Electric Cars - Drove the Tesla Model S and Chevy Spark EV

Spark EV:
Acceleration is really good, the tires chirp and squeek and with the traction control off it's pretty funny around a low speed corner.

The car's brakes are fair, not a sports car obviously but on par with most ~3000 lb cars in this price range. The regenerative braking could be more aggressive.

The build qualify of the car is like a <$15k Chevy/Hyundai etc, very plasticky and light. Cheap feel but that's expected. You ride high in the car like it's a little van. The steering wheel feels especially cheap. The seats are also pretty low quality, like a minivan or eco car: foam blocks with cheap feeling fabrics.

The gauges and displays are really cool. The stereo system has a nice touch screen and features, good phone integration.

Overall for the price this is an awesome car, especially considering its acceleration. The speed creeps up very fast and since the car is so quiet, even compared with other EVs I've driven, the car is deceptively, dangerously quick for someone that's not careful. Maybe that's why people think the brakes aren't good. In a neighborhood you'd be at 50 so quick.

My friend has only had it a week or so and drove it to Berkeley the other day, 80 mile round trip and it had 15 miles left on its range. He also had 3 passengers. I imagine if you took it easy you'd get 100 out of a charge. But I'd still expect 80 with most driving styles. If I could post pics from my phone or videos I would. But I can post some stuff later.

It has rear disc brakes (a lot of cars have rear drums in this price range) and looks kinda cool:


The front silver plastic bits aren't my favorite. I'd plastidip them black if it was my car and hide the Chevy logo . This whole angle is unattractive.




A terrible pic:


Great little UI:


The gauges sit in a square pop-out style box that feels a little aftermarket, but it gets the job done. The actual gauges are really well done.

Tesla Model S

The model I drove was grey, it was the 85 kW battery but not the Performance version (0-60 in 5.4 seconds instead of 4.2). Owner said he typically gets 240 miles range, and last weekend took it to Los Angeles (from the Bay Area, about 350 miles). He tested the Supercharging System at Harris Ranch, where he stopped for lunch with his wife. He said the system was 400 volt / 200 amp (crazy power!) and the whole stop added around 1 hour 30 minutes to his trip, changing a 6 hour drive into a 7.5 hr drive.



This owner is used to higher-end, luxury cars and his other car is a 997 Turbo, but he prefers the Tesla for a lot of the driving he does. The first time I had an opening, he said "you can goose it a bit if you want!" and right before I did, a police car drove by. I merged behind the cop and did indeed goose it. I laughed, "the cop probably can't hear me so they don't know I just did 0-60 so fast"

My impressions:
It's obviously a lot quicker than the Spark, but you'd be surprised, it was not night and day in terms of acceleration. The Tesla flies from 40-80 compared to most electric cars I've driven. Totally silent from 0-30.

The Regenerative Braking is much more aggressive on the Tesla than other electric cars I've driven, meaning when you let go of the gas, it quickly lowers your speed and feels almost like the brakes are already applied. This surely helps a lot with the range.

The car doesn't feel as heavy as you'd think considering the weight, maybe because the battery weight is right on the floor. The car does feel BIG though, like similar dimensions to a Volt or Jaguar XJR.

The car has amazing storage room. The rear trunk/hatch area is enormous when the seats are down, and the front trunk is bigger than most cars' main trunk.

Front trunk:


The seats felt pretty cheap and unimpressive, like bad Corvette C5 seats. I guess I'm used to nicer seats. The steering wheel is "OK" but doesn't feel super high quality. Some of the ergonomic choices are.. interesting. The door panels are kinda cheap feeling for the quality of the car. The dash design is OK, the gauges are great (the little eco graph on the right of the speedometer is cooler than most E-cars). The touch screen interface is really good. The whole floor is totally flat since there's no transmission tunnel, so it's a strange sight when there's no molded/shaped floor, just all flat. Build quality is great but some of the interior materials seemed a bit cheap. I also noticed when I opened the driver door, the window popped out strangely, almost like some $20k convertible (it doesn't have a window surround or something, I can't remember but I'll look at this).




It feels like a $40k car not a $70k car or whatever, but I guess that's cause it has $30k in batteries I've driven a lot of high end cars, especially Porsches and Jags. This car doesn't even come close to the luxury feel / interior of a Panamera Turbo for example.

The nav stuff is really cool, since the car is online at all times. Google Maps on a 20-inch screen in the center. You click a few buttons and it shows you all the nearby charging stations including superchargers.



I didn't have a chance to push the handling unfortunately, I would like to see how it does in some corners but I think with its weight and low rolling resistance tires I'd be a little disappointed with understeer and cornering speeds before the tires would fuss. I'm spoiled by Michelin Pilot Sport Cups, Toyo R888s and some other great sports tires.

Overall I'd still want one as a daily driver. It's bit too big for a dude with no kids but man it's a cool car and totally practical. For the rare chance I might drive more than 250 miles, I wouldn't mind a 2 hour wait.

On a side note, electric cars are everywhere here! In a 5 mile loop last night I spotted 5 Nissan Leafs, 1 Tesla Roadster, 1 Ford CMax plugin hybrid, 1 Prius plugin and another Tesla Model S. Just on my Model S test drive I spotted 3 Nissan Leafs

Frisco hippies!

But seriously, loads of Tesla S models around here and I still want one "$40k build quality" or not.

Give it some gas, make it move, like when geese nip at each other to make them move.

Really different. If I didn't already own the Insight, the Spark would actually be as cheap to drive, and a whole lot newer. But I already own it. The Spark is better in a lot of ways than the Insight but mostly because it's new and has more power. The braking, suspension, steering, build quality, driving position and a bunch of other benefits are in favor of the Insight.

The Tesla's not really comparable since it's like 10x the price. Of course I'd take a Tesla. Serious range on those!

This company really is amazing, and it's right down the street!

http://money.cnn.com/2013/08/20/autos/tesla-crash-test-score/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

Here's what I wrote about that on AT -
Makes sense when you see how it's made, tons of space in the front and back to use for clever crash stucture/crumple zones, no gas motor to run into in the front, and a huge battery pack that acts as a bulletproof vest the way it's mounted to the chassis. Solid brick for a floor. I think the chassis is a great design too.

Other than flying objects running into its roof, it ought to be safer than any gas powered car with similar constraints, but there's a big weight penalty for electric.

People will just buy them in other states and bring them in. I saw something about a Supercharger station opening in Texas too.

Not sure, but it must be posted up somewhere. and warranty.

In the pic of the frame above, notice the size of the battery pack, then watch the video (@22:10) and look how tiny the cells are!


The whole thing would be a lot smaller and lighter I'd think without so many battery casings and bigger cells instead. It's like building the platform out of AA when you could be choosing D batteries. I wonder if it's due to supply or cost etc, or more for strength ??? hmm.

Things are heating up in the EV world.
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/the-exchange/gm-takes-tesla-just-might-win-183920263.html

Tesla is hiring tons of people here. Sure a single robot operator might be one job instead of the 50 guys that used to assemble a car, but it's also a way higher quality installation and now those 49 guys can be hired for other jobs in our economy. I think it's an logical fallacy to blame technology for displacing jobs.

Except these jobs are going away in the near future as well. McDonald's and company are looking into robots to make food if the minimum wage hike goes up as robots cost around $4 an hour spread over a 24/7 schedule and 3 year lifespan. And amazon has proven that robots are way better at picking and stocking things than people are.

Now here's the dilemma: these jobs sucked to begin with and no one will really miss them but now you have a populace that needs feeding, housing and clothing. What do?