It's pretty hard to fake a vehicle's range. It's a lot easier to oversell an experimental system which isn't available to the general public and won't be for 6 months - ∞.
> It's pretty hard to fake a vehicle's range. No it isn't. There are so many variables that go into range, from road conditions, weather, driver habits, wind, that nobody actually gets the exact stated range anyway. I'm not saying they're faking it, but it certainly wouldn't be pretty hard.
But eventually people actually drive these cars and notice these things
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,…
But the Audi e-Tron is incredibly massive: curb weight of about 5600 lbs/2500 kg. The Model S is closer to 4600-4900 lbs. The Niro EV is about 3800 lbs.
This is true. But if you compare it to the Model X which is about the same weight you'll still end up with the same conclusion - the battery/drive train of the e-Tron is not well engineered.
The base Model X probably has a 70/80 kWH battery - smaller, lighter and cheaper then the one in the e-Tron, and its supposed to be getting a 250 mile EPA rating.
That $US20k seems to be purely marketing bullshit, aimed to sucker US buyers. :( Easy seen as such too. Compare the "Ludicrous Mode" for the Model X on the US website (US$20k) to the same thing on the Australian website (AUS$8.5k): https://www.tesla.com/modelx/design?redirect=no#battery https://www.tesla.com/en_AU/modelx/design?redirect=no#batter... Note - you need to select "Performance" on the right side, for Ludic…
> That $US20k seems to be purely marketing bullshit, aimed to sucker US buyers. :( Why is this a problem? In all luxury cars there are some options priced much higher than the actual cost (e.g. fancy wheels). They exist to bolster the car maker's margins and help sell the lower end versions at lower prices, so you and the average buyers profit. Nobody actually needs Ludicrous, so pricing it like this is in no way imm…
> Why is this a problem?
It's only $20k in the US, and as other people have mentioned... it doesn't seem to have been $20k until this press release.
If you have no problem with that, then no worries. ;)
At the last investors meeting, battery production is what Elon said is the main bottleneck at this time for model 3s. AFAIK, all the others are going to get their batteries from third party vendors (except maybe Nissan?). That is going to cause a cost for everyone but Tesla.
isn’t Panasonic the ones that provide all of the batteries that end up in Teslas? my understanding is that Panasonic has been losing money so they’ve started scaling back production. which lead to Musk taking shots at them.
Panasonic provide the cells, Tesla combines thousands of cells into battery packs, and the battery packs are quite complex bits of engineering, with monitoring, cooling, heating, balancing etc.
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…
> 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
Are there "wear items" in ICE vehicles that cost anything like as much as replacing the batteries in an EV?
A few observations, before I derail I do not want to dismiss the efforts of Audi or Jaguar but I think their initial focus was being good examples for their respective brands with regards to their packaging. Their interior quality of a different generation and caliber than Tesla. The EV part was an important concern but secondary. They can still rack up significant ZEV credits in California letting them off the hook…
Good point. Having driven Model S/X/3'es as well as an e-tron and i-pace I can absolutely echo your statement. Teslas offer a different USP than E-Tron/I-Pace alikes. It's EV vs. Premium-Cars that happen to be EVs. If you've never owned a (premium) car and thus have no feeling for differences in interior- and general-manufacturing-quality, a Tesla is the reasonable choice (it even maybe that an Audi's interior will c…
I have a VW Golf R and test drove a Tesla M3 last week. I had set my expectations ahead of time but I was still let down by the interior quality of the vehicle. German auto companies have a great understanding of what makes a car feel like higher quality. It is a mix of design, materials, fit, usability, and sound. VW group, Mercedes Benz, and BMW spend considerable amount of money refining the user experience. Tesla is early in its life cycle and likely prioritizing drive train, batteries, and auto pilot. I see Teslas as more utilitarian in that sense, but I won't kid myself. I love the feeling of a well built car that can go fast and feel fast and sound fast while keeping me happy with creature comforts. Side note, the M3 should really have a full hatch instead of the traditional sedan trunk.
> 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. Audi chooses to limit cha…
> Audi chooses to limit charging thresholds to preserve battery life and your conclusion is that they must have a rapidly degrading battery pack? I mean, that would be a weird reason to limit it, but every other reason is weird too. 12% degradation over 100k miles would be pretty high. They've started with 12% degradation from the factory by design in order to avoid it! I can't think of a good reason for this, tbh.
I suspect they desperately want to avoid further scandal, especially with electric cars because these are supposed to be turning over a new leaf after dieselgate. They're not sure exactly how well battery thermal management will work, so they choose a strict limit. I suppose if they find there isn't a problem they could relax it OTA. No-one complains if they get more later, only if they get less.
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.
> 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. If you buy a new ICE powered vehicle, how many of any of the parts you mention would one expect to replace in - for instance - the first three years of the vehicles' life? Our experience is that the first few years of a ICE vehicle's life i…
The average age of the vehicle on the road in the US is about 10 years. Not everyone buys brand new cars, and after a few years things start to break.
Although from my experience things not related to drivetrain 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.
> 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. If you buy a new ICE powered vehicle, how many of any of the parts you mention would one expect to replace in - for instance - the first three years of the vehicles' life? Our experience is that the first few years of a ICE vehicle's life i…
The average car on the road is closing in on 12 years old [1] so you can't just look at the first 3 years. The first few years of an ICE vehicle might be very similar to an EV, but that changes drastically as a car ages.
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 heard it is a hangover from the days of using mineral oil. Modern synthetic oils last much longer.
Synthetics last for so long that the breakdown of oil is not really a concern anymore. The primary reason to change a synthetic oil is due to contamination.
Modern engines are designed with much, much better tolerances than before and crank cases no longer vent into the atmosphere. If you use new synthetic oil in an old small-block Chevy, the oil will hold up for a long time, but it will be so contaminated by gasoline, moisture, and debris that it will still require shorter replacement intervals.