Yeah, but 52% voted for Brexit. Doesn’t make ‘em any good.
They’re probably very tax efficient as company cars.
A guy I know has a model S, says it makes loads of sense for him. He even gets to charge it up for free by driving 10 mins up the motoway to Charnock Richard, hooks up to the Tesla Supercharger and does a bit of shopping at the Waitrose there and maybe has a mediocre coffee at Starbucks.
I think he said it costs him about £800 a month to lease, plus vat, and he gets to claim a big chunk of that back.
He’s definitely not the guy to go from idea to making money out of it. But he’s not smart enough to realise that and get in people who are.
They are still built by Mercan badgers.
It’s still a car that does a lot right imho. It’s phenomenally quick, carries 5 adults comfortably, has insane amounts of luggage space, and all the tax breaks etc. of an American vehicle.
It’s just that Musk has gone completely baked potato these days.
Interestingly, with Space X, there’s someone (whose name I forget) who basically acts as an interface between Musk and the rest of the company, and handles all the day-to-day stuff. She’s also fucking smart to boot. I suspect Tesla doesn’t have someone of their own to fulfil that role.
Oh yeah, BMW business plan, not making enough money, lets jack up the parts prices by 15% annually and make sure the electrical bits we over charge for new fail on a regular basis. Sorted.
Too true but I did take tens of millions of the cost of producing lots of their vehicles. Its not my fault that BMW worked out that they can pretty much charge what they like and people with still buy their cars 
They were amongst the first that worked out that if you finance cars a certain way then they ‘appear’ affordable.
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by making the indicator stalks an optional extra?
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There was an article I read a few days ago - can t find it - but the gist was that dealers want electric cars to fail. Their reasoning was that servicing and repair work was orders of magnitude less than on petrol and diseasel cars. As dealers make most of their profit from servicing and repairs they were scared.
Tesla doesn’t have a dealer network as such just much lower overhead workshops (MK Tesla is basically a shed on an industrial estate and a showroom in the shopping center).
Manufacturers are having to make electric cars or they stop selling to a certain type of buyer who are being hoovered up by Tesla. Hell in a few years I’ll have a model 3 (or equivalent) i’m sure. If Tesla go pop I can see electric cars going into a steep decline purely via dealer pressure towards manufacturers.
Having had new BMW and Mercedes company cars, I was surprised at how much more expensive BMW are for parts and service.
BMW typically set service parts at 5 to 7 times the actual component piece price.
One of our petrolhead Director’s has a Tesla. Bores anyone who cares to listen about it.
I thought it changed colour from red to blue when fully charged, only to realise that he had a different car every other day whilst they fixed issues with his ‘new car of the future’.
Funnily enough, he looks a hell of a lot like Sir Clive…
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Just been out in the snow / ice for the first time in the Auris Hybrid.
Fuck, it’s awful. With it having only one gear (belt drive reasons) and being silent when on electric, it’s incredibly hard to judge revs and control and it gets stuck at the first opportunity.
It was awful tbh with snow falling over already frozen roads.
Toyota hybrids don;t use belts … see here http://eahart.com/prius/psd/
If you can get your head around that you can see that petrol engine rpm is disconnected from road speed with torque being provided from 3 sources (mg1, mg2 and ICE)
It’s just about adapting to the system on low friction surfaces and letting the electronics do their job. Also check your tyres this is way more important than 4wd or fwd, get something that will work on low friction surfaces and / or in the cold and I bet things improve.
My faux by 4 hybrid lexus exited a muddy, snow / slush covered field with no problems while the jeep behind me was digging holes in the field and sliding all over the shop. 1 - because it was being driven by a twat who just pressed the loud pedal more when it didn’t move and 2 - because I’d had some decent tyres put on mine a few weeks previously.
Thanks, I need to read that a few times I think!
I must have misunderstood the salesman. I thought he said that the motors drive a cone that transfers power to another cone that drives the wheel via a belt. Hence only 1 gear.
The problem I found was that no matter how low I kept the revs it either didn’t move of spun. As it was on electric at that point the only way I could tel was when the dashboard skid light came on.
I’ll look into what options there are on tyres, they are still on the originals at the moment,
I think they’re CVT (Continuously Variable Transmission), like my auto Dullota. OK for daily driving but I wouldn’t have had it if I lived in a hilly area.
Sport* mode (in mine) gives it more traditional 7 speed auto, or use of the paddles manually. I’ll look to see if I can set off in 2nd next time I’m in it.
*Sports car it isn’t, at least it doesn’t pipe revved engine through the speakers like some modern cars.
CVT normally is a belt drive. The belt doesn’t have to be rubber.
Can you lock it in one ratio? Might be easier to control in slippy conditions?
No, it only has normal, electric, eco or power. I tried electric and it slipped once and went into error mode (i.e. switched off)