Tesla Model 3 revealed

[Tuna]

babatunde said:

So your argument is that the BMW's & Toyota's of the world are going to invent, patent and build factories for a brand new electrical storage system that is lighter, more efficient and cheaper than LiIon in 3 & 1/2 years (not forgetting a brand new design of car to go with it).

Sorry not going to happen.
10 years from now who knows, but in a industry that takes 3 year+ to bring a design based on ICE technology to market expecting them to respond like a startup isn't realistic.

I'm not arguing anything. I'm saying that over the next few years I expect we're going to see the existing hybrids pushed further, we're going to see aggressive hybrid technology like the high end Porsche stuff become available in more affordable cars. I know that a number of companies have demonstrated multi fuel engines for use in hybrids, and it's been widely reported that China is investing very heavily in new battery technologies. That's ignoring the weird left-field battery technologies that are being very regularly reported in the engineering press at the moment. If just one of them gets out of the lab and into production, it could change everything.

One of the advantages of ICE packaging is that if someone comes up with a novel energy source (super capacitors, flow cells or whatever), it's much easier than in an ICE car to redesign the vehicle to accommodate that power source. BWM, Toyota and many others have some pretty well funded research programmes into 'whats coming next', and they all keep track of legislation changes that are planned over the next twenty five years. Unlike Tesla, the big players have enough funding to be exploring a whole host of different options and to wait until those options become mainstream enough to start selling them to the public.

So the point I'm making is that the big players aren't waking up this morning going "Oh sh*t, we'd better start to design an EV". They have a whole host of research programmes that have already been running for years and cars based on that research will come out next year, and the year after that, and the year after that. Unlike Tesla, they haven't bet all their money on a single technology. Tesla's gigafactory will have taken around three years to come on line - don't you think that better funded companies like Toyota and VW could at least start production of a new battery design in a similar timeframe? They don't have to act like a startup to design an entire new car, only to innovate on the few parts that are needed to make EVs more competitive. Everyone can see the industry is changing fast, so it would be strange to imagine that the big players are just sitting there waiting to become obsolete.

Edited by Tuna on Saturday 9th April 11:37

[The Vambo]

Tuna said:

it would be strange to imagine that the big players are just sitting there waiting to become obsolete.

Edited by Tuna on Saturday 9th April 11:37

Everything in that post I have selectively quoted is completely logical and makes sense but when you look at what has actually happened
to companies like Kodak, Blockbuster, AIM Blackberry and Nokia, it is also a bit naive and totally underestimates the arrogance and inability to identify and commit to a future technology that bluechip companies have regularly shown.

[rscott]

George111 said:

I understand what the h means

So will a Leaf charger know to spread it's usage over 10 hours rather than 4 or whatever it might be ? The fact is that there will be a massive surge in power usage and the spot power draw will be unpredictable without having all the chargers controlled centrally which isn't going to happen. The best is that as we approach peak supply the National Grid will start switching off consumers via the smart meters.

You're right - right now we can cope with it because the number of EVs being charged is very low, early adopters and geeks who enjoy it but once it reaches mainstream, or tipping point, there will be a problem and you don't need to work for National Grid to see it. It's not being raised as an issue now because nobody expects EV use to ramp up very fast and certainly not in the current parliament.

Tell me, does Elon Musk store the power he generates from solar then release it when we need it ? Or does he just generate the power during the day and hope everybody charges their cars as they drive along using a very long cable

Not sure why you think everyone will need to fully charge their vehicles every night? It's been posted many times that the average daily commute is less than 10 miles each way. That would mean most vehicles only needing either a weekly charge or less than an hour a night.

[Bassfiend229hp]

MitchT said:

Car Magazine said:

It’s due to cost $35,000 (£24,216)

But how much by the time the 'rip off Britain' premium has been added?

I love the "Rip Off Britain" comments - I work for a company that manufactures product in the UK and we sell to America (and other territories) and the feeling in the states is that our kit is artificially inflated too but the reality of global trading is that everyone down the chain has to get paid, shipping costs money, Distributors have to shell out on stock and warranties have to be covered etc.

It's always cheaper to bring in one item as an individual and then bh about the customers being screwed...

Phil

[otolith]

rscott said:

Not sure why you think everyone will need to fully charge their vehicles every night? It's been posted many times that the average daily commute is less than 10 miles each way. That would mean most vehicles only needing either a weekly charge or less than an hour a night.

Quite. Would the petrol stations cope if everyone filled their tank from empty every day?

[George111]

rscott said:

Not sure why you think everyone will need to fully charge their vehicles every night? It's been posted many times that the average daily commute is less than 10 miles each way. That would mean most vehicles only needing either a weekly charge or less than an hour a night.

The statistics for journey length need to be interpreted with respect to the distribution of those users who will swap to EV. Most people in towns and in particular Greater London do drive very short distances to work which lowers the average distance each way, but those are the people who will find it hardest to switch to EV because of the typical housing distribution in those areas. See here: http://www.racfoundation.org/assets/rac_foundation... They will also benefit less from the switch.

I think you need to double it so a total of 40 miles would easily be achieved which is half the capacity of a Leaf, so most people will charge it every night - and why shouldn't they ?

There's also the situation that people go shopping after work, to see friends, pick up children from school, the gym etc - so the total commute distance is not relevant, it's the total use distance which is going to be much greater hence almost certainly charging every night, unless perhaps you own a Tesla which has a range greater than any of the other EVs.

There are so many factors which have not been adequately addressed yet which will prevent EV usage becoming mainstream, even if they were the ideal replacement.

Edited by George111 on Saturday 9th April 15:38

[George111]

98elise said:

We also have enough petrol capacity for all our ICE's, but not enough for them all to fill at the same time.

They don't need to because they can have a range of 300 to 600 miles on a tank, not the 90 you get from a Leaf or other average EV.

[98elise]

George111 said:

98elise said:

We also have enough petrol capacity for all our ICE's, but not enough for them all to fill at the same time.

They don't need to because they can have a range of 300 to 600 miles on a tank, not the 90 you get from a Leaf or other average EV.

My point is the enery supply does not need to deal with all vehicles supercharging at once. It just needs to deal with the average.

[98elise]

George111 said:

rscott said:

Not sure why you think everyone will need to fully charge their vehicles every night? It's been posted many times that the average daily commute is less than 10 miles each way. That would mean most vehicles only needing either a weekly charge or less than an hour a night.

The statistics for journey length need to be interpreted with respect to the distribution of those users who will swap to EV. Most people in towns and in particular Greater London do drive very short distances to work which lowers the average distance each way, but those are the people who will find it hardest to switch to EV because of the typical housing distribution in those areas. See here: http://www.racfoundation.org/assets/rac_foundation... They will also benefit less from the switch.

I think you need to double it so a total of 40 miles would easily be achieved which is half the capacity of a Leaf, so most people will charge it every night - and why shouldn't they ?

There's also the situation that people go shopping after work, to see friends, pick up children from school, the gym etc - so the total commute distance is not relevant, it's the total use distance which is going to be much greater hence almost certainly charging every night, unless perhaps you own a Tesla which has a range greater than any of the other EVs.

There are so many factors which have not been adequately addressed yet which will prevent EV usage becoming mainstream, even if they were the ideal replacement.

Edited by George111 on Saturday 9th April 15:38

The uk average is 20 miles per day, and then factor in that EV's will not suit very high mileage drivers, then that average drops. For something like a Tesla thats could 10 days between recharges.

[AmitG]

Question to those who have put down deposits. If the "deposit" had been a binding committment to buy the car (like a normal car deposit), rather than a refundable option to buy, would it have changed your mind?

I believe that "orders" have passed 300k now, which is really impressive, but I'm wondering what proportion of people will actually take physical delivery.

[George111]

98elise said:

George111 said:

rscott said:

Not sure why you think everyone will need to fully charge their vehicles every night? It's been posted many times that the average daily commute is less than 10 miles each way. That would mean most vehicles only needing either a weekly charge or less than an hour a night.

The statistics for journey length need to be interpreted with respect to the distribution of those users who will swap to EV. Most people in towns and in particular Greater London do drive very short distances to work which lowers the average distance each way, but those are the people who will find it hardest to switch to EV because of the typical housing distribution in those areas. See here: http://www.racfoundation.org/assets/rac_foundation... They will also benefit less from the switch.

I think you need to double it so a total of 40 miles would easily be achieved which is half the capacity of a Leaf, so most people will charge it every night - and why shouldn't they ?

There's also the situation that people go shopping after work, to see friends, pick up children from school, the gym etc - so the total commute distance is not relevant, it's the total use distance which is going to be much greater hence almost certainly charging every night, unless perhaps you own a Tesla which has a range greater than any of the other EVs.

There are so many factors which have not been adequately addressed yet which will prevent EV usage becoming mainstream, even if they were the ideal replacement.

Edited by George111 on Saturday 9th April 15:38

The uk average is 20 miles per day, and then factor in that EV's will not suit very high mileage drivers, then that average drops. For something like a Tesla thats could 10 days between recharges.

I've just explained why 20 miles a day isn't relevant here. EVs will suite higher mileage drivers - if you only do 5 miles a day who cares if it's in an EV or a V8 Mustang ? It's not going to cost much either way. But for somebody commuting 50 miles total plus pub, gym, school etc - it will be a significant cost saving so attractive to those drivers - I'd even consider one if I was doing that on a daily basis as it would make a useful difference.

[rscott]

George111 said:

98elise said:

George111 said:

rscott said:

Not sure why you think everyone will need to fully charge their vehicles every night? It's been posted many times that the average daily commute is less than 10 miles each way. That would mean most vehicles only needing either a weekly charge or less than an hour a night.

The statistics for journey length need to be interpreted with respect to the distribution of those users who will swap to EV. Most people in towns and in particular Greater London do drive very short distances to work which lowers the average distance each way, but those are the people who will find it hardest to switch to EV because of the typical housing distribution in those areas. See here: http://www.racfoundation.org/assets/rac_foundation... They will also benefit less from the switch.

I think you need to double it so a total of 40 miles would easily be achieved which is half the capacity of a Leaf, so most people will charge it every night - and why shouldn't they ?

There's also the situation that people go shopping after work, to see friends, pick up children from school, the gym etc - so the total commute distance is not relevant, it's the total use distance which is going to be much greater hence almost certainly charging every night, unless perhaps you own a Tesla which has a range greater than any of the other EVs.

There are so many factors which have not been adequately addressed yet which will prevent EV usage becoming mainstream, even if they were the ideal replacement.

Edited by George111 on Saturday 9th April 15:38

The uk average is 20 miles per day, and then factor in that EV's will not suit very high mileage drivers, then that average drops. For something like a Tesla thats could 10 days between recharges.

I've just explained why 20 miles a day isn't relevant here. EVs will suite higher mileage drivers - if you only do 5 miles a day who cares if it's in an EV or a V8 Mustang ? It's not going to cost much either way. But for somebody commuting 50 miles total plus pub, gym, school etc - it will be a significant cost saving so attractive to those drivers - I'd even consider one if I was doing that on a daily basis as it would make a useful difference.

As someone who does around 20 miles a day (commute to work, plus shopping trip on the way home some days, etc), fuel cost is something to consider. I've noticed the saving going from a 2.8 Saab to an MX-5 (from 21mpg to 29!).
The Tesla E does appeal a lot to me, for a variety of reasons from performance, geek appeal and running costs.

Seems odd you always use the worst case range, that of the leaf, rather than the 200+ of the Tesla.

You also somehow fail to factor in the additional charging available in many places, something which will only increase as EVs before more widely adopted. For example, when I go shopping at Waitrose on the way home from work now, I could plug in and charge up in one of their charging points.

[rscott]

I see the likes of NCP have charging points in their car parks too - so a quick topup while shopping is completely feasible.

So far George, pretty much all of your objections have been debunked, I think.
First we had the claim about off street parking, now it's power availability and vehicle usage..

[Tuna]

98elise said:

My point is the enery supply does not need to deal with all vehicles supercharging at once. It just needs to deal with the average.

It'd be interesting to hear from users of current EVs - do they let their vehicles discharge during the week, or do they automatically plug in when they get home/get to work?

If it's the latter, then you can't talk about the 'average' because you have the big synchronizing events of commuting. It doesn't matter if you're using only a fraction of your range, if everyone plugs in at the same time (i.e. when they get home from work), there will be a very non-average peak in demand. Sure, many cars will only go on to charge for an hour or two, but it's the fact that they'll all start at the same time(ish) that's the problem. It's the same as everyone putting the kettle on during the ad break in Coronation Street - a known problem for the National Grid. Except, charging an EV is like putting the kettle on, and then keeping it on for a number of hours.

Someone suggested that Tesla's 'smart charging' solves this - but all that does is put a timer on. Unless you have centralised smart control (NOT the current generation of smart meters), you can't reliably spread demand. All of this is well understood, so I don't understand why it should be contentious to point it out?

Again, I have to say that this isn't a reason not to buy a Tesla - but given that we have power generation issues in the UK already, and a big problem commissioning power stations, it is something that may cause problems down the line.

[Tuna]

rscott said:

I see the likes of NCP have charging points in their car parks too - so a quick topup while shopping is completely feasible.

So far George, pretty much all of your objections have been debunked, I think.
First we had the claim about off street parking, now it's power availability and vehicle usage..

I don't know why people discussing the practicalities of EVs are treated as though they're objections that have to be debunked? This isn't a religious war and I still haven't seen anyone on this thread suggesting that EVs aren't going to become a mainstream choice in the future.

[DonkeyApple]

George111 said:

I've just explained why 20 miles a day isn't relevant here. EVs will suite higher mileage drivers - if you only do 5 miles a day who cares if it's in an EV or a V8 Mustang ? It's not going to cost much either way. But for somebody commuting 50 miles total plus pub, gym, school etc - it will be a significant cost saving so attractive to those drivers - I'd even consider one if I was doing that on a daily basis as it would make a useful difference.

But very, very few people travel that far by car each day.

The average distance covered by a car in the UK per day is less than 9 miles.

The true benefit of EVs is the relocation of air and noise pollution from where the majority of people live out to where few people live.

But the grid can easily handle the recharging requirements of the average car user.

We really are at the point that the only true and credible barrier is the cost of the batteries. Everything else is genuinely minor and easy enough to adapt to.

[rscott]

Timer based electricity demand management has worked well for decades and still does for some of us who can't have mains gas.

Compared to the extra load from an immersion heater, several storage heaters and an electric Aga, I don't think a Tesla would make that much difference come midnight UTC when Economy 7 cheap rate begins for us.

[rscott]

Tuna said:

rscott said:

I see the likes of NCP have charging points in their car parks too - so a quick topup while shopping is completely feasible.

So far George, pretty much all of your objections have been debunked, I think.
First we had the claim about off street parking, now it's power availability and vehicle usage..

I don't know why people discussing the practicalities of EVs are treated as though they're objections that have to be debunked? This isn't a religious war and I still haven't seen anyone on this thread suggesting that EVs aren't going to become a mainstream choice in the future.

So posting facts to correct inaccurate assumptions is wrong and some sort of religious crusade?

I'm sure there are concerns about EVs - whether one company should potentially be in a dominant position in the market, for example - but many of the objections posted simply don't stand up to even a simple Google search to verify basic facts.

[Tuna]

rscott said:

Tuna said:

rscott said:

I see the likes of NCP have charging points in their car parks too - so a quick topup while shopping is completely feasible.

So far George, pretty much all of your objections have been debunked, I think.

I don't know why people discussing the practicalities of EVs are treated as though they're objections that have to be debunked? This isn't a religious war and I still haven't seen anyone on this thread suggesting that EVs aren't going to become a mainstream choice in the future.

So posting facts to correct inaccurate assumptions is wrong and some sort of religious crusade?.

Your language is certainly fairly strong, and your facts rather weaker. For instance, you mentioned charging at NCP car parks. At the moment, there are a few more than 1,500 public charging stations in the UK (not just in NCP car parks, but all public charging stations, total). There are currently 54,000 plug in electric vehicles registered in the UK. Two facts, from a couple of the groups that monitor EV useage (checked via The Charging Point website and UK Vehicle registrations). You dismiss George's comments with an assertion that "a quick topup while shopping is completely feasible." Can you see where this is going?

Of course this will change in future. There are investment plans that should see the number of public charging points rising to 8,500 in a few years' time (again, according to The Charging Point). If just 1% of the cars on UK roads were EVs, that would mean slightly more than 40 cars for each public charging point - that's actually slightly worse than the current situation.

And the reason you brought up charging at NCP car parks was to suggest that people would avoid charging at home, causing peaks in demand. That itself is questionable as already many charging networks are stating they plan to move to 'pay per charge' - at which point charging at home may well become the preferable option.

All of this is just to say that Tesla has not magically removed all the barriers to EVs going mainstream. We've still got a lot to work out to make it happen, and that's not going to happen overnight. Why is it a problem to discuss those concerns? Every time a major new ICE car is launched, we have long threads on here discussing whether it would be a good purchase - surely this is exactly the same, and some critical thought is reasonable?

[rscott]

George had raised 2 specific points in this thread, both of which were disproved with easily available stats. That's why I made the first point.

As for limited charging availabilty - I never suggested everyone would charge up every time they went shopping, only that it might be an option if needed.

There's a massive assumption by some on this thread that every EV owner will plug in each night and charge up their car, whether it needs it or not.
Personally I don't see that's going to be the case - with extra charging opportunities becoming available all the time (NCP was just an example of this), the potential for the cars themselves to manage demand, etc I'm not that worried about the risks to our power network.