Recent submissions

Comment · 2 years ago
Which rare earth minerals go into solar cells?
Comment · 2 years ago
Tesla sold 1.8 million cars last year and Toyota sold 11.23 million cars last year. so a 6.2x multiple, not a ~20x multiple
Comment · 2 years ago
Back of the napkin math, 63,000 gallons of gasoline per day. 33kWh of energy in each gallon of gasoline. Internal combustion approximately 33% efficient at turning that energy into propulsion while batteries and electric motors are ~90% efficient. A Tesla megapack stores 3,854 kWh and weighs 84,000 lbs.

63000*33*.33/(3854*0.9)*84000 = 16,782,563 lbs or ~7,600 metric tons worth of batteries for 1 day's worth of "electric fuel"

Comment · 2 years ago
Comment · 2 years ago
Comment · 2 years ago
I can add about 50 miles of range overnight on a standard 120V outlet which is more than enough most of the time. For longer trips back-to-back, a 220V circuit would be really nice to fully re-charge overnight but its absolutely not necessary.
Comment · 2 years ago
https://www.npr.org/2023/11/14/1212737005/cars-trucks-pedest...

Bumper height plays a far bigger role in pedestrian fatality than hardness of the vehicle shell. Cybertruck's bumper is significantly lower than pretty much every other pickup truck out there.

Comment · 2 years ago
If you have a house, or apartment with access to a L1 or L2 charger, charging at home should cover 100% of your local trips and any longer trips, you'll inevitably pass by a Tesla supercharger in Sequim, Forks, Seattle, Tacoma, Burlington, Cle Elum, etc.

The fuel savings are dramatic in Washington with our low-cost electricity and relatively high gasoline prices. For example, I pay $0.11/kWh and EVs get 3-4mi/kWh. so thats about 3 cents per mile travelled.

Assuming 30mpg and $4/gallon, that's 13 cents per mile travelled or more than 4 times the cost per mile. And there are plenty of ICE vehicles that get less than 30mpg and gasoline is often more expensive than $4/gallon

Comment · 3 years ago
https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/26/23738581/tesla-model-y-ev...

True, last year it wasn’t but this year it was the best selling vehicle of any type, EV or not, including trucks.

Comment · 3 years ago
Comment · 3 years ago
I get about 4mi/kWh and electricity is $0.10/kWh so approximately 2.5 cents per mile
Comment · 3 years ago
It’s not an old number, it’s a new number reported every quarter.

But you’re right that comparing largely highway miles vs all miles isn’t completely fair. FSD on the other hand can be activated and used in most scenarios and has 3.2 million miles between accidents vs the US average of 500,000 miles. So still quite a bit safer but less so than autopilot.

As for autopilot deactivating right before an accident, if autopilot was active within 5 seconds of the accident it is still attributed to autopilot, not the human driver.

Comment · 3 years ago
Comment · 3 years ago
Comment · 4 years ago
The batteries alone have actually gotten quite affordable. https://signaturesolar.com/eg4-lifepower4-lithium-batteries-...

Here is 30kWh of LFP batteries for $9,000. Now that doesn't include the inverters or installation or anything but LFP batteries have excellent longevity, in this case 7000 cycles to 80% depth-of-discharge. That means charging and discharging the battery every day for 19 years and at that point, you still have 80% of the remaining capacity.

Live from the official Hacker News API

A modern reader for Hacker News · SvelteKit + Skeleton