101–110 of 142 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hm, even LED TVs use something like 30W, don’t think you’d get much out of dimming a tablet sized screen. 50W for 5 hours is 250Wh, which is a mile extra range. That’s worth having.
> 50W for 5 hours is 250Wh, which is a mile extra range. That’s worth having. That represents about 0.5% of a Tesla's advertised range.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hm, even LED TVs use something like 30W, don’t think you’d get much out of dimming a tablet sized screen. 50W for 5 hours is 250Wh, which is a mile extra range. That’s worth having.
What’s funny is all of these trade offs have always applied to ICE cars as well, but for some reason no one cares. Blasting your radio shortens your range even in a gas vehicle. Running your wipers shortens your range even in a gas car.
This may be a stupid question but, is there a reason cars don't just have a single blade that goes straight across, rather than wiping in this arc motion? It seems like it'd do a much better job of wiping and avoiding streaks if it just went straight across.
The Lotus Exige (and the Elise I believe) has a single blade. It might have to do with the unusual curvature of the windshield.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hm, even LED TVs use something like 30W, don’t think you’d get much out of dimming a tablet sized screen. 50W for 5 hours is 250Wh, which is a mile extra range. That’s worth having.
What’s funny is all of these trade offs have always applied to ICE cars as well, but for some reason no one cares. Blasting your radio shortens your range even in a gas vehicle. Running your wipers shortens your range even in a gas car.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tesla is one of the most open companies with their patents [1]. I don’t share your scepticism. I would think this is protection against someone else patenting the idea and inhibiting their ability to innovate. [1] https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-you
Tesla's way of opening up patents is interesting. Hopefully someone more knowledgeable on the topic can chime in, but my understanding is that Tesla's just saying they won't initiate a lawsuit if they believe you're using their patent in "good faith". Tesla's lawyer's clarification made their "good faith" restriction much more restrictive: A party is “acting in good faith” for so long as such party and its related or…
Toyota announced the patent release five years after Tesla, and its mostly for technology released in 1997 for the Prius, hardly anything revolutionary now. By the way if you manage to find their contact form re. this, it says "We have closed accepting inquiries for technical support."
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Silicone wipers naturally leave behind a thin silicone film on the glass. Once this film is in place, the water serves as a pretty decent lubricant so long as it's raining.
I’ve found that a windshield at a shallow angle and RainX can negate the need for wipers at high speeds.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What’s funny is all of these trade offs have always applied to ICE cars as well, but for some reason no one cares. Blasting your radio shortens your range even in a gas vehicle. Running your wipers shortens your range even in a gas car.
"some reason" being you can just add an extra liter to the fuel tank, not the case for batteries.
Are HN posters really this dumb?
... is what i would have said.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tesla's way of opening up patents is interesting. Hopefully someone more knowledgeable on the topic can chime in, but my understanding is that Tesla's just saying they won't initiate a lawsuit if they believe you're using their patent in "good faith". Tesla's lawyer's clarification made their "good faith" restriction much more restrictive: A party is “acting in good faith” for so long as such party and its related or…
Those restrictions sound pretty reasonable - you wave the right to sue them for patents only. Would be kind of odd to use one of their patents freely while suing the opposite way. Toyota announced the patent release five years after Tesla, and its mostly for technology released in 1997 for the Prius, hardly anything revolutionary now. By the way if you manage to find their contact form re. this, it says "We have clos…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hm, even LED TVs use something like 30W, don’t think you’d get much out of dimming a tablet sized screen. 50W for 5 hours is 250Wh, which is a mile extra range. That’s worth having.
What’s funny is all of these trade offs have always applied to ICE cars as well, but for some reason no one cares. Blasting your radio shortens your range even in a gas vehicle. Running your wipers shortens your range even in a gas car.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hm, even LED TVs use something like 30W, don’t think you’d get much out of dimming a tablet sized screen. 50W for 5 hours is 250Wh, which is a mile extra range. That’s worth having.
Tesla's speaker system is 200/560W. So it's possible to get to 50W just from screen and speaker savings. And that's assuming constant worse case use of the wipers: high speed and full load like you're driving through a waterfall. Pulling up a spec sheet for a wiper motor, it looks like normal load is only supposed to draw ~6-10W.
I imagine the most important way is to ensure optimal tire pressure at all times. Many people tend to ignore this even when having pressure sensors at hand which leads to a whole lot of wasted fuel.
The reason wipers only received minor optimizations over the decades is because they work well, are cheap and enviably reliable. So any new wiper system design has a high bar to pass, beyond using new tech.