Tesla did and does claim a quite a bit longer range than the 55 miles Jezza did in spirited driving, whether or not it was dead empty or not really is irrelevant. If Jezza is not going full tilt around the track would that not put it as empty to him? Pushing the car back was more of a comical exaggeration.
The question remains: does the electronic brain of the car reduce performance when a critical level of charge is met to prevent the car from suddenly coming to a dead halt? So the question of whether the car had to be pushed back or whether it was still able to drive (and they pushed it back for entertainment purposes) would very much interest me if I were to buy a Tesla.
The other car broke, if it?s easier to change the brake component than a fuse in the system, that is a design flaw. And, in my opinion, if an afternoon around a track in a production version can cause a few hours of shop time to replace a fuse then no it?s not a ready for market product. As someone who designs parts and systems for aircraft where maintenance is critical, if I owned one and that happened I would be slightly upset at the lack of forethought.
I see your point, but we don't know much about the situation. I assume that when they are shooting, they want to get it over with as quickly as possible. So given they had some replacement parts there, it probably was
quicker to change the pump instead of the fuse, simply to get the car rolling again. I do agree with you that this sounds like a design flaw, but since we don't know the details, I'll hold back my final judgement.
Normally it is, but here it caused the brakes to fail. If you were running along at 60mph and your brakes went out, that'd be more than a minor problem, no matter what caused it. But if you don't believe me, you can remove the brakes from your car and see how you get on.
You're missing a small, yet important difference. The system that supposedly went offline in the Tesla is the regenerative brake system. It reverses the polarity of the engine when braking, thus making it work as a generator and load the batteries. You still have the actual brakes on the car, it's just that their performance likely won't be enough for track use without the regenerative brake.
The company making the car is struggling financially. Then they give their car to a show watched by millions, hoping for a good review. Instead they get, basically, slaughtered. Yes, I'm very very suprised they claim that what top gear showed about the car is not true. Very very suprised. Indeed.
They didn't get slaughtered, since the review didn't slash the Roadster. It's just that a number of facts was misrepresented, and that there's the assumption that some of the things shown in the review didn't actually happen like that.
Alright, here are my two cents:
1. Was the Tesla review fair?
It was at least much fairer, than the GT2 "review" a couple of episodes ago or some other reviews I saw on Top Gear in the past years. Considering the fact that the car obviously broke down (you simply don't get a brake failure in a petrol car, when a fuse blows and that's all there is to say!) and overheated, it was as fair as TG ever gets. Honestly, I'm waiting for the day a Tesla Roadster ignites and gives the jet set chick behind the wheel 3rd grade burns. I'm looking forward to the arising law suit. And by the way: Did they crashtest that thing at all?
Like I've said before, journalism like on Top Gear includes that you only show a fraction of what actually happens with the cars during testing, so whether they show us happy-revving or failures and breakdowns is solely down to them. About the brake failure, read my reply to Tompie913. About the fire, search for pictures of burning Ferraris on hard shoulders. About crash tests I don't know. But since this is based on the Elise, I think it would hold up pretty good. Also, I didn't know we had reached a level where we all drive 45 hp Renaults, because crash safety suddenly is important.
2. Was the Tesla review too strict?
Why should the Tesla Roadster be treated differently? Why should it get a bonus? Just because it is electrical? Tesla explicitly sells it as an electrical alternative to petrol cars - so it should be tested like TG tests a petrol car: Rigorously. Small company on the verge of bankruptcy? Not their problem.
Of course it shouldn't be handled differently than any other car. The thing is that it looks like it was shoved under a bad light deliberately by faking certain happenings and not representing the stats of the car correctly.
3. The range issue
Sooo... you drive 200 miles or so and then have to recharge. And that needs 16 hours. Hmmmm... Alright, let's be fair. Tesla says they have a miracle charger (picture anyone? Can it be transported in the car while still having two persons inside and some luggage?). So it takes "only" 3.5 hours to recharge....
Wooooow... That means when I drive, like, from Hamburg to Munich, I only need 7 hours more, than with a petrol car. Yup, that's progress! I have 7 hours more of forced leasure time on a journey. Can finally catch up on reading some books. Here's a new business idea for filling stations: Add a fancy restaurant and a cinema for all the folks waiting for their cars being recharged. Maybe a small amusement park for the children, too.
Gimme a break...
4. The suitability for daily use
The final conclusion of the TG Tesla review was, that an electrical car cannot work in the real world, as long as you have to recharge it for hours over the power grid. And I agree. It will be a pain in the ass. For example I can see the following dialogue coming up: "Honey, can I borrow your car? I have an appointment at the hairdresser and mine is still recharging for hours since I went shopping!" "Sorry, honey, need it for myself, get a taxi".
Also imagine people without a garage (like me). What do you wanna do? Use a 50 meter extension cable and lay it over the sidewalk and across the street? That'll be nice, when an old lady falls over it and breaks her hip bone. Or when some drunken teenagers on their way home from the disco unplug your car at night or cut the cable just for fun...
Not to mention that in cities with a lack of parking space (like for example Berlin) you can consider yourself lucky, if you can park your car within 200 meters of your apartment...
Basically you would have to plan your life on the recharging times of your vehicle. "Hey buddy, there's a party. Wanna come?" "I can't, my car is still recharging for 2 hours..."
Terrific...
No, no, no. No matter what kind of technology follows the internal combustion engine, it has to be a technology, which gives the car a range of 500 or more miles and a recharging/refueling time of no more than a couple of minutes. Battery-powered electric cars are only a temporary solution at best. Therefore I agree with James May that the Tesla Roadster is some interesting experiment but at the end of the day completely irrelevant.
You're absolutely missing the point. Noone is trying to convince you or any other participator of this thread that the Tesla Roadster is the answer to all of our questions. Yes, electrical cars have problems. These problems are down to the technology itself (mainly energy storage) and the missing infrastructure to run these cars large scale. The petrol car has had 100 years and general acceptance of the public to have its infrastructure built. How is one single electric car from one small manufacturer that's just been here going to make up for that?
However, the point of this discussion is a very different one. I absolutely agree with you that the Tesla should be treated like any other car, and that the disadvantages of an electric car have to be published in the process. Yet, I expect the things I see and hear to be the actual facts, otherwise I have no chance of getting a true-to-life picture on where Tesla Motors actually stands on the EV. If Top Gear really fabricated things to worsen the shortcomings of the Tesla, they went way too far. An EV
does have its shortcomings, but nevertheless, a review about such a car should display what actually happened. And the fear that the Top Gear review did
not do that remains until further details surface.
Take the Clarity as an example. Did they say how hard it is to find a hydrogen filling station to fill your car? No. Did they say how difficult and energy-consuming it is to make hydrogen? No. Now, they
could, if they wanted to, have shown James May driving the Clarity being happy, suddenly running low on hydrogen, driving around desperately to find a hydrogen filling station and then come to a halt in the middle of nowhere. Top Gear can do such things, they have done it before. They can make one and the same car look good or bad in a review, it's solely up to them.
EDIT: as of overheating Tesla engines, I found
this:
When
I went for a ride with Darryl Siry in the Tesla Roadster following the Los Angeles Auto Show, we discussed a wide array of topics relating to the car. One of those areas was the use of the Roadster as track car. Given the heritage of the chassis being derived from the Lotus Elise and the frequent use of the that car on the track, it would seem to be an obvious application. Unfortunately for buyers of the Roadster, that won't be a viable option.
The power electronics module (PEM) monitors a variety of the sensors in and around the battery pack and the air-cooled AC motor. If anything starts to get too hot, the PEM will automatically start limiting the power flow from the battery until things cool down. The result is that after a only a couple of laps of all-out track running, the motor will start to heat up and performance will be limited. On the road in real world conditions this won't be a problem, because conditions generally won't allow that sort of sustained extreme driving.
At some future point after the Roadster is well-established in production, Darryl would like to consider producing a dedicated track car similar to what Lotus does with the 2-Eleven. Tesla could potentially offer a chassis and power-train combination with a higher power battery pack and liquid cooled motor. They could also sponsor a single make racing series along the lines of the Porsche Cup or Ferrari Challenge. If any of that does happen though it will be off in the future after Tesla has resolved their current issues.
You can listen to Darryl and I discussing the subject here
