"Tesla opens London showroom, outlines broader UK plans"

[TopWargamer]

http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/29/tesla-opens-london-showroom/

 

Tesla now has an official retail footprint in the UK. The EV maker has just openedits first British showroom in London's Westfield shopping center, giving locals a chance to buy the Model S (including next year's £55,000 right-hand drive variant) in person. The store is just the beginning of Tesla's inroads into the country, though. As part of an opening gala Q&A, Elon Musk said that his company was already mapping the UK for Supercharger stations. He also expects that the Model X SUV will reach the UK in late 2015 or 2016, and hopes that Tesla's long-planned lower-cost EV will come in roughly three years for about £30,000. That's an ambitious plan when Tesla barely has a presence outside of North America, but Musk has a knack for completing large-scale projects.

 

Awesome to hear that Tesla is starting to expand to other parts of the globe! Hopefully electric cars in general will catch on to the masses, because they really are a great product. Now the price on the other hand...isn't so great. Once those prices come down quite a bit, the electric car will surely take off, even more so than it already has. 

[nsyedhasan]

We need slightly cheaper Teslas like at about 70000$ dollars at the high end because then people may be able to afford them.

[Razarza]

Once Telsa brings out a car for under $30k that is when it will explode.

[KaareKanin]

Awesome to hear that Tesla is starting to expand to other parts of the globe! Hopefully electric cars in general will catch on to the masses, because they really are a great product. Now the price on the other hand...isn't so great. Once those prices come down quite a bit, the electric car will surely take off, even more so than it already has.

Electric cars are nice and all, but they aren't as great as everyone would have you believe. First hurdle: Clean electricity. On average in Europe, an electric car will only have somewhere from 0-15% lower impact on the environment during its life. Another thing is that even though the car itself is zero emission, the power plant will have emissions. You have just shifted the point where it happens. Large centralized emissions are worse than more evenly spread out emissions. Another thing: batteries today are not really very good. During their life span, you will probably on average have to put in at least 10% more energy into the thing than you'll ever get out. And chargers doesn't have that great of a efficiency rating either (these two things is why Elon Musk is somewhat full of BS calling out hydrogen, because he sits on dated technology). Another thing is the limited lifespan of batteries. Manufacturers will try to tell you they will last for so and so many years, which in itself is BS, because the life time of a battery is dependent upon usage patterns and not time.

And for everyone who seems to think that CO2 is the biggest baddest wolf out there, Bio Fuels. The CO2 you create while burning it is taken up by growing it. More or less neutral.

Most experts out there agree that electric cars as they are now aren't too bad, they are a dead end.