Had a ride a in a Tesla P90D today

[paradigm]

What I can't work out here is why, rather than set up their own infrastructure for "SuperChargers", they don't come to some agreement with an existing fuel supplier, like shell.

Install a few at each and every Shell location, pay rental/retaining fee on the space/land used. That way a quick 20 minute refill is more akin to your current refilling routine, and certainly easy enough to find.

Something like that would start to sway me heavily towards a decent all electric vehicle in the not too distant future.

 

[Junglist]

The theme park ride called "Rita" at Alton Towers does 0-60 in 2.5 apparently. I recall that being pretty fun in a car that must be crazy

"Stealth" at Thorpe park:

When I last went to Thorpe Park I went on Stealth about 3 times in a row. The acceleration was brutal but addictive.

I've never liked the look of the Tesla but I'm interested in electric cars. I just miss the sound as it seems like something is missing. My interest started when i saw a video on youtube many years ago of a car called White Zombie.

Just a shame I'll never realistically be able to afford a 50K car let alone a 100k

 

[Cleisthenes]

I think these look promising, my son is made over them and made me take him to the showroom at Gatwick to look at them.
The range thing is a worry, not really because its not enough but I guess more because its a change in mentality from the method of "refuelling" thats available throughout the country with no thought or planning to a method that needs to be planned and allowed for if your bending the range a bit.
98% of the time the range would be perfect for me, give the car another few years and it could be in the frame for me.

We might need a pool car at work soon, I'm thinking a Leaf will be perfect for job if the time comes.

My folks just had a Leaf for a week test drive, very easy to drive, but a ~80 mile range is a bit naff unless you just potter around town. The top spec with 'leather' would be the one to have to I feel.

 

[Redgie]

What I can't work out here is why, rather than set up their own infrastructure for "SuperChargers", they don't come to some agreement with an existing fuel supplier, like shell.

Install a few at each and every Shell location, pay rental/retaining fee on the space/land used. That way a quick 20 minute refill is more akin to your current refilling routine, and certainly easy enough to find.

Something like that would start to sway me heavily towards a decent all electric vehicle in the not too distant future.

I'm not sure companies that are fundamentally based on burning fossil fuels are too interested in doing deals to help out a company that is fundamentally based on doing anything but burning fossil fuels .

 

[McPhee]

Also, whilst Tesla sales are low I'm sure you could get a charge point no problem, but if they sell loads more it would be very annoying waiting in a queue to charge up!

This is something that concerns me a little about an all electric future. Unless range increases greatly, we're going to need A LOT of public chargers.

Also, the government is subsidising electric cars quite substantially right now - £5k on the car, £750 toward a home charger. While cars like the Zoe and the Leaf currently make sense financially, will they still be attractive if the government grant is removed completely? Who wants to pay ~£1200 to have a charger installed at home?

 

[VincentHanna]

Not really related but I was at IKEA recently (lakeside) and they had two new green bays with free electric charging.

Unfortunately there were two petrol cars parked in these spaces as they are nearest to the entrance! You would be pretty narked if you had an electric car that you couldn't charge on arrival because of some idiots

Can they enforce the parking there like they would with a disabled bay?

 

[paradigm]

I'm not sure companies that are fundamentally based on burning fossil fuels are too interested in doing deals to help out a company that is fundamentally based on doing anything but burning fossil fuels .

Where do you think the electricity comes from?

 

[tom_e]

Not really related but I was at IKEA recently (lakeside) and they had two new green bays with free electric charging.

Unfortunately there were two petrol cars parked in these spaces as they are nearest to the entrance! You would be pretty narked if you had an electric car that you couldn't charge on arrival because of some idiots

Can they enforce the parking there like they would with a disabled bay?

It's private land they can in theory "enforce" bays you can only park in if your car is pink and sparkly with headlight lashes if they wish.

 

[McPhee]

I've just discovered that Polar require people to be at least 30 years old before they'll let them borrow the Model S for a week (under a reward scheme they run). Gutted. I was looking forward to my turn

If the i3 has rapid charging I'll maybe give it a go. If not, I'm not sure I can be bothered with the hassle of getting to/from MK in a car that only does 80 miles on a charge under good conditions.

 

[Simon]

Where do you think the electricity comes from?

From power plants and energy companies. None owned by oil companies.

Tesla don't make money from cars. They make it from super credits. Once these go the future for electric cars won't look as rosy

 

[Deleted member 66701]

Yeah, I could get round it, but, for example, I have to travel from Harrogate to Northampton every now and again, which is about 165 miles each way. I hate stopping at services and would normally not bother, so to have pull over for 50 minutes on the way back would be annoying. Later this month we're going to Loch Lomond for a week. There is a recharge point at Gretna, but then I'm relying on being able to drag an extension cable from the cottage we're staying at, and I have no idea if that's feasible. Obviously I could hire a car, but if you spend £100k on a nice car, it's not ideal to have to hire s crappy hire car on one of your longest journeys!

Anyway, I have a V8 itch I need to scratch before I embrace the future so I'm test driving a 5.0 supercharged V8 Range Rover 405 on Saturday

If you have 100k to spend on a car, it's likely you'll own another car as well, so you'd just take the "other" car if you had a journey that exceeded the Tesla's range.

 

[paradigm]

Tesla don't make money from cars. They make it from super credits. Once these go the future for electric cars won't look as rosy

Can you elaborate? Genuinely interested.

 

[Kenai]

Can you elaborate? Genuinely interested.

It's emissions based credits. In the US manufacturers have to achieve a certain percentage of their range being zero emission. If they don't manage it, they get heavily fined. If they achieve over, they get credits. Other manufacturers can buy these credits to theoretically top up their own numbers.

As Tesla is 100% zero emissions, they get loads of these credits and sell for vast amounts of money to everyone else, albeit under the value of the alternative fines.

Were this whole credit trading thing to vanish, they'd lose huge amounts of income.

 

[Glaucus]

From power plants and energy companies. None owned by oil companies.

Tesla don't make money from cars. They make it from super credits. Once these go the future for electric cars won't look as rosy

Your assuming the cost of technology isn't and wont drop, which obviously is very wrong, as the cost of lithium ion batteries is dropping all the time. Like any new market, including fossil fuels, they need incentives. Also expect fossil fuels to actually start paying for the damage they cause like other pollutants.

 

[Jonnycoupe]

Won't look as rosy for the manufacturers.... As the material price of batteries reduce so will the price of the cars. Isn't that obvious?

Anyway your Glaucus. So what is written is balony anyway. You have zero credibility in my book.

 

[Glaucus]

Won't look as rosy for the manufacturers.... As the material price of batteries reduce so will the price of the cars. Isn't that obvious?

Anyway your Glaucus. So what is written is balony anyway. You have zero credibility in my book.

Oh dear. Technology costs generally fall faster than cost to consumer.
Pretty much all new technology is prohibitively expensive to start with. Yet all the main stream tech we have now is affordable.

So yeah what you've written is balony.

 

[Diddums]

If Tesla is going to fail, the main reason will be the unnecessarily complicated Model X. Those rear doors will make anyone look a bit of a plank. It's a shame too, the S is such a successful car because it looks like a car, drives like a car, can carry luggage and passengers like a car, the only real world drawback is the range which I assume is only going to get better over time. The X however is going back to the silly days of electric cars, when they had to shout and scream to the rest of the world that they're electric, rather than blending in.

That said, I just got back from Amsterdam and the amount of Model Ss driving around there is nuts as cab companies use them extensively. If Tesla makes profit on these cars already and the cost of the tech is going to fall, then I think Tesla will do perfectly fine.

 

[Glaucus]

Don't you think such silly looking doors will sell well in other markets? I think in the USA they will do fine with model X, over here I'm not so sure. Although the doors actually have a very good purpose for opening that way.

 

[Diddums]

Oh make no mistake, they're probably the most practical doors ever fitted to a car, and clever too, but they do make you stick out like a sore thumb.

They may be successful, but I can't think of one person I know who'd buy one. I imagine that the kind of people who buy them will either be moms who just want the practicality and don't give a toss what anyone thinks, or nerds who will tell you exactly how they work at ebery given opportunity, until you want to put their head on the sill and slam the door on their face over and over.

Only time will tell I suppose. What Tesla *should've* done is made a little hatchback for zipping around town, where range is less of an issue and there are more charging points. The X is very bold, a bit too bold for an small firm which only has one other model.

 

[Glaucus]

That is intended to be the third model(well not an actual city run about, but more affordable and slightly less range than model s). They want to lower the price if technology, get the Giga factory built and operating. Before making a more every man car. It's bold and luxury for a purpose, it's the only way to command so much money and also the limited number is good. It gives them time to ramp up production, year on year as popularity grows.