Electric Cars II - Not Silly!

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Re: Electric Cars II - Not Silly!

#541 Post by OFSO » Tue Jan 03, 2023 11:02 am

Thread drift: if there is a next car in my life, it will be chosen on the basis of practicality and cost. Practicality means higher than the Mondeo, which for an old bloke is too low, high ground clearance, all round TV, probably automatic, possibly 4x4. No stupid touch screen, real controls. Range circa 800 kms or more. can buy a new mid-size petrol (95) SUV in Spain with all of that for €22,800.

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Re: Electric Cars II - Not Silly!

#542 Post by llondel » Tue Jan 03, 2023 4:02 pm

Whatever else you might say about Teslas, they do seem to be pretty good in impacts. 250ft off a cliff, children unharmed, adults with non life-threatening injuries, according to the report.

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-64153839

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Re: Electric Cars II - Not Silly!

#543 Post by PHXPhlyer » Tue Jan 03, 2023 4:28 pm

They were lucky beyond the fact that they survived the landing. #:-S
There were witnesses who saw it and called it in nd the fact that a few feet farther they would have been in the water.
First responders were surprised to see movement in the car before they could rappel down to them. they were expecting a recovery not a rescue. :-o

Two children and two adults survive after Tesla plunges 250 feet off California cliff
The two rescued adults suffered “non-life-threatening injuries,” and the two children were unharmed, according to the San Mateo Sheriff's Office.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/tw ... -rcna63999

Two adults and two children were rescued from a Tesla that plunged 250 feet off a cliff Monday morning in San Mateo County, California, officials said.

The car was traveling southbound on the Pacific Coast Highway when it went over the cliff at Devil’s Slide, south of the Tom Lantos tunnel, and landed near the water’s edge below, the Cal Fire San Mateo-Santa Cruz Unit said.

The car flipped and landed on its wheels in the fall, CAL FIRE/Coastside Fire Incident Commander Brian Pottenger said. Witnesses saw the accident and called 911.

As crews were lowered down, they were able to see movement in the front seat, through their binoculars, meaning someone was alive.

“We were actually very shocked when we found survivable victims in the vehicle. So, that actually was a really hopeful moment for us,” Pottenger said.

Fire officials called for helicopters to help hoist the survivors to safety. As they waited, firefighters rappelled to the scene and rescued the two children.

The California Highway Patrol shared video on social media showing helicopters lower first responders to the scene to extricate and rescue two adults inside.

All four were hospitalized. The San Mateo Sheriff's Office said the two adults suffered non-life-threatening injuries and the two children were unharmed.

It's not clear what caused the car to go over the cliff. CHP is handling the investigation.

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Re: Electric Cars II - Not Silly!

#544 Post by llondel » Wed Jan 04, 2023 2:31 am

Plot twist...
California officials have charged the driver of a Tesla that plummeted over 250 feet off a San Mateo highway with attempted murder and child abuse. 

Dharmesh A. Patel, of Pasadena, California, was driving the vehicle when it went over the side of a coastal road at a spot known as the Devil's Slide. Also inside were one other adult and two children, who have not been identified. All four survived the crash and were transported to a local hospital for treatment of their injuries.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/dharmesh-p ... ed-murder/

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Re: Electric Cars II - Not Silly!

#545 Post by PHXPhlyer » Wed Jan 04, 2023 2:50 pm

Tesla fined $2.2M for exaggerating driving range of its vehicles: report

https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/tesla ... les-report#

Tesla is facing a new $2.2 million fine for apparently misleading consumers about the range of its vehicles in cold weather, a report says.

South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission alleged Tuesday that the electric automaker exaggerated the "driving ranges of its cars on a single charge, their fuel cost-effectiveness compared to gasoline vehicles as well as the performance of its Superchargers" on its Korean website from mid-2019 until recently, according to Reuters.

The actual driving range of Tesla vehicles drops in cold weather by up to 50.5% compared to what was being advertised online, Reuters also reported, citing the Korean agency.

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment from FOX Business Tuesday.

The news comes as the company’s stock continues to plunge in the new year, as fourth quarter delivery numbers came in below analysts' estimates.

A Jan. 2 release showed deliveries for Tesla missed by roughly 13,000. Tesla delivered 405,000 vehicles over the quarter, falling short of consensus forecasts of 418,000, the report said.

On Tesla’s website, in its "Winter Driving Tips" section, the company is urging owners to use their vehicles’ "Scheduled Departure" feature to get it ready for cold weather use.

"Proper preparation ensures that your vehicle is at the desired charge level and cabin temperature at the time of your departure, and that peak efficiency and performance are available from the moment you start driving," the website says. "If your battery hasn’t preconditioned sufficiently, it will use some of its own energy to warm itself rather than contributing that energy toward your driving range."

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Re: Electric Cars II - Not Silly!

#546 Post by G-CPTN » Wed Jan 04, 2023 3:02 pm

PHXPhlyer wrote:
Wed Jan 04, 2023 2:50 pm

On Tesla’s website, in its "Winter Driving Tips" section, the company is urging owners to use their vehicles’ "Scheduled Departure" feature to get it ready for cold weather use.

"Proper preparation ensures that your vehicle is at the desired charge level and cabin temperature at the time of your departure, and that peak efficiency ^:)^ and performance are available from the moment you start driving," the website says. "If your battery hasn’t preconditioned sufficiently, it will use some of its own energy to warm itself rather than contributing that energy toward your driving range."

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I still reckon that you don't get owt for nowt and that energy will be used however it is required.

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Re: Electric Cars II - Not Silly!

#547 Post by OFSO » Wed Jan 04, 2023 4:54 pm

According to the display, my diesel Mondeo also uses some of the fuel just to warm the engine when it's cold. Takes 20 seconds or so.

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Re: Electric Cars II - Not Silly!

#548 Post by Woody » Thu Jan 05, 2023 9:04 am

To keep the conversation going.
New car registrations in the UK fell last year to their lowest level in three decades, new figures show.
Despite a recovery in the second half of 2022, a continuing parts shortage hit production lines.
Meanwhile, demand for electric vehicles continued to grow and they accounted for almost a fifth of new car sales.
But charging infrastructure is not being built quickly enough to cope with growing demand, warned the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).
The SMMT is also warning that the number of public charging points is not increasing quickly enough to reach the government's target of having 300,000 by 2030.
"To get to that 300,000, you need about 100 new charging points to be installed every day until 2030," said Mr Hawes.
"Current rates, up until the end of quarter three, were about 23 a day. So the danger is the user experience gets worse before it gets better."
When all else fails, read the instructions.

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Re: Electric Cars II - Not Silly!

#549 Post by ExSp33db1rd » Thu Jan 05, 2023 11:03 pm

QED Nuff sed.

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Re: Electric Cars II - Not Silly!

#550 Post by PHXPhlyer » Fri Jan 06, 2023 3:10 am

Rescuers were stunned a family survived 250-foot plunge from cliff. Experts say luck, Tesla's design kept them alive
Dharmesh Patel, 41, is accused of intentionally driving a Tesla Model Y off a roughly 250-foot cliff with his family inside.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/lu ... -rcna64547

ALAMEDA, Calif. — A California doctor allegedly plunged his family hundreds of feet down a coastal cliff in what authorities have described as a murder attempt, but their improbable survival is likely because of luck and a well-built vehicle, experts said.

Dharmesh Patel, 41, is accused of barreling a Tesla Model Y off “Devils Slide,” likely flipping the SUV several times on its way down the roughly 250-foot cliff 20 miles south of San Francisco on the morning of Jan. 2, the California Highway Patrol said.

Images captured by a rescue team showed the battered SUV right-side-up, perched precariously on a rocky ledge just above the Pacific Ocean.

Jingwen Yu, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute, said their survival was a “kind of a miracle, considering the impact severity.”

“The driver probably underestimated how safe a vehicle could be, which provided us ‘hope’ for vehicle safety,” Yu said in an email.

Patel, a 41-year-old woman and two children ages 4 and 7 — both of whom were in car seats — were also in the SUV, California Highway Patrol spokesman Mark Andrews said.

Andrews declined to specify their conditions Thursday but said all remained hospitalized.

It isn’t clear how fast Patel was driving when his vehicle left the scenic stretch of Highway 1 at roughly 11:00 a.m. Nor is it clear what driving mode Patel was using before the SUV careened off the cliff, the California Highway Patrol said.

"However, that does not appear to be a contributing factor in this incident," the agency said Tuesday.

Flipped several times
In a video from the scene, a fire official involved in the rescue effort, Cal Fire San Mateo Santa Cruz Battalion Chief Brian Pottenger, said the SUV flipped “several” times on its way down. Yu said the SUV appeared to have struck the cliffside as it tumbled toward the ocean.

“Rollover” incidents tend to be far more lethal than front-end or side crashes, Yu said. While the images showed a car that had suffered major damage, Yu said its integrity appeared to have remained intact.

“The occupants still have a survival space,” he said. “That’s remarkable.”

Yu pointed to the SUV’s roof strength and seat belt design. He also said its low center of gravity — the car’s batteries are in its undercarriage — may have helped it land on its wheels instead of its roof.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a nonprofit research and educational organization, has given the Tesla Model Y top safety scores since the SUV was introduced in 2020, a spokesman said.

But the organization’s chief research officer, David Zuby, cautioned that no carmaker prepares for an event like the one on Devils Slide.

“In my 35 years of working on vehicle safety, I’ve never had an automaker say, 'Look at this crash test we’re doing for extra credit,'” he said. “No car you could go buy today is designed to protect the driver when they drive off a cliff like that.”

Their survival, he said, was "mostly luck."

Safety improvements over the years
Still, Zuby said cars have generally become safer in the last three decades. They're built with stronger materials, like high-strength steel and a better-designed "safety cage," or the area that protects a car's occupants.

Those improvements mean people are less likely to die in wrecks than they were in the 1970s and 1980s, Zuby said.

“People are wearing seatbelts more than they were 30 years ago,” he added. “That for sure or likely played a role in those peoples’ survival.”

Whether it was a seat belt, luck or the Model Y's well-built roof, Pottenger said that while rescue workers were developing a recovery plan, through binoculars they noticed someone moving in the SUV's front seat.

"It was very shocking," he told NBC News NOW. "We did not expect that. It really turned my mind into a different avenue, that this is not a recovery this is an active rescue."

Helicopters were dispatched, and the family was hoisted from the vehicle using rescue baskets, he said.

Authorities have not identified a motive in the alleged crime. Patel, who works at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Los Angeles, will be booked into the San Mateo County Jail on attempted murder and child abuse charges after he is released from the hospital, the California Highway Patrol said.

It isn't clear if Patel has a lawyer. In a statement, the hospital said it was "deeply saddened to learn of a traffic incident involving one of our physicians and his family. We are extremely grateful there were no severe injuries."

The hospital declined to comment further.

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Re: Electric Cars II - Not Silly!

#551 Post by OFSO » Mon Jan 09, 2023 11:21 pm

Used Tesla values have begun to freefall with one of its models losing a FIFTH of its value in just 12 months.

Values of the popular electric cars are in a tailspin as experts blame rising electric prices and swathes of new models arriving seriously damaging prices.

The Model 3 is the worst-performing electric car, according to industry used car pricing experts Cap HPI, losing some 23 per cent or £9,900 in the last year alone.

In a table of the worst-depreciating electric cars, Teslas take up three of the top five spots.

The Model S is the second worst performer, losing 22 per cent in the last year.

The Model X has lost 13.4 per cent in the last 12 months.

Cap HPI generated the values of a one-year-old car each month and shared the data with Car Dealer.

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Re: Electric Cars II - Not Silly!

#552 Post by G-CPTN » Tue Jan 10, 2023 1:49 pm


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Re: Electric Cars II - Not Silly!

#553 Post by Fox3WheresMyBanana » Tue Jan 10, 2023 2:17 pm

Let's pick a key point out of that article - no chargers allowed if you don't have off-street parking.
And there's no impetus whatsoever in government to do anything about this, even though the problem has existed since the whole idea of EVs was promoted.
And yet Government is pushing hard for all-electric transport.
Conclusion: Poor people aren't going to be allowed to have cars.

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Re: Electric Cars II - Not Silly!

#554 Post by OFSO » Tue Jan 10, 2023 3:03 pm

Round London - and probably many other cities - so many roads have been made "cyclist friendly" with narrowed streets, bollards closed off, tree and bush planters - plus the emission zone charges (modern version of "stand and deliver") that nobody wants to drive any more. In my twenty years visiting Islington the reduction in cars parked overnight was quite marked. That included Mrs OFSOs car which became more a liability. Nor do we have one now.

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Re: Electric Cars II - Not Silly!

#555 Post by llondel » Tue Jan 10, 2023 4:55 pm

Much of London has good-enough public transport for most things, it can be more cost-effective to not bother with a car and only hire one for the occasional long journey. Many other places do not have that level of public transport and so a car is necessary often enough that it's cheaper to own than hire.

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Re: Electric Cars II - Not Silly!

#556 Post by Woody » Tue Jan 10, 2023 7:46 pm

When I lived in Kennington and worked at Gatport Airwick, I didn’t have a car for several years, just not necessary in London :YMAPPLAUSE:
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Re: Electric Cars II - Not Silly!

#557 Post by G-CPTN » Tue Jan 10, 2023 7:51 pm

When son left Uni to work in London, he refused the offer of a car, claiming that it wasn't necessary.

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Re: Electric Cars II - Not Silly!

#558 Post by Fox3WheresMyBanana » Tue Jan 10, 2023 8:12 pm

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/20 ... er-models/

I too have done without a car in London, and in provincial cities using hire cars where necessary, before 2005.
However, my experience from about 2005 onwards, up to 2017, is that UK public transport is far too unreliable and expensive to do without a car anywhere but London.

As for my current location, there is (as of 9 months ago) a bus twice a day, M-F, which stops before the working day finishes, and it's a two mile walk to the bus stop. If I need to go shopping, it would take 6 hours (instead of the current 30 minutes), and I would have to walk 40% of the way, and I'm only allowed two shopping bags on the bus. In other words, worse than useless. The cheapest used EV is more than half what I paid for my house. The cheapest ICE vehicle is ten times cheaper. The cheapest used EV with AWD/4WD, pretty much essential for my location, is more than I paid for my house.

I'll also take issue with the claim that EVs are cheaper to service. This may be true if all services are done at a main dealer. It isn't at all true if your local mechanic does them. And those services would be a lot cheaper done at home, where it not for the auto companies and the government effectively making it impossible to now do your own home maintenance.

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Re: Electric Cars II - Not Silly!

#559 Post by barkingmad » Tue Jan 10, 2023 8:36 pm

Meanwhile, oop north in the 'sticks', it appears that York council cannot indulge in joined-up thinking, judging by the lack of joined-up wiring after spending all that council taxpayers' dosh;

https://www.aol.co.uk/news/council-t-ch ... 33996.html

And even when they get some centralised charging infrastructure installed, the requirement for the workers to have the vehicles at home for the early starts has thrown a spanner across the battery terminals.

Otherwise more ICE car journeys to get to work thereby cancelling out the warm wet feeling of saving the planet with reduced emissions.

The only advantage is they'll be quiet, but they're not the normal Dennis manufactured wheelie-bin handling vehicles which have to be amongst the noisiest in the World but which operate at anti-social times in the mornings throughout the country. ~X(

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Re: Electric Cars II - Not Silly!

#560 Post by Boac » Thu Jan 12, 2023 10:45 am

One survey found that more than 30% of Tesla owners claimed to have above average penises, while only 12% of their partners agreed.

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