Electric vehicles (EVs), their emissions, and future viability

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kjclow

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You could have gotten rid of that blue belching Civic if you used the money towards a higher mpg car. I want to say that it had to have a 15 mpg increase to qualify. I looked at getting rid of our 97 corolla but my wife didn't want another VW diesel at that time.
 

Rob Mayercik

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The Civic I mentioned was simply a random example of something that had a high-enough MPG rating to make getting money out of the Clunker program tough, never said I owned one.
 

VeeDubTDI

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Our Model 3 will roll over 50,000 miles tomorrow. Not bad for 16.5 months of ownership... still in love with the car, as it keeps getting better over time. The most recent addition was the acceleration boost, which brings it up to ~490 HP and 0-60 in 3.8 seconds.

Average speed on long road trips including charging time is 60 MPH. Heading to Austin, Texas next week for the Fully Charged LIVE event.
 
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Lightflyer1

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Welcome to Austin in advance! COTA (Circuit of the Americas) is a very nice venue. Been to several concerts/events out there. Hope you enjoy yourself! Let me know if there is anything I can help you with, if needed.
 

turbobrick240

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That sounds like a lot of fun. I've been to two F1 races at COTA , and this event sounds like an even better time. Not that they plan to do it, but I'd love to see a Raven Model S and Taycan "turbo" race around the track a few times. They must have plans to utilize that amazing track somehow.
 

Lightflyer1

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Should be a big event. Austin has quite a few electric cars now. My employer NXP Semiconductor (formerly Freescale, formerly Motorola) has free charging stations at work now. As do some other employers here. You see the cars on the streets quite often. One of my coworkers drives a Tesla. COTA does have track days, but the cost is high ($1k and up) and you must have experience or instruction to be able to participate. Not to mention a car that complies with the rules. They aren't going to let just anyone go fast out there.
 

bizzle

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Our Model 3 will roll over 50,000 miles tomorrow. Not bad for 16.5 months of ownership... still in love with the car, as it keeps getting better over time. The most recent addition was the acceleration boost, which brings it up to ~490 HP and 0-60 in 3.8 seconds.

Average speed on long road trips including charging time is 60 MPH. Heading to Austin, Texas next week for the Fully Charged LIVE event.
That's pretty cool. The only reason we didn't get a Tesla this time around was because when we had the eGolf someone smacked a fender in my wife's work parking lot and we had to tow it 2 hours away to a repair facility that could handle the high voltage. What is Tesla's policy? Do they come pick it up for body damage or it has to be flat bedded somewhere?
 

BeetleGo

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Our Model 3 will roll over 50,000 miles tomorrow. Not bad for 16.5 months of ownership... still in love with the car, as it keeps getting better over time. The most recent addition was the acceleration boost, which brings it up to ~490 HP and 0-60 in 3.8 seconds.

Average speed on long road trips including charging time is 60 MPH. Heading to Austin, Texas next week for the Fully Charged LIVE event.
Yep, AND Tesla’s are ‘Merican made! I get my Y in ‘23! :cool:
 

VeeDubTDI

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That's pretty cool. The only reason we didn't get a Tesla this time around was because when we had the eGolf someone smacked a fender in my wife's work parking lot and we had to tow it 2 hours away to a repair facility that could handle the high voltage. What is Tesla's policy? Do they come pick it up for body damage or it has to be flat bedded somewhere?
Tesla will do some body repairs in-house; bumper replacements and bolt-on items like that. Tesla also certifies local body shops to work on the vehicles, which may or may not be plentiful in your area. You can search for a body shop here: https://www.tesla.com/support/body-shop-support
 

bizzle

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Tesla will do some body repairs in-house; bumper replacements and bolt-on items like that. Tesla also certifies local body shops to work on the vehicles, which may or may not be plentiful in your area. You can search for a body shop here: https://www.tesla.com/support/body-shop-support
Thanks for that. As I suspected, the closest authorized shops are about 100 miles away. Do you know if the authorized shops give loaners out when a vehicle is brought in for repair?

When I need a substantial repair from VW, and I want to risk the dealership's hands on my vehicle, I have to drive a couple hours away and then find my way home. But at least body work can be done at any collision center. I don't just have unqualified people in my area, they don't even know how unqualified they are (which I would argue is even more dangerous!). I explained the eGolf was full electric and then took it to Caliber Collision after they said oh yeah sure we can work on that and then called me a week later after they had started removing body panels to tell me to come get it since they didn't know how and didn't want to risk working on a high voltage vehicle :rolleyes:
 

bhtooefr

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You would need to contact those individual body shops to see what their loaner policies are. (Or, just carry rental coverage on your insurance.)
 

BeetlePD

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I leased an EV from Mercedes

It was spoooo boring to drive. It had leather seats, XM radio, other luxuries but no noise of any kind. No shifting. I got bored with it

.
 

nwdiver

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I leased an EV from Mercedes

It was spoooo boring to drive. It had leather seats, XM radio, other luxuries but no noise of any kind. No shifting. I got bored with it

.
I had to use an ICE for the first time in several years a few weeks ago. It was weird. I pushed the 'go' pedal and all it really did was make noise. It did accelerate but just barely ;)
 

Tin Man

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I've never seen a Tesla driver accelerate much. Maybe they are too busy with preserving their range to prevent needing to stop for 30 minutes or wait in line for an available charger. Dunno.
 

BeetleGo

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I've never seen a Tesla driver accelerate much. Maybe they are too busy with preserving their range to prevent needing to stop for 30 minutes or wait in line for an available charger. Dunno.
That’s just silly. Tesla’s have plenty of range. I can see that kind of behavior in the competition, but anyone in a Tesla has the same range as pretty much anyone in a car powered with gasoline.

If you HAD seen a Tesla excellerate, you’d know that they blow just about everything off the road! You’re not looking very hard!
 

nwdiver

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wait in line for an available charger. Dunno.
??? Why would there be a line? Most people charge at home most of the time and the homes that are fortunate enough to have more than 1 EV generally have more than 1 charger....

Sure... lines occur at superchargers just as lines sometimes occur at fools fuel depots... both are exceedingly rare and both are usually avoidable.
 
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Tin Man

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That’s just silly. Tesla’s have plenty of range. I can see that kind of behavior in the competition, but anyone in a Tesla has the same range as pretty much anyone in a car powered with gasoline.
If you HAD seen a Tesla excellerate, you’d know that they blow just about everything off the road! You’re not looking very hard!
Usually its the big engined Camaros and Chargers/Challengers along with the random SUV or econobox that races off the line. Teslas seem to be driven by serene, confident individuals if you get my drift, ha ha.
 

Tin Man

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??? Why would there be a line? Most people charge at home most of the time and the homes that are fortunate enough to have more than 1 EV generally have more than 1 charger....

Sure... lines occur at superchargers just as lines sometimes occur at fools fuel depots... both are exceedingly rare and both are usually avoidable.
Yeah, fools, that's what they are, ha ha!
 

Nuje

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I was just listening to the Wheel Bearings podcast where Sam described one of the shortcomings with the Model S is that while you do get that "ludicrous" launch, it's pretty much one-and-done. The battery and electric motor produce so much heat doing hard accelerations that they cannot be done repeatedly.

He mentioned how a Model S on a track was doing great for the first couple minutes, but then its final lap time was abysmal because the car had to go into "self-preservation" mode, which cut power by like 50%.

This was in stark contrast to the new Porsche Taycan, which was tested on 26 consecutive 0-200km/h (124mph) runs, and its drop-off from first to last was only 0.7sec.
 

nwdiver

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I was just listening to the Wheel Bearings podcast where Sam described one of the shortcomings with the Model S is that while you do get that "ludicrous" launch, it's pretty much one-and-done. The battery and electric motor produce so much heat doing hard accelerations that they cannot be done repeatedly.

He mentioned how a Model S on a track was doing great for the first couple minutes, but then its final lap time was abysmal because the car had to go into "self-preservation" mode, which cut power by like 50%.

This was in stark contrast to the new Porsche Taycan, which was tested on 26 consecutive 0-200km/h (124mph) runs, and its drop-off from first to last was only 0.7sec.
Weird... the Ludicrous Model S I got to test drive must have missed the ‘one and done’ memo ;)
 

Nuje

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Ok - sure, exaggeration, hence the "pretty much". ;)

Let us know how much drop-off in 0-200kph (or just to lower the bar and not break too many laws, 0-120kph) times you get after 26 consecutive launches up to that speed.

And to be clear, I'm not knocking the Tesla - I rented one for an afternoon, and was WOW'd!! I am genuinely curious about the heat-soak problem, though - I'd never heard about this.
 

Nuje

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On the plus side of the ledger for Tesla, though, was that the fact that you *could* fully charge the battery (for battery longevity, most EVs charge only to 90% of capacity), whereas the Porsche (and Audi e-tron) have it hard-baked into the battery management controller that you only ever get to charge up to 90% of stated capacity.

The caveat there, though, is that Tesla bases their range numbers on 100% of battery capacity...which they STRONGLY advise against utilizing...and which, from the factory, comes hobbled to ~90%.
 

GoFaster

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The thermal limitation on repeated accelerations to 200 km/h would seldom be a real-world limitation for a street-driven vehicle in the world of North American speed limits that are nowhere greater than 120 km/h in Canada and 140-ish in USA.

If you are going to buy the vehicle for racetrack use, get the Porsche. Otherwise, get whichever floats your boat, because it won't matter.
 

bhtooefr

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Also, the heat soaking issue is more of an issue on induction motors (where both the stator and rotor heat up significantly, and cooling a rotor is difficult) than on permanent magnet motors.

So, pre-April 2019 Model S/X will heat soak pretty badly. Current production, it's not as big of a problem - one of the motors is now permanent magnet for higher efficiency and easier cooling, although it's the weaker front one. And, for the Model 3, it's the rear one, so track performance consistency on the Model 3 has even been known to exceed that of some ICE cars.
 

turbobrick240

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The upcoming tri-motor "Plaid" Model S should retain it's track performance as well or better than the Taycan Turbo S. Neither of which are likely to see all that much track use by typical owners, honestly.
 

BeetlePD

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Noise is good. Silence boring. I was happy to get rid of mercedes EV and back yo gasoline/diesel power.

Besides EVs are not really any cleaner thsn gasoline cars (according to greencars.org). In their well-to-car snalysis, they rate the Model S as no cleaner than a Cruze Diesel, and a Hyundai Ioniq EV as only 1% cleaner thsn the gasoline Ioniq
The caveat there, though, is that Tesla bases their range numbers on 100% of battery capacity...
The EPA mandates it. Companies have to follow the rules laid-out in the government tests

.
 
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