Tesla Looking at 2nd Plant; Musk Considers Battery Truck

The small utility and delivery van being tried right now is ford's transit connect, and that was a good idea, but the partner is now bankrupt. Tesla's offering here is really the X, which would be a good fit, if they figure out how to configure the interiors, like ford does for transit connect. We should see what it looks like at the end of next year, but a couple of friends with small businesses thought it would be great for deliveries and marketing.

The BEV pick up truck is a real long shot. Pick ups are hard to make aerodyanmic, and battery weight will ensure it will have high rolling resistance if the tires have grip. Both of these hurt range. PHEV pickup trucks are a good idea, but I doubt via motors offering will make headway to the market. It would be great if tesla partnered with someone with pickup and hybrid technology to get one built. I doubt toyota will bring tesla into its joint development with ford on a hybrid pick up truck, but who knows.

I doubt that tesla is proposing the texas manufactured pick up truck as a real direction for the company. Its a small company and needs to focus. They do want to fight the auto dealers lobby in the texas legislature, and this tactic may help. The real reason for the texas plant might be the less expensive blue star (the bmw3 size bev). The NUMMI plant is a high cost plant with union work rules. A texas plant that they could build from scatch, with much cheaper wind and solar electricity, lower benefits because of younger workers and non -union, lower cost of living, fewer government rules, could help bring manufacturing costs down quite a bit. There is a good rail line for getting parts, and a good port to ship cars.

 

A BEV compact pickup truck might do well.

 

+1
I've been all over this sucker since it was 1st revealed.
We'll do what ever it takes to get on the 'X' short list . . .



My bet is that by the time it goes into production (or yes ... 'IF' it goes to production) charging infrastructure as well as battery tech will have improved (cost per kWh) by another 10%-15%. If we can deal with the down side of EV already - then the 'X' will be a real deal. If we ever need anything more truck-iffied - we'll just go down to the rental yard and rent one for a day or 2 ... maybe once every couple years or so.

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Posted Apr 13th 2013 5:01PM
"Tesla Motors gained a legal victory in its continuing efforts to expand sales across the US now that New York Supreme Court Justice Raymond J. Elliott III decided that local dealers will not be allowed to cite the Franchised Dealer Act as a reason to sue competitors, Automotive News reports". Tesla gains legal ground in New York dealer fight

 

And I guess with a pickup you could get a 1.5 kwh solar cover which could trickle charge you whilst parked.

 

Solar is a gimick on BEVs. Think about it. A truck will probably use at least 300 wh/mile. A 1.5kwh cover will at most get you 9 kwh on a sunny day and cost at least $5K. That means if you are lucky you will get 27 miles on it, but that won't work when you are not parked in good sunlight. For $5k you can add 8 kwh of batteries to a bev before subsidies, and that can provide the mileage whenever you recharge multiple times per day. Save solar for the fixed station.

More realitically, fisker has the largest solar roof on a car, and they only think it can provide 200 miles in an entire year.
media.fiskerautomotive.com - Solar Panel: The Modern Sunroof

 

It was half said in jest but not sure where you're getting your prices from! A 1.5 kwh of solar would set me back about £12,00/$3,000 including our 20% vat. A bit of tinkering with a cover and some commitment and you have your solar charger. Sure, 27 miles on a good day is not a lot, but it's still double what a PIP gets It's also handy if you only commute 10 miles a day. I suppose if one wanted the cheapest way to travel 27 miles, one would buy a £500, 10 year old Ford.

But solar is still good for fixed areas. My plan, once I get back on my feet is to get solar on my house, but also have a new double garage built with a solar roof as I'm sure we'll both have a EV's by then. We're paying $8 a gallon now and it's only heading up.

 

For $3000 you can get solar that will fold on a car cover, and charge a battery? Your prices in the UK must be much cheaper than ours, I thought I was low balling it, but I suppose we can go with that and have them ship them over from the UK. I was also using high estimates about the amount of power that would be supplied by said cover. A friend spent $500 on a 14watt rollable solar blanket that put out 12V.

Let's face it the prius phv only has a usable 3kwh capacity, a charger can only charge that much Which is the point, even unsubsidized batteries make more sense in a bev than a solar cover, you can charge them. A tesla truck would have at least a 40 kwh battery, it makes a lot more sense adding capacity to the battery then adding solar panels or a solar truck cover. We would expect the biggest battery to be at least 85kwh, that solar car cover isn't going to help much. A plug in the parking lot would help more

Exactly, add the solar panels to the house/garage/parking space - not to the car. Those panels on a fixed structure can be installed to point in the right direction and will last much longer than a car or car cover.

 

ground mount solar is approaching $1/w now ($0.52/w panel, $0.25/w inverter, $0.25/w racking) for medium to large scale installations.

 

That would be nice, and it may have come down a little from last fall, but ....

Cut The Price Of Solar In Half By Cutting Red Tape - Forbes

We do get much lower when we include subsidies, and where I live, subsidies are 65%.

The car cover or in car application requires much more expensive parts.

 

I agree it is a gimmick. First it would be 1.5 kw not kwh. Second you can't get that large of a panel on a truck...the sun only puts out 1 kw per square meter and most panels are 15 - 20% efficient. Perhaps 2 sq meters at 20% or 0.4 kw.

300 wh/mile would be quite good for an average efficiency for a pickup.
6 hours of effective full sunlight is also quite high.

0.4 kw for 5 hrs would give 2 kwh and maybe 5-6 miles per bright sunny day...maybe 500-1000 miles per year.

Mike

 

My comment was a bit of fun. I was refering to the solid, roof mounted type solar panels being used on a large pickup.

But then again, when did financial viability matter? Look at the Volt or the PIP. You'd save more money buying an old Ford but we all know that's not the reason we buy our car. If someone with a big EV pickup wanted to add a solid solar cover to it, then good luck to them. 5 or 6 miles a day for free with the portability of not being tied down could be of use if you only ever drive 10 miles a day once a week. Though saying that, you'd have to be somewhere sunny and the heat of the sun would probably degrade the HV battery before the solar could charge it to any useful amount.

 

You are quite right, kw not kwh. I was going for what I thought was the story problem of a truck cover that could cover the entire truck with solar cells. I have no idea what the roof of an extended cab is, but don't doubt 2 square meters is a good estimate.

Yes I was purposely over estimating to make the point that it would be a gimmick on a bev.

sorry to continue to kick this dead horse then. If the panels are only on the roof, then I would not expect more than 500 miles a year in the UK Cost to tesla would be much less than the $5K, but it would be better to just add that tiny bit of battery - 2kwh to the pack, then you could use it all the time, not just on sunny dayes.

They don't sell the prius phv in my state, but after the tax credits and discounting it appears less expensive than a similarly equiped prius. The volt definitely is a desirable car for its electric smoothness. solar panels on the roof are just a gimmick, some might want them, but it seems only toyota and fisker wanted to use this gimmick.

Yep.

 

Unfortunately nothing since 2011.
Electric Cars, Green Vehicle :: Phoenix Cars LLC.

 

I do that all the time too ...
but speaking of nitpicking trivial things .... the Nissan Leaf also has the pretty much useless roof solar panel. It's REALLY small. However as our cars' 'constant-on' type electronics cause more parasitic loss - they do - and will serve the purpose of keeping the auxiliary battery from going dead -at least.
.

 

Yes but that tiny trickle charger only comes with the $3000 SL package that includes led headlights, 17" wheels and tires, led headlights, fog lights, and a quick charger. Nissan didn't even mention it in the highlights. At least no one thinks that tiny solar panel is going to boost your mileage, it has a chance to stop your battery from going dead, if your lucky and have it parked outside when the low battery happens. Like Fisker it only charges the 12V battery.

 

Last weekend I helped some park rangers jump start a Prius for someone. When I arrived to park they had the trunk torn apart trying to figure out what to do. I brought them to the front, showed the owner the fuse box positive connector and it was running in about 30 sec. It was a bright sunny day...a small solar panel would have kept their 12v battery from draining...for what ever reason is was dead. It was a 2005 Prius and the owners said they had no idea how any of it worked. Probably the original 12v battery...my 2004 original 12v battery went dead last June.

Mike

 

One other thought...

If we can make NiMH and Li-Ion traction batteries that last 150K miles (guaranteed) and typically over 200K miles why can we make a small 12v battery (for a EV or hybrid) that will last the life of the car?

Mike

 

Looks like from the article a second plant is way in the future as the California plant has plenty of room to build more cars.