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It's probably not so much about the 2 miles but rather having a stretch of start-stop driving instead of much more energy efficient highway driving.

The author tries to put a nice spin on it here by saying he understood that start-stop driving would be more efficient but I don't really buy that.

edit: A downvote for this? Really? Could somebody explain what's wrong with it?



I didn't downvote you, but the author says he received advice from tesla when he called them when he was getting angst about the battery range. He says they told him to take it off cruise control to let the regenerative braking help charge.

Clearly that is absurd advice, but that is what he says he is told. Given that advice, and not knowing any better himself, he thought start-stop driving would be more efficient.


It's worth pointing out that compared to ICE, electric engines are much more efficient with city-style start-stop driving.

When you're stopped with an ICE, it's still using fuel to keep the engine idling. When you're stopped with an electric car on a flat surface, the motor isn't using any energy at all. The only energy you're using in the electric car is the power for the radio and any climate control.

Regenerative breaking also helps the electric car, because it recaptures some of the energy lost in accelerating the car.

Playing around with this(scroll down a bit):

http://www.teslamotors.com/goelectric#range

Shows that in most conditions, the difference between city and highway mileage is pretty slight.


I couldn't downvote this, but here's why a downvote is merited:

In a Porsche Panamera S, start-stop driving and idling for an hour in traffic going from Secaucus NJ to Manhattan through the lincoln tunnel a month ago (had to install a new server in NY4), I used approximately 2 gallons of gas (less than 10% of capacity). It's certainly not trivial, but it's nowhere near the drain that Musk is effectively claiming.

That, combined with the fact that engaging in stop and start driving was a natural conclusion of the advice that Tesla gave him while he was driving (regenerative braking), really seems to suggest that Tesla gave poor advice (and you can't blame the author for following poor advice).




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