I agree with everything you said except for the inconvenience of Superchargers. I’ve done a couple of road trips in a friend’s Tesla and found Superchargers to be really convenient. They seem to be located exactly where they need to be to get us where we needed to go, and the 30 minutes it took us to grab a bite and…

>the most car anyone really needs is a Chevy Spark. The market doesn’t seem to agree.

The 2016 leaf has a 30kWh battery, so if that’s the model they’re using as a comparison, 80-100 miles is not out of the question. Otherwise, yes, the older Leaf is more like 60 miles in anything but ideal conditions.

Battery degradation from the cold isn’t as big a deal as it’s made out to be. Especially for trips where you are leaving directly from a charger, since you can precondition the battery and interior using grid power.

Exactly! The last track day I did (it’s been a long time) I rode from San Francisco to Monterey, spent the entire day racing around Laguna Seca, then rode all the way back again. At the end of the day my ass was raw, but otherwise it was no big deal.

Drafting and convoys works great out on the plains, but traffic is far worse now than it was in the 1970s. I don’t think you will realistically see a drastic improvement through the use of drafting, simply because it’s so difficult to coordinate and find a good stretch of road where it’s useful.

After driving around for 6 straight hours you might change your tune.

Hah! I didn’t even realize I’d written trunk. I meant to say hood - though your question is something that has already bothered me. Rear hatch opening = trunk. Front engine opening = hood. Front trunk opening = frunk. Rear engine opening = rood?

With the amount of trouble he’s had on the trip with overheating, I really don’t understand why he didn’t just take the trunk lid off completely.

Agreed. Sexy from the side and rear... butterface.

Yeah, I’ve heard it’s around 500 lbs. or so. That’s a hyooge bitch.

Not sure it’s even necessary. On a normal flatbed, the bumps and jostling could make a car bounce around or roll off the back. But this truck has what are essentially chocks around both front and rear wheels. That car isn’t going anywhere unless the truck ends up upside-down.

Ah yes. Sorry. I misread. Thought you guys were talking about the Model 3.

>The Tesla Model 3 isn’t real yet, and isn’t purchasable for years for anyone deciding to buy one right now.

Not really. The trunk opening is really large and hinges partway up the C-pillar, but you can’t get to the back seat and the glass doesn’t lift with the lid. It doesn’t really fit the definition of a hatchback.

We have them here in Seattle too.

I think you’re making some assumptions about electric car buyers that aren’t necessarily true. I bought a Focus Electric over the weekend and, so far, am quite happy. Far from being a crapwagon, it’s actually quite nice. It doesn’t have all of the bells and whistles of a top of the line Lexus or BMW, but it’s…

I was wondering this same thing. Single wheel, FWD burnout but then part way down the track it just HOOKS and goes. There’s way too much weight shift going on there for it to be a FWD car.

The thing on Lucas’s bike that you have highlighted in the last pic doesn’t look like gaffer tape to me. It looks like one of those chrome “eyebrows” that people used to put on their lights back in the 50s (and that you still see on some hoopties today).

Not true. I have a few friends that own Teslas, and they do quite well at long distance driving, thanks to being great touring cars and having a ~300 mile range and relatively quick recharges. One of my good friends drives between Seattle and Portland quite often. That’s not exactly SF to NYC, but it’s still 3+ hours…