Watch Autoline this week on Thursday

[sooner]

I actually find that in the video that Sandy is actually impressed with the car (not that impressed with body work) but overall impressed.
The hosts are the ones I find annoying. Their comments are very hard to listen to with how biased they are.

 

[sooner]

Do not know the skinny young guy with glasses, but he is by far the worst one.

 

[seattlite2004]

....
WHY was the Bolt such a let down? WHY the Leaf such a let down? Where are the Model 3 competitors?
....

So why do you think the Bolt/Leaf are such let downs?

 

[adaptabl]

They specifically the upper A arm was over engineered for RWD car. It's perfect fit for AWD car.

That's not what it looks like. Heavy, complicated, hard to build, expensive. All qualities you are not looking for. A cast piece would most likely solve all those issues.

 

[kengchang]

That's not what it looks like. Heavy, complicated, hard to build, expensive. All qualities you are not looking for. A cast piece would most likely solve all those issues.

They don't even know why and you seems to know? Maybe Tesla should fire Elon and hire you

 

[mos6507]

I just don't see the shift to electrification being reflected in R&D

Did you see the recent Geneva Motor Show?

I've never seen so many electric concepts at once.

Do I have to list out all of the cars coming and when they're likely to arrive? The first is the Kona EV this fall, followed by the Kia Niro, Mission E, Audi e-Tron, i-Pace, etc..., ect...

So if you don't see the shift, you're really not looking around.

Tesla's first-mover advantage is measured in months now rather than years.

 

[Adm]

Did you see the recent Geneva Motor Show?

I've never seen so many electric concepts at once.

Do I have to list out all of the cars coming and when they're likely to arrive? The first is the Kona EV this fall, followed by the Kia Niro, Mission E, Audi e-Tron, i-Pace, etc..., ect...

So if you don't see the shift, you're really not looking around.

Tesla's first-mover advantage is measured in months now rather than years.

Have you seen their projected production numbers? Tesla is safe for many more years to come.

 

[Brando]

So why do you think the Bolt/Leaf are such let downs?

Chevy beats Model 3 to market and only manages ~24,000 first year??
- WTF - Model 3 with over 400,000 deposit payers and that is the best Chevy can do?
And it seems Bolt only sold in CARB states?? yeah, yeah available everywhere, really ??

Leaf started great. BUT Small battery AND no thermal Battery Management ? especially temperature.
See Nissan Leaf - Wikipedia
Is Leaf's battery performance the reason used Leafs so cheap?? Still not a great style - in my opinion.
- Will we finally get range? What about charging? why not work with Tesla??
- 7 years of Leaf sales = 303,678 - really?? Model S/X first 5 years about 250,000 as of Sept 2017.

Perhaps Renault in Europe is doing much better ??

Anyway, do you think Bolt and Leaf are great successes?

 

[seattlite2004]

Chevy beats Model 3 to market and only manages ~24,000 first year??
- WTF - Model 3 with over 400,000 deposit payers and that is the best Chevy can do?
And it seems Bolt only sold in CARB states?? yeah, yeah available everywhere, really ??

Leaf started great. BUT Small battery AND no thermal Battery Management ? especially temperature.
See Nissan Leaf - Wikipedia
Is Leaf's battery performance the reason used Leafs so cheap?? Still not a great style - in my opinion.
- Will we finally get range? What about charging? why not work with Tesla??
- 7 years of Leaf sales = 303,678 - really?? Model S/X first 5 years about 250,000 as of Sept 2017.

Perhaps Renault in Europe is doing much better ??

Anyway, do you think Bolt and Leaf are great successes?

Maybe Chevy doesn't like building mass quantities of cars that have negative margins? I guess they like to make money on stuff they sell.

 

[Brando]

Does anyone think about panel gaps in their 4 year or older car? Even 2 years old?
Wind noise might cause some to turn up the radio. That would be so bad, right?

So any non-Tesla car owner can complain here about panel gaps so we can gauge just how big a problem this really is.

 

[BioSehnsucht]

I thought it interesting that Munro said that they measured the 2170 cells at 5700mAh, but he thought their true capacity was closer to 6000mAh. Does that change any assumptions about where Tesla is with these batteries in terms of energy density or whatever?

 

[scaesare]

Maybe Munroe was just speaking colloquially, but there's a bunch of stuff he didn't seem to grasp correctly:

- The fusible links to each cell aren't contactors
- The parallel/series (not "serial") call layout isn't primarily to insulate against a dying cell "like Christmas tree lights"
- The cells not being inverted is because the positive and negative connections are made up top
- His take on the PCB for autopilot seems as if he hasn't seen much in the way of modern board design
- His dismisses things for which he doesn't understand their purpose (body design, etc..) as a negative

 

[Brando]

Maybe Chevy doesn't like building mass quantities of cars that have negative margins? I guess they like to make money on stuff they sell.

If true, I guess that says a lot. Can't make any margin on the Bolt, seriously? They can buy back $16 billion of GM stock.
But can't make any margin on Bolts? Nor work on their battery supply problem - yes, my assumption.

 

[mos6507]

Wind noise might cause some to turn up the radio. That would be so bad, right?

It is when the car cranks the volume to max on its own due to phantom-touch.

So any non-Tesla car owner can complain here about panel gaps so we can gauge just how big a problem this really is.

Musk only validated these panel-gap criticisms in his email, despite his Trump-like hyperbole about the cars already having the best tolerances in the industry. If there's no room to improve, he would not be cracking the whip. So if you want to know how big of a problem it is, consult with Elon Musk.

 

[BioSehnsucht]

While Munro certainly seems to misunderstand / misjudge a lot of modern tech, I think the fact he tears apart so many cars, tells you something about the rest of the car industry. The things he thinks for sure are ahead of the rest of the industry you can probably bank on, even if the things he things are weird or wrong really are might be up for debate. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the body design / manufacturing / etc stuff were mistakes on Tesla's part, but I also wouldn't rule out that it was better for some specific reason, even if he / we might not be sure why.

 

[Brando]

Did you see the recent Geneva Motor Show?

I've never seen so many electric concepts at once.

Do I have to list out all of the cars coming and when they're likely to arrive? The first is the Kona EV this fall, followed by the Kia Niro, Mission E, Audi e-Tron, i-Pace, etc..., ect...

So if you don't see the shift, you're really not looking around.

Tesla's first-mover advantage is measured in months now rather than years.

We shall see. Bolt had the first mover advantage on +200 mile range and below $40k.
And the Leaf beat them both to market in 2011.
And still no Model S nor Model X competition. We shall see what happens next year.

 

[BioSehnsucht]

Regarding panel gaps, how many recent build cars have we seen reports from ? It's possible they've "Solved" this problem but we just haven't seen those cars yet (or enough to not call them the exception) because it was so recent they got it under control. Clearly they were churning out terrible tolerance vehicles for far longer than any other maker would tolerate, even if it was "better" than S/X launch.

 

[voip-ninja]

So any non-Tesla car owner can complain here about panel gaps so we can gauge just how big a problem this really is.

We don't need to, plenty of owners have commented or complained here and elsewhere about this and they have also posted photos/videos of the issues.

Does anyone think about panel gaps in their 4 year or older car? Even 2 years old?
Wind noise might cause some to turn up the radio. That would be so bad, right?

So any non-Tesla car owner can complain here about panel gaps so we can gauge just how big a problem this really is.

Terrible attitude you have considering most of these cars are going out the shop at around $58,000. You seem to have very low expectations for fit and finish at this price point.

I have a 2.5 year old $57,000 car and the fit and finish on it is excellent, and the manufacturer provides the same fit/finish on their bare bones $35,000 version also. It is very quiet cruising at 80mph. Technology on it is just okay.. not great. Great power plant and suspension though.

It's not unreasonable to expect Tesla to deliver quality that's on par with other automakers at similar price points.

If someone chooses to overlook those issues because it simply doesn't bother them or they want to cut Tesla a lot of slack because they build EVs, are going to save Earth, go to Mars, they own stock, that's their prerogative but you don't need to tell other people what they can and should worry about.

 

[voip-ninja]

Regarding panel gaps, how many recent build cars have we seen reports from ? It's possible they've "Solved" this problem but we just haven't seen those cars yet (or enough to not call them the exception) because it was so recent they got it under control. Clearly they were churning out terrible tolerance vehicles for far longer than any other maker would tolerate, even if it was "better" than S/X launch.

There was a very recent thread where someone was helping a friend pick up their 10,000+ # VIN car and he showed photos of how badly misaligned the A pillar join to the fender was.

What's more he said there were around half a dozen cars awaiting pick up and they all had the same defect which points to a common assembly problem, robotic problem, etc.

 

[Dave EV]

I thought it interesting that Munro said that they measured the 2170 cells at 5700mAh, but he thought their true capacity was closer to 6000mAh. Does that change any assumptions about where Tesla is with these batteries in terms of energy density or whatever?

IIRC what he said was that the spec was 5700 mA (he left out the h which is important as without it it leaves one wondering if he's talking about current or energy), but they measured it just under 6000 mA (again, missing the h).

Maybe Munroe was just speaking colloquially, but there's a bunch of stuff he didn't seem to grasp correctly:
- His take on the PCB for autopilot seems as if he hasn't seen much in the way of modern board design

This was annoying - them wondering who makes the board for Tesla, when it's pretty clear that Tesla designs the board - the fabrication is probably done overseas to Tesla specs. The PCBA might be trackable using other board markings. Then one of the other guys said "Nvidia" - to Munro's credit he paused a bit and noted that it had Nvidia chips, but didn't seem to think that Nvidia made the board.
He sure was impressed by the PCBA, but it didn't seem like he fully understood why it was impressive except for the fact that it had a lot of parts stuffed close together on it because parts that are close together communicate faster (all else being equal is true, but not always).