Tesla To Unveil Its $35,000 Model 3 In March 2016 318
An anonymous reader with the news, as reported by Ars Technica, BGR, the WSJ, and more, that Tesla, in the course of the company's most recent earnings call, has announced plans to show off its much-anticipated Model 3 in March, 2016, and somewhat more tentative plans for actual availability; "late 2017" might be optimistic, but it's a start. You can listen to the whole earnings call here. Other bits gleaned from this call include a "late summer" planned delivery for the Model X SUV, and the fact that the PowerWall household battery is sold out until the middle of next year.
Upgrade the Gigafactory? (Score:5, Funny)
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Why? You want to go back in time to buy cheap Bitcoins?
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The funny thing is, you can get lead-acid batteries that last longer (15 years) and cost less than HALF of what Tesla is selling them for on a kWh basis.
Where exactly you can get lead batteries that last 15 years if you discharge them daily?
E.g. Crown 6-100-11 Battery - 12 Volts, 625 Amp-hours. Cost around $2000. Warranty: 1500 cycles to 80% DOD for five years. That is 12*625*.8/1000 = 6 kWh for 4 years only. And it weights 500 pounds, get a forklift to handle it and don't forget service it regularly.
Haven't quite got my attention yet (Score:5, Interesting)
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Just gimme gimme gimme that sweet Tesla JetPack! Fly for 30 minutes, charge it in the sky with wing-mounted solar cells, crashing = no! Call me Icarus-McDouchebag!
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The pickup is in the works...
http://jalopnik.com/tesla-will... [jalopnik.com]
Regarding the motorcycle, would you take a harley?
http://www.autoblog.com/2014/1... [autoblog.com]
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How did they make an electric Harley leak motor oil?
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You could get an electric motorcycle today: http://www.zeromotorcycles.com... [zeromotorcycles.com]
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it's not tesla, but it's an electric motorcycle... [evolvemotorcycles.com]
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they also have a less flashy one [evolvemotorcycles.com]
Re:Haven't quite got my attention yet (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Haven't quite got my attention yet (Score:4, Interesting)
I've thought about converting it to electric. When I was in high school in the nineties we had a Porsche 914 that had been donated with a blown motor and it was converted to electric and raced in the electric car classes. Pull the bed, get heavier duty springs from one of the late eighties 3/4 ton Hardbodies with the 8' bed, build battery boxes that attach to the frame rails, reinstall the bed with a hinge point aft of the axle to make battery service easier, move the transmission as far back as possible without cutting the floor too much, install the electric motor to the transmission with an adapter plate, then put more batteries under the hood and beef up the front springs. The biggest problem is getting the controller part right.
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It would be more lossy, also. It might be better to do it without a transmission at all. You don't need a lot of top speed on a vehicle like that.
While not as cool, I can afford an Elio (Score:4, Informative)
Here's to hoping that they actually go into production:
http://www.eliomotors.com/ [eliomotors.com]
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Thank you brother! #4095
Time to crank it up a few notches (Score:2)
Can't wait to see what this game-changer look like. If the car can live up to my expectation (including a drop in the price of battery pack), I'll certainly be more than interested.
And also think the success of this new model 3 will be necessary if Tesla ever want to enter the major league. With they business model of prepaid and get your car later (closely similar to how aircraft maker operate), Tesla depend on a huge cash entry to be able to multiply their assembly line and manufacture an decent number of
What, no "Model T" ??!??!? (Score:5, Funny)
Ok, ok, I know Ford would sue the bejezus out of Tesla if they did it, but... I so hoped that after the Roadster ("Model R") and the Model S (...well...), the affordable car for the masses would be the Tesla Model T. Can they at least spell out "Three" on the nameplate, with a big capital "T"??? Please ?? :)
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Could they sue? My understanding is that trademarks are only valid as long as you are actively using them, and Ford hasn't made a Model T in decades.
Tesla is the new Apple (Score:2, Insightful)
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Re:Tesla is the new Apple (Score:5, Informative)
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Are you shitting me? I have never had an iPhone, but I was supporting Palms and Blackberries when the iPhone came out. The first time I played with iOS, I could see they had nailed it. It was a way better interface than any other "smart" phone out there at the time.
I would rather have my Moto X than my wife's iPhone 5s, but I would never deny that when it came out, iOS was a game changer. Hell, it's the reason I even have a nice touchscreen android phone rather than a Blackberry-by-Google like they had init
This isn't really news (Score:2)
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The news here is the date for the unveiling of the new model 3. We knew they would unveil it during 2015-2016 but now we have a specific date. There's a lot of interest in the new Tesla model because it's huge potential for the future of the company (or in other word, prepare yourself to buy a lot of TLSA shares February 2016).
The part about the model X (the SUV) is about the date of the first delivery which is late summer. This is also important because it mark the start of another source of revenue for th
Any stats on how it will cope with -20 C temps? (Score:2)
Just wondering, since I've been waiting for this model to finally come out, now that I've switched to 100 percent green power and bought four solar panels through Seattle City Light.
Be great to know if it can cope with the winters in the Rocky Mountains of Montana, Idaho, BC, and Alberta.
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I have a friend who raced in the Iditarod this year. (For the clueless, that's a 1000+ mile dog sled race in Alaska.) Temperatures were consistently -50F (-43C), and his Lithium Ion batteries for his light worked flawlessly. I would be more worried with the 12v lead acid battery (yes, it still has one for accessories) than the L-ion battery pack.
Oh, and one of his dogs was named Tesla.
Market changer (Score:5, Interesting)
The 3 will be a market changer for the low-end of electric vehicles. If they hit $35K with 200+ mile range, it means all the other electric vehicles in that range, such as the Nissan Leaf, will also have to hit 200+ miles or drop below $25K.
Right now there are a number of cars with 80-100 mile ranges in the $30K-$35K range. They won't be able to compete with the 3 without some major improvements.
This also will shake up the used market. Right now 80%+ of Leafs are leased, so about the time the Model 3 comes online all the Leafs on the road today will be for sale. That's a lot of cars, all with 80-mile-ish ranges. Now if new cars at $35K have over double the range, the price of the used cars will be much lower. So if a 80-mile range is sufficient (perhaps for your second or third car in the family), then you'll be able to go electric at a fairly reasonable price in two or three years.
I think the long-term impact will be that most people who have a good place to charge their cars at home will consider electric cars after the Model 3 has had a couple of years to shake up the market. I would guess in five years it will be typical for families with more than one car to have at least one electric, and in ten years the majority of new cars will be electric.
I don't care if it's electric. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:How about some news about toyota and bmw? (Score:5, Insightful)
What's this constant crap about a boutique car factory that doesn't even sell 5000 cars a month? Give em a break and some time away from the spotlight to get their act together. Geez, it is worse than the iphones.
Hmmm maybe because /. community is interested in tech and electric stuff? And if you want more "business oriented" news may I suggest Forbes's website?
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Re:How about some news about toyota and bmw? (Score:5, Insightful)
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But have they been actively developed during that time? Have they had the kind of development effort that the internal combustion engine has enjoyed?
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Re:How about some news about toyota and bmw? (Score:5, Insightful)
You need to learn to read financial reports. Tesla indeed makes a unit profit on their cars even without the government incentives. They are just spending a ton developing two new cars (X,3) and building one of the largest factories ever built.
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Re:How about some news about toyota and bmw? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:How about some news about toyota and bmw? (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent should be modded informative, not Troll.
Re:How about some news about toyota and bmw? (Score:5, Insightful)
Amazon doesn't survive due to selling "zero emissions" credits that it gets from the Californian government to other manufacturers. I'd like to see Tesla make a profit without all the cronyism and end user tax credits.
Tesla doesn't make a profit because it reinvests everything into R&D and the capital equipment it needs to scale. It would be a bad sign if they did make a profit, as it would mean that they don't have any ideas on where to spend money on growth.
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PR is news for nerds ... now
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The summary isn't about 'tech' and 'electric' stuff, but about an announcement of the price of a car model during an IR event. Copypasted not from Forbes, but from WSJ.
Wait what? Your answer isn't making any sense. Did you really understand what I've wrote?
No mention of increased range, capabilities of new battery packs, options, nothing. Just an estimated price and delivery date. Oh, and some hyped up BS that a battery pack is sold out now.
The parent is right. This kind of bean counter shit hardly whets my tech appetite. Not sure how it satisfies yours.
Re:How about some news about toyota and bmw? (Score:5, Interesting)
We're going to pay attention to this simply because my wife's fourteen year old car crossed 160,000 miles on it last month, and she'll probably seek to replace it around the time it hits 200,000 miles, so the timing is good. Get the first units out and into the real-world, let their bugs get worked out with the early adopters, then look at what a more stable version of the product looks like, cost-wise. Our main panel is fairly close to where she parks, so running some EMT along the ceiling and down the wall in front of the car to a subpanel or charging station wouldn't be any trouble either.
Re:How about some news about toyota and bmw? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because when something like this becomes more accessible to people, it will sell more than 5000 cars a month?
(I can haz DIY build-your-own-Tesla kit? Pretty please?)
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(I can haz DIY build-your-own-Tesla kit? Pretty please?)
Start with a bicycle or go-kart and work your way up. People have certainly done it. Get yourself a bunch of reclaimed laptop cells, build a pressure welder, and go to town on 'em. The powertrain (that is, motor and controller) can reasonably be sourced from eBay, or acquired via surplus.
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When Toyota or BMW makes a nice electric sedan that can outrace Porcshe 911 [youtube.com], than we'll give Tesla a break :)
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The Tesla is a car which feels like it was teleported from 10 years in the future.
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no it does not make sense. Because it's wrong. 39% comes from coal.
http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/... [eia.gov]
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Forget all those hydro-electric and natural gas power plants, those are just in you dreams! Solar too, there is NO SUCH THING as solar power. It's just a sci-fi fantasy from that shitty movie about the lady who rallies the good people against the evil solar power conglomerate!
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You left out nuclear. A good bit of US power still comes from Nuclear which is low carbon "No power source including Solar is carbon free".
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Re:Does This Make Sense? (Score:5, Informative)
Centralized generators run more efficient thermodynamic cycles than internal combustion engines which need to emit a widely varying power output over short time periods.
Centralized generators often run on hydroelectric and natural gas, which produce less emissions than coal or petroleum, and a few are solar, nuclear and wind-powered which have no emissions.
The end-to-end comparisons have been done with quantitative accuracy and show advantages to electric vehicles in many situations. You are hardly the first person to think of this consideration.
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Add to the list:
ICE cars produce emissions when they are idling at a stop light, electric cars don't.
Electrics have regenerative braking to increase efficiency, ICE cars don't.
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I rode in one a couple of months ago, and it seemed like it was only a couple of seconds. It felt very strange for the car to go completely quiet on every red light.
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Do you happen to know how long they have to be stopped before they shut down?
My Prius? Something like two seconds. That was one of the hardest things to get used to; it felt like "the car stalled at the light." A non-hybrid, I'm more dubious about. Maybe they just have to have a beefy enough starter motor that it can start out electric for the second or two it takes the regular engine to get going.
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Mine does it when I put the transmission to neutral and release the clutch (its a manual).
So... about 0.5 seconds?
Re:Does This Make Sense? (Score:5, Insightful)
There is also one more benefit that you sort of touched on a little, but maybe could use some elaboration.
One gasoline-powered car runs on gasoline. You can bend the gasoline a little by putting something somewhat comparable like ethanol in it, but in the end, you can't stray far from the basic formulation, and that formulation is made not just from fossil fuels, but from one specific fossil fuel. Synthesizing gasoline from coal or natural gas is theoretically possible, but expensive and impractical barring a crisis.
One electric-powered car runs on electricity. You can bend the "formulation" of electricity a number of ways (AC vs. DC; various frequencies, voltages, currents, phase counts) and interchange them pretty efficiently. The electricity itself can come from coal, several grades of oil, natural gas, wind, solar, nuclear, hydro, biomass, whatever. Effectively, an electric car runs on whatever is available.
For bonus points, an electric motor has torque where it counts: at the bottom of the curve. You need the torque to get the car moving, preferably before the motor has come up to speed. Electric motors will do that. ICEs, on the other hand, need you to temper your load by feathering the clutch, or using a torque converter or hybrid drive system.
Electric cars also have features in common with hybrids, to wit, regenerative braking and no idling.
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Of course, the most cost effective, no carbon emission larg
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Synthesizing gasoline from coal or natural gas is theoretically possible, but expensive and impractical barring a crisis.
There's no need to synthesize gasoline, when bacteria will make Butanol [wikipedia.org] for you. It's a 1:1 replacement for gasoline. The same process which produces it also produces ethanol and acetone.
Same problems as ethanol (Score:3)
There's no need to synthesize gasoline, when bacteria will make Butanol for you. It's a 1:1 replacement for gasoline.
And why would we want to do that? Butanol has some advantages but the feedstocks are the same as for ethanol and has the same ultimate problem of little/no net energy gain. You burn a bunch of fuel farming feedstock so you can make butanol/ethanol/etc which provides no more fuel at the end of the day than if you had simply burned gasoline/diesel without all the extra work. You still have the pollution problems, you haven't closed the carbon cycle and you've spent a lot of money for no actual energy gain
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Plus, we haven't talked about the energy required to built batteries, nor the energy required to recycle them after they die in about 5 years.
Tesla's been selling electric cars for 5 years. You would think they would notice.
Not only that, but Tesla warranties their batteries for 8 years unlimited miles. I guess they're going to lose a lot of money when all those batteries go bad in 5 years of use.
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But you do have conversion losses at each stage.
The big benefit is that electric cars use less power over all because they have no idle along with charging over night when you are using surplus power.
Re:Does This Make Sense? (Score:5, Insightful)
In a way, so you have with a gasoline car.
Fuel has to be transported from the refinery to the depot, then distributed from depots to the stations. And then fuel has to be burned (a huge conversion loss).
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It varies based on your electricity source. [shrinkthatfootprint.com]
That isn't the best article, but the chart makes it very clear how much this varies. Be aware that in many states in the US, you can choose your power provider. So if you really care, pick a power provider who uses mostly renewables.
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and you never import dirty power from quebec or the usa...
In what bizarre world you're living to think that Quebec's power is dirty? It's over 90% hydro electricity, you cannot really get more green than that.
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Maybe he never heard of Hydro Quebec.
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Re:Does This Make Sense? (Score:5, Insightful)
~66% of electricity in the us is generated using fossil fuels, 39% is from coal
In some sense we are trading the smoke-plumes around, but keep in mind it is vastly more efficient to regulate and control the pollution out of one stack than one million different little stacks.
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As long as the answer to that is "Fossil Fuels" (and particularly, coal), then we are doing nothing but trading one smoke-plume for another.
One thing electric cars are accomplishing is adding a layer of abstraction to the power. Sure, lots of electricity comes from fossil fuels, but that can change. The same car that can be charged by electricity produced by fossil fuels can also be charged by the solar panel on my roof.
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Literally five seconds on Google gets you here:
http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/612/are-electric-cars-as-environmentally-friendly-as-we-think-they-are
Yes. EVs are a lot--a LOT--more efficient than internal combustion vehicles.
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Start with a few facts rather than opinions pulled from the nether regions:
Coal accounted for 35% of electricity production in the US in 2014. This is down from 50% in 2005.
http://www.eia.gov/electricity... [eia.gov]
Thermodynamics:
Efficiency: Large power plants (such as coal powered plants) are very efficient. Internal combustion engines are very inefficient.
"According to a range of studies doing a ‘well to wheels’ analysis, an electric car leads to significantly less carbon dioxide pollution from electri
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In the U.S., the vast majority of electricity still comes from Coal.
As much as I inherently love the idea of a totally-electric car (actually, a true fuel-cell car would be even nicer!), I just can't get past the fact that everyone in the U.S., at least, has to be (conveniently) overlooking the reality of where the electricity comes from.
As long as the answer to that is "Fossil Fuels" (and particularly, coal), then we are doing nothing but trading one smoke-plume for another.
And worse yet, losing overall efficiency in the process.
Please someone who understands the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics better than I, tell me how I am wrong.
Fossil-fuel internal combustion engines in commercial vehicles are very inefficient. Electric power plants are very efficient. The dirtiest coal-burning power plant is many times more efficient (and emits less carbon per unit of energy) than the most efficient fossil-fuel powered commercial car. Therefore, an electric car using electricity derived from a coal power plant is still more efficient or "green" than a regular commercial fossil-fuel car. The equation gets even better when you consider our electric
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In the U.S., the vast majority of electricity still comes from Coal.
If my address was 1153 U.S. Street that would mean something. Meanwhile in Washington State where I live:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wi... [wikimedia.org]
For those who don't like images...
Renewables:
Hydroelectric: 76.6%
Nuclear: 8.0%
Wind: 5.6%
Biomass: 1.4%
Fossil Fuels
Natural Gas: 4.7%
Coal: 3.2%
?Other: 0.5%?
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I just can't get past the fact that everyone in the U.S., at least, has to be (conveniently) overlooking the reality of where the electricity comes from
1997 called, and they want their FUD back.
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As long as the answer to that is "Fossil Fuels" (and particularly, coal), then we are doing nothing but trading one smoke-plume for another.
In some cases that is technically true, but it's an overgeneralization that overlooks several fundamental differences:
1) Fungibility. By offloading power generation from the vehicle, we've decoupled the use of power from its source, meaning that we can swap in different types or sources of power. So, if you have solar or geothermal power at home, you can use that to charge your car. Or you can make use of an industrial-scale source such as hydroelectric or nuclear. You're no longer locked to a particular ty
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I'm probably in the same low-end car market you are, but a $75k car is not eye-poppingly expensive. A whole bunch of cars on the road cost that much, and many cars cost much more.
If I earned, oh, maybe twice as much then I'd be in the market for $75k cars. If Tesla offers a car at $35k, I'll get on the waiting list (and save up).
Re:How do you *lose* money selling it at 75K a pop (Score:5, Informative)
Their gross profit per car is about 28% (i.e. about $25,000 per car).
The company lost money because it is spending everything it makes on new factories (Gigafactory, etc.) and developing new models (X, 3).
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You don't understand finance do you? Start with 'capital accounts' vs. 'cash flow'.
They can't legally write off those costs in a single year.
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Right.
That's why they "lost money" in 2014.
My point was that they make money on every car they sell which the OP didn't seem to understand.
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They're investing a lot into infrastructure - charging stations, R&D, the giant battery factory - it's not surprising that they are losing money on paper right now.
It's obviously a gamble, but one they are hoping will pay off. They're still in the early stages.
Re:How do you *lose* money selling it at 75K a pop (Score:5, Insightful)
They're a small, growing company hoping to release an entirely new manufactured line in just a couple years. It would be bizarre if they were making money on a quarterly basis under these circumstances. I imagine if they were content being nothing but a niche player, they could be turning a profit.
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... or people who live in a condo or apartment, and don't have any place that they could actually park a second car.
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Why does a car need to be kept in a garage?
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Why does a car need to be kept in a garage?
In a city, so it's not stolen, and so it lasts longer. In the country, so it lasts longer and so you don't have to traipse through the wilderness before entering your vehicle.
You don't have to garage vehicles, but it's really much much better.
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Says a guy that keeps his car in a garage.
Types a guy who doesn't know how to create a complete sentence. I mostly have kept my cars outside. And that's why I've had one stolen, in SF.
Maybe try parking near where you are going, you know, the same general area that a garage would be in.
I have to walk through a certain amount of mud to get to the nearest convenient place to park, because I'm using my carport as a work space and I don't park there. Says the guy who lives in the country and knows what that's like, apartment boy.
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In a lot of the US and Canada we have these things called winters, and batteries and other components don't work so well when it's way below 0 C.
They work just fine. Range suffers a bit because you use part of your charge for heating, but everything functions fine.
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No, I ask because I was one of the first beta testers of GPS units, and when I would go into mountains and park all day to go skiing they would freeze and take 2-3 days to reboot. When I was in the CAF Army we had similar problems operating in the Rockies and in Northern BC and the Yukon - a lot of stuff doesn't work well when it gets wicked cold. Like -20 C or below. At -40 C (also -40 F) a lot of stuff just stops working.
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An electric car? Do you want to charge it in the rain?
There's absolutely no problem with charging an electric car outdoors in the rain.
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Everyone's usage is different. The longest road trip we take in a typical year is under 200 miles. If we were to go farther, having to stop for half an hour at a Supercharger station isn't terrible.
For my family, having a Model S for trips and a second car for around town such as a Nissan Leaf would be ideal. We have no need for a gas vehicle.
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