Allegrobotics - Elon
A battery-operated remote-controlled toy car.

Disclaimer

Warning: No, dear reader, I didn't build this robot - some stoner called Elon made it for me.

Why?

Because ever since I was little I wanted a remote-controlled battery-operated toy car. And now I have one!

Process

Well, putting your money down and getting Tesla to deliver a Model 3 should be easy, but any married man knows that no plan survives contact with a credit card. A few days after placing my Tesla order my credit card was declined at the local coffee shop, I checked my bank account and realised I had ordered two Teslas one second apart! I asked the wife if she wanted one, but she said no (it wasn't red), so I thought I'd better cancel one of them and get my deposit back. Tesla were very helpful in this regard, and refunded my deposit. Conclusion:

  1. Tesla owners are not necessarily smart enough to avoid pressing the browser back button when making a purchase.
  2. Tesla is not smart enough to realise this.

Pickup

Picking up a Tesla during the zombie apocalypse with Da Boiz. Forgot the cross-bow.

Charging

The Tesla came with three power charges (at no extra expense).

    240V / 10A Just plugs into a standard power socket in the garage. In practice it charges at around 8A.
    240V / 15A You might have a 15A socket in the garage, but otherwise you will have to get an electrician to install one. This might have to be wired back to the switch board. It probably will charge at 12A.
    240V / 35A / Wall connector You will have to get an electrician to install one of these.
So .. I just use the standard 10A plug, timed start charging at 22h15 (when the electricity goes to half price), and have never had to do anything else. If you are driving a huge amount every day, you may need a faster charger, but for most of us, it's simply not necessary, so the extra cost to install Tesla support infrastructure: nil.

Conclusion

It's a car. It goes. It's nice and quiet. And comfortable.

The auto-drive is a cool piece of technology. It is not even close to replacing a real driver, but reduces driver fatigue on long highway trips, and is a source of great amusement when deliberately placed in challenging situations (with an alert driver ready to take control). The Tesla motto should be "carpe rotam!"

The car also accelerates quickly. Those noisy little petrol sniffers revving their cars at the lights have to put with the fact that I could drag them off without even making a sound .. if I could be bothered.

But some serious advice: don't buy anything you can't afford. Real-estate and superannuation are better investments than a car. It's not that special. It's just car. If you are really interested in experimenting with self-driving cars, get a comma.ai autopilot fitted to your 20 year old beater, or get an ODB-II dongle and a movidious, and write the software yourself.

Cool links


I have no mouth but I Musk scream!

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Something I'm doing wrong? Solved my problems? Got a better idea? Got a similar problem?
Think I might have solved your problem? Ninety-nine problems, but your robot ain't one? Say so ..