Tesla Model 3 becomes best-selling car in Switzerland
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- I see a handful of Teslas around the village. I would guesstimate 5 local residents own them.
- The local taxi firm has a couple even.
- Filling stations on the autoroutes have the charging points (at least in Romandy)
- The country is small so, hey, it seems ideal
I'd like to get one but it doesn't fit my use case (namely long road trips in the summer).
Disclosure: happy Volt owner that my wife drives 95% around town with the occasional 120-300 mi road trip.
Thats a no brainer to me - at 2000$ gas / year - the car pays for itself in 10 years.
Unfortunately for most people out there the economics does not work the same way - they cant get to this pricing. But if they could USA would have a much larger share of electric cars.
Autopilot reduces the stress and decision fatigue.
MIT just did a study and found the warnings and driver vigilance in Autopilot was sufficient enough to maintain safe driving.
It'd only be nightmarish if the driver (and passengers) have no faith in autopilot.
.. in which case, I doubt the road-trip would be driven entirely on autopilot.
I guess your mindset is different to the grandparent poster's mindset. He thinks autopilot is as reliable as a human chauffeur, to you (and probably to me too) it'd be like having a driver which you can't communicate with and might suffer epilepsy and fatally yank the wheel at any point, so you have to keep paying attention to his driving.
Interestingly this mindset difference also exists in Tesla, the marketing department promotes 1 version, and the legal department says the other...
My best guess here is that "babysitting an epileptic chauffeur" may sound scary, but in practice it's a lot less stressful than actually driving. Not needing to focus on lane-keeping and maintaining safe following distance is probably a lot nicer than you might expect – you still have to pay attention to lane-keeping, but that might even be easier when you're not forced to focus on the mechanical part of it.
I would like to bet the guy who hit the concrete barrier would disagree... sadly he's dead.
And your still driving - you just don’t micromanage trivia (which turns out is pretty exhausting). That increases your cognitive capacity to observe the road ahead at a higher level. You now see things you could have missed when focusing on low-level steering, especially when tired. You notice a weirdly behaving card ahead of time and take over. You see the road is getting a bit more complicated, or congested, ahead and take over. Traffic too heavy for Tesla’s cautions lane changes or overtaking, you take over.
Definitely worth it, I imagine Tesla's system is even better.
Nobody else comes close.
Actually don't, you might die.
Now, same car, same weather, but 50km (read: fifty) of heavy stop&go on a three lane Autobahn -> Kill me, please.
I'm looking forward to my next car with adaptive CC, that should eat a lot of the stop&go stress (also on my daily commute). But - to get to the point - I don't think that Autopilot will make things much better than that, since I still need to be aware of traffic and anticipate potential stupidities committed by other drivers -- and that's what's causing most of the fatigue for me.
I don’t need SSD, my hard drive is fast enough. Qi charging is pointless, I just plug it in. 4K HDR is waste of bits. It’s just another lane assist.
It’s upgrading, and then going back, that makes it apparent.
Im guessing its at least a double of a promised $35K USA price?
60k CHF give or take, so close to double.
You can get it any color, as long as it's black. Any other color costs $1500, and getting rims different from the total black stock ones are also $1500.
The interior is black cloth with manual seat adjustments and "basic audio." At least on this version, there are no options to change that. Ahh the next step up trim level is "Partial Premium Interior" for $2500.
Your county or city could also impose a tax on top of the states rate. It’s complicated and I’m sure it’s why car companies don’t list taxes in the US on their websites.
25% in Sweden
It’s customary in US, and evil genius in EU, where consumer prices must be shown with VAT. It hides the tax (surprisingly many people, even those you would expect to be financially literate, aren’t aware of the sheer amount of it - see any online bitching about Apple’s EU prices).
And that’s how you end up with 19-25% taxation of everything you buy in EU. US sales tax is acutely visible every time you buy something, it’s much harder to increase it, politically.
The US sucks because you never see the actual price of something you buy: you just notice it at the counter. When you ask why they don't just label the product with the final price, they say: we can't, it's too complicated. I doubt that.
The legitimate reason is that sales tax in the US can vary by city, or county, or state. Personally I think they should include both prices on the tag. I suppose if you live somewhere that has sales tax you get used to doing the math on the fly. I live in a state with no sales tax so it always surprises me when I shop out of state.
The low-end 35K model 3 (Standard Range RWD) isn't available in Europe yet. For 60k CHF including taxes you get the version that costs $48500 excluding taxes in the US (AWD long-range).
The Tesla Supercharger network, combined with its ability to charge on CCS charging networks like Ionity, make it uniquely suited to long distance travel.
And it will only get better over time as more, and faster, charging stations are deployed. (The Model 3 is capable of up to 250kW charging - twice the speed of what most of the current Superchargers can do).
The extra cognitive load of having to worry about range and where you're going to charge is a pain in the butt that most people will opt out of, all else being close to equal.
It's weird, I've never actually thought of changing gear as a hassle or something that makes driving un-fun. Stop and go traffic is a game, where the goal is to not brake. Gears give me an additional way to achieve that goal. For me it's way more engaging and helps me pay more attention to the road...
My DCT BMW was also annoying in stop and go traffic and I didn't even have to manipulate the gears.
I still find shifting to be fun, I mostly drove my BMW in manual DCT mode (dual clutch). But in traffic? I don't want to go near a manual.
Even if it's not legal. If you're in clogged traffic, They can't get you, and you'll see the fuzz before they see you since you'll be overtaking.
Obviously you know your areas driving culture better than me but there's definitely places I wouldn't do that. Hell you'll probably just piss off people in TX and they'll run you over out of spite. Territorial drivers.
A member of a group I used to ride with decided to stop riding when someone opened their door to stop him from splitting in PA. He smacked into the door, was physically okay, but ended up getting charged with something like "illegal lane change", had his insurance prices skyrocket, and decided to stop riding as he had to drive for his job, and he was worried that another 3-point ticket would get him a 30 day suspension and he'd basically lose his job.
Where I live, ~50% of motorists are armed and no permits are required to do so. Road rage never ends well for anyone involved here.
The moral of the story is: be respectful of others. If you’re a motorcyclist in a state where it’s illegal to lane split, don’t do it. If you’re a driver in a state where it is legal, don’t be a dick to motorcyclists if they are lane splitting.
I’d also like to add that I think lane splitting is wildly dangerous and dread driving in California. Surely motorcyclists die from this every year?
So it's a bit contentious, but from what i've seen, it's safe as long as it's done safely, which is a dumb sentence, but let me explain:
There are really 2 things that people talk about with "lane splitting":
* Filtering - moving up between stopped cars at a light to the front of the pack, and then driving away when the light turns green. Generally you aren't passing other moving vehicles when filtering, or if they are moving it's a few mph at most.
* Lane Splitting - This is when you are driving between lanes passing other vehicles that are moving.
Filtering is considered to be safer than not filtering. It reduces rear-end accidents (people tend to "look through" bikers, and will pull up behind the car in front of them like they aren't there, there's also your "normal" rear-end accidents, but they are much worse for the biker...), it reduces traffic (bikes accelerate faster, so getting them out front is helpful to reduce the rubberbanding traffic), and it's obviously nicer for the biker as they get where they are going quicker.
Splitting on the other hand is contentious. On the one hand I believe there have been studies done that shows it reduces fatalities. But at the same time it does actually increase accidents, but those accidents tend to be much less dangerous. Since a splitter should only be going 5-10mph faster than the cars, any impacts should be kind of like 10mph impacts, and are much less dangerous (obviously still dangerous, but much less than being rear-ended, getting left-turned into, or rear-ending something, etc...). And it greatly reduces low-speed rear-endings while sitting in traffic (a fairly low-speed fender-bender can be a lot worse when a small bump can throw you backwards off the bike and onto the ground!)
But splitting does have other benefits other than safety. It's obviously much faster for the bikers, reduces traffic for everyone, and therefore reduces environmental impact in many cases (less cars AND bikes idling in traffic). And there are also second order benefits that it encourages more people to ride bikes, which just increases the above benefits even more.
Still, it's my opinion that both Splitting and Filtering should be fully legal everywhere. It doesn't really impact drivers or those who don't split to have it be legal beyond a possibly slight increase in small accidents (there's an argument that if it is much more dangerous then it could increase healthcare costs for everyone too), and those who are okay with the risks can do it.
And obviously at no point should anyone ever be flying between cars going 20mph+ faster than the cars around them. That's not safe splitting, and that's not what I want either.
> And obviously at no point should anyone ever be flying between cars going 20mph+ faster than the cars around them. That's not safe splitting, and that's not what I want either.
I think this is what I’m mostly referring to. We can definitely agree here! It seems to happen all too frequently when I’m driving in CA (mostly LA and SF, some SD).
Those other things are crazy. Unintentionally, I will kill you. I hope the law would agree that it is 100% your fault, because I would want to sue your estate for damages both physical and mental.
Anecdote: a motorist lost control of his vehicle at highway speeds far ahead of me, causing everyone to brake suddenly. I split into the braked cars and slowed down.
The car I had been behind was rear-ended violently. If I had not lane split, I would have been rear-ended violently. I will take an unlimited number low-speed side scrapes over being hit from behind by a two-ton car going 30 mph faster.
You as a 4-wheeled vehicle driver have to do nothing differently to accommodate lane splitters, they will go around you when it is safe, and as long as you follow the other rules of the road (use your turn signals, and don't suddenly jerk around wildly within your lane), everyone can be happy.
And if you live in an area where lane splitting is legal, and you want to be nice while you are sitting in traffic, you can stay to one side of your lane matching the other drivers ahead of you, so that while you are mostly still, bikers can continue past.
Picture four lanes with four vehicles. You decide to go right down the middle. The outermost vehicles change, being replaced by larger vehicles, but the innermost vehicles haven't seen you. The innermost vehicles move inward to have more distance from the outermost vehicles. The resulting space is physically too small for your body.
There is no escape. You go crunch.
I wouldn't mind if this only affected you, but it isn't harmless to me. Now I have to pull over and wait for the cops, ruining my schedule. I'll need to get my van repaired. I'll need to sue your estate for damages. If things go very badly, I may be wrongly blamed for your crash.
Stay in your lane. We mark lanes for a very good reason.
This might be part of the disconnect here. You aren't "sitting" next to cars, you are passing them. If you aren't actively passing cars, you aren't splitting and should get in your own lane.
A rule of thumb is that you should be passing cars in about a second or so. So any "crunching" would have to happen within that second of time, or the motorcycle will be out in front by the time any contact would have been made.
But in reality that just doesn't happen. Mirrors stick out, and it is extremely rare for 2 cars to get close enough for their mirrors to touch, let alone have a mirror touch the other car.
But also cars just don't go from driving straight to instantly swerving toward another car in the next lane, they have "tells", they start drifting from the driver not paying attention, they act erratically, they have turn signals.
A safe lane splitting scenario that I do is like this.
* Cars are in both lanes, fairly close together so there is no room for people to try and shoot across to fill a gap in the other lane (if the cars are "staggered" like 2 sides of a zipper, that is a dangerous situation that I don't split in, because that is when people are likely to try and shoot into the next lane without any warning!)
* Cars are traveling about 15 to 30mph in both lanes, and there isn't a large speed differential between them (again, if one lane is going 15, and the other 30, people in the 15 lane are likely to try and shoot over to get in the "faster" lane, and sometimes people in the fast lane will try to shoot in to the slow lane so they can get off the next exit)
* I can see several car lengths ahead of me on my bike (bikes sit higher than cars, so you can often see much further ahead and can see over many cars. This also means that splitting is not okay on curves, hills, or when there are big trucks obscuring your view ahead, or if the drivers ahead are staggered in their lanes blocking a nice clean path)
In that situation, I go about 10-ish mph faster than the cars around me (a rule of thumb is you should be passing a car within a second, that equates to around a 10mph speed differential), and while doing this i'm looking at tail lights 3 or 4 cars ahead to see if anyone is stopping suddenly, turning, has a signal on, or is doing anything weird. if at any point things don't look good for splitting any more, I slowly drift back into my lane, slow down to match speed with that lane, and i'm no longer splitting.
If at any point things go really bad, say someone starts getting over toward me, or there is an accident ahead of me or next to me, I grab the brake and very quickly the bad stuff will pass me. And if it doesn't in time, then I'll get munched! That means yes you'll have to go through the insurance stuff for the scrapes and dents in the side of your car, and I'll probably have a broken ankle or a small neck injury, but i'll be alive. Contrast that with the alternative of not splitting where that same accident happens (because if you are drifting into another lane with another car in that lane and you don't see the biker in time, chances are you aren't going to see the car in time either and will smack into it), and when you slam on the breaks because of that, I run into the back of your car at 30mph and am in a LOT worse shape than i would have been in the splitting scenario.
But just like how we have lane markings for a reason, in many areas we also have laws that allow splitting for a reason, and you can't selectively pick and choose which laws you want to follow!
I'm not "drifting into another lane". I'm using the space that is rightfully mine. No, I'm not going to signal. I'm not leaving my lane. The whole lane is mine; it is my safety margin.
If a truck on my right gets closer, then I will move left, and suddenly the space to the left of me becomes zero. If the vehicle on my left (not counting you) does likewise, then he isn't leaving you any room either. The gap closes to zero. You die.
You also aren't leaving room for actual emergencies, in which case I may swerve over the line. If you are in the proper position, there will be 4 to 6 feet of safety margin, or double that if you also swerve.
You claim that your behavior is safe, but there is a good reason that 98% of the states in the USA do not support it. You can lane split in Bangalore... and the insane road fatality rate tells the story of how well that works. There are more than 10 times as many deaths per vehicle in India as there are in the USA. Besides the hazard to yourself, you are causing distraction and stress to the other drivers. You may cause a crash and not even know it.
Your other example about arbitrarily using the edge of the lane would be even easier to detect using his framework.
It was also unfairly presuming that motorcyclists are more alert/careful/skilled than other drivers. This is clearly not the case.
Just a couple months ago, I suddenly had a 4-inch gap on either side. (confirmed by my son in the other front seat) Perhaps the road was badly designed or built, but that happens.
It's 20 feet from one end of my vehicle to the other. Escaping that isn't so easy.
The opportunity for a great discussion was there, because both of you have relevant experience and have thought carefully about the situation. Oh well. Instead you just spent paragraph after paragraph trying to set the boundaries of the discussion in a way that excludes the other.
Think of it this easy. In the four car scenario: how would a bike pass cars that are at the speed limit? By going over the speed limit. Lane splitting by humans (not talking about filtering) ought to be against the law.
But that scenario is insanely contrived, extremely unlikely, and damn near impossible to happen and also not result in any contact without the motorcycle (if you and another driver both move toward the "inner" edge of your lane at the same time as far as you both can without "leaving" your lane, you will collide).
>You also aren't leaving room for actual emergencies, in which case I may swerve over the line. If you are in the proper position, there will be 4 to 6 feet of safety margin
This brings up another cool point that is really counterintuitive at first! Motorcycles who aren't lane splitting shouldn't be in the center of the lane, it's one of the most dangerous areas for them to be! Generally they want to be on a side closest to other traffic, the rule of thumb is to "act like your bike is the left or right side of a car in that same lane".
When a bike is in the middle of a lane, people often try to merge into it and don't see them until it's too late. By riding the inside edge of the lane, you make yourself visible to drivers that would otherwise not be able to see you. The center of a lane also has the most gravel, oil, and other stuff on it. So no, you wouldn't have 4 to 6 feet of safety margin. Hell according to your logic that entire lane should be mine, so you have zero feet of safety margin.
>You claim that your behavior is safe, but there is a good reason that 98% of the states in the USA do not support it.
And 98% of the rest of the world does. Take Norway for example. Lane splitting is legal, and there are 3 deaths per 100k vehicles there (compared to 13 in the US, and 130 in India). And that's not just one country. All of Europe is safer to drive in (average of 19 deaths per 100k vehicles) than the US, and just about all of Europe allows lane splitting. Even the NHTSA says that lane splitting "slightly reduces" accidents.
That's right folks: caring about what's statistically the safest thing to do after deciding to ride a motorbike.
[0]https://www.ots.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/67/2018/09/M...
I've had people do very close "punishment passes" on me because they thought I was going far below the speed limit when in reality I was going roughly 17 mph in a 15 mph zone. This is not some sort of isolated incident. I've spoken to several of them and it's rare that I get an apology for it.
Add on top of that the people who pass me closely while yelling things like "get in the bike lane!" when I'm riding in the sharrow lane and there is no bike lane.
what in the lawerly language are you trying to say?
As for extra time spent charging? I guess there are those out there who really do drive more than 4-5 hours at once without stopping for a meal, stretch, toilet break, etc. But surely they’re a tiny minority.
This is especially in Europe, where in a Model 3, you also have the choice of using competing CCS charging networks like Ionity.
The win from this overcomes any cognitive load from thinking about charging by a factor of 100 or more in my experience. Most people are blown away by this when they get it. Of course it’s not unique to Tesla but it’s a big benefit.
I'm pretty convinced most stress caused by driving is just people driving way too aggressively.
> I'm pretty convinced most stress caused by driving is just people driving way too aggressively.
In my experience it is much more stressful to be on the lookout for drivers that just aren't paying attention. They exhibit no bad behavior until the poorly timed lane change, missed light, etc.
In my experience, the exact opposite seems to be the case. Aggressive drivers tend to move with a purpose, pay attention and react logically (even if recklessly) to events on the road. By contrast, the bored people zoning out while driving, the people stuck on their phones or just clogging up the fast lane while driving under the speed limit are unpredictable (and when they do wake up, they tend to panic) and cause problems all around themselves as everyone else is forced to adjust. People who can't be bothered to care about driving while doing it are much worse than people who care too much.
I meant to say that I think most stress is caused by the person who is stressed driving too aggressively. They care way too much about saving 2 seconds by passing/riding up on people constantly.
I agree with you.
If anything, planning for gas stops is much more of a burden, because usually as you are driving, once you get to ~1/4 full you are thinking to yourself "Ok, where can I stop to get gas? Is there a place close enough? Which stations have the best price?"
With this, all of that cognitive load was gone and handled for me by a smart routing computer.
I know it's _possible_ to get somewhere without range anxiety but 20% added time plus 30-45 Euro for the privilege to do that is a serious downside.
If you only do this a couple times a year and the rest of your driving is local then this makes sense, but I don't know that for regular long-range drivers this argument works.
SLO, CA: Madonna Inn
Atascadero, CA: Denny's parking lot, across the street from a sandwich shop, 5 minute walk from more
Gilroy, CA: spitting distance of in-n-out, more in the same lot
San Jose, CA: big shopping center with BJ's, Chili's, panda express, etc
Someplace on the 5 between Kettleman city and LA: Subway parking lot
This is literally just from memory of the ones where I've been. Perhaps it's worse in other parts of the country?
* Rockford IL is in the parking lot of a shopping mall with restaurants at the perimeter.
* Madison WI (1) is in the parking lot of a shopping mall with restaurants at the perimeter.
* Madison WI (2) is in the parking lot of a grocery store.
* Mauston WI is in the back of a Culver's adjacent to a McDonald's.
* Eau Claire WI is in the back of a commercial strip with a Panera Bread and… a noodle place?, with more restaurants across the street.
* Oakdale MN is in the parking lot of a grocery store.
Literally every stop I could make sells food.
Food, checking out local shops, and coffee + bathroom break for those three longer stops. For the short stops, it was just get a bit of charge, maybe a quick stretch or bathroom visit, and on my way.
People have the most bizarre misconceptions about Tesla charging, I think because they assume you have to charge from 0 to full at every stop, which truly would be slow. It simply doesn’t work that way if you do it properly.
I mean seriously... most of my stops were 10 minutes. Quite a contrast from what people think. Plugging in numbers from a map and going by total charge-to-full time overlooks the way charging is so much faster at the bottom of the range.
On the other hand taking a trip to New Mexico and back from California, many stops were 40 minutes to an hour because the chargers are spaced further apart in some of the desert states. YMMV. It depends on your route but the chargers are getting dramatically faster very soon, AND the charger network is getting more and more densely built out.
Note: I got >8 because you said most stops were 10-min and then listed 4 stops longer than 10-min.
So while 2 stops is going to be much faster than 1 on a 500 mile journey, there’s likely to be diminishing returns after that.
That's a 10 hour drive! You're genuinely choosing a personal vehicle on its ability to drive literally all day?
I mean, sure. Everyone has their own preferences. But this is a wildly beyond median data point. Most people will take a trip like this once every few years at most. The vast majority are going to look at that trip and fly/train and rent a car in Austria.
Buy the car you want. But arguing on the internet that "I can't use an EV because it doesn't do this one incredibly rare weird thing I want" seems like poor form.
In the United States I routinely am in the car for 8-10 hours each way to visit family, but most of my daily driving is short distances. I don't want to own two cars.
I agree with you completely - buy the car you want. What I am hearing from a lot of folks here though is "I bought the car I wanted (for most of my driving) but I'm also saying it's the same or better on long road trips"
There are all sorts of things your car can't do that "many" other people do. All I'm saying is stop the nonsense that pretends this is specific to EV's.
This is the logic that demands everyone have a pickup truck, or 4WD, or passenger van, or, hell, private aircraft. Use what you need. But (1) don't pretend that what you need is what I do and (2) be realistic about what you "need". Like, seriously, you really can't take a train to the Alps? Seriously?
> "The Tesla Supercharger network, combined with its ability to charge on CCS charging networks like Ionity, make it uniquely suited to long distance travel."
In a normal car, you fill the tank to full, burn the gas until you're low, then fill it to full again.
EVs aren't the same way, and Teslas on road trips definitely aren't. You don't charge to 100% -- you charge only long enough to reach your next supercharger. Because of the charge curve, you charge at the fastest rate when your battery is low. If you try to charge to 100% every time like you'd do in a gas car, you're gonna have a bad time.
This was the hardest thing for me to get used to in daily driving -- you have to be opportunistic about charging. Whenever you can plug in, plug in. At 70% and there's an empty charger? Plug in. You'd never go to the gas station with a 70% full gas tank, but it's just a different beast altogether.
The route you mention is full of Superchargers. You absolutely don’t need to wait an hour for a charge, and that’s a bad way to charge (lower rate of charge on fully empty and mostly full batteries). And you depart your hope fully charged and then charge in your Kitzbuhel hotel. On the way, there’s plenty of opportunities to stop for a 15-20 minutes charge and a coffee+bathroom break.
I can’t drive more than 3, 4 max, hours without taking a small break. Most of the time, the damn car is notifying me it’s all charged and ready to continue before I am done with my coffee. It’s fine for me.
My brother, who routine goes Prague-Amsterdam overnight in a single go, would probably hate the wasted time. It’s not for everyone.
So would you rather pay €30-45 for charging, or ~€150 for petrol/diesel?
And of course it's only added time if you weren't planning to make stops anyway. Most drivers take breaks, and arguably it's unsafe to not do so over such long journeys.
It's financially viable to go to Germany and rent a car and drive from there, if you need to drive around in Europe.
I spent nearly a decade as a consultant traveling extensively throughout the US and Europe--and unlimited mileage rentals could be had for a reasonable and often surprisingly cheap price. I never understood why people opted to pay by the mile.
The point is, none of the vehicles are truly automatic yet. I've seen videos of recent automatic lane changes too, there seems to be problems with proper speed and accurate changes, unless perfect road conditions...
To rent for a weekend:
- Rental: £300 (dependent on the car, but £300 was the cheapest)
- Fuel: £100
Man Maths has me at (over 12 months):
- Depreciation: £500
- Maintenance: £1500 (includ. tires)
- Insurance and tax: £750
- Fuel: £1000
While I am not on long trips with them, I instead tinker with them. However, buying a used car can often be a lot cheaper than buying cheap modern car + renting one for road trips, that will cover usages (daily and road trips) decently.
I know people love to say, we all stop for this, that, and the other thing, but the truth is on most longer trips most people just want to get to the end and adding stops of thirty minutes or more can impact a schedule. I cannot imagine it without access to the charging speed my TM3 can do let alone its range. Since a destination is not always guaranteed to have charging opportunities you are pretty much anchored to the closes SC.
with regards to AP. Love it, so nice to have a system always aware. my usage is to turn it on but act as if I were driving. it certainly has removed any panic issues where you take your eyes off the road and the situation changes badly.
A couple years ago, when I was planning a trip to the middle of some rural area to see a total solar eclipse, I checkout out of curiosity what the electric charger situation was to see what the trip would be like in an EV.
At the time the Tesla network was sparse enough in that area that you'd need to get pretty full charges to make it from charger to charger. After the eclipse you'd have everyone leaving at about the same time, and so arriving at chargers at about the same time, and so it seemed you might get some long lines.
30 minutes to charge isn't bad if you can plug the car in and go eat or use the bathroom while it charges. But if you have to wait for two or three cars ahead of you do their 30 minute charges, can you do something while you wait or do you have to stick with your car to move it up whenever the line moves?
In situations like this regular gas stations also can have lines, but usually you can drive a bit away from the main highway and find a less busy gas station.
The main concern would be not getting trapped in traffic hell, like any other driver. Getting slightly north of Madclipse and other camps, then immediately getting on the road post-eclipse meant almost empty roads for us. Alternatively, waiting till that evening to leave worked for our friends.
I was in that general area. I was in a farmer's field that had sold overnight parking spots for $50, and allowed sleeping in your car. Here's where it was [1].
I heard the first cars starting to leave the instant totality ended.
I waited until about 4 PM to leave, but still got seriously bogged down on 26 heading north only a mile or so away. It stayed bad through the reservation, then got pretty good until it turned to stop and go for large parts of the way through Mt. Hood National Forest. Cleared up well before Portland and was doing great up until Washington, at about 7 PM, where it was crappy most of the way to Tacoma. I'm on the west side of Puget Sound, so that's where I split off to 16, which was fine. It looked like 5 going from Tacoma to Seattle was still terrible...and this was something like midnight.
[1] https://www.google.com/maps/@44.6911503,-121.1509909,1643m
This seems like an ideal use for self driving technology - park at the tail end of the queue and your car moves itself forward.
Some gas stations still have pump attendants, after all!
As an example, I went for a longer drive on Saturday, and it took 37 hours to charge at home (right through Monday morning.)
(I live in a place where I'm currently unable to install a high-capacity charging outlet.)
What is fine is if you stay in a hotel for one day or more.
But I understand, there might be some use cases where this is not enough.
Recent examples would be the SpaceX launches (example, though this is not bad at all: https://steemit.com/tesla/@geeklad/spacex-launch-causes-cong...), which probably have an unusually large number of Teslas in attendance.
Hopefully Tesla can keep up with building out superchargers but they'll obviously never optimize for the largest possible burst.
Random road trips? AutoPilot? Random stops at high-density places to get ready for the next leg of the trip?
Seriously, what kind of heaven do you people live in? I can't even travel 2 kilometers without getting lost in unhabitable middle of nowheres or being asked for a visa and turned back.
The US Interstate Higherway System means that even on long stretches of road where nobody seems to live, the roads are still maintained, with stops every so often.
And of course, no visas or even passports required. Just a driver license if you're driving, or no ID at all if you're a passenger.
Long trips in a Tesla are totally doable.
Yeah most electric cars aren’t ideal for long road trips, but I wouldn’t generalize that to a Tesla. Definitely the long range config is a good one to get though. The extra money you spend will be made up on maintenance savings and fewer surprise breakdowns from bad gas, watered-down gas, or other issues on those long trips.
I did a long road trip from San Diego to Breckenridge more than 2000 miles (round trip) and never had range anxiety and trip was more enjoyable than any other car
There are very few places in the continental US where superchargers aren't available within a 150 mile radius.
Except for the spontaneous brake checking. That's like waiting for someone to hit the "zap them" button. Got me most recently coming across a bridge. Sigh.
I own a P3D, facing the same issues of long road trips 1-2x a year I concluded that I'll just spend the few hundred dollars and rent a car for the deep edge cases of my driving and the other 99% of my time I'll enjoy driving my Tesla.
99% of my normal day to day driving I just charge at home at night, I've used the supercharger network on a long road trip and it was surprisingly little-hassle.
It is a real case of downloading more RAM.
Pretty crazy!
The test equipment industry is notorious for this. I can buy a $15k Keysight Fieldfox spectrum analyzer and turn it into a $50k instrument with license that enable hardware that is already there.
If I recall correctly, most of the lowest performers are older S and X. The 3 is expected to degrade even slower with their improved battery cells and thermal management.
https://electrek.co/2018/04/14/tesla-battery-degradation-dat...
https://www.teslarati.com/tesloop-tesla-model-s-400k-miles-b...
Is it better or worse as far as total costs compared to a Mercedes-Benz with 645,000 km on it?
P.S. Model 3 happens to be the only EV I tried, but as much as I know about EVs, most of them share a similar kind of "fun" acceleration.
You catch lights easier, merge effortlessly and slowdowns are zen.
I gain about a couple of min trip time to drop off my kids which is about 10m and 6-7 signal lights away.
Also on highways I utilize the HOV lane which for me trims about 5m off my longish commute.
And it’s all comfortable and silent.
In the US, to name just a couple, there are:
- Hells Canyon, Idaho
- Saddle Road, Hawaii
- Mulholland Highway, California
- Route 9W to Storm King Highway, New York
- Route 348, Helen, Georgia
- M119, Harbor Springs, Michigan
- Highway 1, Big Sur, California
- Horncastle to Louth
- Cat and Fiddle
- Evo Triangle
- Forres to Alford
- Black Mountain Pass
- St Ives To St JustIf you just want a flash car to get to work and back well that's different. And if you just want to go fast between the lights then a Tesla is genuinely the best car for you.
But here it is all straight and flat.
Have you priced a classic Mercedes E-class lately? Allow me to help. https://www.classicdriver.com/en/cars/mercedes-benz/ponton-1...
This statement doesn't compute for me.
Totally get where he's coming from. My Audi, which costs about a third of a Tesla model S, has a nicer interior than a Model S. That makes no sense to me.
Also, if you look for "performance" in your road car it just sounds like a recipe for wrapping it around a tree (Or ruining your back: I'm a huge motorsports fanatic, and I'd still probably take a comfortable car with reasonable performance over a "fast" one without fancy suspension to make it comfortable)
Companies in the US don’t post prices including taxes in almost all cases.
No, they sell different models in Germany. The cheapest model available in Germany currently is the LR AWD, which costs $48K in the US.
That being said, it doesn't seem very appropriate to complain that a car advertised as $35k USD in the US isn't available for the same price in Germany.
I don’t believe you. The only stock 5 series over €100k is the M5 Limousine (€119k). All other models are well below €100k, unless they come with options / BMW Individual. 550d Touring xDrive is €82k base price (with taxes).
I’m looking at a 2019 530d M package with full option and that thing would cost me €82k, after discounts comes as low as €60k (trade in).
What you say with $60k is probably something like 520i base option before taxes (knowing US).
So, I don’t believe that story.
I don’t think they sell the 520i in the US, at least I can’t find them. Here’s a 540i for $62k and I guarantee I could negotiate it to less than $60 with a 6.5% tax.[1] M5s here are over 100k. 550i are about 90k.
No chance of a 550d touring coming stateside, I can’t compare prices. Diesel wagon with 4 turbos wow!!
[1]https://www.bmwofgwinnettplace.com/detail-2019-bmw-5_series-...
with little effort I was able to find a 2019 540i xDrive with the M sport package for $53k on cargurus. Factor in taxes and its $57k. Factor in that I haven't even bothered to check autotrader or shop around emailing/calling dealers as I would do if I was interested in purchasing one.
Yes you can't get that deal everywhere and it might not be typical. But it's there
For $60k you can certainly get a lot more BMW than a 520i in the US
But in Europe, we have VAT, depending on the country, 19 to 21%.
Before the taxes, the price is: €55672. Considering the exchange rate of 1.12 USD to EUR, still significantly more expensive than in the US but far, far off of the €100k.
Diesel is by default more expensive because of better economy.
Sorry, but a brand new car will be much more expensive then in the US than in Germany.
Perhaps it’s common to pay MSRP in Germany, but if you’re paying MSRP in the US for a non special vehicle you’re doing it wrong.
> Sorry, but a brand new car will be much more expensive then in the US than in Germany.
You’ve provided no evidence to suggest this is the case.
Maybe in the next few weeks, the $35k will actually exist and we'll start seeing youtube reviews of the cloth interior (and other cutbacks they've done to get the price lower). But as far as I know, no such review exists yet. It was... what? 4 weeks ago when Tesla started selling the $35k on their website?
And its still not actually around...
> The $35,000 (before federal tax credits) Model 3 sedan made its world debut at an event in Los Angeles. On stage, Elon Musk announced that the car will have at least 215 miles of range, 0-60 in under six seconds, and every single one will have Supercharging as a standard feature.
The $35k Model 3 hit Tesla's webpage with "2-to-4-weeks of delivery" in late Febuary. Its April, and no one has this car yet.
https://electrek.co/2019/02/28/tesla-model-3-standard-batter...
> Tesla says that deliveries are starting within the next 2 to 4 weeks depending on the configuration in the US.
---------
If you trick a bunch of people to come and try to buy a product that DOES NOT EXIST YET, and then convince them to buy something else when they enter the store... that's called a "Bait and Switch". Its literally an illegal sales tactic. Tesla isn't doing it to the point where it is illegal, but it is still clearly scummy behavior and toes the line.
People are coming to the Tesla stores looking for the $35k model, and are immediately being upsold to buy $40k or $45k vehicles instead. The 35k model is the bait, the $40k to $45k models are the switch.
The $35k model 3 doesn't exist yet. But Mr. Musk has been touting that number for the past 3 years anyway. Its not common practice to tout a number for a mythical, non-existent car.
Apple also advertises iPhone as a $1000 phone, but the cheapest is like $2500 in Brazil. Not Apple's fault.
Luckily you can get a service manual in Massachusetts (or at least electronic access)
If I were to buy one my first move would be to remove the modem and WiFi.
Even then I don't like the amount of data it records internally.
I don't think my car needs internet access, or anyone needs the ability to check in on it.
Unless there's a safety recall, I'd personally prefer my car to keep the OS and configuration throughout it's lifecycle.
But I love their batteries in particular, and I think they're very nice cars in many ways.
Does the CEO of BMW tweet that it's your fault after you wreck your car?
(They can't tell the reason for the crash remotely, they extract the data directly, in person, with physical access to the car.)
- are there ever times when there aren’t enough charging stations free due to other Teslas tying them up?
- do you find yourself chatting with fellow Tesla owners while charging?
- are the superchargers free to use?
Yes, but you can see how many chargers there are available (and max charge rate) before you go. Usually, you charge at home/work.
Yes, sometimes it's just car talk, but sometimes it's more interesting... you've got 10-15min or so to relax.
Depends on whether you're grandfathered in (or paid for it upfront), but for most people still yes. However, if you stay plugged in after charging you will get billed (~$1/min if it's full!).
I've chatted with a few others, helped a few people who were there for the first time go through the process. Everyone is pleasant and generally excited, unlike any one during a petrol station visit.
S and X get free charging. Some 3s have 1000 miles free if using a referral code
Only old ones.
It happens. I use them maybe once a month for the last year and I've only had to wait once. It cost me 10 minutes or so. If you're unlucky you might live near a particularly crowded supercharge and have longer waits. I think the vast majority of owners charge at home 90+% of the time.
- do you find yourself chatting with fellow Tesla owners while charging? Some people hang around their cars while they charge but I tend to grab a coffee or do some shopping. The chargers are usually near at least a coffee shop if not an entire mall. With the exception of the occasional long trip, I'm usually not staying long.
-are the superchargers free to use For some people. My model 3 didn't come with free supercharging but a lot of the chargers are sponsored by the local mall (I've seen a few tourist centers with free charging too). The only time I've paid it cost about $6 for a roughly 75% charge (200 to 240 miles).
What happens when the car is fully charged and the owner doesn’t come out for hours?
If the Supercharger is more than 50% occupied, you get charged a per-minute fee after 5 minutes.
According to the data the Škoda Octavia was sold nearly two times as much as the Model 3. It must be said, however, that the Model 3 is the best-selling electric car.
All the Tesla 3 preorders arrived [1][2] in Switzerland in one month, putting the Tesla sales of usually one year (~1500) into one month, making it the "best-selling"[3] car in Switzerland ahead of Skoda and VW (for the month of March).
[1] one with a bit more knowledge than me can probably find the ship and the shipment.
[2] see comments on that article from users getting theirs with that shipment
[3] have probably been sold months earlier, better worded "most-delivered"
The first Model 3 arrived in Switzerland in the 3rd week of February (2019-02-16). Tesla already sold 316 in February 2019 (+754% YoY).
How much of an exceptional month March will be for the year, we'll see after the April data is released. The number of preorders for Model 3 in Switzerland should be easily 1 order of magnitude higher than what they delivered in March.
I'm sure that's not your intention but please don't quote % numbers like this because it is extremely misleading and has zero indicative value. Going from selling one car to selling 100 is a 10000% increase. Is that a meaningful figure? No. All it does is inflate the percieved growth and makes the post look biased and suspect of having an agenda.
Values that are useful in such a context is the number of cars sold from other makers in the same segment or the growth of new models from other brands.
And not sure why YoY numbers are important given that it's a cheaper car being sold here. Of course it's going to be higher. Problem of course is a lot less margin.
"All the Tesla 3 preorders arrived [1][2] in Switzerland in one month" is of course complete nonsense. Because not only did plenty arrive in February already, but the preorders were much higher than what came in March.
I downvoted a clearly factually wrong statement, namely that "all preorders were delivered in one month".
The "754%" were a direct quote, source above, that indicates clearly that March wasn't the first (and only) month with increased sales due to the Model 3. Individual sales figures for the Model 3 were not available to me, otherwise I would have posted them (my estimate is around 280-300).
I'm sure those numbers will drop a lot.
Personally I'm of the view that there is no drop in demand for the cars, just Q4 last year demonstrated the massive backlog they had in orders. When (if?) $35,000 cars actually start shipping, we'll start to see what actual sustained demand looks like.
There were two surprises, though. They also guided flat shipments of X and S, when in reality they cut them in half. Also, they appeared to be indicating that Model 3 production would increase slowly over the quarter, but in reality they kept it flat. Both of those were negative surprises to varying degrees.
But, of course, we now know that S and X are likely to be revised soon. It is possible that the drop there was related.
I assume the variance in Switzerland income is allot smaller than the US, thus more residents can afford the car.
Is everyone there pretty much a millionaire?
Döner joints. They are about ~15 CHF for a meal including a drink.
https://i.imgur.com/vANpWK2.png
The Swiss have benefitted from maintaing a sound fiscal house and associated currency, over time. The US, much of Western Europe and Japan have been busy debasing themselves with enormous financial mistakes over the last several decades.
You can see two disastrous dollar periods in that chart. The Vietnam War, Johnson-Nixon, spending irresponsibility and inflation disaster of the 1970s. And the Bush war-on-terror, pump your way out of a recession to get re-elected, fiscal disaster of 2002-2008 (then the final nail in that stupidity wagon with the great recession crash that the Fed caused with interest rate mistakes after 9/11).
The US and Switzerland had the same GDP per capita in 2000, prior to the fiscal mistakes that sank the dollar shortly thereafter. Now it's more like $62,500 vs ~$80,000. If the US had been financially frugal, the dollar would be worth a lot more than it is today and the Swiss GDP per capita would be at least 1/3 lower in dollar terms.
By 1985, with the Volcker strong dollar, the US GDP per capita overtook Switzerland, $18k vs $16k. And before that, with the weak 1970s dollar, by 1980 the US was at ~$12k and the Swiss were nearly 50% higher at $18.
Which is to say, the horrible financial choices that Washington DC has made since the late 1960s, has severely harmed the average American, their purchasing power, their ability to save vs real inflation, their ability to see wage gains exceed the rate of real inflation consistently, and the ability of GDP growth to maximally exceed real inflation.
No, these other countries are all industrial producers (and Switzerland isn't), therefore profiting from low exchange rates.
Switzerland: "About 74% of Swiss GDP is generated by the service sector and 25% by industry. The contribution from the agricultural sector is less than 1%." [1]
By contrast, nearly 80% of the US economy is service sector based.[2] Japan is around 70% for its service sector as a share of its economy. Switzerland isn't far off of Japan.
The typical high-income nation has 74% of its economy comprised of the service sector, which is exactly where Switzerland is.
Exports (including services) account for nearly half of Switzerland's economy. Just one industrial good export, packaged medicaments, as a share of their total GDP (5.1%) is nearly equal to all combined US exports (including service exports) as a share of the US economy (all US exports are 5.8% of the US economy).[3] Switzerland is very clearly an industrial economy as well as a service econonomy.
[1] https://www.eda.admin.ch/aboutswitzerland/en/home/wirtschaft...
[2] https://www2.deloitte.com/insights/us/en/economy/issues-by-t...
[1] https://www.autoscout24.ch/de/autos/tesla--model-3?make=391&...
Audi, just like other german car makers are well known for making their dealers purchase cars for inflated statistics ( https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tageszulassung ).
It's probably a combination of pent-up demand, Switzerland being (generally) affluent, and having a reasonably environmentally-friendly culture.