WUWT reader “bouldersolar” writes in with this and a couple of photos, which I’ve combined into one.
In Colorado I got back almost $50,000 from the state and federal governments to buy this car.
Before you think this is just too ridiculous to be true, read this article.
This stems from a comment he made a couple of days ago on WUWT:
Speaking of annoying people with your Tesla. As a Tesla owner in Boulder Colorado I have a bumper sticker on it that says” Environmentalists took money from the poor to pay me to buy this car”
I am amazed at the violent reaction I get from all those Boulder peace loving non violent progressives to this message.
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I am still curious who else you would include in this category?
Edwin Armstrong maybe? Are you aware of his original contributions in the 20th century?
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“That car is more than just an electric – it’s a great car. Cost for the 170 mile version : $57,500”
Um, yeah.
Meanwhile a Civic costs half as much, goes around five hundred miles on a ‘charge’ of gasoline and refuels in a few minutes rather than a few hours.
… and works when the power is off. Could you imagine having to evacuate a coastal area during a hurricane in an electric car? Or imagine power being off someplace for a week. I could run a generator at a gas station to pump fuel, I would need dozens of generators running for hours to charge the cars in the neighborhood. They are fine vehicles for making a short commute if you charge them at night when the grid is mostly hydro/nuclear. If you are charging them during the daytime, you basically have a coal powered car.
“All I want to know, is the car all it’s cracked up to be?”
I can’t completely answer that but… a very good friend of mine recently purchased a Tesla roadster and he took me for a ride in it. All I can say is that when he punched it, I laughed like I haven’t since I was stealing bases in kickball when I was in 2nd grade.
Subarus make up a significant fraction of cars driven in Boulder, and Colorado for that matter. Their 2012 R1e is no Tesla.
@ur momisugly Jim; I suggest you study the patents of Tesla as well as the setup of his experiments and the devices he created for test equipment in an era before electronic test equipment.
I am an electrical engineer and inventor. I have studied the works and notes of Nikola Tesla, Awesome is a good discription. pg
Gras Albert says:
October 14, 2011 at 11:02 am
A cursory peek and I wonder why no one is banging the ‘going concern’ gong on this company.
Here we go again … more ‘allusions’ to ___________ (this can vary; fill in the blank as required). (Psst, also, pls note name is “_Jim” since we have so many)
Mods, Anthony – Would anybody mind if I post an excerpt from a Don Lancaster work that addresses some of these ‘issues’, since Don ‘puts it so well’? Some of the following might ‘smart’ a little, but, there is so much dis- and misinformation about Tesla and his discoveries, one must start somewhere to defuse and refute the dis/misinfo parts.
The following is excerpted from: http://www.tinaja.com/glib/muse90.pdf The words below are those of Don Lancaster with whom I agree:
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Every time that I mention his name [Tesla] in print, I get bunches of static from card carrying members of the Cult of the Latter Day Teslaites.
Along with hundreds of pages of dreary and poorly thought out “looks like a duck and quacks like a duck” incoherent pseudoscience drivel. Based on my extensive study and review, here’s how I see things:
– Yes, Tesla was one of the superbly brilliant engineers of all time. Tesla’s developments of the induction motor, polyphase ac machinery, and the ac transformer do remain crucial keys to nearly everything electrical.
– Yes, Tesla was treated unfairly by history. Grossly so. Caused mostly by being at war with Tesla’s native country and the blatant propaganda of Edison’s humongous PR mill.
– No, Tesla was not original in his explorations of fluorescent lighting or radio. He was one of many sources working on these topics.
As with any product developer, the way you get a few brilliant ideas is to start off with bunches of lousy ones. Eventually something will stick to the ceiling. For every good idea, there are zillions of bad ones.
There is not one scrap of credible evidence that shows Tesla had any “free” earth resonance energy. This was just an uncompleted experiment that was virtually certain of failure.
There was apparently some major confusion between resonant energy buildup and a true energy sourcing.
Caused in part by Tesla being one brilliant experimenter but a terrible theoretician. You’ll also find strong evidence of earth resonance being a lab funding scam.
A piggy bank may have hundreds of dollars in it, but they got there a nickel and a dime at a time. It’s the same with resonance. You can build up lots and lots of resonant energy a little bit at a time. And you could remove that energy very quickly. But you’ll never get back any more than was put in. You most certainly can not sustain continuous removal.
– – – – – – – – – – – –
Bolding in the above added by me.
I might make one more post on this, this evening, a post which would contain some
book titles (authoritative ‘works’) both by Tesla or about Tesla by reputable authors.
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“Boulder is solidly on the left. This means that they support unions, like the UAW. But when you drive around Boulder, foreign cars, especially German and Swedish cars, dominate. If you are a left wing pseudo intellectual and your driving status symbols clash with your politics, well, so be it.”
I’ve noticed that, myself. When you begin to drive around a new area you can uaually guess the voting patterns by the vehicles you see on the road. Right of centre voting areas are filled with American branded automobiles “Progressive” voting areas, not so much. I find this ironic since American brands are mostly built with unionized labor. Has anyone ever done a study on vehicle registrations or is this just one of those anecdotal urban myths?
Even with the rediculous rebate there is just no way that car is anywhere close to competitive for price or anything else. A $42,000 rebate is only 38% of the cost? The price of these things is an idiot tax.
Bouldersolar;
Once on the way back raced a Porsche turbo “whale tail” up to Eisenhower tunnel and beat him. >>>
Hardly fair. You’ve got about $100,000 in tax payer funded performance improvements in your car. If the Porsche had the same, he’d have had time to get to the tunnel, turn around, and meet you half way.
Seriously, great sense of humour, that sticker says something that needs to be said, and the fact that you get to say it by driving around in a way cool car makes the rich, the poor, the green and the not so green all jealous, and all for completely opposing reasons. Genius!
I rather prefer my Columbia (now Cessna) 400; only about 15 MPG, but that’s at 200kts (230MPH) 🙂
t_a_harvey says:
It’s a good story, but be clear about the accounting here. The savings came from federal and state tax credits and/or deductions… no money was transferred from poor people to the purchaser.
Nice try, but this is essentially a subsidized purchase using public funds that would otherwise go towards benefitting the poor among other things. However you feel the “accounting” goes, poor people are “paying” this subsidy.
Tesla invented polyphase electric motors.
There are only about 15000 of them at the site I work at.
Jim you are an goddamn idiot.
Tesla did work in many fields of resonance energy, steam, electrical, machanical. I don’t recall any claim of free energy, just resonance feed back and peaking. NO FREE LUNCH. The Tesla coil was not supposed to be a spark coil. That is just for show. Sparks are a waste of power.
Much of the opinions about Tesla of Don Lancaster above are correct.
I would suspect that Tesla would consider “the Tesla car” to be not much more then a rich mans toy and of no use to the people. pg
@M.A.Vukcevic (but mostly targeting Tesla detractors)
Your absolutely right on Tesla, the fact that this guy was a genious is undeniable. I always been mystified in the past about why Tesla had so many detractors (and still has as I see) & little recognition while he had done so much for our modern way of life. The best explanation of it is, thanks for the IPCC for the perfect exemple, is the buoyancy principle: The lighter they are, the higher they goes… The heavyweight however…
Tesla in fact was an incredible achiever, just think of the DC power distribution of the time, w/t poles so full of wire they could barely stand & incapable at acheiving long distance. Tesla created AC distribution system & I’m pretty sure the optimized 60Hz value come from him! Any idea what was the Edison “solution”: Public elephant electrocution to demonstrate how dangerous AC was… an experiment of scientific “value” comparable to a famous, & very toxic to organic neural net still in early learning phase, the CO2/jar/thermometer/’clown in white coat’ one.
Ask any Electrical Engineer what he think about polyphasic power & rotary machine, here again it is Tesla who devised them. Apart from “inventing” the electron, I consider him the creator of modern industrial electrics (production, distribution, utilization). Seriously, this is not something small, we talk about an entire segment of industry! But amazingly this is not all, ever heard of the remotely controlled boat he made, it was in 1898!
Sure it is easy to say: someone had began developing these tech. before… bla, bla, bla… But remember that one of the most challenging stage in R&D is making things work in the real life! Many great mind never stain their hands at this odious task, leaving it to “low level” engineers. Personally I think the one who make something work in the real life, and most importantly make it industrially viable is the one who deserve credit.
Probably, the fact that Tesla was a “little” on the excentric side had probably helped a lot at generating an image of mad scientist, and I suspect the guy had a “penchant” for mystification & making fun w/t good stories (his quality as a showman are demonstrated) as it is reported that he sometimes publicly said that extraterrestrials were making contact w/t him & giving technological info (not sure of this one however). And for those who are not afraid of electrocution, try to built one of those famous Tesla Coils, I made one in my younger & crazier years that was pumping dancing discharges of 18 inchs length. Believe me when I say it is an incredible show when you make these monster play in front of unsuspecting ordinary peoples. Tesla alway had one of these coil active when making convention, even if it terrified the audience.
Of coarse there is a lot of “noise” in the internet about “death ray” & conspiration theory, these may be true or false, but if we just consider concrete & usefull contribution the man gave to civilisation & I’m quite sure it was not exclusively for personal gain (he set Westinghouse free of a contract that would have made him possibly a billionaire mostly for ideologic reason), well I’m not sure about the true value of the car, but for the value of the man I have no doubt.
” Seriously, great sense of humour, that sticker says something that needs to be said, and the fact that you get to say it by driving around in a way cool car makes the rich, the poor, the green and the not so green all jealous, and all for completely opposing reasons. Genius!
”
Yes, if your not Green already then you can get Green with envy.
Now that is one Big A**ed bumper sticker……. RESPECT!…… .LOL. 😉
53% of the tax payers in the US pay nothing which kind of makes you wonder about the term “tax payer” when “tax shirker” is more apt for the majority of wage earners. No “poor” person was made to pay anything for that Tesla. The problem is with the very definition of “poor” in the US. It’s a relative term that has little bearing on true poverty. You want to see poor you need to travel outside North America to do it.
There’s a fine line between genius and lunatic. I’m not sure which side of it Tesla was on but I’m pretty sure his most ardent fans today are on the far side of it.
>>Mooloo says October 14, 2011 at 4:35 pm
>>Electric cars are not a scam. They actually work.
They are a scam, because my turbo diesel does much better mpg than any electric car. Until we start sourcing our electricity from nuclear power, there is absolutely no point in an electric vehicle (apart from relocating pollution from the city to the countryside – but then you just eat the pollution, instead of breathing it.)
If you want vehicular efficiency, why not just cut out the “electric conversion and starage middleman”, and drive the wheels direct. ie, use a turbo diesel.
And please remember that if we turn to electric vehicles, we need to build up to 3 times the number of power station that we currently have. And what will the greens have to say about that?
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_Jim asks if I ever read any pre-internet stuff.
Yes.
_Jim, I said you have to reach beyond both his detractors AND his cultist acolytes.
I think one has to look at the stuff that’s presented as evidence, no matter how improbable or irrelevant it seems, and see if, under close inspection, without prejudice, it still holds up as evidence. I have to look at Tesla’s whole biography, understand the unusual kind of person we are meeting here, and consider whether his reported actions are logical in his situation.
Science has to reclaim inner realities, today, if we are to progress and find the energies we need (like thorium) and use them well. I also never forget that we always go back to people. So this deepening of Science, for me, starts with openness and courtesy, then attention to evidence from all sides of “Reality”, and attention to Scientific Method, as practiced here, but applied also to things conventional Science considers “unreal” like ghosts, ufo’s, and psychology. The mysteries of existence are fruitful areas for sensitive exploration but Sagan shows deep prejudice, like Brian Cox. Yet naive gullibility is no better. Both have to be recognized before they can be put aside.
Quantum Physics is one area that has given reasonable openings to the way forward. So has the careful study of Crop Circles both “fake” and “genuine”. Even the “fakers” believe there are genuine circles and strange powers with which they themselves interact. One of Richard Dawkins’ acolytes put me on to that – I don’t think he would have left the URL in if he’d taken the trouble to listen for himself to what the fakers actually said!!
Life is full of mysteries. You just need to observe carefully, pay attention, as per Scientific Method.
“Tesla operated by Elon Musk, founder of PayPal.”
Considering what a cutthroat ripoff Paypal used to be, I wouldn’t touch anything Musk was involved in with a ten-foot pole.
Tesla, who effectively “invented” the AC generation and distribution technology which powers the world, would have been mortified if he’d known that a vehicle powered by DC would be named after him. It should have been named after Edison, who was the champion of inefficient, short-range DC power.