I was going to buy a GTR before the wife got pregnant and was "forced" to buy a 4 door sedan, and since my wife always liked the look of the Tesla, I reluctantly agreed and bought one just to please the family. TBH it was one of the best decision I have made. 1) I actually think it's a pretty car, especially from the rear, the fastback shape is cool, long wheelbase and very sporty 2) Interior, feels cheap and basic, that is very true. Tesla (at that price range) doesn't make you feel like a luxury car compared to a M5 (which is about the same price), however, all of the controls are in that massive television screen on the console, and tbh, now that I get into any ICE car (especially my friend's Panamera) I get lost with all the buttons, Tesla's control is simple, consolidated and it just works. People say it's cheap & basic, I think less is more. 3) Power delivery. Instant torque nothing like I've ever driven, instant, fast, skateboard style battery pack = low center of gravity, the thing handles well, is nimble (for a 4 door 5 seat car) & goes where it points with very little understeer. Regen braking (love or hate), I personally love it, 99% of the time, I drive with one pedal, and I drive the f`king thing hard, it felt like a sports car with a very very very light flywheel and it just gives feedback. 4) Space - Tesla is not a very spacious car compared to any 7 series, leg room at the back isn't that great tbh, but it's pretty good still. what's impressive is the luggage space. and that does come handy. 5) service & maintenance - almost none, out of the 3 year ownership, only few hiccups which basically few hours at the dealership all under warranty. other than that, no funny mechanics wants to charge me an arm & a leg, haven't spent a cent on brakes, no engine & oil change, once a year check up only half a day kinda thing. On the "juice" side of things, I actually live 5 min drive to a supercharge station, so whenever we go for our weekly grocery shopping, we leave it there to charge. I haven't spent a single cent on electricity..... awesome. Only big cost I had with my Tesla was the Casted 21inch rim, I cracked four of them, blame Shanghai ****ty potholes. After I switched to a set of custom 21in forged, never had the problem again. But the 21in Intercontinental does wear out quickly (mainly the way i drive). The dealership recommended me to go back to the cheaper bulletproof 17in option, but i guess the phrase "once you go black you don't go back" is kinda true. 6) range - like ICE obviously, you drive it hard you don't get the mileage. But from my 3 year owner ship, done & tested, on the freeway at 80km/h cruise control on a full charge, I can do a bout 450kms in one go, drop that down to 70km/h, 500 - 530kms. But everyday city driving, charged at 80% every time, I get about 240km on the range. Sitting overnight in the garage you loose about 10kms, the Tesla guys call it the Vampire drain. Obviously electric cars doesn't like cold days, the system draws extra battery to warm up the battery for optimal working temp, so without the heaters, my range would drop about 15% easily, and if i turn up the heater..... well 30% minimum. During Summer it's not too bad (at least in Shanghai), with the air conditioning on, it works to be about 8km (range) an hour. 7) Noise. Yes I do miss ICE noise, but electric car isn't dead silent, the electric motor actually emits this weird kind of electric turbine sort of noise, kind of cool and surreal, if a Ferrari sounds like AK47, the Tesla feels like a laser gun. 8) Teslas has a lot of drawbacks, it's a new company, they never really made a car before, but they made something actually is pretty cool and super usable. I've drive my car on long distant trips 400-500kms one way quite a few times already. You'll have to pre-plan your trip, but it's not as bad as most people think, 30 min break at the supercharging station, have a coffee and a bite, reply a few messages for work, back on the road again. But as a city every day driver, you won't really find something that drivable, fits 5 adults comfortably, two trunk loads of luggage, looks sporty and does 0-100 in 3 something seconds, traffic to traffic light, I beat most Ferraris and Lambo. Tesla is just meant to be a great (ultimate) every day urban city run around car, and I think it does it's job exceptionally well.
Obviously it's not about saving petrol money or even saving the environment, though they are demonstrably better for it over the full life cycle of the vehicle than any ICE car. I'll dig out an artcle for Simon in answer to his post on that aspect. I could go on endlessly about this subject; but the easiest way to convey the essence of what makes a Tesla the game changer that it is is to make an analogy with mobile phone technology. Remember the first time you saw a "smart phone", probably an iPhone for most folks? After decades of mobile phones that did nothing much beyond basic phone calls, you now had a tiny hand held computer that could do much of what your big desktop was previously needed for. The smart phone instantly took mobile phones a quantum leap into the future. I had that EXACT same feeling the first time I drove a Tesla. The technology and the potential of it is truly mind blowing. I don't post here often anymore so It's probably easy to forget that I have a long petrol head history and despite my love of EV's I remain the same petrol head today and thoroughly enjoy my McLaren 675 LT. The story of how I ended up here is worth repeating as it illustrates the paradox and shows that you really should keep an open mind about EV's. When Tesla came to Australia a friend became Melbourne's authorized repairer for them. He and the local Tesla rep bugged me to take one for a test drive. My response was I'm a died in the wool petrol head, I detest the idea of an EV with every fibre of my being. I am just never going to buy one - ever, so lets not waste each others time. They kept at me and said it didn't matter if I bought one or not, we just want you to experience it. Eventually I relented just to get them off my back. No dealer in those days, so I had to go to the website and book a drive. A dude rang me from California to arrange the time and place. At the annointed time I turned up at a Hotel in the CBD with my tech head mate Aircon and we went for a 30 minute test drive. The technology blew me away immediately and the driving experience had me hooked long before we got to the Kew Blvd. By the time we got back to the hotel my preconceived ideas had been completely blown out of the water and I had to have one. "Sold, sign me up" I said to the rep. Sorry Sir can't do that, you have to go to the website and order online. WTF? It's a perfect illustration of how Tesla took the automotive "how to" rule book and threw it out the window. Try arguing with a computer screen for a discount..... The following week I arranged for my car ambivalent wife to take one for a drive. To my amazement she too was blown away and couldn't stop raving about it. To this day I think the Tesla's are the only car purchases that she has approved of. Four years later she still raves about them to her friends, some of whom have gone on to buy one themselves. Very early adopters had the cars delivered to them at their house; but the dealership/service centre was up and running by the time our first Tesla arrived. So, in my mind there are now 2 types of driving and each requires a different tool for the job. 1) Daily driving and commuting. That mind numbingly boring drudgery where there is no driving joy to be had. You just want the car that makes that as comfortable, easy and stress free as possible. There is NO better tool for the job than a Tesla for a myriad of reasons, some of which Kelsa covered. 2) Those "Early Sunday morning" runs where it is all about the joy and emotion of the driving experience. There is no better tool for the job than your favourite exotic ICE car. The choices are endless and down to personal taste and budgets. Emotion plays a huge part in this type of driving. You are NEVER going to walk into your garage and trip over your Ferrari/Porsche/Mclaren etc to jump into your Tesla for this type of driving. There is very little emotional aspect to the Tesla experience despite the prodigious performance. It's kind of like getting excited about your smart fridge I'm now a major tech head as a result of my Tesla experience. I'm heavily into solar/battery storage systems and we have very large systems at home and work. They provide the energy to run the Tesla's and the buildings they are situated at for most of the year. The experience there is another story......
No it wasn't and thanx for your impressions,Scott. .....and not quite correct Jon,though,I don't use it 'cos it's not suitable for my job. I've dropped and whacked this old thing,one of 2 I own,for as many years I can't remember. Image Unavailable, Please Login ..and the purple thing its lying on is my work diary. For my work life I have no need for Twits,facebooks,emails,insta's,tinda's,grinda's or any of that stuff.
In short, more economical than an ICE car: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-31/you-ll-need-286-pounds-of-coal-to-fuel-that-electric-road-trip
Hey Scott, is it possible yet for the Tesla to find a parking spot after it drops you off at your appointment location ? I always think that would be incredible to see
Hate to agree with Pee Pee; but he is 100% correct. Battery life is another misconception about EV's, IMO driven largely by people's experience with mobile phone batteries which they kill within a couple of years. Battery life is all in how they are used and recharged, and if that is controlled properly they can last decades in many applications. Lithium batteries like to operate in a range of about 50% to 90% of capacity, nothing will kill them faster than running them to empty and recharging to 100% capacity (as fast as possible) every cycle. Guess what, that's what everybody does with their mobile phones all the time. No surprise the batteries die quickly as a result. Now the current generation of Tesla's has been around since 2014 and there are cars out there with over 500,000 miles on them. Guess what, bugger all battery degradation in them...…...why? They have very sophisticated battery management programs that protect the battery, never allowing it to be run completely flat and 100% capacity is only ever used when full range is required for long trips. On a daily basis you charge to 90% or less (it can be set as can the charge rate) and as the average trip for 99% of people is circa 60km, you rarely run capacity to under 50% before you recharge it again every night. As a result the battery operates mostly in its happy zone and battery life is not compromised. Here is a good video about Tesla battery life: And as Peter said once they are no longer suitable for high load applications they can be repurposed for other applications like storage of solar generated energy. I'm going to buy a salvage Tesla to use the battery in my work system; but that's another project and another story...….. So Simon, no need to worry about some company burying old Tesla battery packs in your back yard.
What would be a nice compromise is that the car drops you off and then circles the block until you are ready for pick up Would be a sight to see a bunch of cars circling an office block waiting for the owner to finish his business
That's a really long and somewhat complicated story and the answer is different for every consumer depending upon their individual requirements and circumstances; but in short renewables should be viewed as a useful addition to the grid rather than a complete stand alone replacement for it like our left wing/green politicians would have us believe. It's been great for me; but my requirements and circumstances (not referring to financial) are very different to your average home application. The economics wouldn't stack up on such large systems for most people.
......and THAT is precisely the type of answer I'd expected to get from a knowledgeable person.....not plain vitriol
