Tesla Releases First Official Photos of Model S Sedan 378
Thelasko writes "After several pictures of the Model S were leaked onto the internet, Jalopnik has the first official pictures of the Model S. One of its most striking features is its massive touchscreen in place of the center console."
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Touchscreen in a car? (Score:3, Interesting)
I own an iPhone and the touchscreen is great because most of the time I'm using it, I'm looking at it. A touchscreen would be great if it also had physical buttons for the important things, such as de-fogging the windscreen.
How delicate is this screen? (Score:5, Interesting)
I heard it would retail for $50,000. That's... (Score:3, Interesting)
I heard it would retail for $50,000. That's 25 Tata Nanos. It's a little more than 2 of my current car when it was brand new (I drive a '07 Honda Civic). Oh, and my Honda can just... you know... fill up when it gets to the end of its range.
I think I'll pass on this. The hybrid Aptera still looks promising though. I think Tesla kinda blew it. The sportster is cool, I live near their HQ and see them all the time. It may end up as a very special collector car. Hmmm... the roadster might be a better investment than the company.
Re:Imagine buying one of those... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:And... the electric car is still not quite ther (Score:5, Interesting)
It sounds like parent is being snarky but he's not. The U.S. has no public transit. There are probably less than a half-dozen major urban markets where you can survive without a car. Everywhere else it's pretty much a daily necessity. And I speak as one who doesn't own a car -- I am a bigtime anomaly and my choice not to drive does force me to make sacrifices.
Re:Touchscreen in a car? (Score:3, Interesting)
When I was a teenager, I loved simple collection of, easy to find, large knobs and levers on my dad's 1971 Volvo 142E. I knew where every control was by memory and never, ever, had to take my eyes off the road to adjust anything. Without looking, or hardly even thinking, I could easily adjust the heater, defroster, A/C, windshield wipers, or the radio. The knobs and levers were large enough to easily be operated by a driver wearing winter gloves. The clicks, range of motion and other sounds, gave clear auditory and tactile feedback, confirming that I had properly adjusted the knob or lever.
Over the last 20 years, I have been disappointed at how it has become necessary to take my eyes of the road, for several seconds, to adjust much of anything. It is no longer possible, on modern cars and trucks, to find or operate the controls by feel, without looking. I would prefer to be able to keep my eyes on the road at all times. The complicated digital controls on modern cars and trucks are a step backwards from the standpoint of safety.
At least, I can still find the steering wheel, gas pedal, brake and clutch pedals by touch, without looking. Those have not yet gone digital, thank goodness.
Re:American cars.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Pft. I've spent hundreds of dollars adding these types of things to my car. I'd give anything to get my hands on that touch-screen.
Anyway, people don't know what they want if it's available yet. Sure, the average person might not even realize you can plug an iPod into a car. But when someone new gets in my car and discovers the interface for the first time, they immediately fall in love with it. Ditto with all the other features. People look at me weird when I tell them I've put a computer in the car, but once they see it, everyone loves it.
So, long story short, you never know what people want until you offer it to them, and if you think that innovation and creativity are bad things then you must be employed in banking or accounting rather than marketing or r&d.
Re:cars are for driving (Score:3, Interesting)
No imagination, kids these days. How about using another bit or two for the electro-expansive touch overlay to provide tactile buttons? (braille styles). Consistent UI design could mean the tactile part could be determined from the display itself (eg, buttons have shaded x on lower, y on higher). Lots of ways that this could be done.
Re:Imagine buying one of those... (Score:3, Interesting)
for navigation system, touchscreen control is imho much better and faster to use than normal dials. radio presets can be changed by the controls on the steering wheel.
Re:American cars.... (Score:5, Interesting)
"WTF? What if I stand near my car and don't want it to open or start up?"
Funny you said that. Renault, the french car manufacturer, had this kind of technology a few years back. The car would unlock if it detected you were nearby.
In later models they decided to put a big lock/unlock button on the RFID card. It happened that people were not so trusting on the technology and were never sure the car was really locked. ( in case of theft, this is a critical difference between getting your money back from the insurance or walking to work for the next few years ) So people relied on old school: go inside house - drop the RFID on the table, go back outside and check the car is unlocked. I had a colleague doing exactly that at work - drop its keys and go back in the parking lot to check the car is locked. Kind of silly.
They had all other kind of little problems linked to theft or general annoyance. At the gaz station - you are too close to lock your car, yet your are not in and some thief could steal something in it. People washing their car were annoyed to have the car contiousely locking/unlocking, ...
Shouldn't the real article be? (Score:4, Interesting)
From tfa:
The Model S unveiling is Tesla's last-ditch hope at a future in the business. Although it does not have financing for the production of the Model S, or even a site for a factory to produce it, Tesla plans to take deposits for the $58,000 vehicle from customers, a move at least one Tesla executive deemed fraudulent, prompting his departure.
I don't know if this source is trustworthy, but, if it is, then shouldn't the real headline have something to do with this?
Re:American cars.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Also keep in mind that Ford started out producing luxury vehicles that were more expensive than the competition. The Model T didn't come until years after the company was founded. And even when it did come out, it took years of refining the assembly process as well as various other cost-cutting steps (to include paying generous wages and decreasing work hours - which also helped increase sales to Ford's own employees) to drive the price of the Model T to it's infamously affordable level.
Re:And... the electric car is still not quite ther (Score:5, Interesting)
It's amazing people still think the big oil companies killed the electric car and not the inherent difficulties of making a car run on electricity and still have an acceptable range.
The big car companies have crushed [almost all of] their electric cars. The projects ran at a loss, but not a year-to-year loss. Cancelling the programs made no sense unless the goal was to crush the technology itself. If you can't put fuel into it, the major automakers won't put it on the market. Veggie oil is not a major threat because it is already illegal to utilize it as a road fuel. All the gov't has to do is start cracking down on that sort of thing. In rural areas it is not unusual to have spot inspections of diesel vehicles to check their fuel for red dye, indicating that an off-road fuel was used in them, and that you haven't paid your road taxes. Homemade biodiesel is subject to even more issues; I suspect most home producers of biodiesel are in violation of Methanol storage restrictions. The federal government forced California to abandon emissions restrictions which would have been undesirable mostly to oil companies - automakers are more than capable of meeting the requirements.
If you don't think Big Oil is running this game (hint: practically everyone at or near the top of the Bush administration profited directly from investment in Big Oil) then you're not paying attention, plain and simple.
The S-Series Tesla is a very nice electric car, which it should be for the price of 55 grand! It still is not a car I could drive even if I could afford it.
What's the classic quote? Electric cars are only capable of serving the needs of 95% of the population, something like that? The vehicles could be vastly cheaper if they were produced on a wider scale. Tesla doesn't have the benefit of economies of scale to work with, so every car is expensive. Their business plan has always been to produce first the very expensive roadster, then the moderately expensive sedan, and later the inexpensive sedan (or was it coupe?) Your objection about the price is a stupid one. Your objection about the vehicle not serving your needs is valid, but the fact that it doesn't suit yours bears little weight. You are one person.
I don't think I'm alone in not being able to reasonably buy two cars - an electric one for most stuff and a gasoline one for when I need to go on a longer trip. The S-Series would not even be able to get me reliably to a city 2.5 hours from my home, like Boston - and it's not unusual for me to drive to a city like Boston.
Well, I do have two things to say about that. First, it's not clear that it's actually sustainable to have the majority of people driving themselves on long trips no matter what the vehicles are running on. Second, most people make those kind of trips astonishingly rarely. For people with those usage patterns, we have car rental. You can take public transportation to your destination, then rent a vehicle.
Amazing that even at this price, it still isn't there yet.
Amazing that you're so egocentric that you think that because it doesn't suit your needs, it's not a salable product.
Enough talk ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Is this car :
1. priced to be less than $25,000 ? If not, forget the mass market. Keep diddling your rich customers (declining market) for your kicks if you like.
2. designed with the right looks/capacity ? After looking at the pics and the trunk space, this car passes that test. Someone with real world needs can actually use this car for everyday use, instead of being a fashion statement at the Golden Globe awards.
3. designed so as to go into mass production (>60,000 cars per year in the first year, and potentially rising later) ? If not, forget it. This is related very closely to 1.
4. designed so that (battery pack cost / time to replacement) is no greater than $500 / year. If not, forget it. No one in their right mind would want even a cheap electric car that costs a few months' mortgage per year to upkeep.
See, its not so difficult to get a practical car on the road, if your priorities are straight. However, the fact that these people are teaming up with Mercedes is not a hopeful sign of any desire to go past the Hollywood set. In other words, they are setting themselves up for failure (out here in the *real* world). Had they gone with a cheap Japanese or Indian carmaker, it might have been exciting.