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I don't know if someone else has had this idea but I do know other automakers have. I think Tesla should do a 100 vehicle experiment with both the Model S & X. Each car would be equipped with a "little black box" so we could monitor things like when they charge and how low they let the battery get. Clearly they can't do it now with thousands of people waiting for their cars but I think they'll be a gap between when the model X goes on sale and when the Gen. 3 goes on sale. I think this would probably cost at most 20 million but I think it would provide Tesla with a lot of real world data to help them continue to make the number one electric cars in the world!! When you consider the free advertising they'll get from have more of their beautiful cars on the road, I think this is a great idea but I'll be interested to know what you guys thought. I've thought about this for a month now and I know a lot of you know more about Tesla then I do so I was wondering your thoughts on it.
 
True but I was thinking more in terms of getting them in the hands of people who have never really thought about driving an EV. So Tesla can see how they interact with the car. Not just that but they can have real world data about range, MPGe and how the battery temperature is regulated. How does a Model S work for people that park on the street and don't have a charger for overnight? They could even get some data on how a Model S/X is in a real world crash! The reason why I love this idea so much is the fact the other automakers haven't really invested completely in EV's but when they do I want Tesla to have the real world experience to improve their vehicles year to year.

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They already have gobs of data from the Roadster 2.0's and 2.5's, which can have their logs remotely downloaded by Tesla (opt-out is available for paranoid people).

I know they have the Roadster data and some info from the Model S but they're all early adaptors and not the same people who will be using the car in a few years and definatly not the same as the people who will by the Gen. III.
 
I know they have the Roadster data and some info from the Model S but they're all early adaptors and not the same people who will be using the car in a few years and definatly not the same as the people who will by the Gen. III.

I disagree. I think my usage of the Roadster will be entirely typical of a 200 mile+ range electric vehicle. It's not like I drive any differently because I'm an "early adopter". I have the same driving needs as everyone else.
 
I disagree. I think my usage of the Roadster will be entirely typical of a 200 mile+ range electric vehicle. It's not like I drive any differently because I'm an "early adopter". I have the same driving needs as everyone else.

I agree but I don't think you'd have the same complaints. Plus someone from Canada won't have the same expectations as someone from Alabama. I think my thought is that with a bunch of innovative technology, you want to know how people use it. I know I'm curious to see how functional the falcon wing doors are in real life. And are the complaints that people have been making on this forum true of real world experience?

Basically what I'm saying is Tesla doesn't have all the answers. The idea of driving an electric car is new to people so having 100 people that you keep a close eye on makes data that's more true to what consumers can expect.
 
We're preaching to the choir here.
Tesla will first need to zero in on the demographic group that will be able to purchase, operate, and maintain a Tesla.
They will also need to determine the different "tiers" of education currently exists in the public today about electric cars in general,
And which "tiers" are worth spending gobs of money educating to win them over to the world of electric cars.

I'm no actuary, but it may be far more worthwhile to let time and word-of-mouth do it for them. After all, it won't make sense to create a demand larger than Tesla can supply. That is, for now

-- Ardie
 
In the BMW ActiveE program, some of the cars had a special wiring harness pre-installed at random in the factory before they delivered the cars. Later, BMW contacted each of the drivers of those specially equipped cars if they were willing to participate in a data collection program where a data logger is connected to that harness. They are giving a $500 gift card to those of us who opted in to the additional data collection. They flew a tech out from Germany to come to my house to install the data logger. It uses LTE to transmit logs to the engineers periodically, as well as storing logs in flash memory.

The ActiveE without the data logger does periodically send some data to BMW, but with the special harness the additional data logger collects many more parameters. When speaking with the tech, who was from the data-collection section inside BMW, I got the feeling that the logger provides information directly to the engineers who are doing modeling and future design work.