RE: Tesla Model S: PH Carpool
Discussion
Aeroresh said:
Getting into a conventional car after driving one of these though feels like getting into an antique!
Great comment. An illuminating quote.Also some useful comments about hybrids. Electrification is not all or nothing. Some excellent use cases out there, for hybrids.
As usual, there are many naysayers in this thread. If you would like to declare, "I'm not an early adopter," feel free to say so. There's no need to make emphatic, negative judgments of the sort which have been addressed online ad infinitum. Tesla is not teetering on the brink of failure and will not notice your decision not to buy.
In the unlikely event that Tesla should suddenly disappear, others will pick up the torch and march onward. There has been too much progress.
Vee12V said:
Tesla for the week and an Elise for the weekends. Definitely could ba a great two car garage.
That's pretty much our plan for when the Skoda dies (if it lasts long enough to replace it with a second-hand model-3). Although in our case it'll be Elise for my (short B-road) commute, Tesla for the wife's day-to-day use and family trips. Hugh Jarse said:
fatboy b said:
They all have the same awful quality and silly screen.
One mans awful is another mans clear and uncluttered.Quality plastics versus 0-60 in 4 secs without maintenance or heavy energy cost.
Think id pay a trimmer a few quid to solve that non-issue.
Hugh Jarse said:
fatboy b said:
They all have the same awful quality and silly screen.
One mans awful is another mans clear and uncluttered.Quality plastics versus 0-60 in 4 secs without maintenance or heavy energy cost.
Think id pay a trimmer a few quid to solve that non-issue.
I buy a car on looks first, so regardless of what powers the Tesla, it ain't going to win in my books.
Edited by fatboy b on Monday 18th April 20:54
bertie said:
fatboy b said:
They all have the same awful quality and silly screen.
I went in my RR sport, and the Tesla felt the equal of in in terms of quality and drove way better.Some early Teslas were not as good but the quality has improved markedly.
You been in or tried one recently?
There's really no point in me test driving one however good or bad it is. It just doesn't pass the looks test.
Well, once again a Carpool has generated a pretty interesting and divisive thread on PH! 
Nice to see so many positive comments, but I have to say I'm also pretty disappointed by a lot of the negative comments coming from people with little/no experience of the vehicle, or little/no knowledge of EV's. I've picked up on a few points, and will address them as follows:
- Quality; it is true and pretty well accepted that the early cars had some quality issues, but let's not forget that this was a brand new car from a virtually brand new company. A lot of the components were sourced from other OEM's too; switchgear from Mercedes, seats from BMW, etc., so they're not as bad as everyone makes out. Quality has also improved SIGNIFICANTLY in the last 12 months or so; my late-2014 car is good quality, certainly better than my old RR Sport, better than my Porsche Cayman S. It's probably not quite as good as my E46 BMW (a high of the BMW era, along with the legendary E39's), but it is as good as my later E91 model. I think a lot of people confuse 'quality' with 'plushness' here...
- Interior trim is VERY dependent on spec, in terms of how 'special' it feels. My friend's car has the standard gloss black dash, the standard trim and headlining, and black leather. It's a nice car, its still striking, but even he admits it lacks the 'wow' factor. Conversely, my car has the matt walnut dash trim, the alcantara headlining and dashboard, Performance seats in extended cream leather/suede and ambient lighting; all of these add up to make the interior feel a much more 'special' place to be. Yes, there is better quality leather in a 7-Series BMW, but I've taken plenty of people for a ride in the car and NOT ONE has criticised the interior, not one. Everyone is impressed with it. Personally, I feel it could be packaged better with more interior storage, and they could up the quality of the leather too, but then I didn't buy it to have a Rolls Royce interior, I bought it for the whole package. And the newer models now come with additional storage - that's the nice thing about Tesla, they listen to their customers and they adapt, they improve; try getting Audi, BMW or Mercedes to do that...
- The 17" TFT is brilliant. OK, it looks out of place in photos perhaps, but it doesn't feel it in the car. And it's so user friendly in terms of the OS, so clear and concise with the information, and so nice not to have a dozen (or more) physical buttons cluttering the dash. The i8, by comparison, is a nightmare in terms of user-friendliness, layout, etc.
- Range is an interesting one. The claimed figures are not easily achievable, that is for sure; getting 300+ miles in a Tesla is, currently, a tall order. But then so was getting anywhere near 40mpg from my 335D! Officially that car should have done 42mpg combined, I typically got 32-34mpg in normal use, so that's around 80% of the claim from the manufacture. My P85+ is claimed to do a maximum range of 300 miles, so 80% of that would be 240 miles, which I would say IS achievable on a run, in good conditions. I don't think that is unreasonable, I'd like it to be better and more realistic, but this is a new application of battery technology and look how far it has come already! The fact that I can drive 200+ miles in a comfortable, luxurious, battery powered vehicle is, to me, remarkable. And don't forget, charging up every night means you start every day with a full 'tank' of range, and so far the Supercharging network has not let me down. Someone asked about route planning, and yes it builds in charging locations and times. E.g. for me to drive from London to Glasgow I need to stop at (for example) Oxford Supercharger for 10 mins, Warrington for 15 mins, and Gretna Green for 25 mins; it tells you where, how long for, and it calculates the most efficient use of time because it is quicker to charger from 20%-50% than it is from 70%-100%, even though both are a 30% increase in charge. It's very, very clever.
- Battery life; Tesla give an 8 year, unlimited mileage warranty and within that they allow for 2% degredation per year. From the high mileage Model S owners on US forums, 2% seems very high, most are dropping less than 1 mile of range per year at max charge. So all this unfounded nonsense that 'after XX years the batteries will be dead, the car will be worthless' etc. is, as usual, bulls
t peddled by the ill-informed wanting something new and exciting to fail. Well, tough luck, it's not.
- Warranty work, someone asked what issues I'd had? Most were relatively minor niggles, things like noisy rear window seats and misting rear fog lamp (both replaced with updated parts for free, see there's that reactive/improving thing again), and the other issue was with a battery warning which was fixed with a firmware update. None of the issues were serious, all were resolved, I had another Model S delivered to me when they collected mine from home, and then they brought my car back to my house and took the courtesy car away.
- Green credentials are often discussed, but the way I look at it is this: I can't directly control where the world's electricity comes from, but what I do know is that I would love to be able to live in a pollution-free environment, and EV's offer that. I am in the process of switching my own energy supply to Ecotricity, a company that sources its' electricity solely from renewable sources, namely wind and solar power. You'll also find a very high number of Tesla owners also have their own solar systems at home, to power their cars and homes - so a decent proportion of Model S' will truly be emission free. It's down to our Government(s) to then ensure that all future energy is generated cleanly and efficiently, and it can happen - Norway being a great example (albeit one with a lot of natural hydro-power resource, but they have invested in that to achieve what they have and we could do the same with wind farms and solar panels).
I really do find it very, very strange how so many people want to criticise Tesla, both on here and in the press. A lot of the Wall Street crowd have money tied up in oil and big OEM's like Daimler Benz, so would love to see Tesla fail, but that isn't going to happen. They're already too good, too advanced, and already are rocking the established boat - last year they sold more Model S in the USA that Mercedes sold S-Class', BMW sold 7's and Audi sold A8's. That's very telling.
Other suggest that Elon Musk is, in some way, evil? Well, to me he appears to be open, honest, and genuinely wanting to make the world a better place. He's released all his patents to the world, so anyone can use his technology - no greedy business mogul in their right mind would do that, but he has. Why? Well, as he put it: "Imagine the world is a boat, and that boat is sinking. And then imagine we have a really good design for a bucket that can bail us all out. Wouldn't it be a good idea to share the design for that bucket?"
I'm more than happy with my choice, I don't try to push that choice onto anyone else but I will dispute any suggestions of 'awful' interiors, 'terrible' build quality, 'poor battery life' and any other unfounded bullst, because that's not fair on the vehicle or the manufacturer. Tesla deserve to succeed, they've developed a great product, and I love it! But I still want to add an S2 Elise for weekend fun...
Nice to see so many positive comments, but I have to say I'm also pretty disappointed by a lot of the negative comments coming from people with little/no experience of the vehicle, or little/no knowledge of EV's. I've picked up on a few points, and will address them as follows:- Quality; it is true and pretty well accepted that the early cars had some quality issues, but let's not forget that this was a brand new car from a virtually brand new company. A lot of the components were sourced from other OEM's too; switchgear from Mercedes, seats from BMW, etc., so they're not as bad as everyone makes out. Quality has also improved SIGNIFICANTLY in the last 12 months or so; my late-2014 car is good quality, certainly better than my old RR Sport, better than my Porsche Cayman S. It's probably not quite as good as my E46 BMW (a high of the BMW era, along with the legendary E39's), but it is as good as my later E91 model. I think a lot of people confuse 'quality' with 'plushness' here...
- Interior trim is VERY dependent on spec, in terms of how 'special' it feels. My friend's car has the standard gloss black dash, the standard trim and headlining, and black leather. It's a nice car, its still striking, but even he admits it lacks the 'wow' factor. Conversely, my car has the matt walnut dash trim, the alcantara headlining and dashboard, Performance seats in extended cream leather/suede and ambient lighting; all of these add up to make the interior feel a much more 'special' place to be. Yes, there is better quality leather in a 7-Series BMW, but I've taken plenty of people for a ride in the car and NOT ONE has criticised the interior, not one. Everyone is impressed with it. Personally, I feel it could be packaged better with more interior storage, and they could up the quality of the leather too, but then I didn't buy it to have a Rolls Royce interior, I bought it for the whole package. And the newer models now come with additional storage - that's the nice thing about Tesla, they listen to their customers and they adapt, they improve; try getting Audi, BMW or Mercedes to do that...
- The 17" TFT is brilliant. OK, it looks out of place in photos perhaps, but it doesn't feel it in the car. And it's so user friendly in terms of the OS, so clear and concise with the information, and so nice not to have a dozen (or more) physical buttons cluttering the dash. The i8, by comparison, is a nightmare in terms of user-friendliness, layout, etc.
- Range is an interesting one. The claimed figures are not easily achievable, that is for sure; getting 300+ miles in a Tesla is, currently, a tall order. But then so was getting anywhere near 40mpg from my 335D! Officially that car should have done 42mpg combined, I typically got 32-34mpg in normal use, so that's around 80% of the claim from the manufacture. My P85+ is claimed to do a maximum range of 300 miles, so 80% of that would be 240 miles, which I would say IS achievable on a run, in good conditions. I don't think that is unreasonable, I'd like it to be better and more realistic, but this is a new application of battery technology and look how far it has come already! The fact that I can drive 200+ miles in a comfortable, luxurious, battery powered vehicle is, to me, remarkable. And don't forget, charging up every night means you start every day with a full 'tank' of range, and so far the Supercharging network has not let me down. Someone asked about route planning, and yes it builds in charging locations and times. E.g. for me to drive from London to Glasgow I need to stop at (for example) Oxford Supercharger for 10 mins, Warrington for 15 mins, and Gretna Green for 25 mins; it tells you where, how long for, and it calculates the most efficient use of time because it is quicker to charger from 20%-50% than it is from 70%-100%, even though both are a 30% increase in charge. It's very, very clever.
- Battery life; Tesla give an 8 year, unlimited mileage warranty and within that they allow for 2% degredation per year. From the high mileage Model S owners on US forums, 2% seems very high, most are dropping less than 1 mile of range per year at max charge. So all this unfounded nonsense that 'after XX years the batteries will be dead, the car will be worthless' etc. is, as usual, bulls
t peddled by the ill-informed wanting something new and exciting to fail. Well, tough luck, it's not.- Warranty work, someone asked what issues I'd had? Most were relatively minor niggles, things like noisy rear window seats and misting rear fog lamp (both replaced with updated parts for free, see there's that reactive/improving thing again), and the other issue was with a battery warning which was fixed with a firmware update. None of the issues were serious, all were resolved, I had another Model S delivered to me when they collected mine from home, and then they brought my car back to my house and took the courtesy car away.
- Green credentials are often discussed, but the way I look at it is this: I can't directly control where the world's electricity comes from, but what I do know is that I would love to be able to live in a pollution-free environment, and EV's offer that. I am in the process of switching my own energy supply to Ecotricity, a company that sources its' electricity solely from renewable sources, namely wind and solar power. You'll also find a very high number of Tesla owners also have their own solar systems at home, to power their cars and homes - so a decent proportion of Model S' will truly be emission free. It's down to our Government(s) to then ensure that all future energy is generated cleanly and efficiently, and it can happen - Norway being a great example (albeit one with a lot of natural hydro-power resource, but they have invested in that to achieve what they have and we could do the same with wind farms and solar panels).
I really do find it very, very strange how so many people want to criticise Tesla, both on here and in the press. A lot of the Wall Street crowd have money tied up in oil and big OEM's like Daimler Benz, so would love to see Tesla fail, but that isn't going to happen. They're already too good, too advanced, and already are rocking the established boat - last year they sold more Model S in the USA that Mercedes sold S-Class', BMW sold 7's and Audi sold A8's. That's very telling.
Other suggest that Elon Musk is, in some way, evil? Well, to me he appears to be open, honest, and genuinely wanting to make the world a better place. He's released all his patents to the world, so anyone can use his technology - no greedy business mogul in their right mind would do that, but he has. Why? Well, as he put it: "Imagine the world is a boat, and that boat is sinking. And then imagine we have a really good design for a bucket that can bail us all out. Wouldn't it be a good idea to share the design for that bucket?"
I'm more than happy with my choice, I don't try to push that choice onto anyone else but I will dispute any suggestions of 'awful' interiors, 'terrible' build quality, 'poor battery life' and any other unfounded bulls
t, because that's not fair on the vehicle or the manufacturer. Tesla deserve to succeed, they've developed a great product, and I love it! But I still want to add an S2 Elise for weekend fun... In the Model S, the large screen could have been better integrated with the dashboard and centre console. There are one or two aftermarket consoles which are intended to improve the look. And the Model X is a bit better.
Nevertheless, one does get the feeling, seated in the driver's seat of a Model S, that the car is a product of engineers.
Although some cars look attractive in either a light or a dark interior, I find that only the dark interior suits the Model S. A light interior coupled with that large display begins to feel a bit awkward. Just my two cents.
Let's see if the Model 3 goes further in terms of interior aesthetic. There's plenty online about the (smaller and landscape-oriented) centre-mounted display of the Model 3 -- as well as the rumoured introduction of a heads-up display for the driver.
fatboy b said:
i see the configurator shares the same high quality as the car 
Unsure what I just tried speccing up, but it was £92k.
What a waste of time and money.
See, this is the sUnsure what I just tried speccing up, but it was £92k.
What a waste of time and money.
t I'm talking about. What's wrong with the configurator? It's an excellent tool that instantly shows you the spec of your car on a realtime CGI image. Have you tried the BMW or Porsche configurator recently? They're terrible! The Tesla one is spot on, so why are you questionning the quality of it?So the car was £92k, so what? Mine was £96k new. That may be out of your budget (judging by the tone of your post), but what other 5 (or 7) seat car can get you from 0-60 in around 3 seconds, drive you down the motorway on Autopilot by itself, whilst not emitting a single gram of pollution while it does it? I'll help you out, the answer is none. No other car can do that. So for all of that efficiency ('greenness'), that performance, that technology and that refinement, I don't find the price excessive at all, because it offers something no other vehicle can.
unsprung said:
Nevertheless, one does get the feeling, seated in the driver's seat of a Model S, that the car is a product of engineers.
Maybe for some people it's not, but for me that's entirely a positive thing. I don't think I agree though. The engineer (and the driver) in me is horrified by the idea of driving major functions through a touch-screen. That strikes me as an idea thought up by the marketing department not engineers.
Edited by kambites on Monday 18th April 22:33
smokey31 said:
realworld driving on the p85d is around 190 miles
.
Thanks for that.. What about charging times on route? Do you know what range you would gain if for argument sake you stopped at a motorway services for an hour with it on charge?.
London to Keswick is about 320 miles (which I've done in a mid-range diesel) so I'd be interested if that would be feasible in a Tesla..
Fire99 said:
Thanks for that.. What about charging times on route? Do you know what range you would gain if for argument sake you stopped at a motorway services for an hour with it on charge?
London to Keswick is about 320 miles (which I've done in a mid-range diesel) so I'd be interested if that would be feasible in a Tesla..
The specs give you reasonable information on that: https://www.teslamotors.com/en_GB/superchargerLondon to Keswick is about 320 miles (which I've done in a mid-range diesel) so I'd be interested if that would be feasible in a Tesla..
If you get down to 10% and charge for 40 minutes on a supercharger, you'll be on 80% which if total "real world" range is 190 miles is adding 133 miles. Non-Tesla charging stations are considerably slower though, I think.
To be safe, you'd probably want to stop for a couple of half-hour breaks on a 320 mile trip. One one-hour break would be pushing it.
kambites said:
unsprung said:
Nevertheless, one does get the feeling, seated in the driver's seat of a Model S, that the car is a product of engineers.
Maybe for some people it's not, but for me that's entirely a positive thing. I don't think I agree though. The engineer (and the driver) in me is horrified by the idea of driving major functions through a touch-screen. That strikes me as an idea thought up by market analysts not engineers.
Edited by kambites on Monday 18th April 22:32
The rationale for my interpretation of this situation is: Who would specify such a large and seemingly unwieldy interface for a car?
Now... as we shift our curiosity to the Model 3, we can deduce that an evolution of sorts has occurred within Tesla in terms of the user experience. The display in the Model 3 is no longer portrait and it is no longer integrated with the lines of the dashboard.
Indeed, it is not too different in principle from the landscape displays which Mercedes-Benz have at the centre of some of their dashboards (although the Tesla displays are larger and they are likely to play a more strategic role in terms of a preference for virtual info and virtual "work flows" over physical dials, knobs, buttons, etc.)
I don't believe that marketing people have anything to do with any of this.
kambites said:
The specs give you reasonable information on that: https://www.teslamotors.com/en_GB/supercharger
If you get down to 10% and charge for 40 minutes on a supercharger, you'll be on 80% which if total "real world" range is 190 miles is adding 133 miles. Non-Tesla charging stations are considerably slower though, I think.
To be safe, you'd probably want to stop for a couple of half-hour breaks on a 320 mile trip. One one-hour break would be pushing it.
Blinding.. thanks mate.. Without getting too sensible, these are the kinds of things are useful to know when you're deciding if an all electric performance car is viable for the long haul, so to speak..If you get down to 10% and charge for 40 minutes on a supercharger, you'll be on 80% which if total "real world" range is 190 miles is adding 133 miles. Non-Tesla charging stations are considerably slower though, I think.
To be safe, you'd probably want to stop for a couple of half-hour breaks on a 320 mile trip. One one-hour break would be pushing it.
A couple of reasonable stops on something like a 300+ mile journey isn't awful. Probably worthwhile in any car.. I'll be interested to hear how the Model 3 performs in the range department, since it's priced more for the average 'family car punter'.
unsprung said:
I don't believe that marketing people have anything to do with any of this.
I suppose we'll never know. My bet would be someone mandated from the top down "it has to look modern and trendy, like a smart phone; no clunky buttons or anything like that" leaving the engineers to make the best of a moronic decision made by people who don't understand the problem that's being solved. This Carpool plus the reaction on this thread is very interesting.
I'm an old car enthusiast, with three old Mercs from the 80s and 90s that I never fail to claim are better built, higher quality and so on than modern german metal. I like and have driven all the M3s and M5s though.
I was invited to drive the P85+ a year or so ago (it was the last P85+ that Tesla had on their UK fleet) and was entirely ignorant about the numbers until the Tesla lady suggested I put my foot down. I stepped out understanding that Tesla represent the future.
All of the other nonsense - hybrids, M cars with smaller turbo engines etc - are irrelevant. The level of performance and refinement delivered by the model S drivetrain destroys M5s in the real world, the newer cars even more so.
I got out of the car and into an Audi diesel - boy did it feel 100 years old. Even the new E63 I was in a few days later felt like dead tech. I'm very sad about it, but I knew the days of internal combustion were over a mile into my Tesla drive.
The interior was fine. When you take into account the drivetrain, the comparison to BMWs, Audis and Mercs become irrelevant from a quality and refinement point of view.
Nice car OP
I'm an old car enthusiast, with three old Mercs from the 80s and 90s that I never fail to claim are better built, higher quality and so on than modern german metal. I like and have driven all the M3s and M5s though.
I was invited to drive the P85+ a year or so ago (it was the last P85+ that Tesla had on their UK fleet) and was entirely ignorant about the numbers until the Tesla lady suggested I put my foot down. I stepped out understanding that Tesla represent the future.
All of the other nonsense - hybrids, M cars with smaller turbo engines etc - are irrelevant. The level of performance and refinement delivered by the model S drivetrain destroys M5s in the real world, the newer cars even more so.
I got out of the car and into an Audi diesel - boy did it feel 100 years old. Even the new E63 I was in a few days later felt like dead tech. I'm very sad about it, but I knew the days of internal combustion were over a mile into my Tesla drive.
The interior was fine. When you take into account the drivetrain, the comparison to BMWs, Audis and Mercs become irrelevant from a quality and refinement point of view.
Nice car OP
Mike_C said:
Well, once again a Carpool has generated a pretty interesting and divisive thread on PH! Nice to see so many positive comments, but I have to say I'm also pretty disappointed by a lot of the negative comments coming from people with little/no experience of the vehicle, or little/no knowledge of EV's. I've picked up on a few points, and will address them as follows:
- Quality; it is true and pretty well accepted that the early cars had some quality issues, but let's not forget that this was a brand new car from a virtually brand new company. A lot of the components were sourced from other OEM's too; switchgear from Mercedes, seats from BMW, etc., so they're not as bad as everyone makes out. Quality has also improved SIGNIFICANTLY in the last 12 months or so; my late-2014 car is good quality, certainly better than my old RR Sport, better than my Porsche Cayman S. It's probably not quite as good as my E46 BMW (a high of the BMW era, along with the legendary E39's), but it is as good as my later E91 model. I think a lot of people confuse 'quality' with 'plushness' here...
- Interior trim is VERY dependent on spec, in terms of how 'special' it feels. My friend's car has the standard gloss black dash, the standard trim and headlining, and black leather. It's a nice car, its still striking, but even he admits it lacks the 'wow' factor. Conversely, my car has the matt walnut dash trim, the alcantara headlining and dashboard, Performance seats in extended cream leather/suede and ambient lighting; all of these add up to make the interior feel a much more 'special' place to be. Yes, there is better quality leather in a 7-Series BMW, but I've taken plenty of people for a ride in the car and NOT ONE has criticised the interior, not one. Everyone is impressed with it. Personally, I feel it could be packaged better with more interior storage, and they could up the quality of the leather too, but then I didn't buy it to have a Rolls Royce interior, I bought it for the whole package. And the newer models now come with additional storage - that's the nice thing about Tesla, they listen to their customers and they adapt, they improve; try getting Audi, BMW or Mercedes to do that...
- The 17" TFT is brilliant. OK, it looks out of place in photos perhaps, but it doesn't feel it in the car. And it's so user friendly in terms of the OS, so clear and concise with the information, and so nice not to have a dozen (or more) physical buttons cluttering the dash. The i8, by comparison, is a nightmare in terms of user-friendliness, layout, etc.
- Range is an interesting one. The claimed figures are not easily achievable, that is for sure; getting 300+ miles in a Tesla is, currently, a tall order. But then so was getting anywhere near 40mpg from my 335D! Officially that car should have done 42mpg combined, I typically got 32-34mpg in normal use, so that's around 80% of the claim from the manufacture. My P85+ is claimed to do a maximum range of 300 miles, so 80% of that would be 240 miles, which I would say IS achievable on a run, in good conditions. I don't think that is unreasonable, I'd like it to be better and more realistic, but this is a new application of battery technology and look how far it has come already! The fact that I can drive 200+ miles in a comfortable, luxurious, battery powered vehicle is, to me, remarkable. And don't forget, charging up every night means you start every day with a full 'tank' of range, and so far the Supercharging network has not let me down. Someone asked about route planning, and yes it builds in charging locations and times. E.g. for me to drive from London to Glasgow I need to stop at (for example) Oxford Supercharger for 10 mins, Warrington for 15 mins, and Gretna Green for 25 mins; it tells you where, how long for, and it calculates the most efficient use of time because it is quicker to charger from 20%-50% than it is from 70%-100%, even though both are a 30% increase in charge. It's very, very clever.
- Battery life; Tesla give an 8 year, unlimited mileage warranty and within that they allow for 2% degredation per year. From the high mileage Model S owners on US forums, 2% seems very high, most are dropping less than 1 mile of range per year at max charge. So all this unfounded nonsense that 'after XX years the batteries will be dead, the car will be worthless' etc. is, as usual, bullst peddled by the ill-informed wanting something new and exciting to fail. Well, tough luck, it's not.
- Warranty work, someone asked what issues I'd had? Most were relatively minor niggles, things like noisy rear window seats and misting rear fog lamp (both replaced with updated parts for free, see there's that reactive/improving thing again), and the other issue was with a battery warning which was fixed with a firmware update. None of the issues were serious, all were resolved, I had another Model S delivered to me when they collected mine from home, and then they brought my car back to my house and took the courtesy car away.
- Green credentials are often discussed, but the way I look at it is this: I can't directly control where the world's electricity comes from, but what I do know is that I would love to be able to live in a pollution-free environment, and EV's offer that. I am in the process of switching my own energy supply to Ecotricity, a company that sources its' electricity solely from renewable sources, namely wind and solar power. You'll also find a very high number of Tesla owners also have their own solar systems at home, to power their cars and homes - so a decent proportion of Model S' will truly be emission free. It's down to our Government(s) to then ensure that all future energy is generated cleanly and efficiently, and it can happen - Norway being a great example (albeit one with a lot of natural hydro-power resource, but they have invested in that to achieve what they have and we could do the same with wind farms and solar panels).
I really do find it very, very strange how so many people want to criticise Tesla, both on here and in the press. A lot of the Wall Street crowd have money tied up in oil and big OEM's like Daimler Benz, so would love to see Tesla fail, but that isn't going to happen. They're already too good, too advanced, and already are rocking the established boat - last year they sold more Model S in the USA that Mercedes sold S-Class', BMW sold 7's and Audi sold A8's. That's very telling.
Other suggest that Elon Musk is, in some way, evil? Well, to me he appears to be open, honest, and genuinely wanting to make the world a better place. He's released all his patents to the world, so anyone can use his technology - no greedy business mogul in their right mind would do that, but he has. Why? Well, as he put it: "Imagine the world is a boat, and that boat is sinking. And then imagine we have a really good design for a bucket that can bail us all out. Wouldn't it be a good idea to share the design for that bucket?"
I'm more than happy with my choice, I don't try to push that choice onto anyone else but I will dispute any suggestions of 'awful' interiors, 'terrible' build quality, 'poor battery life' and any other unfounded bullst, because that's not fair on the vehicle or the manufacturer. Tesla deserve to succeed, they've developed a great product, and I love it! But I still want to add an S2 Elise for weekend fun...
I completely agree that the technology is extremely impressive and for such a young company to have produced such an accomplished product is fairly mind blowing. Nice to see so many positive comments, but I have to say I'm also pretty disappointed by a lot of the negative comments coming from people with little/no experience of the vehicle, or little/no knowledge of EV's. I've picked up on a few points, and will address them as follows:- Quality; it is true and pretty well accepted that the early cars had some quality issues, but let's not forget that this was a brand new car from a virtually brand new company. A lot of the components were sourced from other OEM's too; switchgear from Mercedes, seats from BMW, etc., so they're not as bad as everyone makes out. Quality has also improved SIGNIFICANTLY in the last 12 months or so; my late-2014 car is good quality, certainly better than my old RR Sport, better than my Porsche Cayman S. It's probably not quite as good as my E46 BMW (a high of the BMW era, along with the legendary E39's), but it is as good as my later E91 model. I think a lot of people confuse 'quality' with 'plushness' here...
- Interior trim is VERY dependent on spec, in terms of how 'special' it feels. My friend's car has the standard gloss black dash, the standard trim and headlining, and black leather. It's a nice car, its still striking, but even he admits it lacks the 'wow' factor. Conversely, my car has the matt walnut dash trim, the alcantara headlining and dashboard, Performance seats in extended cream leather/suede and ambient lighting; all of these add up to make the interior feel a much more 'special' place to be. Yes, there is better quality leather in a 7-Series BMW, but I've taken plenty of people for a ride in the car and NOT ONE has criticised the interior, not one. Everyone is impressed with it. Personally, I feel it could be packaged better with more interior storage, and they could up the quality of the leather too, but then I didn't buy it to have a Rolls Royce interior, I bought it for the whole package. And the newer models now come with additional storage - that's the nice thing about Tesla, they listen to their customers and they adapt, they improve; try getting Audi, BMW or Mercedes to do that...
- The 17" TFT is brilliant. OK, it looks out of place in photos perhaps, but it doesn't feel it in the car. And it's so user friendly in terms of the OS, so clear and concise with the information, and so nice not to have a dozen (or more) physical buttons cluttering the dash. The i8, by comparison, is a nightmare in terms of user-friendliness, layout, etc.
- Range is an interesting one. The claimed figures are not easily achievable, that is for sure; getting 300+ miles in a Tesla is, currently, a tall order. But then so was getting anywhere near 40mpg from my 335D! Officially that car should have done 42mpg combined, I typically got 32-34mpg in normal use, so that's around 80% of the claim from the manufacture. My P85+ is claimed to do a maximum range of 300 miles, so 80% of that would be 240 miles, which I would say IS achievable on a run, in good conditions. I don't think that is unreasonable, I'd like it to be better and more realistic, but this is a new application of battery technology and look how far it has come already! The fact that I can drive 200+ miles in a comfortable, luxurious, battery powered vehicle is, to me, remarkable. And don't forget, charging up every night means you start every day with a full 'tank' of range, and so far the Supercharging network has not let me down. Someone asked about route planning, and yes it builds in charging locations and times. E.g. for me to drive from London to Glasgow I need to stop at (for example) Oxford Supercharger for 10 mins, Warrington for 15 mins, and Gretna Green for 25 mins; it tells you where, how long for, and it calculates the most efficient use of time because it is quicker to charger from 20%-50% than it is from 70%-100%, even though both are a 30% increase in charge. It's very, very clever.
- Battery life; Tesla give an 8 year, unlimited mileage warranty and within that they allow for 2% degredation per year. From the high mileage Model S owners on US forums, 2% seems very high, most are dropping less than 1 mile of range per year at max charge. So all this unfounded nonsense that 'after XX years the batteries will be dead, the car will be worthless' etc. is, as usual, bulls
t peddled by the ill-informed wanting something new and exciting to fail. Well, tough luck, it's not.- Warranty work, someone asked what issues I'd had? Most were relatively minor niggles, things like noisy rear window seats and misting rear fog lamp (both replaced with updated parts for free, see there's that reactive/improving thing again), and the other issue was with a battery warning which was fixed with a firmware update. None of the issues were serious, all were resolved, I had another Model S delivered to me when they collected mine from home, and then they brought my car back to my house and took the courtesy car away.
- Green credentials are often discussed, but the way I look at it is this: I can't directly control where the world's electricity comes from, but what I do know is that I would love to be able to live in a pollution-free environment, and EV's offer that. I am in the process of switching my own energy supply to Ecotricity, a company that sources its' electricity solely from renewable sources, namely wind and solar power. You'll also find a very high number of Tesla owners also have their own solar systems at home, to power their cars and homes - so a decent proportion of Model S' will truly be emission free. It's down to our Government(s) to then ensure that all future energy is generated cleanly and efficiently, and it can happen - Norway being a great example (albeit one with a lot of natural hydro-power resource, but they have invested in that to achieve what they have and we could do the same with wind farms and solar panels).
I really do find it very, very strange how so many people want to criticise Tesla, both on here and in the press. A lot of the Wall Street crowd have money tied up in oil and big OEM's like Daimler Benz, so would love to see Tesla fail, but that isn't going to happen. They're already too good, too advanced, and already are rocking the established boat - last year they sold more Model S in the USA that Mercedes sold S-Class', BMW sold 7's and Audi sold A8's. That's very telling.
Other suggest that Elon Musk is, in some way, evil? Well, to me he appears to be open, honest, and genuinely wanting to make the world a better place. He's released all his patents to the world, so anyone can use his technology - no greedy business mogul in their right mind would do that, but he has. Why? Well, as he put it: "Imagine the world is a boat, and that boat is sinking. And then imagine we have a really good design for a bucket that can bail us all out. Wouldn't it be a good idea to share the design for that bucket?"
I'm more than happy with my choice, I don't try to push that choice onto anyone else but I will dispute any suggestions of 'awful' interiors, 'terrible' build quality, 'poor battery life' and any other unfounded bulls
t, because that's not fair on the vehicle or the manufacturer. Tesla deserve to succeed, they've developed a great product, and I love it! But I still want to add an S2 Elise for weekend fun... However, the model I took out in September last year was a Tesla demonstrator, when the Tesla team came to meet up with me to discuss new supercharger locations. The car was pretty much new and whilst it didn't have many squeaks or rattles, the quality was about the same as my last E class (which was pretty much Toyota levels in my view). The dashboard flexed, the seats were really crummy and it just felt cheap all round. For a car of that price it's not acceptable and cheaper alternatives do luxury/plush far better. Personally, I couldn't get on with the screen, not sure whether that's because I'm a Luddite.
It felt too much like mere transport for a car of that price tag and I couldn't spend that sort of cash on a car that offers so little enjoyment. Any German luck barge will do the cruiser job better (and not be constrained by the charging network), as would a Lexus and a Panamera offers up more thrills and again, a far more premium feel plus some engagement to boot.
Tesla definitely has its place but in my view it's a very different proposition to an ICE car and appeals to a very differently motivated buyer. I really wanted to like it but just didn't click. Hopefully future hybrids will hit the spot for me.
Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff