need it in the third world?
  
  Is it going to create a financial scheme that has the same problems we are experiencing now?
  
  Would governnment policy achieve the same and not produce a further warping of the world economics eg nuclear power in Australia?
  
  There are many farmers in Australia whom will be severely impacted by the introduction of an ETS and not have the ability to claim credits for their efforts in sequestering carbon in their soil because this has been left out of existing trading schemes. Not to mention the fact that vegetation regrowth on farmers properties has resulted in Australia achieving its Kyoto goals . This has cost farmers millions in lost/reduced production and for which they have received nothing in recompense.
  I can understand why this subject is so emotive in Australia, especially in the agricultural sector. Many more farmers will not be able to finacially cope with the added impost of an ETS that is only applied to their inputs; and is on top of the current problems of water, drought, over-regulation etc etc
  
  Please, please lets keep the debate on a reasonable level and not attack each other, it doesn’t achieve anything and the conclusions that anyone of us represents the whole agricultural sector or is a dark green isn’t really valid.
  
  Reply

Don Miller says:

November 25, 2008 at 1:17 pm

Wow! I will have some work to do.

The measurements I am familiar with show that the sea level is rising, and this is after tectonic movements are taken into account.

If the terrestrial Antarctic and Greenland ice is melting that volume of water has to go somewhere. In addition to that factor, a warming sea expands. When the theory fits the observations one is inclined to say the theory is right

Thanks for your interest, Jeff, regarding the sinking of Efate. I agree that this part of the Pacific is tectonically unstable, but all evidence seems to point to a consistent process of uplift on Efate, including the obvious uplifted marine terraces and the deep incision of the rivers in their sedimentary plains. My work here has involved a reasonable amount of geological study and I have yet to find any record of crustal sinking at the location I mentioned. I will keep looking however.

I have lived on or very near the coast for most of my life and I am quite convinced from practical observations made over a 50 year period that the sea level is rising.

Measurements of sea levels are now taken by satellite and are independent of tide gauges and errors due to crustal rise or fall. They indicate an average rise of 2.8mm per year (plus or minus 0.4mm). http://membrane.com/sidd/sealevel.html with seasonal and locational variations. The most recent measurements indicate a greater rate of rise than the IPCC estimates made in 2001. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11083

I would be absolutely delighted if the IPCC was wrong and there was no global warming or sea level rise. My children and grandchildren would be delighted too. But the predictions are that the rate of rise will increase, possibly dramatically.

And please note – the role of carbon dioxide in the temperature control of the planet is not a recent “idea”. I have a copy of a paper published in Scientific American about 50 years ago that predicted this outcome. Also James Lovelock’s “The Revenge of Gaia” should be read by all sceptics.

Now – to the Tesla. I am in no way against electric vehicles and will probably have built my own within a few years from now. Specialist solar powered cars have shown that it is a very low cost way of motoring, Louis Palmer’s car (google it) is practical – for him – and very cheap to run. But that is not what most present car owners would expect or tolerate. Can people adapt to inconvenience?

I am definitely in favour of the approach taken by Tesla, and its use where a green energy source is available. It is clearly a remarkable creation. My argument was with the unrealistic optimism of the journalist.

With the current photo-voltaic technology available to the public even a large installation of roof panels, say 50 square metres, (at what cost? – I am roughly estimating $40,000) would just be adequate to fully charge a battery bank capable of taking a car 350km of real driving conditions. When it is economically feasible it will be great – but as yet it is not so don’t be misled. Or put it another way – it probably IS economic if the future of the planet is regarded as economically important – but few will be able to afford it.

A few immediate problems, other than cost: You will probably want to charge it at night so you can use it during the day. That will involve supplying the electric supply grid during the day from your roof panels and recharging the car from the grid at night. Is that legal yet in Australia? If you have that much invested in roof PV panels you will probably want to be independent of the grid. Can you use the car’s battery bank as a multi-purpose storage unit? Probably not if you also want to drive it.

Is it always sunny where you live?

If you recharge the car from the grid consider these figures from the US, which also relies heavily on coal fired thermal electricity generation. An internal combustion car will emit 167 – 224 gms carbon per kilometre. A pure electric car will, by charging from a coal fired electricity source, emit 135 – 200 gms carbon per kilometre. That is not a huge difference in terms of carbon emissions.

And the cost of a Tesla is around US$90,000 I am told. Forgive me if I have erred in that.

And don’t expect electricity prices to remain static if there is a big swing to electric cars – I pay about A$1.50 per kilowatt hr here and I certainly wouldn’t be charging a car at that rate.

Margaret says:

November 25, 2008 at 2:31 pm

Oh dear – this is the phony carbon climate science farmers are up against !!
Could I say Dark Ages!!

Reply

Jeff says:

November 25, 2008 at 10:29 am

Hi Don Miller,
Don, I don’t want to appear argumentative on this subject, as it is very complex. But I’m with John Michelmore on this.
The instance you quote of the “sea level rising at Port Vila”, may not be as it seems. Vanuatu is on a tectonic plate, close to the “Ring of Fire” volcanically active area. This is obvious by the recent active volcanos in this island group – Ambrym – 2007, Lopevi – 2006, Yasur – 2007. Also a recent earthquake – magnitude 7.2 Richter 1-8-2007 (USGS source). So like the Galapagos Islands, they could also be moving, subducting (sinking)due to tectonic forces.
The oft quoted islands of Tuvalu ( I think used by Al Gore as a model in his alarmist movie – An Inconvenient Truth), have been measured by satellite, and found that the islands are sinking, not the sea rising.
Other reasons put forward for different sea levels, are the El Nino and La Nina effects on ocean current (over a long time period, sloshing in the tub??).

Climate change/planet change has always been with us, example:
In 1362 the North Sea inundated the low lying coast of the Netherlands, forming the Zuiderzee, at the cost of between 50,000 to 80,000 lives. The same sea swell also affected people on the coast of Denmark and the British Isles, and also created severe erosion of areas of the coast.

I wouldn’t feel too perturbed about the sea rising too soon, Al Gore has bought a condominium in the Fisherman’s Wharf area of San Francisco a while back.
Just for a laugh, Google- Al Gore’s Condo in Fisherman’s Wharf, San Francisco.

Don Miller says:

November 25, 2008 at 8:42 am

Check out this website for both sides of the global warming argument: http://climatedebatedaily.com/
But don’t expect to get through it in half an hour.

One option none of us has is to ignore the issue. A large coastal resort (that many Australians visit) in Port Vila has recently added an extra 150mm on their sea wall – that is how obvious sea level rise is now. The adjacent wharf is frequently under water – something I never saw 5 or 6 years ago.

Something is indeed happening.

Margaret says:

November 25, 2008 at 9:10 am

I’m afraid I don’t believe the sea level rising nonsense – more scare-mongering phony science.
Something may be happening something is always happening and there has always been warmer periods between ice ages but it isn’t what the global warming lunatic science dictates.
What intriges me is why people think they are God in predicting what things are going to be like in 2030 , 2050 etc They must be mad meglomaniacs.
The earth will do what ever it wants to do with very little cause from us. I know a lot of people think we affect the earth’s climate – I am extremely doubtful – its crazy. The only thing good about the whole global warming doctrine is that it might make people live sustainably, responsibly and with thought for the earth and all its life forms.

Reply
John Michelmore says:

November 25, 2008 at 9:20 am

It is easy to take individual sites and conclude that sea levels are rising. Other examples are Venice and the older Galapagos Islands. In actual fact in these instances its not the sea level rising, but the earth sinking.
I’m all for reducing mad consumerism and wasting the limited resouces the earth has, however the junk science that suggests we can control the climate is just wrong.

Reply

Jeff says:

November 23, 2008 at 12:14 pm

Hi Agmates,
I keep on reading confusing signals about “Peak Oil” (peal oil for Agmate Steve (little LOL)).

The US may not have the gold, but I wouldn’t be too sure they don’t have oil:

http://tinyurl.com/6zeeqd

Read the potential in the sites linked to the USGS.
They may have a fight on their hands with Greenpeace, Sierra Club and Friends of the Earth, particularly with Obama, Hilary C. and the green Democrats at the helm though.

There is oil, as evidence from this Reuters article about Native groups, Eskimo whale hunters and Enviro’s blocking Shell off the coast of Alaska.
http://tinyurl.com/64bkg2

The other bit of conflicting evidence is that they keep building these huge (HUGE)luxury cruise ships, with phenomenal fuel consumption. If you where building a liner worth a couple of billion dollars, you would have to be aware of fuel supply for the economic life of the vessel?

Then there is Dubai, were they have just opened the “Atlantis” hotel complex. $6.5million USD in fireworks, $20+million dollars in the opening costs, on a man made terra-formed island (Palm Island) on one of many islands being built in the ocean. Doesn’t look like they’re running out of their ability to supply oil real soon. Have a look on Googlearth, search as Dubai.

POTUS-in-waiting Obama is about to include CO2 in the polluting gases controlled by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), therefore making it law, and the UK’s Gordon Brown’s government doing a similar action, locking up the classification of CO2 as a pollutant into British law.This will make it difficult to rescind these laws with changes in governments, so I can see Kyoto Kev and Minister Wong trying a similar action here.

It is very difficult not to jump on the conspiracy theories bandwagon with all this somewhat conflicting data.

Don Miller says:

November 23, 2008 at 8:26 am

It has links with snake oil……

John Ray says:

November 23, 2008 at 8:11 am

Peal oil?

Agmates says:

November 23, 2008 at 11:10 am

Thanks John & Don,

I’m suitably embarrassed.

Honestly I’d be lost without you guys and other readers picking up my spelling, grammar and mistakes. You play a valuable part in the Agmates community.

Thanks again – I and no doubt our other long suffering readers appreciate it.

Reply

Grant says:

November 17, 2008 at 9:43 pm

This is a great, to see new technology put right in our faces. Not all of us will except change and they will be left behind along with steam engines.

Don Miller says:

November 17, 2008 at 8:40 am

Yeah, right!!!!

I often feel that the confusion in the publics’ mind over many important issues is due to an appalling lack of knowledge and practical experience on the part of journalists. Is this Simon Hackett for real? Does he really believe that he can charge up a car from the national electricity supply and not use another few buckets of coal in a thermal electricity plant somewhere?

The reality is that he will be using an even dirtier form of energy than the diesel or petrol he is using now. Sure, you have more coal than oil over the ditch, but you have yet to actually prove a functional carbon sequestration technology. Until you do that it is carbon as usual. Even in NZ, with its largely renewable energy resources, the peak load is partly carried by fossil fuel plants. Electric vehicles here would need to be charged at off-peak times to be acceptable from a greenhouse gas perspective.

And forget recharging from the solar panels on the roof – how useful, in a practical sense, are the World Solar Challenge cars? A excellent concept and a great competition, but not within a bull’s roar of Simon’s comment. There would have to be a quantum leap in photo-voltaic technology before a solar panel the size of a car could provide the grunt a Tesla would need for daily use.

Technically incompetent journalists are a menace, particularly when they preach to an increasingly urban and impractical population who can’t tell shit from clay.

John Michelmore says:

November 25, 2008 at 9:24 am

Don,
I think he was referring to solar panels on the roof of a house for recharging, not the roof of a car.

Reply

John Michelmore says:

November 16, 2008 at 7:04 pm

This makes you wonder why the Australian Government would even consider helping the current incumbents (Ford and Holden) with the massive funding subsidy when it appears that there are other manufacturers whom have already developed alternative energy cars.
Why are we not offering a place in the Australian economy to produce existing new technology? Ford and Holden obviously haven’t given alternatives sufficient interest. In fact we can go as far, I think, as saying that Ford had alternate electric cars in the US years ago and they were sent to the crusher!!

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Tesla Motors Electric Cars – Prove there is No such thing as Peak Oil.

The electric car’s faster than Porsche and Ferrari