Panasonic Invests/Buys Into $30 Million in Tesla

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ivanlucrazy

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Great news! I'm hoping to buy a Tesla sometime in the future. The new Model S looks amazing as well! As long as they do things like this, work on improving battery performance etc. then it's great! Sooner or later the batteries will get the car to go for 400+ miles a charge. That is what I'm waiting for! Electric cars ftw!

On a side note, has anybody seen the documentary about the death of Electric cars in the 90's?
 

jomofro39

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@ivan, yes that documentary is very good.
@article: I freaking love Tesla. I hope they do well, they are pioneers in certain areas, but I feel as though if the electric sports car market really begins to have a growing demand, competition from other, more established car makers could put a hurting on Tesla if they do not continue to innovate and stand out from the crowd. On the other hand, competition is great for us, and hopefully these style of electric cars begin to decrease in price as more companies begin producing similar models.
 

Travis Beane

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Can I have a floating car on magnetic roads before I die please? That would be awesome.

I must ask however, if even a laptop battery can be extremely dangerous, how dangerous can these cars be? To turn a car into a high explosive bomb would someone only need to overvolt the cells?
 

feeddagoat

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While the Tesla certainly is an impressive car, after the top gear review I won't be buying one. Not until reliability is sorted. Over all tho you wonder is this tech will be licensed out to other manufactures also? Future is looking good for Tesla especially as an independant company
 
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In America, we should really focus on natural gas to power our future... we have the resources here to do so for the next 100 years. With batteries, we are going to be dependent upon other nations for the resources much like we are with oil currently. Push natural gas, work on developing our own resources of rare earth minerals and then, maybe, we push this whole electric position.
 
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For a second, I thought Panasonic bought $30 million of nVidia Teslas.
 

96Firebird

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As a whole, Tesla is not doing very well as a company. I really hope they turn things around though, as I am graduatign college with a BS in Mech E in the spring and wouldn't mind applying for a position there...
 

The_Trutherizer

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Kudos to Panasonic. Kudos to Telsa. Also it is probably a good thing that Panasonic as a 3rd Party powerpack supplier is involved since it would be beneficial to them to try and standardize the packs as much as possible.
 

sheravi

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@Travis: According to Tesla, they've done extensive testing on the safety of their battery packs. To give you an idea, one test was setting one of the cells on the very inside of the pack on fire and watched what happened. It was completely fine. The pack is designed in such a way that even if it lights on fire, gets hit in a collision, etc. there won't be any massive explosions or fires. Granted, this is what they are telling people, but I haven't heard of any horrific Telsa car collisions.
 

thebigt42

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[citation][nom]ivanlucrazy[/nom]Great news! I'm hoping to buy a Tesla sometime in the future. The new Model S looks amazing as well! As long as they do things like this, work on improving battery performance etc. then it's great! Sooner or later the batteries will get the car to go for 400+ miles a charge. That is what I'm waiting for! Electric cars ftw! On a side note, has anybody seen the documentary about the death of Electric cars in the 90's?[/citation]
I agree the Model S does look like the killer electic car! my only concern is where do i get it fixed is Alabama?
 

spectrewind

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"something that looks like this" (caption)...

Sports cars look great, and are completely impractical. They are going to need a minivan and sedan version before people will buy into it. Make one of these things survive a week of back an forth to work, add baseball/soccer practice for kids, and a trip to Costco on the weekend. Make everything fit, and comfortable for a mother with kids to travel in.
 
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i love the concept and everything, but have any of you seen the price tag for a tesla...... even the more affordable (to be manufactured) model T would make Mr Job smile

Tesla is not doing well because no one sensible could afford to buy their cars, i dont mind pay a little extra for green tech but the price tag on those things are beyond extra, guess i'll settle for a Leaf....
 

dark_lord69

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[citation][nom]spectrewind[/nom]"something that looks like this" (caption)...Sports cars look great, and are completely impractical. They are going to need a minivan and sedan version before people will buy into it. Make one of these things survive a week of back an forth to work, add baseball/soccer practice for kids, and a trip to Costco on the weekend. Make everything fit, and comfortable for a mother with kids to travel in.[/citation]
Apperently you haven't seen the Model S. It's not a minivan (which honestly most people DON'T want) but it IS a sedan and a step in the right direction. FYI, most people prefer SUV's over minivans.
 

Supertrek32

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[citation][nom]pandarus79[/nom]In America, we should really focus on natural gas to power our future... we have the resources here to do so for the next 100 years. With batteries, we are going to be dependent upon other nations for the resources much like we are with oil currently. Push natural gas, work on developing our own resources of rare earth minerals and then, maybe, we push this whole electric position.[/citation]
Not... really...
Many of the materials in batteries can be reclaimed/recycled, and there's many different ways of making batteries with various materials. Natural gas is non renewable and will run out eventually - and very quickly if we decided to use it to replace gasoline.

Let's take a quick chemistry lesson. Natural gas and gasoline are both a collection of various chemicals made from carbon and hydrogen. By breaking the bonds between carbon and hydrogen, energy is released, which we use. So the more hydrogen, the better. Here are the normal chemicals gasoline is made of:
C5H12 (Pentane)
C6H14 (Hexane)
C7H16 (Heptane)
C8H17 (Octane)
Everything there has a lot of hydrogen. Ever wondered why octane is always listed at a gas station? It holds the most energy (in the form of hydrogen), so having more of it in your gas means your gas has more energy.

Now lets look at the chemicals making up natural gas:
CH4 (Methane)
C2H6 (Ethane)
C3H8 (Propane)
C4H10 (Butane)
Understand now? That's a lot less hydrogen. Less hydrogen means less energy. Which means you need more of the stuff to get the same amount of energy. Which means we'll use up natural gas twice as fast as we use up gas. Gas is just another fossil fuel, which means we'll run out in the future again, and faster than we ran out of gas. It's just not feasible. It's a stop-gap measure at best.

Not quite related, but I think as long as I'm bringing up chemistry, I'll show why ethanol is so inefficient. Ethanol is C2H6O. It has a hydroxyl (OH) group in it. Breaking this off the carbon doesn't give off us any energy. The thing that makes us want to use ethanol so badly is the fact we can grow it in a field. Inefficiency doesn't matter as much if it gets the job done and you have an unlimited supply.
 

millerm84

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[citation][nom]supertrek32[/nom]Not... really...Many of the materials in batteries can be reclaimed/recycled, and there's many different ways of making batteries with various materials. Natural gas is non renewable and will run out eventually - and very quickly if we decided to use it to replace gasoline.Let's take a quick chemistry lesson. Natural gas and gasoline are both a collection of various chemicals made from carbon and hydrogen. By breaking the bonds between carbon and hydrogen, energy is released, which we use. So the more hydrogen, the better. Here are the normal chemicals gasoline is made of:C5H12 (Pentane)C6H14 (Hexane)C7H16 (Heptane)C8H17 (Octane)Everything there has a lot of hydrogen. Ever wondered why octane is always listed at a gas station? It holds the most energy (in the form of hydrogen), so having more of it in your gas means your gas has more energy.Now lets look at the chemicals making up natural gas:CH4 (Methane)C2H6 (Ethane)C3H8 (Propane)C4H10 (Butane)Understand now? That's a lot less hydrogen. Less hydrogen means less energy. Which means you need more of the stuff to get the same amount of energy. Which means we'll use up natural gas twice as fast as we use up gas. Gas is just another fossil fuel, which means we'll run out in the future again, and faster than we ran out of gas. It's just not feasible. It's a stop-gap measure at best.Not quite related, but I think as long as I'm bringing up chemistry, I'll show why ethanol is so inefficient. Ethanol is C2H6O. It has a hydroxyl (OH) group in it. Breaking this off the carbon doesn't give off us any energy. The thing that makes us want to use ethanol so badly is the fact we can grow it in a field. Inefficiency doesn't matter as much if it gets the job done and you have an unlimited supply.[/citation]


Wow I have never seen this argument made so clearly I've made it a thousand times with out much results, but seriously nicely done. I don't want to hijack the thread but why does Ethanol burn if breaking the bond doesn't work?
 

figgus

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[citation][nom]millerm84[/nom]Wow I have never seen this argument made so clearly I've made it a thousand times with out much results, but seriously nicely done. I don't want to hijack the thread but why does Ethanol burn if breaking the bond doesn't work?[/citation]

I'll admit too, that post was top notch. +1
 

husker

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[citation][nom]supertrek32[/nom]Ethanol is C2H6O. It has a hydroxyl (OH) group in it. Breaking this off the carbon doesn't give off us any energy. The thing that makes us want to use ethanol so badly is the fact we can grow it in a field. Inefficiency doesn't matter as much if it gets the job done and you have an unlimited supply.[/citation]
Great comment supertrek, but I'd like to point out one other thing about ethanol - there's a catch: According to scientists in New York and California, it takes more energy to make ethanol than you get back in fuel savings. According to David Pimentel of Cornell University, it takes the equivalent of 1.29 gallons of gasoline to produce enough ethanol to replace one gallon of gasoline at the pump. Instead of making the nation more energy self-sufficient, ethanol production actually increases our need for oil and gas imports. Not to mention driving up food costs, etc.
 

restatement3dofted

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[citation][nom]Travis Beane[/nom]I must ask however, if even a laptop battery can be extremely dangerous, how dangerous can these cars be? To turn a car into a high explosive bomb would someone only need to overvolt the cells?[/citation]

But a current car, full of... you know, gas... doesn't concern you?
 
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