
The Tesla 3  and “Shit Talkers” Like Me - cpr
http://ericpetersautos.com/2016/04/07/tesla-3-shit-talkers-like/
======
zzalpha
Seems like the core complaint is with subsidies for electric vehicles.

I can see where he's coming from... 'course, without subsidies, I doubt wind
and solar would be taking off the way they are, now, as those subsidies
allowed economies of scale to develop which have led to significantly reduced
costs. Sometimes government needs to subsidize technology in order to help it
take off (and that includes the Internet, which allowed the author to
broadcast their post to the world).

This also ignores the fact that existing gas powered vehicles are heavily
subsidized thanks to a) subsidies to the petroleum industry, and b) negative
externalities. So there's a bit of hypocrisy, here.

------
shifter
One major flaw with this article is the notion that supercharging takes 30 -
45 minutes. A typical stop duration at a supercharger is 15 minutes.

The author also fails to mention the most appealing aspect of the car for the
performance oriented: instant torque. After getting a Model S, I could never
go back to the days of gears (even manually controlled gear changes are
sluggish in comparison).

~~~
peeters
Another is his math.

> I’m the “shit talker” for boggling at the idea that people are going to be
> happy about waiting around for half an hour to forty-five minutes to get
> back on the road again? We’re talking waits-to-get-going that are 150 times
> the typical 5 minute refuel with a gas-engined car.

Yeah I'd balk at a 12.5 hour wait time too.

~~~
cortesoft
Yeah, I was really confused by that line, too. Where did he get the 150 from?!
Unless he takes 18 seconds to fill his car with gas?

~~~
dsfyu404ed
If you just count time when the pump is pumping some of the really old pumps
could definitely fill a compact with a small gas tank in 15-20sec. While
that's not the norm but it's definitely possible.

------
Obi_Juan_Kenobi
Apparently there are trade offs when using electric cars, which apparently
makes them terrible. Inconvenience for certain types of driving means they're
just awful.

There's no silencing of 'shit talkers' by 'control freaks', just push back to
a poor argument.

Electric cars are good for commuting, and poor for long distance. There's
nothing more to it than that. I commute on a bike and mostly want a car for
long trips, so I won't buy an electric car. Somehow I can accept that fact
without deciding people who want them are idiots.

~~~
dragontamer
This is my thinking of the article as well. Its extremely negative for reasons
I can't really fathom.

The Tesla fanboys are definitely building up their own reality-distortion-
field... ignoring some basic truths of the technology. But the overall
benefits and pro/con tradeoffs are known at this point.

But countering that with your own reality-distortion-field is wrong.

Electric vehicles excel at short-range driving (Leaf, Bolt, Model 3), but have
issues for long road trips (even if the Supercharger network tries to solve
the issue). Hybrids seem to strike a good balance (Volt / Prius Prime). ICE
Vehicles are the status-quo and really you can't go wrong with old technology,
since everyone knows the full scope of pros/cons of the status quo.

------
beeboop
I am not sure what the point of this article is. He is essentially unhappy
that Tesla is, in his opinion, deceptive about the reality of owning one of
its cars. I disagree - I don't think anyone is really that surprised when they
buy a laptop marketed as "Up to 12 hours of battery life" and then get 3 hours
of battery life while playing a video game. I think people understand this is
how electronics work, and I doubt anyone is spending $40k after taxes and fees
on a car without, at some point, realizing or being told that the 300 mile
depends on a lot of factors. A pretty basic search on the internet will tell
you this in under 60 seconds of effort. And I don't think anyone buys this car
under the impression they will fill it up in a couple minutes like an ICE.

~~~
ambrice
If you read the comments, he's a hardcore libertarian whose problem is really
the tax subsidies on Tesla. The rest of it is just weak reaches for additional
justifications.

~~~
beeboop
He might have a stroke if he sees how much oil companies get in subsidies.

~~~
ambrice
He claims that he doesn't like that either, but that without those subsidies
ICE cars are economically viable but Tesla would never sell cars. Anyway, I'm
giving you the reasonable summary, don't go actually reading those comments,
they're worse than the article.

------
bobbylox
The author doesn't seem to realize that electric power produced by even the
dirtiest coal power plant is far less harmful (in terms of CO2 and
particulates) than a gasoline engine _per mile travelled_.

------
raisedbyninjas
Many normal ICE cars only get 350-450 miles of range which also drops
significantly when driving is dominated by heavy acceleration or even highway
driving > 70mph.

This "writer" has no room to criticize writers.

~~~
FireBeyond
Or turning on the heater?

And the Supercharger that refuels your Tesla in 5 minutes is ... where?

~~~
russelluresti
The funny thing about the wait time that everyone keeps talking about is that,
apparently, no one actually cares about waiting.

Tesla piloted their battery swap program over a year ago, where you could swap
out your battery for a fully charged one in under 2 minutes. You'd get all
your range back faster than you could refuel a gas car.

Want to know what happened? No one used it. Because no one cares about
refueling in under 5 minutes if a supercharge station takes 15 - 30 or you can
just plug in at home. It's literally not a thing people (in general) care
about.

I don't know how to phrase this any other way. NO. ONE. CARES.

~~~
ambrice
Were the batteries brand new? Were the battery swap stations everywhere that
had a supercharger? Did everyone know about it? It seems like there are
possibly some other explanations than people didn't care about the recharge
wait. I know I wouldn't swap out my known good batteries for some dodgy
unknown batteries from the last Tesla that went through here just for
convenience, but that wouldn't mean that I didn't care about the
inconvenience..

~~~
FireBeyond
See my comments. It almost seems designed to fail, to "prove" how preferable
supercharging is.

------
beeboop
>Elon Musk’s latest four-wheeled exercise in rent-seeking

How is selling a car rent-seeking? It's pretty much the opposite extreme as
far as I can tell, unless he's making the argument that Elon is rent seeking
by buying up the raw resources for making lithium batteries (and even that is
pretty weak).

~~~
sremani
I think because Tesla sells carbon credits to other auto manufacturers, or
something along that lines.

------
merpnderp
I often drive to Denver or Galveston several times a year. 600 and 500 miles.
So if the initial charge holds 300 miles, I would need probably 2 20 minute
stop for Galveston and 2 30 minute stops for Denver (if I could find super
charging stations on the way to Denver).

Given that I often stop for far longer than that, far more often, just to
stretch my legs, I could easily work around the Model 3's charging
requirements.

~~~
dragontamer
However, the supercharger spots aren't everywhere like a gas station. You have
to plan your trips to stop exactly at a supercharger.

I drove several hundred miles away to North Carolina without any planning,
knowing that any ol' gas station could fill me up. But there are only 7
superchargers in North Carolina, and only 5 superchargers on my projected path
(including the superchargers from the other states I passed through on the
highways)

I'm still leaning towards the Volt, which would be effectively electric but
the gas-generator is a good idea IMO. The one time a year I drive outside of
my city will be gas-based, but that's a lot better than a 100% gas vehicle.

I will say that I stop for 30+ minutes to sitdown and eat with my family...
__no where close __to a supercharger. We have a few restaurants that we as a
family meet up at on these long trips as a family tradition. I dunno about the
excuse "Hey guys, lets meet somewhere else because the current location isn't
close to a Supercharger, and my 90k+ Car demands that we stop there for our
trip".

Plenty of gas stations in these random small towns across America, but still
very few superchargers.

------
andy_ppp
The one point that I think worries me that the author makes is about how much
the electric car revolution will really cost in terms of raw materials and
lifetime CO2 and environmental issues.

Is there anything accurate on the actual pollution cost vs a say a VWs (irony
intended) lifetime emissions; it seems incredibly hard to calculate!

