andy97

iTrader: (1)

The savings on servicing, running costs, covert patrolling and acceleration performance highly rated the the force

https://insideevs.com/news/446583/te...avings-1-year/

BMWhere?

Hardly representative for all! A police car will be doing much more mileage daily compared to the average user. A dodge charger is also not exactly a frugal vehicle either. Wait till they get the maintenance bill for the new batteries!

When you take your average driver with only 10k miles/year, the price premium of an EV and the huge depreciation, the savings are not that great if any! If you're doing 30k miles/year, the maths will be very different!

andy97

iTrader: (1)

Police generally need high performance cars, Tesla is certainly that. Whether you drive 10,000 or 50,000 zero tailpipe emissions is extremely desirable

mrtheedge2u2

considering how damaged and smashed up a lot of US police cars get it will be interesting to see how the repair bills come in over the course of the next years

BMWhere?

If you look up Bargersville where that police car is from, it's just a small suburban village outside of Indianapolis. It doesn't look like it will be crime central! Will probably see little more action than cruising around the neighborhood making the people feel safe!

andy97

iTrader: (1)

Virtually silent at low speeds , catch those naughty crims in the act

WRXrowdy

iTrader: (2)

Well at least they have sirens to warn the unsuspecting public.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.t...-electric-cars

Did this actually become law? I grabbed hold of my wife the other day, as she stepped out onto a road without looking. When I told her she hadn't looked she came back at me with "but I can hear if a car is coming" to which I responded that if an electric car were coming she may not have heard it and been flattened.

BMWhere?

Its an EU mandate that will be applicable from next year. I'm not sure if the UK has adopted it though but anyway most vehicles sold in the UK will still be EU model standard so are still likely to be fitted with a noise generator.

They have to make a noise, but its not specified what sort of noise. Apparently many manufacturers are planing on making "engine" noises which is quite ironic

Its also only applicable at low speeds, in which case the tyre noise is anyway louder than the engine noise on most cars.

WRXrowdy

iTrader: (2)

yeh I've just been having a little read ev's should be equipped with it as of last July, but for some strange reason hybrids not until next year. That would explain the Passat that startled me when it took off at a rate of knots but made no sound whatsoever. But the ev's only need make the noise below 12mph, trouble is there can be more background noise going on that might drown out the sound tyres make at 30mph and is dangerous. They should make an engine noise, everyone sighted or blind associates engine noise with a moving vehicle. The suggestion the noise from tyres is above that of an engine over 12mph is, to use a tesla drive mode, ludicrous. Where I live there seems to be more than your average quota of v8 amg's, Jags, Astons, Range Rovers, Bentleys, Ferraris and flat 6 Porsches driving past my house I can certainly hear them coming.

BMWhere?

I wasn't sure what the minimum speed was, but 12mph does sound a little slow! At 30mph, most cars already make more tyre noise than engine noise. I noticed a Tesla driving past me the other day in a 30 zone (50kmh) and it was actually louder than many of the petrol cars - more weight = more tyre noise!

WRXrowdy

iTrader: (2)

That's all good, but what about a little Yaris hybrid with skinny tyres, low body weight, no audible warning driving along at 30 or under.
Plenty of dip****s out there that don't rely on their fully functioning eyesight to cross a road, let alone the visually impaired.

andy97

iTrader: (1)

Look, listen, twice both ways before stepping off the pavement.

Too many wokes blame every one else for their stupidity.

andy97

iTrader: (1)

Norway"s love of electroc vehicles gathers impressive pace. Last month 61% of all new car sales were to EVs

When more models enter the supply stream Norway expects sometime next year 80% will be EV sales

They are well on the way to total ICE ban ahead of schedule

WRXrowdy

iTrader: (2)

Yeh you would think eh! Even funnier thing is my missus won a Star Wars competition when she was little and the prize was for her to receive a **** load of Star Wars toys at a toy store from none other than Dave Prowse

andy97

iTrader: (1)

Tesla delivered 140,000 cars this quarter. They would like to deliver half a million in 2020.

Not bad during a pandemic for a niche market

The local town I enter, I regularly see 20-30 Teslas each day.

andy97

iTrader: (1)

Renault has the Zoe EV, but now are unveiling their mini SUV on Oct 15th.


E-SUV are going to a big market for all manufacturers

IdonthaveaScooby

50k in three years time . Gosh they’ll be one in every town


https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/uk.mo.../idUKKBN26N3K5

andy97

iTrader: (1)

I read that too, a little surprised. Glad I went with Tesla, who sort vast majority of bugs out with regularly OTA updates

It demonstrates that it takes some clever software to manage the batteries and motors. VW had to delay their ID3 due to software issues.

Legacy manufacturers don't have the leading software engineering required to match Tesla.

BMWhere?

I don't think its the lack of good software engineers by legacy manufacturers, but the culture of software engineering used in the motor industry. Because so much automotive software has safety implications, the development process involves a lot of testing and proof that the software is correct before entering production. Updates are then rare and often only done if a serious bug is found.

Tesla on the other hand has thrown all that out of the window and uses a more "app developer" like approach to software engineering. Releasing regular updates OTA and letting the public do the beta testing and as quickly as possible rolling out any bug fixes. So far they have been lucky as relatively few of their bugs have resulted in serious accidents and those that have, have been related to their auto-pilot and they have managed to deflect the blame on the driver for not paying attention rather than the reality that the feature was not fully developed and tested to a standard which is safe for public use. You simply cannot implement experimental features and expect the public, who not trained test drivers, to do your testing for you.

While legacy manufacturers can certainly improve their software development processes and improve the post-production software update process, it is important that any software is fully tested by professional test drivers before release rather than using your customers as expendable Guinea pigs. There are no shortcuts to safety critical software developments but unfortunately there is no certification authority for automotive software to ensure manufacturers don't try to take them anyway. The automotive industry has been self regulating, but as automotive software becomes more and more safety relevant with features such as braking/steering by wire, adaptive cruise control, lane assist and ultimately full vehicle automation, an independent certification authority, such as in the aviation industry, is desperately needed to keep the automotive manufacturers on the right side of the track!

Here's another case of Tesla using the public for beta testing. They will no doubt quickly fix this problem, but this is a typical example of how Tesla works differently to legacy manufacturers by effectively subcontracting their vehicle development and testing to its customers.

andy97

iTrader: (1)

You cant say Tesla's attention to safety is poor, when their vehicles when used with either autopilot of FSD are multiple times safer to drive with these features active than a standard vehicle.


Tesla still need to get improve their QC on vehicles fit and finish. It hardly surprising that the odd occasion a vehicle has a freak failure. Lucky no one else was injured in that particular case


There are many updates which add new features to older cars giving a welcome refresh. Also when did you ever here a manufacturer offering free power increase with increased range

Dr Hu

Yeah - Renault Zoe - holy cow is that over-priced - you can buy a Renault Clio for a list price of £15,020 all the way up to £17,420 for the top Sporty RS
A Zoe Electric list price is a simply quite staggering £28,795 upto £30,795 for more usuable 52KwH 135 edition

OK you get a £3k Government Plug-In Car Grant - but that's still £27k for a smaller less capable car than the Clio - you can buy several metric fcuktons of petrol for £10k
Or even 2 Clio's for the list price of 1 Zoe.
Car manufacturers definately seem to be riding the wave of making EV's 'premium pricing' with a big capital P

Until they become mainstream everyday pricing they will not gain a proper foothold, and they even say the Zoe is the 'best Value for Money EV' - holy sh1tballs they're smoking crack at Renault

andy97

iTrader: (1)

For the Renault Zoe, there is no reason to be that expensive for a commuter EV. Its been said by quite a few journalists that legacy manufacturers are artificially inflating their EV prices, because they don't want to move over to electric. Having invested billions in production and design of ICE technology.

My Nissan Leaf is much quicker and mid range is very punchy. It will easily out drag a hot hatches once over 10 mph.

I've been playing with knocking the eco button off when on motorways.

My little Nissan pulls away from range rovers, discovery and pretty much all standard cars from 50-70mph

I'll leave the Tesla out of it, being in the hypercar performance bracket

IdonthaveaScooby

Just as expensive and just as low rent inside !

BMWhere?

The principle that a vehicle is safer driven by a computer than a human is something that I can easily accept, but the computer is only as good as the programming.

With Tesla, you can clearly see the development lifecycle of their Autopilot system. The first versions were clearly not fit for purpose, with time they have gotten better, but it clearly still has significant flaws.

For me, the development process that Tesla use is intrinsically unsafe. The entire development of the Autopilot system has been unwittingly tested by its customers and there are many cases where people have been killed due to failures of the system. Tesla (Musk) has managed to deflect blame onto the customers themselves, but from a safety perspective, it is not acceptable to release such a feature to customers until it has been fully developed and tested and proven to be safe. Pretty much all manufacturers are working on self driving technology and many are far more advanced than Tesla currently are, yet it is only Tesla that is playing Russian Roulette with its customers - I can only surmise that as a new manufacturer, they haven't yet learned the lessons from a class action lawsuit regarding vehicle safety!

We can get into a very detailed discussion about safety critical software, hazard/risk analysis, software validation and certification etc. if you like!? But I can assure you, you'd be arguing with the wrong person if you think you know better! Given my knowledge of the subject, there is no way in hell I would currently be switching Autopilot on in a Tesla (or any other manufacturer that offered anything similar).

andy97

iTrader: (1)

I'll stick with Tesla engineering ta

IdonthaveaScooby

andy97

iTrader: (1)

Had a play with what turned out to be 350e estate 2018 on a dual carriageway. We were following trucks overtaking each other.

The merc was pushing me to get closer, but the adaptive auto cruise sets a safe distance.

To see if he had any poke, once the truck pulled in I switched off eco and floored the pedal. It was a giggle to watch a big engine merc car drop back 10 car lengths until he wound up the engine. It was obvious the car was sat in top gear, with gutless torque.

I did this three times with heavy traffic. Eventually the road completely cleared I pulled in and he barrelled by staying in the outside for nearly a mile when no other vehicles were about

My little Leaf is such a punchy EV

IdonthaveaScooby

So if its the hybrid then he has twice the torque , and was just playing with you


honeslty , its like pissy lewis never left

andy97

iTrader: (1)

Not if he didn't have any charge in his battery, only 20 mile electric range.

Modern auto cars are tuned to go into top gear as soon as possible

He could have been in 7th gear, by the time the car has reacted to driver input, Ive long gone with instant pick-up

IdonthaveaScooby

Fascinating

im not sure at all what the benefit is here