High mileage electric bikes and cars coming soon

"how road tripping in an electric vehicle works" is a very, very funny statement. It doesn't work.

 

OK. Please enlighten me. On my last couple of road trips I was going from Austin, TX to State College, PA. That is 1600ish miles. So lets assume I leave home with a full charge, arrive in State College with a fully depleted battery and drove very conservatively so that I got the miles out of the battery that the manufacturer claimed. In my daughters car we made the drive in 30 hours as we stopped for 7 hours for a sleep. Lets also assume that the hotel we stayed at had a fast charger and we arrived at the hotel fully depleted and had a full charge when we left in the morning. That is 720 miles of charge taken care of so I need to find 880 miles worth of charge along the way. Lets continue this best case scenario and say that there was a Level 3 charger every 90 miles for the remainder of the trip, I was able to get 90 miles per 30 minutes of charge, did not lose any time slowing down and there was always an available charger to plug in to immediately. So even in this unicorn and fairy dust perfect world fantasy scenario you would spend 5 hours waiting on charge. The odds of finding a level 3 charger every 90 miles is pretty slim though so lets assume one of the charging stations is a level 2 station and you only get 12 miles of range per hour. so that 1 - 90 mile section would take an additional 7 hours of charging. So by my very rough and I believe optimistic calculations that would be 12 hours of sitting still charging time for a trip that we might have had 2 hours of stopped time in a IC vehicle. Am I missing something?

 

Yes...your green lensed glasses....

 

I wonder how many in this thread have actually driven something like a Tesla.

 

It's crazy that people somehow manage to roadtrip their cars all the time, even the 100 mile range leaf, but somehow you find it impossible.

Austin to State College, PA is 1554 miles and would take 26:43 total travel time, including charging, in the Model S and 26:15 total travel time in the Model 3. There are a dozen level 2 chargers at hotels and public places in State College and two Generic Level 3 chargers there. On top of that there's a tesla super charger in Bellefonte and Altoona.

 

Crazy how I can drive from Texas to Cali or GA/FL with no problems and there's plenty of other people who manage to do the same, it never fails that I see license plates from all over the country when I'm driving around the country.

 

It was made directly towards him, since he makes it seem as if he knows so much about EVs and how they (don't) work but he doesn't seem to understand anything.

To address the statement for the masses that don't know, a battery in a car, just like any other battery charges really fast when discharged but charges slower as it gets filled; just like a cellphone, laptop, or typical automotive battery. Because of this you get the fastest charges while the car is in the lower end of the State of Charge (SOC) On a road trip you're not worried about filling up to full, you're only worried about making it to the next station. From 10-50% would take 15 minutes and add 130 miles, to get to the next 40% (90%) would take 30 minutes, and the last 10% would take another 20-30 minutes, why sit around for an additional 30 minutes, or an hour, when you have enough to get to the next station. Then when you get to the next station you're at a lower SOC and you charge faster.

The second part of road tripping in an electric car; don't "conserve energy" by driving slower. All of the charging standards are capable of 100-150kw of power, you'll use 250-300 watt hours per mile. Basically when you do the math, you can't drive faster than you can charge. In the Leaf I'd keep it floored because even at the slow 45kw that car could take it was still charging faster than the car depleted energy. In the Tesla I set the auto cruise at 90mph and just follow the car in front of me, yes I use more energy driving at 90mph vs 65, but the time saved on the road more than makes up for the extra time spent charging.

In the above example from Austin, TX to State College, PA driving my way would take 26:15, 22 hours and 24 minutes driving and 3:51 charging. If I limited the speed to 65mph I would only spend 3:24 charging but 25:26 driving for a total trip of 28:50.

 

Not sure, but I find most people that ask me about either of the cars have a bunch of negative shit to say but have never actually driven one, let alone road tripped in one. A lot of the issues you hear about, like someones trip to NYC, was because they were inexperienced with the car or they simply didn't care.

I now drive a Tesla that replaced my Nissan Leaf, which I got so I wasn't driving my truck 25K+ miles a year that didn't require a truck. I did the math on a corolla or similar, a Chevy Volt hybrid, and new vs used etc. In the end the math for an EV blew away anything a gas or hybrid car could do. I wasn't ready to buy a Tesla so I got a 2015 Nissan leaf and drove it about 5K in 5 months but anything over 80 miles and I needed to charge or take the truck, Nissan now has a model with 225ish miles. Because I was still driving the truck out of town and when I didn't feel like charging I was still racking up miles. I did the math again and looked for a Tesla for months before a CPO one popped up, now instead of putting 12K on the leaf and 12K on the truck I can put every bit of it on the Tesla and it saves me at least $6,000 a year vs the truck.

People talk about the inconvenience of having to charge every night; A) you don't have to, plenty don't charge every day B) how convenient is it to stop at a gas station vs getting out of the car and plugging in? takes me a whole 10 seconds. Also, how many households have only one vehicle? I'm pretty sure nearly every household has multiple, and they seem to forget that. So uh 10-20 minutes on a 400 mile trip is a deal breaker? take one of the other vehicles in the house.

 

I'm sure 100+ years ago the guys with horses were saying how inconvenient it was to find a gas station. "Why should I travel in a horseless carriage? There's no gas stations. I can just stop at any old creek and give my horse a drink and let him munch on some grass too."

 

Just wait till they get around to mass producing the Semi, talk about a bunch of whiny bitches that will find anything to complain about. One of the guys I talked to about that bragged how he can get over 1,000 miles in his truck between fillups but he was only driving 5-600 miles a day? well uh great, but what are you doing with the other 4 non driving hours of your service time. I crunched some numbers for the semi also and showed how they'd save conservatively 20-30K in fuel every year on a $150K truck, plus maintenance and they didn't care, all they could mention was how it would never work. Ignore the fact that Tesla already drives them between their factories In San Fran and Reno....

 

Call me when this comes out, and they restyle the front end.

https://products.rivian.com

 

I drove a 26' box moving truck from Phoenix to Sacramento governed at 60mph. Just because you can do it doesn't mean its fun. Especially when there are MUCH better options for the money out there.

 

I've driven an X model. Nice vehicle. Quite and plenty of pep. No doubt a great commuter auto but like others I’m skeptical of a cross country trip due to limited range and charging time hassle etc.
it really is a good auto.

 

The future is here. I don't know how many Teslas there is in Chicago but there's always at least two at this docking station waiting around. And I don't even come by here that often.

The irony of this picture is I'm idling a 15 liter Cummins ISX while taking this pic, while they're sitting there trying to save the planet.

 

Not sure where I said it was impossible. Just annoying and inconvenient and something that would be about as much fun for me as slamming my dick in a car door.

I have driven an S and after the initial "holy shit this thing accelerates hard" I found the car to be bland and completely without character. Fit and finish was not where I would want it for a car that costs that much and if I won one I would sell it immediately. And that is the "nice" electric. I could not imagine how sucktastic one of the econoshitbox electrics would be...

And I am quite skeptical on your assertion that it would only be an additional 3 - 4 hours for charging an electric car driving from Austin to State College. A friend has an S and a road trip from Austin to Dallas, drive around a bit and drive back ended up spending 3 hours just waiting on chargers and charging. 1 stop at a level 2 charger would almost eat up the charge time that you are claiming...

But keep preaching brotha. It can't be easy being an E-vangelist.

 

Every major OEM is going to be offering multiple EVs in a very short time. Once they pay for the tooling and the R/D the things are cheap as shit to build.
There is literally nothing to the things. Building the battery pack is the biggest thing. Big cellphone pack and a forklift motor is all it is.

No fuel, no tank, lines, pump, injectors, no exhaust, no emissions crap, no transmission $$$, no tunnel, very low temp liquid cooling system, never replace brake pads and rotors in normal driving. Quiet as hell, tons of trunk space and cheap as hell per mile to run.

Ya, they suck.

You would be surprised at how many EVs are up in remote places where gas stations are very few and far between but power outlets are in every home.

And Tesla's can charge on any charging station with the correct adapter, but only Teslas can charge on their supplied charging cords and on the superchargers .

Quad motor, 1000 ft pound, 2500 series trucks are coming and you guys will line up to drop 80k each on them.

 

No I won't...

 

Should go down as that in the history of the beeb

 

Again. Porsche as THE sportscar company (ok with previously the pepper and now the bacon as best sellers) going mainstream EV on their best seller Macan should slightly hint at you what’s coming. The germans don’t mess around and they also don’t gamble. Unless they are sure they will win.

 

Swapped cars with a buddy who had a Tesla P90D for a month. Drives well and I really liked it. Though it had some serious fit and finish issues IMHO for the price. But you are paying for the tech and I understand how they have to cut corners elsewhere to make it affordableish. That said, the reason we swapped cars for a month is because my friend was going on a roadtrip and didn't feel like dealing with hopping from supercharger to supercharger. After having it for that period of time, I could learn to live with it. I suspect in the next 3 to 5 years it won't even be an issue. It was actually a lot of fun to drive and the UI is outstanding IMHO.