Taycan Turbo S vs. Model S Plaid - really by this much!?

[fullmetalbaal]

Are you guys trying to convince each other?

If it wasn't for the invention of li-ion we wouldn't have Tesla's, cellphones, laptops etc.
If it wasn't such a climate debate we wouldn't have ANY EVs.
How far do you want to go back?
If it wasn't for the invention of the wheel?
Remember 2006 "An Inconvenient Truth"?
That was a totally different time where there wasn't such a climate discussion about CO2 like we have today.
That was only 15 years ago...
Time has created EVs, it's just new insights.
Tesla was there on the right time at the right place.
Is that enough for you Tesla fanboys?

Sure.
Elon was at the right time & place for financial transactions to go online
At the right time & place for EVs to start.
At the right time & place to push for a fully digital car.
At the right time & place for commercial space to take off.
At the right time & place for satellite internet and massive constellations...
At the right time & place for battery storage for electric grids to take off.

It is great being lucky.

It's also lazy and convenient to explain somebody else's accomplishments as luck.

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[Dee]

...
It's also lazy and convenient to explain somebody else's accomplishments as luck.

Where exactly did I say "luck"?
I would call it "vision and strong belief".
Does that comfort you better?

 

[f1eng]

It is the battery technology and global warming that kicked off renewed interest in EVs.
120 years ago many engineers recognised that electric motors were the best way to drive vehicles but the size and weight of batteries made them less convenient than IC engined vehicles, which needed a clutch and multi speed gearbox to match the poor power bandwidth for use on the road.

The first car Ferdinand Porsche designed was electric, the 1898 Egger-Lohner electric vehicle. It had hub motors like the somewhat later lunar rover . He also produced a hybrid petrol electric vehicle.

If it hadn't been for the shortcomings of batteries the superiority of electric motors for cars would never have been in question and we would probably never have had the hopelessly inefficient (in comparison) and narrow power band of IC engines.

IMO a lot of the anti EV sentiment is stirred up by commercial interest rather than sound engineering.

Mind you, that would have meant my extremely enjoyable career would never have happened.

 

[Dee]

Instead of this endless and useless debate why or how Tesla was the start of EVs or not, I'd rather look at these kind of experiments:


I always wanted to know how my car (not a Tesla btw) would coop with a big pool of water.
Not as extreme as this but it's quite interesting to see...

 

[fullmetalbaal]

Where exactly did I say "luck"?
I would call it "vision and strong belief".
Does that comfort you better?

I'm plenty comfortable where I sit.

I'm just reacting to the fashion of discrediting innovative companies post-fact when the disruption happened. I was involved in pitching EV related software features to folks in the automotive industry in 2014. Believe me, the consensus was still "This is either an oddity that will go away again, or something we only have to worry about in 25 years. Also, hydrogen is far more likely!".
(We heard this from major OEMs on all continents)

Would we eventually have had a Taycan? Certainly. Would it have been 2019/2020? I doubt it.
Would it have been EV or hydrogen? Who knows.

Easy to point to legislation as the accelerating factor. But those don't exist in a vacuum. Many/most of those were brought into being when it became apparent that there's actually a viable path to EVs, which was clearly shaped by the volume of EVs being sold at a price that was approaching average cost of new cars. Tesla was the bulk of that.

It's irritating when companies and individuals later discount the pioneers, the grit and determination it took to effect change.

It's not unique to Tesla. It's in fashion to do that across all of the high tech world:

It's also now clear to all observers that the shift to smartphones was a done deal - clearly Apple was just at the right time & place. After all, all the technologies they built into that first iPhone already existed!

E-commerce was a foregone conclusion, Amazon just happened to be there.

 

[whitex]

Is this the kind of stuff they teach you on the Tesla forums? Your claims are just much too strong, both in magnitude and degree of certainty. I can’t take them seriously. Sorry.

What are you talking about? I've been saying from the very beginning that I cannot prove the causation here, simply pointing you to circumstantial evidence supporting, but not proving the theory, against your arguments that Mission E was unveiled in 2015 so Porsche must have been working on it for _insert_some_years_here_, and the argument that BEV is the natural incremental outcome after hybrid cars - an "incremental leap" which Toyota, a pioneer and leader in hybrid cars, has yet to make.

I'll grant you that Porsche may have been thinking about EV's way before Tesla even began. Heck, Ferdinand Porsche started in 1898:
https://newsroom.porsche.com/en/products/taycan/history-18563.html
However, having an over a century long head start wasn't sufficient to stay at the lead in EV's development, or sales. It is most likely that Tesla's success is what lit a fire under Porsche to get rolling. There have been some leaked communications about Diess instituting a plan to catch-up to Tesla.
https://electrek.co/2020/04/27/vw-admits-tesla-lead-software-leak-internal/
I'm hoping they succeed. Competition is a great force which improves products for us customers.

 

[whitex]

Instead of this endless and useless debate why or how Tesla was the start of EVs or not, I'd rather look at these kind of experiments:


I always wanted to know how my car (not a Tesla btw) would coop with a big pool of water.
Not as extreme as this but it's quite interesting to see...

Are you planning to try this experiment with your Taycan? Please post the video of what happens.

 

[Jhenson29]

It's also now clear to all observers that the shift to smartphones was a done deal - clearly Apple was just at the right time & place. After all, all the technologies they built into that first iPhone already existed!

?‍ Oh, me, me! Pick me! I was dying for a smart phone in 2000. I couldn’t wait for internet in my pocket.?

It was between my Junior and Senior year of HS and I was interning at a company that set setup wireless networks in doctor’s offices, gave them HP Jornadas, and had them access a web based application for patient records (maybe more, I don’t recall).

The biggest issue was device size. The doctors wanted it to be smaller, easier to carry around.

I had a windows smart phone a year or two before apple released the iPhone.

The App Store was probably the biggest innovation on the iPhone. Everything else it did when it was released, I could already do (albeit on a crappy windows interface…I think it has a tiny start button).

 

[fullmetalbaal]

?‍ Oh, me, me! Pick me! I was dying for a smart phone in 2000. I couldn’t wait for internet in my pocket.?

It was between my Junior and Senior year of HS and I was interning at a company that set setup wireless networks in doctor’s offices, gave them HP Jornadas, and had them access a web based application for patient records (maybe more, I don’t recall).

The biggest issue was device size. The doctors wanted it to be smaller, easier to carry around.

I had a windows smart phone a year or two before apple released the iPhone.

The App Store was probably the biggest innovation on the iPhone. Everything else it did when it was released, I could already do (albeit on a crappy windows interface…I think it has a tiny start button).

And the kicker is: app stores existed. Just not with the same conviction on user experience, seamlessly integrated etc.

Apple was just the first (or at least most successful) to focus ruthlessly on the key user journeys and making those friction-free. Easy to see how that enabled things now... but IMHO wasn't as clear then.

(I toyed around with Handspring Visors for a project at more or less the timeframe you mentioned, and it seemed clear that there was something big in that space, we just never really connected the right dots)

 

[whitex]

The App Store was probably the biggest innovation on the iPhone. Everything else it did when it was released, I could already do (albeit on a crappy windows interface…I think it has a tiny start button).

I had a Samsung i730 with Windows Mobile when the first iPhone came out. Guess what, it actually did more than the first iPhone (for one, it had copy/paste functionality which the initial iPhone did not). I was working for Microsoft at the time. Believe it or not, Balmer was the one who singlehandedly prevented Microsoft from building an app store of its own prior to Apple - his words were something along the line of "Nobody will buy software on their phone. Customers are used to going to a store and picking up boxed software. There shall be no more talk about e-store for Windows Mobile software!". That was not the only blunder on Microsoft's side, but long story short, Microsoft Windows Mobile was actually nicely gaining smartphone market share from Blackberry at the time, but they ignored the iPhone, as did RIM, and Apple took both their market shares, AND significantly expanded the smartphone market at the same time. Apple and Google made the smartphone into consumer devices. Would Blackberry, Windows Mobile or Symbian have done this, probably eventually, but instead they resisted.

As far as EV's, at least companies like Porsche didn't resist BEV's like Toyota did for example. IMO btw, Toyota may end up the Blackberry of the consumer cars - once king of the hill and oblivious to the competition. VW's dieselgate settlement might have actually had a silver lining, pushed them into EV world hard, but at least they are not waking up today (like Toyota) realizing there is a ton of EV being sold, eating faster and faster into their market share.

 

[Needsdecaf]

VW's dieselgate settlement might have actually had a silver lining, pushed them into EV world hard, but at least they are not waking up today (like Toyota) realizing there is a ton of EV being sold, eating faster and faster into their market share.

This is a surprising truth that many people miss.

 

[Jhenson29]

Easy to see how that enabled things now... but IMHO wasn't as clear then.

I for sure didn’t foresee it, but as soon as I got an iPhone 3G in 08, I saw the difference it made. I even bought a MacBook and learned obj-c to jump on the bandwagon. Proud to report low double digit app sales. ? I was on my way to the teens!

I has a Samsung i730

I had to google phones from that time to remember what I had. I’m 99% sure it was an HTC PPC 6700. It had it all! And then I was so pissed when I saw the early iPhone commercials. With the internet and then switching to the phone call. Like that was new. But I relented and tried one a year later anyway.

Customers are used to going to a store and picking up boxed software.

I did that for my windows mobile phone!!! From a store in an airport on one my trips IiRC.

And it wouldn’t load!?

 

[fullmetalbaal]

I for sure didn’t foresee it, but as soon as I got an iPhone 3G in 08, I saw the difference it made. I even bought a MacBook and learned obj-c to jump on the bandwagon. Proud to report low double digit app sales. ? I was on my way to the teens!

Exact same here. That was my first one, and I've been on MacBooks (and iPhones) ever since.

 

[feye]

I'm just saying for me personally, the transmission has been a downside.
If I could switch out the rear motor + transmission and install Plaid-style motors instead, I would.
(I'm not saying Tesla specifically, but a motor that has the power and can efficiently hit the speeds without a 2 gear transmission in the mix)

Motor and transmission is completely controlled by a computer in the car. If they want you not to feel transmission at all, they can make this happen, so this is entirely a design decision.

Complain to Porsche, ask if they can add an option in the PCM like the sports sound, on/off. Of course this might take off a few split seconds from your launch control...

 

[feye]

the fact that there were other electric cars in this time period (e.g. Leaf, i3)

That's another interesting point. The i3 debuted as a concept at the 2011 International Motor Show Germany, and production began in September 2013. Everybody in Germany wondered, why BMW suddenly felt compelled to compete with Nissan Leaf???

Then in 2015 not selling well at all in Germany. BMW really failed with this investment at first. I remember there was talk BMW could ditch the whole thing and write off billions. They got burnt and that's why they are behind other German brands in the transition. Further more their first EV after the i3 was released in China due to regulatory pressure.

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