The electric rate at my tier is $.057 per kWh and the LR model 3 has a 75 kWh battery (unless I am mistaken). We are fortunate to have cheap rates.
If it drops your cost per kWh to charge the car down to 1 cent, and you don't have to pay the extra $$$ to run the AC in the afternoon, the payback would be a fair bit quicker than normal. Some people have gotten the payback on solar down into the 5-year range. Considering that it'll last much longer than that and pay off handsomely after the payback time, that's not a bad way to go.
Roughly $1.20 to go 35 miles for me. Free charge at work to go another 35 miles. Gas will never get 70 miles for only a $1.20. That kind of savings adds up.
These fees are only going to get worse. https://www.greentechmedia.com/arti...w-charge-fees-for-electric-vehicles#gs.5v8rw8
Second this - autopilot is WAY better at holding a lane than I am - even in heavy rain at night. It’s also obvious that it can “see” better than I can - I will lose the lane markings in fog/rain when AP can obviously still follow and draw them. I have to slow down to be able to monitor it.
Favorable tax treatments are not subsidies. They may or may not be good policy, but they are not subsidies.
The AP isn’t going to work in all conditions. You’re gonna be just as attentive at monitoring the AP in severe weather as if you were driving without. Not saying it’s a fault on Tesla but the system has limits. https://electrek.co/2019/01/28/tesla-autopilot-snow-storm/
Hopefully they don't get worse. They are needed to fund the transportation infrastructure costs, that which would normally be covered by gas taxes. Some states have been charging well above what the average driver would pay in gas taxes, and that's not equitable. Even with that EV cars are still not paying into what the Feds would get for gas taxes, just what the states collect.
I suppose it depends on the car. I do see the needles move. Nissan Armada, 2019 model, so it should be reasonably modern. I see the voltage and water temperature needles move. Oil pressure is somewhat out of sight so I'm not going to comment on that. I was concerned initially because the voltage was on the low side, but it does move between about 13 and 14 V. The scale is a little odd on it.
It's hard to imagine a more expensive car to maintain than a 7 series or S class Benz. How would his spend sheet compare if he drove a Honda Accord that gets 40mpg? I'd bet the MX on an Accord would be 1/10th that of the 7, maybe less.
I would imagine you'd have quite the financial outlay for a bank of solar panels/batteries large enough to run the A/C for 4-5 hours in the heat of the day in GA. 220V x 20A = 4,400watts, or 4.4kWh. So, you'd need a system capable of delivering at least that on a continuous basis for 5-6 hours, whether by a really large solar array or a battery bank sufficiently large to deliver that power. I seriously doubt payback would even be in the 5-7yr range when just trying to get lower electricity during that peak usage rate. Not to mention the cost of replacing battery banks every 8-10 years. While I haven't driven a vehicle with AP, I'd still imagine that having to have your hands on it to monitor it (and be ready to correct it) would be almost as taxing as just steering it yourself. With aircraft AP, you don't have to worry if it deviates +-20ft here or there as you generally have plenty of time (and vertical/lateral airspace) to correct it when needed. With an automobile on AP, not taking action within a second or two of an AP mistake may put you into a guardrail or oncoming traffic. So maintaining that awareness may still be mentally taxing. Just thinking out loud there.
Using autopilot in the Tesla is about as exhausting as watching Netflix. You look out the window and every once in a while you have to interact with it to put a different show on or let it know you are still there. When the road gets weird, like construction, you pay a little more attention and even take control of the car. On a long drive construction makes up a very small percentage of the total driving. I don’t think people realize how exhausting hours and hours of steering and speed micro adjustments really is. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
Which is exactly my impression of the system. Looking at this vid, it seems more mentally taxing then driving yourself. I’m not the only one. Just read the comments below the vid.
Yeah, that video illustrates my point. They guy spent a bunch of time tweaking/adjusting settings on the autopilot trying to get going in busy traffic and changing lanes a few times. I would have just hand-driven it until I got in the far left lane, then engaged it to let it maintain speed. The lane changes were slow and letting it wait until a suitable gap opens up may take forever. Adaptive cruise control already does the "keep distance from car ahead", so I guess I'm just not as enamored with it as some others. I drive the 4.5hr trip from Tulsa to FTW and back about once per month, and I've never felt worn out from maintaining my lane. Maybe others suffer from mental exhaustion related to that, I dunno.
When you are wining and dining customers working multi-million deals; a Honda just does not cut it. Tim
That even goes for things like real estate sales people. If someone is driving me around in an inexpensive, boring car I think they aren't very successful or experienced, which infers they aren't very good.
Or, if I'm looking at it, they're charging way too much money on commissions because they're driving a $100K Escalade.
They all pretty much charge the same thing. It is just that some are more successful than others. I don't really care where they spend their money as long as they do a good job for me. I wouldn't even care if they spent their money on an airplane.
Waze has saved us countless errors stuck in traffic. it’s not perfect, but our mantra is “Just Trust Waze!”
Well, some also specialize in high-end markets which tends to drive the commission up, but as a percentage it doesn’t change. Realty is often one of those industries where an attractive female often does really well even if she isn’t the greatest Realtor.
The higher end market generally has more competition from other realtors, and generally has more savvy buyers. So if they are successful in that market, they are probably pretty competent at their jobs. A nice car reflects that competence.
That is more of a NOA demo than an AutoPilot demo. NOA (Navigate On Autopilot) is a different mode which is a "self driving" feature that you pay $6000 extra for. It suggest lane changes etc. for you but it's more of a parlor trick at the moment - it doesn't make anything really simpler. Where the car currently shines is with normal autopilot (the free version) - which is dead simple and reliable. You move to the lane in which you want to travel by yourself, enable AutoPilot, then turn it off an hour later when you get close to your exit. That part is definitely less taxing by a lot than doing that part of the drive yourself. Especially so in stop-and-go traffic, but at highway speed as well. Have you ever compared that same trip being the driver vs. being the passenger?
I get the comparison, but it's not really accurate. I can't be a "passenger" in the Tesla, because I can't disengage from the road/car and read a book or flip through PoA for 4 hours on my phone. Since I would still have to be watching the road and have my hands somewhat near the steering wheel (since it will prompt you periodically anyway), I don't see the advantage. I understand that it's a stepping stone to full-autonomous driving, but I can't imagine just feeling more refreshed after playing systems monitor for 4.5 hours trying to predict when it's going to f-up and try to kill me (that's what aircraft AP's are for)!
Agreed. Additionally, he has AP configured to allow NoA to make lane changes without confirmation. NoA is configurable. I have mine set to ask for confirmation, and it will not attempt a lane change until I hit the turn signal and that seems to work better. Keep in mind that NoA is still in beta, and will continue to improve with future software releases.
It is funny how this is news. The number of times cops have run out of gas is not news. People like to blame tech and something new. Tim
“Apparently the Tesla had not been recharged after the previous shift” Breaking news! If you don’t fill the tank with electrons, it may run out prematurely! Oh, the humanity!
I didn’t see anyone blaming the tech. Did you read the article? It clearly stated the car was not charged after a shift and a swing shift officer elected to use the car regardless of its charge status? Did I miss something?
How many headlines do you see about a cop running out of gas? And the breathless video showing the cop had 6 miles left on the charge! Tim Sent from my SM-J737T using Tapatalk
It’s news because it’s a new car in the fleet...I believe that article pointed the finger at cop fail. Not car fail. :-/ Take it how you want I guess. I took it as stupid cops forgot to charge the car and used it anyway and only being news worthy because it’s probably the first time the news caught wind of it. I’m sure there was an article in a paper somewhere a few decades ago about some genius forgetting to put gas in the new horseless buggy the department bought but it’s happened so many times now that it ain’t news anymore. As more EV’s find use in public service these type of human failures won’t be news anymore either...
EVERY realtor out this way seems to be driving a leased Audi. Classic herding behavior. You can't tell them apart on your criteria.
Only if by "EVERY" you actually mean "Every single one". But I think you are exaggerating, so even in your scenario, you can cull some of them (if they are diving clunkers, or select them if they are driving with more style).
If he's that big of a wheel the company should be shuttling him around in a Citation. Less time driving, more time dealing, mo money!
Exactly, if the article was about human failure; the headline would be "Police failed to recharge Vehicle; and ran low in high speed chase". Not the breathless "Fremont Police Tesla runs low on juice during high speed chase" Headlines matter. Tim
And it’s even more important to monitor than an aircraft because you aren’t flying a aircraft on autopilot while a few feet from another aircraft. Anyone who has flown an AP in an aircraft has seen multiple failures. The flight computer for the AP in our helicopter has failed twice in 2 years. Give it some time and Tesla is going to see the motor / actuators driving the steering wheel, accelerator, brake pedal, etc start to fail. It might very well become a true self driving vehicle but I wouldn’t trust my life to sensors, motors and software that can fail at anytime.
