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Forum » Electric Sports Car Forums » Tesla Roadster and Venturi Sports EV

Efficiency of the Tesla Roadster

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Written on: 02. 01. 08 [00:14]
ecoadmin Administrator Topic creator registered since: 20.07.2007 Posts: 387	There is no doubt, the Tesla Roadster is a very efficient vehicle compared to other sportscars. I tried to find out what its energy consumption is and how the consumption compares with other cars. Tesla states that the car has an efficiency of 135mpg (US). Thats 1.74lt/100km or 162 UK mpg. Pretty good I thought! This however relates only to the station-to-wheel efficiency. When looking at the full-cycle energy-equivalency of gasoline with electricity from the USA grid, that figure increases to 49 mpg (U.S.) (4.77 l/100 km). So if the electrical energy is mainly produced burning fossil fuel (and thats the case in the US), then the car is not as green as one might think. But to be fair, 49mpg is still a quite impressive figure for a sportscar like the Tesla Roadster and the Tesla engineers deserve our respect... NB: The average American car has a full-cycle energy-equivalent of 23.2 mpg (U.S.) (10.1 l/100 km). ecocarforum.com - Green Car Network Community for sustainable transport
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Written on: 07. 01. 08 [18:10]
Franko30 Moderator registered since: 08.09.2007 Posts: 65	ecoadmin wrote: When looking at the full-cycle energy-equivalency of gasoline with electricity from the USA grid, that figure increases to 49 mpg (U.S.) (4.77 l/100 km). Hi ecoadmin, how did you calculate that? And what's the assumption on the percentages of gas, oil, coal etc. used in the production of electricity in the US? Thanks Frank TW 808 / 20 AH LiIon-Akkus seit 03/2008 / Höchste Reichweite bisher: 140 km. Verbrauch 6,3 kWh/100 km (372 US-miles per Gallon)
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Written on: 08. 01. 08 [12:56]
ecoadmin Administrator Topic creator registered since: 20.07.2007 Posts: 387	Hello Frank, The figure of 49 mpg - 4.77lt/100km is from the wikipedia Tesla Roadster page. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_roadster I know, one has to be careful when using wikipedia as a info source, buts thats all I could find. Wikipedia goes on to say that when using a newer power plant station to produce the elecricity the value drops: To compare the full-cycle energy-equivalency of gasoline with electricity generated by newer, 58% efficiency CCGT power plants,[26] the factor of 21,763 Wh/gal[25] in the above equation yields a fuel efficiency of 87 mpg (U.S.) (2.70 l/100 km). How moch oil, gas or coal is used in the US can be seen on this link: http://earthtrends.wri.org/text/energy-resources/country-profile-190.html What it does not say is, how much is of the various fossil fuels is used to produce the electricity. Another source is here the CIA - Worldfactbook: Electricity - production by source: fossil fuel: 71.4% hydro: 5.6% nuclear: 20.7% other: 2.3% (2001) https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/us.html ecocarforum.com - Green Car Network Community for sustainable transport
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Written on: 31. 05. 08 [16:50]
Lensman registered since: 31.05.2008 Posts: 81	Throwing out a figure of "49 MPG" isn't very meaningful unless it's compared to other cars. Tesla Motors' website claims a well-to-wheel efficiency twice as good as the Honda Civic VX. http://www.teslamotors.com/efficiency/well_to_wheel.php Now admittedly they've chosen the numbers most favorable to themselves, but still it seems fairly certain the Tesla Roadster, which is optimized for extreme efficiency, is appreciably more efficient in energy usage than, say, the Honda Insight (parallel hybrid) driven by a friend of mine. He averages, I think, nearly 50 MPG, and the Tesla Roadster is undoubtedly much more efficient than that. Ultimately, from the standpoint of powering an electric car, it doesn't really matter how efficient or inefficient is the process of producing electric power, unless the electric car is actually *less* efficient than gassers (gas-powered cars) are. And I don't think anyone is claiming that. This thread seems to be along the lines of the same old tired argument that "An electric car is only half the solution, and therefore worthless." No, that is wrong. Half the solution isn't worthless-- it is, in fact, half the solution. The other half would be producing electric power with non-polluting, renewable resources, such as nuclear, solar, nuclear, wind, nuclear, tidal, nuclear, geothermal, and of course nuclear power-- which is, at the moment, the only *practical* form of non-polluting power generation for areas where hydroelecric power isn't available.
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