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Can these be retrofitted to a regular Model S? I thought there were some structural differences with the rear facing seats.

That production doesn't sound high enough unless you have poor sun exposure for your panels. If you panels are tilted south at an angle = to latitude (37deg for SF Bay Area) you should get 5.0 to 5.5 kWH per day per installed kW. Solar Insolation Chart, Solar Insolation Data | Average USA...

How many hot laps can you do before cooling or recharging? What is the charging situation at BW?

I was stopped and ticketed by CHP on 280 (on a weekday!) for not having a front plate. Also ticketed in San Francisco by Lovely Rita. It's a $10 fix-it ticket, must be inspected and signed off by a law enforcement officer.

According to a news report they were caught in a car burglary sting -- a baited vehicle, and fled the scene. A chase ensued and attempted to evade the wrong way down US 50. They eventually abandoned and tried to flee on foot but were caught. They must have had quite a rap sheet to risk their...

I was letting my friend try out the Autopilot feature for the first time on Interstate 80 near Sacramento when a half dozen police and highway patrol cars came up behind us with lights and sirens. He moved over 1 lane to let them by, disengaging the AP. Suddenly a car appeared driving...

It depends greatly on the road conditions. A lot of snow on pavement = lots of rolling friction. Stop and go (e.g. waiting for avalanche clearance or chain control inspection) eats range, as does defrosting/defogging the windows. I think Mtn View to South Lake Tahoe is doable in clear traffic...

I bought my Model S 6 years ago, and am still receiving free product "improvements"... most recently a "Fart Mode". How did I manage without that feature all these years?

It took at least 2 months for mine. Early Jan to early March '19

All cars and trucks are subject to agriculture dept inspection at the CA border to keep out various crop pests. CA locals are usually waved thru. And to the OP, M3 is a BMW.

I'm hearing an occasional, random metallic clunk while driving. Sounds like sheet metal resonance. Not related to hitting pavement defects. Haven't noticed it during supercharging, but I'm not in the car then. Model 3 Dual Motor -- delivered Dec 2018

Here's an interesting test that Motor Trend magazine did. They compared a Bolt with standard, low friction tires and then swapped out to Ultra High Performance tires. As expected, the handling and braking improved measurably, but the range and efficiency dropped dramatically. They...

I have a tandem garage -- 2 cars in front, 2 in back. I have a 14-50R on the left side and can usually park there, but due to other drivers in the household, sometimes I have to park on the right. There is an unused 240V/30A receptacle there on the right that I could configure with NEMA 10-30R...

Fisheye distortion on rear view backup camera? My 2013 S rear view camera seems to have gained a bad fisheye distortion. I can see the chrome trim piece in the upper corners of the screen, which I don't recall seeing before. I assume there is supposed to be some software correction for the...

S85, 29,000 miles. 305 Wh/mi . SF Bay Area : Rolling freeway (280) to monstrously steep residential streets. Occasional A/C and heater.

The 21" wheel uses a shorter-section tire so there is less rubber & air to deflect compared to a smaller diameter. So they will tend to have a harsher ride. "Handling", i.e., turn-in, can be sharper because of less deflection in the tires. However, larger diameter wheels also have greater...

Next purchase might not fit any of those categories. Sometimes people buy cars to supplement, not replace, existing fleet. E.g., need truck for hauling stuff, need van for hauling soccer team, spouse or teenage son/daughter needs car, found a Bugatti in a barn, etc.

Keeping a daily driver running for 30-40 years -- that's a challenge for any car. The biggest risk is availability of parts, even if the company survives and thrives. Popular cars like VW Beetle or Mustang have their own ecosystem of aftermarket suppliers as well as OEM parts. But try buying...

Allow anyone with link to edit it. Mine rated range had dropped significantly over time. But my firmware updated overnight and the rated range changed significantly upward. So firmware version is worth tracking.

Unable to make an entry in the spreadsheet

If I recall my Properties of Materials class, steel does not fatigue unless it is stressed beyond a certain threshold. Aluminum has no fatigue threshold; it accumulates even small repetitive stresses. I have an aluminum bicycle that was quite stiff when new, but after 30000 miles it is as...

I have never pulled apart the interior of a Tesla Roadster, but if it's anything like my Lotus Elise, it's not that hard. I've taken the seats and interior panels out several times. It's a couple of hours for me. Most There are several threads on Lotustalk.com about it. I used 2 types of...

I think you are missing the intended audience's perspective. They are chemists and chemical engineers, not automotive engineers, and putting your blood, sweat, and capital into battery development that goes belly up is not a good outcome for the employees and investors. I worked at and...

base car comes with tracking and location maps and traffic. $3750 gets u turn-by-turn voice activated route nav.

Ditto. My May 2013 car came without tech package (an acquaintance in the factory even took a photo of it on the assembly line; it had a special sticky note "NO TECH PACKAGE" stuck on the dash). Mine has: touch sensitive door handles driver profiles LED Daytime running lights Interior LED...

Open the trunk lid and you have a perfect motorpacing vehicle. No exhaust fumes.

Not gonna happen. In addition to electrical, it would need plumbing connections to cool the backup battery. And additional crash testing and certification after adding another 300 lb lump up front.

I am a science teacher. California 4th grade science standards actually include building simple series and parallel circuits using light bulbs, wires, and batteries. But there is no units, not even Volts or Amps or Watts. And AC is not taught in grade school. You could throw around terms...

I was there. The ticket seller said i should show the car. Probably would have been cheaper to exhibit the car ($40) than paying 3 admission tickets ($20/p)

School teacher. Tesla voted "coolest teacher's car" by students.

No, but I had a marriage proposal today in Mountain View. I was in a parking lot and a woman looked over and said, "I just love your car! Don't you love your car? I want to marry you!" I thanked her for the compliment but I had to turn down her offer due to a previous commitment.

You can buy a plastic or rubber parking "mat" with two humps at any auto supply store. It's about 2' long and 1' wide. You place it where you want the front tire to be located. Just drive over the first hump and stop when you hit the 2nd hump. They tend to slide around after a while so I...

You can buy little 12 Volt LED strips or blocks for about $10 at any auto supply or electronics store. I put one on the right side of the rear trunk and replaced the 1-LED in the frunk with a 4-LED block. Simple to splice into the wires feeding the existing trunk & frunk lights. Both made a...

Also, how often are you going to ride in the back seat? I had a 3rd rear facing seat in a previous car when my kids were young. We used it -- once. One nice thing about having limited seating is that you don't get stuck schlepping your neighbors' kids around as much. I am one of the handful...

When I got my Tesla in May 2013, all of a sudden a whole bunch of Teslas appeared in my neighborhood (Silicon Valley) and they all had the same license prefix as mine. I think Tesla factory delivery just submitted license registration requests in batches and the plates came out with sequential...

Or maybe his hearing is not normal. I know mine isn't.:wink:

Umm, since Ford was the originator of the unimaginatively named "Model A", "Model B", ... "Model T" etc. then this isn't anything new for them. What I've always wondered is, with all the design geniuses at Tesla, how come they couldn't come up with better names than "Roadster" or "Model S"?

I was out washing my Tesla in the driveway the other day. Its a good chance to chat with neighbors walking or jogging by. One came by and said, "I am impressed, you must be the only Tesla owner in Silicon Valley who washes his own car". Then she said she how she admired the car and color...

Have never scraped with standard suspension. The nose clears all parking blocks that I've seen, but I still try to avoid pulling that far forward. I also have a very low sports car that scrapes or bumps on everything. I did not want the complexity and long-term reliability issues of adding 4...

How far is "further away"?

"Gas Pedal" is already a misnomer in a gasoline car. The "gas pedal" never controls the gas flow. The right pedal is a throttle; it controls the amount of air entering the engine. The carburetor or air flow meter/ECU controls the amount of gasoline in response to the air flow. Now a diesel...

I hit the Folsom charger with 98 miles of range and it took 80 minutes to fully charge to 265. Keep in mind that if you are going to North Tahoe or Reno on I-80, the supercharger is on US-50. It's a 20 mile drive thru suburban roads to get back to I-80. Plan on and extra 20 miles and 30...

Meter may not have failed, but I have had a meter reader (the two-legged type) fail. Those old-fashioned gauges can be tricky to read between digits.

We were driving normal Highway 50 speeds. So, about 50-55ish. We weren't deliberately ;-) trying to impress anyone with the amazing acceleration of the Tesla (normal ICE cars start wheezing at high elevation).

That's not the axle. That's the brake rotor "hat" that is rusty. All iron rotors will rust; the friction surface in particular gets rusty immediately after getting wet, but the rust scrapes right off when the brakes are applied. The hat, however, will take some elbow grease to remove. Or you...

Trip report: I made my first road trip from Santa Clara County to Echo Lake, el. 7400' in the Sierras over Memorial Day weekend. It's about 220 miles from home. My companion has been involved in EVs for decades; he built a electric/gas hybrid as a college project, and formerly leased the...

I believe airport security systems are pretty paranoid about recording every vehicle that enters. So they expect every car to have a front plate.

I'm considering driving to Echo Lake this weekend from Santa Clara County in my 85kwh S. I'm sure the drive to Folsom Supercharger will not be a problem, but from there, it is 75 miles up to Elev. 7200 to Echo Lake, where the car will sit for 2 or 3 days, unplugged. There are no charging...

Lolachamp- I'm curious about the camber change. You first made an offset bushing to test the length of the control arm. Rather than installing longer control arms, is it reasonable to put such a bushing into service? I would imagine it would require some sort of set screw to keep it from rotating.