General Auto Chat

Ha, we're getting more and more of them here in PL. That person you quoted gave a spot on description from what I can tell driving around my city.

 

Even my 5.7 at WOT still scares most people who ride with me. The 6.4 is noticeably faster but it makes most of that power at the top end. At low RPMs the 5.7s torque is violent. It's a good thing the NAG1 transmission is strong because I beat the shit out of mine.

And I agree, most Tesla owners aren't car guys, they're tech guys who want to drive a giant smartphone on wheels.

 

Yeah, on the 25 MPG freeway ... why? If you're buying a car for sport fun, then you should be getting crap mileage - my car has 7 gears and it's never seen 7th, and I think 6th one time, 5th occasionally. On the freeway i'm typically in 4th at around 4k-6k RPM because that's the sweet spot for power. If I'm cruising on a long road trip, which is almost never, then i rent a car, and if i'm driving, say, an hour or so then I'll use 6th, but that's almost never.

As for "peak oil" it was completely true with one huge caveat: for known sources, with known extraction methods. We found new extraction methods (oil sands, fracking, etc) which opened up new sources, which piled on top new discoveries.

So right around 2006 discoveries weren't looking so hot and dropping fast, but then with new extraction methods, new fields opened up and by 2009 it was an oil boom .... and 10 years later from "peak oil" we were at historic exploration lows because all the new extraction methods opened up so much new oil.

Since 1977, the only time new oil discoveries were lower than 2016 (20), was in 1992 (8). This isn't the best graph but it does put it all together: basically 2009 blew oil out da box.

 

Im a car guy and Id drive a Tesla....0-60 in 2.3 seconds is fast and the fact that it does it with 4 doors and at just shy of 5k pounds on electricity makes it even cooler.

I work for GM and we used to be able to get cars to try for a week. One week a coworker got a CTS-V coupe..the one with the supercharged 6.2 in it, 6 speed. So we took it out and he let me try it. So I get it out by where I work and hit it hard, before I know it, probably not even a quarter mile or so, i'm traveling scarily fast, approaching triple digits and I'm already on the brakes because I'm coming up to a stop light. I had hardly even gotten into the boost of the supercharger. It was at that point I had finally realized there was a crazy fast and a limit to how much power I would really want or need on a regular street and it was right around 500 HP


That said the whine of a supercharger, there is nothing like , it make it almost worth the price of admission there. Here is the thing though 707 hp is a metric shitton. 485 is more than plenty for anything on regular roads and you can get a scat pack for 30k less than a hellcat.

 

combustion engine torque available at 0 rpm = 0
electric engine at 0 rpm maximum torque available

I assume on the first 30 yards even an i3 would beat most cars with a combustion engine and that without making (proper) noise, which is probably why car guys are not (yet) into cars with electrical motors.

 

Just because a gasoline car isn't moving doesn't mean that the engine isn't spinning. Most V8's idle 600-800 RPM, V6's and L4's are even higher. It's true that electric motors are capable of making their full torque from a stop, but I highly doubt that a BMW i3's torque curve is a flat line from 0RPM. They have to ramp up the power or things would break.

This is ignoring the fact that with an automatic transmission you can ride the converter and brake to launch at a higher RPM, and with a manual you can launch at whatever RPM you want (you might break shit, and most drag cars use a 2-step to build boost to a certain point and/or limit RPM before launching).

There are allot of reasons I'm not into electric cars. The main one being that I love the sound and feel of a V8 or a turbocharged 4 cylinder. Another being that once the battery wears out you basically have a $100,000 paper weight. It will cost more to replace the battery than the car is worth. Electric cars feed into the culture of throwing shit away when it breaks instead of fixing it. You will not see a daily-driven gen 1 P100 on the road in 20 years. Its basically impossible. No matter how well you take care of it, eventually the battery will not be able to hold a charge, and the price to replace it (if you are even able to) would be more than the car is worth.

Unfortunately these days everyone just want's to lease cars so they have the newest and greatest thing every 3 years, and you can tell that cars are designed around this.

 

Electric motors usually start at maximum torque and go down from there.

 

This really depends on the type of motor and the way it's fed.
Universal motor and permanent magnet motors do that naturally.
An induction motor certainly won't start at max torque with simple on/off switch.
Max torque for induction motors is possible with some math tricks with modern vector control drives.

Afaik Tesla used induction motor (the kind used in rough industrial stuff) in previous platforms and went back to perm magnet synchronous motors (precision stuff, like that in brushless Makita drill) in the latest efforts. All that to undercut the inductance problem and to save some space. At high rotational speeds inductance limits torque, just as it does in case of universal motor in angle grinder or vacuum cleaner.

 

Most electric vehicles use a synchronous motor the field being generated either by permanent magnets or by electrically through a field coil.

https://cdn.goingelectric.de/forum/resources/i3-drehmoment-leistung/45896

torque flat up to 4775 rpm. The i3 weighs around 1300 kgs and with 125 kW it does 0-62 mph in 6.9 to 7.3 s depending on the model.
Love them or loath them electric motors have intrinsic advantages and disadvantages. Initial acceleration is one of their advantages.

 

Most car guys aren't into electrics for this exact reason - "initial" acceleration.

Car guys are into REPEATABLE, consistent, predictable acceleration and cornering all day long. Tesla's can't do that. No electric passenger car can. A Tesla is a fast passenger car, not a car for sport.

A good sports car accelerates always, doesn't overheat, and fuels up in a few minutes. I can sport-drive my car in the mountains at 95 degrees for 3 hours non-stop at high acceleration and she's cool-as-cucumber. A quick fuel stop, and I can put in another 3 hours, then drive home like I just picked up milk.

Try that in a Tesla and ...

 

I had a Tesla Roadster back in the day and it was an amazing sports car!

 

I'm not sold on pure electrics, I would be OK with a hybrid if it was fun to drive (I'm thinking i8 not Prius). Teslas are fast off the line for sure, at least for a few launches till the battery is not fully charged anymore.

You can hoon an ICE car all day long. Teslas not so much.....

http://www.thedrive.com/news/5207/this-video-reminds-us-that-the-tesla-model-s-is-an-awful-track-car

 

It is based on a Lotus, so it has a good pedigree.

I'd rather just have the Lotus, but if people love Teslas that is cool. Not many of them around these parts though. I just saw my first Model 3 recently.

 

I had an Elise before I had the Tesla and the Roadster was by far more fun to drive...