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Tesla Presses Its Case On Fuel Standards
An anonymous reader writes: Tesla is preparing their case to leave federal mileage and emissions regulations intact, or make them even more strict. In addition, the company is fighting other car makers from loosening more stringent regulations in California. The WSJ reports: "Tougher regulations could benefit Tesla, while challenging other auto makers that make bigger profits on higher-margin trucks and sport-utility vehicles. Tesla's vice president of development, Dairmuid O'Connell, plans to argue to auto executives and other industry experts attending a conference on the northern tip of Michigan that car companies can meet regulations as currently written. 'We are about to hear a lot of rhetoric that Americans don't want to buy electric vehicles,' Mr. O'Connell said in an interview ahead of a Tuesday presentation in Traverse City, Mich. 'From an empirical standpoint, the [regulations] are very weak, eminently achievable and the only thing missing is the will to put compelling products on the road.'"
Every company likes regulations that limits competition or hurts competitors; while fighting any that impacts its profitability.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Hey I like Tesla as much as the next guy, but wake me up when a corporation lobbies government in a way that goes against their own self-interest.
The theory here is that if more stringent fuel mileage standards are maintained, it will force traditional automakers to either make more tiny, anemic 4 cylinder gas engines (early 1980s anyone?) or push further into hybrid and electric car territory in order to deliver meaningful power without as much (or any) gasoline. In either situation, Tesla stands to gain as either they compete with comparatively fast, powerful vehicles (Model S, X, 3) or they are competing apples to apples in electrics/plug-in hybrids for which they'll have significant control over lithium ion battery production with the Gigafactory, and a 5-10 year head start at building ground up purpose-built all-electrics.
I find it unlikely Detroit will put out any compelling auto no matter if it runs on electric, gas, diesel.
I can only have one car, and an electric just cannot now, nor is likely to be able to, in my lifetime, do the kinds of things for which I use one. It doesn't help that none of the current, or probable, models of car (not SUV) allow a linebacker-sized driver (and, yes, I've tried the on the Telsa; it's pathetic).
I have ridden a couple of electric motorcycles. H-Ds demo reminds me of my 2004 Ducati Monster, and there's an electric superbike (Energica Ego) coming, maybe, from Italy. Modern superbikes have limited range, anyway, so an electric is not a downside. One of those I could do.
Classic leftist crap, predictable really from a foreigner. Yet they chose to set up shop here, why? Manipulable government, and an economy that would support their company - the best of both worlds, until the paradox squeezes things too hard and it turns to shit. But by then they're in, made their money, and got out.
The secondary power unit could be either electric smaller capacity or hybrid.
The cut throat competition in the auto industry and essentially a cartel on fuel can be a destructive force to progress when there are better ways of doing things especially when the companies can't see the forest for the friggin' trees the way our current auto industry is setup!
This solution I propose is perfect for commuter cars but could also work with short 200 mile and under highway travel even with today's battery technology. This way electric charging companies could slowly replace hydrocarbon filling stations with oil tanks that have for years caused environmental chaos especially in cities, In the south west, at least the filling stations, could easily be enhanced by solar charging to reduce the costs of electrical transmission.
I highly doubt that this will happen though because the oil industry still has far too much political pull in Washington and the way things are going I suspect that there will be another bush league government happening in a few years. So the oil company lobby and political cartel is almost impossible remove. Unless of course some auto firm gets together with Tesla, jumps ship away from the oil cartel and stuns the public into awareness of what is really possible if we get our heads out of the tar sands.
The environmental costs of our current vehicles is to high a price to pay and they need to go and soon. California is on fire and the west coast salmon are in extreme danger of rapid extinction because of global warming either we get our act together and slow down the use of fossil fuels soon or we will suffer an economic and environmental collapse that will have enormous social consequences by the year 2050. My sig says much more than what Peter Sellers said in movie that exposed environmental and social stupidity.
This message was not sent from an iPhone because Peter Sellers really was a deviated prevert without a dime for the call
search on youtube. tesla demonstrated a battery swap system.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
Suppose Tesla was concerned about man made climate change. The company might want to decrease animal protein consumption because methane from farm animals is far more important than automobile emissions: http://timeforchange.org/are-c... If the government can force us to drive different cars, they can force us to eat different foods. Come on Tesla: lobby to force all bacon and hamburger be made with 55% tofu. See how popular you are. Disclosure: I drive a P85D and I love it. It is an amazing car and works great for my family.
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Hur dur Elon can do nothing wrong.
I find it unlikely Detroit will put out any compelling auto no matter if it runs on electric, gas, diesel.
The current Corvette is broadly considered to be the best deal in high performance... in the world. The new Cadillacs are awe-inspiring and built like they mean it. Even Ford has apparently discovered reliability. You're talking bollocks.
I'll grant you a lot of garbage is still coming from the big three, but look around the world. Everyone makes shit cars.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The only way electric cars can become affordable is to double the number of the most expensive single element out there? It's the batteries that make them so insanely expensive. And to have a swap system you will need double the number (roughly) to allow for inventory, spares, and repairs. You're talking about a huge outlay of funds on a resource that is going to have to have a long payback period in order to show black on the balance sheet.
Not to mention that batteries take up a huge amount of space and weight in a car. Trying to standardize on a single battery pack is like asking laptop manufacturers to standardize on a single pack. That's didn't work even when packs were readily removable and swapable.
And that doesn't even address the short-packing someone will inevitably do. Short a pack by 20-30% of the cells so they can sell a "refill" cheaper than the next guy. Or manufacturers who simply put in shitty batteries. Go over to the candlepower forums to see the crazy differences between current mfrs actual verses tested ratings.
And solar is going to have to get a *lot* better if you think that's close to a viable option for real-time charging of the kind of power needed for a battery swap or battery charging center. Remember that we only get about 1200w/m^2 of total incident power on a great day, and less than 20% of that is usable as electricity using currently commercialized PV technology. If you want to service, say, 200 full-size cars a day (a low number at a busy interstate station), you're going to need between 17 MWh of energy. For the perfectly sunny day, that's 8500 square meters of panels without any conversion losses - close to 2 ACRES of panels. You're typical filling station site on a 1/4 acre lot.
I'd love to see electric cars really take off, but battery swaps aren't going to be the silver bullet imho.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Hmm, the electric Golf looks, weighs and drives exactly the same as a petrol or diesel Golf. I know Sloshdat is all hopped up on Tesla, but the competition is out there, Sculley.
I find it unlikely Detroit will put out any compelling auto no matter if it runs on electric, gas, diesel.
Right. That's why in 2014 GM sold 2.9 million, Ford sold 2.48 million, and Chrysler sold 2.09 million vehicles. Because it's really easy to sell over 7 million vehicles in a calendar year when you don't have any compelling products. (oops, did I leave the sarcasm bit on again? my bad)
You might not like their products but clearly a lot of people do. The Ford F150 has been the number one selling vehicle in the US for the last 32 years running. That doesn't happen by accident. Are you seriously going to argue that the Corvette or Challenger Hellcat aren't interesting? Jeep has a fanatical following. They make a lot of vehicles that very clearly resonate with buyers worldwide. No they aren't all great but the notion that nothing from the so called Detroit automakers is compelling just doesn't fit the facts. Hell the sales figures alone prove that they continue to do something right.
As much as I dislike the NY Times trend towards posting videos, it was interesting to see their review of the new Volvo XC90 with a 4 cylinder engine that's supercharged AND turbocharged. IIRC the review says its rated at nearly 300 HP.
It's a large and fairly heavy car, so I don't think combined mileage was more than 25 MPG but it's definitely an improvement over the 4.4L V8 (my S80 with the same engine gets about 17 combined).
The only thing I'd worry about is if they're extracting Fast and Furious style horsepower from 4 cylinder engines is that they'll get Fast and Furious levels of engine life.
Frankly, I don't think Tesla needs to play the bootlegger-and-baptist game with fuel economy regulations to be competitive with ICE carmakers, they just need to be price and performance competitive within their model segments. At the oligarch country club where I do some work, I've seen a lot more Teslas and a lot fewer new S550s and my guess is that most of the drivers don't give a shit about the fuel cost or environmental impact of what they drive. They want performance and look-at-me status, and if it gives them an environmental cachet with their daughters' bohemian ivy league friends, so much the better,
The bigger challenge will be providing a car the plebes find competitive at the $30k mark. For tofu-eating yoga types, this won't be hard. They would drive a Prius or a Fit anyway. It's the Honda Pilot or Santa Fe buyers they need to appeal to and provide a competitive alternative.
I can only have one car, and an electric just cannot now, nor is likely to be able to, in my lifetime, do the kinds of things for which I use one.
And that would be what exactly? What do you do with a car that is so different from the rest of us that it can never work for you?
It doesn't help that none of the current, or probable, models of car (not SUV) allow a linebacker-sized driver (and, yes, I've tried the on the Telsa; it's pathetic).
If you think the Tesla is "pathetic" then you are talking out your ass. It's among the nicest luxury vehicles available this side of a Rolls Royce. Maybe it's not your particular cup of tea but anyone who thinks it is "pathetic" has either never actually sat in one or has an ax to grind. You don't even have to like Tesla to see that it is a very nice car.
As for size, if you are really that big (approaching 2 meters tall) then you are way on the far side of the bell curve size and fit is always going to be a problem for you. The type of drive train will be irrelevant. If you are both tall and fat then there is a solution for at least half of that equation. One of my closest friends is around 2 meters (6'7") and there are not a lot of vehicles he can fit comfortably in which is why he drives a Chevy Suburban. Watching him get into the little two seat coupe I used to drive required some contortions on his part that I don't envy. If you are 2+ standard deviations from the mean size wise then you are going to struggle to find a vehicles that fits you.
Hey I like Tesla as much as the next guy, but wake me up when a corporation lobbies government in a way that goes against their own self-interest.
So you don't care when a company lobbies against YOUR self interest like the traditional auto makers have been doing? Personally I care about that very much. Improved fuel economy standards are in MY interest so I'm kind of behind Tesla on this one.
The theory here is that if more stringent fuel mileage standards are maintained, it will force traditional automakers to either make more tiny, anemic 4 cylinder gas engines (early 1980s anyone?) or push further into hybrid and electric car territory in order to deliver meaningful power without as much (or any) gasoline.
More or less yes. Though "anemic" is a bit subjective. 20 years ago a car with 300 HP was rather unusual. Now it's more or less routine despite very few people actually needing more than about 150 or so HP. So despite today's engines actually being much improved, fuel economy has barely budged because we keep increasing the horsepower of the cars pointlessly.
I've seen all these cars. I'm sure your grandpa thought the same of models from that era.
But guess what? The Corvette is the best if you like Corvettes, and I don't. Lots of other people also don't. I remember leaving those big lumbering beasts in the dust in a street ported RX-7 with Weber carbs when I was 20. The power to mass ratio (and the sheer mass of the thing) just doesn't impress me. The owner of the Corvette said the engine sounded like a 'pop can', but wasn't laughing shortly after.
Show me something that does more than consume more gas than 10 reasonable cars combined while going in essentially a straight line, and I'll be impressed. Detroit doesn't make that.
The only thing I'd worry about is if they're extracting Fast and Furious style horsepower from 4 cylinder engines is that they'll get Fast and Furious levels of engine life.
Japanese companies have been doing this for ages and there is no problem with reliability. While there is some challenge in making a high strung 4 banger reliable, it's a problem that was solved a long time ago. A Subaru WRX generates plenty of HP and still manages to be quite reliable. You get F&F reliability when people who don't actually know what they are doing tune their cars beyond what they were designed for. That's not an issue when you are the company designing the car in the first place.
The bigger challenge will be providing a car the plebes find competitive at the $30k mark.
Yep. I think what you'll mostly see is almost all the luxury vehicles going hybrid in the near future which will have two effects. First it will provide a test bed for battery technology and second it will generate the economies of scale for battery tech to start to move down market. Tesla is working hard to get there directly but I think they aren't going to move the wider market by themselves. I think battery tech still has a bit further to go before pure EVs for the $30K crowd become widely appealing but I also think it's getting pretty close. 10 more years maybe? Hard to say for sure but think it won't be endlessly far off.
Good points. There is no reason to tie solar PV to car charging to start with. Cars are driven mostly during the day, it makes most sense to charge at night when the rest of society doesn't need the power for other things.
Dedicated solar car chargers at work sound nice, since you'd be parked during the day, but they would sit unused on weekends and holidays. Similar for home based systems. It simply makes no sense to associate the two from a practical standpoint.
The choice to use solar and the choice to install an EV charger should be independent of each other.
And I agree it makes no sense to manufacture tons of extra batteries just to swap. That is a workaround to a fundamental issue with EVs, the best thing for EVs is to get range up to where it is only a problem for a small slice of the market. The people who want battery swaps the most will be battery makers. A lot of energy would be wasted on manufacturing, maintaining, and transporting those extra batteries, and other issues arise such as increase waste, increase rare earth metal demand, etc.
"I'm an advantaged rich prick". Sorry. There's no gentle way to say it.
Maybe not, but there is a way to say it like an asshole which you just proved.
If you wan to enforce fuel efficiency, this is not the way to do it. You have no way of knowing that the efficiency gained in using the car is not lost elsewhere, like in production.
If you want less energy usage, you need to tax energy usage and let the market figure out the most effective pace to reduce the energy usage. Obviously this means that energy should be taxed equally for all everywhere. So no energy tax breaks for manufacturers and import tarifs based on energy expenditure to manufacture the device for goods from countries that do not have a similar setup.
Home Solar + EV = essentially free transportation energy for many use cases.
This is why they are "tied" together. If I already have solar panels for energy in my home, there is no additional cost to also use those solar panels to "fuel" my vehicle (either in part, or in whole).
It's actually a very, very good way to go about things, as solar panels (sans storage) frequently sit idle or well below capacity so making use of that 'idle' time does wonders for the ROI of the solar system.
electric cars = no co2 credit swaps for goldman sachs. need to expand your horizons and the see the much bigger picture
I don't have a dog in this fight, but I'm curious what relevance your "when I was a young man" story has to the GPs statement about the current corvette? Stating that something was not good in the past, and thus will never be good in the present, or the future, is not really a good argument.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
The current Corvette is broadly considered to be the best deal in high performance... in the world.
Only if you define 'world' kinda like you folks do in 'World Series'
Nissan has outsold Tesla by 3-4X.
Umm, completely different cars in completely different market segments. Not even remotely a meaningful comparison. One is a performance luxury car that sells for nearly six figures to wealthy tech nerds. The other is a compact runabout purchased almost entirely by the granola crowd for eco cred. Would be hard to be more different.
Tesla's "grip" on the EV sector is imaginary. They are certainly in a very, very nice position in the industry. But they are a medium sized player and their "lead" is mostly imaginary and one of perception.
Perception matters. For example there is no technical reason the Ford F150 has been the best selling vehicle in the US for the last 32 years. In a given year the Chevy or Ram offerings are often objectively better for that model year. Yet Ford out sells them every single year. Why? Perception. Having a brand people like and are comfortable with matters a lot.
And as far as size goes, Telsa is a tiny auto maker. GM sells more vehicles in a month than Tesla has sold in their entire history. The big auto makers could introduce an all electric vehicle very quickly if they wanted to but mostly they are working on hybrids and watching the market. If Tesla can prove the market (good chance of that) then you'll see them jump in later on in a big way. But the longer they stay out of the market the better it will be for Tesla if they can do what they are working on. Tesla has a brand with very high appeal right now.
WSJ reporter didn't even look at his map. Not only is Traverse City not the northern tip of the LOWER Peninsula, it's over 200 miles south of the actual northernmost town in Michigan. sheesh.
They don't make money when they sell cars, they make money when they sell their tax credits to people who make money when they sell cars.
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Battery technology is probably good enough now, will only get better (and cheaper), and swaps are not necessary, but may help in some areas. Batteries will continue to decline in price (learning curve of approx. 22%) at a rate of ~8%/yr as production continues to scale. In about 8 or 9 years they will cost under 150 $/kWh. Probably faster or cheaper, as usually the case with these projections... This will reduce the premium on EVs to -10% to 20% under/over gas cars and reduce the "payback" (based on 0,08 $/kWh and 3 $/gal gas) to 0 - 2 years. I imagine despite their "issues," EVs reaching cost parity with gas cars will spur a large number of sales. But it isn't over
Coupled with today's PV prices (neglecting the 40% haircut they will get over the same time period), anyone will be able to go virtually off grid (will depend on specific utility machinations) for about 0.05 - 0.08 $/kWh, including 10 year battery replacements. Giving you a system that is cash flow positive and under warranty during the entire amortization period. It will be a no brainier for anyone with access to cheap capital (typical middle class home owner with about 6% HELOC rates). In most cases this will be probably the lowest risk AND highest returning financial investment vehicle available to the middle class (except for energy efficiency home improvements). This is essentially the case right now with PV (utility restrictions aside).
The average commuter needs 9 kWh/day for a 30mi round trip commute (average, I think). Power produced under average insolation (like Ohio or New York) is about 3.3 kWh/m^2-day, Cut it by 40% for the winter equals about 2 kWh/m^2-day per day. So you need about 4 panels (5-6m^2) per electric car, less than a parking space.
Panels are about 0.74 $/W ( They would be about 0.6 $/W without tariffs on Chinese imports) So your module cost is just under $800 with about 30% extra area for _really_ bad winter days. You have a surplus of about 200-300% in the summer for powering your house which will help recoup the cost of your PV array (which will have a payback of 4-8 yrs versus gas -without- using any extra power for your home, net metering, etc). IF you do it in the next 2 years you get a 30% off via ITC, afterword 10% off that price.
Add micro inverters and racking for $1000. DIY the install is like running CAT5 and installing a basketball hoop / skylight. A novice can install it in half a day. Or pay a guy $1000 (~150/hr) to throw it up. Depending on your municipality you may have connection fees (you can probably avoid this with the right inverter and have an off grid EV charger...). Now you have a $2000 - $3000 charging system large enough to put out enough charging power on about 90% of days anywhere in the continental US and also about 3 - 13X "regular" days of storage for trips or cloudy weather. Of course we'll need this infrastructure in public too, but the low costs will justify its proliferation, especially when amalgamated into larger, cheaper, and financially sound commercial and utility systems.
Solar doesn't have to get any better, batteries will get cheaper and probably more dense by just incremental economies of scale improvements, and one needs a pretty compelling argument to explain why this relatively conservative scenario won't play out and appeal to at least several million households and hence become an important segment of the private transportation sector within about a decade.
In the 1970s, all of them were selling absolutely awful products by the metric shitload
And people were buying them because they were the best alternative available in most cases. Yes they were very often crap but there was no non-crap option available. Once there was and they started bleeding market share they eventually (albeit late) starting making better products. The reason for the recent bankruptcies was because their labor and benefits costs because uncompetitive in a competitive market. But the cars they make have continued to appeal and sell, even in the darkest days of bankruptcy. Sales has never truly been the big problem for the Big 3, even with reduced market share. People like their products even when they probably shouldn't if they were being objective about it.
I agree with you in principle that Detroit actually has some life in it, but making that point with sales numbers isn't actually convincing proof.
It's only not proof if you think people are nothing more than gullible sheep with no concept of what interests them. Since that isn't actually true we have to consider that people buy what actually appeals to them and that sales figures are actually the best data available on what constitutes a compelling product.
Battery swapping seems to me like an elaborate and costly solution to a non-problem. Most electric cars are simply going to be charged at home anyhow, most of the time, because that's most convenient. In the marketplace -- especially in the USA -- convenience usually wins out.
Bribe some congressmen to legislate in your favor.
Musk must have learned that one from Buffett.
Is there a possible benefit to getting a battery with fewer charge cycles in a swap ? I sort of saw this concept as a way to get a refurbished battery when yours is reaching end of life, or has a few dead cells.
Oh! Sure.
Muscle cars were always about huge engines and (therefore) heavy frames. That is even more true today than it was in the 80s. In the 80s, said unibody with a (sadly no longer in production) rotary engine with something like 1/2 the mass of the Corvette could outperform it in multiple ways.
While the muscle cars have gotten better too, the difference in mass to power ratio between the two is still tilted against them. Go drive a Mazda MX5 (still partially owned by Ford I think, if that matters to you :) and see what I mean. The thing is a go-cart that accelerates like a rocket.
The smart people left years ago. Now it's just idiots with delusions of intelligence, and the people who are making fun of you.
If you can fit in one. I'm 6'2" and I had my shins against the dashboard with the seat all the way back, my head against my knees, my head against the roof, and i couldn't get the door closed. I swear those things are made for "little people"...
Buck Feta. You know what to do.
With just shy of 500 stations across the entire US, and many major cities lacking a Supercharger station entirely or having one at best... the word "ubiquitous" does not mean what you think it does.
McDonald's is ubiquitous - Supercharger stations are rare and unusual.
...and us cows.
A nation survives based upon a certain type of morality among citizens. And it is not the type of morality that worries about who sleeps with whom or whether birth control is moral. But when a man's morals are ruled by his financial concerns we are in the deepest kind of emergency. So we now have every wretch who somehow earns money from the conventional auto and truck industry using the lie in the form of deliberate blindness and deliberate ignorance to keep gas and diesel powered vehicles in place when the simple truth is that electric vehicles are clearly and by a huge margin what is needed for 99% of the drivers in our nation. Now watch this filth try and try and buckle down even harder to try and ruin, stop, or hold back Tesla. It is not the cowering pervert hiding in dark corners waiting to molest a child or strangle a young woman that should draw our wrath and ire. It is the common business man. We are about to see the filth of our nation attack Tesla again.
It is perfectly understandable that those who live in apartments, and only own one car, can not afford the inconvenience of an electric. But consider owning one later in life.
My family has four cars. One for me, my wife, one kid in high school, one in college. We use the Nissan Leaf every day, but we don't drive it more than 40 miles from home (where my wife works). It saves us about $200 on gasoline minus electricity per month. Other than during a dealer software update, we have never stopped at a charging station. It is one of the best cars that we have ever owned, and has almost zero maintenance.
Considering the savings on maintenance, at some point in the next decade, we will gladly plop down another $5000 or less for a battery with even more capacity. If the battery dips below 75% capacity before 2018, we get a new one for free. If the battery dies before 2021, we also get a free battery (1 in 100,000 chance).
When the need arises to leave town, we have three other cars, a 2004, 1996, and 1987, which are all reliable, carry no debt, and are cheap to insure.
The only reason the F-150 is #1 is that GM splits it's pickup sales across Chevy/GMC.
You are correct but kind of missing the point. The Ford does outsell the Chevy (which is true) but the point you glossed by is that there is no objective reason for this to be the case based on the technical merits of the respective vehicles. In some years the Chevy is an objectively better vehicle and the prices are so similar as to be identical. So if people were buying entirely based on objective evidence you would expect the sales crown to pass to Chevy or even Ram from time to time. But this doesn't happen.
It's not actually clear that buyers in a GMC dealership would necessarily buy the Chevy over the Ford even though the GMC is completely identical to the Chevy in all meaningful respects. Hence they have to break them out even though you are quite correct that they are the same vehicle mechanically and could rightfully be viewed as one for sales.
crony capitalists.
Tesla doesn't have a viable business model without government intervention.
Is there a possible benefit to getting a battery with fewer charge cycles in a swap ? I sort of saw this concept as a way to get a refurbished battery when yours is reaching end of life, or has a few dead cells.
That's a completely different issue. Even without quick-recharge swaps, it's certainly possible to replace an old battery. But you're going to have to pay for that new battery (less a rebate for the value of the old one, I'm sure).
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
By "road trip", I mean things like Sturgis, SD, to Mt Rushmore on to the Devil's Tower and ending up at Buffalo, WY.
The big thing will be getting recharge times down. That's going to take another 10-15 years minimum I think. (The superchargers are nice but not quite there yet) Until then long distances with EV will be via hybrids. I think it won't be long before we start seeing long distance haulers and trucks being hybrids. Lots of torque from the electric motors and it will help the automakers meet CAFE standards. Wouldn't be surprised to see some diesel electric hybrids at some point.
Cannot do that in an electric, nor can I pause for an hour while running 400 miles of errands in the LA basin.
Cannot do that in an electric YET. Give it 5-10 years and it could happen. Heck the notion of an EV that can do 400 miles on a charge isn't in the realm of science fiction. The Tesla can do over 230 now and it isn't optimized for range. I don't have any trouble envisioning an EV with double that range.
It's not the waistline, it's the seat-to-crown height (I'm 6'4'', 265 lbs.) I have tried on the Tesla and could barely enter (my shoulder hits the upper door sill, same as a BMW 7-series).
So how do that equate to "pathetic"? I get that it might not be a good fit for you but that's just how it goes sometimes. Very tall and very short people unfortunately have necessarily limited options because accommodating them tends to ruin the ergonomics for "normal" sized people who constitute the majority of the buying public. I dated a girl once who was about 4'9" and she actually needed blocks on the pedals of her truck to drive it. I prayed the airbag never went off on her because she had to sit so close it would likely have killed her. Most really tall guys I know end up driving big SUVs of some description. Kind of sucks but that's the way it goes. I think you'll probably see somebody do some big trucks in pure EV and there already are hybrids out there.
So, again, what's the problem here?
Do you think it is impossible for them to make fuel efficient cars that aren't going to break early? Do you REALLY think that little of your car companies and engineers???
Who knows what the premise really is, since we can't RTFA.
Yes, I think I got a newer battery. However, right now you have to return to the battery swap station to get your battery back.
Anyway, battery replacement can be done easily for Tesla in regular non-automated service centers in a manner of minutes.
But guess what? The Corvette is the best if you like Corvettes, and I don't. Lots of other people also don't. I remember leaving those big lumbering beasts in the dust in a street ported RX-7 with Weber carbs when I was 20.
But guess what? The Corvette of today is a completely different vehicle. It's got half as many parts as that corvette you dusted when you were 20. Today, the stock Corvette driver will fucking eat your RX-7 if he is anywhere near as good a driver as you are.
Show me something that does more than consume more gas than 10 reasonable cars combined while going in essentially a straight line, and I'll be impressed. Detroit doesn't make that.
You think that because you're ignorant, but that's the only reason. In fact, the 'vette has bank deactivation and is a relative fuel-sipper for its displacement...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Muscle cars were always about huge engines and (therefore) heavy frames. That is even more true today than it was in the 80s.
You have no idea what you're talking about. The body of the modern Corvette is substantially lighter than the body of the Corvette of the 80s.
While the muscle cars have gotten better too, the difference in mass to power ratio between the two is still tilted against them. Go drive a Mazda MX5 (still partially owned by Ford I think, if that matters to you :) and see what I mean.
It's hilarious you mention the MX5 because that's a vehicle that was deliberately made less powerful than possible, at least in the first and latest generations. And the current Corvette will absolutely shit on it.
Look, the international motoring press has been quite clear: there is no better value in high-performance automobiles than the current Corvette. Period, the end, take that one home and sleep with it.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Otherwise, and here's a real tip for you, you could, while visiting ***CHARGE YOUR CAR***.
And guess what? You're going 150-200 miles on a car that can do 270.
So what's your problem? Too dumb to think of it? Or do you only visit for like five minutes after your four hour drive???
Curious question: If I got a newer battery, why would I want my old one back (or do they charge you if you don't?)?
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." - Every fascist, ever
The corvette is not a muscle car, idjit. Chevy's muscle car is the Camero.
They charge you the battery price difference if you don't return the battery, and it's not worth it right now.
Thanks, I figured it had to be something like that.
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." - Every fascist, ever
No, the big thing is the complete lack of recharge facilities outside of the urban sprawl and main highways. I travel by off-Interstate, whenever possible, and there are not going to be recharge facilities scattered as widely as hydrocarbon fuel stations for a very long time.
Not even close to that in start-stop driving and full AC (which I need, or I would be on a motorcycle instead for that trip).
I have, and have had, other cars without that issue (current XJ, 1996 Grand Marquis, 1993 Integra, and others). To tell me that a four-door luxury sedan is that difficult to enter is pathetic. Not that the Tesla is the only one, but it is the one that I have been told, repeatedly (look at the replies to my original comment), is "very roomy".
you know there are crazy people who have to buy and drive trucks for work..i know punish only company's who make them for people who have to tow-haul-carry stuff ..honda-tesla-etc dont have to worry they don't have to make work trucks.
instead, slowly increase the fuel tax by .10/gal for the next 10 years. If consumers know that gas/diesel prices will go up a dollar over th next 10 years, they will start buying high MPG cars now, or even switching to EVs.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.