Tesla Model S, Third Fire

[mtdoc]

most highways have street lights

But only in the USA
In europe you will find highways with street lights beyond cities
only in Belgium.

I've never seen street lights on highways beyond cities in the US and I have driven across the country several times.

We're not that wasteful
Just sayin...

[Frost]

We're not that wasteful
Just sayin...

That's good.
I believe the image of the US abroad, within that area
(massive waste of energy and resources), is often
far worse than the reality.

[johansen]

what i meant was, at most every 10 miles you're going to find an existing grid connection cross the highway, and where it does, there's probably a street light, gas station, lighted billboard advertising, or something else.
no, we don't have streetlights on every highway..

[nctnico]

Try putting a couple of fast chargers along a highway (which is where you need fast charging points). A Dutch company is planning on installing 200 fast charging station throughout the country (so far they build 5). They need 40 million to to that. 40M/200=200k. The cost to rent the land from the government is not low.

most highways have street lights, or a gas station at most every 10 miles, and if you live in an area where you're more than 30 miles away from civilization, you're probably not going to buy an electric car anyways.
second.. the cost to rent land from the government, for electric charging stations, well, there's your problem right there.

I'd love to see you pull >200kW from a feeding wire intended to power a few light bulbs.

[AG6QR]

what i meant was, at most every 10 miles you're going to find an existing grid connection cross the highway, and where it does, there's probably a street light, gas station, lighted billboard advertising, or something else.
no, we don't have streetlights on every highway..

That's not true in the US.  In the most urban areas, perhaps, but not outside the cities.

I've driven across the country on Interstate 70, and there's a 110 mile (177 km) section in Utah with no services whatsoever.  Granted, nobody would consider that to be prime territory for EV adoption.

Much closer to urban areas, consider suburban Marin County, California, across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco.  Not far from the Tesla headquarters, it's unquestionably the heart of EV territory. http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1086200_half-of-all-electric-cars-are-sold-in-5-cities-can-you-name-them   

Between Tam Junction (just 6 miles from the Golden Gate Bridge) and Pt. Reyes Station , it's about 27 miles on Highway 1 with no gas stations, no street lights, and no billboards.  Gas stations aren't spaced every 10 miles, even in close-in suburban counties.

[zapta]

On long stretches of highways we can use refueling technique like the one below. A Tesla sedan follows a Tesla Super Battery Tanker (TSBT), it attaches a charging cable, keep following for 3 hours, disengages when the battery is 70% full and continues for an hour until the next TSBT. Piece of cake.

[tom66]

Flats typically have 63 to 80A service in the UK in my experience. Is it that much of a stretch of the imagination to consider they could put in a few 80A EVSEs?

EVSE equipment is quite simple - relatively so - it's a bunch of contactors to make the equipment safe, and some ground fault testing logic. All the charging magic happens in the car. So it's not expensive to make.

Most EVs have the HV battery isolated from the 12V system and the chassis, which allows them to use more efficient nonisolated charging (buck/boost topology, vs SMPS transformer.)

BTW, Tesla shot up nearly 40 pts on news they've shipped 20% more cars than anticipated, 6,900 in Q4, or nearly 21k year in. Tesla's competitors (BMW Gran Coupe, Audi A7, Merc ALS) sell about 10,000~20,000 cars a year.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_6_Series#Production_and_sales - ~21,000 units
http://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2011/01/audi-a7-sales-figures.html - ~8,000 units

[zapta]

Here is another mishap. A half of a stolen Tesla wedged in a building and the other half celebrating July 4th.

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Stolen-Tesla-High-Speed-Chase-Fiery-Crash-in-West-Hollywood-265813821.html

"I haven't seen a half of a car wedged between buildings before".   ;-)

[nctnico]

Find a picture of a car which has hit a tree. Usually there is not much left of it. I've seen pictures of a car launched into roof as well.

I still don't understand why the police in the USA keeps chasing suspects in cars Over here they stop a chase when it is clear the driver is not going to stop. They use their radios to coordinate a natural road block ahead like a traffic jam at which point they catch the suspect(s) without putting other people's life at risk.

[dannyf]

there's a 110 mile (177 km) section in Utah with no services whatsoever.

there are stretches of I40 (I20?) in SC  that have no FM stations. That's just how isolated it can be.

Tesla is selling, I think, on Musk: that guy is a born-again Edison, a truly revolutionary industrialist.

EVs are unlikely to take off in the next 20 years - I don't think there will be sufficient advances in battery technology to break the $40K barrier (inflation adjusted). Plus, the model of "charging EV cars" is unlikely to win out over the model of "swapping out batteries".

[XOIIO]

im not really up for conspiracy theories but ffs how many normal days pass by when something falls of from a truck and the driver didnt even notice it? and drives trough it?

Happened to me about a month ago. A truck dropped a big bundle of metal cable (about 5-8mm thick, heavy stuff) right in front of me, and I was a bit tired and didn't react very quickly. Drove right over the damn thing. It pulled my brake line off a bracket but did not sever it.

And no, I wasn't following closely, he passed me and cut in front.

did you stop and take the cable at least?

[justanothercanuck]

I still don't understand why the police in the USA keeps chasing suspects in cars Over here they stop a chase when it is clear the driver is not going to stop. They use their radios to coordinate a natural road block ahead like a traffic jam at which point they catch the suspect(s) without putting other people's life at risk.

I'm surprised they didn't get Tesla to shut the car down remotely.  I know GM cars with OnStar can do this, although I'm not sure how often it's done in practice though.

[MacAttak]

Find a picture of a car which has hit a tree. Usually there is not much left of it. I've seen pictures of a car launched into roof as well.

I still don't understand why the police in the USA keeps chasing suspects in cars Over here they stop a chase when it is clear the driver is not going to stop. They use their radios to coordinate a natural road block ahead like a traffic jam at which point they catch the suspect(s) without putting other people's life at risk.

Anyone in their 40's today grew up watching The Dukes of Hazzard, Every Which Way but Loose, The Blues Brothers and Cannonball Run. And those in their 30's are likely to have watched more than a few episodes of Cops. Of course there is going to be a high-speed chase.

[SeanB]

Here they rarely do high speed chases, more like the tracking companies follow the vehicle and corner it, then the police come to fill in the paperwork. They know the 2 freeways the thieves will take, and where the bottlenecks are. It is going either to uMlazi or kwaMashu, if inland a little to Inanda. If stolen they go to a parking garage and leave it for a day or two to see if there is a tracking device in it.

[AG6QR]

I still don't understand why the police in the USA keeps chasing suspects in cars Over here they stop a chase when it is clear the driver is not going to stop. They use their radios to coordinate a natural road block ahead like a traffic jam at which point they catch the suspect(s) without putting other people's life at risk.

Notice that, in this particular case, the crash happened about 10 miles (roughly 16 km) away from where the chase stopped.  So they DID stop pursuing him (though not intentionally -- they stopped because the police car crashed), and he caused that crash anyway.    It was in the grid of Los Angeles city streets, so there were many routes he could have taken; not just one route with one natural road block.


If the police have a known policy of calling off a chase as soon as the pursued vehicle starts going fast, then that provides incentive for the bad guys to flee and put lives in danger.

[zapta]

Tesla are launching a $30,000 model in 2016-7 with around 200 miles range. At the moment they can't build the Model S fast enough.

At the moment they are heavily subsidized. Sufficient subsidies can make anything financially viable.

[dannyf]

that provides incentive for the bad guys to flee and put lives in danger.

I am not sure if the "no chase" advocates understand that. And even if they do, I don't know if they care about it, as long as the criminals get away.

This is a country where everyone has rights, other than law-abiding taxpayers.

[zapta]

If the police have a known policy of calling off a chase as soon as the pursued vehicle starts going fast, then that provides incentive for the bad guys to flee and put lives in danger.

I saw one night a bizarre police chase on highway 1 southbound toward Santa Cruz. It as a white van going at 30mph max and 10 or so police cars behind it at safe distance. Looks like the driver wanted to gain time to consider his options. I wonder what strategy would have him avoiding capture, maybe a friend waiting with a boat at the end of the pier.

[mamalala]

that provides incentive for the bad guys to flee and put lives in danger.

I am not sure if the "no chase" advocates understand that. And even if they do, I don't know if they care about it, as long as the criminals get away.

You guys noticed the other part of the post that brought up the no-chase thing, right? Namely the one where police coordinate on radio to have the road(s) ahead of the suspect blocked.

Greetings,

Chris

[zapta]

By your logic the police might as well just break out the RPGs and or launch some Hellfire missiles from their helicopter. If the end justifies the means...

The good old Appeal To The Extreme falasy. This is your logic, not his.

[zapta]

That's 30k before subsidy. Also, I wouldn't call the subsidy "heavy". In the UK it's only 5k on a 50k car, when it saves the tax payer far more than that over its lifetime.

Around here it is based on tax rebates, cheap government loans, HOV privileges, carbon payments from competitors, no fuel road taxes and more. This is heavily subsidized. If it's so good, let it stand by itself.

[SeanB]

Those will disappear soon enough when 50% are hybrid or electric in any case. When the fuel and road trough starts to get smaller ( most of that money is not used for road maintenance as it was originally designed to do in the initial bills) you will find there is going to be charges levied on EV as well.

I would love an EV, but the price is still at the point here where they are classed as luxury vehicles, and prices as such. Not appearing as used vehicles either at any lower price either.

[mrflibble]

On the subject of fiery vehicular fun, does anyone have a good historical source on fires/splosions (Michael Bay badaboom) in the early days of the combustion engine?

[dannyf]

but the price is still at the point here where they are classed as luxury vehicles,

This is the absolute sickening part and representative of the unfairness in our economic system.

EVs are a luxury item, consumed pretty much exclusively by some of the wealthiest part of the society. Yet, it is heavily subsidized by the rest of the society, by the middle class and the poor. It is a wealth transfer from the poor to the rich.

For all those liberals talking about fairness and income inequality, they have purposefully turned a blind eye to this regressive income redistribution, because it benefits them greatly and fits their political agenda, the poor or fairness be damned.

[nctnico]

On the subject of fiery vehicular fun, does anyone have a good historical source on fires/splosions (Michael Bay badaboom) in the early days of the combustion engine?

To what purpose? EVs are just as old as cars with a combustion engine.