Guest essay by Eric Worrall
First I want to make it clear that I think Tesla responded to Hurricane Irma with exemplary good faith, sacrificing their future profits to send drivers of cheaper Tesla models a free range upgrade, to help them escape Hurricane Irma. But the urgent Florida hurricane evacuation may have inadvertently highlighted an unexpected and potentially catastrophic risk associated with government policies which seek to switch drivers to electric vehicles.
How did Tesla make some of its cars travel further during Hurricane Irma?
The electric-car giant gave customers a lifeline by remotely boosting their vehicles’ battery capacity. But this act of kindness also highlighted that it had been selling identical cars at different prices
Tesla drivers who fled Hurricane Irma last weekend received an unexpected lesson in modern consumer economics along the way. As they sat on choked highways, some of the electric-car giant’s more keenly priced models suddenly gained an extra 30 or so miles in range thanks to a silent free upgrade.
The move, confirmed by Tesla, followed the request of one Florida driver for a limit on his car’s battery to be lifted. Tesla’s cheaper models, introduced last year, have the same 75KwH battery as its more costly cars, but software limits it to 80% of range. Owners can otherwise buy an upgrade for several thousands of dollars. And because Teslas software updates are online, the company can make the changes with the flick of a virtual switch.
…
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/shortcuts/2017/sep/11/tesla-hurricane-irma-battery-capacity
Why do I think owning an electric car is a risk?
The distance between Miami and Valdosta, just over the border in Georgia, is 439 miles.
According to Wikipedia, the maximum range of a Tesla Model S car is just over 300 miles, though many electric cars have a much lower range, 100 – 150 miles being common.
This 300 miles maximum represents the range of a top electric car in perfect driving conditions. I suspect in the stop / start traffic jam conditions of the Florida Hurricane Irma evacuation, the range of even the best electric cars would be substantially reduced.
I don’t know how many car drivers heeded the call to evacuate. But at the height of the Hurricane Irma crisis, according to CNBC twelve million Florida residents were ordered to leave.
A gasoline car typically has 300 – 400 miles range. Unlike an electric car, a gasoline car can be fully refuelled in minutes. Refuelling lots of gasoline cars does not place a massive strain on the electric grid. If fuel stations are too busy, a well prepared gasoline car driver can carry their own refill in the trunk – a few cans of gasoline would almost double that 400 mile range, for the price of a quick 5 minute stop by the side of the road.
Imagine if the government banned gasoline cars, so all privately owned cars were electric. Imagine if every one of those evacuees had an electric car. Imagine the chaos if millions of electric cars pulled up at the same roadside charging stations at the same time, each expecting their half hour “fast” recharge, each driver utterly desperate to bring their families to safety before the hurricane struck.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Whilst many via nebulous links are trying to associate the recent US hurricanes with ‘climate change”, one issue is however absolutely clear. Homo sapiens use of fossil fuels prevented the loss of many, many lives.
Tracking resulting in accurate forecass, allowing timely preperation and/or evacuation. Can’t put satellites up, or fly storm chasing planes without fossil fuels. Concrete buildings provide shelter, can’t make concrete without fossil fuel energy. Need to run the emergency services all the time, they need safe and secure energy sources. Emergency generators are diesel powered.
And yes, my evacuation vehicle would be tanked up ready to go all through the ‘windy’ season.
Without the above we can only guess at what the casuality figure would be, but history gives a clue, just look at the toll before we had the above abilities.
Indeed Green Sand. And fossil fuels lifted humanity out of the drudges of labor into the highest standards of living, and the longest life spans ever. The amazing technologies of today – all owe their creation to fossil fuel energy.
“Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
This is known as “bad luck.”
― Robert A. Heinlein
Hell. Just look at the death toll today in the third world. Tens of thousands dead at least vs a few dozen in the first world.
Jerry “Jefferson Davis” Brown, also known as Governor for Life is itching to ban the sale, possession or use of gasoline, kerosene or diesel fuel products in the State of California thereby forcing all good, compliant citizens to take the Low-Speed High Speed Rail between LA an SF, using the 9 hour trip to read an Inconvenient Sequel over and over…
PS What is Tesla range in say a trip from Fargo to Twin Falls…air temp 4 degrees, with a 18- 25 MPH headwind? The heater in my truck is a boot melter, how is Teslas?
how far can a tesla tow a trailer with wordly goods for escaping people?
can a tesla even tow?
And what is the range at night compared with during the day?
Just curious
Peasants in a socialist Utopia (dictatorship) have no reason to travel and must file for a permit 3 weeks in advance to leave. Then the government may let you know if you are allowed to walk to another city
Nonresident guest workers may not bring their families with them to the cities and no one will hear them scream if they are detained.
remotely boosting their vehicles’ battery capacity.
**************************************************************
pretty telling statement on their sales and model difference capabilities.
as well as as ability to REMOTELY edit a vehicles basic usage parameters.
I am really starting to detest tesla and its business plans.
Or remotely stop you from traveling ( for your own good of course)
This is a parallel to the “smart meters” installed in many homes. The meters can shut off electricity for some period of time. And they can monitor usage We are slowly (?) losing control of our existence.
Am I understanding this correctly? The Less expensive Tesla models have the same physical battery capability as the more expensive ones, but with full utilization disabled by software? That infers that Tesla is artificially inflating the costs of its higher end vehicles by essentially selling similar vehicles with performance inhibitors to make them less attractive. That seems utterly ludicrous to me as an engineer.
What is to stop Tesla from “remotely” downgrading the vehicles back to their original restrictive performances?
What possible benefit to anyone, other than Tesla, is a configuration wherein all the capability exists but is blocked by a marketing controlled software switch?
When this becomes well-known, Musk has some ‘splaining to do…
You might “enjoy” this article: http://www.locusmag.com/Perspectives/2017/09/cory-doctorow-demon-haunted-world/
rocketscientist
Battery life is damaged if the battery is discharged below about 20% of full capacitor or charged repeatedly above about 80 % of capacity. For that reason electric vehicles have software that limits discharge to stay above 20% state of charge. What Tesla appeared to have done is to lower or remove the 20% SOC limitation so that their customers can get a few more miles of range in the storm emergency.
apparently the Tesla upgrade for Hurricane Irma is programmed to expire after the crisis is over, so your second question was answered before you asked. Tesla took this as a partial PR stroke of genius to seem magnanimous but they aren’t going to forego $5000 for the 20% upgrade.
Sorry Bruce but according to this
This has been a common tactic in the software industry for a generation. Many software packages contain all current modules, with several locked from the user. When the user pays an additional fee they are provided a key to utilize an additional function. It seems more blatant with hardware, but it is up to the seller and buyer how they are willing to negotiate the contract.
It remains that much of the proposed “green” infrastructure is very fragile and inflexible. Imagine if Florida had been powered by wind turbines and solar cells and all motive power was electric. A hurricane raking the peninsula would cause a series of disasters of biblical proportion.
I remember reading about a memory board on some computer decades ago.
When the customer bought a memory upgrade, a technician would come out to your office and snip a wire on the board, thus enabling the second bank of memory.
Oh come on, buy a basic MSOS104 digital oscilloscope from Keysight. It has the identical hardware as their top of the line 5 GHz scope. You can upgrade it by buying a (very expensive) software key. As an engineer you should be aware of this.
Good engineers will never understand marketing.
I understand marketing pretty well. I understand that it is often disingenuous and false. By its very nature, it is the art of deception. It assumes a priori that everyone else is your enemy and must be conquered.
This is not exactly news though. I own a Vauxhall Corsa in the UK (GM). The 1.4 turbo petrol engine came from the factory as a 100PS (4K rpm) / 200Nm torque engine. For £2000 more I could have purchased the 150PS version. However a 30 min session on a local rolling road/tuner removed the software restriction and I had (160PS) 157hp (5.5K rpm)/220Nm engine performance for £400, a £1600 saving over buying the factory performance version. The engines are mechanically identical between both factory versions. The only difference is firmware on the ECU. So not just Tesla playing that game.
Don’t forget Sciguy, the green loons are banking on their belief that if we stop emitting CO2 and power totally by WIND, SOLAR, and other renewables, the weather will be totally in our control…there will be NO MORE Hurricanes so no need to evacuate
Sounds like Tesla has a difficult time with the idea that once they sell something, they no longer own it.
I’m suspecting that they will say the upgrade is for battery warranty.
“I remember reading about a memory board on some computer decades ago.
When the customer bought a memory upgrade, a technician would come out to your office and snip a wire on the board, thus enabling the second bank of memory.”
Absolutely no way that is true. 20 years ago, computer memory was still incredibly expencive. No way a manufacturer would put dark memory in a product like that. It would be an unnessisary cost.
“This is not exactly news though. I own a Vauxhall Corsa in the UK (GM). The 1.4 turbo petrol engine came from the factory as a 100PS (4K rpm) / 200Nm torque engine. For £2000 more I could have purchased the 150PS version. However a 30 min session on a local rolling road/tuner removed the software restriction and I had (160PS) 157hp (5.5K rpm)/220Nm engine performance for £400, a £1600 saving over buying the factory performance version. The engines are mechanically identical between both factory versions. The only difference is firmware on the ECU. So not just Tesla playing that game.”
They do that so the engines last longer when owned by the person who doesn’t change the oil or air filter and abuses it daily. The higher output it runs at, the shorter the lifespan it will have.
Every commercial jet engine in existence has this feature. Some engines are loaded with larger throttling envelopes and some are de-rated. It depends on the market which determines what percentage of engines are sold at de-rated performance and not.
Hardware computer devices can have also hidden capabilities. Some years ago, I bought a USB drive. When I tried to partition it, the partitioning software extended its capacity 3 folds.
Tesla will be downgrading the vehicles. The upgrade was temporary, and reverts on September 15th I believe.
How is it deceptive? At the time of sale they gave you a list of features, and what each feature would cost.
The features you bought were the features you received.
The fact that the company saved money by being able to sell the same or very similar hardware to a larger client base meant that all the available features cost less.
It’s deceptive in that you have been deceived by the seller not informing you that he is artificially degrading the product he is selling and that for an additional fee he will remove the restriction.
If the handicap were more obvious such as an anchor and chain attached to the bumper the buyer might be more inclined to ask, “What is this for?” Wherein he might be informed that it is an inhibitor to make the other vehicles more expensive, and that for an additional fee the anchor can be removed. The buyer then asks “Why can’t I just cut off the anchor?” The seller’s response: “That will void your warrantee.”
It may not be deceptive to the purchaser … depends on your definitions of honesty & what the seller told the buyer.
My question is: Did the pricing changes in any way create for an overall increase subsidies/credits to Tesla, and what was the cost to the general public in tax revenue?
Were the tax credits more palatable to those in government that approved the tax credit structure because the manufacturer/seller had a “wider range” of products to offer?
Rocketscientist:
Yes there is some sleight-of-hand to this process. It is called value-based marketing. Ron Popeil immortalized the concept with his sales ploy “how much would you be willing to pay” for a given functionality. As a market matures, prices migrate to “cost-based” levels. This is why entrepreneurs seek new products so they may enjoy value-based profit levels.
Musk is very good at imploring the buyer “how much would you be willing to pay” and offering products which appear innovative enough to cause a few buyers to respond “a whole lot!” Will they regret it when later buyers get the same thing, or something better, for less? Only time will tell.
This really highlights the true nature of pretty much all the tech companies business model. GOUGE GOUGE GOUGE. Manipulate all aspects of the product to maximise profit in the immediate purchase then ‘hook’ the consumer into the ‘upgrade’ chain. They have the morals of the gambling industry at best, drug dealers more accurately imo. The technology that enables all the bling to add to our lives is also the device that turns us from citizens to consumers to soylent partners.
Do you understand anything about profit margin degradation, maturity of product streams and customer agency or do you just like to throw shade on tech businesses?
Upgrades work because people are willing to buy them. Continued upgrades work because people strangely enough are still willing to buy them. Profit margins slip because new upgrades can cost more and you now have competition. You may also have more staff and a bigger research department, HR department etc because all that comes at cost.
There is a well known lifecycle that can be disrupted when governments get involved to prop up zombie companies.
The best technology is the one that turns a profit so it can be maintained and improved. That’s often a hard lesson for idealists.
Our VW diesel has range of up to 750 miles if I drive carefully (and still well over 500 miles even when driven uneconomically at high speed on the Autobahn). My goal is to keep it until I can replace it with an electric car with equivalent range.
Espen
One of the real good things about Germany is the Autobahn,driving my diesel at top speed (235kmh ) we have no speed limit, the “good” cars in Germany can outrun most hurricanes.
Any car can outrun a hurricane. Irma was traveling at 12mph at its fastest. Don’t confuse the wind speed with the speed at which the hurricane advances.
…so long as there isn’t a traffic jam…
Heh. That extra 30 or so miles will REALLY help a LOT.
LOL.
Electric cars are (given current (get it? get it?) 🙂 tech — or likely to be known tech):
For short range
1. in all but the mildest of climates;
and
2. in the best traffic conditions (no rush-hours near major cities);
UNLESS:
You are wealthy enough to afford another, ICE, vehicle along with the glorified golf cart (yes, glorified golf cart: yes, even the “high performance” electric cars , and, yes, even the race car electric cars — SO WHAT if they can race or handle well? People race riding lawn mowers that handle well….).
All well and good, dear wealthy people —
with your OWN money.
**********************************
Also, re: the article’s assertion of about 300-400 miles per tank for ICE cars — I think that is more likely to be around 500 miles per tank.
**************************************************
ANOTHER FINE ARTICLE, ERIC WORRALL! Thank you.
Hey! I left out a phrase (oops!): [“Thus, are impractical to purchase”] UNLESS…..
With my 1.0L petrol Ford Focus I have reached 212 km/h on Autobahn, and the same type of car has been driven 1619,4 km without refueling 🙂
http://ford-no.mynewsdesk.com/pressreleases/nordmenn-satte-ny-verdensrekord-i-oekonomikjoering-kautokeino-oslo-paa-en-tank-bensin-900096
Your children or grandchildren, if any, will be waiting to make that trade in. Your vehicle will wind up a family heirloom!
That would be never then…
Janice, most cars that get excellent mileage, 30 or more, usually have small tanks.
Our Subaru gets over 30mpg, and could manage close to 600miles on a long highway drive on a good day (i.e. one without a headwind, since it’s about as aerodynamic as a brick wall). The Civic does have a smaller tank, but compensates with better highway mpg.
Fuel for thought.
And if, in 2030, the 50% of drivers who are still driving petrochemically fuelled cars are held up by a cluster of electric cars that have run out of juice during a mandated hurricane evacuation, I wonder how they will react? One hopes they would charitably invite the stranded evacuees into their vehicles for a ride. Maybe emergency services vehicles will have to carry charged power packs to keep the roads clear.
I would just put the Rubicon into 4WD and go around or over them.
… and I’d love to be right behind you in this!
I think I’d rather follow you! LOL!
Well, if you’re going Over The Top, you might as well try for orbit!
Is that a Tesla the Wranglers mushing?
Let me know when CAT produces a Li-Ion powered D11
This reminded me of the late Jacques Littlefields collection of military vehicles of all kinds.
He created and built the Military Technology Vehicle Foundation into the world’s largest privately owned collection of military vehicles. At the beginning of July of July he would buy a car from a local wrecking yard. On the Fourth he would fire up one of the tanks and play demolition derby. Rumor has it that the tank always won.
Many of the vehicles from his collection would make great ICE vehicles to use on a road clogged with EVs with dead batteries.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/telstar/sets/72157616564112459/
I would offer them a ride in a more reliable mode of transportation with the caveat that THEY must explain the necessities if the Internal Combustion Engine
riven older oshkoch AWD aircraft tug (for 747’s) and thats would be awesome in such a scenario. may only go 25mph but its a damned steady 25mph LOL
You realize that’s a Porsche he’s driving over!
They’re all just cars from a Jeep’s perspective… 😎
There would have to be a standard form factor and ampere rating so that roadside assistance or Quick-Trips (et al) could exchange batteries quickly. Presently, all the makers are proprietary. Good luck changing that. Cars have needed a standardized OS software for years and that is slow to appear, excepting OBD-2.
Failed in Israel
You still have to solve the problem of battery degradation over time.
How do you compensate someone who swaps out a brand new battery pack for a pack with 3 or 4 years of use?
Very true MarkW, I guess we’re still waiting for that magic battery breakthrough where they hold ten times as much and last ten times as long…
How much does the battery for an electric car (making the insane assumption that there is one standard) weigh? How the heck to you replace a battery pack on the shoulder of a freeway?
Conversely, a 5 gallon jerry can of gasoline weighs about 40 lbs, can be poured into a ICE gas tank with a cheap, light funnel, and provide another 100-150 miles of travel.
Gasoline! Lightweight, compact, easy to handle, only mildly hazardous (wash your hands after handling, doesn’t mix with water), non-explosive unless you try hard, sure it is flammable — wouldn’t be worth much if it wasn’t, ash products are CO2 and H2O when burned properly. It is a miracle material, really hard to improve upon. We will still use it at 10x it’s current price — though less of it (Supply and Demand rules!)
The nearest Monster Truck can just push them off to the side.
Charitable truck drivers can offer to tow them behind their Diesel exhaust ….
I’d offer to tow and run a drop cord back to them so they can slow charge while being rescued.
(I typically travel with an inverter… for emergency power).
Hmmm, don’t these cars have regenerative braking? Does that mean you could re-charge the battery by towing it backwards? 😉
Eric, I’d guess they had to weigh lost profits against lost customers and bad publicity. This is a no-win situation for them as nature is most effectively pointing out the limitation that keeps state-of-the-art EVs from being economically practical.
It will be interesting to see the ratio of EV to ICE vehicles “totaled” in the evacuation areas. Is it a lower or high ratio of EV/ICE that were registered in the area?
My old diesel estate car has a 60 litre tank, at 35 MJ/litre that’s 2148 MJ, or 597 kWh. Assuming a 40% efficiency, that’s roughly 240 kWh. Oh, and I can heat the car with the waste heat. If you had to heat your Tesla, that’ll come out of what’s in the battery.
No thanks.
Heat the car . . . in Florida’s humidity, in September? More likely, everyone, ICE and EV alike, was running their AC at maximum, especially stuck in traffic with a pre-hurricane blazing sun overhead. I’ll bet running the AC continuously at maximum setting cuts down a Tesla’s maximum range by 20% or more.
Either way, it’s apparent that the range of today’s EVs doesn’t quite cut the mustard when survival is at stake. Software gifts or not.
One factor reducing the efficiency of an IC engine is that the materials comprising it can’t tolerate the full heat of combustion so some of that heat, instead of being converted to mechanical energy, has to be carried away through a cooling system.
Well, guess what? Electric motors get very hot too. Some electric vehicles actually use liquid cooling systems virtually identical to IC engines. So, you could heat the passenger compartment the same way. But, anybody who claims that an electric vehicle is efficient (compared to an ICE powered vehicle) needs to recognize that some portion of the electrical energy is used in producing waste heat as well.
Oh, and on some electric vehicles the battery has to be heated to an operating temperature. A liquid circulates around the battery to warm it up. Guess what’s used to heat up that liquid? Yep, electrical energy from that same battery.
However, it’s worth noting that modern ICE cars are getting so efficient that they can’t easily heat the interior. Our old V6 Buick could pretty much run a blast furnace in the cabin in the winter, but the Subaru that replaced it has heated seats because the heater won’t even run until the engine is up to a decent operating temperature. As I understand it, the diesel version in Europe has an electric heater because there just isn’t enough usable waste heat to warm the cabin and keep the engine warm.
One answer to the efficiency argument is to recognize and welcome that EV cars are really cars powered by coal in a way that is feasible (if not politically correct).
And if Tesla gets hacked and all its vehicle battery limit gets set to 2%? Any time, not just in emergencies?
It would be “bad publicity” to have Tesla’s stranded on the side of the road, with power still in the batteries of cars that were paid for, because the owner did not pay the extortion demanded by Musk. It goes against the free market concept to provide a good, with a certain capability, but deny full use of that capability without additional payment over and above what was required to produce it. There are always exceptions, but if I were an owner of a product like that, I would feel cheated. And once that feeling starts to take hold, it is not easily remedied.
That is not a free market concept, Russ. That is a socialist concept. Where did you grow up?
The free market concept is competition will drive the inefficiencies out of the market, through the competition for customers. If someone is gouging customers, then a competitor will step in and provide a better deal for those customers. A similar socialist concept is “you get what we think you need, and pay what we think you should pay”.
If you paid for the battery, you should get the full capabilities of the battery. Once the ownership is transferred to the buyer, the seller should not still be restricting it’s usage except for safety or durability reasons.
I grew up in a country “conceived in Liberty”. And I understand what that means, both in opportunity and in responsibility.
No Russ, you paid for a car with well known and published capabilities. How a manufacturer choses to deliver those capabilities is up to the manufacturer.
@yarpos.
…and if the manufacturer gets a reputation for not delivering value….
In the first place, Tesla’s “charitable offering of an extra 30 miles driving range” can be viewed more realistically (considering how rapacious Tesla Motors has always been) as an attempt to incite these owners to cough up another $9,000 for the extra driving range ,something that they obviously have so far had no desire to do. They originally sold those cars with a 60kWhr battery pack, but, as usual, Tesla only built the most expensively optioned cars first – those with the larger battery pack.
When they finally got around to building these lower optioned batteries they suddenly decided they would not build that lower priced model, which to me was proof that the lower priced model (advertised for more than a year as $49,000) was nothing more than a bait and switch – Tesla never planned on building that car at all – it was vaporware.
Now we come to the Model 3, advertised as a “low priced EV” at $35,000. The 500,000 customers waiting in line have ordered cars that average $45,000, and most have the larger battery pack. The smaller batttery pack yields a driving range that is significantly less than the new Chevy Bolt electric. Tesla and others have informed the world that Tesla is paying $150 per kWhr for their batteries. The upgrade option costs the owner $9,000. The cost of the batteries required for the upgrade (installed) is $3750. Over $5,000 pure profit. Tesla is currently ONLY building Model 3 vehicles with the larger battery pack, regardless of the order in which the cars were bought. Whether they will actually build any Model 3s with the smaler battery pack remains to be seen. Unlike the Model S fiasco, you owuld think that Tesla will have to build some of these : if they discontinue the model, then they won’t be able to claim the Model 3 has a (starting) list price of $35,000. And a very important factor is the coming loss of the full $7500 tax credit – only about the first 50,000 Tesla Model 3 buyers will get this credit – afterwards the credit is cut in half every two quarters until it disappears. Meanwhile Tesla’s newfound competitors – at least a dozen electrics due out in the next year and a half and another dozen a year after that will enjoy the $7500 tax credit until each sells 200,000 electrics. That places Tesla in a horrible position, price-wise,and BMW and Mercedes both have their sights set on Tesla, and they will build every single one of their models as an electric, and they have service and repair many times better than Tesla and have a world-wide loyal customer base.
Impossible. You can’t cut the credit in half every two quarters until it disappears. It will never disappear. At some point you just have to quit giving a credit. 😀
We have all seen people driving through flooded roads, so at what point would an electric car short out, which I assume could be dangerous, given the energy stored in the battery. I know it will depend on where the electric motors and batteries are situated, so may be different by make/model, but my diesel car would need water into the air intake to stop it. Another interesting situation though. I love the idea of electric cars, but it’s way too early in the technology cycle for them to be mainstream. I’d love to see a car designed with a highly efficient fossil fuel engine that generates the electricity for the electric motors, should be more efficient, but probably more expensive to make.
Water in the exhaust would stop your diesel, i2.
Actually, no. Only in the intakes.
There’s a reason that cars driven on expeditions to remote parts of the world often have snorkels for the air intake, but don’t have them for the exhaust (it’s called gas pressure).
I2 the vehicles you suggest exist. They are called hybrids. Their ICE engines generate electricity. Whether that electrical power is used to accelerate the vehicle or recharge the batteries all depends on the state of the system.
During the ’90s I worked on developing the ATTB (Advance Technology Transit Bus). Often we were asked what happens when the driver steps on the gas pedal. The answer was always it depends on the current state of the system. All the driver did is command the vehicle to accelerate by stepping on the pedal. The vehicle computer would then asses the existing energy systems and determine what to do: spool up the generator (rev up the engine): draw down the batteries; or some combination of the two.
There are niches for such vehicles.
Only an anecdote, but I have a video of a car stalled in the left turn lane (high side of the road) of a flooded intersection outside my home during the Memorial Day floods of 2016. It was a Tesla.
So…
Tesla is admitting that a significant number of their cars are crippled when sold, and people are fine with that?
One of the old computer horror stories was about a really expensive mainframe, where the “upgrade” to a faster CPU entailed removing a jumper that then let the computer run at full speed – and everyone thought that was basically fraud…
That upgrade reveals an unethical conduct by Tesla, that is as close to fraud as it is possible to get.
No fraud, they sell the car as having having a certain battery capacity. And it does.
I wonder if authorities in countries that subsidize these cars to make them succeed think the same.
VW Diesel cornered the market on Software Fraud
Bryan A
An interesting dichotomy between Tesla and VW. Both of the companies used software to help themselves financially but VW’s scheme helped the consumer by giving them a better performing engine while Tesla’s scheme gives the consumer a poorer performing car.
And VW’s scheme was to avoid government restrictions so I find myself applauding their efforts. It was rather lawless but still, I gotta like it.
Every vehicle that has a control module since the 1970’s with electronic ignition and fuel injection can be upgraded in some way to boost performance.
@jonchi7 Every vehicle that has a control module since the 1970’s with electronic ignition and fuel injection can be upgraded in some way to boost performance and shorten life and increase maintenance costs.
There are tradeoffs in most things. Especially in things of engineering.
Stephen it would have been nice if you separated what I said up to “…performance.” and then added your opinions to it.
That “horror” story was perfectly true. I don’t think it was a mainframe, however, but a somewhat smaller model about the size of a small hot tub. Third parties quickly took advantage of that, providing upgrades for a rather modest price. I actually saw one during conversion.
Fraud? Absolutely not. The slow version met its specifications, as did the fast version. IBM chose to save development costs by making essentially a single model to cover two markets, slowing one down to avoid giving anything away. Perfectly legal, despite your expectations. They never said they weren’t doing this. No fraud.
Cable providers do the same with their modems. I bought my own high speed and capacity modem.
Dave,
Your cable provider provisions your modem to operate at a bandwidth price point.
Ownership of a modem won’t get you a fatter pipe, but does save rental fees.
Telsa didn’t sacrifice anything regarding future profits. The battery upgrades are temporary.
Correct. The extra capacity in the Tesla was merely disabled by a software block. (Mainframe computers were (and still are?) sold with full features installed, but throttled down if the buyer doesn’t pay for them all.)
I worked for a company that sold software packages. Which features were available to the customer was controlled by codes that we downloaded into their database.
You have a good memory.
Many, many years ago we upgraded a mainframe at a Wall St. bank, by cutting 2 etchings and placing a jumper to eliminate a JK flip flop which reduced clock speed by 50%.
Oh, yes, we had to rebadge the front panel to show it was a new model. LOL.
Tesla
YOUR tax $ at work !!!
Bingo
…and the AI machine of tax credit mining is working overtime on tax credit schemes in large electric truck cabs, solar roofing, hyperloops, deserted charging stations, and more. It’s WW3 in the tax code and tax base. And the rich can use it to sidestep the alternative minimum tax that limits deductions but not credits.
Let’s face it, EVs are not going to make it in their present form for moving a lot people long distances all at once. Until we get another storage device, ramming enough electrons into Li batteries in mass scale in a short time just isn’t possible. As a niche vehicle or for running around town it works great. Most personal trips are short and the demand is spread out and doesn’t burden the grid. But in a case such as this, no.
EV hybrids or fuel cell driven EVs will work. Our hybrid technology has grown leaps and bounds with better batteries and electric motors. Today’s fuel cells are pretty good but still have a way to go, and we need an infrastructure to deliver the fuel, whether it is NG or hydrogen or whatever.
I’m certainly not opposed to EV vehicles as they have a lot of pluses. I am opposed to paying a big chunk of change for a folly. I’ll be buying a new car in the next 1-2 years and am considering going the hybrid route, however at this point the good old ICE is getting almost as good as mileage on the highway, so the only substantial benefit would be in town driving which I really don’t do that much.
Don’t forget to consider the battery replacement cost. It WILL have to be replaced. Just as a guess my estimate is $3,000+ for a small hybrid battery. If the car is sold before the warranty on the battery expires the remaining battery life will factor into the resale value.
I still cannot figure out why we have not seen the true Hybrid: a small efficient constantly running ICE electrical generator and (smaller than EV) battery powered drive train with regen breaking. A 20 hp motor, sipping on a supply of gas, would get something like 100 mpg.
I suspect that government regulations and subsidy rules work to give that configuration a disadvantage to others.
Exactly right. I pointed out how trains and giant equipment have done just that in other posts. They use massive desiel engine generators and electric motors to power everything. Reducing fuel consumption and giving more power/torque than directly using the engine to power everything. That on a smaller scale for any vehicle makes more sense. Tesla uses 2 electric motors with one at the rear and the at the front axle giving a 4×4 drivetrain. Planetary gears in where a normal pumpkin goes converting the high-speed electric motors to torque and horse power. Just like any common electric drill is made these day’s. There isn’t any wasted weight with transmissions or other drive lines. Steering and all other components are smaller electric motors or electronics. So hybrid technology is more efficient and could be better if this ideology of batteries is ended. You just have to have the right HP and RPM to the right voltage and amperage to make it work for the size and load capacity of the vehicle to performance and still have enough for extra loads like grades it may go up.
Dear Mister Mod,
somehow my user name got an Espen added to it A fix please ?
[Log off. Close the web browser please and log back into WordPress, checking very carefully that you re-enter your login_id and password. Then try again with a short reply in the “Test” tab with your proper “George Tetley” user_id. We’ll leave the earlier replies as-is until a good login_id is verified.
Use only that one user_id (“George Tetley”) for all future replies on all threads. .mod]
I see Tesla as being the Stutz Bearcat of this century’s automotive history.
Thank you for publishing this topic, I heard a radio discussion where one person was concerned about their car in southern Florida while they were out of state during the hurricane. The other person asked if it was electric, thinking about the complications of a submerged electric car. But then they touched on the limited range and recharging requirements for electric cars and the potential issues during an evacuation. Certainly these issues need to be considered.
Imagine driving through slightly flooded streets or large puddles with a Tesla.
How about sea water from a storm surge?
..or storm surge with downed power lines
I’ve designed several GPS products that used Li-ion batteries.
During testing in the lab we found even a small AA battery size could become an arc welder when shorted.
If you had a tesla in the garage beneath your condo and the storm surge hit, your place would be totaled.
My comment from nearly a week ago raised to a full post:
“BobM
September 7, 2017 at 10:37 am
I was watching Florida’s governor announce the mandatory evacuation of the Florida Keys… EPA regulations are being suspended to allow more fuel into the state. That’s fossil fuel, not batteries.
Pity the Key West Tesla owner that can’t use air conditioning and get much further north than Orlando. Takes two days to get out of the way of the hurricane in that fancy EV, if a charging station can be found. Otherwise, useless as a brick.
Where’s Roger Sowell explaining how wonderfully all the wind and solar power is performing? Any of those Caribbean islands have their fossil fuel plants blown away?”
I’m still waiting for Roger Sowell to show up with all the good news on how wind and solar are replacing fossil fuel emissions during this emergency. Musk too. He’s building cars that are useless when the chips are down.
We had friends evacuate from around Tampa, coming 700 miles north in roughly 14 hours, family of 4 with 3 cats in a cage in the back of their SUV. Headed home this morning with 2 full gas cans purchased here for the trip home. Ask the Florida and Houston evacuees how bad they feel about their “carbon footprint”…
I very much want to see a simulation of what areas of Florida would have
1. Wind Turbines Toppled, — MW and time and cost to repair
2. Wind Turbines with blade damage — MW and time and cost to repair.
3. Wind Turbines MW off line and for how long (maximum wind gust protection and downed feeder lines)
4. Solar Panels MW destroyed by wind.
5. Solar Panels MW destroyed by flood or other debris.
6. Coal fired powerplants damaged — MW and time and cost to repair
7. Nuclear powerplants damaged — MW and time and cost to repair and put black on line.
http://www.tcpalm.com/story/weather/hurricanes/2017/09/12/florida-power-light-co-nuclear-reactors-still-down-but-unharmed-hurricane-irma/658227001/ (not damaged, one on line, another in a day when transmission lines ready).
Beware of flooded Teslas on the resale market.
Beware of flooded anything on the resale market for the next two years.
Reblogged this on Wolsten and commented:
And in any case with power lines likely to be down in a severe hurricane, it is unlikely that any Tesla’s would be getting charged. So we not only need coal and diesel generation to backup home power supplies, we also need a spare gasoline car for emergencies.
to be fair , you wont be pumping any gas either
Not necessarily true. A gasoline powered electrical generator can power the pumps. Credit card processing or enough cash might be the more vexing problem.
This – excellent – point is underscored by reports from Norway last winter. Often (3-4 times each winter) mountain passes in Norway are limited to convoy-driving. Cars are held at a barrier until snowploughs are available to escort them in a convoy, usually because snow is actively falling and they don’t want to have cars stuck and forming a drift. To drive in a convoy, all of the cars have to maintain the same speed (around 50-60km/h) and not stop or slow down as this will create serious problems.
As electric cars have become more popular in Norway (big tax exemptions and other incentives, such as cheap electricity), the convoy managers have been refusing to include electric vehicles because they cannot keep up the pace and/or have the range to safely complete the convoy section. Petrol and diesel vehicles have to have full tanks to join the convoy (there is usually a gas station at the collection point) and using your heater (and windscreen wipers, heated windows etc) doesn’t affect the range in the way that they do for an e-vehicle. Minimum speeds have to be maintained in order for the snowploughs to effectively clear the roads and keep all vehicles together and these are usually higher than the optimum for maximising the range of an electric car,
I don’t know whether the convoy management have taken this step because of previous examples of cars running out of juice, or just a precaution, but there is a lot of negative publicity about e-car drivers because they go so slowly in order to maximise their range. One particular gripe is that they significantly slow down the public transport, as they are allowed to drive in bus lanes in Oslo, but drive along at less than 40km/h in order to eke out mileage. I have seen this myself along highway routes where the busses are usually travelling at 70-80 km/h. This has become so bad that I think the roads department is considering banning e-cars from the bus lanes!
Such long travel will be banned anyway. The collective voted on this last night.
Rob,
CA is offering rather large rebates for EV based school buses-
http://insideevs.com/greenpower-motor-scores-electric-school-bus-deal-in-california
I assume the districts going for the rebates have a lot of diesel powered buses available for various public safety roles.
One problem that the Norwegians face is that battery performance is compromised in cold conditions, and of course, in these conditions there is heavy demand on the battery with heaters, seat warmers, headlights (compulsory even during day), heated front and rear screen demisters, and possibly windscreen wipers, and heated washer tanks. A lot of juice is being consumed that will impact negatively on range.
I would not wish to be caught in cold conditions in an EV.
@Rob, While I do remember being stuck waiting for a convoy to cross Hardangervidda, I do not recall any gas stations nor anyone checking the gauge. (OTOH I drive a Saab, notorious for underestimating distance to empty, so not much point checking my gauge)
Tesla owners here seem happy with the range a few winters in, but I have no idea how much they drive their cars. For medium range (less than 150km) commutes it probably does not matter much if you get an effective range of 300 km rather than 400 km as promised. For those guys, it is vastly more important to not have to pay any road tax (Norwegian roads are littered with automated toll booths).
As much as I personally hate EVs and all that they stand for, it has to be said: EVs do not have to replace every single car in the world to be deemed a success. (And I have to admit putting in 16A circuits in my new garage plus asked the electrician to put in a supply cable that can give me an upgrade to three phase supply later on — because I cannot predict the future)
My current compromise vehicle is a Camry Hybrid. Mine was built with the same 17 gallon tank as a non hybrid. Range is 500 miles of stop and go driving according to the computer and more like 600 miles on a full tank if you ignore the little warning light.
The key to buying a hybrid is to not overpay for the electric components compared to the non hybrid version of the car.