OT: Tesla Road Test

"Faster off the line" is for juveniles.

In snow or wet, I'll leave a 2-wheel drive Tesla way behind. If it's cold enough, I'll beat the Tesla and its tow truck.

And I'll beat Sloman's electric car under any conditions.

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics

Volt is now selling under 2K units per month in the US, out of a total of around 1.5 million. That's not going to Save The Earth.

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics

It did save the company though, as even Obama would've passed on bailing out GM had their GRAND VISION FOR THE FUTURE been a new Tahoe.

And it's saving a lot of jobs in Detroit where they're manufacturing them, too. The Volt and Bolt combined are stomping all over the foreign offerings in sales, and outselling even Chevy's own mid-size offerings like the Impala.

An American-engineered product built by American workers earning profit for an American company, designed on a budget that Tesla blows through in 6 months? Gosh, you'd think people would be happy.

John Larkin wrote on 6/23/2017 12:07 PM:

Which Teslas are those? The one I drove had two motors and all wheel drive.... without a bulky and heavy transfer case. I wanted to replace the clutch in my truck once, but when I crawled under it to see how big the transfer case was I decided to let someone else do it.

Your Owdi would be left in the dust by any of the all wheel drive Teslas under any conditions. 0-60 Q5-5.9 sec, Tesla S-2.5 sec, Tesla X-2.9 sec

The Owdi Q5 would take *twice* as long to get to 60 from a start as the Tesla-S. lol

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Rick C

John Larkin wrote on 6/23/2017 12:19 PM:

Funny that the focus is on the wrong number. The 1.5 million is the number to worry about.

Oh yeah, the 2k per month number will be changing dramatically in about 60 days. 400,000 units on order, we'll see how much complaining John does when they start shipping another 10,000 per month.

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Rick C

I'll leave that one to the pundits. I have never read anything that indicated the Volt was a factor in the GM bailout.

Yet the Chevy figures lag the Tesla sales on cars selling for three times the price.

I don't know why as a consumer I would care who works in the factories and who owns the factories. When I buy something I care about how well it works and how well it is supported. I took at look at the Bolt (haven't gotten around to looking at the Volt yet, but it's probably too small for me). The car seemed ok, if a bit small, but I am totally unimpressed with GM.

Tesla is all about charging their cars, not just the supercharger network, but the support for getting a charger installed in your home. When I asked about charging at the Chevy dealer they said, "There are web sites to find charging stations" and the salesman has a list of electricians who install outlets. I think I've read that GM may be working on a fast charging solution, but I haven't seen anything concrete. I don't get it.

How can GM think they will be taken seriously as an EV maker if they aren't going to address the charging of their cars???

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Rick C

They aren't at all the same market segment as you noticed. The Volt and Bolt's current real competition is the Prius, Leaf, and every other model of hybrid out there, i.e. reasonably priced commuter cars for people who want to save money on gas. That's the main motivating factor, not "eco-cred." Nobody buys a current Tesla-anything whose main vehicle-buying criteria is being able to own a car that isn't 15 yrs old and yet still keep money in their bank account.

Being able to keep an extra 1-2k a year in the bank instead of having it plunged into fuel probably isn't a big deal for someone looking at a

80-100k car, but it's definitely a big motivating factor for a large segment of car buyers.

The Volt is really more like owning a hybrid with a split personality than owning a pure EV.

Oh. Well. Okay, then. Spoken like a true "liberal elite", I guess.

Well then, you're probably going to be unimpressed with just about every other EV offering under $60k at this point too, unfortunately, because they're dogs.

GM made some cars for a price point. IMO they pretty much nailed it and made it the best they could for the per-unit budget management gave them to work with.

Take it or leave it, I suppose.

The ChargePoint-managed public/business owned charging infrastructure around here works great, I use it every day. The main problem is people parking in the spots who aren't supposed to. In the city they ticket them, but unfortunately not in the suburbs.

If Tesla wants to be in the energy-dispensing business too then hey, I suppose it's their funeral. I guess if I were laying out 100k for a car I'd expect a no-extra-cost home charger with gold-plated plugs that also made my tea to be installed in my garage as well

Basically in the US just about everyone everywhere outside of people who live in the heart of the few cities that have good public transit infrastructures needs a car. Even people who make only say 40k a year. If you find yourself without one in that situation you have a few options, and they're basically All Bad.

You can buy a 15 year old beater for 2k that gets ok mileage, and hope it doesn't have a catastrophic failure or even need basic repairs really, because for example many shops around here want to charge you nearly 1k for just a front and rear brake job. And that's bye-bye to a year's worth of fuel money.

Or you could buy a used car a couple years old with 60k on the clock and maybe a year or two left on the warranty. But fuel-efficient used cars hold their value quite well these days. Oh that 2012 Civic? Sure, you can have that one for $12,000. But like 60% of Americans don't even have

2k in liquid cash to pay for a used car with, much less 13. Finance a used car? Oh man are you gonna get screwed...

Or you could lease a new car and have the maintenance taken care of for you, ideally one that's really fuel-efficient so you could count the fuel savings against the monthly rent. The downside is that at the end of the lease you don't own anything. But as we've seen, owning late-model cars is mostly a pain in the ass, anyway.

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ause they aren't made in the same numbers as gasoline-powered cars. Subsidi sing them now means that thsey will be built in larger numbers now to get p roduction volumes up now, rather than later.

is currently demand side subsidies. Giving more money to auto makers does not mean they will make cheaper cars.

The rule of thumb is that if you can multiply the volume by ten you can hal ve the unit price. It doesn't always work, but it has worked a couple of ti mes for solar cells.

ld like to see more subsidies for common auto parts. We need true supply s ide subsidies.

Manufacturers don't like subsidising their competitors. Legislative arm-twi sting can work, but it does depend on central planning, which can be more r igid and inflexible than is ideal.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney

The Tesla doesn't compete with the Volt in the same way the Volt doesn't compete with the Leaf. Few cars compete head on. The point is the Tesla is about to outsell the GM line of green cars by a factor of two or three by the end of the year in no small part because of their approach. GM just doesn't "get" electric cars.

That's a load of applesauce. Do you buy only US made computers? Do you only buy US made clothes? Hell, do you buy only US grown food???

No, just the ones that don't meet my needs. I don't know for sure, but I fully expect the Telsa 3 to be a cur that will suit me, as do 400,000 others.

If you are referring to the Bolt, it is a good car. As I pointed out, the car is not really the issue. GM is the issue offering virtually nothing other than the car, no charging support and for me, nothing to help me use it for the things I want to do, like haul kayaks. At least with the Tesla I can tow a trailer.

Sounds like you aren't willing to accept that GM has shortcomings in how they approach electric cars. With the Bolt they could have blown Tesla out of the water by beating them to market by over half a year. But they think of electric cars the same way they think of ICE cars, a way to sell cup holders.

Daily use is one thing. Most people charge at home. But for trips a viable charging solution is essential. 20 minutes for an 80% charge is acceptable every three hours on the road. Really you should get out of the car that often on trips anyway. With the Bolt you can expect to have a meal every time you charge, or two... There is more to driving than local commutes.

Now you are really sounding like sour grapes. Obviously you don't plan to take any long trips in an all electric car. The model 3 is cheaper than the Bolt and may well have a longer range. The bottom line is you have the car you want, an electric-gas hybrid. If I could get the body style I want that might suit me. But the all-electric cars are looking pretty good these days. I think if the model 3 has a range that beats the Bolt, that will be a slam dunk for me. The Tesla Model 3 may not be as fast as the Model S or X, but it beats the Owdi Q5 in the 0 to 60 time.

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Rick C

If it wasn't subsidized, I'd be delighted. As has been noted, subsidizing electric cars is an outrageously expensive way to defer CO2 production.

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
picosecond timing   precision measurement  

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com 
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

John Larkin wrote on 6/23/2017 8:09 PM:

As has been pointed out both the oil companies and much of the US auto industry was subsidized. Lame argument.

Subsidies help new and better methods get off the ground so they can become economic. The government feels the best way to move forward with EVs is to provide subsidies for a few years. This will put us in the best position some years down the road, much better than doing nothing as you would like us to. I still say you don't like the new electric cars because they make your Owdi Q5 look so slow, like the tired iron it is.

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Rick C

rickman wrote on 6/20/2017 11:33 PM:

Wow! I just watched a R&T test and the Telsa Model S P100D shut out the Owdi RS7 in both the 0 to 60 and the quarter mile. It took a Porsche 911 turbo S to beat the Tesla and even then it was just by a hair right at the finish line. Until then the Tesla was ahead the whole time!

They also put 500 lbs of manure in the various trunks of the Model S.

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Rick C

The web is full of pieces like this from circa 2011-2014 predicting the imminent death of the TAXPAYER SUBSIDIZED Volt:

"The Electric Lemon"

Dozens and dozens of them. Oh it's no good. Oh it's gonna bankrupt the company. Oh it's gonna be shut down any day now. As if the power of yellow journalism could make it happen.

Meanwhile in the US they're moving around 2k Volts a month, every month, year after year, as many as the Prius Prime. And the Bolt was just released - my dealer sold out of their first shipment in under a week. The first Korean pre-order batch sold out in a few hours.

By the time the last one rolls of the assembly line the total per-unit subsidy will probably be about 10 bucks per car. If the graph on the second link is accurate the only subsidies that might be worth griping about are from the DOE for LG Electronic's work on the battery, and unspecified "Energy Department Grants" that who knows what projects and how much they were distributed to.

Anyway, I've been subsidizing SUVs I didn't want and their absurd fuel "economy" with my taxes for literally decades now, I remember around

2003-2006 Hummer H2s and H3s were absolutely everywhere around here, everyone and their mother was a "business owner" and qualified for the tax break:

I almost never see them anymore, I imagine many are scrap at this point. Sorry. My turn, now.

Their marketing for the Volt is indeed atrocious, you almost never see advertising copy for it. IIRC Chevy paid an enormous amount for a minute long Superbowl ad and I don't think they even mentioned it once. I've mentioned to my dealer before (one of the few knowledgeable older salesmen in the area at the dealer that sells the most in Massachusetts) "Hey imagine how many of these Chevy could sell if they knew how to sell them!" and he sadly agreed.

It's like after 40 years of selling lackluster cars they suddenly had this quirky but amazing thing on their hands that they didn't have to use schlocky appeal-to-emotion ads of SUVs driving through snowdrifts in slow motion to sell; it could just sell via an old fashioned "Here's a thing and here's what it can do for you" type of ad like the way things were sold a hundred years ago.

I don't think they remembered how to do that. They forgot.

I've seen the "what about long trips?" objection brought up over again, my objection to "there's more to driving than local commutes" is that for many people no, there really isn't. Maybe it's a generational thing? Younger people just drive less, apparently. I've probably never done a drive longer than around hundred miles one-way in over a decade.

Sitting behind the wheel of a car is one of the last things I want to be doing with my time; the roads around here are overcrowded and the other drivers are nuts, it's really just asking for it. Every minute I don't have to spend driving is a minute I could be doing something I actually enjoy, instead of risking my ass at the most dangerous task most people do on a daily basis and paying for the "privilege" of doing it.

If I want to have fun driving a car I'll do it at midnight or at a track, it's pretty much zero fun in any other circumstance.

Not in any car, what a misery!

It's certainly possible the Model 3 will be the Volt and Bolt-killer, and that's OK. Like the Volt, Chevy is kind of schizophrenic about EVs. At the end of the day I think their management would really prefer to crank out ICE truck-like passenger vehicles, to the last.

I'm not talking about advertising, I'm talking about addressing the market. If Chevy made a car with a nuclear reactor, there would be all sorts of issues of concern. If the car only needed fuel once a year and GM said you should contact your local NRC office to deal with that... how many would they sell? NONE

Nothing in that article says anyone doesn't need to take trips longer than a full tank. My observations of license plates on the highway refutes the premise that longer trips don't happen.

People don't go on long trips so they can drive, they go on long trips so they can have fun somewhere other than where they live. I have friends who like to go to the beach every year. Another friend drives 8 hours to get to the beach where she bought a house. As soon as I buy a new car, I'm going to visit here there. I've already found the optimal charging station at the trip midpoint. A good place to stretch my legs and maybe grab a sandwich to eat in the car. 20 minutes and I'm back on the road with a Tesla. Maybe 2 hours in the Bolt.

Lol! I feel sorry for you. Maybe you need a better car.

I don't think all electric cars will kill hybrids for some time if ever.

200 to 300 miles is a practical range for an all electric car. Some people prefer being able to fill a tank of gas in 5 minutes rather than the 20 minute wait for an electric car.

I think people don't realize just how good 50 MPG is. Put it in terms of consumption instead and the numbers start to make more sense. My pickup is pretty good for a truck at 20 MPG or 5 gal/100miles. The Volt is around 50 MPG or 2 gal/100miles, an improvement of 3 gal/100miles. But now you just don't have much more room for improvement. Double the mileage and you only save another 1 gal/100miles. Looking at MPG numbers is a bit misleading. So an all electric car is not a big improvement for the emissions compared to a hybrid, well, at least not the Volt or Prius. The SUV hybrids don't do so well as the sedans.

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Rick C

We're back to my "hey what do you expect?" thing. My LT Volt with the "comfort" package has a MSRP of around 34k. Federal tax credit knocks that down to around 27. Mass EV rebate program sent me a $2500 check in the mail, too.

IMO it would be a good value in the low 30s just as a hybrid, a hybrid Impala costs about the same and all you get for your money is a car that's about 6" longer with a larger trunk and back seat that will never ever pull 50 mpg on the highway. Maybe good for a family but pointless for a bachelor. It's a steal at 27.

The plug-in aspect is really more like a bonus. Every Volt comes with its own charging infrastructure, though! There's a compartment in the back that holds a cable, one end plugs into the charge port and the other plugs into a standard 120 volt outlet. The battery can charge fully from that overnight, and most people sleep at some point or another. When its used for its intended role as a commuter car this "system" works perfectly fine.

No it doesn't have DC fast charging. No it doesn't have its own network of chargers all over the place that make your tea. Neither do Volkswagen, BMW, Ford, Fiat, Mercedes, Nissan, Toyota, etc. all of whom are trying to hawk plug-in hybrid this or thats. If GM is guilty of not "getting" electric cars then they're certainly no more guilty than any of the other major ICE manufacturers.

They did at least make a plug-in hybrid that Americans want to drive, with a clever and innovative drivetrain, even if they don't completely understand what they created. And from an engineering standpoint I think the Voltec propulsion system is simply more innovative than what Tesla has on offer. It had to be, because they had significantly less budget to work with, but American consumers are going to expect at least 2/3rds of the Tesla experience, for 1/3rd the price. IMO they pulled that off.

Yeah but how often? If you're making long trips once or twice a week well outside the full battery range then it's definitely worth factoring that into your buying criteria. If you only make long trips a couple of times a year then...it's silly to buy a car based on its ability to do something it's not doing 99% of the time.

If I need to go to NYC I just hop on the train and leave the Volt at home. Who has time for these long-ass road trips, anyway? Most professionals I know in their 30s are working 40 hour weeks at least and definitely don't want to blow what little vacation time they have driving all over creation.

If only they made some kind of machine that could go much faster than a car to get people between destinations hundreds of miles from each other much more quickly than an ordinary car. Like something with wings that could go through the air where there's no traffic, maybe? They could call it the Air Bus or something

Great, you buyin'?

I had the budget for a ~30k car. I don't have the money for a luxury car. Vehicle prices have outstripped the rate of inflation; most of my friends in their 30s who aren't employed in technology and instead work blue-collar jobs or in retail couldn't even afford that unless they put themselves deep into a debt-hole to do it.

It's the best plug-in hybrid for the price. That's why GM sells so many, relatively speaking. BMW makes a lil plug-in BMW with an (optional)

2-cylinder range extender engine with a 2 gallon fuel tank. It has wood grain and hemp interior. It's definitely not worth 58k.

Yeah, I think 50 mpg is the sweet spot. I drive more on gas than most Volt drivers and use "opportunistic charging" from "free" public chargers for much of he rest. On a good week I get 70-80 mpg, and if my electrons were "free" then that's a legit personal cost figure. A thousand miles a month on around $20? Awesome...

Yeah, sure, I haven't looked at the Volt, but based on what you say they did a good job with it. I don't get why you keep talking about the huge price of the Teslas. That was necessary to finance the creation of a new car company. Just like in semiconductors they start with the market that provides for smaller sales (less factory) but high profit margins. They are now 30 days away from beginning to ship price competitive cars that are all electric. So stop already with the pricing issue!

In fact, I was looking at the Chevy inventory and the Volt isn't any cheaper than the Bolt or the model 3.

My complaint with GM is not the Volt, but the Bolt, or actually with the way GM is not really supporting the Bolt. Without a fast charging option the Bolt will only be a town car. Even if I use the Bolt for my typical driving, once I take a 120 mile trip, it takes five hours on a level 2 charger to recharge and over a day on a 120 volt outlet. That's ok for commuting, but road trips have to be accommodated.

If I'm going to pay $40,000 for a car, I don't want to be home bound other than going to the grocery store! Should I spend another $40,000 for a hybrid to cover that 1% usage? But wait! There's a solution... buy an EV that comes with a charging network!!! Hmmm... now who would that be?

I had an opportunity to consider a trip to NY three times last year. Each time I drove (or was driven actually because of my hip problem). Even with all the hassles of getting around Manhattan with a car, it was better than public transportation because of the unknowns, when would I get there, how much would it cost, when do I need to leave? The train was the last option because of the inflexibility. Trains are much less convenient than superchargers.

You mean the things that require you to arrive at the AirBus terminal two hours before you depart and only exist in major urban areas?

You are dreaming if you think airports are the solution to poor charging networks.

You are very defensive about your Volt. My concerns are with the Bolt and GM's lack of understanding of the market.

I just looked up chargers and while there are more fast DC chargers for the Bolt than there are superchargers for the Tesla, they are *expensive* charging up to 50 cents per kWHr. That gives me a question to ask the Tesla salesman. I know new cars no longer come with free supercharging, so how much do they charge for a kWHr?

Thing is I'm not looking for a commute vehicle. I want something more like an SUV. They get better mileage than my pickup, but nowhere near 50 mpg. Can your volt tow a light trailer, say 1000 lbs?

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Rick C

It does have a fast charging option! It is actually an "option." It's not as awesome as Tesla's fast charger, no.

Unfortunately the numbers just don't work. A sedan/crossover with Tesla-like performance, a 250 mile all electric range, DC fast charging, and a Johnny-on-the-spot charging infrastructure that's well-supported by the manufacturer just isn't in the cards for a 30-40k car in 2k17. As of right now you either lay out the 80-100k for a Tesla if you want that and can afford it, or if you can't you get a Volt, Bolt, Leaf, whatever and live with the compromises. You'll currently have to compromise on something to get the EV benefits on a vehicle at that price point. Can't always get champagne on a beer budget.

My point is that I believe that for many consumers who _are_ limited to even a 40k price range, the financial benefits outweigh the downsides. As they say, YMMV. Yeah it does kind of suck that you have to hunt for a charger sometimes, people sometimes park in the spots who shouldn't, the ChargePoint charger network can occasionally be a little flakey, it doesn't charge as fast as I'd like, and I can't really take it on long trips without losing most of the EV benefits. Oh well, so sad, but hey the reward is you're paying basically squat for fuel. Either get rich or just deal with it.

Also it can be a really fun car to drive on the rare occasions in an urban environment when you can actually open it up, it's like a Prius that actually has some go and balls.

Ugh everyone just overthinks the shit outta everything.

Ugh most people who don't have to travel for work don't make more than a couple long-distance trips of over 100 miles per year; they could've bought a plug-in hybrid and saved enough money for five trips by plane and gone and come back in the time they spent worrying about this "problem."

I think they understood the market OK, they understood that guys who feel only the current crop of Teslas would suit their needs aren't their market...;-)

Who cares!