Tesla Master Plan: Part Deux

[Joel]

That and the megachargers.

One Semi on a 1.2MWh megacharger for a 400 mile top-up charge will use as much electricity as an average UK house does... in a quarter. As in a quarter of a year. In that single half hour period, one Semi will require as much power as around 6,000 average UK homes.


I'm not sure I even need to start on why that's a problem for electrical infrastructure.

Yeah the sheer amount of the power needed is difficult enough, then add on the expense of delivering that power to truck stops hundreds of miles between major cities. If Tesla isn't paying for it, a utility company or a truck stop certainly isn't, and if the operators of the truck have to pay for industrial level electric infrastructure hundreds of miles from urban areas their existing diesel fleet is going to start looking less and less obsolete.

I really don't know why they didn't go the municipal agency/port transport/mail truck truck route. There would be gobs of money to be made replacing all the trucks and vans municipalities use to carry around gardening and maintenance equipment with electric trucks/vans.

 

[homeforsummer]

Hurr most abundant element in the universe Durr.

Indeed. Lots of it about, but the stuff that's "accessible" tends to be stuck to other things like oxygen or carbon.

 

[Dennisch]

Indeed. Lots of it about, but the stuff that's "accessible" tends to be stuck to other things like oxygen or carbon.

We need to send giant gas vacuums into space to collect it.

Back to reality.

Seeing how pretty much every country is now researching battery tech, I expect that some sort of brilliant breakthrough will happen within a decade.

 

[Robin]

Hydrogen missed its chance to be the fuel of the future (which was some time between the oil crisis in the 70's and the late 00's when electric mass produced cars started becoming a thing) because battery technology moved at a much faster rate.

Now it looks like an almost antiquated technology requiring cumbersome infrastructure and a much more dangerous storage and filling process. Yes its better for the environment (although producing it is quite energy intensive) and yes you can fill up in minutes but outside of commercial fleet uses I don't think it has a chance anymore of catching on.

Seeing how pretty much every country is now researching battery tech, I expect that some sort of brilliant breakthrough will happen within a decade.

Improvements in battery tech were pretty fast at first (Ni-Cd, Ni-Mh) then it has somewhat plateaued since the invention of Li-ion. All the power gains have been from the improved efficiency of everything else. However in the last few years things have picked up again, probably due to the focus on electric cars and portable products. The inventor of the Li-ion battery at the age of 94 is still at it!

http://www.popularmechanics.com/sci...lithium-ion-battery-invented-another-battery/

 

[EngieDiesel]

I really don't know why they didn't go the municipal agency/port transport/mail truck truck route. There would be gobs of money to be made replacing all the trucks and vans municipalities use to carry around gardening and maintenance equipment with electric trucks/vans.

Most municipal governments (in North America at least) can barely even figure out how to budget for keeping their current fleet of vehicles in good repair, they aren't going to replace them until it's absolutely unavoidable. And that brings up the issue I mentioned before of maintenance and downtime from having to send the vehicle back to Tesla for repairs. A service vehicle can't be out of commission for long periods of time and again, unless Tesla plans to have large numbers of them sitting around to use as loaners, this becomes an unacceptable issue.

Plus, nobody is going to shout from the rooftops about revolutionizing the box van or gardening truck. But promising to do away with all those noisy, smoke-belching semis that everyone hates having on their roads? Now that's something that grabs headlines and catches the attention of potential investors, which is what Tesla has been living off of pretty much exclusively.

 

[kikie]

Anheuser Busch orders 40 Tesla semi trucks.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/anheuser-busch-orders-40-tesla-semi-trucks-1512648180

 

[JohnBM01]

0-60 in 1.9 seconds. Quarter-mile pass south of 10 seconds. This is what I've been hearing of even the base model production $250K Tesla Roadster in the works. If this thing comes into fruition like I've been seeing on CNET, this new Tesla Roadster is going to be insane.

Tesla is just a totally fascinating company. Like you can't help but be interested at just what they are doing next.

 

[Huzar]

0-60 in 1.9 seconds. Quarter-mile pass south of 10 seconds. This is what I've been hearing of even the base model production $250K Tesla Roadster in the works. If this thing comes into fruition like I've been seeing on CNET, this new Tesla Roadster is going to be insane.

Tesla is just a totally fascinating company. Like you can't help but be interested at just what they are doing next.

Technology and especially idea wise, they are some of the best of the best.

On the business side they are atrocious. Their losses are staggering, i do wonder how long can that go on. Yes the owner is a billionaire but even so, they are burning threw so much at such a high pace. scary.

 

[EngieDiesel]

On the business side they are atrocious. Their losses are staggering, i do wonder how long can that go on. Yes the owner is a billionaire but even so, they are burning threw so much at such a high pace. scary.

If Musk keeps insisting on building massive, multi-billion dollar infrastructure to create a bespoke solution for everything, not too much longer. I respect the technological innovations as much as the next person, but over the last couple years Tesla has started turning into a textbook example of what happens when an idea guy is left to his own devices and doesn't have a strong finance guy to act as a counterweight.

 

[homeforsummer]

0-60 in 1.9 seconds. Quarter-mile pass south of 10 seconds.

While these numbers are undoubtedly impressive, I'm more intrigued to see what it drives like as a whole.

I've not yet had a "proper" drive in a high-performance electric car but I'm wondering whether it'd actually be any fun beyond the primal rush you get from the speed alone.

Never mind 0-60 runs - on the average twisty road, I'd be surprised if you could use full throttle all that much between corners - the acceleration is so quick that you'd probably spend as much time braking as you would accelerating. It's as much the delivery of that performance as the quantity too - the response of EVs is fantastic, but even a seriously fast combustion vehicle has a bit of build-up to its performance (not to mention the requirements of working some kind of transmission) so driving is never just a binary process of accelerate, brake, turn. I've driven slower EVs quickly but simply by them being slower there's more time to finesse what you're doing - to use regenerative braking rather than the friction brakes before a corner, maybe, or to build up the power without overwhelming the tyres.

And braking something that's presumably heavier than the average sports car its size, thanks to the batteries. It's possible now for cars to corner very well indeed despite lots of weight (R35 GT-R being a good example), but there's still nothing to touch the feel of a car that's genuinely light, whether that's a really basic hot hatch like a Fiesta ST or whether it's a compact sports car like a Caterham 7 or an Elise.

It does strike me that the really high performance of Teslas is mainly just a headline-grabber - plus a bit of fun for people who never really explore a car's dynamics beyond the occasional squirt of straight-line speed alone.

Or to sum it up another way, I'd prefer a Roadster that did 60 in 5 seconds, because I genuinely think you'd have the time to enjoy the performance rather than being overwhelmed by it and always having to manage the car's weight, like you do in something like a Model S.

 

[CodeRedR51]

Anheuser Busch orders 40 Tesla semi trucks.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/anheuser-busch-orders-40-tesla-semi-trucks-1512648180

Sysco also ordered 50.

https://www.autoblog.com/2017/12/07...esla-electric-semis/?hcid=ab-around-ab-tile-1

 

[CodeRedR51]

PepsiCo has reserved 100 trucks.

Now the question is, how quickly can Tesla produce these things and where?

 

[EngieDiesel]

PepsiCo has reserved 100 trucks.

Now the question is, how quickly can Tesla produce these things and where?

Not to mention they expect to be producing the 2020 roadster and presumably also the remaining Model 3 orders in that same general timeframe. So either they're expecting all these different vehicles to be rolling out of the same place, which is a logistical nightmare in and of itself, or there's plans to try and fast-track construction of another production facility somewhere which would mean another giant pile of cash flying out the window. And even if Musk broke character and bought an existing manufacturing plant, just getting it retooled to produce either vehicle is going to take a lot of time and money, especially for vehicles that still have quite low production numbers compared to the rest of the industry.

 

[Bram Turismo]

PepsiCo has reserved 100 trucks.

Now the question is, how quickly can Tesla produce these things and where?

Judging by the Model 3, none.

 

[ProjectWHaT]

Got myself a Musk hat.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Saw my first Model 3 today (on the Golden Gate Bridge, no less) and I have to say the front end of the car looks rather special. The scalloped form of the hood between the headlights is much more interesting than the bland Model S. It has almost an exotic presence. The rest of the car is pretty generic and oddly-proportioned. The interior seems pretty nice, but it was a little hard to see. The build quality though, even from 20', was awful. None of the trim lined up and different segments were at slightly different angles of attachment meaning they reflected light in different directions. All of the panel gaps were large and uneven. Overall it looked like a very early pre-production mule. I would be pissed if I had spent $40k on that.

 

[homeforsummer]

I would be pissed if I had spent $40k on that.

From what I've seen online, I'd be pissed even if it cost $15k. In the modern automotive world there's no excuse for misaligned panels and trim. It was something that eastern-bloc manufacturers used to be criticised for back in the 1980s so it amazes me that people are prepared to overlook it in a high-end vehicle in 2017.

 

[EngieDiesel]

So here's an interesting development. Toyota has just struck a deal with Panasonic to start development of batteries with prismatic power cells, which would compete directly with the cylindrical cell batteries that Panasonic is already making for Tesla in their Gigafactory. Given that Elon Musk has a strong dislike For Toyota after they broke with him to work on hydrogen cars a while back, and that a key part of his plan is likely hinging on his style of battery becoming the industry standard (and that Tesla spent a lot of money on having Panasonic come in to build batteries for them), I suspect this isn't going to go unnoticed.

 

[Stotty]

I've not yet had a "proper" drive in a high-performance electric car but I'm wondering whether it'd actually be any fun beyond the primal rush you get from the speed alone.

I've driven my BIL's P90D in pretty much all conditions and on all types of roads now (except track).

Off the motorways... The suspension is firm, without getting crashy/harsh, and it doesn't roll anywhere near as much as you expect (I would expect due to the weight being very low in the car). It has good grip, and perfect traction. Steering is accurate, brakes are strong. On sweeping A roads it is indecently fast - I've also followed him in my 996 (well, tried to), and he just disappears in to the distance even if I disengage my brain... I could even put good distance between us on the straights when I was driving the P90 and he was following in his GT3.

If you've driven a Panamera, it feels pretty similar, and is as good fun to drive as a big saloon car can be (ie; OK in isolation, but not much when compared to a proper drivers car). You're always aware of the mass of it, and this certainly limited my confidence to push it on the way in to corners in anything other than bone dry conditions.

It's certainly an effective way of covering the ground very quickly though... overtaking is hilariously easy.

 

[CodeRedR51]

UPS is in for 125 trucks.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...ks-largest-public-pre-order-yet-idUSKBN1ED1QM

 

[EngieDiesel]

Meanwhile, Elon Musk apparently wants to talk to John Carmack about building rockets... and accidentally tweeted out his cell phone number in the process.

 

[homeforsummer]

Meanwhile, Elon Musk apparently wants to talk to John Carmack about building rockets... and accidentally tweeted out his cell phone number in the process.

Except he didn't really.

 

[Bram Turismo]

So here's an interesting development. Toyota has just struck a deal with Panasonic to start development of batteries with prismatic power cells, which would compete directly with the cylindrical cell batteries that Panasonic is already making for Tesla in their Gigafactory. Given that Elon Musk has a strong dislike For Toyota after they broke with him to work on hydrogen cars a while back, and that a key part of his plan is likely hinging on his style of battery becoming the industry standard (and that Tesla spent a lot of money on having Panasonic come in to build batteries for them), I suspect this isn't going to go unnoticed.

Very interesting indeed, although their current hybrids are so expensive that I don't see a fully electric Toyota being an affordable car. I really hope I am wrong, though. But an Auris hybrid is expensive.

 

[Turbo]

Fully electric Tesla semi-truck, planned to enter production in 2019, caught testing on public roads.



https://www.carscoops.com/2018/01/tesla-semi-prototype-scooped-testing-public-roads/

 

[EngieDiesel]

Tesla employees are claiming there will be more delays in Model 3 production due to issues with battery assembly, saying that workers from Panasonic were were brought in to put them together by hand. They also claim that quality control workers were temp workers from a staffing agency who had little experience.

 

[RocZX]

 

[RocZX]

 

[Omnis]

Meanwhile, the trailers don't have aero aprons.

It's kind of funny that the semis can only accelerate as quickly as their awful heavy-duty-compound tires will grip the road. We have come so far that the friction coefficient is the limiting factor.

 

[CodeRedR51]

It's kind of funny that the semis can only accelerate as quickly as their awful heavy-duty-compound tires will grip the road. We have come so far that the friction coefficient is the limiting factor.

 

[Omnis]

That's totally ridiculous. That guy would've had to slam the brakes on any other semi. Unless they're just hauling an empty trailer, I'm impressed. Still, the gas one would've needed a gear change or two to pull out like that.