Saving the baby polar bears one sucker at a time:
If (the Tesla’s) battery is ever totally discharged, the owner is left with what Tesla describes as a “brick”: a completely immobile vehicle that cannot be started or even pushed down the street. The only known remedy is for the owner to pay Tesla approximately $40,000 to replace the entire battery. Unlike practically every other modern car problem, neither Tesla’s warranty nor typical car insurance policies provide any protection from this major financial loss…
Cross a Lotus with 19th-century battery technology and, well, yeah…. Instead, you could just buy the Lotus. Never understood the battery tech chosen for the Teslas. This confirms it.
Your choices are a brick with the Tesla, or a bonfire with the Volt. Decisions, decisions!
Well, I was going to suggest cutting holes in the floorpans a la Fred Flinstone but if the wheels won’t even turn…. Gawd, that’s hilarious.
I don’t know why they call it a Tesla either.
Nikola Tesla would have powered his car by longitudinal waves delivered from his power station through the air directly to the motor.
No battery would be necessary and the energy would be free.
The car is called Tesla after the rock band who had such hits as Stir It Up, Mama’s Fool, A Lot to Lose, Caught in a Dream and Words Can’t Explain.
Am I correct in quoting Nicholie tesla as saying.
I have harnessed electricity and it is my gift to the world for free.
What I am getting at isthat did he not prove what OZ above me just posted and tried to deliver it to everyone all over the world for free?
What happened?
CAN ANY ONE ELABORATE ON THIS AMAZING MAN BEFORE TIME.
Agree Oz, Tesla would be spinning in his grave if he knew they used his name to market this POS.
tesla was a serbian lunch bucket, car is appropriately named
as to batteries, well they need a little work yet, rite KevinB???
Somebody in my office building owns one. I live in Burlington, so they drive it year ’round. Earlier this month, I showed up to work to find three “electric vehicle only” charging stations right next to the door. The Tesla occupied one, obviously, and the other two have remained conspicuously empty every single day.
The ironic thing is that aside from my office, all the other spaces are occupied by “trustee in bankruptcy” firms.
Daniel Ream- Pete Pachelli is too smart to buy one of those cars.
The guy that leaked this news should have his arse kicked.
“Is that a Bricklin?”
“No, it’s a Brick.”
The battery is a brick, the people who drive them have bricks for brains. It all fits in.
A roof mounted solar panel from Solyndra would solve the problem.
The Tesla battery packs use lithium-ion technology.
The camcorder I bought in 1998 used Li-ion batteries and I found out the hard that you can’t leave it sit for extended periods of time, as the battery discharged to the point where it totally died. My Ryobi 18 volt tools have Li-ion batteries which have an automatic shut down feature once the voltage or current reaches a certain level. They must be recharged fairly soon or they will drop below the recharge point and become small bricks.
I imagine this is a problem with any Li-ion battery whether large or small. They are expensive to manufacture and are very likely expensive to properly recycle the components.
mid island mike
Its a Lotus with an electric motor. I’d be more interested in a Lotus with a diesel motor, that at least would be different.
That the batteries fail is not at all surprising. Haven’t we all seen rechargeable AAs go flat, never to take a charge again? Just think of a whole truckload of those going all at once… Expensive!
simple fix…drop the battery and replace it with a generator…driven by a 454 4-bbl 🙂
Im’ all over the 454…LMAO..good one Benmused.! Electric cars..uhuh. Give me good ole diesel, or unwanted jet A…and I can “if” I want convert to Nat Gas. Options at least. Until electricity gets beamed to earth from giant solar reflectors or panels at no charge to the end users..those cars will always be a curiousity..nothing more for reasons noted above.
I’ve driven a Tesla, and they are a fantastic sports car: handle like a Lotus, sans gas.
Certainly a toy for rich boys, but still wonderful.
As for turning into bricks, that’s not unique to Tesla. Any vehicle can be “bricked” if abused in precisely the right way. Sugar, for instance.
My fellow right-wingers are justified in hating government subsidies for electric cars. But they are wrong about hating the technology: it works.
… and to put the POLAR BEAR issue into focus. Polar bears have been a distinct species for 700,000 years so they have survived several interglacial periods where temps were 12ºF warmer than they are now and seals gave birth on birthing BEACHES because there was probably NO ICE FLOES.
The bears never had it so good. The seals survived because the bears couldn’t eat all of the several hundred thousand pups on each beach … and life went on.
Then there was Gore.