Unveiled: The Teslerr Model 3

Since this became mostly an EV discussion thread, here is an interesting opinion piece from /Drive that lays out basically what myself and others were saying but better:
http://www.thedrive.com/opinion/7035/electric-cars-are-going-nowhere-fast
Highlights:
Driving range, I?ve come to believe, isn?t the biggest impediment to EV adoption. Sure, low gasoline prices make it hard to pry Americans out of their internal-combustion comfort zone. But there?s a bigger mental millstone: Charging. EV?s still take far too long to charge, at home or away. Farther afield, busy Americans aren?t about to waste time searching for a charging oasis and then cooling their heels. Tell them they'll need to hang out at a charger in Podunk for 30 minutes, let alone three hours, and they'd rather hang themselves with the cord.

Early-adopting EV fans will cry foul. They?ll point to a growing public charging infrastructure, or remind us of how we all tuck into bed every night, with ample downtime to charge at home. (The Chevy Bolt takes about 9 hours to charge on its Level 2 home charger, while the shortest-range Model 3 should take 7 hours). But to the typical spoiled consumer, those aren?t good-enough reasons to trade away from a gasoline car or a hybrid that goes where you want, when you want, with no extra hassles. Most American's likely feel that their vehicles already do their jobs just fine every night. And when those average Americans get up, that car's waiting with a tankful of unleaded, ready to go. Straight across Texas, if they want.

EV backers tell us, on permanent loop, that the typical American drives fewer than 35 miles a day. No argument here. But people buy conventional cars, in part, because they might want to drive 350 or even 3,500 miles; and without creating a spreadsheet to plot out charging stops with geographical and clockwork precision. Which allows me to debunk another favored EV trope: That Americans view stopping for gas as some horrible inconvenience. From the morning commute to an interstate road trip, drivers and passengers seem fine with dual fill-ups: One for unleaded, the other for coffee, doughnuts or Powerball tickets. By that standard, EV charging is a solution in search of a problem. When it's time to stop, it's actually the EV owner who experiences inconvenience?at Oregon Trail levels.
Tesla?s fast-charging DC Supercharger network adds about 170 miles of range in 30 minutes. Great. On the highway, that means stopping every 2.5 hours for another half-hour recharge, if you're lucky enough to string perfectly placed locations together. While the Tesla owner is twiddling green thumbs, a Toyota Prius driver has filled his tank in 5 minutes and been back on the road for 25 minutes and a 25-mile head start. Sayonara, Tesla. Mr. Prius is also sipping barely a gallon of gas for every hour of travel, able to drive a good 8 hours without stopping, if his bladder can hold out.

It's a long article so I won't post a lot of it, but really it all boils down to EVs being a huge step down in convenience over anything with an ICE.
 
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All the models look too similar to tell from a distance if it was 3s or Xs...
That's hardly a problem introduced by Tesla. So as a hater, I'd argue that Tesla just follows industry trends... :p (Audi is the real innovator here, they introduced the "you can have our car in sizes M to XL" several decades ago, and have long extended their selection to XXXL (Q7) and XS (A1))
 
Since this became mostly an EV discussion thread, here is an interesting opinion piece from /Drive that lays out basically what myself and others were saying but better:
http://www.thedrive.com/opinion/7035/electric-cars-are-going-nowhere-fast
Highlights:


It's a long article so I won't post a lot of it, but really it all boils down to EVs being a huge step down in convenience over anything with an ICE.

Getting gas is an inconvenience. So is charging my phone and tablet. But we deal with it every day and become accustomed to it.

Looking for a charger is no worse than looking for a gas station when you are in "Podunk". Maybe Podunk has a restaurant with good pie?

Let me say this again. EVs are not currently the perfect solution for everyone, or every use. For most people that drive less than 100 miles a day and have some place to plug in, it can fill the day to day needs. You need, or want to go on a long trip, rent a car.
 
Getting gas is an inconvenience. So is charging my phone and tablet. But we deal with it every day and become accustomed to it.

Looking for a charger is no worse than looking for a gas station when you are in "Podunk". Maybe Podunk has a restaurant with good pie?

.

I agree on all of that, but 5 minutes at the pump is better than 30 at a super charger.
Let me say this again. EVs are not currently the perfect solution for everyone, or every use. For most people that drive less than 100 miles a day and have some place to plug in, it can fill the day to day needs. You need, or want to go on a long trip, rent a car
And that is a completely rational point of view, but when you have countries banning ICE cars for sale in X years that becomes a problem, luckily US doesn't seem to be going that way for now.

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That's hardly a problem introduced by Tesla. So as a hater, I'd argue that Tesla just follows industry trends... :p (Audi is the real innovator here, they introduced the "you can have our car in sizes M to XL" several decades ago, and have long extended their selection to XXXL (Q7) and XS (A1))

Pretty much this
 
2040 is a long way off and the ban on ICE sales will change.
 
2040 is a long way off and the ban on ICE sales will change.

It's really not when it comes to cars. Look at say Mustang (just because I know it better), we had the same chassis from 2005 to 2014, sure there were changes in 2011/2012 with the different engine and such but that platform is largely the same. Add to it what 2-3 years of development time (at least) and you have what 1 to 1.5 generations of a car, nowhere near enough to fully switch from ICE to even hybrid across the entire board.
 
Russia had a bunch of trolleys like that (still does I think) they would constantly cause traffic by taking a turn too hard or hitting a bump and the pantograph dropping off the line and then the driver had to get out and try and reconnect the damn thing.

old soviet time stuff used to do that but currently it happens very rarely. we still have them here (west of russia) but phased out for diesel electric busses.
 
2040 is a long way off.

I'm not trying to disagree with your point, just making an interesting observation.

2040 is 23 years away. 1994 is 23 years ago.

23 years ago, Guantanamo Bay was re-opened, Forrest Gump, Pulp Fiction, Speed and Loin King came out, PS1 launched, and the "Chunnel" opened. (Yes, I looked up a "what happened in 1994 list"). Doesn't seem all that long ago, and 2040 is only that same jump in time forward. In 1994, the Prius was only 3 years away in Japan.
 
Exactly, and look at how technology has advanced. The first Pentium chip had come out in 93, and now we carry cell phones that are more powerful.
 
Exactly, and look at how technology has advanced. The first Pentium chip had come out in 93, and now we carry cell phones that are more powerful.

1909 Baker Electric. Electric range: About 110 miles.
600-baker.jpg


2017 Hyundai Ioniq EV. Electric range: About 110 miles.
2017-hyundai-ioniq_100550154_m.jpg


Such progress in BEV range! :rolleyes:
 
What is the top speed and cruising speed?
What is the weight and crash worthiness?
Air conditioning?
Heater?
Seats made out of wood?

Don't be an idiot.
 
What is the top speed and cruising speed?
What is the weight and crash worthiness?
Air conditioning?
Heater?
Seats made out of wood?

Don't be an idiot.


Seconded.
 
What is the top speed and cruising speed?
What is the weight and crash worthiness?
Air conditioning?
Heater?
Seats made out of wood?

Don't be an idiot.

The point is that pretending the problems will be all solved by some mythical super battery or some other technical advancement in a few years is f**king stupid. Technology does not always advance on schedule; Baker promised that the 110 mile range would be solved 'soon' in 1909; their solution to the rapid recharge problem was to require users to dump the expended battery electrolytes and pour in new electrolytes but a better solution would be available 'soon'. In case you didn't notice, 'soon' never came for Baker...

Governments have been dumping untold trillions of dollars into battery research for military purposes for more than a century now and there's been little enough to show for it in the field of motive batteries. Militaries have therefore mostly given up on motive batteries and moved on to fuel cells.

1280px-U-Boot_U31.JPG
 
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Just because a company uses batteries today doesn't mean they can't use a different technology tomorrow. I'm in favor of research on multiple fronts to.solve the same problem. The fact is that we have made significant advances in battery technology and there is a significant push now in the military, electronics manufacturing, automotive industry, and now commercial power generation to create better batteries. It wasn't that long ago I was reading about the fiction of rapid charging, but I'm typing this on a phone with an extended battery life that can fully charge in an hour and charge to 80% in about 15 minutes.
 
2040 is a long way off and the ban on ICE sales will change.

Indeed

I also get the "EVs are crap because charging takes forever" argument, but long trips aside, everyone plugs in their phone every day/night, regardless of whether or not the battery is flat.
It could be the same for cars.

They should really find a way to have wireless charging points built into the ground for personal garages, nothing to forget. Formula E cars have this, so the technology exists...

Re : the whole "our streetlights go out during daytime" - surely this is just a switch, the actual power isnt turned off?
 
Re : the whole "our streetlights go out during daytime" - surely this is just a switch, the actual power isnt turned off?

The actual power is turned off to the pole circuits in I would say the majority of modern American streetlight systems. Individual photoelectric systems (i.e., one per light head) turned out to be too expensive and too unreliable in most municipalities' and highway departments' experiences. One of many problems experienced here - the spread of brightly lit advertising signs sometimes means the photoelectric switches never turn on the streetlight it's attached to. It's cheaper and simpler to have a centralized switch and control system and have the lamps be 'always on when power applied' types.

Or put another way: The lights don't have individual switches, power is applied to them as a group and cut as a group. Pole power is not live during the day but after dark it is. This has been a problem for several other pole-utilizing ideas, like surveillance systems and "wifi everywhere" projects. Separate power has to be run or something like Power Over Ethernet has to be used.
 
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Exactly, and look at how technology has advanced. The first Pentium chip had come out in 93, and now we carry cell phones that are more powerful.

You are making a very common mistake, just because *some* technology advances at a certain rater doesn't mean another will. Or put it another way, if cars followed same development pace as computers you would be driving something that would make the Chiron look like a 2CV. The physics are just too different.

Don't take Spectre's argument look at the Japanese muscle of mid-90s even stock they are still competitive.

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Just because a company uses batteries today doesn't mean they can't use a different technology tomorrow. I'm in favor of research on multiple fronts to.solve the same problem. The fact is that we have made significant advances in battery technology and there is a significant push now in the military, electronics manufacturing, automotive industry, and now commercial power generation to create better batteries. It wasn't that long ago I was reading about the fiction of rapid charging, but I'm typing this on a phone with an extended battery life that can fully charge in an hour and charge to 80% in about 15 minutes.

Again I will point you to that Minute Physics video, we are pretty close to basic chemical limitations of Lithium based batteries, but again capacity is largely irrelevant, it's the charging times and 15 minutes is pretty long if you are sitting at a pump*. It's acceptable for your phone because chances are you will be staying either sitting at a desk or in a car/bike where the phone doesn't have to be actively used.

*That's aside from the fact that your phone uses same exact battery that EVs do but way smaller.

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Indeed

I also get the "EVs are crap because charging takes forever" argument, but long trips aside, everyone plugs in their phone every day/night, regardless of whether or not the battery is flat.
It could be the same for cars.
And that would certainly work for the subset of people who have their own garages and live somewhere where they don't take many trips. Most of my suburban friends have to drive *everywhere*, and I mean *everywhere*, for them "hey it's just down the road" is a 10 minute drive. For me it's a 2 minute walk. All of that can add up.

They should really find a way to have wireless charging points built into the ground for personal garages, nothing to forget. Formula E cars have this, so the technology exists...
They have those yes, I remember seeing some concepts there is even an induction train somewhere in China or Korea (it's more like a kiddie train than a real mode of transportation though) problem is that induction charging is very inefficient.
Re : the whole "our streetlights go out during daytime" - surely this is just a switch, the actual power isnt turned off?
Even if they do not, something like a typical NYC street can really only handle 4-5 EVs and that's assuming you can get a spot on the one side of the street with a light. A street Spectre posted, which is quite common in less crowded places, makes it a non-starter.
 
Stop pointing out that video. It was not at all convincing, especially knowing that there are already new Li-io improvements on the way.
 
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