The only outside charging I’ve done since I’ve had the car (~5 months) has been at a supercharger a couple times. Even then, it was just to try it out. The 300+ mile range (~250 for day-to-day charge levels and use) is more than enough to get me around. There are a couple of free chargers in my town, but they’re not at spots I usually want to be and they’re not much better than 110v charging, which is horrible. So no experience with the adapter, though I leave the kit in the frunk, just in case. No app use, either, though I had one installed in the beginning just to see the locations, when I was paranoid about running out of juice.
Teslas have mechanical turn signals, wipers, headlights, and volume control on the wheel or on stalks, like any other car.
Navigation, radio / music selection, audio balance, and HVAC are on the center console, also like most other cars. The main difference is that they use a touchscreen. I don’t know about you, but I suspect most people glance at the center console whenever they make adjustments, regardless of whether it uses a touchscreen or knobs.
Huh, so you were paranoid at first, which sounds like my issue. I mean if I look back I think I only took a few trips over 300 miles in the past year, and the two work-related of those I rented a car anyways. Let us know when you go on a longer trip - I think the key is probably to limit it to say 450 miles to make it single-stop doable with lunch and fast-charging. Trips longer than that start to be better for gas cars I guess?
The paranoia at the beginning is both real and hilarious. “What if I have to take an unexpected 100 mile detour?!” In use, I’ve never dropped below like 90 miles of range left, tooling around the SF Bay Area.
You do have to be realistic with the range. The rated 310 mile range is only under near ideal driving conditions. In practice, I would probably get around 270 or so, with the way I drive, including use of HVAC and such. That’s still more than enough for my use case, so far.
I’m only fully confident of about 60 miles in my Leaf (although it’s listed as 92 in “Eco” mode with a full charge), and I’ve never had an issue. One close call happened, when I was specifically testing how much range I could get out of it, but other than that, it’s pretty much 99% of a perfect car for me, with that 1% being the fact that I can’t just decide to take a spontaneous day trip to Orlando in it, which I never do.
But range anxiety, yeah, sit down and let me tell you a tale. :D
I need a safe 350km before I can buy an EV. Target is 2021.
Well, there are already several cars on the market that will do that over here. I just wanted mine for super cheap since I don’t need anything longer. :D
I’m getting very EV envious, since I’d love to stop having to go to the gas station, but my apartment building doesn’t have a charger. There are several in my office parking lot, though, so a hybrid could potentially work.
But there are few interesting hybrids out there - the Volvo T8 XC60 could potentially be an option. Even with only a ~20 mile range on electricity I’d hardly ever use any gas since my primary driving is to/from work (~12 miles).
I mean, I also want to pay 35k euros or less.
The standard Tesla 3 has a range of 350 km, even higher if you upgrade the battery.
That’s the nominal range, not the safe real range, which overestimates by a lot.
We drive on highways here. Doing conversions from nominal to real ranges, I want an EV with a nominal range of 600km using WLTP standards.
The new VW ID Neo supposedly will reach that.
Are you sure you need it? I’m guessing you’ve thought it through but when I was planning it took an attitude change for me to think about “that once-a-year trip I take by myself… I can rent a car for that”.
I drive trips of 300+ km each way twice a month.
That’s a trip I don’t want to make a stop in. Anything longer I’d be fine recharging (once the network of charging stations improves, but that’s another matter)
Holy crap dude. Sorry to hear it. And here I thought Europe was all trains and focused on the sorts of things that made long drives unnecessary. :/
???
No, Spain has trains, and buses, and trains but travels of that distance (2 and a half hours door to door, our road infrastructure is excellent) are done by car most of the time. I would only consider a train or bus in a longer trip or if there are tolls that raise the price of the trip.
I don’t consider 2.5 hours a long drive at all.
Lot’s of people don’t use a car to go to work over here (unless your home of office is far from public transportation), but for middle distance travel, it’s the most popular method.
Part of the implied part of my post is basically that as an American I don’t know much of anything about what you deal with but the idealized image I have says no one in Europe would need to drive much anywhere.
I didn’t mean to imply I actually knew anything or was trying to give you advice. :D Sorry, I’m a dummy.
This part sounds awesome though. :D I live in Florida so pretty much everyone I know has a 15-45 minute commute most days. Walking/biking/public transportation to work? I know a single person who does that.
Yeah, we went over that in another thread, but there are more cars per person in most European countries than in the US (although the existence of pickup trucks make it hard to measure), we just use them differently (less daily use, more for travel).
Thus, EV range is very, very important over here. And I think that’s hurting adoption. At least in my case it forced me to buy a diesel car to use for the next 4 years (although I got a 35% discount over ticket price, so it was somewhat easy to swallow).
One benefit of knobs and switches and the like is that they are great areas for companies to create a luxury feel for little cost. A knurled aluminum or weighted, heavy-duty textured plastic switch or knob with a strong spring can impart a feel that is not to be underestimated when you are talking about expensive cars. A touchscreen feels the same no matter what car it’s in, pretty much, and the very ubiquity of them makes them less interesting in some ways.
Of course all of this is personal preference. I have said before and it still seems to be true that the true EV takeoff will be when, like now, the mainstream car companies get into the mix with actual car building chops.
Competition is a good thing. I don’t think it takes a crystal ball to predict that when (which was not a certainty a few years back) the big manufacturers get into the EV market that this would help it go mainstream. In general, demand has outpaced supply, even at the high early adopter prices—there’s room and a need for more suppliers in this space. Mass market pricing will only increase adoption of EVs, of course.
It’ll be interesting to see how much of a first-mover advantage Tesla managed to lock-in and to see how their software-centric philosophies impact things, long-term.
On the knobs and such, I confess, those aren’t my thing. I don’t mind, at all, the single display in my Model 3. I would have liked an on-windshield HUD for speed and perhaps miles remaining, but that’s it. All the other gauges (e.g., RPM, temperature) in a standard car dash mean nothing to me when driving an EV. The short, diagonal eye movement rather than short, straight down eye movement to see my speed isn’t an issue, either.
I’m more appreciative that the touch approach offers the flexibility of software updates. The UI for my model 3 has already changed (for the better in the vast majority of cases) in the 5 months that I’ve had it. It’s hard to flash update knobs.
You generally don’t need to, though. Admittedly, you do gain flexibility with a software only approach, but given how horrible that is with Windows, Apple OS, Android, etc., I’m not sure I want that in my car, really. Theoretically, yes, but in actual operation, not so much.
My thoughts about mainstreaming were mostly centered on what I saw as the excessive adulation heaped on Tesla for making cars that were to me rather poorly made, questionably executed, if innovative and often brilliant in parts, and vastly overhyped. At this point I suspect it’s a toss up whether Tesla will be going gangbusters in five years or be going belly up.