An All-Electric Porsche?
 

Where would this fit in our battle of Turbo's vs. NAs?

A Tesla fighter from Porsche? | Canoe

Probably going to happen someday (despite my dismay). But not while gas is less than $3/gallon.

No reason to not just shove an engine under there too. Even if it's small like the i8s 3 cylinder. Let's get the lmp1 v4 in a supped up panamera e-hybrid!

Used to get upset about Porsche making SUV's but I'm over it. Electric, whatever as long as the exhaust note sounds great.

I think the full horror of the running costs of hybrid and battery powered vehicles is yet to surface because they're all so new.

I'm sure most people have experienced how pathetic the battery life gets on their mobile phone after a couple of years. Who's going to enjoy the cost taking their car in for it's 60K battery replacement service?

I wouldn't touch any of these cars, and I can only imagine how unpopular they'll be as second hand buys once they get a few years old and make their way down the food chain.

Who knows what the future holds when it comes to R/D. What you are scared of now, people where scared of way back when when it came to what we have today. TImes change, technology improves, many parts become dramatically cheaper (heck, look at big screen tvs). The Prius has been out for some time and it sells quite well in resale. Batteries are expensive....but will quickly drop in price as technology and more demand (and therefore, a most likely drop in production costs) continue. When you can save a thousand or two in gas over the course of a year.....the batteries ain't so expensive anymore.

Personally I'm not scared of this technology, I just think it's essentially a complicated sticking plaster solution to what is basically non problem.

Batteries are always going to be less efficient than an engine that burns fuel directly. Until a car can run completely on recovered energy :) they're not really doing very much apart from increasing the cost of manufacture, and using up rare earth metals at a rate of knots.

Now that oil fracking is here, there is not likely to be an immediate shortage of oil, and as for global warming, ha!

You are right about technology moving on, and long term I expect Fusion Power to come along, which will make an alternative fuel to petrol (when needed) possible to synthesise, or maybe the hydrogen storage problem will be solved, who knows. Either way, all this investment in batteries and renewables is just dead money IMHO.

Why not? The Tesla was the safest car ever tested. Families are a big target for the Pana and Cayene. And Tesla owners are wild about them.
On the performance side, the 918 obliterated the production car record in large part because of E-power.
On the tech side, the typical Porsche buyer (in the U.S. at least) is equal parts educated and wealthy with a great interest in engineering and science... and gadgetry. If a small start up like Tesla can now sell as many Model S cars as Porsche sold cars in NA during 2009 economic crisis, then surely Porsche can whip up something great too.

p.s.
The cost of battery replacement will fall dramatically in the near term. The capacity is increasing quickly, the size of the batteries themselves are shrinking and intense competition in the market from Asia will commoditize prices just like GPS devices, digital cameras and smartphones. You'll be able to buy a spare electric car battery for peanuts before you know it.

+1 Amen brother, totally agree.

Yeah, for some reason it doesn't always work out that way. I'd say the jury is still out on EV's.

http://i1114.photobucket.com/albums/...ps870dd2e3.jpg

PL, not sure what TechBuzz Magazines you are reading but when that almost-free energy days will come you and I both will for sure be driving turbo 'wheelchairs'. You could be right but it doesn't look as promising as you are describing (peanuts lolll). I say fusion energy will come way before you get your battery pack for cheap - but then at that point of life what's mine is also yours mate so who will care lol

Can't wait until automakers finds the tech to effectively travel light years, that'd catch my attention. Batteries pfff... still needs a great deal to recharge doesn't it. Useless, we're doomed lolll

^ it will be that quick. Tesla decided to break from the herd and offer a different solution in packaging the batteries by skipping the large format li-ion packs that were so expensive in previous "green" cars and instead pack together thousands of small batteries much like in your gadgets and cellphones. If you're someone who has been buying these batteries over the years you've seen a real sea change in how cheap these batteries are now and how much better they are. For instance I carry eight 3,200 mAh aftermarket batteries for my Samsung phone in my laptop bag, I don't really plug the phone into the wall anymore, I have full use of the phone at all times by simply swapping in one of my spares whenever the battery gets down to 15%. Despite being able to last about a day or day and half, each of those 3,200 mAh spares are only the width of three credit cards. The manufacturers see plenty of demand and the intense competition for that business has driven down the costs to the point where each battery runs about $8 retail, probably $1-2 wholesale. That's cheaper than a pack of of double A Energizers that go right in the trash bin after they're spent. Tesla packaging the batteries this way was a genius move. They want to sell cars, not batteries. A task that will be made easier by being partnered with Panasonic.
And it's not just the Tesla Gigafactories, everything we use today will need more efficient and centralized battery production to drive down costs. For everything from iPad to iCar. Where there is a need there will be eager investors and excellent managers to re-think how the market demand is met just like Henry Ford did with his assembly line. Same thing WILL happen with batteries because there's simply too much darn money to make. If Musk pulls this off that will probably make him richer than anything he's done before. Meanwhile everyone else is asleep. Except maybe Porsche.

You mean for the next few months? :confused:

Electric is the future. Period.
As I've always said, some are just scared of change and advancement and will never admit that they're afraid. It is absolutely 100% no different then the guys who were scared of the horseless carriage and wanted to keep their horse-drawn buggies.

Battery tech is going to explode over the next decade. Increased capacity, decreased size and cost.

That's all I have to say and I'm going to check out of this thread. I'm not going to debate the topic because there is nothing to debate. :D

You still have one of those? I finally tossed mine about a year ago. LOL

You mean you tossed out your smartphone??
The Palm Pilot and Handsrping Visor was the modern smartphone. Ahead of its time because wireless networks for this kind of thinking weren't even ready yet.

Palm just needed someone who was a little pushier about development and presentation like Steve Jobs. The PP had touch screen, rows of icons, ESPN and Yahoo mail, wireless beaming of files to other devices. I even used this app called Handango where I would push the synch button and all the content up to that minute for all the websites I frequented were copied onto the palm pilot so I could read it on the go. Just like Pulse or Flipboard on your Android or iPhone now. Some 8 or 9 years before the iPhone or iPad was even uttered. Only place you could get iTunes on an actual phone was on that Motorola Rokr no one bothered with.

Keep dreaming my friend, can't stop you on that loll

You are possibly right for now. However when you'll have 51% of the transport industry rolling on batts you'll see your GOV and most others setting up their great tariffs as they always do, anti-dumping, firm policies, and I pass tons of others that leads to the common monopoly of energy - in what ever forms it will be.

When any of that happens crude oil should cost approximately the same as H2O but then.... you'll be forbidden to burn it for various reasons. And then you think your batts will be cost effective and be recharged for near free money?! Be serious please

Electric is in favor to GOVs, not our societies. Automakers are just little white sheep mate... go figure why they receive large federal funding and why energy companies gets help out of their bankruptcies. Meeehhhh!

Not my smartphone silly, my old palm pilot. It had no phone function, no wifi. Just a electronic Filofax with extra stuff. It was pretty cool in its day, about 16 years ago

Electric is in favor with consumers, or anyone who favors energy costs that are more predictable and less prone to volatile swings and cartel mischief. Most any modern economy can make electricity cheaply which makes the issue of whether it is cleaner irrelevant. Nobody is trying to save the planet in earnest, but nearly all want to drive out the uncertainty in costs from energy sources that largely based on speculative demand (and always will be).
If you look at the history of business, once a more predictable option emerges in a feasible way, it takes over. Look at these guys drilling oil out of the ground, one year they're popping champagne the next year they have more rigs sitting dormant than at any time in decades. Business likes certainty. And it just so happens that single largest economy in the world is the Saudi Arabia of electricity-making coal. On the one hand you have gigafactories making batteries and on the other side you have all that coal. Sooner or later consumers and business will figure it out. This cheap oil isn't going to last.

what you were too cool for the Treo? :D

Palm Pilot anyone?
 

Hmm. I think that the PP was a technical dead end and mostly an example of how something clever can become a fad. But forcing buyers to learn a new "language" was never going to work. Wireless network or not, it was doomed.

http://i1114.photobucket.com/albums/...ps61a95271.jpg

The smartphone was the result of "lessons learned" from the failure of the PP (and many others) and has proven to be a runaway success.

Remember at one point, Palm was valued at $1.5B. The question is whether Tesla represents the PalmPilot or the Smartphone?

If memory serves you weren't actually forced to learn "grafiti" to type out messages. There was the option of the on-screen keyboard. Interestingly enough I'm doing the exact same thing 15 years late with my Samsung Galaxy Note. When typing messages I can write out the letters in a little box that has amazingly accurate text recognition or I can just I can peck at the keyboard with the S-pen (way more accurate for me than my finger) -- just like I did with the PP stylus. Today, the Samsung Note was the #1 selling smartphone in tech crazy South Korea at time of the Note 3 launch ant the Note 4 has done even better. A "Palm" sized device was such a success that Apple was forced to offer the iPhone 6 Plus to have something to compete with the Galaxy Note.

Without high speed wireless, any mobile smart device was going to have limited use and people would eventually lose interest. Once high speed wireless (at least 1 MBPS) brought you YouTube, NetFlix, audio streaming on Pandora/Spotify/etc, Skype/face time, WhatsApp/FB/Instagram, bla, bla, a mobile smart device would become indispensable to non-techy people. Had all those services been available to the PP on at least 3G-fast network, Palm would without question have partnered with a Sony, LG, Sharp to provide high resolution touch screens capable of playing back video and color web browsing. The PP didn't fail so much as it was ahead of its time or had bad timing depending on how choose to look at it. The iPhone's small size for nearly 7 years really didn't fill the void that the PP absolutely started. The PP was certainly the first mobile smart device that got non "techy" people to get out their wallet. Fast forward to 2014. Apple finally offers a palm sized phone in addition to their largest regular iPhone ever and the biggest quarter in corporate history follows.

As far as Tesla, their customers love the cars much the way iPhone early adopters loved their devices. That doesn't happen very often. That's usually a sign that someone has refined something to the point where others have to take notice and offer similar products or be left way behind. One minute it was the old thing, the next it's a whole new ball game. Tesla has quiet a head start.

Batteries don't create energy, they just store it, inefficiently. Wait and see what will happen to electricity costs, if we ditch petrol and run all the world vehicles on electricity.

Who knows what will happen? What we do know is that oil and gas is finite and eventually will run out. Still lots left for sure - but the costs of getting it will get higher and higher.
Batteries and electric vehicles are the future and with all the R/D will only get better and better, until the next technology comes along.

yes we know all about inefficiency via the internal combustion engine where nearly 70% of the energy that is paid for can not be used by the motorist. Every year trillions of dollars go right down the tubes that could have gone into the economy in ways that lifts demand for all sectors of the economy instead of just the few who do well when the oil markets spike.

As far as electricity costs, necessity is the mother of invention. When the free market senses a ramped up need for cheap electric power, those wishing to profit like a Bill Gates from filling that void waste no time in entering the race to deliver it. So the saying should be profit is the mother of invention.

In the end we may not end up saving any money at all vs. the current system of relying so heavily on a finite and inefficient commodity but we however will no longer be dependent on the wildly speculative demand of the oil markets that can erase a small business profit from unexpectedly high fuel costs in a matter of weeks. The oil market completely ignores falling oil consumption, excess supply one year and pays attention the next only to ignore it all over again. What business or household wants to continue depending on that kind of instability?
Volatility is great for hedge funds but households and small business not so much.

LOL not only it stores energy inefficiently, it is also unsustainable. Go figure.... billions and billions thrown at it with a blind eye. The only reason 'why' that I can think of is ROI. Sad to see in all honesty

Keep dreaming! The traditional computer will have more transistors than a human has neurons in its brain way before the energy crisis is half sorted. Keep spending your R&D funds dearest world powers, its entertaining!

Umm, what do you think generates electricity? In the US, primarily Fossil Fuels. Plus, you're adding losses from power transmission and storage. Electric cars are not some magic bullet to solve all our ills.

Yes, right now, primarily fossil fuels. But wind power is growing and water power has been around for some time. Solar is still finding a way to be cost effective, but full of promise. There is a TON of potential in renewable energy sources. Unfortunately, the big money is still in oil and gas (okay for my stock portfolio, bad for the environment).

Moving to electric cars shifts the energy requirements away from oil and towards other resources, as well as where those resources are consumed. Oil is only burned for 1% of our electric...however coal/natural gas generate almost 70%. Do we really want to triple our coal consumption so that we can have 'cleaner' cars?

Also, getting all that power to the local level is not easy, and our current grid could not support even a modest increase in plug-in vehicles. Your average US house might only draw 2 to 3 kilowatts at peak usage. The new Tesla fast charger draws up to 20kw. Put two or three electric vehicles in one neighborhood, and you will need some new power lines in your backyards. That's a lot of expensive infrastructure cost that will be included in all of our utility bills. And while solar power is the big thing right now, you'll never have enough solar power to recharge a car each night. Unless you live in AZ, have a few acres of solar panels, and only drive 20 miles a day. That technology is just too far off in regards to the huge power demands of an EV.

I am a big proponent of clean/hybrid vehicles - a diesel/electric hybrid would be my ideal daily driver. But a large, short-term increase in plug-in cars just doesn't make sense right now on many levels. Unless you start raising the gas taxes, and put that money to good use in renewable energy R/D and mass transit...

^ Oopsy!

We have a 18GW dam here that is (unofficially) near half of its capacity already. Must be all the 'Smart' Phones and Palm Pilots around charging every nights ;) Pray god that this battery powered transport thing never hits China, I'd really love to see my favorite Chinese fish on my menu at least for a few more years LOL

In a meantime, here's Dorothy working on my next FLAT-ONE Porsche engine. Runs for 99 years without refueling. Cheap, compact, 485HP minimum

http://images.gizmag.com/inline/lockheed-fusion-3.jpg
(source: Lockheed Martin announces it's working on a compact fusion reactor)

batteries... nano or whatever, geez feels like hearing the 1960's space travel dreams all over again LOL

I hope that's not a cheap Harbor Freight multi-meter!!!!! lol you might only get 350HP when they are done. (385HP for the Cayman version)

http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1423492632.jpg

(Sorry, I couldn't help cross-referencing three different threads).

LOL. Anything yellow in the 'measuring' tool are stopped at US Customs at the request of Fluke Corp (in the news lately). So it has to be the real deal

More worried about Dodo's ballistic eyewear. Hope those are genuine 3M and nuclear blast-proof lol

That 1960's space travel thing worked out pretty well for us Americans.

You're so scared that it's making you angry! :D

That's because you've been using the Canadian Arm thingy to screw your bolts everywhere in space :D

And yes I'm scared. Not shy to admit it. Had an e-l-e-c-t-r-i-c car passing right in front me at a red light the other day. A freakin Tesla... couldn't believe it (in China).

IT SOUNDED LIKE A F'N WHEELCHAIR

Scared?! I was terrified, petrified. Not sure I am ready for this dramatic change of car 'culture' - you know what I mean by that. Was the first time for me (sorry guys, isolated here). Think you can convert me please?

no offence, I do realize the environment benefits and I am all up for that. Just not ready, need to b itch, blame policy makers... who else, you?

YOU, that's right.... you are the guy developing this technology stuff, you certainly participate anyway. Forgot about that

:mad:

Naw, I threw my hat in the ring, bro.

I'm retired now. Moving to Colorado to become a hippie :D
Population #'s worry me more than anything to do with electrons and hydrocarbons. :(

We are headed there regardless of whether we consume crude or not to run our vehicles. Simple consequence of population growth, increasing standards of living and the inherently high degree of uncertainty in nuclear power from an investment standpoint -- one miscalculation and that nuclear plant is a financial loser before it's even operational. Which basically means coal power will see a tremendous increase in the decades to come.

The question is do you want to continue relying exclusively on a gasoline powered cars that are subject to the whims of speculative oil demand or do you want to finally have greater diversity in our vehicle fleet? I'm not sure why its always argued that electric vehicles will never get to the level where they can replace the gas-burning car because that's not at all the point. If the consumer can wake up one day and say "both of these cars cost $25K, let me consider my needs to determine which is better for me" then we'll create greater diversity in our domestic economy and less reliance on the volatile and uncertain nature of the oil market.

As far as a greener planet, good luck with that mother Earth. The cleanest energy is rarely the cheapest.