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The undisclosed surveillance hardware that shows the dwindling battery voltage to the increasingly stressed out Tesla technicians that won't tell the customer probably draws some current as well.
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Feb 25, 2012 01:30
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Colonel Sanders posted:So somebody left an EV unplugged This is the big deal. If I go on holiday for three weeks and on day 1 a lightning strike trips the main circuit breaker, I come home to $100 of spoiled food in the freezer and $40,000 worth of damage to my car. This has to be preventable on the engineering stage. edit: that link says it can sit for months without damage...if so, that's fine.
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Feb 25, 2012 19:51
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Nokian tires, Lithium-titanate batteries, crazy Finns. 160 mph on ice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ix8TN4jMAeo Is that a Nissan body? edit: oh my, the noise of the flyby at 0:15 made grown up things happen in my pants
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Mar 25, 2012 13:17
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Elon Musk just tweeted this, a Tesla has rolled over 200000 km. And still 66 km left of the charge!  I wonder if that's on the original battery pack...
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Apr 6, 2012 00:46
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Madurai posted:The motorized door handles seem to be the early reliability complaint leader on the Tesla. I really dislike unnecessary complexity like this. If you crash, flip over and catch fire - how will someone outside trying to save you get in? I can understand the need to eliminate parasitic drag, but surely there are simpler and more elegant solutions. But I guess the way to wow the masses is to load it up with gizmos that go  and Star Trek displays.
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Nov 26, 2012 13:59
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2ndclasscitizen posted:Is that really a big issue? If you've had a big enough crash to end up upside down and on fire the side windows are hardly likely to have survived intact. It's a hypothetical example. For every possible death scenario involving jammed doors I can come up with, you can think of something that makes it seem less bad or more bad. The door handles are more complicated and more expensive than they have to be for the sake of novelty. That's bad design.
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Nov 27, 2012 14:00
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Test drove the e-Golf the other day. It was excellent. Great to have adjustable regen braking as well. You move the shifter sideways to select three leves of regen. Then if you pull it towards you, you get a fourth level with a lot of regen. Perfect for long downhills. If it's braking a little bit too much, just give it a bit of gas. Is this common for all EVs?
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Jul 6, 2014 21:47
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ToxicFrog posted:The Leaf has two levels of regenerative braking (A- and B-mode), don't know about other EVs. Do you find yourself leaving it in one mode all the time or do you swap between the two? Before driving the Golf, I hadn't quite realized just how useful regen braking was. The throttle is a rheostat which basically allows you to maintain constant speed up and down all normal grades of roads without using the brakes. Last weekend we drove a borrowed Mazda 2 through some undersea tunnels. I was able to maintain the speed limit just fine by staying in 2nd gear at around 5000 rpm, nice with a revvy 1.0. But annoyingly, the cars around me couldn't maintain constant speed, they would coast up to 80-90 kph, then brake down to 65, coast up again etc. Very annoying to drive behind. The Golfs cruise control would have been able to maintain constant speed easily and unlike the Mazda 2, it would put fuel back in the tank as well. If only I needed a car I would get one.
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Jul 7, 2014 12:02
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sanchez posted:
Woops, forgot about answering this. The point is to drive at a constant speed downhill, not needing to ride the brakes. About stoplight creep, VW solved this pretty well. If you're stopped and release the brake, it's held in place with hill hold until you press the accelerator. If you give the accelerator the tiniest of dabs, it begins to creep. Brake to a complete stop again and it holds. Works nicely in my opinion, braking a creeping car is more accurate than using the accelerator when you need to be very slow / careful.
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Aug 28, 2014 10:49
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Interesting news from Elon Musk:quote:Roadster upgrade will enable non-stop travel from LA to SF -- almost 400 mile range. Details tmrw. Merry Christmas! https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/548257415536594944
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Dec 26, 2014 00:34
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Here are the details. I thought they were releasing an "upgrade" in the traditional sense - i.e. a new car which you can "upgrade to" if you sell your own Roadster. But it's actually a paid-for upgrade, like an expansion pack to a computer game.quote:The Roadster 3.0 package applies what we've learned in Model S to Roadster. No new Model S battery pack or major range upgrade is expected in the near term. http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/roadster-30 Ola fucked around with this message at 18:47 on Dec 27, 2014 |
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Dec 27, 2014 17:22
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It probably takes a little while for that effect to settle. In Norway, where EV conditions are ideal, at least financially, it's been an good year. Some stats from 2014: 142 151 new cars sold all in all 18 094 (12.7% market share) zero emission vehicles 4 970 VWs - eGolf and eUp 4 857 Nissans - mostly Leafs (Leaves?), not sure if the other platform offshoots (leaf joke there) are on sale yet 4041 Teslas, I assume all Model S 4 hydrogen cars Between 2.8% and 3.5% market share for the major players, the rest is Zoes, i-MIEVs etc. Not bad.
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Jan 2, 2015 21:04
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Introducting the Chevrolet Bolt. (yes, Bolt)  quote:The rumored Bolt concept car broke cover today in Detroit, Chevrolet's big bet on an all-electric sedan. http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/12/7530821/this-is-the-chevrolet-bolt Other places I've seen mention of adjustable ride height as well. Looks pretty good all in all.
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Jan 12, 2015 16:19
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I was expecting worse visuals actually, I could live with that. The overall lines are good, the visibility seems to be great, the only weird thing is the front end. Really don't know what they're trying to do with 2-3 different thin grilles. And knowing how the Volt concept vs the Volt on sale turned out, this is a realistic preview of the street ready Bolt:
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Jan 12, 2015 16:34
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Beffer posted:
I don't think battery swap in any form is ever going to come to the mass consumer market, it's an absolute inventory management nightmare. It could work well in a closed circuit, for instance on electric bus services where the vehicle itself can be tailor made for the swap cycle and the bus company can manage the packs, the swap stations and the routes to minute detail. For now, battery electrics will keep growing incrementally in range and in popularity. On the longer term, many things can happen - one thing I like is generating hydrogen from sea water using renewable electricity, then consuming that hydrogen either in fuel cell vehicles or internal combustion engines. It would work in jets as well, there's only the small matter of hydrogen storage to solve. Another thing I've seen, but know very little about, is storing electricity in a fluid. The term "electrolyte" seems the obvious choice, but I'm not sure if the electrolyte is the substance or just the medium. Anyway, you'd hook your car up to the station, it would drain your spent fluid and refill a fresh one full of electric potential. The spent fluid is then recharged at the station or by plugging in at home. No idea if it's feasible or not, but it sounds nice anyway.
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Jan 26, 2015 12:42
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Beffer posted:When you say inventory management is the problem, are you talking about the physical management of the packs or the inventory cost? Is there a reference to a discussion of this issue? Yes, the physical management. I haven't seen any good analysis, just talking out of my own charging port here. But I do believe it will be a problem. The rental car industry can teach it some lessons, probably many other businesses as well. But the price of battery packs, how much insured value is out on the streets at any given time, how much stock you need to keep to handle peaks, service rural areas etc etc. There's so much that need to be in place for it to be smooth and if things start falling apart, the entire driving nation grinds to a halt. If it was something you did once a year when the high density, short life battery was worn out, perhaps. But swapping three times in a day when you are driving home for Christmas? Of course, it could be that it was a limited thing you paid extra for at rare times but you normally relied on charging it yourself. And it would help balance the loads as the packs could be charged at night. Some fancy computer systems talking to your cars navigation could tell you to swap a battery at place X for a discount (or a waived fee) instead of Y due to charged batteries running out at Y. It seems so attractive, the type of logistical ballet city planners like. But the real world is messy and people don't give a poo poo, much better to rely on battery chemistry giving sufficient range for people's needs and leaving them to sort out the charging themselves. Balancing load on the grid can be done in many ways, I'm not sure I'd want massive flywheels all around the city. One thing you could do at the power station level is pump water up into a reservoir at night and then let it drive a turbine during the day.
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Jan 27, 2015 19:40
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It's been talked about a bit here in Norway since we have so much hydroelectric power, but there are certainly disadvantages as you rightly point out. It's quite simple really, it's economical as long as the deficit in electric energy is made up for by the swing of the energy price. There are many many other ways of storing energy like this, compressed air, heated salt, etc etc. Another way to balance load is to build a lot of solar power. They are idle at night and active during the day with none of the shutdown issues associated with coal and nuclear.
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Jan 28, 2015 00:29
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withak posted:In Scandinavia they do this by tapping into existing high mountain lakes with a tunnel drilled up from underneath. You dig the tunnel as close to the lake bottom as you dare, then seal off the downstream end of the tunnel and blast open the bottom of the lake. Umm no.
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Jan 28, 2015 07:12
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No I haven't. The hits refer to a blasting technique, which is fine, sure. But you don't drill up to the bottom of a preexisting lake to build a hydroelectric plant. You dam up a valley so all the small lakes can become a big one. Then you channel the water from the dam through tunnels (built dry) and pipes down to you power plant.
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Jan 28, 2015 07:52
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I guess I misunderstood, sorry. You've described a great way to punch a hole in a lake, I meant that simply punching a hole in a lake isn't enough to make a good power plant. Dams, tunnels, moving rivers, draining some lakes dry, creating artificial ones etc is all part of it. For that reason hydroelectric power has been criticized much in the past for the intervention in nature, loss of scenic waterfalls, salmon rivers and so on. But when it comes to cheap, carbon free energy, they're hard to beat. Here's an example of one power plant, which is really a mountain turned into swiss cheese to connect many reservoirs and pipe them to multiple power stations.   Blåsjø, "blue lake", a 33 sq mi artificial lake created by damming up a valley which used to have many small lakes in it. A few of the power plants, including one associated with this lake, has the capability of pumping water uphill to store it when demand is low. It's funny how poo poo weather is such a great source of energy.
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Jan 28, 2015 14:15
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Good point by InitialDave. Western Norway is "the land of a thousand tunnels". Some of the projects are very impressive, corkscrews, subsea etc. But the way they did it in the olden days was quite impressive as well:
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Jan 28, 2015 22:15
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I too thought you would buy a car with a swap option which included a leased battery pack and access to the swap network. One point to consider is the cost of the packs. A battery pack is easily a quarter, maybe a third of the car's price. So if you drive home for Christmas, you might be renting hardware for the price of your own car, and paying the insurance premiums of these high turnover, high dollar objects, in addition to paying for the electricty and the overheads. That's where inventory management comes in, you need to make sure people are willing to pay enough for this to support the risk of many millions of dollars worth of batteries behind moved around and supercharged all day, and you need to keep a very close eye on over/under-capacity, planning for all sorts of breakdowns and eventualities etc. Then there's rural areas or areas with very seasonal traffic. It's a problem even for gas stations today, but gas just scales better since it's a gas station comparatively simpler, likely cheaper and the range of a tank is not too bad meaning you need fewer gas stations to consider a stretch of land viable for car travel. If there was some limited amount of research budget that could be allocated either to battery chemistry or battery swap logistics, I would opt for the former and hope for the best. It's the simpler way, it just requires the fatter grid that the swap option also demands, but nothing more - apart from driver patience, since charging will obviously always take more time than swapping. But it could be that they'll never get enough range out of batteries and swap is the only way to get long range electric travel possible. Or the fluid thing, hope it works. jammyozzy posted:Please tell me I can cycle up/down this. You can! It's a long road over mountains etc meant for horses and carts from medieval times to mid 1800s. It's not all windy and snaky, that particular bit with the high dry stone walls starts here at N61.0435 E7.7963[url] and [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borgund_Stave_Church]ends at this attraction. You'll find tons of other amazing roads for cycling if you want to go on holiday. This post brought to you by the Norwegian Tourist Board.
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Jan 29, 2015 20:54
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IOwnCalculus posted:
Even though I'm a nay-sayer on swapping, this is a good insight. The boss of IBM in the late 1940s or whatever is often ridiculed for saying there was a global market of maybe 5 computers. But he was right, there wasn't any market for more than about five, given what he was selling at the time. He wasn't looking into the future, he was worrying about the present. Who knows what it's like in 10 or even 3 years? I think, fundamentally, electricty is a medium for transporting energy between where it's harvested and where it's used, and the simplicity and awesome practicality of the electric motor means there is just no way around it. That's the way to do it. Exactly how we do it is fun to talk about, but not much to worry about, there is incentive for clever people to take chances, experiment and figure it out.
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Jan 29, 2015 21:57
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Just walked past this. While I love the Model S, I have been skeptical to the automated door handles. One scenario is a crash, shorted electrics, a fire and no way for people outside to open the doors and save those within. Are more mild issue is a few degrees below freezing and the right rear handle stuck out with its light on, draining the battery. Since it can phone home... 1) ..there should be all sorts of alert triggers which notifies the driver. Locked with open window, stuck door handle, haven't been charged in X days, etc etc. 2) ... I'll try sending the pic and GPS coords to Tesla support, see if they can remote in and shut it or alert the owner.
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Feb 4, 2015 18:41
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I am not good at posting in general, but I thought the problem was obvious. (not much at photography either) See the cone of light near the rear door handle? The gee-wiz proximity sensor door handle is stuck in the out position. It's been cold the past few days, I bet that is the root cause. Oh and I did email Tesla support. Will be surprised if they answer, delighted if they care.
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Feb 4, 2015 19:00
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The Locator posted:The battery pack can hurtle 4500+ pounds of car down the road for 150+ miles, it can probably run that door light until all that snow thaws in May. Oh yeah, absolutely. But it's not like they included lovely door handles on purpose because the battery pack was so big. It's a neato-o thing that's supposed to be all wow, now it's all durrrr. The overnight energy lost in keeping the light lit is easily more than the tiny aerodynamic benefits of retractable door handles. There's even ways of designing door handles that are flush at speed, yet completely energy passive in use. And as I hinted at, there is certainly ways of solving tech with more tech - such as an alert that says "door handles should be out for 10 seconds during normal use - add plenty of safety factor, add even more since it's low impact, if one is out for five minutes, trigger an alert". It's a showpiece, when it works it makes the car look extra good. But when such a simple device becomes a liability, a net loss, it's hubris, it's failed pride, it makes the designers look more arrogant than competent. If regular door handles are frozen, oh that's normal. If fancy pants door handles are doing weird poo poo in the cold, the entire car looks bad. As I said, I do love the Model S and I totally understand why this happens. It's the risk of new stuff. You throw ten new things at the wall and only nine of them stick, people are going to call you names. The tenth is just a door handle, they're still calling you names. I am stressing that I am a fan and understanding critic before posting the next pic, posted by an FB-friend:  One year old. That would make a BMW 7-series buyer raise a case with the war criminal court in the Hague. Again, I love the Model S, I think it's the best car sold in the past 10 years. But making a new car from scratch, with a new company, is going to mean more trouble than say, being the patent-holding minority in a joint operation with a major league car maker.
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Feb 4, 2015 20:37
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quote:Hello Ola!
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Feb 4, 2015 20:55
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fjelltorsk posted:Never figured i would post in the EV thread, but i picked up my P85D today. The car is freaking unreal to drive. The way EVs are taxed and excempted from stuff in Norway makes it a really good deal aswell. one could argue i would get the same benefits from a Nissan Leaf, but...there is no Insane mode toggle in a Leaf, is there? Congrats! Some pics maybe? And have you had a chance to try it on snowy roads?
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Mar 11, 2015 09:31
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fjelltorsk posted:I have tried it on wet salty roads, but there is no snow in Bergen atm. There is a few patches on Fløien, I just had a great walk in the sunshine!  And out of curiosity about the buses at work, do you work for Tide? I suppose the trolleybuses have batteries so they can move when they're not connected to the lines. This forum has some useful info about and experiences with charging, but it's quite patchy. http://elbilforum.no/forum/index.php They haven't done a sticky with info or updated OPs so you have to dig a bit. There are multiple options for faster home charging, either with Tesla's own home charger or red/blue 3-phase plugs. PS Lykke til og god bedring!
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Mar 12, 2015 15:11
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I got a little video of the long bus one morning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9FmG_Sc8qg (I wrote that Skyss was testing it, my bad) I think electric buses, using both battery and overhead wires, in their own lanes is a great public transit option for the near future. Cheaper and better than light rail, a very good option for many cities.
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Mar 12, 2015 20:58
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The one in the video isn't 100% electric, I think it's a series hybrid with the piston engine able to run on natural gas or bio gas. Fjelltorsk can probably correct me or expand on it. But anyway, many of the issues that plague private electric car decisions are not a problem in a bus scenario. The distance is known, you can plan charging in to the schedule, you can mix and match power sources, you can roll your own infrastructure etc etc.
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Mar 12, 2015 22:17
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Sounds amazing. About the screen, does it dim dark enough to not interfere with your night vision? Here's a small tip for wiper fluid cans: http://www.biltema.no/no/Fritid/Campingvogn-og-bobil/Vann-og-avlop/Fleksibel-helletut-37496/
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Mar 25, 2015 21:04
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I'm sure that's what fjelltorsk tries to do, but apparently the filler is in a tricky location.
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Mar 25, 2015 21:41
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Went for a demo ride in a P85D today. Holy smokes. Everything about it is perfect, although the price is way out of reach for me. If I was buying I'd definitely get a non-P, might or might not spring for 4WD. The air suspension was very plush and comfortable without being saggy soft even with the 21"s. (I'd pick 19"s). Flooring it from standstill was, yes exactly, insane. It will beat most motorcycles 0-60 easily. The bike has to ride the clutch and prevent a wheelie or course while the car simply goes "punch it Chewie". The acceleration was physically disorienting, it felt like I was tilting backwards. Addictive, but I'd still go for a non-P, it's no slouch. The max ride height is also excellent:  Many other cars might be better in many different specific categories, but in my opinion it's no doubt that this is the best car in the world.
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Mar 27, 2015 13:18
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It certainly seems like the Ps and Ds will depreciate quickly, the current models already are, it's a bit like buying mobile phones or PCs. There's gonna be an awesome one out in 6 months or a year, you wanna buy the current one? Still, if I had the money and the need, I'd get a non-P RWD, maybe a D if I could get a discounted demo one, and not look back. It will be fantastic and it will last. I might buy another fossil powered motorcycle in my life, maybe, but I will never ever own a fossil powered car.
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Apr 16, 2015 22:52
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sanchez posted:Service is the easy part, it's what happens when your center stack touchscreen has a problem, or anything in the car outside of the drive unit. Nobody seems to know how much a set of brake pads, or headlights or new door handle erector motors will actually cost with labor. They might be nice about it and do everything for reasonable prices, but the current situation where you are effectively bound to them completely for maintenance is unique. To be fair, no other vehicle manufacturer provides that info. They do the classic Haynes manual thing of stripping one down. Tesla's will be much thinner than the others. And if you don't like the way their software works, there is actually a forum you can troll which actually has an effect. Did that happen for any other make?
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Apr 16, 2015 23:24
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The Tesla is turning into something of a hate object in Norway. Not too hard to figure out why. Among the many privileges electric cars get, the more controversial ones are access to the bus lanes and zero toll fees. While all electric cars get them, most electric cars come with some sort of drawback, range in particular. The Tesla doesn't, so it's seen as a way for rich people to buy express access to the city, like business priority at the airport. Pretty clear that the amount of electric cars in the bus lane is untenable: New policies are pending. The bus lane problem is biggest around Oslo so I think it's going to go. I don't think it matter much elsewhere. Hopefully it doesn't dent this progress too much, I really hope electric cars catch on even more.
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May 7, 2015 09:25
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Collateral Damage posted:Aren't Teslas and other electric cars really cheap in Norway too, because you get a ton of tax breaks on zero-emission vehicles? Yes, among the many incentives they are sold without sales tax, road tax, carbon tax etc etc...the taxes that make cars sold in Norway very expensive. Here's a comparison with the UK, which I think is fair as they will both have some transport cost. BMW 3 series, baseline: UK: £24,225 - $36,798 Norway: 346,700 NOK - $47,315 Tesla S70D with no options: UK: £55,380 - $84,124 Norway: 563,200 NOK - $76,831 Cash price for the S70D in the US, before tax incentives, is $75,000. You'll find much bigger differences between UK and Norway if you look at high emission piston engines and cheaper electrics.
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May 7, 2015 10:03
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Yup. The "bus lane ends" sign is on the red bridge, the truck is not quite there yet but that's not uncommon during rush hour. I think bus lanes should be physically separate from the main road so they didn't have to bother with exit traffic etc. Give them their own lanes completely so buses are as quick as trains. Make the buses electric, able to run on battery and overhead wires. They can share the road with cars in one place on battery power, zoom along like a train on overhead wires in another place. Bam, fast, efficient, adaptable and environmentally friendly mass transit.
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May 7, 2015 15:05
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MattD1zzl3 posted:Should i take the Kia Soul EV seriously? I wanted a nissan leaf for ages but actively dislike every nissan ever made but it, so i'd rather give my money to the dudes that made that funny hamster commercial. Oh certainly. 27 kWh battery, perhaps the best non-Tesla range and CHAdeMO quick DC charging.
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May 8, 2015 17:30
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