Two time FIA World Touring Car Champ.
Posted on 02/22/2012 9:59:24 AM PST by fishtank
http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/22/the-tesla-bricking-story-its-nonsense/
“The Tesla Roadster is an intelligent vehicle. It warns the owner when the battery is low. The latest version of the Roadster can even alert Tesla itself if the battery level is too low. But apparently these owners decided to ignore those warnings and park their expensive electric cars for extended periods of time.”
Two time FIA World Touring Car Champ.
One could argue that the IQ test is whether or not to buy one of these expensive toys, and if you answer ‘yes’ - you fail.
With the Chevy Volt, you just use the gas engine to drive wherever you need to go. It’s just a hybrid like a Prius.
It means you cannot do something as simple as parking your electric car at the airport to take a two-week vacation.
You will return with a discharged battery, a dead car and a $40,000 liability.
One of the basic tenants of good engineering is that “No single mistake should warrant the death of the operator, or destruction of the device”.
Any way you cut this, this is sloppy engineering. It can be fixed by simply engaging an automatic cut-off at a low level, oh ... let’s call it “Critically Depleted” - where the battery will require recharging, but the car can not go another foot. Perhaps a nagging “Recharge” voice, repeating over and over “Recharge ... recharge ... recharge ...”.
Bricking a car, requiring the replacement of a $40,000 battery is utterly and completely inexcuseable.
I agree. Any tech that needs tax subsidies is by definition inefficient and not cost effective thus garbage. Any and every electric car is crap.
But even gasoline cars need to be started every so often. People who collect old cars drive them to keep them maintained.
a href=”http://jalopnik.com/5887611/judge-throws-out-teslas-top-gear-libel-lawsuit”>Judge Throws Out Tesla’s Top Gear Libel Lawsuit
Amidst the Tesla battery problem, comes news of a judgment from the UK courts again dismissing Tesla Motors' complaints and reiterating that Top Gear did nothing libelous or maliciously false in the program's review of the Tesla Roadster. See test --- HERE
Sometimes, life is all about timing.
This whole issue goes back to December 2008 when Top Gear aired a mixed review of the Tesla Roadster, praising it for its technological advancement and speed but critiquing it for its range and deficient brakes. Specifically, there was video of the crew pushing one of the two Tesla Roadsters they had into a hanger on the Top Gear test track as Jeremy Clarkson said this:
"This car was really shaping up to be something wonderful but then… (artificial dying motor sounds and music slowing down and stopping)… although Tesla say it was do 200 miles we have worked out that on our track it will run out after just 55 miles and if it does run out it is not a quick job to charge it up again."
Justice Tugendhat also made mention that what Tesla appears to want is a legal ruling saying Top Gear is a bunch of lying liars who lie, but that "rectification of inaccuracies is not a function of the courts unless that can be achieved in the course of proceedings properly brought to enforce a recognized course of action."
On Tuesday March 29 Tesla sued the BBC television programme “Top Gear” for libel and malicious falsehood.
When Top Gear reviewed the Tesla Roadster, the episode that aired contained lies and misinformation about the Roadster’s performance, behaviour and reliability. Tesla reluctantly took legal action after its repeated attempts to contact the BBC, over the course of months, were ignored.
In the episode, Tesla Roadsters are depicted as suffering several critical “breakdowns” during track driving. Host Jeremy Clarkson concludes the episode by saying that the Roadster doesn’t work.
Specifically, Tesla claims Top Gear misrepresented that:
The Roadster ran out of charge and had to be pushed into the Top Gear hangar by 4 men.
The Roadster’s true range is only 55 miles per charge (not 211).
One Roadster’s motor overheated and was completely immobilized as a result.
The other Roadster’s brakes were broken, rendering the car undriveable.
That neither of the two Roadsters provided to Top Gear was available for test driving due to these problems.
.
On the otherhand we got THIS-—>>
http://pesn.com/2012/11/21/9602227_Australian_DOD_Comparative_Analysis_Places_MYT_Engine_in_Top_Position/
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