THE POWER OF THE TESLA P85D

Swedes at times say disparaging things about their neighbours and my compatriots, the Norweigans, things like being naive and somewhat dim-witted.  I hate to admit it, but the Swedes may occasionally have a point.

Today the papers bring news about a group of some 20 aggrieved, and presumably wealthy, Norwegians having entered a formal complaint with the Norweigian Consumer Protection Bureau about the fact that Tesla has advertised their new P85D model as possessing 700 hp under the hood. However, such claim is only true to the extent that the P85D, being a 4-wheel drive, has two electric motors, one of about 500 hp for the front axle and another of about 200 hp for the rear.  The local head of Tesla Norway has belatedly come out to explain that you cannot add these two up for propulsion power purposes, and that Tesla consequently has since refrained from making the 700 hp claim.

I guess this is where the Swedes get the idea that in Norway you don't necessarily have to be particularly intelligent in order to get rich.

The aggrieved claimants declare that the Tesla P85D performance is not up to what they thought they had paid for, which further shows a surprising lack of understanding of the prestige technologies they are willing to shell out so much money for.

The Tesla P85D is theoretically capable of reaching a top speed of 200 mph (320 kmph), but for technical reasons related to the functional safety of the battery pack (over 7,000 lithium-ion battery cells connected in series and parallels), maximum speed is blocked at 135 mph (215 kmph).  The latter requires no more than 165 hp from motor-to-wheels, but would nevertheless drain the effectively available power from the 85 kWh battery pack in about a half hour.

However, the sexy thing about Tesla is acceleration.  It is said to be capable of 0-to-60 mph (100 kmph) in 3.1 seconds.  This would require about 440 hp under the hood.  No need for 700 hp even here, and in any case I am not sure I would try it on a Norwegian road, particularly not at winter time.

Finally, there are not many places in Norway where  the speed limit exceeds 50 mph (80 kmph), which at a steady pace the Tesla can handle with 20 hp from the electric motor, or about double that on a long, steep incline.  There are a few of those in Norway.

So, my fellow Norskie Tesla freaks, would you get real, please!?

THE GREAT VOLKSWAGEN DECEPTION

That car companies deceive their customers on actual fuel efficiency standards, and that governments all over have looked the other way, should come as no surprise to anyone.  That Volkswagen has gone the extra mile to deliberately cheat with illigal software shows a degree of stupid arrogance that is decidedly Teutonic in character.  Whenever the Germans screw up, they are prone to do it big time.

One of the German engineering arguments in favor of combustion engines in general, and diesel in particular, is "It makes no sense building clean electric cars when the power they consume come from a coal-fired electricity plant."

Well, it actually makes sense, even then.  The Fuel-to-Wheels power efficiency of electric cars are more than four times greater than that of diesel-driven cars.  This means that the CO2 emissions from a coal-fired power plant propelling an electric car is only about half the emissions caused by a car's diesel engine.

However, a more intriguing question to ask is how to solve the lengthy recharging dilemma when the use of electric cars eventually becomes widespread.  Recent news stories from California describe nascent plug-in warfare and associated shenanigans around too scarce recharging outlets in relation to the as of yet relatively small number of electric cars in circulation.

Keep tuned in on this one.