Electric cars

Martyn1981

AdrianC wrote: »

They had built 700 cars TOTAL up to the end of last month. The intent was 10,000 to the end of the year. Half-scale production (5,000/wk) has been put back three months. Half a million deposits were placed.

If you want to call that "delivery", then I admire your unbounded optimism. I find your utter lack of awareness of basic production logistics less admirable.

So now you are back to saying they are delivering, you seem to change your mind in every post.

BTW was it 10,000 to the end of the year as per this post, or 100,000 as per your earlier post:-

AdrianC wrote: »

Well, they've put the semi-mainstream production target back from this month to March, declining to speculate on full-scale production - and a grand total of 700-odd cars had been assembled to the end of November instead of the original estimate of 100,000 by the end of 2017.

You seem to struggle keeping your story straight.

I'm really not sure why you dismiss Tesla and Tesla cars purely on the number they deliver in 2017 Q4 or 2018 Q1, is that how the world works ... for you?

It's also interesting that you try to spin an order book of 500,000 cars as a negative, clutching at straws perhaps?

Martyn1981

Gloomendoom wrote: »

I've been in Australia for nearly a month now and haven't seen a single electric car. I have seen one recharging point, so they must exist. Somewhere.

Petrol is king here. Cheap too at about half the UK price per litre.

Hiya, no idea how many EV's there are, but Tesla must have sold a fair few as they have a chain of supercharger stations covering the SE coast - say Brisbane - Sydney - Canberra - Melbourne - Adelaide.

Gloomendoom

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Hiya, no idea how many EV's there are, but Tesla must have sold a fair few as they have a chain of supercharger stations covering the SE coast - say Brisbane - Sydney - Canberra - Melbourne - Adelaide.

That probably explains it. I’m in Western Australia.

AdrianC

Oh, my apologies. I accidentally omitted a zero first time round...

The May 2016 estimate, a month and a bit after "launch" and the order book opened, was 100k cars by the end of 2017.
By Feb 2017, it was slipping to 5k per week in Q4 2017, and the full 10k per week in 2018.
By Nov, St Elon was saying he couldn't predict how many would be built by year end, due to serious production line difficulties, and the 5k/wk figure was back to March, with the 10k/wk figure impossible to "speculate"...

500k pre-orders is very much a positive - IF you can build them. If not, you end up disappointing your enthusiastic customer base, who will quickly lose their loyalty. Ever heard the phrase "under-promise, and over-deliver"? St Elon seems to have mis-heard it badly.

If anybody is dismissing reality here, it's not me.

System

almillar wrote: »

It didn't have an alternator (spinning thing that charges the 12V battery) - the 12v battery is charged directly from the 'traction battery'.
The general point, which stands, is that electric cars have fewer moving parts than petrol/diesel, manual/automatic cars.

You seem to think that cars are like they were 30 years ago. Every one of the rotating parts in my engine and gearbox have covered 125000 miles with no maintenance other than an oil change. If it had a timing chain instead of a cambelt it would be like my previous Mondeo which I sold at 165,000 miles with no other maintenance to the engine and gearbox other than oil changes.

Modern oils, metal alloys and tighter manufacturing tolerances mean car engines don't fall to bits like they did in the 70s. Mobile did a test of their new 20,000 mile oil and did 500,000 miles on a test vehicle changing the oil everl 20,000 miles and when they stripped down the engine there was hardly any wear. The only thing that packed up was the gearbox at 300,000 miles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-zDt9FGJi8

System

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Are you saying it won't exist, isn't being developed, doesn't already have about 2,000 pre-orders? Can you post anything to support your wild claims?

Find me any one single source of what its unladen weight is. Just one, anywhere. That will dictate just how useful the Tesla semi-truck will be. By my calculations based on a Tesla Model S, to move the UK maximum lorry weight limit of 44 tonnes 300 miles (100-120 miles less than I do in a single shift) requires 10 tonnes of batteries. That is 2.5 tonnes more than my entire DAF CF tractor unit weighs. Taking the weight of the DAF engine and gearbox out of the equation that means several metric tonnes of load carrying capacity that would be lost.

And that slightly inconvenient truth is why you will not find the unladen weight of a Tesla Semi listed anywhere.

Also can you tell me where the battery swap facilities are that can swap a Tesla battery faster than filling up a car which Elon Musk showcased in 2013?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oj6LaYFall4

4 years on, doesn't exist.

AdrianC

Tarambor wrote: »

Find me any one single source of what its unladen weight is. Just one, anywhere. That will dictate just how useful the Tesla semi-truck will be.

Carnegie Mellon reckoned it simply wasn't viable for anything bar local haulage.
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsenergylett.7b00432

And that slightly inconvenient truth is why you will not find the unladen weight of a Tesla Semi listed anywhere.

Well, that and the minor detail it simply doesn't exist yet.

Also can you tell me where the battery swap facilities are that can swap a Tesla battery faster than filling up a car which Elon Musk showcased in 2013?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oj6LaYFall4

4 years on, doesn't exist.

Longer than that...

BetterPlace were the Israeli company who were doing a lot of shouting about it, about ten years ago. They actually delivered about 1,400 customer cars (modified Renault Fluences) in 2012, with 21 real customer battery-swap locations open. Briefly. They went under in 2013, after getting through damn near a billion dollars in six years.

2009 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd0WPw3p2MQ

Any viable battery-swap tech is going to have to have a swathe of manufacturers standardising their packs - and that goes right against how Tesla have their current range figures, because to fit that capacity in requires ALL of the available space to be used.

Martyn1981

Gloomendoom wrote: »

That probably explains it. I’m in Western Australia.

My sister lived in WA (Perth) for a few years. There's a destination charger in Perth, and a supercharger in Eaton, Bunbury.

Martyn1981

Tarambor wrote: »

By my calculations based on a Tesla Model S, to move the UK maximum lorry weight limit of 44 tonnes 300 miles (100-120 miles less than I do in a single shift) requires 10 tonnes of batteries.

I'm afraid your calculations are wrong.

The 300 mile Tesla truck has a 600kWh battery. You may be aware that Tesla stated that their trucks consume less than 2kWh/mile at max weight (80,000lb).

Speculation is rife that the battery technology will be an upgrade, this coincides with rumours as to 'how in hell' are they squeezing 200kWh into the new Roadster2.

But let's stick with current weight, so shall we look to AdrianC, after all he is clearly not a Tesla supporter, and he stated that:

AdrianC wrote: »

Nobody else is really doing that, not least because of the weight (the Model S battery is about 600kg -

Now admittedly, he didn't specify a model, so let's go with the smallest at 75kWh, so 600kWh would therefore weigh -

(600kg/75) x 600 = 4,800kg, so less than half the weight you claim.

Or we can look at the Renault Zoe, whose 41kWh (useable) battery weighs 305kg up from 290kg for the older 23kWh battery.

So (305/41) x 600 = 4,463kg, so less than half the weight you claim.

In my earlier example I suggested a weight saving of 5,000lbs to 8,000lbs, so around 2.27 to 3.63 tonnes, to help balance out the additional battery weight.

Martyn1981

AdrianC wrote: »

Oh, my apologies. I accidentally omitted a zero first time round...

Hiya, no you added one on for effect.