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The NYT article chronicles an attempt by scribe John M Broder to drive a new Model S from Washington to Boston with stops to make rapid recharges at two new ultrafast charging stations set up by Tesla on the route between the two cities, which should have made the journey nearly as quick and simple as it would be in a fossil-fuelled vehicle.
Unfortunately things didn't work out that way for Broder. He reached the first charging station without trouble and left the car plugged in for most of an hour, which should have furnished easily enough juice to reach the next one. Unfortunately, on the next leg of the trip the dreaded "range anxiety" syndrome set in.
Despite turning down the heater to the point where the Model S' interior became "freezing" and driving at 54 mph, Broder only just reached the second charging station, rolling in having gone past zero on the range remaining readout with emergency captions flashing on the dashboard.
The NYT journo then intended to make a 125-mile overnight round trip into Connecticut before returning to that station for a final charge prior to returning the Model S to Tesla. He departed the station with a range reading of 185 miles, which should have been more than enough to do the job.
At first all seemed to go well, but when Broder returned to the parked car after his overnight stay he found that two-thirds of the battery charge remaining in it had apparently dissipated during the cold night, leaving him unable to get back to the Tesla fast-charging station.
Company reps directed the luckless journo to a different - and, like most EV charging points, much lower-powered - station nearby. After an hour there he set out again - following Tesla advice - but the Model S never looked like reaching the Tesla fast-charge point. Broder desperately attempted to reach another, nearer charging point but disaster struck:
The Model S had other ideas. “Car is shutting down,” the computer informed me. I was able to coast down an exit ramp in Branford, Conn., before the car made good on its threat.
Well...at least this company only got half a billion dollars of taxpayer money for their toy.
"Six months after Mitt Romney called electric auto company Tesla Motors a “loser” investment for the Obama administration, Tesla has announced it will post its first ever profit in the Q1 2013 and expects to pay back its Department of Energy loan 5 years ahead of schedule, by the end of 2017. Meanwhile, Tesla’s Model S was unanimously voted Motor Trend’s Car of the Year in November 2012."
When they build a car that has a two hundred mile range, WITH the heater or air conditioner going (in other words, 200 miles at an ambient temperature of ZERO; and 200 mile range at an ambient temperature of over 100 degrees F.), WITH the stereo going as well, AND it has a power source guaranteed for 75,000 miles without failure, AND it costs less than $30,000 nicely equipped...
THEN I will consider getting one. CONSIDER it, that is.
I don't see that happening anytime soon...
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