NickM

40 ms·

511.
by 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 g
512.
by NickM 11y ago
You are correct that electric cars are not inherently more aerodynamic, but in practice it is easier to engineer them to be more aerodynamic. Not needing a big intake grill at the front makes a substantial difference, as does being able to
513.
by NickM 11y ago
But, I'm also not going to put the battery pack(s) "inside" my house (e.g. utility/laundry room). Why not? The whole point to making it wall-mounted is that it won't take up any substantial amount of space. A util
514.
by NickM 11y ago
It seems like a lot of rare earth materials to build so many big batteries. Lithium-ion cells actually don't necessarily require any rare earth metals at all. For instance, the batteries Tesla currently uses for their cars are made u
515.
by NickM 12y ago
As someone who owns an iPhone, I don't think it's really substantially improved my quality of life. It makes some things more convenient, but doesn't really enable me to do anything I couldn't do before with other separa
516.
by NickM 12y ago
My understanding is that ecological impacts were more of a problem with older battery chemistries (lead-acid, nickel-cadmium), whereas lithium-ion packs are relatively benign. For instance, the batteries used by Tesla are mostly composed of
517.
by NickM 12y ago
I don't believe any of the Model S updates have ever been automatically applied. It will automatically tell you "hey, an update is available" but won't install it until you give the go-ahead.
518.
by NickM 12y ago
The biggest obstacle to using li-ion for stationary storage is not density. It doesn't really matter if the batteries weigh a ton if you're never going to move them. And hydrogen is roughly on par with batteries in terms of energy
519.
by NickM 12y ago
I can only speculate, but perhaps it has to do with the regenerative braking the boards provide. On an e-bike you still have friction brakes, but on one of these boards you need to be able to brake quickly using the electric motors. More po
520.
by NickM 12y ago
CO2 isn't the only greenhouse gas, or anywhere near the most powerful. There are immense reserves of methane gas frozen under the arctic. If that gas were suddenly released all at once due to the ice caps melting, it could be truly cat
521.
by NickM 12y ago
If we end up with a runaway greenhouse effect, it's possible that Earth could become Venus-like, with surface temperatures of hundreds of degrees. This would probably be less hospitable than Mars.
522.
by NickM 12y ago
I wholeheartedly agree, and I'm honestly surprised nobody has done this already. I often find that grep is ridiculously fast compared to less. It seems like a huge shame that a tool uses by so many people on such a regular basis is so
523.
by NickM 12y ago
True, but in practice Hearthstone has been relatively balanced, and allows for a lot of different winning strategies that are all competitive. Right now I can think of at least seven very different decks off the top of my head that have bee
524.
by NickM 12y ago
As someone who has played quite a bit of Hearthstone, I wish he had released his machine learning tool, even though I probably wouldn't use it myself. Such a tool would basically punish people who copied a pre-existing popular deck ver
525.
by NickM 12y ago
Plenty of people live in apartments that don't necessarily have laundry on site. I don't have any firsthand experience, but I'd imagine it'd be a lot more convenient to be able to do your laundry at work for free vs. h
526.
by NickM 12y ago
Ignoring improved efficiency and excluding other factors, converting all gasoline usage to electric would more than double US electricity consumption. Not a bad analysis, but there's a lot we're glossing over here. For one thing
527.
by NickM 12y ago
I was going to raise the same point. And, considering that the average new car sold in the US gets 25MPG, we should be just about breaking even.
528.
by NickM 12y ago
2020 is the estimate for full scale production at max capacity, not the estimate for when it will first come on line.
529.
by NickM 12y ago
The $35,000 will be starting after rebate Citation? You might be right, but I thought I read that 35k was before the tax credit. For that matter, I believe the current EV tax credit is only available for the first X number of EVs produced
530.
by NickM 12y ago
I agree. Consumer Reports did a survey of Model S owners and found that it was reliable enough to warrant a strong recommendation, and that "no owner in our survey has reported problems with the electric drivetrain". http:/&
531.
by NickM 12y ago
This post highlights some persistent myths surrounding electric vehicles: 1) Even if you're using electricity derived 100% from burning coal, you're still causing less pollution than most gas-powered cars. This is because power
532.
by NickM 12y ago
It's been done before with e.g. Steam or Spotify. I would assume some company or organization would need to release a pre-compiled binary implementation, which could then be handled in much the same way that Flash is currently handled
533.
by NickM 12y ago
Probably a long way off, but I can't help but imagine the kind of amazing applications something like this might have. If we could reliably capture and store the resulting positrons, then recombine them with electrons later to release
534.
by NickM 12y ago
Charging the battery fast isn't necessarily so bad in and of itself, but fast charging tends to generate a lot of heat, and high heat is bad for lithium ion longevity. The Model S has a battery cooling system built into the car which k
535.
by NickM 13y ago
Tesla itself would disagree as it has stated 70% after 7 years/100k miles. Citation? I've never heard of Tesla claiming anything close to that.
536.
by NickM 13y ago
Not that I'm disputing your point, but I think a lot of people make assumptions about EV batteries that aren't necessarily true. Nobody really knows for sure right now, but I think it's very possible that a Tesla battery pack
537.
by NickM 13y ago
There are things that you would regularly expect to operate while driving that can only be operated by touch screen in a Model S. What things are there? I don't own a Model S, but am considering buying one, so I'm genuinely curi
538.
by NickM 13y ago
Has anyone had any experience trying to use this for programming? My feeling when I looked into it a while back was that it's heavily optimized for typing English, and that it might not be suitable for programming without some heavy mo
539.
by NickM 13y ago
Your link says that those are "estimated fuel consumptions", but I'm somewhat inclined to doubt the veracity of these estimates: between 120 km/h and 240 km/h wind drag is going to quadruple, and ICEs get lower effi
540.
by NickM 13y ago
Calling my numbers "lunacy" will, unfortunately, not change the laws of physics. If you drive twice as fast, air drag multiplies by four, and the energy to overcome that air drag has to come from somewhere. At highway speeds air d

More ›