Tesla Motors' Martin Eberhard: "We need to stop using oil altogether"
Looks like Tesla Motors chief Martin Eberhard has got fighting words for all you hybrid fans out there. Eberhard was nothing but nice to me at the unveiling of the Tesla Roadster in July, but maybe that's because I didn't show up in a Prius. Eberhard told hybrid owners (via the New York Times) that, "You can drive around and feel smug in a hybrid car. But you're still burning oil, dude. If we want to become independent of countries that hate us, we need to stop using oil altogether."
I agree that driving a Tesla Roadster instead of an ICE car will reduce your oil use. But let's not let all these green technology company execs (Eberhard was once CEO of Nuovomedia) sidestep the point that electronics often eat up oil too, in production (plastics) and use (energy creation).
[Source: New York Times]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Cthulhugus 12:54AM (10/23/2006)
While electronic do eat a small amount in being made oil is not a source of most the United States domestic eletric energy supply. So an all eletric car would seriously reduce the amount of oil the U.S. imports.
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Harry Myhre 8:12PM (10/22/2006)
why is the tessla car so expensive?
make one that's affordable by everyone and maybe we can get closer to that goal of no foreign oil.
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Howard Lee Harkness 8:50PM (10/22/2006)
A diesel/electric hybrid such as the Aptera (using biodiesel) also burns none of the imported oil from people that hate us.
Don't have anything against the Tesla, but Eberhard is overstating his case.
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George Krpan 8:57PM (10/22/2006)
Of course he means burning oil directly in a internal combustion engined car. He didn't mean to imply that driving an all electric car doesn't cause oil to be burned in the generation of electricity.
It's a good thing that we've had cheap oil for so long. It has given some people enough of an economic advantage to buy a Tesla.
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Wael 10:29PM (10/22/2006)
I am so tired of this "countries that hate us" vernacular...really! Shouldn't driving a car that doesn't burn fossil fuel be more about what's good for the environment and the future of our children and even saving money rather than this ridiculous "us versus them" mentality? FYI Mr. Eberhard, it's that kind of hateful thinking that is causing most of the horror that's going on in the world today.
Talk about having a limited prospective.
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Tony Belding 6:06AM (10/23/2006)
Wael, I see things from just the opposite perspective. I'm still skeptical about the whole "global warming apocalypse" scenario that the press has become so worked up over. It's hard to prove one way or the other, and we probably won't know for sure until decades from now. However. . . Global oil depletion (or peak oil) looks pretty compelling, and America's dependence on foreign oil is a tangible and pressing problem right now. I don't see anything "hateful" about working to solve a tangible and pressing problem.
As for the whole "us versus them" mentality. . . That's really driven by foreign oil dependence, isn't it? People like Martin Eberhard aren't the cause of that, they're trying to get us out of it.
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Glenn 9:51AM (10/23/2006)
He is right - for the long term - but inbetween then and now, we need "bridges".
Unless he'd like to introduce the Tesla Familia electric (family car) for $22,000 which goes 0-60 in 10 seconds, tops out above 105 mph, seats five, has a trunk/hatch large enough to carry a snow blower or a 27" HDTV, like my Prius, and which I can recharge in 5 minutes at thousands of stations throughout the country.
In the meanwhile, we need a government of true leaders (not the dumbos in the two major parties, obviously) who can take a look at the situation and put our country on a war-time footing for change.
Like some suggestions such as these, for a start.
Butanol instead of ethanol. Look at www.butanol.com
Reusing garbage, offal and sewage and making oil (NOT digging more oil out from under ground, adding to the carbon already in place). Look at www.changingworldtech.com
Both of these ideas are Amerian ideas.
Finally, how about vertical shaft low speed wind generators on every home?
Click here for a visual demonstration. Again, another American inventor.
http://www.fuellessflight.com/video/28%20foot%20by%2014%20foot%20finished%20wind%20turbine.wmv
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JP 9:01PM (10/23/2006)
So if everybody drove an electric car, where exactly does all that extra electricity come from???
Oil & Coal. Fossil fuels. There is no escape.
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Wael 2:35PM (10/23/2006)
I was specifically referring to the "Countries that hate us" comment. Of course, it's better if we are not dependent on other countries for something as vital as energy. I am sure in countries with high oil production, they are very happy that they don't have to import oil from us (In some of those places gas is somewhere around 50 cents a gallon or less) but to make the whole concept be about hate as opposed to a business transaction is just silly. Also, if we went by countries where some of the poulation happens to "hate us", we can pretty much rule out most of Europe as a trading partner. But Many of these countries are allies and the fact that oil is expensive is something that is dictated by the market and has nothing to do with love or hate. After all, oil tends to be sold to everyone who buys it at the same price. Unless of course what he meant was that if they truely loved us, they would just give it to us for free? No, All that Mr. Eberhard is doing is using the emotional angle to get people to buy his overpriced car. Instead of talking specifics. And my point is that I am not buying an electric car so that I can stick it to The Saudi's (Side bar: We import the largest percentage of our oil from Canada) If I ever had to buy one, I would do it so that I can save money at the pump and do my part in reducing pollution.
As for your skepticism about global warming, you are entitled to believe what you wish. There are ample studies that support it's dangers. I too don't think it's like The Day After tomorrow (And for that matter neither do the environmentalists) But even if you don't believe it, I don't think you could deny that fuel emissions are toxic. So forget those pesky polar bears, but pollution is pollution and we should be trying to reduce it or get rid of it all together.
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loikll 4:10PM (10/23/2006)
It's a weird point in a lot of ways. For one thing, it seems the Kuwaitis like us more than Canadians do, so who should we import the most oil from?
More to the point, there are some 230 MILLION cars on the roads in the US, & only about 17 million new ones sold per year -- and Tesla itself has lined up only 100 buyers. You could invent the perfect electric car tomorrow and we're still 100 years away from it being ubiquitous.
So really, what's even the point of talking like that? We WILL be using oil for a long long time to come, no matter what.
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CG 11:04PM (10/26/2006)
Mr. Eberhard, dude if I may, you'd better watch who you're deriding. Today's Prius drivers are tomorrow's Telsa drivers (assuming you don't insult them out of your dealership). Sure you can be a smug Silicon Valley mogul, producing a car that's affordable to nearly no one, but insulting the customer base that is more likely to consider environmental issues in their next auto purchase is still bad business. You'd better stay quite or get your 'familiy sedan' produced while the market is empty. Otherwise, your going to find your PR skills working for the competiton. And the will be competition.
Man, my respect for Tesla Motors just plumetted.
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Roger Pfeiffer 3:56PM (10/26/2006)
Alternative fuels for an automobile are certainly becoming increasingly important as time goes on. Eventually, we are bound to run out of fossil fuel on this planet, as there is a finite amount to pump from underground. Additionally, the rate at which we use it up will be increasing, especially since China is just beginning its rapid expansion in the use of cars. Also, the way things have been going in recent years, the carbon dioxide released from burning fossil fuel, fuel that has been buried for millions of years underground, is causing “the greenhouse effect” to be of major concern because of the global warming it causes. Clearly, the polar ice caps are melting at an increasingly alarming rate, and not as much of the water is re-freezing in the “winter months” (depending on the pole). If we don’t do something about it soon, like within about 20 years, we will find our cities on the coasts buried under water. Also, as I understand it, the warming of the oceans will cause quite dramatic shifts in weather patterns, meaning more hurricanes and stormy weather. I’m not writing this for the purpose of extolling gloom and doom, but rather to point out that we human beings in the near future need to be altering our ways of burning such large amounts of fossil fuel. We need to ramp-up the development of new technology and methods to power our cars and to be less reliant on cars in general. Of course public transportation helps, but we need to develop the technology and efficiency of using alternative sources of energy soon. In my opinion, ethanol is an important component of the bridge needed to get us to the use of hydrogen cells, and beyond, to power our vehicles. The beauty of burning ethanol, being that it comes from the fermentation of vegetative sources such as corn, wood pulp, and many other plant sources, in effect recycles the carbon dioxide present in our atmosphere. Plants use it to grow in the process of photosynthesis. Brazil uses almost exclusively ethanol that is derived from sugarcane grown there.
Here in the U.S. and elsewhere, the auto makers are producing more and more cars that will run on “E85” fuel, composed of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline. Gasohol (10% ethanol) has been a good start, but E85 is even better in my opinion. Vehicles that will run on either gasoline or E85 are called “flex-fuel vehicles” (FFVs). In the latest issue of the leading consumer magazine is a front-page article about what they deem, “the ethanol myth”. They came to the conclusion that it is disadvantageous to run a FFV vehicle on E85 fuel instead of gasoline. Both the fuel economy and acceleration of the 2007 SUV tested dropped when running on E85 compared with gasoline.
From this, it seems apparent to me that the U.S. needs to catch up to Sweden, General Motor's Saab in particular. Running on E85, the Saab 9-5 "BioPower" Turbo model delivers a significant 20 percent increase in maximum power and 16 percent more torque while emitting 80% less CO2 into the environment compared to running it on gasoline. Running E85 compared to gasoline takes about a second off the 0-60 mph time, and there is a 15 percent gain in fuel economy on the open road where fuel-enrichment for engine cooling is no longer necessary when a vehicle is run on ethanol. The 9-5 BioPower has taken the Swedish market by storm this year, outselling its full-year 2006 sales target in just four months. Sweden has a long cultural and political tradition of respect for the environment, and this is reflected in Saab's achievements of the pioneering of asbestos-free brake linings and the removal of CFCs from air conditioning systems, and now Saab’s Trionic 7 BioPower engines. I remember back in 1973, when the oil embargo hit and additional "smog control" devices (i.e., the EGR valve and air pump) were required on new cars, their performance declined significantly. Many people at the time, including mechanics and engineers, thought the performance and efficiency of cars had been dealt a lethal blow. This is when I bought my first Saab, a 99 EMS. Saab, with the development of the "lambda sond" oxygen sensor (keeps the correct stoichiometric ratio of 14.5 to 1 in the air-fuel mixture) in 1976 along with electronic fuel injection, required no such smog control devices. It was the beginning of electronics-to-the-rescue for car performance. This technology, along with concern for safety and functionality, enamored me with the cars. I was impressed that they did this because they wanted to, as opposed to doing it because they had to. Seemingly at odds with one another, performance and fuel economy were blended together in a practical and distinctive car.
So here we are, forty years later, and Saab is still leading the way in emissions and performance technology. All Saabs are turbocharged and have direct ignition, and the engine’s combustion process is very precisely controlled by a powerful 32-bit microprocessor controlled system called, "Trionic 7". This unit monitors the combustion process in each cylinder a million times per second for optimum efficiency. It precisely regulates the fuel-air mixture in each cylinder, the ignition timing, and the amount of turbo boost pressure allowed. And(!), very significantly, it automatically adjusts itself to any proportion of gasoline and ethanol.
How does Saab achieve higher performance using E85 compared to gasoline, you might ask? It stems from the octane rating of E85 being about 10% higher than that of gasoline. The Trionic system thus allows more advanced ignition timing, a higher compression ratio, and a higher turbo boost pressure, all of which increase the performance and efficiency of the engine.
There are two driving forces behind the adoption of a renewable and sustainable fuel such as “bioethanol” E85: The environmental need to combat climate change from the greenhouse effect and the strategic need to overcome dependency on oil, a finite resource for which global demand will exceed supply, not to mention the world tensions related to it’s procurement. Sweden plans on being free of dependency on oil by the year 2020. Let's hope that the same will be true of the U.S. It appears to me that General Motors, especially with Saab’s traditional engine know-how, is leading the way.
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Brian 7:17PM (12/03/2006)
Wow, such negativity.
I think Tesla is taking exactly the right approach. Electric vehicles are the most promising direction for eliminating oil use for personal transportation. Bio-fuels have poor EROI numbers and displace food production.
It is smart for them to overthrow the perception of electric vehicles as sluggish, underpowered, and ugly with their premier model.
Although I agree with #7 for most of what he says, I think all of the features of the Prius he cites could be reproduced by Tesla in a later model, with the exception of the five minute recharge, but I don't see that as much of a limitation.
For the vast majority of drivers, a two hundred and fifty mile range would be sufficient. Keep in mind that you leave home every morning with a full tank.
Also, I think the established infrastructure could be adapted to plug in electric vehicles far more easily than creating a hydrogen fueling infrastructure. Imagine charging stations at retail outlet parking stalls that automatically bill a car when it is plugged in.
Most significantly, electricity can be produced without fossil fuel inputs, beyond the manufacture of the mechanisms. I've already read one account of a person calculating his annual power needs for fueling a Tesla, and the PV panels necessary to produce it. When amortized, the cost of the PV install was less than he currently pays for gasoline. That is the exciting prospect that plug in electrics represent for me, the ability to fuel it entirely from renewable sources.
Kudos to Tesla. Keep up the good work. I hope you guys engineer brilliant success.
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CM 9:32PM (12/03/2006)
So what does Mr. Eberhard expect? Tesla Roadsters won't be in buyers hands until next summer, what does he think they will all be driving until then? I don't think he would prefer us "hybrid drivers" to drive Hummers - or anything else less fuel efficient. And his customers are not they type to "not drive".
When I got a Prius in 2003, there were no practical electrics available. Period. The Prius was the best option, so I took it.
I certainly cannot afford to replace a perfectly good Prius with the Tesla Roadster at 4 times the Prius price. Sometime in the future I'll drive electric, if an affordable electric with good range and reasonable performance arrives on the market.
Be patient. We will eventually wean ourselves off of fossile fuels, but it will take decades.
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E.L Twitty 4:26PM (6/13/2007)
The trouble is the eV has great potential and can be practical for every day travel, but consumers do not want to pay an arm and a leg for such a vehicle. They also do not want the drama of having the thought of how far they can go. Is there going to be a charging unit at the end point of the destination, or in between? The stop and go pressures of every day travels puts a damper on the cells ratio to travel distant. But I due have a solution. The practical way of using cells for a vehicle is like a remote control car. The faster and longer it goes the quicker the cells juice is diminished. Now the car needs a recharging. The car can't go anywhere and the fun stops. The mechanics for the electric vehicle is based off of old technology from battery powered toys. I have a working system that is 90% complete and what it supposes to do it actually does. I have taken that old fashioned way and gave it a heart, vines, ateries and lungs. It is called Sress and the meaning behind the name is self explanatory. My system can allow an eV to go the distant 30 times as long as the tesla boxer. The boxer goes what about 250-300 mile at any given speed I believe. Kudos. My system is made to go thousands of miles with out the hindrance of a recharging booth ever!!!!! The speed the eV go has no effect on the discharging of the cells. The cells have one constant drain load that’s it. This is 22nd century tech. Imagine vehicles flying for month at a time. Vacations traveling the skies. Air ships camping out in a designated air space. Gas and oil will not be important any more in transportation of any kind. This means saving money. I have the blue book for such an impossible future. Believe me!
Please feel free to contact me via e-mail or cell for demo and questions about the sress system. 248-252-2670. it’s not a dream or just on a cad programs it real. Serious enquires only. Thank you.
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