Tesla Model 3

Punx0r said:

I'm glad to hear Miramar is not a dump. I forget the post that seemed to indicate it was.

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I believe it was . . . one of yours, actually!

Well that prompted me to go looking for the post... It seems I owe the good people of the wider Miramar area an apology! You described the area by the base as "seedy" and I mistakenly assumed that was the majority of the town.

San Diegoians*, I am sorry. If you can convince the Warped Tour to do one more "final" show, I might visit you yet.

*I'm assuming the Anchorman pronunciation of San Diego was parody

The latest news on Tesla and the Model 3, basically all the biggest mainstream print level or equivalent news services have turned negative on Tesla.

Tesla’s Growth Story Nears Final Chapter
Record deliveries prove meaningless for Elon Musk’s challenged auto company
https://www.wsj.com/articles/teslas-growth-story-nears-final-chapter-11564006645

I was hoping to see another negative chart on Model 3 sales from you Beastie...

Bahahahahah record sales prove meaningless.... Yes because that means nothing for a companies success.. pft

And adding to the sales...convinced my boss to order a 3. He is picking up a white on white performance tomorrow. After riding in mine (just a plain old standard+), he was hooked. Additionally, another coworker is on the verge of ordering. The test drive hooks them easily!

Despite major damage to the vehicle and two of the battery modules being breached from the violent impact, none of the Model 3’s 2170 cells burst into flame.

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https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-3-battery-pack-fire-resistance-pictures/

What's with "journalists" consistently calling them "2170" ? Did Tesla call their 21700 sized cells 2170 at some point?

Anders said:

What's with "journalists" consistently calling them "2170" ? Did Tesla call their 21700 sized cells 2170 at some point?

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It's always been called a 2170 cell

Tesla M3 owner hits a pothole cracks 2 wheels costs $2600 fix, the remarkable bit is while waiting for his car to be towed for over 1 hour & 40 minutes he watched countless other cars drive directly over the very same pothole with zero problems, only his Tesla M3 per failed to make it over as he mentions specifically at the 3minutes-mark https://youtu.be/H6sPc9dFsGw?t=178

Whole video..
[youtube]H6sPc9dFsGw[/youtube]

[youtube]vHHFYcQ5nJ4[/youtube]

Recumpence ( from here ) having trouble with his. Commenters seem to think the 12v battery is to blame, but we'll see.

I suspect that as these cars get closer to being out of warranty, there'll be some modifications and aftermarket controllers if the default software/hardware combination proves troublesome over time.

I've thought about building up an electric car, rather than buying one. These sorts of events make me think it's worth the time to roll your own conversion. Although you couldn't ask for a better chassis than the model 3's. Only an original Honda Insight comes close..

neptronix said:

I've thought about building up an electric car, rather than buying one. These sorts of events make me think it's worth the time to roll your own conversion. Although you couldn't ask for a better chassis than the model 3's.

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Yes, you can easily make your own that goes 50 miles on a charge :lol:

TheBeastie said:

Tesla M3 owner hits a pothole cracks 2 wheels costs $2600 fix, the remarkable bit is while waiting for his car to be towed for over 1 hour & 40 minutes he watched countless other cars drive directly over the very same pothole with zero problems

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Yep. A pothole in a parking lot caused $4000 of damage to my old Honda CRX. No other cars had a problem with it. The problem for me was ground clearance; the edge of the pothole hit the tow lug and bent the entire front end of the car.

cricketo said:

Yes, you can easily make your own that goes 50 miles on a charge :lol:

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DIYers have built some with over 200 mile ranges using recycled batteries. Not rocket science.
I agree that a 50 miler would be very easy and cheap. Well under 10k. :wink:

Yeah. I will bet on the 12 volt battery. I can sympathize with Matt. Having seen one dash warning on our Bolt about caused a coronary, and it was still under warranty.

As for building a DIY, 200 mile range car...there have been two that I know of. The best, and oldest, is the Illuminati Seven. It cost them approximately $200K!!

http://illuminatimotorworks.org/

http://www.evalbum.com/3534

As cool as it is, You can pick up a 50K mile, used Bolt for $20K...still good for 200 miles.

neptronix said:

DIYers have built some with over 200 mile ranges using recycled batteries. Not rocket science.
I agree that a 50 miler would be very easy and cheap. Well under 10k. :wink:

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Turns out it's quite a rocket science to do it in a fashion where it still looks and behaves like a normal car. I don't doubt some people may have pulled that off, but it's quite an effort that shouldn't be toted around like it's nothing.

cricketo said:

Turns out it's quite a rocket science to do it in a fashion where it still looks and behaves like a normal car. I don't doubt some people may have pulled that off, but it's quite an effort that shouldn't be toted around like it's nothing.

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There is no reason you can't make an electric car conversion look and behave like a normal car. It just depends on how much work you want to do and what your priorities are.

Doing it yourself provides the same benefits we get from converting our bikes - we at least have a clue about how the machine works in the end, and can build things to be dramatically simpler and easier to service. While we're at it, we can adjust range, power, weight balance, charging, etc to taste.

Or you can buy something someone else engineered, who will never give you advice or even a clue on how it's designed due to liabilities, and will also later on try to discourage you from fixing it by offering parts ( if at all ) at prices that are jacked up so high that most people will just throw their hands up and buy a new car.

Tesla won't even sell you parts in a lot of situations. Other makers may end up doing this too. What happens to your $40-$66k car then?

I had this happen to me with a gas car. I sent a car worth $2000 to the junkyard for $200 back because the car company refused to sell me an ECU when the original one failed, and they also no longer had the tools to recode other ECUs. The problem with the ECU grenading itself was well known.

The company we thought would save the world from global warming has turned out to have an attitude of making electric cars into yet another waste stream. The only upside is that there will be some extremely cheap broken Teslas in the future. Aerodynamic, beautiful car bodies waiting to be liberated from closed source software and other anti ownership designs.

neptronix said:

There is no reason you can't make an electric car conversion look and behave like a normal car. It just depends on how much work you want to do and what your priorities are.

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The reason is you can't accommodate the size and weight of a reasonably sized power pack in a conventional chassis. That is the reason conventional manufacturers haven't been successful at adopting their existing platforms for EVs. One good example of that is E-Golf. On top of that you suggested using salvaged cells, which already pack reduced capacity. On top of that the complexity of thermal management in a large pack when drawing decent amount of power. Not to question your qualifications, but this is a bit more difficult than making an e-bike.

Also keep in mind that the kind of person who wants to do an EV *conversion* probably has a very different idea of what is a normal car.

neptronix said:

There is no reason you can't make an electric car conversion look and behave like a normal car. It just depends on how much work you want to do and what your priorities are.

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Agreed. But it is a huge, and I mean huge, amount of work. If there are people out there who can afford to take six months off to build such a car, great, and more power to them.

Warren said:

Yeah. I will bet on the 12 volt battery. I can sympathize with Matt. Having seen one dash warning on our Bolt about caused a coronary, and it was still under warranty.

As for building a DIY, 200 mile range car...there have been two that I know of. The best, and oldest, is the Illuminati Seven. It cost them approximately $200K!!

http://illuminatimotorworks.org/

http://www.evalbum.com/3534

As cool as it is, You can pick up a 50K mile, used Bolt for $20K...still good for 200 miles.

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Hmm its not that bad. My first CRX was about 120 miles of range and cost ~ 10k to build.
Next one will be a little more with 2.3x the range.

billvon said:

neptronix said:

There is no reason you can't make an electric car conversion look and behave like a normal car. It just depends on how much work you want to do and what your priorities are.

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Agreed. But it is a huge, and I mean huge, amount of work. If there are people out there who can afford to take six months off to build such a car, great, and more power to them.

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You don't need 6 months off work.
I am doing mine in 2 months off work lmfao
But a lot of what I am doing is proving new inverter tech and building things that have never been built before. Aiming for HUGE performance.

Arlo1 said:

You don't need 6 months off work.
I am doing mine in 2 months off work lmfao

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You do if you want to do the sort of job described above - like a normal car. (i.e. similar crash safety, similar performance, similar level of integration.)

I've been working on a Honda Prelude conversion in a big way since December last year, and I've almost got it ready to roll. But I have only been working on it weeknights and weekends, so if I had about 2 months of clear time I would have finished it by now.

Its nothing special in terms of performance, but it has retained all 4 seats and boot space, and will still have about 150 km of range around town (maybe 110 km on the highway). It's cost the customer about AUD$38,000. So not cheap.

Bad press:
https://www.newsweek.com/video-tesla-explodes-tow-truck-1453745

A Tesla Model 3 car caught fire after crashing in Moscow on Saturday evening, according to reports.

The vehicle slammed into a tow truck that was parked by the interior divider on a highway at around 9 p.m. local time, Reuters reported.

The driver, Alexei Tretyakov, 41, said he was traveling at the speed limit of 100 kilometers (62 miles) per hour when he veered into the tow truck. He said he didn't see the vehicle.

Tretyakov—head of the Russian investment firm Arikapital—said he was using the car's driver-assist autopilot system at the time of the crash, although he was still holding the steering wheel, REN TV reported.

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