Before They Knew Tesla Wasn't Going To Pay For Advertising

[whitex]

If not for Model T we could have our EV age a century sooner. There were more electric cars than steam or gasoline cars in the beginning of last century. They were popular for the same reasons we like them today, which is they are cleaner and perform better than other types of vehicles. For whatever reasons, including conspiration theory that oil cartel was behind it, Ford decided to make Model T to run on gasoline only. In that sense you might be right that if there was no Model T there would not be Tesla today. And that's all good. Actually really really good.

At the time of Model T, battery technology combined with muddy country roads would have provided you with a range of 10 miles maybe? The state of electrical grids would have meant hours to charging from the screw in light bulb adapter to get that 10 miles of range. No big conspiracy people found cars with longer range more practical. Nobody would be building a highway system for cars with 10 mile range.

 

[whitex]

It seems you instead like the idea of making maters worse (for selfish gain) with no care for the future.

You got that from me saying that the Model T was more important, or had a bigger positive impact for humans than the Roadster (or Model S/X/3)? What selfish thing an I gaining with this?

 

[CarlK]

At the time of Model T, battery technology combined with muddy country roads would have provided you with a range of 10 miles maybe? The state of electrical grids would have meant hours to charging from the screw in light bulb adapter to get that 10 miles of range. No big conspiracy people found cars with longer range more practical.

That's entirely not true. Detroit Electric made electric cars using Edison nickle iron battery and can run 100 miles between charges. Thousands of its cars were sold including one to Henry Ford's wife who refused to drive the Model T because it's dirty and rough running. People were installing charging grids to charge their cars, again just like what we are doing today. It's gasoline cars that were inconvenient to refuel. People needed to get gasoline delivered in cans from stores many miles away. It's very unfortunate that people put focus on and invested in ICE and oil exploration that got us into this big mess we have today.

Nobody would be building a highway system for cars with 10 mile range.

It's 100 miles not 10 miles. Even if it's 10 miles and they did not build highways they would have built high speed railway systems, or even hyperloops and tunnels, much sooner. That would be even better than highway systems.

 

[hacer]

You got that from me saying that the Model T was more important, or had a bigger positive impact for humans than the Roadster (or Model S/X/3)? What selfish thing an I gaining with this?

No, it comes from your saying:

humans affect Earth's environment, so we should just remove all humans from the planet and have a pristine human free Earth

Which implies an attitude that since there will be some effects, we might as well ignore all effects. Presumably that is your attitude, given that was the silly straw-man that you tried to pin on me.

 

[brianman]

That title belongs to the "Model T", and no the "T" does not stand for Tesla.

Depending on how long you consider a lifetime, the Model T is from a former lifetime not a current one.

My point being that the title could belong to both the Model T and the Model S.

 

[brianman]

The quote was "most important car America has made in an entire lifetime." which refers to America's lifetime, presumably United States of America but even if you assume "America" refers to the continent, either span more than 110 years.

While that one's interpretation, it's a bit of a silly one. For German makes, there have already been a few "country lifetimes" in my human lifetime already.

 

[brianman]

If it wasn't for the Model T, we wouldn't have had an automobile industry, or a public road system, or Tesla.

I'm pretty sure that's incorrect, but we'll never prove it without a time machine.

Many of the inventions of history were arguably inevitable, with arrival time being the variable.

 

[whitex]

Humans have been around for about 2 million years, but:
View attachment 354729
The dramatic planetary scale destruction didn't start until about the time of the model T.

Correlation does not equal causation. Maybe it was simply more humans on Earth? We know each human breathes out CO2, so more humans means more CO2. Notice that human population exploded around the time of Model T too.

 

[whitex]

People were installing charging grids to charge their cars, again just like what we are doing today. It's gasoline cars that were inconvenient to refuel. People needed to get gasoline delivered in cans from stores many miles away. It's very unfortunate that people put focus on and invested in ICE and oil exploration that got us into this big mess we have today.

Had EV's taken off, we would have burned a lot more coal to produce all the required electricity. Renewables were not priority back in 1908.

 

[whitex]

Which implies an attitude that since there will be some effects, we might as well ignore all effects. Presumably that is your attitude, given that was the silly straw-man that you tried to pin on me.

I presumed that was your attitude, since number of people in the world correlated even more closely to your CO2 emissions than number of cars. You could even argue that had there been less people, there would been less customers for cars and goods transported by cars, do it all boils down to number of people. No people, no cars, no CO2 emissions explosion.

Anywho, it all started with the claim that Roadster was a more important product that the Model T. You know what, I will concede. Importance is always relative, so the question is always "important to whom". I can clearly see to you, Tesla is the most important human automotive achievement. I don't think so, but we can agree to disagree.

Full disclosure, I like Teslas. I bought 4 of them to date. I like what Elon has done to introduce an EV by producing an actually desirable car, because people buy what they desire and very few people are willing to pay just because the car pollutes less. To me Teslas are desirable because they drive amazing, and because they pollute less, but in that order. I've been a big fan of Tesla since Roadster days, but sadly at this point in time I am rather turned off by their lack of planning for service and parts, and their software development methodology (how they sell vaporware they never deliver, how they don't test thoroughly, and how they screw old hardware customers with software optimized for new cars). Our next cars will most likely be VW's (thinking Audi Etron for my wife and Porsche Taycan for me). Heck, the service is so overloaded right now and parts even worse, if my Tesla was to get totaled right now I would probably buy an ICE to hold me over, since every single new Tesla we has always required service to fix things, and with current flood of Model 3's the backlog is a month+ to get an appointment.

 

[Eevee]

The images used in that article look like my car

 

[SDRick]

The quote was "most important car America has made in an entire lifetime." which refers to America's lifetime, presumably United States of America but even if you assume "America" refers to the continent, either span more than 110 years.

I disagree. The quote was not referring to America's lifetime. If it was, it would have siad "the most important car in America's history"',

 

[⚡️ELECTROMAN⚡️]

I presumed that was your attitude, since number of people in the world correlated even more closely to your CO2 emissions than number of cars. You could even argue that had there been less people, there would been less customers for cars and goods transported by cars, do it all boils down to number of people. No people, no cars, no CO2 emissions explosion.

Anywho, it all started with the claim that Roadster was a more important product that the Model T. You know what, I will concede. Importance is always relative, so the question is always "important to whom". I can clearly see to you, Tesla is the most important human automotive achievement. I don't think so, but we can agree to disagree.

Full disclosure, I like Teslas. I bought 4 of them to date. I like what Elon has done to introduce an EV by producing an actually desirable car, because people buy what they desire and very few people are willing to pay just because the car pollutes less. To me Teslas are desirable because they drive amazing, and because they pollute less, but in that order. I've been a big fan of Tesla since Roadster days, but sadly at this point in time I am rather turned off by their lack of planning for service and parts, and their software development methodology (how they sell vaporware they never deliver, how they don't test thoroughly, and how they screw old hardware customers with software optimized for new cars). Our next cars will most likely be VW's (thinking Audi Etron for my wife and Porsche Taycan for me). Heck, the service is so overloaded right now and parts even worse, if my Tesla was to get totaled right now I would probably buy an ICE to hold me over, since every single new Tesla we has always required service to fix things, and with current flood of Model 3's the backlog is a month+ to get an appointment.

Is Version 9 really that bad? I haven’t seen a compelling reason to upgrade to it yet.

I was thinking even if my Tesla just had old analogue style gauges I would still love driving it. I definitely didn’t buy it for the touchscreen. But I know what you mean, I’m not happy about them removing functionality. Hopefully they get their *sugar* together.

 

[henderrj]

I disagree. The quote was not referring to America's lifetime. If it was, it would have siad "the most important car in America's history"',

el·lip·sis
/əˈlipsis/
noun

1. the omission from speech or writing of a word or words that are superfluous or able to be understood from contextual clues.

Writing, gentlemen, is an art form. Sometimes a little mystery is good!

And, you can't change history. Let's start from where we are, please!

 

[whitex]

I disagree. The quote was not referring to America's lifetime. If it was, it would have siad "the most important car in America's history"',

By the same logic if it was referring to a human lifespan it would have said "the most important car in an average humans lifetime" or even something less precise like "the most important car in current generation of humans". But it didn't, it did not explicitly attribute "lifetime", hence the presumption from context that its America.

 

[SDRick]

By the same logic if it was referring to a human lifespan it would have said "the most important car in an average humans lifetime"

Perhaps you are an attorney? I guess one can argue about anything. I would be surprised if someone writes an article and says, as you say, "the most important car in an average humans lifetime". Who would write like that?

 

[whitex]

Perhaps you are an attorney? I guess one can argue about anything. I would be surprised if someone writes an article and says, as you say, "the most important car in an average humans lifetime". Who would write like that?

They would say "the most important car of our generation" or maybe "the most important car of Elon's generation". This particular statement, the author referred to America, implying it's the most important car america ever made in its lifetime (since 1776).

 

[SDRick]

It's either one of two things:

The most important car in America in a generation.
or
The most important car in American history.

It would be easier to argue the former, although some would argue the latter.

 

[henderrj]

They would say "the most important car of our generation" or maybe "the most important car of Elon's generation". This particular statement, the author referred to America, implying it's the most important car america ever made in its lifetime (since 1776).

I think maybe it would be okay to let this one go. Look me up at the next SEVA meeting, it would be good to chat. Well, maybe interesting.

 

[roblab]

... Heck, the service is so overloaded right now and parts even worse, if my Tesla was to get totaled right now I would probably buy an ICE to hold me over, since every single new Tesla we has always required service to fix things, and with current flood of Model 3's the backlog is a month+ to get an appointment.

Service? Parts? The S and 3 don't need service, and in six years my 3 Teslas never went in for service. Yes, my first S, # 64, had one door handle problem, and one of the inverters failed (but we drove on the other one). Tesla fixed these almost before we could sit down at the factory service center. Those were early teething problems, and I was glad to keep them afloat in the early years. Maybe Seattle SC is still having teething problems.

CURRENT Teslas have almost no need for service, ever. When my S got whanged, we had parts at my local body shop in a week, but the car came back to me in two more, since I had to wait for ICE cars to get repaired ahead of me.

Service departments are amazingly small. And our chosen Service Center is not backlogged a month. We ordered our 3, and a couple weeks later we got notice to come get it. It was flawless, and still is. Since they build them for YOU, AFTER you buy it, of course it is not like going in and picking it off a back lot, but you are right. If you want to fix things, that ICE has over a thousand moving parts, sloshing around in quarts of oil, requiring SERVICE every few thousand miles. ( I had/have 80,000 miles on both of my Ss and 10K on the 3. No service. Try doing that on your ICE.)