Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

Solarchaser

So as I said I've had the Tesla for 4 weeks, and thought it was a good time to put up my evolving thoughts on the tesla.

The good.
Very smooth car, power delivery and composure on the road is very good.
The acceleration is awesome
Very settled at speed
Very quiet
Very efficient 
Love sentry mode (side note, don't pull your knickers out of your rear near a Tesla, it will record it🙄🙈)
Supercharging is the gold standard in charging
Adaptive cruise control 

The bad.
Huuuuge glass roof/rear windscreen but you can hardly see anything out of the back (though I do like my seat as low as possible)
I really don't like the lack of dials
Huge screen but a 20 character max on the radio station, so you can't see what tune is being played, same with USB pen. So frustrating that one.
Everything has to be controlled from the screen, even rear heated seats, just silly imo.
Can't hang up a Bluetooth call from the steering wheel, only the screen. 
Adaptive cruise control

The ugly.
The self steering mode is a total waste of time, it requires you to constantly move the steering wheel, and though you may think you do, unless you are in an American film, you don't tend to move the steering wheel on a constant road, and generally don't push against resistance, you sit with the wheel balanced, but self steering thinks you have let go as no resistance so starts flashing at you or complaining. 
It also cuts out when you indicate to overtake etc, so imo pointless.

Lane assist, initially I thought this was quite good, a safety improvement like the old rumble strips that have saved many lives (including my own several times).
However it cannot be fully disengaged. 
Even if you turn off its various modes, it's still there.
So what's the problem?
When you go to overtake you indicate, and lane assist is happy,  but when you move back in to the slower lanes you don't indicate, and unless you make a pretty dramatic change of direction, lane assist tries to keep you in lane, and in my opinion it's bloody dangerous, it doesn't do it as you approach the lane, it does it when you are crossing into the lane, for me the point where I'm checking my mirrors again to make sure nothing was hiding in my blind spot before fully committing to the lane change, and the feeling you get is very similar to when a car gets very close on the motorway and the air between you pushes you away. To say its somewhat disconcerting is a big understatement. 
It also mutes your music and beeps (sometimes).
So you can turn that part off,  lots of warnings from Elon,  but you can apparently turn it all off.
Except not really, because now what it does on unindicated lane changes is wobble the wheel a little, very similar to if you rolled over a little bit of rumble strip.
Enough to give you that slightly confused look on your face, before dismissing it.
***** edit. I was an idiot, you can switch it off******

Hey its not the only car with lane assist right? Plenty of cars have it, but you can usually turn it off.

In finishing I'd say I'm a big leaf fan, I think they are great wee cars, and plenty nippy too.
However as the Tesla was on 4% from the long drive, I decided to nip into town with the wee leaf.... man that bloody Tesla, its totally ruined my leaf experience,  the regen is nowhere near enough, it leans too much, its too slow.
Sorry leaf. You do still have dials and a far better dashboard though 🤪

JKenH

That was a refreshingly candid report on the M3. It does confirm what a great long distance car the LR version is.

I hadn’t realised you can’t disable Lane Assist completely on the Tesla; my Leaf only has the rumble strip effect, (no assisted steering) but that was the first thing I turned off when I got the car.

The Leaf is not a great motorway car but it is a great runabout. It does have 2 features which I particularly like. For me the birds eye view camera is probably the best feature and I am surprised more cars don’t have it. (Nissan developed it so do they licence it? I know the latest IPace has it and I have driven Mercs with it). It is great for making sure you get lined up perfectly in the parking bay, particularly (if like me) you prefer to park with a space either side of you. (Short video showing the system in another Nissan model https://youtu.be/pL4FWP8LM1k )

The other great feature of the Leaf is the ePedal, one pedal driving, which in addition to providing strong deceleration (depending on pedal position) can bring the car to a complete stop and hold it stationary on a slope without needing a foot on the pedal. Watch this video if you haven’t seen it https://youtu.be/4aUZAE2Cl24 ). It isn’t just a gimmick it does make town driving incredibly simple. 

Grumpy_chap

Thanks @Solarchaser - your updates are interesting reading and verify that TM3 LR would be a suitable vehicle for oneself.  When I ever need a new vehicle as lockdown means no driving for the time being.

I would like to know how you get on with the ' no dials' set up some more.  Not sure why the similar setup as TMS is not available.

Also, seems weird that rear seat heating is not controlled by rear passenger.

CKhalvashi

Just a quick update, arrived in Birmingham with an indicated 41 miles remaining following a steady-ish 60-70mph journey.

Currently charging in the car park of the client I'm here to see.

Martyn1981

CKhalvashi said:

Just a quick update, arrived in Birmingham with an indicated 41 miles remaining following a steady-ish 60-70mph journey.

Currently charging in the car park of the client I'm here to see.

Hiya, is that a 28 or 38kWh Ioniq? We've got a 28, and the range is really impressive when driven gently, 130+ miles easy. With 41miles remaining, I'm guessing you've got a big one, so to speak!

CKhalvashi

Martyn1981 said:

CKhalvashi said:

Just a quick update, arrived in Birmingham with an indicated 41 miles remaining following a steady-ish 60-70mph journey.

Currently charging in the car park of the client I'm here to see.

Hiya, is that a 28 or 38kWh Ioniq? We've got a 28, and the range is really impressive when driven gently, 130+ miles easy. With 41miles remaining, I'm guessing you've got a big one, so to speak!

'21' plate 38kWh Premium SE. Currently on just under 4000 miles (registered in March).

No air con this morning (but the front windows down very slightly for most of the journey) due to cold-ish weather.

I'm on an 11.1p/kWh overnight tariff at home, so it's going to enjoy this tonight. Charging cost up here is £5 popped to one of the directors of the company (small business) to 'borrow' one of their staff charging sockets.

Solarchaser

JKenH said:

That was a refreshingly candid report on the M3. It does confirm what a great long distance car the LR version is.

I hadn’t realised you can’t disable Lane Assist completely on the Tesla; my Leaf only has the rumble strip effect, (no assisted steering) but that was the first thing I turned off when I got the car.

The Leaf is not a great motorway car but it is a great runabout. It does have 2 features which I particularly like. For me the birds eye view camera is probably the best feature and I am surprised more cars don’t have it. (Nissan developed it so do they licence it? I know the latest IPace has it and I have driven Mercs with it). It is great for making sure you get lined up perfectly in the parking bay, particularly (if like me) you prefer to park with a space either side of you. (Short video showing the system in another Nissan model https://youtu.be/pL4FWP8LM1k )

The other great feature of the Leaf is the ePedal, one pedal driving, which in addition to providing strong deceleration (depending on pedal position) can bring the car to a complete stop and hold it stationary on a slope without needing a foot on the pedal. Watch this video if you haven’t seen it https://youtu.be/4aUZAE2Cl24 ). It isn’t just a gimmick it does make town driving incredibly simple. 

I agree, leaf is a great runabout.
Wife absolutely loves it.

Tesla has the birds eye minus the front camera,  I agree though, I prefer the nissan arrangement. 

I haven't driven the newer leaf with the e pedal, the older one doesn't have that.
The Tesla does the same as you describe, and it's very good.
It's really annoying to start with, then you get to like it, now it seems like the right way to do things.
Only time I use the brake is if I've been a little exuberant coming up to a junction. 

One down side of that is that when you charge to 100% the regen is very little, so you find yourself scrabbling for the brake pedal approaching junctions until the battery percentage drops. Down side is overestating it though tbh.

Realised I didn't expand on the adaptive cruise control. Good and bad. 99% of the time its great, but randomly brakes some times, and in traffic on Friday it magically produced a car in front of me (comes up on the screen) that wasn't actually there.
Popped up for about 3 seconds and disappeared. 

@Grumpy_chap I'm sure I will get used to the screen, and it's certainly very useful for sentry mode playback, I just like dials, and am not so keen on everything in the car being reliant on one part... the screen. 

I'd imagine if something smashed it (carrying wood from lumbar yard etc) then the car would be basically unusable.

But I am being overly negative.
The model 3 is a really really good car, it's very well thought out and does its job very well in my opinion.

NigeWick

Grumpy_chap said:

I would like to know how you get on with the ' no dials' set up some more.  Not sure why the similar setup as TMS is not available.

My first car was a split screen Morris Minor. Speedo was in the centre, meaning the Tesla M3 speedo is closer to in line with the driver. The centre screen controls certainly take a bit of getting used to but I have found I set everything up before starting a journey and rarely have to change anything.

The self driving is currently a real pain around town as it brakes for pedestrians on the nearside footpath. If a vehicle is coming the other way on my left hand bend, the car will start braking as it thinks there will be a collision. Same for nearside parked vehicles. As Tesla insurance will be coming, I tend to set the auto speed at the limit so I don't go over it, and, the car is pretty good at stopping for traffic lights/traffic. I would have preferred a Model Y for the hatchback but I very rarely need that amount of opening. 

I previously had a 30kWh Leaf and was pleased with it, accepting the range limitations, followed by a #rapidgate 40kWh Leaf that Nissan eventually took back and lastly a 64kWh Kona which was excellent but just not a Tesla. We went to the coast last month and there was a lot of traffic. The car gave a touch over 5 miles per kWh. At 70mph in bad weather it gave a bit under 4 mils per kWH. The Kona offered 3,2 miles per kWh at 70mph ( call it 200 miles range) in below freezing temps with heater & aircon on.

JKenH

We might expect some shortcomings with EVs as bringing new tech to market is likely to be fraught with problems but the legacy manufacturers (particularly those based in the Far East) were getting very close to manufacturing ICE cars that were delivered to customers problem free. (Now I expect someone to challenge that but in relative terms it is true.) By comparison EVs seem like 1970s British Leyland products. There is such a rush to get EVs out there that the normal motor industry practice of putting ‘00,000s of miles on the cars in pre production testing isn’t happening. 

In the case of Tesla, perhaps, they can be excused because their customers, are prepared to accept that the cars will be released in beta form with the expectation that over the air downloads will resolve issues and other problems will be expected but are fixable. That’s the price of having the latest tech. 

VW, amazingly, seem to be adopting a similar philosophy knowingly releasing cars with issues and getting away with it but sooner or later they and other EV manufacturers will need to make cars that perform as their customers expect. Rapidgate, phantom braking, glass roofs detaching themselves, boot lids that fill the boot with water, freezing charging flaps, 12v batteries that constantly go flat are all problems that should have been resolved before the cars were delivered to the public. These aren’t the usual recall issues that come to light several years down the line. With so few moving parts EVs should be so much easier to manufacture problem free so why so many problems? Design and production is running way ahead of development in the rush to get cars to market to meet emissions regs in the case of legacy manufacturers or in the case of Tesla just to keep heads above water.


While some might dismiss the issues as FUD the reality is that in the current age of rapidly disseminated information poor design and implementation will be exposed and (perhaps) blown out of proportion. FUD or not, mud sticks.

Hopefully when Toyota join the EV party things will improve.

michaels

And yet the original Nissan leaf is one of the most reliable cars on the road so it is not impossible. Phantom breaking etc relates to automation which is platform agnostic.

The problem with the Toyota approach is that you leave a lot of room in the market for your competitors and new entrants to get there first and you then need to win back the market share which is a lot harder than holding onto existing brand customers.