Miscellaneous Car News

Me either. Wish mine looked like that.

 

The sedans are HUGE, but the sports cars are very nice looking. Sedans are becoming very popular here.

 

I would have to say the Tesla was quite possibly the most amazing car that I have ever driven. One seriously impressive game changer.

 

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCvx9y4cuzE]Traumatic Bond with a Lamborghini Urraco - YouTube[/ame]

 

Fantastic little car the Urraco. No two drive the same! Quite a few were sold here new. However I cannot recall the last time I sighted one on the road. Good to see another example restored with love and passion Slight correction in the video, Bertone had nothing to do with the Pantera, that was styled by Tom Tjaarda when he was with Ghia.

 

Your sitting on some 7100 battery cells and from a house hold 10a outlet your charge rate is around some 6km per hour so you need leave in plugged in whenever you don't drive it. A 10kw charger in one hour will give you around 50km range, that's around $6.50per 100km (a 10kw charger also is not cheap), roughly this works out a touch under say a car that consumes 4.7ltr per 100km.

This is on the assumption that power stays at around $0.31 a kw, so what you need to do is place a 10 kw solar system on your roof, plug your car in Friday night, charge it all day Saturday & Sunday, don't exceed 400km during the week and have it plugged in at work every day into a 10a socket.

Winter time in Melb with lights running early morning and night would most likely increase running costs by about a third?

 

So - give us a report?! What impressed you; instant torque? What's the handling like? Did you drive sedan or sports versions? Very interested to hear.

 

Yes, I wonder about the viability in spacious Oz, but with a maximum drive of around 65 km here they make a lot of sense. Plus some of the major parking stations have plug-in bays.

 

I am not sure about your logic; but a 3/4 charge using the free supercharger network takes
20 mins. If you have 3 phase power at home (I do) a full charge takes about 4hrs using the charger provided. If you have normal power supply a full charge takes about 8hrs.
The range depends on the model and associated battery size; but the P85+ we drove does about 400km in real world conditions.

I am just about to start install on an off grid 15kw solar system with large battery storage for home. At work I am putting in a 100 panel 25kw system with even larger power storage and backup, again off grid. The systems should be able to charge the car for free; but waiting on some info from Tesla to see if the system spec's need tweeking.

Currently I spend $11k a year of after tax money on the boring daily commute to work and family hack duties. Then there is the $3.5k+ per month on power saved at work and home.
Plus no more being at the mercy of power failures where work shuts down totally. Lost turnover is significant.

Win all around I reckon

 

Tesla are installing a supercharger network in Sydney and Melbourne and up the Hume highway. Within 12mths you can drive Sydney to Melbourne for free. The network will expand in the major cities starting with the CBD's.

 

So if the average drive is 65 km (say one hour) you are charging your car the balance of 23 hours a day, which let say from a 10a socket 10 hours is 60 km, so around $8.00 a day for power to keep the batteries full, because they will never be full from a 10a socket. That's around $56.00 a week.

So every one hour of city driving takes 11 hours of domestic power to achieve, unless you install a high end 20kw charger in your house which would require 3 phase power, oh and they cost around $15k.

So its not any cheaper to run a electric car, its just the warm fussy feeling you get knowing its not you generating the carbon but the power station out in the pristine countryside is. Your just moving the carbon around, your not getting rid of it, unless you install a very large solar panel system to charge your car during the day so you can drive it at night?

PS. I currently run a very large solar grid, which makes me money, which other people are paying for in there higher electric bills? there has not been much real thought gone into solar in Australia.

 

It's going to be free for me

Your analysis seems overly simplistic. Efficiency varies tremendously depending on many variables. I also seriously doubt anybody would buy a Tesla without the proper home charger.

 

So your going from Melb to Syd, you get up at 7:00am leave, stop at 10:00 for a 1 hour coffee break to fill the cells, drive to noon have a 1 hour lunch fill the cells, stop at 3:00pm another 1 hour coffee break fill the cells, arrive Syd that evening.

I get at 7:00am go to the airport, fly Virgin for $79.00 arrive Syd, hire a car Mitsubishi Outlander that gets 1.9ltr/100klm, drive to the hotel for lunch & a show, wonder which way of travel my wife would prefer.

"Within 12mths you can drive Sydney to Melbourne for free." This cost is added into the price of the Tesla so they can afford to build the power network and how many times are you going to drive to Melb & Syd to enjoy this FREE power, probably, maybe, once a year?

 

It's much easier to list the stuff that is less than "OMG that's incredible!" than it is to list the stuff that blows you away. In my case the only complaint that I could come up with is the quality of the interior materials. The interior is very American, cheap looking plastics and leather that feels like vinyl. If you are coming from a top shelf Merc, BMW, Jaguar, Bentley etc the Tesla feels very downmarket. Lets face it, the Tesla in Australia is $150-$210k and buyers at that level expect better.

What impresses me the most is that it is a true game changing development. Tesla didn't follow accepted practice with anything at all. They approached everything with out of the square thinking. From the way they sell them (over the net) to the way they market them (from Apple style stores in major shopping centres with test cars in the car park), to the way they service them (software updates over WiFi) - there are no traditional dealers. There is very little in the way of serviceable parts so a visit to the service centre is rare.

As for the car itself, where do you start? The out of the square thinking permeates every aspect of the car. There is no key as such, just walk up to the car with the command "key" on you and the flush handles pop out to greet you. Jump in, no key to turn engine on because it's already on, just select drive and go. When you stop just select P, jump out and walk off.
As for go, that is out of this world with maximum torque and power from zero revs. Punch the throttle and it's just like the star ship Enterprise engaging warp drive. Phenomenal punch in almost total silence. Kind of confuses the brain as the lack of noise makes you wonder how the horizon is all of a sudden looming towards you.
Handling is good despite the weight as the centre of gravity is ultra low with the totally flat floor holding the batteries underneath.
Brakes, who needs 'em. The regenerative braking when you take your foot off the pedal feels odd at first as it slows the car just as if you had brushed the brakes. You only use the brakes in normal driving when you are almost at a stop.
Then there are all the gadgets. Could go on for ages about all the functions in that massive touch screen. Again it's all out of the square thinking. Feel like some music? Pretty much any song is available when you have 4G coverage as it streams it from some website. Think of an artist and song title, say "play xyz" and off it goes.

Suffice to say, I was blown away by it. I'm going to order the twin motor P85D that was released last week. Twice the performance and 4WD must be just insane ��

 

You boys have been having some fun

Relative performance to a 458 ?

 

As PP said, it's a luxury sedan so the Speciale would eat it for breakfast. However the Tesla is the fastest 4 door saloon in the world.

 

From 0-100 km/h? Or top speed?

Or both?

 

Excellent news all round!

 

Yes, at present most of the electricity being plugged into is 'dirty', but the car runs clean and eventually more and more of the used electricity WILL be clean. See 360C's proposed setup- true 0 emissions and totally independent. Unfortunately at the moment only accessible by the few who have the means and vision, but this is surely the way of the future.

Re your subsidized solar grid - you're making money and the public benefits from cleaner air, what price a breathable atmosphere? How would you have made the setup different if you were PM? But you're right about not much thought gone onto solar in Australia RECENTLY. We were the world leaders in solar technology 15 years or so ago, but we're so short-sighted we didn't capatalise on it so the advantage was lost...