I ran into that as well, though admittedly the original location had the turn indicator rather low compared to most other cars. They also had to make some changes for the new cruise control features. You still pretty much know what you are getting since they update the options on the web site. Usually the changes are more subtle or new options are added and sometimes removed.
Most of the people who can afford a Tesla aren't really worried about the price of gas. Electricity is still a LOT cheaper. Also, don't expect those cheap gas prices to last forever. Saudi Arabia is basically using their cheap prices to punish Russia, Iran, Syria, etc. as well as more expensive oil in the US and elsewhere. They're sitting on a huge mountain of cash. Once they've killed the competition expect them to bump their prices back up.
Tesla outsold BMW, Mercedes and many other cars in its class. The total numbers for 2014 have not been announced yet. If you're comparing Tesla you need to compare BMW's 7 series, Mercedes S class, etc. GM's Cadillac ELR which was supposed to be the Tesla killer flopped big time. There's a two year supply sitting on the lot. Tesla sells more in a week than GM sold ELR's all year.
Sure they can. GM isn't planning on selling a lot of EVs. There's a big reason Tesla is building their gigafactory. It will dwarf LG's factory which GM uses. GM's $30K price point also likely includes selling them at a loss. They'll sell enough for the credits and that's it. GM may have said the price point, but they didn't say how many they plan to sell.
It's hard to haggle when each car is custom built to order. There is no inventory of cars. There are well over a dozen different options when you build your car. It's very up-front, showing you exactly how much each option cost and what the total price is. You can't haggle, "Well, I don't really want that option." or "This isn't my first choice for color." since you get exactly what you order.
When there's an inventory of cars it's a lot easier to haggle, especially if a car has been sitting on the lot a while.
Unlike dealerships, the people in the showrooms do not earn a commission on cars sold. Cars are sold online. When you are online you can go through and change options at will until shortly before they build you car. There is no haggling. There are no slimy tactics trying to get you to buy the car. There's no incentive for the salesperson to try and sell you blinker fluid and other crap. The only stuff they sell at the showrooms are accessories, things like floor mats, keychains, storage bags, shirts, jackets, etc. Everything they sell you can also buy online.
With my Prius I had a couple of minor things related to the engine. One was an oil leak, something far less likely with an EV. I also had to replace a water pump several times and the belt. I also had to regularly change the oil, air filter and fuel filter. I also had to replace the radiator when it sprung a leak. With my Tesla my brakes are used quite a bit less than even with my Prius. There is basically no maintenance required for the drive train. The electric motor is lubricated for 12 years.
The only required maintenance is flushing the coolant every few years, rotating the tires, changing the cabin air filter, wiper blades, etc.
Things like A/C and power steering should also be more reliable than most cars since both are fully electric. The A/C doesn't have flexible hoses and the compressor should be far more reliable than a normal belt-driven one with a clutch. The 12v battery is the same though. I'm getting mine replaced tomorrow (under warranty). Unlike many cars though, it gives plenty of warning. It popped up a message on the dash and contacted Tesla.
Suspension is similar but even the electrical is simpler in many ways. All of those sensors and components needed for a gasoline engine are gone. The number of modules is quite a bit less. Sure, there's the inverters for charging and driving the motors, but many of the other ones are gone. Working on the car is also a lot easier. Where many things in an ICE car are blocked by the engine, they are quite easy to reach in my Tesla. If you remove the front panel under the car or the frunk insert you can reach just about everything.
Even the motor and inverters are very easy to reach. It takes under five minutes to install the entire drivetrain at the factory. The motor is tiny too. The induction motor in my Tesla is 416HP, 445ft-lbs of torque and the size of a large watermelon. There's no transmission, only a 9.73:1 gear reduction to the differential. The motor is smaller than the transmission on many cars.
Many of the failure points are gone. There's no transmission, ignition system, engine water pump, thermostat, belts, fuel pumps, smog stuff, catalytic converter or muffler.
Some problems can be addressed remotely. I have had issues fixed and even new features added from periodic software updates that are done over the air.
For an all-wheel drive EV it gets even better since there are is no drive shaft or transfer case between the front and rear wheels.
One other difference is that the mechanics seem to be quite a bit cleaner than the ones I see working on ICE cars.
My car has had more than average maintenance since mine is one of the early ones (low 5000s VIN). Virtually all of the issues I have run into were addressed in later versions of the car. Most of my issues were various rattles and noise related. When the 12v battery started to fail the car notified me before it happened and also contacted Tesla. Tesla called me about replacing it under warranty before I told them about the problem.
One difference between Tesla and other car manufacturers is that Tesla builds far more of their own stuff in-house. Most car companies farm a lot of stuff out. It makes it far more difficult to make changes. Tesla, on the other hand, can make changes almost immediately. They don't wait for mid-year or the next year to make changes. You can't say you have a 2012 or 2013 car since they make changes every few months, often adding new features.
The whole dealership model doesn't fit Tesla very well. Unlike dealerships, there are not cars sitting on a lot. The cars are built to order, customized with each customer's requirements. There is no inventory of new cars.
There is a lot less periodic maintenance required and maintenance is far easier. The recommended maintenance is every 12K miles. The maintenance includes a wheel alignment, changing the wiper blades, cabin air filter, tire rotation, inspections and any software updates (though the car periodically allows the user to install them when they're downloaded over the air). The electric motor is lubricated for 12 years, according to one of the techs I spoke with at the factory. Many of the items that need maintenance are just not there or need less periodic maintenance. Many things can be diagnosed remotely without even having to bring the car in. My car was one of the early ones that received a defective 12v battery because the battery manufacturer decided to subcontract it out to China who subcontracted it out to Viet Nam. Tesla contacted me about replacing the battery within a couple of days of a weak battery being detected.
Sure, you still have tires (which can be rotated or replaced just about anywhere), a cabin air filter, wiper blades, suspension, etc. but these are not the money makers. The number of moving parts is a fraction of what it is in an ICE car.On top of that, much of the maintenance is far easier since many parts are far more accessible without a big engine in the way. Even things like brake pads will last far longer on an EV. There are no spark plugs, no fuel filters, engine air filters, oil changes or belts to change. There's minimal chance of laking oil seals and no smog related work. There's no catalytic converter, oxygen sensors, fuel pumps, fuel injectors, etc to deal with. And if you do need to do something like pull the electric motor, it is a far easier process. They install the entire drive train in the Model S in under 4 minutes since it's all in a single module, including the motor, differential, inverter, rear axels, etc. Removing it is not the huge job it is in an ICE car.
Often the education ends up paying for itself in the long run. For example, the GI bill after World War II was probably one of the best investments this country ever made. Typically, in the long run, those with college educations earn more money and in turn pay more in taxes.
Except in this case the entire country is already censored, so blocking it won't be censoring anyone except those few who do have Internet access, like the despicable people in charge and the hackers. If it were just about any other country I'd agree with you.NK is second to last for the most censored country according to reporters without borders, second only to Eritrae.
Birds haven't been a huge problem except for Altamont Pass which is a major bird migratory area. The new larger turbines are also much less of a hazard for birds.
It would be nice. Fortunately I don't have to drive more than an hour or so to get a clear night sky but I do miss the sky from when I was young, before all the land was built up.
The light pollution where I live is so bad that only a few stars are visible on a clear night. I frequently wish all the street lights could be turned off for a change. I doubt that the switch to LED street lights will improve things. In fact, I imagine it will make things worse for the local observatory (Lick) since it is relatively easy to filter out sodium.
I can't compare to other performance cars since this is the first one I've owned. It does great on the highway and passing though I imagine some of the other performance cars do better. There is no lag which is nice so it is extremely responsive. Handling is quite good, not as good as the P85+ but it does quite well, especially given its weight. It's certainly fun to drive on those windy mountain roads, and the high torque does quite well on steep grades. It's also quite forgiving considering how much torque it has and the traction control works extremely well at holding the tires at the edge with just a little slip unlike other cars I have driven. I haven't driven the P85D yet and they stopped making the P85 (which is what I have).
The difference is that I can charge at home overnight to a full battery in my garage and I spend 5 seconds plugging in at night and 5 seconds unplugging in the morning. The beauty of it is that I don't need to go to a filling station except on long trips.
As more and more charging stations go in, most charging will happen at home and/or work where charging time doesn't matter.
Currently Tesla charges at over 250 amps with their superchargers and I charge mine at home at 80 amps. As you say, though, the biggest limitations will be cooling and just getting that much current into the car. I think it's amazing that Tesla is able to handle 120KW through their current connector (and I hear they're experimenting with 150KW). None of the other charging connectors come close to this. They might also need to increase their active cooling of the batteries.
Right now my P85 will draw upwards of 310KW from the battery pack, but only for short bursts when accelerating hard.
Charging this fast might require something similar to their battery swapping, with a large connector built directly in to the battery along with support for the coolant loop where something comes up under the car to charge and actively cool the battery when handling so much current.
NAT makes this difficult to do for multi-player games. Now you require the gamers to set up port forwarding on their routers, many who have no idea how to do that.
That's the idea. Basically the idea is that you do most charging at home. When I'm planning to go on a long trip I'll set up my Tesla to charge to 100% before I leave home so I spend less time at the supercharger on the way to my destination. Battery swapping doesn't make a lot of sense except for long trips, for example between SF and LA.
They've been doing that for years in my city to brackish water to supplement the water supply. The problem is that these last few years have been exceptionally dry. You can't just build desalination plants overnight, especially for the amount of water we're talking about, plus it needs to be transported quite a distance and is very expensive. Most of the water is used for agriculture. California produces around 1/3 of all of the food in the country.
Originally it was built with street cars until those were ripped out to be replaced by buses, funded by the likes of Firestone, General Motors, Standard Oil (Chevron), Phillips Petrolium (Conoco Phillips), Mack Truck and others.
In Los Angeles, given the limited available land area and high prices and how painful it is to shut down lanes, freeways can be far more expensive to build, probably more like 150-00M/mile. And don't get started on rail. I think extending BART is costing upwards of $1B/mile in places. LA freeways also need to be built to withstand major earthquakes which also increases the cost, especially for bridges. With earthquakes, two tiered freeways are a lot more expensive or you end up with problems like this.
With all of the land being so densely populated, putting through a new freeway becomes extremely costly, especially since nobody wants their neighborhood to be split by a major freeway.
One of the freeways I take to work had a choke point where it went from 4 to 3 lanes. Once they expanded it 4 lanes the entire way traffic didn't move just 25% faster. It was more like 200% faster during rush hour. I'll never understand why people always wait for the very last instant to merge, slowing everyone down.
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I ran into that as well, though admittedly the original location had the turn indicator rather low compared to most other cars. They also had to make some changes for the new cruise control features. You still pretty much know what you are getting since they update the options on the web site. Usually the changes are more subtle or new options are added and sometimes removed.
Most of the people who can afford a Tesla aren't really worried about the price of gas. Electricity is still a LOT cheaper. Also, don't expect those cheap gas prices to last forever. Saudi Arabia is basically using their cheap prices to punish Russia, Iran, Syria, etc. as well as more expensive oil in the US and elsewhere. They're sitting on a huge mountain of cash. Once they've killed the competition expect them to bump their prices back up.
Tesla outsold BMW, Mercedes and many other cars in its class. The total numbers for 2014 have not been announced yet. If you're comparing Tesla you need to compare BMW's 7 series, Mercedes S class, etc. GM's Cadillac ELR which was supposed to be the Tesla killer flopped big time. There's a two year supply sitting on the lot. Tesla sells more in a week than GM sold ELR's all year.
Sure they can. GM isn't planning on selling a lot of EVs. There's a big reason Tesla is building their gigafactory. It will dwarf LG's factory which GM uses. GM's $30K price point also likely includes selling them at a loss. They'll sell enough for the credits and that's it. GM may have said the price point, but they didn't say how many they plan to sell.
It's hard to haggle when each car is custom built to order. There is no inventory of cars. There are well over a dozen different options when you build your car. It's very up-front, showing you exactly how much each option cost and what the total price is. You can't haggle, "Well, I don't really want that option." or "This isn't my first choice for color." since you get exactly what you order.
When there's an inventory of cars it's a lot easier to haggle, especially if a car has been sitting on the lot a while.
Unlike dealerships, the people in the showrooms do not earn a commission on cars sold. Cars are sold online. When you are online you can go through and change options at will until shortly before they build you car. There is no haggling. There are no slimy tactics trying to get you to buy the car. There's no incentive for the salesperson to try and sell you blinker fluid and other crap. The only stuff they sell at the showrooms are accessories, things like floor mats, keychains, storage bags, shirts, jackets, etc. Everything they sell you can also buy online.
With my Prius I had a couple of minor things related to the engine. One was an oil leak, something far less likely with an EV. I also had to replace a water pump several times and the belt. I also had to regularly change the oil, air filter and fuel filter. I also had to replace the radiator when it sprung a leak. With my Tesla my brakes are used quite a bit less than even with my Prius. There is basically no maintenance required for the drive train. The electric motor is lubricated for 12 years.
The only required maintenance is flushing the coolant every few years, rotating the tires, changing the cabin air filter, wiper blades, etc.
Things like A/C and power steering should also be more reliable than most cars since both are fully electric. The A/C doesn't have flexible hoses and the compressor should be far more reliable than a normal belt-driven one with a clutch. The 12v battery is the same though. I'm getting mine replaced tomorrow (under warranty). Unlike many cars though, it gives plenty of warning. It popped up a message on the dash and contacted Tesla.
Suspension is similar but even the electrical is simpler in many ways. All of those sensors and components needed for a gasoline engine are gone. The number of modules is quite a bit less. Sure, there's the inverters for charging and driving the motors, but many of the other ones are gone. Working on the car is also a lot easier. Where many things in an ICE car are blocked by the engine, they are quite easy to reach in my Tesla. If you remove the front panel under the car or the frunk insert you can reach just about everything.
Even the motor and inverters are very easy to reach. It takes under five minutes to install the entire drivetrain at the factory. The motor is tiny too. The induction motor in my Tesla is 416HP, 445ft-lbs of torque and the size of a large watermelon. There's no transmission, only a 9.73:1 gear reduction to the differential. The motor is smaller than the transmission on many cars.
Many of the failure points are gone. There's no transmission, ignition system, engine water pump, thermostat, belts, fuel pumps, smog stuff, catalytic converter or muffler.
Some problems can be addressed remotely. I have had issues fixed and even new features added from periodic software updates that are done over the air.
For an all-wheel drive EV it gets even better since there are is no drive shaft or transfer case between the front and rear wheels.
One other difference is that the mechanics seem to be quite a bit cleaner than the ones I see working on ICE cars.
My car has had more than average maintenance since mine is one of the early ones (low 5000s VIN). Virtually all of the issues I have run into were addressed in later versions of the car. Most of my issues were various rattles and noise related. When the 12v battery started to fail the car notified me before it happened and also contacted Tesla. Tesla called me about replacing it under warranty before I told them about the problem.
One difference between Tesla and other car manufacturers is that Tesla builds far more of their own stuff in-house. Most car companies farm a lot of stuff out. It makes it far more difficult to make changes. Tesla, on the other hand, can make changes almost immediately. They don't wait for mid-year or the next year to make changes. You can't say you have a 2012 or 2013 car since they make changes every few months, often adding new features.
The whole dealership model doesn't fit Tesla very well. Unlike dealerships, there are not cars sitting on a lot. The cars are built to order, customized with each customer's requirements. There is no inventory of new cars.
Unlike your old diesel burner, there are no oil changes and the service is optional and not required for the warranty to be honored.
There is a lot less periodic maintenance required and maintenance is far easier. The recommended maintenance is every 12K miles. The maintenance includes a wheel alignment, changing the wiper blades, cabin air filter, tire rotation, inspections and any software updates (though the car periodically allows the user to install them when they're downloaded over the air). The electric motor is lubricated for 12 years, according to one of the techs I spoke with at the factory. Many of the items that need maintenance are just not there or need less periodic maintenance. Many things can be diagnosed remotely without even having to bring the car in. My car was one of the early ones that received a defective 12v battery because the battery manufacturer decided to subcontract it out to China who subcontracted it out to Viet Nam. Tesla contacted me about replacing the battery within a couple of days of a weak battery being detected.
Sure, you still have tires (which can be rotated or replaced just about anywhere), a cabin air filter, wiper blades, suspension, etc. but these are not the money makers. The number of moving parts is a fraction of what it is in an ICE car.On top of that, much of the maintenance is far easier since many parts are far more accessible without a big engine in the way. Even things like brake pads will last far longer on an EV. There are no spark plugs, no fuel filters, engine air filters, oil changes or belts to change. There's minimal chance of laking oil seals and no smog related work. There's no catalytic converter, oxygen sensors, fuel pumps, fuel injectors, etc to deal with. And if you do need to do something like pull the electric motor, it is a far easier process. They install the entire drive train in the Model S in under 4 minutes since it's all in a single module, including the motor, differential, inverter, rear axels, etc. Removing it is not the huge job it is in an ICE car.
Often the education ends up paying for itself in the long run. For example, the GI bill after World War II was probably one of the best investments this country ever made. Typically, in the long run, those with college educations earn more money and in turn pay more in taxes.
Except in this case the entire country is already censored, so blocking it won't be censoring anyone except those few who do have Internet access, like the despicable people in charge and the hackers. If it were just about any other country I'd agree with you.NK is second to last for the most censored country according to reporters without borders, second only to Eritrae.
They only have two, 175.45.176.0/22 and 210.52.109.0/24 as far as I can tell. It's not like we'd be blocking the general population of NK.
Source.
NREL disagrees with you on solar. The payback period is anywhere from 1-4 years with current technology.
As for wind turbines, often the payback period is even shorter.
Birds haven't been a huge problem except for Altamont Pass which is a major bird migratory area. The new larger turbines are also much less of a hazard for birds.
It would be nice. Fortunately I don't have to drive more than an hour or so to get a clear night sky but I do miss the sky from when I was young, before all the land was built up.
The light pollution where I live is so bad that only a few stars are visible on a clear night. I frequently wish all the street lights could be turned off for a change. I doubt that the switch to LED street lights will improve things. In fact, I imagine it will make things worse for the local observatory (Lick) since it is relatively easy to filter out sodium.
I can't compare to other performance cars since this is the first one I've owned. It does great on the highway and passing though I imagine some of the other performance cars do better. There is no lag which is nice so it is extremely responsive. Handling is quite good, not as good as the P85+ but it does quite well, especially given its weight. It's certainly fun to drive on those windy mountain roads, and the high torque does quite well on steep grades. It's also quite forgiving considering how much torque it has and the traction control works extremely well at holding the tires at the edge with just a little slip unlike other cars I have driven. I haven't driven the P85D yet and they stopped making the P85 (which is what I have).
The difference is that I can charge at home overnight to a full battery in my garage and I spend 5 seconds plugging in at night and 5 seconds unplugging in the morning. The beauty of it is that I don't need to go to a filling station except on long trips.
As more and more charging stations go in, most charging will happen at home and/or work where charging time doesn't matter.
Currently Tesla charges at over 250 amps with their superchargers and I charge mine at home at 80 amps. As you say, though, the biggest limitations will be cooling and just getting that much current into the car. I think it's amazing that Tesla is able to handle 120KW through their current connector (and I hear they're experimenting with 150KW). None of the other charging connectors come close to this. They might also need to increase their active cooling of the batteries.
Right now my P85 will draw upwards of 310KW from the battery pack, but only for short bursts when accelerating hard.
Charging this fast might require something similar to their battery swapping, with a large connector built directly in to the battery along with support for the coolant loop where something comes up under the car to charge and actively cool the battery when handling so much current.
Tesla has indicated that they will do a new roadster but that won't be until after the Model 3 and it will be a new design from the ground up.
NAT makes this difficult to do for multi-player games. Now you require the gamers to set up port forwarding on their routers, many who have no idea how to do that.
That's the idea. Basically the idea is that you do most charging at home. When I'm planning to go on a long trip I'll set up my Tesla to charge to 100% before I leave home so I spend less time at the supercharger on the way to my destination. Battery swapping doesn't make a lot of sense except for long trips, for example between SF and LA.
They've been doing that for years in my city to brackish water to supplement the water supply. The problem is that these last few years have been exceptionally dry. You can't just build desalination plants overnight, especially for the amount of water we're talking about, plus it needs to be transported quite a distance and is very expensive. Most of the water is used for agriculture. California produces around 1/3 of all of the food in the country.
Originally it was built with street cars until those were ripped out to be replaced by buses, funded by the likes of Firestone, General Motors, Standard Oil (Chevron), Phillips Petrolium (Conoco Phillips), Mack Truck and others.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...
San Francisco is one of the few cities that retained its street cars and is much better because of it.
In Los Angeles, given the limited available land area and high prices and how painful it is to shut down lanes, freeways can be far more expensive to build, probably more like 150-00M/mile. And don't get started on rail. I think extending BART is costing upwards of $1B/mile in places. LA freeways also need to be built to withstand major earthquakes which also increases the cost, especially for bridges. With earthquakes, two tiered freeways are a lot more expensive or you end up with problems like this.
With all of the land being so densely populated, putting through a new freeway becomes extremely costly, especially since nobody wants their neighborhood to be split by a major freeway.
One of the freeways I take to work had a choke point where it went from 4 to 3 lanes. Once they expanded it 4 lanes the entire way traffic didn't move just 25% faster. It was more like 200% faster during rush hour. I'll never understand why people always wait for the very last instant to merge, slowing everyone down.