Tesla EV discussion

Batteries for US Teslas are made in the US. European Teslas use batteries made in China.

Unlike the diesel innyour mobile heater, electricity can be produced sustainably.

Now we have someone in Palm Beach who drove into Tesla protestors
A man in Berkely shooting Tesla protestors with a stun gun

Some poor sod will die soon

Edit: Comically most of the people who are anti the Tesla protestors turn up in big ICE pickup trucks

People could chill out a bit. No one needs to die for this. The stuff that matters is Tesla Q1 2025 sales.

Q1 will miss a lot of cars because of the retooling of all the four factories for Model Y Juniper - and certainly some Elon-headwind.

It will be interesting to see how they can grow their sales again.

You are wrestling with what folk drove in the 20th century!

Swiss electricity is either hydro, nuclear or solar. I have driven to the UK, west coast of France and number of times, My Tesla works out the journey and recharge stop for me without problem or hassle. I have never come across a Supercharger station where I could not charge immediately.

Why try driving an EV and come back?

Here in Qatar, Chinese cars are everywhere and people seem very happy with them. ICE still rules here as petrol is a mere 40 pence or so a litre. Personally, I drive a huge 4X4 as size is King here too,when you get Dodge RAM pick ups on your bumper daily, it’s a must.
Having said that, I’ll be trading in my X3 in Switzerland for an X5 or X7 sometime as I do regular Zurich to Devon trips and Electric doesn’t cut the mustard with the shorter range and longer charging…plus I am a petrol head.

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Can it? In the volume we need, without nuclear?

Done that, wasn’t a fan. Keep in mind, I drive a lot. I have a few cars, so spread the KMs, but on the one I use more (a cheap Dacia Duster), I’m not up to nearly 400k KM in 5-6 years. That’s not counting all the other cars.

e.g. this weekend I did Zurich->Rome and back (out Friday night, back Sunday night). Train, plane or bus wasn’t really sensible - 3x people + 1 dog. FlixBus & plane wouldn’t take us (not without a lot of planning for the dog), and the train worked out to nearly 1000chf return. By car, it was a little over a tank there and another back; plus some fuel used while in Rome (let’s round up and say 3x tanks of fuel, so around 240chf) + tolls (another 100chf combined) - so around 340chf. 7 hours each way, which was more than easy to do (left at 1700 after work, and arrived around midnight)

Short of buying a Chinese EV which charges in 5 minutes, this wouldn’t be doable in an EV at the moment.

Admittedly I haven’t driven an EV in 3-4 years, but I haven’t seen an EV capable of 700-800km on a 5min charge yet. Not to mention how much electricity costs on the highways (with the GLC I refuel at the local station here, and again at a local station in Italy - rarely fueling on the highway).

  • Do EVs have a place? Certainly.
  • Can I buy a cheap EV, a-la-Dacia, and do 400k KM with nothing more than maintenance costs? Possibly.
  • Can I use an EV as a direct replacement for my lifestyle? Not really.

I do have hopes for hydrogen - China is investing heavily, and sales have gone up 30% or thereabouts in China. Sooner or later, that technology will come to us, once we stop bickering over bottle top attachments…

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Well, according to ABRP, this trip would take about 20h with my Model 3 SR+ from 2022 - and cost about 122 EUR.

Not sure I’d do that on a weekend.

If you like to drive that much - more power to you.

You do realize that sales of Hydrogen powered cars are insignificant everywhere and it doesn’t need much to create a 30% increase. If a dealer registers a few demo cars, that actually moves the needle here in Switzerland…

:blue_car::checkered_flag:

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Axa - the worst is, once back in Switzerland, I was potting along at 95ish (in a 100) on cruise control… only to be met by a flash… seems like I ignored a 80 sign a few meters back, and blitzer.de didn’t have the mobile camera.

rainer_d: that’s a cool site, quite like it. Any idea why it seems to stop every hour or so to charge for 20 mins though? Is that a setting you chose?

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Aargau > Milano is 3 hours in the night. Sometimes 4 hours during the day.

7 hours to Rome…it should have been an interesting drive :slight_smile:

Closer to 2.5 hours from where I live (not that far from Lucerne). Then you obviously don’t enter Milan, and skirt around it. Being honest, I was VERY lucky with traffic on Friday night.

Once on the A1, find a friendly Italian plated car - and keep them company. I can tell you I wasn’t the fastest car on the road, not by a long shot. I estimate that one of the cars that overtook me must have been in the 240-ish range based purely on my speed vs the speed at which they approached/overtook me…

I tend to be a bit calmer - find an “appropriate” speed, put cruise control on, a nice audiobook (or lately the beeb’s “world of secrets” series which is quite nice), relax a bit and go with the flow. Stop every 5-6 hours to let the dog pee and refuel, and move on.

EDIT: As an example, when I moved to Zurich, I would do every second weekend back in London - again, driving, as I didn’t want to fly my dog…

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So folks, a practical question:
What happens if you run out of electricity and your car stops in the middle of nowhere.
Does the TCS come along with a generator and a gallon of petrol for it?

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Because I only have the 60kWh battery. Additionally, charging with a Tesla is not linear. The more „full“ the battery gets, the slower it gets.

Thus, you drive the battery down to 5%-ish and then charge to 60-80%.

ABRP lets you choose between longer or shorter breaks. As well as a huge amount of other parameters.

Choosing a Model S Palladium or an EQS450 would probably reduce the travel time significantly.

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Ha. Just like my Galaxy. :nerd_face:

I believe they tow you to the next charger. That’s usually much faster then trying to charge with a generator or a mobile battery…

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I searched and

If your electric car runs out of charge, it won’t suddenly stop like a gas-powered car. Instead, it will provide multiple warnings as the battery level drops, typically around 10% to 15% capacity. The vehicle may enter a “turtle mode” or “limp home” mode, reducing power to help you reach a charging station safely, Once the battery is completely drained, the car will stop moving. You can then call roadside assistance for towing to a charging station or use a portable charger if available. Safety features like hazard lights will still function due to a secondary 12V battery.

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Getting tough out there

On Monday, BYD launched a new electric sedan with roughly the same specs as a Tesla Model 3 for half the price, Elektrek reported.
The new Qin L EV comes with BYD’s smart driving tech and gets over 330 miles of driving range, starting at $16,500 (in China) vs Model 3 $32,100.

Depending on how well calibrated the battery is, you can usually go for about 20km in a Tesla after it has hit zero.

I presume that if you run out of battery power on the motorway here you will be treated in the same manner by the Police as if you had run out of petrol or diesel?

(I suppose you could say the fuse blew!)