Under the Chassis: A Look At Tesla's Battery Shield

cartechboy (2660665) writes "Tesla said a few weeks ago it would add additional safety shielding to protect the battery of every Model S car on the road against damage from road debris. But it offered no photos of its update as it would look when installed--so one owner took his own. These may be the first detail shots of what the three different pieces look like. There's a half-round aluminum tube, a titanium plate, and a T-shaped section--and you can see how they combine to deflect and direct impacts to minimize damage to the battery. Do these updates look like they'll solve Tesla's problems?"

Comments

Problems?

[Anonymous Coward]

" Do these updates look like they'll solve Tesla's problems?"

You mean Tesla's problem of already being the safest car money can buy?

Or do you mean Tesla's problem of having every minor pecadillo be over-hyped by the media, especially right wing news outlets that want to downplay Tesla's success because admitting Tesla is successful is tantamount to admitting a policy of the Obama administration that the right wing fought against actually turned out to be a good policy. It might fix that.

Re:Problems?

[EvolutionInAction]

If you know something about their cars that I don't, please post. Their ratings out of the safety tests are the highest on record, and it's been pointed out many times that they have a lower incidence of car fires than average. Where's the debate?

Re:Problems?

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's not THE absolute safest, it's one of the top safest cars you can buy. Point is, it's already an extremely safe car. This is just a minor tweak.

Full disclosure: I don't own a Tesla, but would buy one if they weren't so gosh darned expensive.

Re:Problems?

[ustolemyname]

The sample size of total number of Tesla's is statistically significant. Total size of population relative to ICE vehicles is irrelevant.

Re:Problems?

[Anonymous Coward]

But # of fires per vehicle mile driven can be calculated and the figures normalized. The Tesla sample size of 10K + cars is large enough to be statistically valid.

Re:Problems?

[mmell]

The part where Tesla is daring to intrude on a market which is quite properly owned by a triopoly and funded with dinosaur corpses.

Re:Problems?

[fustakrakich]

Obama?! What, did he invent the electric car?

Re:Problems?

[Anonymous Coward]

" Do these updates look like they'll solve Tesla's problems?"

You mean Tesla's problem of already being the safest car money can buy?

Or do you mean Tesla's problem of having every minor pecadillo be over-hyped by the media, especially right wing news outlets that want to downplay Tesla's success because admitting Tesla is successful is tantamount to admitting a policy of the Obama administration that the right wing fought against actually turned out to be a good policy. It might fix that.

 

Right wing news media? The right wing fought against? You've raised douchbaggery to a new level.

Re:Problems?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then do the comparison properly, Tesla Model S car fires vs. ICE powered car fires for vehicles built at or after June 2012.
This will avoid the fallacy of including 15 year old vehicles against 2 year old vehicles, as well as accounting for the modern state of ICE vehicles.

I'd be surprised if there was a statistical difference between the two.

Re:Problems?

[ShanghaiBill]

The sample size of total number of Tesla's is still considerably smaller then ICE vehicles.

The relative sizes of the two samples is irrelevant. Statistically illiterate people almost always vastly overestimate the sample size required to draw useful conclusions. Inaccuracy is usually not caused by the "sample size", but the sample bias, for instance, if there was some reason that Tesla fires would be under or over reported.

Re:Problems?

[mspohr]

As we all know, the folks here at /. all know much more about everything than anyone else so they are eminently qualified to opine on any subject. In the current case, I am sure that the engineers at Tesla will read every comment carefully to see where they have gone wrong and try to correct their mistakes even though they cannot equal the brain power and engineering prowess of the collective "Slashdot hive mind".
Let the flame wars begin!

Re:Problems?

[timeOday]

Short memory?

Re:Problems?

[X0563511]

You mean like the garage fire where the marshals weren't even sure it had anything to do with the car? Or how about the one where a steel rod was levered into the battery at highway speeds managed to start a fire?

Or how about the one who drove through a CONCRETE FUCKING WALL and caught fire? (oh, and I should mention the driver walked away)

Re:Problems?

[EvolutionInAction]

The rating only goes up to five, and they broke one of the testing rigs. Look, maybe they don't have the absolute safest car, but it's up there and it's not a circlejerk to say so.

Re:Problems?

[drainbramage]

You have a bias-ply mind in a radial world.
Perhaps I missed all the 'right wing news outlets' hammering Tesla.
Was it ABC? CBS? CNN? Comedt Central? MSNBC? MTV? NBC? NPR?
Well, let me know because I can't monitor them all by myself.
You make a list and wheel (see what I did there) run those rascals down like the rabid chipmunks they are.

Re:Problems?

[Lumpy]

If I do that and compare it to Volvos, the Tesla is far more dangerous.

Picking and choosing data is FUN!

Re:Problems?

[Lumpy]

Sherman tanks can drive through walls without catching fire...

Re:Problems?

[hendrips]

I was all set to agree with you until I got to the end of your post. How is equating "Tesla is a success" with "Obama's energy policy is a success" any more valid than equating "Solyndra was a failure" with "Obama's energy policy is a failure?"

Sure, I've seen the media try to make both of those connections. I, wrongly, assumed Slashdotters wouldn't be stupid enough to fall for either one.

Re:Problems?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sherman tanks were nicknamed "Ronson" because of their ease of catching on fire.

Re:Problems?

[FatLittleMonkey]

Manufacturers receive detailed scores on individual tests as part of the report, including comparison with other vehicles. The Tesla scored higher than any previous car.

[Then Musk, being a nerd, did what any of us would do when give two data-sets converted by an unknown factor, he back-calculated from the detailed test scores the conversion factor for the "star" rating, in order to decimalise the "star" rating. Then he tweeted it, and everyone went stupid.]

I think a Ford Mustang has since tested higher, and is the current record holder.

Re:Problems?

[MikeMo]

Kinda reminds me of Apple...

Re:Problems?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well glasshole, now you know how I feel. I can't do shit with my 6 digit account so now I have to post with one in the 2 millions. That fucker has been at terrible karma for a good 7 years. Once you piss off a mac zealot, you never recover. Tesla is the new Mac, ergo, you should have kept your shitty opinion to yourself.

Re:Problems?

[Barsteward]

this disproves your mustang tested higher for 2013 models http://www.safercar.gov/Vehicl... and 2014 tests.. http://www.safercar.gov/Vehicl...

Re:Problems?

[AmiMoJo]

I'd be surprised if there was a statistical difference between the two.

Depends if you include car fires in Hollywood movies or not. Their cars seem to catch fire and explode at the slightest provocation.

Was it really Tesla's problem?

[dclozier]

These accidents all seem to stem from the drivers and their carelessness. From crashing through brick walls to hitting large chunks of debri in the road rather than going around it. All Tesla has done is made their vehicles less prone to the driver being careless. (good move none the less)

Next up - Tesla cars catch fire after drivers park them in the ocean.

Re:Was it really Tesla's problem?

[TheGratefulNet]

disagree about carelessness.

I believe products should be designed (over-designed) so that even if users are not operating fully as planned, you should still have a safety margin to protect them.

its typical german (old school; not sure about now) engineering design. don't just do the job barely; OVER do it. just in case.

having protection down there makes uber sense ;) not having it is a weakness. this should have been there on day-0 and I'm very surprised that they didn't.

when making a brand new product, its best to over-plan for disaster and mitigate as much as you can, in advance, via over-design and better parts quality than you thought you might need. you get only a short window to prove yourself to the world, might as well do all you can to make that big splash work for you and not against you.

to contrast, the chinese way (sigh) is all about just barely having enough headroom to support use-cases. they will put lower voltage capacitors on a circuit thinking 'this is good enough for our foreign users; if the circuit blows up, who cares, we already got their money'. this is why so many people are going out of their way to avoid chinese junk electronics. their design mindset is ALL WRONG and actually dangerous.

I'd like to see more of a return to overdesign and thoughts about customer safety and product longevity. this throw-away culture really pisses me off.

Re:Was it really Tesla's problem?

[Baloroth]

Sure, except that in every reported case of battery fires in a Tesla, the user has walked away from the crash (even when the crash took place at 100 mph or so). The cars already have the highest safety rating possible in tests. Expecting a safety margin is one thing, and Tesla has shown they more than fulfill that. Expecting to be invincible is quite another, and that's what a lot of people (or, at least the media) seem to be expecting, and that's incredibly stupid.

This battery shield is a PR move, quite simply. Not a bad one, and it might marginally improve safety, but I suspect only extremely marginally so, and it's certainly not worth it as a safety measure alone.

Re:Was it really Tesla's problem?

[master_kaos]

It all boils down to $$$, for both the consumer AND manufacturer. I would love a Tesla, problem is, I also don't want to pay 1/3 of the cost of a house to get one. People say they don't build stuff like they used to, which of course is true, you look at a washing machine and there is a whole cockpit worth of buttons on it for options and configurations because people want it. I use the exact same cycle on my washer and dryer no matter what I am doing, the odd time I might use a second. I don't need 30 different cycles. My mom's 30 year old washer had 3 buttons (cold warm hot) and a dial for time, and it still running to this day with only 3 repairs. Of course the thing goes through 10x amount of water as a modern front facing one does. The dryer, also 30 years old (only repaired once), takes twice as long to dry (meaning twice as much electricity).

Re:Was it really Tesla's problem?

[slinches]

Going around road debris isn't always the best decision, so I wouldn't necessarily assume the driver is being careless. Running over something which may do some damage to your vehicle may be a much better alternative compared to hitting the vehicle in the next lane or swerving into oncoming traffic. Both of which would risk harming others.

Still, any vehicle with relatively low ground clearance is going to have trouble in this sort of scenario and the most anyone could claim is that the Model S is more prone to damaging expensive components. If that wasn't addressed, there could have been some liability issues in the sense that Tesla drivers may have a financial incentive to make a less safe decision in these sorts of scenarios. I think this, along with keeping the perception as the "safest car on the road" and general goodwill made it worthwhile to implement these design changes even though occupant safety was never really a serious concern.

This has really been a non-story from the start. Tesla had a minor design issue on a first generation vehicle and have consistently done the right thing for their customers as well the rest of the driving public in every decision they've made along the way. If only the same thing could be said for GM and their ignition switch problem.

Re:Was it really Tesla's problem?

[smooth wombat]

any vehicle with relatively low ground clearance is going to have trouble in this sort of scenario

That's why when I'm driving through a parking lot and some ricer with their "ground effects" car is grumbling behind me, I speed up just slightly so they're paying attention to me and not the speed bump which they can't see because they're so close to me.

I always get a pleasure hearing a sustained, "CRUNCH!" as their car scrapes over the bump.

Re:Was it really Tesla's problem?

[abigsmurf]

It's perhaps the biggest example of the Tesla Kool-aid that being able to walk away from an engine fire is seen as something incredible and amazing.

In almost all engine fires, the only way you'll fail to walk away is because you were physically unable (trapped or unconcious). I've a low end 2003 Skoda fabia (costs approx , if my engine were to catch fire, I'd get the heat sensor beeping at me, then the engine warning light would beep at me, then, if I hadn't stopped by then, it'd go into crawl home mode. I'd imagine if a lot of people read their car manual they would find their car will do something similar, yet people were going crazy over how amazing it was that Teslas could do this.

Re:Was it really Tesla's problem?

[jellomizer]

I guess you are not from the North East.
Pot Holes. The hole doesn't just appear, is breaks loose then a car or truck or plow will dislodge the material and make the hole. Causing debris, often without you seeing it. Other people can be careless too such as rear-ending you. And sometimes even if you are very careful, something could distract you enough to get in an accident.
We all think that we are great drivers... But we are not, a lot of times when we are not at our best, we are lucky that nothing happened or the other guy corrected himself before you hit them. If a driver is really that good of a drive and careful, they would be such a nervous wreck that they wouldn't every drive a car.

Re:Was it really Tesla's problem?

[CanHasDIY]

Well yeah, the 100 mile per hour crash was the big thing there.

It seems big, until you consider that a lot of people survive 100 MPH crashes in ICE cars as well, even ones that don't have quite as stellar of a rating as the Model S.

Of course, I've been arguing for 20 years or so that pretty much everyone would survive almost every crash if the NHTSA would mandate roll cages and five-point harnesses, but alas, thus far my entreaties have fallen on deaf ears...

Re:Was it really Tesla's problem?

[X0563511]

So you're saying you should expect to send your car at a concrete wall at +100mph, and walk away after emerging from the other side of said concrete wall?

Re:Was it really Tesla's problem?

[Khashishi]

Why don't we just get rid of all engineering guards and warning labels on everything?

Re:Was it really Tesla's problem?

[Lumpy]

1/3rd the cost? I know people that live in homes that cost LESS than the price of one. hell I bought my very nice home 5 years ago at the bottom of the market crash for less than the price of a Model S and I'm on the edge of the $5,000,000 mansion neighborhood. so it's considered upper middle class land.

You cant call california home prices normal, they are ungodly abnormal.

Re:Was it really Tesla's problem?

[Lumpy]

I want large steel spikes in the middle of steering wheels. a lot of drivers need to be impaled.

Re:Was it really Tesla's problem?

[Em Adespoton]

It all boils down to $$$, for both the consumer AND manufacturer. I would love a Tesla, problem is, I also don't want to pay 1/3 of the cost of a house to get one.

I wish I lived in your area... here, a Tesla costs ~1/8th the cost of a house, and 4 x the cost of a stripped-down budget new car.

Re:Was it really Tesla's problem?

[Lodlaiden]

Yes. Then, and only then, will I trust you to put wings on it, so I can fly to work.

Re:Was it really Tesla's problem?

[JeffAtl]

You bought a $90k home that borders a community with $5M homes? That seems bizarre.

Re:Was it really Tesla's problem?

[hendrips]

It's more possible than you would think in certain small cities. Drive through a few residential areas in midtown Columbia, SC and you'll see exactly that.

Re:Was it really Tesla's problem?

[JeffAtl]

My point is that it's very hard for those homes to retain their $5M value when surrounded by such drastically lower housing. The prices of the neighboring developments affect each other.

I'm in Atlanta and I don't know of any million dollar housing developments that are situated next to $90k housing developments. For $90k in Atlanta, you're either in the hood way out in the sticks.

Re:Was it really Tesla's problem?

[Anguirel]

At the bottom of the crash? Not entirely impossible if he got it in a foreclosure auction - I remember seeing more than a few that were going at less than 10% of their "official" value. There's also a chance the $5m homes are still at inflated valuations. Between those, I could see it happening.

Re:Was it really Tesla's problem?

[Trogre]

Like another poster here, I also disagree about the carelessness aspect. In my misspent youth I have crashed a motor vehicle through a wall and hit several large rocks in the middle of the road, and the only damage, other than to my ego, was a few dents in the bonnet and undercarriage respectively. There were no fires nor engine failures.

Designers must, MUST, design for conditions well above what they would consider the boundaries of reasonable use.

Re:Was it really Tesla's problem?

[dlingman]

What - you don't have your lasers attached to your parking distance sensors?

Re:Was it really Tesla's problem?

[Redmancometh]

I was under the impression that lithium didn't react with water unless it was very hot water. I could be wrong.

Re:Was it really Tesla's problem?

[nephilimsd]

He was obviously referring to an ocean of lava.

Re:Was it really Tesla's problem?

[JeffAtl]

You found one - a legacy 1 bedroom home in an exclusive older neighborhood. The GP, said that in the south it was common.

Regardless, the what you pointed out is not what OP was referring to.

hmm

[mr_tommy]

Telsa did this in response to i) dubious driving by end users and ii) dubious journalism by commentators. Would it be better put then not as 'solving a [pr] problem' but rather sliding along a scale with trade offs between weight and strength / safety.

There aren't really any problem

[Torontoman]

Really given the 'error rate' that Tesla has with this issue they have fixed something that wasn't really a problem at all. Or at least it was one that was so insignificant it's no big deal. I'd also like to say: Great Job Tesla on showing how to make a great product and stick it to the old guard as well.

Gonna go with "no" on this one.

[pla]

Do these updates look like they'll solve Tesla's problems?

Since Tesla's biggest problems come from buggy whip... I mean, car dealership... protectionism, combined with a dislike bordering on zealotry from a media that still considers the Chevy L88 as the engine to beat for every compact sedan they review?

No. No, these updates will not solve Tesla's problems.

Re:Gonna go with "no" on this one.

[mmell]

You forgot Amoco, BP, Shell, Texaco, Sunoco . . .

Re:Gonna go with "no" on this one.

[kimvette]

The L88 isn't hard to beat. Solid lifters that need constant adjustment, hot-running engine in a car with the heat and defroster deleted, with a poor unstreetable idle in a car whose performance is matched by today's family sedans, all that and only 7mpg city, 10mpg highway - if you can find the fuel to keep the 12.5:1 compression engine running happily.

How much titanium

[Kardos]

is there in one of these plates? Are they detachable by thieves to be sold for the metal value?

Re:How much titanium

[mmell]

Given the location and structural requirements, I'm going to say this is not a readily detachable part - at least, no more so than any other automotive component. Probably as difficult to remove as any structural chassis element.

Now, if you want to think in terms of malicious behavior, seen the news lately about "smart car tipping"?

Re:How much titanium

[Carnivore]

Titanium itself is pretty low cost, material-wise. The cost comes in working it. I just found a retail price of $450/m^2 for 1mm sheet. I'm not sure how thick the plate here is, but it's only about 4x the cost of stainless sheet from the same place. If we assume that the plate is a solid rectangle measuring 60x30cm, then the retail value of the material is $80. I don't think it'd be worth much on the scrap market.

Anyway, to steal it, you'd have to crawl under the car (12cm clearance), detach the plastic aeroshield, then get the plate off.

Re:How much titanium

[Frosty Piss]

is there in one of these plates? Are they detachable by thieves to be sold for the metal value?

Given the location and structural requirements, I'm going to say this is not a readily detachable part...

Don't underestimate the persistence of a meth-head: Catalytic converters are removed with battery driven grinders and saws-alls all the time.

Re:How much titanium

[Lodlaiden]

You're not going to own a tesla....that is parked on the street.

Re:How much titanium

[Lehk228]

I bet the titanium plate is stronger than the grinder wheel on the meth head special from harbor freight

I give them credit

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not the biggest fan of Musk and (as an hybrid battery engineer for a competitor) I was disgusted by the way he handled the reports of the fires as they arose but I have to give him some credit for these changes. We all, and by all I mean anyone mechanically inclined in this field, knew that there's no way their battery would be protected in real world driving conditions. It could have been their simulation models or maybe they were trying to stretch the boundaries of what determines a "safe" vehicle, most likely it would probably be attributed to the maturity of the company that led to the inadequate protection of the original vehicle. I know what kind of costs are involved with adding the extra protection and for the retrofit of the existing vehicles and I must say that I was surprised to hear that Musk had implemented the change.

I doubt it.

[Rollgunner]

I don't think any number of technical improvements can fix a problem that only exists in people's heads.

Hysteria, superstition, preconception and failure to understand statistics are the *real* problems that Tesla faces in marketing their product.

Re:Stop the Tesla Love

[mosb1000]

Yes, because it makes a whole lot of sense not to think of cars as technology, and Slashdot never reported on electric cars before Tesla.

s/catch fire/sink

[mmell]

But to be fair, my Dad managed to sink a new VW Bug in Lake Michigan back in the late sixties. He learned that "It floats!" - right up 'til it sinks. Took a while.

Incidentally, he never thought about sueing Volkswagen - back then, he figured if he was stupid enough to drive an automobile into a lake, he got what he had coming. Nowadays, I'm pretty sure the settlement would've been worth millions.

Sure it will.

[mosb1000]

Ever heard of the placebo effect?

Yes, please do.

[mmell]

Specifically, post video of your car running over the same kinds of debris that Tesla demonstrated here.

Re:Stop the Tesla Love

[mmell]

Who cares if it'll solve Tesla's problem...?

Employees of Tesla. Owners of Tesla vehicles. Geeks (well, nerds actually) who want to own a Tesla. Proponents of zero emission vehicles. People who are interested in new or inventive technologies...

I don't come to /. for automotive news.

There's the trap - come to be a troll, but look out - you may learn something here if you're not careful!

No

[Dan East]

Do these updates look like they'll solve Tesla's problems?

No, because Tesla never had a problem in the first place, so this improvement wasn't really necessary.

titanium would not be my first choice

[clovis]

I was really hoping they would have gone for us reactive armor for the battery shield.

Missing the big picture

[sjbe]

Are they detachable by thieves to be sold for the metal value?

Would be a LOT easier to just steal the whole car.

I have to disagree with you on one point.

[mmell]

Any consumer available product should certainly be engineered to be safe when used as directed, and should be able to accommodate any reasonably foreseeable circumstance without itself becoming an undue hazard. In this instance, a Tesla Motors vehicle should be able to withstand any circumstance which might reasonably be expected to occur - within bounds of reason. I understand that in all instances of battery fires, the vehicle's occupants had ample time to exit the vehicle and watch their car burn up from the safety of the roadside.

Incidentally, my (dinosaur powered) truck has a full skid plate under the carriage. That's an optional piece of equipment on my pickup, a vehicle which is even more likely than a passenger car to encounter operational conditions which include a greater chance of undercarriage damage (my truck's a 4x4 and was clearly designed with occasional off-road use as an intended capability). Mind you, I feel that my truck is quite well designed and is correctly engineered to perform its primary function adequately through many years of use; but Tesla is already exceeding even that mandate here, overengineering their product and even updating their design to accommodate "edge cases".

(Oh, and what you refer to as the "Chinese way" - we call that planned obsolescence in this country - it's practically the holy grail of manufacturing design for many firms, nationality notwithstanding)

Re:Long-lasting sparks

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm guessing the same thing that would happen when steel sparks encounter spilled fuel from a conventional car.

car metaphor

[stewsters]

This is Slashdot, please explain this article with a car metaphor.

Complete Cover

[sycodon]

I don't know why they don't have the entire bottom covered. Better aerodynamics and protection against road debris in one.

Re:Car blog?

[OhPlz]

I'm tired of seeing Tesla articles on the front page, it's noise in the way of actually interesting tech news. It's not unlike TV providers putting ads in the program guide grid. It's noise that gets in the way.

Most vehicles, if not all, have protective covers on things. The hood, for example. My Jeep (second vehicle) has metal plates covering all sorts of things. This might be a neat article for a car news site, but why here? How is the techy?

Re:Stop the Tesla Love

[TheDarkMaster]

Add this one too: Anyone who has seen that an electric car is simply the best way to go into a modern city.

Re:Was it really Tesla's problem? MSV

[beltsbear]

That will bring us closer to the future of the MSV:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...

Re:Long-lasting sparks

[JeffAtl]

So again; what happens when such sparks encounter spilled fuel from a conventional car involved in an accident with a Tesla?

Probably not that much. Spilled gasoline is a lot harder to ignite than the movies portray it.

Tell that to the dinosaurs.

[mmell]

(n/t)

Battery shield

[Firethorn]

The car shipped with a shield, it's just that it turned out some events could pierce said shield so they reinforced it.

Some of this stuff is learning experience on the differences between a petrol vehicle and a battery-electric. They only gained minimal knowledge from the industry's history of protecting the gasoline tank.

Survival after 100mph crash isn't the point

[Firethorn]

You missed the point - Survival after a 100mph crash isn't really unusual(though a lot of people die in them). It's the ability to walk away after the crash with no serious injuries that's unusual.

Oh, and going by the results of the crush test(broke the test machine), it doesn't need the additional protection a roll cage would provide.

Re:Survival after 100mph crash isn't the point

[CanHasDIY]

You missed the point - Survival after a 100mph crash isn't really unusual(though a lot of people die in them). It's the ability to walk away after the crash with no serious injuries that's unusual.

Yea, fair enough.

Oh, and going by the results of the crush test(broke the test machine), it doesn't need the additional protection a roll cage would provide.

That was pretty awesome... of course, if auto manufacturers had actually listened to me at some point over the last 2 decades, it wouldn't have been all that amazing, since every car would already have a cage and be capable of withstanding that kind of pressure.

Re:Tesla cars rock

[AaronW]

It takes three taps to turn the feature on. By default it does not report this information.

Re:Long-lasting sparks

[complete loony]

Don't underestimate the fumes though.

La de da de de, la de da de da

[FatLittleMonkey]

The devs are rolling out a patch for an issue where an external hardware crash caused a loss of system integrity. While no personal data has been lost to date, the vendor apparently wants to reduce the recovery time and inconvenience for early adopters.

Fanbois coo admiringly. Critics snipe cynically. Nihilists whine about the story appearing at all.

And the beat goes on...

Re:Stop the Tesla Love

[Barsteward]

whats not zero emission about an electric vehicle in drive mode? There may be a current issue about the manufacturing process which will probably be removed when more and more manufacturing will be powered by renewable energy.

Re:Stop the Tesla Love

[Barsteward]

you can make the same argument about ICE. compare the first decade of progress of the ICE to the first real decade of electric vehicles. If you think connecting a battery to a motor is all that makes up a modern EV, then maybe you have an argument but its not.

Re:Slashdot

[Barsteward]

well, fuck off to another site then and stop polluting /. with your shit

Re:Tesla cars rock

[Barsteward]

are you an owner of a smartphone?

Re:Stop the Tesla Love

[dave420]

Propaganda is disinformation intended to skew perception. The stories about Tesla are not disinformation. It seems you just don't like Tesla.