Tesla 'accuse' Top Gear of being 'lying b'stards'

Just reading up on the tires. Yokohama Neova AD07 LTS. I have to wonder how they can combine high grip with low rolling resistance. Seems like a contradiction to me.

I'm assuming the focus was on performance rather than rolling resistance, the same line of tires is offered on the Elise.
 
Premium gasoline is $1.69 US Gallon.

How is the Tesla relevant?:lol::lol::lol:
 
a) How long will gas stay this low?
b) Even if it stays down, the Tesla's not about environmental issues or saving money. It's a gadget, and a phenomenal engineering marvel that drives like nothing else.
 
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Yes, but you can also run out of gas in normal car and have to push that quite a ways too. Or hike to a gas station and buy a fuel can and hike back. Or call for a tow. Etc. It's not mutually exclusive to EV's.

Making a point that it's possible to run out of electricity is just dumb.
On a sidenote: you'll have a similar problem when you run out of gas in a hydrogen vehicle, since you can't just put some hydrogen in a canister.

Yes yes, I know, they wanted to show that hydrogen is the future, and that batteries have their problems. But if you start to look into it, you feel kind of betrayed ... I do at least.

And as for the range of the FCX Clarity: Wiki states 280 miles, which is not so much more than the 220 of the Tesla to justify an actual complaint, is it? Especially since the engine in the Tesla has much more hp.
 
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On a sidenote: you'll have a similar problem when you run out of gas in a hydrogen vehicle, since you can't just put some hydrogen in a canister.

Yes yes, I know, they wanted to show that hydrogen is the future, and that batteries have their problems. But if you start to look into it, you feel kind of betrayed ... I do at least.

And as for the range of the FCX Clarity: Wiki states 280 miles, which is not so much more than the 220 of the Tesla to justify an actual complaint, is it? Especially since the engine in the Tesla has much more hp.


Well, that's the point isn't it? Hydrogen cars are supposed to be able to fill up like a petrol car.. And the Clarity obviously do. It's not so much about range as it is about how you regain that range when you run out :)
 
Jeremy tried to love the car. The car is not so loveable. Yes, its very fast in a straight line. Other then that its complete garbage. What other use does it serve? It handles horribly, can carry only 2 small people and no cargo really. Plus, you must wait after for 16 hours for a recharge. Has anyone else asked what happends when you crash your electric substation on wheels? It sounds kind of dangerous.

Tesla = another cool concept car that has no business in the real world
 
Jeremy tried to love the car. The car is not so loveable. Yes, its very fast in a straight line. Other then that its complete garbage. What other use does it serve? It handles horribly, can carry only 2 small people and no cargo really. Plus, you must wait after for 16 hours for a recharge. Has anyone else asked what happends when you crash your electric substation on wheels? It sounds kind of dangerous.

Tesla = another cool concept car that has no business in the real world

a) You only have to wait if you've driven for 200+ straight miles and need to go more. Chances are, you're not waiting to charge it because it's doing it while you're at home.

b) Since when is a sports roadster somehow a failure if it can only carry 2 people? It can carry two golf bags. That's enough for a "home base" sports car...what I mean by that is it's a sporty daily driver, not meant for long road trips or thrashing on a track. You driving to a meeting 1/2 way across the state? Your only car probably isn't a $100,000+ spots car, or if it is, you can rent a car for the long drives. You're not going to be hauling luggage with it.

c) Have you even read any of the rest of this thread? Most of your "issues" have already been discussed. You bring nothing new to the table.

d) How is crashing a battery any more dangerous than crashing a car with a tank of compressed hydrogen at 5000psi? Hell, gasoline ain't no walk in the park. This was caused by a gasoline truck that crashed. Fire was so intense, it melted the concrete and the steel structure cast inside it. Asphalt spaghetti, draped on a bridge.
mn_highway_collapse_caoak101-thumb.jpg

Freeway3.jpg


Bottom line is this:
There is no perfect form of transportation. Every type of automotive propulsion system has it's drawbacks. The question is, what is the set that you are willing to deal with? For me, the limitations of not being able to drive more than ~250 miles straight doesn't bother me, nor does it's lack of hardcore track performance. I'd gladly live with it to never have to make a trip to a gas station again, to never have to deal with all of the maintenance a petrol engine requires, I'll deal with the lack of a "proper" engine noise (frankly, the noise it DOES make at 10,000RPM is fucking out of this world). The fact that I could drink what comes out of the "tail pipe" or that running it will only get cleaner and cleaner as technology improves is only a side benefit for me, but it's pretty cool when you think about it. And, the fact that it cam smoke most every vehicle I come across in my normal daily driving (save for the once-a month red-light meeting with a V12 Murciellago) is pretty bitchin'.
 
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That's a huge truck. This is a small tank buried in the bowels of the car. No crash short of a 200MPH rollover-flipping-through-the-air-torn-to-shreds crash would rupture the tank.

The batteries, on the other hand, are literally everywhere in the Tesla.
 
However the Teslas broke down, i'm sure they still had problems that they wouldn't of had with regular cars.
 
That's a huge truck. This is a small tank buried in the bowels of the car. No crash short of a 200MPH rollover-flipping-through-the-air-torn-to-shreds crash would rupture the tank.

The batteries, on the other hand, are literally everywhere in the Tesla.

Wasn't equating a car's gas tank to the truck: I was merely trying to illustrate that there's no "safe" way to store energy. Flamable liquids, batteries, explosive gasses, kinetic-energy-storing flywheels, even compresed air cars...it's just air, but at incredibly high pressures.

Also, the batteries are not "everywhere." It's one "box" further in-board than where a gas tank would be.
 
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The thing that bothers me so much is that I could write you scripts for the two segments hands down where the Tesla is "the future" and the FCX Clarity is "nice, but floored". They just decided which car is what and then altered the segments accordingly.

On the other hand, I do agree that in the long run, hydrogen power is the better choice (unless we invent the perfect battery tomorrow). My point is that you can basically tell the viewer everything you like.



EDIT: as for the production of hydrogen, I can only recommend to read this Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_production

There are many ways to do so, and especially when technology will be pushed forward, it won't be that much of a problem.
 
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I think the brake failure is the worst of the two: An overheating problem on a new technology car used on a track is still reasonable (though not an encouraging sign), but a brake failure is terrible, whatever the cause; a car may even not be able to start, but it has to be always able to stop safely.
 
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Actually, I had planned to stop repeating things, but apparently, it is neccessary:
An overheating problem on a new technology car used on a track is still reasonable (though not an encouraging sign)...
As I've posted before, Tesla is well aware that the engine can overheat during track use. Since this is not a track car, they intentionally abstrained from developing a water cooling system for the engine because of the complexity and the extra weight. Any road use will not make the engine overheat, and apparently, it also protects itself from being damaged by cutting power. Therefore, I don't see this as an actual problem that has to be adressed, even though I think they will in future models.

On a sidenote, I've noticed that in pretty much all street car races held by 'Best Motoring' which included the Honda NSX-R, its engine overheated in the last laps of the race. So obviously, not even purpose-built track cars will withstand the stresses of racing forever.

but a brake failure is terrible, whatever the cause; a car may even not be able to start, but it has to be always able to stop safely.
Agreed. But we know nothing about this brake failure. What we know is that it didn't happen during driving. JC said that during charging the car, "the brakes had somehow gone wrong". The Tesla spokeswoman that this was "merely a blown fuse" (which probably showed up as a brake failure on the dashboard) and "dealt with in a few minutes".

So since we don't know what really was the case, everything is speculative. What we do know however that the brakes didn't fail as in 'you're driving, and suddenly the brakes are out and you can't stop'.
 
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I think the real problem with the Tesla is that it's still a really niche little car with 0 general appeal. As much as GM is struggling right now, the people who are designing the Volt seem to understand what it takes to get a mass-market electric vehicle. If you want people to actually *want* to drive these things, you need a car that's comfortable, normal-looking, and with all the toys and room that you would expect in any standard car. That's why they spent ages agonizing over the Volt's styling and packaging, determined to make it as normal as possible. The Tesla is obviously based on an Elise because it's extremely light. Start adding any normal toys to it and I'm sure the range falls precipitously. The argument that people should just embrace these little "snot-boxes" just because of the environment smacks of jealousy and envy instead of letting people choose on their own. Mankind is capable of engineering a solution given enough time that electrifies the car in one way or another that doesn't force us to live like Soviets, and given the right incentives that time period will not be very long.

Also the Volt development shows how difficult it is to design a car that is acceptably reliable in this day and age. I sort of doubt that Tesla performed the same level of rigorous battery testing in all sorts of humidity and temperature conditions that GM is doing, or if they even did the normal pre-launch development by driving a fleet of the things around the country.
 
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I think the real problem with the Tesla is that it's still a really niche little car with 0 general appeal. As much as GM is struggling right now, the people who are designing the Volt seem to understand what it takes to get a mass-market electric vehicle. If you want people to actually *want* to drive these things, you need a car that's comfortable, normal-looking, and with all the toys and room that you would expect in any standard car.
There is a car like that. It's made by Toyota, and they call it the 'Prius'.

Now, you will argue that the Prius is not an electric vehicle. But if you check how it works, neither is the Volt. It is still depending on fossil fuels, which kind of beats the point of such a car.
 
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