Have you reserved your Model S or do you plan on it?

[vfx]

... the price of gas continues at the +8.5% per year pace it has been on for the last 10 years,....

And if battery tech improves by 8% a year, does that mean that EV viability gets 16% better every year?

 

[Jaff]

My understanding with the Fisker is to acheive top performance, the ICE must support the electric motor..."rarely using the ICE...", does this mean you will never drive a Fisker in a spirited manner? :tongue::wink:

In fairness, we do not know yet if TM will partner with another manufacturer to assist in service (or if they will need to as EV's require so much less maintenance than ICE vehicles)

Don't forget to count your cost of gas (vs electricity) in your overall annual cost comparison.

With respect to the tire wear, driving an ICE vehicle as hard as many drive the Roadster will shorten tire life too...not as much as a Roadster, but the tires will still wear prematurely...

How does a 4 year warranty affect the resale value if the average driver blows through the mileage limit in a little over 3 years?...the Fisker could have a 7 year, 50k warranty...it won't matter to the average driver, just a very low mileage driver.

The local fisker dealer here is also a BMW dealer, I am 100% sure that they will be providing loaners for Fiskers as I spoke to the GM. It drives me nuts to have to inconvenience someone to pick me up etc. At the very least it would be nice for some sort of shuttle (I think even Kia dealerships do this). I do not know if Tesla in the future will be offering loaner cars but they do not now as I recently had my roadster in for service.

My commute is less than 50 miles a day so theoretically I will rarely be using the ICE motor. A quick thought on service, I recently had my Roadster serviced (yearly I believe) and it cost ~$700 (I think) and took 3 days. I have 5k miles on the roadster. To me that does not seem that much cheaper than what I have paid on servicing some of my other cars. To be fair though the Tesla service was merely a bunch of inspections and firmware updates where as my ICE cars would usually get the oil/fluids changed. With the way the Tesla Service is setup I am not sure if there will be that significant of a difference in maintenance costs. The biggest expense thus far has been the rear tires, the roadster eats tires at a voracious rate (already on my third set!). I changed to toyo's and they seem to be wearing less rapidly.

To me ergonomics is a huge factor when choosing a car. If I am going to be interacting with the vehicle on a daily basis I want to be able to memorize where everything is so that I am not distracted. This is what I love about most german cars, they have honest to goodness buttons. You can easily change settings/ temperatures etc without taking your eyes off the road. I must admit having a huge 17 inch touch screen does look awesome in the pictures, but useability wise I am not so sure how great it will be.

A 4 year/50k warranty is a must, it makes a huge difference resale wise and it is pretty much industry standard for luxury cars. The Model S' skin is much more svelte than the Fisker, but from the pictures I have seen the Fiskers' interior looks better.

 

[smoothoperator]

My understanding with the Fisker is to acheive top performance, the ICE must support the electric motor..."rarely using the ICE...", does this mean you will never drive a Fisker in a spirited manner? :tongue::wink:

In fairness, we do not know yet if TM will partner with another manufacturer to assist in service (or if they will need to as EV's require so much less maintenance than ICE vehicles)

Don't forget to count your cost of gas (vs electricity) in your overall annual cost comparison.

With respect to the tire wear, driving an ICE vehicle as hard as many drive the Roadster will shorten tire life too...not as much as a Roadster, but the tires will still wear prematurely...

How does a 4 year warranty affect the resale value if the average driver blows through the mileage limit in a little over 3 years?...the Fisker could have a 7 year, 50k warranty...it won't matter to the average driver, just a very low mileage driver.

To be honest I don't drive my daily driver cars hard, I have other cars that I use in controlled enviroments to do that sort of thing. What I am in the market for now is a 4 door luxury daily driver that has an all EV range of at least 40 miles. This will be replacing my current daily driver where I home brew biodiesel.

Electric motors do require less maintenance than IC motors but the way Tesla has it setup is by yearly services (which are basically inspections) cost just as much as servicing IC motors. Maintenance is not the issue, the issue is the cost attached to the maintenance. What difference does it make if it costs me $700 to inspect my EV Motor or $700 to do a bunch of fluid changes on my IC motor?

I am not worried about the cost of a couple gallons of gasoline which may be used to supplement the ev range (this is controllable) I am more worried about the ergonomics/service/design etc of the vehicle (this is not controllable).

If on my next daily driver I have to replace tires as frequently as I do on my Roadster I will not purchase it, that is simply ridiculous. On my Ferrari's that I track frequently, the tires last a lot longer, and I drive them a lot harder than the roadster.

The industry standard is 4 year 50k miles, that is what people expect in this class of car. Anything less than this would be a mistake. An unproven car with a short warranty?

 

[SByer]

I'm getting about as much on my rears (this time - the performance tires made it only a year) as I got on the 911. Maybe a touch less. Yearly maintenance has been about half the 911's so far. With the 911 it was never just fluid changes. There was always something fiddly broken. And amortization of the clutch, brake, and soft top replacements.

As for buttons on the interior, the 911 had 'em. In spades. Dozens of tiny, unlabeled, futzy little buttons. Try and hit the right radio preset on the first try, I dare ya! An HVAC system that seemed purposefully obtuse. Not iDrive obtuse, but pretty bad. Anything that wasn't about the driving bits was a mess. The same can be said of my wife's Mercedes - the center console interface is bad, and the HVAC controls are overly complex.

A 17" touchscreen is huge. The initiating targets will be quite large. Once a drag is initiated, the whole screen can become part of the adjustment. A little audio and tactile feedback, and it should easily be as good as the 911's guess-what-this-button-does set up.

 

[smoothoperator]

I'm getting about as much on my rears (this time - the performance tires made it only a year) as I got on the 911. Maybe a touch less. Yearly maintenance has been about half the 911's so far. With the 911 it was never just fluid changes. There was always something fiddly broken. And amortization of the clutch, brake, and soft top replacements.

There is no question the Roadster is cheaper to maintain from a theory standpoint, but from the recommended maintenance intervals Tesla has implemented the difference in cost is not as large as one would think. I wonder how much closer the gap will get if you amortize the cost of the battery etc in the yearly maintenance costs. I am pretty sure it is not necessary to take the Roadster in every year to get "maintained". Most every other manufacturer has a variable maintenance system based on real world data.

As for buttons on the interior, the 911 had 'em. In spades. Dozens of tiny, unlabeled, futzy little buttons. Try and hit the right radio preset on the first try, I dare ya! An HVAC system that seemed purposefully obtuse. Not iDrive obtuse, but pretty bad. Anything that wasn't about the driving bits was a mess. The same can be said of my wife's Mercedes - the center console interface is bad, and the HVAC controls are overly complex..

I kinda like the buttons on my Mercedes, as well as the driving directions in the cluster. It makes a lot of sense , I can hit the star key and dial in a radio without taking my eyes off the cluster. A lot of people hate the Mercedes interface but I really like it! It would be nice if the Model S had cluster redundancy, and from what I have read it will.

A 17" touchscreen is huge. The initiating targets will be quite large. Once a drag is initiated, the whole screen can become part of the adjustment. A little audio and tactile feedback, and it should easily be as good as the 911's guess-what-this-button-does set up.

Have you heard anything about the Model S having a tactile feedback type touchscreen? That would be a great move by Tesla. Problem with a touchscreen that controls major functions of the car is that you have to look at it to see what is going on (regardless of how large the screen is). If some of the functionality of the touch screen can be replicated by steering wheel controls and an instrument cluster mounted redundant display, that may be an acceptable solution to cut the distraction of having to manipulate a 17 inch touch screen.

 

[TEG]

...Have you heard anything about the Model S having a tactile feedback type touchscreen?...

The original specs they announced said it would be "haptic" (so the whole panel vibrates to acknowledge when you have activated a function), but I haven't heard that feature mentioned again in a while, so I wonder if they reconsidered or have something different in mind now.

Google: Tesla Haptic

 

[3lectronica]

As for buttons on the interior, the 911 had 'em. In spades. Dozens of tiny, unlabeled, futzy little buttons. Try and hit the right radio preset on the first try, I dare ya! An HVAC system that seemed purposefully obtuse. Not iDrive obtuse, but pretty bad. Anything that wasn't about the driving bits was a mess. The same can be said of my wife's Mercedes - the center console interface is bad, and the HVAC controls are overly complex.

A 17" touchscreen is huge. The initiating targets will be quite large. Once a drag is initiated, the whole screen can become part of the adjustment. A little audio and tactile feedback, and it should easily be as good as the 911's guess-what-this-button-does set up.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned voice commands to control audio, hvac & Nav functions while driving. I have this on my current car and it makes even more sense for a large touch screen with no tactile buttons.

 

[ljbad4life]

To me ergonomics is a huge factor when choosing a car. If I am going to be interacting with the vehicle on a daily basis I want to be able to memorize where everything is so that I am not distracted. This is what I love about most german cars, they have honest to goodness buttons. You can easily change settings/ temperatures etc without taking your eyes off the road. I must admit having a huge 17 inch touch screen does look awesome in the pictures, but useability wise I am not so sure how great it will be.

You knock the model s on having an all touch screen interface but the karma has guess what...... an all touch screen interface!?!!?!

Can you point out the buttons?

 

[smoothoperator]

You knock the model s on having an all touch screen interface but the karma has guess what...... an all touch screen interface!?!!?!

Can you point out the buttons?

The Karma's touch screen has tactile feedback, when you press a virtual button on the screen an electric impulse is produced which resembles tactile feedback. It is unknown if the Model S will implement such technology although as earlier pointed out, there are articles from 2 years ago which claim they may use similiar technology. If they do indeed use this technology I am in!

 

[doug]

Most of the maintenance discussion went here.

 

[ljbad4life]

The Karma's touch screen has tactile feedback, when you press a virtual button on the screen an electric impulse is produced which resembles tactile feedback. It is unknown if the Model S will implement such technology although as earlier pointed out, there are articles from 2 years ago which claim they may use similiar technology. If they do indeed use this technology I am in!

That's exactly how the Model S will touch screen will function. I haven't seen the Karma touch screen in action and it is not even mentioned in any of the first drives, so it is unknown if the Karma will live through on their claims. The funny thing is your suspicion is clearly unfounded, when two years before the debut, Tesla was showing off the haptic feedback while the Karma which is in "production" now hasn't been shown functioning... make me wonder

 

[smoothoperator]

That's exactly how the Model S will touch screen will function. I haven't seen the Karma touch screen in action and it is not even mentioned in any of the first drives, so it is unknown if the Karma will live through on their claims. The funny thing is your suspicion is clearly unfounded, when two years before the debut, Tesla was showing off the haptic feedback while the Karma which is in "production" now hasn't been shown functioning... make me wonder

I actually had a chance to play with the Karma and its touch screen, it does have this feature. There has been no mention of the haptic touch screen in the past 2 years from Tesla.

The Karma uses a Visteon Haptic Feedback display:

Visteon Corporation: Haptic Feedback Touch Display

You have it reversed Fisker has implemented Haptic feedback in the Karma, but it is unknown if Tesla will have this feature. The last mention was 2 years ago and they have been very quiet on the subject.

That's exactly how the Model S will touch screen will function. I haven't seen the Karma touch screen in action and it is not even mentioned in any of the first drives

First Drive: 2012 Fisker Karma Autoblog


"Primary sight stealers are the driver instrument cluster and standard 10.2-inch haptic touchscreen of the Fisker Command Center onboard diagnostics/climate/entertainment/navigation unit created with Visteon."

 

[Todd Burch]

I pay 8 cents per kWh here in Virginia. Especially living in California with all of the financial incentives, it seems like 28 cents per kWh would make solar a cheaper alternative. A few solar panels to charge the car would put you out ahead with electricity that expensive.

 

[richkae]

My electriciy cost is 8.5 cents per kWh. Cars that are in the same performance class as the Roadster get between 15 and 25 mpg. My Roadster is at least 4 times cheaper per mile than the car it replaced ( Porsche 911 ).
In fact, I went on a conservation kick and I have reduced my homes electricity usage enough ( by improving insulation, turning things off, using CFL/LED bulbs ) to completely power the Roadster for up to 30 miles per day of driving.

William - is there no time of use based charging available where you live? That's disappointing if not, because you should be able to reduce costs dramatically by charging at night.

 

[bonnie]

Not all of California is so high. I just double-checked my bill and confirmed that I pay .122 per kWh as my baseline rate with PG&E in Northern CA (the majority of my usage falls in this tier) - and I'm also on a plan for off-peak hours charging, where I'm charged .08 per kWh between midnight and 5am. And I can't wait to report what happens when my new solar system is up and running .

 

[Doug_G]

Here in Ontario we have by far the highest electricity rates in Canada, and it's still only $0.13 per kWh, including all charges and taxes. My Infiniti G37 costs me 5X as much in fuel compared to the Tesla.

 

[strider]

Smoothoperator, don't let anyone try to feed you that "EVs have lower fuel cost" bull. I noticed that you live in California just like I do. I pay 28 cents per kwh, so my Roadster fuel costs are just under 10 cents per mile, or about that same as a gas car that gets 42mpg. A gas car that gets over 42mpg would have a lower fuel-cost-per-mile for me than my Roadster. In addition to the fuel costs, my Roadster has cost me an additional 15 cents per mile in "maintenance". My Acura, which is five years old now, has cost me under a penny per mile in maintenance. Just wait until the Roadster battery pack needs replacing and then calculate the "per mile" maintenance cost. Ouch.

I live in the Bay Area and on PG&E's E-9A time of use rate for EV owners I pay 5.3 cents per kWh between midnight and 7am. I went from burning 2.5 gallons of premium per day in my Corvette (~$11.00) to $0.96/day in the Roadster. I'm only 6 months into Roadster ownership but so far my maintenance costs are zero.

I agree that my Roadster won't "pay back" in reduced fuel costs - it cost too much to purchase. But when you start talking Model S w/ a price that's equivalent to its ICE counterparts it should end up being cheaper to operate than an ICE car.

 

[dsm363]

Even with paying a extra fee for 100% wind energy it's only 10 cents/kWh here in Texas. It's less than 7 cents/kWh otherwise.

 

[Eberhard]

I live in the Bay Area and on PG&E's E-9A time of use rate for EV owners I pay 5.3 cents per kWh between midnight and 7am. I went from burning 2.5 gallons of premium per day in my Corvette (~$11.00) to $0.96/day in the Roadster. I'm only 6 months into Roadster ownership but so far my maintenance costs are zero.

I agree that my Roadster won't "pay back" in reduced fuel costs - it cost too much to purchase. But when you start talking Model S w/ a price that's equivalent to its ICE counterparts it should end up being cheaper to operate than an ICE car.

electricity is really cheap in america. but with the low profit, how is the grid stability? the minimum we have to pay in germany is €0.16 low, €0.26 high or €0.22 flat. We have to pay almost 4 times as you do.

 

[dsm363]

I agree that my Roadster won't "pay back" in reduced fuel costs - it cost too much to purchase. But when you start talking Model S w/ a price that's equivalent to its ICE counterparts it should end up being cheaper to operate than an ICE car.

I agree. The Roadster will never pay for itself. Any money you save in gas goes straight to replacing the rear tires every 5,000 miles or so anyway. With the Model S and cheaper cars, especially if energy costs rise in the US, will make a much more compelling argument.