There are a few car enthusiasts here. Are any of you thinking about getting the 2020 roadster which will be out soon if no delays:

https://www.tesla.com/roadster

What are your thoughts on electric vs ICE cars?

made my day

I will not buy it for two reasons. I've explained my wife that you can take the roof off and accelerate from 0-100 in 1.9 seconds, and go all the way to 400 km/h.


When she realized what the effect on her hair could be, I got a no-go.


The other reason is that I can't live with a car that is called "Roadster" while you can only remove the roof panel.

I would very certainly seriously consider the new Roadster. I expect them to be rarer than hen‘s teeth and likely to hold their value well.

There are big battery developments on the way and hopefully these would be included in the Roadster.

Oddly the deposit for a Cybertruck is CHF100, but CHF50,000 for a Roadster...

That Tesla is 250K CHF, thus no

Tested an electric car first time last April. It was Porsche Taycan and my wife loved it. I drive in a small road full of lovely corners and imperfections in the asphalt. It looks large but it doesn't felt that large on the road, the steering wheel feels perfect. Time to torque was scary, you need more than 40 min drive to get confident with the accel pedal. For me it's a 4 door car, so I pass. People say range is a worry but the longest single trip we've done is Aarau-Milano, once. Trips within Switzerland are much shorter. Even 300km range is enough for a round trip and there are chargers everywhere anyway.

Driving the Taycan left me thinking about the electric Lotus Elise...errrr, a 2011-2012 Tesla Roadster. I wanted an Elise since I was a teenager. It would make a nice 2nd car while my wife has a reliable 4 door one. If it fails I can still use the train, when it works I'll smile. Batteries should be dead by now but there are lots of small companies retrofitting electric motors on classic models. People like this can bring back an old Tesla to life. Sadly, old Tesla Roadsters are still at 70K. When will they get to 30-35K?

But ICE cars are not dead yet. Mercedes-AMG just announced they'll bring to the market an engine with electric turbo next year. https://www.roadandtrack.com/new-car...-turbocharger/ The technology has potential, engineers squeezed 270 HP per liter with an electric turbo (Garret) for a total of 474 HP from a 1.75L 4 cyl engine, while maintaining the fuel consumption of the small engine and reducing emissions https://www.avl.com/-/avl-hyper-200-concept-engine
Another turbo manufacturer, BorgWagner claims their electric turbo + exhaust turbo makes a 4cyl Mustang faster than the 8 cyl one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqQ-ZYmjOu4

In the end, if emissions matter, just rise the petrol tax and people will use less the car. Less congested roads make me smile.

The "OG" roadster had a lot of problems and in many ways served as a "learning project" for Tesla.

I would seriously discourage anyone from getting one these days, because Tesla has mostly abandoned them.
E.g. you can only get service-appointments via an app now, but AFAIK there is no app for the roadster...

The 2020 Roadster (though I wouldn't expect delivery well into 2021 or even 2022) is a peculiar project because I don't expect it to sell very well ("Founders' edition is still available, AFAIK).

The people who usually buy these kinds of cars (upwards 170k) have different requirements for their cars.
If you spend 250 grand on a car, you expect perfection. In every aspect of the car.

Tesla isn't really know for perfection in anything.

Efficiency, range, innovation - yes. But perfection? That just ain't in their DNA, I'm afraid.
...
It also remains to be seen how road-legal things like the SpaceX package would be in Europe (educated guess in the community is currently: hell, no!).


(The "SpaceX package" is apparently one or more thrusters who eject highly compressed cold air to help with accelerating the car 0-60 in less than two seconds. The exact details of how this is going to work are not yet known - but it's a funny item to speculate about)

Of course, that's why I mentioned 2nd car. The one that makes you smile, not the reliable one you need on a cold rainy day. Albeit, Tesla abandoning them had no effect on the sales price, still 70K and up on autoscout.

Electric technology is becoming more common. The skills are being developed by small shops by retrofitting modern technology in classic models (there are dozens of shops like this https://monceau-automobiles.com/models). The ideal donor would be a bricked Tesla OG roadster, scrap the drivetrain components installed by Tesla and install modern components. If it works for a Mercedes from the 1960s, it should work for a car that was originally designed to work with batteries and electric motors. Maybe add a rollcage because electronic security features and airbags quite probably will not work anymore.

Good post but seriously, ICE cars are (especially post-pandemic) really yesterday...0%, interest, 30-40% discounts (in Switzerland`), large areas behind dealers full of them, etc.

All Tesla cars are fantastic, I have an X and that's good for me though I would love a drive in the Roadster with those cold-thrust rockets going off

The 1.9 s acceleration figure is for the standard Roadster. Tesla hasn't provided any figures for the SpaceX version (nor actually confirmed its existence—it could all be a figment of Elon's fertile imagination), but in a really entertaining video on YouTube, a mathematician has worked out that the SpaceX package could produce a 0-100 time of a ridiculous (and neck-snapping) 1.0 s!



That said, no, I won't buy a new Roadster. I'll wait a few years for the multiple problems of the car and the new battery to be ironed out, then I will gladly purchase one. By then, the price will likely have dropped, too.

The video was widely considered to be made-up Clickbait-BS.


It had little or no substance.

The video that I posted? Definitely not clickbait—the guy delivers what he promises. The video is based on statements made and tweeted by Elon Musk—which is where any BS could easily have emanated from. Musk does enjoy winding people up.

Yes. I'm thinking about buying 3 of them. For the spare parts replacement

I was never a fan of electric vehicles up until I've actually driven one. Last year, Renault had this deal, where you could drive a Zoe for 24h and I thought, why not, try it out. I loved it!
It basically covers all the needs for daily, urban usage. EV are also very conducive with my style of driving, I tend to not apply my breaks as much as others and let the vehicle roll out. This works perfectly with EV, seeing as the regenerative brake force charges the battery. . .

One major personal gripe: The ominous humming, when the car is going slower than 30km/h, which in Europe is mandatory. Forcing many manufacturers to refit their vehicles with speakers.

Overall gripe: The scarce saturation of charging stations and the duration of charging the battery. You cannot go on a prolonged trip and then expect to stand around for hours in order to get another 300km range. Certainly, this technology will improve over time but it's a matter of comfort. You cannot just drive up to a gas station, refill and get on your merry way.

Then there is the price factor. Gas is still too cheap. As long as a bottle of Evian water exceeds the price of oil (which has to be refined, shipped and then distributed) we'll still be seeing ICE cars for quite a while. Maybe my train of thought is too simplistic and incorrect, but that's how many gearheads tend to think. This being said, I have yet to drive a Tesla though.

It's just a fad that will go away soon

I would not be too sure about this.

We are used to technology related stuff constantly improving, but a lot of this is just code and more of the same hardware.

Once you run into actual physics problems like wavelength of light, Lithium having only 1 electron to play with, quantum physics etc, improvements are very hard to come by.

I mean, with all our tech and all the improvements over the last decades, we still do not have a working time machine.

I dont think you can assume mayor battery improvements to the point where an EV is as quick to recharge as filling up at the gas station. It might be akin to the time machine analogy... or not, I dont know... just saying.

__________________
Happiness is a full tank of gas (or better yet, diesel !)

Is ejection seat included?

To me a new car is a very unnecessary luxury that I can easily afford, but don't want to on environmental reasons. My 2011 Hyundai i20 has only 80'000 km on it, and I don't plan to change it until it falls to pieces. Even if electric cars are ridiculously more efficient than ICEs, the carbon footprint of a new car alone would offset all benefits it would bring me.

At this rate, my car will outlast me.

How can you pass up on the opportunity to support the Swiss economy?
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/busines...lants/45830888


https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/glencor...wsuit/45446800

In case you want to do something about it: www.konzern-initiative.ch

I think that once the shift has gone from ICE to electric, personal mobility will be dead.
I could never afford an electric vehicle, in fact when this job is over and I hand my company car back, it will be motorbike until I can score a banger for a grand.
Even with the best efforts of government an electric car will never be affordable for mass personal transport and I also don´t buy into the myth that batteries will somehow become magical and get charged by pixie dust or something.