Who wants a Tesla charge-all? Well, you can't if you live in VA apparently.

Our sponsors were normally police precincts, fire houses, and pizza restaurants.

My favorite year was when Firehouse 1 sponsored us, all volunteer firehouses in my city of youth. At the end of the season the fire house had a weenie roast for the whole team, we got to go up in the cherry picker if we wanted, slide down the pole, use the hose. That was a good day for 10 year old KingGorilla.

After looking at their website, I might consider a Tesla X as a replacement for my wife's car in several years. As long as the price comes down a bit, sub-$40k. Those Falcon-wing doors are pretty sexy.

They said the X is going to be priced about the same as the Model S, so probably 70-80k.

LeapingGnome wrote:

They said the X is going to be priced about the same as the Model S, so probably 70-80k.

sh*t. I misread the reservation price as the purchase price. Yeah, the wife isn't going to get one of those.

Gravey wrote:

What citizen wouldn't be in favour of legislation that eliminated car salesmen?

So not needing a dealer would be nice, but where do these Tesla owners take their vehicles for routine maintenance? I bought my first new car in 2010 and love the last three years of warranty services. (I only owned very used vehicles beforehand.)

They still have dealers, they are just corporate owned ones instead of 3rd party independents.

You make me wonder though, I wonder what regular maintenance looks like for a Tesla? No oil changes, no transmission fluid presumably. Still have brakes and tires of course. Wonder what else...

Electronics? Everything else is remotely monitored. The Tesla and other EVs have very little maintenance.

Brakes, tires, windshield washer fluid. Steering fluid. The yearly maintenance includes flushing and checking the battery heating/cooling system. Software updates happen over 3G and (in the future) your home wireless Ethernet.

Not much else, really.

Oh, and it looks like that bill was gutted in NC:

http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/06/...

Orphu wrote:

Brakes, tires, windshield washer fluid. Steering fluid. The yearly maintenance includes flushing and checking the battery heating/cooling system. Software updates happen over 3G and (in the future) your home wireless Ethernet.

Not much else, really.

Yes, but it's getting to the location for those services that matters. For example of how limited those centers are now, if you're anywhere in DC, VA, MD, or DE, your only options are Rockville, MD (near DC), Norristown, PA (near Philly), or Raleigh, NC.

And of course the problem is aggravated if you need your vehicle taken there for not-routine service. Don't most tow services from car insurance only transport like 50-100 miles?

http://www.teslamotors.com/findus Choose Service Centers on the map.

Yeah. They also honor the warranty if you skip the yearly maintenance. And they have "service rangers" that make house calls for a $100 fee.

So drivers who feel safe going 90 with their current car will feel just as safe going 110. Keep them away from me.

Best idea I ever heard to prevent auto accidents: have a sharp spike protrude out of each steering wheel toward the driver.

So it's been pointed out to me that I've been misinterpreting people lately. So...to clarify...you're against safety measures in automobiles?

That really is a quite challenging question. Before derailing the Tesla and dealership-opolies discussion, let's link to P & C.

My mom saw a real Model S, thought it was one of the most beautiful ever, she's really hoping I get one someday. (I am too.)

They are really gorgeous cars. Tesla hired some brilliant damn designers.

Great commercial for subsidizing rich people. Free fuel, parking, and roads only if you have the cash.

The same perks are in place for any electric car in Norway.

All Tesla patents are now public domain:

http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/all-...

o_O

I really hope I never find out anything particularly heinous about Elon. He seems to cool to be true. I don't want to be conflicted about thinking he's awesome.

Demosthenes wrote:

I really hope I never find out anything particularly heinous about Elon. He seems to cool to be true. I don't want to be conflicted about thinking he's awesome.

Me too. If he ran for President of the US, I'd vote for him. Not sure if that would actually be a good idea because he's not a politician, but my gut says yes.

NathanialG wrote:

All Tesla patents are now public domain:

http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/all-...

He must've listened to Adam Savages 10 commandments of making at Maker Fair. One of them was to share everything, no secrets, because it moves everyone forward.

It's my understanding that Musk is sufficiently wealthy that it Tesla went under tomorrow, it'd be precious little skin off his nose.

Not that that takes away from this move on his part, just that it makes it look like an easier thing for him to do.

NathanialG wrote:

All Tesla patents are now public domain:

http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/all-...

Small quibble. The subject matter that is protected by those patents is now (apparently) in the public domain, the patents themselves are (likely) still owned by Tesla.

The key statement is:

Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology.

This statement contains two rather large holes that would still (theoretically) allow for some type of legal action against someone using this technology.

Also the cynical side to this story is that these patents are not all that valuable (e.g., there are larger issues for why the electric/hybrid car market is not more dominate). So by doing this they don't loose all that much in return for the possibility of growing the electric car pie.

NathanialG wrote:

All Tesla patents are now public domain:

http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/all-...

That was really stupid.

What he should have done is this: made a group that held the patents, and allow anyone, anywhere, to join, for free, with the proviso that they can never sue anyone else in that group over any patent they hold, period, even if it's not a patent that that group holds. Get enough patents into that group, and patent lawsuits will slow to just the patent trolls, and then hopefully those can be dealt with by Congress.

When you're dealing with businesspeople, you need both carrots and sticks, and he just gave up his only stick.

Malor wrote:

When you're dealing with businesspeople, you need both carrots and sticks, and he just gave up his only stick.

When you're dealing with Menschen then they're too busy planting carrots to worry about menacing their neighbors with that stick.

An article I read earlier pointed out the good business behind allowing others to use patents. Musk is building his battery "gigafactory" which is projected to produce more batteries in a year than the entire industry did last year. He's also facing tons of production problems because all of the parts aren't made in-house. By opening up the patents he hopes to spur growth of electric vehicles so he can then sell those manufacturers his batteries and get the components he needs for Teslas faster and cheaper. As the article put it, he's hoping others will solve his supply problems for him.