Even if not a software update, I still find Tesla's way of thinking of a car as an actual (continuously update/upgrade-able) product fascinating. Very rare for hardware.
It gives an amazing user experience, "Hey restart your car and it's now got X and Y". Respect.
Agreed. The 2015 Mazda3 we just bought has a horrible info/nav system that crashes and frequently stops responding. I'm guessing the actual chance of it ever being fixed at 0%. Tesla's get an automatic OTA update that would fix that kind of thing and it wouldn't be something you'd have to 'deal' with for the rest of your ownership of the vehicle.
I will never buy a vehicle with both an infotainment system and a steering wheel. Subaru lost a sale of a brand new car when the dealer sat down, turned the key, and the radio showed.... a loading bar.
Fuck that. I deal with shitty software enough everywhere else in my life. I'm not going to put up with that in a 4000lb piece of metal going 70 MPH.
Here I am trying to imagine a vehicle with infotainment but without a steering wheel. It raises so many questions!
Do you assume that we will purchase self driving cars frequently enough that the infotainment will keep pace? Do you anticipate purchasing a personal train or fighter jet? Do the handlebars on a motorcycle count as a steering wheel?
I'm pretty sure he means that he doesn't want anything that has both an infotainment system and a steering wheel...in other words, he doesn't want an entertainment system in a car.
Can't wait until self driving cars become the norm; I don't need a drive way, a garage and the suburb I can live in can have smaller roads with the space for cars given over to walking paths and bicycles. Maybe in 2050.
I'm trying to imagine a personal car without a steering wheel without an infotainment system.
Of course such vehicles will have infotainment. I've long been thinking about what sort of content would work best. Short, serialized content released on a weekday schedule would certainly be an opportunity. Perfect watercooler fodder.
Ads, of course, for some definition of 'works best' (extreme variant: self-driving car offers to pick up what you order while you are at work) If I were an employer, I might pay my personnel to have the infotainment part replaced by educational material on their way to work.
As an employee you could get the ride in the car free, as a perk, iff you watch the educational material and pass a test on it. This would be assessed during the ride via onscreen multiple-choice questions; get less than 50% correct (or, turn it off) and you have to pay for the journey!
The crap they show in the back of NYC taxis does seem to fit the bill (short 2-3 min videos, changes fairly regularly, though heavily mixed with advertisements). It is crap, but I imagine once there are driverless cars, the format will gather interest from more creative sources.
Why use it for creative purposes when you can use it to show ads? Talk about a captive audience. I'm betting that Google is going so big into driverless cars so they can show you ads on the windshield once it's proven + accepted as safer than human drivers. It might take 20 years, but they're opening up a new advertising channel.
People used to buy aftermarket stereos fairly frequently and I don’t see any reason why the infotainment system can’t have that kind up upgradeability. Worst case strap an iPad over the old system.
PS: I can see the argument for a highly limited system when they can distract the driver, but if I am effectively a passenger that's a non-issue.
I'm infuriated by the systems that are totally locked down when the car is in motion, even when the car _knows_ that there is a person in the passenger seat (it yells until I put on my seatbelt).
If I'm the passenger, I should be able to tinker with the infotainment system as I like, without restriction (especially when my dad is the driver and I want to enable bluetooth audio to play music from my phone - my dad drives a newish Outback, great car from a driving perspective, crappy from the infotainment system perspective).
I agree with you right now, but is that still an issue for self-driving cars? Ideally I want to get in, say drive to work, and then take a nap. If I still need to pay attention then it's not really a self-driving car just an upgraded form of cruise control.
iPads are not very friendly to your face in the event of a crash. Apple devices are also famous for not wistanding heat or cold. Real automotive equipment is rigorously tested for these scenarios and many more.
I'm all for new technology on automobiles, but made the software open source? In order to work on these computers on wheels, mechanics need access to trouble codes, and information on this new technology. They aren't giving it up to independent repair shops. We are being forced to bring our ailing computers to Dealerships, at dealership prices?
I know a dealership mechanic and he told me even with the proprietary scan tool, and access to the companies database; he spends hours a week learning every new upgrade, and feature these newer cars/trucks are implementing. He said it's usually on the customer's dime.
We need to standardize, and I believe, even mandate that if a person buys a automobile; they will have access to all the repair information for that particular vechicle.
I foresee a junk yards getting bigger, and bigger, with cars that no one car work on, or worse--just crushing the vechicle when that transmission with 10 sensors, and two computers fails?
A note to mechanics; I know the amount of ongoing learning you gave to do in order to keep your job. I know your employer expects you to learn this new technology on your time. If these vechicles keep going in the direction I think we are already at(too complicated, and car companies refusing to release data), it might me a the right time to unionize in certain counties? With unionization you could afford Lobbiests, and in the end you would be paid what you are worth, with retirement benefits? With paid training on all these propiatiary systems? (I think the San Francisco Bay Area could pull off a union takeover?)
Basically, when I buy a car--I don't want to be forced to bring it to a dealership in order to repair! I gave a family member who has a 1996 Dodge Dakota. After years of working on it, I can repair the vechicle, but I spent a lot of time learning how to flash the computer, and only got the software because I have a buddy at a dealership. I told him, if he buys a new vechicle--I probally won't be able to repair it for free. I told him to drive it until it blows up. We are not a wealthy family.
Has long irritated me that car audio systems have a discernible boot time, having come from the days of instant-on radios. There really is no excuse, between optimizing the boot process and starting it the moment the car starts (not like there's that much of a draw, speakers off, from the alternator).
Even worse is when the backup camera is linked to the entertainment system. You start the car, put it into reverse and then have to wait for the system to come on. It sucks especially in a parking lot where you have to pay extra attention to cars creeping up when you are trying to get out.
The less shitty car makes use this to start the infotainment system early, BMW and Mercedes comes to mind.
But the overall state of infotainment systems is laughably bad, there's a few that are merely ok, most are bad, and some are rage-inducing. (Hello Cadillac!)
That is strange, part of why I love the Outback I own is because it's dashboard is so simple and lacks fluff. Must of been a heavily upgraded model or something.
Don't get me wrong, it isn't enough to make me hate the rest of the car. It drives great. About the only thing I use the infotainment system for is the neat fuel consumption statistics screen.
With the OP's requirements I'd recommend a '94 Volvo 240 Turbo. (If we ever need a second car I'm getting one; my first car was one). New enough to be safe (airbags etc), some tinkering will get you 300 bhp, it's rear-wheel drive and has a perfect 50-50 weight distribution if you move the battery to the trunk (standard rally trick).
Stereo still has a cassette player, so a $5 adapter lets you plug in your phone for music. There's not a touch control in sight, the ergonomics are well thought through, and it even has a crude form of dual zone AC. Sure, it's more expensive in gas money, but when you factor in the reduced depreciation that's peanuts.
What a terrible car, especially the "1994 model" which is laughably just the 1974 car as if it were from some Soviet manufacturing line that just wouldn't go away. If you think bolting an airbag into a 1974 car body makes it safe, I'm sure the NCAP people want to talk to you.
I own a 960, Volvo won't sell parts for it anymore. Two generations and 20-years after your suggested car was designed I find mine has no thought given to ergonomics. Row of switches on the flat dash, behind the steering wheel where you can't see them... yeah.
That the 240 was the same car for 20 years is an absurd claim. It's well known that the NHTSA bought and tore apart multiple 240s when they were updating the US auto safety standards in the 80s. It's also well known that Volvo has one of the most thorough and well-funded safety R&D departments in the world. The 1993 240 received five stars in crash testing from the NHSTA [1].
As for your 960: I can't comment on the ergonomics, never having been in one, but I know for sure that you can still get parts for it in Europe.
I regularly get 40+ MPG(US) on road trips in this little car. The info system being stupid is way overshadowed by how nice it is to drive, given the price. It's still a loud econobox with paper-thin sheet metal, but it drives a lot better than I expected.
Those cassette adapters for a 1/8" audio jack have awful sound quality, break frequently, and are usually around $20, not $5. You would be better off upgrading the stereo, unless you just want to play tapes or listen to the radio.
What would you have him do with a functional but old car otherwise? Crushing a car that is functional and building a new modern car to replace it takes a little north of 125 Gigajoules of energy.
An older functional car may be better for the planet than destroying and replacing it.
He should have just asked to see a model without the (assumed, but very likely) upgraded system. Cheaper, and excludes the terrible bits that will be outdated in 2-3 years anyway. My Audi has just the basic system (radio, satellite, aux-in, and Bluetooth) and it has no discernible boot time. Excludes the navigation, but my phone does that perfectly fine, and I get free map updates for it every couple months. (Windows Phone has offline mapping capabilities for a few gigabytes worth of storage space.)
I think we may see that option go away in the next couple of years thanks to the backup camera mandate (which goes into effect in 2018). Once automakers are putting the screen in the car anyway, basic head units are probably going to go away.
My requirements were a hatchback with no touchscreens and a manual transmission. New or used. There were no Imprezas matching that available. I bought a 2011 Mazda 3 hatchback with a stick. The only one available in my area that day. They even had to drive it from a different dealership. Next on my shopping list would've been a Ford Focus, but the Mazda was available, so I didn't get that far.
You can turn off the annoying restrictions, change the ordering of some menus and drastically reduce the time of the starting confirmation dialogue box. All you need is a USB to Ethernet adaptor.
Also make sure to disable watchdog or you can get into a reboot loop that makes it difficult to ssh back in and fix (we almost thought we'd have to bring it into the dealer, but we were able to get out of it with some script on that forum).
My predecessor to the Mazda3 (Protege5) was my second Mazda and convinced me that it would likely be my last because over at least a 6 year period Mazda didn't manage to figure out "polish" in cars.
The P5 and predecessor Protege were fun to drive, worked OK, etc. but both were their high-end trimlines and my experiences with the two cars gave me the feeling that Mazda was prone to leaving out stupid really cheap stuff that would have drastically improved the feel/experience of the vehicles.
The examples that still jump out at me are:
* a front passenger door with no internal power lock switch - using the key on the outside you could lock/unlock everything, but from the inside passenger seat you had to lean over to hit the switch on the driver's door. Likely manufacturing cost savings? Maybe $5 including labor? I'd be surprised if the switch and wires would have cost more than $1 at car manufacturer volumes.
* trunk carpeting that was basically nylon felt placed on top of a smooth plastic spare tire cover - not attached anywhere, just sitting there where anything on it would just cause the whole piece of carpet to slide all over the trunk. My fix was 5 hook sides of wide adhesive-backed industrial Velcro. Worked for years with no problem, cost if done at the factory? Probably less than $0.50, but it might have cut into the options of selling aftermarket trunk liners so maybe it was intentional.
* cupholders that were not in fact deep enough to retain any cup, can or bottle commonly sold in US convenience stores during a turn. Make a sporty little car with a stiffened suspension, put in a 5-speed manual, then require that drivers going through curves at speed or turns without a full stop have to hold any beverages in the cupholders or have them go flying underfoot.
The cars themselves were fine for 100-135k miles each and there were workarounds I could put in place for everything, but stupid little crap like that still makes me feel like if they don't care enough to take cheap steps like that then what more expensive things are they skipping?
Hello. I've just ran into the problem of the reboot loop on my Mazda and have an appointment with the dealership on Tuesday. Could you specify how you fixed this issue yourself?
Basically if you modify one of the configuration files and mess up the formatting it'll cause the infotainment software not to work.
If you don't disable watchdog then when it starts up and isn't working watchdog will have it automatically reboot. Since this isn't a transient issue, but a misconfigured file it'll just keep rebooting making it very difficult to ssh back in and fix the file.
If watchdog is disabled then while the infotainment system won't work it's easy to ssh back in and fix the file.
I have had the mazda3 model since it first came out in 2014. They actually do release updates from time to time. The only unfortunate thing is you have to go to the dealer to update. (However the system is completely hackable, and you can update it yourself and even add your own apps http://www.mazda3hacks.com/)
Mazda has said that in 2016 all cars with this infotainment system will get an upgrade to android auto/apple equivalent.
I wonder what's taking so long for automakers to adopt technologies like android auto. If I have to have an infotainment screen, I just want a dumb screen that I can dock a variety of different phones to.
It might get fixed. I just (last week) got a letter in the mail from Mazda saying there's a software update available for the info/nav in my Mazda3. Haven't had a chance to take it in yet to get the update applied, but I'm hoping that it will fix some of the issues I've seen.
Of course maybe your car is new enough that you already have that software version, in which case mine might be about to get worse... :)
I have been researching mazdas (CX-5) lately and they do get updates to the info/nav system. I think I read there is a crashing problem in v.51 or something, but its fixed in v.55. Not the same as tesla, but better than others.
An old Nokia 3210 or something, just works. It does everything fine. It works as a phone. It was designed from start to finish, and built.
Compare that with Android. Every update they seem to break or remove some functionality. Endless software updates, restarting, etc. It was shipped with bugs, it'll always have bugs.
I'm not convinced this is an improvement. Also obviously has some pretty big consequences if the update system is hacked, or if there's critical bugs etc.
What type of phone do you use? If it's an Android phone and not a Nokia 3210 I would suggest that you examine whether you actually value just working at the expense of lots of new features.
I have both. If I need maps/browser/camera, I use my android phone, and moan at all the crappy UI issues and endless updates etc.
One of my worst gripes with android is just how often it changes the UI just as I'm about to click on something, so that I click on something else. It's maddening.
If I need a phone, I use my Nokia 3210 (With its ridiculously long battery life and far superior reception).
Aslo battery life. I used to charge my phone once a week, tops. I could drop it, throw, it fit in my hand my pocket find. Now I have to charge it every day. My android is more of a portable computer that also knows how to make calls via the cell phone network.
If I run my Samsung Note 4 in it's extreme power saving mode, it's got a standby that is something like 17 days! I can easily go a few days, if I'm just talking on the phone, text, and the occasional web browser session.
If I want to play audio, it will do that for the better part of a week in that same mode. Just point Chrome at the files and go.
I've found I need to do a factory refresh every time there is an Android OS upgrade, because my battery life goes in the tank. ADB shows processes going crazy, trying and retrying to access things that are no longer there.
If it's done poorly, of course it's a terrible experience. Restarting my car and it's suddenly faster and smarter? Sounds like a positive experience to me.
What is doubly amazing about this: they must really be confident of their testing procedures and software practices, because the liability of pushing a bad software update and causing injury to a driver... confidence, for sure. I'm certain this is the reason Toyota and others don't ever update the software in your car, after you purchase it, unless it's a recall firmware fix.
Except, when I was driving my Tesla Model S down a long stretch of highway, the entire instrument cluster froze. I had to pull off and turn it off and on again; I kid you not.
In a Tesla, "my car crashed" has a whole new meaning.
Hold down the top steering wheel button on each side for several seconds, then release. That'll reboot the instrument cluster. Hold down both scroll wheels for several seconds and release -- that will reboot the center console. Perfectly safe while driving, and everything still works.
Everything that Tesla considers essential, of course. You can't tell how fast you're going while the instrument cluster is rebooting, and you can't hear the turn signal while the center console is rebooting. You also can't lock the doors while the center console is rebooting, but apparently no one at Tesla ever lived or stopped the car in a dangerous neighborhood.
This sort of thing isn't really that new in the automotive industry. The R35 GT-R has had the same basic powertrain, chassis, and body since 2008, but year over year Nissan continuously upgrades the power output by tuning the ECU and turbocharger boost controllers. You can change an ICE's characteristics quite drastically just with a quick ECU reflash; you can make the cam timing delayed/dulled for better fuel efficiency, or you can set the lifter solenoid (if the engine has one) to activate at insanely low engine speeds to get as much torque out of the engine as possible.
The electric motor is a much simpler device compared to a classical Carnot heat engine. This, combined with Tesla's over-the-air root access to the deepest levels of the vehicle's systems, makes the actual process of tweaking and tuning the car feel much more seamless.
The entire automotive industry sees automobiles as upgradeable, it's called the "aftermarket". Conventional automobiles can be tuned and upgraded and have been for generations, except, us non Tesla owners can do it without the manufacturers say so. With Tesla you are forced to buy your upgrades from them, this is less flexible IMO.
It shows that they care about their product, their customers, and their brand.
Any other car company would save software updates for the latest years model and tell users that they have to purchase a new vehicle to receive the updates.
Great precedent Tesla, thank you, and I hope other car companies follow your lead.
Sorry, but honestly making it faster is about the opposite I want to see as an improvement. It is a near admission, we can't do jack about range so lets wave our dicks around at the stop light.
I was so hoping the D would have stood for distance/double/ etc before speculation ruined that idea. Now it seems their only news is, look its faster which runs counter to the conservation idea of EVs
This is such an insanely nitty complaint I can't even believe it. They are limited by batter technology and are doing the best they can.
While conservation is certainly the idea of EVs, they need to have certain performance characteristics before they are widely accepted. PR stunts like this get people more interested in a great thing.
But I suppose this is the internet so we just need to slam everything and insult everyone. :\
> EVs need to be able to do 0-60 in 2.8s to be widely accepted??
ryguytilidie's comment, in context, included this explanation: "PR stunts like this get people more interested in a great thing."
And yes, products which are new and different generally need good PR in order to be accepted by consumers. Quite a lot of the press is talking about this today, which is what Tesla hoped to achieve.
What your parent might be talking about is the distinction between a product that is continually supported by the creator (such as a hardware device with software that can be updated) and an artefact that is produced and then effectively forgotten about by the creator (though there might exist a first- or third-party market for repair and maintenance).
I have a feeling that many auto manufacturers still think more in terms of artefacts than in terms of products (like many corporations used to treat software).
My point is that the vast, vast, vast amount of products out there don't have auto-update. This includes my morning cereal, my fancy designer dustbin, my bicycle, my microwave, and my 2-year old son's favourite teddybeardogthing.
To only call something a product when it has auto-update is such ridiculous HN navel gazing that it's just funny.
EDIT: removed useless rant for fear of losing even more internet points!
Your morning cereal isn't auto-updated in the box, obviously, but the recipe is presumably tweaked quasi-continuously without calling it Corn Flakes 2.1 or something like that.
Not tweaked in the sense of improved, though. I guess that mostly it's changing the proportions and varieties of the contents depending on the price of the different ingredients and their availability. I was kind of shocked when I first learned (in a jam factory) that they do it all the time, while you're in the illusion of buying the same product, because, well, it displays the same label and brand.
Agreed on the terms. It's just that I don't have a better terms, given that we work with digital constantly upgradable web apps and native apps and we still call them "products".
>Tesla is thinking about their cars as hardware + software
the electric cars are pretty much gadgets (especially the way Tesla did their car - everything what is possible is implemented in software vs. hardware) where is typical ICE car is mostly hardware.
This is why Apple is getting into electric car business - because Apple has great skills doing gadgets while it is obvious (at least to me) that oily ICE car is alien to Apple.
I.e. while electric and ICE car both share "car" term and both do the same function for end-user and have the same 4 wheels/tires/brakes/etc..., they are actually
2 different things. You just add to your iTunes new gadget - iCar - and it gets synched with your other iPhones/iPods/etc... . Google's self-driving "cutie" of course will get connected to Google Cloud/Play/etc... . No Ford or GMC can do that and thus they would be relegated to the roles of Samsung - chip solders.
All of the responses got what I meant, which I realize is not clear.
I mean a non-disposable, dynamic and upgradable hardware product. This is the first time that I see this in the hardware world, where every object is manufactured and then all plans are towards a V2 or a new product.
The few exceptions are for recalls, but that's obviously a different story.
Is it really that different from the performance parts divisions of the major auto makers? Like Toyota uses TRD to build and sell aftermarket parts that you can get installed at the Toyota dealer. Mercedes does it with AMG, Ford with Ford Performance, etc...
It is 100% different. This isn't aftermarket performance parts (which is an incredibly narrow field of upgrades), this is updates and new features actively being provided to everyone who has purchased the vehicle. Hell, most cars require you to go into a dealer for a software update in the first place, don't even think about going in to get a new feature like cruise control installed unless you got it as a shoddy aftermarket replacement (OEM parts are generally hard to find aftermarket).
AMG also doesn't make parts anymore, they make tuned versions of existing cars, as new products.
In practice, carriers and manufacturers do not tend to release updates for Android phones other than Nexus once the shinier model has come out a few months later.
One of the major selling points of the iPhone is that it will continue to receive full OS updates for 2+ years.
Continuing software upgrades are pretty Apple-specific in the smartphone market, but it's also just as true of Windows and Linux in the desktop space.
One thing I don't understand is the position of the big car makers(BMW, MB, AUDI) being a passive observer in this field.
Tesla is getting so much, that if any automaker that can deliver a car with half the specs of a model S, and keeping their model's prices as a mass produced car, would deliver a big punch to Tesla, and would greatly move the market forward.
Is it the investment necessary for building a network of charging stations?
I highly doubt it is because Tesla has more money for R&D than any other car maker.
Is getting a Model S, earns you the title of being an early adopter. Because I believe the market already shifted towards this type of vehicles, but I may be polarized, because I already desire an electric car.
I agree. Another crazy thing is that there is a shortage of Tesla-level batteries in the market right NOW. Yet aside from Tesla/Panasonic, no one else is ramping battery production to be able to produce millions of cars a year!
So when Tesla's $35k car becomes a mainstream hit in 2018, I have no doubt big auto will react with compelling competitive vehicles. The problem is they won't have the battery infrastructure in place to sell more than 50,000 units, and it'll take them several years to catch up to Tesla's production volumes!
Why do you say the other makers are passive? BMW, Mercedes, Nissan, VW, Ford and Fiat all have fully electric cars. Sure none of them get near the range the Model S does, but they are getting involved in this. A Nissan Leaf offers roughly one third the specs of a Model S, but also at one third the price. Seems like progress to me.
"Why do you say the other makers are passive? BMW, Mercedes, Nissan, VW, Ford and Fiat all have fully electric cars."
BMW has an i3 that is basically an Onion article parody version of an electric car. If you had to draw a comic of an electric car, that's what you'd draw.
They also have an absolutely ridiculous "electric" i8 that has a lawnmower engine shoehorned in it somewhere and you can listen to that fire off every now and then while you drive your luxury car around. And oh, yeah, it goes 0-60 in 4.4 seconds and they actually advertise that fact.
Mercedes also has a lame little clown car (the B-class, or whatever it is) and a bunch of "luxury" models with little chainsaw engines hidden somewhere inside. Good thing they do all that sound dampening since who wants to hear a chuggy little 3 or 4-banger fire up at every stoplight.
It's stupefying. It's flabbergasting. It defies all logic.
And it's not like it's 2002 or something and they're all reacting to the prius ... they've all had 15 fucking years to come up with something, anything that doesn't make them a joke. And they have nothing.
I don't particularly like the styling of the model S, and I really don't like the interior, and I really, really don't like a big styling void in the middle of the dash where that 17" monitor sits, but I put down a deposit and am taking delivery.
It is a spite purchase. I refuse to pay an incumbent one more cent for the privilege of enabling their anachronistic product model.
Problem with the Leaf is that a 75 mile range is unusable for most people. A 30 mile commute is pretty common, to and from work and you're almost out. Pick up kids and groceries and you'll probably be stuck on the side of the road somewhere. Forget to charge the car overnight and you're screwed.
If we take the base Model S, which has a 230 mile range, 315hp, and 0-60mph in 5.5 seconds, it goes for $70k minus $10k in tax subsidies. And compare it to the Nissan Leaf SL which has a 84 miles range, 107hp, and 0-60mph in 10.2 seconds, it goes for $35k - $7.5k in tax subsidies.
So it's exactly half the price, for much less then half the car. The Tesla has the highest safety rating out there. It handles really well. You get free charging station access. I mean, it doesn't even make sense to compare the cars. Even when you account for price, you are still getting way more than twice the car when you get the Tesla.
Progress for me would be Nissan offering a car comparable to the Model S for a comparable price.
According to Edmunds, the MSRP on the Model S 60 (the base model) is $79,570. The average price paid in my area is $79,570. I don't actually know, but I suspect Tesla does not haggle on price.
The MSRP for the Leaf is $30,585, and average price paid in my area is $25,682.
Edmunds does not account for tax subsidies. I think we can both twiddle the numbers in our favor. So the question is, what are the actual cost of ownership of these cars? I still strongly suspect, the Leaf costs roughly 1/3 of the Tesla and is roughly 1/3 of a car.
I bought a LEAF SL in Dec for $31K and change before $10K in credits. That was less than a third the cost of a Model S after rebates, IIRC.
On the downside, range is closer to 75 miles in the winter (driving normally for MA, meaning fairly fast) and a pretty regular 90-95 miles in the summer.
Overall, I love it. It's no Tesla and is not a economic winner over a good used car, but it's a damned good car and I think it's one of the most economic of the new cars, even with MA insane cost of electricity.
Saying "twice the car/half the car", like they're pints and quarts, doesn't really make sense, though.
The Nissan Leaf is intended to be a city (or at least "close in suburb") car. With my 10 mile/20 minute commute, in a city with horrible public transportation, makes the Leaf ideal. Especially since I can afford a Leaf, a Model S not so much.
With the exception of the Leaf, all those fully electric cars seem more like tests or prototypes than serious attempts to win the market. Nissan is anything but passive when it comes to fully electric cars, but all the other major car makers are being, in my opinion, overly cautious.
I just got a Fiat 500e, it is a bad ass car, and definitely doesn't feel like a test or prototype. It gets more like 85 miles (it better, it's much smaller than a Leaf), and works for almost all the transportation I need. I haven't bothered to set up a high voltage charger or anything, and I've been amazed by the convenience of it.
I agree though, they should really be pushing these electric cars. They're awesome. They're a pleasure to drive. I hate going back to gas, just shifting and the low torque are noticeable and now annoying. Maybe they just suck at advertising (doubtful) or they have other motives.
The VW e-Golf and BMW i3 are no less cars than the Leaf is. The e-Golf in particular competes directly with the Leaf, offering similar features and price. The i3 is pretty pricy, but it is a BMW after all.
I agree with you about the e-Golf. I had previously seen numbers like this: http://insideevs.com/monthly-plug-in-sales-scorecard/ that make the e-golf look like they were converting a few hundred cars to electric drivetrains as a test, but I didn't realize that the car was selling in meaningful numbers in Europe. I would love to know if they are making a profit on them or plan to in the near future. You might be right about the i3 as well, but everything about it screams "concept car" in my mind. I also consider the Volt to be a serious attempt to win the market, but it's not a fully electric vehicle.
The biggest issue at the moment is the limited range with battery only.
Even after a large network of charging stations is created, the user experience for long trips is not ideal - up to 1/4 of driving time may be spent charging.
The ownership paradigm may change at some point, but at the moment people like the idea of using their own car to go around town as well as going on vacation / see the parents / etc across the state or nation.
You are completely right, even though I would like to own a car for my daily use, and a big car for trips and etc, is not feasible, for me at least, so I have to buy the best of both worlds.
I disagree with the 1/4 of the time charging, with a solution like the Tesla's battery swap, it would be far less(I could be completely wrong in this).
Really hard for big companies to change. They have built a loyal brand around big gasoline engines. In fact the sound of the engine is so important to them that BMW pumps fake 'vroom' sounds into the i8 so it sounds like a v8. I'm not kidding.
The batteries in a Tesla aren't very green and sadly they are quite large. Big automakers think in volumes of millions of cars, Tesla delivers about 25K (EDIT: looks like 40K projected for this year[1]) cars a year.
The carbon footprint of producing the battery, even not considering the chemicals, is very large. So much so that you'd have to drive it on many years from a full-renewable source for you to break even with a regular car[1]. Tesla, sadly, maximizes the battery in their cars.
My read is that their main goal is selling batteries and everything from opening their "patents" (i.e. their custom connectors/battery pack) to the home wall-pack is designed to do that.
That doesn't really match up with the next page(8), it shows BEV beating traditional cars in both graph and quote:
"Our base case results suggest that a BEV uses the least amount of energy of all the vehicle types analyzed in this study, followed by a hybrid and a CV. The results of the CV
lifecycle analysis show that by far the greatest source of energy intensity is the use phase, at
95% of the lifecycle energy. This is due to the amounts of energy required to extract and process the gasoline and the energy intensity of the gasoline itself."
The linked report compares BEVs with ICE and Hybrid. Hybrid beats both because of the smaller battery.
BEVs have a very large upfront footprint due to the battery that needs to be paid off overtime by driving from a renewable source. However in US only 14% of energy comes from renewable sources, so it'll be a very long pay off.
Hybrids are the best way to go until we make significant strides in batteries (20-30 years off?). You rely on your charged battery for most of your trips, and the highly optimized gas engine kicks in when you need the extra range/juice.
I didn't. He is talking about the footprint of the fuel (electricity vs gasoline). The report addresses that as well. It looks at OVERALL footprint of the three different types, and includes upfront cost (i.e. production which includes battery) and on-going.
Larger battery means a much larger up-front carbon footprint. Unfortunately on an on-going basis due to profile of electricity production in US you are burning a ton of coal [1] to generate that electricity. Coal is far, far worse than gas in the carbon impact as well as extraction footprint.
Because of the much larger initial hole you've dug (due to a very, very large battery) you're not going to crawl your way out of this deficit for a long time.
The logical solution is to minimize the battery to a degree that it would cover most weekday commutes (which isn't 300 some-odd miles). You would have a much smaller, optimized, gas based generator to recharge that battery for the odd time the person needs the longer range.
It gives you the best of both worlds. You would get far greater savings. This is the reason why other manufacturers are making hybrids or if they do make pure EV it has a much smaller battery than Tesla.
Not sure if these are correct figures, but http://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2015/01/usa-minivan-sales-figur... says the Chrysler Town & Country sold 138k, and the Dodge Caravan sold 134k, this appears to be US only data; and these two vehicles are really the same vehicle with different trim, so that's about 10 times the number of Tesla vehicles.
Isn't it an overstatement that the batteries aren't green? Yes, there are environmental impacts from the production, but still a lot less than the environmental impacts of all the oil that would otherwise be produced and burnt to fuel the car over its lifetime, no?
But, isn't the lifetime of the battery pack significantly lower than the (presumed) lifetime of the actual car? If your Model S stays on the road 20 years but requires 3-4 battery replacements, that's several big hits against its environmental friendliness.
The lifetime of the battery will likely be much longer than it's life in the car - if the plans for 'second life' re-use as static energy storage devices come to pass.
The lifetimes of battery packs have been greatly underestimated by detractors for quite some time. Hybrids have been on the US market since 1999, and battery life has never been a serious issue. The new batteries are far higher quality than the old ones anyway.
3-4 battery replacements over 20 years isn't anything close to what a Model S will require. Do you have a source for those figures?
That's my understanding, but it's important to keep this in mind when touting the merits of battery tech. Of course, the battery production and charging process can become drastically more green (and will do so once the Gigafactory is operational), so even this is somewhat of a moot point.
According to Tesla's own statements, they are planning to deliver 55k this year, and their Q2 deliveries of 11,507 puts them on track (by their own estimates). I would assume some of those deliveries will be for the Model X, which is supposed to start shipping in Q3. Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-sets-a-new-record-for-c...
> That gives it much better handling characteristics than an equivalent ICE car.
Yes but the equivalent ICE car by weight is... an SUV, or one of those old, massive cadillacs.
The P85D is a heavy, heavy car at just under 5,000 lbs. Whereas something ilke the Aventador is 3,400 lbs (and it's on the heavier end of the sports car spectrum).
But regardless while a low CoG is nice, it doesn't change the basic physics of you need to alter the direction of 5,000 lbs and you are not going to do that as well as altering the direction of 3,400 lbs.
It [Tesla Model S CoG = 17.5-18"]'s competitive with supercars, i.e. that of the Ford GT [1], and better than the Porsche Boxster [2], which is not a supercar.
Okay. Now what are their lap times? Center of gravity is one of the dozens of aspects working in conjunction that make cars fast. One of the most important being, weight.
Around Willow Springs it's slower than a Ford Mustang Ecoboost (0-60 5.2s, 310hp), and around Laguna it's close to 3 seconds slower than a VW Golf R (0-60 4.5s, 300hp)
The Tesla is a luxury barge after all, not a sports car, so these results shouldn't exactly be surprising.
Exactly, yet people who have no clue about cars will say that because it has a faster 0-60 time it's a faster car. Teslas marketing department is damn good.
Smooth, effortless acceleration is definitely a luxury feature, too. This is exactly why 6 figure luxury sedans often have very powerful V8s, V10s, or even V12s.
Just don't confuse that with being a fast car, at least not around a track.
You should at least do it the justice of pointing out what the driver said:
>The lap itself was around 10 minutes Bridge to Gantry (in heavy traffic) but unfortunately the car went into a reduced power mode about 3 minutes in due to excess battery heat (at least, that’s my guess).
>However, before it did it was able to keep a GT3 RS going full chat, within shouting distance (at the 2:00 mark) far longer than any 4,700lb sedan has a right to.
>I think without the reduced power output and traffic, a B-T-G lap under nine minutes is possible. According to the Bridge To Gantry site, that would put it in the company of some really quick hot hatches.
The Model S is a really nice sedan. But its performance on the track is clearly sub par because a) it’s heavy and b) it just isn’t designed to run at full tilt for very long before the batteries or motors start to overheat. Sure, from cold the performance is impressive but if you only get that performance for a few minutes, it’s rather less so.
The design spec was probably something like “give the buyer the feeling they’ve got their money’s worth when they burn off their friends from the next set of red lights” not “beat a top-line Porsche round the Nürburgring”. And that’s OK - no one expects executive barges to be amazing track cars, except (apparently) for the hoards of Telsa boosters who don’t seem able to accept that their object of desire might have the odd flaw.
Telsa are the Apple of the automotive world, right down to having their very own reality distortion field :)
While that's true... the same is true for a lot of "American Muscle" cars.
I've personally always had preference for smaller and better cornering / better handling cars. But there's a subset of car enthusiasts who only care about straight-line performance.
My guess is it will also have at least a 500-mile range, as the prices for batteries would have fallen by ~3x by the time the new one is out and since the original launched.
I have a P85 and it does not handle like a boat. The low center of gravity and 50/50 weight distribution makes it handle a lot better than you'd expect. It has good slalom course numbers, especially for a sedan, just under the Porsche Panamera.
>Not until the Tesla goes around the Nurburgring in the same fashion the GTR did.
Or manages to go around the Nurburgring at full power at all:
http://insideevs.com/expected-tesla-model-s-fails-lap-nurbur...“Unfortunately the car went into a reduced power mode about 3 minutes in due to excess battery heat (at least, that’s my guess). However, before it did it was able to keep a GT3 RS going full chat, within shouting distance (at the 2:00 mark) far longer than any 4,700lb sedan has a right to.
I think my next non-two seater car will be a Model S (fortunately I have a petrol-powered sports coupe to take to the track).
This was decision as well. In the price range of the Model S I was considering the M6 and the 911. Ultimately I went with the M6.
GT characteristics when I want, goes plenty fast for someone that seldomly goes to the track and yet still is capable of exciting on the road. The P85D, while fast, when I floored it I felt like I was taking off on a plane but there was a sense of comfort and safety that, funnily enough, I didn't want.
Nice choice! I opted not to get the M6 because I wanted something closer to ~3400lbs, which is about what the 911 GTS is, but you can't go wrong with a twin-turbo V8!
Though now that I'm in the middle (well, almost done with the first version) of building https://recent.io/ it means more screen time and less driving...
The Ariel Atom 500 (with the V8) is a little bit faster at 2.3 seconds 0-60. However it's not really a daily driver kind of car like the Tesla: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIiWhWpzFQQ
True. However, the Ariel Atom is an lightweight, open air (no roof at all), tube frame, track-day car. You're well advised to wear a helmet while driving the Atom.
The Tesla is a 4-door sedan that you could easily use to pick up business partners from the airport. You might as well compare the tesla to a BMW HP4 (superbike).
People build it and then you can exchange money to receive one, how does that not qualify as a production car? Some are even built in the US (by TMI) and you can find them at dealerships: http://arielatom.com/locate-dealer/ A friend has one and it's perfectly legal to license, register, and drive on the street in some states. It has all the federal auto requirements like indicators, brake lights, etc. and can even pass a e-check (as long as you bought one with a catalytic converter).
Most definitions of a production car require that they are mass produced rather than made to order as well as being an original design rather than an aftermarket mod of a production car. I'm not sure of the exact sales model of the Atom 500, but wikipedia says it was a limited edition with only 25 made. Calling it a production car would be generous.
They're very similar, 2.8 vs 2.9 is not that big of a deal. The GT-R NISMO is perhaps even faster but again, fairly similar. Regardless these are expensive cars (>$100k) with impressive performance no doubt. It's worth pointing out that the Tesla P85D is not the only 100k car with that performance available.
a tenth of a second for a 0-60 time actually is kind of a big deal...the closer you get to zero the harder it is to shave off that additional tenth...traction also becomes a very real limitation...bravo to the Tesla team.
Also, i'm pretty sure the Tesla IS the only $100k luxury sedan with that performance right now. Very few pure sports cars make it under 3s.
Its probably _because_ of traction actually. A internal combustion engine has to worry about gears and gear switching. Even if the gear takes a short-time to switch, that is a penalty that the electric cars do not face.
The Tesla can provide smooth acceleration from 0 to 60. No combustion engine can accomplish that feat... although some hybrid supercars are beginning to incorporate electric motors for that reason.
look up dual-clutch transmissions. agreed though, nothing's faster than not having to shift at all. the downside of a single gear may be limitation at top speed.... maybe.
> They're very similar, 2.8 vs 2.9 is not that big of a deal.
It's not? At these rates higher acceleration is more than exponentially harder to achieve, that is the closer to zero you get. Someone should link a nice graph.
What are the other cars in the price range that can do these 0-60 and 1/4 miles times? Genuinely curious- I didnt think there were many even within .5 seconds of it (most start at 3.5 0-60's)
"Track day toys". Eg Caterham 620R, Ariel Atom 3.5r. I've got something very similar to a 620R, animal machines. Absolute animals. Stripped down, no creature comforts, really for one thing only...
The Tesla is the only sedan on the list. The majority of the cars are mid/rear engine super cars or track-day cars that you wouldn't care to drive every day. Any way you slice it, this is remarkable company.
the new S is quicker than advertised, for two reasons:
1. next year's needs to be quicker on paper by a small margin
2. the 918 needs to be the fastest on paper by a large margin
what's remarkable about the S is it can do launch-controlled full throttle runs to 60 repeatedly. most other cars in this acceleration class (this new tesla, gt-r, veyron) are simply incapable of that, for various reasons.
well, maybe the veyron, but who really cares because it's ludicrous for other reasons.
Well it's no big deal because the GTR is one league above in term of sport racing, this car is incredible on track, there is no way that Tesla will match that.
I have a Porsche Macan S (small SUV) which has 0 to 60 times in the 5 second range. But the acceleration from 50 to 95 (the point that your realize you are going to fast) feels almost split second.
The 2012 911 that I had had much better 0 to 60 times (in the 4's) but even with a 7 speed manual transmission didn't have the kick that the Macan has at the upper end. [1] (And it's really pretty neat to hit the gas and in an instant be practically at 100 miles per hour. Helps greatly with passing truck..)
Likewise if you take a test drive in a Cayman S which has better 0 to 60 than a Macan S it feels quite frankly like a "pig". I had a brand new loaner [2] and drove one for about 100 miles and went to town with it.
Lastly, engine noise is pretty cool at least the way I have experienced it.
[1] Generally you are going to do more accelerating once you get to 40 mph than you are from a stoplight at least that is what I have found.
[2] Side note I have found that with the Porsches that I have bought they do get better once they are broken in (2k to 4k miles..)
The difference is that there aren't posted acceleration limits, only speed limits. (And more generally, speed reduces available reaction time and increases your inertia in a collision, which is why it's the sensible thing to limit.) The only limits on acceleration are the general requirements to drive safely. So 0-60 is a lot more interesting than -95, unless you're driving on the autobahn.
More impressive to me is the fact that the 90kWh battery is already trickling down to the Model S. It was originally developed for the Model X.
I think it's safe to say that we'll see Model X features moving down to the Model S much faster than previously thought. This is how you relentlessly improve a product instead of holding specific features to a Model without solid technical reasons.
I've been reading Henry Ford's autobiography ("My Life and Work"), and it seems like Musk is taking a page directly from Ford's playbook with continuous product (and component) updates that are (mostly) backwards compatible with previously-produced vehicles in the same model.
The parallels are pretty amazing, and they go much much deeper too (eg. fabrication automation, experimentation, engineering to the highest extent possible, etc).
If you can do this as a $10k update "safely" with a computer-controlled pyro fuse, I wonder what you could do by hacking the firmware and replacing it with a piece of busbar. 2 seconds?
I feel like the limit of what these motors can do now is being held back by something they can't control anymore, tire grip.
I think a lot of these software updates on the acceleration speed aren't because they all of the sudden figured out how to get more power from the electric motor. I think it's from tweaking the "no-slip" system or whatever they call theirs. Basically when the car detects it's losing grip, it cuts back the power. I think this is a balancing act on how to get the system to push the limits of slipping without putting the average user into a ditch because they tried out the "ludicrous" mode.
I'm sure on static conditions in a lab, Tesla can make the thing do something like 2s. It would require something other than a regular tire on a regular road though.
What if the car actually used the suspension to 'drop' just a fraction of an inch lower to the ground (to increase its momentary, apparent weight) as soon as you punch the accelerator to get some extra grip? I wonder how much of a difference the momentary 'downforce' would make.
You'd be better off raising the ride height as the dynamics of raising the ride height will increase downforce on the wheel/tire assembly at the start of the transient.
It probably will do that. Atleast to compensate for the added apparent weight on the rear at acceleration. And slightly decrease air flow resistance under the car. Formula 1 cars do something like that
Tire grip is a huge one. I'm sure the improvements are as you said it's been a theory of mine too. Suspension also has an effect however obviously wouldn't be affected by this update.
I think they do these test with the stock tires. It would be nice to see what the Model S could do with a set of R compounds or Hoosiers in a straight line.
It is actually possible that the suspension was affected by the update. It wouldn't be the first time that the suspension's behavior has been tweaked by a software update to the Model S.
I also wonder if there will be a way to "update firmware" on the fuse, so as to disable it, allowing remote self destruct mode. The advantage of a dumb fuse is it's basically going to work unless the laws of physics change, even though it's not as precise.
I recently got to see this in the theater with my 6 year old. We have watched it at home dozens of times and he knows most of the big one liners. It was excellent. I love that the tesla team is willing to have so much fun with their upgrades. I can't wait until I can afford one.
You only need enough range to go as far as the next charger, or until your bladder is full, whichever is last. 300 miles is plenty (overkill, really) for long distance travel.
Gas car range is more about how many times per month you need to stop at the gas station in normal use. More range makes that more convenient. With home charging, the convenience of an electric car is better even with less range.
> 300 miles is plenty (overkill, really) for long distance travel.
Don't read trip with me, then. I drove from Hartford, CT to Dallas, TX last month in two days (900mi the first day, 750 the second). Trips like this are specifically why I nixed the Model S as an option and went with a turbodiesel Passat (with its 750+ highway mile range).
I realize I'm in the minority, but it is a notable minority. I don't want to be forced into an hour-long stop every 300 miles.
900 miles in a day is stretching it, but not entirely out of the question. You can sustain a long distance average speed of about 55-60MPH (counting time for stops) in a Model S 85. It will be slower than you could do in a gas car if you push it. If you don't push it, it won't be any slower, and could even be faster. (Refueling a gas car takes a lot less time, but can't really be done concurrently with other things. If you were going to get coffee or whatever at each charging stop regardless, then you're looking at 5 minutes for gas versus zero for electricity. Accomplishing this with perfection is, of course, a bit of a challenge.)
Note that an hour every 300 miles isn't generally how you'd do it. Charging is faster the closer your battery is to empty, so your best bet is to work in the bottom ~50% of your charge range when possible, and spend ~20 minutes charging at intervals of ~150 miles. You'll note that this is about how far apart Tesla's superchargers are spaced. That, to me, is about the right interval for a quick coffee, bathroom, or stretch break. Your mileage may, of course, vary.
The biggest problem with your particular trip isn't the time for charging, but the general lack of charging infrastructure along the shortest route. If you route through superchargers, the distance is about 300 miles longer due to the need to take I-70 into Kansas to follow the chargers. This should improve with time, and current owners will benefit, but until it does there are some trips that are just not as good with superchargers. But improvements there pay off a lot better than improvements in range beyond 300 miles.
> While working on our goal of making the power train last a million miles, we came up with the idea for an advanced smart fuse for the battery. Instead of a standard fuse that just melts past a certain amperage, which means you aren’t exactly sure when it will or won’t melt or if it will arc when it does, we developed a fuse with its own electronics and a tiny lithium-ion battery. It constantly monitors current at the millisecond level and is pyro-actuated to cut power with extreme precision and certainty.
That was combined with upgrading the main pack contractor to use inconel (a high temperature space-grade superalloy) instead of steel, so that it remains springy under the heat of heavy current.
The net result is that we can safely increase max amp throughout from 1300 to 1500 Amps. If you don’t know much about Amps, trust me this is a silly big number of Amps to be going through something the size of your little fingernail.
What this results in is a 10% improvement in the 0 to 60 mph time to 2.8 secs and a quarter mile time of 10.9 secs. Time to 155 mph is improved even more, resulting in a 20% reduction.
At high levels of current it takes pretty drastic measures to break the circuit. Even if the conductor melts away you can still have arcing, turning the air into plasma and a replacement conductor.
Kind of nuts that they had to account for that in a car.
Oh jeez. Never mind my sibling comment - this sucker seems hellaciously sophisticated, far more so than I was imagining. An active fuse that carries 1.5kA that's the size of a finger? I've seen fuses wider than my wrist blam for less.
Wow is that 1500A with DC current? Wouldn't there be a big magnetic field generated when so much power is pulled through the wires/bus bars from the battery? Would be kinda funny to do an insane mode launch and your pocket change flys out of your pocket and sticks to the floor.
Well, SpaceX uses inconel. They also must have a quite good understanding of pyrotechnics, as they need to use that in a lot of places, eg. stage separation.
So I'd say yes, at least on the tech transfer part.
I don't think so. At least, it hasn't been publicly reported as far as I know. So although I'm not saying it's impossible, I'd be very interested to know the source for your statement?
Without the performance characteristics for the fuse, I wouldn't imagine it would be cheap. Specialized electronic components are usually very expensive, especially if they're never mass produced and engineered to a specific task (component ICs for devices in space face the same issue). That engineering is pretty damn expensive, the tooling to make the small run of components is expensive, and quality control is expensive. Make a few hundred million and those costs vanish compared to the input materials, compared to a few thousand components where the overhead dominates.
Market segmentation. How do you get people to pay you another 10k? With a widget that is useless but has huge bragging value. People who don't care about 10k will spend it on this, and those who do care will have no different lives.
Don't forget that strength-to-weight is a big determinant of acceleration, so the new Roadster wouldn't necessarily need to be AWD. (and here's hoping it's not!)
There are plenty of Benzes, BMWs, and domestic sports/sporty cars with massive acceleration "despite" being RWD. (See all the Viper vs Model S videos, for example)
A Model S drivetrain in something that isn't 2200kg long-wheelbase sedan would be amazing :)
0-60 times are nice but I want to know what the 60-100 time is. That's what generally used for 1/4 mile estimates.
Is there any diagrams of information easily available about the couple style used between the motors and the wheel hubs? I wonder how they're done and what the limit of them is with the amount of torque they put out. In a previous life I used to build a lot of race cars and shearing axle bolts wasn't uncommon in drag applications.
It would be awesome to see them test out a full on drag tesla.
I'd imagine pretty good. It's got such a low drag coefficient, and at those speeds liquifying the tires is not as much of a problem. I'd think that the 60-100 times might be more impressive than it's 0-60 when compared to conventional cars!
Looks like an 2012 model that is not the P85 and did not have the OTA performance update from last year could do it in about 9 seconds. For a reference, that's faster than a BMW M5. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_03g4UHtCWo
On a different note: is it possible to opt out of Tesla software updates (for whatever reason)? AFAIK, this is not possible (http://my.teslamotors.com/forum/forums/same-distasteful-appe...) The two options when an update is available seem to be install now or later.
Well, the battery is not a single monolithic design, it is composed of thousands of small (think AA) cells. My uneducated hunch is that that design helps them extract power from many cells in parallel. It's also huge, taking almost all the floor of the car.
There are lithium polymer batteries with a peak discharge rate (usually a few seconds) of 100+ times their capacity (C rating).
So if you put a lot of those single cells in parallel to e.g. form an 80Ah battery, you could for some time pull 8000A+ out of it at 3.7V (the car's motors probably need a few times that voltage, so there will be cells in series).
Tesla's seems to be beating a dead horse! Don't get me wrong; I love what Tesla does but making a faster production car seems to be an answer to the critics who I think have already taken home the message that the electric car is as fast as the best IC car!
I think what they should address is getting out the affordable Model 3 as fast to the market as they can. They may loose the game if the incumbents beat them to it. They would need volume to sustain their production and maintenance costs. Once every manufacturer gets onto the electric wagon, a lack of wider adoption, could become their Achilles heels.
Anyone who is aware of the mythical man month should know that throwing more people on a project does not magically speed things up. Tesla probably has a core team that can execute faster if they had less people on the project. The other spare Tesla engineers are not going to twiddle their thumbs... they're going to make the existing Model S more appealing.
> I think what they should address is getting out the affordable Model 3 as fast to the market as they can.
I agree, but I doubt this project took any manpower or resources away from the Model 3. If anything, it'll generate some extra cash to help with their R&D.
This is like saying that the Formula 1, exists for nothing. This is the way to test all the engineering efforts, it also leaves that knowledge in the company for future and further improvements, which directly influences the design and execution of the Model 3.
But I have to agree that waiting for an affordable Tesla car is getting anoying, and they do need to create an income stream from a lower priced model for creating a sustainable company, and take advantage of the wow factor that still surrounds Tesla and evertything they make.
But they have also innovated in other areas like the house batteries, which for me was a surprise (for me it seems odd that Tesla makes batteries for the average household) but they are generating other income streams, so it seems that Teslas agenda is not only the Model 3.
As a fellow F1 buff, the upgrades takes years to roll down to production cars. And in software parlance, they shouldn't be focusing on the MVP at this point.
they have also innovated in other areas like the house batteries
That right and that may be more profitable and they may pivot and leave the car manufacturing to the incumbents.
I'm pretty sure they're working as hard as possible on that, but the key to reducing the costs is the battery packs and that won't happen until gigafactory comes online. Other manufacturers will face the same cost issues but won't own their own gigafactory
Didn't Tesla already give away their battery intellectual property or similar? If they did why wouldn't these other companies not just produce it themselves to cut Tesla out?
Its easier to expand downwards. e.g. Take Porsche...they have a bullet proof brand so they can sell a Cayenne football mom SUV fairly easily...just costs a bit of brand dilution.
Doing the opposite (SUV to sportscar) would be a tough sell no matter how (objectively) good the sportscar is.
IIRC, it's actually Toyota that's the world's most popular car maker (by number of cars sold, at 10.23 million last year), not VW; this has been the case for the last 3 years [0]. VW is very close behind, though, at 10.14 million (and GM is close behind that at 9.92 million).
Not to say that your point is inaccurate (it's actually very accurate; the ability for companies like Toyota to drive down costs goes a long way toward mass adoption, and it's something that "luxury" makers like Porsche don't typically have the experience in). Tesla could very well be an exception here, since the big focus as of late is to ramp up manufacturing until Model-whatevers (and, in particular, their batteries) can flow out of factories at ludicrous speeds.
So, anecdotally, low end Porsche models have sold well, like the Boxster and Cayman, and high end VW models have often not sold well, like the Phaeton.
>Lots of business research says this is not true, and in fact, the opposite.
I just named an example that makes very obvious sense to a bunch of people even without evidence (though I'm sure Cayenne sale numbers would back it if I had to). You allude to "a lot of research" claiming the opposite. Care to share said research?
Your example of VW being popular is an example of absolute market position and is entirely irrelevant to debate as to whether its easier to move from the low end of the market t the top or vice versa.
The incumbents have already beaten them to the mass-market segment. The Nissan Leaf and the Chevy Volt are both affordable, competent (if unexciting) electric vehicles.
Seems like they took inspiration from the branding on the Chromebook Pixel LS (Ludicrous Speed)--the 16GB RAM, i7 one that I'm lucky enough to have ;-)
Fun fact: most cars today run about 20 separate operating systems. My guess is Tesla is fairly above average. Anyone have a figure on this?
One catch: unlike most Tesla Model S tuning enhancements, this one isn’t
a software update — and it’s not free. Why? Because Tesla had to make new,
physical hardware to make this possible. Specifically, they had to make a
fuse that didn’t melt when you pulled ridiculously high amperages over it.
The fuse upgrade will be a $10k option for new buyers, and cost $5k (before
installation) for existing P85D owners.
That's basically what insurance companies do. You're saying the equivalent of, I hope those programmers don't forget to declare their variables, or else their code won't work!
Surely less accidents. A common metric with road cars is 'TED' or Time Exposed to Danger, measuring how quickly you can accelerate to overtake a vehicle - the less time you are in the other lane, facing oncoming traffic, the better. Obviously very low 0-60 and 60-100 acceleration times are better, and make for lower TEDs.
Well that's a pretty silly way to look at this. No one needs a car that can go faster than 85mph, but pretty much every car on the market can break that limit. What makes this different?
my dad has a Tesla, I've driven it, and I think it is entirely different. The acceleration you see in a Tesla happens at times like, when you're trying to make a left turn in front of some other cars really fast; you're going from zero to about 30 miles in hour in less than a second, silently. If you happen to not have seen a pedestrian in the crosswalk as you do this, that pedestrian is dead; they will not hear you, and you will be through them before you even know it.
The acceleration of the Tesla presents a challenge to normal human reaction times on a routine basis. It encourages the driver to use the greater acceleration advantage to do things that would not be possible in more traditional cars, like zooming from a dead stop to a very high speed to get through turns or rapidly changing traffic blockages. All with zero engine noise emitted to the world around you.
I love the tesla but the acceleration / noise thing is definitely going to cause more accidents until some mitigation is applied (which I hope to be that the cars just drive themselves).
It gives an amazing user experience, "Hey restart your car and it's now got X and Y". Respect.
Edit: clarifying the term "product".