Tesla one year on

[AVB]

My Tesla Model X is coming up for its first birthday. In the first year I have done 11,000 miles at a rough cost of £440 pounds for the electricity to fill it up (probably less as I have ignored the ‘free’ electricity from super chargers). Equivalent diesel for the Discovery  it replaced would have been £2,455 if my maths is correct. 

And apart from three minor faults (one was fixed ‘over the air’, one on my drive, and one in the workshop) it has been reliable. 

A great bit of kit and with more and more electric cars being announced by mainstream manufacturers it will be interesting to see how things pan out in this field. 

Defiantly a crowd puller too. When I pull up at school next to an certain aging  rock stars lambo  it’s mine that gets the attention! 

Not sure it’s a fanny magnet though! 

[sle]

Aren’t they 50k ish more to buy than a discovery though?

[Snoozer]

30 minutes ago, sle said:

Aren’t they 50k ish more to buy than a discovery though?

[AVB]

2 hours ago, sle said:

Aren’t they 50k ish more to buy than a discovery though?

No. Cash wise it was about £15k more (a high spec Discovery isn’t cheap!) but on PCP it was actually cheaper due to lower interest rate and higher residual. 

[sle]

Sounds like a good choice then, they are definitely the way forward. How have you found the range?

[countryman]

No, would not be for an old Dinosaur like me. I run a Defender and a GT86, if we did all go electric how long would it be before the government came out with a special tax to charge it up.

[spanj]

9 hours ago, AVB said:

No. Cash wise it was about £15k more (a high spec Discovery isn’t cheap!) but on PCP it was actually cheaper due to lower interest rate and higher residual. 

I was looking at one but the used stock on Teslas website, £10k down, £900 a month........... I think not.  I do 35k miles a year so the with maintenance options on most cars is through the roof

[sle]

I’m was hoping that someone would launch a decent usable electric van, with a good range, but nothing seems to be happening. The government have more or less forced us to have diesel everything and soon they will be trying to charge us a million pounds a day to use a diesel.

[simonm]

9 hours ago, sle said:

I’m was hoping that someone would launch a decent usable electric van, with a good range, but nothing seems to be happening. The government have more or less forced us to have diesel everything and soon they will be trying to charge us a million pounds a day to use a diesel.

Clever eh?

[sandspider]

How is the range?

And who's the rock star?!

[AVB]

9 hours ago, sandspider said:

How is the range?

And who's the rock star?!

I get about 200 miles out of mine (180-220 depending on weather). But you have to stop worrying about that as it is different to a normal car where one fills up to the brim. With an EV you just put in enough to get to the next charging point. For example if I am doing a 250 mile trip I won’t run till empty and then spend 30-40?minutes filling up. I will stop en-route at a suitable supercharger for 10 minutes (and get a coffee) to get me enough charge to get to my destination. It takes a while to get your head around it but the car sorts all of that out for you. 

Rod Stewart. 

[ShootingEgg]

Id still opt for the lambo, and most women would probably prefer Rod still.. So your tesla got no hope sorry  

[Guest]

How many years does the battery’s last .are they dear to replace 

[AVB]

1 hour ago, ShootingEgg said:

Id still opt for the lambo, and most women would probably prefer Rod still.. So your tesla got no hope sorry  

I agree

[Walker570]

Read that the Tesla man, Musk is in deep doo doo with at least two courts cases pending.  Rather than flash expensive cars going electric, as said, far better that we see a range of delivery vans even ATV and UTVs .....  even eventually heavy lorries.

What does annoy me, is I still have to pay full road tax on my Land Rover although I run it on LPG which produces almost nothing but water vapour from the exhaust.

Edited September 19, 2018 by Walker570

[TIGHTCHOKE]

Eon Musk is very quick at "slagging off" various people, shame he does not think first, luckily he has deep pockets and will no doubt settle out of court. Completely agree about tackling the Bus and HGV/LGV's first.

[Walker570]

Just flashed up on my news panel...."Tesla are for the graveyard"

[Westward]

As one of the vast majority who wouldn't spend 80K on any vehicle for my personal transport, I'm left wondering where it's all going. Top Gear keep reviewing electric supercars with 10 zillion horsepower and acceleration that flattens your eyeballs but I don't judge a car on whether or not it's faster round the nurburgring than a Lamborghini. I'm more interested in  a car that's not only nice to drive but also has the practicality for daily use, the ready availability of fuel and the usual home comforts we expect with modern cars.  Until battery technology exists to increase the range to at least 500 miles and overcome the performance degradation that occurs every charge cycle - something we all recognise with our phones - and stop pretending that electricity is "clean energy", I will continue to avoid electric cars.

[AVB]

2 hours ago, Westward said:

As one of the vast majority who wouldn't spend 80K on any vehicle for my personal transport, I'm left wondering where it's all going. Top Gear keep reviewing electric supercars with 10 zillion horsepower and acceleration that flattens your eyeballs but I don't judge a car on whether or not it's faster round the nurburgring than a Lamborghini. I'm more interested in  a car that's not only nice to drive but also has the practicality for daily use, the ready availability of fuel and the usual home comforts we expect with modern cars.  Until battery technology exists to increase the range to at least 500 miles and overcome the performance degradation that occurs every charge cycle - something we all recognise with our phones - and stop pretending that electricity is "clean energy", I will continue to avoid electric cars.

Why are people fixated with range? Why 500 miles? Do you ever drive 500 miles non stop? 

And car batteries aren't like phone batteries (which I suspect are designed to degrade so that you buy a new one). There are EV's out there that have done 200,000 miles and been through thousands of recharge cycles with minimal degradation (10-15%). The battery management software on these cars is vastly superior to that in a phone. 

And yes Musk is a knob. He is a genius but, like a lot of geniuses he is flawed in many aspects.  

[Rewulf]

32 minutes ago, AVB said:

Why are people fixated with range? Why 500 miles? Do you ever drive 500 miles non stop? 

And car batteries aren't like phone batteries (which I suspect are designed to degrade so that you buy a new one). There are EV's out there that have done 200,000 miles and been through thousands of recharge cycles with minimal degradation (10-15%). The battery management software on these cars is vastly superior to that in a phone. 

And yes Musk is a knob. He is a genius but, like a lot of geniuses he is flawed in many aspects.  

Not on a regular basis ,no, but I did used to drive very regularly from Notts to Thorney Island camp, which is around 200 miles.
Decent traffic conditions it could be done in 3 hours.
How long would such a journey take in your Tesla ?
Whilst I take your battery life explanation on board, and have found little evidence to support the theory of low battery lifespan.
The range thing IS an issue, it may not be a massive issue to SOME people, but to others its a deal breaker.

Edited September 19, 2018 by Rewulf
Missed a bit

[oowee]

When the subsidy for EV's was being evaluated the biggest challenge was trying to estimate residual battery life values. Whilst trials were done to calculate how many recharges batteries might manage they were not based upon the way a consumer might want to recharge the battery (ie at each and every opportunity due to range anxiety issues). The effectiveness of batteries at 3 year 5 year and 7 year intervals would be crucial to the establishing the vehicles residual value and hence the level of subsidy that the government would need to make available to reduce the upfront cost for early adopters. One thought was an agreed buy back scheme where the batteries could be bought back to use in new smart homes to utilise the solar pv that was otherwise being lost as heat. 

I had a very early mini on trial with all of the back seats removed for batteries. It was only a trial vehicle so whilst fully functional, the battery set up was a trial rather than pre production. It had a range of 60 miles in warm weather and as a user you had to think very carefully about where you might go what the traffic might be particularly at anything over 40 miles. At the end of the trial the 400 or so vehicles could not be sold, as they might damage the brand reputation with inadequate back up, so most were crushed. 

When the first leafs were launched they had a range of 100 miles, exactly the same as the first electric cars back in 1900. 

Range is the most quoted issue for EV's but this is largely because motorists have traditionally been used to fossil fuels and vehicle ownership. The average journey distance for the UK is only 24 miles. It's a mind shift to think about renting for longer journeys or even not owning at all and relying on car share schemes and the like. 

Edited September 19, 2018 by oowee

[AVB]

32 minutes ago, Rewulf said:

Not on a regular basis ,no, but I did used to drive very regularly from Notts to Thorney Island camp, which is around 200 miles.
Decent traffic conditions it could be done in 3 hours.
How long would such a journey take in your Tesla ?
Whilst I take your battery life explanation on board, and have found little evidence to support the theory of low battery lifespan.
The range thing IS an issue, it may not be a massive issue to SOME people, but to others its a deal breaker.

I put Nottingham to Thorney Island into the app on my phone and it says 2hr 40mins of driving plus a stop of 15minutes at Winchester for a slurp of volts. 

The sat nav in the car would give a far more accurate assessment as it monitors usage in real-time.  

[Rewulf]

1 minute ago, AVB said:

I put Nottingham to Thorney Island into the app on my phone and it says 2hr 40mins of driving plus a stop of 15minutes at Winchester for a slurp of volts. 

The sat nav in the car would give a far more accurate assessment as it monitors usage in real-time.  

Done the trip 30 odd times, and its never less than 3 hours.
I dont drive slow either !
How much charge/distance does 15 mins get you?
I know it depends on what you already have , but say you had 50 % or 100 odd miles range left, what would that 15 mins get you ?
Just out of interest.

[AVB]

9 minutes ago, Rewulf said:

Done the trip 30 odd times, and its never less than 3 hours.
I dont drive slow either !
How much charge/distance does 15 mins get you?
I know it depends on what you already have , but say you had 50 % or 100 odd miles range left, what would that 15 mins get you ?
Just out of interest.

It depends on how empty the battery is as it slows down the fuller it gets. But assuming you were say 20% then 15 minutes would give you another 40% or 80 miles. 

The thing is you only fill up as much as you need to. Unlike a normal car where you normally fill to the brim with an EV you don't. If you only need another 10% to get you home (including contingency) then that is all you put in (the car will tell you). Then leave it to charge up overnight at home or at your destination. 

It takes a while to get used to the concept but once you learn to trust the car it is very easy. Often I have stopped for a coffee and the car has pinged me to tell me that is has enough charge to get to its destination  before I have got to the front of the queue!

[Rewulf]

5 minutes ago, AVB said:

It depends on how empty the battery is as it slows down the fuller it gets. But assuming you were say 20% then 15 minutes would give you another 40% or 80 miles. 

The thing is you only fill up as much as you need to. Unlike a normal car where you normally fill to the brim with an EV you don't. If you only need another 10% to get you home (including contingency) then that is all you put in (the car will tell you). Then leave it to charge up overnight at home or at your destination. 

It takes a while to get used to the concept but once you learn to trust the car it is very easy. Often I have stopped for a coffee and the car has pinged me to tell me that is has enough charge to get to its destination  before I have got to the front of the queue!

Interesting, but what about a reserve, traffic, a necessary detour, extra load for wipers heaters ect ?

BTW I checked with google and my other sat nav app ,and Thorney is 192 miles from where I am now , South Notts.
Making a 2.40 hr journey somewhat unlikely (within speed limits, and no traffic) google said around 3.40 hrs.