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Stalled Out on Tesla’s Electric Highway

nytimes.com

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Re: Stalled Out on Tesla’s Electric Highway

#91

Post by __--__ »

peteforde wrote: post #14

As a fan of Tesla's efforts, it pains me to read this; no matter where the blame lies (physics, bad planning, poorly tested diagnostics software) this article will haunt the company for years. Every oil lobbyist will eat this up, and it should become the foundation of any EV-haters argument. And that sucks. However, I'm annoyed that Tesla's UX people let a car with this much design intelligence leave without connecti…

It's going to haunt not just Tesla for years, but all electric vehicles. And with good reason - calculating the remaining potential energy of Lithium batteries is difficult, even without throwing in the variable of temperature. It is not, by any means, "simple physics". The battery is a weak point in all EVs right now, and not just because of this.

Full disclosure, I own a Zero motorcycle. The thing is amazing in SF city traffic. It's less amazing on the highway. You should read up on Terry Hershner. He's taken a Zero motorcycle cross country by driving for 45 minutes and charging for 45 minutes. So, it can be done, but road trips are not the optimal use case for an electric vehicle. yet. :)

Re: Stalled Out on Tesla’s Electric Highway

#92

Post by Corrado »

saulrh wrote: post #7

This blog post states the obvious: early adopters better know what they're in for and what they're doing. The author isn't an experienced early adopter and doesn't know what they're doing, and rightly concludes that the technology isn't ready for universal mainstream use. Unfortunately, the article entirely fails to address the point and is aimed squarely at an audience that won't get it either. It will be used as am…

You could probably say the same thing for the first gasoline cars on the road or even the Model-T. I'm sure there were people saying things like "Well, if you run out of gasoline you're stuck. I can just stop at a field and let my horse eat some grass and I'm back on the road."

Early adopters in any age will have a rough time, that's kinda the definition of early adopter. However, in a hundred years people are going to be as familiar with this technology as we are with liquid fuel. They'll probably look back at us and chuckle about how primitive we were with our "battery" technology. :)

Re: Stalled Out on Tesla’s Electric Highway

#93

Post by andrewmccall »

jzwinck wrote: post #68
purplelobster wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For sure. The lack of charging stations will eventually be solved, but longer charging times and unreliable readings might be with us forever. Hopefully the cost offset for fuel will make it worth it.

Regarding unreliable readings of remaining charge, I'm of two minds. Consider digital cameras, which use a similar battery chemistry. For more than a decade, Sony has for some reason been basically the only manufacturer whose cameras produce a fairly specific and reliable indication of time remaining. Maybe it's a patent thing, but my Sony prosumer camera from 2002 had a better indicator than pretty much anything not…

I'm not saying the tesla couldn't be better or that they couldn't learn something from Sony. But part of the author's complain was that he had one reading in the evening and when the temperature dropped overnight his reading the next morning was drastically lower.

Also a while a digital camera does get to spend some time outdoors it spends most of it's life in fairly people comfortable environment.

Re: Stalled Out on Tesla’s Electric Highway

#94

Post by mh- »

nickv wrote: post #56
revelation wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The battery pack is not distributed throughout the car, and it is actually designed to be somewhat hot-swap capable in the Model S. It's just that for the majority of people, battery swapping makes no sense. They can charge their vehicle over night at very very cheap prices and have enough range to serve them all day. If you insist on taking a cross-country roadtrip, rent an ICE - the infrastructure is just not there…

I've heard that awhile back, but based on the new designs I've seen for the "battery base" I don't see how that's possible? Pic of the battery: (which is really the base of the whole car) http://www.cartype.com/pics/10143/full/tesla_model_s_battery...

that battery has its own wheels..

Re: Stalled Out on Tesla’s Electric Highway

#95

Post by stcredzero »

greenyoda wrote: post #42
stcredzero wrote: post #4

My friends think I'm dowdy. Until recent years, I was very conservative about estimates. Every "event" in a trip adds 5 minutes, no matter how "nothing" it seems. I was often too early, but never late. A Tesla S with the 260 mile battery, I would treat like a car with 130 miles range. Plenty for an around town commuter and errand vehicle. A Leaf, I would treat like a 50 mile range car. Also, why don't those things co…

Having to put a propane heater into a shiny, high-tech electric car would be a marketing disaster: it would emphasize that battery capacity was something that drivers have to worry about under normal driving conditions. Plus, Tesla could no longer claim that their car had zero CO2 emissions.

> Having to put a propane heater into a shiny, high-tech electric car would be a marketing disaster: it would emphasize that battery capacity was something that drivers have to worry about under normal driving conditions.

Battery capacity is, though, just like it is something you think about when driving a petro fuel car. Drive a diesel? You need to think about gelling fuel in Vermont in January. For a supposedly well educated technological society, an awful lot of us seem to engage in magical thinking.

Re: Stalled Out on Tesla’s Electric Highway

#96

Post by 001sky »

codex wrote: post #84
wlesieutre wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The car works great when it isn't cold. If the mileage estimates aren't taking temperature into account, that seems like something Tesla should be addressing in software. A relative gauge or percentage would be one thing, but if you tell the driver it's going to get 100 miles, they need to know it can make that to the next charging station.

From what I can glean from the article, it may not be possible to completely address the problem in software, because weather prediction is inexact, and it's hard to account for all eventualities. The software can say, "100 miles of range unless the temperature drops more than 5 degrees from forecast, or unless it turns out your hotel has no indoor parking, or if you have to stay late at work and your car spends an e…

because weather prediction is inexact, and it's hard to account for all eventualities.

-- why not engineer a stable micro-climate for the battery?

Re: Stalled Out on Tesla’s Electric Highway

#97

Post by ChuckMcM »

001sky wrote: post #96
codex wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I can glean from the article, it may not be possible to completely address the problem in software, because weather prediction is inexact, and it's hard to account for all eventualities. The software can say, "100 miles of range unless the temperature drops more than 5 degrees from forecast, or unless it turns out your hotel has no indoor parking, or if you have to stay late at work and your car spends an e…

because weather prediction is inexact, and it's hard to account for all eventualities. -- why not engineer a stable micro-climate for the battery?

That is sort of what I was wondering but recognize such systems are tricky given the feedback. Also turning electricity into heat is hugely inefficient on cold drives, if I were Tesla I would consider a 'cold weather' kith where you could put a bottle of propane in the trunk or something which could run a catalytic heater without consuming any battery power except for recirculating fans.

Re: Stalled Out on Tesla’s Electric Highway

#98

Post by MJR »

bengl3rt wrote: post #38
nlh wrote: post #16

So I run a luxury car rental company and one of the most common questions I get from folks these days (especially those in the tech community) is: "When are you guys getting a Tesla?" This article is _exactly_ why we're not getting one for the fleet anytime soon, and it's basically the answer I've been giving people since the Roadster came out (and the questions started). Tesla is an awesome, awesome company. I'm a f…

Off topic, but... Luxury car rental company? Please tell me more (like do you have a website??) I ask because I know of a couple of luxury car rental companies, but there is one ore more things about each of them that make them exceedingly unpleasant to deal with. I would be interested to try doing business with a luxury car rental company that is run by people who also read HN - seems to be a good signal for not-tot…

A little googling later... http://www.gothamdreamcars.com/

Re: Stalled Out on Tesla’s Electric Highway

#99

Post by notdrunkatall »

revelation wrote: post #58
notdrunkatall wrote: post #48

As a TSLA shareholder and as a general fan of the company, this is disappointing. TSLA's been doing everything right, which is what has given them so much momentum so early in the game, and if they are going to be the big disruptor that I'm betting on, they cannot afford to lose that momentum. If they start mis-stepping, they won't last long, and this is a misstep that many, many people at TSLA should have seen comin…

There is no magic fix for this. It's like asking to turn off gravity and friction so you can have a more comfortable trip. The reason for the big losses in the cold is the battery management system that is trying to keep the pack warm and has to expend energy to do so. You can opt not to do any battery management, but then you get thermal runaway and a life-threatening Boeing situation, or (in the cold) your battery…

No, they didn't. The best option would have been to test the car in real-world sub-freezing temperatures and to have worked out the bugs in how the system reports remaining charge to the driver.

Obviously, lithium batteries are going to lose charge in colder weather - that's just physics, but the problem here was twofold: one, the inherent limitation in the battery itself, but perhaps more importantly, how the car reports available charge to the driver in those conditions. If the car tells me that I have 100 miles to drive, I should have 100 miles left to drive. That it does not is a design flaw, and one that should not have been overlooked, plain and simple.

Re: Stalled Out on Tesla’s Electric Highway

#100

Post by notdrunkatall »

nickv wrote: post #60
revelation wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no magic fix for this. It's like asking to turn off gravity and friction so you can have a more comfortable trip. The reason for the big losses in the cold is the battery management system that is trying to keep the pack warm and has to expend energy to do so. You can opt not to do any battery management, but then you get thermal runaway and a life-threatening Boeing situation, or (in the cold) your battery…

Possible valid fixes: - Have the reporting system look at current temperature and change the reported range. - More supercharger stations closer together. (200 miles apart for a reported range of 268?! Ballsy. Especially in the extreme cold of the northeast. Reckless when you are giving a car to a NYTimes reviewer.) - Don't have the parking brake LOCK so you can't even move the car without a flatbed truck. - Have the…

Even better would be to fetch the local weather forecast, and when temperatures are predicted to drop, to warn the driver and ask him to take a look at a line graph of temperature/charge as a function of time. At least that way, the driver will have an idea of what he should do.
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