They're a family just up the street from us that I met at the community centre. Here's their story.
She wanted a Tesla ever since she had read about Elon Musk. You could say she was a huge fan and follower. She knew she wanted a Tesla even though she had never owned a new car before. Leaha put her $1000 down on the car even before it officially launched, as Tesla had opened it up for reservations before the public launch event.
They’ve had it since end October 2018. They were originally given a car with a white interior, which they did not like, so they switched for a black interior.
On really cold days the car loses between 20 and 30 km of range overnight.
They’ve been using the “Plugshare“ app to find charging stations, including non-Tesla ones.
She did not get the auto-pilot option. She didn’t really have full trust in it and if she were ever to change her mind in the future, you can add the ability later, because the hardware is already there.
She was shocked at how inexpensive the insurance was for an $80,000 car (under $1000 for the year for full coverage). She made the insurance company recheck a few times to make sure that the premium was correct. This may have a lot to do with all the safety features and the car’s crash safety test results.
Her husband has driven the car, and he likes it a lot. He didn’t really pay much attention to Leaha’s excitement and interest in the car before it was purchased, but he sure came around after he saw what it was all about. Although he would rather drive it than his car, Leaha made it clear that it’s her car.
Her biggest complaint about the car is how easy it is to get pea gravel into the brakes, which is quite irritating to listen to. The service centre easily removed the little rock(s) and even showed them how they could do that themselves.
Since I knew that it’s a thing among Tesla owners to name their cars, I asked if Leaha had named hers. She named it Shelley, after Sheldon Cooper from Big Bang Theory.
So far the only defect has been a known rear window defrost wire issue that cracked the glass, which was fixed under warranty.
Leaha agreed to take me out for a drive in the car one night and at one point, I was offered the driver’s seat so I could drive it myself. I wasn’t sure that would happen considering that she didn’t even let any of her kids drive it yet.
First off, the silence of the car is very unusual. There’s just no sound at all, save for maybe some noise coming from the climate control fans.
Another big thing that takes getting used to is the absence of anything lit up directly in front of you in the cockpit. No ambient lights. No gauges behind the steering wheel. Everything is happening on the screen to the immediate right of the steering wheel.
The accelerator pedal hides a beast. This car has a lot of power and torque, which I did not get to experience completely with the owner sitting beside me. But you could tell by how much force was needed to drive normally that there was a lot of reserve power just waiting to be summoned. A person with very little foot control would have a bad time with this car. Or a good time, depending on how you look at it.
Their car was set up with standard regenerative braking, which immediately starts slowing the car down without using the brake pedal. It allows for what’s known in electric car circles as “one pedal driving”. It takes a little getting used to, because if you let go of the accelerator pedal at the same point you would have done it with a gas car, you’ll slow to a stop long before you probably wanted to. So basically, you keep your foot on the pedal as long as you want to keep going and you ease off to slow down and ease off more to stop.
No comments:
Post a Comment