came here to post this…Very interesting
Someone around williamsville/ east amherst is driving a dark blue one, i see it almost everyday
^ its also for sale on craigslist
CNN made the drive, albeit slowly, without issue.
Unfortunately as much as the Times article seemed to be written by someone who was anti-electric car, this one seems written by someone a little too pro…
After driving between 60 and 65 said this:
I had expected that, all the way from Newark to Milford, I’d have one eye on the rearview mirror watching fast-approaching cars threatening to rear-end me. But I didn’t.
Instead, I found myself maneuvering around slower cars.
BULLSHIT
And the other one…
These charging stations can fill up a nearly dead battery in Tesla’s longest-range cars in about an hour, which is enough time to stop for a meal.
Yeah, because what everyone wants to do on a long road trip is stop for an hour long meal. No wonder I see so few fast food joints and so many sit down restaurants at thruway rest stops.
It would be nice if we still had real news reporters. You know, someone who could make the drive and simply state, “Yes, the fast charge stations made it possible as claimed, but it sucked going slower than everyone else and having to stop for an hour to recharge when I could have filled up with gas in 3 minutes”.
That’s exactly what it boils down to. If it were up to me, I would choose another vehicle for road trips. Electric isn’t reasonable at the moment for long hauls. If you’re doing strictly around town driving, then you can probably make it work with a somewhat low lifestyle impact.
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I believe it, between Newark and Milliford is a tough traffic area. The “Tri-State” area has mostly slower moving traffic, especially during certain times of the day.
Just looked up directions on google maps. That route goes over the George Washington Bridge and takes you on the Cross Bronx Expressway. That route can be a parking lot at times.
Nissan hasn’t fully executed an electric car solution yet. They have been recalled in Phoenix a couple of times due to the heat not allowing the batteries to meet their rated charge. At least the Tesla has designed in a cooling circuit for their battery bank.
7 Tesla owners are re-creating Broder’s drive, including leaving the cars parked overnight in Manhattan, unplugged. Reddit has a nice little thread with updates.
Tesla set residuals at 43% after 3 years in their lease/own program. Basiclly buying a car with a put option after 3 years. Companies have been offering this for a while but Tesla is putting their marketing spin on this as a brand new idea.
“The only decision you need to make when you come to one of our Tesla stations is, do you prefer faster or free?” Musk asked
Free being use of the supercharger station, faster being paying for a battery swap.
This is actually really cool and a LOT faster than I thought it would be. Tesla Model S battery swapping:
And a closer look at the machine / process:
How does the whole battery warranty thing work when you swap the battery instead of waiting for a charge?
AKA, is it going to be like the propane tank exchange where I can drop off my bird shit and burger grease encrusted rusty tank for a “free” upgrade to a new one? The Blue Rhino guys might be willing to eat it on the occasional bad tank (especially since they’re ripping you off and only putting 15lbs of propane in) but I’m thinking those batteries are an expensive writeoff.
I pull up in my 20000 charge cycle beat to hell battery and get one swapped that’s almost new, while some poor schmuck who pulls in the day after me ends up with my almost toast battery once the charging station tops it off?
Plus the scalability issues we talked about in the battery thread. (space to store enough packs to replace a busy gas station, the massive electrical demand to fast charge a whole bunch of them etc etc).
I’m not sold on pure electrics yet - but I gotta admit, Musk’s really got my attention. This car was, and may still be, outselling the big sedans from BMW, Audi, and Mercedes. I’ve seen a few on the road and they’re striking.
These lithium packs cycle pretty well, so I don’t know how much of an issue life from battery-to-battery will be. In fact, since capacity varies so much normally many drivers may not notice a difference between packs. As long as it gets them to the next supercharge station…If anything, it should improve calendar life of a battery since the battery won’t be subjected to fast charging and the degradation mechanisms that presents.
Tesla has shown they are capable of data logging and should be able to find an algorithm that generates a credit/debit that most parties would find acceptable.
NYS Dealers attempting to make it illegal to register Teslas in NYS…BMW/Audi/Merc afraid of a little competition?
http://jalopnik.com/dealers-want-to-make-it-illegal-to-register-a-tesla-in-532981233
I don’t live in NYS anymore…but uh…you guys should call your reps/senators.
I agree, I’ve seen a number of them lately up here in Canada.
Glad to see someone making progress in this regard.
When teh other companies figure it out they should be paying royalties to Musk for his pioneering work.
This is novel, but not a solution which scales up. So, not a solution…
We really need to be addressing capacity and recharge time.
Someone make me a Karma with a Tesla power plant 
surprised no one posted this:
Tesla Model S basically set the record for the highest safety rating.
Tesla comments here: http://www.teslamotors.com/about/press/releases/tesla-model-s-achieves-best-safety-rating-any-car-ever-tested
cliffs notes are that for front impact, since there is no engine in the front, it has a massive crumple zone and therefore the highest safety rating for front impacts of any car.
because the batteries are mounted as low as possible underneath the car it has a super high threshold for roll over risk too.
Seeing more of these around Buffalo :tup:
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