TESLA Model S

[blayze]

I recently read Elon Musk's unofficial bio.

For those who don't know him, Elon Musk is probably the most influential technology person on the planet, having founded Paypal, Zip2, SpaceX and Tesla. He's the majority shareholder and CEO of both SpaceX and Tesla (and runs both companies at the same time). Elon's grand vision is to develop the technology that will ultimately enable man to colonize on Mars and beyond as a means of sustaining and advancing the human race. His story is fascinating and inspiring.

Anyway, after reading the book, I've become absolutely infatuated with the Tesla Model S. I've always admired the car from a technological and aesthetic standpoint, but having read the story, and visited a dealer to test drive it, I am beginning to seriously consider purchasing one. It is truly an impressive technological achievement... literally nothing was compromised in it's design and engineering... performance (0-60 in 4 seconds), looks, storage, seating, quality of the interior, technology.

Just wanted to see if any of the engineers, car enthusiasts, or techies on this forum have any experience or thoughts about the automobile.

Here's a pic of the beauty:

[rangerfan2430]

Cool. If you buy one, you have to let me know how it is. I'm a huge Elon Musk fan and think the Model S is a great car (but I've never driven one before)

[PenguinHunter]

Over the loud speaker at the game.... ' Would the owner of the Tesla Model S please....Let me sit in it?' haha... funny commercial.

[The Comish]

Just wanted to see if any of the engineers, car enthusiasts, or techies on this forum have any experience or thoughts about the automobile.

Electric cars have no soul. I say that as a performance car enthusiast. I don't care how fast it is, if it doesn't have any sound coming from the engine, it has no soul. Plus, how long does the battery last during a Canadian winter? I think for many places, electric cars are perfect - like big cities where you don't actually drive that many miles or are stuck in traffic for hours during your commutes.

[Big Ev]

I would buy one if I had 100k lying around

[Loch]

There's about 5 (maybe more) of them rolling around Victoria at the moment... yeah I'd totally give it a whirl if I had a spare 100k too...

Note to other electric car makers: it is okay to make you car look sexy. This whole 'weird pod on wheels' thing is just strange (BMW, Nissan, Mitsubishi... I'm looking at all of you).

[blayze]

Over the loud speaker at the game.... ' Would the owner of the Tesla Model S please....Let me sit in it?' haha... funny commercial.

Haha that's awesome... never heard that in Toronto, must be an American ad.

Electric cars have no soul. I say that as a performance car enthusiast. I don't care how fast it is, if it doesn't have any sound coming from the engine, it has no soul. Plus, how long does the battery last during a Canadian winter? I think for many places, electric cars are perfect - like big cities where you don't actually drive that many miles or are stuck in traffic for hours during your commutes.

I had the same concern (about winter driving, couldn't care less about the engine noise), and after some investigation online and with a colleague who owns one, I was surprised to find that it's actually an awesome winter driver. The range does get reduced slightly when it's super cold (ie: -20C), but not by much... and it only has a big impact if you're doing a lot of short-haul trips that require the battery to constantly heat up and cool down. In the deep winter, you can expect about 250-350km on a full charge depending on whether it's a bunch of short haul trips, or long haul.

What makes it an awesome winter car however, is the fact that you can heat up your car remotely from anywhere using a phone app, and it heats up very quickly too. One of the things I hate most about winter driving is sitting in your car freezing for those first couple of minutes while the engine heats up, and then the 10 minute wait for the heat to begin circulating. With a Tesla, I can literally begin heating up the car in the middle of a meeting as we're wrapping up.

If you're curious at all, here's my buddy's blog talking about his first winter experience with his Tesla.
http://chrisumiastowski.com/heres-wh...ive-ever-owned

Another awesome thing is even for long haul trips, Tesla has built a supercharger highway network stretching across North America, Europe and parts of Asia with stations located every 100-150km around major cities where you can recharge for free. The furthest that I typically drive would be to Blue Mountain in Collingwood to snowboard on the weekends. Even though I should easily be able to get there and back on a charge, if I needed to, I could just stop in Barrie where there's a Tesla charging station to get topped up in 20 minutes while I drink a coffee.

Ugh... I'm starting to sound like a walking Tesla ad... I hate that

Note to other electric car makers: it is okay to make you car look sexy. This whole 'weird pod on wheels' thing is just strange (BMW, Nissan, Mitsubishi... I'm looking at all of you).

People generally think that traditional car manufacturers just have really poor design taste when it comes to cars, but the actual reason they can't build a sexy looking electric car (they have tons of sexy looking non-electric cars) is because their design and manufacturing process is reliant on thousands of manufacturers of different parts to build a complete an automobile. That's just how their design and engineering have been set up over the course of the past several decades, so all their infrastucture, plants and processes are designed to build cars in a specific way. As a result of this, they have almost no flexibility on certain design parameters because something as simple as changing a switch would have to be approved by dozens of different third party vendors, suppliers, programmers, all the way down the design and production chain. It's crippling really...

Tesla has the advantage of being a new company so it was in a position to make the decision from the onset that it would control almost all of the manufacturing in-house and not rely on a vendor/supplier model for production. They design and manufacture over 90% of the components of the car... this gives them unlimited flexibility to design, and refine things in whatever way they prefer, without having to rely on outside vendors to cooperate. Naturally, this advantage will diminish over time as volume grows and Tesla will have no choice but to outsource more of the production, but for the time being, it gives them a huge advantage.

[PenguinHunter]

Haha that's awesome... never heard that in Toronto, must be an American ad.

No, its a Canadian ad... its newer. I heard it on one of the two radio stations I listen to at work... Either Sportsnet 590 The Fan (Toronto) or TSN 1290 (Winnipeg)

[Pengwin7]

Everything I've heard & read about it is that this vehicle is the the greatest car of our generation.
(not kidding)

I mean... ConsumerReports gives this vehicle a 99/100.
I can't even...

The only downfall, IMO, is that if you buy the perfect car... you become like buddy from Fight Club - you'd be infatuated with your possession.
The car would own you.
It would dominate your life... worrying about your... car.
Do you drive it? You could ding it? Somebody could scratch it? When you public park it - it's gonna get rubbed?
Or you don't drive it and keep it pristine... except, then you aren't really enjoying this marvelous thing...
What to do?

Constant worry/internal-debate.
That's not life.

If one plans to have a serious girlfriend or wife... you can't have this car.
If the only person in your life is you... then hell yeah, buy it man!!!

[PenguinHunter]

If one plans to have a serious girlfriend or wife... you can't have this car.
If the only person in your life is you... then hell yeah, buy it man!!!

What are you implying here? Are you saying that girlfriends and wife's cost a lot? haha

[Loch]

What are you implying here? Are you saying that girlfriends and wife's cost a lot? haha

They do, but I have a discount code for russianmailorderbrides.com if anyone is interested.

[rangerfan2430]

They do, but I have a discount code for russianmailorderbrides.com if anyone is interested.

I got a great deal last week during the buy 2 get 1 free sale

[2014olympicgold]

Tesla is a ridiculous company. You should see the SUV they came out with this yr. It was the backup beep system thing when you get close to something, but munsk didn't like the look of the discs on the bumper so Tesla invented special sensors that can go through the bumper. That's insane to reinvent something based on looks.

With electric cars and hybrids they have speakers now where it has a bit of an exhaust sound so people walking on the streets can here them coming. So I would say this car would have a bit of a performance sound to it.

The city I'm in has about 8. It's such a good looking car.

Seriously look at the SUV one, its more ridiculous than the model s

[PatyOFurniture]

Took a test drive here in victoria in one during a demo day

the acceleration is ridiculous!
the dashboard screen is very cool
and I like how there is no huge transmission tunnel running down the car.
I'd buy one if i had the cake.

[blayze]

After further research I've come to the sobering conclusion that unfortunately I won't be getting a Tesla after all... simply because I live in a condo.

I feel kind of silly for not having realized this earlier, but condo parking lots aren't equipped to install the chargers required. There have been instances where some owners have made it happen, but it would take a long, protracted battle with the homeowners association to get it approved, and then it would cost an arm and a leg to hire engineers and construction workers to make it happen.

Sigh... this was the first car that I was ever truly excited about owning (I'm very utilitarian when it comes to transportation). I'll have to wait until I buy a house. By then, I bet electric cars will be more mainstream... the technology will be even better, economies of scale will bring costs down, and there will be more infrastructure to support them (ie: charging stations).

Tesla is actually producing the "Model III" as we speak, which will be their mainstream version of the Model S... it will compete with the BMW 3 Series and Mercedes C-Class and is expected to cost $35,000 (so more realistically ~$40-45k when it's finally built). By that time (I'm guessing 2017-18) and around that price point, with a vastly expanded supercharger highway in place across the world, we could potentially see electric cars posing a real threat to gas/diesel. Exciting times ahead.