271–280 of 358 posts
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Inside a (properly designed) city you should not need (to own) a car at all.
Perhaps not everything in life is about need. I presume what you actually wanted to say is: you don't want other people in cities to own cars.
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Tesla doesn't do any blending of the brake pedal. Pressing the brake pedal always applies the friction brakes only. However, since a software update last year, they have had a one-pedal driving mode (Stopping mode "Hold"). In this mode, the vehicle is able to come to a complete stop without using the brake pedal, using a blend of re-gen and friction brakes to do so. In practice, it means it uses re-gen down to a very…
> Pressing the brake pedal always applies the friction brakes only Really? That seems odd, since even my Nissan Leaf increases regen with the initial application of the brake pedal.
But Teslas do not (at least not traditionally. Perhaps that has changed recently in the Model 3 if the other comment here is correct)
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For ICE cars, it depends on what the mfg has optimized for. I had an Infinity years ago and I remember that it was optimized for 70mph precisely as per the owner's manual. Higher or lower speeds would be less efficient.
If you really really care about miles per gallon, nearly any ICE car the most efficient way to drive is at or near idle in top gear, going about 25 mph. The difference is remarkable - a car which usually gets 50 mpg can easily get 100mpg with that approach, although obviously you can't practically drive like that on the public highway.
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I make an app (called Nikola, not the truck company) for Tesla owners that has seen over 5 MM miles driven on it. I did some quick queries to validate actual range vs. EPA range for those curious. My general takeaway is to see the EPA range as a useful, albeit unrealistic, indicator. Essentially nobody gets the EPA range, either because they choose not to go the speed limit, they accelerate harder than the EPA test f…
Air, rolling and other mechanical resistances are certainly part of the equation here, but the major driver of the decreased range at higher speeds is likely battery chemistry. When you apply a load to a cell, the voltage sags. Heavier load, bigger sag. When a battery is operated at low voltage, it loses efficiency - the total power available decreases significantly. If you ever buy batteries for, say, building your…
Source: design engineer at EV company.
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Perhaps not everything in life is about need. I presume what you actually wanted to say is: you don't want other people in cities to own cars.
Owning a car in a city is dumb. For some cities.
I live in the historic city center of a large European city and own a car. It's very comfortable, safe (especially during pandemics) and useful (for transporting things) and it's almost essential for me because I pick up the kids from their mother almost every weekend and that's a 40 Km drive one way, which takes about 3 times as long with public transport (and would force me to bring them back earlier, make it a real hassle to visit any sort of outdoor activity with them etc.).
I have yet to see anyone argue their condescending views about owning cars in cities with actual arguments, all I typically get is veiled hate for car owners from young, childless egoists who want more space for themselves. But let's hear why you think it's dumb!
Still wondering why they haven't announced a new, cheaper EV yet. Autonomy isn't such a big issue, price is. I know Tesla needs to develop its production scale, which means making low-quantity high-margin vehicles first. Did Tesla deliver all the model 3 yet? I'm pretty sure that selling a vehicle that can do 150km at a lower price could still sell well.
> Still wondering why they haven't announced a new, cheaper EV yet. They seem to be selling their current low-end cars as fast as they can make them, why should they attempt to divert their efforts to a new lower-margin car? They can leave the cheap EV announcements to other manufacturers like VW for people who want to buy an EV some time later...
why not?
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For ICE cars, it depends on what the mfg has optimized for. I had an Infinity years ago and I remember that it was optimized for 70mph precisely as per the owner's manual. Higher or lower speeds would be less efficient.
Similarly; I used to drive a "somewhat" performance enhanced Subaru Impreza WRX. One month I tried an experiment of driving as fuel conscious as I could. It improved 1 mpg over the normal 21 mpg. However in my Model S, there is a very direct and obvious correlation between efficiency and acceleration/speed. I don't really have a problem with my effective range being less do to my driving style as long as it's predict…
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> Still wondering why they haven't announced a new, cheaper EV yet. They seem to be selling their current low-end cars as fast as they can make them, why should they attempt to divert their efforts to a new lower-margin car? They can leave the cheap EV announcements to other manufacturers like VW for people who want to buy an EV some time later...
> why should they attempt to divert their efforts to a new lower-margin car? why not?
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"Nobody is going to buy this thing. I commute 250 miles each way to my job, in my pickup truck, hauling a load of lumber to a cabin 100 miles from civilization. There's no electricity out there. Call me back when Tesla makes a real car with real range. Anybody who buys these now is a sucker." FTFY. There's one of these in EVERY discussion of something Tesla releases :-)
To make your day I will add a post like that. A typical weekend for me involves driving ~150 miles to leave my car in the cold and wet in the middle of nowhere for 8 to 9 hours while I wander around some mountains. Only 2 superchargers in the country and their not between where I live and where I go. Is this unusual - absolutely (mind you plenty people here do similar things) - but range is an important factor to me.…