Prime steak and Tesla

[inco]

With everything so close and nearby, not to mention the heavy traffic and no real highway system, Vancouverites are trapped in the city. So a Tesla makes a lot of sense and with so much Asian money floating around it's understandable. Stanley Park is THE place to see in the city, but the whole BC coast is drop dead beautiful. Used to live there and then.....oh well that's history. Sigh!

[acdii]

I saw a Tesla in some TV show, the door handles move out when you open the door, pretty cool, bout would hate to have that break like our one touch windows do.

[Ted Swing]

I actually saw a Tesla Roadster a month ago. Pretty rare compared to the Model S.

 

 

Also, I saw two Volts this morning on the way to work.

[tr7driver]

With everything so close and nearby, not to mention the heavy traffic and no real highway system, Vancouverites are trapped in the city. So a Tesla makes a lot of sense and with so much Asian money floating around it's understandable. Stanley Park is THE place to see in the city, but the whole BC coast is drop dead beautiful. Used to live there and then.....oh well that's history. Sigh!

I want to move there when I retire, but I don't think I'll be able to afford that. We have a condo at Whistler that I should have sold in the frenzy ahead of the Olympics.

[GrySql]

Last Saturday I was planning a trip to my Dealer in Los Angeles.

As usual, I looked at the CalTrans traffic map on my computer to see if I could even get there, given our horrible traffic.

I noticed an incident on the busiest freeway with CHP on scene, a Tesla was blocking the HOV lane.

The CHP notes on that incident mentioned that they could not find a tow truck able to move the car, it was too low to the ground.

 

Anyway, one hour later I was driving at that exact spot and I noticed a CHP car sitting on the inside shoulder lane with it's red/blue lights flashing.

The Tesla was still there, dead - the CHP had not found a single tow truck willing to pick up the Tesla.

Somehow they had moved it to the side of the road to unblock that super busy part of the HOV lane.

Many times I've seen Tesla's around here being put on flatbed tow trucks but that day none were to be found.

 

Yes, they are nice looking cars, even with a dead battery on the side of the road.

 

(BTW, that CalTrans website map is very handy, lots of info, cameras, CHP/police info with times, locations and incident specific info)

[talmy]

Our son has a Tesla. He lives in our area (Portland, Oregon) and has used it on trips to Seattle and "Silicon Valley" as well as around the Oregon Coast. His fiancée is considering an electric or plug-in hybrid for her next car. "Alternative" driving seems to be running in our family (my late parents and grandparents had a few diesels in the 60's to 80's).

[acdii]

Some day I want a car that runs on goats milk. Gets you where you are going and gives cheese as a by product.

 

Don't ask where I came up with such a BAAAAAAAD idea, it just popped into my head.

[DirectorMan]

You wouldn't KID me, would you?

[acdii]

Sorry, I was farming for laughs. Looks more like I got plowed under. I have a habit of making cheesy jokes that are a little too corny. And yes I AM milking it.

[DirectorMan]

Don't have a cow, man!

[hybridbear]

DirectorMan & acdii, you guys made me literally LOL reading your jokes, thanks for adding that humor :) :hysterical:

[acdii]

I'm on a roll today, I had one of the women here in the office laughing so hard tears were rolling down her face. We got a new refrigerator today, so when I got the call they were on the way I called my wife and talked to her in a chinese voice, it made my coworker laugh uncontrollably.

[DirectorMan]

Bad puns are an addiction for me. I once said that I wanted to name my car Poetic so that I could wax Poetic. I also once said that I wanted to throw a book of poems out a window so that I could see poetry in motion. Rimshot!

[GrySql]

 

 

 

 

 

[B25Nut]

The Edmonds Tesla has had it drive train replaced four times since they started testing it. That's $15K each time. It has come out that many other owners have had the same problem. Tesla is now saying that the actual problem was not in the drive train and that a 50 cent shim in another area and some adjustment to the wiring fixes it. The drive trains were replaced as a quick way to please their customers.

[murphy]

The Edmonds Tesla had close to 25 different drivers who were apparently driving it as hard as they could. I've seen one picture where it was headed up hill with huge clouds of smoke coming from the rear tires. I wonder if they complained of poor tire mileage after that test?

[GrySql]

The Edmonds Tesla has had it drive train replaced four times since they started testing it. That's $15K each time. It has come out that many other owners have had the same problem. Tesla is now saying that the actual problem was not in the drive train and that a 50 cent shim in another area and some adjustment to the wiring fixes it. The drive trains were replaced as a quick way to please their customers.

On my fun 70 mile drive to my Dealer near LAX I have seen at least 4 of them dead in the water. They were either being flat-bedded or a CHP/tow truck was on scene. Plus the one I passed in the AZ desert that was going very slow on I-10 in the 100F+ weather. I have also see many, many others doing ok, there are quite a few in these parts.

[murphy]

It seems that a Tesla driver needs instruction in energy management. Determining the distance between two points is not enough. The elevation changes between those two points are also important. Energy usage is very dependent on speed. Far more energy is used at 80 mph than is used at 55 mph. The one going slow in AZ was probably low on energy and minimizing energy usage in the hope of making it to a charger before running out.

[GrySql]

I think you're right.

There is the temperature factor for the batteries too, especially in extremes like that days 100F+ AZ weather.

 

I'll bet the normal tendency when a new Tesla driver buys one is to leadfoot it, they can be so fast.

Like us with Hybrids and Energi's, we had to get acquainted with the cars behavior before we could maximize it's performance.

[B25Nut]

But even novice FFH drivers have never been F.O.R.D.

[talmy]

It seems that a Tesla driver needs instruction in energy management. Determining the distance between two points is not enough. The elevation changes between those two points are also important. Energy usage is very dependent on speed. Far more energy is used at 80 mph than is used at 55 mph. The one going slow in AZ was probably low on energy and minimizing energy usage in the hope of making it to a charger before running out.

The in-car computer in the Tesla does energy consumption logging and predictions far more sophisticated than our hybrids. And they do give training to purchasers. They try to make driving the Tesla as simple as possible but it still takes planning -- you can't simply jump in the car and drive anywhere. Gasoline powered cars have over a hundred year head start on cross country travel (I doubt that people took their Baker electrics outside of town) and I'd say that coast to coast travel in a Tesla is about as much of an adventure today as doing it in a gas powered car early in the 20th century! You can see their Supercharger map http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger and it's getting better but won't take you everywhere by a long shot.

[GrySql]

In another post last year I wrote that I had passed a Tesla about half way between Phoenix and Palm Springs (Quartzsite, AZ), it was going very slow (55?) in the right hand lane. I surmised that the Tesla was low on juice and was going slow to conserve the battery, it was a very hot day. That area is where I usually stop for my last fill-up of the cheaper AZ gas before entering CA.

 

Last week as we were heading west from PHX we pulled into the last entrance to Quartzsite and I noticed that behind a chain hamburger restaurant there was a new bank of 8 Tesla electric Supercharging stations and sure enough there was a Tesla 're-fueling'.

The Tesla's are now covered for that barren stretch of desert, I'll bet the owners are happy about it too.

 

http://www.teslamotors.com/findus#/bounds/36.22253638308556,-109.35563156640626,31.02043031003785,-119.12797043359376?search=supercharger&name=us&place=quartzsitesupercharger

Edited May 15, 2015 by GrySql

[corncobs]

I was talking to a Tesla owner while in Atlanta. He was planning a road trip down to Key West.

 

In general he said it's not too difficult to get the car charged all the way down.

Something that seemed really odd was that there aren't any charging station in Miami or vicinity.

[lolder]

I think there's some kind of dealer in Miami. They brought three cars from there over to Marco Island, FL on the West Coast for weekend demo drives at an auto repair facility. I drove one and it was very luxurious, smooth and powerful. List price was $121K !

[murphy]

There is no such thing as a Tesla dealer.

 

There are three Tesla stores and a Tesla store / service center located between Boca Raton and Miami. All are owned by Tesla. The nearest supercharger to Miami is in Marathon in the Keys to the south and in Port St. Lucie to the north.