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Tesla Updates Model S With New Front-End, Air Filtration System, Faster Charging (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The Model S has received several new features and improvements to help it stay relevant with the newer Model X crossover and recently released Model 3 electric vehicles from Tesla. It has a new-look fascia and adaptive LED headlights that hew closely to the design found on the Model X crossover which debuted late last year. In addition to a couple new interior finish choices, the Model S is receiving a version of the Model X's cabin air filtration system as an option, which promises to filter out "99.7 percent of particulate exhaust pollution and effectively all allergens, bacteria and other contaminants from cabin air." The Model S now has a 48-amp charger standard -- up from 40 amps -- which Tesla says will enable faster charging when connected to higher-amp outlets. Tesla's design language is trending toward a grille-less front end, possibly in an effort to squeeze as much aerodynamic efficiency out of the car as possible. What's missing in the update is the rumored 100kWh battery, which would improve the vehicle's range.
Telsa's happy days with the media will soon be coming to an end. Traditional car manufacturers are some of the biggest advertisers in pretty all forms of traditional media. They will soon do what Toyota did with the acceleration problem. They told the various outlets, keep blaming our shit software and we will stop advertising in your publication.
Now that Tesla is competing with products such as the Ford Fusion mid level products they aren't going to let Tesla continue with the free press. There will come a day when pretty much every old media article we read will be about a Tesla battery fire, or Telsa recall, or anyone killed in a Tesla will somehow be national news.
The good thing is that old media doesn't really matter as much anymore. The average age of a newspaper reader is advancing nearly 5 years for every year of real time. That is huge, 5 years is a massive demographic who just downed their newspapers.
This assumed ability they think they have to warp public perception won't change all the 20-30 somethings who are going to be driving their Teslas in 2 years.
Anyplace with gas or diesel vehicles on the road there is poor air quality in the traffic lane, where you are when your car sucks the air in.
I do a lot of driving in rural, mountainous areas with awesome air, but that doesn't mean the air quality is high in the middle the of the road.
This is something that people with $10k cars are usually willing to pay for. For a luxury car, it is a no-brainer.
Time for me to throw my older model S in the trash! I can't be seen with an older model! People will think I don't care about the environment enough!
If Elon is looking for a low coefficient of drag, why don't we drop the side mirrors in favor of high resolution wide angle cameras? I've always thought we could replace the center mirror with a long full car width LED display monitor showing a 180 degree view behind and sides fed by 2 wide angle cameras on the back or sides.
Tesla has always had bundles of options where most people had to choose whether to buy the whole bundle when they only wanted one or two items. Last year the power liftgate was part of the premium interior package. It was the only item there that many people cared about. That's just the way they do business.
It also greatly reduces the number of configurations you have to support, both mechanically and software side of things. If everything is ala carte, you quickly run in to tens of thousands of configurations, which you have to test for. Multiply that by recalled and unrecalled cars, different model years, etc and testing to avoid serious failures quickly reach nightmare levels.
moox. for a new generation.
A Tesla charged with electricity solely generated by coal is still cleaner than a petrol car. However, average electricity from coal in the US is only 33% (and dropping) so not an issue.
Tesla has already solved your four challenges with battery recycling, supercharging, longer runtime. I can drive my Tesla anywhere with stops at convenient superchargers.
There is already sufficient electric infrastructure to charge more electric cars than will be produced in the next 5 years. Electric utilities currently have a problem with too much electricity at night (in Texas they give away free electricity at night)... precisely the time when most people charge their electric cars. This may change in 5-10 years but that's plenty of time to make the necessary investments.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
No, actually that is incorrect. As of 2015, 31% of all electrical power generated in the USA was generated by zero emission sources (nuclear, hydro, wind, solar, and geothermal). Another 33% was from natural gas, which generates very little particulate emissions, substantially reduced CO2, and reduced NOX. Only 34% was from coal and petroleum.
Petroleum's share is actually down to a minuscule 1%, and coal is shrinking all the time.
So gas and particulate emissions are greatly cut for every car converted from gasoline or diesel to battery-electric.
Thank you, you save me some typing.
Another point to remember, it is far easier to clean the air coming out of a few hundred generators than it is to clean the air coming out of a few million cars.
If I improve a generator's exhaust by 20%, it might be worthwhile, but if I proposed doing that for all the cars in a city, the retrofitting costs would dwarf any cost at the generator, and odds are you wouldn't have half of them done in a year.
Decent starting point, but you stopped thinking far too quickly.
Centralizing power generation (moving from millions of small gasoline engines to hundreds of big oil/coal turbine generators) allows for greater efficiency. Most things work better at scale - you get more power extracted per unit fuel. And it allows you to cost-effectively install better pollution-reducing devices - big scrubbers on the exhaust, to keep particulates and such down. So even if the power grid were 100% fossil fuels, it would still be a gain.
But the grid isn't 100% fossil fuels. In some places those are a minority already - where hydro or geothermal or nuclear dominate. And it decouples the generators from the infrastructure - if all cars ran off batteries, we could switch over to whatever new power method works best, as we invent it. If we had cheap, efficient, clean nuclear fusion, switching to it would be easy if we were on electric cars. Switching from gasoline/diesel engines to fusion engines would require a lot more change to the infrastructure - new fueling stations built, new pipelines for deuterium run, new mechanics trained on new engine types.
In my area, the fast DC chargers are mostly busy. If they are not busy, it's probably because they are broken. One charging network has a very high failure rate on their chargers.
Level2 chargers are also likely to be in use. Level2 isn't very useful at a retail site because they charge at about 25 miles/hour (25 miles of range added for each hour of charging, in comparison, fast DC chargers will deliver an 80% charge in 30 minutes).
But I live in a different area to you. If I look at my neighbors' cars, probably about one in 20 is a Nissan LEAF.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
The Model S and presumably Model X have swappable batteries and Renualt built & demonstrated 100s of battery-swap capable Fluence ZE for Better Place years ago.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Catalytic converters also tend to be quite inefficient until the engine warms up so while the converter does a pretty good job once you're on the road, it's accomplishing bugger-all when you start up and for several minutes after.
Also, replacing most or all ICEs with EVs in cities mean delicate lungs aren't breathing CO and other pollutants and there's no ground-level ozone or nitrogen oxides to form smog.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
That is what I like most about electric cars. Any time there is a massive improvement in electric generation (or even shifts), it is far easier to upgrade or change it at the electric plant than in the hundreds of millions of cars. Electric cars can effectively use the best energy generation method available at any given time and can switch in months rather than the decades it takes to "upgrade" gas cars today (as they eventually completely die and get replaced).
Telsa's happy days with the media will soon be coming to an end.
Next up, Elon Musk announces his plans to build a global media empire!
"Petroleum's share is actually down to a minuscule 1%, and coal is shrinking all the time."
That is why it is so annoying when people talk about solar and wind replacing oil. They do not compete. Natural gas does and frankly beats the pants off solar and wind in cost. Of course cheap natural gas actually helps out solar and wind because it is used in peaking plants that can spin up quickly to help when solar and wind drop.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
"Centralizing power generation (moving from millions of small gasoline engines to hundreds of big oil/coal turbine generators) allows for greater efficiency."
You tend to lose most of those efficiency gains on the distribution side of the coin.
No you don't. The electricity distribution system is highly efficient. When we transmit electricity at 1 million volts over long distances, we minimize the current through the wires. The power losses in the wires are equal to I^2 * R. By keeping current low, the losses in the wires are almost always less than 10%, and likely less than 5%. The process of stepping the voltages up and down is also highly efficient, thanks to the design of AC transformers. If the AC transformers weren't so efficient, they would explode due to the heat buildup. This only happens rarely when they break. Overall, the efficiency of the transmission system from generation to your house is almost certainly better than 90%.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)