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Changes to Models S and X allow them to travel longer without larger batteries

tesla.com

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Re: Changes to Models S and X allow them to travel longer without larger batteries

#311

Post by free652 »

georgerobinson wrote: post #303
brownbat wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oil changes belong in here somewhere too. I'm not sure if oil changes are the biggest source of profit, but they probably are the highest volume service. And those get customers in the shop for generally unnecessary upsells (like pumping cleaner into the climate control system to "flush" it? that is a scam, right?). Marketplace's analysis: https://www.marketplace.org/2017/08/24/sustainability/whats-... If anything, p…

It's interesting that a lot of readers here and websites in the U.S are saying oil changes every 3,000 or 5,000 miles. This is absolutely not the case in Europe where most cars are on 10,000 or 20,000 mile intervals. I wonder if this is due to much more diverse weather and temperatures you see in the U.S throughout the year and so different grades of oil are required that degrade much faster.

I am using my Honda's computer and it asks to change oil around 4500 miles mark. I am mostly drive in a city, so that's would be a cause. I know for others the computer uses more than 10k intervals.

Full synthetic oil/filter is about $60 to change here.

Re: Changes to Models S and X allow them to travel longer without larger batteries

#312

Post by rgoodwintx »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #272
codeulike wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Car batteries are not much like phone batteries. A car battery pack is a system in itself, with thousands of small cells supported by cooling, heating, monitoring and balancing systems. edit: there are recommendations for Tesla daily use that say go to 90% most of the time. But still a bit different to putting 12% completely out of reach like Audi have done.

Apparently the max charge percentage is user configurable, see https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/set-charge-limit.131...

Yep it's just a slider in the UI and app. I generally leave it set to 80% and then 100% for big trips.

Re: Changes to Models S and X allow them to travel longer without larger batteries

#313

Post by imglorp »

georgerobinson wrote: post #303
brownbat wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oil changes belong in here somewhere too. I'm not sure if oil changes are the biggest source of profit, but they probably are the highest volume service. And those get customers in the shop for generally unnecessary upsells (like pumping cleaner into the climate control system to "flush" it? that is a scam, right?). Marketplace's analysis: https://www.marketplace.org/2017/08/24/sustainability/whats-... If anything, p…

It's interesting that a lot of readers here and websites in the U.S are saying oil changes every 3,000 or 5,000 miles. This is absolutely not the case in Europe where most cars are on 10,000 or 20,000 mile intervals. I wonder if this is due to much more diverse weather and temperatures you see in the U.S throughout the year and so different grades of oil are required that degrade much faster.

I don't know the cause either but if you look at your oil, you can see it gradually turning colors, from pale ale to stout. At 5k in the US you're about at the latter, so I'm inclined to believe they're telling the truth.

Re: Changes to Models S and X allow them to travel longer without larger batteries

#314

Post by dboreham »

georgerobinson wrote: post #303
brownbat wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oil changes belong in here somewhere too. I'm not sure if oil changes are the biggest source of profit, but they probably are the highest volume service. And those get customers in the shop for generally unnecessary upsells (like pumping cleaner into the climate control system to "flush" it? that is a scam, right?). Marketplace's analysis: https://www.marketplace.org/2017/08/24/sustainability/whats-... If anything, p…

It's interesting that a lot of readers here and websites in the U.S are saying oil changes every 3,000 or 5,000 miles. This is absolutely not the case in Europe where most cars are on 10,000 or 20,000 mile intervals. I wonder if this is due to much more diverse weather and temperatures you see in the U.S throughout the year and so different grades of oil are required that degrade much faster.

It's due to people wanting to make more money, and succeeding.

Re: Changes to Models S and X allow them to travel longer without larger batteries

#315

Post by georgerobinson »

imglorp wrote: post #313
georgerobinson wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting that a lot of readers here and websites in the U.S are saying oil changes every 3,000 or 5,000 miles. This is absolutely not the case in Europe where most cars are on 10,000 or 20,000 mile intervals. I wonder if this is due to much more diverse weather and temperatures you see in the U.S throughout the year and so different grades of oil are required that degrade much faster.

I don't know the cause either but if you look at your oil, you can see it gradually turning colors, from pale ale to stout. At 5k in the US you're about at the latter, so I'm inclined to believe they're telling the truth.

As I replied in another comment:

> Oil changes color as it captures contaminates such as soot, carbon deposits, etc. It can operate effectively while brown-ish, but if the oil is carrying too much it will blacken and start to thicken at which point it will be much less effective at lubricating your engine.

Re: Changes to Models S and X allow them to travel longer without larger batteries

#316

Post by dboreham »

bluedino wrote: post #289
asmosoinio wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just read up on 3'000 to 5'00 mile intervals that might be prevalent in the US? To me that sounds crazy. Many synthetic oils are officially approved to 15'000 miles.

Nowadays cars use an engine life monitor and report to the owner that they need service every 8-10,000 depending on use

Recently manufactured cars we own have those oil life monitors but some research shows they simply run down a milage count. The dealership even asks me what mileage I would like it set to. Sales pitch suggests that the vehicle is monitoring actual oil characteristics but in fact it is not.

Re: Changes to Models S and X allow them to travel longer without larger batteries

#317

Post by fastbeef »

bluedino wrote: post #297
sjwright wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Question for ICE owners: Is having to regularly visit a fuel station ever a problem? Have you ever felt regret from not being able to wake up every morning with a "full tank" in the car? Point is, it's not a compromise, it's replacing one set of compromises with another. Yes, you are limited to driving for 4-5 hours before taking a 30-45 minute break (assuming your route has fast chargers) but that's fairly consisten…

What if you forget to plug in? What if you and your spouse or roommate have two Tesla’s and a one car garage? What if you have three? Who gets to charge? Can you charge all three in one night?

What if you forget to fill your ICE up?

What if you and your spouse or roommate have two ICEs and a one car garage?

You probably won't buy the EVs without checking you have the charging capacity before hand.

Re: Changes to Models S and X allow them to travel longer without larger batteries

#318

Post by windexh8er »

quanticle wrote: post #271
ajuc wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> EVs don't need the large established dealership base and their included maintenance facilities I never understood that. Why does power source matter in the context of dealership base and maintenance? EVs still break.

They break at much much lower rates, because they have many fewer parts. EVs don't have the pistons, valves, belts, fans, compressors, alternators, spark plugs, etc that gasoline engines have. There's probably order of magnitude fewer parts to break. Having seen the interior of an automatic gearbox, the surprising thing to me is that conventional automobiles are as reliable as they are.

> There's probably order of magnitude fewer parts to break.

According to Tesla a comparative ICE drivetrain will have around 200 moving parts, while one of their vehicles will have roughly 17.

The real upside is longevity. While it is a miraculous feat that machines, such as transmissions, last as long as they do today - they're not needed in electric vehicles. I think it's fair to assume we all expect 100k miles and more out of a car produced in the last decade. The two main components of a traditional ICE vehicle are the main contributors to longevity of a vehicle: engine and drivetrain. Those two items are of such high cost to replace many people will not consider the repair as replacement is more feasible.

As electric cars stand today longevity is significantly improved immediately. The major failure components will be batteries and electric motors. However the former can be considered a wear item and is, generally easy, to replace. The latter is also much cheaper and more simple to replace compared to the ICE equivalent. That being said the expectations of a BEV today are 300k+ miles with significantly less wear maintenance.

Finally as electric vehicles tend to be more modular it may very well be that we finally start to see platforms instead of model year differentials. If I have 'platform 1' here are motor, battery, electronics, etc upgrade options. We haven't seen this that bluntly yet, but I hope we get there. Cars today are built as non-upgradeable partially due to the built in life cycling / planned obsolescence the manufacturers have created for improved sales. It would be great if we could truly move cars to a more repair / upgrade centric platform. Not only could this spur new forms of labor and business but help waste reduction and overall manufacturing waste and pollution.

Re: Changes to Models S and X allow them to travel longer without larger batteries

#319

Post by incog-neato »

georgerobinson wrote: post #303
brownbat wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oil changes belong in here somewhere too. I'm not sure if oil changes are the biggest source of profit, but they probably are the highest volume service. And those get customers in the shop for generally unnecessary upsells (like pumping cleaner into the climate control system to "flush" it? that is a scam, right?). Marketplace's analysis: https://www.marketplace.org/2017/08/24/sustainability/whats-... If anything, p…

It's interesting that a lot of readers here and websites in the U.S are saying oil changes every 3,000 or 5,000 miles. This is absolutely not the case in Europe where most cars are on 10,000 or 20,000 mile intervals. I wonder if this is due to much more diverse weather and temperatures you see in the U.S throughout the year and so different grades of oil are required that degrade much faster.

Some oil places just straight up tell you a lower number even when the owner's manual of the car says a higher one. I just go with what the manual says, rather than some random Jiffy Lube employee.

Re: Changes to Models S and X allow them to travel longer without larger batteries

#320

Post by codeulike »

nottorp wrote: post #285
codeulike wrote: post #244

Compare to the Audi e-Tron, which has a fairly massive 95kWH battery but only scores 204 miles of EPA range. They claim they're only using 88% of the battery capacity so that charging is faster and battery longevity is preserved, but thats a really weird engineering decision that belies the fact they have made a terribly inefficient (and perhaps rapidly degrading?) battery pack/drivetrain. Meanwhile the base Model S,…

No idea what is actually going on, but the first thought that comes to my mind is that in the US you're allowed and expected to blatantly lie in marketing while in the EU you may have to keep it somewhat realistic...

No. I'm talking about the EPA (USA) rating of the e-Tron vs other cars. EPA ratings for EVs are generally pretty accurate vs real world range, although in the real world a lot depends on driving style and weather etc.
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