Tesla

[gsoda3 3282]

19 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

I see what your are saying about production delays with Tesla's track record, but with the new gigafactories coming online and just the overall streamlining of the process, I don't think we'll see delays like we used to.  The Model Y is doing first deliveries in a few weeks, about 6 months ahead of schedule.  That said, it also uses about 75% of the same specs as the Model 3, so maybe the truck will throw in some wrinkles.

Either way, I just don't think the cybertruck is going to reach a mass audience.  I mean, look at that thing.

yes i agree, i do think model y production capitalizes on efficiencies from the model 3.  it'll be interesting to see if the cybertruck can similarly benefit from the tesla semi but that depends on so many things, the first of which is the possibility of a complete redesign.  

 

 

[ShaggyBevo RIP 3868]

On 2/5/2020 at 10:32 PM, markstanco said:

When the battery truck comes out and has been around for a few years (I think Ford is playing with one?) I may buy. However, I am so ocd with battery operated devices I may lose my mind. When my phone is under 60% I get oddly nervous. No idea why. I can be under an eighth of a tank of fuel and I am fine because I know I can be back at 100% in 4 minutes.

But outside of road trips you'll spend 15-20 second total to both plug it in and unplug it in your garage every night and stay above 60%.

Edited February 7, 2020 by ShaggyBevo RIP

[ShaggyBevo RIP 3868]

21 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

I see what your are saying about production delays with Tesla's track record, but with the new gigafactories coming online and just the overall streamlining of the process, I don't think we'll see delays like we used to.  The Model Y is doing first deliveries in a few weeks, about 6 months ahead of schedule.  That said, it also uses about 75% of the same specs as the Model 3, so maybe the truck will throw in some wrinkles.

Either way, I just don't think the cybertruck is going to reach a mass audience.  I mean, look at that thing.

Musk recently stated it will take 4 years to fill the Cybertruck pre-orders.

[Biff Tannen 45736]

1 minute ago, ShaggyBevo RIP said:

Musk recently stated it will take 4 years to fill the Cybertruck pre-orders.

Yeah, that's a lot of people that only had to throw down $100 though.  I'll be curious to see how many actually go through with the full purchase.  Hey, I could be wrong.  But that thing is...

[ShaggyBevo RIP 3868]

^^^

I don't think the younger generations have their mind set to what a truck should look like. Buick died in part because people didn't want to drive their parents and grandparents car. Think about how meeting CAFE and aerodynamic testing have made almost every segment of the market nearly identical to each other except for a few styling differences.

Also think iPhone status symbol effect. Heck, AppleWatch now out sells the entire Swiss watch industry combined.

Edited February 7, 2020 by ShaggyBevo RIP

[Biff Tannen 45736]

12 minutes ago, ShaggyBevo RIP said:

^^^

I don't think the younger generations have their mind set to what a truck should look like. Buick died in part because people didn't want to drive their parents and grandparents car. Think about how meeting CAFE and aerodynamic testing have made almost every segment of the market nearly identical to each other except for a few styling differences.

Also think iPhone status symbol effect. Heck, AppleWatch now out sells the entire Swiss watch industry combined.

It's a good point, but the younger generation generally can't afford it right now.  If it can hold on until they reach the age where it's attainable, then maybe Gen Z will latch onto it.  Hey, I hope I'm wrong.  I just think Elon missed an opportunity to crush the truck industry the way he's crushing the mid-tier luxury industry.

[smuggs 9353]

Elon's plan is to crush the 2020 truck industry as it was envisioned in 1983.

[RoundRobin 828]

31 minutes ago, ShaggyBevo RIP said:

^^^

I don't think the younger generations have their mind set to what a truck should look like. Buick died in part because people didn't want to drive their parents and grandparents car. Think about how meeting CAFE and aerodynamic testing have made almost every segment of the market nearly identical to each other except for a few styling differences.

Also think iPhone status symbol effect. Heck, AppleWatch now out sells the entire Swiss watch industry combined.

Do you mean Oldsmobile? 

[Chapo 104]

23 hours ago, HRSchenker said:

You don't have to worry about the battery degrading the way it does in a cell phone though. The car wants to be plugged in.

I've read many different statements on this, not sure what is true. Some say other car companies are developing batteries with less capacity but longer life.  Whereas Tesla's battery is developed for higher capacity but has shorter lifespan.  I have always thought that batteries life last longer  if you keep it charged between 20-80%. 

[Gene Parmesan 4014]

19 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

It's a good point, but the younger generation generally can't afford it right now.  If it can hold on until they reach the age where it's attainable, then maybe Gen Z will latch onto it.  Hey, I hope I'm wrong.  I just think Elon missed an opportunity to crush the truck industry the way he's crushing the mid-tier luxury industry.

The lower tier truck is just 40k.   

[Biff Tannen 45736]

1 minute ago, Chapo said:

I've read many different statements on this, not sure what is true. Some say other car companies are developing batteries with less capacity but longer life.  Whereas Tesla's battery is developed for higher capacity but has shorter lifespan.  I have always thought that batteries life last longer  if you keep it charged between 20-80%. 

You aren't supposed to fully charge unless you need the range for a road trip.  80% is the standard.  The data so far (which granted is only a few year's worth) shows the batteries don't start to degrade in terms of charge capacity until at least 500k miles, and even then it's not less than 80% of the original state.

[Biff Tannen 45736]

1 minute ago, Gene Parmesan said:

The lower tier truck is just 40k.   

You know many 20-somethings that can afford a 40k truck?

[Chapo 104]

Just now, Biff Tannen said:

You aren't supposed to fully charge unless you need the range for a road trip.  80% is the standard.  The data so far (which granted is only a few year's worth) shows the batteries don't start to degrade in terms of charge capacity until at least 500k miles, and even then it's not less than 80% of the original state.

Does the car allow you to cap the charge at 80% when you plug it in overnight ? 

[Biff Tannen 45736]

Just now, Chapo said:

Does the car allow you to cap the charge at 80% when you plug it in overnight ? 

Yep.

[Gene Parmesan 4014]

4 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

You know many 20-somethings that can afford a 40k truck?

Afford?  That's a matter of opinion.  Plenty that can finance a 40k vehicle.  There are plenty that do.  Considering that that doesn't factor in any savings over a traditional gas vehicle.  There are lots of 20 somethings driving around in comparably priced vehicles.

Edited February 7, 2020 by Gene Parmesan

[Biff Tannen 45736]

Just now, Gene Parmesan said:

Afford?  That's a matter of opinion.  Plenty that can finance a 40k vehicle.  There are plenty that do.

Fair point.

[Biff Tannen 45736]

4 minutes ago, Chapo said:

Does the car allow you to cap the charge at 80% when you plug it in overnight ? 

Here's what it looks like.  You move the little slider to wherever you want it to charge up to.

[ShaggyBevo RIP 3868]

13 minutes ago, RoundRobin said:

Do you mean Oldsmobile? 

yes. Shows how much I know the olds brands.

Edited February 7, 2020 by ShaggyBevo RIP

[ShaggyBevo RIP 3868]

11 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

You know many 20-somethings that can afford a 40k truck?

Leading edge of Millennials are now 40 yo and they want to differentiation themselves from previous generations.

Edited February 7, 2020 by ShaggyBevo RIP

[NotActuallyALonghorn 4977]

Yeah, but I don't know any millennials who would drive that.

[Biff Tannen 45736]

I'm 37 and technically a millennial (Oregon Trail Generation is the preferred nomenclature) and you know my feelings on that hideous beast.

[HRSchenker 2273]

42 minutes ago, Chapo said:

I've read many different statements on this, not sure what is true. Some say other car companies are developing batteries with less capacity but longer life.  Whereas Tesla's battery is developed for higher capacity but has shorter lifespan.  I have always thought that batteries life last longer  if you keep it charged between 20-80%. 

My car is always maxed out at 80% unless I'm going on a road trip then it's 100%.

[Gene Parmesan 4014]

35 and I'd buy it.  I am pretty much sold that my next truck will be one of the electric offerings.  Drive my current F150 80 miles/day on work days so well within the range.  Don't really do much weekend stuff outside it's range, my only hesitation would be towing range.  It be tricky if I wanted to take my boat to something other than Lake Ray Roberts or Lewisville.

[Armybrat 40908]

1 hour ago, ShaggyBevo RIP said:

yes. Shows how much I know the olds brands.

Packard, Studebaker, Kaiser, DeSoto, were the shitz.

[Bigbend1812 12932]

[G650 14277]

16 minutes ago, Armybrat said:

Packard, Studebaker, Kaiser, DeSoto, were the shitz.

Hudson or gtfo.

[G650 14277]

2 hours ago, ShaggyBevo RIP said:

Leading edge of Millennials are now 40 yo and they want to differentiation themselves from previous generations.

Lol. Wtf does this even mean.

[ShaggyBevo RIP 3868]

7 minutes ago, G650 said:

Lol. Wtf does this even mean.

Auto correct sucks on differentiate.

[G650 14277]

Just now, ShaggyBevo RIP said:

Auto correct sucks on differentiate.

 

I mean ok, but no 40 year old gives a shit about differentiating themselves, that's what emo teenagers are doing.

[Parliament 14296]

The e pickup is nice because you can throw your generator in it just in case.

[Jkwellborn 6739]

 
I mean ok, but no 40 year old gives a shit about differentiating themselves, that's what emo teenagers are doing.

Almost time for that midlife crisis.

[G650 14277]

Just now, Jkwellborn said:

Almost time for that midlife crisis.

That's when the real fun begins I hear.

[NeverMarryAStripper 21921]

35 minutes ago, Parliament said:

The e pickup is nice because you can throw your generator in it just in case.

You just plug the truck into your generator and run the generator while you drive.  Presto, unlimited range.

[52-80 19246]

4 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

You know many 20-somethings that can afford a 40k truck?

Seems like every 20-something male in the South owns a 40k Truck, so....

[Sandman 3412]

This is bullshit IMO:

https://jalopnik.com/tesla-remotely-removes-autopilot-features-from-customer-1841472617

Quote

One of the less-considered side effects of car features moving from hardware to software is that important features and abilities of a car can now be removed without any actual contact with a given car. Where once de-contenting involved at least a screwdriver (or, if you were in a hurry, a hammer), now thousands of dollars of options can vanish with the click of a mouse somewhere. And that’s exactly what happened to one Tesla owner, and, it seems many others.

Alec (I’ll withhold his last name for privacy reasons) bought a 2017 Tesla Model S on December 20 of last year, from a third-party dealer who bought the car directly from Tesla via auction on November 15, 2019. The car was sold at auction as a result of a California Lemon Law buyback, as the car suffered from a well-known issue where the center-stack screen developed a noticeable yellow border.

When the dealer bought the car at auction from Tesla on November 15, it was optioned with both Enhanced Autopilot and Tesla’s confusingly-named Full Self Driving Capability; together, these options totaled $8,000. You can see them right on the Monroney sticker for the car:

Tesla officially sold the car to the dealership on November 15, a date I’ve confirmed by seeing the car’s title. On November 18, Tesla seems to have conducted an “audit” of the car remotely. The result of that audit was that when the car’s software was updated to the latest version in December, the Enhanced Autopilot and Full Self Driving Capability (FSD) were removed from the car.

Tesla confirmed the date of the audit—which flagged the features for removal—in an invoice:

A disclosure statement from Tesla to the dealership at the time of the sale does not mention anything about Autopilot or FSD removal:

It’s also worth noting that those repairs on the disclosure were not actually made, which is why Alec took his car to a service center in January.

Let’s recap a little bit at this point: A Model S with Enhanced Autopilot (which includes the Summon feature) and FSD “capability” is sold at auction, a dealer buys it, after the sale to the dealer Tesla checks in on the car and decides that it shouldn’t have Autopilot or FSD “capability,” dealer sells car to customer based on the specifications they were aware the car had (and were shown on the window sticker, and confirmed via a screenshot from the car’s display showing the options), and later, when the customer upgrades the car’s software, Autopilot and FSD disappear.

When Alec asked Tesla customer support about this, this was their response:

Tesla has recent identified instances of customers being incorrectly configured for Autopilot versions that they did not pay for. Since, there was an audit done to correct these instances. Your vehicle is one of the vehicles that was incorrectly configured for Autopilot. We looked back at your purchase history and unfortunately Full-Self Driving was not a feature that you had paid for. We apologize for the confusion. If you are still interested in having those additional features we can begin the process to purchase the upgrade.

This is all very puzzling. Alec bought the car from a dealer based on a set of features that the dealer understood the car to have when purchased at auction. If Alec saw that the car had Autopilot and FSD when he paid for it, how, exactly, did he not pay for those features?

Those features together are worth $8,000, but as they were already on the car when he bought it, it’s hard to understand how he somehow didn’t pay for them?

I realize that these are software features, but they act like any physical feature of a car. You don’t pay a subscription for FSD or Autopilot, you pay a one-time fee, just like you would for an electromechanical cruise control system on any other car.

If you buy, say, a used Ford Ecosport (not my first choice, but you do you) that has lane keeping assist and active cruise control, and Ford somehow thinks you didn’t pay for those particular features and sends over a service tech to physically remove them from your car, I think we’d all consider that pretty wrong. We might even consider that theft. I’m not clear how what Tesla did here is any different.

If Tesla had conducted their audit prior to the sale of the car, and made everyone in the loop aware that the car was being de-contented, then that would be one thing; still kind of shitty, but a bit more defensible.

But this audit happened after the initial sale of the car. The car was no longer owned by Tesla at the time of the audit, and none of the parties involved were aware that features were being removed from the car.

As an experiment, Alec reached out to a Tesla Used Vehicle Sales Advisor to try and see if he could ask for Autopilot and FSD to be removed from a used vehicle.

Alec suggested he wanted a particular car, but wanted to save money by having FSD deleted. The Sales Advisor told him that

“...if it’s added and it’s a used car they just simply will not remove it.”

That goes directly against Alec’s experience, where Tesla did remove FSD from a used car.

Alec isn’t alone in his experience; Tesla message boards have stories from other owners who have experienced similar incidents.

All of what happened here goes completely counter to how we’ve understood the buying and selling of used cars since there were used cars to sell. Whatever equipment the car had on it at the time of sale was part of that sale, period.

Subscription-based services like OnStar would be different, but that’s not what we’re dealing with here; this is an optional feature of the car paid for once, like cruise control or A/C or a radio. You can’t just yank it out after the car is sold with those features understood to be part of the car.

It sets a bad precedent if carmakers are going to be able to de-content used cars after sale; technically, any feature that is available to be activated or deactivated in software could be vulnerable to something like this, and I can’t think of any context where remote removal after purchase is okay.

In fact, it seems like a pretty shitty thing to do, a craven attempt to double-dip and get money for the same features every time the car is re-sold.

I’ve reached out to Tesla for comment multiple times over the week and have gotten no response. I’ll update when, and if, I do.

Updated: Friday, February 7, 2020, 1:27 p.m. ET:

The dealership, United Traders, reached out to me to add some details and more information about the sale of the Tesla and what they knew of its features at the time of the sale:

I saw the Tesla story blowing up on your website and a few others as well. We are the dealership (United Traders) that sold the Tesla to Alec B_____.

I bought that vehicle personally, and used the full self drive on it multiple times. It was working fine. One day, a random message popped up saying your autopilot has been upgraded after a software update. Then it disappeared. I figured it was a glitch. I already had an agreement with Alec to purchase the vehicle.

He did come and test drive it a few days later, and we both agreed it was a technical difficulty or bug that would be fixed by next software update. Since then Tesla has been of no assistance to him, and I have been doing my best to get him some help in this case.

I sell dozens of Teslas a year, and sold my father in law a Model X P90D with ludicrous speed package. 60 days after the purchase of the car, Tesla removed his ludicrous speed package. Upon complaints to them they said he never paid for it. We have video evidence and multiple pictures of the vehicle with it. They even removed the line under the P90D. I am still shocked at these acts.

What a screwjob. Tesla needs to fix this shit. 

Edited February 7, 2020 by Sandman

[tokamak 6441]

3 hours ago, Gene Parmesan said:

35 and I'd buy it.  I am pretty much sold that my next truck will be one of the electric offerings.  Drive my current F150 80 miles/day on work days so well within the range.  Don't really do much weekend stuff outside it's range, my only hesitation would be towing range.  It be tricky if I wanted to take my boat to something other than Lake Ray Roberts or Lewisville.

Yeah towing might be an issue but I wonder what percentage of trucks never tow a damn thing. I bet it's like 80%+. The average truck buyer is a suburban dad. If you can throw sports equipment, camping gear, and mulch from Home Depot in the bed, that's good enough for most.

I'm still on the fence regarding the cybertruck's looks. It's definitely radically different. I suspect that once you start seeing them driving around town, the novelty and shock factor will wear off. Either that, or we all look back on it 15 years from now like the PT Cruiser and think "holy shit, what were people thinking?".

[TwiceHorn 31535]

31 minutes ago, Sandman said:

This is bullshit IMO:

https://jalopnik.com/tesla-remotely-removes-autopilot-features-from-customer-1841472617

What a screwjob. Tesla needs to fix this shit. 

IT WUZ ONLY A LICENSE!!!

[Deej 76918]

1 hour ago, NeverMarryAStripper said:

You just plug the truck into your generator and run the generator while you drive.  Presto, unlimited range.

[Pato del Muerto 52598]

2 hours ago, NeverMarryAStripper said:

You just plug the truck into your generator and run the generator while you drive.  Presto, unlimited range.

Anyone else remember the top gear where James may put together a diesel electric van?

and there might be some inefficiency in charging and draining a battery. Need to find a way to power the truck directly using the gas engine of the generator. 

Edited February 8, 2020 by Pato del Muerto

[Chewbacca 7785]

On 2/6/2020 at 11:09 AM, G650 said:

I'd say 400 is conservative. I have about 450 mile range on average with a 22 gallon tank in my X5.

My buddy with an X6M gets roughly 10 mpg.  I can't imagine you're actually seeing 400+ miles.

[G650 14277]

18 minutes ago, Chewbacca said:

My buddy with an X6M gets roughly 10 mpg.

I get about 22 mpg

[Biff Tannen 45736]

52 minutes ago, Chewbacca said:

My buddy with an X6M gets roughly 10 mpg.  I can't imagine you're actually seeing 400+ miles.

That's fucking horrifying.  Why even bother?

[clapclapclap 9000]

"You pedo's may all go to hell, and I will go to Nevada.  Or Texas."

 

'Bratlas Shrugged'

Edited May 9, 2020 by clapclapclap

[clapclapclap 9000]

Lulz

 

[WBT 20668]

I wonder how the cult of elon are reconciling with his views on covid response.  Somehow I don't think most of them agree with him.

[Cajun 11740]

I've watched it first hand.

Entertaining to say the least.

 

[HRSchenker 2273]

Funny since technically you can't even buy a Tesla in Texas

[Cajun 11740]

I'll bite.

How is that?  There's a dealership less than a mile away from me here in SA.

Not arguing with you.  I know I'm missing something here.

Edited May 10, 2020 by Cajun

[Johnny Chimpo 479]

Yea. That doesn’t add up...?

[TonyTexas 10527]

It’s illegal for a car manufacturer to have own. dealerships in Texas. Must be franchised And Tesla doesn’t do that. What you think are dealerships are just showrooms. Sometimes repair as well. You have to order directly from Tesla in California and it will ship to you. You arrange your own financing and car had to be paid for before it ships. 

Edited May 10, 2020 by TonyTexas