First Tesla Model S test drive with Elon Musk (video)

Okay. I have not driven a Tesla or an ACP-controlled car. But I've driven my Prius, which applies re-gen braking when I lift my foot off the pedal, and my Xebra, which does not. And I much prefer not.

However, you say it will be possible to turn it off, and with that I'd be entirely satisfied.

I like the idea of re-gen, but not the idea of lift-to-slow. I want my braking on the brake pedal, and I like the way the Prius does the brake pedal: re-gen braking when you press lightly; friction braking when you press hard, or below the useful re-gen speed. I don't like the way the Prius does the accelerator pedal. Yes, you can coast, by applying just the right amount of pressure. But it's easier to coast in the Xebra where you just leave both pedals alone.

 

You mean that there is no neutral position on the accelerator of the Roadster, as there is on the Prius? That's even worse than I thought!

My point is that it would be much better to keep the braking on the brake pedal. And, as with the Prius, have the brake pedal apply pure re-gen until you press it hard enough to indicate that you need more braking than re-gen can supply, or the car was going too slow for re-gen, and then apply friction braking.

The Prius does it right on the brake pedal, and this is one of the things I love about it.

The Prius does it wrong on the accelerator pedal, and it sounds as though you are saying the Roadster takes that wrong philosophy to an extreme. Apparently Darell likes it that way. But I like the way my Xebra does it: The accelerator is only for accelerating, and the brake pedal does all the braking.

BTW, here's an odd discrepancy: The Zenn (in some versions) has re-gen braking. Sean Rarey of Grants Pass Electric Vehicles has discovered, and confirmed on multiple vehicles, that disabling re-gen braking on the Zenn increases range.

 

Ha. I knew it. All this talk about pulse and glide in an EV that people go on about in various threads is nonsensical. The fact that there is a neutral position on the prius' go pedal was a lucky fluke and the whole concept of pulsing (accelerating "briskly") in a EV is nonsensical.

I agree that gliding in an EV would be nice. I sure was impressed with Darrelldd's video of the EV1 gliding at 60 mph and barely slowing down. http://priuschat.com/forums/ev-electric-vehicle-discussion/58140-darells-ev1-video.html.

Overall, would the occasional glide, if done right, actually use less electricity than always on regen?

 

that music is iritating.
and i dont want too drive with that bright LCD screen during the night so i hope it can be dimmed..

but it looks nice haha

 

Pulse and glide improves mpg in a gas car because the gas engine is so much more inefficient outside a very narrow range of rpm and power output that it's beneficial to run it in that very narrow optimal band (the pulse) and then shut it off for a while (the glide). The Prius was the first car to make this approach practical, because of the ease with which it shuts off its engine, and the relatively efficient way it starts it up again.

An EV is a horse of a different color entirely. An electric motor (unlike a gas engine) is extremely efficient at low power output. Therefore the most efficient way to drive an EV is to accelerate gently, and then maintain constant current to the motor (analogous to constant throttle in an ICE) until you want to stop, and then coast (glide) to a stop (keeping in mind that following the flow of traffic may be more important than maximizing efficiency).

However, an EV that requires you to be either applying power or applying re-gen, without a "neutral" accelerator position, won't allow you to do this. And it's easiest when re-gen is on the brake pedal, and the accelerator is only for sending current to the motor.

I don't think the Prius's pedal operation is a fluke. I think it was designed the way it was intentionally. Toyota wanted it to feel like an automatic, which moves toward a constant, slow, speed when you do not touch the accelerator, but which has a spot where just enough gas is given the engine that it seems to coast.

 

Until I hear something official from the original design team that they designed the pedal to provide the user a neutral glide point, I'm going to say it was a fluke. A fantastically useful fluke mind you....

I've never heard Toyota officially advocate pulse and glide.

And I want to something like Argonne labs to tell me whether some gliding in an EV is better than always-on regen coasting.

 

Toyota will not advocate P&G. Toyota wants you to "just drive it." I'm not saying they sat down and said "our pedal must have a neutral point. I'm saying that their intention of making the car behave like an automatic, necessarily meant that there would be a neutral point.

Sean Rarey of Grants Pass Electric Vehicles disabled the re-gen in several Zenns, and found they uniformly got greater range. I'm not sure you could convince Argonne labs to repeat his experiment.

 

Thanks, that's a start.

 

Hi Fibb...,

There were a few pages in "The Prius that Shook the World" about the pedal operation. Its no fluke, it is designed that way.

The differences are that they put the coast point waaaay back, and the full off deceleration is much greater than most automatics they were trying to mimic.

And that is actually good, because it gives a whole bunch of accelleration dynamic range. I find that very handy in traffic.

 

I agree completely, based on first-hand knowledge.

I recently test-drove a Tesla Roadster from Menlo Park. The salesman let me drive it, alone, for 1 hour in the back country just west of Palo Alto! I just had to sign a paper saying if I break it, I bought it.

My overall impressions:

I really had a problem with the regen braking. Yes, take your foot off the accelerator and you slow down quickly. For that whole hour of driving (city, country and highway), I never had to press the brake pedal to slow down, which was hard to get used to. The salesman later said that the brake lights turn on whenever you take your foot off the accelerator and the car slows down.

Extremely quick and nimble and quiet. Kind of fun driving on a 2-lane road in the hills. 0-60 in 3.9, which is blazing, but it actually felt faster! (probably because the top was down.) I passed a Porsche 911, a Corvette, and several Mustangs as if they were standing still. I really tested the cornering, and the car stays amazingly level, no roll. Just battery and motor and lots of cars in the way. Great for the thrill of going fast, but a very unrefined car with terrible visibility except straight ahead. I like my Prius better. The Prius is 4 times more complex and refined and practical, yet only 1/4th the cost. No power steering. No power mirrors. Only a speedometer and tachometer (which is pretty stupid). Small 3†diagonal LCD for all the rest. Crappy stereo.


Even if I had the money, I'd rather buy 4 loaded Prii (for family members) rather than 1 Tesla Roadster.

 

Geez! Lucky! I didn't think they'd allow test drives, let alone a 1 hour unsupervised test drive. Did they run your credit or something or they just knew you were made of money? I'm not sure if they let a young looking (34 year old) Asian guy test drive if I showed up in either of my cars: my Z or my Prius.

Thanks for your info, btw.

 

Why not?
If you arrive in a BMW 7 or a MB S...I am sure they will let you take a shot.
Go borrow one from your rich friend. There are plenty of BMW, MB in bay area.

 

I thought that could be turned on and off??? But when I first talked to a Tesla rep (two years ago) and asked about the regen, I felt that was the wrong way to do it. However, it's much cheaper and easier to do it that way than to do it the way the Prius does.

At that time they were still going to have the two-speed transmission, and they were going to have very light regen in second gear, and harder regen in first gear.

Not every owner of a muscle car always drives it fast.

Only two kinds of people are going to buy a Tesla Roadster: People who want a Ferrari but a Ferrari is too slow for them, and people who absolutely MUST have an electric car, and the Roadster is one of very few EVs available today, and I think it's still the only 4-wheel PRODUCTION EV capable of driving on the freeway.

 

LOL! Err, I can only think of one person I know w/one of the above. I know he had a BMW 7 series but he lives in WA state. I wouldn't feel comfortable asking him to borrow it either.

I've driven them both at Mercedes and Lexus driving events but on a closed course.