Going by the number of stories that we’ve published concerning Tesla owners racing various gas-powered cars over the last few years (sorry to those who don’t like this aspect of our site, but numbers are considerably against you…) it should be pretty obvious that a lot of people, when they see a Tesla Model S or Roadster, just can’t help but want to issue a challenge.
An interesting (and often funny) forum topic on that subject was recently started on the Tesla Motors Club forum, allowing Tesla owners to relate their stories about being challenged by all sorts of vehicles and drivers — from adolescents in Hondas with “fart” mufflers, to middle-aged guys in minivans.
“artsci” started it all off with this observation:
Over the 2 1/2 years I’ve had my Model S I’ve noticed some
clear pattens with cars and drivers who consistently try to challenge the Model S at stop lights or other situations where macho men have a problem keep their testosterone in check. Here’s my top three list in rank order:
1. BMW’s of nealy any year or model driven by a male of any age
2. Adolescent males driving severely lowered Hondas with wing spoilers and “fart” mufflers
3. Any minivan driven by a middle-age male
Nearly all end up with a very bad spanking 🙂
Let’s have some fun with this 🙂
There are a lot of good comments, here are just a few of them:
“beeeerock” commented:
Very first day, home after a 350 km drive from the service center and delivery of the car. Just topped up at the supercharger for the last few km’s home. It’s dark by this time and up beside me at a light on a lonely stretch of road comes a modded Mustang… hood cut out to allow the big air intake and blower or whatever to sit up top, obscuring the driver’s vision.
Mine isn’t a P, but he lost anyway. I laughed the rest of the way home… 🙂
“JeffS” noted:
It’s only been 2-1/2 weeks, but so far – only one Mustang. It was a (approx) 2012 GT with a very polite and courteous mid 20’s male driver who was totally excited to see me. He rolled down his window and politely asked me to “please punch it, I want to see if I can keep up…” He understood in advance that this was not going to be a race to see who wins, but a race to see how much a Mustang loses by. I thought it was very nice. No other challenges. And coming from a Volt where every uneducated dumba@@ wants to play…this is a refreshing change.
And “Ugliest1” tempered things a bit with this:
There is at least one Aston Martin DB9 in Victoria, maybe two, and last summer on our main in/out road (3 lanes each way! Wow!) he and I ended up at 3 red lights. Each green I had the distinct feeling that he wanted to race, and I had to fight myself “just to see”, but, the last thing I need with an easy-to-remember licence plate is to be charged with “racing” along with its automatic confiscation of any participating automobiles. With the short distance between lights it would have been, I think, to Model S advantage with quicker off-the-line torque. But if that’s true, and if the other driver was an idiot (I’m not saying he was) and got his ego bruised and took things farther than a quick look-see, and injured a pedestrian or worse, that would also be on me as a participant. So I was a good boy.
I’ll pit my 2003 Nissan Pathfinder against a 2015 Tesla in a 500 mile endurance rally. Tesla driver picks the course.
How much do you think you could win by?
Even if you take a urinal, you’ll still have to stop for gas at least once. If you drive fast you might have to stop twice. And if you are trying to make it a realistic test you’ll stop for food.
If you get a station that’s crowded, or that doesn’t have pay at the pump, or you decide to stop while you eat instead of doing it while driving, might not win by much. Might even lose.
I think he’s saying rally race in like 100mph+ speeds with closed off roads. It’ll take about 5 hours or less on Pathfinder. Tesla of course would lose by a lot. Even keeping it legal speed Tesla would lose (he can eat/wear diaper).
I pit my motorcycle against his Pathfinder 50 mile race in any LA freeway at rush hour. He picks the freeway.
Better, I pit my bicycle against his Pathfinder in 5 miles race through Los Angeles traffic at rush hour. We let it be fair by using the most popular road: the most congested one.
Best, I pit my walking against his Pathfinder in 500 ft race through parking lot during Christmas season or just after Superbowl ends.
How about I swim 50 ft in 50ft deep water against his Pathfinder?
Ridiculous? So is his argument.
Lol.
So the point I was trying to make is “I would win” is meaningless hyperbole that SOUNDS meaningful.
Claims without numbers lack informative value.
For example, his “win” when numbers are added might look like 9.5 hours vs 10 in the Tesla.
And let’s look beyond the 1/2 hour.
The Tesla trip was comfortable. No diapers needed, no dripping catsup on your lap or driving with sticky hands. No painful car-stiffness when arriving at your destination, as charging provided stretch breaks. No standing next to the car huffing fumes for large user fees.
Yes, you shaved 30 minutes off your travel. What is that worth? Is that 30 minutes really worth the $100 in fuel and discomfort?
When you break it down it helps make vague, ephemeral seeming costs and benefits become clear to smart people who have no subject matter expertise when it comes to EV’s.
The Tesla trip was comfortable.
Realy?
You’d have to drive without the AC or the heater. It woud cost to use the radio or the windshield wipers. And the faster you go the faster you drain the batteries.
You have a nice commuter vehicle. Touring is going to have to wait for improved battery performannce.
AsI’ve saud before. Electric vehicles will take off when you can come up with one that has the load capacity, performance and mileage of a Ford F150.
Why a Ford F150?
Because it’s the largest selling vehicle in North America.
So you can beat a Mustang out of the hole.
Big whoop.
How fast can get two tractor tires from Chicago to Omaha?
Why wouldn’t he run AC or heat or any other creature comfort? He’s go plenty of range. He takes his time, driving for 2 to 3 hours (130 to 200 miles), then get out and stretch his legs and sip coffee for 30 minutes while the car’s charging for the next leg of the trip. Even if I’m driving a gas car, I’d do the same; bladder won’t hold from coffee anyway.
In that regard, typical time to get to destination between Tesla and gas car are the same, 500 miles or 5000 miles. But if you have to wear diapers to get somewhere in a hurry, I agree, gas car would be better.
As for comparison to F150, there is no EV pickup truck (yet), so that’s like comparing my swimming to your Pathfinder. Better comparison would be BMW 7 series. I don’t think there’s any big 3 competition to Model S, though some Cadillac and Lincoln might come close.
Tractor tires for such distance? I’d ship it Fedex next day shipping and take the plane! Or airport drop. Or truck ship. Or anything else but drive it there myself. My time is worth far more than the cost of the tires.
Since you keep comparing swimming to cars, let’s see F150 drive 2000 miles and get average of 90 miles per gallon. Or in case of Tesla with free supercharging, 1000000000 miles per gallon in dollar equivalent.
They are different cars, built for different purpose each with its own pluses and minuses. You keep bringing up advantage for gas cars while ignoring EV advantage is like trying to drive your Pathfinder underwater. I thought you’re not that stupid? 😉
Again missing the point.
The point you’re making is comparing best case your scenario to worst case for the other. I make exactly the same point: my swimming vs your Pathfinder.
LOL. How’s the view and smell? At first I thought you were just talking out your backside. Now it appears that’s where your head resides.
Speaking from complete ignorance, eh? No heat, no ac? Must be one of those folks whose every decision is clouded by fear, uncertainty and doubt.
BOO – op, sorry, did you wet yourself?
This car has been driven from CA to NY in under 60 hours. Might want to get informed unless you enjoy looking stupid.
Yeah, Ted. By switching battery packs in a car modified to do it.
A tesla cnnot do 500 miles on one charge. Everything you use that uses battery power other than driving the wheels drains the battery faster. AC and heat are the biggest culprets during the day. The lights are at night.
I;m not afraid of anything , Ted. I just know how the physics work.
How much power do you think heat and AC take? To heat/cool my entire house, it’s about 4 kW. Something much smaller like Tesla cabin would take far less. Imagine how many space heaters (about 1 kW each) it takes to heat a bathroom; typically only 1, maybe 2 for huge bathrooms. Let’s say 2kW.
Meanwhile, driving at 70 MPH is 17 kW on SparkEV, more in Tesla (20kW?). As a percentage, that’s 10%. Out of 250 miles range P70D, it would lose 25 miles. That’s still more than 3 hours of driving. Normal people (no diaper) would take a break, gas car or EV, making Tesla no slower than gas cars.
How much power do you think lights take? Typical automotive headlight is about 0.06kW to 0.1kW. That’s even less than blasting the stereo.
So how does your Physics work, Brad?
The average for a Tesla “S” is between 200 and 300 miles to a charge. The from an article by the Washington Post. Supercharging a Tesla “S” battery pack with just 40 miles left on the battery takes 59 minutes. This from Edmonds Automotive.
Finally, something with numbers and a valid point from Brad!
Tesla S70D has 70 kWh battery of which probably 80% is usable (probably!) = 56 kWh for 250 miles. Tesla supercharger is 120kW. A simple math would show 0.47 hours or about 28 minutes.
But the battery does not charge at same speed throughout. In case of SparkEV, it chages at full speed to 80%, then slows down (0-80% in 20 min, 80-100% in 8 min). Since Tesla has liquid cooled battery like SparkEV, I suspect it’d be similar, though I don’t know about 1 hour to take 100%. However, it would take more than 80% in 30 minutes, good for 2.5 hours of driving (180 miles range with AC/heat)
Another problem with supercharging is shared station. If there are other cars charging on same circuit, it would slow down. How much slower would depend on circuit and crowd. Here’s a read
https://my.teslamotors.com/forum/forums/beware-supercharger-speeds-vary-greatly
So yeah, you are somewhat correct in that Tesla could take almost an hour to full charge, but not always. I’d go even further and say it could take longer than an hour depending on how crowded the superchargers are.
All that being said. My pathfinder would win.
Also remember that while EV owners are patting themselves on the back. That mining the rare earth minerals to build the batteries is a very high energy using and consequently high CO2 producing endeavor. Not to mention the products going into the batteries are highly toxic and dangerous. And the production of electricity itself pollutes.
Bottom line.
In everything there is a trade off. This is especially true when it comes to energy.
If you’re talking about 500 miles driven at any cost, there’s no question your pathfinder would win against any of current crop of EV. Heck, even $450 used car would win. This has been stated many times before, but that ridiculous comparison is like comparing my swimming to your Pathfinder: meaningless.
As for CO2, show me the math. For starters, you can look up Union of concerned scientists paper. Like your Physics, what you claim is wrong.
Life is a trade off. Energy consumption is meaningless for me and probably for lots of people. What matters more is cost and convenience. Having “full fuel” every morning is far more convenient than having to drive to gas station every few days.
In my case, SparkEV lease that’s cheaper than cell phone plan was the most important reason to drive EV. No gas car comes close to low cost SparkEV, even 10 year old used cars.
For those rare times we need to drive 500 miles? We can do it with fast charge or if we must wear diaper, we can always rent a gas car.
No, they didn’t switch a battery pack or modify a car. You seem to know even less about this vehicle that you initially showed.
I’m not that stupid 😉
Neither are Tesla drivers.
Haha, great responses. 😀
How much do you think you could win by?
It wouldn’t matter. I would win. Once you stop to charge it would be over.
In the race I propose, once you get behind “Old ladies driving slowly makes other behind infuriatingly late everytime”, it would be over. Hint: it’s an acronym. 🙂
Brad – to make it a real challenge – Leave your wallet, Cash, and Credit Cards at home – just bring Drivers Licence and Insurance! Pack a Lunch if you like! Tesla Driver Does the Same! Tesla Driver Gets a 1,000 Mile Trip Done, for No Extra Money, and you call a Tow Truck / AAA for a Gallon of Gas – Many times!
More Realistically – I personally Drove from Toronto, Ontario to Oshkosh, Wisconsin, in My 2010 Kia Soul (Not EV), and a Friend happened to Drive his Tesla Model S – 60 kWh – from Brampton (just a bit north and west of Toronto) also to Oshkosh – this past summer! Both our Drives times were pretty much the same – or he was a bit quicker than me!
That’s the reality of it – no race, just normal people doing what they do! The Tesla (Even the now unavailable 208 Mile Range Rated 60 kWh Version) Did the Trip as fast as my ICE Kia – if not faster – including supercharge Top-ups! With a 90D Model – giving some extra 60 – 65 miles range per charge – the number pf supercharge stops would be less, and each one could be quicker, as this car can handle more charger power longer during charging, than the 60!
Besides – your Nissan Pathfinder – created some 5 – 6 Times as much pollution in the process! Breath on that just for fun! All of us driving ICE Cars, are still a part of the Pollution Problem – not part of the Solution!
While CO2 is the Big Talk of Global Warming, it’s the NOx, and other Gasses that Trees and Plants can’t work with to turn back into O2 that are the real issue, pollution and heath wise!
Last paragraph is wrong. CO2 is correctly “the Big Talk.” NOx is also bad. 57% of all anthropogenic NOx is from transportation. EVs cut down both.
In its Fifth Assessment Report, the IPCC stated “it is extremely likely
that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface
temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by the anthropogenic increase
in greenhouse gas concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings
together,” of which CO2 is the most important (IPCC 2013).
Sorry Brad, you lose when you go up against a Tesla in a cannon ball run. Let’s say LA to NY and return!!! One driver in each car! Tesla driver snoozes 30% of the time on autopilot and makes it in 125 hours. You in your Nissan run off the road (can’t Find the Path by itself) just as you start heading back across the country after driving for 55 hours straight in a diaper and spend weeks in a hospital recovering from stupidity and broken bones. Mom wonders what you’re doing in a diaper. Ooops.
My 2016 Volt would win this one! I just drove 800 miles last Sunday and had to stop only once for gas while getting comforted at the rest room. I drink smoothie, so no sticky hands for me! I drove 480 miles before getting gas, and I could have pushed it beyond 500.
If you drive aggressively with the Pathfinder, you’ll have to load gas twice!