[QUOTE=OvB;45089399]Everything important is accessed through the bottom. You'll need a heavy duty lift for that though.[/QUOTE]
Whereas of now, I can access anything underneath the car with a low profile jack and jack stands. No need for a lift.
The bottom line is that you can't just go wrench on an EV. I can go and turn some nuts and bolts and swap things out in a heartbeat on my car. It's not nearly that easy when lethal currents are involved, or when you need an electrical engineering degree to be able to swap things out.
And it's not just about fixing problems. Do you know how difficult it's going to be to mod these things? I can drop in a supercharger in a weekend and have my car back on the road with a shitload more power. You can't do that with an EV.
I don't dislike EVs. I do believe that they have their place and that there are tons of drivers who would love to own one. But myself as well as many others are not those people.
[QUOTE=Silence I Kill You;45089693]
I don't dislike EVs. I do believe that they have their place and that there are tons of drivers who would love to own one. But myself as well as many others are not those people.[/QUOTE]
This, really. Can't expect all car enthusiasts to want an EV.
Oh yeah, they're now exporting to the UK.
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StXkpKGLFDw[/media]
[QUOTE=Silence I Kill You;45088822]
I didn't know how to do any of these things before I did them. I researched how-to's and guides on the internet and realized that it was nothing more than unbolting and re-bolting parts, and torque values are easily found on the internet. The reason "the average person doesn't know how to fix the engine or transmission" is because they are either too scared to mess something up, too busy to put time aside to do it, or too lazy to do the research and troubleshoot/fix the problem. It doesn't mean that it can't be done by the owner.[/quote]
Totally forgetting the cost of the tools to do all of this. I live in an apartment complex, the fuck would I put a cherry picker?
[QUOTE]
The difference with cars like the tesla is that you can't service it yourself, even if you wanted to. I can't take one of those electric motors out and replace the shaft or magnets in them.[/quote]
Electric motors are entirely serviceable, and there's very little that can go wrong with them in the first place. The very last thing that could possibly go wrong being the magnets, you have to do some seriously stupid shit to fuck up a magnet in a motor. The motors in a Tesla don't even have magnets in them, they're poly-phase induction motors rather than permanent magnet motors, and after a quick search that's confirmed [url=http://www.teslamotors.com/models/specs]here[/url]. Bearings can be replaced, rotors can be replaced (it's just a big piece of copper really), the worse thing that tends to happen to a motor is a winding burning out or shorting, but you'd have to do some stupid shit for that to happen, too.
[quote]You can't service any of it in your driveway. Hell, you have to take the entire body off of the frame to get any kind of real access to anything. So even if you could modify any of that, you would need a way to lift the entire body off of the frame without messing it up.
[/QUOTE]
The body is light-weight and also over-engineered like the rest of the car. I'd be more worried about scratching it.
[editline]13th June 2014[/editline]
[QUOTE=Silence I Kill You;45089693]Whereas of now, I can access anything underneath the car with a low profile jack and jack stands. No need for a lift.
The bottom line is that you can't just go wrench on an EV. I can go and turn some nuts and bolts and swap things out in a heartbeat on my car. It's not nearly that easy when lethal currents are involved, or when you need an electrical engineering degree to be able to swap things out. [/quote]
There are lethal currents in CRTs as well, of which I have disassembled many without any damage, and on air conditioners, the latter of which I work on every day (and even then we're switching to variable-frequency drives not too dissimilar to what you'd find on a Tesla to run our compressors, which step up 230VAC to 400VDC). The key is to be careful, same with any device you service.
These things will be designed to be serviced, meaning parts will be pretty much modular and connected with molex plugs, not too different from anything else electrical you've worked on.
[quote]And it's not just about fixing problems. Do you know how difficult it's going to be to mod these things? I can drop in a supercharger in a weekend and have my car back on the road with a shitload more power. You can't do that with an EV.[/quote]
Give it a year or two and I predict there'll be high-current motors and VFD upgrade kits on the aftermarket.
[quote]I don't dislike EVs. I do believe that they have their place and that there are tons of drivers who would love to own one. But myself as well as many others are not those people.[/QUOTE]
Because you've not bothered to look at the technology as closely as you should.
Plus, there's a LOT more that can go wrong with internal combustion engines anyway, kinda a major downfall to owning one is that there are so many more variables to account for.
My favorite thing about Tesla is the acceleration. It's just instant, no lag. I drove my friends Tesla a couple months ago and the second your foot touched the accelerator it just zipped off in lightning speed.
[QUOTE=mac338;45091186]My favorite thing about Tesla is the acceleration. It's just instant, no lag. I drove my friends Tesla a couple months ago and the second your foot touched the accelerator it just zipped off in lightning speed.[/QUOTE]
I remember telling someone that it went 0-60 in 4.2 seconds.
"That's not very fast."
"...It's a FOUR THOUSAND POUND SEDAN."
"OH. D:"
[QUOTE=Zero-Point;45090468]
Because you've not bothered to look at the technology as closely as you should.[/QUOTE]
Personally, I don't like EVs because of what I like about cars. I don't buy a car just as an appliance to go from A to B. It's why I have a lightweight, nimble MR2 instead of a shitbox Neon or Mazda 3 or something. It's a matter of preference, and EVs are inherently heavier, have no selectable gears, make no engine sound and are full of electronic assists. All of which are the opposite of what I like in a car, it ruins the experience for me, it has nothing to do with the technology. If I had the sort of money to buy a Tesla, I'd just get a Jaguar F-Type instead:
[t]http://lh3.ggpht.com/o3ZYqg5LwW469MmVkF1VykLc5yi2gUhjFtYzCoX3VqRmb53j_EOlXoVvmncyfeaUlD9Exvo24z_jYWfsUE_X4JjFmw=s940[/t]
[QUOTE=Zeke129;45088034] If you puncture the gas tank on your car and expose that to a spark in rapid succession, like what would happen if you hit the same curved piece of metal that the one Tesla hit, do you think you'll get much warning?
[/QUOTE]
While it could be true, realistically that wouldn't have a high risk of actually happening. Petrol needs the correct amount of air to fuel in order to explode. If it doesn't get that, it'll either burn the fumes or it'll do nothing. The criteria inside the gas tank doesn't have the correct fuel to air mixture in order to catch fire, as there simply isn't enough air. It's the same as people who say "shoot a gas tank with a gun and it explodes". No, it'll just leak.
You would also instantly get a warning on the dashboard telling you to pull over, just like in the Teslas. There's a CO2 / O2 sensor inside the gas tank of all modern cars. If it detects too much of either of those, it'll display a CEL. You can test if your car has this feature by removing the gas cap, then turning the key into ignition mode. It should throw a check engine light instantly / near instant.
If it's a diesel car, then a spark most likely wouldn't make it catch on fire anyway, as diesel needs compression to burn / explode or a really high temperature.
Some of the things said in this thread make it seem like Tesla are the first with everything, that is really not true. While Tesla is a great car, some of you here seem to give it a bit [i]too much[/i] credit.
[QUOTE=MR2;45092316]Personally, I don't like EVs because of what I like about cars. I don't buy a car just as an appliance to go from A to B. It's why I have a lightweight, nimble MR2 instead of a shitbox Neon or Mazda 3 or something. It's a matter of preference, and EVs are inherently heavier, have no selectable gears, make no engine sound and are full of electronic assists. All of which are the opposite of what I like in a car, it ruins the experience for me, it has nothing to do with the technology. If I had the sort of money to buy a Tesla, I'd just get a Jaguar F-Type instead:
[t]http://lh3.ggpht.com/o3ZYqg5LwW469MmVkF1VykLc5yi2gUhjFtYzCoX3VqRmb53j_EOlXoVvmncyfeaUlD9Exvo24z_jYWfsUE_X4JjFmw=s940[/t][/QUOTE]
That was according to the reasons you gave in that original post. If you like cars because they go "VROOM VROOM" and are full of little mechanical worky-bits, then more power to you, but to discredit a technology because it lacks those things (and to think that just because it's electric means you can't upgrade/repair anything on it) is asinine.
[QUOTE=Zero-Point;45099007]That was according to the reasons you gave in that original post. If you like cars because they go "VROOM VROOM" and are full of little mechanical worky-bits, then more power to you, but to discredit a technology because it lacks those things (and to think that just because it's electric means you can't upgrade/repair anything on it) is asinine.[/QUOTE]
"Discredit a technology"? I never discredited the technology, I think it's a perfect solution for city cars and much better than shitty Smart cars and all that crap, but I just argue that it's not the second coming of god, unlike what most people on Facepunch seem to believe, and I point out some disadvantages. I'm not trying to talk you out of buying a Model S when you can afford one, nor am I trying to convince you a car is superior to the other because one goes "vroom vroom" and the other goes "whiirrrr". I just find this "if U had moni for a tesla you'd buy something else??? LOLOLO" mentality absolutely cancerous.
To be fair, Tesla charged a 50k software patch to upgrade batteries on the cars that were ordered before they went into production, the people paid for a 60kw battery and ended up with an 80kw battery limited to the range of a 60kw battery. They haven't released any of the software that controls everything on the Tesla which is why the patents are not all that useful since most companies have already developed similar tech or just can't use it without the software.
You guys put too much stock into this, its not really helping the auto industry much
[QUOTE=MR2;45099041]"Discredit a technology"? I never discredited the technology, I think it's a perfect solution for city cars and much better than shitty Smart cars and all that crap, but I just argue that it's not the second coming of god, unlike what most people on Facepunch seem to believe, and I point out some disadvantages. I'm not trying to talk you out of buying a Model S when you can afford one, nor am I trying to convince you a car is superior to the other because one goes "vroom vroom" and the other goes "whiirrrr". I just find this "if U had moni for a tesla you'd buy something else??? LOLOLO" mentality absolutely cancerous.[/QUOTE]
The false claims you made in your original post very much discredited the technology, claiming that they were non-servicable by the average Joe which, when you get down to it, neither are most parts of a modern ICE vehicle aside from changing a belt or gasket every now and then. Making claims about magnets when there are none also discredits the technology used, and shows how little you understand about it. My boss did the same thing with the new "Green Speed" air conditioners that Carrier started to offer, claiming that they were death-traps because of the high-voltage DC stored in capacitors for the inverter-drive when really, they're isolated well enough that they're not a problem and it leads to a more efficient and incredibly quiet system (I've heard fucking refrigerators louder than this damn thing). It's actually kind of sad because the boss that SHOULD have a better understanding of these units according to his position doesn't even understand fully how they work, he only cares because they're expensive, which means more mark-up, which means more money.
Though I do agree that the "if u haev moneez u shud by 1 lololol" mentality is retarded, cars, shoes, or otherwise.
[QUOTE=Zero-Point;45099171]The false claims you made in your original post very much discredited the technology, claiming that they were non-servicable by the average Joe which, when you get down to it, neither are most parts of a modern ICE vehicle[/QUOTE]
If the "average joe" isn't lazy and isn't afraid to poke around an engine, most car issues are very much fixable with the right tools and by ordering parts. What isn't missing on the internet is documentation and places to ask things.
[QUOTE=MR2;45099235]If the "average joe" isn't lazy and isn't afraid to poke around an engine, most car issues are very much fixable with the right tools and by ordering parts. What isn't missing on the internet is documentation and places to ask things.[/QUOTE]
To automatically assume people are lazy because they don't want to risk fucking up their car is a tad presumptuous.
[QUOTE=Zero-Point;45099331]To automatically assume people are lazy because they don't want to risk fucking up their car is a tad presumptuous.[/QUOTE]
Presumptuous or not doesn't matter at all. The point is, the average joe [I]can[/I] service their car in most ways if they are willing to learn and aren't the type to be scared of disassembling things. Same can be said for computers, after all.
You could easily design an electric car that's ment to be modded and tinkered with, but I think the required skill set would be different than cars today. If you're willing to learn basic electrical like people who mess with Ardiuno and the car was intended to be tampered with, you could probably mess with a lot of it.
Model S wasn't intended to be touched except by a trained technician partly because it's extremely dangerous if you tamper with the high voltage components and the skills needed are not yet understood by everyone. I imagine you'll be able to go to AutoZone and buy whatever third party electrical components for your EV sometimes in the future when they become more popular.
[editline]14th June 2014[/editline]
ICE vehicles were extremely basic when they first became readily available to everyone. Fixing them yourself was simple enough for anyone with some skill. The learning curve progressed as cars got more advanced and now we have mechanics and car people that can take apart anything inside a car.
EV's are relatively new to the mass market and they're advanced pieces of hardware from the get go. There's going to be an intimidating learning curve and stigma that you can't mod them.
[QUOTE=OvB;45102761]You could easily design an electric car that's ment to be modded and tinkered with, but I think the required skill set would be different than cars today. If you're willing to learn basic electrical like people who mess with Ardiuno and the car was intended to be tampered with, you could probably mess with a lot of it.
Model S wasn't intended to be touched except by a trained technician partly because it's extremely dangerous if you tamper with the high voltage components and the skills needed are not yet understood by everyone. I imagine you'll be able to go to AutoZone and buy whatever third party electrical components for your EV sometimes in the future when they become more popular.
[editline]14th June 2014[/editline]
ICE vehicles were extremely basic when they first became readily available to everyone. Fixing them yourself was simple enough for anyone with some skill. The learning curve progressed as cars got more advanced and now we have mechanics and car people that can take apart anything inside a car.
EV's are relatively new to the mass market and they're advanced pieces of hardware from the get go. There's going to be an intimidating learning curve and stigma that you can't mod them.[/QUOTE]
The modifications on an EV vehicle will be a [b]lot[/b] more limited than ICE though, killing some of the joy (as it's either all done on a computer with some software or done by extra cooling). The fact that turning up the power of the electric motor would probably melt it or shorten its life a lot / the battery's life, it's simply not an enthusiasts car and I honestly cannot see how it will ever be an enthusiast's car.
[QUOTE=Jackpody;45105467]The modifications on an EV vehicle will be a [b]lot[/b] more limited than ICE though, killing some of the joy (as it's either all done on a computer with some software or done by extra cooling). The fact that turning up the power of the electric motor would probably melt it or shorten its life a lot / the battery's life, it's simply not an enthusiasts car and I honestly cannot see how it will ever be an enthusiast's car.[/QUOTE]
In time, the market will open up to new battery technology, more powerful motors, etc.
[QUOTE=Zero-Point;45099171]The false claims you made in your original post very much discredited the technology, claiming that they were non-servicable by the average Joe which, when you get down to it, neither are most parts of a modern ICE vehicle aside from changing a belt or gasket every now and then. Making claims about magnets when there are none also discredits the technology used, and shows how little you understand about it. My boss did the same thing with the new "Green Speed" air conditioners that Carrier started to offer, claiming that they were death-traps because of the high-voltage DC stored in capacitors for the inverter-drive when really, they're isolated well enough that they're not a problem and it leads to a more efficient and incredibly quiet system (I've heard fucking refrigerators louder than this damn thing). It's actually kind of sad because the boss that SHOULD have a better understanding of these units according to his position doesn't even understand fully how they work, he only cares because they're expensive, which means more mark-up, which means more money.
Though I do agree that the "if u haev moneez u shud by 1 lololol" mentality is retarded, cars, shoes, or otherwise.[/QUOTE]
To be honest, my friend took apart his engine in his Mazda 3 and did a piston swap on his own
it's possible to do quite a lot to your own vehicle just teaching yourself the right things.
I don't think that makes them better by any stretch but it can be done.
Reminds me of how Nikola Tesla let Marconi use his patents to 'invent' the radio even though he was doing it at the same time.
Although Tesla did end up suing when Marconi won a Nobel Prize for what was basically somebody else's work with a few extra bits, so I don't know if that was a good example :v:
[QUOTE=Jamsponge;45105790]Reminds me of how Nikola Tesla let Marconi use his patents to 'invent' the radio even though he was doing it at the same time.
Although Tesla did end up suing when Marconi won a Nobel Prize for what was basically somebody else's work with a few extra bits, so I don't know if that was a good example :v:[/QUOTE]
I don't know if he actually sued him, or just called him out on it. As I recall his response was basically just "Good on him, he did so by using 17 of my patents".
[editline]14th June 2014[/editline]
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;45105753]To be honest, my friend took apart his engine in his Mazda 3 and did a piston swap on his own
it's possible to do quite a lot to your own vehicle just teaching yourself the right things.
I don't think that makes them better by any stretch but it can be done.[/QUOTE]
I have a friend who does the same shit, being able to do so doesn't make it better or worse than an EV. I understand that it's an entirely personal thing to prefer ICE because you like to tinker with shit but down-playing the advancement in EVs because they lack such a feature is kinda lame, especially when you make false claims about it. Had he said "Oh, look, I can change the rotor and shaft aaaaand that's about it, boooring!" he would've had a valid point, rather than complaining about not being able to replace magnets in a motor that doesn't even use them. Making uneducated assumptions about something you don't like doesn't garner you much support for not liking it.
[QUOTE=Zero-Point;45105923]I don't know if he actually sued him, or just called him out on it. As I recall his response was basically just "Good on him, he did so by using 17 of my patents".
[editline]14th June 2014[/editline]
I have a friend who does the same shit, being able to do so doesn't make it better or worse than an EV. I understand that it's an entirely personal thing to prefer ICE because you like to tinker with shit but down-playing the advancement in EVs because they lack such a feature is kinda lame, especially when you make false claims about it. Had he said "Oh, look, I can change the rotor and shaft aaaaand that's about it, boooring!" he would've had a valid point, rather than complaining about not being able to replace magnets in a motor that doesn't even use them. Making uneducated assumptions about something you don't like doesn't garner you much support for not liking it.[/QUOTE]
I didn't use the word "magnets" seriously, if that even makes sense to you :v:
[QUOTE=MR2;45106081]I didn't use the word "magnets" seriously, if that even makes sense to you :v:[/QUOTE]
Then why use it at all when you're trying to make a point about maintenance?
[QUOTE=Zero-Point;45106126]Then why use it at all when you're trying to make a point about maintenance?[/QUOTE]
Maintenance? Oh, you're talking about this post? Not mine:
[QUOTE=Silence I Kill You;45088822]
The difference with cars like the tesla is that you can't service it yourself, even if you wanted to. I can't take one of those electric motors out and replace the shaft or magnets in them. [/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=MR2;45106186]Maintenance? Oh, you're talking about this post? Not mine:[/QUOTE]
Yeah. When you send electricity through copper that's wound around steel, what does it become? It becomes a magnet. But apparently they don't understand that and keep saying "there are no magnets in the motor!"
They just got my post confused with yours.
[QUOTE=Silence I Kill You;45106314]Yeah. When you send electricity through copper that's wound around steel, what does it become? It becomes a magnet. But apparently they don't understand that and keep saying "there are no magnets in the motor!"
They just got my post confused with yours.[/QUOTE]
It's an electromagnet. It's only a magnet when current is passing through it. Permanent magnets (what everyone thinks of if you say "magnet") are magnets 24/7.
[QUOTE=MR2;45106186]Maintenance? Oh, you're talking about this post? Not mine:[/QUOTE]
My bad.
[editline]15th June 2014[/editline]
[QUOTE=Silence I Kill You;45106314]Yeah. When you send electricity through copper that's wound around steel, what does it become? It becomes a magnet. But apparently they don't understand that and keep saying "there are no magnets in the motor!"
They just got my post confused with yours.[/QUOTE]
It's not called a magnet in an induction motor, it's called a coil/pole. The coils are on the outside (the stator) and the poles are on the rotor.
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