A Tesla isn't big enough to put a dog in the back happily, is it.
So what happens if you have a couple of pints, live in Norfolk, happen to have three dogs, work designing Le Mans cars, belong to that great British tradition of inspired tinkering when it comes to cars and sheds, and have the cash?
Why, this of course. The Tesla Shooting Brake. 22 minutes of gentle bimbling about with guys that know their stuff.
youtu.be/Ydb9TW3Bmh8
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Now if that were available in production, one would be on my drive plugged in right now. It has to be called the Tesla Touring tho surely?
As far as names go, the other day I was parked behind a complete behemoth, that was called "The Crown Estate Athlete" . Yes there is a car called the Crown Estate
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>> Yes there is a car called the Crown Estate
Toyota?
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Yes, I'd love to park one next to one of the myriad entrances to Crown Estate.
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>> Now if that were available in production, one would be on my drive plugged in
>> right now. >>
Are you serious, rather than the 5er, soon to be obsolete tech, range limitations and all, I wouldn't invest my money in a Tesla now, though I might invest my money in Tesla ...
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>>soon to be obsolete tech
Diesel?
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>> >>soon to be obsolete tech
>>
>> Diesel?
Yes, disgusting stuff. Should be confined to ships boilers.
Last edited by: Zero on Tue 14 Nov 17 at 07:15
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I meant that the Tesla is obsolete tech with improved batteries on the horizon.
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I’m going to guess that in the real world the range of a Tesla is not that dissimilar to a turbocharged 6 cylinder, petrol, 340bhp large estate car!!
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they are indeed very similar, with two major differences.
I can get another 300 miles of juice, anywhere in a couple of minutes, but it costs considerably more to do so.
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And that's the problem, the reason why such electric vehicles dont cut it for most people..
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>>And that's the problem, the reason why such electric vehicles dont cut it for most people..
I think the reason why Teslas don't cut it for most is the sticker price of £65k.
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>> I think the reason why Teslas don't cut it for most is the sticker price of £65k.
>>
S/H prices from £40K - £45K. Grab a bargain?
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>> >> I think the reason why Teslas don't cut it for most is the sticker
>> price of £65k.
>> >>
>> S/H prices from £40K - £45K. Grab a bargain?
>>
So someone produces batteries that are half the weight, twice the capacity and charge in 10 mins, and your £45k is dust ...
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Hasn't car technology always been in a state of progression? It's only going to get quicker, must like all technology is. In which case, by your argument, there will never be a "right time" to buy.
(And maybe - diesel duty is whacked up in the budget with the promise of more to come - and your car, if diesel, is dust)
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>>and your £45k is dust ...
Welcome to depreciation - BMWs do it too.
Large battery packs have a significant innate value even if just for static storage.
tinyurl.com/ya5gytoz
Nearly £500 for a single module from my car which has about 15 modules (~2.5 kWh storage in each).
(edit - trying to find out how many modules it has isn't easy!)
Last edited by: Lygonos on Tue 14 Nov 17 at 11:31
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>> >>and your £45k is dust ...
>>
>> Welcome to depreciation - BMWs do it too.
>>
There's a difference between depreciation and obsolescence ...
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>>There's a difference between depreciation and obsolescence
Doubt you'll find a 250mile range, 0-60 4.3s, comfortable 5 seater will be obsolete in the next decade.
And if it was, you'll find ICE having a very hard time indeed to compete.
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>>So someone produces batteries that are half the weight, twice the capacity and charge in 10 mins, and your £45k is dust .
And that'll happen in the short term. Not.
Honestly it seems like some people, and I don't mean particularly here, don't want EVs to be successful.
Its pretty simple, isn't it? They'll work out or they won't. And at the moment the majority of the car industry seems to believe that they will.
I hope they do, there's no charging or maintenance/repair infrastructure here, though it seems to be coming. Otherwise I'd look at one quite seriously.
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>> Honestly it seems like some people, and I don't mean particularly here, don't want EVs to be successful.
I think people do want EV to be successful but not at their own expense.
>> I meant that the Tesla is obsolete tech with improved batteries on the horizon.
Thumb rule I follow, electrical/electronics goods become obsolete/depreciate much more compared to mechanical products.
Last edited by: movilogo on Tue 14 Nov 17 at 12:00
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These mythical improved batteries on the horizon since batteries were invented.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Tue 14 Nov 17 at 13:07
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>> Honestly it seems like some people, and I don't mean particularly here, don't want EVs
>> to be successful.
>>
>> Its pretty simple, isn't it? They'll work out or they won't. And at the moment
>> the majority of the car industry seems to believe that they will.
>>
I want them to be successful and I am sure they will be successful, though they are too much of a compromise currently, even Tesla's.
Battery tech is improving and a break though cannot be far off if Moore's law applies at all.
However I am not happy about paying more tax because someone else is getting a tax break in an EV that has tonnes of embedded carbon and all sort of end of life issues; or because someone else is driving a PHEV that in the real world (not 20 mile commutes) uses more fuel than the equivalent diesel/petrol variant because it is heavier and also has tonnes of embedded carbon and the same end of life issues.
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>> because someone else is driving a PHEV that in the real world (not 20 mile commutes) uses more fuel than the equivalent diesel/petrol variant because it is heavier
>>
HC what is this based on? any real examples?
For my 70 mile Monday & Friday "commute" for example I fully expect a Golf PHEV to be more economical than a Golf petrol having seen a petrol Golf fail to get 40mpg on a weekend with the 70 miles at either end and another 60 miles of other driving in between, while the Prius, 2 weeks later, averaged over 60 mpg with a bit more other driving in between.
You seem convinced that electric / PHEV type vehicles do not deserve any "tax breaks" for some reason while 6 cylinder petrol BMWs are obviously just as economical and no worse for the environment.
We each have our choices and you are entitled to drive what you want but either get some real evidence of better fuel consumption and less damage for the environment from "normal" ICE engined cars or else try a proper test over time in an electric/part electric vehicle for your normal driving and see what actually happens.
Last edited by: commerdriver on Tue 14 Nov 17 at 13:47
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>> HC what is this based on? any real examples?
>>
Take the BMW 330e and a high ish mileage business driver who's other obvious choices would be a 330i or 330d, in fact I am going to copy and paste what I posted the other day:
"I had a quick look at a 330e today, friend had it on demo, nice M-Sport spec, nice colour, shallower boot than a normal saloon. Great BiK savings to be had and great fuel savings too if you have a 20 mile commute and can charge at home and work.
Though real world mpg is mid to late 30's so no wonder the Treasury are closing the % gap between ICE and hybrid as hybrid drivers are currently not paying as much BiK as an ICE driver and in many (maybe most) cases using more fuel over the same mileage.
OK, this is a 252bhp turbo petrol though the comparison with a much cheaper 330i, same engine though lighter and a 258bhp 330d is interesting."
The point is that a 330i has the same engine though is a lot lighter so would be more economical than a 330e on petrol alone, and a 330d would be a lot more economical, and both of the latter do not have the extensive additional embedded carbon and end of life costs.
>> You seem convinced that electric / PHEV type vehicles do not deserve any "tax breaks"
>> for some reason while 6 cylinder petrol BMWs are obviously just as economical and no
>> worse for the environment.
>>
As per above it's not a pro BMW point, rather it's about fairly taxing vehicles based on whole life costs and remembering that tax is paid on fuel purchased.
After all a Veyron doing 2000 miles a year is far less polluting than a Polo doing 40,000 a year - a fact that clearly indicates that the tax burden should really be on embedded carbon, disposal costs and usage rather than solely on emissions per km or mile.
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HC, as I said in reply to the original post one of my colleagues, who incidentally previously had a 330d, was getting better than that in mixed driving from a hybrid.
Also as I said in my last reply I did just under 300 miles mixed in a 1.5 TSi Golf and could not break 40 mpg but was over 60 mpg in broadly similar driving in a Prius 2 weekends later.
Just to broaden it out, is anybody on here averaging over 40 mpg from any medium sized petrol car. When you include any of the usual short trips & traffic most Golf sized petrols probably don't
do as well as a PHEV will do overall.
I may be completely wrong but I have found a modern hybrid far more economical than a modern petrol on broadly the same kind of driving.
The embedded carbon & disposal costs and the carbon produced in lifetime use arguments are old and I would like to see some up to date real costs as there are a ton of variables.
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>> HC, as I said in reply to the original post one of my colleagues, who
>> incidentally previously had a 330d, was getting better than that in mixed driving from a
>> hybrid.
>>
Which hybrid CD?
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>>However I am not happy about paying more tax.....
I can't say what someone else pays in tax particularly affects my feelings about my tax bill, in either direction.
Seems a bit churlish really. You want to do what you want to do, but you want the tax advantage of doing something else.
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>> Seems a bit churlish really. You want to do what you want to do, but you want the tax advantage of doing something else.
>>
To the contrary, I choose to drive powerful petrol engined car and I don't think its right that I should be able to pay less tax (be it RFL, BiK or whatever) by having an electric motor and large battery in the boot that would only give me a real life 20 mile range between charges so would make sod all difference to how much I pollute over a typical 400 mile round trip, and would mean that my car would contain a great deal more embedded carbon and much higher end of life disposal costs than currently.
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HC, you are missing the point that a hybrid battery is constantly capturing electricity as it runs as well, the range gain from having it is way more than the few miles static capacity it holds.
This was vary clear in the Prius I tested as you could see the battery capacity gauge gaining and losing the whole time I had it and of course it never gets plugged in.
If you had a hybrid in your car with the same petrol engine I guarantee you would get significant extra mpg.
Have a look at some of the many online forums where this is discussed to see what real life users actually get.
You have made your choice, I have made mine, at least research the realities a bit more.
Last edited by: commerdriver on Tue 14 Nov 17 at 15:16
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>> You have made your choice, I have made mine, at least research the realities a
>> bit more.
>>
That's as little patronising, I am not missing the point and I do research the realities though ever since the Prius appeared I have been concerned about the embedded and disposal issues and the hypocrisy, the celebs ditching there Bentleys for Prius's and leaving them at LAX when using the Lear Jet etc.
At least with a hybrid it can be recharged in about 3 mins (with petrol or diesel) so 200 mile plus journeys are possible without extended stops to recharge. Though frankly EV, REX or hybrid, the tech is not there yet in my opinion (note, I said yet), when batteries are 50% of the size and weight and double the capacity, and can be charged fully in minutes rather than hours, then we'll be there - though there's a caveat - unless the environmental costs in manufacturing them and disposing of them are too high.
And for those who are looking at electric cars to help save the planet then for now it's definitely better to simply keep the car you've got, whatever it is, so you are not the reason that a new car is built.
I'm not anti hybrid or EV, I just want a level playing field in taxation terms that account for whole life costs.
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I'm finding it hard to find up-to-date comparative data for cost of manufacture and disposal of EVs but UBS reported this year that the manufacture cost will be reach parity with petrol cars in 2018, partly down to considerably less parts in an EV.
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>> if Moore's law applies at all
How does Gordon Moore's observation that transistor counts per square inch of integrated circuits doubled every year have anything to do with batteries? People then twisted this observation to be about performance doubling but it was about the number of transistors.
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It's an analogy RTj. Moore's law can be "applied" to lots of things over the years as a way of indicatiing exponential progress, or lack thereof.
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You wondered if it applied - it does not because it was Moore observing the doubling of transistors on an IC every year... later every two years. This has nothing to do with batteries or anything else.
If it did apply then it would be about doubling capacity over a given period - think we are a long way off that with lithium based batteries. We need a new battery technology.
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>> If it did apply then it would be about doubling capacity over a given period
>> - think we are a long way off that with lithium based batteries. We need
>> a new battery technology.
>>
Don't worry it is still on that ever distant horizon. :-)
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I'm a bit confused; is the required massive improvement in battery technology so imminent that we should not buy an electric car now because its value will turn to dust tomorrow, or is it so unlikely that we shouldn't think about EVs because they'll never improve batter technology anytime soon.
Honestly, this is even more difficult than trying to work out whether immigrants are taking all our jobs or claiming all our benefits.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Tue 14 Nov 17 at 19:22
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www.youtube.com/watch?v=te6VqldjTT8
Review of Model 3 from a non-fanboy.
5 seats similar size as 3-series, 0.60 in 5.1s, 330mile real range (big battery version), should be around £36-40k when/if it comes to the UK.
Ticks most boxes for most drivers (other than cost I guess) - would easily cope with my family of 5 with all of our driving needs, including driving from Scotland to the south of England once or twice a year.
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>> Ticks most boxes for most drivers (other than cost I guess)
Assuming a saloon is okay for starters. I think it should have been a hatch like the model S.
I think the interior is poor... they used a large screen to save costs in the Model S.... they use a slightly smaller screen for even more in the Model 3.
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>>Assuming a saloon is okay for starters
Say like an Audi A3 saloon, or a Passat?
Still fairly popular in the upmarket mid-sized cars.
Kizashi was a saloon but it had a huge accessible boot with folding seats, but I do prefer a hatch.
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>> Still fairly popular in the upmarket mid-sized cars.
My comment was because the Model S is a hatchback (Even has a 7 seat option) so why not a hatch on the Model 3? We'll ignore the ugly Model X totally although the Model 3 is not far behind.
Ignoring the Lotus Elise based original Tesla, the Model S is a well styled car... then they have lost the plot design wise.
And yes I've had saloons and they suited me at the time but a hatch (or fastback) is more practical. I'd like to see VW do a fastback Passat but they never will. Well they did it's called the Å KODA Superb.
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>>I'd like to see VW do a fastback Passat but
>> they never will. Well they did it's called the Å KODA Superb.
>>
Of course they do an estate. What's the Arteon?
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>> We need a new battery technology.
>>
Totally!
And we need future proofing, upgradeable battery packs so I know that if I invest in a PHEV or whatever today it wont be totally obsolete tomorrow when the version that has double the range and charges in minutes is launched.
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>> And we need future proofing, upgradeable battery packs so I know that if I invest
>> in a PHEV or whatever today it wont be totally obsolete tomorrow when the version
>> that has double the range and charges in minutes is launched.
>>
That is where you will come unstuck no "future proofing" will protect you against something which is years away and is likely to be a gradual transition over several years and several steps anyway.
It's like a diesel driver insisting on future proofing against diesel being banned from cities, which is actually quite likely to happen before the battery technology you are looking for happens IMHO.
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Yep, ICE cars have evolved and are nothing like they were 20 years ago so why would you expect the EV platform to suddenly stabilise and stop evolving?
All kinds of technology depends on early adopters, and then the masses follow on later to scoop up the benefits. I am an early adopter on many things compared to my mates, most of whom lack technological awareness or interest. That's fine, we each do our own thing!
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Teslas and dogs - Zero
