Tesla Roadster travels 313 miles on single charge

A Tesla Roadster has set a new unofficial record for the longest distance travelled by a production e-car on a single charge. Global_Green_Challenge_Tesla Hackett's Roadster was taking part in the annual Australian Global Green Challenge Driven by owner Simon Hackett, the unmodified red 2008 Tesla Roadster managed to cover …

[Stef 4]

Inner city

How about an inner-city-rush-hour-commute-challenge so we can all find out what it is like for real driving conditions.

[ian 22]

Does this mean....

.... they had to push it back to Alice Springs?

[Valerion]

Well done!

And in 3 or 4 days, once it's charged up again, he'll be able to go back!

[David Edwards]

Diatance is not important

Why is it that we are so hung up on distance for leccy cars, most of us dont do over 200 miles a day. ..............Oh................... wait, for years the governments planning policy has been to reduce the number of houses with garrges or "house side" parking in a failed effort to discourage car ownership. So now no one has space to plug in their leccy cars to charge them up! Still there is always that bus, to get stabbed on.

[Anonymous Coward]

3 miles

"its dials apparently revealed that the vehicle still had another three miles to spare"

Well then why didn't he drive it another three miles to set the record even higher?

[My Alter Ego]

And how long did it take?

We're they doing normal speeds, or the speed calculated to be the most efficient? Did the driver every have to brake and accelerate during the journey?

Not that I can say anything seeing as my Westfield has a 25l tank and does 25mpg only if I drive very carefully.

[Anonymous Coward]

Realism

Stef's bang on the money.

That's an absolutely dead-straight, dead-flat, almost deserted bit of road. Just sit there at a constant speed and watch the miles tick away.

At least we know now the absolute maximum possible range. Now, back in the real world...

[Anonymous Coward]

How they did it

Per CNET Australia: the kept the top up and the windows closed, no air conditioning, and ran at a rock-steady 55kph (a tad north of 30mph).

A nice record, but hardly real-world conditions on a road with a speed limit of 130kph (80mph-ish).

"Are we there yet?" - "No"

"Are we there yet?" - "No"

"Are we there yet?" - "No"

"Are we there yet?" - "No"

"Are we there yet?" - "No"

"Are we there yet?" - "No"

"Are we there yet?" - "No"

"Are we there yet?" - "No"

"Are we there yet?" - "No"

"Are we there yet?" - "No"

"Are we there yet?" - "No"

"Are we there yet?" - "No"

"Are we there yet?" - "No"

"Are we there yet?" - "No"

"Are we there yet?" - "No"

"Stop", because it probably felt that way for the whole 9+ hours.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Stef4

it'd last quite nicely in that situation- accelerate slowly, travel for a tiny length of time, brake- it's only using power when it's moving and wouldn't need a lot of it.

Electric cars are particularly good at stop-start driving- that's why milk floats used to be electric.

[Peter H. Coffin]

There is no title and never will be.

Lovely. Acceptable range from an electric car *that costs more than my house*. Can we go back to reading about GPS receivers and overpriced laptops? Those are at least in the realm of "maybe I'll get to own or at least touch something that cool"....

[h 6]

summer there, no?

How fast, and more importantly, with the AC on for all of the trip?

[handle]

Small men

If driving at constant speed on a level surface, the weight of the occupants wouldn't make a significant difference; just a tiny bit more friction in wheel bearings and loss in squishing of the tyres.

[TheOtherMe]

Being a pedant

It's not 'Southern Australia', tis South Australia. Yes I know we have "Western Australia" and the "Northern Territory" but the bit in the middle at the bottom is definitely just plain old South Australia.

Oh and in regard to the article I must agree with Stef4 - Let's have a real world test of these technologies - Major city, peak hour, foul weather etc etc ....

[Pink Duck]

Gone with the wind

A rather Northerly wind I suspect :)

[Coyote]

Stop and go is what e-cars were made for.

Electric cars don't idle. A stopped motor = no charge used, and with the kind of torque motors can deliver, you don't need high drive RPM in low gear.

If all you did was 5-10 miles of stop-and-go city driving each day, you wouldn't need to charge it all week and then some.

[jake]

How fast?

Was he at or near the speed limit, or traveling a good deal slower? Makes a difference.

In other news, my Wife's aging Toyota Pickup[1] can go about 370 miles at ~70MPH on one 12 gallon tank[2] ... and "recharge" in the time it takes me to clean the bugs off the windows and headlights.

[1] 1993, standard cab, 2WD, 5speed, 22RE motor, 230,000 miles on the clock. All is stock, except I had to replace the head gasket. While I was in there I put a new timing chain and guides in it "just in case" ... and I replaced the water pump about 30K ago.

[2] Seriously ... Sonoma to Solvang and back, averaging 31.1 MPG with 3-day kit for her, myself, and my velcro-whippet.

[Jon999]

Wow

Wow if "normal" electric cars could do +300 miles I would buy one straight away.

I want me one of those £1.50-full-tank-of-electricity-cars.

[Andrew Punch]

Metric

Here in 'straya we don't use miles - please rewrite in metric and write 100 lines "I will not use outdated measurement systems"

[Charles Manning]

@Stef 4

The difference is that you don't need to do 300-odd miles as a rush-hour commute.

[Bilby]

From Alice Springs to...

...the middle of nowhere. Did he push the car the remaining 183 km to Coober Pedy? I reckon that would have been hard work.

Beer, 'cos you would seriously need one after that!

[Lyle Dietz]

Endurance?

How about a proper endurance race. I suggest an electric Bathurst 1000. That will sort the men from the boys, and improve recharging tech very very quickly (hurr hurr)

[Anonymous Coward]

I paid for that car

You missed out the most pertinent information: Simon Hackett is the MD of Internode, my ISP. I paid for his expensive toy with my gazillion dollar per month subscription.

You can read all about my cash crossing Australia here:

http://blog.internode.on.net/category/events/

[Mort]

No mention of the support truck?

I notice you forgot to mention the suport truck with a diesal generator on the back that had to follow them the whole trip to recharge the car on the other sections of the race. All up the truck and generator probably used more fuel than *all* the competing cars combined.

[Herby]

Probably...

...Down hill, with a tail wind. Most likely on cruise control at a walking pace. Wind resistance goes up as the square of the speed.

The other alternative is that they stowed it in a truck (Lorrie) for the trip, and drove it for the last 5 miles.

Me? My nice SUV gets about 350+ miles on a tank of gas going over 70mph down I-5 in the central valley (of California), and it hauls a bunch of stuff while I'm doing it and the air conditioner is just fine thank you.

[Neill Mitchell]

Cheaper than petrol

I expect Gordon and Alistair are thinking of ways to tax the recharging as we speak...

[Paris Hilton]

@ AC Well then why didn't he drive it another three miles to set the record even higher?

Because thats not an offical distance! as required to claim the world record, hence why these 'official distances' are being set on staged events.

the only way to get the true maximum would be to have an officiated distance event running a known circuit... which would not be cheap to set up.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Herby

My commuting car gets 500 Miles from a tank! (yes thats with AC too!) and if I drive at a modest 55mpg I can get 55mpg (thats an english/imperial g not a us one!) However thats not impressive enough for its own news article.. So I dont get why your telling me about your Chelsea tractor.... I dont care!

Oh and btw its 'Lorry' unless you meant Hugh, in which case its 'Laurie'.

[Anonymous Coward]

@How about an inner-city-rush-hour-commute-challenge

Surely thats a daft idea?

You can't expect a car that uses no power when stationary, and recoverys energy when it brakes, (ie stopping in traffic) driving at negligable wind resistance, to do any worse than a straight run???!?!?!

Or is it just me?

[Greg J Preece]

@Jake

And has been previously demonstrated on a certain motoring programme, said pickup will survive having a caravan dropped on it.

[TeeCee]

Re: Endurance?

"I suggest an electric Bathurst 1000."

Careful, I believe they still tar and feather for heretical ideas like that Down Under. AFAIR the Bathurst is one of the few remaining events where people are driven to question your sexuality if your engine is equipped with fewer than eight cylinders and returning overall MPGs in double figures definately falls foul of Rule One.

[Lottie]

The most important point....

Did the drivers have to fend off e-bike riding blokes in assless chaps ala MAd MAx 2?

They're harvesting the sun, batteries and batteries of the stuff.

Doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

[Tim Hughes]

@ Michael 2 - Wrong

Average daily commute in the UK is approximately 17 miles and takes around 45 minutes each way by car.

17 * 5 = 85 miles

There is a possibility that average Joe might only have to charge their Tesla once every 3 weeks (255 miles).

Figures from 2000: "The average worker in the UK commutes 2,906 miles pa and travels 1,622 miles on business by car. Overall, commuting accounts for approximately 78.5 billion miles of car travel, with 44 billion miles driven while on business."

[jake]

@Greg J Preece

That was the 4X4 variation. They are more heavily built, nearly indestructible in fact. This one is a 2WD, and somewhat lighter. I suspect the only reason we got such good mileage is because the dog's crate, the laptop cases & our luggage completely filled the front third of the truck's bed, changing the aerodynamics. We also had a tailwind both ways, which helps. The 4X4 models are the feed-truck of choice at barns everywhere ... even field hands can't kill 'em.

[Anonymous Coward]

Who says it's not important how far they can go

on a charge?

Cars should always be designed for the atypical usage not the typical, otherwise it leaves you needing a second "long haul" car.

It's all moot of course as the leccy grid has enough trouble handling the current power usage, so there is no way it could handle if everyone went out and bought leccy cars and plugged them in.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's downhill.

For reference:

Alice Springs airport (YBAS) is at 546 metres altitude.

Coober Pedy airport (YCBP) is at 225 metres altitude.

And, in El-Reg fashion, I checked the results in http://blog.internode.on.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/tesla-roadster-ggc-2009-results.pdf only to find that the car didn't complete most stages within the allocated time. The "shiny stage" reported is, if memory serves, the steepest downhill one.

The altitude profile for the event is uphill until around Aileron Roadhouse in the Territory, to the North of Alice, at about 665 metres altitude. It's downhill from there to Adelaide.

I remember that the VW Lupo 3L in the 80 days around the world project used less than 2 litres/100km (over 140 mpg for those who can no longer buy gallons) when crossing the great flats of Australia. It finished on time and didn't take all night to re-fuel.