Electric Cars -- anyone own one?

[dellet]

Can't they link it up to GPS or satellite ?

My understanding is that this is only an issue with certain models and years. So they have clearly figured it out.
Musk vowed never again on the APP going down, We'll see.

The customer this happened to was quite honest about the good and bad about the Tesla he owned. Great customer support, but logistics don't always work out.
Traveling through Montana according to him, was harder than cross continental Australia. Australia has what looked like locomotive diesel generators stationed throughout the interior, my understanding was thanks to Tesla. Here you're on your own, sometimes depending on other Tesla owners for charging. This customer has a station and says he meets a lot of other owners that way.

He had a flat late on Friday afternoon, sidewall damage, no spare. Apparently to save weight and space, the spare was eliminated and in case of a flat, call customer service and they send a tow truck, take you to a service center for repair or ship a tire to have installed. Great customer service.

[Forum Boss. Yes, no spare tire. This from the web: "To Tesla, it didn't make sense to include a spare tire for only 15% of the time. ... So, in place of a spare tire, there's something called the TPMS sensor. This informs drivers when the tire pressure is low, giving them enough time to drive to a tire repair shop, decreasing the risk of flat tires." FB: That sounds good, but a major puncture can go completely flat very quickly, in a short distance.]

Problem with late Friday in Montana, the tire did not start moving until Monday, arrived about 4pm Wednesday, car picked up Thursday morning.

He planned trips carefully, but there were the occasional surprises. The unlock app was one.
Look at the view sweetheart, not a sign of another human anywhere. Let's get a photo. Purse and wallet left in the car, photo taken, push send to share it with the world. No service. No unlocking the car. No calling a tow truck or anyone else. Wait for someone to stop and take you to a phone. Kinda like the old days.

Again these aren't really EV or Tesla problems, but there seems to be a basic assumption that everyone that will own, one lives in the city. Where there are Tesla dealerships and charging stations within reach. This customer has never brought his Tesla back for the summer.

For perspective we don't have a Rover dealership anywhere close and any customer service is 250 miles away. Had a person call on a no start on a Range Rover. He was trying to decide if it was worth it to wait a couple days until I could look at it for $$ or have Rover customer service take care of it under warranty.

Turns out his driveway is pretty steep, parked it the night before and would not start in the morning. Rover came and picked it up, called him the next day, car is ready, here's the total. Warranty does not cover so low on gas that it won't start on a hill. They did cover the tow to the shop. He had to pay for the gas and figure out how to get his car back from 250 miles away.

There are a lot of very nice cars I don't recommend as daily drivers here if you don't have a backup or absolutely need it every day. I can provide air for the tires, water for the radiator, soap for the wiper washers. Everything else is 2-5 days out. If you read the fine print, we're designated Rural delivery. That means over night delivery is not guaranteed from anyone.

You might consider trading your Jaguar in on that used Subaru if you can throw in some cash to make it worth while.

I get calls often,
My phone won't talk to my car, can you help?
I can give you the number of the closest dealer, or Phone store.
No help at either.
What about software support?
They don't speak English.

Customer support on any new vehicle is becoming more important than any thing else. Computer in your toaster goes out by another one. $1000 phone won't talk to your $100,000 car, call Peggy in Bangladesh.

 

[ronsatspokane]

Flying Teslas

 

[SS427]

Owner of a Toyota RAV4 Prime. This is a plug in hybrid that yields about 50 miles of electric driving and then ICE miles of about 450-500 additional miles. Like all hybrids, the car will generate electricity and charge the battery going downhill or coming to a stop. I've recovered in excess of 20 miles of electric when dropping elevation for an extended distance. Doesn't sound like much but it all adds up.

The car charges over night off a 110 twenty amp circuit. Can purchase and install a 220 charging station that will give a full charge in just over two hours, but so far with our driving habits have not seen a need for fast charging. Car can be programmed to charge during off hours if you can get off hour discounts. Can't use the Tesla charging network unless you purchase an over priced adapter, although you can travel with the included 110 plug and plug into any 110 outlet. With the backup gas engine I've never bothered to do that. One of the biggest issues is we are not using the gas fast enough and have concerns about it going stale without using a fuel stabilizer or using non ethanol gas.

Between ICE and electric the car produces 302 HP. Zero to sixty in 5.8 seconds - not Tesla numbers but more than enough for the wife to get another ticket. Battery always holds enough charge to produce that HP even if the car says battery is drained and running exclusively on ICE. Rated to tow 2,500 lbs, so I can tow a small aluminum boat or my two ATVs. Energy economy so far is averaging 97 mpg equivalent, mostly because 95% of the trips we take are local pure electric trips.

Living in Oregon we benefit from mostly hydro electric power, so rates are fairly low. I live in the Willamette Valley so this car works for the distances involved. Eastern Oregon and it wouldn't make nearly as much sense and you would be better off with a regular hybrid or ICE. A mild climate or better yet a warm climate is a better choice for these cars than below freezing temps for half the year.

Car was expensive. That expense was offset by a $7,500 federal tax relief program. Meaning if my federal tax burden next year is 7,500, I would owe zero federal taxes. If my tax burden is 10,000, I only pay 2,500. However if my federal tax burden is 5,000, you only get 5,000 in relief. No 2,500 check to make up the difference. Clearly another law that benefits those with money. (This tax relief program is only in effect until the manufacturer sells 200,000 electric units. Then it gets reduced over time and eventually those cars don't qualify. Tesla and GM for instance don't qualify any longer).

Wouldn't hesitate to buy another electric/ICE car, but not ready to commit to fully electric. Once fusion power is perfected perhaps.

 

[DocCarbon]

So simply ask yourselves do electric cars benefit the planet or the persons invested in the scam !.

I say the latter ,simply because electrical engineering dictates ; NOT every house hold will be able to have # 2.5 or even a single #1 charging station . Something referred to as the power grid dictates transmission capability , NOT politicians or ex bartenders disrupting congressional reasoning !.
So next time any of you drive by a commercial charging station ,tell all of us how many solar panels and wind turbines YOU count powering that fantasy !. Welcome to REALITY !.

Fyi : Unobtainum is on Avatar ,let us know when you get there !.

Oh one last reminder : Politicians as Federal and State entities along with municipalities ,DON'T relinquish power or revenue !. So electric vehicles will soon be overwhelmed with taxes never dreamed possible with fossil fuel vehicles . Those free charging stations aren't free anymore !.

You want to put the brakes on planet pollution ?, cut ALL overseas shipping as well as Air transportation and while your at it , STOP running Icebreakers in the Arctic because that's WHERE the REAL PROBLEMS EXIST !!!.

 

[DocCarbon]

Pipelines vs. Trains vs. Cargo Ships


Someone with a sharp mind and the capacity to do a little research spent time putting these numbers together:

1 Train has 100 cars, 2 engines and weighs 27,240,000 LBS.

1 Train carries 3,000,000 gallons of oil.

1 train uses 55.5 gallons of diesel per mile.

It takes 119,000 gallons of diesel to go 2150 miles from Hardidsy, AB to Freeport, TX.

Keystone pipeline was to deliver 34,860,000 gallons of oil per day.

It would take 12 trains and 1,428,000 gallons of diesel to deliver that amount. PER DAY! 521,220,000 gallons of diesel per year.

The oil will still go to market with or without the pipeline.

By stopping the pipeline billions of gallons of diesel will be wasted and pollute needlessly. Does that make you feel good?

Stop the Oil Sands all together? Then we must ship the oil from the overseas sandbox.

1 large oil tanker can haul 120,000,000 gallons of oil and takes 15 days to float across the Atlantic.

1 boat uses 63,000 gallons of fuel PER DAY, that is about 1 million gallons of the most polluting type fuel in the world PER TRIP.* (See below)

Or take 3.5 days of Keystone Pipeline to move the same amount of oil with a fraction of the pollution.

In international waters ship emissions remains one of the least regulated parts of our global transportation system. The fuel used in ships is waste oil, basically what is left over after the crude oil refining process. It is the same as asphalt and is so thick that when cold it can be walked upon. It's the cheapest and most polluting fuel available and the world's 90,000 ships chew through an astonishing 7.29 million barrels of it each day, or more than 84% of all exported oil production from Saudi Arabia.

Shipping is by far the biggest transport polluter in the world. There are 760 million cars in the world today emitting approx. 78,599 tons of Sulfur Oxides (SOx) annually. The world's 90,000 vessels burn approx. 370 million tons of fuel per year emitting 20 million tons of Sulfur Oxides. That equates to 260 times more Sulfur Oxides being emitted by ships than the worlds entire car fleet. One large ship alone can generate approx. 5,200 tons of sulfur oxide pollution in a year, meaning that 15 of the largest ships now emit as much SO2 as the world’s 760 million cars.

Eliminate all gas consuming cars and diesel vehicles?

Worldwide car gas consumption is 403,583,712,000 gallons a year. That's billion.

Worldwide oil consumption is 1,500,000,000,000 gallons a year. That's trillion.

It takes 2.15 gallons of oil to make 1 gallon of gasoline/petrol, and 0.6 gal of diesel.

So it takes 867,704,980,800 gallons of oil to run the worlds cars, most diesel vehicles for a year and some ships.

That leaves 632,295,019,200 gallons of oil for other uses.

Passenger vehicles are only a very small percentage of the problem. If emissions are the problem why not just capture them at the exhaust?



Create an industry to clean exhaust instead of crushing an entire industry and building a complete untested, replacement industry?

So are we willing to dramatically increase mining to get all the minerals necessary to make all these batteries and electric motors?



Mining is far worse for the environment than oil extraction.

Killing Keystone was glibly decided by emotional idiots without brains! Destructive idiots who are fooling America to boost their standing with Foreign paymasters. Why do you think that the Democratic Party is the one who cancelled the Keystone Pipeline?



Because the democrap Party is the party of ignorance, arrogance and corruption!

 

[EricJ]

Been reading up on these and not sure what to believe ? I would rather hear it from an owner. Two sides to every story

My Wife has a '14 Tesla Model S. She has had it for 8 years with about 90k miles. It is a wonderful car and perfect for her life style. No maintenance at all; only costs have been for tires. She did recently opt for an expensive software upgrade, however. Very well made car with excellent fit and finish, it does not show any age.

The battery has deteriorated only slightly - she gets about 225 miles at full charge.

We normally charge at home during the night at $0.11 per KWH so a normal charge costs about $7.00.

Trips in the car require planning but that can be part of the fun and we plan our travel around supercharger locations. No cost for supercharging with this model. We have had only two events where we feared running out of electricity.

The navigation system is absolutely excellent. It will "find the red house with a white porch diagonal from a 7-eleven somewhere in Northern California" and map the route in just seconds. The climate control is not so good. The touch-screen buttons require precision. Ya gotta hit the button right. The system works very well, but is not easy to set.

Now, I don't suggest it as an only car. We also have an ICE car as a backup which makes the Tesla easier to use.

The Tesla is not only a very good electric car, it is a very good car in general.

Hope this helps. And, good luck.

Eric

 

[DocCarbon]

One additional minor detail I neglected to mention : What products are produced from petroleum ?.
The very products their shoving down your throats ,so HOW are those to be produced WITHOUT OIL ?.
Sometimes people amaze me at how utterly stupid and decisive they've become , all because some mental midget on a propaganda channel or celebrities pretending to believe they actually know something ,about the World they fail to live within . Do as we say ,Not as WE DO .
Mask mandates and ALL the Lemming's into the Sea !.

 

[1911nut]

Keystone pipeline was to deliver 34,860,000 gallons of oil per day.

That number is so far off the other numbers are suspect.

There is currently a Keystone pipeline moving oil from Alberta to Illinois, Cushing OK and Texas. It was the phase IV that was not constructed.

 

[Brians356]

Ex girlfriend owed a Tesla. Fastest car I have ever ridden in.

Fast to the next stoplight, no doubt. Zero to 60 in three seconds or whatever. Teslas are "quick" but not fast if you're driving cross-country. Say I drive my old beater 1992 Honda Civic (250k miles on engine) from Reno to Las Vegas or to Boise. I'll beat any Tesla by an hour easily, the Tesla driven as fast as someone dares. My Civic's little 10-gal tank will get me to either city without topping off, a 440 mile trip. Some say "Well, you're stopping to eat anyway, so ..." but if you're by yourself, you can't really leave the car unattended while charging for 45 minutes, and any food right at the super charger is likely to be substandard.
-

 

[Brians356]

People on this forum are aware of needing to be prepared for emergencies. Suppose a disaster (natural or, er, man-made) takes the power grid down in your region, and you need to grab your bug-out bags and evacuate hundreds of miles to safety. I always have at least 20 gallons of gasoline in 5-gal carriers ready to throw in the vehicle at all times.

Now suppose your EV is only half charged when the whistle blows. Even if your EV happens to be fully charged, how far will it take you in congested traffic, and if the power is out over a wide area, how will you recharge it?

Oh, of course, the Tesla is your 3rd vehicle, it's just a toy or a grocery-getter. But the "climate emergency" charlatans want to eliminate ICE vehicles entirely, and soon. Make them illegal, or (less overtly) make fuel prohibitively expensive and in short supply.
-

 

[300_whisper]

Now suppose we get into a nuclear war and we all die.

That’s it. That’s all I got.

 

[CaptainMal]

Now suppose we get into a nuclear war and we all die.

That’s it. That’s all I got.

If we are all dead, there's no-one to care.
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Tesla story from two days ago. Shooter at the local range rode one to the range for practice the day before our recent match. Since he lives 100 miles from the range he decided to sleep in the car overnight with the air conditioner running to keep cool. It is Florida you know.

Air conditioner is pure electric I guess and does not need any kind of running engine to work but it drank the "juice" so much he did not have enough to go back home after the shoot next day. He plugged it into the range electric. That took out the breakers, messing up both the PA system and the loaded computer and monitors ready to start the shoot.

Delays and failures can happen. How often does trying to charge your car take out someone's electrical system?

 

[CarlGeorge]

Delays and failures can happen. How often does trying to charge your car take out someone's electrical system?

Last week I spent 5 days at an Airbnb - which was a normal house.

I charged the car off a 110V garage outlet no problem. It's slow as hell - but it didn't cause any issues with breakers.

 

[hoz53]

• The rate of charging slows as the battery is filled. So....charging from 0-60%, for example, can be done very quickly. 60-80% is kind of fast. 80-100% takes quite a while.
• My wife and I charge enough to get us to the next charger - or maybe enough to get 2 chargers down the highway - depending on the situation. We never fill up to 100% - like one always does with a gas car.

When we arrive at a charger we target which charger we want to get to next. Then we charge enough to get there (plus a little buffer). We're pretty much always keeping the battery as empty as we're comfortable and charging just enough to get us to the next charging stop we want to do.....in order to not have time spent charging when the battery is relatively full and taking a long time because it's getting full.

The way this works out when we travel is most charging stops are in the 20-30 min range. We sometimes have 10 min stops and others are 40. I'd say usually we're ready to go maybe 5 min before the car is. We've had situations where the bathroom/getting food tasks took longer than the car needed to charge. Im sure they will be

thats alot of good practical info— thanks
i guess you stop more to charge up then you would to get gas. sounds like you have a good system.

 

[Adam in WI]

That number is so far off the other numbers are suspect.

There is currently a Keystone pipeline moving oil from Alberta to Illinois, Cushing OK and Texas. It was the phase IV that was not constructed.

830,000 barrels times 42 gallons.

34,860,000 gallons.

What's off about it?

 

[ronsatspokane]

So aside from the fact that those on the left who advocate for electrons over combustion as their preferred form of energy do not understand the laws of thermodynamics, one wonders what the impact will be on the law of the land. Think about it.

As we all know scarcity of resources leads to criminal behavior as those with criminal intent seek to corner the market on those resources or steal them from those who posses them. In the future will laws against the theft of electrons be more like the theft of a horse in the wild west (a hanging offense) or more like kids siphoning gas (a misdemeanor)? Clearly those who prefer electrons would like to see those who prefer combustion hanged. Will they hang each other if they are successful in eliminating combustion from the world?

 

[1911nut]

830,000 barrels times 42 gallons.

34,860,000 gallons.

What's off about it?

You’re right, I was reading barrels not gallons

 

[CarlGeorge]

Fast to the next stoplight, no doubt. Zero to 60 in three seconds or whatever. Teslas are "quick" but not fast if you're driving cross-country. Say I drive my old beater 1992 Honda Civic (250k miles on engine) from Reno to Las Vegas or to Boise. I'll beat any Tesla by an hour easily, the Tesla driven as fast as someone dares. My Civic's little 10-gal tank will get me to either city without topping off, a 440 mile trip. Some say "Well, you're stopping to eat anyway, so ..." but if you're by yourself, you can't really leave the car unattended while charging for 45 minutes, and any food right at the super charger is likely to be substandard.
-

If the goal of a road trip is shortest total travel time an electric vehicle is absolutely not the right answer. But the expansion of travel time in the Tesla environment, in my opinion, is not nearly as dramatic as many think. In my recent 755 mi drive Google Maps says it's 11hrs 23 mins of pure driving. What would that be in a gas car with fuel, bathroom and food breaks?......11hrs 45 mins or 12 hrs let's say. It took us 13 hours.

The range of a gas car over-reaches the need for food and bathroom breaks. Stopping for those activities - without getting gas - was fairly common when we took road trips. In the electric car we've never stopped to just go to the bathroom or get food. Food around Superchargers is hit-and-miss - just like with gas stations.

Not sure why someone thinks a charging car can't be left alone. I've done it many times. Probably half of the cars I see at Superchargers have no one in or near them.

 

[Thor357]

I'd like more data on this one because I'm struggling to connect the dots.

Was he relying on his phone/app to start the car, rather than the key card? If so, there are a lot of stories of the cars failing to wake up when using the app.

We tried using my phone as a wifi hotspot. Didn't work as I too could not connect to wifi. We had to walk back towards the highway to get a signal but it was spotty at best and would disappear as we walked back towards the car. He called his wife to bring the other key card and it too failed. I don't know enough about Tesla's to tell you why his car would not "start". I just know that it took a guy with a 4x4 to drag the Tesla to an area in the parking lot to start it, about 150 feet.
I still have some function he put on my phone in case it happens again. It hasn't because he checks for a signal before he turns the car off or leaves it on while we shoot. When he leaves the car on we usually have to stop in a small town about 20 miles away and he'll dump a quick charge in it to get back home which is another 35 miles away. We've driven over 300 miles in it at night with just about everything on. Car did fine....as long as there was wifi when ever we stopped.

 

[TrxR]

I think EVs are good for some people in certain areas. Me for example the closest tesla quick charger is 2 hours away, the closest service center is close to 18 hours away.

Not the least bit practical for me