4 ms·
In fairness, that's what he was told by Tesla Motors when he expressed his concern with his remaining range. It's also not completely insane: Energy requiremen
by mpyne 14y ago
In fairness, that's what he was told by Tesla Motors when he expressed his concern with his remaining range.
It's also not completely insane: Energy requirements for driving go up approximately as the square of the velocity. This would normally make city driving exceptionally efficient.
The reason it's not efficient is because of all the energy lost due to idling and from being dissipated in the brakes. If the Tesla is able to idle at a much lower energy than a gas-powered car (which should be true) and if it can reclaim energy from braking by using regeneration then it could very well use less energy to "take a shortcut" through Manhattan.
Whatever gains he might have obtained were eliminated by the extra distance though (and it's not even clear there were gains to be had). The right answer is even simpler (albeit frustrating): Drive slower.
- CamperBob2 14y agoYeah, that and the whole Newton's First Law thing. :-|
- mpyne 14y agoWell, that's the beautiful thing about regenerative braking: The "external force" required to slow down the car comes from the electric motor itself, from the counter-torque of the motor acting as a generator to charge the battery. It's not lossless but it's far better than letting all the kinetic energy dissipate as heat.
- elemeno 14y agoThere's no reason for an electric car to idle at all - if you're stopped in traffic, why would you need to provide any power to the motor when the start up time for an electric motor is near instantaneous.