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I was sleepy last night... used the word probably. In fact it was a 3.5L v8 that lotus developed.Originally Posted by MrPrena
The Elise, exige, and evoque use Toyota engines.
However, they all used Lucas wire smoke.
My airstream has been stolen by dopers
On monday, saw a for sale sign on an 'in need' 55 Roadmaster Riviera 2 door that I'm still thinking about. If its still on my mind by this weekend...
My airstream has been stolen by dopers
Also saw a cherry red 442 convertible that gave me a smile on Sunday. Not in need & not for sale. Took a pic.
My airstream has been stolen by dopers
Jer's sales notice for one of his Teslas got me looking again at the feasability of road tripping, especially as I noted the hotel for my annual Tucson trip is one of Tesla's SuperCharge stations.
The run to Tucson is 841 miles or thereabouts. I usually overnight in Socorro, NM after work and then drive all morning to Tucson but try to return in one day (usually about 14 hours total travel time). That's with most gas stops lasting 15-20 minutes roughly every 300 miles. It looks to me like a Tesla S 85 would add 2 hours to my total travel time with charge stops roughly every 170 miles for half an hour. Still just not in the realm of attractive for the kind of road trip I do. Porsche/VW's Ultra-Charge proposal that knocks the charge time down to 15 minutes might change that calculus but for the moment, it's still ICE all the way for me.
There's far too many variables not included with this post to speak to specifics but I'll make a few general points and ask a few more quesitons...
What planner did you use? The Tesla one is often regarded as a worst case scenario and is far from the best way to plan your trip/route. Many use "A better Route Planner" or similar as it's far more efficient in it's planning. The Tesla calculator has you sitting far too long at Superchargers. As an example, I planned a trip recently and the first couple of Supercharger stops on the Tesla trip planner had me sitting at the Supercharger for like an hour at each one. With ABR it took me a different direction that had me stopping only 15min or so at each point with another stop along the way. The reason being is that you want to arrive at Supercharger with a low battery state. Your battery pack will take a substantially faster charger at the bottom half than the top half. ABR will take this into account and as a result your routes are much faster with less time sitting at a Supercharger charging at slower rates. If you don't want to put any thought into a trip it's super easy to input a destination into the nav in a Tesla and just go letting the built-in calculator tell you when to stop and for how long. This works fine and will get you there for sure with the least amount of drama/thought and is the same algorithm found on the Tesla Trip Planner online I linked to earlier that you likely used. If you're like me though you can do a little bit of footwork beforehand and have your trip planned more efficiently. When you do your overnight stop your car will charge up to 100% w/o you doing anything which will get you on the road the next morning with a full charge and fewer/shorter requirements for stops. I'm not saying it's a perfect solution for your single specific case but it's probably a lot closer than you think it is based on the #'s your using.
There's also the long range Model S and Model 3. The latter of which is capable of the newer v3 Supercharging that is currently rolling out. This will cut the stop time in half and the longer range will require fewer stops. These come at a premium but if you're dead set on this single specific trip being done in this very specific manner you'll have to pay to play. Personally, I chose to pay much less for less range and longer charge times and this still hasn't been an issue even on longer road trips. The total number of stops and time of each stop really hasn't been noticeable on the length trips we've taken. It certainty hasn't been so long I'm considering the price difference to be worth it.
As far as other manufacturer's claims... just know that this comes at a cost. Tesla can charge much faster than they do currently but weren't sure of how negative this would affect the overall life expectancy of the battery. Now that the data is coming in that the battery packs are going to last much much longer than they had originally speculated they're starting to increase charge rates in a manner they feel is safe for the battery packs. This is nothing new. Porsche/VW are not reinventing the wheel in this aspect. If 15 minutes is your magic number simply go buy a Model 3 which can add 50% of charge to it's battery pack in 10-15 min now thanks to v3 Supercharging and 1,000mph charge rates. This is technology that is available to consumers today. It's not vaporware or promises like others are big on making.
A word of warning for vaporware other manufacturers are peddling currently: don't count any chickens until they've hatched. The supposed "Tesla Killer"' Audi e-Tron just quietly laid a fat egg in terms of it's EPA rated range figures. It gets a paltry 208 miles and requires a 95 kWh battery to do so. For quite a while now Audi claimed it would get well over 300 miles prior to EPA testing. Sure looked good on paper and had a lot of people saying it was going to end Tesla. Turns out the latest Audi tech can't even compete with Tesla's nearly decade-old tech. To give you an idea my 2013 Model S w/85k miles (currently for sale) is EPA rated to the same 208 miles of range but requires only a 60 kWh battery to do so. That's Tesla's 8-year-old battery technology and Audi's latest greatest can't even come close to the efficiency number? Yikes. Just year after year of disappointments from the contenders who promise the world and never end up making good on any of their promises. People rave about vaporware and yet the thing you can buy today is ridiculed for achieving the numbers in real life that other manufacturers can only dream of. Porsche made lots of promises and now it's nothing but delays and backtracks on promises. This EV thing isn't quite as easy as Tesla makes it look and people greatly underestimate just how much of a headstart Tesla has on the competition.
In fact, just yesterday Tesla announced that new Model S Long Range cars being built would receive a quiet bump to the range that will put them at 370 miles on a single charge. This is done through the use of even more efficient motors and NOT from a bump in the kWh range. This number promises to grow even more as they implement the newer battery tech patent portfolio they gained when they acquired Maxwell Technologies. Rumors have the dry lithium manufacturer process alone bumping range & performance at least 10% without any other changes and simplification & shortening of the manufacturing process also cutting battery pack cost production at least 10%. Not too bad for such a small, stock-only acquisition. Tesla has the best battery tech in the industry and continually advance it at a rate that's staggering and produces real world results. Manufacturers are coming to market with inferior tech that can't even compete with their old tech so I have no idea how they plan to compete other than pipe dreams and empty promises.
I'm not fat, I'm tactically padded.
Tactical Commander - Fast Action Response Team (F.A.R.T.)
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Those two hours once a year outweigh every other part of owning a full electric so heavily that it's not even in the realm of a possibility?
"There are no finger prints under water."
This is a really good point I've tried to make previously. People get caught up in a 1% scenario that they lose sight of the other 99% sometimes. In 6 months of ownership I've already made up for that lost 2 hours in not going to gas stations, oil changes or other maintenance several times over. This was my first winter since I started driving cars decades ago where I didn't have to go to a gas station once and I can't tell you how awesome of a feeling that is.
I'm not fat, I'm tactically padded.
Tactical Commander - Fast Action Response Team (F.A.R.T.)
For my feedback Click Here.
Click: For anyone with a dog or pets, please read
It doesn't really take much of a planner. I looked at where the locations for Superchargers were. Since the route is pretty simple, I-25 south to Hatch, cross over through NM to I-10 then west to Tucson, I allowed for burning the first full charge down as much as possible to nearest charger before empty, allow thirty minutes for half charge then repeat every approximately 170 miles and assumed overnight charge was "free" time. Repeat for the next day. That's 4 charges for half an hour (5 charges on the return drive since it's not overnight) to get to Tucson versus 3 10-15 minute gas-ups. No, I don't stop for food on these road trips so no freebies there. I also didn't account for the fact that my average speed on this trip is generally somewhat faster than what the Tesla can sustain for long periods without the battery overheating (as demonstrated on Nurburgring) nor did I ding the Tesla solution for any extra time to get off the interstate and get to the charger since those are probably just single-digit minutes compared to the gas stations. This very basic analysis was all about time and only time.
I did see that Tesla is using new motors that extend their range about 10% on the new models.
Actually, the only part of owning a full electric at this time that was even remotely interesting was seeing what effect it had on this road trip. Other, longer road trips into the wilds would be even worse but this one seemed to be an easy check given the plethora of Supercharger stations on the route and the fact that the hotel at the end was also a Supercharger. If I had enough room in the garage for a dedicated commute-only car (and budget for same), it would be a different question. If I was still living in Hawaii where a "road trip" is going from Hawaii Kai to the North Shore, definitely a different question. If I had kids and was doing a more leisurely road trip like my family did 40 years, different question.
We've had these discussions in the other thread and I'm not panning Teslas or other electric vehicles across the board. Just offering a data point because I actually did look at it and even thought about talking to my cousin about it during our family vacation this summer (he's a regional sales manager for Tesla). As I said, Porsche's design cuts down the charge time and improves the range to the point of being nearly equivalent to traditional gas-ups which makes it more viable for my kind of road trip. I'm kind of looking forward to the prospect of a used Taycan sometime in the future. Just not now with the present configurations and logistics.
When I was senior in high school , I wanted to buy a Lotus v8 turbo version of Esprit Turbo. Sadly myself was a highschool student with no cash.
1 cool facts. During the 90s Lotus Elan was basically hhad Kia badge.
I found out when I watch one of K-drama during 90s.
"Why is there so many Lotus Elan in Seoul?"
I was replied by my car friend with
"You idiot! That is Kia."
.......
https://www.autotrader.com/car-news/...old-kia-262929
Last edited by MrPrena; 04-24-2019 at 16:15.
Deleted. I didn't mean for it to sound condescending but reading it back it could have been taken that way.
Last edited by Jer; 04-24-2019 at 17:45.
I'm not fat, I'm tactically padded.
Tactical Commander - Fast Action Response Team (F.A.R.T.)
For my feedback Click Here.
Click: For anyone with a dog or pets, please read
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