He made it sound annoying like how driving a golf cart feels when you let off the accelerator, like a lurch type of feeling, maybe he was just talking about how it feels to just let off the gas and not the braking, but don’t they have some feature that turns off the brake recharge thing? Why would they have that option?
Tesla’s cars activate regenerative braking pretty aggressively in order to maximize range. IIRC the Roadster used to be so aggressive that it would put on the brake lights if you let off the accelerator pedal completely. not sure if that was in every case, or dependent on certain factors.
I think I know what you are referring to.
To answer your first question, (again, according to the salesman), aggressive driving does reduce the range. And that may be a real issue for some. I don’t remember the exact numbers, but it didn’t cut the car’s range in half or anything. I think it was around 50 miles, but I can’t remember.
As far as the feeling of “drag” (for lack of a better term) when taking your foot off the accelerator, I know what that feels like in a golf cart. It sort of jolts you when you take your foot off.
I didn’t notice any jolt in my test drive. I DID notice a bit of resistance when I took my foot off the gas and approached a stop, but nothing like a golf cart. It felt very similar to my current car. The momentum change felt the same to me.
Again, I took one 15 minute test drive, so take my experience with a grain of salt.
I should note I’m only referring to the noisy few who don’t know of anything automotive other than Tesla. Haven’t seen any in this thread, but I’ve run into them out there.
I put “startup” in quotes because Tesla Motors has been in business for 12 years now and has launched their third model. Sooner or later their backers are going to expect them to either start making money, or get bought.
Yep, that type of person is definitely out there. See the linked Oatmeal strip for the testimony of one such unabashed type.
“I don’t understand traditional cars, and this made me feel like less of a man when I was a child. Therefore I’m going to buy the anti-traditional car, shortcomings be damned.”
This is the type of attitude that I despise in the car world. Buying a Tesla can be a veiled f%&k you to car guys and their traditions. Honey, you’re playing on our field when you enter the world of cars, and we can tell that you’re a poser looking for some cred. If the door handles are the second thing you mention when talking about the car (like the linked cartoon), leave the car enthusiasm to, you know, enthusiasts.
I think you stole these lines from those Dave Chappelle sketches about the Haters Convention.
interesting read.
Tesla has come a long way considering how hard it is to bring a car to market.
They’re walking a very fine line between maintaining a niche market and expanding into new markets. I think the speed upgrade might have been a mistake. They created something that was too good for the money and now companies like Porsche are entering the market.
We’re getting to the point where electric cars are a foreseeable reality so car companies are gearing up for them. It’s going to get real interesting in the next couple of years.
You are right about that. I don’t know what Tesla’s ultimate business model is, but if they (and/or their investors) were hoping for one of the bigger automobile manufacturers to buy them out and make them all rich, I am sure they were hoping to get the big ROI faster than 12 years.
If I recall, you are an automotive engineer (or you work in the industry). I assume you know more about this company than the average person. Have you and your peers put an over/under on the survival of Tesla (in years)? And are you surprised that it is still going?
Wait…let me guess. You fancy yourself a car enthusiast. Why is that, exactly? What is the criteria? And what automobile do you drive?
Traditions? A veiled “fuck you” to car guys? What in the hell does that even mean?
What exactly IS a car enthusiast anyway? You mocked BMW 5-series owners, yet from what I’ve read in most auto publications, the “ultimate driving machine” is highly regarded by people who love high performance automobiles. I’ve never been inside an Audi A6, but I didn’t know everyone who drove one was “nouveau-riche”. You sound like a guy who went there for a job interview, were rejected, and now just irrationally hates.
I don’t know who has rubbed you the wrong way regarding Tesla, but if you have never driven the car, you just sound angry. If you fancy yourself as a car enthusiast, take it for a test drive and come back and tell us where it fails (even if you hate the door handles)
Not particularly a Tesla fan and have not even driven one but regen can adjusted to “standard” or “low” on the Model S; the Roadster was aggressively calibrated such that the car was slowed down at the level of light braking rather than the same feel as coasting in a typical ICE. The 2016 Volt will be even more fully adjustable on the fly with an on the steering wheel paddle.
Of course the idea is to customize to user preference but some savvy users will adjust for driving conditions and use their brakes relatively sparingly.
Those first horseless buggies were quite the veiled f%&k you to horse guys and their traditions … the poseurs. Really the analogy holds very well … horseless buggies also initially just imitated what was already there, and it took a while for consumers and designers to appreciate that automobiles were not buggies without horses but something quite different.
Musk is claiming that profitability may occur within the 2016 year. Not sure if I’d bet that he’s right but I’d be reluctant to bet he’s wrong.
Oh. I would guess that most high end “car enthusiasts” are more excited about how a car performs (by all reports Teslas absurdly amazingly) than the traditions of oil pans and such. Looks some too, and interior feel.
The market for lower end and mid range car enthusiasts is probably way outpaced by the rest of us, who have no desire to say f%&k you to anyone but indeed really would be thrilled think about their cars as much as we think about our stainless-steel dishwashers. It works. Consistently. Reliably. Quietly. It performs how I want it to perform with me not having to do much to make it happen other than press a button. Yup, appeals to me lots.
I do not own an Apple watch and do not want one … love my Citizen Eco-drive that self sets to the atomic clock … precisely because my watch is more like my dishwasher, doing its job reliably with me not having to think about it and will keep doing it like that for a long time. I like my car as much like that as possible too. It is not a status symbol and honestly driving to work and back is not my fun for the day and driving cross country when I do is the chore to get to where I want to go.
There are more and more like me out here.
That’s a good idea because the regenerative braking system I drove years ago was annoyingly aggressive.
Personally, I really like the strong regeneration, as it has a similar feel to engine braking in a manual in low gear. “One foot driving” is definitely nice in stop-and-go traffic. Tastes differ, of course–I drive a manual so that’s what I’m used to.
I did a quick search on local used models around here, and (rough ballparking) they look to be around the US average of ~12k miles/yr. Some were lower and some much higher, but I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.
The falcon doors are designed as a replacement for sliding minivan doors–the recognition that you need wide, open access for loading cargo or installing car seats, but without the downsides (such as requiring a long, straight slot that interferes with aerodynamics.
You might be right just based on cost alone, but nevertheless it was designed with these things in mind.
Again, I live in CA so take this with a grain of salt, but I have not heard complaints about the accessibility of repair services. The vehicles may not get top reliability marks but it does seem that Tesla at least provides quick service. We’ll see if that continues with their low-cost model. They have at any rate improved greatly over the years.
I think the lithium recharge battery is a dead end technology. I think that a better solution is a one-use battery (like the aluminum-water or zinc-water battery). You use it once, and pull it out , replaced with a new one. I agree, the (modest) success of the Tesla will spur other manufacturers to enter the EV market-and that competition will yield superior cars. Of course, i will stay with my IC powered vehicle-i am not an early adopter.
It completely negates the smoothness of acceleration if on the flip-side it lurches to a stop.
How a car brakes is very high on my list of traits. Making this adjustable is a very important design function.
Lithium cells may reach a dead end at some point, but we’re not there yet. They’re still getting denser (or at least are in more formats which let you package more cells into a battery) and with chemistries like Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFe) they’re getting safer and more robust. The R/C crowd is starting to move from LiPo packs to LiFe packs largely because LiFe is far less likely to self-immolate. disposable primary batteries like you describe would be a disaster without a high amount of recyclability and a tightly controlled recycling chain.
On the list of the most true times that YMMV …
Wow. I need that. Seriously.
there’s only one draw back. All that fun drains the battery. So, you have to plan out how much fun you want in advance.
News Flash!
Driving ICE autos “Hard”* DECREASES MILEAGE!
Who Knew?
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- as in ‘rapid acceleration and/or high speed’