" Parking was almost as much as the apartment rent". @jtsanders–My university sent me to conferences in Chicago where parking the car overnight cost as much as my hotel room. The institution provided the car and paid the expenses, but if there had been decent public transportation, I would have preferred to have gone that way. At one time, I could catch a train very early in the morning and be down on the loop by noon. On the reverse trip, I could leave about 6:00 p.m. and be home by about 11:30. Unfortunately. Amtrak abandoned that route, and the overall cost for the trip to Chicago is much greater.
However, I’ve never found driving in Chicago difficult. I try to plan the trip so I am not entering or leaving the city at rush hour time. I think that the most difficult time I had was a trip we made in a 15 passenger Ford van. The hotel had a parking lot and there was one place left. The parking place was so narrow that after I parked the van, I couldn’t exit through either the left or right door, so I crawled over the seats and went out the back. The motorists on either side had parked over the line.
I live in NJ, and my contact with gas station attendants is probably no more extensive than what people experience in other states.
We don’t even have gas station attendants. Most places have just ONE person working at the store…and there’s no way they can pump your gas. You say you pump your own gas…fine…but you DO HAVE gas station attendants. NJ is the ONLY state I know of that even has gas station attendants any more. If you look hard enough in NH you might be able to find one or two in some rural town someplace.
I thought Oregon also required gas station attendants to pump your gas, unless that’s changed lately.
In Texas, the traditional gas station has become as rare as the traditional barber shop. It’s all convenience stores with gas pumps now and you have to pay for air.
The farm store in our town has full service gas. I go there for kerosene not gas. Its really a waste though because you just sit and wait and do nothing while gas is put in. Most places now are 24 hour with a debit card and you never need to talk to anyone, night or day.
In 1998, I bought a Saturn with the hope it would be my last fossil fuel powered car. Clearly, I was far too optimisitic, but Tesla is making real progress. Learning how to manufacture in a factory is an art that takes time to learn. I have high hopes for Tesla. I want my next car to be fully electric, but the short range Nissan Leaf won’t cut it. I want 250 miles of range and Tesla looks like they are doing it. I admire their determination and forthright response to adversity in a good cause.
One car is not research. So, I’ll add car 2 and car 3 to get us started. I drove a Tesla Roadster for three years, 27,000 miles and never had a drive train problem of any kind. I have now driven a Model S for more than a year, 16,000 mile with no problems of any kind. Nor have I seen any reduction in battery power or efficiency with either car. While it is only anecdotal experience, I know several other Tesla owners, and know of none who have had the problems Edwards had. I’d love to know how they are treating that car.
I have said this before and will say it again"you can make anything fail,if you try to" I’ve worked with people who would deliberatly try to tear up something,because they didnt like the make-Kevin
webbie, I hope you stay on this forum. there is great interest in the tesla here.
there are both naysayers and cheerleaders, but I think the majority are curious and would like you to keep us informed of your experience with the tesla
I agree. My wife is a candidate for an electric car, and the new Model X is her type of car. At $70,000, even the $10,000 tax credits don’t make it affordable. But over 10 years, fuel savings is $20,000 according to the EPA/DoE. That might make it affordable, especially if we kept it 15 years so that fuel savings would be $30,000. Based on 15,000 miles each year and $0.12/kWh and about $3.70/gal in a Traverse.
Battery replacement would occur on an as needed basis.by replacing the specific cells that are spent. This has been shown to be a lot less expensive than replacing the entire battery pack. The cells are made by Panasonic and should be available to the public.
I guess I would be interested in the actual cost per mile cradle to grave. I think the impression is that you pay $70k and the rest is free. Trading a car with 26k on it is highly unusual so 70k minus the trade value plus repairs and power cost divided by the mileage would be interesting. Plus what would be a comparable ice vehicle? A corvette or something more or less to put it in perspective?
@wesw - pretty sure they don’t just swap in a few cells. The pack is sealed, no simple matter to open it up. Like @kmccune said, a major use for these lithium packs once they’re not good enough for cars is off grid storage. Or going into Tesla’s battery recycling system, if you google Tesla battery recycling you’ll get 20+ Tesla links about it. They sure are good at workin’ da Google…
I think cell replace ment is possible. don t know how a tesla works in that regard. I ve forgotten where I read about replacing cells or certain banks of cells, as another poster mentioned.
With the cost of the Tesla being out of reach for most of us…I don’t think the battery replacement cost is really much of a problem for the people buying them.
If and when the price of the Tesla drops to a price the masses can afford then I think the battery replacement cost could be a deciding factor to determine if you want to buy one. But hopefully if the cost to buy a Tesla goes down then hopefully the battery replacement cost will also drop.
Tesla is gambling a lot on the new battery plant. They estimate the cost of the Tesla could drop about 30% by building the batteries at the new modern hi-tech plant here in the US. We’ll see.