The Tesla Cybercab

[Uncle Gizmo]

What do you think is the ugliest vehicle?

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder!

 

[ColinEssex]

What do you think is the ugliest vehicle?

The Edsel was strange. As was the DeSoto.
Col

 

[moke123]

one i can't remember that's an exact rectangle

 

[Cronk]

I've had a Tesla Model 3 for nearly 4 years. The appearance is not so good from the rear - but then again my appearance is not so good from the rear. The design is for reducing the wind resistance to increase the range. It can go 0 to 60 mph in 4.2 seconds. It's mostly charged by solar panels on my roof. Based on my feed in rate, I forego less than $2 per 100 miles. Re maintainence costs, I've had to replace the tires and replace a air filter for the cabin at $180.

Downsides include extra time for long trips for charging. We visit wife's parents who live about 450 miles way or just over 7 hours driving. Recharging takes a bit under an hour. We normally aim on 2 stops for charging, about 25 minutes each. You also can't rev the car at the lights!!??

 

[Isaac]

View attachment 117570

My wife actually had a teal colored cube a few years ago and it was the only one in the vicinity

 

[moke123]

My wife actually had a teal colored cube a few years ago and it was the only one in the vicinity

My daughter vinyl wrapped her VW, by herself, the same color pink as the car above. At the time she was the only bubble gum pink car around but it seems to have caught on as there are 5 or 6 now. I usually feel pretty secure in my manhood but not when I had to drive her car.

 

[Isaac]

That's funny, I feared revocation of my mancard just driving the teal one but yours was worse LOL.

Whenever I think briefly of getting overly personalized with a vehicle, I drive around my city or read the news and am reminded of the severity of road rage .... and then quickly decide I'd rather not do anything to make my car "memorable". Silver, gray for me all the way.

Except I want to get a Ford Maverick, and might opt for a slightly 'prettier' color (oops - did I say that out loud?)

I was in the small, ancient city of Parral, Chihuahua, Mexico for a week during Christmas and saw a Tesla cybercab .... boy, did that look out of place next to a statue of Pancho Villa and a puesta de tacos

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Something that was mentioned early in the thread and nobody said anything about it. If we suppose that this kind of vehicle makes it to the general consumer market, we have a vehicle with different sized tires front and rear. Two different spare tires? Or do they use solid rubber tires that can't go flat?

 

[Isaac]

Good question. If the solid rubber tires were anything like one I tried on a bike once, it would have an awful effect on efficiency/friction/general use. Tires that don't go flat sounds too good to be true - not that it won't happen, I just don't think we're close yet - and if we think big Oil and big Pharma get upset about things like Electric Energy and Health, wait until we see how Big Rubber feels about no more flats!

I think the cybercab will remain limited due to sheer ugliness. I think Musk yielded to a bit of a "what weird looking thing can I make today" feelings when he thought this one up

 

[Mark_]

Good question. If the solid rubber tires were anything like one I tried on a bike once, it would have an awful effect on efficiency/friction/general use. Tires that don't go flat sounds too good to be true - not that it won't happen, I just don't think we're close yet - and if we think big Oil and big Pharma get upset about things like Electric Energy and Health, wait until we see how Big Rubber feels about no more flats!

I think the cybercab will remain limited due to sheer ugliness. I think Musk yielded to a bit of a "what weird looking thing can I make today" feelings when he thought this one up

Big rubber is the ones working on it...

Airless Tires

www.bridgestonetire.com

Just because it doesn't need to be filled with air doesn't mean it won't wear out.

 

[Isaac]

For reasons like these, many spectators think airless tires are still a decade or so away

That's interesting though, but anything that wears out less there will be push back on I would guess.

Chevron invested in chargepoint too, but EV's were killed for decades after they were viable.

 

[pbaldy]

Something that was mentioned early in the thread and nobody said anything about it. If we suppose that this kind of vehicle makes it to the general consumer market, we have a vehicle with different sized tires front and rear. Two different spare tires? Or do they use solid rubber tires that can't go flat?

We were looking at new cars recently and some didn't even come with the little donut spare. They provided a can of the flat-fix stuff. Great for a slow leak, worthless if the tire gets cut or something. I put together a full-size spare for my wife's car, which we take on road trips. Some of those are through sparsely populated areas (like "next gas 100 miles" areas).

 

[pbaldy]

Case in point, Honda CRV hybrid:

 

[AccessBlaster]

We were looking at new cars recently and some didn't even come with the little donut spare. They provided a can of the flat-fix stuff. Great for a slow leak, worthless if the tire gets cut or something. I put together a full-size spare for my wife's car, which we take on road trips. Some of those are through sparsely populated areas (like "next gas 100 miles" areas).

Some tire shops offer a full size spare on a steel rim. I replaced the doughnut that came with my car with one, but now the tie down doesn't fit because it's made for a smaller wheel sheesh

 

[pbaldy]

Yeah, I take ours out of the car when we're home. It is a pain. I assume they're trying to save weight/increase mileage with the mini tires.

 

[ColinEssex]

Something that was mentioned early in the thread and nobody said anything about it. If we suppose that this kind of vehicle makes it to the general consumer market, we have a vehicle with different sized tires front and rear. Two different spare tires? Or do they use solid rubber tires that can't go flat?

I understand that the huge ugly car the President uses has non deflatable tyres. I don't know what type of car that is but I suppose you can buy them somewhere. I should imagine its pretty heavy on petrol.
Col

 

[The_Doc_Man]

I understand that the huge ugly car the President uses has non deflatable tyres. I don't know what type of car that is but I suppose you can buy them somewhere. I should imagine its pretty heavy on petrol.
Col

I wouldn't doubt it. Not because of the tires, but because of the extra weight of the armor plating and bullet-resistant glass. Plus an engine strong enough to allow the vehicle to shove aside ordinary vehicles arranged as a barricade.

 

[Isaac]

We were looking at new cars recently and some didn't even come with the little donut spare. They provided a can of the flat-fix stuff. Great for a slow leak, worthless if the tire gets cut or something. I put together a full-size spare for my wife's car, which we take on road trips. Some of those are through sparsely populated areas (like "next gas 100 miles" areas).

Yeah the last three new cars that I've bought, two of them came with no spare and I was very frustrated. I guess the only positive side is that it inspired me to buy a full size spare in both cases which then made me feel better than I would have felt with a donut anyway. But still, what an expense extra!

 

[ColinEssex]

I wouldn't doubt it. Not because of the tires, but because of the extra weight of the armor plating and bullet-resistant glass. Plus an engine strong enough to allow the vehicle to shove aside ordinary vehicles arranged as a barricade.

Blimey! That seems a bit much, still I suppose the famous American paranoia kicked in after the Kennedy incident.
Our Prime Minister uses an off the shelf Jaguar and the King uses a Rolls Royce. They do have police motorcycle outriders to ensure the road is clear.
Can normal people buy these President type cars? Or maybe a second hand one?
Col

 

[Uncle Gizmo]

Tesla Model Y: The Best-Selling Car of 2024 - No VBA Required!

Greetings, fellow car aficionados and database nerds!

In a world where we're used to coding our way out of life's little problems, Tesla has just pulled off what might be the most significant "macro" of the year without a single line of VBA code. That's right, the Tesla Model Y has officially zoomed past the competition to become the best-selling car of 2024!

From VBA to VROOMBA:

Imagine if Elon Musk decided to apply VBA logic to car design:

Sub DesignBestCar()
    Dim CarDesign As String
    CarDesign = "Sleek, Efficient, Silent"
    MsgBox "Congratulations! You've just designed the Model Y!", vbInformation, "Tesla's Success"
End Sub

No need for that sub-routine; the real-world Model Y has already run the script to perfection. It's like Tesla wrote a macro that not only designed the car but also made it the market leader.

Why the Model Y?

• Range: With a range that makes you forget about charging anxiety, it's like having an endless Do While loop for your road trips.
• Design: Sleek, simple, and with a dashboard that looks more like a giant touchscreen than the cluttered forms we're used to in Access.
• Performance: Acceleration that would make any VBA code run in nanoseconds, if only we could apply it to our databases.
• Sales: Outselling traditional giants, it's as if Tesla found the secret SELECT query to pull in every car buyer on the planet.

A VBA Developer's Perspective:

If the Model Y were an Access database, it would be the one where:

• No Redundant Fields: Every feature is essential, no bloatware here.
• Error Handling: Like a robust On Error GoTo statement, it handles every bump in the road with grace.
• Modular Design: Upgradable through software, much like how we love to refactor our VBA modules for efficiency.

But let's be real, while we sit here optimizing our For Each loops, Tesla's Model Y is out there, selling like hotcakes, proving that sometimes, the best code is no code at all!

Join the Drive:
While we continue to debug our VBA scripts, maybe it's time to consider swapping our coding chairs for the driver's seat of a Model Y. After all, what's more satisfying than a car that drives itself while you debug your latest Access project?

Here's to Tesla for showing us that innovation can outpace even the most optimized VBA code. And remember, if you ever need to track your Model Y's charging history, you know where to turn - back to Access, where every query is an adventure.

Cheers to a year of electric sales and maybe, just maybe, a little less VBA debugging!

Attribution
Blog created and fact checked by Grok, from my notes and Direction