Originally Posted by ER1

Thank you syswei for your kind comments. That's exactly what I wanted to offer - my humble opinion about MB vs. Tesla based on my real-world experiences owning both cars and being a car enthusiast that enjoys the best high-end cars.

IMHO, a Model S is a very real alternative for even the new S class, and I am proof of that. I was originally shopping for either a 4.0TT Audi S8, W222 S550 4matic or CLS63 AMG 4matic, but after test driving the Tesla it was such a positively different experience that I had to have it. I've never looked back and never regretted my decision. Only the interior and some amenities I listed earlier are something I miss from the Audi S8 or S class, but the Model S is a futuristic car that grows on you.

absent - we have absolutely zero incentives here in Finland to buy a Tesla. Norway is a completely different story. Actually it would have been cheaper for me to buy a used or new Audi S8, S550 4matic or CLS63 AMG than a P85D. Only a W222 S63 would be more expensive. At over 160.000 euros my Tesla Model S P85D is the most expensive car I have ever bought and I would never have paid so much for the other gas cars I listed. The Tesla is just overall a more fun car to drive (again, my opinion) and I think it's worth every penny. As an example, I actually took a 2-hour pointless cruise around town last week in my Tesla just to enjoy the exceptional magic carpet ride and rollercoaster feeling and enjoying the silence with the panorama roof open. I have never done that (doing pointless extra driving) in any of my previous cars, not even the Porsche. No other car feels like the electric Tesla. You have to experience it yourself, and I fell in love with it. Based on 400,000+ reservations for the Model 3, many agree with me. I understand and respect that everyone does not feel the same as long as it is based on one's opinion and/or facts, not prejudice and purpose-driven FUD. A gas car still has some positives such as a longer range for non-stop driving, but for my purposes the 400+ km range of the Model S is sufficient and superchargers are actually very convenient and make long trips relaxing.

Originally Posted by ER1

he has registered just to bash Tesla and Tesla owners, since all of his posts are 100% anti-Tesla, .... Probably someone who has never even seen a Tesla, ... probably someone, who can't even afford an S-class or a Tesla. Someone who clearly has a personal agenda against Tesla and Tesla owners - probably lost money on shorts or works for GM based on the statements below:



Yes, GM certainly and undeniably is a company with century-long traditions of maximizing profits causing injuries and death to hundreds of people...

http://blog.caranddriver.com/gm-igni...-274-injuries/
https://www.theguardian.com/business...ignition-fault
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-gm...A2D02U20140314
http://www.cheatsheet.com/automobile...tml/?a=viewall

vs.

http://www.autotrader.com/car-news/t...y-score-213356

Originally Posted by MTrauman

The Tesla Fanboys better start reading the technical literature before spending too much money on electric cars. The Tesla fans better start to understand where Lithium comes from and how much is available in the world.

Below is an excerpt of some information about Lithium and why many experts believe electric cars are doomed especially in mass scale. I am just not willing to take the leep when I am buying a car.


Vikström, H., Davidsson, S., Höök, M. 2013). Lithium availability and future production outlooks. Applied Energy, 110(10): 252-266.

[ Extracts from this 28-page paper. It is by far the best paper explaining lithium reserves, lithium chemistry, recycling, political implications, and more. I’ve left out the charts, graphs, references, and much of the text, to see them go to the original paper in the link above.
I personally don’t think that electric cars will ever be viable because battery development is too slow, see my post at Who Killed the Electric Car. The most up-to-date version of this, and several other chapters on utility-scale energy storage (also very dependent on lithium), and the electrification of heavy-duty transportation, is in my book When Trains Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation.
In my book, here are some excerpts about lithium and energy storage:
Li-ion energy storage batteries are more expensive than PbA or NaS, can be charged and discharged only a discrete number of times, can fail or lose capacity if overheated, and the cost of preventing overheating is expensive. Lithium does not grow on trees. The amount of lithium needed for utility-scale storage is likely to deplete known resources (Vazquez, S., et al. 2010. Energy storage systems for transport and grid applications. IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics 57(12): 3884).
To provide enough energy for 1 day of storage for the United states, li-ion batteries would cost $11.9 trillion dollars, take up 345 square miles and weigh 74 million tons (DOE/EPRI. 2013. Electricity storage handbook in collaboration with NRECA. USA: Sandia National Laboratories and Electric Power Research Institute)
Barnhart et al. (2013) looked at how much materials and energy it would take to make batteries that could store up to 12 hours of average daily world power demand, 25.3 TWh. Eighteen months of world-wide primary energy production would be needed to mine and manufacture these batteries, and material production limits were reached for many minerals even when energy storage devices got all of the world’s production (with zinc, sodium, and sulfur being the exceptions). Annual production by mass would have to double for lead, triple for lithium, and go up by a factor of 10 or more for cobalt and vanadium, driving up prices. The best to worst in terms of material availability are: CAES, NaS, ZnBr, PbA, PHS, Li-ion, and VRB (Barnhart, C., et al. 2013. On the importance of reducing the energetic and material demands of electrical energy storage. Energy Environment Science 2013(6): 1083–1092). ]
Abstract
Lithium is a highly interesting metal, in part due to the increasing interest in lithium-ion batteries. Several recent studies have used different methods to estimate whether the lithium production can meet an increasing demand, especially from the transport sector, where lithium-ion batteries are the most likely technology for electric cars. The reserve and resource estimates of lithium vary greatly between different studies and the question whether the annual production rates of lithium can meet a growing demand is seldom adequately explained. This study presents a review and compilation of recent estimates of quantities of lithium available for exploitation and discusses the uncertainty and differences between these estimates. Also, mathematical curve fitting models are used to estimate possible future annual production rates. This estimation of possible production rates are compared to a potential increased demand of lithium if the International Energy Agency’s Blue Map Scenarios are fulfilled regarding electrification of the car fleet. We find that the availability of lithium could in fact be a problem for fulfilling this scenario if lithium-ion batteries are to be used. This indicates that other battery technologies might have to be implemented for enabling an electrification of road transports.
Highlights:

• Review of reserves, resources and key properties of 112 lithium deposits
• Discussions of widely diverging results from recent lithium supply estimates
• Forecasting future lithium production by resource-constrained models
• Exploring implications for future deployment of electric cars

Introduction
Global transportation mainly relies on one single fossil resource, namely petroleum, which supplies 95% of the total energy [1]. In fact, about 62% of all world oil consumption takes place in the transport sector [2]. Oil prices have oscillated dramatically over the last few years, and the price of oil reached $100 per barrel in January 2008, before skyrocketing to nearly $150/barrel in July 2008. A dramatic price collapse followed in late 2008, but oil prices have at present time returned to over $100/barrel. Also, peak oil concerns, resulting in imminent oil production limitations, have been voiced by various studies [3–6].
It has been found that continued oil dependence is environmentally, economically and socially unsustainable [7].
The price uncertainty and decreasing supply might result in severe challenges for different transporters. Nygren et al. [8] showed that even the most optimistic oil production forecasts implied pessimistic futures for the aviation industry. Curtis [9] found that globalization may be undermined by peak oil’s effect on transportation costs and reliability of freight.
Barely 2% of the world electricity is used by transportation [2], where most of this is made up by trains, trams, and trolley buses.
A high future demand of Li for battery applications may arise if society choses to employ Li-ion technologies for a decarbonization of the road transport sector.
Batteries are at present time the second most common use, but are increasing rapidly as the use of li-ion batteries for portable electronics [12], as well as electric and hybrid cars, are becoming more frequent. For example, the lithium consumption for batteries in the U.S increased with 194 % from 2005 to 2010 [12]. Relatively few academic studies have focused on the very abundance of raw materials needed to supply a potential increase in Li demand from transport sector [13]. Lithium demand is growing and it is important to investigate whether this could lead to a shortfall in the future.

[My comment: utility scale energy storage batteries in commercial production are lithium, and if this continues, this sector alone would quickly consume all available lithium supplies: see Barnhart, C., et al. 2013. On the importance of reducing the energetic and material demands of electrical energy storage. Energy Environment Science 2013(6): 1083–1092.]
Aim of this study
Recently, a number of studies have investigated future supply prospects for lithium [13–16]. However, these studies reach widely different results in terms of available quantities, possible production trajectories, as well as expected future demand. The most striking difference is perhaps the widely different estimates for available resources and reserves, where different numbers of deposits are included and different types of resources are assessed. It has been suggested that mineral resources will be a future constraint for society [17], but a great deal of this debate is often spent on the concept of geological availability, which can be presented as the size of the tank. What is frequently not reflected upon is that society can only use the quantities that can be extracted at a certain pace and be delivered to consumers by mining operations, which can be described as the tap. The key concept here is that the size of the tank and the size of the tap are two fundamentally different things.
This study attempts to present a comprehensive review of known lithium deposits and their estimated quantities of lithium available for exploitation and discuss the uncertainty and differences among published studies, in order to bring clarity to the subject. The estimated reserves are then used as a constraint in a model of possible future production of lithium and the results of the model are compared to possible future demand from an electrification of the car fleet. The forecasts are based on open, public data and should be used for estimating long term growth and trends. This is not a substitute for economical short-term prognoses, but rather a complementary vision.
Data sources
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) has been particularly useful for obtaining production data series, but also the Swedish Geological Survey (SGU) and the British Geological Survey (BGS) deserves honourable mention for providing useful material. Kushnir and Sandén [18], Tahil [19, 20] along with many other recent lithium works have also been useful. Kesler et al. [21] helped to provide a broad overview of general lithium geology.

Information on individual lithium deposits has been compiled from numerous sources, primarily building on the tables found in [13–16]. In addition, several specialized articles about individual deposits have been used, for instance [22–26]. Public industry reports and annual yearbooks from mining operators and lithium producers, such as SQM [27], Roskill [28] or Talison Lithium [29], also helped to create a holistic data base.
In this study, we collected information on global lithium deposits. Country of occurrence, deposit type, main mineral, and lithium content were gathered as well as published estimates for reserves and resources. Some deposits had detailed data available for all parameters, while others had very little information available. Widely diverging estimates for reserves and resources could sometimes be found for the same deposit, and in such cases the full interval between the minimum and maximum estimates is presented. Deposits without reserve or resource estimates are included in the data set, but do not contribute to the total. Only available data and information that could be found in the public and academic spheres were compiled in this study. It is likely that undisclosed and/or proprietary data could contribute to the world’s lithium volume but due to data availability no conclusions on to which extent could be made.
Geological overview

Originally Posted by syswei

One thing I like about the Tesla sales experience is that once you put down a refundable $2500 deposit, you have a week before the order is locked in, and can borrow a loaner for a day or a weekend for an extended test drive. We put over 200 miles on one over a weekend. Individual MB dealers might do the same for a good customer, but afaik ALL Tesla locations, at least in the US, will do that for ANY customer.

Originally Posted by ER1

MTrauman - I was not the one who started it (not you, but some here should look at the mirror) and I am stating facts just like PeterUbers. If PeterUbers feels the need to point out defects/problems and throw the Model S "under the bus", I expect mutual objectivity, since he seems to try to insinuate that a Model S is a particularly unreliable car. I would say based on my experience that a Model S is at least as reliable as an AMG car or better.

It is not true that I don't like any negative comments about Tesla. I have no stake in this except that I now own a Tesla car. We don't have any car companies here in Finland, but we actually do manufacture A model Mercedes cars in Uusikaupunki. Yes, we also used to manufacture the Fisker Karma. Tesla is NOT my car company, but I feel the need to defend it against unfounded claims and ****. IMHO Tesla is doing things differently in a positive manner compared with other old established car brands and they deserve a thumbs up. Established brands don't need it, but it is nice to hear that US MB dealers have good service.

I sure hope Tesla will not fail and not just because of my car purchase. I thought Americans as patriots would favor Tesla as a US company? I am surprised how much anti-Tesla talk there is on the Internet and it is mostly based on unfounded opinions and deliberate spreading of misinformation due to short or other interests. I personally want to counter this with some objective real-world experience and perspective having owned a wide range of German cars and now a Model S. I am not a critic-free fanboi as many Tesla owners seem to be, but I think the Model S is an excellent product I am happy to say it. If my opinion changes or if I have bad experiences (such as the handle breaking), I will say it also.

Originally Posted by absent

MB dealer usually gave me an E550 (up to a month, a brand new car) while waiting for my new ordered car just so I can realize the best offer on my trade.
Most recent, Audi dealer with no history of my purchases from them, gave me a new S6 Prestige for 5 weeks( while waiting for S8Plus) so I could get max $$ for my E63S I was trading in.
I doubt Tesla would give you a new car for that long for free.

Originally Posted by ER1

I actually took a 2-hour pointless cruise around town last week in my Tesla just to enjoy the exceptional magic carpet ride and rollercoaster feeling and enjoying the silence with the panorama roof open. I have never done that (doing pointless extra driving) in any of my previous cars, not even the Porsche.

Originally Posted by syswei

A great anecdote. If I hadn't already test driven one, your story would have convinced me to do so.

Originally Posted by fathom6

to me, it drove nothing but a glorified golf cart. I wouldn't spend a dime more than 40k on a Tesla P90D. Its way way way overpriced.

Originally Posted by syswei

if it were overpriced to everyone, it wouldn't be selling in the pretty good volumes that it is.

Originally Posted by fathom6

On the second day, god said "beware the Activist, cause they scare him too".
You absolutely have no idea what an Activist would not do, do you?

Originally Posted by RGadowski

To create threads about "to not by" any particular vehicle is a true testament to how well that vehicle is doing. We thank you!

Hyper and Web have been very professional and the ones insulting others have been extremely childish and can't get myself to believe that you truly own a Mercedes S class due to your behavior. To call someone a fanboy because he's excited about new technology is a serious stretch of the imagination. Are you not a fanboy when you keep attacking someone in such a derogatory way?

There were mentions on here as to how cheap the Model S build is. How can it possibly be cheap when it's the safest car in the world to drive? how can it be cheap when it can handle 17,000 lbs on the roof before actually crushing? how is it the car gets rear ended by an 18 wheeler and still be driven home when the 18 wheeler broke down? common sense tells you it's an amazing build!

there were also some things said about interior. You are very correct, the car does not have home like furniture inside. why? simply put, the car is very expensive to build because of the technology behind it and there has to be cut backs somewhere, if not the car would probably hit $180k loaded. That practice would put it into a bad category and Elon was smart enough to know that. Because of his intelligence on marketing, he has been very successful in taking away owners from the same category. Please do some research on Tesla sales and you will notice that the Model S outsells the Mercedes S series 1 on 1 and outsells the BMW 7/audi8/7a and Panamera combined! My wife feels the comfort of the interior is of my e46 m3 and ml350 (combined) which were sold. SHE LOVES IT AND SO DO I!

There was also a mention on profit. The model S sells with a minimum profit of 25% and that is a fact. The company does not lose money on sales and the only reason there is loss is because of the build out of the network.

There was a mention on fuel during a major storm and dead Tesla vehicles lined up on streets. Gas stations close during major storm, especially ones that make electricity stop flowing. How would you get gas without electricity? Use common sense.

almost 400,000 pre-orders without 1 advertisement tells you Tesla builds amazing vehicles, if not, then you're an not too smart.

Originally Posted by RGadowski

To create threads about "to not by" any particular vehicle is a true testament to how well that vehicle is doing. We thank you!

Hyper and Web have been very professional and the ones insulting others have been extremely childish and can't get myself to believe that you truly own a Mercedes S class due to your behavior. To call someone a fanboy because he's excited about new technology is a serious stretch of the imagination. Are you not a fanboy when you keep attacking someone in such a derogatory way?

There were mentions on here as to how cheap the Model S build is. How can it possibly be cheap when it's the safest car in the world to drive? how can it be cheap when it can handle 17,000 lbs on the roof before actually crushing? how is it the car gets rear ended by an 18 wheeler and still be driven home when the 18 wheeler broke down? common sense tells you it's an amazing build!

there were also some things said about interior. You are very correct, the car does not have home like furniture inside. why? simply put, the car is very expensive to build because of the technology behind it and there has to be cut backs somewhere, if not the car would probably hit $180k loaded. That practice would put it into a bad category and Elon was smart enough to know that. Because of his intelligence on marketing, he has been very successful in taking away owners from the same category. Please do some research on Tesla sales and you will notice that the Model S outsells the Mercedes S series 1 on 1 and outsells the BMW 7/audi8/7a and Panamera combined! My wife feels the comfort of the interior is of my e46 m3 and ml350 (combined) which were sold. SHE LOVES IT AND SO DO I!

There was also a mention on profit. The model S sells with a minimum profit of 25% and that is a fact. The company does not lose money on sales and the only reason there is loss is because of the build out of the network.

There was a mention on fuel during a major storm and dead Tesla vehicles lined up on streets. Gas stations close during major storm, especially ones that make electricity stop flowing. How would you get gas without electricity? Use common sense.

almost 400,000 pre-orders without 1 advertisement tells you Tesla builds amazing vehicles, if not, then you're an not too smart.

Originally Posted by syswei

Sure, there are some Tesla buyers for whom environmentalism is a big factor in purchasing...but that certainly isn't everyone. Not me, for instance. And as I said, I personally don't find the car overpriced for what it is. For me, my S550 might be let's say $25k "better" than the 70D, but costs let's say $30k more (lifetime costs)...so the 70D to me is a better value (as a second car...I've said before that it wouldn't be my choice if I could only have 1 car). For me personally, environmentalism isn't a factor, partly because lithium ion batteries have some environmental negatives of their own.

Originally Posted by Wolfman

I know this has been said many times but I just can't follow your reasoning for your comparison.
A Tesla 70D can't be compared to anything else but an E-Class, 5 series or Audi 6. There is no one single aspect of the Tesla that would allow for comparison with the S-Class.
If you state 0-60, then might as well compare it to a Mustang Eco boost (or insert any car with similar 0-60 specs).

Originally Posted by syswei

Imo the Model S should not be compared solely to the S/7/A8. But it also shouldn't be compared to solely the E/5/A6. In fact, the Model S price range overlaps BOTH the E/5/A6 and S/7/A8. And size-wise, it is in between the E an S...closer to the S, in fact. Per fueleconomy.gov, total passenger + cargo volume is 120 cu ft for the Model S, 111 cu ft for the E, and 124 cu ft for the S.

For me personally, the 70D and S550 are direct competitors in the following sense: if someone told me I could buy only one ICE vehicle, it would be the S550. And if someone told me I could buy only one EV, it would be the 70D...because I'm more of a luxury guy, and don't need acceleration beyond the 70D level (or S550 level, which is the same) .

Originally Posted by Wolfman

I know this has been said many times but I just can't follow your reasoning for your comparison.
A Tesla 70D can't be compared to anything else but an E-Class, 5 series or Audi 6. There is no one single aspect of the Tesla that would allow for comparison with the S-Class.
If you state 0-60, then might as well compare it to a Mustang Eco boost (or insert any car with similar 0-60 specs).