Confession of a TESLA Owner

[DesertIguana]

Yesterday I was at car lot yesterday as lease is coming to end, guy parks Tesla, and is also looking. I say to him how do you like your TESLA, he replies it is wife's car?

Answer is shocker as he remind me of all the days we had recently over 115 degrees, the temperature, not road speed. He said the TESLA Battery Power hate extreme heat, and he can gets the car cooler with windows open verses running AC. Also our hot summers temps cut battery charge life by about 25%.

Electric car are here to stay I guess, I drive high performance gas power machine. That is what we were both looking at.

 

[Rosseforp]

Yesterday I was at car lot yesterday as lease is coming to end, guy parks Tesla, and is also looking. I say to him how do you like your TESLA, he replies it is wife's car?

Answer is shocker as he remind me of all the days we had recently over 115 degrees, the temperature, not road speed. He said the TESLA Battery Power hate extreme heat, and he can gets the car cooler with windows open verses running AC. Also our hot summers temps cut battery charge life by about 25%.

Electric car are here to stay I guess, I drive high performance gas power machine. That is what we were both looking at.

I have not experienced that with my Chevy Volt at all, but it does have an ICE and 8 gallon gas tank to supplement the battery. I carry my own generator with me. LOL

~doug~

 

[Deano]

Yesterday I was at car lot yesterday as lease is coming to end, guy parks Tesla, and is also looking. I say to him how do you like your TESLA, he replies it is wife's car?

Answer is shocker as he remind me of all the days we had recently over 115 degrees, the temperature, not road speed. He said the TESLA Battery Power hate extreme heat, and he can gets the car cooler with windows open verses running AC. Also our hot summers temps cut battery charge life by about 25%.

Electric car are here to stay I guess, I drive high performance gas power machine. That is what we were both looking at.

I will stick with gas also. I like running AC when its hot

 

[T Bone]

FWIW, I’ve had one since December and had no issues this summer, either locally (and it does get kinda hot in FL) or on a long road trip in July.

 

[ctr]

I am on the fence having owned a Prius AWD-e for a couple years now. The gas milage is exceptional with 60+ mpg average and an occasional 80 mpg trip.

Age however has me looking at a vehicle with easier entry/exit and larger instrument readings. Probably a crossover, RAV-4, CRV, Forester type vehicle. Likely will go back to gas only for the simplicity.

 

[APBinNCA]

I am on the fence having owned a Prius AWD-e for a couple years now. The gas milage is exceptional with 60+ mpg average and an occasional 80 mpg trip.

Age however has me looking at a vehicle with easier entry/exit and larger instrument readings. Probably a crossover, RAV-4, CRV, Forester type vehicle. Likely will go back to gas only for the simplicity.

Why not an Ionic 5? There are several options from Hyundai/Kia.

 

[Mr. Shavington]

I was recently buying a car due to my relocation back to the UK and I looked seriously at electric or plug-in hybrid. After talking to a lot of owners I decided on petrol. I came out of it thinking electric probably isn’t a good technology for cars and I doubt the problems will be overcome. I expect all the governments will have to back down on their deadlines for electric conversion and maybe a more suitable technology will come along in the meantime. I wouldn’t want to be stuck with an electric car if/when this happens.

It wasn’t range that concerned me, or even the poor charging network. It was the limited life of the batteries (expected to be ten years) and the high cost of replacing batteries (I’m told about $20k for the average electric car, so the cars will be scrapped, not repaired). Also if you ever have an accident that compromises the battery cells then the car is a write-off. And car battery fires are extremely dangerous and hard to extinguish (they have to submerge the car in a water tank for days or weeks) - places are already starting to prohibit parking electric cars in underground car parks due to the fire risk. You can already see signs that used electric cars are difficult to sell and dealerships have masses of unsold stock. Insurance premiums are going to get very high, I think.

It’s still early days and some of these problems are going to need an answer before long. I just think it’s way too early to jump into electric cars. You can run a modern internal combustion car for 10, 15, 20 years easily, and an economical petrol or diesel car uses a lot less fossil fuel than an electric car (until the electricity is generated from renewable sources).

I’m interested in the technology, though. I’d miss the sound of a good V8 but I like the refinement of a silent pull-away and the instant acceleration of the electric powertrain.

Would never consider a Tesla under any circumstances. Crappy things. Not for me, but some of the mainstream car brands make very nice electric cars and without the longevity and cost issues they can be quite liveable and enjoyable.

 

[brucered]

I was recently buying a car due to my relocation back to the UK and I looked seriously at electric or plug-in hybrid. After talking to a lot of owners I decided on petrol. I came out of it thinking electric probably isn’t a good technology for cars and I doubt the problems will be overcome. I expect all the governments will have to back down on their deadlines for electric conversion and maybe a more suitable technology will come along in the meantime. I wouldn’t want to be stuck with an electric car if/when this happens.

It wasn’t range that concerned me, or even the poor charging network. It was the limited life of the batteries (expected to be ten years) and the high cost of replacing batteries (I’m told about $20k for the average electric car, so the cars will be scrapped, not repaired). Also if you ever have an accident that compromises the battery cells then the car is a write-off. And car battery fires are extremely dangerous and hard to extinguish (they have to submerge the car in a water tank for days or weeks) - places are already starting to prohibit parking electric cars in underground car parks due to the fire risk. You can already see signs that used electric cars are very difficult to sell and dealerships have masses of unsold stock. Insurance premiums are going to get very high, I think.

It’s still early days and some of these problems are going to need an answer before long. I just think it’s way too early to jump into electric cars. You can run a modern internal combustion car for 10, 15, 20 years easily, and an economical petrol or diesel car uses a lot less fossil fuel than an electric car (until the electricity is generated from renewable sources).

I’m interested in the technology, though. I’d miss the sound of a good V8 but I like the refinement of a silent pull-away and the instant acceleration of the electric powertrain.

Would never consider a Tesla under any circumstances. Crappy things and sold to you by a South African white supremacist. Not for me, but some of the mainstream car brands make very nice electirc cars and without the longevity and cost issues they can be quite liveable and enjoyable.

I got in on the last of the Tundra V8 gas guzzlers. It sucks on gas, but is great on everything else and is proven.

The new Hybrid Twin Turbo V6 trucks, or whatever they are calling them, have fake piped in Engine noise to the cabin. Ridiculous.

When we we shoppping for a RAV4, we looked and wanted a "hybrid", but there was an 8-12 month wait.

 

[ctr]

I got in on the last of the Tundra V8 gas guzzlers. It sucks on gas, but is great on everything else and is proven.

The new Hybrid Twin Turbo V6 trucks, or whatever they are calling them, have fake piped in Engine noise to the cabin. Ridiculous.

If only a Tundra would fit in the garage.

 

[brucered]

If only a Tundra would fit in the garage.

I've never had a garage, so that's wasn't an issue for me. But yeah, it's a bigboy 1/2 ton.

Here it is on a recent camping trip, emjoying some exploring and dirt roads.

 

[MFS]

The real tragedy with the batteries is they have a limited overall life span, degrade over time (adding to the range anxiety) and are very expensive to replace after the warranty has expired. The discarded battery, after very limited and minor recyling, goes to your local landfill.

 

[Lightcs1776]

I have no issue with an electric vehicle. I drove a Prius when I was out of town taking some training in the Carolinas and liked the vehicle. Of course, it also used gas. An all electric vehicle would be OK for local travel, but I live in NY while family lives as far away as Georgia. One lives in Alaska, but I doubt I will ever drive there. It takes me less than ten minutes to to fill my tank with gas. From what I understand, it is longer even with a fast charger. I also usdd to have a camper and plan on getting another in the future, so an electric would have to have some decent towing capacity. But again, if I were getting a vehicle to get to work and back, I would absolutely consider an all electric.

 

[deafficianado]

Battery technology will definitely get better in the near future. I hear that solid state is the next big thing.

 

[luvmysuper]

If the technology and infrastructure was ready I would consider it.
But it isn't, so I won't.

 

[ctr]

I have no issue with an electric vehicle. I drove a Prius when I was out of town taking some training in the Carolinas and liked the vehicle. Of course, it also used gas. An all electric vehicle would be OK for local travel, but I live in NY while family lives as far away as Georgia. One lives in Alaska, but I doubt I will ever drive there. It takes me less than ten minutes to to fill my tank with gas. From what I understand, it is longer even with a fast charger. I also usdd to have a camper and plan on getting another in the future, so an electric would have to have some decent towing capacity. But again, if I were getting a vehicle to get to work and back, I would absolutely consider an all electric.

Not to mention what cold does to efficiency. The Prius hybrid loses at least 25%, might be more in cold temperatures.

 

[T Bone]

It takes me less than ten minutes to to fill my tank with gas. From what I understand, it is longer even with a fast charger.

This was the reason I bought a Tesla rather than another EV - Teslas charge in about 15 minutes at the fastest chargers, whereas other EVs can take upwards of 40 minutes, so it's the only option that's really ready for prime-time for a road trip as far as I'm concerned, at least right now.

I drove from FL to NY over 2 days this summer, with 2-3 stops per day. Probably 3/4 of the stops were at the fastest chargers, and I didn't find those intrusive at all. They'd be at a Wendy's or Buc-ee's or a highway rest area. By the time I used the restroom and got food or a coffee, it was done charging. The other 1/4 of the time, yeah, not gonna lie, it was kind of annoying waiting another 10-15 minutes to finish. But the other nice thing is that hotels are starting to provide chargers, so when I stopped for the night, the car would be fully charged in the morning. (For free!)

 

[KW Driver]

I'll stick with gas or diesel until Hydrogen is in every gas station. or a pocket nuke in the trunk charging the electric motors. or N. Tesla's free energy generator is in it.

car batteries are too dirty for my taste.

 

[APBinNCA]

This was the reason I bought a Tesla rather than another EV - Teslas charge in about 15 minutes at the fastest chargers, whereas other EVs can take upwards of 40 minutes, so it's the only option that's really ready for prime-time for a road trip as far as I'm concerned, at least right now.

It's the 800V architecture, more cars have it now. Teslas are 400V, but they have their own charging specification. There are DC fast chargers that put out more watts than the Tesla chargers, but most have been unreliable until literally the last two years or so. Not knocking your choice as they are still more efficient than anything out there, but there are finally actual alternatives now.

As for the charging network, that really should be the first line of investigation before buying anything. My area has the latest public fast chargers and some of the older faulty locations are getting brand new chargers because those sites are heavily used. I am actually a good candidate for an EV based on the charging plus my electric company has a special EV rate that lowers my whole electric cost, but I just bought another gas car a few months ago for reasons.

I should add that I know several people that have the large pack hybrids and they plug in at home. They do 90% of their driving on electric and don't have the unnecessarily large pack for their usage. We could argue whether an unused petrol engine is better or worse than the extra batteries, but I don't care what other people decide to do(not my place to judge, mostly).

 

[Jim99]

Battery technology is rapidly evolving and we can expect better, cheaper and longer lasting batteries in the future. The cost of replacement is blown out of proportion and, with modular battery technology now coming out, a bad module can easily amend more cheaply be replaced versus replacing an entire battery as is the norm today.

If a battery for a Chevrolet Bolt goes for $8k, and the battery has a warranty of 8 years or 100,000 miles, I don’t see much to worry about. EV batteries rarely just die, but gradually degrade over time and use. It’s estimated from anecdotal reports that a Chevy Bolt only experienced a 12% degradation after 150,000 miles and 6 years. Not bad at all! If a transmission or an engine on an ICE vehicle fails, how much is the repair charge?

Charging speeds at DCFC stations are also increasing and newer electric vehicles can take advantage of the increased charging speeds.

If you haven’t guessed, I own an EV.

 

[DesertIguana]

If the technology and infrastructure was ready I would consider it.
But it isn't, so I won't.

Well friend went to Las Vegas for weekend, he signed up to recharge his Tesla. The wait was only 48 hours, and they texted him two hour before his appointeent. Told him not to be late, or he might have long wait.