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The Times They Are A-Charging

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orng302 said:

Look no further than the US Senate race in Colorado. The O&G industry has donated hundreds of thousands to BOTH candidates. The oil industry are also are one of, if not *the* biggest revenue stream for the company that owns the Denver Post, The Boulder Camera, and about half of the other "newspapers" in the state.

Add together the revenue to the state's newspapers, television and radio outlets, and #1 is oil and gas, #2 is political campaigns. We are inundated with feel good ads from the O&G industry trying to deflect opposition to drilling in residential areas.

To point out that the war in Iraq is primarily to benefit Haliburton, BP, Exxon, and China and Russia's national oil companies would cut the news media's revenue stream, so they don't do it. The politicians won't utter a word because it would cut their campaign contributions.
 
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four-walling said:
SURE hope this thread doesn't get locked for going off topic...

Well, here's my gas mileage on Fuelly for the Fusion Energi. It's all over the place due to inconsistent ability to charge and climate/temps, not from much changes in the routes. Right now I can't charge very often at work, while I could earlier and that plays into it. But even if I forget to charge up I still can get 35-50+ MPG's in hybrid mode.

FuellySnip9-17-2014_zps86bdfc75.jpg
 
Nice numbers! But is it worth it if you factor in extra cost of the Energi package? You have me curious... does it indicate how many watt-hours your commute consumes?

EDIT: fixed dumbDroid typos.
 
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It's worth it to me to save 20 mins on the way to work and 30 on the way home driving in the carpool lane. The battery is about 7.5 KW and that's about what it uses one way.
 
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Fat Boss said:
It's worth it to me to save 20 mins on the way to work and 30 on the way home driving in the carpool lane. The battery is about 7.5 KW and that's about what it uses one way.

I assume you are in CA? I visited a company out there a few months ago that had a fleet of electric cars parked in front and 20 charging stations. They gave their top execs Teslas, and their lower level workers Nissan Leafs and Ford C-Max. They said it was because those people were expected to be on time to work, and giving them electric cars removed the traffic excuse!

So you would think Colorado would follow the lead of California. You would be wrong. Initially CO had a similar program whereby electrics could ride for free in the HOV lanes. Now, Colorado is slowly selling off their road infrastructure to foreign corporations, and those foreign corporations have turned the HOV lanes into toll lanes, and they killed the electric pass program. They are also making the HOV lanes such that you pay a toll unless you have THREE people in the car instead of two. They haven't even said how they will deal with two seaters yet, but the last I heard they were simply going to make so you pay unless you have three in the car, and if you only have two seats, too bad.
 
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Yep, I live just south of Silicon Valley and drive into the heart of it for work. I'm surprised that's the "excuse" they gave for buying everyone cars. My guess is the execs wanted their Teslas and were kind enough to share the wealth to some degree. They also can use that as a recruitment tool. With salaries as high as they are here, companies sometimes need to get creative in providing other benefits of employment.

For you pictures junkies, here's what happens when you leave work two hours later than normal and the first third of the trip is very slow stop-n-go traffic. SnG traffic is where the Fusion Energi excels. Ford claims 20 or 21 miles per charge, and that number might have gone down. They recently re-classified the expected MPGe and us buyer GOT CHECKS FOR EIGHT HUNDRED AND FIFTY BUCKS !!! ;D

As you can see, more than 20 miles per charge is definitely possible. The battery is technically 7.6 KWh's, but it'll only give about 5.8 before going into hybrid mode. The same trip in hybrid mode, or starting with no plug-in charge, would net me about 50 MPG. That little Atkinson Cycle engine is pretty dang efficient. It's some kind of two stroke.

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four-walling

Kerry, San Diego
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/s/elon-musk-reveals-much-apple-offering-tesla-employees-174030259.html

Should I sell my Boss and buy some Apple stock? If Apple buys Tesla, I can roll the profits into a GT350!

Elon Musk reveals how much Apple is offering Tesla employees to jump ship

One seriously overlooked detail from last week’s big Bloomberg report on Apple’s car project was that Tesla CEO Elon Musk has revealed just how far Apple is willing to go to bring his best workers over to Cupertino. In fact, Musk actually told Bloomberg that Apple is “offering $250,000 signing bonuses and 60 percent salary increases” for jumping ship

Any way you slice it, that is a pretty aggressive pursuit on Apple’s part. Glassdoor.com tells us that the average salary for a Tesla engineer is somewhere between $95,000 and $121,000 depending on the kind of work they’re doing. For absolute simplicity’s sake, let’s assume Apple tries to lure away an engineer who now makes $100,000 year — this would entail offering him a salary of $160,000 per year as well as a signing bonus that’s two-and-a-half years’ worth of pay.

This is a two-way street, however, and Tesla has been aggressive in its own right poaching Apple employees. Earlier reports have indicated that Tesla has stolen away more employees from Apple than it has from any rival car company, which just shows how important software will be to future Tesla offerings.

Of course, the companies could just eliminate all these poachings by merging, but that’s a development we probably won’t hold our breath for given Apple’s traditional aversion to huge acquisitions.
 

Grant 302

basic and well known psychic
four-walling said:
Should I sell my Boss and buy some Apple stock? If Apple buys Tesla, I can roll the profits into a GT350!

I wouldn't. I'm going with oil and energy sector stocks toward the same goal. For better or worse, already sold most of the Apple purchases from last spring.
 
The Times Are A-Charging: EV Wins Pikes Peak Hillclimb!

Wow this is impressive. Shades of things to come whether you like it or not. :-\

http://www.autoblog.com/2015/06/28/2015-pikes-peak-hill-climb-results/

"History was made today at the Broadmoor Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. Under perfect conditions, Rhys Millen was the first to win the race with an electric racer, and set a new record time (for battery-powered cars) of 9:07.222. Underlining the rise of electric machines, Nobuhiro "Monster" Tajima drove his Rimac-engineered e-Runner up America's Mountain in 9.32.401, to capture second place."

01-pikes-peak-hill-climb-2015-1.jpg
 
Don't be sad. The emphasis is all on speed and stability. Regardless of powertrain, we'll all enjoy the outcome in the long run.
 
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An electric motorcycle beat all of the gas bikes at Pike's Peak in 2013.

That particular race is perfect for electric - it lasts under 10 minutes, rewards torque over high end horsepower, and the high altitude saps a lot of power out of the IC engines, even with turbos or superchargers.

Electric racing in general could end up being pretty exciting once they get the battery quick change figured out. Imagine Indy strategies that have to consider pushing 98% and pitting 25 times or pushing 90% and pitting 20 times. They have that today, but the energy penalty for running too hard in an electric is much higher than with a liquid fuel vehicle.

There used to be a home built cart-like electric vehicle race series called Electrathon that strictly limited that batteries and design points. The goal was to go the maximum distance in one hour, so the strategy revolved around knowing just how hard to push your cart.
 

TymeSlayer

Tramps like us, Baby we were born to run...
3,787
2,740
Exp. Type
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Exp. Level
3-5 Years
Brighton, Colorado
Would not the liquid fuel vehicle lose weight as it went along as the electric would remain constant? You engineers out there can explain to me the benefits of these things on a vehicle, car or bike? I'm thinking less weight = speed but more weight in the right spot = grip. And be kind, I'm just your neighborhood screw salesman! :eek:
 
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TymeSlayer said:
Would not the liquid fuel vehicle lose weight as it went along as the electric would remain constant? You engineers out there can explain to me the benefits of these things on a vehicle, car or bike? I'm thinking less weight = speed but more weight in the right spot = grip. And be kind, I'm just your neighborhood screw salesman! :eek:

Are you asking what the advantage of electric is at Pike's Peak or in general?

A liquid fuel vehicle doesn't lose a significant amount of weight in that race. I'm guessing even the biggest engined cars only burn 15 gallons or so - 90 pounds.

Pike's Peak is all uphill and has 156 turns, many of them low speed switchbacks. On a course like that, you want maximum acceleration out of the corners rather than maximum speed. Electric motors produce almost all of their torque from very low RPM and have a flat torque curve. Perfect for that kind of race.

Any kind of internal combustion engine loses power at high elevations, but electric motors are not affected by altitude at all.

Both electric cars at the top of the standings were AWD with individual motors driving all four wheels. In fact the winning car has SIX motors. I don't know how they are configured; I'm guessing the rear wheels have two motors each and the second motor on each wheel acts as a kind of turbo boost.

Another advantage to electric at Pike's Peak is that with an electric motor you can really tune the engine braking to save and assist the braking system through regen braking. Also, electric cars have very precise throttle control, a huge plus when slipping sideways one foot can kill you.
 
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Re: The Times Are A-Charging: Ludicrous Speed

NFSBOSS said:
@Fat Boss

Ludicrous Speed option is on tap for the latest Tesla.

http://www.motorauthority.com/news/1099180_forget-insane-tesla-model-s-adds-ludicrous-mode-90-kwh-battery-option

Ludicrous Speed is a hallmark of a great car.

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