5 ms·

Tesla is still a niche luxury car, and I still think they will not remain in business in their current form. Several top-name brands are hot on their heels whic

Tesla is still a niche luxury car, and I still think they will not remain in business in their current form. Several top-name brands are hot on their heels which will put a lot of pressure in their customer acquisition prospects. As for the Automobile endorsement, I don't like how they are misleading consumers with their data. The test vs. M5 was designed to take account Tesla's sweet spot of performance, "...drag race to 100 mph with a 560-hp BMW M5". At 0-60 M5 will beat Tesla, and Telsa hits the top speed 130 mph and M5 is limited at 155. So it's really around 100-120 mph where Tesla has the edge. This doesn't even include racing them on a track to include handling aspect of a car. I would have preferred the article stating something like: in one aspect, Tesla is even faster than the BMW M5, the drag race to 100 mph. In general I'm seeing a downtrend among publications when it comes to educating consumers, especially educating them on how to think about data. This will have a long-term consequence on how consumers can be duped by faulty advertising, especially with political ads.

bryanlarsen 14y ago
The M5 may beat the Tesla at 0-60 on paper (3.7 seconds vs 3.9), but in practice the Tesla will beat the M5. A 0-60 is measured from the time the car starts to move. If you measure from when the accelerator is depressed, the Tesla gains a huge advantage and will beat the M5. EDIT: Here's a 0-100 video: http://ca.autoblog.com/2012/10/09/sport-sedan-shootout-tesla-model-s-beats-bmw-m5-in-a-drag-race/#continued http://ca.autoblog.com/2012/10/09/sport-sedan-shootout-tesla... Now unless there's some tricks in the video, it's quite obvious that the M5 does much better at the latter half of the drag than the first half. So if a Tesla can beat an M5 at 0-100, it will destroy it at 0-60.
- gniv 14y ago
  That's an interesting observation. Intuitively, I believe it, but do you have a source?
- kerryfalk 14y ago
  This is very strange and foreign reasoning to me. I competitively raced cars in an amateur series. You are claiming that the Tesla's superior throttle response makes it faster 0-60. The car needs to move the weight, so measuring it from when it starts moving to when it hits the desired speed seems like a perfectly reasonable metric. Throttle response needs to be measured separately. The M5 comparison is more than enough to get an idea for the car's capabilities. I've never driven a Model S. I've driven several cars in the area of the M5. If the Model S is in that class, it's a beast!
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - bryanlarsen 14y ago
    It's not throttle response, it's torque at 0RPM. When you're racing, you rev your engine before the light turns green and pop the clutch when it turns green. You don't do that when you're not racing, because it's hard on clutches, and the vast majority of daily drivers are automatics. When you're racing an electric car, you mash the accelerator when the light turns green, the same way you start the car moving when you're normally driving. So you get race-track start feeling every time you drive your car.
    - kerryfalk 14y ago
      Only electric vehicles start at 0 RPM. Normal combustion engines idle under 1,000 RPM and the M5 has a fairly flat torque curve for a naturally aspirated car with somewhere around 260lbs at idle. That's very good and about 50% of its peak torque. The M5s also have SMG which is a computer controlled manual transmission. No manually operated clutch. Even has a launch mode if you want the computer to control wheel spin for you so you get the best possible launch. Throttle response is still the wrong metric to use here. And is a bit of a red herring in the discussion.
      - jblow 14y ago
        My 2006 M3 had SMG and I didn't like it much. (Fine for highway driving, sucks for city street driving). Maybe the new one is better?
        kerryfalk 14y ago
        I'm not a fan of the SMG myself (or equivalents from other manufacturers) nor is anyone else I know. But it's not really because of any real performance metric. SMG is far better at changing gears than any of us mortals could accomplish. But it's just not fun. If you didn't like yours for the same reason I don't know if you'd like the new iterations. You're still not doing the shifting yourself. ps. Your project looks interesting and I signed up for the mailing list. The success page said an email had been sent but I haven't received anything. Not sure if there's a long delay or it's a bug.
- DanEdge 14y ago
  There's something very odd about that video. It looks like the M5 is driven off the line from tickover which is not how you would launch it in practice. C.f. http://youtu.be/E-xVVPO8L8s http://youtu.be/E-xVVPO8L8s
kayoone 14y ago
the point is to give an example how fast the Tesla really is, and it doesnt matter if its only faster in one area than a BMW M5, but the fact that it is even able to keep up with the pinnacle of pertrol performance sedans is very impressive!
- to3m 14y ago
  The Tesla driver will probably suffer less from range anxiety, too.
  - arethuza 14y ago
    Anyone worrying about range won't be driving a M5, they will have a 520d ED - which can probably do nearly a thousand miles on one tank.
MarkMc 14y ago
Yes, Tesla is still a niche luxury car. But in 2007 the iPhone was still a niche luxury phone. Despite clearly being far superior to competitors, the iPhone was often dismissed because of it's price tag and small market share. Here's what Steve Ballmer had to say in 2007: "Would I trade 96% of the market for 4% of the market? (Laughter.) I want to have products that appeal to everybody. Now we'll get a chance to go through this again in phones and music players. There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It's a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I'd prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get." [1] (In my opinion this quote is Exhibit A in the case for firing Steve "No Chance" Ballmer). Tesla 2012 seems to be Apple 2007. Other motor industry players should be very worried. [1] http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/2007-04-29-ballmer-ceo-forum-usat_N.htm http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/20...

bryanlarsen 14y ago

The M5 may beat the Tesla at 0-60 on paper (3.7 seconds vs 3.9), but in practice the Tesla will beat the M5. A 0-60 is measured from the time the car starts to move. If you measure from when the accelerator is depressed, the Tesla gains a huge advantage and will beat the M5. EDIT: Here's a 0-100 video: http://ca.autoblog.com/2012/10/09/sport-sedan-shootout-tesla-model-s-beats-bmw-m5-in-a-drag-race/#continued http://ca.autoblog.com/2012/10/09/sport-sedan-shootout-tesla... Now unless there's some tricks in the video, it's quite obvious that the M5 does much better at the latter half of the drag than the first half. So if a Tesla can beat an M5 at 0-100, it will destroy it at 0-60.

gniv 14y ago
That's an interesting observation. Intuitively, I believe it, but do you have a source?
kerryfalk 14y ago
This is very strange and foreign reasoning to me. I competitively raced cars in an amateur series. You are claiming that the Tesla's superior throttle response makes it faster 0-60. The car needs to move the weight, so measuring it from when it starts moving to when it hits the desired speed seems like a perfectly reasonable metric. Throttle response needs to be measured separately. The M5 comparison is more than enough to get an idea for the car's capabilities. I've never driven a Model S. I've driven several cars in the area of the M5. If the Model S is in that class, it's a beast!
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- bryanlarsen 14y ago
  It's not throttle response, it's torque at 0RPM. When you're racing, you rev your engine before the light turns green and pop the clutch when it turns green. You don't do that when you're not racing, because it's hard on clutches, and the vast majority of daily drivers are automatics. When you're racing an electric car, you mash the accelerator when the light turns green, the same way you start the car moving when you're normally driving. So you get race-track start feeling every time you drive your car.
  - kerryfalk 14y ago
    Only electric vehicles start at 0 RPM. Normal combustion engines idle under 1,000 RPM and the M5 has a fairly flat torque curve for a naturally aspirated car with somewhere around 260lbs at idle. That's very good and about 50% of its peak torque. The M5s also have SMG which is a computer controlled manual transmission. No manually operated clutch. Even has a launch mode if you want the computer to control wheel spin for you so you get the best possible launch. Throttle response is still the wrong metric to use here. And is a bit of a red herring in the discussion.
    - jblow 14y ago
      My 2006 M3 had SMG and I didn't like it much. (Fine for highway driving, sucks for city street driving). Maybe the new one is better?
      - kerryfalk 14y ago
        I'm not a fan of the SMG myself (or equivalents from other manufacturers) nor is anyone else I know. But it's not really because of any real performance metric. SMG is far better at changing gears than any of us mortals could accomplish. But it's just not fun. If you didn't like yours for the same reason I don't know if you'd like the new iterations. You're still not doing the shifting yourself. ps. Your project looks interesting and I signed up for the mailing list. The success page said an email had been sent but I haven't received anything. Not sure if there's a long delay or it's a bug.
DanEdge 14y ago
There's something very odd about that video. It looks like the M5 is driven off the line from tickover which is not how you would launch it in practice. C.f. http://youtu.be/E-xVVPO8L8s http://youtu.be/E-xVVPO8L8s

kayoone 14y ago

the point is to give an example how fast the Tesla really is, and it doesnt matter if its only faster in one area than a BMW M5, but the fact that it is even able to keep up with the pinnacle of pertrol performance sedans is very impressive!

to3m 14y ago
The Tesla driver will probably suffer less from range anxiety, too.
- arethuza 14y ago
  Anyone worrying about range won't be driving a M5, they will have a 520d ED - which can probably do nearly a thousand miles on one tank.

MarkMc 14y ago

Yes, Tesla is still a niche luxury car. But in 2007 the iPhone was still a niche luxury phone. Despite clearly being far superior to competitors, the iPhone was often dismissed because of it's price tag and small market share. Here's what Steve Ballmer had to say in 2007: "Would I trade 96% of the market for 4% of the market? (Laughter.) I want to have products that appeal to everybody. Now we'll get a chance to go through this again in phones and music players. There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It's a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I'd prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get." [1] (In my opinion this quote is Exhibit A in the case for firing Steve "No Chance" Ballmer). Tesla 2012 seems to be Apple 2007. Other motor industry players should be very worried. [1] http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/2007-04-29-ballmer-ceo-forum-usat_N.htm http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/20...