A Most Peculiar Test Drive – Follow Up

Re:A Most Peculiar Test Drive – Follow Up by ericd on Wednesday February 20, 2013 @03:59AM (#5249549)

A bunch of annoyed Model S owners recreated the trip recently in a convoy of 6-8, they all made it just fine without towing, etc. It doesn't seem bad for road trips in between the correct segments, of which there are more every month.

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Re:A Most Peculiar Test Drive – Follow Up by Shivetya on Wednesday February 20, 2013 @12:53PM (#5251960)

So some product enthusiasts get together to prove someone who has little experience with the product how wrong he was. Might have well as used Tesla engineers for all the credibility that has.

As in, enthusiasts are the last people I would care if they could do something. I have seen enthusiast get over a 1000 miles from the tank of a Passat but I would not vilify anyone else who could not.

Having read a few stories on both sides of the issue, including Consumers Reports own issues with the range displays provided by the car its clear that this car is only for enthusiasts / first-adopters at this stage.

It has quirks, guess what, quirks don't cut it in the transportation business. People just expect things to work. If your gasoline powered car started up cold and said you had only ten miles range and twenty minutes later reported sixty would you just shrug it off?

It really comes across that Tesla has some work to do on accurately representing the potential range of the car at all times. Read the Consumer's report story to understand the confusion that they ran into, now tell me, what do we expect from a reporter who hasn't driven the car until the day he was writing the story?

http://news.consumerreports.org/cars/2013/02/tesla-model-s-w...

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Re:A Most Peculiar Test Drive – Follow Up by ericd on Wednesday February 20, 2013 @06:48PM (#5254238)

When it's unusually cold, I expect some conservatism, which translates into charging more than I think I probably need to. It's a universal that a piece of technology will operate worse in extreme conditions than in optimal ones (I'd say 15 degree weather counts). The Model S' specificity probably hinders it in this case, since people would naturally build in some buffer in the cases where they have to read an imprecise readout. Since the range readout is so precise, the expanding range is definitely a kink that needs to be worked out.

Edit: My gasoline car will sometimes show my tank as almost empty when I first turn it on, but over the next 10 minutes, will slowly but magically reveal much more gas in the tank. I don't think it's unacceptable to have any kinks whatsoever in a car... they're pretty common actually. It's just that we haven't yet learned to deal with these ones like we have with the gasoline ones.

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Re:A Most Peculiar Test Drive – Follow Up by MartinCron on Wednesday February 20, 2013 @02:28PM (#5252658)

this car is only for enthusiasts / first-adopters at this stage

This is so totally correct, and I don't get why Tesla isn't OK with that message. Even though it absolutely isn't right for everyone or every situation, they are still selling them as fast as they can make them. Mainstream problems are for mainstream products. They don't apply here.

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Re:A Most Peculiar Test Drive – Follow Up by ericd on Wednesday February 20, 2013 @06:53PM (#5254263)

Unless you consider luxury car buyers to be strictly enthusiasts, I don't think that it is only for enthusiasts at this stage. Except for speed of refueling, it's objectively better than comparably priced luxury cars in almost every way. It didn't win the car of the year awards due to its novelty, if you look at the performance testing breakdowns for roundups including BMW's, Audi's, Maserati's, etc, it did exceptionally well by any standard.

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Re:A Most Peculiar Test Drive – Follow Up by senthilnayagam on Wednesday February 20, 2013 @02:14PM (#5252556)

be a expert of or be a novice I am ok with both but dont fake being a expert and cast aspersion when you dont know the jackshit like "regenerative braking"

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Re:A Most Peculiar Test Drive – Follow Up by MartinCron on Wednesday February 20, 2013 @01:29PM (#5252244)

Phrases like "made it just fine without towing" and "between correct segments" just support the conclusion that the Model S is only moderately bad for road trips :)

Which is fine, if money were no object, I would have an electric city car for daily use as well as a big luxury car with heated seats and a huge gas tank when I wanted to go on road trips.

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Re:A Most Peculiar Test Drive – Follow Up by ericd on Wednesday February 20, 2013 @06:58PM (#5254286)

The towing remark was to say that it wasn't exactly borderline for any of the 8, that the reporter was the exception rather than the rule.

Meh, the segments cover every trip I take frequently on the west coast, and the same will be true on the east coast once I-95 is covered.

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