I highly doubt that.
Fair point. But unexpected defects can happen with every car. A defect at the BMS isn't going to be cheap. And high end cars relay heavily on multiple cameras, laser or radar sensors. A failure there is expensive.
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EV cars blowing past gas cars in lower cost-per-mile and maintenance.
- Thread starter PracticalMac
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I'm afraid not. My local energy supplier told me this week that as of 2020 the price per kWh goes up by 1,15ct.
Changing the energy supplier makes little sense for me. My energy supplier is already at the low end of the price table and it guaranties that the electricity contains no nuclear power.
More like a hatchback than an SUV.
2019 Honda Accord:
That raked roof in the back isn't going to be great for rear-seat headroom.
And it doesn't look like a mustang. They could do some sheetmetal work to make it look more muscular.
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Do you have data to back that up?
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I consider rotors a maintenance item. If you put enough miles on the vehicle.
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Amazing that this could be done with software.
I'd like to see them increase range with software too.
What would be cool is something like Profile-Guided Optimization. That is where your car optimizes driving and driving recommendations for your particular route. So it would look at stop signs, traffic signals, typical traffic congestion, speed limits, etc. to make recommendations to optimize battery range.
BTW, I took this term from software development.
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It is called "Kohleausstieg" in German and means that the amount of coal to generate electricity is reduced and it will ultimately be abandoned altogether.
In a first step the use of lignite will be reduced and should not be used by 2038 (maybe 2035).
Hard coal was mined for the last time in Germany in August 2018 and must be imported since then. There are similar considerations for the reduction of hard coal (but lignite is a priority because the mining employs a lot of people).
Germany has build and is building huge off-shore wind parks. Some got finished in the last years but a problem is the connection to the electrical grid and transferring electricity from north (where it is generated) all over the country.
So, do you have any credible data to show that the use of coal will rise?
As I said: I highly doubt that.
I’d be very suspect of your doubts. Germany decision to ban nuclear generation has markedly increased fossil fuel use, and not all the nuclear plants are shutdown yet. Renewable (solar and wind) growth in the country is actually slowing. Solar only works part of the day and wind generation is not consistent, therefore these are not reliable sources.
With the EV market growing, potentially becoming a significant portion of the market in the next decade, countries should be concerned about their energy production. Charging cars uses a substantial amount of energy and if the infrastructure doesn’t exist to charge them, we will have massive problems
Well, if you’re paying more to have “renewable energy” or not to have nuclear it simply isn’t the reality. The power grid is not designed to decide which individual household gets power from where- it’s a ridiculous idea. When you pay more for greener energy you’re getting the same sources of power as before. Instead, that extra money that isn’t pocketed usually goes to renewable energy credits... of which a fraction actually ends up is invested in green energy programs, hopefully something actually useful. So you’re basically buying carbon offsets for the power company, and there’s a lot of problems with carbon offsets.
I’m all for efficiency and environmental conservation, and if you want to donate to the cause that’s great. But I have to say buying “green energy” from your utility or a middleman ESCO (Energy Service Company) is probably the worst and least efficient means. I’d recommend donating to organizations directly instead.
As someone who works in automotive engineering I find this to be 100% useless.
Eectric vehicles "feel" faster than their ICE counterparts and in day-to-day driving they actually are faster. If a BEV and ICE vehicle both had the same 0-60 time of 7 seconds the BEV would still be faster and perform better in everyday driving due to the fact electric motors have instant throttle response and lots of torque.
Tesla didn't need to bother making their vehicles have ridiculously low 0-60 times that people would never use (except that one time you want to show off to your buddies). If they had designed their vehicles to hit 0-60 in 7 seconds literally NOBODY would be complaining. They'd still be talking about how "quick" the cars feel and how the throttle response is excellent.
All Tesla has done is waste a lot of money on components that weren't needed. They include:
- Larger, heavier (and more expensive) electric motors to produce enough power to accelerate the vehicle that fast. Literally twice as powerful as they needed to be.
- Heavier gauge wiring to handle the increased current from the battery to the controller and the controller to the motors.
- Larger, higher power motor controllers to be able to deliver the necessary current to the motors.
- Battery packs with beefier internal wiring/interconnects to handle the increased current demands of the high output motors.
All of this adds significant expense to the vehicle. Money that could have been used to do things like:
- Price the vehicle lower than it is to make it available to more buyers.
- Add in some additional creature comforts/features so your Model S doesn't feel like a $25K Toyota inside.
- Increase the battery pack sizes so the vehicles have even longer range.
These would have made people like their Tesla even more than they do now. But no, let's waste money on useless things like insane 0-60 times (then put a warning on the dash that tells you using launch control may cause additional wear and reduce the life of your motors or battery).
Musk is more concerned with adding things that are "cool" rather than "practical".
The 3 in the video doesn't have launch control (I think you are confusing it with the S).
Unless Sandy Munro was mistaken the 3's motor is smaller, more powerful, and costs less than the immediate competition (at the time of the tear down).
I would support Nuclear over FF (fossil fuel), with the caveat of safety systems.
Some designs are fail safe were they will shut down naturally (fuel is fed into system, if feed stops, reaction stops. Feed is also limited so cannot be over fed).
In the US Navy, despite dozens (over 100?) of nuclear vessels, not one ever had an incident, let alone an accident.
Energy conversion is more efficient with large PP than engine on car.
Compare how much you spend for gasoline vs elec for elect car for same distance.
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More like a hatchback than an SUV.
First ever 4 door Mustang?
IMHO, this is really stupid to call it a Mustang.
It should be called "Thunderbolt", and is a perfect reason.
Mustang is named after the P-51 WW2 fighter aircraft, not a horse (despite logo).
The P-47 WW2 fighter is named Thunderbolt, and it is big and fast.
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Cool and practical can be two different things or both depending on how you decide to look at it. I personally think the Tesla hits both marks quite well. There are other electric vehicles on the market with much worse range and performance numbers but yet did not sell as well as the Tesla cars did. I applaud Musk for what he accomplished. The Tesla may not be perfect but it is quite good for a new car company in my opinion. They are new and for what a new car manufacturer company has accomplished far is pretty amazing. A Honda is quite practical but many people still buy BMW's,Porsche's and Mercedes. Each company will always have their own customers. What one will like another may hate just like Apple vs Microsoft.
From a strictly engineering perspective it may be useless, but from a marketing perspective it was important. It adds appeal to the car and virtually everyone I know who talks about Teslas talks about Ludicrous Mode and the times it gets.
Do typical sedan drivers hit the drag strip? Of course not. But the countless videos of a Teslas beating very fast gasoline cars are all free viral marketing for Tesla.
Many have forgotten by now, but Musk had to turn around the impression that EVs could only be cramped, crappy, slow, ugly, and short-ranged, because that's what they were all like. He didn't want to just match ICE cars or make EVs feel a little faster than them--he wanted to aim really high on these metrics and blow it out of the water. I think it served Tesla well, and also that it helped the EV industry as a whole.
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I think E-Scooters and E-bikes are just as good now for local trips in the city. Cheap, reliable and economical if you live in a city where there is no rain and snow with warm temperatures.
Unless Sandy Munro was mistaken the 3's motor is smaller, more powerful, and costs less than the immediate competition (at the time of the tear down).
Unlike the other major players in BEVs, Tesla uses three-phase motors. Everyone else that I know of uses synchronous, in which the A/C frequency is varied to control motor speed. Three-phase obviously means that the power supply has to have three offset oscillators instead of one variable oscillator, but those are relatively small and inexpensive components. A three-phase motor tends to yield better performance all around, but I guess the big companies are far more interested in maximizing their profits than in making good stuff.
About the same as a Lamborghini Countach, apparently.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blo...hini-countach-lp400s-or-a-toyota-camry-se-v6/
This guy made a lot of money off of his Tesla. Read article and watch video
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/21/how...in-los-angeles-on-1point6-million-a-year.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/21/how...in-los-angeles-on-1point6-million-a-year.html
I was in town the other day, a town I am not all that familiar with, and found myself driving past a Tesla dealership. There were no cars in the parking lot, and the showroom looked dark and empty. Though, I could see, if they are by-appointment-only.
20+ years ago the same concern was brought up about the Prius and its NiMH battery packs. The related concern was that after 10 years or so the battery packs would be dead, and their then-cost of $10,000 would thus effectively make an otherwise working car to be "totaled" from a budget perspective (the car not being worth the cost of replacing the batteries).
But what happened is that (A) the batteries lasted longer than expected, (B) the battery pack cost went down to about $3500, and (C) the dead batteries are so valuable for recycling that you get a core credit of over $1000 when turning them in to Toyota. So the old batteries are taken care of and it significantly reduces the price of the new battery pack even further.
I expect the same will happen with lithium batteries...i.e. that the costs are coming down fast and there will be a core credit to turn old ones in.
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Small nitpick: the Prius does not use a Nickel-Cadmium battery, it uses Nickel-Metal-Hydride (NiMH), which offers a significantly better charge density.
But the main reason for the longevity of the Prius battery is that it is not used as the primary motive power source for the car. Under normal use, it starts out around 50% charged, so that it can capture braking energy and any low-transmission-ratio excess that is not fed back into the electric drive motor. A Prius taking off from a stop will run for a short distance on the electric motor before starting the gas engine, to reuse braking energy and to relevel the battery. Because it spends most of its time in the 40%~60% charge range, there is very minimal charge cycle wear on the battery itself, and it can last a very long time. My mother's 17 y/o Prius is still on its original battery, although, she lives in the city and walks a lot, so it only has around 40K on it.
Thanks for the correction. I knew that, but somehow wrote NiCD anyway.
IIRC, Tesla and several other EVs have a certain % of battery capacity reserved that can't be used for normal driving. Its purpose is to increase the useful life of the battery pack by becoming available over time to match the expected rate of degradation.
In fact there are complaints about not being about to use that reserved capacity, for example in an emergency where you've run out of range in a bad location where you can't get help.
It's the same concept that many SSD's have where a portion of the memory capacity is reserved and normally unavailable, but becomes available for use to replace bad blocks as the SSD naturally degrades.
This doesn't make any sense. Pretty much everyone uses 3 phase, regardless of the motor type.