Tesla Model 3 - WOOF!!!

[Drifterdon]

Yup...classic cars is where it is at in my opinion....but you always need to have a practical daily driver for when the weather is bad etc.

Totally agree Steve. My daily driver is an '09 Focus that gets 29 MPG in the city.

BTW - Under the car cover in the background is my 70 GTO.

Edited April 3, 2016 by Drifterdon

[Trigger]

Interestingly enough, I read an article a few weeks ago that stated that the Japanese aren't putting too much effort into electric vehicles anymore - they're focusing on hydrogen powered vehicles.

I remember first reading in Popular Mechanics (or was it Popular Science? I get the two mixed up) about how Hydrogen powered vehicles were going to be the next big thing back when I was in High School.

That was over 20 years ago.

Nissan had a pilot program out in California some years ago, where the car was fine - it ran on a Hydrogen slush fuel and it emitted H2O. It refueled at a solar-powered station that produced the slush fuel. The problem was, it took several hours for the station to produce a single gallon of the fuel. That's okay if a station's assigned to a single vehicle that has to be refueled once or twice a week, but such stations are large and expensive and extrapolate this into a real world scenario and yeah...not practical.

A huge shortcoming with FCVs is that they cannot be reliably filled in less than an hour and, even then, only to about half full, so they're much slower than a Tesla can charge. And that's if you can find a place to refuel.

Last year, Hyundai Tucson Fuel Cell drivers were angry because they can't reliably fuel their cars. The few hydrogen stations in the areas of Southern California where the company is leasing cars aren't open reliably, they say. When they are, sometimes only one or two cars an hour can be fueled. One Tucson Fuel Cell driver says he loves his car, but questions why he's paying $500 a month for a car he now hasn't been able to drive in five weeks because all three hydrogen stations within 20 minutes of his home or workplace have been down for more than a month. The closest station, five minutes away at a Shell site in Newport Beach, has been "struggling"- and that at best it can only fill his Tucson Fuel Cell to half capacity. That station really suffers from demand, with occasional lines of one or more drivers waiting for it to come up to pressure so they could refuel. Ten minutes away, a station by the University of California--Irvine campus has been closed for upgrades. And a model "tri-cycle" station in Fountain Valley, about 15 minutes from his home - which used methane from buried trash as a feedstock, lowering its carbon footprint - has now been shuttered for almost five months. Hyundai includes unlimited free hydrogen fuel as part of its $500 monthly lease cost (with $3,000 due at signing).

On the private Facebook group, one Tucson Fuel Cell driver wrote:

I have leased a fuel-cell vehicle for a little over a year now. The expectations that were being portrayed then - 15 stations being up by the end of 2014 - fell woefully short. There are eight so-called active consumer stations, with three currently working as of this writing.

They go down for months at a time, and I find the claims now being made - that there will be 20 new ones in 2015 - as bordering on gross misrepresentation. I see NOTHING in the way the California Fuel Cell Partnership and the State of California are handling the current stations that leads me to believe that this will be the case.

I would say that my wife and I are HUGELY disappointed as we firmly believe in this technology .... But if someone does not plant a huge boot in the behind of the people who are in control of delivering the fueling infrastructure, this will be an epic fail.

But neither Hyundai nor Toyota, which is in the process of launching its hydrogen-powered 2016 Mirai, is responsible for providing the fuel or ensuring a functioning infrastructure. Instead, that task falls to a variety of organizations that own or operate the stations. In 2014, the state of California committed $100 million over five years to building 100 hydrogen fueling stations in the state by 2020, in partnership with Toyota, Hyundai, and Honda, and private companies like First Element Fuel as well.

If a $2 million dollar filling station cannot reliably fill up more than 1 fuel cell car an hour, increasing capacity to 10 times that amount, which will be required just for moderate reliability, will be even less economically feasible.

As of July 2015, there were only 23 hydrogen-fueling stations in Japan.

At a recent LA Auto Show, Honda stated that the new Clarity FCV will cost “just” $0.20/mile to fuel up. A 20 mpg ICE automobile in Southern California will cost ~$0.17 per mile (using avg fuel price over the last year) or for those who actually pay attention to the mpg rating, a Toyota Prius Hybrid @ 45 mpg comes in at around $0.08 per mile. The nail in the coffin comes when you look at the Nissan Leaf, which is just under $0.04 per mile (at Tier 1 retail electricity pricing in Southern California, $0.15/kWh).

On top of that, with an electric car, you can install solar panels, geothermal, or a small wind turbine at your residence (assuming they are allowed and make sense) and generate your own “fuel.” For fuel cells, that’s still quite a few years away from being a possibility — or, more realistically, seeing as how there will be direct competition from big oil, it will likely never happen.

When I first read about them over 20 years ago, I wanted Hydrogen to be the next big thing too, but FCVs are shaping up to be akin to Hybrids - a technological dead end. After two-plus decades of development, the best FCVs don't equal the current state of the art of lithium ion batteries. FCVs cannot be expected to offer compelling cost or performance benefits to consumers.They are without equal when it comes to misdirection and as a tool for extracting public funds from officials only too ready to be blind-sided by pseudo-science and the lobbying of vested interests in a nation struggling to triage the cost of foreign oil and consumer environmental concerns while newly awash with abundant cheap Natural Gas from hydraulic fracturing of shales. It is just that the false promise of hydrogen is such a dangerous deception in environmental terms that it cannot be allowed to go undetected at the eleventh hour for the environment and on the eve of genuine progress with simultaneous break throughs in solar energy costs and Electric Vehicles capable of addressing the mid market.

[Berkut]

You should buy socks more regularly, you stink this place up no end.

Says the guy that hasn't contributed to any discussion i have ever seen including this one, well, beyond just bragging about your new purchase. But hey, cultural differences i suppose. Besides, my socks are reusable after a wash. :)/>/>

Not everything, but this? You do because you have no idea what your talking about. And yes, most folks I know have taken the cross country road trip...for some of us every two years! It's not the cross country road trip that's even an issue, its the smaller road trips to the parks, God's country, etc. Want to go see the Rocky Mountains in Colorado? Not happening. Want to drive from Kansas City to Omaha? Nope. North Rim of the Grand Canyon? Nada. And this is all in the summer months, when it gets cold outside and your range drops...again, not happening. I love anything automotive and am a huge fan of Tesla, but the reality of currently living in the Midwest and taking road trips once a month makes it a pipe dream. I don't have a Subaru Forester in the stable because I like it....

Fair enough but you have to understand you are talking about corner cases and road trips that are done every few years so they are <1% of the total time you use the car. And that simply does not apply to majority of people. Most of the time one just doesnt use the car for that, as simple as that. Now i agree that EV's should replace the main car and then they have to offer a good range (not LEAF/i3 like) but them being able to go anywhere from Rocky Mountains to Antarctica? Just not my personal priority but again, we just disagree there.

Also, i checked and there is a supercharger within 80-86 miles...

And there is Superchargers along the whole route along road 70 which goes directly to Denver and then to Rocky Mountains.

80-90 miles from Denver and back to Rocky Mountains is hardly a problem for lets say a Model S. But i guess that is just not happening for whatever reason.

Interestingly enough, I read an article a few weeks ago that stated that the Japanese aren't putting too much effort into electric vehicles anymore - they're focusing on hydrogen powered vehicles.

There is a reason they are called fool cells and the petroleum industry is all for them. Japanese has been working on them for ages.

Edited April 3, 2016 by Berkut

[Jennings]

I'm sure they are. I just have a personal bias against Hybrid cars in general. Under a certain speed, the EV motor runs the car and above that speed, the ICE takes over. Which means what no matter when, you've got an engine that's doing nothing but acting as dead weight.

That's not true of all hybrids. I'm on my third Honda hybrid (Civic). I agree - the Prius is and always has been ugly.

The Honda hybrid system is much more simple and elegant. Toyota's has planetary gears and all kinds of other crap to break. Honda simply replaced the flywheel with a combined motor/generator. The gasoline engine is always turning, never dead weight. It uses the electric motor to provide extra torque when needed, and otherwise it's being used to recharge the battery. And it always acts as a flywheel. The system simply allows a much smaller gasoline engine than would normally be needed in a car of a given size. My 2013 Civic is a bigger car than my 1980s Accord was, yet it has 72% of the gasoline power (1.3 liter vs. 1.8 liter). It doesn't cause you whiplash out of a stoplight, but I don't do that with any car.

[Don]

Dude that's just sweet ! I love old muscle cars and hot rods...complete visual and auditory art on wheels. Things of beauty and character... :wub:

One day I'll make that barn find I keep reading about others discovering...;).

Good stuff!

[dnl42]

I remember first reading in Popular Mechanics (or was it Popular Science? I get the two mixed up) about how Hydrogen powered vehicles were going to be the next big thing back when I was in High School.

That was over 20 years ago.

...

More than 20 years. I do like the technology, but they've been 'around the corner' since I was in college, before ATM cards, digital discs, and cell-phone networks...

... After two-plus decades of development, the best FCVs don't equal the current state of the art of lithium ion batteries.

Li-ion battery development benefited greatly from broad use models. They would be far less advanced if they weren't a backbone for consumer devices. This results in massive difference in R&D funding and timelines, confounding any such comparison.

All batteries need end-of-life handling. It turns out that lead-acid batteries enjoy a very high recycling rate in the US. They're simple devices, mostly lead with a few other components, readily enabling a closed-loop recycling process. The process works quite well in some countries, such as the US, Canada, Europe, and Japan. However, it also can and does work very poorly in some other parts of the world. Li-ion batteries are far more complex and consequently much harder to recycle. How that will be done at societal scale is a real "future" problem.

[Charlie D.]

Almost 300k on my Prius... All I've done is oil changes, filters, tires, and brakes once. Not bad for a POS

[Berkut]

Li-ion battery development benefited greatly from broad use models. They would be far less advanced if they weren't a backbone for consumer devices. This results in massive difference in R&D funding and timelines, confounding any such comparison.

All batteries need end-of-life handling. It turns out that lead-acid batteries enjoy a very high recycling rate in the US. They're simple devices, mostly lead with a few other components, readily enabling a closed-loop recycling process. The process works quite well in some countries, such as the US, Canada, Europe, and Japan. However, it also can and does work very poorly in some other parts of the world. Li-ion batteries are far more complex and consequently much harder to recycle. How that will be done at societal scale is a real "future" problem.

Fair points. But the thing with the fool cells is that even best case scenarios simply cant stack against *current* battery technology. And nothing can change that, because we are talking about theoretical best cases here. And meanwhile the batteries improve in energy density by ~7% every year meaning the density doubles after 10 years. I had a course about Fool Cells and even the professor, who has worked on these for many decades, was very clear they are pointless in vehicles.

As to recycling it is beneficial to recycle the batteries from both environmental and economical point of view. Used batteries are high quality ore for new batteries basically. Gigafactory that Tesla is building will have recycling in house. These links are old and were relevant for the Roadster battery packs but might be an interesting read if one is particularly interested in this kind of thing;

https://www.teslamotors.com/no_NO/blog/teslas-closed-loop-battery-recycling-program

https://www.teslamotors.com/no_NO/blog/mythbusters-part-3-recycling-our-non-toxic-battery-packs

Edited April 3, 2016 by Berkut

[Exhausted]

Don't know if this is any indication of anything, BUT a side anecdote about my experience with cell phones could be one possible outlook into rechargeable car tech.

Just wait until you're looking for your exit one night and ads start popping up on your windshield. Digital Integration: complete.

[Drifterdon]

Just wait until you're looking for your exit one night and ads start popping up on your windshield. Digital Integration: complete.

That's too funny until you start to think about it. Then it gets scary. :unsure:/>

[Don]

That's too funny until you start to think about it. Then it gets scary. :unsure:

Or your car gets hacked and you end up going west when you wanted to go east... :lol:

[Trigger]

Or your car gets hacked and you end up going west when you wanted to go east... :lol:/>/>

Last August, researchers found six vulnerabilities in a Model S (some of which required direct physical access) and worked with the company for several weeks to develop fixes for some of them.

The infotainment system was been closed off at several different points and the browser (which contained a four-year-old Apple WebKit vulnerability that could potentially let an attacker conduct a fully remote hack to start the car or cut the motor. Theoretically, an attacker could make a malicious web page, and if someone in a Tesla car visited the site, could gain access to the infotainment system. From that point, you’d be able to use a privilege escalation vulnerability to gain additional access and do other stuff ) was further isolated from the rest of the infotainment system using several different layered methods.

Tesla distributed a patch to every Model S on the road (delivered wirelessly like a smartphone's OS update). Unlike Fiat Chrysler, which recently had to issue a recall for 1.4 million cars and mail updates to users on a USB stick to fix vulnerabilities found in its cars, Tesla has the ability to quickly and remotely deliver software updates to its vehicles. Car owners only have to click “yes” when they see a prompt asking if they want to install the upgrade. If you have a good patch process, it can solve a lot of problems. If you look at a modern car, it’s running a lot of software and it needs to be patched as frequently or sometimes even more frequently than a PC, and if you have to bring your car into a dealership every week or every month, that’s just a pain in the fool. Every car in the world should have [an OTA process] if they’re connected to the internet.

The researchers’ primary goal in examining the Model S was to determine what Tesla did right or wrong with the car in order to figure out how the wider car industry could better secure vehicles.

Though the Tesla hacks highlight some of the dangers around digitally connected cars, the researchers’ findings are not as serious as those demonstrated two weeks prior against a Chrysler Jeep. In that case, the vehicle had no separation between its infotainment system and the critical drive system, so once researchers compromised the infotainment system they could communicate with the drive system and cut the brakes or control the steering if the car was in reverse. Tesla, however, has a gateway between the infotainment and drive systems that is intended to prevent a hacker, remote or otherwise, from reaching critical functions like these.

Tesla also engineered the car to handle sudden power loss in a graceful way. If power to the car were cut while the vehicle was in motion, the hand brake would kick in, and the car would lurch to a stop if it was traveling 5 miles per hour or less. It would go into neutral if traveling faster than this. But the driver would still retain control of the steering and brakes and be able to pull the car over. The airbags also would still be fully functional. This is a directly contrasting story to the Jeep story. Tesla had actually thought about the ramifications about what might happen and had designed the car to handle it gracefully and be safe in such a way that catastrophic [failure] would not happen.

[305swag]

Ugh, this might be the worst interior ever designed. Everything about this car leaves me feeling completely meh.

Makes me wish I still had my 76 Pontiac Trans Am with the 6.6 liter motor.

[Exhausted]

Or your car gets hacked and you end up going west when you wanted to go east... :lol:/>

This will be used to explain how the Griswolds end up in East Saint Louis whenever Nat Lampoon's Vacay is remade

[Exhausted]

Makes me wish I still had my 76 Pontiac Trans Am with the 6.6 liter motor.

Or maybe you should just start by modifying a Trabant!

You could go from:

To:

Thanks democracy!

Edited April 4, 2016 by Exhausted

[Don]

This will be used to explain how the Griswolds end up in East Saint Louis whenever Nat Lampoon's Vacay is remade

:lol:...or how your pizza is late...again... :P

[DDC]

I think this conversation is a fantastic example of the whole EV argument in a nutshell.

Youve got:

*folks who HAVE used the new tech in THEIR real world and found it to be sutible for them.

*Folks who are on the fence and waiting to see where the new tech goes

*folks who dont want the change, who like the way things are, and what they have.

Same as EVERY break from the norm since the dawn of time (id imagine, ive not been around THAT long ;) )

I can only imagine the nay sayers bemoaning the introduction of ICE powered autos, using EXACTLY the same argument as here. "There arent any petrol stations where 'I' want to go!"

"You mean you have to stop yo refuel your vehicle?!?"

"But what if it breaks down or you get a flat tyre!?"

It always amuses me when people assume that the era that they live in is the first on to experience these changes, and forget that humans have been around and inventing things for a little while now.

Not a single piece if new tech ever takes over and revolutionises the world over night. Do people forget that there was a few years of development between Ford's Model T and the 2016 Muzzy?

The other thing people seem to gloss over is that, yes, YOU and YOUR generation love old school muscle, real steel cars, turning spanners and building your road rocket with your own hands, but current and new generations DONT have an interest. Theyve been born into a world of tiny, thrifty econo-boxes. They have no ties to big blocks, fat tyres and open headers. Tuning to them is plugging in a laptop, not playing with carbs.

Us petrolheads ARE a dying breed, NOT the majority.

More and more people are giving up living in wide open planes, for city living. Close to work. They dont have time, space, ability or inclination to tinker or mod their cars, so EV vehicles are PERFECT for them, and a brilliant alternative to ICE vehicles. (Personally I think people in these situations with mainly home-work-home commutes shoukd be on motorbikes, but thats an argument for another day).

Now consider the positives of the majority of people shifting to EVs. Us folk who still love turning Dinosaurs into Fumes and noise will have more petrol to go around. The petrol companies wont have a monopoly/stranglehold on our lives, theyll have to be competetive, so lowered price. And think of the tech we'll have in 50 years of real world EV development. Imagine what the 2066 Mustang could be. It might not be to YOUR tastes, but it might once again be RELEVANT.

D, standing optomistic.

[dnl42]

...

I can only imagine the nay sayers bemoaning the introduction of ICE powered autos, using EXACTLY the same argument as here. "There arent any petrol stations where 'I' want to go!"

"You mean you have to stop yo refuel your vehicle?!?"

"But what if it breaks down or you get a flat tyre!?"

...

One of the arguments against the ICE was that the combustion was an EXPLOSION! How could that possibly be safe compared to a steam engine and boiler!?

[HOLMES]

I have a vision of some chap sat in an obscure office fiddling with as remote control making these cars go the way he wants...like that electric race game kids used to have..

[Berkut]

One of the arguments against the ICE was that the combustion was an EXPLOSION! How could that possibly be safe compared to a steam engine and boiler!?

This Edison fella tells me that AC is dangerous too. We better stick to DC.

[Don]

[Dmanton300]

The kind of people here saying "not for me" etc are simply not the kind of early adopter such immature technology is aimed at. That's fine. But it *IS* the way these things are going. At some point in the not too distant future, driving a petrol/diesel powered car will be seen in the same way that smoking in a kindergarten would be seen now. The vast majority of cars are used daily for short distance work - commutes to and from work, shopping, taxing family/kids around. Range simply won't be an issue, even for something like this. Sure, if you regularly do tens of hundreds of miles on the highway/motorway/interstate whatever, these may not be the best choice. YET. But as technology and concerns about the environment drive innovation (whatever your personal feelings about those environmental concerns), this will become the norm.

(I'm British, but were I stateside, I'd be a Mustang man through and through!)

Edited April 8, 2016 by Dmanton300

[plasticWerks_JL]

in the not too distant future, driving a petrol/diesel powered car will be seen in the same way that smoking in a kindergarten would be seen now.

Actually, I think a more apt analogy is eventually gas powered cars will be seen the way you see people who ride horses: it's a niche hobby for those with the means to participate in it.

I boggles my mind hearing people whine about this at all. You realize we have supercars using hybrid technology, right? Tech doesn't advance overnight, as much as it seems it does.

I love cars just as much as anyone else here, but if it means eventually not having to breathe in exhaust every day on the ride to work, bring on the grown-up power wheels.

I don't know if the Tesla 3 will be the one to usher in a major change, but with the number of preorders and the logistical support that's seems to be coming with it, it could be. Bring it on. </rant>

[TaiidanTomcat]

I think this conversation is a fantastic example of the whole EV argument in a nutshell.

Youve got:

*folks who HAVE used the new tech in THEIR real world and found it to be sutible for them.

*Folks who are on the fence and waiting to see where the new tech goes

*folks who dont want the change, who like the way things are, and what they have.

Same as EVERY break from the norm since the dawn of time (id imagine, ive not been around THAT long ;)/>/>/> )

It always amuses me when people assume that the era that they live in is the first on to experience these changes, and forget that humans have been around and inventing things for a little while now.

HAve you seen the A-10 retirement threads? oh lord!

The other thing people seem to gloss over is that, yes, YOU and YOUR generation love old school muscle, real steel cars, turning spanners and building your road rocket with your own hands, but current and new generations DONT have an interest. Theyve been born into a world of tiny, thrifty econo-boxes. They have no ties to big blocks, fat tyres and open headers. Tuning to them is plugging in a laptop, not playing with carbs.

Us petrolheads ARE a dying breed, NOT the majority.

yes and it something to behold There are still a bunch of people complaining about not giving up their stick shift for an automatic. lots of "purists" that don't see the meteor coming.

You know how you sell the current generation away from Freedom Feels and Muscle cars? "look you can text while the car drives itself" Sold! There are alwasy going to be car nuts, just like there will always be car nuts, but just like the golden age of airlines went from "how fast can you get me to A-B for the least cost while I put in my headphones?" cars will be the same.

I am already an A-B guy. I just want something that gets me there. The second my kid learns to drive, his butt is going to chauffeur me at every opportunity

Edited April 8, 2016 by TaiidanTomcat

[fulcrum1]

The kind of people here saying "not for me" etc are simply not the kind of early adopter such immature technology is aimed at. That's fine. But it *IS* the way these things are going. At some point in the not too distant future, driving a petrol/diesel powered car will be seen in the same way that smoking in a kindergarten would be seen now. The vast majority of cars are used daily for short distance work - commutes to and from work, shopping, taxing family/kids around. Range simply won't be an issue, even for something like this. Sure, if you regularly do tens of hundreds of miles on the highway/motorway/interstate whatever, these may not be the best choice. YET. But as technology and concerns about the environment drive innovation (whatever your personal feelings about those environmental concerns), this will become the norm.

(I'm British, but were I stateside, I'd be a Mustang man through and through!)

I don't think pure electric automobiles for everyone is the way of the future, but its a step in the right direction if it forces the hand of innovation. I went to grad school in the Bay Area, California and living there its a great solution along with Southern California...not so much the rest of America between there and say the East Coast. Until they can hit some true breakthroughs in battery technology along with massive plan and funds to increase the supporting infrastructure the inconvenience, cost, and lifestyle changes needed make this a niche product.