oldshurst442

So...I just googled Tesla and the powerwall... As my partner was explaining it to me (I was still in awe of him mentioning to me he bought a P85D) ...I did not quite catch that the battery works with solar panels that convert the suns energy into electricity that gets stored and recharges the battery which in turn inverts that DC electricity into AC to power your home... I was under the impression that the battery gets recharged with the Hydro-Electric power lines....this is an even better idea...solar panels...other than the cost of buying and installing....free energy.

Yeah...geothermal. This is not an area of expertise that I have , so bare with me. And unfortunately, natural gas is not available in my area. Otherwise I would have opted for it from the get go. I love cooking with gas, either in the kitchen or BBQ...I would have connected my BBQ directly to the home lines...no more stupid empty propane gas tanks and running to fill them up every so often!!! (maybe open flames and gas lines are not such a good idea... ) (I am talking about that flaming emoticon....yeah...I know...yet another corny joke....Im full of them.) My business partner just bought himself a Tesla Model S P85D...he showed me what Tesla wants to do with a home battery system set-up...maybe that wuld be in the cards too...to power the electric heater I got.

It looks like you're billed on 2 month cycles? Quick division says that at your worst, you were paying 9.2 cents per kWh from January to March. Not terrible, but not great when you're using 10k kWhs. What fuel do you use to heat your house and have you looked at alternatives? My electric bill just dropped in half to $80 a month on budget billing and I expect it to drop even further over the next year. I just had a new high efficiency furnace and A/C system installed. I used to have window A/C units and my gas furnace was 65 years old. Oddly, we used more electric in the winter than in the summer because the blower on that old furnace burned up so much electricity that the lights would dim when it kicked on. I also had the electrical box upgraded from 60amp fuse service to 150amp breakers. I had them leave a provision for another 220 line in case I need a car charger in the future. ELECTRICITY...and only electricity is the fuel I use. Im thinking about installing a thermal pump. When I built the house, I had all plumbing and electrical wiring done to accommodate a thermal pump. Yeah...two month cycles...and yeah...it is that expensive in the winter...and it was cold during December-March last year....2 years in a row. And...this year, rates went up in April 2015, so, if El Nino does not kick in and we get another record breakin cold winter, it will be probably more than 9.2 cents.

I think we do. The requirements are in one of the links that I posted earlier. But let it be known though....Quebec is a fickle bitch...some technologies are not loved by the Province of Quebec...so Im not too sure which ones are and which technologies are not. I never thought of solar panels so I dont know too much about them and how Quebec feels about it. At DFELT Yeah...Hydro-Quebec offers EPP...an equal payment plan to which the costs are averaged over the course of the year so each month comes to the same amount...which for me..was $208/month... Notice I said was...$208/month Our rates went up last year and for two years in a row...very cold winters...my new per month bill will be around $240/month...yeah...it shot up $30/month

You could move another post I made in the other thread Drew. Did not see this one...

Wonder if they'll start to up the limit for owners who charge cars. Nope. Actually, Hydro-Quebec (its a crown corporation) will reduce its rates to EV owners who charge their cars at home. They already subsidize home chargers...OK...they subsidize the standard chargers and not the super ones....but still.

Wings...great choice. Id have a hard time choosing between a 1966 Olds 442 or a Toronado and this. But if the Mustang would win...Id have this one:

Im not impressed with the TLX....I prefer my TL's interior. Sure, there are some areas where its not "soft touch" as compared to the TLX, but the TL feels much more solid regardless. The seats are smaller in the TLX than in the TL, not as if that makes a difference for me as I am a small dude at 5'6" inches tall, but I am 170 lbs....no not fat, but muscle. So I do appreciate the bigger seats. I do find my console (The TL) to be clunky, as in big for no reason with the infotainment section being needlessly full of buttons and I do find the TLX's console to be...less clunky, I too find it needlessly complicated with that two screen system....and the TLX has an advantage over the TL as it has a button transmission as opposed to a shifter.... Just to say, the way Acura has set this up...I still prefer the clunky shifter in my TL over the leverless TLX...

Bringing this back to Tesla and EVs... The Quebec government will soon release a huge incentives package to try to make EVs a majority of car sales in Quebec. The plan is to put 100 000 EVs on Quebec roads by 2020. http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/quebec-announces-five-year-car-electrification-program

Yes...we also have that concept in Quebec. I dont think its mandatory...yet...for new home contractors to comply in building energy efficient homes , but if a home owner buys an energy efficient home, he gets subsidized by the Quebec government. Tax breaks and Welcome Tax rebates are applied. Novoclimat is what this standard is called in Quebec. My home is a Novoclimat home. What the government gives you back: http://www.efficaciteenergetique.gouv.qc.ca/en/my-home/novoclimat/homes/#.Vi-kaCum3aQ http://bonestructure.ca/en/ecohomes-through-novoclimat-20certification/ Now...what are those standards in insulation and stuff? Im trying to find a website to list those standards, but I cant find any at the touch of my fingertip. I need to dig deeper. The Quebec Government also subsidizes home owners that wish to convert their older homes into energy efficient ones also.

Or I could be wrong...but I doubt that. I just got my electric bill and on it it states that Ive used: from to days kWh Av. kWh/day amount 2014-07-19 2014-09-09 53 1757 33 $142.44 2014-09-10 2014-11-06 58 2518 43 $212.42 2014-11-07 2015-01-12 67 9071 135 $830.61 2015-01-13 2015-03-12 59 10741 182 $992.89 2015-03-13 2015-05-12 61 5695 93 $521.32 2015-05-13 2015-07-09 58 2019 35 $168.31 Total: 356 31 801 89 $2867.99 I have a 2000 sq. ft home NOT including the basement with 2 kids and a wife. Keep in mind that last year in Montreal was effin' cold and that I dont cheap out on heat...like ever. I keep the house in the winter at 22-23 Celsius or 72-73 Fahrenheit all the time. Nor on washing clothes nor on electric equipment running in the house as I do have 2 kids and they require well, computers and TVs and washing their clothes at different times of the day... What we are careful in is that any room that is not used, the lights are off.

But he did state it correctly, I followed the links and even the Canada government shows it as $6.21 per KWh. The web site unless I am miss understanding is wanting people to stay under the 30KWh thresh hold. Seems crazy expensive but that is what they post and say on the web site. Still electricity is cheap but they do have a big hit for heavy users according to the web site. They do want us to stay under that threshold...but it is a typo...I thought I did that typo...but it really is 6.21 CENTS...and yes...we do get hit hard when we waste electricity...like I said...further into that website you will see different levels of usage...like using your washing machine to do your clothes during peak hours versus washing your clothes during dead hours. They want to prevent drain of electricity needlessly. Especially during the cold cold days of winter in January or February when the temperatures regularly EXCEED 40 below Fahrenheit. That is when people use electricity the most....you know...heating their homes FULL blast.The WHOLE province undergoes this deep frost for days on end and THAT causes a strain for electric production...Hydro-Quebec has a hard time meeting those demands and they dont want to have some sort of problem when the citizens NEED their electricity the most...to which is having heat for their homes. So...even during the summer, when electricity is at its less demand...the Quebec Province wants to incorporate a habit of no wastage and smarter usage and usage of certain appliances when peak demand for electricity is needed for other things. Example....there is no need to wash clothes at 6:00 PM....that is when cooking is made so using your stove is more of importance than washing clothes. Washing clothes can be made at 9:00 PM...or for those who can...at 2:00 PM...

yeah...cents... sorry... As you could see the other two price quotes were in cents... THAT would not be so cheap now would it? (copy and paste problems...)

Yeah...I could see that also where the computer would refuse to function and would require manual controls to be taken over...and if a car is old and not maintained properly, that mode would be activated more often than not...DEFEATING THE PURPOSE OF SELF AUTONOMOUS DRIVING...me thinks. Unless of course what DFELT is suggesting that either people themselves choose to lease or Big Brother forces us to not ever own a car again and just have a car on loan or the whole industry goes public and is solely governed by the State. Hyper also touched up on that idea...that the State would control the industry to some degree, maybe 100%...

OK, so how much per Kilowatt hr? Washington state which is 100% Hyrdo powered and they just built a couple of huge wind farms on the Columbia river so do not know how that factors in, but we have always had almost the cheapest electric cost in the nation. One reason the aluminum plants all came here. Our Home rate is 6.94 cents per Kilowatt hr. Only 2 other states are cheaper than us at 6.90 and 6.92. http://www.eia.gov/electricity/state/ Course on this Gov web site they show us as the cheapest in the nation. http://www.neo.ne.gov/statshtml/204.htm So what is your rate? I'm at 7.5 cpkwh. http://www.hydroquebec.com/residential/understanding-your-bill/rates/residential-rates/rate-d/ - First 30 kWh/day 5.68¢/kWh - Remaining energy consumption 8.60¢/kWh Price of power above 50 kW In winter (period runs from December 1 through March 31 of the next year.) - $6.21/kW In summer (period runs from April 1 through November 30) - $3.15/kW And there are other special rates such as doing your laundry during peak hours of energy usage versus doing your laundry during the wee hours of the morning when global usage is at a minimum... And I think buying an electric vehicle and charging it at home also has special low usage rates as Quebec wants to promote EVs.

Very good question. The Benz CLS400 I had over the summer had a bad habit of its navigation system freezing up on me and me not realizing it until 5 or 10 miles down the road. Then it would reboot which seemed to take 2 - 3 minutes. 5 or 10 miles and the rebooting would take 2-3 minutes... That is a heck of a long time and distance for a computer driven car to be without any guidance...especially when hundreds of cars are being encountered in that period of time and distance... Then there is the question of maintenance. People dont change their oils, brakes...on a regular basis... Heck, people dont even check their tire pressure any more. Plus...it is a well known fact that all these sensors we have in modern cars eventually fail... Add all that up...on an autonomous car that is 6-7-8-10 years old, with 90 000/120 000/150 000 hard daily driven miles with a very minimal amount of maintenance done to the vehicle...what happens to all that computer technology and all those sensors let alone the mechanical side of things that fail on today;s cars on top of all the autonomous driving smart technology computer systems? Meaning... A brand spanking new autonomous car will perform flawlessly the first 1-3 years....what happens to that autonomous car when wear and tear actually occurs down the line and proper maintenance is not performed? With airplanes...rigorous overhauls for maintenance is made on a very regular basis...we all know that the cars on the road are not all exactly in pristine showroom quality with near 100% flawless mechanicals...

+1 on that upholstery! I miss those.

The dude in charge of Highway Safety said something about if consumers dont trust the computer on wheels to drive them, the consumer will simply not buy them and simply wont get into one, and that future will simply evaporate... DAMN RIGHT! That screwed up future SHOULD evaporate! Before that sentence was made...the interviewer mentioned something about computer glitzes and how computers...well, they have glitzes sometimes...and that highway safety dude simply just glanced over that question mentioning that people today are comfortable with computers...and then he made that statement about if consumers wont feel comfortable the future of autonomous driving will evaporate... HE GLANCED OVER that question... Yo buddy!!! WHAT HAPPENS WHEN AN AUTONOMOUS DRIVING COMPUTER FREEZES? Even in airplanes, MANUAL take offs and landings are only made... In airplanes...because that is how that clip was started...about 747s... In the aircraft industry....ALL manual controls were made drive-by-wire...and eliminated ALL manual controls....only to go back to MANUAL controls when the airplanes had computer glitzes so in the aircraft industry...MANUAL controls are STILL used as BACK-UPS... THEREFORE...in cars....because there are MANY cars on the road...one cant just doze off...one still has to be alert just to be able to get manual control back! We even saw it in the clip where the car "asked" for help.... I understand many algorithms still have to be computed and cars dont "talk" to each other yet (GM is working on that technology as we speak), remember....computers in 2015 STILL FREEZE UP!!! Even APPLE computers....you know....the holy grail of Apple software and operating systems that is unlike the laughable Microsoft software!!! PLEASE...SOMEONE...END THIS INSANITY!!!

Cash.... A cool 100 hundred dollar bill as a present for my car tha I like that idea. Ill just tweak that idea just to be different....but it will be on the same level. 100 dollar Petro Canada / Shell/ Ultramar / Esso gift card. I hate filling up my gas tank with my own money. A rant about Big Oil and price fixing collusion and price gauging and stuff like that...long story... Its always nicer when I fill up on someone else's cash....makes me happier that way.

North East cost of electricity is done dirt cheap. At least in Quebec....

This guy deals with the body! He likes his steel bodies much better than the aluminum ones! Yeah. I did not forget about that. Its just that I automatically thought because he was a body man, he was also a full blown, all out mechanic. Instead...he just bangs on them steel drums like a chimpanzee.... Blu... video kill the radio star the electric car will kill the dinosaur car. Better get used to driving down Electric Avenue Being THUNDERSTRUCK by AC and DC because where there is thunder, there is lightning! I understand you though. I see you going down in a Blaze of Glory... because...the steel horse that you ride, is wanted dead or alive. Times...they are a changin' buddy the winds of change are upon us!

I thought you was one. Sorry for the misunderstanding on that part of the equation...never the less, the rest of my post remains as is as you not being a mechanic bears no relevance to government subsidies of the American Automotive Landscape and fluid free electric vehicles...with much much much torque at one's disposal....instantaneous at that.

Same place where GM and Chrysler...twice for Chrysler...got theirs to prevent them from folding. Same place where Ford got theirs for R&D in producing environmental friendly technology and engineering. That Fusion electric Hybrid supposedly benefited from that... Same place where BMW and VW/Porsche got theirs to build factories in the USA to employ young Americans to produce gas guzzling SUVs....the opposite spectrum of green technology that Ford and Tesla represent... BLU, you should be happy that an American automotive company is a threat to the Germans finally. A legit threat. When was the last time that a German automotive company scrambled to produce a competitor to anything American? In the last 20 years or so, 'tis the Americans that are chasing that German mojo...but with the Model S, Mercedes, BMW and especially Porsche's lederhosen is soiled with piss as they dont have anything that rivals it... I dont get your hatred? As far as the electric motor goes...dude, all that instantaneous torque should have you salivating.... Forget about gasoline, the thought of the only liquid and fluid you have to worry about is windshield washer fluid should have you giddy as a school girl... Oh..I get it now... You a mechanic....you rely on those oil changes and prestone filled radiators...it keeps the food on your table...if you was smart though, you would try to learn about rotors and stators because quite honestly, that is where the future is... electric motors...they are everywhere today anyway...only to explode by conquering the automobile industry

A very real anecdote that represents my view quite accurately. Im sure he is glad to not have gone for the 535...a 3 cylinder powering a big car like that might have him questioning the slogan Ultimate Driving Machine. And I take it in Europe, in 1994, the 525 was a 2 cylinder two stroke. Or is that a 5 stroke because of the 5 at the end of the 525?

Today's marketing BS. Today's view that the brand is the focus more than the model. Eldorado is less than Cadillac. Cadillac is the key... 1950s. - What do you drive? >Eldorado. - WOW! Just like Elvis! ( And everybody knew that not only an Eldorado was a Caddy, but they knew what was under the hood!) Today - What do you drive? > A Bimmer. Dont know what kind, but its a BMW. - I hear ya. Does it have the V6? >Na, its the V4...good on gas.