Tesla Model 3 - Now I get the hype.

Larry in TN said:
The radically different interior design was one of the reasons that I went to test drive a Model 3. I watched a lot of YouTube videos on the car but that doesn't tell you what it will be like to live with it. I thought it would be a negative but I found it very easy to adjust to. Much better than I had expected.

I'd really like a HUD, though. I have one on my Mazda3 and love it. It's funny, though, as I thought the HUD was just a gimmick but it came with the trim level I wanted so I got it. I would have skipped it if I could have. Now I want a HUD on all of my cars.
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And I was the complete opposite. I believe loathe would be the appropriate word in regards to the center screen. I do like the speed readout in the HUD on my car however.
 
Larry in TN said:
The radically different interior design was one of the reasons that I went to test drive a Model 3. I watched a lot of YouTube videos on the car but that doesn't tell you what it will be like to live with it. I thought it would be a negative but I found it very easy to adjust to. Much better than I had expected.

I'd really like a HUD, though. I have one on my Mazda3 and love it. It's funny, though, as I thought the HUD was just a gimmick but it came with the trim level I wanted so I got it. I would have skipped it if I could have. Now I want a HUD on all of my cars.
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I like HUDs as well. Had one in my Pontiac GP GXP. It's not that I couldn't adjust to the huge screen, I just wouldn't want to. I think it looks out-of-place because it's not designed into the dash-area, it looks like an afterthought and glued-on. It has been a trend in many vehicles lately (although not usually with such a large screen). The newer Mazda's (like the Mazda 6) have great interiors that feature a good mix of touch screen and tactile buttons/knobs. I still think they could have molded the screen into the dash a little better, but it's clean and functional. I just don't need all of the screen real-estate. I have the NAV screen in my F-150 but would be just fine without it, there's nothing I need to have displayed on a daily basis that isn't covered by the typical instrument panel (which could be done via HUD).
 
Wonder what the folks in California that had their power cut off but still face the risk of brush fire are thinking if they own a Tesla...
 
wsuffa said:
Wonder what the folks in California that had their power cut off but still face the risk of brush fire are thinking if they own a Tesla...
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"Gee, I'm sure glad there isn't a bunch of highly flammable liquid in this thing."

There are plenty of public chargers out there, Superchargers and otherwise. They're fine.
 
wsuffa said:
Wonder what the folks in California that had their power cut off but still face the risk of brush fire are thinking if they own a Tesla...
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Tesla is ahead of the curve on this... this is the message that shows on the screen inside the cars of those potentially affected.

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For anyone in the DFW (and those visiting) who wants to see a Model 3 up close and personal, I'd be happy to oblige.

The full power Launch never gets old.
 
AggieMike88 said:
For anyone in the DFW (and those visiting) who wants to see a Model 3 up close and personal, I'd be happy to oblige.

The full power Launch never gets old.
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Tesla trip app says you can get here in 3 charges. But you have to stop for an hour in Wichita...that might be a deal breaker.
 
wsuffa said:
Wonder what the folks in California that had their power cut off but still face the risk of brush fire are thinking if they own a Tesla...
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I'm wondering if PG&E will be cutting off the power in Fremont.
It would be just a wee bit ironic if an electric car company couldn't make electric cars because there's no electricity. :eek: :D
 
Matthew said:
Tesla trip app says you can get here in 3 charges. But you have to stop for an hour in Wichita...that might be a deal breaker.
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www.abetterrouteplanner.com is a better app for trips. Allows you to account for your specific car (including Other EV's), elevation changes, weather, winds, and other options. I also like that it has estimated cost of charging.

Once planned, route can be shared with the car's navigation software through the Tesla app.

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40 Amp 240/208V to charge rapidly (25 miles of range/hour of charge). Some generators could handle that.
 
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Some else added that if the "coconut" mode is selected, the rate you hear the clops matches the speed you're creeping at. And pressing the horn button makes the car say "Ni!"
 
flyingcheesehead said:
"Gee, I'm sure glad there isn't a bunch of highly flammable liquid in this thing."

There are plenty of public chargers out there, Superchargers and otherwise. They're fine.
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Where do the superchargers get power if the grid is down? Do they have special dedicated lines to the ironmen, or onsite generators that burn <gasp> fossil fuels </gasp>?

This is another example of something that needs to be thought out before one decides to buy an electric car. If the region's power goes down for several days (as used to happen here before I bought a generator, but hasn't happened since), you lose your car, as well -- unless you have a beefy generator that can charge the car and supply your other electric needs.

Rich
 
My moms friend, her daughter (uncles cat nephews cousin...:D) bought a used Tesla a few months ago. And of course last week she was hit from behind by someone texting. And that driver had an outstanding warrant, failure to appear for a DUI charge, driving on a suspended license and failed the field sobriety test at the accident scene. Unbelievably, the car that the driver was in has insurance.

How long until the car will be fixed.?? The car is based in Tennessee.
 
Zeldman said:
My moms friend, her daughter (uncles cat nephews cousin...:D) bought a used Tesla a few months ago. And of course last week she was hit from behind by someone texting. And that driver had an outstanding warrant, failure to appear for a DUI charge, driving on a suspended license and failed the field sobriety test at the accident scene. Unbelievably, the car that the driver was in has insurance.

How long until the car will be fixed.?? The car is based in Tennessee.
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3 Years, 5 Months & 2 Days
 
Larry in TN said:
Where do the gasoline pumps get power when the grid is down?

In either case, you have to drive to somewhere with power in order to refuel or recharge.
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I've seen some places with generators.
 
Larry in TN said:
Where do the gasoline pumps get power when the grid is down?

In either case, you have to drive to somewhere with power in order to refuel or recharge.
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I do have a few 5 gallon cans in my garage. It's harder to do that with electricity.
 
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Larry in TN said:
Where do the gasoline pumps get power when the grid is down?

In either case, you have to drive to somewhere with power in order to refuel or recharge.
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Some gas stations have generators around here. A few villages forbid them in gas stations, but the ones in unicorporated areas usually have them. They're more to keep the stuff in the convenience stores from spoiling and to keep the beer cold; but the pumps get power, too.

jsstevens said:
I do have a few 5 gallon cans in my garage. It's harder to do that with electricity.
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Exactly. I always have at least 20 gallons on hand for the generator and other equipment that uses gas.

That's not to say that I wouldn't consider an electric car, mind you, if I find one that meets my mission. But I do have a generator that could charge the car at night when nothing else is drawing power to speak of, and I live in an area where no one would give a **** if I stored 500 gallons of gas. But it's something that people really should consider before swearing off ICE. If you lose power on a regional basis, you also lose your mobility unless you can generate your own juice.

The worst-case scenario would be having to evacuate an area that's already without power, and having only electric cars. Then what?

Rich
 
Zeldman said:
My moms friend, her daughter (uncles cat nephews cousin...:D) bought a used Tesla a few months ago. And of course last week she was hit from behind by someone texting. And that driver had an outstanding warrant, failure to appear for a DUI charge, driving on a suspended license and failed the field sobriety test at the accident scene. Unbelievably, the car that the driver was in has insurance.

How long until the car will be fixed.?? The car is based in Tennessee.
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It'll be totaled and sold at auction to Rich Rebuilds
 
Clearly, if your EV is fully charged, you probably have sufficient range to get to power. But if not, there's not much in the way of convenient energy storage that helps. As much as the systems engineer in me detests the complexity of plug-in hybrid, I think that's the practical alternative for now.
 
RJM62 said:
Some gas stations have generators around here. A few villages forbid them in gas stations, but the ones in unicorporated areas usually have them. They're more to keep the stuff in the convenience stores from spoiling and to keep the beer cold; but the pumps get power, too.
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EVs charge at home each night so, while sitting in the garage, will usually be at a relatively high state of charge. If the power goes out for an extended period of time you are likely already nearly fully charged. If the outage extends for many days then you'll have to drive outside of the outage area to recharge.

In many situations which produce extended power outages, there is little or no gasoline in the affected areas, regardless of generators, because a pre-storm run on the stations will deplete them. Those cars will also have to drive outside the affected area to refuel.

Most people do not have a generator nor do they keep significant supplies of gasoline in the home. It really doesn't make that much difference what kind of car you drive. The source of the extended power outage is probably a lot bigger concern than how you're going to refuel your car.
 
EdFred said:
Wonder how the autopilot does on the Kobayashi Maru test?
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Sluggo63 said:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem
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It's more interesting when it gets to real-life scenarios. Generally, humans in such scenarios tend toward the "take no action" variant, whether because they just freeze up or can't make up their mind fast enough. The autonomous vehicle can attempt to kill the lowest number of people as possible, and thus will be more successful than most humans.

RJM62 said:
Where do the superchargers get power if the grid is down? Do they have special dedicated lines to the ironmen, or onsite generators that burn <gasp> fossil fuels </gasp>?
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It depends... Some Superchargers already have solar and batteries. Tesla has voiced a desire to move to largely local generation and storage for powering the Superchargers, but haven't made a lot of progress yet, since they're making batteries as fast as they can and they still don't have any excess supply to do that.

deonb said:
"Tesla is installing Powerpacks at Superchargers affected by power outages":
https://electrek.co/2019/10/10/tesl-powerpack-superchargers-power-outages/
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That... But man, how many Powerpacks are they putting in? A Powerpack is 210kWh - That's really only enough for about 2.5-4 full car charges.

RJM62 said:
If you lose power on a regional basis, you also lose your mobility unless you can generate your own juice.

The worst-case scenario would be having to evacuate an area that's already without power, and having only electric cars. Then what?
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In both cases, you may be better off with an electric car. It's going to be charged to 80-90% almost all the time, unless you just got home. The average car is driven less than 40 miles per day and sits for 21 hours. Using a normal 240V charging station like I have in my garage, a Tesla will recharge at 30-40 mph. So, it'd be sitting at 80 or 90 percent (or even 100), depending on what the cutoff you set is, for about 20 hours of a given day. Depending on the model in question, that could be from 175-375 miles of range. In our gasser, 175 is half a tank, so half the time the EV would have better range than the gasser.

I do probably have somewhere between 5 and 15 gallons of gas in the garage that I could use in a pinch, if I had time to siphon some of it out of the tractor, and that would help. I don't think average people tend to keep gas around, though, and certainly not the siphon hose that I do!*

Also, for those fleeing a disaster, well, they end up in horrific traffic most of the time. The gasser is going to burn a lot of fuel idling and going slow, whereas the EV will use very little energy.

Overall, I think this is likely just more fear of the unknown. I don't live in a large-scale-disaster-prone area, but I'd still buy a Tesla if I did. It'll be interesting to see what Californians say over the next few days. I'll have to ping my brother, who lives in San Jose and drives a Bolt.

* I fuel the tractor using a siphon hose because the stupid f*ç&ing California-mandated gas cans that everyone sells bend the plastic filler neck on my tractor's gas tank when used as intended.
 
RJM62 said:
Some gas stations have generators around here. A few villages forbid them in gas stations, but the ones in unicorporated areas usually have them. They're more to keep the stuff in the convenience stores from spoiling and to keep the beer cold; but the pumps get power, too.



Exactly. I always have at least 20 gallons on hand for the generator and other equipment that uses gas.

That's not to say that I wouldn't consider an electric car, mind you, if I find one that meets my mission. But I do have a generator that could charge the car at night when nothing else is drawing power to speak of, and I live in an area where no one would give a **** if I stored 500 gallons of gas. But it's something that people really should consider before swearing off ICE. If you lose power on a regional basis, you also lose your mobility unless you can generate your own juice.

The worst-case scenario would be having to evacuate an area that's already without power, and having only electric cars. Then what?

Rich
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I've lived in the Atlanta metro area for most of the last 40 years. The longest power outage we've has was two and a half days. It wasn't system wide, and there are now public charging stations not far from here that would probably still have power. These tend to be caused by ice storms so there's not a lot of driving done, at least for a couple of days. I don't believe we've ever had a prcautionary shutdown like California is seeing, but if we continue having droughts like the one we are having now, I can see it as being a possibility.

On the gasoline side of things, if anything happens to the Colonial pipeline or the refineries that supply it, we start running out of gas pretty quickly. One of the hurricanes (Katrina?) got us to where it was quite difficult to find a station that had fuel, which lasted about three weeks. We had a lesser shortage because of a pipeline leak, but that was less than a week, and if you looked hard enough and paid the inflated price you could generally find some grade of gasoline.

In any case, I drive a plug in hybrid, so whatevs.
 
@flyingcheesehead

My Subaru gets 450 miles per tank in the city; and that usually lasts me about four or five weeks :D
My last car was closer to 600 miles.

That is generally two to three times the range of EV cars available.

Tim
 
@FormerHangie

The pre-emptive shutdown is mostly a CA thing. CA does not want to pay the price to properly maintain the system for all weather. And the weather has been getting progressively worse. At the same time, the the state has very onerous liability laws.
The result has been a system which is poorly maintained, likely poorly managed (and this is the major complaint by the public and politicians) and has a quasi reverse incentive structure. Which is not good for reliability.

Tim
 
tspear said:
My Subaru gets 450 miles per tank in the city; and that usually lasts me about four or five weeks :D
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Cute. I usually drive my Tesla for about 5000 miles and four to five months without visiting a charger.

Out-of-context range comparisons between ICE's and EV's are not useful. You have to compare the entire experience taken over the course of a year or two.
 
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