I believe that's what Tucker said, and Delorean maybe also ?
Charging to get home
- Thread starter JeffKeryk
- Start date
32 times, was it? I heard the movie was good.
John Z gave us the GTO and everyone followed. Big blocks in A bodies... Yeah baby!
They would need to figure out how to sell those $75k SUVs and pickup first. If people can't afford EVs they probably wouldn't be able to afford those expensive SUVs and pickup as well.
My opinion alone: if you are getting up early to get gas at a cheap gas station because it is crowded later, you probably should drive a plug in hybrid or a plain hybrid instead of a Tesla.
Most of my coworkers from the past using Nissan Leaf to drive 100 miles commute (charge at work for 3 hours every day), either have a range problem or a traffic jam problem (time, hour of AC usage), but not both. I haven't met anyone who commute 150 miles and get stuck in stop and go traffic yet, those would likely be 2 hrs each way and they would give up and either move or find a job closer to home, or today would be doing remote.
Thing about traffic jam, usually when there are traffic jam there are incentive to build gas station (surprise!) and EV chargers (surprise again!)
I think the only exception is the traffic jam came from accidents. I once got stuck on the bay bridge when a car carrier collide to the bridge itself and they had to send multiple tow trucks to unload the cars before opening it back up. I was stuck for 4 hours on it and there are many cars overheated or ran out of gas. You can't prepare for those scenarios and neither could a gas car. If you rode horses they too may cause problems when they are hangry.
Saw a Tucker at the Coppola Winery. Went there with my dad in his Model 3. Free charging too.
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Which is why a lot of workplaces are installing chargers and give out "free" charging. Not sure who paid for it but cheap charging at work could be done eventually for all.
I wouldn't say it shouldn't be an issue to you. It is still worth something if it can be driven indefinitely and the anticipated battery replacement would put a dent in the depreciation and trade in. Look at Nissan Leaf vs Nissan Versa, Leaf is sold at almost no value due to the anticipated battery problem / replacement cost vs Versa still hold up quite well due to no problem. The right way to look at EV cost is actually depreciation of battery and its replacement cost, like a house with a roof replacement cost factored in.
I had a coworker who commuted to San Jose from Pleasanton, and to avoid driving he would often take ACE. He was also a hard core bicyclist and sometimes he would ride his uber-cool racing bike to work. I occasionally took Amtrak at the same station and if I got there early, there might be several times more ACE passengers boarding there than Amtrak passengers.
But that train went all the way out to Livermore, Tracy, and Stockton. I think it was almost 3 hours to/from Stockton, but it was possible to sleep on the train and they allowed food on board. Not sure if they allowed alcohol (like Caltrain). Never rode it.
Tesla, is a startup company, doing startup thing. If you buy their stuff you are expecting move fast and break things culture. There is no way to move fast if they don't take some risk. I think you can say that people who expect Toyota reliability will not buy Tesla so they got to wait a few years before the dust settles and see what works.
In the future I see Tesla building their pack with disable option, and instead of testing every pack to be perfect they would be like flash memory, with anticipated bad yield that would be disabled and when worn, more disabled until the whole pack is too worn out (i.e. 25 years?). Early cars obviously won't have this feature but this would be a must for yield and cost of manufacturing.
Human can only tolerate so much commute time even if you can sleep on it. If you look at most civilization on earth in 2023, it is about 1hr15mins to 1hr30mins maximum each way before people just give up and move / find another job. Most people these days tolerate 1 hr each way fine.I had a coworker who commuted to San Jose from Pleasanton, and to avoid driving he would often take ACE. He was also a hard core bicyclist and sometimes he would ride his uber-cool racing bike to work. I occasionally took Amtrak at the same station and if I got there early, there might be several times more ACE passengers boarding there than Amtrak passengers.
But that train went all the way out to Livermore, Tracy, and Stockton. I think it was almost 3 hours to/from Stockton, but it was possible to sleep on the train and they allowed food on board. Not sure if they allowed alcohol (like Caltrain). Never rode it.
It is done because of cost savings. Inverters / converters aren't cheap so they use one big one and wire all the cells in series. If you wire them in "parallel" and have inverters / converters run to each modules and isolators between cells, you could turn off one module or one cell at a time. However, like all engineering projects, you are constantly doing cost performance analysis to see whether any good idea is worth spending time on, and whether it is cheaper to just take a yield hit on scrap than designing things to be easy to repair.
I get why they changed it, but I've yet to hear from a single person that has a Model S that doesn't think the screen gear selector isn't worse to use. Obviously it works, it's there, it's just not as intuitive. It won't keep me from buying the car, I just don't see it as a positive.
Why is that? We typically hit Costco about 13 miles away, early Sunday by 8:30 AM. Fill up one of the gas cars and shop. Of course that can waste a gallon or 2 based on distance, so if I am not shopping I can just pay more, closer to home.
I am appreciating the Model 3, I can tell you that much. I am not a fan of crowds while shopping and certainly in line for gas.
By the way, we have a hybrid. They are great for many, but I will not buy another. EV is better for my use case.
JHZR2
Staff member
You’re making my point. It’s about planning. A gas car will draw down idling too. Maybe not as quickly though?
But it will “refill” far faster and easier too.
JHZR2
Staff member
Funny because Costco is always crowded and the lines are long for gas. Can’t say I’ve ever encountered a crowd for gas anyplace else.
I have seen a crowd at most super chargers I’ve gone to…
I suggest Tesla is past start up mode and now in rapid growth mode. New factories, expanding current ones and releasing new products. They have 2 of the best selling cars in the world.
I'm constantly reminded of my Model 3 use when I drive the GTI. If I used the Model 3 as my daily I'd spend less time held up fueling by a lot to drive it. My public charging use would be twice a month max. I fill up once a week if not twice a week in the GTI. If I didn't get called to an outlying point randomly, I'd never need public charging.
Sunday mornings at 8:30 is best for a Costco trip. I rarely go after 10 AM. Maybe to pickup an Interstate battery...
The gas station has 30 to 40 pumps. No lines early but certainly not empty.
Remember, gas ain't cheap around here; Costco sells a lot. It can be 50 cents a gallon cheaper, even more.
The only place I have seen a full Tesla Supercharger location is downtown Los Gatos behind a huge Safeway complex. It was installed before the S came out. 20 Superchargers and they are the old 72 kW. Pretty old skool but the redwoods are nice.
Here's what the newer Superchargers look like:
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