More than that, after six years of Leaf ownership it feels downright primitive. In our ‘81 VW it’s acceptable because, hey, it’s an old vehicle. You know, back when you could really feel what a car’s doing, blah, blah, blah. But in a modern $50K car? Turning mechanical gears to get that rattling contraption of an ICE going, gawd, I’m surprised you didn’t make me crank it by hand. To refuel it, I have to go out of my way to a specialist vendor? Not just plug it in when I get home?
Sounds silly unless you’ve owned an EV, but it truly represents my feelings even when driving our smooth, reliable Scion. But as the old canard goes, if I have to explain then you wouldn’t understand.
There is an argument to be made for this. In most new cars, whether ICE or electric, electric power steering racks have almost removed all feedback through the wheel.
Feedback is good, it communicates what the wheels are doing, what the road surface is like, what traction is like, etc... and I'd argue that good steering feedback is important for safe driving.
There most certainly is, for a tiny, tiny minority of people who buy cars. That’s why I used it as example. Picture the older middle-aged guy going on about how “cars back then..” until your eyes glaze (and if you’ve met me, you’ll have a working example). Yeah, nobody cares, old man, my ‘08 Corolla was cheap.
I already typed this before you deleted, so I’m putting it here. :-)
In summary, I think “feel” matters to a small number of people. To those that notice (I count myself amongst them), it’s pretty important. To the vast majority of drivers I think that as long as the car gets them to work it’s good enough.
The reason I used it as an example is because the ones I find that will argue the importance of “feel” are old, rambling guys like me. IOW, I was originally making of myself to some degree.
Just got it last year too, ah well.
http://www.autonews.com/article/20171105/INDUSTRY_REDESIGNED...
The way we northerners deal with that is to have a remote starter installed in our car. By the time we're done putting on our coats and shoes, kissing our wives, and brushing the accumulated snow off the car, the heater is blowing hot and it is fairly comfortable inside. I will grant that this does burn some gas, but how much range in comparison does an electric car sacrifice by heating the cabin off battery power over your entire commute?
In the US, Tesla's home market, yes. But if you go to Europe, it changes completely - those three models you listed average a combined annual European sales volume north of 300 000, which is more than the global total of all Tesla cars ever sold.
The only way Tesla will be anything but an SV-hype-fueled anecdote is if they can actually deliver on the Model 3 next year, and it ain't looking too peachy. I mean, GM's outselling them on chargeable vehicles in the US this year.
Edit: GM 38699. I initially missed the 179 CT6s, 21 Spark EVs, and 17 ELRs at the bottom of the table.
December: Tesla 9335, GM 5173
but the cold-start is the best part!
reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exenWWOK_2o
how silly it is that I have to wait for the coolant in the car to warm up before the heater starts blowing hot
[EDIT: extended quote to full clause]
You need not wait longer than 15 seconds or so to put 'er in gear and go. This isn't Buffalo.
For your information, yes, I fire the car up, put on my seatbelt, close the garage door, put it in gear and go. But even in the mild bay area (it's been around 33-35 most mornings on the peninsula), I'm all the way across town before the coolant temp even comes off the low mark which is 124f, at which point SOME warm air starts coming out of the vents. But again, it's not a comfort complaint, it's a "electric cars make ICE cars seem dated" observation.
You conveniently truncated the quote to change the issue. If they wanted heat, they have to wait longer than 15s.
How many EVs produce passenger heat in meaningful amounts immediately (even ignoring the added battery drain), and how much of a burden is 50+-degree in-car temperatures for a few minutes while you're already in outdoor clothing?
I'm trying to redirect the conversation back to things that matter. The weather in SF last night doesn't matter, not really; it's just some ephemeral fact, and not even worth arguing about whether someone "needed" instant-on heat for it or not. What matters is electric vehicle models and sales worldwide, which is what the top-level article is about. Tesla is the most popular car manufacturer in Norway. You better believe that they appreciate instant-on heat there (as well as remote start), and that Teslas having these features gives them a competitive advantage.
Long commute, OTOH, seems favorable for a well-built ICE car.
You mean no need in your life besides our shared need to reduce atmospheric carbon, oil extraction, and other automobile pollutants, to keep climate change to a level merely devastating rather than catastrophic, and to preserve a habitable planet for the generations to come?
What's the break-even on how many lbs of CO2 I'd have to pump into the atmosphere before it was more environmentally friendly to produce an entire new automobile with 800lbs of batteries?
That said, the penetration rate of electric vehicles as a proportion of new vehicles here is staggering. The Model S easily outsells any competitor's luxury car in the same class, you'd have to combine all A6 / 5 series / E Class sales to even hope to show the same numbers. And I can see why -- if you want to plunk down all this cash for a new car, why not get something truly new, not something outdated?
My uncle is very frugal and has spent years looking at buying a new car and then up and ordered a (very base) Model S with the reasoning, if I'm spending all this money, I want to spend the money on future tech, not old tech.
Even sitting in my 2016 car this morning, in the cold, I was thinking how silly it is that I have to wait for the coolant in the car to warm up before the heater starts blowing hot, and how funny all of the ICE cars look with steam coming out of the exhaust on a cold morning. It already feels out of date.