Judging the Tesla Roadster and Chevy Volt by different standards
Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Chevrolet, GM, Tesla Motors
There has long been an interesting paradox in the realm of cars. For some peculiar reason, people who buy really expensive cars are willing to make more compromises to the foibles of the car and cut them more slack. How else to explain grief that owners of Italian exotics withstood for decades in terms of reliability, ergonomics and build quality. Buyers of mainstream cars that often have far fewer problems as a percentage of the number of vehicles built have a fit at every little thing that goes wrong. That same paradox exists today. The Tesla Roadster by virtue of its price and performance falls into entry level of exotic cars. Despite numerous delays in getting the car into production, and obvious compromised in terms of its functionality, most people have been willing to cut the car and the company a lot of slack, myself included. In my case my experience in the auto industry allows me to understand the difficulty of the task Tesla had. I never actually expected them to meet their aggressive timing targets and I've written on numerous occasions about the potential problems they might have. Nonetheless most people believed in the company.
General Motors on the other hand faces an entirely different standard with the Volt. In spite having a much more complex vehicle to develop with a much greater level of functionality and a shorter time frame than Tesla, GM seems to be being held to a higher standard than Tesla. At the slightest hint of time slips or cost increases, so many people jump on GM thinking that the car will never happen. Admittedly, we have yet to see a running prototype of the Volt (although they do apparently now exist) but that doesn't mean the company isn't fully committed to making the car happen. GM's task of creating a car that will be an affordable mainstream sedan for four passengers that meets modern standards will strangely mean that customers actually expect it to work all of the time. That's a situation that the much more expensive Tesla won't face to nearly the same degree.
[Source: Motor Trend]
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Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)
5-10-2008 @ 12:45AM
AMcA said...
Two of the first Teslas are being sold to Arnold Schwartenegger and George Clooney.
When Arnold Schwartenegger and George Clooney fly, they fly private jets.
That says a lot about the Tesla.
Reply
5-10-2008 @ 2:30AM
Kevin Nugent said...
What this article has said is vey true. It just the nature of the public
Reply
5-10-2008 @ 2:59PM
BlackbirdHighway said...
Did that. 40 hits, half of them intentionally started to show how unsafe the batteries are. Compared to 15,600 gasoline vehicle fires.
Speaking of intentionally started battery fires, you should read the Tesla white paper about their battery pack, or ESS as they call it, and all the safeguards they put in.
Cooling, fuses protecting cells, more fuses protecting groups of cells, lots of monitoring, and thermal isolation. They even wrapped a heating coil around individual cells deep inside the ESS and heated up the cells to the point where they combusted, just like in half the videos of lithium battery fires.
The ESS worked exactly as designed, the cells burned up, but the fire did not spread to adjacent cells, and didn't escape from the ESS casing.
They also crash tested the cars, and the ESS stayed intact, and cells didn't fry.
Tesla put a lot of work into getting the ESS right. In the process, they kind of overlooked the importance of getting the transmission right, causing a big slip in the production schedule.
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5-10-2008 @ 3:08PM
BlackbirdHighway said...
AMcA, yes it does say something. It says that finally someone has made an electric car that appeals to billionaires, celebrities, and car freaks.
As long as electric cars resembled glorified golf carts, that only most ardent tree hugger woould drive, they could never go mainstream.
We need to replace our gas vehicles with something better. Like it or not, most people are not going to give up a regular car to buy something with three wheels that only goes 25 mph, just to have something that's better for the environment.
They still need to get the price down, and we still need to work on the people that want to fly around in private jets all the time. But a desirable electric car is absolutely a good thing for curbing oil addiction, pollution, and global warming, regardless of who buys it.
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5-11-2008 @ 1:39AM
Chris M said...
Quote from Jimmy: "The Tesla will likely loose much of it's appeal when one burns up."
Oh, you mean like the loss of appeal that will happen when a gasser burns up? Automotive gas fires have already happened to thousands of cars, I've seen two cases in person. So, when will this "loosing appeal" kick in?
The laptop fire incidences aren't really relevant. The laptop makers learned the hard way that it isn't a good idea to put LiIon batteries next to a hot CPU in a cramped case with inadequate cooling! Newer designs took precautions, so even with millions of laptops, LiIon fires are now rare. Tesla Motors knew of the problem, and took both active and passive precautions to prevent thermal runaway, and to prevent the fire from spreading even if a cell did ignite.
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5-12-2008 @ 9:54AM
kry350 said...
Blackbird, Chris, just because there are thousands of car fires for gasoline vehicles doesn't mean you are more likely to have a fire with a gas vehicle. How many millions or billions of gas vehicles are there? How many li-ion vehicles are there? One li-ion fire vs 10,000 gas fires and you could still be more likely to have a li-ion fire. Statistics...
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5-28-2008 @ 7:19AM
DocRings said...
My "economy" car is my 2005 C6 Corvette, V-8, 400HP: I get 32MPG highway! More than my little 4-banger Volvo ever got....
Can't wait to buy into the PHEV concept, though... I love tech, and am willing to pay for it: whether it's a HEMI musclecar or a PHEV with Li-ion batteries...
Cheers!
Reply
7-10-2008 @ 4:23PM
Mac said...
How do you figure the Lotus is isn't practical? It gets better mileage than most American cars, handles better than any American cars and was built buy a hand full of people, yet current American cars can't even get better mileage than the Model T with millions of dollars and countless designers.
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