Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire My Brother and the Tesla

Never seen a Tesla.

Nicloa or otherwise.

Not sure if they are adapted to this area.

You need to get out more often?

Who is Nicloa, relative of Liberace?

Why?

Liberace is long since gone.

Back up singer.

Jim;
Good afternoon sir, I hope the sky's a tad clearer on your side of the big hills and all else is as you'd hoped it to be as we wind down the summer.

Strangely enough this summer two of the chaps I was doing some gun plumbing for brought them in Tesla's, one of them a brand new economy model and one a 3 year old returned lease - the S I want to say?

The new one came from the Lower Mainland and said he had to stop part way over the pass coming here to top up the juice. We're roughly 5 hours from the coast here - that's no accidents, avalanches, etc.

The chap with the S insisted I drive it and I'll have to say it's the quickest launch in a factory ride I've ever experienced. They go - period.... was doing 60mph in less than what I figured was 100 yds.

When my good wife picked up a new commuter rig last summer she went with a Toyota Hybrid Rav and while I am cognizant it's neither a Tesla or an EV, it does have a few interesting features.

For starters there's no drive line to the rear - it's all electric - and while we've not taken it rock crawling, when going up a washboard logging road in "trail" mode the thing is impressively smooth. She doesn't think it's as good on really icy roads as her previous car which was a Forester, but so far the Rav has averaged slightly better than 45mpg US.... again not too, too bad.

Oh, when you stand on it, all the gas and electric kicks in and while it won't quite eat my Cummins heading up a pass... well it just might actually, which is sorta saying something again because I've made more than a handful of sporty car drivers pout with that 5.9 Cummins, you know?

Anyways Jim, mostly I've just dropped by to say hello and hope your harvest is a good one in all ways possible.

All the best to you and your fine family.

Dwayne

My folks have a Lexus hybrid, it get's 40mpg around town and 40 on the freeway. What's not to like ?

How much did the American taxpayer add to that $40 grand to get them out the door?

Buddy's wife has one, never ridden in it but I plan to sometime soon. She uses (or did pre-covid) for a 40 mile commute to Charlotte for her engineering job. Range seems to be their big hurdle to overcome. My buddy is as conservative as they come, quit his job as a HS science and math teacher to goto gunsmithing school. He's a tech guy so I'm sure that was the draw.

I'm not anti E-vehicles but the range on them just isn't practical. I did buy a 2018 Silverado 4x4 with the e-assist after thorough research. It has a block mounted generator that is tied to the serpentine belt and gives a boost to the belt via cab mounted battery for towing and acceleration. It uses regenerative braking to recharge the battery. If not for the $16k off sticker I never would have gotten it but so far over almost 2 years it has been trouble free and I like the feature.

Interesting thread here. I feel that the future will belong to electric vehicles, someday.... Meanwhile they keep getting better. And some folks keep pointing out their faults. All of this reminded me about hearing stories from senior citizens in the 1950's, who had witnessed the coming of the early gasoline powered cars. Lots of what I now hear about electrics was heard in the early 20th century..... Too expensive, too many problems, they will never catch on, etc. along with the old "my horse is more reliable", and how some folks would yell "Get A Horse ! " at early motorists. I bet that this is just a repeat of history as electric cars improve and come of age.

I am live smack dab in the middle of coal country. The Energy Capital of the nation. That being said, I love the electric technology and cant wait for a reliable electric snowmobile to take into the mountains. The great power, smooth and responsive and quiet. The problem is how to remain light weight, use a big battery and keep it warm in the poor winter conditions.

Hahaha. Winner, winner....

I think that you are going to start seeing these highway rescue vehicles, like from AAA, packing a generator that will crank out 220 volts. All Teslas come with a 220 cord, as with my brother's car I just wired up a 220 volt dryer receptacle in his carport. The Tesla cord plugs right in and it charges, one hour gets you about 21 miles of travel.

All Teslas come with a big tv screen right in the middle of the dashboard. No gauges front and center in the middle of the steering wheel like on your Ford. You want GPS you get it on the big tv screen.
You want to adjust your mirrors, you do it on your tv screen. Want to see remaining battery life? TV screen. Want to see your speedometer. It is on the TV screen.
It is the 21st Century, Boys! This ain't a '57 Chevy Bel Air!!

And on your GPS it gives the locations of all the Tesla charging stations.
So, say you are headed to Hickory NC from Asheville and you run out of juice on I 40, ten miles away from the charging station in Hickory.
You call AAA. You are parked on the shoulder of I 40. Now, the tow truck could just load you up and drive you to the charging station.
Or, they could hook you up to their generator. In a 45 minute charge, you would have enough power to get to the charging station.

Or else, they could load up the Tesla, and plug it in to the charger, and drive to the charging station. That way, when they got to the Motel 6 or wherever the charging station is, they roll the Tesla off of the tow truck and he would have enough juice to drive himself over to the charging machine.

There is a saying that, "If you can imagine some thing happening, somebody else has already done it."
And this problem of a Tesla down and out of juice on the shoulder has already happened, many times I am sure.

The Tesla dashboard. This TV screen must be about 16 wide and 12 high. I must say I find it annoying.
All instruments and anything else you want to know, like outside temp, is on this screen.

Also you can run it solely by voice command. You just say, "Tesla, navigate me to Marshall NC" and it does it automatically.

I told the TV screen, "Tesla, give me the winning North Carolina lottery numbers for Tuesday September 15." And TV screen said "I do not understand that command."
It is a female voice on the screen.
I swear, I think the bitch was lying to me.

What is going to be bad, is when you are in the restaurant on the interstate, you are coming out back to your Tesla in a rain storm, of course your Tesla is locked, and you say to the Tesla "Open the pod bay door Hal."

And the Tesla says, "I'm afraid I can't do that for you, Dave."
That is when you know you are in trouble.

Yes,

But you might just see a Tesla pass you over a double yellow line.

maybe even a Liberace impersonator?

Driving a Tesla?

I would have to have a more normal looking "dashboard" than that screen simonkenton7.

Having to look to the side to check my instruments would bother the bejeezus out of me. 50 years of looking ahead for everything except the radio instills certain "habits".

Be interesting to calculate it out on the gallons saved per life of vehicle against the subsidies and tax breaks the taxpayers have given to the oil industry.for the gallons used over the lifetime of an "average" fuel economy vehicle.

it might just shake out to be a close race?

They are still burning coal to provide electricity.....Glad to hear for our region. I wonder how it will heat the cab @ -40 f?

"subsidies and tax breaks the taxpayers have given to the oil industry"

Do you know anybody that works in the oil industry?

There is no free ride. I googled how much it costs to charge a Tesla...$22.00 for about 250 miles worth or near 9 cents a mile. By comparison, my eco-boost Expedition gets 650 miles on $65.00 worth of gas, or 10 cents per mile. The production of and distribution of electricity is not as efficient as many would presume.