Still don't understand the appeal of anything in the electric space not named Volt.
The Chevy Bolt Is the Ugly Car of the Near Future
151–160 of 224 posts
Re: The Chevy Bolt Is the Ugly Car of the Near Future
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tesla uses very unconventional accounting to arrive at that gross margin. Specifically they don't subtract R&D costs from their margins. When you correct for this Tesla's gross margin is within a few percent of the median for the automotive industry. > In 2015, Tesla spent over $700 million on research and development while selling about 50,000 vehicles. If Tesla reported gross margins like other automakers, gross ma…
> Specifically they don't subtract R&D costs from their margins. R&D costs should not be subtracted in order to calculate gross margin. They are a part of net margin only. Payroll is not part of gross margin either. Here's a source: http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/122314/what-differen...
Tesla likes to quote their gross margins because they look incredible at face value. However Tesla doesn't use a dealership model, so they have expenses for the sales process that other car manufacturers don't have. To get an apples-to-apples comparison with the margins of other car manufacturers you have to make adjustments like the ones I described earlier.
Re: The Chevy Bolt Is the Ugly Car of the Near Future
#153I am glad that this article isn't saying "haha they beat tesla" in any way. Though I think they do miss out on one point in regards to Musk's "cleverness". The way that Musk commodified the electric car made everyone want one, much like the iPhone when it came out. Tesla car's spurred the EV revolution. Tesla's are appealing to many who want them and can afford them but what they have done is made clear that the EV (or 0 Emission Vehicle) is the vehicle of the future.
Tesla doesn't care that much if they get beat to market, in fact I would posit that the more EV's come to market before the Model 3 the better (for the world anyway). The iPhone was always an iPhone and many (not a majority) people have one, however over time all the other phone manufacturers decided to go with Android (as it was open source) and made their own phone, now they all fight for supremacy in the phone market. All the various androids have a way bigger market share than iPhones but the important thing is that we had a smart phone revolution. Most [read all] phones are smart phones these days and all cars will be electric cars soon.
Re: The Chevy Bolt Is the Ugly Car of the Near Future
#154I think it looks fine. You Americans have a weird dislike of hatchbacks. To European eyes, it just looks very normal. Good luck to GM but I suspect their dealerships won't bother trying to sell many of these.
I'm not sure that Americans do hate hatchbacks. The Ford Focus is so incredibly common everywhere I go. VW Golfs are common, too. I see quite a few Sparks in the city.
Plus like another comment said, many crossovers are just tall hatchbacks too. Subaru Outback, Ford Escape, Nissan Rogue, Toyota Rav4, taken to the extreme with the Buick Encore/Chevy Trax.
Re: The Chevy Bolt Is the Ugly Car of the Near Future
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hard disks do too but the difference is that for disks it's more or less an essential function. If you don't leave plenty of spare sectors over the very inevitable bad sectors will cause the drive to fail outright. Perhaps that's a decision I'd like to make myself but it's still an essential function no matter what. Leaving spare capacity in my battery isn't an essential function. That extra hundred or two miles the…
In practice, although HDD's are meant to be able to deal with bad blocks, and remap them, I have found the opposite to be true. (I've been working at a low level with disks for over a decade, writing data recovery apps and such) I have found in practice that by the time a HDD develops a single bad block, 99% of the time it's on a death spiral and it's going to completely die within a month or two. It seems like none…
In the past, a utility did the determination and remapping via off-disk software.
My understanding was the traditional "bad block" behavior was actually hidden - there are bad blocks that occur but the firmware silently remaps everything.
When you see a bad block at the level you can see via e.g. smartctl program, that means the space set aside for bad block remapping is full - the drive has already been silently failing for a while now.
Re: The Chevy Bolt Is the Ugly Car of the Near Future
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
That assumption is actually incorrect. Data: http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_li... Table 2 shows the lifespan of a typical Lithium Ion battery based upon various discharge depths. 100% discharge rates degrade to less than 70% of original capacity after only 300-500 cycles. 25% discharges hit the same value after 2,000-2,500 cycles. That level of discharge is fairly common with cars like the…
>25% discharges hit the same value after 2,000-2,500 This is exactly the point (and easy to miss) The degredation per energy used is about the same. 1 cycle of 100% = 4 cycles of 25% So the 300-500 cycle loss is equivalent to 500-625 when you divide the number of recharge cycles by 4. You _must_ do this for an apt comparison because what you should be interested in is how your capacity deacys with usage. Artificially…
I'm not sure that I understand your point right now.
With 300-500 cycles at 100% utilization, a 300 mile car would have degraded its battery to 70% after 90,000 - 150,000 miles. With 2,000-2,500 cycles of 25%, the car would have traveled 150,000 to 187,500 cycles.
That seems like a significant improvement to me?
Your point about supercharging is similarly valid, but also a little misleading. The big factor there is temperature and the Tesla packs use active cooling to reduce the hit from more aggressive charging. I'm not sure that anyone has really seen a significant impact from this.
Basically, battery quality and management matter. Tesla does those things pretty well.
Re: The Chevy Bolt Is the Ugly Car of the Near Future
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
The regen built into pedals feels strange to people not used to it. As does the regen which activates when you lift your foot off the gas. This was not done because they're incompetent, it was done to create a car which is more intuitive to people not used to electric cars.
If you've ever driven a manual car it's totally intuitive. Also incredibly easy to put behind a toggle(including creep) which Tesla does.
>If you've ever driven a manual car it's totally intuitive.
If you're talking about Americans, that number is going to be much, much lower than you'd think. Very few Americans have ever even seen a manual transmission.
Re: The Chevy Bolt Is the Ugly Car of the Near Future
#158Re: The Chevy Bolt Is the Ugly Car of the Near Future
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
Doubt it. You can only get a service manual if you live in a right to repair state.
Yes, and those totally do not get resold on eBay... ;-) Electric AC induction motors have very few breaking parts. The things that can break are more along the inverter/controller (capacitors, FET avalanche wear, etc) and auxiliary systems (A/C, etc.) One great thing about electric cars is that you don't need oil changes, belt replacements, or spark plug tune ups!
In my experience, post-2000 engines are pretty reliable too. I have a 03 Honda Pilot with 225k miles and an 05 Odyessy with 130k.
No real issues with engines other than maintenance. I think I had a bad EGR valve on the Pilot 10 years ago. Know what breaks? Electronic crap. Doorlock servos ($400), side door motors and rails ($800), various little modules, AC sensors, airbag crap not covered by recall, defective key cylinders, etc.
Re: The Chevy Bolt Is the Ugly Car of the Near Future
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you don't care about the electric drive, there are MUCH nicer cars available at the same price as a Tesla. It doesn't even compare. This is why I don't have a Tesla. I could afford one, but I have spent a lot of time in them, and they do not feel like a car in the price range that they are. The interior is fine, but not premium. The touch screen makes it feel like you're driving a computer, not a vehicle (not in a…
And yet, in the full-size luxury (US) car market the Tesla Model S is dominating. http://gas2.org/2016/02/15/tesla-model-s-outsells-mercedes-b...
is this fake news?