
Tesla Model 3 Sets New EV Cannonball Run Record - espo
http://www.thedrive.com/new-cars/17312/tesla-model-3-sets-new-ev-cannonball-run-record-of-50-hours-16-minutes
======
InTheArena
I drove the Model 3 last week. It’s a properly good car in it’s own right - It
reminded me of the MOdel 3 from BMS in how it handles, of course the
performance curve is totally different. The rethinking of the dashboard is
perfect for the cell phone age. It’s Apple Good (back when Apple was good).

The performance curve - the instant power at any point is addicting. The seats
were comfortable, and the trunk space was ample.

The build quality, at least on the unit I saw is _better_ then the S or the X
right now. This is primarily due to the simplification of the assembly
compared to the S and the X. Honestly, having driven both, I would buy a 3
before buying a S. The only killer feature I see missing is the air
suspension, and we know that is coming for the 3.

They are going to sell a million of the 3s.

For the record, I’m not a EV or a green evangelist. I don’t have a snarky
license plate, or solar on my roof. But I will be picking one of these up.
It’s perfect for my use cases. People will compare it with the Bolt, but
people forget that SUperchargers are Tesla only right now. Want to get from LA
to NY? Easy in Tesla. With a Bolt, there are places that you just can’t go.

It looks like (judging by VIN allocations, which is not a great method, but
also by drone videos) that Tesla hit 1k a week the last week or two of
December. Assuming no huge bottlenecks remaining, that takes them solidly half
way up their ramp, with one more huge jump - to 3-5k a week - remaining.

~~~
vanderZwan
Comments like this make me think the Model 3 is going to be the Ford Model T
of electric cars.

~~~
wils1245
The doubt on Tesla is not whether the cars are great, it’s whether they can
scale production. You need both to be a Model T.

~~~
Robotbeat
People had the same questions about the Model X, the Model S before that, and
even the Roadster before _that_. In every case, Tesla eventually was able to
get production up and deliver. Tesla has no problem producing enough S and
Xes.

The question is not "whether" but "when."

~~~
ploxiln
To be fair, Roadster production was never really "up". I'm not sure demand was
at any point satisfied before the model was discontinued. Less than 2,500 were
produced.

~~~
abritinthebay
which is a shame, because it was a lovely car.

------
juanmirocks
Arguably, Tesla & Elon Musk already achieved their goal of speeding up the
adoption to EVs away from combustion engines: all car companies are working
now on or have plans for electric vehicles.

Elon Musk has already succeeded big big time.

~~~
kinard
Without a doubt, It seems like everyone is playing catchup, I'm still shocked
how far behind the German car manufacturers are. I recently switched from a
BMW M5 to a model S. It's been a great switch for me. Slightly lacking in
build quality but made up for in that 0-60 excitement!

~~~
juanmirocks
Spot on. I live in Germany and fear for its car industry. Still, I hear good
things coming from Audi or even still BMW. Mal sehen.

~~~
nickik
They had every oppertunity to get on this. They have government friendly for
green cars, they have the scale to build charging infrastructure, they have
the programming knowlage and so on.

They could also have jumped in with the Supercharger network and profited from
the global network that Tesla is building.

Well, lets see how they recover, by now Tesla is way ahead.

------
EwanToo
I'm a Tesla fan, but in the middle of the article, it says:

"The two completed the cross-country drive in 50 hours and 16 minutes, setting
a new electric Cannonball Run record."

That's not quite the same as the headline...

It looks like petrol cars have done it in under 27 hours

[http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2015/03/ny-
la-26-hours-28-m...](http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2015/03/ny-
la-26-hours-28-minutes-gt-r-powered-dual-control-infiniti-q50/)

~~~
stefanfisk
But the title clearly says _EV Cannonball Run Record_ , how is that unclear?

~~~
EwanToo
Hmm, either the title changed after I started writing the comment, or more
likely I totally missed EV from it!

Sorry if it's the latter..

~~~
StavrosK
Don't feel bad, I had to read it twice to spot the EV in the title.

------
wernerb
While I appreciate the record, the GPS fast forward video shows frequent
texting while driving. Is this legal in the US? Here in the Netherlands we
have statistics showing car accidents up after a downward trends with texting
while driving as the leading cause. It makes me wish people were back to using
cellphones without carkits, at least people had more chance of eyes on the
road.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
I've not watched the video but it's possible Tesla autopilot was engaged at
those moments. I'm not sure if that changes the legalities though.

~~~
greglindahl
It doesn't change the legalities. As a Level 2 system, the driver has to
behave like a driver, constantly alert.

------
kumarvvr
There is so much negativity about Tesla. Watching Tesla reminds of the the
quote

"We hoped for flying cars, but what we got was 140 characters"

(or something similar, I don't remember it verbatim)

Every time I think about Tesla, I am reminded of the thousands of brilliant
engineers toiling away in Silicon Valley trying to optimize online
advertising. Maybe we could be a bit more closer to Fusion energy, maybe we
could be a bit more closer to lesser carbon footprints. That small bit really
is crucial, especially when we are fighting a losing battle with mother earth.
Perhaps the world has too much information. When information flow is cheap,
the cost of propaganda is low enough to create legitimate confusion. Imagine a
world without Google, FB or Twitter, perhaps there would be concerted efforts
by governments towards educating the masses about global warming. Perhaps such
efforts could not be subverted by foreign governments or fringe groups.
Looking back, the true value addition by SV will be companies like Tesla,
Solar City & SpaceX.

Here is a guy who is scarily close to being a real-life Iron Man, doing
something that has shown verifiable results and actually progresses humanity
far more than FB/Twitter and to some extent Google.

But all I feel is constant negativity. I really feel sorry for Musk. I
sincerely admire him for what he is struggling for and I really wish he'd get
more support.

Note : I do understand his background and that the seed money for SpaceX was
from paypal and all, but even then, paypal was a different business than just
online ads.

~~~
tgarma1234
One thing that put me off about tesla, if you overlook all of the
manufacturing issues that pretty much every analyst says will doom the
company, is that for some bizarre reason the models were intentionally named
in order to spell out S3XY. After Harvey Weinstein I think we all need to take
a good hard look at the men who are in charge of things and ask, "why?" People
don't get a free pass on being creeps just because they are blowing a lot of
money anymore.

~~~
timmonsjg
>People don't get a free pass on being creeps just because they are blowing a
lot of money anymore

The man wants his car designs to evoke an image of being sexy and you consider
him a creep? That's a way over-dramatic interpretation.

~~~
tgarma1234
Yes, if you overtly sexualize something for which there is no real reason to
take the conversation in that direction then you are very likely a creep. They
could have been cool cars but I just don't like that.

Incidentally I was responding the comment that mentioned there is a lot of
hate for Tesla. What I mostly don't like about Tesla, aside from that stupid
naming convention, is that they missed all of their manufacturing targets and
are about to hit a brick wall with investors, regardless of how "sexy" one
thinks the car design is.

~~~
sgc
I don't know where you are from, but it worth remembering that the use of the
term "sexy" is much more commonplace for inanimate objects and has different
connotations in the English speaking world outside the United States. And the
CEO of the company in question was raised outside the US.

~~~
arcticfox
I think this is true even in the US, at least as far as my American English
takes me.

------
kozak
It's interesting what would be the equivalent result for Chevrolet Bolt, as
it's pretty much an equivalent car, but without the advantage of Tesla's
supercharger network.

~~~
mikeash
I don’t think it would be possible in anything like a reasonable amount of
time. Non-Tesla fast chargers have huge gaps for a cross-country run. You’d
have to spend days waiting for 6kW commercial chargers or 240V RV plugs
charging you at 25-35MPH.

~~~
BoorishBears
DC fast chargers aren't as common but charge the Bolt at supercharger-like
speeds if you have the option

~~~
mikeash
That doesn’t really address what I’m saying. The ability to use a DC fast
charger doesn’t help if there aren’t any to use. Last I looked, there were
_no_ cross-country routes available using non-Tesla fast chargers. You’d need
to cross large gaps on 240V charging alone.

Edit: just to show what I'm talking about, here's what plugshare.com shows for
CCS chargers in the middle of the US:

[http://mikeash.com/tmp/screenshot_F67FD9DD-D048-43EC-8DDF-9E...](http://mikeash.com/tmp/screenshot_F67FD9DD-D048-43EC-8DDF-9E94AB19900E.png)

That gap in the Nebraska is 336 miles long. Utah to Colorado is likely to be
quite challenging with the mountains. East of St. Louis is another tough area.

I think you could do the trip entirely on DC chargers if you took some of the
legs _really_ slow to extend range.

~~~
BoorishBears
The Bolt is EPA rated at 238 miles but on a long highway trip with not-
terrible-weather it's trivial to drive and get 300 miles of range without
resorting to hypermilling. A Level 2 charger would cover the 36 mile gap.

You'd expect to use a mix of DC chargers and Level 2 chargers. I think it's
doable in both cars but I'd personally never take that trip in either of them.
I don't know how often people are doing LA to NY trips that they'd ever decide
between cars over their ability to do that vs just renting a car (or flying).

~~~
mikeash
I'm surprised you can get so much additional range. My Tesla typically gets
the EPA rated range in good weather at 65-70MPH. A 25% increase in range would
require driving significantly slower than the speed of traffic. Is the Bolt's
range really so understated?

LA to NYC is a pretty unusual trip. The Bolt is still a difficult sell for
more typical long car trips, though. I've done a dozen thousand-mile legs in
my Model S without a problem, but they'd be really tough in a Bolt. The
chargers do exist for the routes I've taken, but they're not very conveniently
located and often are single units, leaving you vulnerable to being blocked,
broken, or in use.

I think the Supercharger network is adequate for road trips, but it's the bare
minimum to make it reasonable.

------
arkh
How much time spent charging?

Charging time is what make petrol win. Drive 500 miles, take 5mn to charge up
and you're good for 500 more miles.

Until EV can do this (surely through charging stations like petrol cars) they
won't good at anything more than daily commute if you can plug your car at at
home and at work.

So battery technology is where the interest should be. We already know how to
make efficient electric motors, we know how to make small vehicles. All wee
need is fast charging energy stores. All some kind of electrical rails
available on highways EV could use. Maybe setup specific separated lanes with
no speed limit, EV rail but only if using some autonav which responds to the
highway command to optimize the flow. Yes, you'd get something like trains for
individuals.

~~~
_ph_
Yes, refuling will always be faster than recharging. That is physics. The
question rather is: at which point (and for which driver profile) is it no
longer a practical problem? Elektric cars already save you a lot of refuling
stops in day-to-day driving, if you plug them in over night. And the Tesla
supercharger network is basically almost fast enough, that it reasonably fits
with the breaks one would take on long trips when not racing for time. And of
course, electric cars give you all the benefits of electric cars, like no
exhaust, no noise and better torque, no gear shifts.

~~~
atourgates
Personally, I think it's when an EV can make a 9-hour drive without needing
more than about 30 minutes of total charging.

9 hours is (in my opinion) the max amount of driving you can seriously do
without at least a couple hours of resting.

That'd be about 540 miles total, maybe a bit less if you could make those 30
minutes of rest stops at a fast charger.

Right now, EV's are clearly the future. I'd say that when they have a 500 mile
range with an MSRP that matches ICE vehicles, they'll go from being "exciting
new technology" to "the obvious choice for most people."

~~~
WorldMaker
A problem here is everyone's personal anecdotes are different. I have an uncle
that has driven 10-12 hour hauls between Kentucky and Louisiana enough that he
doesn't blink at doing it all in one day, with as minimal a break as possible.

On the flipside, I know that my limit before wanting to murder people and/or
feeling bone-weary exhaustion is somewhere between 4-5 hours _cumulative_ in a
day, regardless of the number and length of breaks, but overall better with at
least one >30-minute break every two hours and/or 15-minute every hour. (For
me, EV's are clearly the present. I'm pretty happy within their travel
limits.)

There's such a huge range of extremes with what people are comfortable with.

I've also met a lot of people that need more breaks than they actually take,
but don't realize that self-care advantage yet. It's possible that forced,
longer recharge breaks with an EV could be a _good_ thing for overall road
health. More drivers overall with slightly more opportunities to stretch and
rest could be an amazingly useful thing for US traffic and calming some long
distance road rage, given the chance.

~~~
myself248
You make some really good points here. I'm no stranger to long roadtrips; I do
Detroit-to-NYC at least every few years, and I've gotten pretty comfy with
Detroit-to-Orlando with an overnight stop. It's been a few years since doing
Vegas straight-through with a co-driver, but I've done that a few times too.

The trips where I have plenty of time and can stop and go for a jog, or hike
up some scenic terrain and take some photos, feel a lot safer than the ones
where I'm nose-to-the-grindstone the whole time. I'm simply more focused when
I get back in the car because I've had those minutes to let my mind and body
wander.

I do feel like 15-20 minutes every 4-5 hours is a good and comfy amount of
rest on a roadtrip. I've tried to do the 5-minute fuel stops and it just adds
more stress than it's worth. Now, if more Supercharger stations happened to
have a park or a gym nearby...

~~~
WorldMaker
I would think EV chargers should be a tourism gold mine in the near-ish
future. A 20 to 30-minute-ish semi-captive audience should be making a lot of
business owners drool right now.

I'd been considering for some time that if I were McDonald's corporate right
now, I'd be examining EV chargers right now for a potential amenity to sell to
franchisees (or possibly even to require from franchisees ahead of demand
curves to create favorable headwinds).

I hadn't thought about gym chains, but that's also a great idea. "EV charging
at any of our gyms around the country" / "Stop in on your next road trip" just
might be an amenity that could sell some gym memberships.

~~~
WorldMaker
Thinking about McDonald's comment a bit more: McDonald's optimized for fast
turnover, so maybe they aren't the best fit. Instead you might want a sit-down
restaurant chain like one of Darden's, such as Olive Garden. Picture
"Unlimited soup, salad, breadsticks, and EV charging."

It's funny because it could be evolutionary pressure back away from the drive-
through model. You could even imagine the classic Drive-In model making a big
comeback. A Sonic restaurant already looks like a modern EV charger facility
from a distance. (Though personally, I don't ever eat in my car, so that has
less appeal to me.)

------
mikeash
It will be interesting to see how the next Roadster is able to do once it
actually becomes available. With a 600 mile range and likely the ability to
charge significantly faster, it should be able to smash this number.
Eventually.

------
mhraza95
I agree. Summer time would consume less energy than Winter time.

But waiting might not be an option if you want to be the first!

It's an awesome record for Model 3 that has only 310 mile range which is less
than Model S with 335 mile range!

------
lafar6502
OK, what was the previous EV Cannonball Record?

~~~
hluska
It was set by other Teslas. The Verge has more information in their story at:

[https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/2/16842816/tesla-
model-3-la-...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/2/16842816/tesla-model-3-la-
new-york-record-cannonball-run)

The relevant quote reads:

 _Not only did the time best what Roy and a team did in 2016 when they did the
run using a Model S and Autopilot by about 5 hours, but it also beat a record
set just last summer by friends Jordan Hart and Bradly D 'Souza in a Model S
85D by more than an hour._

("Roy" refers to Alex Roy, editor-at-large for the Drive, who was on the
trip.)

------
GrumpyNl
Nice news, but when will they deliver? Maybe its time they start to answer
that question first.

~~~
Matt3o12_
They are getting started. Mass producing a vehicle is not an easy task and
takes a lot of expierence, equipment. Every manufacturer starts slowly but we
don’t notice it as drastically because there is usually less demand. If Model
A is not available, most customers choose Model B or Model A-like from company
B. Or chances are they have not even heard of that Model and just don’t look
for it. For Tesla it is different.

Tesla needs to announce them far in advance so they get funding. They can’t
just create another Model, start mass production and delivery without anyone
noticing and caring to post it online. So they capitalize on the hype and sell
as man as they can.

Furthermore there is no Tesla Model 3 from any other company. There is not
even a Model S or X from any company. There are some products that are close
but lack some desirable features such as being purely electric or being
“techy”. For the Model X there is the Volvo XC 90 plug-in with 19 miles of
range which wouldn’t get many people to work in the winter. The screen is a
bit Tesla like but from what I have heard is that Tesla’s screen (and
infotainment system) is much better.

For the Model 3, the only true competitors are the i3 and Chevy Bolt. The i3
is selling ok but does not have a lot of range and is a small vehicle. For its
price, it is not really a good deal unless you are looking for any ev. The
Bolt is a much better choice but many do not like its style. It is also not
really available because it is often seen as a complicance vehicle. I have
heard that people were laughed out of the store when they wanted to buy it. It
is also not available in Norway where it is anticipated the most. My guess is
that the 2018 Nissan Leaf will be the best choice this year but compared to a
Model 3 still a compromise because it lacks (amongst all non Tesla) a proper
quick charging network.

So the real question should be: __when will the other manufactures start
delivering? __

~~~
LeifCarrotson
> _For the Model 3, the only true competitors are the i3 and Chevy Bolt. ...
> My guess is that the 2018 Nissan Leaf will be the best choice this year..._

The Nissan Leaf isn't new in 2018, it's been around since 2011 and is (I
think) still the most popular pure electric car. I'm aware that the 2018
should have some significant improvements, but I'm confused why you don't
count either the current models or the 2018 as a competitor to the Model 3?

~~~
mikeash
The pre-2018 LEAF has around an 80 mile range with a passsively cooled battery
that does very poorly in the long term. The new version is better but still
not in the same league as the Model 3 or Bolt.

