Posts by DuncanB

Tesla's Elon Musk v The New York Times, Round 2

Re: Facebook on wheels?

Elon Musk has explained several times that when they lend cars to journalists to review they log all of the data. They started doing this after the bad experience they had with Top Gear pretending to run out of power.

For normal users they don't log the data unless the user has opted in which I guess you might do if there was a problem with the car.

Apple must apologise for its surly apology on its website on Saturday

Apple have run the advert again, with changes

This week they've printed the advert again, but this time is acknowledges Apple as the source. I wonder if the judge had to prod them about that?

Photo at https://plus.google.com/104476390096404861445/posts/dbXdPN6AkUA

Vauxhall Ampera hybrid e-car

No, 50 miles isn't bogus, but it was never claimed as more than a best case range. Over on the Ampera Owner's club a few UK owners have already got more than 50 miles range on a single charge. 25 miles does seem to be about the worst case, usually reported by journalists hammering the car for a review in the middle of winter. Typical range seems to be more around the 40 mile mark which is more than enough for a lot of people's typical commutes though oubviously it won't fit everyone.

Payback versus the Chevy Cruze is a bit of an arbitrary figure: the Cruze is a much lower spec car so why not calculate versus the car that most Volt/Ampera owners would have bought if the Volt didn't exist? The most traded-in car for a Volt in the US is apparently the Prius, but the main car to compare against seems to be the BMW 3 series. Cabin noise is a good one to compare: you can pay a lot of money to get a car that is as quiet as the Volt.

Re: do the math

There are a couple of things wrong with your figures. First, the battery is 16kWh but the car never fully charges it nor does it let it run completely flat so the maximum used from the battery is about 10kWh. Secondly you forgot to allow for losses in the charging circuitry so from a 230V socket you can actually expect to use about 12.5kWh to charge (and another kWh or so if you only have 110V).

However, ballpark your figures are about correct. In the UK people probably pay between about 5p and 14p per kWh for electricity giving 60p-£1.75 per charge which assuming a charge is about equivalent to 1 gallon of fuel compares favourably to the £6.50/gallon we pay.