Got the opportunity to ride in a Tesla P85D last night.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

How does it accelerate from say 40 or 50 MPH? Acceleration is more important in passing situations when you are already moving. Ive also been able to accelerate myself out of problem/dangerous situations where braking (another important feature) or doing nothing and maintaining my current speed would have meant disaster.

Jumping from zero to 60 may be wow cool. But being able to jump from 50 to 70 is far more useful

I haven't driven one personally but since Tesla doesn't have a gearbox it has rubber band like torque all the way. Whenever you press the pedal, stuff happens instantly. Even if a top end Ferrari manages to blow it into dust past 100mph it won't mean that a Tesla won't be way faster than any average car still at that speed.

What I'm mostly amazed of actually is that Tesla is the most popular new car purchase in Norway at the moment. Usually electric cars suffer horribly from cold climate, they can lose up to 50% battery capacity from the get go. Perhaps they have heated battery packs.

[SilverZ06]

See Rule #4

[MrRiplEy[H]]

See Rule #4

[BuckShot]

Top speeds or performance above 0-60 has practically zero meaning in normal driving. If you blow anything away at 0-60 you practically own the streets. You need to worry about 60-200 only at the time when you are ready to worry about losing your drivers licence or even getting jail time.

... If you get caught. In many rural US towns, when you pass a cop at night, it is almost guaranteed that you won't see another that cop that night. There's often only one cruiser on duty, or up north, none.

[Widewing]

Formula Ford.

Golly-geeit, that was another Thing I was Going To Do Someday.

That and flying lessons.


*sigh*

Need another gig I guess.

There's many good racing schools where you can learn in a Formula Ford (on street legal tires, generally). I attended the Skip Barber school back in 1979 at Lime Rock. A good place to find out if you really want to invest in the expense of buying, maintaining, preparing and transporting a race car. That's an advantage for vintage racing. You don't need to invest in the latest chassis, nor buy the best engines. Much less expensive, but still fun and reasonably competitive.

[Masherbrum]

OP is impressed by instant acceleration, then people jump in to criticize low endurance and top speed.  Where did anyone claim anything about top speed or it not being a battery-powered car that can run well over the speed limit for hours?

These aren't valid criticisms of the Telsa IMO. 

Btw, I'm pretty sure if you want to run a certain distance as fast as possible so that the battery lasts just barely long enough to make it and then still have enough juice to crawl back to a charging station, you can program that in and have it tell you what speed to run. 

Instead of just flooring it and hoping for the best, you can understand your tool and use it effectively.

I have asked the same thing and realize the same thing has happened for 10+ years here. 

[ink]

Yep because as I said, someone talking about racing on street is usually one.

dont wanna get into a pissin match and we all think different...but when I assume something about someone and call him a disrespectful name....I think it would be respectful to say hey..."sorry man I said that about ya, hope there is no hard feelings"

instead of trying defend what I said.


 

[PR3D4TOR]

OK, I'm done making fun of the silly little euroboxes. 


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGqltPXF9eg

[Shuffler]

Electric cars have a long way to go before they could be mainstream.

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[Shuffler]

I can careless about Dodge, etc.    This thread is about the Tesla and the advancements made so far, while expensive, are incredible.

Actually even fast takeoffs will get you a ticket.

It's relevant because in the daily situations of most of the planet a Tesla owner will dominate in traffic lights etc. Theoretical top end speed is useless unless you're on autobahn or on a track.

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[BoilerDown]

Btw, I'm pretty sure if you want to run a certain distance as fast as possible so that the battery lasts just barely long enough to make it and then still have enough juice to crawl back to a charging station, you can program that in and have it tell you what speed to run.

Follow-up on this old comment I made:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nkqMZBR-ak

So essentially, the gear-shifting part of racing is taken out, but the battery heat aspect is put in.  A bit of Battletech, as it were.  The cars with the best cooling and the drivers who manage the heat the best, will win.  Sure you can go full blast, but should you?  How fast can you sustain?  That's EV racing.

[Vulcan]

Electric cars have a long way to go before they could be mainstream.

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The biggest problem is energy generation imho. Here in NZ 85% of our generation comes from renewables (hydro, wind, thermal). The rest comes old school coal burners. If we switched out petrol/diesel fleets to EV then we'd have to more than double our electrical generation... using coal. Which kind of defeats the purpose of 'zero emissions'.

We need a cheap, safe, clean method of electrical generation before EVs can become mainstream. Right now anytime I meet a smug EV owner I call their cars "coal powered"...   

[BoilerDown]

Even the dirtiest coal-powered electricity charged EV is much cleaner than it would be if it were replaced by an internal combustion engine.  So you'd still come out ahead.  What's more, that same EV will get cleaner and cleaner over time, as the dirty power is replaced by cleaner power.  No gas vehicle can make that claim.

[Mister Fork]

INteresting opinion on a 3 year old topic bruh.  Boiler - you're forgetting that the amount of emissions used to create a EV from all the rare-earth minerals for the electrical systems and lithium batteries is the same as running a Hummer for 18 years.  Yes, that beast. After 18 years, you break even on CO2 and environmental harm from an EV compared to a domestic large vehicle. Not to mention, most of the EV components are not recyclable - they'll end up in a landfill where most car parts get melted down and reused in new cars.

[Shuffler]

Even the dirtiest coal-powered electricity charged EV is much cleaner than it would be if it were replaced by an internal combustion engine.  So you'd still come out ahead.  What's more, that same EV will get cleaner and cleaner over time, as the dirty power is replaced by cleaner power.  No gas vehicle can make that claim.

Diesels are actually pretty clean.

Volcano in Hawaii puked more co2 yesterday than mankind has since we have been on this planet.