Recent content by CroDriver

The real answer is... It depends :) An intelligent torque/power distribution strategy can improve efficiency. A "dumb" system will consume more energy. Here's an example simulation showcasing the power consumption at constant speed with varying front/rear distribution:

This won't work with bypassing the battery-pack. The ICE won't be able to supply the power when the inverter demands is. I.e. the ramping-up and ramping-down of the range-ex is too slow for the electric powertrain. You need some kind of buffer in between.

Make (weld) a jig across the full length of the chassis, fix it to the chassis at structural points, replace battery. The chassis should be repairable if it is still in-line, bit it will be quite some work. I flipped over three times in my Opel Speedster (Lotus chassis), repaired the chassis...

No - a BMS treats a string of any number of paralleled cells as one cell. The Roadster has 99 cells in series which means that the BMS monitors 99 individual voltages, no matter how many cells are in parallel.

Don't worry, the electronics won't be damaged. Like most electric cars, the Tesla S has (very likely) an isolation monitoring device which checks the resistance between the HV-system and chassis/LV-system. The resistance has dropped due to moisture in the system so the vehicle's control unit...

I don't agree with you. Look at Fiat - they're loosing 10k on each electric 500 they sell. Everyone in the industry knows that BMW will loose billions with the i sub-brand --> it is just a huge marketing bubble. Audi canceled most of their EV projects. The list goes on... Tesla manages to make...

Yeah, kind of... We're actually self-sustaining by offering engineering, components and prototyping for the industry. But investors are always welcome. :) As you can imagine probably - we don't share much publicly. PM sent. Sorry for hijacking the thread.

Image how frustrating it is for me to learn how much support from the government some companies received while we had absolutely zero support. I had to develop most of the car and build the company with the budget some companies had for designing their web-site. Not to mention that we had to...

Thanks :) Billion? Not even one percent... Trust me, it where very hard 5 years for me.

Hmm... I'll rather not say which budget I had to build a company and car from scratch. :)

Everyone tries to keep the wires between the inverter and motor as short and shielded as possible. So the inverter will always be very close (if not in the same housing) to the motor.

Here in Croatia a very basic BMW 520i with no extra options costs 50.800 € ($65.000) and people still buy a lot of them. The average monthly net salary is less than $1.000. I don't think that a $7.500 price increase would have a big impact on the Model S sales. In Europe people will be willing...

This is not great news, but look at it from the other side: I had a BMW M6 and it overheated too after a few laps of track driving. An "Oil temperature too high, please slow down" message would pop-up on the screen.

Of course, I thought I don't have to mention that :) But I look at RA more as a supercar company than an EV company. For now anyways...

Remember the Internet bubble? Well, now the EV bubble is about to blow... Too many have done it wrong - created artificial demand with tons of government money. Now look at all those companies and how many of them have already bankrupted (car manufacturers, suppliers...). In my opinion, Tesla...