Hopefully charging technology will have moved on by 2035 plug in to charge cars will be history. A couple of small solar panels on the roof or bonnet hey presto !
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Now that is something that wont happen in your lifetime. Nothing wrong with charging, yes improvements will follow but it is far more common for the over estimation of needs especially by males.
Sadly not
Insolation at the equator is 6kW/m2 - OK if you had a 100% efficient solar panel the roughly 1m2 area of most car roofs would give you enough power to recharge in ~12 hours depending on battery capacity, and as we’ve pointed out most people don’t drive far enough to deplete their battery once a day.
However 100% efficient panels are not possible - current best is just under 25%, and if we move to France the sun is not directly overhead so the panel would not be at the optimum angle and insolation is less, especially on a cloudy day.
As with the ‘weedkiller’ thread I’ve just commented on, our psychology is the biggest factor here. Our lifestyles and expectations have developed in the fossil fuel era. It’s no good thinking that there will be a technological fix that will completely reproduce those things. Every new technology brings with it changes in our behaviour. My guess is that however the infrastructure develops, electric cars will always demand more planning, and a more laid back approach to longer journeys - leisurely breaks, etc. No bad thing.
Now I’m being optimistic here… They said man would never walk on the moon, and computers at first were whole buildings now we all have more computing power on a smart phone.
In this case it’s just laws of physics. Far more ideal would be induction charging, but that’s not readily practical right now.
Not true, its being rolled out in quite a few placed and set to take off because of the lack of cable requirement.
In the UK?
Slowly yes but others like Norway are well ahead.
More “why I won’t buy a Tesla”.
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A software fix that doesnt fix a hardware issue. Remove Tesla and insert any company you like in the dieselgate case.
It wasn’t so much that - as you say software fixes for hardware problems are fairly common.
It was more the controlling/opaque attitude.
They’d be more honest if they just rented the cars to people.
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Yes its a very Apple/USA way of doing business and not one I particularly like. I feel in some ways that Tesla have to maintain various controls over the huge amount of tech installed. Where that line falls sensibly is up for debate. Certainly the model Y with the new batteries sets another benchmark, with only a stated battery capacity of 50kw it achieves around 280miles which is incredible again. That cuts the costs of a car dramatically in theory as well as the huge “castings” to make the battery pack structural means other manufacturers are years behind. Lets face it in a new tech environment someone has to be the bad boy, even though they are the ones pushing the envelope the whole time.
B737 Max same thing. 2 plane crashes so far (or is it 3). Apparently Boeing say it’s been repaired with a software fix.
Gulp!
2 attributed to MCAS
It was partly a software problem though, so a software fix is not unreasonable.
The boeing situation is interesting, with an airframe ‘deliberately’ made unsafe by retrofitting usuitable engines to a design already registered (so not requiring re-certification) and then trying to make it safe in software but without adequate hardware to inform the software what’s really going on with the flight. Additional hardware that would have reduced likelihood of a crash through software misunderstanding the situation was a very expensive ‘extra’, as was properly training pilots qualified to fly the old registered design who were not familiar with the modified aircraft. It would not be a surprise to find that the software was originally designed to acquire data from additional hardware that wasn’t fitted because it would reduce profits.
From all I’ve read, people died because money was saved and corners were cut.
Could it happen with cars? Considering how tightly regulated aircraft safety is, this still got through. Now consider the deaths due to supposed inapporpriate use of the Tesla ‘autopilot’ feature.
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Having looked at the Tesla autopilot information 1 crash I remember was on a bend in a road that autopilot seemed to loose its lock on position. Many many more are due to drivers doing things they shouldnt like driving from the rear seat etc. Also as the instructions say autopilot is an aid and drivers should be prepared to take over at any given moment. Hopefully the pilots are doing more sensible things.
After saying we’ll wait we looked at this years grant if you give up your old diesel and it has changed slightly so the car doesn’t have to have a CT anymore. Our old multpla has been sat waiting repair, after failing it’s CT, and we’ve looked and we can get a Zoe for around 7-8000 and get a grant of 5000. With my commute we would save that money in a year on current feul prices so will be seriously looking at it 
This looks good?
