http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/12/22/bbc_top_gear_tesla/

Not to mention the fact that while they think “hydrogen is as easy to produce as it is to drill for oil”. That may be true, but you need a lot of energy to separate the hydrogen, and where does that come from? For all intents and purposes, unlike oil, H is not an energy source, it is an energy carrier, like a battery.

And if you take grid power and use it to create hydrogen to put in a fuel cell to drive a car, you only get 25% efficiency. If you use grid power to charge batteries to drive your car, you get 75% efficiency.

I am not a roadster kinda guy, but I am looking forward to their family sedan; I would really like that for around town and we’ll keep our LPG powered wagon for the few times we both go in different directions or cross-country with the family.

It’s a rich person’s toy and political statement.

We couldn’t stand a large-scale change to EVs anyway – it would require too great an increase to electricity production.

Charging times will remain an issue because charging an EV as conveniently as refueling an ICEV requires in the region of a megawatt supplied to the car and that’s a challenge. Assuming, of course, that the batteries could take it (Lithium titanate batteries might be able to).

The Tesla is an interesting idea, but it’s a hugely expensive roadster with poor handling, high running costs, low top speed and low practicality – it’s not really competitive except in acceleration (which it excels at – the flat torque curve of an electric motor).

Sure I get it. It doesn’t charge fast enough, and doesn’t go far enough on a charge. Big woop. All barriers fall to technology, eventually. Although I suppose if you want to drive cross-country at 170mph, The electric nature of the car will always be a big problem.

As to the iPhone, it may charge as quickly as a real cell phone, but once the battery dies and you have to bring it back to the shop to be replaced (at great cost), then it becomes relevant again. And you can’t do MMS messaging, something that has been available on regular cell phones for years. Just like the electric car, it’s a technology that hasn’t had the bugs worked out of it yet.

I’m not buying either an iPhone OR an electric car this year, but maybe in the future, when they’ve taken care of the problems.

Yeah, you really don’t get the death blow point, do you? In 1885 it took a few minutes to refill the fuel tank of a car and get it moving again. That was Car version 1.0. Try doing a long journey in any electric car. Hell,write postcards to your destination on the way because they’ll get there first.

Until electric cars can be recharged or otherwise refueled in 5 minutes, they will remain curios.

Your rambling about iPhones is irrelevant and misconceived. An iPhone refuels no slower than its competitors.

Right, and work stopped on rubber band powered cars at that time too. It is because it is a technology that isn’t well suited for that application…

Must suck to be ignorant of the physical sciences…

>>No. It hasn’t worked out the bugs since 1842

It must suck to be a luddite, RAMBO.

After the muffler was invented, virtually no work was done on electric cars. Why bother, when the Saudi teat let people like you fill up your high-capacity minivans and Humpers with cheap fuel. And the enviromaniacs weren’t out in force for 150 years, so there was no pressure on that front.

Now that gasoline-powered SuperCars are rapidly attaining the social status of s stinky cigar, work begins anew on the electric car, and all you dinosaurs can do is bitch and moan that the technology isn’t perfect yet.

Pfffft.

No. It hasn’t worked out the bugs since 1842, when Thomas Davenport and Robert Davidson were producing electric cars…

Oh poo. So this bleeding-edge technology hasn’t worked out all the bugs that gasoline-powered cars have been working on since Karl Benz first built his Patent Motorwagon in 1885.

This thing is Version 1.0. If you want to be The Grooviest Kid On The Block, and have a lot of extra money burning a hole in your pocket, you’ll get one. Just like the iPhone. If you want something that will replace the Dodge minivan or the Humper, you’ll wait until Version 2.0 or later. Just like the iPhone.

Someday they’ll get that thing off the shitty AT&T network, work out the “features” with MMS messaging, etc., and then it will be a Phone For The Rest Of Us.

But crucially, the recharge time is the death blow. It means you can’t use it for any significant distance driving; in fact, it means that it’s only really suitable for short journeys during the day with an overnight charge. And if you want an electric around-town runabout, why on earth would you go for a two seater pseudo-sports car? The comparisons with how quickly a petrol care can be run to dry on their track are irrelevant; a petrol car can be refuelled in 5 minutes.

Compared to the flames that Jeremy Clarkson in particular gives to any car that fails to meet his expectations, the review was on the whole positive – yes really. Many of the sports cars they test break down, and JC’s Ford GT was alleged never to have completed a journey he started.

I wouldn’t buy a Tesla though – did you see the body roll around the corners? Need to get that battery weight lower down! If it looks like a sports car, it needs to handle like one. At least for us Europeans. Maybe you guys are just too used to soft springs and cars the size of a small whale…

By those standards the 55 miles of the tesla is perfectly reasonable.

The statement was perfectly qualified. Clarkson said that the charging time from a standard 13amp plug was 16 hours, which is the normal domestic high capacity plug in Britain. This plug can only handle about 3kW. The next step up in domestic supplies is getting a direct wire to the fusebox and that will give a supply of about 7 -8 kW with 9kW at a push. This would bring down the charging time to something manageable but you would have to get a qualified electrician to install that to be legal in Britain.

A three-phase system, which could provide enough juice, can cost anything from between 3000 to 72000 GBP depending on location and may not even be available to you at any price.

(b) the show basically pointed out that Honda’s Hydrogen Cell car they featured was far more practical…

(b) the show basically pointed out that Honda’s Hydrogen Cell car they featured was far more practical.