The Tesla company has th in its arsenal. Accordingly, if such devices appear in the world, the process of charging electric vehicles will become easier, cheaper and faster. It is quite possible that the time spent charging a car will be quite comparable to refueling a conventional car with an internal combustion engine. But when will this happen? Why is this technology for express battery replacement not being widely distributed around the world at the moment? In fact, there are a number of problems in the auto industry.
Accordingly, if they are solved, then electric cars will very quickly displace cars from the market, which, in principle, today are already a relic of the last century.
In order for electric cars to become fully competitive in the auto industry, here is what needs to be done:
Standardization of batteries in all produced electric cars. Preferably at a global level.
Let's be clear what I mean when I talk about standardization. I mean four main things:
- - Physical external dimensions of batteries
- - Single standardized charging connector
- - Single battery capacity (voltage/ampere)
- - Safety standards for electric vehicle production
Unfortunately, there is currently no single global standard for the production of electric vehicles. For example, all manufacturers are based on their vision of electrical technology in the automotive industry. As a result, all electric models have different batteries that produce different voltages, etc. The most surprising thing is that there is also no standard for batteries. That is, car companies can use both lithium batteries and any other fuel cells to power an electric motor. The funny thing is that, in principle, you can even use a nuclear reactor. The thing is that there are no uniform norms, standards, or even documents on a single standard.
But, in my opinion, the time has come to change everything. The time has come for car companies to adopt a common standard for the use of batteries for electric vehicles. After all, in other areas of industry, standards for electric batteries have long been adopted. For example, all mobile phones, tablets and even laptops are manufactured according to a single standard that regulates the market for batteries for electronic devices.
As an example, first of all, in the automotive industry it is necessary to introduce a categorization of batteries for electric vehicles. So batteries should be divided into categories: A, AA, C, D and so on (disposable small batteries, disposable large batteries, rechargeable, etc., etc.).
As a result, by creating a unified standard and categorization of batteries for electric vehicles, the auto industry will take a big step forward. For example, this will allow the introduction of another standard and rule. More on this below.
Batteries for electric cars should become easily replaceable. Moreover, the battery replacement process should be cheap, fast and easy, and should also be used universally at all gas stations
As a result, today there is already a problem with charging any electric cars. Therefore, the technology for express replacement of batteries in electric cars should give a new round of development in the automotive industry.
It will also solve another problem that is currently not discussed or addressed by car companies that sell their electric cars. The point is that all batteries in electric vehicles have a limited service life.
For example, if you buy today, or any other electric car, then along with the car you will also buy an expensive battery, which will degrade over time. As a result, eventually its power and capacity will seriously decrease over time. As a result, the range and performance of your electric car will gradually decrease over time and will drop to a minimum at the end of the battery's life.
Unfortunately, most likely the battery of an electric car will wear out faster than other components of the car.
The electric motor, unlike internal combustion power units, has a very long service life. Also, an electric car does not have many unreliable components.
So, most likely, owners of used 10-year-old electric cars will be faced with a scheduled replacement of electric batteries, which is very, very expensive. For example, on average, replacing an electric battery can cost from 700 thousand to 1 million rubles.
I wonder if there is an owner of a used electric vehicle who would be willing to pay that kind of money to replace the battery in a car that is in good technical condition?
As a result, the electric battery is currently the main problem in all electric vehicles. This limits the development of electric cars around the world.
After all, electric car manufacturers tell us about the usefulness and efficiency of their products, while keeping silent about the vulnerability of the most expensive component in electric vehicles - the battery. As a result, there is no point in buying an electric car at the moment.
That is why, to develop the popularity of electric transport, a simple and cheap technology for express battery replacement is needed.
Currently, every automaker produces cars that run on a universal fuel that is suitable for all types and types of vehicles equipped with gasoline or diesel engines. In addition, the fuel is available everywhere around the world.
The refueling process takes a minimum amount of time. As a result, for electric vehicles to begin to compete with cars running on gasoline or diesel fuel, it is necessary that the batteries of some models be compatible with other models of other brands, and also that they can be quickly replaced at any gas station. As you understand, this requires a unified standard and a special cheap technology for express battery replacement.
But adopting a single battery standard for electric cars is not enough. Indeed, in this case, all automakers will have to design electric vehicles according to the same rules. Indeed, in order to simplify and reduce the cost of replacing batteries, it is necessary to design cars that will have the ability to quickly remove the battery.
Electric cars have been talked about for a long time, and recently even a lot. But when will their mass production begin?
Automakers have long ignored them while modernizing internal combustion engines.
As exhaust gases harm the climate and oil and gas prices rise, the governments of the United States, Japan and the European Union intend to stimulate the production of electric vehicles.
By 2020, there should be at least one million such cars on German roads.
At first glance - a lot. In fact, this is only two percent of Germany's current vehicle fleet. The main problem is that there is still not a single automaker in the world that produces electric cars in series, writes Deutsche Welle.
There is only one company that produces such cars, and even that is small - Think in Norway, says Christoph Hermann, head of an energy company that has decided to engage in the “electrification” of vehicles in the federal state of Vorarlberg in western Austria.
This is a fundamentally new concept for both the automotive industry and the energy industry.
In fact, a local electricity supplier decided to become a car dealer and auto mechanic. The company rents out cars, services them and organizes parking lots equipped with a battery charging system. For all this the user pays 551 euros per month.
This amount also includes insurance and a ticket for local public transport. The company has already purchased 35 machines from Norway, and by the end of this year it will purchase another hundred.
According to well-known German expert Tomi Engel, the electric car market has a gigantic future. In addition, Engel recalls, the first cars with electric drive appeared at the beginning of the twentieth century. Let's say the first Porsche, which appeared at that time, was electric. The era of internal combustion engines began later.
Henry Ford and other automakers of the time were pioneers. Gradually they created a monopoly, but today automakers must once again become pioneers and move on to creating electric cars, since the end of the oil era is just around the corner and we must prepare for it ahead of time, warns Tomi Engel.
The Magna company clearly agrees with him - the same one that wanted to buy Opel together with Sberbank. Magna mainly manufactures components, but at some factories it also assembles cars for large automakers, such as Chrysler. Such assembly is organized, in particular, at a plant in Graz, Austria.
Magna intends to put the electric car on the assembly line at the plant in Graz in 2012, and by 2020 this plant alone plans to produce more than a million such cars per year. The cost of design and research work is naturally enormous, so a whole consortium of large companies has been created to work on an electric car. They are also creating a common platform for the production of electric vehicles.
The main problem in this industry remains batteries. After all, they must have incompatible qualities: be light and compact, but at the same time energy-intensive, quickly charged and slowly discharged.
While the battery weight is approximately half the weight of the car (that is, the car mainly carries its own battery), one recharge is enough for a maximum of 100-150 kilometers, and the process itself takes several hours. Recharging on the road is impossible - there are no electric charging stations.
A solution is offered by the Californian company Better Place: it is creating a network of stations where you can quickly exchange a discharged battery for a charged one. At first glance, the idea is attractive, but for its implementation it is necessary to standardize batteries throughout the world.
So far, Better place, as its director Amit Yudan said, is starting to cooperate with the largest manufacturers. To begin with, it entered into an agreement with Renault to service 100 thousand electric vehicles, which this concern will begin supplying to Israel and Denmark in 2011.
So far, lithium-ion batteries are the most efficient.
All these battery problems were known at the beginning of the twentieth century. It was they who forced the Porsche engineer to abandon work on electric vehicles and switch to internal combustion engines.
So far, lithium-ion batteries are the most efficient. Therefore, they are used in all modern electronic devices, such as laptops, without exception.
Lithium is also used in the construction of electric motors. However, lithium is called a rare earth element for a reason: it is found so rarely and in such inaccessible places that its price will only increase.
According to engineer Otmar Payer from Magna Steyr, the problem is exacerbated by the fact that its largest reserves are in China. The Chinese authorities have already limited the export of lithium and even intend to ban its export.
Moreover, China, wanting to become a monopolist in the production of batteries, is now entering into agreements with countries and companies that mine lithium, for example from South America
China has already become a country where electric vehicles are most widely used. True, so far these are mainly motor scooters and bicycles. In 2006, 20 million electric scooters were registered in China - significantly more than new gasoline-powered scooters.
But another question arises: will the country's power grid survive if everyone charges their batteries at the same time at night? Who should organize battery recharging, who will create a network of charging stations in the province? These issues need to be addressed as a whole.
For electricity supply companies, this segment may not be decisive. It has been calculated that if a million electric vehicles were regularly on the roads in Austria, electricity sales would increase by only three percent. In Germany this share will be even smaller.
That is why the company from Vorarlberg has started a pilot project in which it - the electricity supplier - will also act as a machine supplier.
The fact is that at the current level of development of science, industry, and technology, they create many more problems than they solve. So, if the United States completely abandons cars with gasoline or diesel engines, the electricity generated by the country simply will not be enough to charge all electric vehicles. Only 79% of vehicles can be charged overnight. At the same time, standard charging of electric vehicles is quite long and takes up to 8 hours, which creates additional inconvenience.
At the same time, 60% of all energy generated in the world comes from “dirty” resources - coal, oil, gas. To increase the volume of electricity, it is necessary to increase the number of power plants, which means that local pollution near energy facilities will only increase. And we must not forget that a huge amount of electricity will also be spent on recycling old, technically complex batteries, and the enterprises themselves for their destruction will a priori be very “dirty” from an environmental point of view. Trucks, at the moment, cannot abandon diesel engines - electric traction to propel the vehicle.
Photo: digitaltrends.com
In addition, we must not forget that electric cars are not only more expensive than traditional vehicles, but also have a shorter range and require special infrastructure for charging batteries - all these factors greatly influence the choice of customers when buying a car. Electric vehicle repair is also a completely new industry. Convincing buyers to purchase such a vehicle can be quite difficult, even despite government propaganda and support. And the largest automakers that control the world market today are not ready to completely fall into the arms of the “greens.” After all, for them, giving up gasoline threatens to abandon established patterns of production, promotion and sales of cars and the need to create a completely new industry - electric vehicles.
However, automakers are already announcing a partial or complete transition to the production of electric cars. Or at least declare it. Thus, Volvo says that from 2019 all its passenger cars will be equipped with electric motors or hybrid engines instead of gasoline engines. The statement is bold, but unlikely to be implemented without compromising sales. And we will see that this is actually a nod in favor of the notorious “greens” or an attempt to get another government grant in less than a year and a half. However, this will be the problem of one individual company. But entire powers are rushing headlong into the adventure of electrical engineering!
Photo icebike.org
And the Netherlands is becoming a pioneer in this area - if GroenLinks, an environmental political party, comes to power, the state will completely abandon diesel and gasoline engines. At the same time, the probability of victory in the elections of this particular movement is very high; they have always enjoyed great popularity in Europe. Well, it is already possible to transplant citizens of one small country, who also do not have their own automobile industry, especially considering the experience of the Dutch in the production of alternative energy. But it’s interesting how transnational transportation will work in this case: will “dirty” cars stop being allowed into Holland? Hard to believe.
Meanwhile, Norway and Denmark, which are not burdened by their own auto production, and where alternative energy is also actively developing, also declare their readiness to switch to electricity. Scandinavia and certain European countries such as Belgium or Austria have always been at the forefront of energy innovation, so switching to electric engines in these countries will not be difficult. And for them, the first stage will most likely be the abandonment of heavy fuel, that is, the use of diesel cars in the capitals of large European countries as early as 2020. However, electric cars can become truly popular (and only relatively so) in the best case scenario, when the cost of charging and repairing electric cars can compete with the costs of gasoline and diesel cars. And today even the European Commission - the executive body of the European Union - is betting on electric cars!
Photo icebike.org
As for Russia, it seems unlikely that it will be widely used. Despite government policy, the demand for electric cars is almost zero. At the moment, most electric cars are not capable of covering a distance of more than 300 kilometers at a time - this is another reason for their low popularity in our country.
Charging batteries can also become a big problem - the profitability of electric filling stations in comparison with gas stations is much lower. The equipment required for the construction and operation of electric gas stations is several times more expensive than for the operation of conventional gas stations. If we take into account the small demand for EPS services, we can conclude that such projects have a fairly long payback period.
Another problem that the car introduction program in our country may encounter is an almost complete monopoly on electricity. This aspect can slow down or even completely electric transport in Russia.
Nevertheless, steam cars became a real locomotive for the development of future automotive technology. The most important mechanisms used to this day were tested on them - brakes, steering linkage, differential (a structural element of the transmission).
In addition, it is to steam stagecoaches that we owe the emergence of the “chauffeur” profession. One of the translations of this word from French is stoker: he was needed to throw coal into the firebox on the first stagecoaches.
Another popular means of transportation in the early days of the automobile industry were electric vehicles. For example, in the 1910s. In New York City, thousands of electric vehicles were used as taxis.
By the 1920s gasoline-powered cars by Henry Ford in the USA, as well as by Gottlieb Daimler, Karl Benz and Ferdinand Porsche in Europe, finally forced steam engines and electric cars out of the market.
Clean water engine
Inventors continued to search for alternatives to gasoline and diesel fuel (in the case of diesel engines) in the second half of the 20th century. Some of these developments are formalized in the form of patents, others are known only from newspaper publications and eyewitness accounts.
According to some information, Russian professor G. Dudko in 1951. participated in testing an internal combustion engine, which was a hybrid of a diesel engine with a carburetor engine. Testers installed this miracle of technology on a boat, and sailed on it for two days in the Sea of Azov, supposedly filling it with water from overboard instead of gasoline. Later, in the early 1990s, an engine that decomposes water into hydrogen and oxygen was designed and patented by the American inventor Stanley Meyer.
The theme of water engines, which emit harmless water vapor into the atmosphere instead of exhaust gases, was continued in the new millennium, ceasing to be science fiction. In 2008 A car with a “water” power plant, the Water Energy System, was presented by the Japanese company Genepax. The car could drive for an hour at a speed of 80 km/h, fueled with 1 liter of water. Since then, nothing has been heard about this know-how. Perhaps the high cost of the fuel cell power plant - $18.5 thousand - played a negative role. According to the US Department of Transportation, by 2020. the cost of hydrogen fuel cells in the States is planned to be reduced from 100 to 30 dollars per 1 kW of installed power. In this case, the source of electricity for a 100 kW (134 hp) power plant will cost about $3 thousand, which is comparable to the price of a gasoline engine for the mass automotive segment.
In addition to the high cost of hydrogen fuel cells, a significant obstacle to the development of this type of transport is the lack of specialized gas stations. The solution to the problem, according to experts, may be the use of hydrogen as fuel for “classical” internal combustion engines or mixtures of fuel with hydrogen. These cars have been around since 2006. produced by Mazda and Ford corporations (Ford buses and Mazda RX-8 passenger cars).
Children of the Corn
The world's leading automakers - Nissan, Mitsubishi, Toyota, Ford, Honda, BMW and others - have their own developments in the field of alternative fuel cars, which in the future will allow us to get off the oil needle. In addition to hydrogen, these are electricity and bioethanol (alcohol produced from plant materials).
In Brazil, ethyl alcohol obtained from sugar cane and corn has long been used as fuel. In other countries, everything that comes to hand is used to produce biofuel: sawdust, household waste and even manure. This is the case, for example, in Japan, where the government is investing billions of yen in the development of technology for the production of bioethanol from wood waste and rice. And in 2010 A group of researchers from Japan's Tohoku University obtained biofuel from algae.
In the USA and European countries this has not yet been achieved, but a significant part of all alcohol is used as an additive to diesel fuel. Now this additive is less than 6%. And yet the vector of movement of the “green locomotive” has already been set. As follows from the EU Renewable Energy Directive, the next target is 10% renewable fuels in transport by 2020. A similar program to reduce gasoline consumption and switch to biofuels operates in the United States. However, this direction also has opponents. In their opinion, the production of biofuel from agricultural crops (sugar cane, corn and rapeseed) is more harmful to the environment than beneficial, and also threatens food security.
The second "crusade" of electric vehicles
Electric cars, which suffered a fiasco at the beginning of the 20th century, can take revenge on gasoline cars in the new millennium. According to analysts, in Japan by 2020. they will account for up to 20% of the total share of new cars sold. Germany and France intend to increase the fleet of such vehicles to 1 million and 2 million, respectively, China - to 5 million. In the USA by 2015. There will be about 1 million electric vehicles.
Today, the technically advanced Japanese are leading the sales of electric vehicles. The first place is occupied by Nissan (as of June 2012, more than 30 thousand were sold), followed by Mitsubishi with the I-MiEV model (more than 15 thousand cars). Another notable player in the electric car market could be Toyota Corporation. The strategy of the Japanese car manufacturer is that all types of environmentally friendly transport “will coexist with classic gasoline cars,” the Russian branch of Toyota told RBC. Today, Toyota's only electric vehicle model is mass-produced - the RAV4 EV, sales of which started in several US states this summer. By the end of this year, the company plans to launch an electric car based on the Toyota iQ model on world markets.
According to the chairman of the subcommittee on strategic innovations in the automotive sector of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Andrei Pankov, it is electric vehicles that in the future can compete with cars running on gasoline and diesel fuel. In the next decade, automobile giants must get rid of the main drawback of such cars - their high cost. “Over the past three years, the price of batteries (lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles. - Ed.) has decreased by half only due to the fact that in the first year 5 thousand electric vehicles were produced, in the second year - 18 thousand, Now up to 40 thousand are produced per year,” explains the expert. According to him, this confirms a McKinsey study according to which the cost of batteries used in electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids will fall by 45% by the end of the decade, and the cost of the cars themselves by 30-40%. As a result, according to A. Pankov’s forecasts, by 2020. An electric car will cost less than a car with an internal combustion engine of the same class.
Despite the fact that the first electric car appeared in Russia only a year ago, there are already 43 charging stations operating in the Moscow region, the expert emphasizes. He also recalled that the American investment fund Enerfund intends to invest $50 million in the creation of a charging infrastructure in the Russian Federation, thanks to which in two years about 2 thousand regular and 100 “fast” charging stations will appear in Russia (the latter are capable of charging an electric car in 10 -15 minutes).
GAS versus electricity
State support for the development of the electric transport market, which exists in the USA, Japan and many EU countries, has a tangible impact on reducing the cost of electric cars. Here since the mid-1990s. The so-called green tax reform is being carried out. For eco-vehicles, there are tax incentives for purchase and operation. For example, in London, benefits for entering the city center amount to 2 thousand pounds per year, in Norway the transport tax has been reduced (one-time benefit - about 2 thousand euros), in a number of US states a one-time tax benefit of up to 4.7 thousand dollars is also provided In addition, “non-monetary” benefits are applied: free travel on toll roads, driving in a dedicated lane for public transport.
In Russia, the issue of tax incentives for eco-cars (in particular, duty-free import of electric vehicles) is only being discussed. However, it recently introduced the first domestic production electric car, El Lada. The Tolyatti auto giant has been developing electric vehicles since the 1970s. “Since that time, many interesting designs have been created that have been highly praised by experts, and electric versions of the Oka have repeatedly become winners and prize-winners of international ecorallies,” noted a representative of the plant. True, it’s only a stretch to call a Russian electric car domestic. The electric motor, inverter, electric heater and DC/DC unit (analogous to a generator) for El Lada were supplied by the Swiss company MES, the battery was Chinese, and the charger was Swiss.
However, other major Russian automakers are much more conservative. The GAZ group and KamAZ believe that electric vehicles have no prospects in the Russian market. Therefore, both Russian auto giants have focused their efforts on the development and implementation of gas-powered cars.
“In terms of price, the electric car belongs to the premium segment, but the consumer qualities do not correspond to the premium class. Judge for yourself: short mileage, limited range, lack of any infrastructure, battery recharging time,” noted a KamAZ representative. He added that at effective speed, most electric vehicles can travel up to 150 km, but in reality this distance is significantly reduced, especially in the urban cycle. In our country, the development of electric vehicles looks completely unrealistic due to the problem of using batteries at low temperatures, the GAZ group adds. “In addition, the Russian consumer is not ready to pay a significantly higher price for improving the environmental characteristics of a car. The same applies to cars running on biofuel. In conditions of large gas reserves, the development of this direction is unprofitable,” added the representative of the automaker.
The auto arms race continues
The struggle of the world's largest automakers is akin to a battle where the battlefield is the automobile market, the weapons are new technologies, and the trophies are the hearts and wallets of consumers.
In this regard, Russia has noticeably lagged behind leading countries in the last 20 years. On the one hand, it is a purely Russian mentality, on the other hand, the inertia of Russian officials, who are not particularly concerned about the problems of urban ecology and the domestic automobile industry. Another reason is the lack of a modern scientific and industrial base. Restoring previous positions requires significant investments, which Russian auto companies cannot afford. For comparison: Toyota in the 2012 financial year (from April 2011 to March 2012) invested 690 billion yen (about 285.6 billion rubles) in R&D. At the same time, funding for the innovative development program for 2011-2016. (the document is posted on the plant’s website) amounts to just over 13.5 billion rubles.
The situation with environmentally friendly transport in Russia can only change if the state gets involved, says Yuliy Kunin, director of the scientific center “Environmental Safety and Sustainable Development of Transport” at the Research Institute of Automobile Transport. To develop this area, there must be a serious interdepartmental project, or better yet, a federal target program for the transition to alternative fuels, he says. “At the same time, the development of electric vehicles makes sense only when the entire chain is built on environmentally friendly renewable energy sources. To generate electricity, it is necessary to use, for example, wind energy. Obtaining electricity from thermal power plants to charge electric vehicles is nonsense, since the total efficiency will be lower, than with conventional internal combustion engines. This is money down the drain,” says Yu. Kunin.
It is necessary to work on alternative fuel cars, but it is necessary to calculate in detail all the nuances and the scope of their application. However, while Russia lives off the export of oil and gas, there are few prospects for this direction in our country, the expert summarizes.
Alexander Volobuev, RBC
We are at the very beginnings of evolution (or revolution) in the auto industry: in 20-30 years, electric cars in developed countries will surpass gasoline cars, just as DVD once replaced VHS. And in some places (in Norway, for example) this is already happening right now.
On the one hand, this text is not quite in Zozhnik’s format, but on the other hand, it is about the improvement of the health of megacities, which will happen in our lifetime. We couldn't resist telling you about the inevitable future changes for the better.
In a civilized society, more and more people are taking personal responsibility not only for their health, but also for the environment - at a minimum, they do not throw garbage out of their cars and generally try to minimize their personal harm to the planet. There are quite a lot of such people in Europe or the USA. In general, such self-awareness goes hand in hand with education and prosperity.
In Silicon Valley, where there are hundreds of thousands of dollar millionaires, it is very difficult to see a Porsche Cayenne or BMW X6; drivers of such cars are considered “suckers.” But it is fashionable to drive a Tesla - a car that proves in practice that electric cars in the relatively near future will supplant their gasoline predecessors, just as DVD once supplanted VHS.
Analysis of mono- and stereotypes
But first, let’s figure out what Tesla is. This is important for those who know little about what company founder Elon Musk and Co. have achieved since the company's all-own Tesla Model S was first introduced in 2009.
Let's dispel stereotypes and give an idea about Tesla in the form of questions and answers.
Power reserve
The base Model S 60 (with a 60kWh battery) will travel 335 kilometers on a single charge, while the Model 85 and P85 have a range of 426 kilometers. This is less than gasoline cars, but quite enough for daily movement around the city. A longer distance can be covered in a day only by taxi or when traveling long distances, when you have to travel all day.
Speed and dynamics
The Model S 60 version accelerates to hundreds in 5.9 seconds, the P85 model in 4.2 seconds. The maximum speed is 193 and 210 km/h, respectively.
In this video, Tesla competes with the BMW M5 and wins:
Refueling/charging
Before starting active sales of Tesla, the company built a network of FREE gas (car charging) stations throughout the country so that Tesla owners could travel freely throughout the country. As of January, there were 65 of them in the United States. A similar strategy is in other markets.
This obelisk marks the Tesla free charging station:
In addition, you can charge the Tesla in your garage from a regular home outlet.
In 20 minutes you can recharge the 85th model halfway and get an additional 240 km of range; a 30-minute charge is enough for 320 km. If you're in a hurry, the robot will replace your battery with a fully charged one in 2 minutes and $80.
An important detail: electricity for charging at stations is taken from solar energy.
California, charging Tesla cars in the parking lot:
Cost of refueling/charging
Charging at the stations is absolutely free. Tesla owners may never have to pay for fuel again.
Charging from a home network to a full charge at Russian tariffs will cost less than 100 rubles.
UPD on charging: incredulous readers accused the assessment of the cost of charging from the home network of inaccuracy. Correcting:
The cost of charging a Model S in the USA is 19 rubles per 100 km of run (the calculation is based on the cost of 1 kW*h of electricity in California being 4 rubles), in Europe (with an average price per kW/h of 6.2 rubles) - 30 rubles per 100 km run.
Battery Warranty
The battery in the Model S 60 is guaranteed for 8 years and up to 200 thousand km, for higher-end models - 8 years without mileage limitation.
Price
The base Tesla Model S 60 costs $69,900 in the US, and the government will also compensate you for part of the amount for your commitment to environmental friendliness. The amount is different in different US states: in California, for example, you will get $2,500 from the budget, plus you will be given tax breaks. As a result, you will pay just over $65 thousand for a base in the USA. The top version “P85” with bonuses from the government will cost about $85 thousand. Still too expensive for mass consumption.
Base prices for 3 trim levels of Tesla Model X in the USA:
By the way, in Russia this year the duty on electric cars was abolished, so you can buy Teslas.
Sales of electric cars in the world
In general, an environmentally friendly, powerful, fast car, and even with free fuel, as well as moral and financial bonuses, is doomed to success. While this car has actively mastered the top segment, the company is wisely skimming the cream and moving to lower price segments.
Tesla Motors is preparing a model called BlueStar for now. It will be a car the size of an Audi A4 or Mercedes-Benz C-Class with a starting price of $30 thousand. Deliveries to customers are planned to begin in 2017. And then sales volumes will be completely different.
And the only drawback of the electric car is the range on one charge - they promise to increase it to 400 miles (640 km), and also begin to produce SUVs and minivans.
Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk unveils the Model X in Detroit in 2012:
But even now sales of electric cars are growing like mushrooms. In 2013, 22,477 Tesla Model S cars were sold, which is an excellent result for such an expensive car. Tesla quickly and confidently became number one in the top-end car segment, confidently overtaking the former leader Mercedes-Benz S-Class (13.3 thousand in 2013).
In 2013, Tesla Motors' revenue already amounted to about $2 billion. Compared to world leaders like Toyota ($216 billion) or GM ($156 billion), this is still not much, but the growth is fantastic: 5 times per year.
This year it is planned to sell 35 thousand Tesla cars. And, for example, in Norway there is real madness going on. This March, 11% of all new cars sold in the wealthy Scandinavian country were Tesla Model S, firmly taking the top spot in the market.
In Norway with a population of five million, the purchase of 70 Tesla cars was registered every day in March; the last time there was such a rush there was in 1986 with the Ford Sierra. The thing is that electric cars in Norway have a zero tax rate (usually 100% of the euro price), they are given the right to free parking and entry into the city, as well as the right to travel along public transport lanes. At the same time, charging the car (80% in half an hour) on the Tesla network is free, and the price of a premium car with a 60 kWh battery is slightly higher than that of the new Nissan Quashqai with a manual transmission and a 1.6 diesel engine.
When will electric cars replace gasoline cars?
In addition to Tesla itself, naturally, the most forward-thinking automakers are already working on electric cars, and soon absolutely everyone will be working on them. For example, more than 55 thousand Nissan Leaf electric cars have been sold.
In total, only a measly 400 thousand cars powered by electric motors with batteries have been sold in the world so far, of which Tesla’s share is not that large. For comparison: the total number of cars in the world has exceeded 1 billion. That is, electric cars now make up approximately 0.04% of the total number of cars.
This means that we are at the very beginning of a phenomenon that will obviously take over a market now filled with aging technology - the gasoline engine. Just a year ago there were 180 thousand electric cars, but at the end of 2011 only 45 thousand were sold.
The foresight on the development of electric vehicles until 2020 is published in this report. According to this study, in just 6 years, by 2020, there will be 50 times more electric cars on the world's roads than now - about 20 million (including hybrid cars), or 2% of the global volume of cars.
This will be facilitated by the rapid development of electric car manufacturing technologies, the pace of which is inaccessible to “gasoline” technologies.
Here, for example, is a forecast for reducing the cost of batteries for cars (dollars per kW/h):
How will this affect oil prices?
Today, about half of all oil produced is burned in car engines:
Think about what will happen to the price of oil while maintaining its production, when internal combustion engines begin to be massively replaced by electric motors that do not need oil?
We remind you that the process has just begun, and all the most interesting things will happen in the coming years.
It is obvious that in 20-30 years, countries whose economies are built on oil will have a hard time. And now we are not talking about the UAE: the share of oil and gas revenues has purposefully decreased and is now only 7%, but about Russia, where oil and gas revenues make up about a third of the state budget.
Healthy future
It is obvious that with the overwhelming majority of advantages, electric cars will be crushed by pathetic barriers in the form of: high prices, lack of a network of electric charging stations (depending on the region, in the USA or Norway there are already networks and their widespread appearance is only a matter of time), production that does not keep up with the growth in demand.
We believe that the next decades will inevitably be a triumph for the spread of electric cars throughout the world. And in the next 20-30 years, battery-powered cars will occupy a dominant position on the roads due to their low cost and environmental friendliness of use, which is two heads higher than gasoline technologies.
For example, this table shows the role of the transport system in reducing CO2 emissions:
We are confident that we will find modern cities full of cars with electric motors, in which it is good to breathe and you do not have to pay for gasoline.
In the meantime, if your car parks close to an outlet, you can buy yourself a Tesla right now. The full version of P85 is delivered to Russia to order for about 4.5-5 million rubles. But this is only a temporary phenomenon observed on the periphery.
Welcome to the future.
