Tesla Model X

[Lancer1993]

Now this is an SUV I'd love to own.

0-100 in less than 4sec, wow!
https://www.teslamotors.com/en_AU/modelx

[burfadel]

It would be good until you get stuck somewhere without power. Only really useful for city driving, and you can't really go for a road trip in it . Interesting aspect of electric and super fuel efficient vehicles is the fuel tax. There is considerable tax revenue from fuel tax. Not all of this goes back into roads, it goes into paying for things like welfare, hospitals etc. If the revenue stream is reduced, these areas would have to be cut or revenue found from elsewhere. Currently though, most of it is going towards paying the governments interest bill on the debt accrued from 2007 -->, despite at the time getting record revenue due to the mining boom.

Politics aside, they may have to introduce a distance tax, or some other thing. Filling an upwards to $10 billion+ revenue loss is quite a big ting. Sure, owners of electric and super efficient cars, and intended owners, will likely to complain and whinge, but they would be the same people who would whinge in cuts elsewhere as a result of the funding shortfall. Maybe it would be a requirement of registration that the odometer is read once a year. The excise on fuel has been 38.1 cents/litre a long time. Indexing of the fuel excise based on inflation was cut under the Howard government, fuel would probably be 12 cents/litre more now if it hadn't. Anyways, if the average car uses 9 L/100 km combined cycle, that's $3.43/100 km excise. Of course then there's also GST which goes to the stats. So, if fuel is $1.20 overall, that's 12 cents going back to the states. States won't want to be missing out on that revenue either, so they would probably give say, 24 percent of this tax back to the states, since that's the percentage of the taxed component that the GST makes.

So, 9 L/100 km gives $4.50 of tax, before any indexing that may be applied. So, the distance tax in this sense would start out at 4.5 cents/km. If the person drives 15,000 km/year, that's $675 tax they'd have to pay. Not sure how the payment situation would work in that case, but that's about what they'd need to be paying to make up the impending shortfall. This would have to apply to all road users to be fair though, as long as the fuel tax was abolished. Of course some would make out this tax is like the sky was falling, but if the revenue isn't gained from fuel it would have to be gained from elsewhere.

The other alternative is just not dropping personal income taxes. Increasing the GST wouldn't work since that money goes to the states, and the largest proportion of the fuel tax deficit is federal tax.

So, any ideas to make up a combined state/federal shortfall of around $13 billion with electric cars? It is a little relevant to this discussion .

[Lancer1993]

I agree about the distance thing, the Tesla cars are perfect around town and on short trips less than 400km per day. This is where the likes of hybrids and alternate fuels like hydrogen, where you can fuel up in minutes just like we do know.

The Tesla has come a long way in a short time and are now one of the first to offer true cruise control where the car does all the work on motorways. But they are not cheap, for around the same money you can get a top Audi, BMW or Merc wagon, the perfect family road trip car IMO.

[Speedie]

wait for the model 3

[Braydoz]

wait for the model 3

Couple weeks later & the wait's over
Any thoughts on the Model 3. It's 40K-ish in the states so with the rubbish AUD and imports blah blah blah, we'll most likely be looking at 60K.
The car looks good, very much like the Model S. Thoughts?
http://goo.gl/SHd1lS
At the moment, the refuel time is the only real limitation. But battery technology will of course improve as electric cars become more common and demand increases. it's all very exciting!
But by the time electric cars are commonplace in 5-10 years time, I should be well under way building my lovely, gas guzzling 500kw EVO

You make a good point about alternate fuels, Lancer1993.
I love the idea of Hydrogen powered vehicles. We can find a way to harvest it from water and as if we're ever going t run out of that.
Besides it's hydrogen, once used it goes back into the atmosphere, get's mixed around a bit with a big old spoon (yes that's the exact science) and is put back into the ecosystem to be reused.

The only thing stopping these things at the moment is the greedy oil companies monopolising everything and making it impossible for any other fuel sources to get a foothold.
I can't wait to see their faces when they're out of oil, bankrupt and sleeping in the back of an old (electric) van

[Skrallex]

I cant wait to see their faces when theyre out of oil, bankrupt and sleeping in the back of an old (electric) van

I'm sure they've made enough money to live out a few hundred lifetimes before going bankrupt

[Zaphod]

The advantage of using hydrogen is that the fuel delivery and storage infrastructure is already there (it can be transported, handled & stored in a similar manner to LPG).

The beauty is that if the site is big enough, you can make the hydrogen on-site from (sufficiently filtered) water straight from the existing water supply!

Power this from renewables, and voila! happy days - low-impact motoring, with no shortage of refuelling locations...

[Mooman]

The thing about that model X is the gull wing rear doors. I heard that they take along time to open (powered) and due to way they open are useless in car parks, all good features for a car stuck in urban environments.

What ever happened to steam? It was the way of progress and would be funny to have a steam powered car.

[bunnishiwa]

Re the doors on the X

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5B-411YQ7Do


Hydrogen will be the way of the future, and that would also cover the tax revenue for our governments to [s]waste[/s] spend on essential services that we cannot do without

[Lancer1993]

The issue I have the the gull wing doors are the extra weight, no matter what they are made of they must weigh more than 'normal' doors made of the same materials and I thought the point of an electric car was to cut down on weight so the battery lasts longer?

I think the Tesla range is a good step, showing the big boys that commercial electric cars do work and people will buy them. Hybrid cars like the Prius and many that have followed are all but useless, many in the real world getting no better range or mileage then similar cars and still costing much more.

Hydrogen is probably the best shot in the long run, right now the biggest issue being the fuel it's self. Which I understand is harder to make/produce than petrol, but the infrastructure is in place as is the distribution points and fueling up takes no longer then it does for petrol.