Recent content by Rashomon

Hmmm. The angular design has something to do with it. The Cybertruck was designed to look cool first, but with some thought applied to typical pickup aero problems (the tonneau cover eliminates the huge vortex behind the cabin and drag from the tailgate that exists for most pickups). And they...

I’m Prices are up on the website: $79900 for 2-motor awd, $99000 for tri-motor beast mode.

Oh, where to begin . . . if you have space to increase section, low-density materials generally make for better structures than high-density materials, particularly if specific strength is roughly equal -- which it generally is for common engineering metals. So magnesium>aluminum>titanium>steel...

MK Every vehicle company I've worked for or visited (many) buys competitive vehicles for benchmarking, both performance (acceleration, range, NVH etc.) and in construction details. I'd be shocked if Tesla didn't have at least a small fleet of appropriate competitive vehicles, and a small group...

I was wrong: It only has a 4.8 percent improvement in CD, from 0.23 to 0.219. Overall, though, they’re claiming a 12 percent efficiency improvement. Better tires, too, and driveline efficiency improvements. Tesla is apparently splitting the difference: slightly smaller packs AND improved range.

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) requires a serial hybrid to have more range on battery than on gas to qualify as a ZEV, thus the tiny gas tank. I was considering buying an i3 REx before the M3 came out, but for my driving (frequent 400 mile trips) the small fuel tank killed the idea...

I agree if the Shanghai Highland Production start tweet is right we should see an announcement within a month. Photos without disguise will leak sooner. As well as economy of production through large cast structures, Highland might see a further aero optimization, eking out perhaps a 5 percent...

Tesla has never had motor disconnect in any of their autos, only the Semi. Instead, in the early cars they used induction motors both front and rear, which, when unpowered, have essentially no cogging losses like PMAC motors do. But PMAC (permanent magnet) motors are generally much more...

Laminated side windows "acoustic glass" have become common in European luxury cars, particularly German ones, for noise reduction reasons. See Use of PVB in Laminated Side Glass for Passenger Vehicle Interior Noise Reduction. The abstract notes an almost 3dB noise reduction from the laminated...

Porsche is pursuing an interesting path of manufacturing their own highly energy dense cells, probably at costs higher than open-market automotive cells. They're really going to push for longer range and/or lighter weight for their vehicles compared to mass market car companies, thus justifying...

It's possible to calculate approximately how fast your were going. Were you averaging about 170-180 km/h? Just imagine how fast a Plaid range drops at 250 km/h . . .

The two places where really large batteries are needed are the American West, with lots of lonely long range trips (I'm thinking of a memorable ride from Ely, Nevada to Newport Beach, CA, where I didn't see but 3 or 4 other vehicles in the first 4 hours) and Germany. The autobahn allows speeds...

Those side structures are stamped and welded sheet metal, not castings. Castings, forgings, and stampings are not the same thing, completely different manufacturing processes.

I've argued this thesis for the last 5 years: electrification and autonomy will most effect bus transit, pushing buses to smaller sizes, more frequency, and more use. There are a lot of hurdles for this happen, not the least being the mostly highly unionized and bureaucratic public bus...