Brand new Model 3! I hope it belongs to one of the big wigs--maybe then we'll finally get some charging stations. Now we have 2 Volts and a Tesla on site. I peeked inside--there was a Tesla thank you card on the console.
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Look what I found in the parking lot at work today!
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Nice car, but I'd take the aero wheel covers off to expose the nice wheels underneath, then add the wheel cap kit.
https://shop.tesla.com/us/en/product/vehicle-accessories/model-3-aero-wheel-cap-kit.html
Sure it will affect the range, but it would look so much better.
https://shop.tesla.com/us/en/product/vehicle-accessories/model-3-aero-wheel-cap-kit.html
Sure it will affect the range, but it would look so much better.
I agree the spoker wheels underneath look much better, but I would still rather have the boost in efficiency. Maybe wheel fashion will someday evolve to make the efficient designs the ones that are preferred.
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Anyone know what the efficiency hit would be if they were removed?
One owner tested his and found 4.3% difference over a course that was driven mostly at 70 mph.
https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-3-aero-vs-non-aero-wheels-real-world-efficiency-test/
The vehicle complies with the ZEV standard, which is specific to emissions from the car's tail pipe, so it is arguably accurate. I think it is odd that the issue of power plant emissions is so often raised for EVs when the same issue for ICE vehicles never gets much mention. The drilling, refining and transport of gasoline is far from a clean process. ICE vehicle emissions are usually evaluated at the tailpipe only.
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I was at a shop the other day that was telling me that they are seeing a lot of red M3s with paint issues in the exact same spot on the cars. They said it looks pink instead of red in that spot. I guess this problem is actually across all colors, but is more noticeable on the red and blue.
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you can take them off, they serve a purpose that a cast wheel at that size would not provide.
they wheels underneath are very nicely finished and there is a $50 kit from Tesla that covers the lug nuts and provides a Tesla center cap. I have the kit and reverted back to the covers and I ended up liking how they look. I do swap back and forth about it
Mine is red with Aero wheels too. I like the red and get a lot of compliments on it. But I do wish it was a darker red. The Siren Red Tintcoat on the Volt would have been perfect. Removing the Aero caps takes no tools and about 5 seconds per wheel. But I've gotten used to them, so have left them on.
I found out what the thank you card was all about. A co-worker said they saw a Tesla service van next to the M3 during the day. The technician was talking to the owner and after he was finished working, he left the card.
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I totally agree. Both have a Well-to-Wheel OR Mine-to-Wheel emissions trail.
Only one of those trails continually gets cleaner as time goes on!
https://oaspub.epa.gov/powpro/ept_pack.charts
Mine is currently 57.9% coal. When I first started driving EV's 5 years ago it was 63% something.
The "powered by coal" argument against EVs isn't new. In the book "The Car That Could", published in 1996 to chronicle the development of the EV-1, he mentions the same argument. It was easily debunked then. And along with what you say, the grid has become far cleaner over the last 20+ years - making the argument even more absurd.
The car itself produces no emissions.
but, The production of its energy source does. (And herein lies the rub.....)
As does the production, transportation, installation, maintenance, etc of solar panels and windmills.
As does the enormous amount of FOSSIL FUEL that has been, and will be, used to create Tesla and its batteries. And its rockets, and its tunnel diggers and solar panels, etc, etc. Is that ever going to be offset by a bunch of electric cars, whose battery has a rather finite lifespan, and whose support, service and repair network is run on FOSSIL FUEL?
Sure, some recluse in woods that hunts his own food and gets by on a meager life with solar panels can call himself energy independent.
Even more ironic is all the Libs. trying to be in charge of everything....I don't see them parking their SUV entourages, Airliners, Yachts, or their million dollar mansions being powered by solar panels and windmills or waiting 4 hours for their electric cars to charge enough to get them another 150 miles down the road. No not gonna happen. Life as they know it would come to an end.
Yet it's supposed to work for the rest of us ?
BTW, ever consider how someone that's spent a lifetime career in public service becomes a multi-millionaire ?
Has a fence and guards around their house but thinks there shoudn't be one around our country?
Exempts themselves from the same medical coverage they tried to force everyone else into?
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