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"It's A Brick" - Tesla Motors' Devastating Design Problem

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Re: "It's A Brick" - Tesla Motors' Devastating Design Problem

#131

Post by cynicalkane »

pclark wrote: post #100

My confusion with Tesla is this: around the rest of the world - outside of USA - there are already very fuel efficient automobiles. 60, 80, even 90 miles per gallon are common and applauded in Europe. America has the opposite approach and appears to optimise for size, comfort and perceived safety. (SUVs, Trucks, large saloons.) None of the things American consumers appear to value are correlated in the Tesla. When I…

Euro testing cycles are more generous, MPG figures are quoted in Imperial gallons (which are larger), and probably because of less dense cities they tend to be more tolerant of smog belching diesels. Diesels are fuel efficient but it's expensive to make them pollution efficient enough to pass American regulations.

Many cars are the same in both countries. There isn't anything about America that makes them less efficient. The exceptions are those tiny city cars that Americans would never drive, and diesels.

Re: "It's A Brick" - Tesla Motors' Devastating Design Problem

#132

Post by potatolicious »

pclark wrote: post #96
3am wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are precisely wrong. Targeting people that already buy into energy efficiency has low payoff. Say you have your enlightened urban dweller, getting 50mpg. With the fancy new hybrids, let's say they double that and get 100mpg. Given 100K miles of driving, that saves 1000 gallons of fuel. Now, take your suburbanite SUV driver getting 20mpg. You only have to get their mileage to 25mpg to save the same amount of fuel…

The point OP is making is that these SUV people fundamentally do not care about efficiency - if they do not care, they have no interest in optimising their milage. The messaging is mostly wasted.

> " if they do not care, they have no interest in optimising their milage. The messaging is mostly wasted."

Right, and Tesla's messaging is not about efficiency. Their messaging has overwhelmingly been "holy shit this thing is fast! And green! And exclusive and the crowning achievement of our conquering of science and technology!"

Which isn't that different from traditional sports car marketing, except the green part.

Getting people to be more efficient does not necessarily mean selling efficiency to them and rallying them around it. CFLs and energy-efficient lighting has essentially become commonly as a fashion, as opposed to any significant increase in people's desire to be green. But I couldn't care less - if people are installing CFLs in their homes I don't really care how much they care about their electrical footprint.

Re: "It's A Brick" - Tesla Motors' Devastating Design Problem

#133

Post by throwaway64 »

jambalaya wrote: post #112
throwaway64 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

storing hot is what is detremental to lithium batteries, storing them cold increases lifetime

Should I store batteries I don't use in the fridge or freezer? I have a backup laptop battery for instance.

maximum lifetime is obtained when you store them at around 66% charge at 4C, which is the temperature of your fridge, take them out ever few months and charge them, you can get less than 1% capacity degradation a year.

Re: "It's A Brick" - Tesla Motors' Devastating Design Problem

#134

Post by haberman »

jdietrich wrote: post #75

Tesla are a sideshow and we desperately need to stop talking about them, because they're harming efforts to improve energy efficiency. Nissan are now in full production of the Leaf, a practical electric car that's half the price of the Model S. Renault have the Fluence ZE on sale in Israel and ready to go internationally this year. Mitsubishi are selling the i-MiEV in quantity in Hong Kong and Japan. All of these big…

Who said that electric cars have to be about energy efficiency? To me the primary reason to move to electric are to ditch petroleum and its associated problems (pollution, oil spills, foreign energy dependence).

The way to the future is to convince people that new technology is better for them. If the message instead is "you need to give up things you like for the greater good," people will oppose you at every move, and rightly so; do you really want to live in a world where computer screens are just barely bright enough to see, where buildings are sweltering on hot days, freezing on cold days, showers are cold, and the speed limit is never higher than 55mph?

Re: "It's A Brick" - Tesla Motors' Devastating Design Problem

#136

Post by pkulak »

modeless wrote: post #7
fleitz wrote: post #4

Every laptop that uses a lithium ion battery should have this problem. Oddly enough every laptop manufacture has included circuitry that cuts battery power when it reaches 5% (when the OS reports 0% it's actually ~1-5%). Tesla should have no problem fixing this, the onboard electronics will die anyway when the battery dies so why not have them die a few hours earlier and allow 'recovery' by charging the vehicle.

Batteries self-discharge, even when disconnected. 5% is probably not enough to last months, especially if the car is exposed to high temperatures.

So will my laptop "brick" also if I don't plug it in for a couple weeks?

Re: "It's A Brick" - Tesla Motors' Devastating Design Problem

#137

Post by modeless »

pkulak wrote: post #136
modeless wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Batteries self-discharge, even when disconnected. 5% is probably not enough to last months, especially if the car is exposed to high temperatures.

So will my laptop "brick" also if I don't plug it in for a couple weeks?

Yes. If you completely discharge your laptop and then stick it in a closet for a couple of months without charging it, the battery will likely be completely unrecoverable. The exact amount of time it takes will depend on the battery of course (and the ambient temperature).

Re: "It's A Brick" - Tesla Motors' Devastating Design Problem

#138

Post by maaku »

pkulak wrote: post #136
modeless wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Batteries self-discharge, even when disconnected. 5% is probably not enough to last months, especially if the car is exposed to high temperatures.

So will my laptop "brick" also if I don't plug it in for a couple weeks?

Yes, and I've done that. Took longer than a couple of weeks though. Brand new battery in a MacBook that discharged then went in storage for a while (a half-year I think). The next time I opened it the battery was completely dead and wouldn't hold a charge.

Re: "It's A Brick" - Tesla Motors' Devastating Design Problem

#139

Post by TechNewb »

pclark wrote: post #96
3am wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are precisely wrong. Targeting people that already buy into energy efficiency has low payoff. Say you have your enlightened urban dweller, getting 50mpg. With the fancy new hybrids, let's say they double that and get 100mpg. Given 100K miles of driving, that saves 1000 gallons of fuel. Now, take your suburbanite SUV driver getting 20mpg. You only have to get their mileage to 25mpg to save the same amount of fuel…

The point OP is making is that these SUV people fundamentally do not care about efficiency - if they do not care, they have no interest in optimising their milage. The messaging is mostly wasted.

>The point OP is making is that these SUV people fundamentally do not care about efficiency - if they do not care, they have no interest in optimising their milage. The messaging is mostly wasted.

I disagree. SUVs are a very common commodity in America, and there are many people whom acquired them for various practical reasons. I've had the same compact SUV since high school, over 10 years, and would love to 'upgrade' to an energy efficient electric car, I just can't afford it now, or any other car at this point in my career. Although I dream of the Model X, and think it's a great idea. I would rather take a train everywhere, but given America's infrastructure, currently a Model X is the next best thing.

Re: "It's A Brick" - Tesla Motors' Devastating Design Problem

#140

Post by david927 »

geori wrote: post #30
nash wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would agree. The whole document has a few little niggles that make me think it's BS, or at least severely overblown. Additionally they quote it's happened 5 times... by an un-named service manager.

Totally Agree. There are no names, only anecdotes and the science is suspect. This article is 100% B.S. and I wouldn't be surprised if it was planted by a competitor.

The bigger an industry is, the harder they fight for their existence. Elon Musk is not just taking on the second biggest industry, the auto industry. He's also taking on the biggest industry: oil.

It looks like they switched from ignore/mock to attack. He's getting somewhere.

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. --Gandhi

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