RE: Tesla confirms Model S Plaid performance
Discussion
chrisironside said:
Agree with Max_Torque. CHAdeMO works for me. 30 mins sitting somewhere nearby and I've got enough charge to last most/all of the week.
Quite a different picture if you include anything 45kW+
You need to zoom in to better understand how poor the rapid charging network is at the moment.Quite a different picture if you include anything 45kW+
Reading with a population of 201800 has four chargers.
Maidenhead with a population of 70000 has none.
Camberley with a population of 38000 has five.
So that is 9 rapid chargers for 309800 people, clearly, nowhere near that number will need a rapid charger, but it shows how few rapid chargers there really are. I picked those three locations as they are areas where I would potentially needed to charge if I was caught out and need to charge quickly.
annodomini2 said:
In the £100k price bracket through you have the option of the Taycan and e-tron GT, which is your preference is a matter of opinion.
I can't see me buying a larger electric car for a few years now after my experience with a Tesla. The range in real-life usage makes it no good for my longer trips, and it's not an ideal town car. We may get a Honda E this year, but I've no wish to recreate the experience of trying to drive to Champagne and back in a tesla, and having to go out every night to sit at a charger for an hour to make sure that we could manage the following day.I met a 91-year old man earlier this week who had just, a week earlier, got his second Tesla, a Model 3 Long Range (0-60 in 4.2 seconds iirc). A former engineer and owner of many performance cars in his time, he was well aware of the car's capabilities and had already used them, in the right place at the right time.
I'd say he'd not be a hazard to other road users, so enough of these ageist generalisations already. Having said that, my mother, who is the same age and has also been driving all her life, might be rather less cognisant of her limitations.
I'd say he'd not be a hazard to other road users, so enough of these ageist generalisations already. Having said that, my mother, who is the same age and has also been driving all her life, might be rather less cognisant of her limitations.
runnerbean 14 said:
I met a 91-year old man earlier this week who had just, a week earlier, got his second Tesla, a Model 3 Long Range (0-60 in 4.2 seconds iirc). A former engineer and owner of many performance cars in his time, he was well aware of the car's capabilities and had already used them, in the right place at the right time.
I'd say he'd not be a hazard to other road users, so enough of these ageist generalisations already. Having said that, my mother, who is the same age and has also been driving all her life, might be rather less cognisant of her limitations.
Yep, I really don't get this, OMG it does 0-60 in 3 secs, everyone is going to die rubbish.I'd say he'd not be a hazard to other road users, so enough of these ageist generalisations already. Having said that, my mother, who is the same age and has also been driving all her life, might be rather less cognisant of her limitations.
The car will only go as fast as you push the peddle, same as the brakes, you don't see people doing emergency stops all the time do you
annodomini2 said:
dgswk said:
ZX10R NIN said:
Olivera said:
dgswk said:
I've spent the last three days giving people rolling 5-60mph joy rides in my new Polestar 2, with the inevitable giggles and expletives. From personal experience (I've got a 992 C2S for comparison, which ain't slow of the lights) EV horses, even with 2+ tonnes attached, just go soooo much better than ICE horses in the real world.
Your 992 C2S is faster over every performance metric (0-60, 0-100, 1/4 mile etc).The Polestar will never be a wailing manual flat 6 obviously, wringing it out in every gear between bends, but frankly as a daily, doing 20,000+ miles a year, that driving style wears off much quicker and 2-3 full bore launches down the slip road every week.
My earlier comment was if I had £100k to drop on a daily, I cant think of a better one to do it on than the Plaid. Will I sell my 911? Would the Plaid or PS2 replace the 911? Absolutely not on both counts.
It really is non-EV owners who find any reason to not want one - it's ok...don't buy one! 
The truth of the matter is that 99/100 times, I fill up at the petrol station near my house. Same petrol station. With the new Q4, the petrol station will be my actual house. So infrastructure is unlikely to affect me in real world usage.
I'd wager I am the rule not the exception, too.
The infrastructure is flying up. My actual concern is that whilst they are adding chargers to more locations, they are not adding enough chargers in each location. To have locations with only 2 chargers is going to very quickly become an issue - that's when you will notice the wait. It's a ball ache when you are a couple of cars back at a busy Shell station - imagine being in a queue for chargers knowing you have at least an X times wait before it's your go?
But since that's likely to be only 1 in 100 times (given my above real world personal situation) I am hardly going to ignore the £0 car tax and savings on fuel - until the Gov whap electricity prices up!
The truth of the matter is that 99/100 times, I fill up at the petrol station near my house. Same petrol station. With the new Q4, the petrol station will be my actual house. So infrastructure is unlikely to affect me in real world usage.
I'd wager I am the rule not the exception, too.
The infrastructure is flying up. My actual concern is that whilst they are adding chargers to more locations, they are not adding enough chargers in each location. To have locations with only 2 chargers is going to very quickly become an issue - that's when you will notice the wait. It's a ball ache when you are a couple of cars back at a busy Shell station - imagine being in a queue for chargers knowing you have at least an X times wait before it's your go?
But since that's likely to be only 1 in 100 times (given my above real world personal situation) I am hardly going to ignore the £0 car tax and savings on fuel - until the Gov whap electricity prices up!
dgswk said:
True enough, but as a daily, I think I'd prioritise range and network infrastructure, so Tesla. Saying that the Cross Turismo is a very very nice looking bit of kit.
Surely for a daily range and network infrastructure are the lowest concern - you'll be travelling a defined distance, starting from home every day. Perfect EV territory, surely?TheRainMaker said:
You need to zoom in to better understand how poor the rapid charging network is at the moment.
Yup - the graphic where chargers are shown to a scale of each being about 20 miles across is utterly useless / downright misleading. Having done about 58,000 electric miles over the last 5.5 years and with one daughter at university in Edinburgh and another hoping to go to Aberystwyth, I am all too aware that there are some big gaps without reliable rapid chargers. It’s not impossible to do biggish journeys in an EV (I have managed Edinburgh and back in a day around 10 times in the ipace - 365 miles or thereabouts), and Saturday I did 180 miles and had 60 miles range left, so the truth is somewhere between “all journeys are possible in an EV with no inconvenience or range anxiety of any kind” and “you can’t get to the next town in an EV”
PhantomPH said:
But since that's likely to be only 1 in 100 times (given my above real world personal situation) I am hardly going to ignore the £0 car tax and savings on fuel - until the Gov whap electricity prices up!
This will be the best time to buy an EV for sure, the BIK stuff won’t last for ever.I can’t see the electric prices (tax) going up as there is a massive push for home electric heating etc, my bet would be on some sort of road pricing coming in, pay per mile etc.
My personal issue with an EV is the charging network. I've a few 50kW chargers near me but I only have street parking, and not always can I park right outside my house. If I wanted a home charger, would they allow me to have dedicated parking spot? If not, it'd mean going to a charging place (like I do with a petrol station), except it'd likely mean a long wait which is a pain, and it appears that when charging at these places it's not much cheaper than than an efficient petrol engine....?
oop north said:
Yup - the graphic where chargers are shown to a scale of each being about 20 miles across is utterly useless / downright misleading. Having done about 58,000 electric miles over the last 5.5 years and with one daughter at university in Edinburgh and another hoping to go to Aberystwyth, I am all too aware that there are some big gaps without reliable rapid chargers.
It’s not impossible to do biggish journeys in an EV (I have managed Edinburgh and back in a day around 10 times in the ipace - 365 miles or thereabouts), and Saturday I did 180 miles and had 60 miles range left, so the truth is somewhere between “all journeys are possible in an EV with no inconvenience or range anxiety of any kind” and “you can’t get to the next town in an EV”
I can see that 180 miles each way with time to recharge inbetween is OK, but my problems came up when I believed the hype and tried to do far longer trips, especially when I drove how I normally do, which is to sit at a real 90mph on the autoroutes.It’s not impossible to do biggish journeys in an EV (I have managed Edinburgh and back in a day around 10 times in the ipace - 365 miles or thereabouts), and Saturday I did 180 miles and had 60 miles range left, so the truth is somewhere between “all journeys are possible in an EV with no inconvenience or range anxiety of any kind” and “you can’t get to the next town in an EV”
At this speed you had to ensure you could charge every 200 miles, and would end the day near empty in the evening. The next day you;d be starting with very little extra chaarge from the destination charger that was normaly available (ad which had entirely determined which hotel you could stay in) so often had a crawl out of town and an hour's wait while you got enough charge in for the next leg.
With children, and wanting to actually get somewhere, it was just infuriating.
We stayed in a village with no fast chargers anywhere near, so every evening while everyone else had a wine and some nice foood I would sit with a book twenty miles away in a car park charking at 50kW for an hour.
On the way home the car took me to a charger that I couldn't access, which meant that I came off in DOver with 10 miles range showing, which then needed a very gently derive to a charger where I sat for an hour waiting to get enough charge to make it to the supercharger in Maidstone.
This wasn't some "Jeremy Clarkson" set-up to find failings in a car, this was me taking my brand-new Tesla Model S on the sort of journey that the fans say it's ideal for.
If we can get back this year I'll be either taking the Range Rover or, if we can leave the children with their grandparents, the SL.
TheRainMaker said:
You need to zoom in to better understand how poor the rapid charging network is at the moment.
Reading with a population of 201800 has four chargers.
Maidenhead with a population of 70000 has none.
Camberley with a population of 38000 has five.
So that is 9 rapid chargers for 309800 people, clearly, nowhere near that number will need a rapid charger, but it shows how few rapid chargers there really are. I picked those three locations as they are areas where I would potentially needed to charge if I was caught out and need to charge quickly.
Zooming to these locations and moving the map a hair's breadth it looks to me like:Reading with a population of 201800 has four chargers.
Maidenhead with a population of 70000 has none.
Camberley with a population of 38000 has five.
So that is 9 rapid chargers for 309800 people, clearly, nowhere near that number will need a rapid charger, but it shows how few rapid chargers there really are. I picked those three locations as they are areas where I would potentially needed to charge if I was caught out and need to charge quickly.
Reading - 19 rapid chargers within a 6 mile radius
Maidenhead - 5 rapid chargers within 9 miles
Camberley - 15 rapid chargers within 8 miles
And if you're using an EV regularly you probably only need a rapid charger when making a long journey, the rest of the time you can top-up at home or work. There are more EV charging points than petrol stations in the UK (around 25 000 now, compared to 10 000 in 2018) with about 1.5% of vehicles being electric, so there is the support and development for infrastructure.
I've got an EV and nothing else. I live in Aberdeen and if I search for rapid chargers without changing the map it shows 2 (population >200 000) - but giving it the same treatment as the towns above I'd probably find 10 within a 5 mile radius. I don't have a charger at home and I've never felt not having an ICE was a problem. I don't have a long commute, but I've driven to the Cairngorms (where charging point are infrequent) and I've driven the 120 miles to Edinburgh several times without the need to stop and charge: and I don't have a Tesla or anything with a long range.
I know a lot of people baulk at the argument, but for me it doesn't even matter if it's 100% convenient or not, ICEs are unsustainable and are contributing to climate change. From age 17/18 I my cars have been Renault 5 GT Turbo, Renault 5 GT Turbo, Honda Integra Type R, Audi coupe V6, Golf GTI, BMW 335, Audi A4 TFSI quattro... Petrol-engined cars have been what I've wanted more than anything else for the vast majority of my life. But I've got 3 kids now and I don't want to be part of a problem that's going to leave them facing massive issues in adulthood. I actually have fun buzzing about in an EV, but even if it weren't fun I still think it's a change that is worth supporting.
TyrannosauRoss Lex said:
My personal issue with an EV is the charging network. I've a few 50kW chargers near me but I only have street parking, and not always can I park right outside my house. If I wanted a home charger, would they allow me to have dedicated parking spot? If not, it'd mean going to a charging place (like I do with a petrol station), except it'd likely mean a long wait which is a pain, and it appears that when charging at these places it's not much cheaper than than an efficient petrol engine....?
have you done any research on what is being developed for people in your situation?you haven't
So, here's just one - https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-news/electric-ca...
Pixelpeep Z4 said:
TyrannosauRoss Lex said:
My personal issue with an EV is the charging network. I've a few 50kW chargers near me but I only have street parking, and not always can I park right outside my house. If I wanted a home charger, would they allow me to have dedicated parking spot? If not, it'd mean going to a charging place (like I do with a petrol station), except it'd likely mean a long wait which is a pain, and it appears that when charging at these places it's not much cheaper than than an efficient petrol engine....?
have you done any research on what is being developed for people in your situation?you haven't
So, here's just one - https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-news/electric-ca...
Northernboy said:
I can see that 180 miles each way with time to recharge inbetween is OK, but my problems came up when I believed the hype and tried to do far longer trips, especially when I drove how I normally do, which is to sit at a real 90mph on the autoroutes.
At this speed you had to ensure you could charge every 200 miles, and would end the day near empty in the evening. The next day you;d be starting with very little extra chaarge from the destination charger that was normaly available (ad which had entirely determined which hotel you could stay in) so often had a crawl out of town and an hour's wait while you got enough charge in for the next leg.
With children, and wanting to actually get somewhere, it was just infuriating.
We stayed in a village with no fast chargers anywhere near, so every evening while everyone else had a wine and some nice foood I would sit with a book twenty miles away in a car park charking at 50kW for an hour.
On the way home the car took me to a charger that I couldn't access, which meant that I came off in DOver with 10 miles range showing, which then needed a very gently derive to a charger where I sat for an hour waiting to get enough charge to make it to the supercharger in Maidstone.
This wasn't some "Jeremy Clarkson" set-up to find failings in a car, this was me taking my brand-new Tesla Model S on the sort of journey that the fans say it's ideal for.
If we can get back this year I'll be either taking the Range Rover or, if we can leave the children with their grandparents, the SL.
I've bought into the hype as well and ordered a Tesla so interested in your experiance as I travel into EU.At this speed you had to ensure you could charge every 200 miles, and would end the day near empty in the evening. The next day you;d be starting with very little extra chaarge from the destination charger that was normaly available (ad which had entirely determined which hotel you could stay in) so often had a crawl out of town and an hour's wait while you got enough charge in for the next leg.
With children, and wanting to actually get somewhere, it was just infuriating.
We stayed in a village with no fast chargers anywhere near, so every evening while everyone else had a wine and some nice foood I would sit with a book twenty miles away in a car park charking at 50kW for an hour.
On the way home the car took me to a charger that I couldn't access, which meant that I came off in DOver with 10 miles range showing, which then needed a very gently derive to a charger where I sat for an hour waiting to get enough charge to make it to the supercharger in Maidstone.
This wasn't some "Jeremy Clarkson" set-up to find failings in a car, this was me taking my brand-new Tesla Model S on the sort of journey that the fans say it's ideal for.
If we can get back this year I'll be either taking the Range Rover or, if we can leave the children with their grandparents, the SL.
My logic is;
- I can Supercharge either side of the Tunnel terminal whilst toileting / coffee / waiting.
- Most Autoroute services have superchargers on and stopping every 2-3 hrs is normal (for us) so I can't see a huge problem here.
- Desitnation is more of a problem, but I figure I'll take an extension lead and trickle charge every night (where possible)
It will be a slight change of habit; filling up when posisble rather than waiting for the fuel light, but I figure it'll work (hopefully
)Please quote this for when I'm posting next year saying it's crap and I'm going back to a 530d
WestyCarl said:
I've bought into the hype as well and ordered a Tesla so interested in your experiance as I travel into EU.
My logic is;
- I can Supercharge either side of the Tunnel terminal whilst toileting / coffee / waiting.
- Most Autoroute services have superchargers on and stopping every 2-3 hrs is normal (for us) so I can't see a huge problem here.
- Desitnation is more of a problem, but I figure I'll take an extension lead and trickle charge every night (where possible)
It will be a slight change of habit; filling up when posisble rather than waiting for the fuel light, but I figure it'll work (hopefully)
Please quote this for when I'm posting next year saying it's crap and I'm going back to a 530d
If you're willing to arrive early then yes, you can supercharge before you get on the tunnel, but it's worth having a plan B in case there are no spaces. Not common, but it does happen.My logic is;
- I can Supercharge either side of the Tunnel terminal whilst toileting / coffee / waiting.
- Most Autoroute services have superchargers on and stopping every 2-3 hrs is normal (for us) so I can't see a huge problem here.
- Desitnation is more of a problem, but I figure I'll take an extension lead and trickle charge every night (where possible)
It will be a slight change of habit; filling up when posisble rather than waiting for the fuel light, but I figure it'll work (hopefully
)Please quote this for when I'm posting next year saying it's crap and I'm going back to a 530d
You'll need to chose your route with the superchargers in mind, so that comes first on every journey. The non-Tesla maps that let you plan things seem to work better than the Tesla ones.
If you are travelling on after an overnight stop you don't want to arrive nearly empty. Most chargers are slow, and you really don't get anything like a full charge overnight. We tended to get about 20% between arriving in the evening and leaving after breakfast. Having to start by leaving town in the direction of the nearest supercahrger rather than your destination is a real pain.
Trickle charging overnight doesn't work if you are going to use the car much at all. It's viable if you arrive with a full charge, but again, that takes some planning. I needed to push on to the place that we were staying last time as the children had rally had enough, and the supply from the owner's garage was giving me not very much each night, which is why at the end of our day out and about I chose to drop the family off and go and charge the car.
After a couple of nights of that I decided to drive 40 miles each way to the supercharger, as an hour at the local "fast" charger just wasn't enough. If I'd been able to leave it there overnight it'd have been fine, but it was about five miles from the hotel, and I had no way to get back and forth.
It's worth me mentioning the malfunctions too since you're going to be doing similar.
Neither key ever worked, so I had to use the app to open and start the car. If I parked somewhere with no phone signal, I couldn't do this.
The GPS got stuck thinking I was in Dover, in the car park for the ferry, so it refused to engage cruise control at anything over 40mph.
Possibly because it thought I was in the UK it would carry out an emergency stop of its own volition if I overtook a large lorry, so I had to stop doing this in 2-lane roads.
Range really was the big issue. If I wanted to do 90mph I had to plan to find a supercharger every 180 miles. That becomes extremely restrictive in arge parts of Europe. It's no problem at all in much of Belgium or the Netherlands, but they are very spares in parts of France, especially away from the autoroutes.
Edited to add...
Buy a good extension lead, as in a car charging one, not a household one, and check whether it still makes sense nowadays to buy an adaptor. It did for when I was using mine. I also bought something that flips the polarity on French mains, as a lot of older places have a random set-up and the car wanted live to be on the right pin.
Remember that the pace of charging depends on how much charge is in there, and on the battery temperature, so if you don't need a full charge the next day then getting a half charge from empty for your last top-up of the day if far faster than topping up to full each night "just in case"
And, of course, you must never, ever run out of charge. There's no hitching a lift to a garage for a can of petrol with these cars, if you mess up and find that the charger 10 miles away is over a mountain pass rather than the flat road you were counting on, then you may have a very long wait to get going again.
Edited by Northernboy on Monday 14th June 10:21
Northernboy said:
this was me taking my brand-new Tesla Model S on the sort of journey that the fans say it's ideal for.
I don't honestly think anyone is saying a current EV is ideal for a multi-thousand mile continuous high speed dash across EuropeBut what hopefully we are saying is that these journeys are possible with some inconvienence. And for most people, that one journey is not a very regular occurance, and so the benefits of the EV for the rest of the time outweigh the negatives.
Most car owners think nothing of hiring a transit van when they need to move a sofa, they don't drive a van all year around because twice a year they need one, they just hire it. I don't see why the same can't apply to EV's?
WestyCarl said:
Northernboy said:
I can see that 180 miles each way with time to recharge inbetween is OK, but my problems came up when I believed the hype and tried to do far longer trips, especially when I drove how I normally do, which is to sit at a real 90mph on the autoroutes.
At this speed you had to ensure you could charge every 200 miles, and would end the day near empty in the evening. The next day you;d be starting with very little extra chaarge from the destination charger that was normaly available (ad which had entirely determined which hotel you could stay in) so often had a crawl out of town and an hour's wait while you got enough charge in for the next leg.
With children, and wanting to actually get somewhere, it was just infuriating.
We stayed in a village with no fast chargers anywhere near, so every evening while everyone else had a wine and some nice foood I would sit with a book twenty miles away in a car park charking at 50kW for an hour.
On the way home the car took me to a charger that I couldn't access, which meant that I came off in DOver with 10 miles range showing, which then needed a very gently derive to a charger where I sat for an hour waiting to get enough charge to make it to the supercharger in Maidstone.
This wasn't some "Jeremy Clarkson" set-up to find failings in a car, this was me taking my brand-new Tesla Model S on the sort of journey that the fans say it's ideal for.
If we can get back this year I'll be either taking the Range Rover or, if we can leave the children with their grandparents, the SL.
I've bought into the hype as well and ordered a Tesla so interested in your experiance as I travel into EU.At this speed you had to ensure you could charge every 200 miles, and would end the day near empty in the evening. The next day you;d be starting with very little extra chaarge from the destination charger that was normaly available (ad which had entirely determined which hotel you could stay in) so often had a crawl out of town and an hour's wait while you got enough charge in for the next leg.
With children, and wanting to actually get somewhere, it was just infuriating.
We stayed in a village with no fast chargers anywhere near, so every evening while everyone else had a wine and some nice foood I would sit with a book twenty miles away in a car park charking at 50kW for an hour.
On the way home the car took me to a charger that I couldn't access, which meant that I came off in DOver with 10 miles range showing, which then needed a very gently derive to a charger where I sat for an hour waiting to get enough charge to make it to the supercharger in Maidstone.
This wasn't some "Jeremy Clarkson" set-up to find failings in a car, this was me taking my brand-new Tesla Model S on the sort of journey that the fans say it's ideal for.
If we can get back this year I'll be either taking the Range Rover or, if we can leave the children with their grandparents, the SL.
My logic is;
- I can Supercharge either side of the Tunnel terminal whilst toileting / coffee / waiting.
- Most Autoroute services have superchargers on and stopping every 2-3 hrs is normal (for us) so I can't see a huge problem here.
- Desitnation is more of a problem, but I figure I'll take an extension lead and trickle charge every night (where possible)
It will be a slight change of habit; filling up when posisble rather than waiting for the fuel light, but I figure it'll work (hopefully
)Please quote this for when I'm posting next year saying it's crap and I'm going back to a 530d
We'd only just got the car, never charged an EV apart from at home, so it was a bit in at the deep end but honestly apart from a wrong turn in Bordeaux when we were low on charge (made it to the charger almost empty after re-covering a full autoroute stage) it was stress free. I'd spent a lot of time on ABRP fannying about with worst case scenarios, had maps, paper plans, spare sat nav, phone numbers, all sorts, and ordered euro charge cards too but didn't need any of it - the car does it all for you with real time charge bay availability. It's just genius the way it does it. The euro superchargers are generally in nice places too - vinyard, decent hotels etc. Doing it again this year - properly - with bl**dy hotels this time.
Destination - I bought a screwfix Type 2 charger with a long 10m cable on it and used that with a euro plug adapter (I turned the charge down from 10 amps to 8 amps just in case) and left it ticking over on that - no problems.
Would I even contemplate doing that trip in any other EV - no chance.
Edited by andy43 on Monday 14th June 10:34
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