Another Model S feature wishlist

[eledille]

Well, Norwegians usually are, particularly in January

No wonder EVs are popular here, from December through April everyone has to plug in their cars to power the engine block heater anyway...

But seriously, having a heater that does not drain the battery really is necessary. When we visited my wife's parents this christmas, the temperature was about -20 to -25 deg C (-4 to -13 F) and the trip took almost 8 hours due to poor visibility and icy roads. The distance is 430 km (255 miles).

A colleague of mine drove the same route the day after we did, he got stuck for two hours waiting for the road to be cleared. This is commonplace.

An ordinary electric heater like the Roadster has would have burnt off at least 24 kWh shortening the range of the 300 mile battery by 30%. A heat pump would have cut the range reduction to less than 10%, and a diesel heater would not have affected range at all.

Heated steering wheel etc is not really necessary, of course, but after three months you do get rather tired of driving with mittens on. The -25 degrees we had isn't even very cold, many places inland get -40 every winter. I expect the Canadians, Swedes, Finns and Russians will feel the same way.

 

[trevorlsciact]

Well, Norwegians usually are, particularly in January

No wonder EVs are popular here, from December through April everyone has to plug in their cars to power the engine block heater anyway...

But seriously, having a heater that does not drain the battery really is necessary. When we visited my wife's parents this christmas, the temperature was about -20 to -25 deg C (-4 to -13 F) and the trip took almost 8 hours due to poor visibility and icy roads. The distance is 430 km (255 miles).

A colleague of mine drove the same route the day after we did, he got stuck for two hours waiting for the road to be cleared. This is commonplace.

An ordinary electric heater like the Roadster has would have burnt off at least 24 kWh shortening the range of the 300 mile battery by 30%. A heat pump would have cut the range reduction to less than 10%, and a diesel heater would not have affected range at all.

Heated steering wheel etc is not really necessary, of course, but after three months you do get rather tired of driving with mittens on. The -25 degrees we had isn't even very cold, many places inland get -40 every winter. I expect the Canadians, Swedes, Finns and Russians will feel the same way.

oh my god, there goes any fleeting thought i may have had about moving to norway :frown:

 

[eledille]

trevorlsciact: :biggrin:

The main problem is that you have to cross the mountains to get from east to west or vice versa. Oslo is in the east, Bergen, Stavanger and Haugesund are in the west. And almost everyone has relatives on the other side. Above the tree line during winter you will often have to wait for a snow removal crew to arrive at your side of the mountain crossing, then a few cars cars will follow directly behind them to the other side. In high winds, they sometimes give up and simply close the road. That is unusual, though.

In the Oslo area we usually only get -15 to -18 for a week or so, but this year we've had around -20 for weeks on end. The recorded minimum on our thermometer is now -24.1. But the farther from the sea, the colder it gets. A video from Folldal folldal - Google Maps showing how a cup of boiling water tossed into the air instantly turns to snow in -40 degrees C: Her blir kokende vann til snø! - nyheter - Dagbladet.no

 

[Lush1]

How about a 25-75 mile aux battery that could be plugged into a port in the trunk/hood/bonnet...whatever. Like a reserve tank for when you need to go a little further. Make it portable so it could be taken inside the house, hotel room, office, etc and charged privately. Let's face it, it's not always going to be possible to run an extension cord to the car anywhere you are. Small aux batteries to extend the range would sell like hotcakes. Better yet, offer a rental option for these aux batteries. Make them user installable. Make it possible to cascade 2-4. It beats carrying around a Honda generator and you know it's gonna happen. Please don't let it. Give us ways to go 260 miles to Grandma's house with our 230 mile battery.

 

[Iz]

How about a 25-75 mile aux battery that could be plugged into a port

Sounds like a great feature. One issue will be aux battery weight. Considering Leaf’s 100 mile range battery weighs ~ 500 lbs, a 25 mile range (5 kWh) battery would be ~ 125 lbs.

If the aux battery were the size of a standard 12-volt car battery or a very large laptop/cell phone battery with 25 mile range (5 kWh), it would go a long way to reducing range anxiety. Model S will have a lot of storage areas and an aux battery this size would be perfect.

 

[PopSmith]

Something I would really like to see as standard on the Model S is adaptive cruise control were the car will keep pace, including slowing down to a certain extent, with the car in front of you when cruise control is active.

It seems to me that most people slow down and speed up constantly with an average rate of speed of (usually) the speed limit.

This gets annoying when I'm using my cruise control only to have the person in front of me constantly pulling away and then slowing down, which usually results in having to brake, re-accelerate and re-engage the cruise control which almost entirely defeats it's purpose. Having adaptive cruise control is near the top of my "wants" list for the Model S.

 

[vfx]

Having adaptive cruise control is near the top of my "wants" list for the Model S.

In my top three as well!

 

[mnx]

Hud

I searched for HUD but came up with nothing, so sorry if it's already been suggested. It'd be great to have a heads up display. Got to see it in action in friends BMW x6m on the weekend, very cool.

Count me in for adaptive cruise control as well. Never had it in a car before, but it sounds great.

- mnx

 

[Kevin Harney]

I have Adaptive Cruise Control in my current BMW and it is the best thing EVER !!! Use it all the time. :biggrin:

 

[Lush1]

Sounds like a great feature. One issue will be aux battery weight. Considering Leaf’s 100 mile range battery weighs ~ 500 lbs, a 25 mile range (5 kWh) battery would be ~ 125 lbs.

Thanks IZ. That sounds about right. If they could make 20-25 mile batteries and get them under 100lbs apiece and provide ports under the hood to dock a pair of them I think that would be pretty cool. Kind of like a gas can for an ICE vehicle but without the danger of explosion. I don't know about cooling issues or power to weight considerations because I'm not an engineer. I just like the idea. People much smarter than me will have to figure out if it's possible.

 

[doug]

I have Adaptive Cruise Control in my current BMW and it is the best thing EVER !!! Use it all the time. :biggrin:

All further comments on Adaptive Cruise Control should go here: http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/cars-transportation/4005-adaptive-cruise-control.html

 

[Tom]

I would love it if the Tesla Model S, its controlling computer that is, had a scripting language with which we could code programs to communicate with the car. Expert programmers should have low level access to the car's input/output data. For example I would like to have functions that would return wheel RPM, acceleration vector, front wheels angle, accelerator pedal position, etc. Whenever possible the functions should be get/set type. Imagine being able to do something like this (it's just pseudocode):
blrpm = WheelRPM(BACKLEFT)
brrpm = WheelRPM(BACKRIGHT)
maxrpm = max(blrpm,brrpm)
if (blrpm != brrpm)
{
WheelRPM(BACKBOTH) = maxrpm
}

With the eventual possibility of independently controlled four wheel drive and four wheel steering, you could, if you have the knowhow, program the car to improve performance in snow... or do some crazy drifting.

 

[gg_got_a_tesla]

I would love it if the Tesla Model S, its controlling computer that is, had a scripting language with which we could code programs to communicate with the car. Expert programmers should have low level access to the car's input/output data. For example I would like to have functions that would return wheel RPM, acceleration vector, front wheels angle, accelerator pedal position, etc. Whenever possible the functions should be get/set type. Imagine being able to do something like this (it's just pseudocode):
blrpm = WheelRPM(BACKLEFT)
brrpm = WheelRPM(BACKRIGHT)
maxrpm = max(blrpm,brrpm)
if (blrpm != brrpm)
{
WheelRPM(BACKBOTH) = maxrpm
}

With the eventual possibility of independently controlled four wheel drive and four wheel steering, you could, if you have the knowhow, program the car to improve performance in snow... or do some crazy drifting.

One word, Tom: Liability! We've seen how Toyota might have gotten it wrong with their throttle system. Making it programmable by the end-user is a serious no-no

 

[eledille]

The idea of auxiliary batteries that can be added and removed is a good one, but there are a few problems.

You can't just connect a big and a small battery together and run the car off both of them at the same time. That doesn't work. So one would either have to choose which battery to use or the aux battery needs some advanced power electronics to charge the main battery from the aux battery while running the motor off the main battery.

The auxiliary battery would not be able to deliver anywhere near the power of the main battery, so the car would have to go into a crawl mode if running directly off the aux battery.

Charging the main battery from the smaller one would be possible, but probably too expensive.

Besides, I think a generator would be a much better range-anxiety killer - a fuel cell or sterling engine/generator would be a much better range extender than heavy, expensive auxiliary batteries.

 

[dsm363]

What about a Bloom Box?:smile:

 

[tdelta1000]

Question, now that Tesla has its factory and we were sourced to finalize the wishlist what key items should make the final cut list to make this car ready for the late 2011 production run?

 

[Albern]

Question, now that Tesla has its factory and we were sourced to finalize the wishlist what key items should make the final cut list to make this car ready for the late 2011 production run?

Sorry for asking but what is the background story on the bold part? Did I miss something on that? We as in TMC or some other group?

 

[AnOutsider]

Sorry for asking but what is the background story on the bold part? Did I miss something on that? We as in TMC or some other group?

I'd like to know the same... lot of odd posts tonight tdelta... you sipping on something? :biggrin:

 

[dsm363]

Maybe he meant to type "forced to finalize the wishlist"?

 

[tdelta1000]

LOL!!! No fellas not sipping on anything. Be it that I consider TMC as the foremost expert on the TM product line outside of TM, I thought it would be to use a little wishful thinking.

It would be nice and an honor to have the very company that we are following take our feedback to steer the direction of their offering because VW did it a few times on the VWVortex forum.