311–320 of 575 posts
Ok as a mechanic a few million questions: * What happens when a wheel seal goes? Do I have to remove all that ridiculous plastic on #2,3 axels?? * What happens when a tire blows? Is it going to destroy all that plastic and take out a few more tires in the process? * Why all the glass? I've spend entire days replacing windshields for a 12 or so truck shop which generally come in two (drivers and passengers), the Tesla…
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>think things through pretty comprehensively from all angles and plan effectively for what's needed. Is that why model 3 production is going so well?
Pretty sure Model 3 production is going amazingly well, yeah. Astoundingly well. But the media's portrayal of it has people convinced otherwise. Let's try this perspective instead: "Decade-old electric car company moves up plan for mass production of new affordable long-range sedan by 2 years" And then ask ourselves, after moving it up by 2 years, does a 3-month delay mean "things are going badly"? If I say I'm going…
Is a center seating position common for truck drivers? It looks amazing , but it is different enough from my normal consumer driving experience as to make the entire product a non-starter if it were in a consumer car. I've developed decades of training and muscle memory sitting on the left side of the car. I wonder if there will be a measurable impact on accident rates.
Mclaren is a consumer car with a center seat: https://www.google.com/search?q=mclaren+center+seat&tbm=isch
It seems like it will require a $5000 deposit (with a $50,000 "full deposit") and the truck will cost between $200,000 and $250,000, according to the page source.
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In the year to 2017-Aug, total US solar generation was 72.1 TWh, amounting to 1.80% of total US electricity (predicted to reach 5% by 2022; in 2016 US solar capacity almost doubled from the year before). Tesla semi consumption: One charge: 500 miles => There are about 2 million semi trucks in the US (tractor trailers). Assume that each semi fully charges once a day, 300 days a year. The conversion of all of the count…
There’s a lot of surface area on top of a trailer, just saying.
You can't effectively power any vehicle with 15% efficient solar panels.
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You should probably watch the actual reveal, it's already on YouTube. The glass was already addressed and he gave it a specific focus. Even claiming it can withstand an atomic blast.
A few other people have also referenced the "reveal". Does anyone know what is meant by this, and have a link ?
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Brakes in trucks are already using regenerative braking for about 20 years right now and its called retarder. Because conventional braking is too expansive.
I took an interest in this and looked up "retarder" on Wikipedia and it mentions engine braking (and exhaust braking), hydraulic retarders and electric retarders which are eddy current brakes more commonly used in the railways. Which one are you referring to? According to the article, most commonly these are not used for regenerative braking, the energy is wasted as heat instead. Eddy current brakes can be used for r…
Originally, it is right that retarders were introduced to just having a non-destructive brake by just wasting the energy. That was around the 1980s. This was just to save maintenance cost as brakes were a big part of that costs.
The trucking industry is about costs and every little penny you can safe. So, years ago it started: Why do we waste that energy and do not re-charge the battery with that, because that reduces load from the generator and that will reduces fuel consumption?
Retarders have a huge impact in costs when your are counting miles. Retarders are having the disadvantage you can't brake to full stop with them. That's why they never worked in cars, because they are always additional to conventional brakes. So they add complexity and weight, both of which you want to reduce in cars.
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Security screws on purchasable goods really need to be banned for anything that doesn't pose an immediate and extreme health and safety hazard.
And I don't think anything sold in the US today, not to the Department of Defense, has anything that poses "an immediate and extreme health and safety hazard".
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Elon Musk decided that spending days or a week preparing for a presentation is not the best use of his time. At least that much time is generally what it takes to pull off a really smooth presentation. I heard that he does not script them and just does them off the top of his head. Tim Urban has a great essay about different levels of prep people do for talks [1] which he wrote when preparing to give a Ted talk. Musk…
Considering Tesla is depending on it's image to get more money to fill the gap of it's ever deepening losses, spending days preparing a presentation is the best use of his time. Tesla has a price-to-sale ration of nearly 6, while Nissan and GM are <0.5. So Tesla is mostly image and vision, not reality. Therefore it depends on Musks presentations with visions of a glorious future.
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Smoke detectors contain highly toxic Americum 241 isotope. It's not that hard to remove it from the ionization chamber.
Most modern domestic smoke detectors are now photoelectric, rather than ionization based. Not only do they not contain toxic Americum 241, photoelectric smoke detectors are also both more sensitive to real fires and less prone to false alarms. (The later is actually really important, as people will often disable smoke detectors in response to a false alarm - and then forget about them)