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Comment by mach5 | Hacker News Reader

we own one, can agree that its great! it's my wife's daily driver, and with my own trips in it, i can't even imagine getting another ICE when the time comes to get a new car for myself. the L mode itself is almost a new driving experience, controlling the car fully through just one pedal and trying to eke out every last drop of kinetic energy back into the battery, and making it a challenge to never use the brakes. it's nearly as fun as a manual transmission. i mentioned this before in another thread, but the most hilarious part of ownership is the maintenance schedule. it's as follows:

* every 12,500mi: rotate tires

* every 22,500mi: change cabin air filter

* every 5 years: replace brake fluid

* every 150,000mi: replace battery cooling fluid

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Be careful, Tesla drivers discovered that never using the brake, particularly in areas that use salt on the roads, results in expensive corrosion. Automotive brakes haven't been designed with one-pedal driving in mind...

https://cleantechnica.com/2016/05/24/8500-new-tesla-model-s-...

Recommendation: consciously use the brakes in a firm deceleration once a week.

That wouldn't be a problem for me, the way most people drive and cut in front of me I would easily have one firm deceleration a week.

to say i don't use the brakes is a little bit of a misnomer, as i use them at stoplights in order to activate the rear brake lights for other drivers. two more bits of trivia: the brake lights activate during regen for more than .2g of deceleration, and the brake rotor metal is formulated not to rust.

I'm pretty sure taking your foot entirely off the gas pedal when in "L" mode actually activates the brake lights.

It does on the Tesla.

And anything with regen because of this:

UN Regulation on Stoplight Activation:

http://www.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/trans/main/wp29/wp29regs/...

Electric regenerative braking systems as defined in paragraph 2.17., which produce a retarding force upon release of the accelerator control, shall generate the signal mentioned above according to the following provisions:

<= 0.7 m/s/s The signal shall not be generated

> 0.7 m/s/s and <= 1.3 m/s/s The signal may be generated

> 1.3 m/s/s The signal shall be generated

It's made of metal, its going to corrode in some way - I don't think stainless steel has the properties you'd want in a brake rotor, either.

Well, it could be ceramic, which is what some competition cars use, and that wouldn't rust. But I doubt it.

There are <$100k cars that have had ceramic brakes as a factory option, but it's not a good option.

Ceramic brakes don't work well when they're cold, so you don't want to use them on a car where the main use case is a cold panic stop.

He said 'metal' that implies not ceramic.

Which was second-hand information, and light on details, and thus possibly mistaken. As I stated, possible, but I didn't think it likely.

If you read the article, the owner didn't go in yearly to have things inspected. One thing they do at every yearly inspection is to look at the brakes.

When I wash my cars I intentionally spray a little fresh water on the pads and rotors mostly because caked on brake dust can wear rotors unevenly or cause grinding/slipping of breaks. I've never lived where they salted the roads, but I imagine rinsing them off periodically would help, too.

Nice! Maintenance is a pretty big cost a lot of people forget.

How is the recharge situation when you are on a trip?

not as good as the supercharger network, obviously, but there are level 2's everywhere there are dealerships nowadays and there will only be more chargers as time goes on. for long trips we use my diesel 3-series.

The tires need only be rotated and never replaced? Now that's impressive.

Modern tires last a lot longer than 12,500 miles. So, if they're rotating that frequently, it'd be several iterations before they need to be replaced. I usually end up replacing my tires due to age rather than wear, but I don't have a long daily commute since I work from home.

Yeah, but are you a driving enthusiast?

very much so, yes. i have a sim racing rig

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