[yardie]

> What Tesla brought to the game was insane performance for Electic cars

I used to race electric cars in college. It was no secret even then that electric motors had insane performance. With a proportional throttle you had to learn early on to go easy or you would smoke your tires. Almost any electric car will smoke a ICE car, the first lap. Even the humble Nissan LEAF is under 6secs.

What Tesla really brought was capacity (we were still lead acid and NiMH at the time) and the Supercharger network. The battery tech and network are their largest asset. The cars themselves are pretty underwhelming design-wise.

[ehvatum]

> Even the humble Nissan LEAF is under 6secs.

First in line, I used to habitually accelerate from stoplights at full throttle, in my Leaf. This resulted in ICE vehicles screaming past me, after they finally detonated enough fossil fuel to catch up. I realized I was inflicting permanent psychological harm and bought an i3 from Manheim using borrowed dealer credentials and slapped a skull decal on the back window. It is known and accepted that BMWs with skulls are fast. Nobody cares.

[CrazyStat]

Why are all their competitors so far behind in efficiency (Wh/mile or your preferred units), then?

Porsche Taycan is rated somewhere in the high 400s for Wh/mile while the Model S is rated under 300 Wh/mile. The Nissan Leaf is also about 300 Wh/mile with nowhere near the performance of the Model 3 which comes in at 250 Wh/mile.

Either Tesla has a substantial technology advantage or all of their competitors are just incredibly bad.

[itsoktocry]

>Why are all their competitors so far behind in efficiency (Wh/mile or your preferred units), then?

The competition is behind, but not "so far behind".

A quick Google and you'll be able to find real world testing of these EVs, and as far as I can tell it's known that Tesla exaggerates the range of their cars, in some cases drastically.

That's not to say Tesla's tech isn't great (it is). But there are tradeoffs. The Taycan is ahead of the Model S in a few ways, too.

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/best-cars/electric-cars-b...

[CrazyStat]

A single data point, but my Model X (2018 75D) has averaged 326 Wh/mile over the last 2.5 years, vs a rated efficiency of 315 Wh/mile. It was at 321 before covid lockdowns started, which shifted my driving habits toward more less-efficient car trips.

Based on that I have a hard time believing that Tesla substantially exaggerates range. I reckon my single data point is probably worth at least as much as autocar.co.uk's single data point based on a couple orders of magnitude less driving.

[goodcanadian]

Also a single data point, but my Leaf averages a bit more than 4 miles per kWh, or slightly less than 250 Wh per mile. I'm not trying to make a claim that the Leaf is better--it depends greatly on the sort of driving that you are doing, but I don't buy that the Tesla has a significant advantage either.

[zlsa]

Leaf is a compact hatchback, whereas Model X is an SUV. A better comparison would be Leaf and Model S, a sedan, which is rated at 241Wh/mi (and can reach this in actual use[0].)

[0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/bfhd9z/20000_m...

[goodcanadian]

Perhaps, I wasn't clear, but I was comparing to the 300 Wh per mile rating claimed for the Leaf upthread (I haven't looked it up for myself). I am comfortably beating that in real world use.

Edit: the point is that it is not clear that Tesla is much more efficient which was the original claim at the start of all this.

[CrazyStat]

Fair point. I don't know much about the Leaf; I was just going by the numbers I could find online.