Saturday, April 30, 2016

Teslas don't coast

One of the more interesting things I realized about a Tesla car is that they don't coast ever like you can with gasoline or diesel engine cars. So, for example, if you take your foot off the accelerator it immediately starts generating electricity into it's batteries by braking slowly towards a stop. So, either you have your foot on the accelarator maintaining or increasing your speed or you are decellerating by taking your foot off the accelerator.

Also, there is a huge computer touch screen in the middle of the dashboard that does multiple things. For example, if you want the Tesla to drive a while so you can talk on the phone or cue up a specific song  you can push a button and say, "Play" (whatever song you wish that has ever been recorded) then it will list every version of this song by anyone on your huge touchscreen and then if you push the desired version button then it will play that version while you are not driving (because the car is then driving for you) if you wish. When you arrive at your destination if you don't want to park your car it will park itself if that is what you wish.

It is much more like driving inside a computer than any other car even a hybrid that I have ever seen. While it is recharging at home it often is given automatic upgrades too overnight. However, I would worry that at some point in the future some hackers would get control of a car like this. It's only a matter of time before something happens like this. Maybe they designed it in such a way that this might be very difficult to do but eventually, a lightning strike nearby, or a solar flare or a hacker is going to compromise any car with this kind of design at some point in the future. However, for now, it is a very trick and cool car and very fun as a transportation device anywhere there are places you can charge it. It has a range of over 270 miles without recharging and there are recharging stations all over California and likely throughout the U.S. now. But, I think the most recharging stations now are in California because this is definitely a Silicon Valley car line.

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