Elon Musk: Tesla network to triple by July, cross country travel by year’s end | Hacker News Reader

Elon Musk: Tesla network to triple by July, cross country travel by year’s end

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117 pointskjhughes64 comments

"Musk then spoke about how we might be able to terraform Mars by using greenhouse gasses to warm it up. ”Mars is a fixer-upper of a planet, but we could make it work.” he added."

I thought that would be difficult because the Mars has a very week protective magnetosphere and any kind of atmosphere is blown away by the solar winds. Am I missing something?

The idea is that the (entirely hypothetical) terraforming technology would accomplish this in something like centuries or tens of centuries while the processes that led to the loss of the atmosphere took millions or tens of millions of years - similar to how the Earth's atmosphere doesn't just whoosh away during geomagnetic reversal.

Another thing to keep in mind is that what atmosphere Mars had, when, how it lost it is something actively studied so understanding of it might still change. There's a probe (Maven) launching late this year that's going to measure the rate of loss due to solar wind, among other things - it will have an elliptical orbit taking several 'low' (150km or so) passes over Mars.

It doesn't lose the atmosphere that fast, so it would be worth doing it.

Also, maybe we get lucky and that comet hits Mars next year [1], which might warm up the planet a bit. The downside could be that humans visiting Mars could be delayed by a few decades, but probably worth the wait in the long term if the planet gets warmer.

[1] - http://www.space.com/20060-comet-mars-2014-collision-explain...

Use SpaceX rocket to put machinery in orbit to convert atmospheric CO2 into blocks, mass drive them towards Mars, charge carbon tax credits to fund it.

Terraforming Mars or lower atmospheric CO2 content on Earth. Why can't we have both?

Giving Mars an atmosphere that you or I could breathe is science fiction. It would require designer microbes, or enormous energy input.

Extending life beyond Earth - establishing a simple biosphere that's mostly plants - is much simpler. It's an engineering problem.

Loss to space is geologically slow [1]. Photochemical degradation of greenhouse gases is a bigger problem, but not a likely showstopper. Optimal mixes of greenhouse gases are so powerful that the output from one mine and one factory could be enough to dramatically raise temperatures [2]. We know where the halogen deposits are [3,4], and already have most of the technology to mine and process them robotically [5,6], but it would be expensive. The problem is to make it cheaper.

[1] http://www.cesr.fr/~genot/M2/article_science.pdf

[2] http://www.climatefutures.com/doc/marinova_et_al_journal_of_...

[3] http://aram.ess.sunysb.edu/tglotch/TDG18.pdf

[4] http://astronomy101.jpl.nasa.gov/files/Keller_Dissertation20...

[5] http://www.iaarc.org/news/a_news_2012_09_11.pdf

[6] http://www.nautilusminerals.com/i/pdf/2012-Q2-FactSheet.pdf

Waiting 30 minutes is still a dealbreaker for a lot of people. How about switching out those batteries like propane tanks. I'll let someone else figure out the technical details of that.

You're going to complain about taking a 30 minutes break after a 2 hours drive? Also, if you charge your car every night, you should have enough range to drive to work.

If you think having to take a 30 minute break after 2 hours of driving ISN'T a big deal then you are way out of touch.

I drive long distances very frequently (I live in a motorhome, spent most of four years travelling full-time, and currently now travel about 3-4 months out of the year). I recommend this kind of pace, regardless of whether you need to fill up or not. It makes for a happier journey, and a more fulfilling one.

But, then again, gas stations aren't exactly where I want to stop for 30 minutes every two hours. My 30 minute stops are rest areas, local or state parks, interesting restaurants, lakes, monuments, etc. It's rare that I want to spend 30 minutes at a gas station.

So, while I think stopping for 30 minutes every 2 hours isn't a big deal, and I don't think I'm way out of touch. But, since I wouldn't get to determine where I stop for 30 minutes ever 2 hours in the current Tesla scenario, it is a big deal. Presumably, and allegedly, this 30 minute problem will soon fade. I'm impressed that a cross-country trip will be possible this year. That's amazing progress; I'm blown away by Musk's vision and ability to deliver it.

I've driven straight across the country (2700 miles per trip) several times in the past 5 years, and stopping 30 minutes every few hours is not a big deal.

Unless you are into amphetamines or falling asleep at the wheel, it is the only way to do it for any extended amount of time.

"Unless you are into amphetamines or falling asleep at the wheel, it is the only way to do it for any extended amount of time."

This is simply not a true statement.

It may be your personal preference, but it is not at all universal.

I can do SF to Vegas without stopping (except for fuel, and in a diesel truck with extra tanks, without stopping). My preference is generally top stop and have a meal at Harris Ranch, too (which, conveniently, is where the supercharger is), or at In-N-Out in Bakersfield, but that's about it.

SF to Seattle is the really hard one. SF to Portland is something I can do (without starting absurdly early, or maybe even after a full day of doing other stuff), but going all the way to Seattle is hard, and stopping in Portland seems silly (since it's only 3h more to Seattle). Unfortunately, everything between Redding/Weed and Portland seems to be Methland.

Safely driving over 1300km (edit: SF to Seattle) without stopping is impossible.

http://drowsydriving.org/about/facts-and-stats/

Please adjust your driving behavior.

It's 636 miles to Portland. I've averaged in the 70mph range on that trip, since there are stretches of I-5 where much higher speeds are fairly safe (and the speed limit is 75 on a lot of it). 9h of concentration isn't that unreasonable, since you do need to stop for gas once (in Oregon, usually, which means it's slow).

San Jose to Vegas is 523 miles, and doing that in 6-7 hours is quite feasible (although it's entirely possible for it to take 12-14 hours with traffic on I-5 and I-15 if things go wrong)

1300 km is 800 miles or 11.5 hours at 70mph + one fill up. I don't see most people being able to do that without zoning out.

It's not that bad. I take weekend trips between NYC and [1 hour west of Chicago] multiple times a year. At around 870 miles, it's about a 13-14 hour drive with pit-stops. I usually split the trip into 2 days from NYC to Illinois, but only because I typically leave right after work, and I certainly wouldn't want to drive overnight.

The trip back is usually done in one day, ~10am to ~midnight. This usually includes 2-3 stops for gas and food. I wouldn't mind these stops being half an hour instead of their usual ~15 minutes, but it would mean that I would have to leave an hour earlier, or get home an hour later. since I'd have 50-100 miles less range per "fill-up" with the top-of-the-line Model S, I'd probably have to make an extra stop as well.

Ultimately, I look forward to none of this discussion mattering in 10 years, at which time I fully expect 400+ mile range in self-driving EV cars that charge in 10 minutes.

  ***fingers-crossed***

Veering off on a tangent, but this once happened:

"The 12th round-Australia motoring event run since the first (1953) Redex, the [largely off-road 18,000km, 14 day] 1979 Repco is now acknowledged as the toughest long-distance rally since the continent-to-continent epics of the first decade of the 20th century. Like earlier round-Australia trials and the London-to-Sydney epics of 1968 and 1977, crews were expected to drive virtually non stop for days at a time with limited rest breaks. Nowadays this would be considered irresponsibly dangerous."

http://repcoroundaustralia.blogspot.ca/

What do you mean by "without stopping"? Are you including fuel stops? I don't know of any vehicle which has an 800-mile range, so in a purely superficial sense your statement is of course correct; but your reference to "driving behavior" and link to "drowsydriving.org" suggests that you are focused more on human limits than those of our vehicles.

If that is the case, I am here to tell you that driving from Seattle to San Francisco in a single run is neither impossible nor even particularly remarkable. I make this trip two or three times a year, visiting my California-based family. I-5 is a smooth, easy, comfortable road, well engineered and well maintained. The challenge is not fatigue but boredom, especially through the long, straight sections in the wide-open countryside of Nothern California, where average traffic speed approaches 80 mph. Bring an interesting companion or some good energetic music and you're set.

F-250 diesel gets 22mpg on the highway. You can easily get dual 25 gallon tanks, and I've seen them with extra 60-70 (yes, this is absurd). With 50 gallons you'd have about 1k miles range. (I've driven one with dual big tanks, but it also had about 3000 extra pounds of weight and run-flat tires and modified suspension, so it wasn't really comparable, and never went above 50mph)

A VW Jetta can get 45mpg if you're really lucky, with a 14.5gal tank, so about 650.

ML350 is about 700 miles, and the old TDI VW Passats were about a 20 gallon tank and good for about 1000 miles stock.

Twenty percent of your road time spent not moving? Yes, I would complain about that. I don't think anyone who has taken any considerable road trip would find this strange.

Most car owners, including Tesla owners, don't take that many road trips. You drive in the range you charge it at night. If you do take a road trip, schedule the stop for dinner at the same time as the recharge.

What if I'm driving from the mid-US to a coast? It's around 8-10 hours of just drive time.

The whole point of this transcontinental charge network, at least as it has been marketed, is for road trips. If you're driving across the country it's unlikely that you will want to stop for 30 minutes every 2 hours. I could see two or three 30 minute stops per day at the most.

A typical person in the US used to driving distances would have no trouble driving eight hours in a row stopping only for 1-2 gas breaks and one bathroom/food break. Edit: and two such people in a car could easily drive 12-24 hours alternating. For example, my friends drive between Texas and Illinois and expect to complete the trip in under 24 hours.

It's okay that the Tesla isn't going after that market yet, but getting them to change their habits for the car is unlikely to happen. That's okay!

> my friends drive between Texas and Illinois

That could be anywhere from ~430 miles, in which case you can probably get there by starting with a full battery and making a single charge stop, to more than 1400 miles.

Please be more specific as to the origin and destination.

I was thinking of a distance for which arriving in under 24 hours would be doable but not without frequent stops.

To use a specific example, these people drive from Chicago to Kerrville which is about 19 hours according to Google Maps. Arriving in 24 hours would probably not be possible even if no time was wasted getting into and out of charging stations.

Edit reply: it's a few refills but each is quick and lasts longer than a battery charge. Would estimate 5 minutes for human needs every 3-6 hours is reasonable. I don't believe this is unusual long-distance driving behavior. And again, I don't think Tesla should be judged right now on their ability to cater to that market; we should be looking at how well Tesla serves those driving a couple hundred miles or several hundred miles in a more leisurely fashion.

First, the only likely way to make that trip with only one stop for gas is to do it in a car getting better than 40mpg, so unless they're in a good hybrid and haven't loaded it down too much, I'm pretty sure they're going to get gas twice.

Second, I don't know about you, but unless I'm dehydrated, I pee rather more often than once every six hours, and I definitely stop more often than that on the occasional ~800 mile road trip I take.

Assuming this game of telephone hasn't gone too badly awry, your friends are extreme outliers, not "a typical person in the US used to driving distances".

I replied in edit but said the wrong thing. Corrected version:

Edit reply: it's a few refills but each is quick and lasts shorter than a battery charge. Would estimate 5 minutes for human needs every 3-6 hours is reasonable. I don't believe this is unusual long-distance driving behavior. And again, I don't think Tesla should be judged right now on their ability to cater to that market; we should be looking at how well Tesla serves those driving a couple hundred miles or several hundred miles in a more leisurely fashion.

I found a 411 mile route: http://goo.gl/maps/fPG9w

This is why I think the Tesla Model S would work so much better in a country like the UK.

I grew up in the north east, which is about 200 miles away from London. A trip to London was an epic journey, involving a stop at a service station on the way.

If Tesla could partner with one service station operator, getting the super chargers in all of their stations, then all the worries of range anxiety would be all but solved.

Based on the mounds of recent research, taking a 30 minute break to walk around after 2 hours of sitting is recommended for your health:

http://www.npr.org/2011/04/25/135575490/sitting-all-day-wors...

Elon has been hinting at faster-than-gas recharging rates for the past few weeks on Twitter. The Supercharger network upgrades are part 4 of a 5 part trilogy they've been running since April. It's widely rumored that part 5 will be battery swapping or something similar to enable ultra fast charging.

My guess: Superchargers will remain free as promised and the battery swapping will offer faster charging, but at a cost.

5 part trilogy? He been reading Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy?

Or watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

He's cited Douglas Adams as one of his favorite philosophers, so probably.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/319119973366784002

If he gets the manufacturing costs down and the volume up, could the service possibly be cheaper than the typical $50 fill up? That would be a game changer.

Really? Right now it costs an average of about $7-8 bucks for a typical 230 mi range (about a tank). If the service costs anywhere near $50, it'd be disappointing.

Cost reduction plays a huge (if not the biggest) consideration in going electric.

Based on how much per kWh? I can charge my car for $0.01/KwH at night.

Sorry I missed this. Used Tesla's blog published data as my source here:

http://www.teslamotors.com/it_CH/forum/forums/cost-charge-an...

Linking to:

http://teslarumors.com/USA-Residental-Energy-Cost-2011-by-St...

2 hours drive followed by 30 minutes rest sounds a lot like a non-Iron Butt-level motorcycle touring pace.

How about switching out those batteries

Batteries in most electric cars are squeezed in every possible location. It's not just a cube you can slide out the side of the car.

If it was a cube, you'd either have to make the car really big or cut the range in half.

Maybe they've found some way around it with the Tesla, but it isn't usually just that they don't like the idea of battery-swap stations.

In the case of the Tesla, it actually is a cube, or at least a flat rectangular solid. They're not crammed in odd places. But the battery enclosure itself is integral to the frame, and the rest of the car is literally built around it.

It's possible to remove the battery, but not trivial.

The Model S was designed for swapping from the start. The flat battery is just bolted under the car between the wheels. Selling swap-capable EVs means Tesla gets 7 ZEV credits per car instead of 4.

You mean like the company that just went bankrupt? (Better Place)

There was an interesting article in the WSJ that talks about "contingency anxiety," and explains why car manufacturers like Land Rover add ridiculous capabilities, like fording waters 35.4" inches deep, in their Range Rover.

  Car makers call it "contingency anxiety," the urge to buy a mechanically
  overqualified vehicle because maybe, once in a blue moon—or a
  hurricane on a high tide—the car buyer might need the extra functionality.

I think this is tapping into the same psychology. I've seen people insist on buying AWD in the Bay Area "just in case" they go skiing to Lake Tahoe, but never do.

The reality is that most Tesla owners will simply commute well within the regular range. Telsa is reducing the, "but how will we do the 4 hour drive to grandma's house for Thanksgiving" argument by providing an inconvenient -- but workable -- solution. They're betting that's enough to get a meaningful number of people over the hump.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732443980457810...

Very interesting. thanks!

I'm heavily involved in the Overlanding community, which is all about traveling around the world in your own vehicle[1]

People constantly raise the question as to why people from the United States don't do this nearly as much as people from other countries. I've come to the conclusion that it's mostly related to this "contingency anxiety" you speak of. US citizens are so concerned about covering every possible situation they spend their time buying and building, but never actually go anywhere much. The few that do go have so much stuff their vehicles are huge and extremely heavy and they wind up having all manner of serious mechanical issues.

I drove Alaska->Argentina[2] in a dead-stock Jeep TJ with little more than camping gear[3] and didn't have a single issue the entire 2 years.

It's amazing how US Citizens will attack the "get out and go" approach by listing the 5000 things that could possibly go wrong. Before I left, I had people telling me (among other things) I'd die in an earthquake, get bitten by an exotic critter, catch H1-N1, get AIDS from a shoddy 3rd world blood transfusion, etc. etc. So much fear of the "what if"

[1] Details on Overlanding http://wikioverland.org/Overland_Frequently_Asked_Questions

[2] My blog http://theroadchoseme.com/

[3] The gear I took http://theroadchoseme.com/on-the-road

Tesla is actually planning to explore battery swapping in the "near term". This is clear from an obscure line in their Q1 earnings announcement.

Tesla needs to start talks with quick-serve restaurant chains (McDonalds, in particular) for setting up charging stations at their restaurants. I don't know what a Supercharger draws (30 amps?), but the restaurant probably has enough excess utility power to run 1 or 2 of them.

They should be looking at installing charging stations everywhere there is commercial 3-phase power available, and charge other car maker's for access for their own EVs (like the LEAF).

The Tesla vehicles have their own connector design (they don't use the standard IEEE one). The best reason I can come up with for doing this is that the car communicates charging conditions to the station so it can regulate current flow, and the standard connector doesn't allow that. When you buy a Model S, you get about 3 different adapters so you can plug in somewhere other than their own charger.

Will Tesla license this design to the other car makers? They may have offered to, but Nissan/GM/etc are probably thinking why pay Tesla when they get the IEEE design "for free".

Mercedes and Toyota are already licensing the battery and drivetrain technology from Tesla, and I'm sure other manufacturers will fall into line soon. Why not license the charging technology at the same time?

Don't forget large-chain grocery stores, movie theaters, and shopping malls. You spend at least 20 mins just buying one item in those places.

I'd wait 30 minutes to save $45. Currently a fill-up from 1/8th of a tank to full costs me $58. Waiting 30 minutes to get $45 worth of power is like making $90 per hour. Lots of people will be OK with that I think.

People wait 30 minutes or more to get their car washed already... Ohhhhh... Charge up and Car Wash together! That would be awesome!

I wonder if he intended to announce it after all, or if that actually was a misstep on stage.

The one drive I'd be likely to make at all frequently which kind of makes me wary of relying on a Model S would be SFBA to Yosemite. Not far enough south to hit the Harris Ranch station, but far enough to need to recharge. And few of the places around there would have 230v, or even available 110v charging. "Rent a car just for that trip" would be fine, though.

“It was clear that we were not going to see electric cars from incumbent manufacturers,” says Musk."

Clear, perhaps, but not correct. Ford, GM, Nissan, Honda, Mitsubishi, Mercedes and Toyota all sell electric cars (though the latter two use Tesla's batteries). BMW is about to start. California has almost single-handedly willed these cars into existence.

Are the chargers going to remain free even for used, 2nd/3rd owner Tesla cars?

Because I could see that as a very positive reselling point.

I'd be interested in seeing how they would restrict that.

I think it would be pretty foolish to do though considering how fully-electric cars are a tougher sell due to the need to take some time and recharge as it is.

All the published info seems to point to Tesla car = free Supercharger use. Which is a huge reselling point.

This appears to be the full video:

http://allthingsd.com/20130530/tesla-ceo-and-spacex-founder-...

Some video - http://allthingsd.com/category/d11/

I don't follow the tech press very closely but I saw this and the Tim Cook interview. Those two are really, really mediocre interviewers.

   .~#>'k

Hgdaa

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