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Tesla Reveals Its Model X Gullwing SUV
thecarchik writes "The new, all-electric Tesla Model X crossover, which was introduced on stage by Tesla CEO Elon Musk (also the man behind SpaceX), isn't exactly a step toward the mass market. But it does take on premium utility vehicles with three rows of seating for up to seven, better maneuverability than a Mini Cooper, and a 0-60 mph time of just 4.4 seconds—that's faster than a Porsche 911, Musk jeered. But the real oohs and ahs of the evening came when Musk showed the Model X's much-anticipated 'falcon doors' — essentially gullwing rear doors, behind normal hinged front doors." The expected price before tax-credit shenanigans? $60,000-$90,000.
At first I read X Wing.
FFS. I suppose it gets spoken about, but a massively impractical non-solution.
I thought Tesla was going under or something. If they aren't, then why haven't they?
What is "bettb |rer maneuverability"?
It's unusual to see /. mention a company that has a lick of design sense unless it's either Apple or someone on the defending end of a patent infringement claim from Apple. So when can we expect to see a lawsuit over the rear doors having too clean of a profile?
(To the humor-impaired: the second sentence is a joke.)
...when you're writing a game...tweak the difficulty of "Easy" to something [your mother] can cope with. -- onion2k
I can't wait for Jeremy Clarkson to review this Electric Sports Car/SUV with Gull Wing Doors. I am for sure he will have some great superlatives for how amazingly stupid this thing is. This SUV is the answer for the question no one asked.
mnewberg.com
I'm going to pistol whip the next guy that says "shenanigans".
How exactly am I going to open gullwing doors in my garage? SUVs are already taller that a regular car.
Gone!
Or is that just marketing-speak?
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Whence comes your 30 mile driving range? The Model X is offered with a 60 kWh or a 85 kWh battery pack, the same as the top two options for the Model S. In the Model S, those packs give it 270 miles and 370 miles range respectively. Granted, the Model X is a larger, heavier vehicle, but a 90% drop in range? I don't think so.. probably closer to 10%. Also, the top two drive-train options have dual motors, which may offer better efficiency overall.
From the Slashdot summary.
But it does take on premium utility vehicles with three rows of seating for up to seven, bettb |rer[sic] maneuverability than a Mini Cooper, and a 0-60 mph time of just 4.4 seconds - that's faster than a Porsche 911, Musk jeered.
I know that "bettb |rer maneuverability" is just what I'm looking for in my next vehicle.
(kinda like "bettb |rer proofreading" in my next SlashDot article)
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
Your made up range aside, most people drive their luxury SUV to Whole Foods and back, no more.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Never underestimate the failure of consumers to do math, or "cool factor". That said, A less expensive new car saves you 30-45k. That opportunity cost can be used to buy gas, or to invest in something like a telecom that yields 5-6% and will pay all your gas for the year. What's more, 30-45k invested wisely will maintain or increase in value, whereas the additional 30-45k for this car depreciates right out the door.
As a thrifty consumer who does math, I thank all the early adapters and cool kids.
Elon Musk just doesn't seem to add up.
He is only in his 30s, is on his second marriage, has 5 kids is the CEO/venture capitalist for 2 companies, both doing innovating engineering.
I'm guessing it is just a matter of winning the lottery by being born rich, born intelligent, born with a innovative/push forward temperament, born to parents who will bring those gifts out ( or at least not fuck up the kid enough to shut those things down ) and lots and LOTs of caffeine.
Am I missing something?
How does any person, let alone one his 30s end up with all of those situations?
It will be an upscale shuttle for places like Infinite loop.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
So can I jump in one of these and expect to drive at a steady 70mph for over 300 miles? If it can't, then it can't replace my diesel car.
I don't care if it can do 0-60 in 4.5 seconds. I *do* care if it can do 0 to 250 miles in 4.5 hours.
Really? They spend millions of dollars designing this thing and they never thought of the obvious problem that occurred to you 5 second after reading the description. Look at the pictures in the article. It's not a tall vehicle to begin with, and the wing doors are hinged so they don't actually project much above the top of the car.
With the Model S you can; depending on how you drive, the 60 kWh pack would be tight, but the 85 kWh pack should handle you no problem (going on your second 250 mile requirement). Those same numbers aren't out for the Model X, but as I said, they are the same battery packs, and the total efficiency will be in the same ballpark.
Also, note that just because one particular non-extended-range electric vehicle does not meet your particular driving requirements does not mean it is a useless endeavour, or even that it will fail in market at all. There are plenty of other people out there that don't drive 300 miles a day (I for one wouldn't want to); the base Model S would do all the driving I need fine, except when I go home for the holidays. Even then, the 85 kWh battery pack would handle that no problem. If you're going on a really long trip, say, once a year, you could always just rent.
Have you ever been somewhere where the parking spaces are pretty narrow. Then someone parks real close to you so that they have enough room to get out of their car - their passenger side is on your driverside I'd like to point out. Now, normally, you can get your door open a little bit and squeeze in. With a gullwing, you'd have to get on your hands and knees to crawl under the door to get in.
There's a reason why gullwing doors aren't on today's vehicles is because they are not very practical.
You young'ns don't remember all those failed cars that had them - except the very high end sports cars which are really for bragging rights than for useful transportation.
According to: http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2012/0210/Tesla-Model-X-Era-of-the-all-electric-SUV-is-arriving 80-100 mile range. Probably enough for about 90% of everyone's one go trips. I really don't get this crazy worry about electric: oh but I can't go for 300 miles on a charge. How often do you do 5 hrs of non-stop driving anyways? If the technology for rapid charging comes out it wouldn't matter much either since you could just stop at a restaurant for an hour break and recharge. At any rate for the very rare times you need to drive 5hrs at a go run a car. The other 340 days a year your electric will be fine.
he busted his ass getting to where he is. Instead of bemoaning a setback it probably caused him to try again, if not harder and smarter. You won't find the likes of him posting to some website bitching about how things aren't fair, how he don't get his fair share, how others should be giving he stuff, and so on and so on.
The biggest barrier to success in this country is yourself. The second biggest barrier is the government at all levels, the third is your competition. Money comes in somewhere on this list, not much further down.
You end up there by doing. This means that you put in many weeks if not years of ridiculous hours. You do it with a clear goal in mind. You compare your current position to your goal at all times and you make decisions on what to do next based on that.
See my tag, if you live comparing yourself to others you will never be happy.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I don't think the vast majority of people in the market for a car need to do 70mph for 300 miles- or 0 to 250 in 4.5 hours on anything close to a regular basis.
If you're regulary having to travel 250 miles- sorry... I'm glad my commute is only 20 miles a day.
The Teslas are expensive for what they give you- and electiric cars do have a huge curve to climb before they match diesel or petrol; however, they would fill the need for the vast majority of households (if the vast majority of households had vast quantites of cash).
If twice a year you go across a few states to see Grandma- well... can't do that in your Tesla- so either rent a car (if you're paying this much for a car- what's another $25 twice a year) or wait until they have fast-charge stations. ;)
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
If you would like to drive it further than it's engineered limit per fill up maybe you should think of a work around instead of expecting the manufacture to include it in a product not designed for you.
The answer will likely end up being a small petrol powered generator trailer hitch thingy for sale or rent. I think some government agency has said the average driver goes less than 30 miles in a day. How many times in the lifetime of a vehicle does it end up needing more than 300 miles of capacity? If the cost of adding that extra capacity was not so cheap for todays vehicles they wouldn't have it, and there's no good reason for it to be standard in the vehicles of tomorrow.
Not a car for you then. Who cares. There's 7 billion people on the planet. Not everyone has the same driving habits as you. There's a reason that GM has 57different models of cars. If they can get 100,000 people to buy a Tesla, they would probably have a pretty good start. If I had a little bit more money, I would seriously consider buying one, because they fit my driving habits perfectly. For a family with 2 cars, it wouldn't matter if one of them would only be of use to commute back and forth across the city. Anybody who goes out of town can just use the other one. On the rare occurrence that both people are going out of town at the same time, somebody could rent. The savings alone in fuel and maintenance would make up for the cost of the rental. Just because I don't have and iPod or an iPad, or a Rolex, doesn't mean they are terrible products. It just means they are aiming for a different market.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Correction: according to teslamotors.com, the range of the Model S on these batteries is actually 230 miles and 300 miles respectively.
You know, while the all-wheel electric drive may do nice things for the handling, I really have trouble imagining a car that can easily seat 7 having better maneuverability than a Mini Cooper (and only the less sporty versions, at that). I won't say it's impossible, but I'd definitely need to see some numbers before giving this claim any credence.
When someone says, "Any fool can see
Its ugly enough and almost big enough that the wealthy Americans might buy it.
I really don't get this crazy worry about electric: oh but I can't go for 300 miles on a charge. How often do you do 5 hrs of non-stop driving anyways?
I think the main worry is if you can only afford (or need!) one car, then yeah, even if you just need 5 hours of non stop driving once a year, that is too much.
The 80-100 mile range figure is for the electric Jeep, not the Tesla.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Or did the proofreader miss a comma ?
Putting gullwings on such an ugly vehicle is as the Amerians say "polishing a turd".
Literally, not one story about Tesla going out of business has come true, not one story about how the Model S would cost a Billion dollars to build, not one story about the lack of sales between the end of the Roadster (no more Lotus bodies) and the beginning of the Model S eating through their cash too quickly.
Try reading the stories about their technology, how even if their car sales tanked they'd have a profitable business on the battery pack and drivetrain alone. The runaway battery pack fire risk on the Chevy Volt, can't happen with a Tesla battery pack. Tesla fixed that problem on the Roadster back when GM was still saying it couldn't be done.
Tesla does have a $450 million loan from the DoE to build the manufacturing and come out with the Model S, that's probably kept them defying gravity longer than some folks would like. That and Musk running himself ragged, living with friends and putting all his cash into the business for a while.
So can I jump in one of these and expect to drive at a steady 70mph for over 300 miles? If it can't, then it can't replace my diesel car.
I don't care if it can do 0-60 in 4.5 seconds. I *do* care if it can do 0 to 250 miles in 4.5 hours.
You wouldn't replace your diesel car with a gas or diesel SUV, either, would you (unless you need the space)?
This is a soccer mom vehicle. They don't drive 70mph for 300 miles. They drive 30-50 mph for lots of small trips, which is what an electric is really good for. Think of this as an electric replacement for gas-hog SUVs, and it makes more sense.
Faster that which porsche 911?
http://www.zeroto60times.com/Porsche-0-60-mph-Times.html
Faster than any Pre1990 Porsche? Yes, I guess so. That would be pretty impressive if it were 1990. Really, 4.4s is still very impressive, for any car. But...
1993 Porsche 911 Turbo 3.6 0-60 mph 4.3 Quarter mile 12.5
1995 Porsche 911 Turbo 0-60 mph 3.8 Quarter mile 12.3
1997 Porsche 911 Turbo 0-60 mph 3.6 Quarter mile 12.1
1997 Porsche RUF CTR-2 0-60 mph 3.4 Quarter mile11.2
2011 Porsche 911 Turbo S 0-60 mph 2.9 Quarter Mile 10.6
There are a lot of Porsche 911 variants out there. A large fraction of the modern ones list sub 4.4s times.
(0-60 times often have largeish error bars)
-- "Oh. This guy again."
Good chance, the estimates are around 250-300 mile range for the bigger battery pack.
And I wager improvements over the next 2-3 years (when vehicle is released to production) will likely push it over the 300 mile mark.
They're garage cars that rich people can buy and tell their friends about over dinner.
They're expensive conversation pieces. If I owned five cars and was looking for a sixth, I might get a Tesla.
I don't blame the company. The engineering of the situation is impossible. But I feel like they're not even trying to make an affordable car. There are little companies all over making stripped down electric cars at a reasonable price. And Tesla apparently is catering to the "price is no object" market. That's fine... people simply need to realize these cars are about as practical as personal submarines.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Twice a week for my car. 315 mile each way commute every Friday and Sunday. Note, I'm not bitching about electric cars. (Well, I will, but for a different reason, and not yet.) I'm sure they're already a good idea for many people, and I reckon there'll be some models that would be suitable for me before too long. My gripe is that people think they're green. Well, they might be if we got all our electricity from solar or fusion, but at the moment we don't.
Do all of your cars need that type of range? Most people only need one of their family vehicles to have it.
That's one of my biggest peeves about Slashdot. "I wouldn't use this, therefore it can't possibly be of use to anyone!" Grow up already.
Check out my world simulator thingy.
An "SUV" is just a safety equipment class, invented by Reagan because station wagons had too many required safety features for Detroit to make ten billion percent profits on them.
Use the money you save not buying any gas and rent a car for a week. ;-)
It's about time someone created a car with plenty of room to get in and out. Now I don't need to have my mom help me tuck in my fat rolls just to fit through the tiny doors of our Hummer.
So I guess the Model X will only be marketed to people in non snow getting areas of world? Any amount of snow or ice that builds up on the car during driving or while sitting in a parking lot are going to end up INSIDE the car once I open those gull wings. My back seat passengers are going to be pissed if they have to sit in a snow drift for the drive home. Looks like a "neat" car, but for the majority of car users who experience some sort of Winter weather it is quite impractical.
Obviously, with a name with Elon Musk , they guy's destined to be a Bond villain.
Why else would he be building ICBMs ?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
It Better-B!
It's not about the money, it's about getting off foreign oil.
What's its towing capacity? It takes more than a third row of seats to make an SUV, you know.
Also, did anyone else have trouble getting through the first link? I swear, with all that unbridled fawning I half expected the 'article' to be punctuated with an image of Nelson Ireson giving Elon Musk a B.J. in the back seat.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
to have made so much money by sheer luck that he can now indulge all his hobbies!
Also, note that just because one particular non-extended-range electric vehicle does not meet your particular driving requirements does not mean it is a useless endeavour, or even that it will fail in market at all.
I'll add another point: most households have more than one car, and very few ever face situation where two family members have to take *different* 300+ mile trips on the same day.
So if electric has any advantages at all in day to day driving, then one electric and one ICE car in a two-car family is for all practical purposes just as versatile as two ICE cars. Sure, once in a blue moon you'll want two ICE cars. But *more* than once in a blue moon one of those ICE cars will in the shop having it's complicated and temperamental engine, transmission or exhaust system repaired.
It's probable that most two car houses with one ICE car and one EV with at least a 200 mile range have no cause to feel range anxiety.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Dumb question from fly over country. Can you actually buy a Tesla automobile? Do they sell well? The company gets a lot of media coverage considering I've never seen one of their cars on the road.
- How do I move my whole family, and pick up grandma from the hospital.
- How do I fit all these packages, or cakes for delivery.
- How do I shuttle people around town?
The answer to those questions is "buy a station wagon or a minivan".
The SUV only answers one question "is there a less efficient, structurally compromised (high COG) alternative that car companies can sell to me at a higher profit in exchange for allowing me to do all those mundane things while maintaining a pretense of ruggedness?"
So how much does the electrical bill run?
Yes, they are green; they use a tiny fraction of the power that a gasoline engine consumes to move mass the same distance. Are you one of those morons who doesn't understand that giant electric power plants are far more efficient than a small gasoline engine that runs at variable speeds?
Powered by electrons made in the USA. Might not be green enough for you, but a lot better than the terrorist-mobiles that a lot of the electric car haters seem to like so much.
Not everyone has the same driving habits as you. There's a reason that GM has 57different models of cars. If they can get 100,000 people to buy a Tesla, they would probably have a pretty good start
Exactly.
Where they would really make a huge difference, is if they could make small electric vans about the same size as this SUV that *didn't suck*. Any electric commercial vehicle is a diesel one with an unholy mess of a grafting job under the bonnet.
I appreciate that it's a high-spec car purely to justify the ridiculous cost of batteries and motors, probably more than to hit that target market. If they can get that to the same sort of price point as a competing Audi then great - but rather than make a luxury SUV that sells for 30 grand how about making a more basic vehicle that sells for £15k instead? I'd buy *that*...
In fact, Tesla cars have well-to-wheel (well, mine-to-wheel) energy consumption that's 50% or less of the best gasoline-powered car in same class. In spite of electricity transmission losses, they still win in the end by a factor of 2+.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
The cards you get dealt in life are always luck (i.e. money/brains/temperament/drive/health/family). Then it's what you make of your luck.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
Even if you can "refill" your "tank" every night with zero effort?
Do you drive 300+ miles every day?
I bet a 200 mile/charge range will meet people's needs for 95% of the population
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
The thing has quite a lot of storage space - even with the third row up. All of the seats were designed to go flat. This has a ton of storage space.
It just looks flat compared to other SUV's, but calling it "a hatchback" seems wrong.
Now Wagon on the other hand...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I am not a fan of Wing doors, but I love the dual motor AWD.
This gives you:
Total power control at both ends with no center differential issues (binding, too much slip, too slow reaction).
4 wheel regen. I read one study that showed a significant increase in regen capture moving to AWD.
These cars don't run on gas, so they don't use any power. Don't you get it? It's the free lunch everyone's been waiting for!
It's somewhat free if your employer has charging stations isn't it? Unless of course they meter them (which I suppose will probably happen) you can plug in and get the "free lunch". As mentioned though it is about getting off foreign oil, less of course that foreign oil comes from Canada and than I'm all for it, eh? Cost of pollution, cost of national defence needed to ensure that the oil gets to your country etc. Heck dealing with Isreal's douchbagery because they are better than the other douchbags in the area wouldn't be necessary if we didn't care about oil.
It does say "The Tesla Model X will have a similar range as the SUVs from AMP." in the article though.
Nissan Leaf, 24 kWh battery, EPA range of 70 miles (overly generous given it uses a 80 kW motor; do the math). Model X is certainly heavier and even with a three times larger battery, you are looking at say 150 miles (overly generous again).
Don't get bamboozled by Tesla shills offering you free koolaid.
You'll be lucky to get 100 mile range, so if your destination is much more than 50 miles away, figure in an extra 3 hour layover to recharge your "300 mile" range Tesla.
The doors have issues such as you have to duck to get in and they are hard to close.
If you watched the video you'd know these doors have no such issues. If there is enough space for you to stand between your car and an object next to the car, you can open the doors. The doors also open high enough thanks to the folding that you can actually step into the car fully upright!
From the looks of it the Model-X won't even fit in most garages with the doors open.
If you had actually "looked" you would have seen the video where they showed the car parked in a garage with the doors up. They specifically said that if you can open an SUV hatchback in your garage the doors will fit as well. Basically, they took the incredibly simple step of saying "how high are most garages with the door open" and made it no higher.
I wonder how many of those SUV mall mommies would want s to plugin there SUV all the time just to be able to drive 100 miles.
Range is the real question to ask about...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
* My car has a bigger lifetime carbon footprint than yours!
The initial production of an electric vehicle produces more carbon, but the lifetime carbon footprint for any electric vehicle is lower than a gasoline or diesel vehicles.
Do. Not. Want.
I still don't know why nobody's talking about solving the recharge time issue by making them standardised and removable. Pull into a charge station, some guy swaps the batteries for charged ones.
Granted it might not be time yet, since there's too much battery R&D competition going on, but it's the obvious medium-term answer. Nobody ever seems to mention it, as if nobody had ever filled a petrol tank away from home.
Luck in being the right age for the Dot Com boom, to get his initial fortune.
As for SpaceX, he is lucky Lockheed and Boeing had poor management. They could have made flyback boosters a few decades ago. They could have had leaner rocket manufacturing, but shareholders demand profits, and fooling the DoD is generally a good way to do that.
Lucky that the state of California coerced major car companies into building electric cars. Lucky that GM got rid of some EV1 engineers afterwards, that Elon could hire, and use their experience. Lucky in that the price of oil tripled from its 100+ year avg price of $30/barrel several years later. Lucky that Obama and the dems got control in 2008, and gave Tesla a $400 million loan. Elon was near bankruptcy at one time.
So, in addition to being talented, Musk has had a lot of luck.
Actually I think you are right that "Bus" is really a better term than "wagon". Like you say it's pretty tall but also very long, after watching it for a while it seems like the vehicle must be rather huge...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
just recharge time anxiety... To feel comfortable I would need it to recharge from "I pushed into the garage because it ran out of juice in the driveway" to full in 4-6 hours. Sorry I just don't always spend 8-12 at home at night.
All of the above was encrypted with a Quad ROT-13 method. Unauthorized decryption is in violation of the DMCA.
Do the math your ass. The motor is 80 kW (110 hp) because people don't want to wait all fricking day for it to get up to speed, not because it uses that much all the time. In fact, cruising at 65mph typically needs 20-30hp (~20kW) (for cars in general, not the Leaf specifically). So a 24kWh battery will run an hour and change (without heater or AC), and that gets you well over 70 miles, close to the 100 mile manufacturer's rating or the 109 mile range rated by European standards.
In real-world conditions, where it's not always highway driving and you sometimes use heat/AC, the 70mi figure is as accurate as any single number has a right to be.
> Probably enough for about 90% of everyone's one go trips
Some seems to think even better than that, 95% of all trips can be made under EV.
google 95% trips ev
Gullwing doors are just bad. Scissor doors can be good but usually aren't. The best are sliding doors, and I wish someone would give us four of THOSE on sedans, SUVs, et cetera.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I live in the Canadian prairies. The nearest city with over half a million people is 435mi away. Electric isn't going to cut it for that with current tech. My Matrix will do it without refueling if there is no headwind.
The sliding doors on my vans that I've had in the past have been a major PITA. They are efficient and necessary in some cases, but when they break down they break down horribly. I'm not suggesting that the gull-wing doors on the Model X would be any better, but the KISS principle applies especially to doors: Keep them as simple as possible.
Spot on. I intend to keep 1 ICE car while trying an electric for our second car.
The sliding doors on my vans that I've had in the past have been a major PITA. They are efficient and necessary in some cases, but when they break down they break down horribly.
How is this different from a hinged door? Either way you get lots of warning. A sliding door offers something a gullwing doesn't, the door actually gets out of your way. With a gullwing it's still there overhead lurking.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Keep in mind that when electric vehicles like the Roadster start to lose their charge, they merely slow down. Instead of driving on the freeway, you need to take the surface streets to get home. Not quite "pushing it into the garage", but it can take longer.
The time it takes to recharge the vehicle is mainly dependent upon the charger station you are using. Most home units have a 220 volt main power tap, but the 110 volt charger (easier to find and install) takes longer because it has lower amperage as well. If you want something to recharge faster, all you "need" to do is find some way to get that energy into the battery faster. I suppose you could hook a direct high voltage power line into your battery charger from a 1 MW power plant and recharge your battery in under an hour. Do you want to be doing that power source connection your self or hiring a minimum-wage convenience store attendant to perform that task for you?
It isn't that the issue isn't raised, the problem is that the size of the battery pack is so huge that you need some kind of pallet truck to move the thing around and a specialized storage location to be able to recharge these battery packs.
From what I understand about the Model S, the idea that eventually such a service might show up was considered, where battery packs could be removed with just a few bolts being taken off and a single connector cable with a "plug" that could easily be disconnected and reconnected. I don't know if the process has been seriously explored in terms of somebody coming up with a business plan and actually setting up shop to perform this task, noting that at the moment each battery pack that is being produced can only be used for a single automobile manufacturer. If these battery packs could become somewhat standardized, perhaps this idea might get a little more merit.
This certainly isn't a new idea, and yes, it is being considered. Perhaps you want to start up the business yourself?
Looks boring, even with those gullwings.
Just give me a simple two door with Gull-wing doors.
Also what is price of a hover conversion and a Mr. Fusion to power the battery? I am in the need of a replacement vehicle since my customized DeLorean was...um..hit by a train.
Slow Down Cowboy! It's been 1 hour, 47 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
What worries me slightly is the difficulty involved in making a plug that can carry a couple of hundred volts at a couple of hundred amps, that is safe to be connected and disconnected by unskilled people or by some battery-changing machine, and which will continue to be safe after being sprayed with salty gritty water for a few hundred miles.
air density ~1.5 kg/m^3
Except it's 1.2 for typical temperatures, so you're overestimating by 25%.
drag coefficient * area ~ 1.0 m^2 (for an SUV)
Yeah, for an SUV, dumbass. Do note that the Leaf is not an SUV, it's a hatchback.
I looked up the Leaf, and it's 0.66m^2 (2.27 m^2 * 0.29) -- you're over by 50%.
(FYI, My figures before were from memory for my old MX-3, with 0.6 m^2 -- turns out the Leaf is slipperier, but rather bigger.)
Yep, looks like someone's "off by a factor of about 2X" (1.5 * 1.25 = 1.9) alright, and the Leaf's EPA rating makes perfect sense when you do the math correctly.
P.S. And Elon, what was the last 30hp car you drove that could do 65 mph?
AFAIK, there are no cars with modern aerodynamics and engines that small -- smells like another ploy to change Cd*Af to an irrelevant value.
But y'know that MX-3 I mentioned? It had an 88hp engine, and it could get to 93mph (electronically limited, so it wasn't using full power); since aerodynamic drag dominates at high speed, and scales as v^3, a first approximation would be:
(30/88)^(1/3)*93mph = 65+
As someone that was seriously considering the X6 in a few years, this is a welcome entry to the field.
"On a scale from 1 to 10, people are stupid"
I'm sorry, but what's next, calling a mini cooper a SUV? this tesla is no SUV, it's just a regular car..
In terms of the plug, I don't see the difference between the power consumption of a heavy electric appliance like a kitchen range, electric clothes dryer, and an electric automobile. Yes, the power consumption is a bit higher, but not significantly so. I think you could build a "fool proof" plug and have some resemblance of safety... although your point is very valid that the amount of energy going through that cable is huge and needs to be treated with respect. You certainly don't want to have some firefighter using the "jaws of life" and cutting through that cable in some kind of vehicle rescue attempt. It certainly isn't like trying to install a car radio... which is very low voltage and comparatively low amperage.
In terms of the salt water spray and other things getting onto the battery and cable, I'd agree that is a big deal too. Imagining somebody pulling into a Chicago battery swap station covered in snow, mud, and salt in the Winter and then somebody reaching through a puddle of that muck to unplug the battery pack..... I shudder at the thought.
Then again, people have been known to die from dispensing gasoline. Usually doing very stupid things (like some woman with nylon stockings getting in and out of her car building up a static charge and then grounding her automobile to the gas pump right at the nozzle) or simply being careless.
A hinged door, at least an ordinary hinged door, doesn't have nearly so many moving parts and therefore is much less likely to break down. For new vehicles, I realize that isn't nearly so big of a deal, but in time sliding doors can be a real pain to work with, particular with older vehicles. They just need a whole lot more attention.
One problem that you've glossed over here on the sliding door, however, is that the door can only be as long as the side of the vehicle, or you have to invent a really exotic system to physically carry the sliding door. Generally there is a track on the bottom of the vehicle that the door slides upon, and that must be at least as long as the door itself. That track BTW is also one of the sources of problems, if it gets gummed up with "stuff". That is something you don't find with any other door system.
One nice thing about the gull-wing doors (or more like the Model X) is that there isn't any real limit on the length of the door. They can be as large or as small as they need to be with the design of the vehicle being used. There is a support mechanism that must be put into place to hold the door up while it is open (so it doesn't go slamming onto your hand or fingers), and that is also where you are most likely to see some sort of mechanical failure as well.
An ordinary hinged door doesn't have those problems.
Have you looked closely at the hinge system on the typical car? Each hinge is usually made out of two main pieces held together with pins which go through sleeves. Each hinge is held on with one to four bolts, each of which has a bolt hopefully with a washer. And then you either have some springs and maybe some mounting hardware for them on the hinge, or a separate device with its own pins, sleeves, and bolts to hold the door in position. This device eventually wears out and has to be replaced; likewise the pins and/or sleeves.
Sliding door systems have similar levels of complexity, and while the track needs to be as long as the travel, you don't need as much travel out of a sliding door to get it out of the way as for a swinging door, especially on vehicles with upright seating arrangements like minivans, pickups, SUVs, crossovers, or even most estates. The sliding mechanism can descend from the track, which is pretty much enough on its own to prevent anything exciting collecting in the track and interfering with its workings. The door latch doesn't even change much, it just gets installed at another angle. And as a final major advantage, it's much much easier to motorize, which can be a big help to the elderly or handicapped.
So in summary, all types of doors have similar problems, but they are generally solvable in each case, except for gullwing doors, which are the most retarded, but sliding doors offer the most benefit to the motorist.
It's good they only used gullwing doors here, but it's still unfortunate that in a rollover the back seat passengers are going to have to get into the front of the vehicle before they can exit via a doorway, that the doors can't be opened where there is little overhead clearance, and so on. I thought Mercedes and DeLorean proved this and that we could all move on. You could solve some of the problems with a folding gullwing, but not all of them, and that just adds complexity. They're a gimmick searching for a purpose beyond gimmickry.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Since it was obviously compromised, I mean designed, by one.
I come here for the love
Hey Elon, just got back.
I'll give you the 1.2 kg/m^3 air density (my off the cuff estimate earlier).
Unfortunately the Cd*A for some SUV can be >2.0m^2.
So if I give you 25%, can you give me back 100%?
The bottom line is the average SUV is going to need ~20 kW just to overcome air resistance at 65 mph.
So the ~40 kw total (for a SUV) is still valid (as is the ~100 mile range for the model X if you don't have a lead foot).
You sound boring, even with that sig.
What about sliding vertical doors?
I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.
It's both. It's about saving money and getting off of foriegn oil.