The Chocolate Fireguard as designed by Mercedes Benz

Sadly all this modern technology, hybrid and electric vehicles etc is going to ruin my hobby, I havent seen one electric/hybrid with a tow bar because I suspect that their towing capability is either zero or a lot less because of the distance it will travel pulling 1 to 2 ton loads like I currently do and as I spend my weekends in the middle of fields I wont have the means to charge them either to get home, their is also one very big draw back and that is I cant afford to buy one at todays prices and I would also worry about buying second hand because there is no way I would be happy with second hand batteries and again new replacements would outway the price of the vehicle.

Martin P

We live in Norfolk the standard of driving is abysmal, no signals and no curtesy, has to be seen to believed

Martin, you should be ideally placed to generate some power for recharging your electric vehicle, hauling a fair load that you quote might need a commercial type electric vehicle. A Tesla would have ample power but I don’t think they would have considered towing. A lot of people will need a towing capability for their hobbies when you consider car racing, boating and camper caravanners, builders often use trailers as well. No doubt a solution will emerge.

Mike

When you say you have not seen one, do you mean ‘in the flesh’, or in the literature? Tesla model X can have a towbar fitted. I daresay the Rivian will tow, too!

Electric and towing. Funnily enough I was wondering the same last week but immediately found the Rav 4. The electric hybrid version actually has enhanced towing capability to 3.5T perhaps because of the added traction control electric drive provides. Way outside my price range unfortunately.

Mike,

There lies the rub, a commercial vehicle is of no use because my wife is an invalid and can only just get into our car let alone a van, rally sites impose a curfew on the use of generators usually after 22:00, I cant even fully charge properly my wifes and my mobility scooters because they need more than four hours constant charging.

I can describe Teslas cars as very very expensive and well out of my pocket, £75,000 new and 7hrs charging at 220 vac, in a field impossible. One of my engines to drive to drive a suitable generator would need to be at least 10hp, an engine of this size that I show would weigh at least two ton and impractical.

My Subaru diesel returns on a good run 52 mpg, with my trailer in tow with a load it will manage 35 mpg so I think it fair to assume that an electric vehicle that has a 600 mile range will halve its range when towing its own weight as well as itself.

Martin P

Oooo!! one of my grumpy old git topics

I think that the camera on these systems needs to be turned around and pointed at the driver. When it detects that the driver isn’t paying attention to their driving, fiddling with their, phone, satnav, radio, or just chatting to the passenger then the car slows down. That would prevent many more accidents than checking speed limts.

I’m of the opinion that the addition of these ‘features’ in the quest for autonomous vehicles is contributing to accidents. Drivers are relying on the gizmos too much and are not actually in control of the car.

The other month I watch a driver backing out of a parking space eyes glued on his reversing camera. He backed straight into the path of another vehicle coming down the down the road.

A friend of mine was telling me of a car he hired that he realised that the cruise control adjusted his speed to that of the vehicle in front. When the vehicle moved out of the way it resumed to the set speed. He got quite used to using it. When he got back into his own car and used the cruise control he nearly went into the back of another car....

If you want an insight into the technical, legal and moral questions of about autonomous vehicles have a look at this book on Amazon Free for Kindle

**LINK**

I’ll save electric vehicles for another time…..

.

Thanks for the link

After that brief diversion to the USofA, I returned to Amazon UK and downloaded it.

MichaelG.

Autonomous Cars are on a six stage progression and we are part way along that process, this not random as some people appear to believe.

This link link may show what to expect.

Things to come?

Doubletop’s driver monitoring appears to be part of the scheme, in fact my own four year old VW has a system to detect if the driver is alert (well that’s what the instruction book says anyway).

Edited By V8Eng on 28/04/2019 22:49:25

My reply was slightly tongue in cheek about the stationary engines being used to charge a vehicle but you certainly raise a serious point that we are actually far from having a direct replacement for the vehicles we have today at an affordable cost. A Tesla could replace my current vehicles but the cost is outrageous, even the more mainstream electric vehicles are expensive and of a range that I would regard as deficient even though 90% of the time it would be ok. As my wife is averse to flying, long distance continental drives are core to our holidays and this would need a vehicle with the range of a Tesla and the recharging facilities, we are not there yet unless you have deep pockets.

Mike

Edited By Mike Poole on 28/04/2019 22:56:33

Not random but in a way organic. Various sensors from as far back as ABS, traction control, stability control etc are being developed and tested by all the manufacturers with the long-term intent to integrate them into their autonomous vehicle programme. As part of this development programme they separately or jointly become features on new models.

The technology may well work but at times the human factors seem to be overlooked, unless what is really happening is all the owners of these vehicles are unwittingly guinea pigs. It shouldn’t be a surprise if we found out that all the usage stats for these features were being recorded and downloaded at service time as ‘engineering’ data.

The biggest issue with autonomous vehicles is going to be the legal and moral aspects particularly in the transition period from old to new, when 'gaming' AV's could become a problem.

And then there is this from Elon Musk

**LINK**

Edited By Doubletop on 29/04/2019 02:26:05

Tesla's model X is capable of towing. The S is almost certainly capable but not licensed as such although there is a private interest group somewhere in europe working to get it through euro testing/licensing for towing.

I'll happily chat practicalities and criticisms based on my 7mth ownership. There are certainly some niggles amongst the positives and watt hours per mile on short winter runs gets pretty high.. can be double the summer long trip averages.

Recharging at home on a 230v line @32A is just over 21miles 'summer range' per hour. On Teslas supercharger system one can pull huge power when the car's battery state is between 20-70% but then starts to taper down as the system balances cells. The latest generation of Model3's are capable of top intake of 250KWH on the newest range of chargers when they are deployed and the 300+'ish mile range model3 has a 75KWH battery.

At the moment on my 100KWH S with current superchargers I get a high of 107 KWH draw (superchargers due to be reprogrammed to push that up above 120 and to150 for new battery chemistries on the S). In practical terms I can rock up to a charger with 40 miles of 'summer range' left and leave after 30 mins with 180 miles or 60 mins with 285 miles or wait it out for the full 310.

Trip calculations can get interesting since range is massively extended by going slower so one can figure out whether to blast down the road or pootle and not stop to top up if there's facility at the end. Reality is one needs to stop for comfort breaks anyway.

BP claim to be installing 150KW chargers on all their forecourts starting this year so fast charger network is happening.

Granted it's not a cheap car and was an indulgence but manual driving is a joy with instant torque and no labouring up hills. The level of autonomy currently released UK is limited and takes some experience to know when you can/cannot relax a bit while monitoring it.

If anyone around Mid Wales wants to have a play - you're welcome ...it's fun.

Thanks for that, pgk - it's not often you get an open declaration of what ranges are possible for what realistic inputs.

I nearly got run down by a Tesla in Morrisons carpark a few weeks back - I never heard it coming. I believe the powers that be are aware there's a problem there and that there's some regulation in view to require some sound. I hope there'll be some control over more than just its volume - people will make fashions out of absolutely anything and I can already imagine the adverts to download this or that car tone from the web.

I think that's most telling.

Mid Wales with sparse settlements and lots of hills is exactly the sort of place where everyone was saying electric cars would be pointless a few years ago.

Neil

Why not get sound off of R/C model boat or locomotive websites. Who wants a Merlin? Or why not make your tesla sound like a Deltic for April 1st?

Neil

My wife was concerned for the local wildlife along our lanes with a 'silent' car but they all hear the unavoidable road/tyre noise.

As to not hearng a car in a car park.. well I'm against adding some synthetic sound - it'll make little diference to the mass of folk with headsets on or starting at mobile phones or fighting with kids and shopping trolleys and is just noise pollution. There are enough varieties of electric vehicle being silent out there that the public just needs to, and will adapt. Interestingly one of the safety features of the Tesla is that if it hits a pedestrian (within certain speeds) it's supposed to explosively blow the rear 'frunk' bolts to turn the bonnet into more of a cushion.

As to the earlier comments about reversing on cameras. I do that all the time. rear camera and wingmirrors. the display in the Tesla is huge and sightly fisheyed for a wide field. I find age has limited my ability to twist my neck round and anyway headrests are in the way of direct vision too as are B and C pillars. Rear camera and mirrors give a better total field of view as do the 360deg ultrasonics. Around here it's common to have to reverse up the lane and into a passing space. Granted at night the rear lighting is poor but most public spaces have street lights.

Neil, among the silliness of Tesla 'Easter Eggs' is a function for 'santa mode' where turn signals sound jingle bells inside or the 'emissions control' which sounds farts. One could turn the volume up (it goes to eleven) and wind the windows down and trigger it. Max volume is painfully loud and will play the current music station at max in sentry mode if it detects a break-in (as well as recording the event)

I should add that the model3 does have an internal camera..currently not used but doubtless will be vital if/when Tesla starts their planned 'robotaxi' service to keep an eye on passengers with all the contemporary worries about attacks and vandelism.

Edited By pgk pgk on 29/04/2019 10:20:50

I visited Darts Farm near Exeter a few days ago which is a retail outlet for farm produce and other stuff etc. As is was a second visit for my wife to get some things I sat in the car and read the paper. They have six Tesla charging bays which I thought was a bit of overkill but while I was sat there the Tesla’s appeared, there were more parked there than I have seen in the 12 bay motorway services near me. The Tesla’s would make a practical vehicle with an impressive range and performance, I suppose they are not expensive for what you get but they are still a big pile of drinking vouchers.

Mike

To bring the thread back on topic.

The A Class comes as standard a Speed Limit Assist programme that provides information to the driver that will help him avoid exceeding the speed limit but does not absolve him of his responsibilities.

The system gathers its information solely from "a low level mono camera". There is no input from any database connected to the sat/nav.

The system ceases to provide any information

1) 10 seconds after passing a sign showing the derestricted speed limit or

2) if the vehicle makes a right or left turn at any road junction

but

the camera may attempt to analyse the road ahead and will offer incorrect information for the driver to ignore.

These are not a sign of the system not working. The system is designed to work this way. So the customer, apparently has no redress.

Emails from Mercedes Benz confirm this.

Request for clarification along with information about other "assist" packages is now being dealt with in Maastricht.

In my opinion this system which cannot offer information operate in built up areas or on the open road is unfit for purpose. It is only an assist. It is not to be relied on.

The distracting system cannot be switched off. Nor can it be upgraded.

Thanks for your interest.

Keith

When the model3 right hand drive version arrives UK it'll be under £40K. Still a lot of money but they plan to have them built to last 1,000,000miles on battery and drive train by the end of this year i.e. built to the same robust standards as commercial lorries. Servicing has also been downgraded from annual to 'when you think something might need attention'

I'm one of the last to have lifetime free supercharging so my major running costs should be tyres. Brake pads last a long time with regen braking. Mind you if something does go wrong out of warranty it is painfully expensive. I'll probably sell mine before warranty expires and by then the market will have changed.

pgk

I found it sad that you think that the public should adapt to your car, the manufacturers/owners should adapt the vehicle as its them that made it quiet, fitting flashing lights or sound alarms using proximity sensors would be cheap and easy to do.

I fitted a reversing camera to my car after spending £350 repairing my nearside rear wing when I backed into a refuse bin that I couldnt see, I still use my mirrors as well.

Martin P