#Tesla Electric Cars

[kropotkindersurprise]

May 10, 2024 - Hundreds of radical environmentalists and anticapitalists have broken through police lines and fences and stormed the terrain of the Tesla Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg. They are attempting to stop the planned expansion of the factory, which would mean the destruction of surrounding forest and farmland. The factory also uses immense amounts of water, and all to sell shitty electric cars to give people the idea that personal consumption choices can save the environment from destruction, and make fascist Elon Musk even richer than he already is. The actions in the past days have forced Tesla to temporarily shut down production at the factory. [video]

[faithfromanewperspective]

does anyone remember the 2010s when like. teslas were the Good Car. no one else had EVs out yet and you saw a tesla and knew it was a rich hippie with solar panels powering their off-grid passive design urban mansion housing 12 rescue cats and an anaconda. while we're all driving around in our carbon-farting gas guzzling at least fuel efficient old toyotas. you saw a tesla driver and were like 'if i work hard and pool money with my friends we might be able to own one tesla all together in 10 years time'

now it is 10 years time and teslas are killing motorcyclists and drowning drivers and it's like. i'll take my push bike and BRT rides and a share in a renault zoe but can we just. please get rid of those things

[nando161mando]

[11oh1]

[wheelsgoroundincircles]

I'm saving the planet.

[netscapenavigator-official]

People in the notes of my post about Tesla removing the gear selectors from its new cars, asking how that's even legal, clearly have no idea just how incompetent and slow-paced the NHTSA is.

Halogen headlights weren't legal until 1979.

Composite headlights (the uniquely designed ones that aren't the old-school circle or square ones you see on older cars) weren't legal until 1984.

Adaptive High Beams (Matrix Headlights) were only recently legalized, in 2022; and the regulations and testing procedures in order to approve them are so haphazard and over-complicated compared to Europe's that not a single automaker has even made them available.

Side Curtain airbags still are not mandated in the United States.

Turn Signals can be red in the U.S., as opposed to the statistically safer amber which is mandatory in Europe.

Making that worse, those red turn signals are allowed to share lamps with the brake lights. This means if you have your turn signal on, 1/3 of your brake lights can’t do their job because they're too busy doing another job.

There is no law in the United States dictating that an electric car must put on its brake lights when Regen braking. In fact, the law specifically states that only the friction brakes are required to activate brake lights. You can bring a Hyundai Ioniq 5 & 6, Kia EV6, Genesis GV60, and many other EVs to a rapid, complete stop without ever activating the brake lights.

Early model Chevrolet Bolt EVs and some Mercedes-Benz EVs will activate the brake lights appropriately when slowing down, but will deactivate their brake lights once they've come to a complete stop, allowing the car to sit at a standstill in the road without any indicator that it isn't traveling at the same speed as you are.

It's completely up to the automaker to decide how (or even if) to implement regen brake lighting. EVs and Hybrids have been around since the late 1990s and this still hasn't changed.

The US government STILL only evaluates a vehicles crash safety by crash testing it at 35 mph into a flat wall and t-boning it with a barrier representing a 3,000 lb sedan. They don't do an offset frontal test or a truck-barrier side test like the IIHS has been doing for private insurance companies for over a decade.

The NHTSA performs ZERO pedestrian crash safety tests like EuroNCAP does.

Oh, and on the topic of gear selectors, those aren't regulated at all. Here are some examples from modern cars, both electric and not:

BMW i3 & Nissan LEAF (Electric):

Toyota Prius (Hybrid) & Honda Clarity (Plug-in Hybrid):

RAM 1500 & Cadillac Escalade (Gasoline):

The automotive rules of the American government are pure chaos, and that’s if they're even there at all. If you're seriously asking how Tesla can allow a car to select reverse on its own, and then put the manual override in the touch screen, I mean, that's just scratching the surface.

If you wanna learn more, Technology Connections on YouTube has some great videos on the Turn Signal issue, the EV Regen brake light issue, and the history of the headlight regulations. I highly recommend you check them out because it truly puts into perspective just how awful the NHTSA is at doing its one job: keeping safety standards up-to-date.

[odinsblog]

As cold weather sweeps across the U.S., some electric vehicle owners are learning a bitter truth: Low temperatures can stop the cars dead in their icy tracks.

The issue crystallized this week when some Tesla owners in Chicago discovered their EVs' batteries had died in sub-zero temperatures. Drivers also said some of Tesla charging stations weren't working, or if they did work that the stations were taking longer than usual to charge up their vehicles.

“I've been here for over five hours at this point, and I still have not gotten to charge my car,” Tesla driver Brandon Welbourne told CBS Chicago. “A charge that should take 45 minutes is taking two hours.”

What happens to electric vehicles in cold weather?

Here's what to know.

Electric vehicles are less efficient in cold weather, with Recurrent's research finding that below-freezing temperatures reduced driving range up to 30% on 18 popular EV models.

An EV with a 200 to 215 mile range may only go 150 to 175 miles in the cold, Recurrent's Case said, while noting even that reduced mileage is often sufficient for most drivers. “The average person with an EV drives 30 miles a day,” he said.

Still, a shorter range in cold weather could be an issue for some owners if their EV runs out of juice miles earlier than expected, potentially leaving to hunt for an available charger or, worse, stranded in dangerously frigid conditions.

(continue reading) ❄️ 🚗​ 🥶

[lvlynessy]

[ceevee5]

[awesomecooperlove]

🚘🔥🚍

[iftadwascool]

why is getting a thumbs down 👎 so much funnier than getting flipped off??

[funbearer]

[youcancallmexelin]

so uh hi cars fandom!! 👋

just wanna show my silly tesla sketches in.. pixar??? style. electric cars are my damn obsession ok

enjoy!!

[ophilosoraptoro]

Tesla bills customer $21000 for driving through the rain while they're still in warranty

[clementiens]

it would make me so so happy if i woke up one morning to the news that elon musk had been shot dead, tesla factories had all been blown up, teslas already bought and out in the world suddenly just turn to bricks in peoples driveways, and there was a sudden rush of people slapping tesla owners in the face for choosing to drive one of these death machines when it's been basic knowledge for YEARS to anyone with two brain cells and access to google that you might as well just intentionally accelerate a normal car into a child and save yourself the time and money of buying a tesla and the hassle of pretending to be surprised when this shit happens. this isn't the fucking jetsons.

[lifewithchronicpain]

This is fucking ridiculous. Btw the baby is okay, of course they broke the window glass.

My mom has a Volkswagen and when her key fob died and she couldn’t get in it, she had to call AAA. There was a keyhole on the car, but it was hidden and my mom had no idea.

Now, electric cars, especially Teslas, are dying in extreme heat and trapping people inside. Apparently Teslas Only have a manual release inside the car, that many people don’t know about and is utterly useless if a baby is trapped inside the car! It’s absurd.

There needs to be regulations against this, not having a way to use a fucking physical key to open a door is a potential death trap. And if you’re going to hide the keyhole and levers, (which btw why??) there should be a huge fucking instruction on how to use before they can even take the car off the lot.

So please, if you own an electric car please be aware of this problem and learn how to open your car without electricity. And if it can’t, like the Tesla from the outside, make sure you have a window breaking utensil. (Which btw, you should have anyway)