Tesla Model 3

[freebeard]

2:04:18
Joe Rogan — "Have you thought about an air conditioner? ...I know you have ...trick question"
Elon Musk — [pause] "I cannot answer questions about potential future products"

[jcp123]

Well, I indeed listened to it today. What a genuinely odd guy but I kinda have to say that although I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to hang out with him, I'm glad he exists. He looks at things way differently than most folks. I'm actually glad I got to hear him in long-form, because Tesla flaws now seem like mere quirks and entirely beside the point, as he sees it.

[MetroMPG]

NHTSA gives 2018 Tesla Model 3 perfect marks for crash safety

The 2018 Tesla Model 3 aced its federal crash-test regimen and earned top, five-star scores on all of its sub-tests, safety officials said this week. The Model 3 follows the Model S and X in getting the highest rating

[ProDigit]

Probably due to the battery pack lowering the center of gravity, and acting like a high strength steel cage on the bottom (lowering crumple zone).
It is safer is low to mid speed situations (say up to 60mph)

[NeilBlanchard]

It helps that there is no large metal lump under the hood - it has a much more effective crumple zone.

[freebeard]

If the CG is lower than the roll center, won't a car lean into a corner instead of outward?

[RedDevil]

Originally Posted by freebeard

If the CG is lower than the roll center, won't a car lean into a corner instead of outward?

The roll center is usually very low, so that is unlikely to happen. Lifting the roll center wouldn't make it track straight when going over bumps, so it has to be low.

The roll center can shift when the car corners, due to suspension geometry:

[ProDigit]

Tesla model 3 interior, looks like a sci fi movie.
Hate that it has no actual buttons.
Everything goes via the touch screen.
Anyone who knows anything remotely of cars, knows how hard it is to operate a touch screen while driving.
Roads in the majority of the world are horrible and full of potholes.
It would work well perhaps for a nicely paved track, but not for the streets.


Meanwhile the interior of the Nissan Leaf:


The Model 3 side shot, looks lots better than their predecessors, and better than the leaf. The leaf looks like an economy car, the Tesla like a sports car.


but you can't deny that not a lot of people are turned on by the front.
There's something terribly missing:

Like a grill.

Though newer models address this:


A lot has changed, but so did it with the first Volts.
I abhorred the Volt when it first came out with it's center handbrake like gearstick, and cockpit design was so ugly:


Over time these things got addressed to look almost like a regular car:


I'm still not sold on a tesla though (or any electric for what it's worth).
Economically, it makes no sense for me to buy one, until they are able to defy the laws of physics, and make it charge twice as fast on a 120V outlet. I don't have 240V outlets where I live, and drive 70 miles a day, for at least 5 days a week.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by ProDigit

Tesla model 3 interior, looks like a sci fi movie.
Hate that it has no actual buttons.
Everything goes via the touch screen.
Anyone who knows anything remotely of cars, knows how hard it is to operate a touch screen while driving.

but you can't deny that not a lot of people are turned on by the front.
There's something terribly missing:
Like a grill.

I'm still not sold on a tesla though (or any electric for what it's worth).
Economically, it makes no sense for me to buy one, until they are able to defy the laws of physics, and make it charge twice as fast on a 120V outlet. I don't have 240V outlets where I live, and drive 70 miles a day, for at least 5 days a week.

Many people initially assume the lack of buttons in the Model 3 will be a big problem, and later decide they prefer the touch screen. I've been told it's very intuitive. Not only that, but the car can be voice controlled.

The current fad is large, superficial grills on vehicles where half of the grill is actually covered up, and just there for appearances. It's a fad I do not think will hold up well over time, and we'll look back on this era like we do with tailfins on cars of the '50s. The Model 3 is ahead of the times style-wise, and should hold up well over the years. I find minimalistic grills to be very aesthetically pleasing and large grills to be ostentatious.



On a 20 A breaker, you can pull ~1.6 kWh at 120v. On a 15 A breaker, you can pull 1.4 kWh. 11-13 hours would give you a full charge every night assuming you get 4 miles per kWh.

Even then, you don't need to begin each day with a full charge. At 200+ miles of range, the Tesla can slowly lose charge each day and make up for it with weekend charging.

EVs make the most sense for those with the greatest commute distances since the cost of electricity and maintenance are so minimal.

[ProDigit]

On the contrary. Anyone doing more than 50 miles a day, and is stuck with his home 120V AC charging port, should not even consider an electric!

Add to the range issue, climate controls. In colder regions, cabin heating is a big part of energy consumption, while in hotter regions AC is even more draining than heating the cabin!

I've done the calculations, assuming I could charge my car 12 hours a day (at night), doing 70 miles a day, I would end up with a dead battery by friday.
This assuming nothing goes wrong with the charging process (like no one unplugs it, or no power outages occur).

A range of 350 miles now, means for most EVs, a guaranteed range of 280 miles in 5 years, but some still retain 90% of their original capacity (that'd be 315 miles, basically cutting the need for energy by half a day trip short).

A DC fast charger would make it possible to bypass the amp ratings, since DC fast chargers are basically battery packs that charge while you're away, and unleash that extra stored energy while charging the car, simultaneously with the AC power.
At the cost of lower charging efficiency.

A 64kW battery, like that of the volt would take an estimated 80kW to charge. Since the charging process of 64kW is about 90% efficient, as is the charging process of the DC charger (basically 'a battery' charging a battery; or a supercaps pack charging a battery).

Think about the original estimated cost of 64kWh at $10ct/kWh (a full charge is projected to cost you $6.5), actually ends up costing you 80 * 0.15 (15ct as your electric company will charge you more when your consumption goes up, and is never mentioned when selling an EV) = $12.

The actual price is almost doubled from what's originally projected.

Match this with statistics of EVs and gasoline cars doing 30MPG avg, and your EV which is projected to consume 1/3rd of the cost of a gasoline engine, is now consuming 2/3rds of the energy price of a gasoline car.
And it all makes no more sense to even think of EVs, until the overall purchase price of an EV becomes well within the 20-25% sales price of a gasoline car.