jkcam6017

Who would ever have thought that Jake would get spanked by the Eveready Bunny?

ersin

Sorry. Not valid. The bunny keeps going and going and ...

The Tesla goes, then needs to be recharged.


Cheers.

Slappy3243

Too bad you would still be limited to a very specific route to do so. There are limited charging stations at this point and 20 minutes only gets you half a charge.

DanTheFireman

By the second run in the afternoon it was pretty hot, the morning air was nice.

Mike McGinnis

And the C7 needs to be refueled.

Also the Tesla can run the same times at sea level, or in mile high Colorado.

ersin

Cheers.

Mikado463

video is a joke, time slips don't even match the runs, My 83 year old father could cut a better light than the clown driving the Vette, but then again 'drive by wire' (assuming it's employed on the C7 ?) does suck for drag racing.

In so far as electric motors, instant trq = quick….yes , top end…..NOT !

V1PERMAN

I'm the driver and owner of the corvette that raced the Tesla. It's really interesting to read the comments posted here. I can explain a few things having driven both cars!

First off, we did this race just for some fun. We knew that the immediate torque of the electric motor in the tesla is instant and very hard to beat up until about 100 mph for any car to beat. Further, the driver of the tesla has been drag racing this car many many times with a lot of experience. There is almost never a time where he doesn't launch this car perfect. On the other hand, the 2 races your watching are actually the FIRST time this Vette has ever been run on the drag strip. I used race mode and tried to launch the car using launch control setting. I'm still not sure it it worked correctly. The Vette seemed to cut power for an instant off the start and then take off. Never-less it ran very consistent on both runs and was a blast to race. The engine sound racing down the track at full throttle is intoxicating. Chevy really got it right!

As far as me leaving late, my bad!! With everything going on with thinking about staging the car, flooring the brake and then the gas pedal to get the launch control set, yes, I should have released the brake pedal BEFORE the green light. If I had had some practice before these races, I may have sorted everything out. No excuses but much easier to launch an electric car than a gas vehicle with 460 hp.

The conclusion here is simple. If you want a super fast 4 door family sedan and have the money to afford it, you can't beat the tesla. The fact that you never need to buy gas is an added bonus!

If you want an American made iconic sports car that's got power, looks and handling, then the corvette delivers with the best value for the money hands down.

2 very fast but very different cars. In a perfect world, just own both, you can't go wrong!!

MisterMe

Thank you so much for posting this video.

Let me say from the outset that this is Corvette Forum, an Internet meeting place for Corvette owners and people who want to be Corvette owners. I have lusted after the Corvette since I was 15. If I can swing it, then my next car will be a 2015 Corvette Stingray.

However, I see no contradiction being being aware of what is going on in the world and being devoted to the Corvette. The Porsche 918 Spyder PHEV is an awesome car in its own right; it is a presage of things to come.

Electric drive will be the salvation of performance cars in an era of mandates for increased fuel economy and decreased production of greenhouse gases. If all you care about is performance, then review the video of that drag races between the 2013 Tesla Model S 4-door sedan and 2014 Corvette Stingray. It really doesn't matter which car won. The electric-driven sports sedan was competitive with the best production Corvette ever made. Going forward, how does the Corvette remain competitive without going electric?

Oh, come on. Ever heard of fuel cells? GM has been working on fuel cell electric vehicles more than a decade. Japanese automaker Toyota will begin selling FCEV Highlanders in 2015. Japanese automaker Honda, producer of the FCX Clarity fleet of FCEVs leased to the public, will offer a new FCEV to the public. Korean automaker Hyundai will also offer FCEVs in 2015.

The beauty of FCEVs is that their driving range equals or exceeds the range that most battery-powered vehicles hope to have in the future some day. FCEVs have that range now.
I have no interest in exotic metals or electrolytes for high-capacity battery production. I do not own stock in a fuel cell manufacturer. That said, I think that the notion of a "super capacitor" for EV energy storage was thought-up by someone no basic knowledge of electricity. I digress... I am a consumer who wants the highest density energy storage possible for EVs. If batteries can meet this criteria, then cheers for batteries. However, the chemical battery was invented more than 200 years ago. The technology is still being improved. However, I just don't see how batteries can win out over fuel cells in the medium to long term.

FikseGTS

P85 is $87k after the $7,500 rebate....

Mikado463

Hey Vman, sorry about the 'clown' comment, but when I see someone that late on the tree I do wonder what they were thinking !!

In so far as launching your '460HP' vehicle, the HP is not the culprit, rather lack of traction (tires / weight transfer) and poor throttle interaction. Next time, deep stage, foot brake it and leave on the third yellow !

As for the Telsa being fast……..sorry it's not; quick, yes but fast no it is not.

Second Vette

Really? So the "base" Tesla is $94,500? What's the Range of a "base" Tesla, 100 Miles? I guess I'll do a little Googling to find out.

The "base" Corvette is $52,000. Seems about the same difference to me, nearly a 90% advantage in price over price comparison.

BTW , why the heck are Taxpayers giving people a $7,500 Down Payment on their new nearly $100,000 Toys? I know, that's for another Thread, never mind.

BTW - If I won the Lotto, I would get the Premium Model Tesla in a heartbeat. Where I live they are more common than Corvettes and I actually like them.

The Tax Credit crap just pisses me off, whether it's a $100,000 plus Tesla or a $30,000 Nissan Leaf. Oops, I brought that up again.

Lawnchair

You pretty much nailed it. The story here isn't that a luxury sedan can go high 12.3's @ 110, it's that some guy in an auto only ran 12.0's @ 116!

The cameras were set up too perfectly, the corvette driver is "in on it" if you ask me

rockethead7

First of all, the topic was electric cars, so I didn't understand the statement about developing another power source for electric cars. Of course I've heard of fuel cells.

But, if you're going to bring up fuel cells, well, fuel cells are not "all that and a bag of chips."

They're viable. Don't get me wrong. There are tons of advantages, the main ones being the virtually endless supply available from water, and the complete lack of any harmful emissions. They might win the race over batteries. Who knows? But, it's not as simple as just converting your gas engine to hydrogen fuel cells. There are many many many many shortcomings that they need to overcome:

1) It's dramatically expensive to produce, and very inefficient. It takes about 8x more electric energy to produce the hydrogen for the fuel cells than you can ever get back in energy from a combustion engine. Fuel cell engines are only about 12% efficient, while battery drive systems are about 50% efficient. Basically, this means that, if you're comparing battery drive vs. hydrogen drive, your electric infrastructure needs to produce 4-5x more electricity to support hydrogen driven vehicles than battery driven vehicles. And, it's not a matter of simply increasing efficiency. It's not a matter of human invention. It's just plain physics/chemistry. Electrolysis on water takes a certain amount of energy, period. You can use aluminum to help it use less electricity, but then you consume the aluminum (which is just shifting the problem). Water is just a really really really stable molecule (you use it to put out FIRES, that's how stable it is). The more stable a molecule is, the more energy it takes to break it apart. So, in the bigger scheme of things, **if** battery technology can be advanced, it has a clear-cut advantage over hydrogen, just purely due to physics.

2) Distribution systems are an issue. Distributing hydrogen for fuel cells consumes a lot of resources, and all new infrastructure needs to be installed and developed. But, the electric distribution system for battery powered cars is already there, and can handle the extra capacity (they'd need to build more power plants, but the distribution system has tons of capacity).

3) Danger is an issue. Hydrogen (H2) is a very unstable molecule. It basically is just begging to explode with Oxygen (O2). Don't get me wrong, high capacity batteries are no picnic either. But, hydrogen is many magnitudes more dangerous, especially in crash conditions. Those hurdles would need to be solved.

4) The explosion of H2 in combustion causes a ton more metal fatigue (when compared to gasoline). H2 explodes far hotter and more violently than gasoline. This takes a massive toll on engines. A similar engine that you're getting 100K-200K miles out of for gasoline is getting about 10K-20K miles if it's converted to H2. Much harder metal alloys need to be developed, and are being developed, but even then, nothing yet has been developed to give those H2 engines any real longevity.


Anyway, hey, the truth is there's no real easy answer. If there was, it would have been done by now. Oil is cheap (relative to the other technologies), still available, and it works. On the flipside, hydrogen fuel cells need to clear tons of hurdles before they can displace gasoline. And, batteries just don't last long enough, and are still too expensive.


We're actually *not* arguing here (at least in my opinion). Neither battery powered cars, nor hydrogen powered cars, are ready to displace gasoline powered cars. Both of those alternative technologies need TONS of development before either one of them could completely surpass gasoline. Personally, if I was to wager on it (hypothetically), my money would be on battery technology advancement. But, it's not as if it's a crystal clear sure bet. I'm not an expert, but in my casual armchair opinion, I'd say the odds are around 80/20 for battery technology advancement taking the lead before hydrogen fuel cell technology can take the lead. And, yes, I believe it WILL happen sooner or later. But, NEITHER can take the lead yet, so there's a little bit of "crystal ball" effect in either argument.

msm859

You should be supporting tax credits that get us off the dependence of foreign oil were we spend trillions in wars and lose thousands of lives.

Z06Norway

Tesla has sold more Tesla in cold little Norway with 5 mill people than within US 300 million.
reason is that our socialist car hating government give electric pass for electric cars. No parking fee, no toll pass, no annual registration fee, free charging and most important NO car TAX on import.
ie. a Tesla top loaded is 130k usd here, but a Stingray is 300k usd.......

A few friends have bought it, and due the relative high numbers of sold electric cars here now.. (leaf, VW and Tesla +) we have a lot of episodes that will remind them on real life and commercial is two different things.

freezing temp and electric cars = bad combination, not 300 miles anymore
lots of cars and a few charging stations= bad combination, people simply can't find available chargers.

many small trips turned out to be a one day excursion

But great car and impressing performance

Rune

steel_3d

I think people overstate the deficiencies of electric cars. The world was not able to achieve in 100 years what Tesla has achieved in the last two or three years. I would say they're there.

Let's start off by saying that according to tens of thousands of people, the Tesla already is a better CAR than any other car on the market. Why else would they give away their hard earned money for one? In fact it outsells all other luxury sedans. That is dramatic, in my book. They did it on essentially their first try (the Roadster wasn't really a Tesla, it was a Lotus with an experimental Tesla drivetrain; but the model S competes on its own merit as a newcomer, and beats the entrenched internal combustion patriarchs on its first try).

Even the cheapest model offers plenty of range for even the gnarliest commute, especially if you plug in at work. Tesla even alleviated roadtrip anxiety with tons of new supercharger stations, soon to be battery swap stations. What has been a dream of electric car dreamers, journalists, etc., Tesla is about to achieve in the coming months with battery swapping. Nowhere near the territory of the murky, distant future, as some would still like us to believe. The mainstream media has spent decades, a century, explaining how much of a chicken and egg problem infrastructure is for the electric car to become a reality. Well, Tesla has single-handedly proven that it's not such a big deal. What the governemt of the wealthiest nation on earth could not achieve (did not want to), and certainly none of its mega-corporations, or any coalition thereof - a fledgling company did, and is doing.

Just the concept of free fuel would be unfathomable in classic capitalist thinking, yet Tesla (shrewdly, of course) has had the ***** to step beyond the stigma, with its eye on the future.

Sure, you can't go everywhere in a Tesla, yet. You can't go to the north pole either with your Vette (even a dirt road is a challenge). So what? You use the Tesla for what it's best for: getting you to work, on your daily errands, and possibly on the occasional road trip up and down the coast... maybe hit the drag strip. All this for a fraction of the fuel cost of an internal combustion car. If you have the foresight, you'll install solar panels on your roof, which will pay for themselves over a couple of years' equivalent gasoline costs (I spend 4k a year on gas in my Vette), and you'll have essentially free fuel AND electricity for a few decades, as long as the panels last. Or very cheaply over your lifetime, if you like to think of it as amortizing the cost of maintaining and refurbishing a solar installation. Alternatively, I like to think of it as amortizing the cost of an electric car against gasoline costs for an equivalent car (ie: I can afford a more expensive electric car than IC car).

Last, but not least, I think people will find it very liberating to be free of the maintenance and reliability issues that come with internal combustion drivetrains. One reason why I'm not hot on plugin hybrids - I consider the IC engine redundant, though they may make sense for others.

And we haven't even talked about environmental benefits.

The performance is basically on par with internal combustion.

Suffice to say, for all its drawbacks, it has many advantages. Different strokes for different folks. In my opinion, the electric car is a reality as of last year! The Model S' versatility and Tesla's investment in infrastructure is simply a game changer!

Somebody in the thread said no one would be cross-shopping these two cars. Well, I am. Especially since the C7 hasn't really blown me away that much. The base Tesla has enough range, and is within the price range of a c7. But I'm more likely holding out for the smaller, hopefully sportier Tesla, which won't be coming for a few more years, unfortunately.

My ideal car would be an all electric Vette, or equivalent. Something tells me I'll be waiting a while... Which is a pity.

Second Vette

I was using the Tesla Price quoted by the previous Poster, $84,000 after a $7,500 Tax Credit (or is it a Rebate) which equals $91,500.

Foreign Oil? We have more Oil than anyone right here in the USA. Unfortunately, we have certain people in Power that frown on us developing it, especially on Federal Lands.

The only people that benefitted from our Military protecting supplies of Foreign Oil are Europe and Japan. We depend on Mexico and Canada for most of the Foreign Oil we consume, not the Middle East.

Besides, refusing to defend Energy sources would put us at a disadvantage. China and Russia are both developing Arctic Oil and we sit back like idiots watching them plan for their future because of the Environmental Lobby.

Tax Credits for Electric Cars (THAT RUN OFF THE GRID), yeah that makes about as much sense as Subsidizing Ethanol, Windmills, Solar and Unicorn Farts.

Like I said in my Post, this is a subject for another Thread.

ersin

The $62K model is not the one that goes very fast or as far. You would need to spend at least $86K (after the $7.5K credit) for that. Tesla claims over 200 miles on a full charge, but that is under ideal conditions. Reports I find on the internet of useful range are more like 180 miles when it's warm, and 150 miles in the cold.

No, it's more like $50 billion. While that is huge, it's nowhere near a trillion. But since we are all desensitized to federal budgets measured in trillions, I guess these numbers don't mean much to anybody anymore.


Cheers.

FikseGTS

Tesla claims 265 miles on a full charge. Typical mix of driving gets me around 230 miles...