What could a rocket company and an electric carmaker possibly have in common? At first glance, perhaps not much, unless the companies are SpaceX and Tesla Motors, which were both co-founded by the serial entrepreneur Elon Musk.
Comment: ( mild speculation alert)
I've been working on an economic analysis of Musk's car. It doesn't make sense to buy one of these from an economic point of view. You could buy one based upon its performance. Electric cars are superior in acceleration. You could buy it for its cleanliness- no carbon emissions. But you would not buy it for economic reasons- solar isn't cheap enough and neither are batteries.
By the way, I wrote an series of posts on fuel cell powered cars. (check the label at the bottom of this post) These would work provided that they last long enough and prices go up for fossil fuels. However, if prices can come down for fuel cells and hydrogen fuel, these can be made to work. But you could also say the same for batteries in the battery powered car like the Tesla.
I would favor a hybrid electric design that uses a combination of batteries, ultracapacitors, and fuel cells. Each would complement the other. Even so, the economics may not be there yet, but wait for developments. Something like this could happen some day.
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