Tesla leads again and again

We have the 2010 Camry with leather seats. After about 8 hours of driving I can barely sit in one spot anymore. My 2002 Prius and the 2017 Prime are both quite comfortable.

 

Have you entertained the possibility that some of these people became enthusiast after driving the car, rather than driving the car because they are enthusiasts?

 

Haha...absolutely! I'm not sure why I get the impression you guys think I don't like Tesla...I do! However, when some Tesla drivers get made fun of, even a little bit, drama seems to ensue. It's like poking a bear sometimes.

Also, I'd probably define many of the Prius drivers here as 'enthusiasts' as well. Especially the regulars ( including me ).

 

Reminds me of the early days of Priusdom.

#smugPriusdriver

 

Sure. Teslas have a lot of gadgetry and that 0-60 time. It's the same package that hooks first time Ferrari buyers.

 

It's not just gadgetry though, because it's not just Prius owners that turn their car in for a Tesla. BMW is high on the list of Conquest owners. That group is more of a 'ride' and 'handling' batch of owners.

Tesla Model 3 Survey: Buyers Trade in BMWs and Toyotas For Musk’s Hit Car

 

That makes perfect sense. Prius owners would be one of the demographics that would also be attracted to the Tesla due to the green aspects, rebates/credits and fuel economy. I could not see the article since I don't subscribe to the site. Did it have actual numbers? Did it say how it selected the poll participants? The reason I ask is that there's quite a difference between the reasons one upgrades from a 10 year old car as opposed to a 1 year old model.

The biggest reason I considered buying a BEV was the ability to charge at home from Solar panels. But there are a lot of options available now, so Tesla would not be my first choice.

 

There is an incredible amount of information in there.
I’d recommend trying to access it again with a different browser, or perhaps in ‘private’ mode to see if that works.
Lots of comments from owners and different ways to look at the data.

I was very happy to see a fair chunk of previous Ford truck owners

 

Fisker just announced that they are completely dropping plans for a solid state battery.

Fisker himself said a couple of interesting things about solid state batteries:
It’s the kind of technology where, when you feel like you’re 90 percent there, you’re almost there, until you realize the last 10 percent is much more difficult than the first 90. But you don’t really know that until you get up to the 90 percent.
and
I think personally, they’re at least seven years out, if not more, in terms of any sort of high-volume format.

From my point of view, one hopeful thing is that one of the big trade secrets is a ceramic separator. Toyota recently announced that Murata is part of their battery partnership with Panasonic. A long time ago I worked on a special engineering project that involved Murata ceramic, and we found them to be real masters of precision and volume ceramic manufacturing for electronics. We still buy their high-end capacitors, which have hundreds of layers of ceramic and metal in a capacitor the size of this letter: l. (Interestingly enough, one of the other ceramic companies we worked with was Coors--they apparently used to use ceramic filters in their beer making).

 

While that is interesting, Fisker is not someone I would put much faith in on the topic of engineering.

 

I understood ceramic separators were critical to solid state batteries. But ceramics tend to have no stress-strain capability. Rather than slightly deform, they prefer to fracture which would short the cell. A retired engineer, this is not an area where I have direct experience. Just the battery pack needs to minimize stress, even in an accident.

In contrast, the 'wet' cells can flex internally without failure while using the cell exterior as a structural element. This allows an assembly of wet cells to become a strong, stiff, structural part.

Bob Wilson

 

That trick worked. Thanks. It turns out that the survey was "self nominating" and the people who participated were (paraphrased from the web page) "those willing to spend 15 minutes filling out a questionnaire". In other words it was not random and did not represent a cross section of those who "traded up" to a tesla model 3. The demographics for the Bloomberg online edition would explain why most of the top 10 trade ins were all in one of two classes; specialty (Prius, Volt, Leaf) or Luxury (BMW, Audi, Accura).

 

Fisker had hired a QuatumScape employee that had stolen tech. Their dropping solid state likely has more to do with getting caught and sued.

Isn't that self nominating also true of Consumer Reports and JD Power surveys?

 

I don't think so. It appears that JD Power tries to interview a sample of recent buyers based on sales records or licensing records. As a Consumer reports customer, I can assure you that I've never seen an inducement to participate in a survey on their web site.

 

No, they just mail them out to members. I got one for the 2005 Prius. So they already start with the self selecting.

However these surveys are done; online, by phone, or mailed out, they all rely on the car owner/user being willing to take the time to do the survey. It is an issue that faces all surveys, and can skew results.

 

That might be the 10% problem Fisker was talking about. You develop a solid state battery. It charges faster and holds a much bigger charge than lithium ion batteries. You figure out how to manufacture it. You do test drives and it works exactly as expected. Then you drive it over a bump, the ceramic cracks, and the battery is ruined.

I'm not saying this is the problem companies are having. It may something else, like being too expensive to manufacture. In any case lots of companies have spent fortunes pursuing solid state batteries and many of them just gave up in the end. Quantumscape and Toyota are still pursuing it and have been teasing us with 'we're almost there' statements. It is like watching a multi-billon dollar sport: Battery Wars.

I think we all benefit in the end from all the battery research taking place.