Official Tesla Model S thread

[DaveinOlyWA]

Interesting the author considers 45 minutes a "rapid" charge. I would it consider it anything but rapid. Tesla appropriately named them Superchargers.

If you get there and they're all being used, now you're waiting an hour or more.

put the charger at nearly any kind of destination area and it will be fine. I rarely spend 45 minutes at the grocery store mostly because I shop several times a week (benefit of my screwed up work hours, I am available to shop during their slowest periods) and am frequently in and out in 10 minutes but other places like Costco its easy to spend that much time just parking and going thru check out (although I always use self check out because it so much quicker)

When I QC now, I frequently spend the first 10 minutes puttering around before I even get to the "waiting" phase and that is at a gas station that has nothing close by except its convenience store.

 

[Train]

Interesting the author considers 45 minutes a "rapid" charge. I would it consider it anything but rapid. Tesla appropriately named them Superchargers.

If you get there and they're all being used, now you're waiting an hour or more.

If you can't deal with this, don't buy an electric car. Thankfully most people can, considering how fast the Model S replenishes range compared to other electric cars.

Personally I think the benefits of not having to use a gas station to fill up in everyday life beats out the small inconvenience of a slightly longer roadtrip that only occurs a few times a year anyway.

Just an observation. Nothing to get your knickers into a twist over.

 

[GeekEV]

FYI, I now have a delivery window of February/March and my financing is all approved and ready to go. I'm so excited!

 

[palmermd]

FYI, I now have a delivery window of February/March and my financing is all approved and ready to go. I'm so excited!

I'm excited to go for a ride in your new car!

 

[ebill3]

FYI, I now have a delivery window of February/March and my financing is all approved and ready to go. I'm so excited!

Neato!

Have my VIN, looking at early February. Going to keep the LEAF and sell the Buick.

 

[GeekEV]

Us too, sort of. We'll keep the LEAF and give the gas hog Prius the boot...

 

[ELROY]

I was just driving around a Tesla Model S, P85 today.

Decided to take a video of an acceleration run with 3 people in the car total. Not bad for well over 5000lbs of running weight!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSoWNbTKiNM[/youtube]
Kind of interesting how it doesn't show full power to the motor till 30-40mph, I wonder if this is to keep from overloading the motor/inverter, or too keep traction in check. The thing is so easy to launch with no traction issues whatsoever. Even with fairly skinny tires.
(note these are loaner wheels till the 20" wheels come in)

 

[TomT]

It appears there will be a lot of them around soon... My friend and co-worked has a delivery date of the second week of February for his Performance with everything but rear seats model. I'm promised the second drive in it!

 

[GaslessInSeattle]

due in part to getting an opportunity I couldn't refuse to essentially convert our 2012 Leaf purchase with 13,000 miles to a brand new 2012 Leased Leaf with 6 miles with livable terms, we have decided to let the highlander go and with the coming of the S, go 100% solar electric! we don't have a Vin yet but the delivery window starts in a few days... very excited!

if you are interested in a Limited Highlander Hybrid with paint armor, Lojack, all weather mats with 20,000 miles and in pristine condition, drop me a PM! Asking $35.5K

 

[Ingineer]

Owner enthusiast video:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QweNsLesMrM[/youtube]

-Phil

 

[ebill3]

And we thought the LEAF was poor cold weather car!

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/automobiles/stalled-on-the-ev-highway.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

 

[tbleakne]

What interior color are folks choosing for their Model-S ? The tan leather would seem to clash with most colors except red. The black looks good with most colors, but might it get hot in summer? Does anyone like the gray. I would think a dark gray might be nice, but the web site seems to show a light gray. How about the basic, non-leather, interior ?

 

[timhebb]

And we thought the LEAF was poor cold weather car!

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/automobiles/stalled-on-the-ev-highway.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

A painful article to read; I was mentally cringing as things went from bad to worse to about as bad as they can get.

About the only good thing I can say about this account of a worst-case scenario with a Tesla model S is that it may distract some criticism from the LEAF by demonstrating that some of its battery issues are not unique.

Tesla must be experiencing a baptism of fire in the aftermath of this fiasco and its exposure in the NY Times. It will be interesting to see how Elon Musk and his engineering team respond to the challenge. The PR team must already be hoping the gathering storm in the northeast will help bury this story. Fox News will no doubt be happy to keep it in play, though.

 

[RegGuheert]

And we thought the LEAF was poor cold weather car!

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/automobiles/stalled-on-the-ev-highway.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

A painful article to read; I was mentally cringing as things went from bad to worse to about as bad as they can get.

+1!

It doesn't get to 10F very often in the East Bay!

There is a slight disconnect here:

I drove, slowly, to Stonington, Conn., for dinner and spent the night in Groton, a total distance of 79 miles. When I parked the car, its computer said I had 90 miles of range, twice the 46 miles back to Milford. It was a different story at 8:30 the next morning. The thermometer read 10 degrees and the display showed 25 miles of remaining range — the electrical equivalent of someone having siphoned off more than two-thirds of the fuel that was in the tank when I parked.

I called Tesla in California, and the official I woke up said I needed to “condition” the battery pack to restore the lost energy. That meant sitting in the car for half an hour with the heat on a low setting. (There is now a mobile application for warming the battery remotely; it was not available at the time of my test drive.)

After completing the battery conditioning process, the estimated range reading was 19 miles; no way would I make it back to Milford.

Tesla’s chief technology officer, J B Straubel, acknowledged that the two East Coast charging stations were at the mileage limit of the Model S’s real-world range. Making matters worse, cold weather inflicts about a 10 percent range penalty, he said, and running the heater draws yet more energy.

Maybe this is it (or maybe not):

He added that some range-related software problems still needed to be sorted out.

IMO, the writer was fairly gracious in the article. Truly, Tesla should have coached him a bit more BEFORE he got into so much trouble. They should have driven that trip in equally cold weather and provided more detailed instructions. It could have gone much better than it did.

 

[ebill3]

What interior color are folks choosing for their Model-S ? The tan leather would seem to clash with most colors except red.

I don't think so, I am going with tan leather in a green car.

 

[mwalsh]

Hey. We were left to figure out what our LEAFs could and could not do, and in what circumstances. Why should Telsa owners get any better?

 

[RegGuheert]

Hey. We were left to figure out what our LEAFs could and could not do, and in what circumstances. Why should Telsa owners get any better?

Of course owners should! But this guy was a NY Times auto writer! It would have been good for Tesla to try the product themselves outside of CA rather than making him a Guinea pig!

 

[ebill3]

IMO, the writer was fairly gracious in the article. Truly, Tesla should have coached him a bit more BEFORE he got into so much trouble. They should have driven that trip in equally cold weather and provided more detailed instructions. It could have gone much better than it did.

Yes, Tesla should provided a bit more coaching. Even a 120 volt plug-in at the overnight stop would have probably eliminated the tow.

BTW, I enjoyed the writer's style. Rather than cringe, I couldn't help chuckling while reading it.

 

[Boomer23]

What interior color are folks choosing for their Model-S ? The tan leather would seem to clash with most colors except red. The black looks good with most colors, but might it get hot in summer? Does anyone like the gray. I would think a dark gray might be nice, but the web site seems to show a light gray. How about the basic, non-leather, interior ?

I'm not getting a Tesla, but I've played on the web site and seen most of the interiors in person on test rides . I've long considered a nice saddle colored interior to look great with dark paint on many cars, but I don't like the looks of the Model S leather seats (non-Performance) in tan. I think that my choice would be the grey. As I recall, Chris Howell has the grey seats in his dark blue car, and they looked very nice. My second choice would be black leather, but I'm not yet excited to go back to black interiors.

 

[Electric4Me]

Not so quick: the car’s electrically actuated parking brake would not release without battery power, and hooking the car’s 12-volt charging post behind the front grille to the tow truck’s portable charger would not release the brake. So he had to drag it onto the flatbed, a painstaking process that took 45 minutes.

How many of you know about the Leaf's parking brake release under the carpet in the trunk for just such a scenario? I'm surprised that the S doesn't have that.