I've been driving a tesla roadster for about a year. It's my daily commuter.
I plug the car into a regular 110V outlet. I typically get 30-50 miles of charge overnight, depending on what time I get home and when I leave. My commute is only 10 miles each way so it's 100% full most mornings when I get in.
I've verified the car can do 240 miles between cities but you have to set the cruise to 60 mph or below. I keep a gas car for long road trips and camping, etc., but I don't use it much.
The Tesla is very cool. Strangers stop me to talk about it multiple times per week. Customer service has been off the charts.
I forgot to mention what is maybe the best part. Surprised the article doesn't talk about this.
When you drive an EV, acceleration is instant. Like, at the same time your foot goes down, your shoulders get thrown back.
Gas cars often take 0.5-2 seconds to get response from the engine, depending on the car & current conditions at the time you accelerate.
You get used to the acceleration in the Tesla after a while. But one year in, I'm still loving the instant response. That's what I really miss when I'm driving the gas car. It's just awesome.
I think you're attributing to throttle lag something that is primarily attributable to torque (which isn't to say there isn't throttle response lag, just it's a minor component imo). Diesels are similar to EVs in the sense that you don't need to let the engine rev up or downshift to get that "throw you back" feel quickly. Depends on the car, obviously.
Depending on the engine computer (or lack thereof), a couple seconds of throttle lag isn't unreasonable. One of the things my flight instructor made a point to show me while learning to fly small planes (with carbureted engines, so the effect was magnified compared to what you'd see on a modern fuel-injected auto) was throttle lag on a balked landing (go-around). Most aircraft engines directly drive the propeller, so there are no transmission effects to confusing things. Shoving the throttle from idle to wide-open can actually cause a dip in RPM as the higher manifold pressure condenses formerly vaporized fuel and the fuel system tries to catch up.
You need to factor in that you don't have to pay for gas or most regular maintenance, and there are significantly fewer parts that will break over the lifetime of the vehicle. You also aren't the target demographic for the Model S -- it's aimed at the luxury and sports car markets.
Elon Musk is without doubt one the best entrepreneurs around - far less celebrated than many of the other 'uber' entrepreneurs around but with such ridiculously awesome companies.
268 Miles (or slightly less according to the article) is just amazing - less C02, less environmental impact wrapped in a high performance car which - will no doubt - have some detractors as a first iteration against well establish models (comparing it to BMW and Mercedes who have been around for almost 90+ years is a big ask!)
None the less - it's ridiculously exciting at what's been achieved and what will be achieved in the next few years in this space. I give it no more than 3-4 years until these cars will be doing 400-500 miles or more.
I think the next big innovation after EV (+ diesel for long haul, and maybe diesel/hybrid), will be self-driving cars. If you keep cars for 10 years, it's reasonable that a car bought today could be your last without a self-driving mode, even if that self driving mode only covers certain driving regimes (auto-park, which the Japanese prius did a few years ago; highway close-follow road-train mode, auto-braking (which we have now in some high end luxury cars), etc.
I think your 10 year estimate is optimistic, but it is certainly coming to the point where the cars drive themselves. One of the interesting things about being driven, as opposed to driving, is that passengers rarely suffer from 'road rage.' That is a big win.
Perhaps more interesting will be the transition time, that point where half the cars are self driving and half are manually driven. Will manual drivers become more aggressive because they "know" the robo-cars will get out of their way? I expect it will be less fun before it is more fun.
"Perhaps more interesting will be the transition time, that point where half the cars are self driving and half are manually driven. Will manual drivers become more aggressive because they "know" the robo-cars will get out of their way?"
that would be quite interesting to see. i could certainly see myself becoming more aggressive if i knew others around me would adjust without incident; though that would depend on if self-driving cars are clearly labeled as such (i.e. with special plates)
Actually, someone was saying that they saw a google bubble when they witnessed the self driving car in traffic. As the google car tried to keep a safe distance people kept cutting in that space and making the google car slow down even further to get the required space.
I actually expect major pushback to automated cars for just this reason. and suspect that ultimately we will have to legislate that all cars be automated.
Maybe in the tech community on Hacker News, but ask your mom if she knows who Elon Musk is. Then ask her about Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. My guess is that you get a no idea for the first.
If I asked my wife today, I'm certain she's knows Jobs and Gates, maybe Bezos (and that's a big maybe) but no way would she know who Musk is. Lets not mistake our echo chamber for the world.
The only people I'd expect a 30-40 year old "smart, but not tech industry" person to know are Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg -- younger people wouldn't be as likely to know Bill Gates, except maybe for his philanthropy or due to references in classic rap music to "Bill Gates money". Sean Parker might be higher in the mass market than expected due to his colorful portrayal in the movie. Then probably Trump, Ellison, and Branson for their non-tech accomplishments (TV, racing/living, and airlines/music/etc.), and then probably rappers (Jay-Z, 50 Cent, etc. are all clearly entrepreneurs as much as musicians), and maybe Oprah.
The only person I'd expect everyone to know is Steve Jobs. I wonder if that will be true of people who are 5-10 years old today, in a decade.
I'd assume Musk is more popular than tech entrepreneurs overall due to rockets and cars; even in tech no one knows about Zip2 and "one of the many founders of PayPal" is kind of a stretch (outside HN/VC, who knows Keith Rabois or David Sacks?)
Even the most successful business/tech entrepreneurs are less famous than a B or C list media celebrity.
You'd be surprised. I've been hanging around here for a few years and I have no idea who he is. Although a little voice in the back of my mind says he might be the Dropbox guy.
In the startup world, more folks cite Zuckerberg and Dorsey. Hell, even Mason and Pincus get more press than Musk (though probably for the wrong reasons).
Elon Musk was a co-founder who had at least $70 million of his own money in Tesla. And he did found SpaceX in 2002 and has over $100 million of his own invested in the company.
Cofounder is someone that is there from day 1.
Tesla Roadster existed before Musks's involvement.
Martin Eberheard searched for Ventura Capital,
one of his leads was Elon Musk.
Tesla was really started by a small company called AC propulsion. They made the prototype roadster. Elon and Martin both approached AC separately to take the car to Mass Market but they wern't interested, so Elon and Martin teamed up. Elon financed the company and Martin ran it. However in 2008, after a series of massive mistakes, Elon had to recap the company with every penny he had and Martin was fired.
Lesson is. Corporate history is a lot like hotdogs. They have equal claim co-founder status.
I stand corrected on SpaceX... yes it seems Musk founded it.
But on Tesla Motors the fact of the matter is that it was started by engineers (Eberheard and Tarpenning) and control was taken away by an investor (Musk)
Some facts:
1. The first wikipedia page review on Tesla Motors from Jue 12, 2006 [1]:
"The firm was started in 2003 by engineers Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning....
Tesla has also managed to secure initial funding from prominent investors, such as PayPal co-founder Elon Musk, and Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page."
RedHerring Article July 8 2006[2]:
"Tesla Motors said earlier this month that it has raised a $40-million Series C round of financing led by VantagePoint Venture Partners and Elon Musk"
Finally from Eberheard himself [3]: "Mr. Musk was one of the leads I followed."
From what I remember from The Paypal Wars (highly recommended):
There was a culture clash when X got bought by Paypal. Elon was in charge of X and became the CEO of the combined company (as Peter Thiel took a leave of abscence) and wanted to switch from Unix to Windows. Max Levchin, the main tech guy at Paypal hated that idea. Elon initially got his way, and Max got marginalized. He then started looking into fraud cases and discovered that fraud, although low as a percentage of revenue, was growing rapidly. Max then persuaded people that the #1 priority should be to fix the fraud issue before it would kill them, and that they didn't have the time to worry about the technology stack. Elon Musk got kicked out, Peter Thiel came back to Paypal as CEO and Max managed to squash the fraud problem. Their competitors either failed to get traction or got crushed by fraud. With Paypal as the last one standing they won and got bought by Ebay.
I don't think anything will eliminate range anxiety other than time. As more people get electric cars and start to build their lives around them, their acquaintances will start to see it as more normal.
It's almost like the very early days of the automobile, when each driver had to carry a ton of extra gas, since fill stations were few and far between. Like any bootstrap, it took a long time to create the virtuous cycle that mutually reinforces the value of the customers and the infrastructure. Electric cars will need to go through the same thing.
The other big issue is the time to refill. 30 minute quick charge is incredibly fast for electricity, but still incredibly slow compared to filling a gas car.
What I don't understand is why don't they put a small 20 kW 500 cc one cylinder generator in cars, at the same time they could reduce the battery size quite a lot and still most trips could be made purely electrically. Cost would be a lot lower as well.
The average power needed for driving is very low, only 10-20 kW and the battery handles the peaks like when you need to climb a hill or overtake. For example in this article they used 78.2 kWh in 5 h, meaning average 16 kW. The small generator could be called a spare energy source.
Instead, all plugin hybrids have big expensive heavy four cylinder engines which defeats the whole point of building a hybrid in the first place. For example 1.4 liters in the Chevrolet Volt / Opel Ampera.
And then Tesla has no high energy density backup source which again limits the usability of that car (and forces you to keep another car). And raises anxiety...
"why don't they" -> Remembers me of a recent HN discussion ;)
But... Actually you are not far from something. This is actually an approach from Audi: http://green.autoblog.com/2010/03/01/geneva-preview-audi-a1-...
From what I read though this approach was not approved in the mother company, VW. Let's see who wins at the end.
I think that will end up requiring both a social tweak and an infrastructure one. Once people are comfortable with the concept of an electric car, it will be only natural to start requesting (and the necessary civil authorities adding) charging ports in standard parking areas.
Imagine in NYC, a parking meter that also has a charging plug for the car. Raise the meter's rate just a bit and you can cover both the electricity and install costs.
I'd love to see something along the lines of Intel's Wireless Resonant Energy Link[1] used in conjunction with EV's so that the idea of "plugging them in" can be all but eliminated.
If you didn't even have to plug it in, just drive it to work, park it, drive it home, park it and it could charge automagically in both parking spots - its much more convenient than petroleum and would potentially be a big plus FOR getting an EV.
>its much more convenient than petroleum and would potentially be a big plus FOR getting an EV.
Plugging in at home is already more convenient than petroleum.
It seems like using 40% more energy to charge your car is an inefficient way to avoid plugging in. Project Better Place is already working on robotic plugs that plug themselves in.
Agreed this is a big problem. If you could pull in, swap batteries, and be back on the road in 5 minutes, that is short enough that range isn't so much an issue. Having to wait for half an hour or more while the car charges is a very painful thing.
Perhaps self-driving cars are a solution: if the self-driving EV you're in runs out of power, you just jump out and grab another one. The transportation company worries about charging it.
I've driven more than 200 miles in a trip once in the past year. In that same amount of time I've spent upwards of 10 hours at gas stations filling up once a week, and another 2-3 hours getting oil changes because I don't have time to do it myself anymore.
Spending an extra hour per year at a Tesla SuperCharger represents a huge time-saver for me, and likely for the vast majority of folks who are complaining about it.
For commuting that would work fine. The issue, at least in the U.S., is the trip to Grandma's house or family vacation--which might involve driving more than 4-5 hours with kids in the car, to more rural destinations. Gas stations are fewer and far between, and the driver typically wants to get filled up and out of there ASAP.
I can't imagine NYC, but we already have some in SF: http://216.119.104.145/index.aspx?page=516 (yeah, I don't know what's up with the address--this is how it showed up in Google).
I'm not sure if you have to pay for it, but I've certainly seen people use them.
Also: I'd be far more inclined to pay for a bit of electricity; rather than just paying for the privilege of leaving my box of steel in between two white lines.
Off topic, but that star plot was impossible to read. Straight up parallel coordinates would have been an improvement (maybe), but I can't help feeling like, with only 25 data points, a summary table would have been even better. I love visualizations as much as the next guy, but only when they are aids to understanding, not, you know, detriments to it.
I disagree. While it was impossible to understand any specifics, that wasn't what they were trying to show. Instead, they were trying to show how Tesla dominates over other EVs (that are all about the same). And it did a great job of showing that, much better than a table would have.
That's fair. I was conflating two things in my initial post: legibility and suitability. Legibility was atrocious; I did not get the same insight from the vis that you did because I couldn't read it. Suitability is, of course, debatable. I find star plots have a fair bit of noise (e.g., line slope) that detracts from the message of the vis. Parallel coordinates are slightly better in this regard, but still require a "discerning eye." However, looking at it again, I agree that a table would be insufficient.
While this is impressive, it still doesn't come anywhere close to solving the problem. It can only be used for commuting and local trips. I regularly travel 450+ miles to visit family. Cannot use this. If you can improve the infrastructure with the charging stations it helps, but still doesn't work. I might be willing to stop for 30 minutes once, but not twice. I can eat a meal while it charges the first time, but as that charge still wouldn't be enough, i guess i just have to twiddle my thumbs for the second 30 minute stop. Adding an hour to my 6.5 hour drive is not something I'd enjoy.
Don't get me wrong, this is awesome for filling the commute hole, but many many people use their cars for longer trips as well. Until you can make it viable for both I'm not spending many tens of thousands of dollars on it.
You say, "the problem" when you should say "my problem."
Personally I just drive around the SF bay area. Maybe 120 miles on my longest driving day. For the one-two times a year I go farther, I suppose I need to rent a car, take transit. or have someone else drive. That seems like a reasonable price to pay to have the coolest car on the planet for a few years.
If you have a spare 100k "to be cool" then go for it. If I had that much money to throw around I'd get one as well. It's an awesome car.
That doesn't however just make it "my problem." There aren't very many people buying any of these cars, so I assume it's a problem for more than just me.
The point I'm trying to make, is that if I'm spending 50-100k on a car, I want it to solve "the driving problem." i.e. if I need to drive somewhere, I'd like to be able to do it. Whether I do it often or not is irrelevant. In my case I actually do do it quite frequently, but I suspect that many people don't buy these not because they actually do this once every month or two like I do, but because they want to be able to if they want or need to.
Maybe it's vacation, maybe it's seeing family, maybe it's an emergency. You need to go somewhere and you want to jump in the car and go there. With this you can't, and instead have to go spend several hundred extra dollars and a have a huge hassle of renting a car. No thank you.
I suspect more $100k cars don't get used on the 450 mile journeys. They're certainly far more common in the city than on the highway between cities. A $100k car is a very different market than a $50k car.
What is interesting, though, is that at least in Los Angeles pretty much every other car in the $100k range is a lot more common than the Roadster. I think I've seen one once. Even considerably pricier cars are more common than that.
"There aren't very many people buying any of these cars" - I can't tell if you mean teslas, or electric cars in general.
If you mean Teslas - an article in june said there are 10k reserved, which means the waiting list is a year long.
If you mean electric cars in general - I would urge you not to compare the leaf or volt to a tesla model S. The former was sold to cost conscious people who ultimately and correctly saw false economy, limitations and questionable design. The tesla can be sold to anyone who would buy a new BMW/Audi/Mercedes and wants to look earth conscious, tech savy, or hip.
There are over 13,000 reservations as of a week ago, and the pace of reservations is accelerating dramatically.
Chevy Volt is doing halfway decent selling 1,800 units per month even if it isn't as good as original projections.
Reservations in August for Model S are already coming close to that pace and the upward trend is accelerating, with each retail store now ramping up to multiple reservations per day.
Tesla is already planning to increase production to a monthly rate that translates into 30,000 units per year, but based on current trends it looks increasingly likely that next year's production might be sold out as early as January or February.
As to who will want the car, it's anyone who wants a new BMW/Audi/Mercedes and who wants to look earth conscious, tech savy, or hip while also saving a ton of money compared to the competition.
Model S Performance (the regular production model as opposed to the limited edition Signature Founders edition used in the test) costs less than BMW M5 even before the huge yearly savings on gas and maintenance (the performance is identical to the tested car, but it has different paint and interior options and is not a limited edition).
Model S 85 costs the same as the 550i GT (its most similar competitor) and saves thousands per year. It also competes with and compares favorably to various 7 series offerings while costing the same or less, and always saving a ton of operating expenses.
Those two cars are the bread and butter of the Model S lineup and are hyper competitive with their conventional counterparts. There are a million plus cars sold in this segment globally and Model S has a big competitive advantage.
You say "still doesn't come anywhere close to solving the problem". But in really it just doesn't solve your specific problem. Tesla have chosen to tackle for the common case; if they tried to be everything to everyone they'd never have reached production.
Don't forget that the Model S costs around $50,000. Most buyers can afford maintain a second car for the kinds of trips you're talking about.
I'm just suggesting that the general population doesn't have 50k to spend on something that only provides one very specific utility. As Musk just pointed out the other day, they are in a do or die 6 month period right now, and might not survive. The other electric car options have mostly been failures. Clearly I'm not the only person who would like to have a bit more utility for my 50k.
Keep in mind that you don't get 250 miles of range unless the place on the other end can charge your car for you. You only get 125. That's really not that far.
The average American household owns 2.28 vehicles. The percentage of households that own three or more vehicles is a whopping 35 percent.
Furthermore, the most common pairing of vehicles in American households with two to four cars is a full-sized pickup truck and a standard, mid-range vehicle. The latter can basically be a Tesla.
first, I have 2 cars with a combined value of less than 10k. that's a far cry from 50k on 1 car. second, no it can't. That's the one they use to do the traveling I'm talking about. They don't take the pickup on the road trip.
"Many" does not mean most. Cars which need to drive more than 250 miles at a time are a niche market. The only reason there is a desire for that amount of range is because of the incredible inconvenience involved in stopping at a gas station multiple times per week.
And the Tesla's value drops over time also. I don't know the exact set of cars you own, but I imagine that together they were likely worth more than 50K new.
We drove from Fontana on the eastern edge of the L.A.
basin to San Diego and all the way back to L.A.'s Pacific
edge on one charge. Five hours of continuous driving.
The 233 mile, 5 hour trip was done on a single charge.
To me that's pretty far - I could tolerate a 1 hour break every 5 hours.
But that's not yet in the cards. Realistically, you need to be talking about 2.5 hours as the effective range, as almost nowhere will have the full speed charging setup.
I was thinking someone who drove 5 hours to visit family would be staying over night and could do an over night charge. I'll admit this may not always be the case.
I certainly agree that serious range and uptake will need serious charging and generation infrastructure.
Yeah, that a special installation that you would get in your own house. Unless your friend also has this hookup (which if they do they probably need to using for themselves anyway) you have to use the special regular outlet hookup which is ~5 miles per hour of charge.
Most modern homes have a 240v hookup for a dryer or welder in or near the garage. That is more than sufficient to charge the Model S over night.
If your family already has an actual charge station they DON'T need it because they aren't about to go driving 200 miles while you are visiting, and if they are the car can be charged before you get there, or charged after you are done with Model S. It takes 4 HOURS to do a full standard charge. You can charge 2 cars in a night easy.
If your family doesn't have a 240v plug it can be installed for anywhere from $300-$1100. If you go there regularly, just pay to have it installed and it will pay for itself.
"one very specific utility". Driving a long distance is the niche need, not driving every day and saving a ton of money doing it.
Musk said Tesla might die, but it has nothing to do with sales. They have sales coming out of their ears right now, the problem is ramping up production to get cars to people who are throwing their money at Tesla.
Another problem here as well is the case of poor people. They don't have a lot of money and often times have to travel great distances just to get to work. I know of people who work for Stanford and aren't highly paid professors/doctors/lawyers/etc and routinely commute 60-100 miles each way.
I would expect the number of people that routinely drive 450 mile trips to be greatly outnumbered by those that don't. There is also the option of renting a car for the weekend for those few occasions when you want to take a roadtrip.
Good luck with that. Renting a car for a weekend drive is crazy expensive and varies widely depending on location, time of year, etc. Asking people to pay an unpredictable several hundred dollars for the rental, then pay for gas, several times a year, is not going to work.
I'd focus on 2+ car households. I would love to have an electric that doesn't suck and another car for the wife, traveling, hauling kids, etc. The Tesla doesn't work for me in this case because of its price and the other EVs are not interesting enough for me, but hopefully that will change as the prices come down and the tech spreads out.
I agree with your conclusion that the Model S isn't for everyone.
It sounds like you're not in the Model S market segment. Folks that can buy cars in the $50k-$80k range typically wouldn't balk at the cost of renting a car for the weekend. The hassle, maybe, but not the cost.
There are also lots of folks & places whose weekend trips are inside the range of the Model S (consider Boston -> Martha's Vineyard, or Manhattan to The Hamptons for instance).
To a point this makes sense, but I think you underestimate how many people greatly overspend on cars, and how many people have big car payments as a result. The extra cost can definitely come into play here, at least on the low end of the range. Lots of people spend 35-50k on cars which is what most of these electric cars cost. Obviously this excludes the roadster. I assume anyone buying that has plenty of money and they aren't buying it for roadtrips. Or taking roadtrips for that matter. I'm discussing electric cars in general and saying that, while tesla has made something better than everyone else, it still isn't good enough.
Not sure where you live, but in the US you can usually get a weekend special from Enterprise for $10/day (although it's 100 miles a day) if you time it right. If not, a full-size sedan with unlimited miles will run you maybe $50-70. A rental might cost you hundreds if you're looking in the wrong place like an airport location, or the wrong time like a busy national holiday.
Okay, sure. So let's do the unthinkable: I'm going to see what Enterprise wants for a unlimited mileage full-sized sedan, over the Labor Day weekend (pickup Friday noon, return 8am Tuesday). Big car, big holiday, short notice.
$179. Still not seeing "hundreds of dollars" here.
i paid 600 for a rental this summer. it was a van, and it was pickup and dropoff in different locations, but there are certainly scenarios in which you need to spend hundreds of dollars on a rental car. Yes you can do it for cheaper, but that depends on location, time, special needs, etc.
Ah ok. I was looking at your original problem, which was travelling 450 miles to visit your family. That problem, at least to me, didn't involve cargo vans and one-way dropoffs. Sorry.
If you are going to be driving a considerable distance (500-700 miles) in a short amount of time (such as a long weekend trip), renting a car makes sense. I have done so a few times, at a cost of barely more than $100 each time.
I am not sure I agree with that. If you think about it, the gas costs for your trip are a wash, because you would be spending that money either way. However, with the amount of money that you saved on fuel with an electric (a few thousand dollars a year, roughly), that could offset the cost of renting a car for your long weekend trip (a few hundred dollars).
I do agree with you that the Tesla is not a mass market vehicle yet. But not because of the 450-mile trip issue. It is because most people/families should not (or cannot) be buying a $50,000 car, even if it means saving a few thousand dollars a year in fuel costs. It would take too long (if ever) to break even on the increased cost. Once EV's get down to more competitive prices, then it starts making more sense. However, if you have the cash, and you like the idea of the Tesla, then yes you should go for it, because without early adopters, Tesla could end up folding.
I regularly travel 450+ miles to visit family. Cannot use this.
What if someone made you a "range extender" module that attaches to the towing hitch? I'd design one on a detaching cart so no lifting would be involved to install.
That might work. If I have to wait 30 minutes to charge (and not even a full charge) it has to have a longer initial range than gas. There is also the problem I mentioned above that the place you are going has to actually have a charging station as well, otherwise your range is cut in half. Can't got 250 miles if there isn't a charge there. Then you only get 125.
Finally, not sure how this works, but it seems that "running out of gas" would be a much bigger problem. Can't just get a tank of gas and bring it out to the car. I assume you have to get the car towed to charging station? Are there any other options? Any easy way (i.e. something I can carry) to get a charge away from home?
Hmm... it seems like the really sweet spot for this type of thing is one that could supply power while you drive. If it could deliver about 7 kW (a little more than the mains plug for a domestic dryer or oven or range), it would supply around 50% to 70% of the car's freeway power requirements. That would double or triple the range, from ~250 miles to ~750 miles.
well, at least it exists. When going to family for the weekend, I could at least have it charged by time we go home. That being said, they'd have to let me have the garage, and we couldn't really use my car while there. Still a hassle, but it could be worse I guess.
+1 for this. The cars which combine electric and gas make a lot more sense until we get to at least 5k range with electric. I'm not joking about that either...
I routinely go over 5k miles on trips where plugging in for 5 hours would be problematic.
uhhh, 5k is over 3 straight days of driving at highway speeds. It is longer than the distance between SF and NY. I highly doubt that EV's need to be optimized for these distances, as no one in their right mind would routinely go on trips of these lengths.
Hats off to you if you can put up with that much time in a car, but personally I would take a plane.
Let's say I go on a trip to visit a friend for the weekend and his/her apt does not have an easily accessible electric outlet. Then let's say I drive while I am there and then drive home. This is a very very common scenario for me where I might rack up 1000 miles without being able to recharge.
I threw out the 5k number as something where I would be extremely confident I would never hit before being able to recharge, not as a number of miles I go frequently.
Why isn't the Leaf doing better? when I heard about it I was super excited, and if I had to replace my Prius, it would be my first choice.
I think they hit the tradeoffs just right: for almost all daily driving, you'll never use gasoline. But if you have to do a long trip, you don't have to care about range.
I personally, REALLY wanted a leaf. However, there were was only one reason I didn't buy one. I'm a renter. Though Boston is part of a program to install public electric chargers I don't think I can count on 1.) always being able to get that spot and 2.) being able to get a charger at the next place I live at. I'm perfectly ok, with the "short" range. I'm positive 78 miles would cover 90% of my driving needs.
If I buy a home, the next car I buy will probably be an EV. Until then, i'm going to keep driving my Infiniti.
It's about range anxiety, and then ends with the relief that they didn't really need to worry too much. 5 hours of driving from an electric car getting 100 mpg-e and matching a BMW M5 stat-for-stat. That impressed them, and it impresses me.
except for the part where they didn't actually make it to their destination. And since most people aren't going to have the charging station 4 miles from their eventual destination, everyone else would have been screwed. Not too mention they now have to wait 30 minutes to get their last 5 miles.
My truck can't do 260 miles on a tank. Luckily, 260 mile journeys are exceedingly rare, rarer in both a truck and a $100k sports car than in anything else. Both of those have tradeoffs on long journeys; the truck costs $70 to fill and the car takes a good amount of time to recharge. Both are enough deterrents of long journeys to keep you living within your means.
no, most people would go to the place they are going, no matter if it is 220 miles or 260 miles. If it's 220 they'd be fine, if it's 260 they'd be screwed.
Thats a Founders Signature edition. It's a double whammy for limited editionness and can't be purchased by the general public. Even the straight Sig's are sold out (there were only 1200 allocated to North America).
The regular production model that this is based on is the Model S Performance. It's identical, except it has different color and interior options (because its not limited edition). That runs ~$85k after the Federal Rebate, which makes it cheaper than the BMW M5 (a similar competitor in terms of performance, if not practicality).
The standard MS85 (the big battery) clocks in at ~$69,900 and is a bit slower than the MSP, but still as fast as a 550i GT, which is basically the same price and a similar car in terms of features.
There are cheaper options, but most buyers will be paying $60k and up for the MS60 (few seem to be interested in the MS40) so I can see how that can generate some sticker shock.
But hundreds of thousands of cars in this price range get sold in the U.S. every year and the Model S is a bargain in that segment, both in terms of its MSRP and especially in terms of its 5 year total cost of ownership.
This is not the Leaf that costs twice as much as its competitors. Model S easily will save its owners $10k+ over 5 years (and likely much more). The Model S is much closer to a $40,000 car in terms of how much money you actually have to have available to pay the monthly payment, insurance, taxes, gas and maintenance.
Multiple Roadsters have been running fine for years above the Arctic Circle. There are actually less issues than with gas powered cars. The second largest market for Model S, behind the U.S. is Norway.
I understand people use them in cold weather, but I want to know what the actual range turns into. I have read a 20 - 30% reduction in the forums and the regenerative braking is turned off until the batteries heat up.
It would be an awesome commuter car, but it's awfully hard to justify that price tag for something you only use an about 8 hours a week. Especially if the seats are as uncomfortable as he suggests.
Still... if I had that kind of auto budget, I'd definitely buy one.
It would be nice if the all-electric vehicles provided a port in which you could plug an emergency battery that would take you, say, 20 miles or so, so you could get to a recharging station if you overdrive your range. Yes, you have a range gauge, so you never should get into that predicament, but we've had gas gauges for decades, yet we still see people trudging toward their stopped vehicles with newly-purchased gas can in hand.
Oh, it's goofy, no argument. The only way I'd be buying it is if my income were greater sufficient that it could be kept as a shiny toy. But, oh what a toy.
I plug the car into a regular 110V outlet. I typically get 30-50 miles of charge overnight, depending on what time I get home and when I leave. My commute is only 10 miles each way so it's 100% full most mornings when I get in.
I've verified the car can do 240 miles between cities but you have to set the cruise to 60 mph or below. I keep a gas car for long road trips and camping, etc., but I don't use it much.
The Tesla is very cool. Strangers stop me to talk about it multiple times per week. Customer service has been off the charts.
High recommend. Go buy one.