Lengthy interview with Elon Musk & Chris Paine

[Mycroft]

Business Insider: "Elon Musk: Refining Gas Uses More Electricity Than Electric Cars" Oct 26, 2011

Nice, long interview.

Elon: We will deliver cars to customers no later than July of next year. Some companies out there quote a start of production that is substantially in advance of when customers get their cars. Just to be precise, we'll deliver cars to customers no later than July of next year.

Chris: You'll be very pleasantly surprised with the Model S when you get a chance to drive that. It's interesting that Tesla has taken the attitude that this is going to be the best car period. We set up the title, "Revenge of the Electric Car" not for the horse race of what car sales would be like in 2011 or 2012 but how the industry is making a huge turn. Kind of like the Spanish Armada, which doesn't happen very often.

A company like Nissan or what we're doing with Toyota or Daimler where we're providing the whole power train for the electric Rav-4 that's coming out next year, I think that will be a very compelling mass market vehicle. I'm not sure what price Toyota will sell it for but it will be a really great vehicle with a range of 150 miles and much better acceleration than the gasoline version of the Rav-4.

With Daimler we're providing the battery pack for the electric smart car and for the E class Mercedes. Unfortunately those are primarily in Europe but I think there's a good chance Daimler will start to bring that stuff to the U.S. Because we don't have the economies of scale of the big car companies is to try to provide affordable vehicles by working in partnership with companies like Daimler and Toyota, and thus accelerating the time to market of affordable vehicles.

 

[AnOutsider]

Some companies out there quote a start of production that is substantially in advance of when customers get their cars. Just to be precise, we'll deliver cars to customers no later than July of next year.

Fisker jab I guess, but stones... glass house. Roadster rollout had its own delays.

 

[ckessel]

Fisker jab I guess, but stones... glass house. Roadster rollout had its own delays.

Or maybe he just didn't want to leave room for doubters.

 

[Todd Burch]

You take an average of 5 kilowatt hours to refine gasoline, something like the Model S can go 20 miles on 5 kilowatt hours. You basically have the energy needed to power electric vehicles if you stop refining.

He might be just giving a ballpark figure, but that's 250 Wh/mi...

 

[ckessel]

He might be just giving a ballpark figure, but that's 250 Wh/mi...

Yea, looks like he's rounding. 300 miles / 85kWh * 5 = 17.65 miles for 5 kWh. Still good though.

 

[Todd Burch]

Yea, looks like he's rounding. 300 miles / 85kWh * 5 = 17.65 miles for 5 kWh. Still good though.

Elon's telling us how far the car goes on a given amount of energy.

But with what you're saying--you're making the assumption that 100% of that 85 kWh is used for 300 miles of range. We know that in range mode, 90% (or is it 80%?) of the battery is used to get 300 (or maybe more) miles.

Can't remember which, but assuming 90%, that's: 90%*85 kWh/300mi = 255 Wh/mi.

All based on unverified numbers of course, but to me Elon is giving a more direct indication of Wh/mi.

 

[Norbert]

With the aerodynamic wheels, range is about 320 miles.