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Tesla Releases First Official Photos of Model S Sedan
Thelasko writes "After several pictures of the Model S were leaked onto the internet, Jalopnik has the first official pictures of the Model S. One of its most striking features is its massive touchscreen in place of the center console."
taking it home, and noticing a bad pixle, what a buzzkill.
Quote from the third link:
"it has a 3G connection all the time."
"There's HD, AUX, USB and iPod input to the car"
"there's no start button. You just sit there and wait for the car to detect your RFID presence."
Keep on building kinda cool stuff that noone actually wants & they'll keep having their lunch eaten by the Japanese & Koreans.
My pics.
Call me old fashion, but the center console of a car is a place where I prefer to have physical controls that don't need to be looked at in order to use. Perhaps they plan to back it up with some other type of UI, such as voice recognition or a HUD?
The only thing I really want to see is how this thing is charged.
Credit card
The cow is dying anyways for food. Why do we need to waste it's skin just so some hippies can feel better about it. The Native Americans used to pay honor to the animals they hunted by finding a way to use every piece of the remains, letting nothing go to waste.
Besides, that's imitation leather anyways.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I wonder what it takes to damage this screen? Could a 4 year old kick it in? Or would it crack if some large cargo in the passenger seat shifted into it?
If a "squashed jelly bean" happens to be the most aerodynamically efficient shape, then so be it, I'm glad. It's convergent evolution in action.
Fuck you!
I'm afraid I can't do that Dave
I heard it would retail for $50,000. That's 25 Tata Nanos. It's a little more than 2 of my current car when it was brand new (I drive a '07 Honda Civic). Oh, and my Honda can just... you know... fill up when it gets to the end of its range.
I think I'll pass on this. The hybrid Aptera still looks promising though. I think Tesla kinda blew it. The sportster is cool, I live near their HQ and see them all the time. It may end up as a very special collector car. Hmmm... the roadster might be a better investment than the company.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Ok, we get it. This car is almost, but ultimately, not for you. But I think it is for anyone who A) lives w/in 100mi from a repair shop, and B)
1. likes public transport every once in a while, or
2. has a 2nd vehicle, or
3. lives with someone with a vehicle they can borrow, or
4. takes long trips so seldom they don't mind the public transport
OR, anyone who has enough money to afford sending the car off for repairs and has a concern for the environment, or doesn't like sending money to the middle east, where some ends up in the hands of al queida, or believes in global warming, or likes to show off their tech, etc.
Keep in mind that although they have finally shown the world their new saloon car, it won't be available for purchase until Q3-Q4 of 2011. Which means we have almost three full years before this car will actually be rolling out onto a street at all.
Think about any concept car you've ever seen, and then think about all of the nifty conceptual bits that weren't there 2-3 years later when the car actually went to production.
All of that said, I like the look of the car, but I'd prefer something smaller and not quite so heavy. Then again, as a single male, I'm not the target demographic for a large saloon that seats seven. I wish they'd produce something like the Roadster for the price point of this car.
Does anybody remember how GM Volt prototype looked like. I said to myself "wow, I want that car". When they start to actually selling that car, it look like Seat Toledo of my grandpa.
It sounds like parent is being snarky but he's not. The U.S. has no public transit. There are probably less than a half-dozen major urban markets where you can survive without a car. Everywhere else it's pretty much a daily necessity. And I speak as one who doesn't own a car -- I am a bigtime anomaly and my choice not to drive does force me to make sacrifices.
Breakfast served all day!
The US has public transportation in some places. In many places that have it however, you will not "lean back and relax" for a length of time comparable to what it would take you to drive.
I know somebody with a medical license suspension. For something that the system is designed to do, it's OK. Downtown San Jose to Mountain View? Not bad. Suburban San Jose to Half Moon Bay? Yeah, you can do it--in, IIRC, 5 or 6 hours. That's assuming you catch the transfers. He got part way by PT, and I drove him over the hills.
Then there are some economic factors that work against it too. Caltrain from Redwood City to San Francisco? A day pass is $8 (maybe less if you ride often, but probably not astoundingly less). If two people want to take this trip, that's $16. Now, if we carpool, the car burned $8 worth of gas, and this was when gas was $4/gal. By splitting the gas, we've already dropped the round trip cost to $4 a head.
This is why a car pool wins big vs. PT. You can't really "train pool"... it's already pooled. A 4-person carpool from Redwood City to SF would cost $2/person if they split the gas. You have to multiply $4/gal gas by a factor of FOUR to beat that... $16/gal! Of course, the 2-person carpool breaks even with the train at $8/gal. Isn't gas in most EU countries about $8/gal? Maybe that's what you have to do in order to make PT economical. It won't happen in the US, because it's a political non-starter. The only way for gas to cost that much here is because oil costs that much, and then in that case the PT system has to raise prices too. The only way to make PT the better option is to tax the living daylights out of gas, and use the proceeds to build PT. I don't see that happening unless actual gas shortages arise, and by then it would have to be hardcore, emergency PT buildouts just to save towns from isolation--real, dire, WWII style gas rationing.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Cars are, first and foremost, for getting from point A to point B. The ideal is to do so comfortably.
The touchscreen looks like it would do anything but. I can imagine:
1) The backlit display interfering with night vision, even at a very low brightness level
2) Being unable to do simple - trivial - things, like change the radio station or skip a CD/mp3 track without looking away from the road.
3) Being able to quickly and efficiently finding (visually) the appropriate widget to tell you the information you're looking for.
That touchscreen doesn't even have widgets of a size and type which help you quickly identify what you're looking for! They look like mock-buttons, ffs! Weather/temp in particular.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Since you're still here, I assume neither was the ace of spades?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The range is already short enough.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
When was the last time you had to pay for tyres, licence, insurance, oil, maintenance, spares, hire vehicle, exhaust, brakes, lights, wipers, parking, speeding tickets etc ... on public transport.
You can't compare the fuel costs of a car to public transport and complain about the price of public transport. Compare the real costs, including those caused to commerce by congestion caused by too many cars.
I used to give a guy a lift to work, but he never once gave me a penny towards it, even though I asked. So I stopped doing it. Even if you pay part of the fuel bill, it doesn't mean you are covering the costs of the ride being available in the first place.
The hybrid Aptera still looks promising though. I think Tesla kinda blew it. The sportster is cool, I live near their HQ and see them all the time. It may end up as a very special collector car. Hmmm... the roadster might be a better investment than the company.
I am willing to bet, that their production line will be full for the first 3 years of this car. As it is, the roadster is a total sell out even at double the price. Aptera? I am guessing that they will sell OK, but will not be years our for sales UNTIL the next oil crisis. At that time, the Atera's sales will occur quickly (just like the prius). But I would still guess that Tesla S will sell more in their first month, than Aptera sells in their first year. The simple fact is, that Aptera's price will appeal to lower sells, but the body style and the company will not. OTH, Musk is selling to those WITH LOADS OF MONEY. In addition, it is to their liking.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It's not a problem. Just don't sell one of these to Schroedinger.
I hate printers.
From tfa:
The Model S unveiling is Tesla's last-ditch hope at a future in the business. Although it does not have financing for the production of the Model S, or even a site for a factory to produce it, Tesla plans to take deposits for the $58,000 vehicle from customers, a move at least one Tesla executive deemed fraudulent, prompting his departure.
I don't know if this source is trustworthy, but, if it is, then shouldn't the real headline have something to do with this?
Hey look at that S Car GO!
Show cars are stationary most of their lives and touch screens work just fine then. The problems only occur when you drive the thing and clearly it is not meant for that.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
It's amazing people still think the big oil companies killed the electric car and not the inherent difficulties of making a car run on electricity and still have an acceptable range.
The big car companies have crushed [almost all of] their electric cars. The projects ran at a loss, but not a year-to-year loss. Cancelling the programs made no sense unless the goal was to crush the technology itself. If you can't put fuel into it, the major automakers won't put it on the market. Veggie oil is not a major threat because it is already illegal to utilize it as a road fuel. All the gov't has to do is start cracking down on that sort of thing. In rural areas it is not unusual to have spot inspections of diesel vehicles to check their fuel for red dye, indicating that an off-road fuel was used in them, and that you haven't paid your road taxes. Homemade biodiesel is subject to even more issues; I suspect most home producers of biodiesel are in violation of Methanol storage restrictions. The federal government forced California to abandon emissions restrictions which would have been undesirable mostly to oil companies - automakers are more than capable of meeting the requirements.
If you don't think Big Oil is running this game (hint: practically everyone at or near the top of the Bush administration profited directly from investment in Big Oil) then you're not paying attention, plain and simple.
The S-Series Tesla is a very nice electric car, which it should be for the price of 55 grand! It still is not a car I could drive even if I could afford it.
What's the classic quote? Electric cars are only capable of serving the needs of 95% of the population, something like that? The vehicles could be vastly cheaper if they were produced on a wider scale. Tesla doesn't have the benefit of economies of scale to work with, so every car is expensive. Their business plan has always been to produce first the very expensive roadster, then the moderately expensive sedan, and later the inexpensive sedan (or was it coupe?) Your objection about the price is a stupid one. Your objection about the vehicle not serving your needs is valid, but the fact that it doesn't suit yours bears little weight. You are one person.
I don't think I'm alone in not being able to reasonably buy two cars - an electric one for most stuff and a gasoline one for when I need to go on a longer trip. The S-Series would not even be able to get me reliably to a city 2.5 hours from my home, like Boston - and it's not unusual for me to drive to a city like Boston.
Well, I do have two things to say about that. First, it's not clear that it's actually sustainable to have the majority of people driving themselves on long trips no matter what the vehicles are running on. Second, most people make those kind of trips astonishingly rarely. For people with those usage patterns, we have car rental. You can take public transportation to your destination, then rent a vehicle.
Amazing that even at this price, it still isn't there yet.
Amazing that you're so egocentric that you think that because it doesn't suit your needs, it's not a salable product.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Lets get the skinny.
Is this car :
1. priced to be less than $25,000 ? If not, forget the mass market. Keep diddling your rich customers (declining market) for your kicks if you like.
2. designed with the right looks/capacity ? After looking at the pics and the trunk space, this car passes that test. Someone with real world needs can actually use this car for everyday use, instead of being a fashion statement at the Golden Globe awards.
3. designed so as to go into mass production (>60,000 cars per year in the first year, and potentially rising later) ? If not, forget it. This is related very closely to 1.
4. designed so that (battery pack cost / time to replacement) is no greater than $500 / year. If not, forget it. No one in their right mind would want even a cheap electric car that costs a few months' mortgage per year to upkeep.
See, its not so difficult to get a practical car on the road, if your priorities are straight. However, the fact that these people are teaming up with Mercedes is not a hopeful sign of any desire to go past the Hollywood set. In other words, they are setting themselves up for failure (out here in the *real* world). Had they gone with a cheap Japanese or Indian carmaker, it might have been exciting.