How the Tesla model S is made

[mandru]

Having received the highest rating ever given a car by the magazine Consumer Reports (CR) I found this interesting as it focuses on assembly rather that the Green hype crap.

http://www.wimp.com/teslamade/


I am starting to question CR's validity in my purchasing decisions even though I know that CR goes to great lengths claiming to be unbiased.  Their recent tendency to open many of their articles speaking of global warming agenda as if it's incontrovertible fact and swooning over the current Government's take over of every aspect of our lives (here in the U.S.) from our medical care to enforcing the submission of emergency evacuation plans in the event of natural disasters by professional magicians for their rabbits*  they use in their acts pushes me to be more and more suspicious of their reviews and editorial veracity.

So CR's glowing review of the Tesla could be pure hype as well.  If I can't jump into a car and go whenever and whenever I choose and go for as long as I need to cover the distance that I need to cover quickly that is not a car I believe most people would ever consider owning. 




But back to Tesla and specifically this video which I liked.  Much of the info I've come across on this car is interesting but hold to my prior opinion that until a battery holds a charge that is the equivalent of at the very least a tank full of non-ethanol contaminated fuel and can be hot swapped at designated refueling stations in the same amount of time it takes to fill a tank (and at a comparative price point) the electrics are doomed to fail.


*(Rabbit escape plans?  No lie!  Federal law actually has wrapped its growing tentacles into even that.  A magician failing to respond to a formal request with acceptable documented plans for their rabbit's safety (specifically in the event of earthquakes, tornadoes, fire, flood and possibly zombie apocalypse) will be seriously penalized.  There are twelve pages of federal law covering this example of intrusion into our normal daily lives.  :D )

[fragger]

Jeepers creepers ??? ::) :D

Do you know that in my country we actually have a Minister for Climate Change? Which begs the question: Is he for it or against it :-()

I know, it sounds like something from a stupid Monty Python sketch, but I swear it's true.

There is a place called Warragamba Dam just outside Sydney which provides most of that city's drinking water. Some years ago, after an extensive period of drought (which happens so often in this country that it is mentioned in a classic anthem-like 1908 poem called "My [Sunburnt] Country"), the reservoir level fell to below 10% capacity. The then Minister for Climate Change gleefully informed us all that this was to be the new norm, that due to climate change/global warming, the level in the reservoir would never again rise above 10% capacity. He told us all to get used to it.

That reservoir has since overflowed three times. That then Minister for Climate Change still stands by his declaration.

Say no more. Meanwhile, over at the Ministry of Silly Walks...

[Art Blade]

  brilliant!!

[mandru]

@ fragger  :knockout


For a long time I always thought that if things ever became too wonky here in the U.S. to tolerate I'd pick Australia as a good place to escape it.  However from the stories I've heard from you over the last few years it's becoming clear that the cancerous insanity infecting governments isn't something we here in the U.S. hold a patent on.  I guess the best any of us can hope for is to be able to duck and cover wherever we may happen to be.

With any luck there might be a few cool cars left worth driving and something to power them when it all hits the fan.

[Art Blade]

I think as long as we keep having countries with individual governments serving their own self-inflated egomania rather than a "one planet" set of mind and, literally, a global government which should be what our ancestors used to have, a council of perhaps a dozen of old and wise people, we won't see any ideas and changes worthwhile. Until then, I much rather focus on my own well-being and friends. :)

[mandru]

Humans of the ancient global one world mindset also tended to sacrifice the other peoples they overpowered to their regional gods.  I'm not sure I want any of that.

[Art Blade]

ok, let's get on a space ship and nuke the living daylights out of this planet on leaving.

[PZ]

That reservoir has since overflowed three times. That then Minister for Climate Change still stands by his declaration.

This idiot sounds like the public official in a nearby town who proclaimed on television that the reason the police could not respond to burglaries is that they were too busy doing traffic.

We need to fire these kinds of losers

[mandru]

Have you seen a car door do this before?

http://www.wimp.com/teslahandles/

[Art Blade]

No.. all I've seen so far is that it comes off with a sharp crack when you try to pull the door open with it. :-D

[mandru]

That may be because you weren't carrying the RFID recognition key on you and you tore the door off its hinges.  ???

[Art Blade]

 

[mandru]

I was a bit stunned when I came across this video earlier today.

Tesla corporate head Elon Musk discusses their decision to open source their patents for use in "good faith" to promote the development of the electric car industry.

http://www.dump.com/patentssource/


It's a pretty bold step in this day and age.

[Stiku]

Cultural difference.

[Art Blade]

@ manru's post:
weird. Apple, AMD, intel and MS should do that, just once.  :-D

[Art Blade]

mandru, check this out. It's about Elon Musk (Tesla) :) impressive guy. :-X
Billionaire Elon Musk: How I Became The Real 'Iron Man'

[mandru]

Very interesting thanks for posting this.

When I first saw this and noticed how long it was I marked the thread as unread to remind me to come back to it.  Still too long for a Bio in one sitting so I've watched the first 11 minutes today and will come back from time to time and digest the rest in similar bites.  ^-^

[Art Blade]

Welcome :) Oh and when you're finished, just carry over to the start which you will have forgot by then. :-D

[mandru]

 :-D

Then again that's probably not too far from true.  ::)

Several times a day I'll turn to Google looking up sundry details of minor informational things I become aware of that I've misplaced or should know.  That way I can fill in the memory gaps that appear from time to time trying to keep the facade of my thought processes nicely smoothed over and comfortable to live with.  I hadn't been aware of how much I'd come to rely on the easy informational access Google provides to fill those gaps until earlier this week.

We spent Monday and Tuesday without internet because our provider had upgraded the lines and we needed to buy a new modem to connect at the higher rate.  In theory a simple process and yet in practice it was a completely different matter.

Step 1 Determine you are connected - the old modem was working just fine as I started the swap
Step 2 Connect power, cable line and ethernet cable - three completely different connectors with no way to foul that up
Step 3 Contact Provider to give them the new modems MAC ID # - and this is where everything went off the rails  :D

Three phone calls and two and a half hours later it was firmly established that I was not Mrs. mandru whose name is on the account and that I had no authorization to activate the service.  Later that evening when Mrs mandru called (another 40 minutes) and provided the MAC # the agent's efforts failed to reconnect the account again.

It turned out that the first agent I'd spoken to earlier had derailed the whole blasted account with some randomly vicious keystrokes on her terminal but that was only discovered when the scheduled service man (who not only didn't show up at the appointment time the next day, he (without calling) didn't show up that day at all) who arrived Wednesday morning established that the failure to connect wasn't at our end of the connection.

I can't tell you how many times through all of this I've thought of something and said to myself "Hmm... I need to look that up" only to get that "Doh!" moment of realization.


Wait.  ???

I came in to catch another quick bite of that Bio before going to bed and got distracted.  I've spent the last hour typing and editing this so I'll have to get back to it tomorrow.

I guess there's some things Google doesn't help me remember.  :-[

[Art Blade]

 :)

There are things that you need every day and which therefore you will (hopefully) remember and then there are things that you don't usually need. Those tend to fade away until you've completely forgot whatever it was. Until the day you need them again. I think that's just normal.

However, it reminds me of that one day in the office when I looked at my desk that had several notes under a transparent plastic desk pad that you use to look stuff up quickly like perhaps a few names and numbers and sticky notes on the monitor that contained information snippets of say a bank account number or emergency numbers. Random stuff that you have become used to look up every fricking time, several times a day, several days a week, over months and perhaps years. Things that you have probably looked up a billion times yet they bloody won't register with your brains as if you didn't have any memory function in there. Which in a way is true.. you "outsourced" your memory and learned to rely on that external memory in form of notes.

That was when I decided to learn those things by heart and throw the notes away. Not long thereafter I didn't have any notes or sticky notes on my desk and monitor anymore and tossed the desk pad into the bin. I remember a colleague who arrived while I was on the phone so he overheard the conversation during which I cited a rather long service number that he recognised because he had to look it up every now and then like many of my colleagues. After I had ended the call, he'd burst out, "hey, did you actually know that number by heart?" And I just said, "yes.. I was just fed up with that cluster of notes of things I need all the time so I decided to remember them and toss the notes. I much rather have the information in my head than on my desk," which was obviously something nobody else did.

Well. Ever since, I have a desk so clean that one day, I had been away a few days, someone new said, "oh.. is that your desk? I thought it was an unused desk because there's nothing on it."  :-D

Memory can be trained. Don't expect miracles if you haven't trained it for some time but it can still be trained. It's a bit like building a tower with sheets of papers that you stack up. It takes time, the individual results are small, but it keeps building up until someone else notices while you may not yet have noticed yourself. But that feedback or stuff that you do notice yourself will encourage you to keep on doing it.. challenge your memory, not just your brains. :-()

[mandru]

Challenge my memory?  OK.

There's a post-it note on my computer now to help me remember to w@&k on it.  :-D

I just finished the Musk Bio and it was pretty good.  Thanks for putting that up Art.   :-X +1

[Art Blade]

thank you, mandru  :)

And lol @ your post-it  :-X