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Test drive of a petrol car

401 points by caiobegotti 11y ago

deleted 11y ago
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hnnewguy 11y ago
Is this what passes for clever? It's hardly a "tech" article, that's for sure. >The engine was also extremely hot, we burned ourselves when we touched it. Electric motors run cold, I guess? >We started calculating price versus consumption and came to the shocking conclusion that a petrol car costs unimaginable €12 per 100km! Sure, electric cars could also theoretically come up to these amounts if they quick charged at one of the most expensive charging stations in the country – but for petrol cars there are no cheaper alternatives! You can buy a $12,000 gas car, but for electric cars there are no cheaper alternatives. Work that into the cost vs a $100,000 Tesla. The 99% of the world are not complete idiots; electric cars aren't mainstream yet.
- nemo 11y ago
  "Is this what passes for clever?" Swedish humor is no laughing matter.
- reitanqild 11y ago
  remember -around here(Norway, next to Sweden) taxes on gas and gas cars make Tesla prices look very reasonable. A brand new Tesla is about half the price of a similar (>400hp) car I guess.
  - toomuchtodo 11y ago
    That's what happens when externalities are properly priced into vehicles using taxes. Nicely done Norway/Sweden.
    - maxerickson 11y ago
      That's a pretty huge assertion you are throwing in there. I think there is a fair chance that some of the tax there is just a simple luxury tax, with accidental relief on the Tesla side (as opposed to a proper pricing of externalities).
      - toomuchtodo 11y ago
        The tax incentives in question the remove a fair portion of the tax penalty apply to all electric vehicles, not just Tesla. The "relief" for Tesla isn't accidental. I would say you'd be correct if the benefits applied solely to Tesla vehicles, but not in this case.
        maxerickson 11y ago
        My meaning was more that it depends on how well the laws captured the intent of the societies. The nice subsidies on expensive electric vehicles may or may not leave a bad taste in the mouth of voters there (I haven't tried to figure out what public sentiment is).
        toomuchtodo 11y ago
        > The nice subsidies on expensive electric vehicles may or may not leave a bad taste in the mouth of voters there (I haven't tried to figure out what public sentiment is) I could not find the answer to this with some quick googling. I too would be interested in the answer.
    - hnnewguy 11y ago
      Costs aren't being added to the gas cars, which would make sense. Instead, normal people are subsidizing luxury cars. That's stupid.
      - toomuchtodo 11y ago
        The costs are added to all gas cars, and "normal people" are subsidizing all electric cars. The cars that are selling just happen to be the most expensive electric car.
    - smackfu 11y ago
      When you just set a bunch of taxes to zero for a few years, it's hard to argue that is "proper pricing."
      - toomuchtodo 11y ago
        If the externalities they're pricing in are oil consumption in the vehicle, and the vehicle doesn't burn oil, setting the taxes to zero is "proper pricing".
        _delirium 11y ago
        That's not the only externality; another one is wear-and-tear on roads. In most countries, fuel taxes are used in part to pay for road and highway maintenance [1]. Certainly Norway's extensive, mountainous highway system is not free to build and maintain, and imo all road users should pay their share to fund it. You could have a direct per-km tax enforced via some kind of GPS unit, but that has privacy implications. Traditionally the fuel tax was a reasonable proxy, since vehicles used fuel in rough proportion to the amount of road traversed. [1] In the U.S. the link is explicit: almost the entirety of the fuel tax is earmarked for highway construction and maintenance, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_Trust_Fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_Trust_Fund
        deleted 11y ago
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        toomuchtodo 11y ago
        The vast majority of road wear and tear is caused by trucks, not cars: "Heavy trucks obviously cause more road damage than cars, but how much more? According to a GAO study, Excessive Truck Weight: An Expensive Burden We Can No Longer Afford, road damage from one 18-wheeler is equivalent to 9600 cars (p.23 of study, p.36 of PDF)." http://archive.gao.gov/f0302/109884.pdf http://archive.gao.gov/f0302/109884.pdf http://facweb.knowlton.ohio-state.edu/pviton/courses2/crp776/776-roads-handout.pdf http://facweb.knowlton.ohio-state.edu/pviton/courses2/crp776... With regards to your point to taxes, remove the per-milage tax and charge a flat per-vehicle rate based on vehicle class, distributing the cost to trucks more than to passenger vehicles.
- deleted 11y ago
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- amalag 11y ago
  You can buy a 2013 used Nissan Leafs with under 10k miles for under $12k. That is comparable to a gas car. The low range on the Leaf really affects their value.
  - jaxbot 11y ago
    I drive a Leaf. It's actually a really great city car. I use it for all my driving (commute, shopping, exploring the city) except for one trip a month I make in my old gas car. The car basically pays for itself compared to what I paid in gas in my old car. It's also almost zero maintenance, which is a huge plus coming from my old under 12k gas car which needed oil, random part replacements, cooling system issues, etc. Worth considering if you drive less than 60 miles a day, imo.
    - deleted 11y ago
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    - crusso 11y ago
      Same here. We've had a leaf for about 8 months now and love it. We're in a suburban setting where most of our mileage is shuttling teenage kids to/from school and other activities. If your range needs are a match, it's a fantastic run-around car. With a 240V/30A charger in the garage, we can get much more than 100 miles out of it on busy days. If you need more range, there's a pricier BMW that get's almost twice as far on a charge.
    - amalag 11y ago
      Once a week we go somewhere which is a 50 mile round trip. I thought the 70 mile range was cutting it too close. Otherwise the price is very attractive now that I will move to a place with an actual garage so I can charge it.
  - drzaiusapelord 11y ago
    Wait, you're comparing a NEW ICE car with 200+ range, warranty, etc to a tiny ~40 mile range USED EV with a battery pack on its last legs (battery pack capacity drops begin at around 10 to 15k and continue from there). Real world range in traffic, climate control on, etc is not the advertised number. Its not even close. Search the Leaf forums if you don't believe me. Not to mention, after Fed and State rebates, there's $10,000 off the cost, which is affecting its resale value. Give me $10,000 for an ICE car and I'll show you a near free car with 4x the range, a warranty, etc. Come on.
- hahainternet 11y ago
  > Is this what passes for clever? It's hardly a "tech" article, that's for sure. I read it with a smirk, I thought it was a nicely done parody. In a few decades when your average 25 year old has never known a petrol driven car (yes yes this might not happen) it is a believable experience.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    Is it even a parody? It's written from the perspective of somebody who doesn't yet exist: a person who has only known electric cars for their whole life. But aside from that, it does a pretty good job of imagining what that person would think the first time they're exposed to a "normal" car.
    - hahainternet 11y ago
      It's both parody and satire isn't it really. It's a deliberately absurd take on a car review so I feel both are appropriate.
- ebbv 11y ago
  > for electric cars there are no cheaper alternatives Not true at all. I traded in a Subaru WRX and pay less for my Leaf every month than I did for the Subaru. Not to mention the savings on the costs of driving it around. > The 99% of the world are not complete idiots; electric cars aren't mainstream yet. These two phrases don't necessarily have anything to do with each other. It's true, there are good reasons why EVs aren't mainstream. One is that if you're in an apartment or condominium EV ownership is pretty much out the window unless you can get your property managers to install charging stations. Another is that you can't get one with 200 mile range for under $60k right now, and that's a big hurdle for most people to get over mentally. Even though most people don't drive more than 80 miles in a day, and a Leaf WOULD do just fine for them, they can't bring themselves to act rationally about it. Being that close to their limit is a mental block. That's why it's important that Tesla delivers on the promise to offer a $30k 200 mile range car in 2017. Now, all of that has nothing to do with the original article. The point of which is really that EVs are way, way nicer than petrol cars, for a variety of reasons. Which is something that most people just don't get yet.
  - toomuchtodo 11y ago
    > It's true, there are good reasons why EVs aren't mainstream. One is that if you're in an apartment or condominium EV ownership is pretty much out the window unless you can get your property managers to install charging stations. State laws are coming online that require property managers to install charging stations if they're above a certain size. California's law is already in effect with regard to this.
  - SteveGerencser 11y ago
    Range is why we don't have an electric car yet. They are great for urban dwellers but for people that live out 'in the country' range is a serious issue. We only go in to town once a week or so and that is a 50 mile round trip if we make no extra stops. To go to the 'city' which happens once a month or so a round trip easily crosses the 100 mile range and can top 150 miles with dinner added in. A trip to a real metro area would easily cross the 250 mile mark. If Tesla can deliver a 'real' 200 mile car for a reasonable price it would be worth considering. But for a significant percentage of the rural population EVs are simply not an option at this point.
- deleted 11y ago
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- mikeash 11y ago
  Electric motors don't need much service (and when they do, it's highly complicated) so there's no need to provide access to it. People occasionally ask to see the motor in my Model S, and the best I can do is point to the rear seats and say "it's under there." There's nothing on the car that you can burn yourself on that you can get to without tools. And did you really say that there are no cheaper alternatives for an electric car than a $100,000 Tesla? You might want to have a look at what's actually available, if that's what you actually meant to say.
  - hnnewguy 11y ago
    >And did you really say that there are no cheaper alternatives for an electric car than a $100,000 Tesla? You might want to have a look at what's actually available, if that's what you actually meant to say. If you want an electric car with 200+ mile range, what are the alternatives?
    - mikeash 11y ago
      You didn't specify that. :P
atjoslin 11y ago
Web cached version: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lVzsGlteXR4J:teslaclubsweden.se/test-drive-of-a-petrol-car/+&cd=1&hl=no&ct=clnk http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lVzsGlt...
axx 11y ago
As much as i like this article, Tesla would never had the success they now have, without the "petrol car"-Industry. The automotive industry brought a lot of innovations and lowered prices for tooling etc. by a lot. I think this article is very funny (and sad), but you have to give those "old" companies a lot of credit for their work. That's still no excuse for other companies, not to hop on the electric train.
- hahainternet 11y ago
  > but you have to give those "old" companies a lot of credit for their work. I can't think of any industries where that wouldn't be the case.
- jaxbot 11y ago
  To be fair, though, we theoretically don't need the car industry at all. Tesla is building an electric industry to solve the emissions problem created by a transportation industry that does not need to exist. Take NYC for example. MTA enables transportation to just about anywhere in the city, all through an electric, mass-transit trolley system. If we look at the history of municipal transportation, it looks pretty clear that trolleys were winning over the majority of the car industry up until GM took over trolleys[1] and shut them down to essentially require people to own cars to do any transportation outside of biking and walking. I think what Tesla is doing is wonderful, but I feel like the problem they are having to solve didn't need to exist in the first place, and the petrol car industry got us in a bad situation. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspi...
  - axx 11y ago
    You do realise that not everyone is living in big vivid cities with perfect transportation? For people in rural/urban areas cars are essential. And don't get me wrong, i agree with everything you say, but that problem won't be solved so easily.
    - jaxbot 11y ago
lucb1e 11y ago
The charging confuses me. Of course you pay to get gas at the pump, don't you pay to get electricity? I've always wondered that, seeing cars charge on the street or in parking lots, how does the system know whom to charge... or is it government-sponsored to promote electric cars? Edit: Relevant section > The seller looked very puzzled at us and explained that it is not possible to refuel gasoline cars at home, and there are no free gas stations. We tried to explain our questions, in case he had misunderstood, but he insisted that you can not. Apparently you have to several times a month drive to the gas station to recharge your petrol car at extortionate prices – there are no alternatives! Edit 2: I should clarify, I'm from the Netherlands (Europe).
- raverbashing 11y ago
  You don't pay at Tesla stations
  - lucb1e 11y ago
    I guess those must have a Tesla logo? I've never seen any of those (I live in the Netherlands). Edit: Those? http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger I guess we don't have these, I would surely have recognized them.
    - raverbashing 11y ago
      http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger Not sure if it's going to be in Europe
      - toomuchtodo 11y ago
        If you scroll down, and click Europe, you see that almost all of western europe is already awash in Superchargers, and Tesla continues to push east over the next 6-18 months.
        raverbashing 11y ago
Shivetya 11y ago
Contrived to the point of stupid so the point is lost. Really, this could have just as well been written in the early 1900s with a moron buying a car when a perfectly good horse was available. Two problems still exist with electric only cars they haven't shown are solvable. Truly fast charging and handling of that "damnit, the son forgot to plug the car in when he got home and I need to go to work/doctor/etc NOW" and lack of available charging for large number of potential drivers. Want to be silly like the article, don't get snowed in without power for days on end that still happens in North America. As for repair shops at dealers, well being able to have your car repaired and serviced anywhere is a good thing. Just happens that Tesla does its best to hide the service issues by keeping it mostly internal. So yeah electrics are cool, leaning towards a ER EV myself simply because I have to travel on my schedule and not my cars
- nailer 11y ago
  > damnit, the son forgot to plug the car in when he got home I don't see that as a significant problem: 'complain when at home but not charging' is a fairly easily implemented fix.
- jmilloy 11y ago
  I could be wrong about this, but I think it is referring to a specific review of a Tesla test-drive from a few years back. It doesn't seem quite so contrived with that in mind, and the point is also more clear.
- krschultz 11y ago
  It's not contrived. All the points you mentioned about the downsides of EV are true. That's why they're a single digit percentage of the market right now at best. The point of this article is to point out the compromises that we are currently making. They're invisible to us because they are the compromises we have been making for generations. I can imagine a 538 article that illustrates how much land we allocate to gas stations using several graphs. For some people that article will be interesting. Other people's eyes will glaze over. This kind of article uses humor to make the same point. I don't own an electric vehicle. I'm very aware of the advantages of electric vehicles for society at large, but reading about how funny it is to not be able to store things in the front of the car made me realize how much of a feature that really would be. Reading about his concern that an gasoline powered car is less safe because you have a giant engine in front of you made sense to me in a way I previously hadn't thought about. He didn't even make a bunch of other points that I often think about - like the level of soot in cities. Our children will probably look back at us the way we look back at London in 1850 shrouded in coal dust.
yc1010 11y ago
Uhm I would love a Tesla (if they ever start selling right hand drive versions in my little backward western european country) but at an equivalent of €100K price tag (that means I have to earn ~€210K before tax, to be left with that amount around these parts) its a bit steep... Neither am I sure that the inept electricity supply board would know how to install a charger for one, and well electricity is expensive here in Ireland, paid €1200 last year for just above 4000KW/hours for my home/office Yes my petrol 4x4 is 10 years old, yes it does a terrible mileage in a country where petrol is €1.40/liter now, yes it breaks alot and has to be serviced (just this week) and pass yearly road-worthiness testing and costs me a fortune in tax and insurance (€700 + 330 last year) Maybe if we werent taxed as much I could afford after a few years of saving a luxury of an electric car, until then me good old jeep will continue to drive me over the potholed narrow roads we have (which apparently all that road tax AND now local council tax was meant to improve) sigh... tl.dr: The article is funny but not all of us enjoy Nordic standards of living or wages (After tax), or have governments that are not out to fleece the taxpayers and hand their blood money over to failed banks and their developer buddies who helped them get elected.
- kaolinite 11y ago
  They are planning to eventually release a more affordable Tesla, just as soon as they can scale up enough that it's viable. The first car they made (the Roadster) was a very expensive supercar, which they sold in low numbers. Then they made the Model S, an expensive, luxury sedan, which they're selling a lot more of. I'm not sure if pricing has been released yet for the Model X but I suspect it'll be cheaper than the Model S and will sell in even greater numbers. Elon doesn't really seem to be in this for the money or the luxury status - he seems to just care about building great cars that are good for the environment. As soon as he can make really good, affordable electric cars - I'm sure he will.
  - stcredzero 11y ago
    The Model X is a luxury SUV. ("Estate," in the british isles.) The next model is supposed to be the "Model 3." They can't use Model E, because Ford still has that trademarked or something along those lines. Otherwise, they could have models S, E, and X.
paganel 11y ago
> The car’s gasoline engine coughed to life and started to operate. One could hear the engine’s sound and the car’s whole body vibrated as if something was broken, but the seller assured us that everything was as it should I've only learned to drive and have owned my car for a year now (I'm in my mid-30s), but I just love the engine of my petrol car starting. Often times I choose to drive with my radio turned-off just to hear the engine's sound. Mind you, is a regular 1.4l hatcchbak, nothing sporty or the like. Later edit: I also love to change gears, honestly. Not sure exactly what it is, but I don't see myself driving an automatic. > You need a lot of training to learn to select the right gear at the right time And about this, there's no "a lot of training" needed, you just get used to it pretty fast. Actually, IMHO, is part of the whole process of you becoming one with your car.
- markbnine 11y ago
  Obviously this post is not interested in car-geeking, but I agree, the sound of combustion engines can be wonderful (VW Beetles).
- to3m 11y ago
  I pretty much always drive with the radio off. My car is a 3L diesel. Purists might scoff, but I've always liked the noise it makes. I was sold pretty much instantly on the test drive and four years later I still love it. Once you're on the move, it's very relaxing, like an ambient music track, with a cheeky whirring noise in the background that becomes more evident when it gets going. When you're sat stationary with the engine idling, the gear knob and foot pedals shudder, and there's a slight juddering through the steering wheel. Some might think of this as unrefined, and possibly even agricultural, but I find it actually quite comforting. At such low revs the engine also sounds rather clattery... but I don't mind. At least you know it's still there. (I had a courtesy car a couple of years ago with an engine that was undetectable while idling - and I ended up not liking it! It was so nice to have my car back, with its reassurring vibrations and its clattery engine sound. People are weird. (But maybe if I'd have been given a Tesla, with its panoply of toys and its space shuttle-style acceleration, I'd have got over it.)
- nsxwolf 11y ago
  I also love manual transmissions. It will be the hardest thing for me to give up when I eventually make the switch to electric. I suppose it is similar to the satisfaction the owner of a mechanical watch gets -- but it's more visceral. You're really becoming part of the machine, and you feel it. Coordinating gear shifting with clutch pedal actuation, instinctively doing it all at the right moment based on what you hear and feel from the engine. Your body and mind are involved, consciously and subconsciously. Now all that is just ... gone.
dabeeeenster 11y ago
I wrote this a couple of years ago http://www.solidstategroup.com/page/6277/a-review-of-the-new-fangled-petrol-powered-car http://www.solidstategroup.com/page/6277/a-review-of-the-new... I guess that's what you would call 'creative license'...
- bjwbell 11y ago
  I like yours more. I couldn't read more than a couple paragraphs of the new one without cringing from their 'creative license' with facts.
- 1123581321 11y ago
  I like yours a good bit more. It's a better comparison and funnier. Thanks for sharing.
- CamperBob2 11y ago
  I guess that's what you would call 'creative license'... Don't Panameras have the same auto start-stop feature that the 981/991 cars have? And who in the world replaces their exhaust system every 20,000 miles?
ekianjo 11y ago
> You need a lot of training to learn to select the right gear at the right time – though there are also models with automatic transmissions that can do this themselves. In the manual transmission car, we needed to constantly guard the engine from damaging it. Very stressful. Mmm. That's probably supposed to be funny, except that it is not, since automatic cars are so boring to drive in the first place. Manual cars are the real deal if you want to feel your car and the road when you drive instead of relying on a computer to make your choices. There's certainly a use for automatic transmission (on motorways or on heavy traffic roads for example) but in most other situations I'd rather have manual over it. > The seller looked very puzzled at us and explained that it is not possible to refuel gasoline cars at home, Because you don't need to, when you have an autonomy of hundred of kilometers with a single tank. An electric car is like a smartphone, it may be nice to operate (if you like them) but you need to charge them everyday. And you can forget about long distance driving without having to stop for a long while to recharge your car. Oh, and you can store petrol in your car (in your trunk) if you want to go very, very far, but good luck doing that with an electric car if you go in remote places without plugs anywhere to be seen. Electric cars are obviously only for urban zones (or places not too far in between them). > especially given that all gasoline must be imported from abroad. Is that article from like 20 years ago ? Because where Tesla is the most popular (i.e. in the US), now a large part of the petrol is actually extracted locally. > Do not confuse petrol cars’ exhaust pipes with fuel cell cars’ – while hydrogen powered fuel cell vehicles emit only water vapor gasoline cars spew out noxious gasses, and even fossil carbon dioxide that contribute to Earth’s future-catastrophic warming! Yeah, and your electricity that powers your car is still made mostly from fossil fuels in most parts of the world, or nuclear energy which is not too hot with the general public nowadays. It's nice to be blind.
- watty 11y ago
  The goal of driving (for most) is to get from A to B, not entertainment. I agree, I loved my manual car but the masses prefer the convenience of automatic which is why manual cars continue to disappear. Electric cars will eventually replace petrol cars, it's a fact.
  - ekianjo 11y ago
serve_yay 11y ago
I noticed that a car I drove by yesterday was a Tesla. But I didn't notice immediately, because it looked like a Buick or something. I don't understand why, if they're trying to do something radically different, their cars look pretty much like everyone else's. Perhaps they are trying not to scare off potential buyers, but it seems like people are already interested in trying something different when they buy a Tesla. I personally would never drop whatever crazy prices their cars cost for something so mundane looking, though.
- BorgHunter 11y ago
  There's more volume in conventional-looking cars. Look at the responses to the Nissan Leaf and BMW i3, two electric cars that are legitimately funky-looking; something that looks weird will turn more people off than will be turned on.
- flyinghamster 11y ago
  On the contrary, I'm glad that Teslas are both handsome and fairly normal-looking. An electric car doesn't need to look ridiculous.
- NickM 11y ago
  I think the key point here is that Tesla is not trying to make the world's best electric car, they're trying to make the best car, period. If they try to make something radical and different looking, then they're going to gain some extra traction with people who want to stand out and be different, but they already have those people in the bag anyway. On the flip side, making their cars deliberately strange looking is likely to turn a lot of people off. People who might otherwise be interested in buying a Tesla simply because it's a high-quality, practical car that competes well with other cars in its price segment, gasoline or not.
S_A_P 11y ago
I get the point of this article and its tongue in cheek. Twenty years ago people laughed at electric cars with their maybe 30-40 miles of range and 8-12hour charging times. Tesla has done a lot to iron out most of these engineering problems and I applaud them for that. However, articles like this also smack of elitism, especially considering the 6 figure prices most Tesla vehicles sell for. I would love to own a Tesla, just as I would love to own a 2000 acre ranch estate with a huge mansion on it. When electric cars can compete in the range of commodity cars, then we can have this conversation about the merits of electric cars. I just watched a video comparing the Dodge Charger Hellcat to a Tesla P-85d. Both have similar power, and while you can debate the level of quality of FCA vs Tesla you can still drive a Hellcat(which is an insane gas guzzler) for less money for 5-7 years depending on your yearly mileage. At that point, most people will likely purchase a new vehicle, and that is also assuming you only use free superchargers. A Tesla is definitely a luxury item, I get that, and there are other options. The problem is most current other options are more like the electric cars 20 years ago than a tesla. Progress is being made and I am excited about that. I would love to have an electric commuter car as long as it could meet the following criteria. 1) seat 5 people comfortably 2) have 150+ miles of range(I drive about 120 miles per day) 3) cost between 30-50k 4) have reasonable performance(say comparable to a german sedan in that price range) 5) recharge quickly and easily, possibly have battery swap capability for the high use days 6) emphasize being a good car and not a "green" car. Im all for taking care of the environment, but will never buy a car with a 60" x 12" GREEN ECO ELECTRIC POWER emblazoned across the side.(In the same way I would never get a car that says "UBER HEMI BIG WANG POWER" either) 7) be reliable and comfortable to drive, with low cost of ownership at least comparable to a reliable petrol car. I dont think any of that list is unreasonable, and I am glad that Tesla exists, they have done a great service to the electric car.
- ksk 11y ago
  Your points are very reasonable. However, I think that unless some government funds electric car tech research, the only way is to approach it top down, in a capitalist model. Make an electric car that's expensive, with a very high profit margin. Sell it to the rich. Use the profits to drive the tech advancement. If you approach it by making affordable cars, it will be quite a while before you accumulate enough capital to invest in the technology.
microcolonel 11y ago
Inaccurate, internal combustion engines combust fuel, they don't explode it. Explosions are something you don't want in a motor.
- chillingeffect 11y ago
  I don't know who would downvote you for this fact, but you're absolutely right.
- grecy 11y ago
  Isn't "combustion" just a type of "explosion". i.e. A (somewhat) controlled explosion? Combustion: Rapid chemical combination of a substance with oxygen, involving the production of heat and light Explosion: A violent expansion in which energy is transmitted outward as a shock wave.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    Combustion and explosion are orthogonal concepts. You can have combustion without explosion, combustion with explosion, and explosion without combustion (e.g., the failure of a pressurized container without any chemical reaction.)
korethr 11y ago
Yes, Electric cars are great and have many advantages and improvements over cars with internal combustion engines. I won't deny this. But until such time an electric cars is available as a compact hatchback that has >800 mile range on a single charge, and go from from depleted batteries to full charge in < 5 minutes, I'll be keeping my VW Golf TDI. The latter fits my use and needs from a personal vehicle better.
- MrRadar 11y ago
  Why do you need an 800 mile range? Do you drive from New York to Chicago on a daily basis?
  - korethr 11y ago
    If a 15 year old internal combustion engine design can do an 800 mile range, I don't think its unreasonable for electric cars to get there, especially with as fast as Tesla is coming up with improvements to electric cars. But let us consider advantages to an 800 mile range. Even within the urban core, where a 100 mile range is enough for a few days of commuting along with an emergency reserve, an 800 mile range is going to mean far less-frequent charges, just as it means far less frequent fill-ups for a combustion-powered car. That's less strain on the owner's wallet, and less strain on the electrical grid. These advantages are felt even more acutely by those who don't live and commute in the urban core, be it in the suburbs, outer edge of a metro area, or rural area proper. Not everyone can or wants to live in a densely-packed urban area, and for those who don't, a vehicle with a long range is very practical. An extended driving range also makes longer road trips less expensive and more practical. A full day's drive with fuel/charge to spare? Yes, please. And even if you think that such is a silly thing which no person should rightly desire from their personal transport when air travel (and airprort security theater) is available, consider another application: Trucks. Large, long-haul cargo trucks (semis) are one of the main means of transporting goods quickly across the US, and are one of the main consumers of petroleum-based fuels. They get that range by having large fuel tanks -- 100 US gallons or more. Now, imagine if electric car tech can make a compact hatchback go 800 miles/charge, what that could do when scaled up to large trucks. If you want do something about the consumption of petroleum fuels and consequent emissions in the US, getting trucks with the same or superior range on electric power is a good place to focus.
wayanon 11y ago
Bravo!
btbuildem 11y ago
Now, let's take this a big step further, and try to see how ridiculously outmoded, destructive and dangerous the entire setup of using cars for routine personal transportation really is..
bbarn 11y ago
This was a fun read, but unfortunately, the electric car isn't practical yet in the environment it should excel the most at - the city. It's only a feasible option if you're a home owner with a garage. I could totally afford a tesla, and I love them, but I don't want to own anything beyond a condo in the city, and that means street parking. Even in the best neighborhoods where I wouldn't worry about the car getting stolen/vandalized, there's still no where to charge it! Residential city areas are never going to be lined with charger plugs for people to parallel park outside their apartments and use. So, the only people it's practical for, are suburban (or very well off urban) people who don't drive often. I just don't see the infrastructure needed happening in a city the size of Chicago within my lifetime, and since populations are still centered there, I don't see gas cars going away in my lifetime, as much as I'd love them to.
- outworlder 11y ago
  This is such a US-centric view. In some countries, you can't even own a vehicle if you don't provide proof that you have some place to park it at (eg. Japan, lookup Shakoshomeishou). In others, you would be crazy to leave a car parked outside overnight, luxury or not - there is insurance, but the premium will easily double (eg many areas in Brazil, particularly the North and Northest states).
  - rentnorove 11y ago
    It's applicable to many european cities.
  - ryanlol 11y ago
    And in some countries you can just park pretty much anywhere and you'll only worry will be potential parking tickets.
- mdorazio 11y ago
  Just FYI my friends live in a condo in the city and drive a Tesla anyway. They use the supercharger stations just like normal gas stations -- fill up once a week (or less if you don't drive much) _for free_ and you're good to go. So it's definitely possible, just slightly less convenient than an ICE car due to the small number of high-speed charging stations currently available.
mindslight 11y ago
> Monthly cost for a petrol car can -just for the gasoline alone- easily exceed one hundred Euros Although I appreciate comparisons from inverse perspectives, a few specific points fell flat. Assuming a rough 10 year lifespan, depreciation on a $20k Civic is $166/mo, while depreciation on a $70k Tesla is $583/mo. Also, if you're worried about carcinogenic effects from a few whiffs of gasoline, then you most likely don't need a car since you've already confined yourself to a hermetic bubble.
- danielweber 11y ago
  Yes. It's foolish to compare the cost of consumable gas vs consumable electricity. Much better is consumable gasoline versus battery depreciation. Electricity costs nearly disappear. This was an old adage among the homebrew EV crowd: buying a battery pack is pre-paying for your fuel for the next N years. The Powerwall[1] is about 35 cents per KWh, assuming it can handle 1000 full cycles. ($3500 for 10KWh capacity.) A decent EV can get 5 miles out of that, so the battery depreciation is 7 cents a mile. That's a multiple of the electricity cost, which is about 2 cents a mile if you don't try for any time-of-day billing. [1] This is just my best comparison of the actual cost of a Tesla battery.
  - 33W 11y ago
    30mpg at $2.25/gal is 7.5c per mile. Versus 9c for an EV (7c battery, 2c elec), this is a $1500 over 100k miles. If we consider the other maintenance costs, I think they are nearly equivalent.
    - mindslight 11y ago
      This thread is rapidly entering territory where only a comprehensive comparison of TCO will suffice (not that those won't be biased either way), but the price of the battery is only one part of the price of the car. 70k$ amortized over 300k miles is still 23¢/mile. I understand Tesla's luxury-first strategy and hope the future part will pan out, but at the present time it is very weird to be making a cost based argument.
lamby 11y ago
> It may sound like a bad omen to buy the car from a car repair shop that you want to visit as seldom as possible. That's....quite a good point.
- ghaff 11y ago
  Cute line. Though the reality is that the service needs of modern autos during the first 5 years or so are likely to be pretty modest. Maybe a tire issue (which an EV could have also). Probably brake work which an EV may not require at that point. Various fluids--though oil changes are about 10K miles with synthetics. One of my vehicles is about 17 years old with 170K miles. I wouldn't expect to get that out of an EV. Don't get me wrong. I'd be interested in an EV someday. But maintenance isn't a big deal within the window where I'd expect to have to replace an EV's battery pack at this point.
rhinoceraptor 11y ago
It reminds me of this Windows review, from the point of view of a Linux-first user: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/miduh/tomt_an_article_reviewing_ms_windows_from_the/c3171os https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/miduh/tomt_an_articl...
wj 11y ago
"I could never drive an electric car because <insert my unique situation and criteria>." Wait 20 years and then get back to us. In the meantime those for who an electric car makes sense will drive them. For those it doesn't won't. This isn't politics or sports but a lot of the reasoning on here reminds me of those types of discussions.
- humanrebar 11y ago
  It's pretty sad that you equate politics and sports and I can't really disagree. Or maybe politics has always been about identity and people who like ideas and ideals are outliers.
ajtaylor 11y ago
I just leased a 2015 VW e-Golf last week so this is particularly relevant to me. It will be a commuter car and from the few days of driving it so far, this will be perfect for me. The amazing thing is getting into the car and having it be perfectly silent. The next thing that astonished me was just how fast it could be from a standstill. Plus it's a Golf and my love of Golfs can be found by looking through my comment history here. I'll admit that I'm still dealing with a bit of range anxiety, but I haven't come close to being truly scared of running out of juice. I generally run it in Eco mode w/ the regenerative braking in mode 1 or 2 so I often make back 10-20 miles of range during hilly drives.
MattHeard 11y ago
> The petrol tank apparently often leaks after an accident so the flammable liquid pours out and becomes ignited! I read recently in the New Yorker that accidents causing a fire are rare: approximately 1 in 100. [1] [1] http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/04/the-engineers-lament http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/04/the-engineers-l...
vacri 11y ago
Releasing the accelerator pedal resulted in no significant braking, we had to use the brake pedal very much to slow down the car. Why should releasing something called an 'accelerator' cause braking? A vehicle should coast in that situation, not try to stop.
- EliRivers 11y ago
  In many vehicles, releasing the "go forwards please" control does cause braking. In this day and age, it's pure convention.
  - vacri 11y ago
    If it was called that, I would have less of a problem. Braking is, however, merely acceleration in a different direction. :)

401 points by caiobegotti 11y ago

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

Is this what passes for clever? It's hardly a "tech" article, that's for sure. >The engine was also extremely hot, we burned ourselves when we touched it. Electric motors run cold, I guess? >We started calculating price versus consumption and came to the shocking conclusion that a petrol car costs unimaginable €12 per 100km! Sure, electric cars could also theoretically come up to these amounts if they quick charged at one of the most expensive charging stations in the country – but for petrol cars there are no cheaper alternatives! You can buy a $12,000 gas car, but for electric cars there are no cheaper alternatives. Work that into the cost vs a $100,000 Tesla. The 99% of the world are not complete idiots; electric cars aren't mainstream yet.

nemo 11y ago
"Is this what passes for clever?" Swedish humor is no laughing matter.
reitanqild 11y ago
remember -around here(Norway, next to Sweden) taxes on gas and gas cars make Tesla prices look very reasonable. A brand new Tesla is about half the price of a similar (>400hp) car I guess.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  That's what happens when externalities are properly priced into vehicles using taxes. Nicely done Norway/Sweden.
  - maxerickson 11y ago
    That's a pretty huge assertion you are throwing in there. I think there is a fair chance that some of the tax there is just a simple luxury tax, with accidental relief on the Tesla side (as opposed to a proper pricing of externalities).
    - toomuchtodo 11y ago
      The tax incentives in question the remove a fair portion of the tax penalty apply to all electric vehicles, not just Tesla. The "relief" for Tesla isn't accidental. I would say you'd be correct if the benefits applied solely to Tesla vehicles, but not in this case.
      - maxerickson 11y ago
        My meaning was more that it depends on how well the laws captured the intent of the societies. The nice subsidies on expensive electric vehicles may or may not leave a bad taste in the mouth of voters there (I haven't tried to figure out what public sentiment is).
        toomuchtodo 11y ago
        > The nice subsidies on expensive electric vehicles may or may not leave a bad taste in the mouth of voters there (I haven't tried to figure out what public sentiment is) I could not find the answer to this with some quick googling. I too would be interested in the answer.
  - hnnewguy 11y ago
    Costs aren't being added to the gas cars, which would make sense. Instead, normal people are subsidizing luxury cars. That's stupid.
    - toomuchtodo 11y ago
      The costs are added to all gas cars, and "normal people" are subsidizing all electric cars. The cars that are selling just happen to be the most expensive electric car.
  - smackfu 11y ago
    When you just set a bunch of taxes to zero for a few years, it's hard to argue that is "proper pricing."
    - toomuchtodo 11y ago
      If the externalities they're pricing in are oil consumption in the vehicle, and the vehicle doesn't burn oil, setting the taxes to zero is "proper pricing".
      - _delirium 11y ago
        That's not the only externality; another one is wear-and-tear on roads. In most countries, fuel taxes are used in part to pay for road and highway maintenance [1]. Certainly Norway's extensive, mountainous highway system is not free to build and maintain, and imo all road users should pay their share to fund it. You could have a direct per-km tax enforced via some kind of GPS unit, but that has privacy implications. Traditionally the fuel tax was a reasonable proxy, since vehicles used fuel in rough proportion to the amount of road traversed. [1] In the U.S. the link is explicit: almost the entirety of the fuel tax is earmarked for highway construction and maintenance, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_Trust_Fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_Trust_Fund
        deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
        toomuchtodo 11y ago
        The vast majority of road wear and tear is caused by trucks, not cars: "Heavy trucks obviously cause more road damage than cars, but how much more? According to a GAO study, Excessive Truck Weight: An Expensive Burden We Can No Longer Afford, road damage from one 18-wheeler is equivalent to 9600 cars (p.23 of study, p.36 of PDF)." http://archive.gao.gov/f0302/109884.pdf http://archive.gao.gov/f0302/109884.pdf http://facweb.knowlton.ohio-state.edu/pviton/courses2/crp776/776-roads-handout.pdf http://facweb.knowlton.ohio-state.edu/pviton/courses2/crp776... With regards to your point to taxes, remove the per-milage tax and charge a flat per-vehicle rate based on vehicle class, distributing the cost to trucks more than to passenger vehicles.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
amalag 11y ago
You can buy a 2013 used Nissan Leafs with under 10k miles for under $12k. That is comparable to a gas car. The low range on the Leaf really affects their value.
- jaxbot 11y ago
  I drive a Leaf. It's actually a really great city car. I use it for all my driving (commute, shopping, exploring the city) except for one trip a month I make in my old gas car. The car basically pays for itself compared to what I paid in gas in my old car. It's also almost zero maintenance, which is a huge plus coming from my old under 12k gas car which needed oil, random part replacements, cooling system issues, etc. Worth considering if you drive less than 60 miles a day, imo.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - crusso 11y ago
    Same here. We've had a leaf for about 8 months now and love it. We're in a suburban setting where most of our mileage is shuttling teenage kids to/from school and other activities. If your range needs are a match, it's a fantastic run-around car. With a 240V/30A charger in the garage, we can get much more than 100 miles out of it on busy days. If you need more range, there's a pricier BMW that get's almost twice as far on a charge.
  - amalag 11y ago
    Once a week we go somewhere which is a 50 mile round trip. I thought the 70 mile range was cutting it too close. Otherwise the price is very attractive now that I will move to a place with an actual garage so I can charge it.
- drzaiusapelord 11y ago
  Wait, you're comparing a NEW ICE car with 200+ range, warranty, etc to a tiny ~40 mile range USED EV with a battery pack on its last legs (battery pack capacity drops begin at around 10 to 15k and continue from there). Real world range in traffic, climate control on, etc is not the advertised number. Its not even close. Search the Leaf forums if you don't believe me. Not to mention, after Fed and State rebates, there's $10,000 off the cost, which is affecting its resale value. Give me $10,000 for an ICE car and I'll show you a near free car with 4x the range, a warranty, etc. Come on.
hahainternet 11y ago
> Is this what passes for clever? It's hardly a "tech" article, that's for sure. I read it with a smirk, I thought it was a nicely done parody. In a few decades when your average 25 year old has never known a petrol driven car (yes yes this might not happen) it is a believable experience.
- mikeash 11y ago
  Is it even a parody? It's written from the perspective of somebody who doesn't yet exist: a person who has only known electric cars for their whole life. But aside from that, it does a pretty good job of imagining what that person would think the first time they're exposed to a "normal" car.
  - hahainternet 11y ago
    It's both parody and satire isn't it really. It's a deliberately absurd take on a car review so I feel both are appropriate.
ebbv 11y ago
> for electric cars there are no cheaper alternatives Not true at all. I traded in a Subaru WRX and pay less for my Leaf every month than I did for the Subaru. Not to mention the savings on the costs of driving it around. > The 99% of the world are not complete idiots; electric cars aren't mainstream yet. These two phrases don't necessarily have anything to do with each other. It's true, there are good reasons why EVs aren't mainstream. One is that if you're in an apartment or condominium EV ownership is pretty much out the window unless you can get your property managers to install charging stations. Another is that you can't get one with 200 mile range for under $60k right now, and that's a big hurdle for most people to get over mentally. Even though most people don't drive more than 80 miles in a day, and a Leaf WOULD do just fine for them, they can't bring themselves to act rationally about it. Being that close to their limit is a mental block. That's why it's important that Tesla delivers on the promise to offer a $30k 200 mile range car in 2017. Now, all of that has nothing to do with the original article. The point of which is really that EVs are way, way nicer than petrol cars, for a variety of reasons. Which is something that most people just don't get yet.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  > It's true, there are good reasons why EVs aren't mainstream. One is that if you're in an apartment or condominium EV ownership is pretty much out the window unless you can get your property managers to install charging stations. State laws are coming online that require property managers to install charging stations if they're above a certain size. California's law is already in effect with regard to this.
- SteveGerencser 11y ago
  Range is why we don't have an electric car yet. They are great for urban dwellers but for people that live out 'in the country' range is a serious issue. We only go in to town once a week or so and that is a 50 mile round trip if we make no extra stops. To go to the 'city' which happens once a month or so a round trip easily crosses the 100 mile range and can top 150 miles with dinner added in. A trip to a real metro area would easily cross the 250 mile mark. If Tesla can deliver a 'real' 200 mile car for a reasonable price it would be worth considering. But for a significant percentage of the rural population EVs are simply not an option at this point.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
mikeash 11y ago
Electric motors don't need much service (and when they do, it's highly complicated) so there's no need to provide access to it. People occasionally ask to see the motor in my Model S, and the best I can do is point to the rear seats and say "it's under there." There's nothing on the car that you can burn yourself on that you can get to without tools. And did you really say that there are no cheaper alternatives for an electric car than a $100,000 Tesla? You might want to have a look at what's actually available, if that's what you actually meant to say.
- hnnewguy 11y ago
  >And did you really say that there are no cheaper alternatives for an electric car than a $100,000 Tesla? You might want to have a look at what's actually available, if that's what you actually meant to say. If you want an electric car with 200+ mile range, what are the alternatives?
  - mikeash 11y ago
    You didn't specify that. :P

atjoslin 11y ago

Web cached version: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lVzsGlteXR4J:teslaclubsweden.se/test-drive-of-a-petrol-car/+&cd=1&hl=no&ct=clnk http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lVzsGlt...

axx 11y ago

As much as i like this article, Tesla would never had the success they now have, without the "petrol car"-Industry. The automotive industry brought a lot of innovations and lowered prices for tooling etc. by a lot. I think this article is very funny (and sad), but you have to give those "old" companies a lot of credit for their work. That's still no excuse for other companies, not to hop on the electric train.

hahainternet 11y ago
> but you have to give those "old" companies a lot of credit for their work. I can't think of any industries where that wouldn't be the case.
jaxbot 11y ago
To be fair, though, we theoretically don't need the car industry at all. Tesla is building an electric industry to solve the emissions problem created by a transportation industry that does not need to exist. Take NYC for example. MTA enables transportation to just about anywhere in the city, all through an electric, mass-transit trolley system. If we look at the history of municipal transportation, it looks pretty clear that trolleys were winning over the majority of the car industry up until GM took over trolleys[1] and shut them down to essentially require people to own cars to do any transportation outside of biking and walking. I think what Tesla is doing is wonderful, but I feel like the problem they are having to solve didn't need to exist in the first place, and the petrol car industry got us in a bad situation. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspi...
- axx 11y ago
  You do realise that not everyone is living in big vivid cities with perfect transportation? For people in rural/urban areas cars are essential. And don't get me wrong, i agree with everything you say, but that problem won't be solved so easily.
  - jaxbot 11y ago

lucb1e 11y ago

The charging confuses me. Of course you pay to get gas at the pump, don't you pay to get electricity? I've always wondered that, seeing cars charge on the street or in parking lots, how does the system know whom to charge... or is it government-sponsored to promote electric cars? Edit: Relevant section > The seller looked very puzzled at us and explained that it is not possible to refuel gasoline cars at home, and there are no free gas stations. We tried to explain our questions, in case he had misunderstood, but he insisted that you can not. Apparently you have to several times a month drive to the gas station to recharge your petrol car at extortionate prices – there are no alternatives! Edit 2: I should clarify, I'm from the Netherlands (Europe).

raverbashing 11y ago
You don't pay at Tesla stations
- lucb1e 11y ago
  I guess those must have a Tesla logo? I've never seen any of those (I live in the Netherlands). Edit: Those? http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger I guess we don't have these, I would surely have recognized them.
  - raverbashing 11y ago
    http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger Not sure if it's going to be in Europe
    - toomuchtodo 11y ago
      If you scroll down, and click Europe, you see that almost all of western europe is already awash in Superchargers, and Tesla continues to push east over the next 6-18 months.
      - raverbashing 11y ago

Shivetya 11y ago

Contrived to the point of stupid so the point is lost. Really, this could have just as well been written in the early 1900s with a moron buying a car when a perfectly good horse was available. Two problems still exist with electric only cars they haven't shown are solvable. Truly fast charging and handling of that "damnit, the son forgot to plug the car in when he got home and I need to go to work/doctor/etc NOW" and lack of available charging for large number of potential drivers. Want to be silly like the article, don't get snowed in without power for days on end that still happens in North America. As for repair shops at dealers, well being able to have your car repaired and serviced anywhere is a good thing. Just happens that Tesla does its best to hide the service issues by keeping it mostly internal. So yeah electrics are cool, leaning towards a ER EV myself simply because I have to travel on my schedule and not my cars

nailer 11y ago
> damnit, the son forgot to plug the car in when he got home I don't see that as a significant problem: 'complain when at home but not charging' is a fairly easily implemented fix.
jmilloy 11y ago
I could be wrong about this, but I think it is referring to a specific review of a Tesla test-drive from a few years back. It doesn't seem quite so contrived with that in mind, and the point is also more clear.
krschultz 11y ago
It's not contrived. All the points you mentioned about the downsides of EV are true. That's why they're a single digit percentage of the market right now at best. The point of this article is to point out the compromises that we are currently making. They're invisible to us because they are the compromises we have been making for generations. I can imagine a 538 article that illustrates how much land we allocate to gas stations using several graphs. For some people that article will be interesting. Other people's eyes will glaze over. This kind of article uses humor to make the same point. I don't own an electric vehicle. I'm very aware of the advantages of electric vehicles for society at large, but reading about how funny it is to not be able to store things in the front of the car made me realize how much of a feature that really would be. Reading about his concern that an gasoline powered car is less safe because you have a giant engine in front of you made sense to me in a way I previously hadn't thought about. He didn't even make a bunch of other points that I often think about - like the level of soot in cities. Our children will probably look back at us the way we look back at London in 1850 shrouded in coal dust.

yc1010 11y ago

Uhm I would love a Tesla (if they ever start selling right hand drive versions in my little backward western european country) but at an equivalent of €100K price tag (that means I have to earn ~€210K before tax, to be left with that amount around these parts) its a bit steep... Neither am I sure that the inept electricity supply board would know how to install a charger for one, and well electricity is expensive here in Ireland, paid €1200 last year for just above 4000KW/hours for my home/office Yes my petrol 4x4 is 10 years old, yes it does a terrible mileage in a country where petrol is €1.40/liter now, yes it breaks alot and has to be serviced (just this week) and pass yearly road-worthiness testing and costs me a fortune in tax and insurance (€700 + 330 last year) Maybe if we werent taxed as much I could afford after a few years of saving a luxury of an electric car, until then me good old jeep will continue to drive me over the potholed narrow roads we have (which apparently all that road tax AND now local council tax was meant to improve) sigh... tl.dr: The article is funny but not all of us enjoy Nordic standards of living or wages (After tax), or have governments that are not out to fleece the taxpayers and hand their blood money over to failed banks and their developer buddies who helped them get elected.

kaolinite 11y ago
They are planning to eventually release a more affordable Tesla, just as soon as they can scale up enough that it's viable. The first car they made (the Roadster) was a very expensive supercar, which they sold in low numbers. Then they made the Model S, an expensive, luxury sedan, which they're selling a lot more of. I'm not sure if pricing has been released yet for the Model X but I suspect it'll be cheaper than the Model S and will sell in even greater numbers. Elon doesn't really seem to be in this for the money or the luxury status - he seems to just care about building great cars that are good for the environment. As soon as he can make really good, affordable electric cars - I'm sure he will.
- stcredzero 11y ago
  The Model X is a luxury SUV. ("Estate," in the british isles.) The next model is supposed to be the "Model 3." They can't use Model E, because Ford still has that trademarked or something along those lines. Otherwise, they could have models S, E, and X.

paganel 11y ago

> The car’s gasoline engine coughed to life and started to operate. One could hear the engine’s sound and the car’s whole body vibrated as if something was broken, but the seller assured us that everything was as it should I've only learned to drive and have owned my car for a year now (I'm in my mid-30s), but I just love the engine of my petrol car starting. Often times I choose to drive with my radio turned-off just to hear the engine's sound. Mind you, is a regular 1.4l hatcchbak, nothing sporty or the like. Later edit: I also love to change gears, honestly. Not sure exactly what it is, but I don't see myself driving an automatic. > You need a lot of training to learn to select the right gear at the right time And about this, there's no "a lot of training" needed, you just get used to it pretty fast. Actually, IMHO, is part of the whole process of you becoming one with your car.

markbnine 11y ago
Obviously this post is not interested in car-geeking, but I agree, the sound of combustion engines can be wonderful (VW Beetles).
to3m 11y ago
I pretty much always drive with the radio off. My car is a 3L diesel. Purists might scoff, but I've always liked the noise it makes. I was sold pretty much instantly on the test drive and four years later I still love it. Once you're on the move, it's very relaxing, like an ambient music track, with a cheeky whirring noise in the background that becomes more evident when it gets going. When you're sat stationary with the engine idling, the gear knob and foot pedals shudder, and there's a slight juddering through the steering wheel. Some might think of this as unrefined, and possibly even agricultural, but I find it actually quite comforting. At such low revs the engine also sounds rather clattery... but I don't mind. At least you know it's still there. (I had a courtesy car a couple of years ago with an engine that was undetectable while idling - and I ended up not liking it! It was so nice to have my car back, with its reassurring vibrations and its clattery engine sound. People are weird. (But maybe if I'd have been given a Tesla, with its panoply of toys and its space shuttle-style acceleration, I'd have got over it.)
nsxwolf 11y ago
I also love manual transmissions. It will be the hardest thing for me to give up when I eventually make the switch to electric. I suppose it is similar to the satisfaction the owner of a mechanical watch gets -- but it's more visceral. You're really becoming part of the machine, and you feel it. Coordinating gear shifting with clutch pedal actuation, instinctively doing it all at the right moment based on what you hear and feel from the engine. Your body and mind are involved, consciously and subconsciously. Now all that is just ... gone.

dabeeeenster 11y ago

I wrote this a couple of years ago http://www.solidstategroup.com/page/6277/a-review-of-the-new-fangled-petrol-powered-car http://www.solidstategroup.com/page/6277/a-review-of-the-new... I guess that's what you would call 'creative license'...

bjwbell 11y ago
I like yours more. I couldn't read more than a couple paragraphs of the new one without cringing from their 'creative license' with facts.
1123581321 11y ago
I like yours a good bit more. It's a better comparison and funnier. Thanks for sharing.
CamperBob2 11y ago
I guess that's what you would call 'creative license'... Don't Panameras have the same auto start-stop feature that the 981/991 cars have? And who in the world replaces their exhaust system every 20,000 miles?

ekianjo 11y ago

> You need a lot of training to learn to select the right gear at the right time – though there are also models with automatic transmissions that can do this themselves. In the manual transmission car, we needed to constantly guard the engine from damaging it. Very stressful. Mmm. That's probably supposed to be funny, except that it is not, since automatic cars are so boring to drive in the first place. Manual cars are the real deal if you want to feel your car and the road when you drive instead of relying on a computer to make your choices. There's certainly a use for automatic transmission (on motorways or on heavy traffic roads for example) but in most other situations I'd rather have manual over it. > The seller looked very puzzled at us and explained that it is not possible to refuel gasoline cars at home, Because you don't need to, when you have an autonomy of hundred of kilometers with a single tank. An electric car is like a smartphone, it may be nice to operate (if you like them) but you need to charge them everyday. And you can forget about long distance driving without having to stop for a long while to recharge your car. Oh, and you can store petrol in your car (in your trunk) if you want to go very, very far, but good luck doing that with an electric car if you go in remote places without plugs anywhere to be seen. Electric cars are obviously only for urban zones (or places not too far in between them). > especially given that all gasoline must be imported from abroad. Is that article from like 20 years ago ? Because where Tesla is the most popular (i.e. in the US), now a large part of the petrol is actually extracted locally. > Do not confuse petrol cars’ exhaust pipes with fuel cell cars’ – while hydrogen powered fuel cell vehicles emit only water vapor gasoline cars spew out noxious gasses, and even fossil carbon dioxide that contribute to Earth’s future-catastrophic warming! Yeah, and your electricity that powers your car is still made mostly from fossil fuels in most parts of the world, or nuclear energy which is not too hot with the general public nowadays. It's nice to be blind.

watty 11y ago
The goal of driving (for most) is to get from A to B, not entertainment. I agree, I loved my manual car but the masses prefer the convenience of automatic which is why manual cars continue to disappear. Electric cars will eventually replace petrol cars, it's a fact.
- ekianjo 11y ago

serve_yay 11y ago

I noticed that a car I drove by yesterday was a Tesla. But I didn't notice immediately, because it looked like a Buick or something. I don't understand why, if they're trying to do something radically different, their cars look pretty much like everyone else's. Perhaps they are trying not to scare off potential buyers, but it seems like people are already interested in trying something different when they buy a Tesla. I personally would never drop whatever crazy prices their cars cost for something so mundane looking, though.

BorgHunter 11y ago
There's more volume in conventional-looking cars. Look at the responses to the Nissan Leaf and BMW i3, two electric cars that are legitimately funky-looking; something that looks weird will turn more people off than will be turned on.
flyinghamster 11y ago
On the contrary, I'm glad that Teslas are both handsome and fairly normal-looking. An electric car doesn't need to look ridiculous.
NickM 11y ago
I think the key point here is that Tesla is not trying to make the world's best electric car, they're trying to make the best car, period. If they try to make something radical and different looking, then they're going to gain some extra traction with people who want to stand out and be different, but they already have those people in the bag anyway. On the flip side, making their cars deliberately strange looking is likely to turn a lot of people off. People who might otherwise be interested in buying a Tesla simply because it's a high-quality, practical car that competes well with other cars in its price segment, gasoline or not.

S_A_P 11y ago

I get the point of this article and its tongue in cheek. Twenty years ago people laughed at electric cars with their maybe 30-40 miles of range and 8-12hour charging times. Tesla has done a lot to iron out most of these engineering problems and I applaud them for that. However, articles like this also smack of elitism, especially considering the 6 figure prices most Tesla vehicles sell for. I would love to own a Tesla, just as I would love to own a 2000 acre ranch estate with a huge mansion on it. When electric cars can compete in the range of commodity cars, then we can have this conversation about the merits of electric cars. I just watched a video comparing the Dodge Charger Hellcat to a Tesla P-85d. Both have similar power, and while you can debate the level of quality of FCA vs Tesla you can still drive a Hellcat(which is an insane gas guzzler) for less money for 5-7 years depending on your yearly mileage. At that point, most people will likely purchase a new vehicle, and that is also assuming you only use free superchargers. A Tesla is definitely a luxury item, I get that, and there are other options. The problem is most current other options are more like the electric cars 20 years ago than a tesla. Progress is being made and I am excited about that. I would love to have an electric commuter car as long as it could meet the following criteria. 1) seat 5 people comfortably 2) have 150+ miles of range(I drive about 120 miles per day) 3) cost between 30-50k 4) have reasonable performance(say comparable to a german sedan in that price range) 5) recharge quickly and easily, possibly have battery swap capability for the high use days 6) emphasize being a good car and not a "green" car. Im all for taking care of the environment, but will never buy a car with a 60" x 12" GREEN ECO ELECTRIC POWER emblazoned across the side.(In the same way I would never get a car that says "UBER HEMI BIG WANG POWER" either) 7) be reliable and comfortable to drive, with low cost of ownership at least comparable to a reliable petrol car. I dont think any of that list is unreasonable, and I am glad that Tesla exists, they have done a great service to the electric car.

ksk 11y ago
Your points are very reasonable. However, I think that unless some government funds electric car tech research, the only way is to approach it top down, in a capitalist model. Make an electric car that's expensive, with a very high profit margin. Sell it to the rich. Use the profits to drive the tech advancement. If you approach it by making affordable cars, it will be quite a while before you accumulate enough capital to invest in the technology.

microcolonel 11y ago

Inaccurate, internal combustion engines combust fuel, they don't explode it. Explosions are something you don't want in a motor.

chillingeffect 11y ago
I don't know who would downvote you for this fact, but you're absolutely right.
grecy 11y ago
Isn't "combustion" just a type of "explosion". i.e. A (somewhat) controlled explosion? Combustion: Rapid chemical combination of a substance with oxygen, involving the production of heat and light Explosion: A violent expansion in which energy is transmitted outward as a shock wave.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  Combustion and explosion are orthogonal concepts. You can have combustion without explosion, combustion with explosion, and explosion without combustion (e.g., the failure of a pressurized container without any chemical reaction.)

korethr 11y ago

Yes, Electric cars are great and have many advantages and improvements over cars with internal combustion engines. I won't deny this. But until such time an electric cars is available as a compact hatchback that has >800 mile range on a single charge, and go from from depleted batteries to full charge in < 5 minutes, I'll be keeping my VW Golf TDI. The latter fits my use and needs from a personal vehicle better.

MrRadar 11y ago
Why do you need an 800 mile range? Do you drive from New York to Chicago on a daily basis?
- korethr 11y ago
  If a 15 year old internal combustion engine design can do an 800 mile range, I don't think its unreasonable for electric cars to get there, especially with as fast as Tesla is coming up with improvements to electric cars. But let us consider advantages to an 800 mile range. Even within the urban core, where a 100 mile range is enough for a few days of commuting along with an emergency reserve, an 800 mile range is going to mean far less-frequent charges, just as it means far less frequent fill-ups for a combustion-powered car. That's less strain on the owner's wallet, and less strain on the electrical grid. These advantages are felt even more acutely by those who don't live and commute in the urban core, be it in the suburbs, outer edge of a metro area, or rural area proper. Not everyone can or wants to live in a densely-packed urban area, and for those who don't, a vehicle with a long range is very practical. An extended driving range also makes longer road trips less expensive and more practical. A full day's drive with fuel/charge to spare? Yes, please. And even if you think that such is a silly thing which no person should rightly desire from their personal transport when air travel (and airprort security theater) is available, consider another application: Trucks. Large, long-haul cargo trucks (semis) are one of the main means of transporting goods quickly across the US, and are one of the main consumers of petroleum-based fuels. They get that range by having large fuel tanks -- 100 US gallons or more. Now, imagine if electric car tech can make a compact hatchback go 800 miles/charge, what that could do when scaled up to large trucks. If you want do something about the consumption of petroleum fuels and consequent emissions in the US, getting trucks with the same or superior range on electric power is a good place to focus.

wayanon 11y ago

Bravo!

btbuildem 11y ago

Now, let's take this a big step further, and try to see how ridiculously outmoded, destructive and dangerous the entire setup of using cars for routine personal transportation really is..

bbarn 11y ago

This was a fun read, but unfortunately, the electric car isn't practical yet in the environment it should excel the most at - the city. It's only a feasible option if you're a home owner with a garage. I could totally afford a tesla, and I love them, but I don't want to own anything beyond a condo in the city, and that means street parking. Even in the best neighborhoods where I wouldn't worry about the car getting stolen/vandalized, there's still no where to charge it! Residential city areas are never going to be lined with charger plugs for people to parallel park outside their apartments and use. So, the only people it's practical for, are suburban (or very well off urban) people who don't drive often. I just don't see the infrastructure needed happening in a city the size of Chicago within my lifetime, and since populations are still centered there, I don't see gas cars going away in my lifetime, as much as I'd love them to.

outworlder 11y ago
This is such a US-centric view. In some countries, you can't even own a vehicle if you don't provide proof that you have some place to park it at (eg. Japan, lookup Shakoshomeishou). In others, you would be crazy to leave a car parked outside overnight, luxury or not - there is insurance, but the premium will easily double (eg many areas in Brazil, particularly the North and Northest states).
- rentnorove 11y ago
  It's applicable to many european cities.
- ryanlol 11y ago
  And in some countries you can just park pretty much anywhere and you'll only worry will be potential parking tickets.
mdorazio 11y ago
Just FYI my friends live in a condo in the city and drive a Tesla anyway. They use the supercharger stations just like normal gas stations -- fill up once a week (or less if you don't drive much) _for free_ and you're good to go. So it's definitely possible, just slightly less convenient than an ICE car due to the small number of high-speed charging stations currently available.

mindslight 11y ago

> Monthly cost for a petrol car can -just for the gasoline alone- easily exceed one hundred Euros Although I appreciate comparisons from inverse perspectives, a few specific points fell flat. Assuming a rough 10 year lifespan, depreciation on a $20k Civic is $166/mo, while depreciation on a $70k Tesla is $583/mo. Also, if you're worried about carcinogenic effects from a few whiffs of gasoline, then you most likely don't need a car since you've already confined yourself to a hermetic bubble.

danielweber 11y ago
Yes. It's foolish to compare the cost of consumable gas vs consumable electricity. Much better is consumable gasoline versus battery depreciation. Electricity costs nearly disappear. This was an old adage among the homebrew EV crowd: buying a battery pack is pre-paying for your fuel for the next N years. The Powerwall[1] is about 35 cents per KWh, assuming it can handle 1000 full cycles. ($3500 for 10KWh capacity.) A decent EV can get 5 miles out of that, so the battery depreciation is 7 cents a mile. That's a multiple of the electricity cost, which is about 2 cents a mile if you don't try for any time-of-day billing. [1] This is just my best comparison of the actual cost of a Tesla battery.
- 33W 11y ago
  30mpg at $2.25/gal is 7.5c per mile. Versus 9c for an EV (7c battery, 2c elec), this is a $1500 over 100k miles. If we consider the other maintenance costs, I think they are nearly equivalent.
  - mindslight 11y ago
    This thread is rapidly entering territory where only a comprehensive comparison of TCO will suffice (not that those won't be biased either way), but the price of the battery is only one part of the price of the car. 70k$ amortized over 300k miles is still 23¢/mile. I understand Tesla's luxury-first strategy and hope the future part will pan out, but at the present time it is very weird to be making a cost based argument.

lamby 11y ago

> It may sound like a bad omen to buy the car from a car repair shop that you want to visit as seldom as possible. That's....quite a good point.

ghaff 11y ago
Cute line. Though the reality is that the service needs of modern autos during the first 5 years or so are likely to be pretty modest. Maybe a tire issue (which an EV could have also). Probably brake work which an EV may not require at that point. Various fluids--though oil changes are about 10K miles with synthetics. One of my vehicles is about 17 years old with 170K miles. I wouldn't expect to get that out of an EV. Don't get me wrong. I'd be interested in an EV someday. But maintenance isn't a big deal within the window where I'd expect to have to replace an EV's battery pack at this point.

rhinoceraptor 11y ago

It reminds me of this Windows review, from the point of view of a Linux-first user: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/miduh/tomt_an_article_reviewing_ms_windows_from_the/c3171os https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/miduh/tomt_an_articl...

wj 11y ago

"I could never drive an electric car because <insert my unique situation and criteria>." Wait 20 years and then get back to us. In the meantime those for who an electric car makes sense will drive them. For those it doesn't won't. This isn't politics or sports but a lot of the reasoning on here reminds me of those types of discussions.

humanrebar 11y ago
It's pretty sad that you equate politics and sports and I can't really disagree. Or maybe politics has always been about identity and people who like ideas and ideals are outliers.

ajtaylor 11y ago

I just leased a 2015 VW e-Golf last week so this is particularly relevant to me. It will be a commuter car and from the few days of driving it so far, this will be perfect for me. The amazing thing is getting into the car and having it be perfectly silent. The next thing that astonished me was just how fast it could be from a standstill. Plus it's a Golf and my love of Golfs can be found by looking through my comment history here. I'll admit that I'm still dealing with a bit of range anxiety, but I haven't come close to being truly scared of running out of juice. I generally run it in Eco mode w/ the regenerative braking in mode 1 or 2 so I often make back 10-20 miles of range during hilly drives.

MattHeard 11y ago

> The petrol tank apparently often leaks after an accident so the flammable liquid pours out and becomes ignited! I read recently in the New Yorker that accidents causing a fire are rare: approximately 1 in 100. [1] [1] http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/04/the-engineers-lament http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/04/the-engineers-l...

vacri 11y ago

Releasing the accelerator pedal resulted in no significant braking, we had to use the brake pedal very much to slow down the car. Why should releasing something called an 'accelerator' cause braking? A vehicle should coast in that situation, not try to stop.

EliRivers 11y ago
In many vehicles, releasing the "go forwards please" control does cause braking. In this day and age, it's pure convention.
- vacri 11y ago
  If it was called that, I would have less of a problem. Braking is, however, merely acceleration in a different direction. :)