The "trunk" in the Roadster is about 3 times the size of the trunk in the prototype Roadster I rode in 4 years ago. But for my hiking trips, I would need to use the passenger space. Not to mention that I usually include a week or ten days hiking not at a lodge, and for that there are times when we need two vehicles for a trail that does not loop back to its starting point, such as Paradise Valley to Larche Valley. I would not want to leave the Roadster in a hiking trailhead parking spot all day. I also would not want to leave it for two weeks at the heliport, when I go up to the wilderness lodges. (I don't do heli-hiking, but my two favorite hiking places are helicopter access.) So with the Roadster I'd have the added hassle of finding indoor storage and then getting a ride to and from the heliport. All in all, the Prius is the vehicle for that trip. A 245-mile range means 200 miles leaving a buffer, and in the absence of fast charging, that means an hour and a half to a location, and the same back, with some chore or visit or leisure activity that draws me there, and though the Roadster is enormously more comfortable than the prototype of 4 years ago, for longer trips than that I don't think it would be comfortable.
I understand and appreciate your reluctance to leave a $100,000 car unattended for days on end while you're off hiking. While it may be possible to arrange stops so that a longer road trip would work, it's still not nearly as practical as that other car you own.
I don't see what the problem is. You leave your house unattended for days or weeks at a time, just outside laying around, and it costs more than $100K, presumably. So why not the cheaper car?
On the contrary: My neighbors are nearby and people are always looking out for each other. The car would be parked where it's entirely unattended much of the time. Unless I arranged to leave it in a garage and that would be a big nuisance, compounding the already big nuisance of stopping for several hours to recharge on the road or having to split the 7-hour drive into two days.
Congrats Daniel! Personally, I have no use for a 2 seat rocket. I wish Tesla would make a 250 mile range NOT sport sedan. I'd be perfectly happy with a 10 second 0-60 and a top speed of 80 MPH, I never go over 65 anyway. I wonder if a less powerful engine would get better Miles/KWH. The Model S is too high end for me. I'm not holding my breath though. Given the small number of cars they can produce in a year, they aren't going to try to compete with the 'more affordable' mass produced EVs like the Leaf. They will make their money on luxury vehicles and their higher profit margins. Don't suggest a Leaf, they aren't selling them here yet. No idea when they will.
Bruce; Tesla's goal is not to build two-seat rockets or BMW-class EVs. The Roadster and the Model S are means to an end. In fact, they are going to build another hundred or so Roadsters and then quit making them. The Roadster is the only kind of car where a tiny, under-capitalized company can break into the mainstream car market. High-end sports cars are hand-built and cost six figures. That's where you can get your toe into the door if you're a start-up like Tesla. Step two is a luxury sedan. Mass-produced, but on a much smaller scale than an economy car, and commanding a price tag where that level of production is possible. I believe there's talk of a Model X in the same category. I'm very unclear on that one. But Tesla's ultimate goal is to build an economical family sedan. I don't know when that will be. I'm going to say 5 years, but that's just my own wild guess. You'll probably be able to buy a Leaf before that, as Nissan will sell nation-wide once the Tennessee plant is operating. But I have so much confidence in Tesla (and so little confidence in Nissan after my experience trying unsuccessfully to buy a Leaf, here in WA there they do sell them, if you're lucky enough not to have your order lost, re-entered, lost again, reassigned, taken away, assigned a third time and then left to rust indefinitely in port) that I believe that Tesla's cars will be better than Nissan's. As for efficiency of a less-powerful EV, electric motors are very different than ICEs in this respect: An ICE has a very narrow ideal operating range: an ICE with enough power to give high acceleration will have low efficiency in normal driving; but an electric motor can be very powerful and still extremely efficient. Thus the Roadster, which is one of the most powerful cars on the road, is also about the most efficient, its only competitors for efficiency being other EVs. Technological advances may make EVs more efficient in 5 or 10 years than the Roadster is now, but in the world of EVs, less powerful does not mean less efficient (though driving slower, even in a Roadster, is more efficient).
Well, they've broken ALL of those promises, but they do intend to sell nation-wide once the Smyrna plant is in full operation.
I just got a call from the trucker. He's in Colorado and has a stop in Boise and hopes to get here Wednesday afternoon or evening.
If I'm lucky. Latest is he hopes to get here in the morning rather than the evening. I'm pretty hyped up. All the worse when something goes wrong.
I know this was tongue in cheek... but I have to bring up a REAL situation along similar lines. One that I complain about constantly (sorry, Daniel... definitely off-topic!) So I ride a bike everywhere. I have really expensive bikes, and I have older, cheap bikes. Everybody thinks that I'm a FOOL to ride a $5k bike into town and leave it locked to a lamp post (as do I, which is why I never do it). Yet nobody thinks twice about driving a $60k Lexus into town and leaving it on the street. Crazy, right? You can't come from nowhere and build/sell a low margin, high volume car and hope to survive. They're only doing what they have to do to stay alive. You do realize that 0-60 in 10 seconds is blisteringly fast, right? And that almost nobody does that? So funny to see this listed as a "reasonable" acceleration when it is more than anybody needs. Ever. The Muscle cars of yesterday couldn't hope to come close to that time... and we all thought those things were dangerously quick. Now we have minivans with 300+ hp engines. Now we have to realize that nobody is going to spend $125k for a car that DOESN'T accelerate better than that.... All this is freaking insane. But again I digress.... Wonder no more. The answer is no (assuming that by "engine" you mean "electric motor".) In fact in broad, general terms, a larger electric motor will be more efficient than a smaller one when powered reasonably. They are starting there, yes. And as Daniel points out, the high end is not their end-game. You do realize that they've stopped producing the Roadster now, yes?
Darell: They're still building the Roadster, but not for much longer. They got a 100-unit extension from Lotus, which will bring their total Roadster production to 2,500, IIRC. The trucker phoned yesterday and told me he HOPES to arrive between 9:00 a.m. and noon. He will phone before he arrives. It is 7:00 a.m. and he has not phoned yet, but I don't expect his call until he's an hour or so out, which would mean any time between 8:00 and 11:00, if he's not delayed. I realized yesterday that I didn't know if the car would arrive with the temporary registration, since it's being shipped from Chicago but I bought it at the Seattle store. So I phoned, and they agreed to overnight the temp registration by Fed Ex. That package is "On Fed Ex vehicle for delivery" now and scheduled to arrive "by 8:00 AM" (I don't know why they didn't think to send it several days ago.) Once it arrives I probably won't post here until I've driven it to pretty near empty and it's plugged in. Unless it arrives with insufficient charge and I need to plug it in before driving it, but I expect it to arrive pretty near full. I am very excited, but anything could still go wrong. :noidea: :clock:
Yes and no. It's not the difference in value that matters, it's how much easier it is to steal a bike than a car. Plus, a stolen bike's easier to sell than a stolen car - you don't have to register, insure, or licence it. What? There's no live video feed so we can watch the big truck pull up, too? Surely you've alerted the media and there'll be a cameraman on board for the first drive?
No live video feed. No cameraman. No news media. This is AWFUL! I am too distracted to read a book. I am too agitated to sit and play computer games. I cannot go downstairs and exercise because I have to be available to answer the phone when the trucker calls, and that could be any time in the next four hours. I cannot phone someone to pass the time talking because I have to keep the phone clear for when the trucker calls. I'm going to go nuts. And I have no idea if the trucker will call when he's 3 hours out, one hour out, or five minutes before he gets here. The temporary registration arrived as promised at about a quarter to 8. They also sent me (separately, arrived late yesterday) a box of Tesla swag: A baseball cap, a coffee cup, an insulated coffee thingy with the little hole so you can drink it in the car (ain't gonna be NO food or drink in THIS car!!!), a Hot Wheels Tesla Roadster Sport, which looks only vaguely like the real thing, a packet of "VIP Cards" ("Refer a future Roadster owner. With the Tesla VIP Card, your friends will have direct access to our VIP services including overnight test drives, Roadster parties, and exclusive gifts.") and a greeting card that says, apparently referring to the box of swag: "A small gesture of appreciation from Tesla. - Elon" Elon's name is not actually signed.
Exactly. Easier to steal a bike than a car, and easier to steal a car than a house. And MUCH more likely that something bad will happen to an expensive car parked and plugged in at a motel for two weeks than to a car parked in the city during a couple of hours of shopping. At least where I live.
I split the difference and ride my $1500 bike and leave it locked to a flimsy bike rack. It worries me, but good luck so far. Plus, since it's a 3-wheeled recumbent Catrike, it's fairly recognizable and not something you sell to the first person you see. We may not go 0 to 60 at top acceleration, but people do like to use something close to that for brief periods (0 to 20, or 60 to 70 when passing). So people do make use of the more powerful engines. But I agree, it's a lot more than needed, and a lot more than what we had 20 or 30 years ago. Now that we have more stop-and-go traffic, it's more unnecessary. But the blistering fast engine is bigger and heavier, and for the long range and high acceleration that the Tesla roadster gives, they need a lot of batteries. If you dial that back a bit, you can make a lighter and less expensive car that still has the same range. But as you say, the efficiency of the engine isn't improved.
