The New Tesla: The Left-Wing Trendymobile

[kevm14]

http://www.infowars.com/the-new-tesla-t ... ndymobile/

Subheading:

There's an earth-rape for the rare metals needed for the cars’ battery packs

He's not saying don't make the car - just trying to temper what's been said about the car (what it can and can't do).

[Fast_Ed]

Man that guy is pissed. I guess it's because they personally forced him to buy this car...

Also, why does it have to be left wing? Can't it just be a car that thousands of people want to buy because it's interesting? Must we fear science to avoid being labeled a liberal?

Furthermore, why is it that car guys love to take a break from burnouts and track days to suddenly become experts on the environmental impacts of batteries when they see an electric car?

Shit, I now sound just like that guy... stupid electric cars.

[kevm14]

I like this part:

“One thing odd tick (sic) we did encounter, however, is what happens to a Tesla battery if you leave it unplugged overnight… on a cold night, you can see a drop of up to 40 miles from where you left it.”

So, you’ve got a $35,000 car that loses 40 miles of range just because you left it sitting. Isn’t that like having an old gas-engined jalopy with a pinhole leak in its gas tank? Except, of course, you didn’t have to spend $35,000 on the leaky jalopy. And even if the tank leaks dry, you can still pour in a 5 gallon jug of gas in about 5 minutes or less.

[kevm14]

Also, why does it have to be left wing? Can't it just be a car that thousands of people want to buy because it's interesting? Must we fear science to avoid being labeled a liberal?

It doesn't have to be left wing but this is typically a left wing thing (see also the Smug episode of South Park):

I personally feel great about the Tesla. I don't know how electricity is created, and I don't care to know. All I do know is, it doesn't burn evil gasoline, and I'm not contributing to climate change. I don't need to drive more than 20 miles a day. Are there actually people on this planet who drive further than that? I thought everyone lived in cities? I am SUCH a wonderful person, I care, and I'm better than you. My self esteem is at an all-time high!!!

From a net environmental standpoint, the following quote may effectively add up to mean the same as the above snark:

Like it or not, at the end of the day every trendy Tesla is powered by coal, natural gas, fuel oil and/or nuclear energy. If everyone plugged an electric car into the grid on a hot summer night, we'd have massive rolling blackouts.

While this is true? The principal difference is that the electricity generated to charge the car can be generated far away from where anyone lives. Whereas the fuel burned in a conventional car is burned right in people's faces, as it were.

These are the kind of people who are like "wind power!" Wait, you're going to put that WHERE? Nah...maybe somewhere I can't see it.

None of this has to do with the car but you asked about the "left wing" association.

[kevm14]

My gripes about the Tesla:

1) Lithium-Ion batteries.

They suck. Period. Lithium-ion batteries have a specific voltage that they leave the factory with. With every single charge and discharge, they lose a little bit of their peak capacity and their ability to transform that capacity into energy. Lithium Ion and Lithium Polymer batteries are the same in this sense. Even if they are perfectly conditioned, they will not offer linear performance over their entire lifespan. Your 1st full charge will not be the same as your 10th full charge and over the life of the battery, you will experience less power and less runtime. This is just the nature of the batteries and there's no way around it. Even if perfectly conditioned all the time. Then you factor in the extremely volatile nature of Li-Ion and Li-Poly packs...Yeah that seems safe to put in a vehicle. You can't ship them in a passenger plane, but hey! Let's put them in a passenger car! Then, let's expose them to extremes of heat and cold, along with inconsistent charges and discharges...This is surely going to end well!

And the warranty on the battery.

"We'll provide you with a reconditioned battery with performance at least as good as it was before the failure!"...Meaning you don't get a *NEW* battery if your battery fails under warranty, you get a referb that's only as good as yours was before it failed...

And don't have the battery exposed to temps over 140*F or -22*F!! Meaning...don't have it exposed to a Southern California summer or a New England winter!

The gradual loss of power and capacity is not covered by the warranty.

Amazing.

2) Recycle-ability.

All the "Green!!" nonsense goes out the window when you realize how heavily this car relies on composite materials that cannot be recycled. A traditional car body is mostly aluminum or steel which can be melted down and recycled after the car reaches the end of it's life.

How do we deal with composite structures at the end of their life?

We ground them into shreds and burn them!

So now we have all that epoxy and fiberglass and carbon fiber being puked out into the atmosphere. Isn't that nice?

I'm sorry. Tesla had a neat idea when they took an ultra-light Lotus Elise and made a street-legal electric go-kart out of it. That was cool. It wasn't practical and we all knew it wasn't. But now they're trying to pass the Model S off as a practical electric solution and it just isn't.

I agree with a lot of this. I don't think Li-Ion batteries are where it's at. But it's not like we have a better option at this exact moment, sadly.

[bill25]

Yes we do, it is called the Hydrogen Fuel Cell. All the electric motor benefits of full torque at min rpms, and no charging, range (assuming we had fueling stations), or battery bullshit. Honda has had this for years and many other companies already have the technology. Takes like an extra minute to fill a tank than gasoline. Byproduct is water. This means you only need to regulate where the Hydrogen gets produced instead of every car as the current model. I am not going to go into why this isn't popular, because I can't think of anything that doesn't sound like a conspiracy.

[bill25]

http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/hy ... -16528552/

http://www.topspeed.com/cars/hydrogen-cars/ke4485.html

[kevm14]

Yeah I know and I agree the technology is "better" but the infrastructure is not there.

[Fast_Ed]

My gripes about the Tesla:

1) Lithium-Ion batteries.

They suck. Period. Lithium-ion batteries have a specific voltage that they leave the factory with. With every single charge and discharge, they lose a little bit of their peak capacity and their ability to transform that capacity into energy. Lithium Ion and Lithium Polymer batteries are the same in this sense. Even if they are perfectly conditioned, they will not offer linear performance over their entire lifespan. Your 1st full charge will not be the same as your 10th full charge and over the life of the battery, you will experience less power and less runtime. This is just the nature of the batteries and there's no way around it. Even if perfectly conditioned all the time. Then you factor in the extremely volatile nature of Li-Ion and Li-Poly packs...Yeah that seems safe to put in a vehicle. You can't ship them in a passenger plane, but hey! Let's put them in a passenger car! Then, let's expose them to extremes of heat and cold, along with inconsistent charges and discharges...This is surely going to end well!

And the warranty on the battery.

"We'll provide you with a reconditioned battery with performance at least as good as it was before the failure!"...Meaning you don't get a *NEW* battery if your battery fails under warranty, you get a referb that's only as good as yours was before it failed...

And don't have the battery exposed to temps over 140*F or -22*F!! Meaning...don't have it exposed to a Southern California summer or a New England winter!

The gradual loss of power and capacity is not covered by the warranty.

Amazing.

2) Recycle-ability.

All the "Green!!" nonsense goes out the window when you realize how heavily this car relies on composite materials that cannot be recycled. A traditional car body is mostly aluminum or steel which can be melted down and recycled after the car reaches the end of it's life.

How do we deal with composite structures at the end of their life?

We ground them into shreds and burn them!

So now we have all that epoxy and fiberglass and carbon fiber being puked out into the atmosphere. Isn't that nice?

I'm sorry. Tesla had a neat idea when they took an ultra-light Lotus Elise and made a street-legal electric go-kart out of it. That was cool. It wasn't practical and we all knew it wasn't. But now they're trying to pass the Model S off as a practical electric solution and it just isn't.

I agree with a lot of this. I don't think Li-Ion batteries are where it's at. But it's not like we have a better option at this exact moment, sadly.

Both of the points are true to the extent I'm willing to research them. I know that LI-ion batteries lose efficiency over time. However, I believe that the range COULD be estimated in a way that is not deceiving to the consumer. Not a technical problem. If you take a 300 mile range car, suppose that with normal usage its going to be a 200 mile range car in 5 years (source: PDOMA). A manufacturer could advertise it as a 200 mile range car, with fine print to denote what this actually means. Average people sell their cars after 5 years or less.. Knowledgeable people may realize that battery tech will come a long way in 5 years, buy used cars like this, and put much better batteries in there.

As for the composite materials, that just means that less of the car will have rusted away after the five years. And it still falls into the 'I don't like this because a model S cut me off in traffic once, so I'm suddenly an environtmentalist' category as far as I'm concerned.

I guess my main point is that I'm glad that there are enough consumers willing to buy these that the technology can advance. Because if everyone thought like this guy, there would be NO progress.

[kevm14]

There is a difference between "we should mature EV technology" and "everyone should be buying these Tesla products - they are without fault." We shouldn't overlook the faults just because it helps #1.

I don't mind seeing a Tesla in traffic at all.

But from a media fascination standpoint, I am a little tired of Tesla being the Apple of cars. To tech journalists, Tesla is how everyone should be building cars (they barely know anything about cars). Yeah, Tesla doesn't even make a profit and they have plenty of problems (that you have to dig to hear about), because they are still learning how to build cars. To auto journalists, the launch modes cure all sins.

So you don't really get the whole story.

http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/05/luxury/ ... index.html