161–170 of 408 posts
Battery swap was always a gimmick -- you had to return to the same swap station later to get your same battery back or pay a huge fee. Come on.
It looks like they decided fires are worse PR than this gimmick is good PR.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I noticed that too but can't tell whether it's a plastic "rivet". If you look at the plastic fairings on your car, you'll see that many are held to the body with a snap-fit plastic connector. These are also used as blind fittings on many interior panels (such as door panels). They break and detach often enough that my local hardware store carries the more common ones.
Definitely a plastic rivet. It's too pointy to be a bolt, and you can see the thin 'head' separated from the flange which releases it.
Why would Elon choose to post on Medium and not on the blog of Tesla? It would definitively bring more credence to post it on their official website. Until reading near the end I wasn't sure it was a Tesla employee/official or a third party story (and I use the term story here and not article on purpose because usually on Medium it is more stories than facts ).
"We believe these changes will also help prevent a fire resulting from an extremely high speed impact that tears the wheels off the car, like the other Model S impact fire, which occurred last year in Mexico. This happened after the vehicle impacted a roundabout at 110 mph, shearing off 15 feet of concrete curbwall and tearing off the left front wheel, then smashing through an eight foot tall buttressed concrete wall…
Sounds plausible I Guess but I wonder how Tesla in this crash description circumvented Sir Isaac Newton’s laws of motion and the bodily damage the driver should have incurred on negative G's.
Very, very good idea. Personally I think the ground clearance is still a bit on the low side. It looks like it lost a bolt or something in the first impact image... oops.
Elon Musk is Batman, and i claim my five pounds.
"However, to improve things further, we provided an over-the-air software update a few months ago to increase the default ground clearance of the Model S at highway speeds" I know this is not specific to Tesla, but it's still really cool. :)
I'm sure there are strict security measures and a rigorous testing regime in place, but still the idea of some anonymous engineer being able to push an over-the-air update to my fast moving, two-ton lump of metal makes me a little nervous. (Tin foil hat mode) Imagine the implications of some malicious third party gaining access to that process.
All you have to do is browse http://www.reddit.com/r/justrolledintotheshop and you'll see so many people are not capable of having general maintenance done. Like this: http://imgur.com/a/VEeR9 the guy wanted to only have the flat tire repaired even though a strut went through his hood! Or this that is supposed to be a brake rotor : http://i.imgur.com/xhz90Bq.jpg
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Let's not forget that Tesla recently issued a recall for 29,000 charging adapters because they would overheat and catch on fire. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/15/automobiles/citing-chargin...
GM is currently recalling 1.6M cars which can accidentally turn off while driving: http://www.thewire.com/business/2014/03/gm-recall-mary-barra... (this has apparently resulted in a number of deaths, as the power steering stops working)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/14/us-gm-recall-casua...
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The problem is the expectations for other car manufacturers are much lower in terms of safety. So these companies do not try to push the safety envelope any higher. The exception would be Volvo.
Yep. Imagine there are plenty of gasoline cars that have the potential for the gas tank to be punctured, and well that seems like it could turn out much worse. The problem is that electric vehicles are scrutinized to the point that Tesla actually has to defend the one of chance that something punctures the battery pack. A lot of gas tanks are visible under a car with a thin layer of steel protecting them. The straps…
All that said, there is still the risk of the object striking some critical component in the engine of an ICE which is typically in the front. And the strike could easily damage something like a fuel line which could possibly start a fire.
"We believe these changes will also help prevent a fire resulting from an extremely high speed impact that tears the wheels off the car, like the other Model S impact fire, which occurred last year in Mexico. This happened after the vehicle impacted a roundabout at 110 mph, shearing off 15 feet of concrete curbwall and tearing off the left front wheel, then smashing through an eight foot tall buttressed concrete wall…
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And yet, I can't help but feel they're being very, very defensive over it. I can't blame them, of course, given how something trivial like a car fire (trivial given the average frequency of them) is turned into a national news event. At the same time, Tesla's attention to quality and perfection and what-have-you will end up in them being heavily scrutinised. It's not that different from Apple in that respect; random…
>It's not that different from Apple in that respect; random mp3 player breaks, no problem. iPod breaks and the torches and pitchforks come into view. Considering that a "random mp3 player" costs $6 on Amazon and that an Apple iPod costs over $200, I'd say people are totally justified to get upset. They spent the extra money expecting a product whose quality matched its price. I'd say this is true of cars as well. Whe…
Actually the doctor who owned one of the Tesla cars that caught fire said the car saved his life. He was happy to have been in a Tesla and was going to buy another one (before Musk actually gave him a replacement).
