Tesla driving

[griffiths_r]

So, just got back from 4 weeks O/S (tokyo, vancouver, montreal, boston)...

anyway, spent 10 days with my brother in-law and his family in boston... along with his tesla Model S (60) and chevy Bolt (Bolt not Volt - wonder who decided both was a good idea?).

the Bolt is a pretty capable city car (and about 1/3 the price of the tesla)... but geez the tesla is a (really nice) hoot to drive!!!!

even in basic form, the tesla’s acceleration is addictive. And the self driving is just weird - but would be really handy doing the geelong/melbourne run or in stop start traffic.

tesla has a really well sorted car (and assume the later models are even better)... if only we got charged the same price as in the US. A similar car would still be $100k+ here...

[e72phil]

Have ridden in many Teslas as taxis in Amsterdam and other euro countries and agree about the ride and performance. I love the large glass dash. I wonder if we will ever see affordable E cars out here in OZ ?

[Merv]

Probably coal fired cars sooner.

[griffiths_r]

Have ridden in many Teslas as taxis in Amsterdam and other euro countries and agree about the ride and performance. I love the large glass dash. I wonder if we will ever see affordable E cars out here in OZ ?

My brother in law lectures at MIT on the rise of electric cars... he doesn’t see Australia getting on the bandwagon anytime soon... too many barriers (cost/subsidies, perceived issue of range etc).

Doubt we’ll see people doing Tesla drivetrain conversions on their 901’s anytime soon either (like in the us) for the same reasons!!

[Merv]

I suspect that the larger urban communities/major cities will invest in share ride, autonomous vehicles and share car arrangements that involve electric vehicles reasonably soon. Our area is already planning such developments.

[ELSPORTO]

Liability and maintenance will hold back autonomous (driverless) cars and ride shares in Australia for a long time to come ...

When programming driverless cars to deal with abnormal situations or accidents, how do they factor / decide on passenger safety versus pedestrian or other driver safety and who takes responsibility / is liable for that?

And with ride share, who cleans up the prior passengers vomit all over the back seat?

[Bremith]

Doing quite a bit around this at work. New Jag I-Pace heralds a new phase with established manufacturers FINALLY coming to the market, generally a better car than S or X, 90kwh battery. Tesla don’t do fleet discounts but Jag do and all of a sudden price competitive with other hi po C and E class rivals. Qld govt doing really good work around charger “superhighway” - Bris to Cairns currently and expanding.
Many and varied views and only time will tell, IMHO EV transition utterly inevitable and just about rise in battery density, fall in costs and fall in charging times, all of which are happening fast in an economy of scale virtuous cycle, although with no assistance from Australians who like to pretend they are all country folk driving hundreds of kilometres a day (hence Hilux/Ranger sales) even though in reality we live clustered in large urban centres on the coast and average less than 50km daily.
Very soon (2-3 years??) you will be able to buy an EV in every segment for less than a petrol car with as good or better range, ridiculously lower energy costs (15-20kWh per 100km) and effectively zero maintenance costs apart from tyres as EVs have so few moving parts (1 moving part in motor, no cooling system. no gearbox, no clutch, hardly use brake pads etc etc). Once economies of scale truly kick in capital cost will be lower for same reasons.
Best analogy is CRT vs flat panel TVs - that transition happened SO fast and they just keep getting better and better and cheaper and cheaper, the latest QLED TVs are incredibly good and stupidly cheap.
And even when EV charged with normal grid power emissions are lower than petrol/diesel - 800g CO2 per KWh in Qld so that’s 12-16kg CO2 per 100km for EV vs 20kg CO2 per 100km for petrol cars that emit 200g/km.
Model 3 even more amazing than S or X, Tesla have delivered 50,000+ now and making 5,000 a week, outselling Chev Bolt in the US. Musk may have blown up his brand with mini submarine lunacy but doesn’t matter as has proved it can be done and others - like Jag with I-Pace - will take over.
At the crap car end of the market Hyundai Ioniq has been on sale in NZ for close to a year. Yes the EV version is more expensive to buy than petrol but you can buy one and it will last 10 years, energy costs will be 25-30% of petrol and maintenance costs will be zero, all you’ll do is put tyres on it.
Only competitor is fuel cell but physics is the limitation - creating hydrogen to feed it uses shed loads of energy and water, require a large quantity of energy to compress it to liquid, hard to transport and decant and takes up a lot of space in the vehicle. In a water and emissions constrained world it just doesn’t work. By comparison all the electricity infrastructure for charging EVs exists and as grid transitions to renewables (despite the efforts of the Abbot-esque dinosaurs) EV emissions fall too.

Autonomous is a separate issue to EV. I’ve driven S with auto pilot and it works well in a clean environment (highway) and surprisingly well in messy environments too. Lots of work going in from manufacturers and govts.

Lots of people very keen on EV conversions and no shortage of 911 conversions globally, often using Model S or X batteries. Technically pretty straightforward and reversible conversion. Battery cost the issue again with 5kwh Model S modules about $AU2000 in the US, although once Tesla has delivered 200,000 Model 3s by end of 2018 their energy dense batteries from wrecked 3s shd be both better and more affordable.

My 2 cents