If you think saving the planet is nonsense then I wish you would move to another one

Should Bill Arnett shut up and leave?

  • Yes

    Votes: 5 83.3%
  • No

    Votes: 1 16.7%

  • Total voters
    6

13_gecko_rubi

New member
Hah! That's good to know.

They had another $500M round earlier. They claim that they now have enough to start production. We'll see. Maybe they'll make a partnership deal with someone to do the actual manufacturing.

Agreed. I'm not a fan of Rivian's headlights but that's a trivial matter. Rivian would come a lot closer to Wrangler capabilities if they made some provision for bigger tires. How hard is that?

Tesla's "pickup truck" may be revealed this summer. Elon promises way-out radical styling. But also said once that if that bombs they'll do something more conventional. I have less than zero expertise in that domain :) But I've often wondered if a radically cab-forward design (think VW bus) would be functionally superior because it would give the driver a better view of the obstacles. (I owned a couple of VW busses back in the day. And I did a fair amount of off-roading with them, though of course mostly stuff we consider trivially easy now.)



What's a "wheel end motor"? Do you mean the motor integrated with the wheel so there are no driveshafts and u-joints? That's my dream design, too. It adds an awful lot of unsprung weight which is going to suck on the highway. But combined with a beefy wheel and a 37" tire maybe it wouldn't be all that much worse.

And if you're really lucky (and the regulators see reason) you can also eliminate the brakes and go with 100% regen braking. That saves a bunch of weight to offset those wheel motors. And is probably more reliable, too. The problem is you have a huge power level to deal with; the battery has to be capable of being recharged at a much higher rate than would otherwise be necessary. But see below. You might have to just dump the energy into a humongous resister. That would probably be super reliable but would it be cheaper than conventional brakes?

Did you mean independent steering on the rear wheels, too? That would be cool. Tricky to control though. Two steering wheels? Maybe the computer just makes the rear wheels precisely follow the fronts?

I like the Bollinger's massive ground clearance. And the styling is retro cool. My issue with it is the range. Only 200 miles. That would be OK most of the time for me but it would be a pain driving from here to Moab or Colorado. Rivian's 400+ is more like it.

Tesla is going to produce a new Roadster in the next couple of years. Very sexy. 0-60 in 1.9 seconds. 250+ mph top speed. $200,000+ Definitely supercar. Microscopic market, of course. Halo car.

Yeah. That's certainly a big deal. But as I said before, it's probably not as bad as you think. In some use scenarios the relatively slow re-fueling time is a pain (long trips with tight schedules). In other scenarios the EV actually wins (commuting with recharge at work or at home). YMMV :)

Example math: if want a 300 mile range that will require roughly a 100kWh battery. If you want to recharge that in 5 minutes (1/12 hour) you'll need an average power level of 1200 kW. That's 1.2 MEGAWATTS. At 1000 volts that's 1200 amps. That's possible but expensive. Tesla is working on liquid cooled charging cables for just such a scenario but don't hold your breath. Tesla and some of the others are talking about 200 or 300 kW chargers in the near future, though. That might get charge times down to 10 or 20 minutes. That's really not much longer than it takes to take a piss and grab a soda.

There are at least 3 "standards" in addition to Tesla's (CCS, CHAdeMO, another in China). It's a typical standards war. Tesla's is far more convenient but that's almost irrelevant. Someday this will settle out. Probably with the worst of all possible choices. :mad: Meanwhile, many charging locations have more than one charger type. And it's possible to make adapters. (I have a CHAdeMO adapter but I've only used it once in 4 years).

I agree that Tesla will probably lose the standards war in the USA. The end result will probably be a bunch of adapters for old Teslas and the addition of new standard cables in the Supercharger network. Meanwhile, owing a Tesla is a lot easier in this respect than the other EVs since they have access to the Superchargers and some of the others. That's a big advantage which Tesla didn't want :)

The situation is better in Europe. All (including Tesla) EVs sold in there use the CCS standard. Same (with a different standard) in China.

(And the gas pumps may all be the same but there are almost always 3 different kinds of gas and often diesel, too. Kinda like having different charging plugs in the same location.)


The first computer I worked on wouldn't have fit in Eddie's garage. And it had less computing power than my watch. :)

I agree battery tech is improving. And getting cheaper. But I think charging times will bottom out at about 10 minutes. We might see a variety of chargers with different costs and power levels (hopefully all compatible at the rate the car can handle).
By wheel end motors yes I mean right on wheel. As for 4 wheel steering think of our Hurricane concept from many years ago

2005_Jeep_Hurricane8.jpeg

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sharkey

Word Ninja
Holy fuck. Musk must have given you one hell of a reach around. You do realize, don’t you, that construction of several phases of their Nevada gigafactory stopped? Why do you think that is?

As it is, Panasonic occupies half of the factory. The entire thing wouldn’t even exist without Panasonic.


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BillArnett

New member
By wheel end motors yes I mean right on wheel. As for 4 wheel steering think of our Hurricane concept from many years ago

View attachment 9531

Sent via....

That's radical :) How to you steer it?

Googling.... Oh I see. The driver doesn't control each wheel independently. There are a few modes the determine what the steering wheel means. Very cool. Was there any concern about what would happen if one of the steering units failed? A tie rod is pretty reliable; maybe some sort of mechanical fail-safe could be invented?

More googling ..... TWO 5.7L Hemis!! An a radically complicated drive train. Someone must have had fun working on that. Did you work on that personally or does "we" refer to the company?
 

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BillArnett

New member
Holy fuck. Musk must have given you one hell of a reach around. You do realize, don’t you, that construction of several phases of their Nevada gigafactory stopped? Why do you think that is?
I have no idea. I could make a lot of speculative guesses. Do you have some more information?

As it is, Panasonic occupies half of the factory. The entire thing wouldn’t even exist without Panasonic.


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Right. It's a joint venture between the two companies. As far as I know the details of how that works have not been made public. I think I read somewhere that the two sets of engineers actually work very closely together. Probably means all the intellectual property is shared. But I'm not sure.

I think the new gigafactory that Tesla is about to build in Shanghai will be 100% Tesla's. And I think plan is that they'll be building batteries there. But I'm not sure. They're just getting started with the building construction but they say that factory will be up and running and making Model 3s by the end of 2019. Seems like a stretch to me but maybe things happen faster in China.

If you know anything more about all this it would be interesting...
 

sharkey

Word Ninja
I have no idea. I could make a lot of speculative guesses. Do you have some more information?



Right. It's a joint venture between the two companies. As far as I know the details of how that works have not been made public. I think I read somewhere that the two sets of engineers actually work very closely together. Probably means all the intellectual property is shared. But I'm not sure.

I think the new gigafactory that Tesla is about to build in Shanghai will be 100% Tesla's. And I think plan is that they'll be building batteries there. But I'm not sure. They're just getting started with the building construction but they say that factory will be up and running and making Model 3s by the end of 2019. Seems like a stretch to me but maybe things happen faster in China.

If you know anything more about all this it would be interesting...

I know quite a bit about what goes on in the Nevada facility but, unfortunately, I’m not at liberty to discuss the specifics of what I know publicly. Unlike like some lawyers in the news lately, I actually hold the attorney/client privilege in high regard.

I can say this though since it’s publicly available information. It’s far from what I would call a joint venture. Tesla owns the building, is acting as the licensed general contractor for the construction, and leases space to Panasonic.


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BillArnett

New member
I know quite a bit about what goes on in the Nevada facility but, unfortunately, I’m not at liberty to discuss the specifics of what I know publicly. Unlike like some lawyers in the news lately, I actually hold the attorney/client privilege in high regard.

I can say this though since it’s publicly available information. It’s far from what I would call a joint venture. Tesla owns the building, is acting as the licensed general contractor for the construction, and leases space to Panasonic.


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Ah. Thanks. .... I found a press release from 2014:

"According to the agreement, Tesla will prepare, provide and manage the land, buildings and utilities. Panasonic will manufacture and supply cylindrical lithium-ion cells and invest in the associated equipment, machinery, and other manufacturing tools based on their mutual approval. A network of supplier partners is planned to produce the required precursor materials. Tesla will take the cells and other components to assemble battery modules and packs. To meet the projected demand for cells, Tesla will continue to purchase battery cells produced in Panasonic's factories in Japan. Tesla and Panasonic will continue to discuss the details of implementation including sales, operations and investment.

The Gigafactory is being created to enable a continuous reduction in the cost of long range battery packs in parallel with manufacturing at the volumes required to enable Tesla to meet its goal of advancing mass market electric vehicles. The Gigafactory will be managed by Tesla with Panasonic joining as the principal partner responsible for lithium-ion battery cells and occupying approximately half of the planned manufacturing space; key suppliers combined with Tesla's module and pack assembly will comprise the other half of this fully integrated industrial complex."

I wouldn't be surprised if the "details of implementation" have evolved since then. Can you say anything about whether or how this might affect the Shanghai factory? I've seen no mention of Panasonic in that context. Sounds to me like something's missing from this story.

(But I certainly understand your attorney/client privilege concerns.)
 

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13_gecko_rubi

New member
That's radical :) How to you steer it?

Googling.... Oh I see. The driver doesn't control each wheel independently. There are a few modes the determine what the steering wheel means. Very cool. Was there any concern about what would happen if one of the steering units failed? A tie rod is pretty reliable; maybe some sort of mechanical fail-safe could be invented?

More googling ..... TWO 5.7L Hemis!! An a radically complicated drive train. Someone must have had fun working on that. Did you work on that personally or does "we" refer to the company?
It has two 6.1 hemis. That was done before my time but still see it every so often. It's got some beefy parts and being a concept steering failure wasn't a huge concern as it just sits around looking cool lol.

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RMC2

Member
I saw where Tesla is going to have raise the price of their vehicles except maybe the model 3. This is in addition to laying people off and closing facilities. Not as people are getting canned as first reported but that is being offset by increasing the prices.

Doesn’t sound very stable.

They are cool cars but out of reach for many. Model 3 starts at $35k but was something like $52k for the average price.
 

Monarch490

New member
If you think saving the planet is nonsense then I wish you would move to another one so the rest of us can get on with fixing the mess that 100 years of burning fossil fuels have made on this one.

If the planet was on its way to destruction there would be absolutely nothing that we could do about it. It’s like thinking that we had something to do with it’s creation.


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