My solar panels beg to differ.

Tesla manages its battery pack, laptops just drain theirs. Again, please link to someone having a problem with their Roadster's battery pack; I'm sure out of 2000 owners some must have had problems.

Ray at 1:02 "But the problem is Tesla hasn't had the sufficient engineering history in order to build a car from scratch."

Most of your first paragraph is "citation needed". Tesla's thermal & electrical battery management seems at least as good as anyone else's, and name the people experiencing questionable lifetimes. The Roadster's humongous and expensive 450 kg of batteries blew a hole in the "no range" criticism of EVs, and since then…

MPG figures aren't massaged estimates, you drive the car according to the EPA's detailed test specification and see what you get. The EPA itself doesn't test every car, it allows manufacturers to submit their own figures (and I don't know how you can tell which numbers are from EPA). Some allege that Hyundai inflated…

Props to @wickedme91 for pointing out the software update angle before me.

@steliosr32, no. I think "Honda Civic Hybrid's IMA battery pack comes with an 8-year/80,000-mile warranty, or a 10-year/150,000-mile warranty in CA", though Honda admitted early battery deterioration which they tried to counter with the software update that f***ed up the mpg. I think replacement runs about $3000…

No, moral of the story is Honda's IMA couldn''t get high MPG without hurting its battery, and beware of software updates that "fix" problems by screwing up performance. I think the Nissan GT-R got a software update to lessen gearbox damage that decreased 0-60 slightly, I wonder if anyone took them to court.

Thank you! That's the key point that Jalopnik left out, hence all the uninformed ranting here against the customer who got shafted.

Right, and Honda "fixed" the deteriorating battery problem in a software update by running the gas engine more, worsening the MPG. Both Jalopnik and LA Times left this out.

The mpg dropped after Honda's 2010 software update. That's a key part of her case that Jalopnik left out.

[www.dontsettlewithhonda.org] has her bullet points. I don't know why it doesn't lead with Honda's software update that avoided battery degradation by running the engine more, at the cost of worsening the mpg. Their IMA system just doesn't work as well as Ford and Toyota's e-CVT.

The key fact is Honda "fixed" its substandard IMA system in an update to avoid early battery breakdown by making the engine run more, thus worsening its MPG even more than its optimistic EPA rating.

The key fact is Honda "fixed" its substandard IMA system in an update to avoid early battery breakdown by making the engine run more, thus worsening its MPG even more than its optimistic EPA rating.

It's nothing to do with CARB, it's Honda "fixing" its substandard IMA system to avoid early battery breakdown by making the engine run more, thus screwing up its MPG even more than its optimistic EPA rating.

C'mon Matt, you (and the LA Times) are completely misreporting the story!

Except he didn't assert your last sentence "Making electric cars today is more cost efficient and practical than it was in the past. Electric power is inexhaustible and, while the batteries are tricky to repair, they're reusable." What exactly is wrong or inane in that statement? If you have access to a plug,…

Tesla claims the Model X "combines the functionality of a minivan with the design of an SUV" and "quicker than a Porsche 911 and roomier than an Audi Q7". Sounds like the design could range from stomach-churningly awful to decent, but more importantly it's what a lot of car buyers get, unlike (sadly) wagons.

VW tested TwinDrive with both diesel and gasoline, but the 2013 Jetta hybrid will use a direct-injected 1.4-liter TSI turbo gasoline engine. Even with only a decoupling clutch instead of a full e-CVT, it seems the gas engine can run at high efficiency enough of the time that the diesel benefit is negligible. It's…

Tesla's Model S/Model X/future Roadster? platform crushes this for simplicity and design flexibility. Front and rear trunks!