The Tesla Approach to Distributing and Servicing Cars

Post by TeMPOraL » Tue, Oct 23, 2012, 11:01 AM UTC

marshallp wrote: post #33

ericdykstra wrote: post #14

Of course vested interests in old industries will do whatever they can to block innovation. We're seeing it with all major industry disruptions. It used to be enough for the vested interests to write laws to block out, limit, or otherwise hinder additional traditional competitors (taxi medallions, ridiculous license requirements for florists[1], etc). Now we're seeing these same groups try to initiate and bring in ne…

Hackers can defeat these entrenched interests. Set up online websites that work through these problems in a structured manner (like a mechanical turk for anti-corruption).

Post by protomyth » Tue, Oct 23, 2012, 11:19 AM UTC

bathat wrote: post #104

protomyth wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will guarantee it will not be free once electric cars get a bit more popular and legislators need money for roads. These charging stations provide a convenient venue for taxes. I would also imagine some bill will show up asking electric companies to tax home charging stations separately. Given the tax implications, I would also bet the 110v plug-ins will be made illegal for electric cars for "safety" reason ("safet…

>Given the tax implications, I would also bet the 110v plug-ins will be made illegal for electric cars for "safety" reason ("safety of a state's road tax revenue"). Meh, I don't think they'll need to. Somewhere on the Tesla website there is a cute little calculator that will tell you how long it takes to fully charge the Model S with the various charging adapters. As I recall, the 110V / 12A outlet takes something li…

Post by dagw » Tue, Oct 23, 2012, 11:47 AM UTC

Gring wrote: post #16

"The Product Specialists (...) goal and the sole metric of their success is to have you enjoy the experience of visiting so much that you look forward to returning again." This is not the experience I had. Walked into a Tesla store, said I want to test drive a Roadster. Salesman went into that profiling mode that all car salesmen do constantly and no customer likes, asking me all kinds of questions to find out how mu…

Post by marshallp » Tue, Oct 23, 2012, 3:13 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #131

marshallp wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hackers can defeat these entrenched interests. Set up online websites that work through these problems in a structured manner (like a mechanical turk for anti-corruption).

Websites won't fix the problem, but may group some people around it and enable them to solve the issue. I'm not saying that was your point, but in general I'm bewildered by this growing attitude that web-dev "hackers" can solve problems of humanity by just building a bunch of RoR websites. It managed to reach even at least one TED talk. Sounds to me mostly like front-end developers wanting to feel good that they're m…

Post by michaelt » Tue, Oct 23, 2012, 9:32 PM UTC

ghshephard wrote: post #117

michaelt wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Life expectancy of a car 150,000 to 300,000 miles [1] Cost of electricity: 6 to 12 cents per kWh [2] Performance of Model S: 300 miles in 85 kWh [3] Cost of Model S: $57,400 to $77,400 [3] Electricity cost: $2,550 to $10,200 Percentage of $57,400 vehicle cost: 4.44% to 17.77% There's also a supercharger 'activation fee' for the models that don't have the highest end battery [4] which presumably rolls in some of that…

95%+ of that 300,000 miles will be charged at home, or the office. Not at the long-distance interstate charging stations. That's the key - those superchargers are for long distance travel, not local travel.