181–190 of 241 posts
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There are some dangerously short freeway on-ramps where I live, so "slightly-less-slow" can mean a few extra feet between me and a tractor-trailer.
Austin?
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Of currently available models, isn't that essentially ... one of them? And only in a straight line. Electrics have a ways to go before they're suitable candidates for things like track days.
Even a Leaf is fun due to the constant acceleration.
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> a Tesla uses about 300 Watts a mile @ 55 Mph This is nonsense. The dimensions are wrong. Watts are instantaneous power. To be meaningful, you would have to give either kWh/h or kWh per mile or km. Besides that 300 W is only 0.4 hp. Sorry, but that is just not credible.
Not to dispute your claim that it's low, but the physics checks out. The cited link saves me explaining it: >Reports are 300 W/mile at 55 mph. If you do the product of these two numbers (300 * 55) all units but W will cancell eachother out so the answer is 16500 W = 16.5kW The time component being on the mph allows the conversion.
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That is wrong. Almost all of the energy DC uses comes from its interconnect to the RFC grid. Locally, it does look like 2/3rd of the power DC generates is nat gas, and 1/3rd gas or gas-like, but it doesn't make sense in a grid structure to assume that the energy produced near you is the energy you use. https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=DC#tabs-1
Given that its neighbors' top two electricity sources seem to be Nat Gas and Nuclear, seems probable that most of the electricity comes from those sources
The reality is that anyone in the US, east of the rockies and not in texas will have the same 'mpg equivalent' for their Tesla.
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I visited a Tesla store once in mountain view, and they have a great little demo where you can check the cost of charging your car in various states. Washington DC, for whatever reason, gets its electricity from a gasoline power plant. In Washington, the Model S gets 28 MPG. This happened a while ago so I could be misremembering, but regardless I don't believe that the environmental value of electric vehicles has bee…
> This happened a while ago so I could be misremembering, but regardless I don't believe that the environmental value of electric vehicles has been realized Indeed. However, look at it this way: which is easier to replace, the entire fleet, or centralized power plants? Every time a new windmill or solar panel is added, your Tesla gets that much cleaner. And that's something you can do yourself if you want to. Electri…
The entire fleet I'd think. It's certainly much more likely to happen first.
(Cars have a much shorter average lifespan than power plants; the natural gas power plants we're building right now have a designed lifespan of up to 50 years. Very few cars coming of the production line today will be on the road in 50 years.)
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Austin?
I don't think I've ever seen so many comically/dangerously short on-ramps as in Pennsylvania.
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I know for more recent vehicles that is probably true, but as an owner of a 2006 F-150 with the 5.4L 3V Triton V8 that had the infamous spark plug issue, I had to lol with a tinge of sadness at your "last 15 years" comment. Backstory: Ford came out the gate with a new spark plug design for the 2004 F-150 3V Triton 5.4L V8 engine (after their previous spark plug design failure in the 2V Triton where the plugs would sh…
Well, that's sure unfortunate. I care for my father in law's focus, and the iridium plugs really were good for 100k miles. In 35 years of caring for cars I have never been so frightened by the sounds and feel of unscrewing a spark plug though. This is the one with a "permanent air filter" so they were thinking about eliminating maintenance. Boy this is going to suck when it is clogged.
>Compression ignition and a supercharger fitted to improve fuel economy together deliver unprecedented engine response and increase torque 10-30 percent over the current SKYACTIV-G gasoline engine.*3 Wow. I already have a 2016 Mazda 3 that gets around 40MPG (even though it's not a hybrid) and it's already pretty peppy. Probably the best car I've owned, and I've owned several nice sports sedans. Getting 40MPG is too c…
Acceleration is very zippy indeed, and the manual whilst not inviting the most efficient driving is an easy changing, short throw type. Tech level in the car is amazing: Radar cruise, AEB, blind spot monitoring, rear cross alert, Adaptive Front Lights (inside lights looks into the corner), etc etc.
It's very exciting to see normal petrol engines becoming so much efficient. Kudos to Mazda here. I'm hoping they'll have a hybrid or even all electric out by the time it's time for me to upgrade the current one.
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Gasoline engines aren't going away for a while; even when every self-driving car is electric, there will be a market for people who want gasoline engines. If it gives a bump in fuel economy to the next (last?) generation of gasoline and hybrid vehicles, great! I also wonder if the maintainability of these engines will be the same as with diesel. That would be another big benefit.
I visited a Tesla store once in mountain view, and they have a great little demo where you can check the cost of charging your car in various states. Washington DC, for whatever reason, gets its electricity from a gasoline power plant. In Washington, the Model S gets 28 MPG. This happened a while ago so I could be misremembering, but regardless I don't believe that the environmental value of electric vehicles has bee…
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I'm pretty sure "wear on the spark side" is an all but solved problem at this point. Most car engines made in the last 15 years have 100k mile lifetime on the entire spark system.
I know for more recent vehicles that is probably true, but as an owner of a 2006 F-150 with the 5.4L 3V Triton V8 that had the infamous spark plug issue, I had to lol with a tinge of sadness at your "last 15 years" comment. Backstory: Ford came out the gate with a new spark plug design for the 2004 F-150 3V Triton 5.4L V8 engine (after their previous spark plug design failure in the 2V Triton where the plugs would sh…
It's still running, though.