I've been waiting for this

[Suff]

Starting with cars made at Gigafactory Berlin, all Tesla vehicles will support power out as well as power in.

This will enable all Tesla vehicles to participate in energy markets using Tesla’s Virtual Power Plant and Autobidder software.
@elonmusk

.

This is quite good news and it gets around one problem we have in France. It costs up to €8,000 to connect your solar panel system to the French grid. As things evolve, there is a possibility to store all day energy at home, charge you car at home (assuming you can get a cable to it) and then sell it on whilst it's parked at work connected to the charger.

Our view of the world is changing. Cars have always been this money burning pit, required to get you from a-b. Things are a changing.

[cromwell]

They certainly are changing. I think the internal combustion engine will see me to the end of my driving days though.
I've nothing against EV's. I'd love to try an EV or a hydrogen car but in the real world I don't have the cash for it.

[Workingman]

For the FEW not the MANY.

I am one of the billions who live off the ground, have no off-street parking, and have no chance of ever owning a charging point.

Just like these folk....



We are not going to be using our Tonka Toys to do any load balancing any time soon. We don't have a solar panel or windmill between us and we are the MAJORITY. The brave new world is just a dreamscape to let the deluded think we are going somewhere, the reality will be so much different.

[Suff]

So here is how it works and have a thought before casting it into the abyss.

We know that in order to transition to variable availability renewable power, we must have three things. Production, storage and switching technology to manage the power across the grid. Currently our grid is built out with an expectation of a limited number of high performing inputs meshed over millions of low draw end points.

It is not common knowledge but a very small handful (2-3) of flow batteries the size of a shipping container, massively reduced the impact of the east coast power outage by switching in within a few milliseconds and maintaining the frequency above the cutoff levels. Allowing the grid time to re-route power and bring the grid back online.

If we plan for grid which uses a lot of wind and solar, we have to plan for calm nights. In such cases we need to massively overspec the wind turbines. The problem with this is that when it is not calm too much energy is generated.

Another thing which is not commonly known is our grid input works on a supply/demand pricing structure. So if we have as much as we need, but too much is being generated, then the price for the power falls. Several times the price of wind power has gone negative. The press are OH So Good at showing us all these wind turbines which are shut down and not being used, they never explain that the owners will not run them if it is going to cost them money to generate.

So back to renewables and electric cars. So with a fossil burner all this spare power goes nowhere. What are we going to do with it? We can't 100% rely on it being there when we need it but we can 1000% guarantee it will be generating power when we don't.

So we come back to cars and here is the fun bit. Go home, plug it in (yes every parking space will need a charge/v2g, everywhere), car sits there, at some point the grid needs power, your car gives and gets paid for it, later, the grid is on low draw. renewables are high, your car gets filed back up for nothing. But let's think this through. The next day I drive to work, using the power I got free from last night. I come home, plug it in, sell some power to the grid and then top up again for next to nothing.

This is the idea behind it. Your vehicle becomes a power bank which fills up for free but you can sell some of it when it is needed. Renewable power becomes a flexible market to reduce waste and, supposedly, things work a LOT better. Granted there will be times when it will cost to fill it back up, but not more than what you already sold and, usually, less.

Personally I still want at least 33% nuclear but the anti Nuc brigade would rather see us in the dark eating with bone utensils over a smoking tallow candle than have nuclear power....

[Workingman]

Oh it all looks so brilliant and easy in the spreadsheets and the glossy brochures in the waiting area of Peggy's Pet Grooming Parlour. It won't be so good for the survivors in the barrios Del Diablo or for the residents of Tumbledown Towers ,blocks 1 - 19 or on the Steppes or Pampa or, or, or.

I am awaiting the government's new contest along the lines of one for defining longitude. It will be for a meter to separate out the electrical supply used for normal household purposes and that for charging a car. Rishi, or whoever, is going to have to claw back the revenue lost from the fossil feeders, so he is going to have get it via a tax from somewhere, and Bob and Betty are not going to be happy to pay four times the amount per unit in tax to fry their breakfast and heat the living room to help him. EV drivers are going to have to stump up the cash one way or another.

[Suff]

If we don't, everyone is going to have to stump up the cash for the damage done by the fossil burners. That is not a "possible" but a given. At least in this way the people of today can build and pay for some of the future our grandchildren will have an not put all of the cost on them.

I didn't say it would be easy, nor that our dear chancellors wouldn't find a way to balls it up, just that it is possible and a a positive in a whole world of negative.

[Suff]

I'd love to try an EV or a hydrogen car but in the real world I don't have the cash for it.

Mummy, Mummy, CHRISTMAS!!!!

New Tesla Model S Plaid: performance and specs confirmed

Tesla’s Plaid performance upgrade for the Model S has broken cover, giving the saloon a maximum output of 1,006bhp

The Tesla Model S Plaid is powered by the company’s newly developed three-motor Plaid powertrain, which generates 1,006bhp. The system gives the saloon a 0–60mph time of 1.9 seconds (which is quicker than any road car on sale today) and a top speed of 200mph. The car will also dispatch the quarter mile in less than nine seconds.

It isn’t all face-melting performance, though – the new Model S also features “updated battery architecture,” which gives the range-topping Plaid+ variant (which costs an extra £20,000 over the standard Plaid model) a maximum range of 520 miles.

Yes Tesla got into a pissing competition with Porsche who were just yanking their chain. So Musk took the whole game away and created something Porsche will never beat in the next decade.

What is not said is that if you plug a Model S Plaid into one of the new Tesla V3 superchargers, it will add 80% power in 40 minutes. Now, personally, I'm wondering where anyone in the UK needs to go at around 800 miles, in one trip, where they can't spend 40 minutes after the first 7.5 hours of driving, in order to top the battery off.

Yes it's in the very high price range. As you would expect for a car which accelerates only slightly slower than a rocket.

BUT, unlike the Porsche, this is very much a 4 door family saloon for 4 or 5 passengers in high comfort. The price might be eye watering at up to £130,000 but with a battery reputed to last up to 1m miles, the drivetrain certified to 1m miles and maintenance on EV cars extremely low compared to fossil burners, it might just be the only car you ever need. Which is a sobering thought.

Before you get into the pictures there are a few things to note.

This is the most expensive car Tesla produces, it is their top model, but will not be their top model eventually. There will be a roadster 2.0 which will be even faster, but go just as far and will, truly, be a supercar just like the Porsche Taycan.

This car is in manufacture right now, Sales already taken with some lucky deliveries in March 2021.

Tesla do actually produce cheaper cars, starting in China now at $31,000, needless to say, you get less.

Tesla is the largest Pure electric vehicle manufacturer in the world.

Tesla are [edit] supply constrained, they simply can't make enough to keep up with demand. Even with their two new factories coming on stream this year, they will remain demand [edit] supply constrained.

Why don't you know this already?

Tesla DO NOT ADVERTISE. I won't say never because never is a very long day, but today you will not have to sit through some pre massaged pile of crap to get you to buy a second rate whatever. You either want an EV or you don't. If you do you will do your research because the adverts on the TV are crap and dealers are actively trying to dissuade customers from buying them. Because dealers get next to nothing out of an EV, once it is sold servicing is almost nil. Tesla insists on an annual check, but that is it. Yes they stick a price on it, but once your warranty is out you don't need to do it. One Nissan leaf went 1m km with only a wheel bearing replaced and no servicing whatsoever.

So, enjoy! The world is changing very rapidly indeed and most people are not even aware.

[Workingman]

The price might be eye watering at up to £130,980

So, as I said earlier, for the FEW not the MANY.

And even at £38,900 for the cheapest model in the UK they are toys for the (rich) boys... and ones with a driveway.

With congestion, speed bumps, pot-holes, the gradual lowering of the urban speed limit to 20 mph and with 70 mph on motorways who needs a car that accelerates faster than a mobility scooter, also an EV!?

Now then, what about the price of that electricity, the bit you fanboys always body swerve? Rishi is going to have to find the £40bn and more he loses on fossil fuel duties and EVs will be bang in his sights.

[Suff]

Did I say that this was the most expensive. Car they make or was that a dream? Their base vehicle is heading down towards £35k and if we has zero tariffs with the US it would already be close to there. What is more as every change in manufacturing rises the profit margin on a Tesla model, Tesla drops prices. The stock market goes ape, Tesla has no demand BS then gets hit with a clue stick and life goes on.

They are also designing and will be delivering, a new model. Some time in the 2022 space which will have a $22k price tag. That is less than the average price of a Fiat 500, but clearly not a car for the people???

Last year Tesla sold nearly 500,000 vehicles, 60,000 of which were their expensive top end models.

If you want a 30k mainstream EV, you can buy a VW and get 1/3 the vehicle for 2/3 the price from your "trusty" dealer who has absolutely no interest in selling you one. I say mainstream because they have active, liquid battery thermal management systems. The Nissan leaf and the Renault Zoe do not, with the attendant annual battery degradation and even catastrophic degradation in 3 years in very hot countries.

We have been driven into this mode of cycling our cars every 3 years, trade the thing in and get a nice shiny new one which smells ever so good. Yet for EV at current utilisation levels, they can easily last 40 years. So much nicer for the environment to do a whole interior refurb every decade than to be buying new cars every 3 years. So bad for the automotive business though. 2/3 of them will have to go out of business. Why not just keep screwing our future generations climate and chance of any future to keep those businesses going. Honest well recycle them in the most sensitive way.

[cromwell]

Rishi, or whoever, is going to have to claw back the revenue lost from the fossil feeders, so he is going to have get it via a tax from somewhere, and Bob and Betty are not going to be happy to pay four times the amount per unit in tax to fry their breakfast and heat the living room to help him. EV drivers are going to have to stump up the cash one way or another.

Road charging maybe?
A GPS transmitter in the car to show where you have been and how many miles you have covered?
I don't know if EV's are being sold with this technology implanted but not used as yet.
It would get round the problem of charging domestic electricity at vehicle rates but it would be sensitive on the grounds of civil liberties.

Actually what am I saying? The UK's population has shown during covid that it will chuck any and every civil liberty under the bus for a vague promise of being "kept safe".