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Tesla Full Self Driving (FSD) info - interesting stuff!

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SilverSolder:

--- Quote from: RJHayward on July 07, 2022, 06:06:52 am ---WOW, thanks SilverSolder, that example I had given would now actually extend, (at least pre-covid), which means 'Silicon Valley's phenomina of pulling in workers from afar.  My case, 34 miles in to San Jose to work, is 1980's.  Now, same job, almost same roads (choked), and we're talking TRACY, CA. to San Jose, for a coveted Apple job.  I'd be surprised, if that didn't double my miles per year! (To 32,000).
   And VACATION estimate, Whaaaaa, woewoe wait; no 4 weeks, more like 2 1/2 weeks per year.
There are lots of (smart) folks stuck on roads, at 5:15 am start of day.
   But, aren't there other 'mecca' type geography, where a job-rich area, maybe Minnesota I don't know, that have those mega-commute ?  Somebody else going to respond here, saying:
"...You should see I-5555 at 5 am in Omaha...bloody hell..."
   Yeah, I liked, your concept, of folks having the bigger family vehicle, used a lot less during the week. BUT, there could be regulations / restrictions looming, for anything not 'windmill' related. Not that I dislike clean approaches to power generation.
Having a windmill 'thrown' at you can be messy.
   But, serious, I'm not thinking that commuting long, Tracy to Cupertino (San Jose), is statistically a large thing, world-wide.(?) Maybe 2 % ?
Thanks.

--- End quote ---


Yeah, the average number of miles driven is something like 14,000 per year in the USA...   Everybody's needs are different, the numbers are individual for each person.  For example, if you commute 30 miles to the next town on open highways, you can get close to 40mpg in a standard gasoline powered Honda Civic...

On the other hand, if you are stuck in dense traffic for an hour and a half each way, a standard internal combustion engine is going to get extremely poor fuel economy...   whereas a hybrid (e.g. a Prius) can still get 40mpg in that scenario -  and a plug-in hybrid might be able to do most of the journey on pure electric, then falling back to 40mpg hybrid mode...

If you don't drive long distances then @nctnico's suggestion of an electric runabout is a good idea, and can be an overall pretty economical affair, e.g. a Nissan Leaf.

CatalinaWOW:
The Nissan Leaf is quite practical.  Green mavens will point out that it meets the vast majority of America's requirements for distance on a charge.

But there must be something very wrong with the Leaf.  It has been on the market for 10 years and is still eligible for the US Federal Tax credit for manufacturers who have sold less than 700,000 vehicles in the US.  In the meantime Tesla, GM and Ford have already crossed that threshold with their much less practical vehicles.  And in GM and Ford's case a much later start.

tom66:
I'm a big EV fan, but I wouldn't buy a Leaf.

There are a few reasons:

* Nissan build quality is just seemingly worse year after year.  They are becoming a bit like Peugeot did in the mid 2000's.  They need to seriously invest in making higher quality products for the price they charge.  I know friends with older Nissan vehicles (mid 2010 age) that are rusting and falling apart. 

* The battery longevity is really poor.  This is true for 24kWh, especially true for 30kWh and somewhat true for 40kWh models.  A lack of any cooling system, combined with a subpar chemistry means most cars will be down 30% of their capacity within 7 years.  That's just not acceptable, especially given the car has quite limited range and charging speed to begin with.  The 62kWh cars have been out for a relatively short time, and do at least have some cooling improvements, but prior history makes them a dubious buy for now.

* RapidGate and Nissan's response to it.  To protect their 40kWh batteries, Nissan massively limit the charge rate once you have done more than one charging session in a typical drive.  This is because the battery gets too hot to allow further fast charging, and there is no cooling system to remove that heat.  So a car that can only charge at 45kW, which is already not at all competitive, will only manage 30kW at the next stop.

* Price!  Not competitive at all.  A 62kWh Leaf - equivalent in many ways to the 58kWh ID.3 or somewhat to the 50kWh Peugeot e-208 (a little smaller size & battery)  is £35,000.  The ID.3 is £5,000 cheaper (was £7k before the car shortage nonsense) and the e-208 is almost £10,000 cheaper.  If you spec the Leaf up fully, it starts to get as expensive as a Polestar 2 or Model 3.  Insane pricing.

* It's still Chademo.  What are Nissan thinking? 

SilverSolder:

A used Leaf for sub $5K may be an OK local runabout?

nctnico:

--- Quote from: tom66 on July 07, 2022, 10:01:18 pm ---* It's still Chademo.  What are Nissan thinking?

--- End quote ---
Isn't there something like a conversion cable? Recently I read a story about owners of an older BEV who nearly got stranded because all the public chargers got upgraded and are a now incompatibly with their vehicle. As a result they where not able to charge their BEV along the highway as they where used to. I have not investigated at all but I would be highly, highly surprised if this problem can't be solved by a simple conversion cable.

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