General vehicle thread

[Jer]

I'll try this again now that I've got a little more time to invest on a response. Your posts about this topic tend to contain a lot of misinformation and assumptions that are difficult to address each assumption in a proper manner w/o long-winded responses so I'll try to keep this succinct while addressing each of your points....

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.

You've drawn a lot of conclusions based on assumptions which are never solid decisions.

Take the time to play around with either Tesla Trip Planner, A Better Route Planner or (ideally) both. You really need to get a "feel" for how EVs work before you make the absolute decision that they're just not for you based on assumptions and guesses. Up front I want to get out the point that your situation isn't even 1% it's more like a 0.000001% situation when compared against miles cars are used by the average driver. That being said, I'm not ready to firmly say "yeah, your situation is impossible with an EV" because I don't believe that's the case. In fact, I believe that if you're more flexible with some aspects of your trip your end result will actually be a more enjoyable trip. All we're talking about is #'s on paper and we haven't addressed the most important aspects of the trip which are how do you feel at the end of your trip? I can tell you that long road trips in an EV are significantly less taxing on your CNS. In an ICE vehicle you don't even realize how tired and wore out you are from the vibrations and sounds until you do so in an EV and log a full day of driving. This has to translate into safer operation when your senses aren't fried. Which brings up another important point; safety. How safe are you during said trip? In a Tesla w/Autopilot you're less likely to get into an accident despite what the media will have you think over one or two accidents that have happened over millions of miles of autopilot operation. Even if you get into an accident (which is less likely as I just mentioned) you are substantially less likely to get injured in said accident according to the NHSTA's results of their "Probability of Injury" test done for every vehicle manufacturer. The three Tesla vehicles blew every other manufacturer out of the water in this very important test of safety. Did I mention that your trip will either be substantially less expensive or possibly even free depending on the EV you choose?

Those all seem like pretty solid reasons to put forth the effort to see if it's something that will actually work for you and not just guess and make assumptions based on aging information you received in the past or FUD from outlets trying to drive clicks with headlines.

Basing your entire driving experience on a 0.000001% situation doesn't seem like the best way to go about things. If I did that I would be driving a dump truck everywhere for the once a year I need to move several tons of landscaping rock. Wouldn't it make more sense to have a vehicle that does the 99.99999% stuff better and just break up my loads into smaller bites the one time I need to complete that task? Knowing & understanding the limitations of the tool can certainly make use of that tool better versus trying to force it outside of it's design.

As far as Tesla cars not being able to sustain higher speeds for longer duration I call BS. I personally have exceeded the speed limit across I80 for massive portions (almost the entire time from Sparks, NV to Cheyenne, WY but won't get into specifics for legality reasons) and the car behaved flawlessly. There is also a well-known YouTuber that did a similar experiment over numerous trips across Finland to find the most efficient speed for Teslas and it was actually into the triple digits. I think this is yet another example of "I heard something once so therefore it must be true across all situations and all vehicles" which simply isn't the case. Even if it were true, if you want to base your entire 99.99999% of driving based on the off-chance you might end up on the Nurburgring then go right ahead and live with a race-prepped Nissan GTR the other 99.99999% of your driving.

Would you use a screwdriver if you were a roofer to drive nails just because one time you were replacing a roof and the owner had a weather station that required a Philips screwdriver to take out three screws to move it out of the way?

I did see that Tesla is using new motors that extend their range about 10% on the new models.

The important part of this is that there wasn't even a technology breakthrough to achieve this. They're simply putting the newer motor from the Model 3 they started building years ago into a car that was designed 7 years ago. 10% range increase and it's not even a recent advancement. Think about that for a minute because it's an important point: No other manufacturer has built a car yet that can compete with Tesla's Model S that was designed and built 7 years ago. I've heard for years of all of these "Tesla Killers" coming "soon" and it's now April of 2019 and we don't even have one that remotely competes with Tesla's 7 year old car in terms of range, performance and charging capability.

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.

"Porsche's design" doesn't exist. Period. I'm not debating vaporware because it's a fools chore. Yet you talk about it like it's the pinnacle of EVs for you so let's dissect the numbers, shall we? You want to discuss their "800v charge system" like it's a thing and it isn't. Besides, voltage is only part of the equation. Porsche claims 250 miles of range in only 15 minutes which, by my math, is about 1,000 miles per hour charge rate. Tesla's v3 Supercharging is doing 1,000 miles per hour charge rate on Model 3's right now. Today. In a car you can buy and a Supercharger you can plug into in the real world as a consumer. Porsche claims 280-310 miles of range and we've seen lately how that equates in the real world (*cough*e-tron*cough*) so it likely won't even reach those numbers. The Model 3 gets 325 miles of range. Help me understand what it is about this vaporware Porsche that will usher in the EV era for you that isn't already available today.

This idea that you need a 2nd car for "serious" driving and use an EV for local commuting only is based on poor information or incredibly out-of-date information. We're not talking about Nissan Leaf EVs here with 80 miles of range under perfect conditions and no Supercharger network.

You appear to be a victim of confirmation bias and nothing I add to this conversation is going to make you understand that exactly what you describe is entirely possible. It could potentially be made even better but you don't want to believe it is and therefore nothing can sway you. I'm tempted to get in my car right now and drive to Tuscon and chronicle the entire journey to show you it's not only possible but will be a safer, less expensive and more enjoyable trip but it's pointless. Countless videos like this already exist online. If you truly cared you would have already found them rather than looking for all the reasons it's not possible. I mean, if you're not even committed enough to giving it a fair chance to "talk to your cousin about it" at any point during your family vacation then I'm not sure you're very committed to giving it a fair and unbiased consideration at all.