Tesla Model S – I’d love to see it drive across the US/Canada
All the latest news about Tesla and electric cars, got me thinking. Every manufacturer seems to boast longer and longer ‘milage’ for their vehicles, but I never see any real statistics, its always ‘estimated’ miles, which shows like Top Gear have shown to be incorrect.
Case in point, one of the things that nobody seems to ask is ‘at what speed’ will that milage be reached? If I buy that Ford Focus 2011 model, how would I reach 40MPG? Would it be at a maximum speed of ~55MPH? Or something higher?
I recall being at Honda while my coworker was getting his oil change done on this car, and I asked one of the Sales Reps, “At what speed will this Civic achieve the advertised MPG rating?” and none of the 3 present were able to give me an answer. In the end without looking foolish one of the reps said “I get that milage when I do ~75MPH”, to which I kindly laughed and shuffled away to find my coworker.
This may be a moot request, but I would love to see real world examples from manufacturers. I think it is simply a fear of them looking bad due to a poor performing vehicle, imagine advertising and paying for an estimate from the EPA of ~40MPG and then running a real world test that people can witness and your car only does ~31MPG at best under speeds most common for commuters (~60-80MPG in Michigan at least).
Getting back to the topic, I would challenge a manufacturer like Tesla to do a cross continent drive, show people that “Yes, the time has come for electric to really be a reliable solution.” Have someone drive across and charge at night (~300MP Charge/day). Then show the cost of the electrical bill. I think it would be a positive (if it performs as advertised) mark for the company. In fact any company that touts its electric fleet should do this, I’m really tired of seeing these ‘amazing’ 0 emission vehicles, but then realizing that they are effectively tethered to a small area.
Anyway, challenge proposed… who will answer the call?