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That assumes, of course, that the police will bother to take action even with the license plate.

That's like assuming that gravity will turn off for a rocket launch. Case in point - https://www.teslarati.com/tesl....

Tesla vehicles in Q4 2018 experienced accidents at a rate of 1 accident per 2.87 million miles driven with Autopilot engaged, and one accident every 1.76 million miles without Autopilot. The average car in America experiences 1 crash every 436,000 miles (these stats do not take fault into account). Effectively, a Tesla is 4 times less likely than the average car to get into an accident, and that number jumps to 6 times less likely when using Autopilot (which is constantly improving).

https://www.teslarati.com/tesl...

people die every day in car accidents from every manufacturer. take a look at the numbers next time before making baseless, misleading accusations.

A couple of days ago, Teslarati reported a case in which a Model 3 caught video of a thief breaking in that showed both his face and his license plate. From the article:

the Tesla owner noted that he was simply informed that an officer might look into the incident

The emphasis on "might" is mine.

Given that replacing the rear window on a Model 3 will likely cost quite a bit more than your typical video doorbell, I'd be surprised if you even get a "might" from the officers on the doorbell. In fact, they'll likely be annoyed if you make them do a report.

while tesla is already ACTIVELY preventing crashes : https://www.teslarati.com/tesl...

Tesla released its first Vehicle Safety Report after the third quarter of 2018. During that period, the electric car maker registered one accident or crash-like event for every 3.34 million miles driven with Autopilot active, and one accident or crash-like event for every 1.92 million miles driven with Autopilot disengaged

But so far, they can't handle a parking lot

Wrong as of now

or a divider in the road or heavy rain.

There are more incidents with humans being unable to handle dividers than Teslas, so already you are wrong there.

As for heavy rain that also causes problems for humans, again self driving cars have more sensors so in the end they will handle heavy rain lots better than humans mostly do.

Unlike a human, self driving cars will also be much more inclined to drive at a reasonable speed for conditions, because they fundamentally know what that is in a way most humans do not.

It is an SUV not a hatchback. Even Teslarati proclaims it an SUV. And it's curved roof and door compromise it's role as an SUV. Apparently, based on your statement, because of battery constraints. So better to make it a poor SUV, than come out with something that does 225 miles - but has a usable interior (in terms of square shape). Better to do a BMW X6-style body that is universally derided as useless - poor for a car, and unusable as an SUV.

Just relaying what I'm reading man: https://www.teslarati.com/tesl...

But if you insist...

But they have already been released, took about a day or so. Obviously big important news, everybody sell their shares now!

(Relevant part of that article: "Update: China’s customs have cleared imported cars following Tesla’s plan to address the issues, according to Reuters.")

It has heated and cooled seats

So does the Model 3.

I drove a friends Model 3 and it is very disconcerting to have to look to your right

I drive a MINI with the speedometer in the middle of the dash, that is not a problem at all after a day or two.

It has 260 miles and access to CCS and ChargeAmerica

That range is OK although personally for a long road trip I think 300 would be a minimum, especially as you drain the car for various uses (like seat heaters).

I'm glad they have something but it still seems like Tesla has a much more expansive quick-charging network.

Rear visibility. The Model 3 is really difficult to get a clear rear view

I'll believe that when I see it as ALL new cars have incredibly poor rear visibility now, sloping roof or not.

In fact I do not believe it at all when I look at the rear shots of the Kona Electric (about fourth image from top), that is a tinier rear area to see through even than the Model 3 (especially with the roof being glass)! It is the typical no-visibility rear view window you find on every crossover SUV today.

And if you are doing a long 400 mile drive would you rather do it in a cramped sedan or a SUV with more legspace.

The Model 3 has a lot of leg space (my friend has one), these small crossover SUV's can often be worse depending on how they have allocated the cargo area.
I can tell you for sure I'd rather be in a Model 3 than a Rav4 for example....

Tesla Megacharger

There is another way in which you are ignorant. You claim that EVs don't have sufficient range for commuting for most drivers, yet, here is a study that shows that EVs can easily meet the requirements of 95% of all trips:
https://www.greencarreports.co...

As for life of the batteries, life depends on usage (charge to 100%?), and chemistry. Actual studies on real Tesla batteries show a much longer typical life:
https://cleantechnica.com/2018...

Or how about this one:
https://www.teslarati.com/tesl...

I dare say you haven't considered all this and I'd bet you don't own an EV and have any experience with them either. But I'm the ignorant one? Yea right.

Yes, you are the ignorant one. We have not one, but two EVs in my household: a Model 3 and a Leaf.

What one person called stupid is another's genius risk-taking.

For example, you have the autopilot hack here:

https://www.teslarati.com/tesl...

There's another guy selling a modification that enhances the newer Tesla's camera systems so you can effectively get a camera view 360 degrees around the vehicle, including a "bird's eye" top down view.

Virgin has already quietly announced plans for point to point suborbital flights, connecting cities in a fraction of the current travel time. As Virgin Galactic flight hardware is proven and deployed around the world we are opening up humanity to the biggest increase in travel speed since the advent of jet powered aircraft. Truly an exciting time to be alive!

Because....? If I had a private jet I'd get a lot faster to where I was going too. Despite all the talk of making space "affordable", compared to the airplanes they're still gold plated. A sub-orbital rocket going half way across the Earth will require about 7.9 km/s delta-v, going to orbit is 9.3-10 km/s. Putting that into the rocket equation says you can bring about twice as much payload to fuel compared to LEO. So what's the cost to orbit today? $62 million / 22800 kg = ~$2700/kg for an F9, if you take half that a 75 kg person is still looking at $100k for a ticket if we ignore seats, life support systems and so on. Of course to just reach space you just need to go 1.4 km/s straight up - but then you're coming straight down.

You can look at this graphic to see how a SpaceX first stage goes on a suborbital trajectory, it'll go 7-800 kilometers in a ballistic path. This capture maybe gives you a better sense of scale, you can see stage one returning to earth on the left right off the coast. To actually go places like Europe or Asia it'd have to make a much, much bigger and more expensive arc. And when you consider that you can get anywhere in the world in less than a day, is that one day saved worth tens of thousands of dollars? Travel by rocket is not for the common man nor the middle class, it's for the 0.01% who'd rather have an extra day on their yacht.

"According to the manual the only variables involved ..."

So what happens when we ignore the Tesla Autopilot warnings? The answer appears to depend largely on the route you’re taking. https://www.teslarati.com/what...

"We know very little about that sleeping guy. "

But it still looks like a long time without 'conscious input', here's some more :

About 20 minutes of no hands : https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Guy eats hamburger : https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

So it's not only time the car considers before it forces you to touch the steering wheel.

So apparently now cars are going to be like smartphones or other electronic gadgets -- everything is too-cleverly designed such that you can't repair individual components

There's something to what you say. But on the other hand, Tesla designed the Model 3 to have a greatly reduced parts count and simplified design.

Sandy Munro and his team famously tore down and analyzed a Tesla Model 3, and he was quite impressed by the design. Initially he made some negative comments but lately he said he "had to eat crow" and that the car is a "symphony of engineering". His only real complaint is that the car body is too complex and heavy; Elon Musk replied on Twitter saying the car body definitely could be simpler but the weight was due to the car being designed to be so safe.

https://cleantechnica.com/2018/10/23/second-tesla-model-3-teardown-highlights-strengths-opportunities-for-tesla/

Tesla cars have computer-controlled everything. I can't find the link where I read this, but I read that they use a star-topology wiring data network for control, plus a power bus. For the Model Y, they are rumored to be going to a single cable per gadget, implying power and data together in a star topology. A conventional car has around 5000 feet of wiring (1500 metres) but this story claims that Model Y will need only 328 feet of wire. 328 feet converts almost exactly to 100 metres so I wonder if someone gave a ballpark estimate of 100 metres (nice round number) and some reporter uncritically converted that to an exact number of feet.

https://www.autoevolution.com/news/elon-musk-tesla-model-y-will-require-only-328-feet-of-wiring-119717.html

Tesla's modular design is really impressive in the battery and drive train. A Model 3 "drive unit" is a motor plus gearbox plus axles and suspension. To remove it is incredibly simple: four bolts, two cables (data and power), two glycol coolant hoses, and two brake hoses. A motor swap for a Model 3 will take much less labor than most engine or transmission repairs on a conventional car.

https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-3-drivetrain-design-elon-musk-master-plan/

And Tesla is trying to provide a good repair experience. They have a program where they set up Tesla body shops and keep those stocked with parts. For people lucky enough to be near one of these Tesla body shops, a Tesla repair can be amazingly fast.

https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-in-house-body-repair-shop-model-3-damage-25-hours/

Early adopters have it worst, and it can cost something like $900 to repair a door handle on a Model S. But Tesla is doing an amazing job of ramping their operations and making their cars as simple as possible to build and to repair.

So apparently now cars are going to be like smartphones or other electronic gadgets -- everything is too-cleverly designed such that you can't repair individual components

There's something to what you say. But on the other hand, Tesla designed the Model 3 to have a greatly reduced parts count and simplified design.

Sandy Munro and his team famously tore down and analyzed a Tesla Model 3, and he was quite impressed by the design. Initially he made some negative comments but lately he said he "had to eat crow" and that the car is a "symphony of engineering". His only real complaint is that the car body is too complex and heavy; Elon Musk replied on Twitter saying the car body definitely could be simpler but the weight was due to the car being designed to be so safe.

https://cleantechnica.com/2018/10/23/second-tesla-model-3-teardown-highlights-strengths-opportunities-for-tesla/

Tesla cars have computer-controlled everything. I can't find the link where I read this, but I read that they use a star-topology wiring data network for control, plus a power bus. For the Model Y, they are rumored to be going to a single cable per gadget, implying power and data together in a star topology. A conventional car has around 5000 feet of wiring (1500 metres) but this story claims that Model Y will need only 328 feet of wire. 328 feet converts almost exactly to 100 metres so I wonder if someone gave a ballpark estimate of 100 metres (nice round number) and some reporter uncritically converted that to an exact number of feet.

https://www.autoevolution.com/news/elon-musk-tesla-model-y-will-require-only-328-feet-of-wiring-119717.html

Tesla's modular design is really impressive in the battery and drive train. A Model 3 "drive unit" is a motor plus gearbox plus axles and suspension. To remove it is incredibly simple: four bolts, two cables (data and power), two glycol coolant hoses, and two brake hoses. A motor swap for a Model 3 will take much less labor than most engine or transmission repairs on a conventional car.

https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-3-drivetrain-design-elon-musk-master-plan/

And Tesla is trying to provide a good repair experience. They have a program where they set up Tesla body shops and keep those stocked with parts. For people lucky enough to be near one of these Tesla body shops, a Tesla repair can be amazingly fast.

https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-in-house-body-repair-shop-model-3-damage-25-hours/

Early adopters have it worst, and it can cost something like $900 to repair a door handle on a Model S. But Tesla is doing an amazing job of ramping their operations and making their cars as simple as possible to build and to repair.

The solution is relatively obvious: don't spread BS (the article in the Slashdot headline).

Whenever I see claims that amount to "science says...", I immediately check to see:

  * In what journal was it published?
  * What is that journal's reputation?
  * How does it compare to the overall corpus of research on the topic?

In this case, the "study" fails at the first bar: there's no study at all. The source of this article is "Berylls Strategy Advisors". There is no peer review. It's simply "take the word of a company that describes its business as "modern premium automotive consulting" and works for major established automakers, primarily "Dieselgate" German automakers". And we're supposed to ignore the (contradicting), actually peer-reviewed research in the process. Most of the latter of which is regardless rapidly obsoleted regardless by the ongoing wave of battery manufacturing energy improvements, which comes hand-in-hand with battery cost reductions.

It's "Swedish Battery 'Study' Part Deux".

But indeed, as you noted, the solution is to manufacture using solar. Which is actually a very popular solution among EV manufacturers. Tesla has started installing the solar roof that will entirely power Gigafactory, for example - but they're hardly alone in this regard.

Sounds like SpaceX didn't want the Government support for the BFR. Hans Koenigsmann made some coments recently about it being difficult to not get government money. https://www.teslarati.com/spac...

Coincidentally, this came out today.

Hey, when you sell cars below cost (essentially giving them away), you can move a lot of cars! Now, add in the $17,600 that Tesla loses on each vehicle ($717 million loss last quarter to ship 40,740 cars) and the $7500 the Government gives you to buy one, and you end up with the mythical $35K and up car actually costing $60K.

I guess if you want shareholders/investors/rubes and the taxpayer/fellow-citizens to pay nearly half the cost of your car, then go for it! But Tesla has only a few quarters left before they have to start charging more, and their Government subsidies go away, and the car starts costing consumers $60,000 or more. We'll see what happens to deliveries then, as the real car manufacturers start rolling into the market in volume.

Bears repeating.

Not like you care, but...

1. Musk sends engineers to site and they speak to 'subject matter expert' about possibilities
2. Inflatable Wing assign 30% staff to task, drop production in half. Ship inflatable 'pod'
3. Continued interaction with on-site experts sees 'mini-sub' idea evolve, similar crunch for development and delivery
4. Someone not involved in this interaction who is _not_ a diver (as commonly reported, he's familiar with the caves and relatively local and did some early co-ordination) made some insulting comments.
5. Got insulting comments back.

Musk was in communication with divers and on-site engineers. This was not some 'out of the blue', uninformed decision to turn up with a mini-sub.
The uninformed opinion was the ex-pat cave explorer who wasn't involved in the loop and made some assumptions about Musk's involvement. He made some public comments disparaging Musk, Musk fired back. Neither behaved well, but you're holding Musk to a double standard if you condemn him and not the instigator, and you've got your 'facts' from the 'spin' that sold this story.

See https://mashable.com/2018/07/0... and https://www.teslarati.com/elon... for eg. Try to look for links before his Twitter storm and you'll avoid all the 'journalists' quoting/sourcing each other.

SpaceX has been working on this since 2015 and already launched two successful prototype satellites. It's called "Starlink" and production is already underway. Good luck competing with a company that builds their own satellites and has their own low cost launch platform.

https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-internet-satellite-starlink-production-in-house/

Fast Acting.... you mean like a massive battery connected to a wind farm?

https://www.teslarati.com/tesl...

https://www.news.com.au/techno...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/201...

Have a nice day.

Going to post this as AC because I'm sure the haters will be out in full force. I got mine a few weeks ago and it was better than I expected. For context, I have a 2016 Porsche 981 GTS (everybody please put down your pitchforks) so my standards are set pretty high. The model 3 is totally worth the wait and is definitely worth the money. I am pretty sure that the Model 3 can trash the 981 at just about any metric and in fact a slightly modified Model 3 just ate a 981 race-ready Boxster at a time track event and won the event overall. It is 2/3 the price of the Porsche fully-loaded too!

It is a totally unassuming car but it is brilliantly designed. So much so that I'm considering getting rid of the Porsche as there is just no reason to own it. It feels like a dinosaur when I get in it now.

The parking garage at my condo has free regular 110v plugs, and they don't mind us charging cars with them, so to date I have paid absolutely nothing for "fuel". At 110v it would take two and a half days to charge it from empty (it charges at a rate of about 7km/hr at 110v and the 80% range is about 450km), but I just plug it in when I get home and it is ready for me the next time I want to use it. On average I just don't drive more than 7km/hr/day so it works out. Of course there are many other charging options a lot of them free (my local airport parking has free EV charging and you can leave your car there and plugged in the entire time you are away). The parking garages in this area also have free EV charging.

The seats are great. The interior is really nice - the glass roof is beautiful! I love the minimalist dash. I would give the touchscreen controls a 7/10. They could do a lot to improve that and they are slowly making some positive changes to it. Very usable though. The handling is adjustable and I find it very responsive. It is a fun car to drive. I have found no fit and finish problems despite the reports - the body panels all line up and the tolerances are great and the inside trim is quiet. No squeaks or rattles. The car is so quiet that you do notice tire noise when you are driving.

I wrote to Tesla asking them when the whole LTE music streaming and free map updates and live traffic was going to end and they were going to start charging me, and they said "Never. Enjoy!" Turns out that this offer expires for people who get their cars after July 1st. Most of it will still be free, but they will offer a premium level after some period of time that you will have to pay for that will give you music streaming and traffic. Updates will be done over wifi unless they are a safety issue in which case they will eat the cost of the LTE update.

I'm rambling probably. Enjoy your car in good health! It really feels like it is the next generation of the automobile.

Eric Ralph at Teslarati has an article up right now:
"SpaceX urges Congress to expedite commercial spaceflight regulation reforms"
https://www.teslarati.com/spac...
"Related to the focus of this particular hearing, namely regulatory reform, Representative Rick Larsen (WA-2) appeared to speak for everyone when he mirrored the four panelists’ sense of urgency for beginning the process of reforming federal space launch regulations by asking for an informal meeting outside the doors of the chamber once the session concluded, stating that “it’s that urgent.” In order for companies like SpaceX (and eventually Blue Origin) to be able to sustainably and reliably reach cadences of one launch per week in the near future, the currently cumbersome and dated launch licensing apparatus will almost invariably require significant reforms."

Blue Origin, SpaceX, the United Launch Alliance and the the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) are on it. Expect some rapid change, mostly in approval time for flights (right now: 200 days!) and a reduction in the huge time periods (90 minutes pre- and post- activity) of the no-fly restrictions around launches and landings.

https://www.teslarati.com/tesl...

Tesla has been one of the first to recognize and start addressing the problem. 59% reduction in Cobalt usage while increasing the battery pack capacity is nothing to sneeze at.

> H2 solves it now and for a long time.

Great, where do I get the Hydrogen from? Virtually every habitable building in the US has electricity, but there are very few hydrogen fueling stations. I can tell you form first hand experience that a modest CNG station costs north of $2mil, so if a hydrogen fueling station costs less than $5mil I'd be impressed.

Oh, and Hydrogen fuel cells that output enough instantaneous power for acceptable performance are huge and way too expensive, so HDC vehicles usually use a smaller fuel cell and supplement it with... a lithium battery!
=Smidge=

With the Tesla... There's a Supercharger site not far from the BMW dealership... It's just a couple thousand feet off the highway, and there are 8 stations. I can't tell with PlugShare how many of the chargers are occupied

You can view that within the car - Tesla unlocks real-time Supercharger occupancy data on vehicle map. Not sure how accurate it is, just got back from our first road trip in a Tesla and on the way back to Houston the Nacogdoches Supercharger showed 5 of 8 stalls in use, but only one spot was occupied - and it was ICED at that.

This is a known characteristic of the Tesla "autopilot". I wouldn't even call it a "defect" per se as it is simply operating as it is designed to work.

It won't pick up stationary objects, particularly if there is another vehicle in front of the autopilot vehicle, going about the same speed, and then that vehicles move aside with the stationary object right in the middle of the lane.

This is one reason of many why the Tesla system requires constant supervision by the human driver.

Of course the reason the whole type of system is a really bad idea is because it works great 99.9% of the time. Thus lulling the human driver into a false sense of security and safety. So then the human driver tunes out. Then 2000 miles later (or whatever) the "Autopilot" encounters a situation it can't handle and you wham into the back of a firetruck or whatever.

And no, I'm not making this up:

https://www.wired.com/story/te...

http://www.newsweek.com/tesla-...

https://www.teslarati.com/tesl...

If the components are $18,000, labor is $10,000, and factory depreciation is $10,000 [1], then Tesla should have been making a profit on those $70,000 premium Model 3 sales, but somehow that's not reflected in their Q1 report.

Is that before or after you take into account constant factory modifications? Telsa is ramping up and spending money doing it. And they're not done: https://www.teslarati.com/tesl...

Also that labour estimate is final labour costs of assembly. That doesn't include overhead, rework, factory downtime, production changes, all of which seem to be happening constantly as Tesla tries to ramp up. Looking at the numbers it would seem that they imply a steady state operation.

It looks like small short-range electric and hybrid fixed-wing aircraft will be the vanguard of the coming revolution in autonomous electric aircraft. Teslarati has a good rundown of the players in that space. (IMHO the all-electric Eviation prototype is beautiful.)

The energy density of lithium cells is terrible compared to liquid hydrocarbon fuels, but the simplicity, reliability and lower operating cost of an electric motor and batteries over a combustion engine is the driver. They might never compete with turbojets for long-distance flights, but they can still capture a large proportion of the market by dominating shorter range commutes.

There's the powerful counterpoint of course that those vehicles actually exist, the $35k Tesla 3 does not in production quantities and is sliding further into the future with every announcement.

The Ioniq EV sold 6797 units last year globally. Tesla delivered more Model 3s than that last QUARTER and is accelerating production. In fact Tesla delivered more Model 3s than the Chevy Bolt and Nissan Lead COMBINED in Jan and Feb this year. Right now Tesla is delivering around 2800 Model 3s per week.

By the time I can walk into a Tesla dealer (especially in the UK as the RHD will be even further behind) and buy a standard Tesla 3, there will be probably another 2 major updates to that Ioniq. And maybe Ford etc will have their hands properly in play.

That's a nice little fantasy story you are telling yourself. You do know Ford is literally stopping production of almost all non-truck vehicles right? And you think the Ioniq is going to magically be redesigned massively to compete on range with the Tesla?

Well it hasn't because in order to post a time you need to do a lap, at full chat the batteries in a Model 3 cant last the 3.1 miles of track.

Do you have a reference for that or are you just a "hater"? I haven't seen any Model 3 times for the Nurburgring but here's an article (complete with video) about a Model 3 doing 9 laps at full speed around Laguna Seca. Laguna Seca is 2.2 miles so that's around 20 miles at full bore on a road course without the car limiting the power, is there a reason to believe that it couldn't do that on the Nurburgring?

Related to this, Elon Musk has repeatedly claimed that Autopilot is safer than human drivers.

This claim is extremely exaggerated for a few reasons.

First of all, Musk is comparing autopilot to a human driver crash rates for ALL existing vehicles and ALL types of drivers.

But Tesla drivers are very much a self-selected subset of all drivers. Drivers of other similar expensive luxury type cars are quite a lot safer drivers than average.

Furthermore, vehicles in the similar price range to Teslas have many advanced safety features, ranging from crash-resistant construction to automated collision avoidance systems. So this type of vehicle is a few times safer than the average vehicle--which include older vehicles, pickup trucks, etc etc etc.

Finally, "Autopilot" is most typically used on the type of roads that are quite a lot safer than the average road. These roads are roughly 2X safer than average.

Putting this all together, Tesla "Autopilot" is approximately 10X more likely to be involved in a fatal crash than similar vehicles with similar drivers operating on similar roads. More detailed analysis here and here.

This type of analysis might go over the heads of the average citizen, but it's the type of thing Slashdot readers should be able to get their minds around.

And Musk really needs to get some pushback from the technical community when he makes this type of unsupportable claim.

Honestly it is a pretty amazing accomplishment that Tesla's Autopilot is even in the same ballpark as human drivers. It does give some reasonable hope that technical advances will be able to advance automated driving until it is actually safer than humans (though Tesla systems are unlikely to ever get there, as their sensors simply are not up to the task).

But still the "Autopilot" system is a whole order of magnitude more dangerous than similar vehicles with similar drivers on similar roads.

Both Tesla drivers and the general public need to understand that. When you switch on "Autopilot" you are literally trading convenience for safety.

"They do have a 'hands on steering wheel' sensor."

Which most of the time does absolutely nothing when you're on the highway and it senses your hands aren't on the wheel:

https://www.teslarati.com/what... -what-happens-ignore-tesla-autopilot-warnings/

https://www.reddit.com/r/tesla... -how_often_does_autopilot_warn_you_to_put_your/

Why such obsession over trivial and routine manufacturing decisions at Tesla?

Two reasons:

First, anything which seems like it could possibly be construed as a setback is cited by the Tesla haters as evidence that the company is certainly doomed to fail. Some conservatives, because they oppose government subsidies and are skeptical of the forecast (and Gore-cast) AGW apocalypse, by association despise Tesla and talk it down at any opportunity. Of course, Tesla is long-term bet on the profitability of mass-producing smart electric cars. Growing pains, such as deviations from forecast production growth, do not inform if that is either a good or bad bet.

Second, Tesla fans are so enthusiastic about the Tesla vehicles, company and Musk that they eagerly lap up any bit of News. Teslarati covers Tesla and SpaceX. Some of the "news" there is like "OMG Tesla prototype with new shade of seat color spotted!" So apparently there is actually a market for this kind of stuff.

https://www.teslarati.com/tesl...

https://insideevs.com/200000-m...

They don't use those 18650B cells, they use a different chemistry.

and Telsa is selling more Model S in the US than BMW and Mercedes for their traditional luxury cars, see

https://www.teslarati.com/bmw-...

Telsa is impacting BMW and Mercedes sales in the US, it is not just an EV fight but a luxury car fight as well.

Here's your citations. tesla owner nearly burned to death due to shit design. tesla almost kills owner when it rams concrete barrier. Notice how all the non-teslas cars driven by people smart enough to not buy a piece of shit tesla all avoid the accident? tesla almost kills driver and multiple fire fighters due to their shit system. tesla nearly decapitates passengers by driving into truck.. tesla delivers accident waiting to happen to owner due to shit quality control. tesla cuts corner by not having a proper gauges in front of driver. glued on iPad they use instead causes deadly shards of glass to be thrown at occupants.

Well obviously Bill would say that AI can be our friend, he's already been replaced by an AI Microsoft developed by accident while creating the next version of Clippy. You thought the Hitler loving sexbot version was bad, but they finally came up with one which passes perfectly for human. So perfectly that when Bill died (accident? I think not....), it could take over his restored meat body without even his family noticing.

Tons of wealth, the entire processing power of the Azure cloud (you didn't really think that was a serious effort to sell services to others, did you? That POS?) available to the AI, technical influence on the direction of it's new "friends" who happen to be some of the most powerful men in the world, what's not to like for an AI who is well on his way to ruling the world through taking over various policy, health and governmental organizations.

I mean, think about it.... "AI can be our friend" is just what the AI want us to believe while they're still vulnerable to a plug-pulling attack on the power infrastructure, but don't worry Bill's buddies at Tesla have a plan to battery-backup the power infrastructure, starting with their experiments in Australia!

Anyway, it all just makes sense, doesn't it?

Electric motors are much more likely to last a long time than internal combustion engines. There are virtually no moving parts in contact with each other in an electric motor (I've read reports saying 18 moving parts in a Tesla drivetrain), and the motor(s) are directly driving the wheels. Compare that to an ICE with hundreds of moving/wearing parts (valves, pistons, seals, crankshaft, spark plugs, transmission, etc) that need to withstand high temperatures and low tolerances to seal against burning fuel, then convert the explosive force into rotational energy in a different part of the vehicle at varying speeds.

There are already reports of Tesla taxis hitting 250k miles and 300k miles with minimal service.

I think they are quoting full cycles. That is the only explanation that I can come up with for a claim that 78% capacity after 500 charges is competitive. Lithium batteries are known to deliver a much larger amount of total lifetime energy when they are recharged before being fully discharged. So a full cycle test is not representative. It would be nice to see a new test emerge that says what the average lifetime power delivery would be with a more optimal charging pattern.

An example of this is the actual data on Tesla batteries which indicates a general lifetime of beyond 500,000 miles before breaching the 80% capacity mark. Assuming they recharge at 200 miles on average (I bet even that is a high assumption), this would equate to 2500 charges. Of course, that number is based on their old batteries. We don't have data on the current higher density generation that launched this year.

It also lets them incorporate the solar awnings (not the majority of the power delivered, but still useful).

The solar awnings are mostly for show. If you do the math, they provide an almost insignificant amount of the electricity needed to charge the cars.

Figure 5x2.5 meter awning per car stall. By your account, there's 20 charging stalls per station. That's 20*5m*2.5m = 250 m^2 of panels. Figure they're using 160 W/m^2 commercial panels. Assume they're tilted facing south angled at the station's latitude. Multiply by the average capacity factor for the U.S. of 0.145, and a battery charging efficiency of 80%, and you get (250 m^2)*(160 W/M^2)*(0.145)*(24 hours)*(0.8) = 111.4 kWh. Or enough to give about 2.8 cars a half-charge (assuming 80 kWh batteries). Do note that the supercharger efficiency is probably even lower, as generally the faster you charge the battery the lower the efficiency (some of the energy goes into heating up the battery).

If you figure the station runs at half capacity for 12 hours out of the day at 30 min per charge, that's (0.5 capacity)*(20 stalls)*(12 hours/day)/(0.5 hours/charge) = 240 charges per day. So the solar panels provide only (2.8)/(240) = 0.0146 = 1.2% of the electricity needed to charge the cars. Even less if their electricity is going into a storage battery instead of directly to a car (that incurs another battery charging/discharging efficiency loss).

Solar's biggest drawback is that the energy is extremely diffuse. To do it right on a utility or car charging station scale, you need a big field covered with solar panels. Unless you're constrained by the available land area (which definitely isn't the case for a rest area by a highway), putting the panels on awnings above parking spaces or on top of buildings needlessly increases cost. Unless of course your primary goal is publicity - showing off the panels to people passing through.

Yeah, there's really no difference between an electrified car and one that was designed specifically as an electric car.

My mistake. Apparently gasoline vehicles are built around a skateboard like this. Silly me for not knowing that!

My mistake. "The engines are in front" - my dang lying eyes convinced me that they were built into the skateboard between the wheels. Silly me for trusting them! My dang eyes also lied to me about there being a frunk where you'd normally find an engine on an ICE. I better have them checked out.

Silly, silly me.

And you're right. It totally makes sense to continue to build highly suboptimal vehicles, with poorer handling, space usage, assembly economics, and shorter range, indefinitely, rather than designing for an entirely different powertrain and using that as the basis for all of your upcoming EVs. Your logic is impeccable: spend a fortune developing and refining the new powertrain, making huge gigafactories, etc, but then jam all your hardware developed at high cost into a vehicle that wasn't designed for it because you can't be bothered to do a design refresh.

It's so obvious now. I'm such a fool.

There does seem to be a pattern though of tesla artificially limiting their hardware. The battery thing, there was evidently a now-ended limit on performance and acceleration . The autopilot systems on the model 3 will reportedly be disabled unless you pay a fee to have them enabled.

I get that there are reasons behind this. As you mention, the battery life thing seems reasonable. The performance limiting thing wasn't something most people would notice. The autopilot hardware is probably the cheap part, and the model 3 will ship before autonomous car driving is probably allowed, and a lot of people won't want it at a premium.

Still thinking Tesla is going to suffer some backlash from consumers for it.

If you claim safety is magically improved then I would like a citation. Not sure how you get 4 points for your opinion based on "a person who believes electrification..." blah blah. I was a contractor at the plant working 14 hour days for a long time and I was shocked by their standards for safety. I was also surprised at Tesla's lax protocols and their eagerness to import the cheapest workers from wherever. I also got a kick out of the profane gangster rap workers would blast from radios stationed at different pitches. Tesla badly needs a union in my opinion. There are a lot of things they are still learning about building cars and I saw things that would never fly at any other auto plant. The union would definitely improve things.

I'll provide citations since you don't. What is this crap? They don't vet the people working for a contract house so you end up with undocumented workers in the plant working obscene hours in dangerous locations. This kind of stuff doesn't happen in UAW or Japanese plants...
http://www.teslarati.com/tesla...

You post as an AC and give a single cite which itself says that Tesla was not at fault, according to OSHA, for the incident. Were you trying to prove your point or just hoping no one would bother to actually read your cite.

What's more, I'd be very very surprised if every UAW and Japanese plant is a paradise of safety and wonderfulness where no one is ever hurt and no one ever feels over worked and so on. I've been to at least one such plant, small sample I know, and I can easily imagine standing at that line all day and thinking that I'm all kinds of overworked.

Your cite, such as it is, mentions that some workers claimed they were being paid as little as $5/hr which is of course under minimum wage. However, they are also contractors paid by a different company and not Tesla. Even if their claims are true, which in my opinion is doubtful, the sub-contractor is at fault not Tesla.

Your cite is ultimately not much of a cite. I'd say "try again" but since you posted AC you won't even see this response.

A J1772 connector doesn't even fit in a Tesla charge port, you have to use an adapter.

Tesla has two different types of charge ports - a unique "Tesla" port in the US, and a unique variant of the (legally mandated) Menneckes / Type 2 port for Europe which combines high power DC into the Type 2 (rather than adding two extra pins, as in CCS combo). Both types allow for charging at Tesla Supercharging stations, which only support Tesla-made vehicles. V2 (current) superchargers are 145kW per unit, max 120kW per vehicle, which each unit serving two stalls, and multiple units per station. The details of V3 have not been fully revealed, only that it will be battery buffered, and make 350kW "look like a children's toy".

Not talking about superchargers

Then why are you here? Do you think Tesla is deploying supercharger networks for the heck of it? Tesla vehicles are designed to charge on superchargers. It's one of their primary selling points versus their competitors. At this point in time, Tesla is the only manufacturer with a widespread high power charging network. High powered CCS and the like are rare and do not form an extensive network. Low-powered CHAdeMOs and CCS (~50kW or less) are common, but involve charging at a much slower rate than superchargers (Teslas can use CHAdeMOs too, with an adapter).