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The Detroit Bureau Model S article

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About now you will just stop paying attention to miles left. It's fine. You know in your mind, your "MDM" or Miles Driven Memory. You have have a feel for distances now. If not, you will be close and heading back to your plug and the car will beep at you on the way but you will be fine.

Yeah. I don't even really look anymore on a normal driving day since I always start full. Even better than an ICE in that respect. If I'm taking a longer trip then I think about it a little more of course.
 
the final word from Paul A. Eisenstein?

Sorry, Kevin, I don’t feel I erred. Any more than I expect you will be posting your error in any of your outlets, acknowledging that people will very likely not have the ultra-high-capacity chargers and, under most circumstances will be unlikely to be able to charge the Tesla Model S 300-mile model in anywhere near the 5-6 hour timeframe you like to claim. Most will be at 10, 15 hours and even longer.

End of debate. You’re welcome to continue posting, of course, but I have laid out my position and feel I am correct…and have been more than willing to allow questions to be raised and posted.

Thanks,
Paul A. Eisenstein
Publisher, TheDetroitBureau.com
 
Jeez. I would say 'most' people buying this car would at least bother to get a 240V 30A circuit and probably a 50A circuit. A 30A outlet can charge the Roadster in 10 hours so maybe the 300 mile pack will be around 12 hours. He's right that not everyone will opt for a 70A charger but really, 15 hours or longer will be the norm? Oh well, we tried but he's obviously a very, very well respected auto journalist so he must be right=)

He still doesn't address why the 300 mile pack will be "effectively useless". He obviously has an agenda of some sort since he refuses to correct any of his errors. He could have easily written an article about the lack of a fast charging infrastructure and why it makes long journeys in an EV more difficult but instead chose to criticize Tesla and imply that they must be lying about their 300 mile pack.
 
He's completely wrong. I'd love to have the 300 mile pack. The most frequent road trip I take is Ottawa to Toronto, and I could do that non-stop and have plenty of margin left.

Almost anyone can install a 50 amp outlet in their garage without upgrading their service, and it doesn't cost much. Even though I have an HPC I almost always charge at 40A anyway. It starts charging at 1:00 am, and it's always done long before I wake up in the morning.
 
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Almost anyone an install a 50 amp outlet in their garage without upgrading their service, and it doesn't cost much. Even though I have an HPC I almost always charge at 40A anyway. It starts charging at 1:00 am, and it's always done long before I wake up in the morning.

Exactly! I have a 50A outlet but every single person I've talked to with a HPC 70A charger drops their charging down to 32 - 40A anyway. The only real advantage I see to having a HPC at home is that if other Roadster owners come for a visit, you can recharge them and get them on their way faster.

Here's what I posted, I think I'm done with this guy too. He's not a serious journalist I guess or just stubborn.

Paul: Most people buying a $50,000 – maybe $80,000 EV are going to bother to at least install a 240V 30A to 50A circuit in their garage (something any electrician can do for not a lot of money). A 244 mile Roadster can recharge from empty on a 30A outlet in 10 hours and a 50A in 6.5 hours.
How does the math work out that it will be 10, 15 hours or even longer then? Again, installing a NEMA 14-50R outlet in your garage is not something out of the ordinary, especially for someone buying a luxury EV. You still haven’t shown to us how your ’14 hours at best’ comment holds up. Yes, if you assume everyone who buys a $50K+ car will charge on a 110V outlet, you got us and we must be deluding ourselves.
Really, I don’t think you understand the driving patterns of most EV drivers. Most people don’t drive 150+ miles in a day so even charging on a 30A circuit (after driving 150 miles on a 300 mile pack) would charge full in maybe 7 hours. Easily done overnight.
Again, if your main point was that a fast DC charging infrastructure isn’t built out yet and that taking long road-trips in an EV will require some planning and patience then yes, you have a valid point. But your article comes across as very bias and not totally accurate.
Under ‘most circumstances’, people will be charging at home and not on the road. If you’re talking about long road-trips as I stated, then you have more of a point but 95% of all the driving I’ve ever done has been less than 100 miles in a day. Easily within the reach of a 300 mile pack and plenty of time to recharge at home.
Please detail how you come to your 10-15 hour recharge times for most people. Are you assuming that people will recharge from empty every single day on a 110V outlet?
 
Here's his bio on The Daily Beast

Reporter, publisher and Bureau Chief of The Detroit Bureau and TheDetroitBureau.com, Paul A. Eisenstein has covered the auto industry since 1979. One of the world's most widely published automotive journalists, Eisenstein’s work routinely appears in such publications as The Economist, Germany 's Auto Motor und Sport, MSNBC.com, Cigar Aficionado, Wired, Motor Trend, TheDailyBeast.com, and dozens more. He's a regular commentator on NPR, and a frequent guest on numerous

I guess he also posts for Autoblog.com
http://www.autoblog.com/bloggers/paul-eisenstein/

From one of his posts:
The problem is convincing consumers that battery technology is worth it. And that won't be easy, considering both the cost and limitations of electric propulsion. Surprisingly, the technology may be an easier sell to the fleet buyers that make up a substantial portion of the automotive market.

and

Expect to hear the words, "range anxiety," a lot in the months to come, what with the Nissan Leaf, Chevrolet Volt and an assortment of other battery-electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids ready to hit the market.

The first generation of battery cars, like Leaf, will likely deliver an average of only about 100 miles on a charge – not much more than the range at which the typical motorist starts to look for a gas station in a conventional automobile.

It's funny, he's attacking EVs for not having much range and then criticizes the Model S 300 mile pack for having too much? He also includes the Volt in his list of cars with 'range anxiety'. As a 30 year veteran of the auto industry, including plug-in cars with a ICE engine in the 'range anxiety' category is very strange.
 
Eisenstein shows as an example of the old thinking. He doesn't get it. I don't think he wants to get it. There's a reason that Tesla isn't there and that reason is you can't beat some guys with a clue-by-4 enough. The writing is wishy-washy. He's actually insulting the general public by suggesting the fleet managers are smart enough to go electric but the general public is not. The longer some pundit has been covering an industry the longer they get stuck with their own rules.

2012 is the year that electric cars will be tested by "Crossing the Chasm" or not. Given the demand for the Volt and Leaf and that so many car manufacturers are about to have vehicles >>without direct government mandates<< (ok they have to have an overall mandate yea yea yea) it looks like a slam dunk to me (and probably everyone reading this.)
 
He made some changes based on my early comments on the Ford charger, but...

Paul,

I see you've made some changes but you've also introduced some other mistakes:

"Opting for a Level II 220-volt charger will typically trim the charge time down by at least half.* Depending on the amperage of the charging system, that can bring charging times down significantly.* Ford’s 7.5-amp Level II charger for the upcoming Focus Electric is expected to trim times down to just 3.5 hours, about half the time required to recharge Leaf using its lower-amperage system."

Ford's charger may be 7.5 kW but it sure as hell isn't 7.5 A.


The problem that I and clearly many others have is with this:

"The larger Model S, with its huge 300-mile battery, would, at best require about 14 hours to get back on the road – at best.* A lower-amperage charger would keep the sedan tethered for a day or more.* That is, unless an owner were ready to head out on only a partial charge.* But, at that point, what would justify paying the huge price premium for the extra kilowatt-hours?"

We've shown unequivocally that your use of the phrase "at best" in this paragraph is wrong. You've resorted to arguments about people having to upgrade their domestic electricity service, which may or may not be true on a case by case basis, but it doesn't take away from the fact that 14 hours is not the "at best" scenario that someone buying a Model S can expect. In fact, it's not even the second best because, as the others have pointed out, with a cheap NEMA 14-50 one can still comfortably charge the car in around 9 hours.

You are getting feedback from multiple experienced Roadster drivers. I'd take that as a good thing. All we are asking for is the flawed 14 hour premise to be corrected.
 
This week i have to make a trip with my Roadster over a distance of 430km. My charging-station, a private 400V/32A socket, made open to the public, is after 250km. This means, 180km to my destination are left. I will charge 3-4h giving me 120-160km additional Range until i can read at least 200km ideal range in standard mode. I will not charge complete full, because i know, at the end of my trip i will charge my car overnight to full. With my Model S of course, I can do the trip in one without the need for a break to charge the car.
 
He won't change it. He has over 32 years of experience and must be correct in his mind.
Even if he were to remove the 'unusable' and 'at best' phrases and leave the incorrect information with the 14 hours, it would still be a better article. He's using loaded and exaggerated phrases on purpose to try and bring EVs down since he thinks they won't succeed and are basically useless in his mind.
 
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I agree jaanton...the guy's not stupid, he's just being arrogant and won't admit his mistakes.

Normally, not a big issue...but when this is your make-up and you have the power of the pen, ...:frown:


Eisenstein shows as an example of the old thinking. He doesn't get it. I don't think he wants to get it. There's a reason that Tesla isn't there and that reason is you can't beat some guys with a clue-by-4 enough. The writing is wishy-washy. He's actually insulting the general public by suggesting the fleet managers are smart enough to go electric but the general public is not. The longer some pundit has been covering an industry the longer they get stuck with their own rules.

2012 is the year that electric cars will be tested by "Crossing the Chasm" or not. Given the demand for the Volt and Leaf and that so many car manufacturers are about to have vehicles >>without direct government mandates<< (ok they have to have an overall mandate yea yea yea) it looks like a slam dunk to me (and probably everyone reading this.)
 
Well, he now says he's made his last comment on the matter and guess what, he stands by his '14 hour' comment. Here's part of his post:

Sorry, D, but 1) I’ve made no changes to the story, and induced no errors, nor “corrections.” Secondly, I stand by the 14 hours. Barring a massive shift to higher-amperage chargers a best-case, 70A scenario is an exception, not a rule. Tesla has declined to provide me with information indicating what percentage have the high-amp chargers, nor will they indicate what percentage have such chargers and actually can or do use them at such high power. What I am being advised is that the current crop of public chargers aren’t … and those coming likely won’t … be anywhere near 70A. Even some who have contributed to this and other threads on TDB indicate they do not charge Roadsters at that power level…or did not opt for such chargers.

So he's saying in the same post that houses would need to be massively upgraded to 70A chargers for our numbers to be anywhere near accurate but that the people he's heard from with the 70A chargers almost never charge at 70A. Say what? He's right that most people with higher power chargers don't charge at the fastest rate so what's his complaint again?
 
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He's now subtly tried to imply that by talking about 110V and the Focus/LEAF charger in the preceeding paragraph, his "at best" claim refers to if you were charging on such a service. We're therefore all trying to twist his words.

A total straw man and it deserves to be demolished.
 
I e-mailed Tesla about this article saying someone from their PR department should contact them since he's citing Tesla and Mr. Rawlinson as some of his sources.

Yes, he has some good points about the state of the public charging infrastructure but loses all credibility with the way he writes his article. The Model S and 300 mile pack have nothing to do with his main critiques yet he holds them up as a major problem.
 
He couldn't even spell Rawlinson (Rollinson) correctly.

Look at it this way Mr. E...we've got our diaries marked (for it won't be that long now) when some of us start receiving our new TM Model S...we might not have the 300 mile pack ready, but as a courtesy to keep you in the loop, we'll be more than happy to disclose our 260 mile pack's charging times to you :biggrin:...in fact we'll be sure to let you know of our charge times when we get our 300 mile packs:biggrin:...don't want you to worry about it Mr. E...we'll remind ya...we gotcha covered...:biggrin::wink:
 
Old post but I had to send him another e-mail:

I was wondering if you were working on a new story for the Model S that revisits some of the things you were worried about. You had stated that there was no way Tesla could deliver a 300 mile pack without at least a 100 kWh and more likely a 110 kWh battery pack. Also that charging would take 12-14 hours 'at best'. I'm reading the 300 mile pack is around 85 kWh which is what other people are reporting.

Here's your original article
Tesla’s Model S: All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go? | TheDetroitBureau.com

"The larger Model S, with its huge 300-mile battery, would, at best require about 14 hours to get back on the road – at best."

The Tesla will come with a 240V 40A charger. I'll let you redo the math once you confirm the battery pack size but it's still less than 14 hours. It can also accept up to 80A on a level 2 charger.

"There is an alternative, said Rollinson, when pressed with this analysis, Level III chargers, which use 440 volts converted to DC current. For vehicles like the Leaf and Focus Electric, such systems could yield an 80% quick “fill-up” in as little as 20 to 30 minutes. Even then, the 300-mile Model S might need a couple hours."

Tesla will be installing their own fast charging network. Yes, this will take time but it will not take a couple of hours to charge the 300 mile pack with this system. I suggest you contact Tesla again for more specifics so you can correct your article or write a new one. Thanks.