ratsbane

Are you familiar with Alexander's Lodge? (https://alexanderslodge.com/) It looks like they have a couple of Tesla Destination Chargers, which typically work at around 40mph, (40 miles of range for each hour of charge) so it would work to drive there, charge for an hour or two, and have enough range to comfortably drive back to Portland in a day or two.

Of course, that doesn't mean the Model 3 is right for you in every way, but it's interesting to think through scenarios like this.

(edit) https://www.plugshare.com/location/79838

The combination of autopilot, infotainment, and smoother ride makes it less tiring. The charging stops tend to happen when I would want to take a break and eat anyway. Also, hotels with Tesla chargers are great.

"For example, a correlation may exist between changes in temperature in an obscure Australian town and price changes in the U.S. stock market. A person would know that the two events have no connection."

I have almost 40,000 miles on a Model 3 and from my personal experience with it and with other cars I've owned, including hundreds of thousands of miles on Porsche and Mercedes, the Model 3 handles the best. Air suspension will, I expect, give the Taycan a slight edge, but other than that, there's no magic dust that Porsche can sprinkle to make their car any different. Just putting the massive weight of the battery on the floor is enough to give both cars a big advantage over any ICE car.

You mention that the cars are in different classes - the only class that they don't share is price. The Porsche is predicted to cost between 2x and 3x the price of the Model 3. They're of comparable weight, size, power output, layout, etc.

You mention that the Model 3 has a poor interior - again, unless you work for Porsche or otherwise have access to as-yet unreleased photos, there are no released images of the Taycan interior. How can you know the interior is better? The Model 3 interior is simple, clean, and spartan, but I like it better than the E-class I drove before the Tesla. When I go back to the E-class, it feels fussy and baroque in comparison.

We know how advanced the Model 3 self-driving is, and it's constantly improving with frequent updates. It's really quite good. Will the Taycan be better? Perhaps, but at this point Tesla has had hundreds of millions of driving data to refine their approach and Porsche has not. Even if Porsche outsources from someone with much more experience, such as MobileEye. They're unlikely to be much better than Tesla. All of Porsche's money and many years of racing successes can't make software development suddenly leap ahead.

Finally, Porsche, in this video, is pushing the ability to run at "full performance" for a long time. That video, while very nice, didn't give any facts and figures about what that means. Tesla's had ten years and several generations of drivetrains to work out the kinks, including the overheating problems during track time of older Model S cars. When the Taycan is finally out and people can independently compare the two cars, I'll be interested to see of the Taycan is significantly better, but before that happens there's no reason to think that it will be.

Let it be resolved, then, that the Model 3 and the Taycan are in exactly the same class in every area except for price. I hope the Taycan is a great car and I'm sure it will be.

The 911 was first produced in 1963 with an air-cooled flat 6 engine mounted aft of the rear axle.

The 3 series, first produced in 1975, is a front-engine car with a water-cooled straight-4 and -6 (most commonly) water-cooled engine mounted in front.

So the first 911 was made twelve years before the first 3 series, is structured completely differently and has completely different engine technology.

The Model 3 was released 2-3 years before the Taycan is expected out, and has essentially the same layout: floor battery with front and rear electric motors mounted in about the same spots. They both have four doors with the same deep swoop down of the roof over the rear seats, flattened hoods that dip below the line of the fenders, etc.

The Taycan looks more like a Model 3 than any other electric car around, and since the Model 3 came first, it's reasonable to describe the Taycan in Model 3 terms.

It's a good design, functionally and aesthetically, and I'm certainly not faulting Porsche for these design choices. I've owned a 911 before and I've always appreciated Porsches - they have made many great cars, and the Taycan might well be another one. I hope that it is. But it does look a lot like a Model 3.

The Model 3 is an extraordinary car, but the most extraordinary thing about it is that it's available to anyone for <$50k.

Formula E, Goodwood, etc. are open to non-street legal cars - the designs are purpose-built for racing and Tesla doesn't have a factory race team.

Those first two articles are from 2016 and 2014 and the third one (written a few weeks ago) describes a contest between a 2014 Model S and a "New, modified" 2019 Leaf.

The first Google result I see for "Model 3 Performance Overheat" is this one - and it describes how the car did NOT overheat: https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-3-performance-autobahn...

Also, the interior seemed very dark - maybe just the pre-production version hiding some details or I'm just used to the glass Model 3 roof.

Nice to see more manufacturers getting serious about this obvious electric-car future.

Exactly. So why should a boss want to pay you less because you live somewhere cheap.

(edit: moving for reasons unrelated to employment with the San Francisco company)

Someone proposed something like that to me recently, arguing that if the cost of living in my home city is less than in the office city then I shouldn't be paid as much. I'm thinking pay should be based on productivity and value to the company instead of value to me.

In US airspace, there's a speed limit of 250 knots (around 290mph) below 10,000 feet. Most light aircraft cruise significantly slower (~140 mph for a Cessna 172) and closer to the ground, whether on approach, takeoff, or other, most aircraft are likely to be going slower than that - so this test is at the high end of that range, even if you add the maximum speed of a DJI Phantom (~40mph) and assume it's flying directly at the aircraft.

  2005 Mercedes E320 CDI: $572.40
  2018 Tesla Model 3 Long Range: $641.76

Anybody want to buy a 2005 Mercedes?

I joined the Model 3 wait list the day it opened and I'm really looking forward to getting one. The biggest concern I have so far is the lack of driver display.

Are some of these prepper people are missing out on the key concept that to live by your wits you need wits? Or maybe they're aware of that and that's why they stockpile the shotgun shells and dehydrated water capsules...?