World Record Distance (501km) drive in a production Electric Vehicle (Tesla Roadster)

[simonhackett]

@mattegeniet It was done at about 50 kilometres per hour. The theoretical optimum is around 45 kilometres per hour.

There is a great blog post on the teslamotors site from JB that explains the sources of energy consumption in the vehicle in detail and provides detailed curves of each source and hence of the minimum intersection point of them all (as above).

[flguy32501]

Cut the speed in 1/2 and go 1000km

[simonhackett]

Its only ironic if you don't understand the point of the exercise. Which was to break the chicken and egg question of EVs vs charging infrastructure in remote areas.

I was proving the car could cut it in the desert, crossing the country and keeping up with older car designs. It could, and it did. Next time won't need the same mobile charging infrastructure.

[markcaetano]

Lol, it's ironic how it was charging for 2.5 hours on a diesel generator.

[simonhackett]

I'll also just reiterate a note in the comments under the video when I first uploaded it - that this event actually occurred in 2009, not in 2010 (despite the lead-in on the video saying 2010.

Thats a typo in the video preparation that we didn't pick up until... a bit late :)

[simonhackett]

Yes, I halted the wiper travel vertically (by pulling the fuse) to help a tiny bit with the aerodynamics.

Other than that, I had the tyres pumped up to about 45 PSI but the car was otherwise 'stock' - standard tyres, standard everything.

I didn't even use the (slightly less draggy) hard top roof on the car, as mine hadn't arrived at the point where I did this record run.

its mostly about concentrating on driving efficiently.

[mattegeniet]

@simonhackett about how fast did you drive? There should be an optimum speed at which you should drive, right?

[darelldd]

I need to know if the wiper blade is up on purpose for aero advantage?

[ORIANA250]

charge it up over night with a wind generator.

[simonhackett]

All Tesla Roadster packs have a nominal capacity of 55 kWh.

The car had, we estimate, about 10% left at the point that I pulled up at the 501 km marker. i.e. circa 50 kWh consumed for 501 km's driven.

[LightningEVAustralia]

I'm trying to figure out the efficiency of your tesla at 55km/h travelling 501km, However the battery capacity seems to vary between 40kw/h and 56kw/h.

What size pack does your car have?

[LaurieWilliams5066]

When Simon drove off in his car

Some people said "You won't get far.".

But the thing went so long

That it proved them all wrong

And succeeded in raising the bar.

[pquodling]

Well done, Simon - I don't think that you had to streamline the head with the buzz cut to cut wind resistance, though... :-) Q

[MafiaboysWorld]

Congrats Simon!! Hope you can push it even further. :)

[davesag]

Nice one. Definitely the shape of things to come.

[roccap2n]

looks great well done Simon, the video is nicely put together, congratulations