Musk endeavours

[odysseus2000]

Tesla buying experience 10x better than auto-dealer buying experience:

https://cleantechnica.com/2019/08/28/th ... xperience/

Regards,

[odysseus2000]

Tesla auto insurance:

https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/28/2083 ... t-discount

Regards,

[BobbyD]

Tesla auto insurance:

https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/28/2083 ... t-discount

Regards,

Imagine the wait to get your car fixed after somebody goes in to the back of you when not only do you have to wait for Tesla to supply the parts but you have Tesla overseeing your entire claim!

[ReformedCharacter]

I didn't know Tesla wasn't founded by Musk. Tesla Before Elon:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwnZhPSqQjQ&t=325s

RC

[BobbyD]

I didn't know Tesla wasn't founded by Musk. Tesla Before Elon:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwnZhPSqQjQ&t=325s

RC

For some reason he is officially recognised as a founder... I suppose in the sense that Tesla today is a very different company to that which it would have been without his money and interference he was a founder of 'modern-Tesla' but it's a weird although largely successful deciept in my eyes, completely in keeping with other Muskisms.

[odysseus2000]

The history of Tesla is covered by Wiki:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla,_Inc.

There have been some acrimonious debates between Musk and other founders over the years, some of which remain bitter.

Regards,

[BobbyD]

Tesla auto insurance:

https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/28/2083 ... t-discount

Regards,

Imagine the wait to get your car fixed after somebody goes in to the back of you when not only do you have to wait for Tesla to supply the parts but you have Tesla overseeing your entire claim!

That is of course assuming that you manage to get Tesla insurance in the first place.

Tesla suspends car insurance sales just hours after launch

Tesla suspended its brand new car insurance policy just hours after launching it on Wednesday.

The company announced the launch of Tesla Insurance for owners in California, saying it was "designed to provide Tesla owners with up to 20pc lower rates, and in some cases as much as 30pc".

But within hours had pulled the page from its website, replacing it with the words: "Algorithm update in progress."

- https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/ ... rs-launch/

[odysseus2000]

A five day review of the e-Tron:

https://youtu.be/zD__D2EEzdA

No doubt this will polarise viewers, but is nteresting for anyone who is considering a BEV & or considering investments in BEV manufacturers.

Regards,

[redsturgeon]

A five day review of the e-Tron:

https://youtu.be/zD__D2EEzdA

No doubt this will polarise viewers, but is nteresting for anyone who is considering a BEV & or considering investments in BEV manufacturers.

Regards,

Thanks Ody. It seemed a very balanced view, some things he preferred on the Audi to his Tesla, others he didn't. I don't think there was anything he hated about the Audi.

He preferred the acceleration of the Tesla but felt the Audi had plenty for everyday use. He felt that the Audi had better build quality and wind suppression in the cabin. All in all no real surprises.

Personally this is too big and expensive a car for my needs.

John

[BobbyD]

A five day review of the e-Tron:

https://youtu.be/zD__D2EEzdA

No doubt this will polarise viewers, but is nteresting for anyone who is considering a BEV & or considering investments in BEV manufacturers.

Regards,

Thanks Ody. It seemed a very balanced view, some things he preferred on the Audi to his Tesla, others he didn't. I don't think there was anything he hated about the Audi.

He liked:

- performance incl. acceleration which felt very similar to an 85-90KWh Tesla - extremely impressed, "It made me really happy,"

- Handling "I really enjoyed the handling ...lack of body roll better than any Tesla I've ever driven,"

- Cabin noise "I think that Audi has Tesla beat on this matter,"

- Build Quality, "...what impressed me about the car is just this fit and finish, this build quality this attention to detail that you don't find on other vehicles including Tesla, "

- Charging Speed ...fine at home, fine at a normal charger, extremely impressive at electrify America where the whole experience was really really cool...

- Range - fine for 95% of people...

Irks:

- Apple play integration... (starting with the big structural problems here...)

- Doesn't feel like somebody has punched you when you accelerate (join fight club if you want to feel like you've been hit)

- Different regen implementation means that driving differs from the Tesla he is used to

- Charging Infrastructure, but Electrify America...

- Range, but it's sufficient for 95% of people



Sounds perfect for me, if only the icons on Apple play weren't that little bit too small...

I can't see why this review would polarise, but then it does say pretty much what I've been saying for rather a long time, the e-tron is a well built, well designed car which will satisfy the requirements of a lot of drivers.

Not bad for a boring, bottom of the performance table Frankenstein car!


......................................

On a related note both the Taycan and the ID3 are officially released in the next 10 days which anybody who backs BEV's should be celebrating.

[odysseus2000]

BobbyD
I can't see why this review would polarise, but then it does say pretty much what I've been saying for rather a long time, the e-tron is a well built, well designed car which will satisfy the requirements of a lot of drivers.

Not bad for a boring, bottom of the performance table Frankenstein car!

Here is my polarised view.

The guy had got the e-tron in a good short term deal and didn't want to upset the garage who had lent it to him and hurt his chance of another test and hence he worked hard to find some plus points.

My take: This would be a great car from a new company just entering automotive sales and selling a budget BEV as are many Chinese companies, but for an $80k+ car from a well established legacy motor it is woefully inadequate.

The range is marginal for the UK, useless for the US.

The drive/regeneration arrangement is clumsy and not refined enough.

The performance is too ICE like, sure great for a grand mother, but for the market segment this motor is aimed at it is not good enough.

It is a limited production, get something out now, type of car, destined to be outclassed and as such only suitable for a lease as the depreciation will hurt a buyer.

That the cabin interior feels good is what one expects as it is a Frankenstein creation from lots of other cars, again not good enough for a premium price motor.

So all in all I feel it is a pitiful job by Audi. Sure they will sell some, but putting this out is likely to put off anyone who buys one from buying another Audi. As a marketing ploy it is deeply challenged.

Regards,

[BobbyD]

BobbyD
I can't see why this review would polarise, but then it does say pretty much what I've been saying for rather a long time, the e-tron is a well built, well designed car which will satisfy the requirements of a lot of drivers.

Not bad for a boring, bottom of the performance table Frankenstein car!

Here is my polarised view.

The guy had got the e-tron in a good short term deal and didn't want to upset the garage who had lent it to him and hurt his chance of another test and hence he worked hard to find some plus points.

My take: This would be a great car from a new company just entering automotive sales and selling a budget BEV as are many Chinese companies, but for an $80k+ car from a well established legacy motor it is woefully inadequate.

The range is marginal for the UK, useless for the US.

The drive/regeneration arrangement is clumsy and not refined enough.

The performance is too ICE like, sure great for a grand mother, but for the market segment this motor is aimed at it is not good enough.

It is a limited production, get something out now, type of car, destined to be outclassed and as such only suitable for a lease as the depreciation will hurt a buyer.

That the cabin interior feels good is what one expects as it is a Frankenstein creation from lots of other cars, again not good enough for a premium price motor.

So all in all I feel it is a pitiful job by Audi. Sure they will sell some, but putting this out is likely to put off anyone who buys one from buying another Audi. As a marketing ploy it is deeply challenged.

Regards,

...and what do you see with the other eye?

[odysseus2000]

Kind of interesting discussion between Musk & Marr (CEO of Ali Baba).

They have very different views of the future.

The comments suggest to me that most of the folk who have commented believe the future will be like the past. I am not so sure & Musk makes some powerful observations as to How things are changing while Marr sees a very happy heaven like future for humans.

https://youtu.be/f3lUEnMaiAU

Regards,

[odysseus2000]

Driver assist annoys many drivers who turn it off:

https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-autopil ... ce-drivers

Regards,

[redsturgeon]

Driver assist annoys many drivers who turn it off:

https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-autopil ... ce-drivers

Regards,

I'm not surprised, the videos of one UK Tesla owner trying to use autopilot seems to suggest it is positively unsafe and causes more stress than just driving normally.

I have collision avoidance and active cruise control on my Golf, I have switched both off. The collision avoidance will brake the car if I am about to hit something. Unfortunately its assessment of an oncoming collision is not as good as mine so it has triggered unnecessarily on several occasions potential causing more dangerous situations than the supposed problem it was trying to avoid.

Situation one, the road outside my house was resurfaced, this included repainting the double yellow lines that run across my dropped kerb. The Golf now thinks I am about to collide with these when I exit my drive, I put my foot down to leave my drive only to experience a full emergency stop!

Situation two, I was pulling out into a busy stream of traffic queueing at traffic lights, I needed to accelerate quickly to fit into a gap in the very slow moving line. As a pulled out, the system decided I was too close to the car that had just moved ahead of me and what would have been a normal but fast merging action became a somewhat embarrassing aborted manoeuvre with an emergency stop half way into the road in front of a white van.

The two systems are now turned off.

There is no way I would try the full Tesla autopilot experience.

John

[BrummieDave]

First time I've posted on this thread so hopefully, you'll find this worthy input.

I'm fairly recently back from three weeks in California, mostly spent in the affluent areas north and south of the Bay area (eg Sonoma to the north, Carmel to the south). I remarked to Mrs BD how very few Teslas we saw, like none I can remember, and how many wealthy professionals are still driving large pick up trucks (lots of Ford 150, 250 and 350s and the equivalents from RAM, Chevrolet, GMC etc.), the flashier the better. I had expected to see lots of electric vehicles, or at least greater numbers than in the UK but they were very very few and far between.

The other thing that surprised us was how wedded they still are to paper based credit card transactions, with very few restaurants or shops taking chip and pin, hardly any contactless terminals, and if you asked to use Apple Pay (my standard method of buying anything in the UK) this was met with complete confusion. Using pre-loaded cards like Revolut played havoc with restaurant payments, where the staff take the card away, make a transaction for the price of the meal, bring the paper slip back for signature and tip to be applied, then when they do a reconciliation later at shift end or even the next day to add the tip, sometimes this seemingly failed.

I had expected the San Franciscos area to be tech friendly, and advanced compared to other US cities and regions I have visited recently, but this wasn't the case. The penetration of mobile phone payments in the UK far outstrips the US in my experience, and using gadgets for navigation and other activities where tech or no tech approaches are both available, also seems to have low take up.

[redsturgeon]

There seems to be an inherent suspicion about the use of technology for some things in Silicon Valley...perhaps they know more than us?

John

[odysseus2000]

First time I've posted on this thread so hopefully, you'll find this worthy input.

I'm fairly recently back from three weeks in California, mostly spent in the affluent areas north and south of the Bay area (eg Sonoma to the north, Carmel to the south). I remarked to Mrs BD how very few Teslas we saw, like none I can remember, and how many wealthy professionals are still driving large pick up trucks (lots of Ford 150, 250 and 350s and the equivalents from RAM, Chevrolet, GMC etc.), the flashier the better. I had expected to see lots of electric vehicles, or at least greater numbers than in the UK but they were very very few and far between.

The other thing that surprised us was how wedded they still are to paper based credit card transactions, with very few restaurants or shops taking chip and pin, hardly any contactless terminals, and if you asked to use Apple Pay (my standard method of buying anything in the UK) this was met with complete confusion. Using pre-loaded cards like Revolut played havoc with restaurant payments, where the staff take the card away, make a transaction for the price of the meal, bring the paper slip back for signature and tip to be applied, then when they do a reconciliation later at shift end or even the next day to add the tip, sometimes this seemingly failed.

I had expected the San Franciscos area to be tech friendly, and advanced compared to other US cities and regions I have visited recently, but this wasn't the case. The penetration of mobile phone payments in the UK far outstrips the US in my experience, and using gadgets for navigation and other activities where tech or no tech approaches are both available, also seems to have low take up.

How interesting.

We are continually told that California is a major market for Tesla, from your observations there is opportunity for a lot more sales.

Yes, when I lived in the US there was a lot of small c conservative behaviour in terms of sticking with things that they were comfortable with.

Regards,

[BrummieDave]

There seems to be an inherent suspicion about the use of technology for some things in Silicon Valley...perhaps they know more than us?

John

As we were early for the flight home from SFO we dropped off the 101 and drove around Menlo Park and Palo Alto both of which were pretty deserted probably because it was Sunday. I can't say it felt in any way 'special' or even interesting tbh, both of which I'd expected. I'm a sucker for an impressive building, or a neatly clipped campus, but it just looked like lots of offices tbh.

Perhaps the public perception of these places driven by the relatively aggressive marketing of them as part of the wider PR machines the major corps fund, is greater than the reality.

[odysseus2000]

Smart summon and trying to sell floor mats:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJxO-MSOUdc

Regards,