Electric Vehicles: General topics

Apple fanboy

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Setting up to take this photo I was crawling around at idle speed and then curved the wheels as I was parking, I was barely even moving, just curving the wheels. The car screeched at me for "aggressive turning" and grabbed the wheel from me, scared the hell out of me because it was out of nowhere. It also dinged my driving score. Man you just have LOL out just how out of touch that big brother shit is in this car, they're not even close to getting it right.

Anyway, here's the photo that cost me points.

View attachment 12075
Wait until they link it with your insurance! Nice photo btw.
 

Eric

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Wait until they link it with your insurance! Nice photo btw.
Thanks. It's actually their own "Safety Score" that determines whether or not you are capable of handling of their FSD (full self driving) beta, which gives you the ability to allow the car to drive you around city streets. You need a score of 99 or better, so far the highest I've been able to get is 85 and the car keeps doing shit to penalize itself without my intervention.

Short of keeping lanes on the freeway, the autonomous systems in this car are no where near ready for real world use, they've put so many limitations and restrictions on it that IMO it's more dangerous than helpful. In the end you are paying $12K a year to babysit a car that can't handle the most basic of driving functions without user intervention.

All that aside, it's a well designed EV but it'll be years before it can handle any real automation. Anyone paying for these "features" are out of their minds, including myself for even trying it for 30 days.

Nice. Are those almond trees?
Some other kind, not sure, the almonds still haven't fully flowered yet.
 

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Some other kind, not sure, the almonds still haven't fully flowered yet.

Ahh, I wondered, I originally thought maybe those were cherry blossoms, but when I looked up cherry blossoms california I got a bunch of hits on almond blossoms!
 

Apple fanboy

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Thanks. It's actually their own "Safety Score" that determines whether or not you are capable of handling of their FSD (full self driving) beta, which gives you the ability to allow the car to drive you around city streets. You need a score of 99 or better, so far the highest I've been able to get is 85 and the car keeps doing shit to penalize itself without my intervention.

Short of keeping lanes on the freeway, the autonomous systems in this car are no where near ready for real world use, they've put so many limitations and restrictions on it that IMO it's more dangerous than helpful. In the end you are paying $12K a year to babysit a car that can't handle the most basic of driving functions without user intervention.

All that aside, it's a well designed EV but it'll be years before it can handle any real automation. Anyone paying for these "features" are out of their minds, including myself for even trying it for 30 days.


Some other kind, not sure, the almonds still haven't fully flowered yet.
Well I do t think I’ll have all those features on my BMW, but it has enough options to keep me happy. Mind you I’ve not finalised the order yet. That’s tomorrow’s task. Also will be talking to an electric charging point installer. Just as well I’ve got the day off.
 

Eric

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Well I do t think I’ll have all those features on my BMW, but it has enough options to keep me happy. Mind you I’ve not finalised the order yet. That’s tomorrow’s task. Also will be talking to an electric charging point installer. Just as well I’ve got the day off.
I had the driving assist package on my 2020 528i, but there was no full self-drive, are they offering that now? In mine it did really well with the traffic jam assist piece, below 37 MPH. But on the highway it would lose the lines quite a bit and make you take over, it also bounced between the lines (like bumper bowling) and would not keep centered. I'll say the Tesla has been flawless on this aspect, it never loses them and remains centered well.
 

Apple fanboy

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I had the driving assist package on my 2020 528i, but there was no full self-drive, are they offering that now? In mine it did really well with the traffic jam assist piece, below 37 MPH. But on the highway it would lose the lines quite a bit and make you take over, it also bounced between the lines (like bumper bowling) and would not keep centered. I'll say the Tesla has been flawless on this aspect, it never loses them and remains centered well.
I think it has Lane assist and adaptive cruise control, but I’m not sure if I’m having those options. Need to keep the RRP below £40k or I’ll get hit with a luxury car tax for 5 years.
 

DT

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Put about 1/4 a tank of gas the Wrangler, mostly just to shut off FORM - being a PHEV that's run 90-95% on electric mode, the ICE engine has a timer that forces it on for Fuel/Oil Refresh Mode, just a little fresh gas resets it. I think we're on like 35-40 days on the same tank with little use :D

Anyway, holy f-in heck, the 93 was $4.33 / gallon (just using 89 in the Wrangler, but I used to run tuned performance cars requiring 93 ...)


***

For some of the new Tesla owners like @BigMcGuire and folks currently considering (like @citypix ) this is a cool feature:

Tesla cars (and backend cloud services) have a public API, so 3rd party apps can be developed. I'm currently using Tessie and TeslaScope, that gives me web control, an Apple Watch app (with automations and voice control), extensive reporting and analytics, more sophisticated notifications, etc.

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Eric

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Opted out of the beta queue and it removed the Safety Score from my app and it's liberating. I don't know how you guys maintain a score of 99 or above (especially you @DT, you hot roddin' mofo!) but if I even looked at the car funny I would lose 3 points. Also, my one month test FSD will be over this week and I won't miss it. In the end the only real difference it makes is the signal on freeways and is in no way worth the extra money.
 

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Opted out of the beta queue and it removed the Safety Score from my app and it's liberating. I don't know how you guys maintain a score of 99 or above (especially you @DT, you hot roddin' mofo!) but if I even looked at the car funny I would lose 3 points. Also, my one month test FSD will be over this week and I won't miss it. In the end the only real difference it makes is the signal on freeways and is in no way worth the extra money.
Can't. I'm at 89% and consider myself to be a good driver. I spent most of my working life driving an insane # of miles (for 6 years I drove 190 miles a day). To try to get a good driving score would require me to drive like an *** imo.

First thing I had to do was turn off the emergency lane assist because I like to drive close to the line in the carpool lane to let motorcycles by. It did not like that. Same for when I was forced out of my lane by an inattentive driver, the emergency lane assist almost threw me back into the lane drifter. Yep, that got turned off.

Trash day? I live in a town house / apartment complex. So just trying to park my car in my garage on trash day resulted in 6-7 close proximity warnings.

405 traffic in LA? There are constant close calls that are not my fault that get counted against me.

I dislike the Safety Score because it is unfair.
 

Eric

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Can't. I'm at 89% and consider myself to be a good driver. I spent most of my working life driving an insane # of miles (for 6 years I drove 190 miles a day). To try to get a good driving score would require me to drive like an *** imo.

First thing I had to do was turn off the emergency lane assist because I like to drive close to the line in the carpool lane to let motorcycles by. It did not like that. Same for when I was forced out of my lane by an inattentive driver, the emergency lane assist almost threw me back into the lane drifter. Yep, that got turned off.

Trash day? I live in a town house / apartment complex. So just trying to park my car in my garage on trash day resulted in 6-7 close proximity warnings.

405 traffic in LA? There are constant close calls that are not my fault that get counted against me.

I dislike the Safety Score because it is unfair.
Right, and it's easy for Musk to tweet about no accidents while using their system when literally nobody gets to use their system lol. Seems like you have to drive like a little old lady, pissing off everyone around you to keep your car from dinging you. In the end it's just not worth it.

I would guess that the adaptive CC does well for you in that traffic though, right? In both the Tesla and BMW I've found this to be invaluable, the only drawback is it leaves so much room in front of you that people cut you off constantly.
 

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Took our Tesla on a road trip over the weekend. Drove way too much and had to supercharge 3 times in 1 day. lol. It was an amazing experience - drove on gravel, dirt roads, and the Tesla took it better than our Civic would have. The supercharging was perfect - never spent more than 30 mins waiting and came back to an almost fully charged car. Full cost of the day's 3 charges? $40. Gave us enough time to plug in, hit the restroom, grab a bite to eat, and hit the road again.

Utilized the full auto driving feature for several hours - the "move steering wheel slightly" thing is excessive at night/morning hours. Found out the car immediately knows if you pick up your cell phone and complains loudly (as the driver) or if you are tired (while full self driving is on). That was a bit freaky. While I like the feature, I wouldn't pay for it (came with the used Tesla we bought).

I've never experienced having to get out of a bad situation with acceleration (previous civic owner) - had 2 events where I could have slammed on my brakes and risked getting rear ended, or accelerate out of a bad situation - that was liberating and amazing. (I drive all the time with sport accelerator).

Absolutely loving this car and know that we've acclimated to the supercharging stations - we're a lot more confident about traveling around (though I hope to not touch a super charger for a very long time).
 

BigMcGuire

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Right, and it's easy for Musk to tweet about no accidents while using their system when literally nobody gets to use their system lol. My guess is you have to drive like a little old lady, pissing off everyone around you to keep your car from dinging you. In the end it's just not worth it.

I would guess that the adaptive CC does well for you in that traffic though, right? In both the Tesla and BMW I've found this to be invaluable, the only drawback is it leaves so much room in front of you that people cut you off constantly.
YES - I did a big comparison between adaptive steering/following and the full self driving. IMO, how I use them, they're identical (I only use them when driving on a lonely freeway with a long drive). I'm learning to leave my hands on the wheel and let them pull on the steering wheel a little so it never asks me to move the steering wheel (otherwise I have to keep my eye glued for the blue flashing). But yeah I really like that.

Yes, FSD followed a bit too close for my liking, but the adaptive CC left way too much space - constantly pissing people off and resulting in people pulling in front. So I only use them when on an isolated long drive highway (like yesterday's road trip) - or super heavy LA traffic.
 

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Only negative thing after our trip? Noticing that turning the steering wheel results in a creaking noise. So we have Tesla's mobile service coming Thursday to check that out. Looks like the 2018 models have this as a common warranty fix.
 

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Put about 1/4 a tank of gas the Wrangler, mostly just to shut off FORM - being a PHEV that's run 90-95% on electric mode, the ICE engine has a timer that forces it on for Fuel/Oil Refresh Mode, just a little fresh gas resets it. I think we're on like 35-40 days on the same tank with little use :D

Anyway, holy f-in heck, the 93 was $4.33 / gallon (just using 89 in the Wrangler, but I used to run tuned performance cars requiring 93 ...)


***

For some of the new Tesla owners like @BigMcGuire and folks currently considering (like @citypix ) this is a cool feature:

Tesla cars (and backend cloud services) have a public API, so 3rd party apps can be developed. I'm currently using Tessie and TeslaScope, that gives me web control, an Apple Watch app (with automations and voice control), extensive reporting and analytics, more sophisticated notifications, etc.

View attachment 12095

View attachment 12094
This looks very attractive. I saw the $ and immediately said: "I wanna get used to my Tesla first" - as we continue to get used to our Tesla I can see how stuff like this would be nice - making it more and more attractive - especially because I think we're (at the moment) heavy drivers - would love to see that data.
 

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Setting up to take this photo I was crawling around at idle speed and then curved the wheels as I was parking, I was barely even moving, just curving the wheels. The car screeched at me for "aggressive turning" and grabbed the wheel from me, scared the hell out of me because it was out of nowhere. It also dinged my driving score. Man you just have LOL out just how out of touch that big brother shit is in this car, they're not even close to getting it right.

Anyway, here's the photo that cost me points.

View attachment 12075
I am no good with "backseat drivers" — and to have the car shout at me would be just… "Fuck off already!"
 

DT

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Rivian is introducing new 2-motor models (the previous were 4-motor) and dramatically raising the price of the current 4-motor:

Effective immediately, The Rivian R1T's price is increasing "approximately 17%" which will increase the base cost from $67,500 to approximately $78,975. The R1S will see a whopping price increase of "approximately 20%" bringing the new base price from $70,000 to about $84,000. Additionally, the cost of certain options, upgrades, and accessories has also increased.

The new pricing structure isn't just for new reservations. The price increase will also also be applied to existing reservations. This will affect the majority of reservation holders except for the customers who were already in the final steps of completing their transaction with Rivian. Therefore, unless you've spoken with your Rivian representative lately, and your vehicle is already in, or entering production right now, the price increase will be applied to your order.

In an effort to alleviate some of the sting of the price increase, Rivian is announcing the lower-cost dual-motor option at this time to offer customers a way to retain their R1T or R1S reservation without paying any more than they have already committed to.

Unfortunately, in order to keep the same price, they will have to accept the following:

The dual-motor vehicle instead of the quad-motor they originally reserved
A 260-mile (EPA-estimate) battery instead of the 314-mile (EPA rated) battery
Wait one to two years longer to take delivery. (Rivian estimates dual-motor deliveries will begin in 2024)

I saw some guy say his existing order went up by $15,000, so it's a $100K truck. :oops:
 
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