The Electric Car Thread

[shread]

I welcome this (and would welcome similar consolidation of the rocket threads). I'm jumping in to try to establish that any sort of electrified car should qualify for discussion here, PHEV as well as BEV, and even FCEV. Please carry on with driver interface issues. For the record, I prefer knobs and dials to touch screens, and would dislike voice control except, when it gets better than the current Siri, phone dialing or message writing and reading. In the car, Siri gets roundly cussed by me fairly frequently.

I might note that discussions of EVs will diverge on occasion into discussions of batteries and power sources and the grid. There's no need to terminate runaway divergences; they'll end.

 

[shread]

Oh, the word "Car" in the thread title should encompass vans, pickups and SUVs. I'm not sure about whether larger trucks should be included.

 

[shread]

Fuel cells? That seems more natural for use as a range extender than gasoline.

There are many pages of hydrogen fuel thread for fuel cell discussion. It's been gone around over and over and over and over, if you want to catch up on that thread. But, fundamentally, you can't meaningfully run a fuel cell on gasoline, and there's no hydrogen infrastructure, so... let's stick with what works for now.

There are efforts to build out hydrogen fueling infrastructure, but there are still only 40 or so stations in the US. We'll just have to wait and see.

 

[shread]

The more I read the more I think I'm going to wait for a German equivalent.

I'd be more inclined to wait a few software versions myself to see how Tesla improves things. Given my experience with Audi and Mercedes current-generation ICE (both vehicles were 2017 model years), I'm not sure the Germans will be all that much better in a few years when they finally produce a Model 3 competitor.

Or perhaps drive an American or Japanese equivalent other than a Tesla. Of course those aren't as fashionable, especially non-Tesla American cars, so they get dumped on, viz, the Bolt.

 

[shread]

to Syonyk's point, though, it's not like the motor/drive and battery are the only articles of concern. At the end of the day, they're still cars and they have all the same parts like these:

Spoiler

still has ball joints, tie rods, half shafts, control arms/bushings, shocks, and air springs. all of these are the typical things that cause owners to get rid of a car when they start breaking. The dilettantes who comment on FP articles love to crow about how much "simpler" EVs are, but it's clear they've never actually looked at one.

'cos even in the ICE world, it's incredibly rare that a car is discarded because the engine failed. transmission failures are somewhat more common, but still rare. people get rid of cars when- for the third or fourth month in a row- they're confronted with yet another $800-$1,500 repair bill for suspension work. and Teslas are heavy cars.

Suspension problems are probably not that frequent. But there are tons of annoyances that pop up in addition to suspension issues, some of which can kill an ICE, so they're fatal to a car only worth $1500. Most of the following will affect a BEV: heater core leaks; heater fan control bad; water pump bad (the bane of my existence); data sensor bad; windows won't open; door seals leak; window seals leak; window washer pump bad; window washer plastic rotted; window washer hose bad; window washer outlet plugged; windshield wiper blades bad; windshield washer motor bad; loose connection somewhere; light burned out; light lens broken; rocker panel rusts out; window cracked; hose leaks; radiator plugged; belt needs replaced; generator poops out; air conditioner leaks; air conditioner compressor bad; dent here--dent there; paint peels; paint fades; radio breaks; speakers got wet or blown out; seat fabric torn; dashboard sun bleached; u-joint/universal-joint bad. That's just off the top of my head. After 5-10 years, as the frequency of these things increases, you stop fixing each one as it occurs. Then, when 5-10 or 20 accumulate, you're driving a piece of shit.

Cars wear out if you use them.

 

[shread]

Suspension problems are probably not that frequent.

LOL.

I have never encountered them as frequently as once every 3 or 4 months.

 

[shread]

Note that Kalessin was asking for data, not anecdotes, but who the fuck is going to study why people get rid of the cars they do, and do it rigorously? Perhaps personal experience is more valuable here. One of my former duties involved running some farms, which included assembling and supervising maintenance of a fleet of 4-5 pickups, 2 bucket trucks, a dump truck, 3 tractors, and some lawn mowers and other assorted stuff with small engines. We'd buy 15-year-old pickups and run em 10 years or so. The dump was a 69 model, one bucket a 60s era, replaced by an 88, and the other bucket an 89; the lifts were 60s era. The tractors were fairly new, late 90s and 00s, after we had finished upgrading from 50s and 60s models.

Freyas, you are going to fry that Hyundai if you let it keep overheating: water pump bad; radiator clogged on the inside; radiator fins full of junk, need blown out. Start with the water pump if you want to diagnose by replacing parts.

 

[shread]

If the dealer hadn't goodwill'd the replacement of the transmission (DSG) in my S4, I'd have dumped it. Their quote was $15k and some change. Doing it on my own would have cost me (I think) $7.5K in parts, and a lot of beer to my Audi tech family members. Plus downtime on the car.

This is why an old Chevrolet is much better than an old Audi. $1-2k for a Jasper.

 

[shread]

This is why an old Chevrolet is much better than an old Audi.

Only for cost.

If you're talking about keeping an old beater running, cost is all there is. A piece of shit Audi is no better looking or performing than a piece of shit Chevy. The idea is for poor folks to be able to afford a vehicle. We're not talking about keeping cherry cars running, just old beaters.

 

[shread]

Half a million a year by 2020 hardly impressive.

Tesla will be lucky to match it with one model.

 

[shread]

This is why an old Chevrolet is much better than an old Audi.

Only for cost.

If you're talking about keeping an old beater running, cost is all there is. A piece of shit Audi is no better looking or performing than a piece of shit Chevy. The idea is for poor folks to be able to afford a vehicle. We're not talking about keeping cherry cars running, just old beaters.

Strougly disagree. The audi will always look better and perform better. Just because they are old doesn't make the audi worse than the Chevy.

Sometimes a higher value car can be a classy beater, but a lot of the time they just emphasize how far they've fallen. I'm talking about cars that don't have any wax left or peeling Clearcoat. Looks are no longer part of the equation! And will any older Audi diesels pass emissions?

 

[shread]

And will any older Audi diesels pass emissions?

Probably. They're tested to the standards they were released to, not modern standards, and how you test a diesel makes a huge, huge difference in passing (especially if all it's using is the opacity snap test).

If your injectors aren't completely trashed, you've got marginal compression, and the turbo still makes boost, an older diesel is going to pass. Especially if tested by someone who has a bit of respect for older engines and doesn't, say, bounce an old 7.3 International off the rev limiter.

umm, emissions cheating software!

 

[shread]

What drove part of this conversation was also complaints by blind groups that hybrids and BEVs need to generate extra noise. But listening to the cars for the past couple weeks, I think we have passed that moment, as all cars seem to be rather quiet these days.

I agree with the complaints of the blind groups. I remember being next to the front side of a Prius when it started moving and being startled. I had expected to hear it before seeing it. I don't think ICE cars have gotten quieter in the past 5 years or so. Perhaps you were too far way from your neighbors' cars rather than right next to them where you could notice the difference more readily.

 

[shread]

What drove part of this conversation was also complaints by blind groups that hybrids and BEVs need to generate extra noise. But listening to the cars for the past couple weeks, I think we have passed that moment, as all cars seem to be rather quiet these days.

I agree with the complaints of the blind groups. I remember being next to the front side of a Prius when it started moving and being startled. I had expected to hear it before seeing it. I don't think ICE cars have gotten quieter in the past 5 years or so. Perhaps you were too far way from your neighbors' cars rather than right next to them where you could notice the difference more readily.

I'm as close to a car as a pedestrian on a sidewalk can safely get. That's the point of this, I'm walking beside the cars driving, exactly where they would be.

In my instance, the car was starting from a dead stop. I was within a foot of its path,

 

[shread]

What drove part of this conversation was also complaints by blind groups that hybrids and BEVs need to generate extra noise. But listening to the cars for the past couple weeks, I think we have passed that moment, as all cars seem to be rather quiet these days.

I agree with the complaints of the blind groups. I remember being next to the front side of a Prius when it started moving and being startled. I had expected to hear it before seeing it. I don't think ICE cars have gotten quieter in the past 5 years or so. Perhaps you were too far way from your neighbors' cars rather than right next to them where you could notice the difference more readily.

I'm as close to a car as a pedestrian on a sidewalk can safely get. That's the point of this, I'm walking beside the cars driving, exactly where they would be.

In my instance, the car was starting from a dead stop. I was within a foot of its path,

How is that different than ICE cars that stop their engines when stopped?

You would hear it fire up before it started rolling.

 

[shread]

You would hear it fire up before it started rolling.

What fraction of a second do you consider this important?

You already lost this one, good buddy. The speakers, etc, in modern BEVs, HEVs and PHEVs and associated regulations bely your assertion that ICEs are just as quiet.

 

[shread]

You would hear it fire up before it started rolling.

What fraction of a second do you consider this important?

You already lost this one, good buddy. The speakers, etc, in modern BEVs, HEVs and PHEVs and associated regulations bely your assertion that ICEs are just as quiet.

Have you ever been in a hybrid or start/stop vehicle start up? It's surprisingly quick. If you were going to get run over from a foot away, you'd probably get run over regardless of the startup sound.

I was a foot from the side of the car, not the front. My intention with the Prius was to give it more room when I heard it start up, not realizing it would be silent. I was probably primed for 0.1 sec reaction. Instead, I detected it by eye when it was next to me.

 

[shread]

this was the most beautiful car ever made

YMMV. I think it looks like a clown shoe.

You can get it with an electric drivetrain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=610Amyhpzzk

That was the rag top, which oozed sex from every angle. The hardtop was inhibited.

 

[shread]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/jalopnik.com/redditor-s-tesla-model-3-crash-prompts-safety-changes-f-1823100420/amp

Model 3 gets in a wreck. Predictably, the screen shatters. This renders the glove box inoperable. The screen also cuts the passenger’s arm.

Putting it all on a screen which juts out like that with no protection around it seems a bad idea. There is a reason why car lcd screens are 6-7 inches max.

There is a lot of context the owner provided on Reddit that isn't in those articles: https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-3 ... collision/

Not that Tesla shouldn't make it better, but if two people walk away from a 60 MPH crash with the worst problem being a cut on one person's arm, then that's pretty fortunate for everyone.

Pffft. That is NOT a 60MPH crash into an obstacle, meaning final speed upon contact with object. Such a crash is nearly to 100% fatal.

What people mean is a "Traveling at 60MPH and then emergency breaking into an obstacle" type of crash. This is very survivable. There is a reason why frontal crash testing is performed at ~50-60km/h. Cars nearly always emergency brake into an obstacle and lose speed before impact.

The Model 3 crash above is the damage of a ~20MPH upon impact crash. That is a very hard "whack", but very, very, survivable.

Uh huh. We should trust your "expert opinion" rather than the actually expert first responders on-scene.

We should trust the data rather than subjective opinions and anecdotes.

 

[shread]

That doesn't sound right.

There are a lot more cars costing around $20k or less on the road than there are cars costing $40k or more.

FWIW, that isn't how an average is calculated. The average selling price is just the sum of all the money paid divided by the number sold. If the average were 33k, you could have way more under 20k cars sold than over 40k sold so long as at least some people bought really expensive cars. Each 100k sports car or tesla for instance will cancel out five 20k cheap cars for instance.

You're probably thinking of something more like the median selling price.

++
The ASP is indeed $36K; the Kelley Blue Book operation tracks it pretty closely.

But even if you're thinking of the median value, recall the best-selling vehicle in the US is the Ford F-150. A lot more of those get sold than $<20K subcompacts, and their ASP is near $40K, up from $32K five years ago.
Subcompacts are virtually non-existent in the USA: The Euro/Japanese/Korean A- and B-segment cars aren't imported into the USA as a rule -- you've probably never heard of most of the cars on these two lists.

Last time we discussed the price of pickups, somebody put up a low price of about $26-28k, offering a window sticker or equivalent as evidence. I started looking at offers placed in the newspaper and saw offers of <$20,000 for a straight-cab, 8'-bed, 4-WD F150 or equivalent Dodge or Chevy. This is the stripped-down model, V6, crank windows, cheap radio, but AC. Unfortunately, Ford and Chevy don't sell straight-shift models. The 2-WD models can be well under $20k. All the sellers make a shitton of money off the upsell models.

 

[shread]

They [Tesla] do control the battery factory, after all.

My impression is that Panasonic is making the batteries at the Gigafactory and Tesla packaging them

 

[shread]

I don't know what you're on. He's basically paraphrasing the NTSB report.

https://dms.ntsb.gov/pubdms/search/hitl ... E2E219927F

Exactly. I actually quoted the NTSB report, but Teslaphiles don’t like reading people saying things like the system was allowed to used outside of the operational domain it was designed for. It’s OK, I understand when people become so emotionally invested in a brand that it defines their self-worth. Any negative criticism of the brand becomes a personal attack on their ego. If it didn’t, we wouldn’t have the Battlefront. Hell, I used to be like that about Apple. But we shouldn’t define ourselves by the car we drive, or wish we drove, or the laptop we use, or the games console we play.

Yet again running to accusing others of emotional reactions.

Why is that?

Cruise control is "allowed to be used outside of the operational domain it was designed for" - precious few cruise systems alert you if you take your hands off the wheel.

Both cruise control nor Autopilot are driver assist systems. The driver must remain alert, engaged and hands-on.

Where's your reporting about every crash when cruise control is active?

Double standard much?

Oh Tom,

Cruise control doesn't steer the car for you; big difference from Autopilot. Autopilot needs to be demanding driver engagement, hands on the wheel, eyes on the road,, and refusing to operate without them, or at least making the driver jump through some extra hoops before allowing a short period of hand removal/diverted eyes. Yeah, it would make Autopilot suck. Disappointing for Tesla and its owners compared to the name of the service.

I also wonder whether that engineer in Silicon Valley was being suicidal, seeing as he had previously notified Tesla about the issue at that location.

 

[shread]

If you can reliably do it in AI #2, you'd just run that code in AI #1.

Absolutely. This problem (almost certainly - assuming, you know, not an actively evil system)....

I had never wanted to contemplate this!

 

[shread]

Tesla has registered almost 8,000 new VINs with NHTSA in the last two days; it looks like their production of 2000+ per week may not have just been a hard push for the end of the quarter. Perhaps they're finally getting that ramp-up going. They were registering 1000-2000 VINs at a time sporadically up to March, then in March they started doing 2000+ per instance. Then yesterday almost 5,000, and to everyone's surprise, nearly 3,000 more today. The highest registered VIN is over 28,000 now.

The main issue for Tesla is to keep everybody focused on the task at hand and not have people running around saying the sky is falling or some version of management and engineering are fucking up. Sounds like they've been able to do that.

 

[shread]

The numbers are staggering. China had about 99 percent of the 385,000 electric buses on the roads worldwide in 2017, accounting for 17 percent of the country’s entire fleet. Every five weeks, Chinese cities add 9,500 of the zero-emissions transporters—the equivalent of London’s entire working fleet, according Bloomberg New Energy Finance

Jebus. That's amazing. I had no idea they were shifting so radically...it's quite fantastic really.

I find the unstated implications more interesting myself. Once China finishes transitioning it's entire bus fleet to electric in a few years, it's going to have an industry capable of cranking out four or five hundred thousand heavy BEVs a year. So what's going to happen with all of that capacity...

<100,000 p/yr according to the Bloomberg quote above. Still a lot. Could replace the US tractor-trailer fleet of 2 million in 20 years.

 

[shread]

Model 3 teardown summary. http://www.motortrend.com/news/tesla-mo ... tructed-3/

Excellent battery pack, "Tesla doesn't know how to build a car body and wow is this heavy," apparently 165 feet of sealant (which is very high), and (as is entirely unsurprising), very impressive electronics.

While there was praise for the electronics and other innovations in the design it seems the like skeleton - the structure - got a pass with a 'how hard can stamping the structure be?' look. Is it intentionally that heavy and costly? I would imagine not, but I think only further analysis of later builds will be able to prove that out. Maybe there is a method to that design we're not aware of, but it seems puzzling... or they simply made a mistake that they have to live with now.

Yes, they did praise the electronics, but that circuit board that got so much praise is made by Nvidia, not Tesla.

Munro said in the video that the chips on the board were Nvidia, but not especially the board.

 

[shread]

Model 3 teardown summary. http://www.motortrend.com/news/tesla-mo ... tructed-3/

Excellent battery pack, "Tesla doesn't know how to build a car body and wow is this heavy," apparently 165 feet of sealant (which is very high), and (as is entirely unsurprising), very impressive electronics.

While there was praise for the electronics and other innovations in the design it seems the like skeleton - the structure - got a pass with a 'how hard can stamping the structure be?' look. Is it intentionally that heavy and costly? I would imagine not, but I think only further analysis of later builds will be able to prove that out. Maybe there is a method to that design we're not aware of, but it seems puzzling... or they simply made a mistake that they have to live with now.

Yes, they did praise the electronics, but that circuit board that got so much praise is made by Nvidia, not Tesla.

Munro said in the video that the chips on the board were Nvidia, but not especially the board.

I am pretty sure it was a Drive PX from Nvidia. Even Electrek acknowledges that Tesla buys them: https://electrek.co/2017/05/22/tesla-nv ... autopilot/

Munro is talking about a different board than the one illustrated in your link. See https://youtu.be/CpCrkO1x-Qo starting at 15:00. See also 31:25. There's a lot to like about Tesla in this video for the fans.

 

[shread]

It’s Dr. Gitlin to you.

Nah, I'll pass on that.

Don’t feel so special. It’s Dr. Gitlin to everyone. Not just you. It’s his title. Literally. He has a doctorate.

I realize that, but I don’t generally pander to the sort of fragile egos who insist that others use their various titles outside of academic or professional contexts. That goes double in cases like this where the doctorate is so far removed from the subject as to be generally worthless. In any case, I should probably stop contributing to off-topic conversation, so that’s all from me about it.

No. Instead you addressed him as Mr. Gitlin, changing his handle so as to insult him, deliberately, while MISTAKENLY correcting him. It was an ad hom and reflects very poorly on you.

 

[shread]

"Because capital costs are the biggest chunk of BEB lifecycle costs — remember, they cost $200,000 to $300,000 more than diesel buses up front — outside capital helps them the most.

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environm ... tric-buses

A semi-trailor tractor costs about $100,000. I can't imagine a slightly longer frame and coach on top would bump the cost of a bus much beyond $200,000. The Tesla semi is pretty competitive on cast.

 

[shread]

"Because capital costs are the biggest chunk of BEB lifecycle costs — remember, they cost $200,000 to $300,000 more than diesel buses up front — outside capital helps them the most.

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environm ... tric-buses

A semi-trailor tractor costs about $100,000. I can't imagine a slightly longer frame and coach on top would bump the cost of a bus much beyond $200,000. The Tesla semi is pretty competitive on cast.

St Albert, a small bedroom community of Edmonton, Alberta bought and received three BYD 35 foot electric bus for about C$970,000 each about a year ago.

https://stalbert.ca/cosa/news/releases/ ... n-stalbert

From https://www.thoughtco.com/bus-cost-to-p ... te-2798845, Updated July 10, 2017.

Diesel buses are the most common type of bus in the United States, and they cost around $300,000 per vehicle, although a recent purchase by the Chicago Transit Authority found them paying almost $600,000 per diesel bus. Buses powered by natural gas are becoming more popular, and they cost about $30,000 more per bus than diesels do. Los Angeles Metro recently spent $400,000 per standard size bus and $670,000 per 45-foot bus that run on natural gas.

Hybrid buses, which combine a gasoline or diesel engine with an electric motor much like a Toyota Prius, are much more expensive than either natural gas or diesel buses.

Typically, they cost around $500,000 per bus with Greensboro, NC's transit system spending $714,000 per vehicle. All of these prices will, of course, increase with each passing year.

Electric buses are on the horizon but problems still persist with batteries being unable to provide a satisfactory range.

I don't know about the range bit for electric buses; perhaps that's for long distance transport rather than city routes.

Perhaps the bus purchasers are not as skilled as truck owners in keeping costs down, although there is a lot more variability in buses than road tractors.

 

[shread]

As for the Lagunas Norte site, I can assure you their are few Uber drivers above 13,000 feet in the Andes.

Llamas?

 

[shread]

Model Y, new plant new platform, manufacturing revolution.. Again Due 2020. Possibly.

https://electrek.co/2018/05/02/tesla-mo ... ssion=true

proving they've learned nothing from the Model 3 launch.

Or they've learned to make a better more mass producable platform?

Hope they don't throw away everything no reason to

they could easily hire that knowledge, they don't have to "learn" it.

You just don't seem to understand that Elon Musk and Silicon Valley are going to reinvent auto manufacturing, disrupting the business. The dinosaurs can't possibly adapt fast enough and just generally have their heads up their asses. Jeez! :bigdumbgrin:
/s

 

[shread]

Relock this one. There's already a new thread, and it's more inclusive.

As Forrest Gump said, "It happens."

 

[shread]

Don't look at the human strong man records...

Tow ratings aren't related to "Has enough power to drag XYZ." They're related to "Can maintain safe control of an XYZ in a wide range of conditions." You see a significant difference in US/UK tow ratings because the towing conditions are different, and arguing that "Well, the UK version can tow so many pounds, so clearly the US version can..." (as I see on another forum I frequent) misses that the towing regulations are different, the conditions are different, and the speeds are different.

It's a neat party trick, but that's about it.

I'd still like to see an X towing that motherfucker down a mountain on an interstate and jackknifing.

 

[shread]

The NY Times has an article on Model 3 production at the Fremont factory. Some interesting takaways:

• 1. Instead of the traditional process of creating the line using manual labor and then subbing in robots, Tesla created the line using robots and then subbing in people. This resulted in a lot of capital being used on robots that were withdrawn from production.
  
  2. They added a third line recently. At traditional companies new lines are not added once production is stable, to avoid tooling costs. However, many of the robots for the new line came from spares. The new line is more efficient. I expect the extra line may let them shut down others for upgrades without stopping production. This third line is under the tent.
  
  3. They had a problem with a robot inserting a bolt and floundered around before figuring out the tip of the bolt needed to be tapered rather than blunt. (It blows my mind they didn't already know this).
  
  4. They are only training their new workers for 3 days instead of several weeks, and inserting large numbers of new workers into production areas, ending up with inexperienced teams.
  
  5. Musk is sleeping at the plant.
  
  6. Their bonds are in the junk category.

I should add that demand remains strong as indicated by the backlog list not disappearing.

 

[shread]

I think we've been on this before. To a rounding error, trucks and other heavy vehicles are the only causes of road damage, so any kind of per-mile tax strategy should target those first and maybe only light duty vehicles when technology allows for that to be done really cheaply.

Agreed, and I've pointed it out before.

What light vehicles primarily cause is congestion, which has its own costs. Some pollution as well. I'm big on user fees to account for otherwise externalized costs.

But congestion would slow the trucks down, reducing damage. /s

 

[shread]

But congestion would slow the trucks down, reducing damage. /s

Actually, it increases damage - slower speeds means the road deflects more under an axle group, and road deflection is what causes the damage. So you'd be better off with less congestion, certainly. But, on the flip side, cars are a far lower contributor to congestion than trucks.

Those puppies bounce more at higher speeds.

 

[shread]

Those puppies bounce more at higher speeds.

Yes, but "bouncing" isn't the sort of "sustained push" that causes the deflection and damage. I'm just going based on the studies and presentations I've found that say lower speed is harder on roads than higher speed, in the context of heavy trucking.

This is also why bus stops here have concrete pads for the buses to stop on.

When they are in stop and go traffic, they bounce when they stop and start. I expect this applies to busses too. At speed, they bounce like crazy at the junctures between bridges and solid ground. Got any links Syonyk? I'm curious more than skeptical.

 

[shread]

^^^^ +++++!!!

 

[shread]

Unless I am miscounting loops, my ICE Crown Vic has 4 coolant loops. Engine, transmission, power steering and cabin heat.

You have a Crown Vic!!!!!!! Never would have thunk it.