Tesla News & Discussion

JKenH

pile-o-stone wrote: »

It's well known that a car has better fuel efficiency and therefore fewer emissions when cruising on a motorway than on A & B roads (AKA the 'urban cycle').

Do you moan about tractors, scooters and slow lorries that get in your way too? I see a pattern here. Perhaps you need to understand that you and your car is not the centre of the universe and other people have as much right to the road as yourself?

Yep, I moan at all of those then remember I am driving an EV and they are saving me loads of money making me go more slowly.

GreatApe

Tesla and ICE estimate powertrain cost

Audi A4 £20,000 before sales tax and assuming 10% margin = £18,000 cost to make and sell

If 23% of the cost is ICE powertrain = £4.14k and the rest of the car is £13.86k

A model 3 is £32,600 before sales and import taxes and let's knock 10% off for margin too = £29,300
If the non powertrain costs of the car are the same as Audi that's £13.86k for a model 3 so the powertrain is about £15.46k

£15,450 / 60KWh = £258/KWh or about $335/KWh

$335/KWh is for everything not just the cells.
Battery housing. thermal management. electric motor. gearing. Cables. Power electronics. Stronger car frame to handle the extra weight. etc

EricMears

JKenH wrote: »

Yep, I moan at all of those then remember I am driving an EV and they are saving me loads of money making me go more slowly.

Perhaps not "loads" : EV fuel costs are so low that even if they were 50% higher for a short distance you'd only be wasting pennies.

GreatApe

EricMears wrote: »

Perhaps not "loads" : EV fuel costs are so low that even if they were 50% higher for a short distance you'd only be wasting pennies.

Many people use the octopus go as a reference for fuel costs for EVs in the UK

This is silly because it's just one small provider on one of their tarriffs which they can pull at any time or even that supplier go bust or they can just change the price to be more than 5p

Using the very cheapest tarriff is probably a bad method of costing things
Sometimes I look up data for the cost of second hand cars
I don't look up the very cheapest as I don't feel it's representative at all
Instead if there are 100 cars in the range I'm looking at I take the 30th percentile as the price
Not the cheapest not the middle towards somewhere in between the cheapest and the middle

Anyway what's the second cheapest EV tarriff? The EDF 8p rate?
Personally if I were buying an EV I'd buy with the assumption that electricity would cost me the second cheapest rate over time not the very cheapest from one Tony supplier

That's still cheap fuel
But 60% more expensive than the cheapest tarriff

GreatApe

Electric cars are reliable.... Posts from mid 2018
Also bear in mind this is a £24k car Vs a £39.5k car

As a die hard Tesla fanboy, I've been dreaming of a tesla since early high school. Now that I'm graduated from college and can afford a nice car I have been scared off by the reliability issues. The model S has been seemingly a nightmare and I'd imagine the first 5 years of model 3 production will be as well. I'd say go Audi and in a few years if Tesla is still doing well they would hopefully have their build quality figured out so you could feel comfortable getting one

Audi A4 hands down, at least until Tesla gets their !!!! together. EV might be the future, but Tesla will NOT be part of that future if they keep going down the path they are going down.

. Tesla is cool and does have the cool tech, but like others say, the reliability. Also depends on how much you drive,but I'm sure you've taken that in to consideration.

In my experience of ICE ownership it's not the powertrain that fails so much
It tends to be other things. The simplest of which is the fact that the inside of cars get quite ratty after 10-15 years of use. It's like your sofa at home. It might be able to last 100 years but you don't keep a sofa that long

I wouldn't go so far as to say Tesla reliability or quality is low
But I would challenge the general consensus here and elsewhere that EVs are oh so much more reliable than ICE. Not convinced at all

And the high mileage examples of EVs are all (majority) motorway miles
How can a model 3 clock up 100,000 urban or normal miles in 18 months?
It's motorway miles and the saying with ICE cars is 1 urban mile = 5-10 motorway miles

EVs will improve over time
Costs will fall
But pace yourselves
Just like solar PV which was supposed to take over the world in a few short years
The reality is it will take 30-50 years
Especially considering the fact that the world is still developing which is why you can deploy record numbers of PV farms yet fossil fuel useage still go up. Likewise the world will deploy record numbers of EVs over the next 5 years however the world stock of ICE cars on the road will go up

If I was a betting man I would wager that there will still be at least 1 billion ICE cars on the road in 2050.... And perhaps even 1.5 billion+

JKenH

EricMears wrote: »

Perhaps not "loads" : EV fuel costs are so low that even if they were 50% higher for a short distance you'd only be wasting pennies.

That’s a fair point but yesterday I had to drive 100 miles in a 30kwh Leaf. I was able to charge up at home at 8.6p/kwh. If I had to stop and fill up en route it would have been about 4 x that price. I might only have needed one more kwh to get to my destination but human nature being what it is I would have put quite a bit more in while I was at it (just in case) and of course I would have added time to my journey.

As it happened due to some very slow traffic over the first 25 miles I made it without stopping (102 miles to be exact). So thank you horse box and sorry to the HGV drivers who had to change lane to overtake me on the M69.

It was a relief to be able to cruise back home at an indicated 70+ in my diesel without any range anxiety.

EricMears

JKenH wrote: »

That’s a fair point but yesterday I had to drive 100 miles in a 30kwh Leaf. I was able to charge up at home at 8.6p/kwh. If I had to stop and fill up en route it would have been about 4 x that price. I might only have needed one more kwh to get to my destination but human nature being what it is I would have put quite a bit more in while I was at it (just in case) and of course I would have added time to my journey.

As it happened due to some very slow traffic over the first 25 miles I made it without stopping (102 miles to be exact). So thank you horse box and sorry to the HGV drivers who had to change lane to overtake me on the M69.

It was a relief to be able to cruise back home at an indicated 70+ in my diesel without any range anxiety.

I've calculated my normal 'fuel costs' (in a 40 kWh Leaf) to be approx 2.5p/mile using E7 power at 8.2ppu. If I had to pay for charging when out, I'd try to find a Lidl rapid at 23ppu which would increase my fuel cost to around 7p/m : still cheaper than using my ICEd car and of course would have an even smaller effect on the average fuel cost for complete journey (35 kWh at 8ppu plus 5kWh at 23ppu is still only around 10ppu or 3p/m).

I'm sure there's no need to apologise to other motorway users for driving at (say) 50mph in the left hand lane. The other lanes are provided for overtaking and a lorry driver in particular should have seen you at least half a mile before needing to change lanes. A different story of course if you were only doing 20 mph (but there are plenty of people on the M25 who would love to be going that fast ). BTW, if having been overtaken by a LGV, you'd sped up and tailgated him at 60mph you'd probably have been just as economical as stopping at 50.

GreatApe

Ford Kuga plug in Vs normal Kuga is interesting in that it shows the price of turning an ICE into a plug in is about £4,500+VAT and that's for 14.4KWh pack

That gives you a reasonable idea of how much it would cost to go from ICE to plug in
For places with high fuel taxes it's okay it means you'd get your money back by around 60,000 miles assuming it's 85% electric miles

In theory maintenance would be less of an issue as the ICE is only working 15% of the miles

With smart regulations this would be the logical near term future
Take any model and add a 30-60 mile plug in range for a cost of £4,500 plus sale taxes

A VW polo which is £12,685 would become a plug in hybrid for ~£18,085 with probably ~55 mile EV range

UK average is only 20 miles a day so a 55 mile range Plug in Hybrid covers most days

For me it would cover more than 85% of my miles on electric
With more chargers deployed it could be 99% of my miles

A more affordable way to electrify land miles
A 55 mile plug in polo for £18,000 would definitely be interesting!!

And if battery technology halves in price then this +£4,500 to turn a normal ICE onto a plug in Hybrid would become just +£2,250 at which point it's definitely worth upgrading to plug in


And there would be much less of a limit to producing millions of plug in hybrids as they require just 1/5th the battery size weight cost of a full range EV

JKenH

EricMears wrote: »

BTW, if having been overtaken by a LGV, you'd sped up and tailgated him at 60mph you'd probably have been just as economical as stopping at 50.

That was the plan but it means annoying them first by driving along at 55mph to make them overtake.:)

GreatApe

News of a China designed 2 door small EV from Tesla.
I think this makes a LOT of sense especially for self drive taxis

A 2 seat self drive taxi makes much more sense than using a five seat model 3 for self drive taxis. Even 100 miles range is okay for a self drive taxi and you don't need mega acceleration especially since most taxi trips are in cities which have 20-30mph speed limit roads.

They can just supercharge from 5-95% every time more range is needed
Charge rate of 6% per minute could be possible so only 15 mins supercharge then away it goes again to serve 20 more customers before another supercharge and so on

Such a car could well cost less than half that of a model 3 and it night only need a 20KWh pack
A long range version with 150 mile range would even be a great car for personal useage
Although for personal useage a 2 seat car will have a very limited market
Perhaps it's a 4 seat size car instead like the small polo or Fiesta class

Certainly they will need a lower price than $40,000/£40,000 model if they want to become a 10 million units a year manufacturer