Tesla Vehicle Questions, Answered

[VolklKatana]

Question about the Texas factory.

A few of the marvelous drone shots (on YouTube) also briefly show what appears to be a drawn outline of the entire Tesla property (usually with a "You are here" arrow). Assuming I'm interpreting it correctly, that property is not the usual rectangle; it has a weird irregular border with odd projections. Any idea why?

Being that the parcel is so large, I'm guessing that is just isnt bound by lot lines, but by natural boarders, like rivers or streams. (My state if Wisconsin is much like that, the only straight lines are those that are land bound boarders, all the other imperfect boarders are rivers or lakes.

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[ajdelange]

Reminds me of the old chestnut about the kid in geography class who when asked where the Mexican border is answers that he's in bed with his Mama so he didn't get no breakfast.

 

[Crissa]

Question about the Texas factory.

A few of the marvelous drone shots (on YouTube) also briefly show what appears to be a drawn outline of the entire Tesla property (usually with a "You are here" arrow). Assuming I'm interpreting it correctly, that property is not the usual rectangle; it has a weird irregular border with odd projections. Any idea why?

There are easements and plots that belong to others: The freeway, several square farm fields, the river bounds it along two sides.

Very few large parcels are square.

-Crissa

 

[alan auerbach]

There are easements and plots that belong to others: The freeway, several square farm fields, the river bounds it along two sides.

Very few large parcels are square.

-Crissa

Thanks for that info. Also, can anybody tell which corner of the CT the charger port will be located on? (Will help plan the location of my garage outlet.)

 

[Sirfun]

Thanks for that info. Also, can anybody tell which corner of the CT the charger port will be located on? (Will help plan the location of my garage outlet.)

On the PROTOTYPE,

that is the only one we've seen photos of, there's only 1 access door. It's on the left rear, directly behind the left rear wheel well.

 

[ajdelange]

Quick final summary of the service story I started earlier: These cars and the CT are very complex computers which happen to have wheels. Last year Tesla started installing control computers which feature Tesla's home grown AI chips. There are two in each unit and each contains 6 Billion transistors. This computer failed in my car with the most annoying symptom being no GPS related services. It was relatively easy to schedule a Ranger appointment but not for three weeks. In the final week I got a message saying that the work could not be done by a ranger and so they rescheduled me for the nearest SC 111 miles away 3 weeks later. Having learned a bit about how to get around the App I scheduled an appointment for the next day. I took the car in on Wed, was given a 3 as a loaner and sent on my way. They had the car until Monday AM and worked on it well into the night Wed and Thus (you can see when they open doors, the frunk, when they charge it, when they move it etc. on the App). We went in this morning, gave them back the 3 and came home in the X. The people at the SC are professional, polite and friendly. They even gave us a courtesy wash.

1)You can expect failures of this high tech stuff.
2)You can expect efficient, courteous repair service from Tesla if not as quickly as you like
3)Not all cases will go as smoothly as mine. I don't doubt the horror stories.

 

[Sirfun]

Question about the Texas factory.

A few of the marvelous drone shots (on YouTube) also briefly show what appears to be a drawn outline of the entire Tesla property (usually with a "You are here" arrow). Assuming I'm interpreting it correctly, that property is not the usual rectangle; it has a weird irregular border with odd projections. Any idea why?

Funny thing about that. I've been studying that Tesla property since the day Elon announced it, by looking around with Google Earth. With Google Earth, you can even look back historically and see it before they built the toll road.
You are correct the outline of the property lines have lots of jogs back and forth. It really appears that what Tesla bought, was all the unimproved areas. The areas where the border goes in and around things are for anything from a complete housing project on the western edge, on the opposite side of the toll road, to other businesses north of the houses. Then in other area's the border moves in to go around improved farm land. It looks like they did tons of excavations all over the land that Tesla bought to get dirt, gravel, and sand for the building of the Toll road. All those excavations were holding ponds and just generally tore up. Tesla has went to town on a section of that property, to remove all the ponds and mounds of dirt around them, to give them a flat graded piece of their property to build on. I would imagine the area that you see on the videos with grading is less than 20% of the total property.
Also as Elon had said when revealing their purchase, the Colorado River borders the southern end of the property. Tesla's river front property is a little over 3 miles of shoreline. 2000 acres is a pretty good size piece of land.
I'm hoping Tesla builds a couple of test tracks and a driver experience/driving school. Imagine going to Austin and getting taught how to use your Cybertruck in various off road conditions. Including getting it stuck and unstuck!

 

[Sirfun]

Here's 2 images that show the Tesla property, before the Toll Road and the latest before work started. Notice, all the areas of excavation. This property is a DIAMOND IN THE VERY ROUGH.

 

[Owner13669]

I am assuming that it is cheaper to charge your EV at home, versus utilizing one of the superchargers?

Yes. Especially if your power utility offers “voluntary special time of use rates”. For instance, my utility offers rates between 11:00 pm and 7:00 am at about 1/7 the day time rate. I figure it costs about $2.50 to put 230 miles in my Chevy bolt. I figure my average power bill has gone down. After one year, the utility will show you much it has saved you, and you can chose to remain or switch back to standard rates.

 

[ajdelange]

Only way to beat that is to have free Supercharging or a solar/wind/hydro system big enough to charge your cars.