Official Tesla Model S thread

mkjayakumar said:

Except that used Roadsters are selling at 150% the original price...

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Where?

Actually, looks like 50% could be a better estimate:

Most recent completed sale reported on EBAY:

2010 Tesla 2dr Conv
TESLA ROADSTER - ELECTRIC EXOTIC - 5700 MILES - $132450 MSRP!
...This particular vehicle has over $20,000 in factory fitted options including Adjustable Suspension, Forged Wheels, Premium Carbon Fiber/Leather Package and the Electronics Group featuring a JVC Navigation System...

Tesla 2dr Conv
TESLA ROADSTER - ELECTRIC EXOTIC - 5700 MILES -$65,000.00 End Date:Jun-26 18:00

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http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/TESLA-ROADSTER-ELECTRIC-EXOTIC-5700-MILES-132450-MSRP-/271002112545?pt=US_Cars_Trucks&hash=item3f18fc1221" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

mkjayakumar said:

Except that used Roadsters are selling at 150% the original price...but Roadsters are a different story.

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Huh? Used Roadsters in excellent condition are currently selling for $65-$85k (or nearly half the price new) from what I can tell. Biggest drawback is that the 3-year warranty on most of these is either up or nearly up, but Tesla is supposed to be providing an extended warranty option on them soon. If Roadsters start selling for less than $50k I'd be seriously tempted by one.

I do expect that the Model S will hold it's value better due to it's wider appeal, though.

I've done the borrow from the 401k thing. It can be all right. The only caveat I would give is that you should have ready credit available in case you change jobs and have to suddenly pay it off.

davewill said:

I've done the borrow from the 401k thing. It can be all right. The only caveat I would give is that you should have ready credit available in case you change jobs and have to suddenly pay it off.

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People, please take the 401k talk to another thread if you'd like to continue that discussion. Let's keep this one to Tesla Model S and related.

Dan Neil and his amusing tale of a lost bet:

Dan Neil said:

On or about May 1, 2009, Elon Musk, the Silicon Valley entrepreneur and CEO of the electric car maker Tesla Motors, fired off an angry email to me regarding a story I had written in the pages of my then-employer. I no longer have these emails, but as I recall, at issue was my public skepticism that a car such as the Model S could be built, within the technical specifications Mr. Musk laid out, before the end of 2012.

Mr. Musk then bet me $1 million that he would do it and, graciously acknowledging our rather different financial situations – he’s wealthy and I’m not – said the bet would be only $1,000 to me. In either case, he wrote, the winnings would go to the charity Doctors Without Borders. Seeing this as a rare opportunity to facilitate a $1 million donation to a worthy cause, I accepted.

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A couple of questions about the Model S:

1. How roomy is it compared to the Leaf?

2. Does the air suspension mike the ride less bumpy or is that just to improve handling?

gsleaf said:

1. How roomy is it compared to the Leaf?

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full specs can be located here for the Model S http://www.teslamotors.com/models/specs

gsleaf said:

2. Does the air suspension mike the ride less bumpy or is that just to improve handling?

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Both

I'll be riding along on two Model S test drives this weekend. Post your questions and I'll see if I can get them answered.

gsleaf said:

A couple of questions about the Model S:

1. How roomy is it compared to the Leaf?

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If we are discussing cargo volume with the rear seats not folded, the Model S have more than twice the capacity compared to the Leaf. Specifically 31.6 cu ft vs. 14.5 cu ft. So it's a LOT roomier for sure. Part of this comes from the 5.3 cu ft available in the "frunk", but the trunk is also much larger at 26.3 cu ft (vs. 14.5 for the Leaf which has no "frunk").

Mostly I'm concerned about how a taller person might fit in one. Is it okay for someone that is 6'4.

gsleaf said:

Mostly I'm concerned about how a taller person might fit in one. Is it okay for someone that is 6'4.

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I'd say yes. The guy who drove the car on my ride-along today has a long torso and he often has trouble finding cars with enough headroom. He was fine in the Tesla today. I'm going again tomorrow and I'll look for tall drivers to ask.

I'm 6'1'' and rode along in the back seat of a Tesla S today. I have somewhat of a long torso and my head was touching the ceiling the entire time. Awesome car though!

I was with Boomer23 for the Tesla test-drive in Hawthorne, CA today, Saturday. Quick data-dump from imperfect memory:

This is the location of the Tesla Design Studio. It is immediately adjacent to the Space-X facility.

They had about 1,000 test-drives scheduled at the Hawthorne location, using about 10 Tesla cars of various colors and equipment, including Signature, Performance, Regular, etc. There were enclosed vans to ferry the cars to the next test-drive venue.

The info below comes from a Tesla engineer group leader named Lars.

Whereas the LEAF battery pack is series-parallel, composed of 96 cell-pairs wired in series, the Tesla arrangement is reversed: parallel-serial. 14 modules, each containing enough cells in series to generate the full voltage of 400V or so, with the 14 modules in parallel. Temperature of each of the 14 modules is tracked and controlled independently.

The design intent, not guarantee, is for the temperature-controlled battery pack to lose no more than 30% capacity over 18 years. Compare that to the disappointing capacity decline being reported for LEAFs after just one year in warm climates.

There will be adapters to allow both the 85 kWh battery, and the 60 kWh battery, if equipped with the Super-Charger option, to charge from CHAdeMo or SAE Quick Chargers. The 40 kWh battery will not have support for DC through the Tesla charging port.

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The 17" console display is huge. Boomer pointed out, and Lars confirmed, that the use of Google Maps means you really need to be in cell-phone range to make full use of the GPS. This is a negative for me, because I would like to take my EV to nature type places. You can display Google Maps and the rear-camera view simultaneously. Or the other half of the display can page through your music library, surf the web, etc. There are no physical buttons. Phil and I are both worried that this display would be too distracting and hard to adjust while driving. This car really needs a co-pilot to operate the display.

The "Frunk" under the front hood is also huge. Since this is a rear-wheel drive, there does not seem to be much guts at all under the front hood. The door handles have little motors to pop out and in. Their operation looked a little frail to me, and probably expensive to replace.

At least from the back seat, the car seemed very quiet, accelerates effortlessly, handles well with very low center of gravity.
The seating is lower than the LEAF, but not intolerably so for me. The test-drive route included some freeway and a dedicated stretch of road where you could test the acceleration. There was even a real motor-cycle cop who pretended to give us a hard time.

They had full seat examples of all the full leather options, and small samples for the pseudo-leather materials. One car had the glass roof, but they were not letting anyone inside it to see how effective the tinting was. They had one car in the new non-signature red that will be available in the Fall. It looked nice. The blue and the green were much too dark for me. No chance to compare the regular sound system with the deluxe 7.1 upgrade.

All in all, probably a little too much car for me. I may need to wait for the mid-sized Tesla that follows the X-car.

Thanks very much to Bob for inviting me and Boomer23 to share his test-drive. It was a great gift for my birthday + 1 day. We also met several other LEAF friends there.

This is very good news and much more in line with the video of the stakeholders meeting that got posted vs everyone who chimed in and said there will be no adapter for CHAdeMO. It was just unfathomable to me that they'd lock their customers out of the growing chain of CHAdeMO fast chargers. I would love to go for a test drive, wonder how hard that would be to pull off while we are in CA this summer!

tbleakne said:

...
There will be adapters to allow both the 85 kWh battery, and the 60 kWh battery, if equipped with the Super-Charger option, to charge from CHAdeMo or SAE Quick Chargers. ...

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This isn't totally Model S related but I figured this is a decent place to post it.

Elon Musk was on The Gavin Newsom Show on Current TV. It looks like the segments are currently up on the front page of http://current.com/shows/the-gavin-newsom-show/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

I watched it on my TiVo.

BTW, regarding these test drives and ride alongs, are they still doing test drives for in the Bay Area for people who reserved? I haven't reserved but I wouldn't mind being a ride along if I could just go to my local Tesla store or to their Fremont plant...

GaslessInSeattle said:

This is very good news and much more in line with the video of the stakeholders meeting that got posted vs everyone who chimed in and said there will be no adapter for CHAdeMO. It was just unfathomable to me that they'd lock their customers out of the growing chain of CHAdeMO fast chargers. I would love to go for a test drive, wonder how hard that would be to pull off while we are in CA this summer!

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George, you were right to stick to your guns. I believe I said that the adapter likely won't be delivered to customers on June 22. I also found Elon too vague and non-committal to pin much hope to his statements. Apparently, I was wrong. If the adapters were coming, it would be a game changer. I have resurrected the relevant thread on the Tesla forum, you might want to consider joining that board.

Adrian said:

I'm 6'1'' and rode along in the back seat of a Tesla S today. I have somewhat of a long torso and my head was touching the ceiling the entire time. Awesome car though!

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No panoramic roof on that car then ? The panorama roof supposedly adds about 2" of headroom in the rear seat.

This link shows the test drive schedule, they are only allowing reservation holders on the test drives, for now, it will cost you a $5K refundable deposit... I have been emailing back and forth with a Tesla advisor. The New York test drive event is in 3 weeks.

http://www.teslamotors.com/own/testdrive" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

cwerdna said:

BTW, regarding these test drives and ride alongs, are they still doing test drives for in the Bay Area for people who reserved? I haven't reserved but I wouldn't mind being a ride along if I could just go to my local Tesla store or to their Fremont plant...

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I think the cars are all out now "on the tour". I think they are using the same cars for all of the GetAmped events, so there may not be any more test drive cars in the bay area at the moment. After the tour is done, I assume they will start getting ready to have test drive cars at the stores.

tbleakne said:

All in all, probably a little too much car for me. I may need to wait for the mid-sized Tesla that follows the X-car.

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Same situation for me. Thank goodness we have the LEAF to use in the mean time waiting for Tesla Gen3.