Don't get me wrong.  There are two Tesla's in my neck of the woods, one white, one black.  They are suhWEEET!  If I had the jack, I'd seriously think about one, but my current wet dream is an Audi 8.

I'd be very happy with a 2013 Chevy Camaro, or a 2013 Dodge Challenger. 

Or a 1957 Chevy.

Well...we've wandered off-topic...but so has RND...

Every car I have ever owned FIRST gets one specific 'extra' - an extinguisher.  Best place for it is just infront of the driver's seat...on the floor - accessible in an instant.

Reason I do so is the 38 years in the Motor Racing game.  You get to see quite a few BBQs in that time.  Most recent one I saw [on telly] was Webber's Red Bull.  It fried itself quite well....thanks to somewhat 'tardy' response from the officials [Korea is relatively new to the game of F1 - frustrating thing is many of them were trained by us in the Aussie GP].

A great annecdote was in Adelaide when those yellow extinguishers were being universally outlawed [BCF] thanks to them affecting the ozone layer.  We were still allowed to use them - IF the situation was life threatening....so Ron Dennis told Senna to stay IN the car if it lit up...so the BCF would be used....instead of Dry Chem or Foam ...as both of those can ruin an engine requiring a full rebuild....

Well, I think I got enough opinions on charging.

I even watched the "charging" video on the Tesla site. Man, that's a car! Costs more than my house did!

http://www.teslamotors.com/models/walkthrough

Of course...it's just one-of-those-things that the 'outlawed' extinguisher would probably be the BEST one to use on a Tesla fire.  It's 100% inert [you can breathe it [but not too long! -it's an oxygen displacer] and non-conductive...

Plannin' on takin' in the Ron Howard flick on Lauda?  "Rush" I believe it is.  Sure it wouldn't hold up to your actual experience, just wonderin'.

Definitely.  It's being lauded [no pun] as being excellent...

'The Rat' would have been one to benefit from speedier fire-response too...

I'm pretty sure that is snark, but I will take it at face value. So, of course they didn't. And if you drop a Tesla it won't start on fire either. The NHTSA crash tested the Model S just like any other car. No fires. And in fact top scores for safety. Check out those videos too!

As for the Audi A8, that's a fine car as are most Audi vehicles. My previous two cars were an A4 and an A6 and I was planning on buying a diesel powered A7 when they were released in the US until the Model S convinced me otherwise. Having now driven both I am quite happy with my decision!

@Jafo... I am not sure if that would be best for a Li-ion battery or not but from your description I don't see why it wouldn't work quite well. The trouble with any battery fire is that you have a potential runaway situation. Too much heat leads to fire which leads to more heat which leads to more fire as the battery cells "cascade" in failure. That's why the Tesla pack is designed in discrete cells that are isolated from one another and thermally managed. That design worked in this fire. The management system noted a thermal problem and told the driver to stop. Once the runaway led to a battery fire, that fire was contained to the single cell (out of 16 in the pack)! Pretty impressive when you consider the fire was caused by running over a curved steel object that impacted with enough force into the bottom of the vehicle to penetrate the 1/4 inch thick steel exterior of the pack. Would be interesting to see what would happen if the same thing happened to a gas tank. Yikes!

Since we are talking cars (I love it ), I like the Nissan Leaf Electric, but I am worried about range...I would love to know that I can charge as I drive. But I definitely want it's big brother...the Nissan GTR. I totally love that car. I also love the Audi RS5, which is a beautiful car, but the power and tech of the GTR is more alluring than a Siren to me .

It was a tad snark, xinh2, but the Tesla going toast was blamed on it running over something in the road, something metal allegedly.

flagyl -

The company in Phoenix which was to install and service charging stations for EV's went belly up last week.  At least in a place as spread out as greater Phoenix (some of my regular sojourns are 80-100 miles round trip without ever 'leaving town'), all-electric vehicles are almost all second vehicles.  Not that that's a bad thing.

Yes...the infrastructure for electric cars would alleviate many of the concerns of owning one (after the cost of batteries comes down, of course). My other concern is recharging. You can fill your tank in ~5  minutes...I don't know how long it takes for rapid chargers to re-energize a battery, but I doubt it is five minutes.

That said, I am glad that someone is thinking about such things. It is a great idea. Hopefully the next company to try will be able to succeed.

Daiwa, if you read my reply above to Jafo you'll see more explanation about the accident. Not only did the Tesla run over something, that something was a curved piece of metal that acted as a lever with so much force it was able to penetrate a 1/4 inch thick steel barrier that encases the battery pack. Imagine the same item penetrating a gas tank!

Charging infrastructure is an issue for electric vehicles. More for "city cars" like the Leaf than the 250+ mile range Model S, however. Our Tesla is our primary vehicle. We've gone on multi-day road trips using the Tesla supercharger network (free!) and I drive 60-90 miles a day commuting.

Flagyl, our Model S with a 250+ mile range will charge in about 10 hours from empty to full at our home (using a 220 volt 50 amp circuit.) At the Tesla superchargers it takes less than an hour to go from empty to 80% charge. On our road trip we stopped at the Supercharger, plugged in, grabbed some lunch and when we were done we unplugged and drove on with a full "tank" of electrons. The infrastructure isn't all there yet, but then at the turn of the 20th century there was a lot LESS infrastructure for gas vehicles than there is today for electric. After all, the entire country is already electrified.

Anyway, I am sounding a bit like a zealot and I really am not. Everyone has different needs in vehicles, different wants, and different expectations. I personally could not stand driving an SUV but lots of people love them. To each their own!

Opinions On Charging.....

If you ask me, I'd say only buy what you can afford to pay cash for. Those interest rates are murder!

Funny guy....

How about all those who didn't want the Tesla to succeed. Texas comes to mind as they want to ban it from their state. I wonder why.

And people wonder why Detroit is bankrupt....

I must confess to a certain degree of jealousy here.  But even if I could afford one, I doubt it's net carbon footprint is less than that of an ICE vehicle, given current means of generating electricity.  Those superchargers may be 'free!' to you the owner, but they are getting paid for by somebody.  Is it a deal like 'first 2 years of OnStar free with purchase' or some other arrangement?  I'm getting at whether as a taxpayer I'm entitled to come over and borrow the T occasionally since I'm footin' some of the charging bill.

On a side note, haven't read up on it enough to know where things stand, but is a 'Yucca Mountain' sort of dilemma going to face us if/when we're mostly EV's & having to dispose of all those batteries?

Daiwa, that is a very good question. The answer is that Tesla pays for the electricity at supercharging stations for the life of the Model S. However, you must have purchased the supercharging capability in your car (standard in all 85 kwh Model S like mine, optional on 60 kwh versions.) So, essentially you are paying a fixed amount up front to be able to use the superchargers as much as you want, whenever you want for the life of the car. Not for as long as you own it now, for the life of the car. Subsequent owners could you use them too. As a taxpayer you aren't paying a thing for this. Now, I could lose out on my free long trip refueling if Tesla went bankrupt, but I am willing to risk it And if you are ever in my neck of the woods (Wine Country California) I'd be happy to give you a ride in our Tesla as a taxpayer bonus. You are making out like a bandit!

There are a lot of misconceptions about carbon footprint as it relates to electric cars. The reality is they can be either "a bit better" than a traditional car over their lifetime to unbelievably better over their lifetime depending on how the electricity you use gets generated as you suggest.

Consider that the Model S is rated at 89 mpge. That means if you look at energy is used to generate the electricity and how much electricity the car uses, it nets out to about the same as a car that gets 89 mpg. Already that's pretty amazing considering this is a a BIG, fast sports sedan, not an econobox!

So even if you are using dirty power generation it is fairly clean compared to most gas or diesel cars. How much cleaner depends on where you live. The worst area in the US is West Virginia (they burn coal for all their power more or less) and the best in the US is, I think, New Hampshire (mostly nuclear power there.) Then again, if like our family you have solar installed to more than take care of the yearly electric use of the vehicle the net operating carbon footprint is zero! Hard to beat that from a CO2 standpoint.

As to disposal... probably not an issue there. The battery packs can be re-purposed for grid storage once the car is no longer viable and Lithium ion cells can be recycled.

Glad the battery issue is moot.

May I ask what they charge for that unlimited electricity usage?

One would obviously pay for the electricity used to charge it overnight at one's home (ignore the solar array - most of us are not net power producers).  Do you have the car on a separate meter to track its electricity consumption?

Hard for me to get my arms around the notion of the car getting the equivalent of ~90mpg.

The option on the 60 kwh cars is $2000.

We don't have a separate meter, but the car reports energy used over time on a trip meter. Our car has averaged 315 wh/mile over 7000+ miles since we got it. There are some losses when charging of around 10% so call it 350 wh/mile driven. That's nearly 3 miles per kwh. The average electric rate for a kwh of electricity in the US is $0.12 if I remember right. So around $0.04 per mile or about a third that of a 30 mpg car at $4.00 per gallon! Even at extreme tiered rates like we have in California (where if you use a lot of electricity they hammer you for $0.32 per kwh above a certain usage) the cost per mile is $0.14 or only slightly more than a 30 mpg car.

The reason is just in how efficient an electric motor is compared to internal combustion. You don't waste all that energy in making heat for starters. And the regenerative braking really adds to the efficiency as well.