Range anxiety is bad for EV adoption, and Elon Musk is going to end it for the Tesla Model S. This Thursday.
Every once in a while, Elon Musk stirs media curiosity by posting a Twitter update that’s cleverly thought to put EV lovers on fire.
This time, he tweeted “Tesla press conf at 9am on Thurs. About to end range anxiety … via OTA software update. Affects entire Model S fleet.”
There’s so much we can speculate on this. One would be that Tesla Motors will be issuing an update to the navigation software, to better make ends meet (in terms of battery charging), or that they’re increasing the safe zone usage of all Model S batteries by a significant amount.
Maybe they discovered a technique that allows for a lithium-ion battery to discharge much deeper and safer at the same time.
He probably won’t be addressing the issue of battery swapping stations. Maybe Supercharging will also be made available in some other locations than Tesla’s own.
All we know is that anxiety of any kind is bad to your health, and causes effects beyond normal expectations. If EVs induce such anxiety, Elon Musk will probably put an end to Tesla owner illnesses.
Whatever the truth is, we’ll keep you posted on Thursday. Stay tuned!
Update: Elon Musk revealed on Thursday that range anxiety will be addressed by a new navigation software update. He said that Model S drivers won’t be able to remain out of power, at least unintentionally. The navigation software will route them as needed so to pass through the number of stations needed to reach the destination.
However, the stock dropped after the announcement, sign that the investors expected something more. Well, I really don’t see what more could have been, since Elon clearly mentioned it’s about software. It could have been my speculated increase in battery usage threshold, but that was not it.
A NEW on-board TDI Diesel “Extender” (as it’s called by General Motors) or a NEW on-board “Generator” would kick-in and charge/run an EV, AND “Range Anxiety” would be eliminated, but only by the size of the NEW on-board fuel tank. (Buying 3 or 4 gals of (Veggie) fuel bi-weekly is less a pain in the rear then the daily EV plug-in (or worst GPS ‘panic searching’ for Charging Stations – think about it.) Not to mention, EV plug-in is virtually limited to Single Family Homeowners. Multi-Family, Condos and/or Apartment residents, in most cases, can’t ‘overnight’ plug-in because of electricity billing issues. Therefore an on-board TDI Diesel “Extender”,is more conducive to daytime or workplace EV plug-in opportunities (while getting to work easily on whatever the ‘remaining’ charge and/or by kicking-in the Extender/Generator).
With the todays refinements offered to Tesla’s electric motor (and thereby the electric generator) theory, coupled with similar enhancement technology applied to Diesel’s engine, wouldn’t we all be embarrassed to sit in the same room with those two genius minds (Nikola/Rudolph) today?