They have figured it out, or did you forget about the GM EV1? They just realized pretty quickly that it would be a big time money loser.
It was a valiant effort, but lead-acid and NiMH batteries were never going to make a practical electric car. Also, GM is about the furthest thing from a lean and mean company. A car that’s unprofitable for them isn’t necessarily unprofitable for a smaller company.
Further, even Tesla doesn’t (yet) know how to build a practical mid-range electric. They’re only profitable because they’ve tapped the luxury market. But the lessons they learn now will carry forward, and so they’ll figure it out eventually. By contrast, GM and other makers are carrying the dead weight of a hundred years of IC engine experience. It’s worse than useless because it prevents them from taking a clean slate approach. But like I said, they’ll figure it out eventually, since Tesla will provide the necessary existence proof.
Electrics are more flexible, clearly. Electronic control is more than good enough to keep the motors in sync. But even better, you can have vastly superior traction control systems as compared to single-source IC/electrics. Your car could rotate in place if need be.
IC cars are also a niche market, but people don’t know it yet. One day, fairly soon, people will find it utterly bizarre that people had to stop at these disgusting, unsafe places every week or two to keep their cars running.
Nonsense. Electrics are vastly simpler than IC cars. A brushless electric motor like on Model S has one moving part.
Or, you just charge when you stop for lunch.
The Tesla far exceeds ordinary cars in all kinds of metrics, even accounting for price. It isn’t perfect, but then no car is.
Electrics are better even on coal power. They are much better on natural gas, and obviously “infinitely” better on hydro/nuclear/solar/wind.
I suspect that Tesla will be eclipsed when a new battery technology overtakes lithium-ion batteries.
So for you “early adopters” wait a bit. If the battery price declines substantially, you will be able to by an electric car for a lot less.
So I may not have to wait till I’m 90 something to be able to buy a reasonably priced, powerful, all electric car with good range.
Technology does advance very quickly sometimes.
With regard to Tesla’s “shitload of batteries” strategy:
The standard Toyota Prius has a 1.4 kWh battery. This is basically enough for handling regen braking and a little bit of power trimming to optimize engine operation.
The plug-in version of the Toyota Prius has a 4.4-kWh battery, giving it an all-electric range of about 14 miles.
The Chevy Volt uses a 16.5 kWh battery, giving it an all-electric range of 38 miles.
The Tesla Model S offers an 85 kWh battery, giving it a range of approximately 300 miles.
I believe the SI unit for 85 kWh is “1 shitload.”
More to the point, having peak torque at very low RPM means you don’t have to have as high a peak torque (or power output) as a vehicle whose peak torque occurs at a higher RPM. In a drag race, getting acceleration done sooner instead of later is what keeps the 0-60 time down - so if your electric motor is able to provide peak torque as soon as the light turns green (instead of 1 or 2 seconds later when an IC engine RPM gets up to where it can make peak torque), you’ll be well on your way to the finish line before the other guy really gets moving.
Do you know what kinda electrical power levels you need to recharge a long range electric car in a half hour to hour timeframe?
Copper wiring more the size of pipes than wires. Which is bad enough. But one for every customer in the parking lot that wants to charge their car?
Every eating place would need to be nearly a substation to be able do that.
For an 85 kWh battery, from full discharge to fully charged? 170 kilowatts.
That’s a healthy V6 engine churning away at max power output for half an hour (if it can survive that long).
Tesla’s batteries are 375 volts, so we’re talking about 450 amps going into the battery. Not sure if the battery itself can take that, but even if it can, the charging cable would be bloody huge. #0000 gauge wire is 0.46 inches in diameter (not including insulation), and rated for about 300 amps, so we’re talking about a pair of very heavy cables. Assume 5/8" diameter conductor, with 1/4" of insulation, so each wire would be over an inch in diameter. Put two of those together with a protective sheath, and it’ll take a couple of manly men to hook up your Tesla. Yikes.
I think one of the first things that needs to happen is they need to require these things to make some kind of noise.
I was at an outdoor shopping area and walked by a Prius, I think. Couldn’t even hear it as it was idling in a parking space. I realize the hybrids use the gas motor as well, so some noise is generated, but an all electric? That’s pretty scary in a pedestrian situation.
I think they should be required to make them sound like George Jetson’s car. woop woop wooop wooooop
Anybody know the fate of the Fiskar electric car? AFAIK, they only made 1200 of them…of which quite a few caught fire and burned. Did they go bust?
Yes, Fisker Auto (maker of the Fisker Karma) laid off just about all of the employees a couple of months ago.
Edited to add, Better Place, started by Shai Agassi, also shut down. Their idea was that the entire battery assembly would be replaced at a station with a freshly charged one.
Right, battery technology is still advancing. Even regular Lithium-ion batteries have been increasing capacity by ~8% per year, and other technologies like Lithium-air and sulfur are being developed.
They’re not bankrupt yet, but they haven’t made a car in months, and are desperately trying to fend off the inevitable while they look for someone foolish enough to buy the company.
What if it’s not lunchtime?
Seriously. The problem there is, you have to plan your trip around recharging. Gassing up a conventional car takes 2 minutes, maybe 5 if you go inside to buy a candy bar. In contrast, the fastest charging schemes still require about 20-30 minutes. That means that electrics have a rather big convenience drawback compared to IC cars.
As I explained above, even Tesla has never managed to make a dime selling electric cars. Tesla occasionally talks about ramping up production, but they’re not going to do it any time soon because if they did, they’d lose their ass because their unprofitable car sales would overwhelm the meager profit they make selling tax credits.
The statistic I’ve heard is that on average, Americans drive about 30-40 miles each day (to and from work, to the supermarket, etc.). So for most people, an electric car can be used for those daily needs and recharged at night. Most people are not driving hundreds of miles regularly. And even then, if a family owns two cars and only one of them is electric, they may be able to use the conventional car on the occasional long trips.
I think pedestrians need to take responsibility for their safety by pocketing their cellphones and using their eyes to look around them. Anyone relying primarily on their ears to navigate safely through a parking lot is not going to live long; that was true even before hybrids and e-cars.
The Volt has a little pedestrian warning horn you can engage to let people know you’re in the area. It’s not a loud as the real horn, and right on the turn indicator handle.
Oh, I agree totally on that point - get your face out of the cell phone. I am quite self aware, also, but a lot of people are not. Being the sue happy nation we are, it’s only a matter of time before this becomes an issue.
ETA: Also, if I can’t have my damn flying car, I at least want something to sound like it! 
I thought that you were going to say “hearing aid batteries.”
I agree with you, but for very large values of “fairly soon.”