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Some Model S questions (that I have not found answers to)

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We don't have kids but are planning on starting a family very soon, my wife had asked about it. I'm sure it would come in handy down the road when kids get a little bit bigger and don't require a booster seat.

Here is the definitive answer:

Model S is child-seat ready. It features the LATCH (Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children) System that eliminates the use of seat belts to secure child safety seats. There are two LATCH System anchors in the second row seats.

Model S Facts | Tesla Motors
 
@ voip-ninja The jump seats have multi-point racing harness type seat belts, and between this and facing backwards, they do not need to conform to LATCH requirements. They appear to be very safe, and given their location (between the wheels) are the best place to be in a side impact collision (my area of expertise...).
 
Thanks for the info... I'm not really sure if we need the option, but, hey, what's another $1500 when you're blowing $60-$80K, right? I will be very interested to see what the crash safety data says about the safety of the Model S, especially as it's the first large-scale production vehicle Tesla has produced.
 
As far as I'm concerned, it's stone age technology for real time things like traffic updates. Sirius is next to worthless for a commuter who wants the skinny on which of 3/4 routes they might take daily are the least congested. It's great if you simply want to avoid the occasional well known traffic jam or accident.

Satellite communications are not in anyway the problem here. You seem to think any of the SERVICES that get distributed via satellite are not any good. If you can handle 0.5-1 second lag times satellites are sweet communication tools.
 
One of the projects that I worked on included using military satellites to deliver voice communications over IP to the cockpit of jets, and another project involved IP voice delivery over satellite to mobile response units that could deploy an entire call center to a remote area during a disaster so I'm pretty familiar with the technology.

Feel free to modify my criticism of 'satellite' technology to Sirius traffic alerts, which are pretty weak sauce. I am not aware of any other traffic delivery capability over satellite, other than Sirius traffic, which uses as a source, really old style systems that have their origin in FM transmission if I remember correctly.

The point is that a car that is as 'modern' and 'connected' as the Tesla Model S should be able to use highly robust tools for things like navigating traffic. Obviously this matters little for someone who does not have a daily grind type of commute for which traffic data is crucial.
 
One of the projects that I worked on included using military satellites to deliver voice communications over IP to the cockpit of jets, and another project involved IP voice delivery over satellite to mobile response units that could deploy an entire call center to a remote area during a disaster so I'm pretty familiar with the technology.

Feel free to modify my criticism of 'satellite' technology to Sirius traffic alerts, which are pretty weak sauce. I am not aware of any other traffic delivery capability over satellite, other than Sirius traffic, which uses as a source, really old style systems that have their origin in FM transmission if I remember correctly.

The point is that a car that is as 'modern' and 'connected' as the Tesla Model S should be able to use highly robust tools for things like navigating traffic. Obviously this matters little for someone who does not have a daily grind type of commute for which traffic data is crucial.


Satellite is just the communication medium used to transmit traffic data from a variety of sources (including secondary sources as you mentioned). Reason satellite is used for traffic communication is that it works virtually anywhere.

Satellite transmission of traffic data has nothing to do with the quality of traffic data.
 
Satellite is just the communication medium used to transmit traffic data from a variety of sources (including secondary sources as you mentioned). Reason satellite is used for traffic communication is that it works virtually anywhere.

Satellite transmission of traffic data has nothing to do with the quality of traffic data.

Please use some 'Iridium' Satellites ... i still hold some 'almost worthless' stocks on it.. ;-(
 
Satellite is just the communication medium used to transmit traffic data from a variety of sources (including secondary sources as you mentioned). Reason satellite is used for traffic communication is that it works virtually anywhere.

Satellite transmission of traffic data has nothing to do with the quality of traffic data.

That is mostly correct, but not entirely correct. When traffic data is delivered over a 'real time' higher bandwidth medium such as 3G/4G/LTE then it's possible for the traffic device to subscribe only to the feed that applies to the current vehicle location.

Satellite has no idea of your current location and so you basically end up getting a feed of all of the traffic for your entire geography. Because of this, and the relatively limited bandwidth, what is usually done is that an "alert" is sent out that has a code for the metro location, a code for the incident type, a code for the delay in minutes, etc. The problem with such a strategy is that it's relatively slow to be updated, the info messages are extremely terse and limited in nature, and it is not really a good way of doing "holistic" view traffic in which you can see the traffic flow across an entire metro area, including secondary arterials.
 
That is mostly correct, but not entirely correct. When traffic data is delivered over a 'real time' higher bandwidth medium such as 3G/4G/LTE then it's possible for the traffic device to subscribe only to the feed that applies to the current vehicle location.

Satellite has no idea of your current location and so you basically end up getting a feed of all of the traffic for your entire geography. Because of this, and the relatively limited bandwidth, what is usually done is that an "alert" is sent out that has a code for the metro location, a code for the incident type, a code for the delay in minutes, etc. The problem with such a strategy is that it's relatively slow to be updated, the info messages are extremely terse and limited in nature, and it is not really a good way of doing "holistic" view traffic in which you can see the traffic flow across an entire metro area, including secondary arterials.

This is also mostly correct, but not entirely correct. You left out the concept of spot beam satellite. This is not used for traffic data as far as I know, but for completeness I wanted to point out that some satellite services do "know" your location. Also, you'd need a parabolic dish on your car to make use of it! :)
 
I am not familiar with spot beam satellite technology, is there a traffic service available for it? Ah, I see the comment about needing a parabolic dish, so I guess the answer is no.

The bottom line is that mesh type internet based traffic services like INRIX absolutely blow the doors off of old-school traffic services available on FM radio channels or Sirius satellite feeds. That's simply a fact.

Add to that the capability for vehicles themselves to become data points for the traffic analysis and I hope that it can be seen that the reason I am asking questions about the traffic capabilities of the Tesla S is that I would prefer not to be saddled with the out-dated option. Obviously no-one knows yet, what they are going to do, but since it is Garmin based, I'm not holding out a ton of hope that it will have real time traffic capabilities, which is a shame.
 
A pertinent question: how often have you actually taken alternate routes suggested by such systems when you encountered a traffic problem on your commute route? Alternate routes - if available at all - are usually more than sub-optimal (in terms of number of lights etc.) and end up taking just as much time as crawling on the backed-up commute route.

An example - for folks familiar with the SF Bay Area - would be trying to take El Camino Real as an alternate to a backed-up Hwy 101 in the Peninsula area. Unless there's a real major incident holding up traffic for hours on the freeway, getting from, say Mountain View, to San Mateo would take a looong time on El Camino too.

Given Bay Area's geography, when there are segments such as bridges involved in the commute route, rerouting is usually not even practical as one'd have to do a major detour that'd be several tens of miles longer.
 
With Inrix and Tom Tom, both of whom have recommendations for re-routes that include secondary roads, etc, I have had pretty good results. For example, Tom Tom traffic will send me on a loop west of the city, it adds 8 miles to my return drive but typically I can accomplish the trip in 50 minutes vs an hour+ taking any other way down the primary north/south highway.
 
I use Waze app on the iPhone for traffic. I let the Sirius/XM trail on my LEAF lapse as I found the data wasn't "fresh" (as up to date) as I would hope.
Waze is basically a "crowd source" app where each viewer agrees to send their current location and speed to the servers in realtime. It then shows road flow speeds based on data coming from other cars ahead of you on the same road. You can also send notifications when you see something of interest such as an accident or road hazard. You are basically texting the cars behind you, but rather it puts a symbol on the road picture for others to know what is coming. This works great on heavy commute roads where other Waze users are on the same path. Not so good for "off the beaten path" situations.

By the way, in reference to GG's example... I have that exact commute. With previous cars I wouldn't stoop to going to El Camino when something was wrong with the 101, but the LEAF is such a "breeze" in stop and go traffic that I don't mind the extra stoplights as long as the overall average speed turns out to be higher. The LEAF has a nice low end torque profile, so in a way it is more fun doing stoplight to stoplight than it is on the freeway.
 
I just wanted to take a moment to update my own thread. My wife (who actually thought I should get the model S) and I have talked about this quite a bit and we've both come to the conclusion that the Model S is just "too new" for me to get one for a daily driver at this time. The plan now is that I will lease a new 3 series BMW for the next 2-3 years and then revisit the topic when it gets closer to the time that I need another vehicle.

Perhaps by then some of the early growing pains will be sorted out and going electric will be a more viable option for me (and, unfortunately other electrics don't have the range I need for my drive so the leaf, etc are not an option either and frankly aren't enough of a sport/luxury ride to make me truly happy).

Appreciate everyone's time in answering my questions and I still plan to participate in this forum at least passively!