Wow, as someone who's never even seen a true electric car up close, I'm curious how you can keep it going for a full day of work. Charging it takes hours, right? Unlike gasoline which you can just pull in and be back on the road in a couple of minutes.
Do the superchargers have a detremental effect on the batteries? I would have thought rapid charging would lead to greater wear than a slow steady charge. Anyone know?
The superchargers might have an impact on battery life, but in practice they don't seem to have much impact. The reason is that unlike all other electric cars, they heat and cool the battery pack. The reason why leafs do have a demonstrated huge impact for using their dc fast charging (chademo) is because their batteries get really hot when using chademo. The tesla cools the batteries when charging, heating if necessary too, and that's why people don't such much or any impact on range over time, even when using super charging.
Not from what I've read. The Tesla battery pack has some sophisticated heat management capabilities that dump the excess heat generated while super charging.
The most damaging things you can do to the batteries is keeping them 100% fully charged or completely discharging them.
Yup, not an issue. When you're charging at 120kW the whole car hums and cooling system is going full-tilt. Pretty incredible to see 400VDC @ 300A go straight into the pack.
You have to take into account that the electric motor in a tesla is more efficient than a gas motor (3-4x). The reasoning is that a gallon of has has about 33.6kwh in a gallon (see wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_per_gallon_gasoline_equi...). A tesla has 75 or 85 or 90 kwh onboard, so that's at most 3 gallons of gas!
Another way to think of it is that mpg equivalent of evs is around 90-100 mpg. The model S is a huge heavy car, and look how far it can go on 85kwh.
If he's driven it 100,000 miles in 2.5 years, and assuming 250 working days a year, it's only 160 miles a day, well within a Tesla's range. He can probably charge it fully at night and have plenty for each day.
The article cites approximately 50,000 miles per year. At 5 working days per week of driving, that would equal approximately 190 miles per day. The Model S page on Tesla's web site calculates that at 45 mph with the AC on (a reasonable speed for city driving) the Model S can get nearly 290 miles on a full charge [1].
In addition, if there is a Supercharger unit available, the Model S can recharge fully in less than an hour if less than 260 miles have thus far been driven [2]. Meaning it could be back at full charge following a typical lunch break period.
50,000 miles a year is only 200 miles a day (assuming 2 weeks of vacation), the tesla can do that range without any charges, he just needs to have enough charge an usually long trip at the end of the day. At the rates taxies charge, someone who goes for farther than the charge of a Tesla is going to make the news just for their bill - even if the trip is in a normal gas car.
I expect that he plugs in over lunch hour, and at bathroom brakes. This won't get him to full charge, but it is enough to ensure that he can handle a long trip. If he is ever at less than half charge he has made enough money that he can afford to take an hour off to charge.
> Wow, as someone who's never even seen a true electric car up close, I'm curious how you can keep it going for a full day of work. Charging it takes hours, right? Unlike gasoline which you can just pull in and be back on the road in a couple of minutes.
Right and wrong. 110v charging would take days. Supercharging takes minutes.
I don't drive a Tesla, I have a Leaf. 110v is enough to recharge overnight for my commute (~20 miles each way). Or about a couple of hours charging at work. Not an issue for commuting.
Were it used as a Taxi, I'd have to rely on quickchargers. About 20 minutes from 20 to 80% SOC. It's not linear, so very low and very high state of charger takes longer. A Taxi Leaf would likely be doable for a dense city, very bad for highway driving, as speed kills range (for any kind of car).
That was the first things I was looking for in this article...
I wonder why they skipped this topic as this is the most important thing related to electric cars
I believe they have 8 year warranty for 100,000 miles by default, and you can increase that to 8 year and "infinite miles", which is what the taxi driver wanted to do next:
The Tesla battery pack comes with an 8 year, infinite mile warranty on all cars. Some small amount of capacity loss is considered normal over time, but from what I've read it's generally been pretty minimal.
My own Model S is only about two years old with a bit over 20k miles on it, so I don't know how things will go once the car gets older, but so far it's lost <1% of its range.
The battery has an 8 year unlimited mile warranty. I believe that it is considered to have failed if it is at 70% capacity or below.
In general, one should expect to get at least 300k miles (482,000 kms) out of a battery like the one in the Tesla before it gets anywhere close to this level.
I think the chemistry of the batteries is such that fully charging or discharging it is the most detrimental thing for its life. Charging it from say, 20% to 80% might actually be the optimal case for battery life.
You are correct - the interesting question is whether or not the Tesla pack has enough extra but unreported cells to cover that drop over time so you don't see the losses.
I got my car in March 2013 and have 75K miles on it. I haven't noticed any degradation.
I'm sure if I were really careful to measure, there's been a few % of degradation, but nothing on the level of what you might experience from a 3 year old mobile phone and I never look back longingly on the days when my car could go further. There's no trip I took 3 years ago that I wouldn't take now.
There's an 8 year, infinite mile warranty on the battery, but there have been differing reports on when it gets replaced. I have heard numbers ranging from 15-30% capacity loss, but I plan to drive it for another 5 years, so I'm sure I'll find out.
Not universally. At our company we have a mix of Macbooks and Dells. Our 2010 17" Macbooks will still hold a charge for 3 or 4 hours depending on usage, and they spend the vast majority of their time plugged in too. Newer ones are even better. The Dells on the other hand barely manage 20 minutes after about a year in the field, and the HP's aren't any better.
For whatever reason the majority of PC manufacturers just suck at making batteries (or charging hardware, not sure which.)
> For whatever reason the majority of PC manufacturers just suck at making batteries
They just suck at making battery cooling systems (e.g. all-plastic cases) or neglect to include one altogether. If there is one thing those all-metal MacBooks are good at, it's dissipating heat.
The enemy of batteries is heat. Most laptop batteries that I have had degraded prematurely due to poor heat management.
Phones are kind of a different case. The phones that I have had with bad batteries to begin with (Galaxy S2, Nexus One, etc) were often recharged multiple times per day. 1000+ cycles per year for two or more years will degrade the battery a lot, as the degradation is largely based on the number of cycles.
The Tesla P85D has a ~300 mile battery. Unless you are driving 300 miles per day, you are unlikely to see 1000 cycles in a year. If you do cycle it 1000 times, you've put 300,000 miles on it.
That is really a completely different situation from the typical mobile phone or laptop usage scenario.
Out of topic, but is it possible that is this why phone manufacturers are shying away from putting bigger batteries in their flagships? They want the batteries to degrade in the 2 or 3 years of daily power cycle, and most people choose to upgrade instead of replacing their non-user-replaceable battery. Does this make sense?
Tesla battery packs have active thermal management, and improper thermal loading is one of the greatest enemies of li-ion cells. You are also not likely to cycle the pack nearly as much as in typical cell phone or laptop usage scenarios, which are usually drained/charged nearly fully once per day.
Laptop battery dying isn't catastrophic to the image of the company.
Tesla having bad batteries would be a PR nightmare. Toyota has taken similar measures with their prius, never let the battery go anywhere near a deep discharge. Through over provisioning you can make sure that any given cell is always in its optimal range, and in a big car like a tesla, extra weight wont be that negative. Laptops "need" to be thin and light, so over provisioning the battery means less usable life per charge and/or bulk.
Way different chemistry, reserve capacity, active thermal management.
Of these, the chemistry should answer for most of the improvements. Electric cars as a rule do not use standard lithium ion batteries exactly because of the degradation. Instead, they get less energy density.
Actually Tesla batteries use the same chemistry as most notebook batteries, the ones that prioritize energy density. The real difference is the usage pattern. Notebooks are usually left for days or weeks with a 100% charge and then drained to 0% when the battery actually gets used. Electric cars are charged to 80-90% at the beginning of each day and then drained no lower than 10-20% barring extreme circumstances. Anyone who flies RC aircraft (which use the same battery chemistry) will tell you that the only thing worse for a lithium battery than storing it at 100% charge is draining it all the way to 0%.
Active cooling and far more time spent not fully charged or discharged.
Think about how a laptop battery spends it's day: probably at 110 degrees and plugged it at 100% SOC. That's a perfect storm of horror for a li-ion battery. Tesla batteries spend nearly their whole lives at 70 degrees and between 20 and 80 percent SOC. That's the good life for li-ion.
Laptop and phone makers have pretty much zero incentive to protect the batteries they install.
The key to keep LiIon from degrading is 1) never allow it to go 100% full 2) never have it go 100% empty 3) avoid high battery temperatures, cooling if necessary.
Now on 1) and 2), to do that you have to give up battery capacity. If you only ever discharge to 5% and charge to 95% you've just given up on 10% of battery capacity. This makes your laptop look bad on "battery life" benchmarks.
For 3), as batteries make up 80% of the physical space in phones and laptops, that makes it very difficult to cool them actively or otherwise effectively. At the same time manufacturers want to sell fast charging capability to customers, and that's perfectly fine with LiIon, most of them are capable of gulping up much more current than most chargers deliver, only this dramatically increases the heat buildup in the battery. That's fine for a Tesla as it has liquid cooling for individual cells, but phones or laptops have none of that.
I'm pretty sure the Tesla batteries are controlled to never actually go to 100% capacity when charging, and likely have a hard cutoff well before fully discharging as well. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that there are other active battery management techniques in place as well. IIRC, one of their options for higher power capacity is actually just a firmware setting on the same battery packs, which would also match up - pay more for higher capacity on the same hardware, with the extra $$ paying for the increased wear and tear on warrantied components.
One thing you can do with some laptops is adjust settings to extend battery lifespan. Lenovo ThinkPads have settings in the power management software to set the maximum charge level as well as a range where it won't start charging (this is also available in their Windows 10 Lenovo Settings app, though I believe it wasn't present for the first few months of Windows 10). I set ThinkPads to not charge above 85% and to not start charging unless the charge level is below 75%.
Some other Lenovo laptops (e.g. Yoga 2 Pro ultrabook) have a similar but less-functional setting called "conservation mode" that in my experience caps the battery charge at 55-65%. The chosen values on those seem too low to me since my reading indicated that most of the benefit from capped charges is at the very high end, but that's what you get with consumer-grade equipment.
I'm pretty sure I've seen similar battery control options on other laptops, but I couldn't tell you which manufacturers support it without research.
Edit: Samsung calls this "Battery Life Extender." Lenovo (Win7) has it in Power Manager, Advanced mode, Battery, Battery Maintenance. ThinkPads (Win10) have it in Lenovo Settings, Battery, Battery Charge Threshold. Non-ThinkPads (Win10) have it in the same place, but as Conservation Mode. Some Dells (at least under Win7) have an option in Dell Quickset to "Turn off battery charging" until the next power cycle, but that's a manual process and more to prevent lots of small power cycles.
Degradation is directly proportional to capacity and early model electric vehicles start seeing noticeable degradation after about 600 full range charge cycles as a rule of thumb (probably improved by 20-30% since then).
That's why you see a TON of stories about degradation on Nissan Leaves (60084 = 50,400 miles, easily doable in 2-3 years of heavy commuting) and almost none for Teslas (600 280 = 168,000).
As you can see, a person would have to drive almost 21,000/year, which most people don't and by that point you'd be outside the warranty period (unless I misread the warranty)
> That's why you see a TON of stories about degradation on Nissan Leaves
Mind you, you need to remove the 2011 Nissan "Leaves" from the dataset, they had bad chemistry that didn't survive much on hot climates. New batteries are better.
Hot climates? Like what? Atlanta (where tons of leaves were sold because of local tax rebates IIRC) is definitely well within the normal range for North America. Not a lot of leaf owners in the Southwest (big commuting distances).
Saying they didn't survive hot climates is kind of misleading. "The warm range of normal" is more accurate.
I was under the impression that Tesla deliberately de-rated the battery. Meaning that its true capacity is greater than the "full" capacity that is reported.
I'm sure they're doing some clever things with not charging the packs to 100% because the heat and stress decreases the lifetime.
I am not a battery expert, but I believe that these can extend the number of charge/discharge cycles considerably.
Most EV batteries have a total capacity greater than the usable capacity as some is reserved for degradation - this means you shouldn't experience much (if any) capacity loss until 10years+ of usage. The one to look out for is the P90D which will likely suffer increased degradation in Ludicrous mode.
While clearly this is a taxi driver, 50k / year is not a lot of mileage for a taxi - I know some people who do more in a company car (I managed similar on a couple of years), and some taxis are team driven, with three drivers sharing cost and shifts - indeed one I knew of years ago did about 120k a year, having several engine rebuilds, and getting over 800k before being sold. The odometer was only a 5 digit one, and I met the guy who bought it, thinking it had 125k on it, when it was actually 825k (long before the UK MOT history database was available)!
Anyway, it will be interesting to see how they hold up to these sort of starship mileages...
Less, but not much less. There's actually an enormous amount of taxi legislation almost everywhere (in the US). There are many, many, many airports where taxi drivers have to pay a huge fee just for the privilege of picking up a fare there. In some places as high as $30-50.
MCO (Orlando International) charges taxi drivers a $50 application to apply to be able to pick up fares in their airport. Then they charge $3.15/30 minutes to wait for a fare and $2.65 per passenger pickup.
This info is available through MCO and Mears (the big Orlando taxi company) and is cited in some articles about Uber & Mears competition there.
A fare for a family of four going to Disney will cost nearly $15 in airport surcharge. After you've paid the $50 application. If they accept it.
For example, in the UK (even in London!), there's no limit to how many taxi licenses can be granted, and indeed there is currently a statutory obligation to grant one to any applicant provided they meet the requirements.
Where I live, I'll occasionally see a Police Interceptor that has been retired from the police department, then bought by a taxi company, driven for a few years, and then sold to a private owner.
I can't imagine buying a used car with 500K miles on it, but people do it.
I doubt they are as generous with the Model 3. I would also sort of expect them to adjust the terms for new buyers of the more expensive cars once they figure out their actual lifetime costs for the warranty.
You are missing that the drive train design was entirely new when Model S was released and had some design problems that needed fixing, hence the free replacements.
> Maybe it's simpler to replace it and refurbish it later, so they just take out the old and give you a new one.
That's exactly right. The whole drive unit can drop right out of the bottom of the car, so when there are any issues, Tesla will just replace the whole thing so that you don't have to wait for the unit to be repaired. They can then refurbish the broken drivetrain on their own time and then use it to replace someone else's failed unit in the future.
Do the north-American subarus (produced at the old Isuzu-Subaru plant, not Japan like are exported elsewhere) have significantly different quality?
I've driven a 500,000km 1992 Liberty (legacy) Turbo before with original gearbox, engine and turbo. A bit of a nerd fan of these early Libertys all of them these days have between 250,000 and 450,000km on them as a given.
Similarly there are many, many subarus running around in Australia with several hundred thousand kilometres on them and no major issues.
In Australia, Subaru engines are generally known for their reliability.
$3700/2.5 years in electricity vs projected $12,500 in gas. So about $8800 in savings over 2.5 years, ~$293/mo, ~$3500/year. Still makes it hard to justify the Tesla based on just the gas savings, unless he keeps the car for >15 years.
We are talking about a Taxi. The maintenance costs for a typical driver should be far less.
His situation is unique since he drives a Taxi in Quebec. It is a very harsh environment there in the winter and the roads are horrendous and will wear out a 4x4. There are pot holes that will swallow a car. Hence the wheel bearings. Brakes in a Taxi are replaced very frequently. Where a typically driver might replace them once every 2-3 years a Taxi might replace them 2-3 times a year. The power train warranty (unlimited mileage) has covered his drive unit which I imagine is like a transmission and not the electric motors.
As I've said before, electric cars won't mean a significant decrease in maintenance costs.
Gee, a niche luxury brand has higher parts costs than mass-produced Japanese cars. Who would have guessed? That might explain why brake pads on my BMW motorcycle cost ungodly amounts more than those for my last Honda.
Meanwhile, over here in the land where the other 90% of the world lives, we haven't done jack to our Nissan Leaf in 30K miles, save a cabin air filter and a set of tires ('cuz the stocks ones suck). Granted, for a Japanese car 30K means "it'll finally be broken in soon", but even our "reliable as a crowbar" Scion xB with 80K needs regular oil changes and gasoline. Had to do brake pads and rotors on the Scion once, too, whereas I expect the pads on the Leaf to last the life of the car (thanks, regen braking). In another 20K miles I expect things like starter and alternator to start failing on the Scion. OTOH, by 100K miles the Leaf will probably need a new $5K battery pack.
In the end, though, I think the difference in maintenance costs is going to be minimal for most. The only difference is the drive train (and arguably brakes), and modern ICE's are pretty darned reliable and long-lived these days.
I agree that the difference in maintenance cost will be minimal.
Curious: this probably depends on the climate where you live, but how's the Leaf looking wrt. brake disc rust? I have had to replace rusted brake discs on a normal car due to poorly working rear calipers. Basically, brake discs don't rust because braking while driving heats them up so they dry out. I would imagine regen braking (like a bad caliper) does not produce enough heat to dry them off.
There will be surface rust on anything that sits for more than a couple of days (non-automotive example: railroad tracks). But that gets scrubbed off the first time the pads hit discs. The Leaf pads will hit discs at least once on every trip, coming up to a stoplight if nothing else. In your case, if the caliper is stuck and pads never hit disc, I could see that being a problem.
But to directly answer your question: looking at the discs through the wheel spokes, they're still nice and shiny so I'm going to assume that it's not a problem. I suppose it's entirely possible that Nissan accounted for this and rejiggered the content of the discs, but I don't know one way or the other.
Also, stuff like door handles have known reliability issues on the Model S and are expensive to replace too, Tesla don't supply parts to third party repair shops, and the warranty on everything other than the drive train is shorter and limited-mileage. (Which means that yes, people have paid out of pocket to repair failed door handles and the like because they're over the mileage limit.)
I've also seen a fair share with a failing third brake light, about half of the LEDs not lighting up. Probably isn't noticed by the driver until regular service, government inspection, etc.
It's not a surprise that many things fail on a complex assembly with all new parts. No wonder automakers do their best to share small stuff like buttons, latches, door handles etc. between many makes and models.
> As I've said before, electric cars won't mean a significant decrease in maintenance costs.
Why? They have way less parts. No fuel pump, filter, oil, spark plugs, electronic injection, engine cooling, etc etc.
Drive unit getting replaced is bad. But this seems to be a Tesla-specific manufacturing issue. You don't see those on the (admittedly wimpier) Nissan Leaf. How does it compare to a high performance car?
My car ('02 Peugeot 307, 1.6 petrol) has done 155k miles. Fuel pump and filter is still original, fuel injection system is still original, etc.
The ICE-specific expensive parts that have been replaced is the timing belt and water pump (once, at maintenance interval), battery and alternator (once, broken), the clutch (once, worn out), and some of the exhaust (rusted). Total cost of those come to about $400+$400+$300+$200 = $1300 over 14 years. After 155k miles and 14 years, the electric car will be looking at a new battery pack, costing in the $5000 range.
Then of course there are wear'n'tear stuff like suspension parts, wheel bearings, brake pads, new tires etc. that you also have on an electric car.
But take e.g. brake pads, I just replaced both rear ones, cost me all of $40 for the pads, took two hours to do myself. I did the rear shocks two years ago, that cost $70 in parts and an hour of work. For most people, who don't fix their cars themselves, the main cost is for the work at the shop. Local garage quoted me $340 for replacing those rear shocks. A Haynes manual for your car, some coveralls and some spanners is a ridiculously good investment.
And then there is regular ICE maintenance: oil and oil filter once a year, $50. Spark plugs, about every four years, $60. And regular maintenance that also EVs need: window wipers once a year, $40. Washer fluid, ~ $40 per year. Regular washing and polishing, $80-$150 per year.
Why would it be? When you buy a vehicle, you get a warranty that covers you for either X years or Y miles(or both). What difference does it make if you do those Y miles driving for pleasure or for work? It's the same to the car. I would be really really surprised if they refused to honour his warranty because he was using it as a taxi.
Insurance, sure. But show me one vehicle warranty that varies between personal/commercial use. I've had Peugeots, Land Rover, Nissan, Citroen and most recently a Mercedes(some of those I've purchased under business contracts and used for work) - none of their warranty booklets made any distinction between personal and commercial use, and frankly - I don't think that by law they can. The only thing that maybe applies if you are using the car commercially is the "heavy use" servicing schedule, so instead of changing the oil every 16 thousand miles you have to do it every 10.
Fleet vehicles and work vehicles are different things.
Fleet generally refers to the purchase process. Fleet sales are when a company is buying greater than X number of cars, and they likely purchase a separate warranty. They go through a separate department (fleet sales). If someone walks into a lot and purchases a vehicle, the warranty likely covers them if they use it as a work truck (for example).
"Christian’s old Subaru had to have its engine rebuilt two or three times over the course of about 330,000 miles."
Which is it? An engine rebuild is a significant cost and down time and he's not sure how many times it has been rebuilt? Makes me question the validity of the rest of the article's data when you don't know your own basic facts/history especially for is a major repair item.
"Rebuilt" is also pretty vague. Bottom end? Top end? Rings? Whole engine out of the vehicle?
It does seem like this gentleman simply assigns some value to driving around in a Tesla all day, which is fine with me but the article should not try to make it seem economically rational.
That's a good point. I "rebuilt" the engine in my ex-wife's car years ago because she got stuck in a flash-flood and hydrolocked the engine. All I did was take off the head, give that to a shop that specialized in heads for them to replace the valves on one cylinder and clean up, then I replaced one piston and conrod and all the rings. It worked great for another 80-90k miles until we sold it, and I suspect it's still working fine now. But I never had to pull the engine out, and most of the head wasn't touched (except cleaning up all the carbon deposits on the valves).
However, if Tesla has worked the bugs out of their drive units, these cars would make some sense for use as cabs, especially if you're able to charge more than regular cabs: an EV should have much lower maintenance costs than a regular car, plus much lower fuel/energy costs (cabs are driven in the city all the time so they get lousy fuel economy compared to most regular cars). The main problem I see is Tesla's high maintenance charges (e.g., they'll probably charge you a lot more to change a wheel bearing at a Tesla service center than a Toyota dealership would for a Camry), however things like wheel bearings are things that an independent mechanic should be able to handle just fine, assuming they can get their hands on a compatible part and Tesla didn't use some odd-ball part. It'd be even cheaper if this cab driver can do his own repairs like that; wheel bearings are not that hard to change, though some of them require a hydraulic press, but you can get one of those at Harbor Freight for about $60. Others are simple bolt-in affairs that anyone can do with some simple hand tools in their garage.
I just checked RockAuto. They basically only had brake parts. Pads are an off the shelf item that fit stuff from the big three as well as imports. I'd wager that front and rear calipers from one of those apps works or could be made to work. Caliper rebuild kits would be easier. Control arms are probably Tesla specific and CVs likely are as well. Knowing how important leveraging off the shelf tech is to a company of Tesla's size I'd bet that CVs are Tesla specific but are simply an assembly of components from other apps. Wheel bearings aren't listed but I bet you could go to a pick-n-pull junkyard and find one. It would be stupid not to use an off the shelf bearing in their case. Bolt pattern is 5x120mm. I don't know if it's a true 120. A bunch of GM stuff used 120.7mm (not enough that it won't fit in a pinch but enough that you're going to be stretching the studs a tiny bit and all the people who think only dealers are qualified to rotate tires and change oil will complain). I wouldn't be surprised if they Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V'd everything outside the knuckle from a GM vehicle (it's not patent infringement if they're off the shelf parts) and designed their own knuckles.
www.driveshaftshop.com makes custom-size axles; they can probably build ones for Teslas pretty easily.
The calipers are probably made by some supplier like Brembo anyway; it'd be nonsensical for Tesla to build their own. The trick is finding which brand/model they really are and what's compatible, like you said.
This taxi guy should start his own webpage about Tesla-compatible repair parts.
Knowing Subaru, it would likely be a head gasket issue. They will continue to run with bad head gaskets for a while, but it's a pain to keep topping up the oil and coolant.
"Rebuilt" to anyone who does cars means the bottom end was done (which means the heads came off and were hopefully at least checked if not refreshed with new valve seals and guides).
On a Subaru engine you basically have to pull the engine to do anything more than timing. People joke about having to pull the engine to do spark plugs but it's close to true. If the engine is already pulled nobody skips the opportunity to do plugs.
For someone only driving 50k miles a year paying over $1000 a month in maintenance for a Subaru is also questionable unless Subarus are really that unreliable. What kind of car needs at least two rebuilds within 330k? Now he's done the same with the Tesla at only 100k.
This taxi driver must be a race car driver in disguise. Or this article is indeed questionable.
x2 on 1k/month being really high. He might be dumb and getting screwed hard by a dealership though. I've owned more than one Subaru of similar age, do my own wrenching, read the forums, etc. The transmissions are solid, not a TH400 but not a turd either and the EJ engine series is very reliable. It's possible that he was just paying out the a$$ to chase rust issues. A control arm here, a strut there, etc. They also get crap fuel economy so if he's doing lots of longer airport to hotel runs and not much stop an go a crown vic would probably be better (I wish I was joking).
If the driver can charge >2.3x more for a Tesla per mile, which isn't all that ridiculous (considering the prison-grade vinyl seats, constantly yakking ad screens and near-criminal lack of legroom in Camrys with plexiglas dividers), it starts to make more financial sense.
If I were 6'4" (193cm) or taller, I'd take the Tesla for $92 any day. Even my current 5'8" (172cm) self would hesitate taking a Toyota Camry taxi due to the lack of leg and knee room, which is why I almost always avoid them in favor of Uber or Lyft, whose cars don't have the divider.
I don't think you get the point here. You are not getting married to that car. You are only going to use it for a few minutes.
Having to pay 2.3x just for a few minutes for zero additional utility derived isn't something most people do, Unless in a extreme emergency. Even those who are tall would agree.
People use Uber Black over UberX - many people are ready to pay for comfort even for a few minutes. Another case are business trips - neither me no company I work for cares if I spend $40 or $80 for a taxi from airport.
If you were that tall you might just be used to angle both thighs towards the middle of the car while in the back seat. Rarely a problem (as long as the middle seat remains unoccupied)
It looks like he expects it to pay off after 200,000 miles, where he was paying > $1000 a month in repairs on his Subaru. So the question is still very much open.
Better than average reliability for subarus, you are correct i had to look it up. Surprised that audis are making a come back, i did not know they were rated better than average nowdays. Audis had some real nice lemons in the 90's/'00s. Lexus and toyota still beat them all.
Another luxury sports car that would be absurd to use as a taxi outside of the novelty. A Lexus LS would be more apt if you want to keep the Toyota thing going.
I don't know a single person that has an extra $40,000 to spend on a car because they want to not support the oil industry. Also, stopping at the gas station once a week isn't a big deal, but having to send your only car into the shop for days while it's repaired could be a huge problem.
I spend twice as much money on Linux laptops so I don't support Apple, Microsoft, or much of the commercial software industry. I'm sure my counterpart in the automobile market is out there somewhere.
My understanding is that yes, he could, but then Microsoft is paid for the Windows license which he does not want and will not use, so they lose out on the profit from that license by him paying more for an exclusively Linux laptop.
AFAIK, you can buy the same laptop without windows installed from manufacturers like Dell. They actually reduce the cost if you choose to not have the OS. I don't know who sells linux only laptop for twice the price, given that linux is free. How is twice the price justified if you're actually not paying for the OS?
Twice the price was an exaggeration. However, as some one driving a XPS 13 dev edition (the original) right now they are definitely not priced as "cheap" notebooks. Someone has to write the drivers (or source components with good drivers) and make sure they work properly as configured. In the case of the XPS 13 dev edition Dell absolutely puts resources into at least trying to get that right. The laptop runs really well on Linux and many many laptops today do not because of driver issues. This is not news to anyone who has been using Linux longer than 5 minutes on real consumer PC hardware. In the old days, if you complained about hardware compat people would tell you to hack on the driver!
I'll say Linux handles the XPS 13 well when dragging a window from a hidpi screen to a 3440x1440 screen isn't completely broken (so far even Gnome on Wayland can't do that right)
Edit: and 3440x1440 is just my case, it's broken for dragging windows onto anything except another hidpi monitor that uses the same scale factor as the main one.
Wayland should allow for that to work well. Give it some time, it's not early stages but it's still not a production-ready environment unless you're living on the extreme bleeding edge, with a knife sticking out your head and all.
That makes sense to me. I personally moved to a Mac for the exact same reason. I would end up spending more time configuring the machine and getting things to work than doing actual work. That has drastically improves since I switched. Anytime I need linux, I just run a VM.
Well they solve that problem the same way any other repair shop does by loaning you another car.
But to get back to your original point, I honestly think you are just plain wrong. If I look around at the street here I see huge amounts of people that have spent 40 grand extra (and often much more) for essentially vanity, a marketing illusion whereby an expensive car confers elevated social status to whoever is driving it. Their transport needs could be perfectly served by an economical, reliable car (frankly, for a huge number of people out there, lots of their transport needs could be solved by a fricken bike) yet they didn't buy that.
Main mission of Tesla is to deliver economic reliable fully electric mode of transportation. So far it is failing to deliver on the economics but we are still hopeful.
Most of the things that you list are what i call "first world problems", they are not important for the main goal. (i agree on gas, emissions and oil industry, even though who is going to make us tires? PETCO?)
If you give people 10,000$ new electric real car that is a real and reliable car. Guess what? People will gladly take a big cut on comfort, speed, "coolness" and other unimportant features in favor of economic transportation.
The Tesla can’t even reach 160km/h, while on the Autobahn the average speed on some stretches is around 180km/h, how is it the "quickest 4 door sedan ever made" when even a fucking VW passat sedan or minivan is faster?
> Fitting 7 people in a car (5 adults + 2 kids): $0
Which is standard in any car that isn’t a Seat Ibiza?
> Supporting a company driving innovation in battery storage and automobiles: $0
You mean a company using laptop batteries chained together as car battery because actual innovation was too expensive?
>> Driving the quickest 4 door sedan ever made: $0
>The Tesla can’t even reach 160km/h, while on the Autobahn the average speed on some stretches is around 180km/h, how is it the "quickest 4 door sedan ever made" when even a fucking VW passat sedan or minivan is faster?
(1) The top speed of Tesla Model S is governed at 255km/h (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Model_S) - I'm fairly sure you don't see a lot of minivans doing more than 255km/h.
(2) In typical automotive review usage, "quickest" means acceleration (rather than top speed, which would more typically be referred to as "fastest") and the Tesla certainly qualifies as one of, if not uniquely, the quickest 4-door production sedans ever made.
This is just factually inaccurate. Searching youtube for "model s autobahn"[0] results in dozens of counter examples, including accelerations from 0-240km/h and cruising in excess of 200km/h for 40-60km (I watched a couple of the acceleration videos to verify the titles, but did not verify the long-distance ones maintained the speed)
Per Tesla's website, the slowest Tesla you can buy now will top out at ~210km/h, though I think that used to be ~195 before they went to all-wheel standard.
Unlikely. The Cadillac CTS-V crushes the track while Tesla gets heat-throttled. Based on the track numbers I've looked up (IE: Laguna Seca lap times), the CTS-V is superior by over 10-seconds.
CTS-V is a larger vehicle with approximately the same weight as the Tesla S. They even made a Station-wagon version of the CTS-V (didn't sell very well).
I'm not really a car enthusiast, but I know that there are plenty of cars in the ~$70,000 range that crush the Tesla S on the track. Until Tesla can manage to not overheat and then throttle their batteries after the first two turns... it isn't really going to deserve a "quickest car" definition.
I mean yeah, its fast. But... its like... $35,000 Hot-hatch fast. Not CTS-V Sedan fast. Certainly not supercar fast. All that weight and the thermal-throttling really hurt Tesla times.
------
In fact, based on the laptimes on that forum post, any $35,000 hatchback (even the 4-door FRONT-wheel drive Ford Focus ST) beat Tesla's laptimes on Laguna Seca. I'm sure the better built Focus RS crushes the Tesla.
In most places I've seen, 'quickest' usually refers to straight-line acceleration (generally 0-60 times or 1/4 mile). They claim a 2.8s 0-60 for the ludicrous option, and I believe it's hit 2.6, though I don't know what was was done to do that (modifications or just ideal conditions, that kind of thing). Either way, it's damn fast.
The CTS-V is in the mid 3 range for 0-60.
That doesn't diminish your point about track performance, but I don't think your parent was referring to lap times.
"Tesla replaced the drive units free of charge with 24 hours"
Obviously there were manufacturing defects which were covered under warrantee. The same thing happens with every brand. Tesla might be worse, I don't know. I forgive them not because "TESLA" but because a) they are a young company, b) they did the right thing by the customer, and c) they have been honest about their quality problems and put resources into fixing the production line, and d) they're doing a good thing by showing the world that electric vehicles aren't a totally stupid idea.
We had electric vehicle manufacturing boom in America >100 years ago.
One of the first licensed female drivers in USA was driving electric car over 100 years ago.
What we need is an effective political and economic reform that supports long lasting changes in this area. Not another $100,000+ dollar toy (Tesla X) for the rich.
The first drive unit repair was a recall. The second was after 75,000 miles. In both cases, he had his car back after 24 hours.
The criteria for a lemon is that a car is repaired for the same thing multiple times, has been under repair for an unusually long time, or has a defect that impacts safety. Every US state (and this guy is in Canada) has slightly different limits. Replacing an electric motor twice, with little delay, isn't going to hit those limits.
Otherwise, we'd call cars that need timing belts every 60k miles, or water pumps every 100k miles.
I've had to deal with a lemon. You don't scream LEMON until the 3rd repair; and you don't scream LEMON when the second repair is at 100k miles. (The lemon law that I'm familiar with would say that a car only lasts 150k miles.)
You've only included a single year of gas/electricity in your calculation. That makes no sense for something that wins in operating cost not in up front cost.
Assuming repair costs even out (not a small assumption, but), in about seven years the cost of the camry and the tesla will be about even. Ever year of service after that is entirely profit (aprox. 5k/year saved in gas).
I would wonder about the tire costs. Tesla is big and heavy with large blingy wheels and high performance rubber. I guess you can get cheaper than original tired but not a lot cheaper in that size.
Insurance is actually pretty cheap relatively. They're the safest car on the road which really brings down medical and injury costs. I want to say it was ~$30/mo more than our Subaru.
Tire costs: yeah. I'm at 35k right now and about to replace my first set of 19" tires for around ~$900. I ran the numbers and I actually pay more per-mile in tire cost(0.023) than electricity(0.02).
That said my gas costs still more than make up for it. I was spending ~$300/mo in gas where I now spend ~$40.
Some years back, when taking a local taxi in the Shoreline Connecticut area (Old Saybrook, Westbrook, Clinton, etc.), the taxi company owner told me she would buy only certain years of Audio 5000's at 200-300K for not much at auction, and then, with normal maintenance, they'd go to 700-900-1000K without problems. I'm afraid I've forgotten the years involved.
Yes certain Audi models were bullet proof! Also Mercedes certain models were known to go well over 500,000miles. They were used widely as cabs in europe. Saab, volvo another honorable mentions... but boy did the things change... SAAB is gone RIP. Volvo became a complete POS as well. Try doing this in an Audi or Mercedes or Volvo today and see how fast your bank account depletes to keep it running.
the problem is he is comparing a brand new maintenance cost to a car with 300K miles on it!! any brand new car is going to cost less in repair compare to a car with 300K Miles!
In the Netherlands there are many Tesla taxis, especially around Amsterdam and Schiphol airport. Taxis drive more than regular cars so I see them all the time, to the point that most Tesla's on the road are taxis.
I think this creates an "interesting" marketing challenge for Tesla here: taxi drivers are not well respected and most people do not want to be mistaken for a taxi driver. Being seen as a typical taxi brand will impact the image of Tesla in a negative way, like it has done here with Mercedes (another typical taxi here, if you see a Mercedes E series here it's usually a taxi, so normal people looking for a premium car buy a BMW or Volvo)
I'm not sure that Tesla considers it's current luxury status very important. Ever since Musk's first master plan he's maintained that producing luxury cars at all is just a means to an end of affordable electric cars.
Maybe we can debate weather a $35,000 car is "affordable", but at least Tesla seems to think so. Prius's seem to have a lock on the cab market where I am, and those things just keep flying off the lot into private hands. Personally, when I see a car as a taxi, I can't help but think that thing has got to be reliable as hell.
Teslas are designed for quick swap service of the battery allegedly...
Tesla has treated previous generation owners, such as the sport coupe, to free battery upgrades...
If there are enough used teslas on the market and replacement of the battery drops to a $1000 for a new-equivalent or even better battery, then teslas will be awesome used commodities.
An irrelevant statement, right? Tesla becomes profitable with electrics, others join in, then someday there are used $10,000 used electric cars. You didn't understand this?
no because people who get used cars can't afford the ones that used to be 35k... unless they have a ridiculous amount of miles on them. have to be either in a wealth bubble or a tesla fanboy to think otherwise.
Hey, no one said that they were going to get a Tesla. I was quite clear about that. If they are the only company selling electric cars then we have a problem.
This is double blade sword. You may look into taxi drives cars and think - this is good, reliable car, with low maintenance cost if taxi drives, who drives those all day is using. I know in poorer countries this research for new car happens a lot.
Hey Ifx, the saying is "double-edged sword" not "double blade sword" [0]. Just letting you know in case English is not your native language. Personally when I am learning other languages I love to be corrected. Feel free to ignore this - you have the right to say the idiom any way you please.
It's hard to be confused for a taxi without the livery...
I drive a used (ex-police) 2009 Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor because I've been seeing the police and taxis drive them my entire life. I like it for the same reason they do, it has incredible reliability and is perfectly designed for manoeuvring the city.
I owned a PI Crown Vic and disagree that it's perfectly designed for a city. It is HUGE. It's a very long car which can make it hard to park and maneuver in tight roads.
That said, it's a fantastic highway car. Go 10-15mph over in the passing lane and everyone gets out of your way, especially if you still have push bars and a spot light.
Agreed, it is a full sized sedan. I did find that frustrating until I got more familiar with it. It's great on the highway too... the roar of that V8 in the cabin with all the windows down at highway speed is about as close to nirvana as I'll ever come.
I have a spotlight but no push bar. I'd probably remove the spot, but it's very difficult to fill the hole as it leaves a gap in both the pillar and door.
Thats really interesting, thanks for breaking down the numbers!
Ultimately it looks like it is nice consumer friendly option, but the repair costs are being subsidized by Tesla at great expense to Tesla, and even then the total cost compared to the gas car is only marginally better.
The primary takeaway here is that the more expensive car has better resale value, from name and build quality. Which is the only saving grace in this equation.
After Elon's crowdsale cars come out at the lower price, its game over though!
>brakes, bearings, and parts of the suspension, which was considered normal wear after 100,000 miles.
Wtf? I don't know of any regular car that's needed all of that changed and it was deemed normal. What's so different about brakes, bearing and suspension in a Tesla? I know 250k Priuses that haven't needed any of these.
You do not go 250k on a single set of brakes. 100k is a pretty long interval for a heavy vehicle. Bearings typically last longer than that but in heavier cars they are known to go sooner, eg Audis eat wheel bearings.
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 225 ms ] thread110v is just woefully inadequate for charging a pack that large.
The most damaging things you can do to the batteries is keeping them 100% fully charged or completely discharging them.
If they added another order of magnitude or two to that charge rate, then it would be impressive.
Another way to think of it is that mpg equivalent of evs is around 90-100 mpg. The model S is a huge heavy car, and look how far it can go on 85kwh.
In addition, if there is a Supercharger unit available, the Model S can recharge fully in less than an hour if less than 260 miles have thus far been driven [2]. Meaning it could be back at full charge following a typical lunch break period.
[1] https://www.tesla.com/models#range-calculator
[2] https://www.tesla.com/models#savings-calculator
https://www.tesla.com/en_CA/findus?redirect=no#/bounds/46.98...
I expect that he plugs in over lunch hour, and at bathroom brakes. This won't get him to full charge, but it is enough to ensure that he can handle a long trip. If he is ever at less than half charge he has made enough money that he can afford to take an hour off to charge.
Right and wrong. 110v charging would take days. Supercharging takes minutes.
I don't drive a Tesla, I have a Leaf. 110v is enough to recharge overnight for my commute (~20 miles each way). Or about a couple of hours charging at work. Not an issue for commuting.
Were it used as a Taxi, I'd have to rely on quickchargers. About 20 minutes from 20 to 80% SOC. It's not linear, so very low and very high state of charger takes longer. A Taxi Leaf would likely be doable for a dense city, very bad for highway driving, as speed kills range (for any kind of car).
For a Tesla it's not an issue.
Is it the case with some EV's that you never own the battery, you have a lifetime lease so the unit gets refreshed every so often?
My lawnmower has a 3 year warranty. 30 days if commercial use.
My blender has a 2 year warranty. 0 days if commercial use.
I don't know about cars or not having the exclusion, but it wouldn't surprise me.
https://www.tesla.com/blog/infinite-mile-warranty
EDIT: It seems to differ based on battery model and other things, and the basic warranty is just 4 years and 50,000 miles now:
https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/blog_attachments/m...
My own Model S is only about two years old with a bit over 20k miles on it, so I don't know how things will go once the car gets older, but so far it's lost <1% of its range.
In general, one should expect to get at least 300k miles (482,000 kms) out of a battery like the one in the Tesla before it gets anywhere close to this level.
I'm sure if I were really careful to measure, there's been a few % of degradation, but nothing on the level of what you might experience from a 3 year old mobile phone and I never look back longingly on the days when my car could go further. There's no trip I took 3 years ago that I wouldn't take now.
There's an 8 year, infinite mile warranty on the battery, but there have been differing reports on when it gets replaced. I have heard numbers ranging from 15-30% capacity loss, but I plan to drive it for another 5 years, so I'm sure I'll find out.
Does anyone have any thoughts on why the Tesla battery isn't like this?
For whatever reason the majority of PC manufacturers just suck at making batteries (or charging hardware, not sure which.)
They just suck at making battery cooling systems (e.g. all-plastic cases) or neglect to include one altogether. If there is one thing those all-metal MacBooks are good at, it's dissipating heat.
TIL. But yeah, that does explain why Macbooks' batteries hold up so well.
Phones are kind of a different case. The phones that I have had with bad batteries to begin with (Galaxy S2, Nexus One, etc) were often recharged multiple times per day. 1000+ cycles per year for two or more years will degrade the battery a lot, as the degradation is largely based on the number of cycles.
The Tesla P85D has a ~300 mile battery. Unless you are driving 300 miles per day, you are unlikely to see 1000 cycles in a year. If you do cycle it 1000 times, you've put 300,000 miles on it.
That is really a completely different situation from the typical mobile phone or laptop usage scenario.
Out of topic, but is it possible that is this why phone manufacturers are shying away from putting bigger batteries in their flagships? They want the batteries to degrade in the 2 or 3 years of daily power cycle, and most people choose to upgrade instead of replacing their non-user-replaceable battery. Does this make sense?
It might just be that the manufacturers think everyone wants a thinner device, though.
Tesla having bad batteries would be a PR nightmare. Toyota has taken similar measures with their prius, never let the battery go anywhere near a deep discharge. Through over provisioning you can make sure that any given cell is always in its optimal range, and in a big car like a tesla, extra weight wont be that negative. Laptops "need" to be thin and light, so over provisioning the battery means less usable life per charge and/or bulk.
Of these, the chemistry should answer for most of the improvements. Electric cars as a rule do not use standard lithium ion batteries exactly because of the degradation. Instead, they get less energy density.
Think about how a laptop battery spends it's day: probably at 110 degrees and plugged it at 100% SOC. That's a perfect storm of horror for a li-ion battery. Tesla batteries spend nearly their whole lives at 70 degrees and between 20 and 80 percent SOC. That's the good life for li-ion.
The key to keep LiIon from degrading is 1) never allow it to go 100% full 2) never have it go 100% empty 3) avoid high battery temperatures, cooling if necessary.
Now on 1) and 2), to do that you have to give up battery capacity. If you only ever discharge to 5% and charge to 95% you've just given up on 10% of battery capacity. This makes your laptop look bad on "battery life" benchmarks.
For 3), as batteries make up 80% of the physical space in phones and laptops, that makes it very difficult to cool them actively or otherwise effectively. At the same time manufacturers want to sell fast charging capability to customers, and that's perfectly fine with LiIon, most of them are capable of gulping up much more current than most chargers deliver, only this dramatically increases the heat buildup in the battery. That's fine for a Tesla as it has liquid cooling for individual cells, but phones or laptops have none of that.
One thing you can do with some laptops is adjust settings to extend battery lifespan. Lenovo ThinkPads have settings in the power management software to set the maximum charge level as well as a range where it won't start charging (this is also available in their Windows 10 Lenovo Settings app, though I believe it wasn't present for the first few months of Windows 10). I set ThinkPads to not charge above 85% and to not start charging unless the charge level is below 75%.
Some other Lenovo laptops (e.g. Yoga 2 Pro ultrabook) have a similar but less-functional setting called "conservation mode" that in my experience caps the battery charge at 55-65%. The chosen values on those seem too low to me since my reading indicated that most of the benefit from capped charges is at the very high end, but that's what you get with consumer-grade equipment.
I'm pretty sure I've seen similar battery control options on other laptops, but I couldn't tell you which manufacturers support it without research.
Edit: Samsung calls this "Battery Life Extender." Lenovo (Win7) has it in Power Manager, Advanced mode, Battery, Battery Maintenance. ThinkPads (Win10) have it in Lenovo Settings, Battery, Battery Charge Threshold. Non-ThinkPads (Win10) have it in the same place, but as Conservation Mode. Some Dells (at least under Win7) have an option in Dell Quickset to "Turn off battery charging" until the next power cycle, but that's a manual process and more to prevent lots of small power cycles.
Degradation is directly proportional to capacity and early model electric vehicles start seeing noticeable degradation after about 600 full range charge cycles as a rule of thumb (probably improved by 20-30% since then).
That's why you see a TON of stories about degradation on Nissan Leaves (60084 = 50,400 miles, easily doable in 2-3 years of heavy commuting) and almost none for Teslas (600 280 = 168,000).
As you can see, a person would have to drive almost 21,000/year, which most people don't and by that point you'd be outside the warranty period (unless I misread the warranty)
Mind you, you need to remove the 2011 Nissan "Leaves" from the dataset, they had bad chemistry that didn't survive much on hot climates. New batteries are better.
Saying they didn't survive hot climates is kind of misleading. "The warm range of normal" is more accurate.
I'm sure they're doing some clever things with not charging the packs to 100% because the heat and stress decreases the lifetime.
I am not a battery expert, but I believe that these can extend the number of charge/discharge cycles considerably.
> It was 430 km, and now 400 km, I'm in Canada so its not miles, I made 161,306 km ;)
Anyway, it will be interesting to see how they hold up to these sort of starship mileages...
New York yellow cab drivers split 12 hour shifts and pay ~$150/driver/day just to lease a medallion.
This info is available through MCO and Mears (the big Orlando taxi company) and is cited in some articles about Uber & Mears competition there.
A fare for a family of four going to Disney will cost nearly $15 in airport surcharge. After you've paid the $50 application. If they accept it.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/breaking-news/os-airport...
A one-time $50 application fee is not remotely the same thing as a $50 fare.
I can't imagine buying a used car with 500K miles on it, but people do it.
Since starships are always getting blown up to rack up enough miles. Only Millenium Falcon keeps on flying and flying to rack up the miles.
Ok enough jokes.
I think this is a good thing. Taxis are generally known to be long lasting cars, which most car buyers value when selecting a car.
And the "drive unit" (electric motor?) has been replaced. Twice.
As I've said before, electric cars won't mean a significant decrease in maintenance costs.
But, he has managed to save $43 a month on gas!
Edit: reading comprehension failed me, as pointed out below, he saves $293 a month on gas.
How expensive is the drive train compared to a combustion engine? maybe I'm missing something.
0 - https://www.tesla.com/en_CA/blog/infinite-mile-warranty?redi...
I doubt they are as generous with the Model 3. I would also sort of expect them to adjust the terms for new buyers of the more expensive cars once they figure out their actual lifetime costs for the warranty.
That's exactly right. The whole drive unit can drop right out of the bottom of the car, so when there are any issues, Tesla will just replace the whole thing so that you don't have to wait for the unit to be repaired. They can then refurbish the broken drivetrain on their own time and then use it to replace someone else's failed unit in the future.
I've driven a 500,000km 1992 Liberty (legacy) Turbo before with original gearbox, engine and turbo. A bit of a nerd fan of these early Libertys all of them these days have between 250,000 and 450,000km on them as a given.
Similarly there are many, many subarus running around in Australia with several hundred thousand kilometres on them and no major issues.
In Australia, Subaru engines are generally known for their reliability.
He saved $250 a month on gasoline didn't he?
$5000/year on gas is $416/month.
$3700 charging over 2.5 years is $123/month.
That's a saving of $293/month.
In other news, a luxury car does not compete well on economics alone.
His situation is unique since he drives a Taxi in Quebec. It is a very harsh environment there in the winter and the roads are horrendous and will wear out a 4x4. There are pot holes that will swallow a car. Hence the wheel bearings. Brakes in a Taxi are replaced very frequently. Where a typically driver might replace them once every 2-3 years a Taxi might replace them 2-3 times a year. The power train warranty (unlimited mileage) has covered his drive unit which I imagine is like a transmission and not the electric motors.
And looking up "Tesla drive unit", you can see it's actually the electric motor + gearbox + inverter.
Gee, a niche luxury brand has higher parts costs than mass-produced Japanese cars. Who would have guessed? That might explain why brake pads on my BMW motorcycle cost ungodly amounts more than those for my last Honda.
Meanwhile, over here in the land where the other 90% of the world lives, we haven't done jack to our Nissan Leaf in 30K miles, save a cabin air filter and a set of tires ('cuz the stocks ones suck). Granted, for a Japanese car 30K means "it'll finally be broken in soon", but even our "reliable as a crowbar" Scion xB with 80K needs regular oil changes and gasoline. Had to do brake pads and rotors on the Scion once, too, whereas I expect the pads on the Leaf to last the life of the car (thanks, regen braking). In another 20K miles I expect things like starter and alternator to start failing on the Scion. OTOH, by 100K miles the Leaf will probably need a new $5K battery pack.
In the end, though, I think the difference in maintenance costs is going to be minimal for most. The only difference is the drive train (and arguably brakes), and modern ICE's are pretty darned reliable and long-lived these days.
Curious: this probably depends on the climate where you live, but how's the Leaf looking wrt. brake disc rust? I have had to replace rusted brake discs on a normal car due to poorly working rear calipers. Basically, brake discs don't rust because braking while driving heats them up so they dry out. I would imagine regen braking (like a bad caliper) does not produce enough heat to dry them off.
But to directly answer your question: looking at the discs through the wheel spokes, they're still nice and shiny so I'm going to assume that it's not a problem. I suppose it's entirely possible that Nissan accounted for this and rejiggered the content of the discs, but I don't know one way or the other.
It's not a surprise that many things fail on a complex assembly with all new parts. No wonder automakers do their best to share small stuff like buttons, latches, door handles etc. between many makes and models.
Why? They have way less parts. No fuel pump, filter, oil, spark plugs, electronic injection, engine cooling, etc etc.
Drive unit getting replaced is bad. But this seems to be a Tesla-specific manufacturing issue. You don't see those on the (admittedly wimpier) Nissan Leaf. How does it compare to a high performance car?
The ICE-specific expensive parts that have been replaced is the timing belt and water pump (once, at maintenance interval), battery and alternator (once, broken), the clutch (once, worn out), and some of the exhaust (rusted). Total cost of those come to about $400+$400+$300+$200 = $1300 over 14 years. After 155k miles and 14 years, the electric car will be looking at a new battery pack, costing in the $5000 range.
Then of course there are wear'n'tear stuff like suspension parts, wheel bearings, brake pads, new tires etc. that you also have on an electric car.
But take e.g. brake pads, I just replaced both rear ones, cost me all of $40 for the pads, took two hours to do myself. I did the rear shocks two years ago, that cost $70 in parts and an hour of work. For most people, who don't fix their cars themselves, the main cost is for the work at the shop. Local garage quoted me $340 for replacing those rear shocks. A Haynes manual for your car, some coveralls and some spanners is a ridiculously good investment.
And then there is regular ICE maintenance: oil and oil filter once a year, $50. Spark plugs, about every four years, $60. And regular maintenance that also EVs need: window wipers once a year, $40. Washer fluid, ~ $40 per year. Regular washing and polishing, $80-$150 per year.
Fleet generally refers to the purchase process. Fleet sales are when a company is buying greater than X number of cars, and they likely purchase a separate warranty. They go through a separate department (fleet sales). If someone walks into a lot and purchases a vehicle, the warranty likely covers them if they use it as a work truck (for example).
https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/blog_attachments/m...
Which is it? An engine rebuild is a significant cost and down time and he's not sure how many times it has been rebuilt? Makes me question the validity of the rest of the article's data when you don't know your own basic facts/history especially for is a major repair item.
It does seem like this gentleman simply assigns some value to driving around in a Tesla all day, which is fine with me but the article should not try to make it seem economically rational.
However, if Tesla has worked the bugs out of their drive units, these cars would make some sense for use as cabs, especially if you're able to charge more than regular cabs: an EV should have much lower maintenance costs than a regular car, plus much lower fuel/energy costs (cabs are driven in the city all the time so they get lousy fuel economy compared to most regular cars). The main problem I see is Tesla's high maintenance charges (e.g., they'll probably charge you a lot more to change a wheel bearing at a Tesla service center than a Toyota dealership would for a Camry), however things like wheel bearings are things that an independent mechanic should be able to handle just fine, assuming they can get their hands on a compatible part and Tesla didn't use some odd-ball part. It'd be even cheaper if this cab driver can do his own repairs like that; wheel bearings are not that hard to change, though some of them require a hydraulic press, but you can get one of those at Harbor Freight for about $60. Others are simple bolt-in affairs that anyone can do with some simple hand tools in their garage.
The calipers are probably made by some supplier like Brembo anyway; it'd be nonsensical for Tesla to build their own. The trick is finding which brand/model they really are and what's compatible, like you said.
This taxi guy should start his own webpage about Tesla-compatible repair parts.
On a Subaru engine you basically have to pull the engine to do anything more than timing. People joke about having to pull the engine to do spark plugs but it's close to true. If the engine is already pulled nobody skips the opportunity to do plugs.
This taxi driver must be a race car driver in disguise. Or this article is indeed questionable.
That sounds like a failure to me.
If this was 70,000$ FORD that had to have its engine replaced 2-3 times then people would be screaming LEMON. But since its Tesla - it is ok somehow.
Anyway what matters for taxi driver is the cost per mile. Tesla spending: 70,000 + 3,700 (electricity) + 7,000 (repairs) = ~ $80,000 Toyota camry spending: 23,000 + 10,000 (gas) + 2,000 (repairs) = ~ $35,000
Tesla: 80,000$/100,000 miles = 0.8 USD/mile Toyota camry: 35,000$/100,000 miles = 0.35 USD/mile
Cost per mile driven: Tesla > Toyota by 2.3x
Total cost: if he was to sell Tesla today he would lose $35,000. If he sold camry today he would lose $13,000
Financially Tesla still does not make sense.
Having to pay 2.3x just for a few minutes for zero additional utility derived isn't something most people do, Unless in a extreme emergency. Even those who are tall would agree.
Source: being tall.
http://www.consumerreports.org/content/dam/cro/news_articles...
The truth is Tesla is still just a toy for the rich.
I cant wait to see how model 3 turns out and if Tesla indeed will be able to deliver reliable (key word) "lower" priced cars.
Both are toy cars for rich people.
For example, a complete calculation for you might look like:
Driving the quickest 4 door sedan ever made: $0
Driving the safest car on the road: $0
Driving a super peaceful and quiet car: $0
Driving a car without a jerky transmission: $0
Having a ton of cargo space: $0
Reducing emissions: $0
Fitting 7 people in a car (5 adults + 2 kids): $0
Not supporting the oil industry: $0
Not ever having to stop at gas stations: $0
Supporting a company driving innovation in battery storage and automobiles: $0
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TOTAL value of driving a Tesla vs. Camry: $0
For me, for all of the above numbers, make the numbers large enough where the Tesla is cheaper than the Camry.
Edit: and 3440x1440 is just my case, it's broken for dragging windows onto anything except another hidpi monitor that uses the same scale factor as the main one.
But to get back to your original point, I honestly think you are just plain wrong. If I look around at the street here I see huge amounts of people that have spent 40 grand extra (and often much more) for essentially vanity, a marketing illusion whereby an expensive car confers elevated social status to whoever is driving it. Their transport needs could be perfectly served by an economical, reliable car (frankly, for a huge number of people out there, lots of their transport needs could be solved by a fricken bike) yet they didn't buy that.
Most of the things that you list are what i call "first world problems", they are not important for the main goal. (i agree on gas, emissions and oil industry, even though who is going to make us tires? PETCO?)
If you give people 10,000$ new electric real car that is a real and reliable car. Guess what? People will gladly take a big cut on comfort, speed, "coolness" and other unimportant features in favor of economic transportation.
The Tesla can’t even reach 160km/h, while on the Autobahn the average speed on some stretches is around 180km/h, how is it the "quickest 4 door sedan ever made" when even a fucking VW passat sedan or minivan is faster?
> Fitting 7 people in a car (5 adults + 2 kids): $0
Which is standard in any car that isn’t a Seat Ibiza?
> Supporting a company driving innovation in battery storage and automobiles: $0
You mean a company using laptop batteries chained together as car battery because actual innovation was too expensive?
>The Tesla can’t even reach 160km/h, while on the Autobahn the average speed on some stretches is around 180km/h, how is it the "quickest 4 door sedan ever made" when even a fucking VW passat sedan or minivan is faster?
(1) The top speed of Tesla Model S is governed at 255km/h (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Model_S) - I'm fairly sure you don't see a lot of minivans doing more than 255km/h.
(2) In typical automotive review usage, "quickest" means acceleration (rather than top speed, which would more typically be referred to as "fastest") and the Tesla certainly qualifies as one of, if not uniquely, the quickest 4-door production sedans ever made.
This is just factually inaccurate. Searching youtube for "model s autobahn"[0] results in dozens of counter examples, including accelerations from 0-240km/h and cruising in excess of 200km/h for 40-60km (I watched a couple of the acceleration videos to verify the titles, but did not verify the long-distance ones maintained the speed)
Per Tesla's website, the slowest Tesla you can buy now will top out at ~210km/h, though I think that used to be ~195 before they went to all-wheel standard.
[0] - https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=model+s+autobah...
Unlikely. The Cadillac CTS-V crushes the track while Tesla gets heat-throttled. Based on the track numbers I've looked up (IE: Laguna Seca lap times), the CTS-V is superior by over 10-seconds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TcCuzaRFIw
https://forums.tesla.com/forum/forums/model-s-laguna-seca-la...
CTS-V is a larger vehicle with approximately the same weight as the Tesla S. They even made a Station-wagon version of the CTS-V (didn't sell very well).
I'm not really a car enthusiast, but I know that there are plenty of cars in the ~$70,000 range that crush the Tesla S on the track. Until Tesla can manage to not overheat and then throttle their batteries after the first two turns... it isn't really going to deserve a "quickest car" definition.
I mean yeah, its fast. But... its like... $35,000 Hot-hatch fast. Not CTS-V Sedan fast. Certainly not supercar fast. All that weight and the thermal-throttling really hurt Tesla times.
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In fact, based on the laptimes on that forum post, any $35,000 hatchback (even the 4-door FRONT-wheel drive Ford Focus ST) beat Tesla's laptimes on Laguna Seca. I'm sure the better built Focus RS crushes the Tesla.
The CTS-V is in the mid 3 range for 0-60.
That doesn't diminish your point about track performance, but I don't think your parent was referring to lap times.
Which makes sense, the taxi driver is not going to the racetrack but is flooring it to merge onto the highway.
"Tesla replaced the drive units free of charge with 24 hours"
Obviously there were manufacturing defects which were covered under warrantee. The same thing happens with every brand. Tesla might be worse, I don't know. I forgive them not because "TESLA" but because a) they are a young company, b) they did the right thing by the customer, and c) they have been honest about their quality problems and put resources into fixing the production line, and d) they're doing a good thing by showing the world that electric vehicles aren't a totally stupid idea.
Where does your $7,000 repairs figure come from?
One of the first licensed female drivers in USA was driving electric car over 100 years ago.
What we need is an effective political and economic reform that supports long lasting changes in this area. Not another $100,000+ dollar toy (Tesla X) for the rich.
that says a lot.
The criteria for a lemon is that a car is repaired for the same thing multiple times, has been under repair for an unusually long time, or has a defect that impacts safety. Every US state (and this guy is in Canada) has slightly different limits. Replacing an electric motor twice, with little delay, isn't going to hit those limits.
Otherwise, we'd call cars that need timing belts every 60k miles, or water pumps every 100k miles.
I've had to deal with a lemon. You don't scream LEMON until the 3rd repair; and you don't scream LEMON when the second repair is at 100k miles. (The lemon law that I'm familiar with would say that a car only lasts 150k miles.)
http://jalopnik.com/heres-how-a-tesla-taxi-held-up-after-100...
Assuming repair costs even out (not a small assumption, but), in about seven years the cost of the camry and the tesla will be about even. Ever year of service after that is entirely profit (aprox. 5k/year saved in gas).
Tesla: (7 years × 3700 electricity + 80000 vehicle cost) / 233,000km = 0.45 $/km
Camry: (7 years × 10000 gas + 35000 vehicle cost) / 233,000km = 0.45 $/km
Also curious about insurance costs.
Tire costs: yeah. I'm at 35k right now and about to replace my first set of 19" tires for around ~$900. I ran the numbers and I actually pay more per-mile in tire cost(0.023) than electricity(0.02).
That said my gas costs still more than make up for it. I was spending ~$300/mo in gas where I now spend ~$40.
http://www.iihs.org/iihs/news/desktopnews/small-overlap-cras...
I think this creates an "interesting" marketing challenge for Tesla here: taxi drivers are not well respected and most people do not want to be mistaken for a taxi driver. Being seen as a typical taxi brand will impact the image of Tesla in a negative way, like it has done here with Mercedes (another typical taxi here, if you see a Mercedes E series here it's usually a taxi, so normal people looking for a premium car buy a BMW or Volvo)
Maybe we can debate weather a $35,000 car is "affordable", but at least Tesla seems to think so. Prius's seem to have a lock on the cab market where I am, and those things just keep flying off the lot into private hands. Personally, when I see a car as a taxi, I can't help but think that thing has got to be reliable as hell.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2015/05/04/new-car-...
That makes it affordable enough to make a difference.
Teslas are designed for quick swap service of the battery allegedly...
Tesla has treated previous generation owners, such as the sport coupe, to free battery upgrades...
If there are enough used teslas on the market and replacement of the battery drops to a $1000 for a new-equivalent or even better battery, then teslas will be awesome used commodities.
[0] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/double-edged_sword
Moreover, in many countries taxis have a specific colour, and I personally never liked white for my own car because it would look like a taxi :-)
I drive a used (ex-police) 2009 Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor because I've been seeing the police and taxis drive them my entire life. I like it for the same reason they do, it has incredible reliability and is perfectly designed for manoeuvring the city.
That said, it's a fantastic highway car. Go 10-15mph over in the passing lane and everyone gets out of your way, especially if you still have push bars and a spot light.
I have a spotlight but no push bar. I'd probably remove the spot, but it's very difficult to fill the hole as it leaves a gap in both the pillar and door.
Ultimately it looks like it is nice consumer friendly option, but the repair costs are being subsidized by Tesla at great expense to Tesla, and even then the total cost compared to the gas car is only marginally better.
The primary takeaway here is that the more expensive car has better resale value, from name and build quality. Which is the only saving grace in this equation.
After Elon's crowdsale cars come out at the lower price, its game over though!
Wtf? I don't know of any regular car that's needed all of that changed and it was deemed normal. What's so different about brakes, bearing and suspension in a Tesla? I know 250k Priuses that haven't needed any of these.
Taxis, not so much.
> [...] which was considered normal wear after 100,000 miles.
It's not really clear, but I think the "considered normal" applies to the point of view of the interviewed taxi driver.