KEY POINTS
New European car registrations of Tesla vehicles totaled 8,837 in July, down 40% year-on-year, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers Association, or ACEA.
BYD recorded 13,503 new registrations in July, up 225% annually.
Elon Musk’s automaker faces a number of challenges in Europe, including intense ongoing competition and reputational damage to the brand.
I used to think the same, before I bought a (non-Tesla) EV myself. It’s very convenient to have some entertainment other than your phone during charging stops.
Also, the big screen is very well designed in a Tesla. It’s difficult to move to inferior UX models like pretty much every other car is after experiencing it. I’ve practically never used it for “entertainment”.
You can have a big screen in your car and physical buttons to control things, also anyone can carry a tablet in their car for entertainment as well
It would be nice if there were some thought into charging stops. Like I want a halfway decent sandwich and a coffee while I’m here. Usually, all I get is the far end of a Walmart parking lot. If there’s anything in walking distance at all, it’s probably across a stroad with no pedestrian signals.
Oddly enough, EVs are better in walkable cities.
Everything is better in walkable cities
if i owned a restaurant, i would KILL for a bunch of chargers. think about it! your stuck there for like at least a half an hour. why not just grab a bite? your a captive audience at that point. or theaters? gas stations seem to be the WORST place for them, because their need for fast turn around.
what i would have done with gas stations would be to have a battery swap system, sorta like a propane tank refill. now the cars would have to be designed where some batteries would have to be slotable by the user, but a benefit would be instant charge using a battery subscription deal. it would also effectively remove the max mileage concern from EV entirely, and the gas stations would not need much retro fitting at all.
Nio does battery swap stations. Never tried them myself, but they don’t seem to be very successful, at least not yet. My main problem is that you don’t own the battery and have to permanently rent it (which makes sense, since you swap it constantly). The costs long term don’t make it very attractive, especially since it solves a problem most people face like once a year, when going on vacation.
well, someone else mentioned problems with it on an engineering level that would be an issue.
but my main thought was that the car would have to be designed in a way where the car would still have its normal batteries, but could slot in additional batteries, and you would handle it just like swapping out propane tanks at a gas station
Several groups have tried battery swapping. It just doesn’t work very well.
oh? what was the problem?
Standardization, designing the whole car around it, and the complex mechanisms to automatically change the system. Batteries are heavy and need chonky, high current connections. Those connections are easier if they’re wired in and left alone for the life of the car. Also, can’t take advantage of making the battery more integrated into the frame to reduce weight.
It’s not a new idea. Whole bunch of companies tried it and failed to go anywhere. Formula E ruled it out for safety reasons; in earlier seasons, drivers swapped cars instead of packs.
Aren’t some ebike companies in Asia operating on swappable battery packs, I guess it’s a matter of those batteries being smaller
Yeah, that engineering problem isn’t in the same order of magnitude.
Charge stations should be on the Italian Autogrill model. Only in Italy can you get the best food in the country at a gas stop.
Hell yes. Unfortunately the Tesla chargers here are not at the Autogrills and you have to get off the motorway and usually into some random hotel parking lot for those. But there will be other fast chargers right at the Autogrills so I end up using those 🤷
The problem is actuarial data that shows Teslas have more frontal collisions which is because of the screen which is on track to being banned in EU. The second problem is the brittle cast aluminum frame shit out of Giga presses that makes most collisions a right off. Hence very high insurance costs on the Teslur.
musk, eliminated QC, because it was preventing him from selling them quickly, and its too expensive to add in quality materials.
it is one of the reasons he doesnt use LIDAR in the newer models? waymo is already way ahead of tesla robotaxis, eventhough its still limited right now, musk was too late to the game. although he couldve used this to slow down the pump and dump scheme thats going on.