Anyone bought a Tesla Model S or planning to?? (San Diego: how much, homes)

[earlyretirement]

Hey SheblyGirl. Yeah, I've read several reviews online. I was just more or less interested in people in our weather what kind of results they are getting here. I'm NOT the road trip type of person. I'd much rather fly vs. drive. But out and about every day around here.

Much of the stuff online however seems to be from people that absolutely love them or people that absolutely hate them or biased in some way. Heck, even the New York Times review seems to have been doctored up a bit. I'm no fan of Elon Musk and even have friends that personally know him. The stories they tell me don't paint him in the greatest light. But one thing they do say is he is incredibly intelligent.

After reading his blog - A Most Peculiar Test Drive | Blog | Tesla Motors

It sounds like this guy at the NYT does have some explaining to do. And some blogs already are working to justify some of it - http://www.theatlanticwire.com/techn...-fakery/62149/


And other places like Top Gear have gotten busted lying about Tesla performance.

But that's the thing.... read some of the comments and it seems like you have half the crowd that absolutely HATES Tesla and have that LOVE it. People seem to be so strong on either side.

I agree with you probably now is not the time to buy one and wait a year or so. As far as the too quiet, I wouldn't mind that! This is my first time owning a diesel car. Pleasantly surprised at how great the mileage is. I get about 22 MPG in the city. Not bad for a 6,000 SUV!

80 miles is far from 200 though. That's more of the type of thing I'd love to hear from those in San Diego that have one. So much biased stuff online. Thanks for the link to that other thread... I already posted to it. Hopefully I get lucky and someone from San Diego that owns one will read it.

[sfosyd]

This is my dream car but not appropriate for NYC.

One of the coolest things about the vehicle is that Tesla releases new software updates that add new functionality. I'm a geek and I love when Apple/Google release new software updates for my phones. I check all the new functionality religiously and test it out. How cool and fun when a Tesla update adds more range (a recent update) or voice control (the update before that). There is a huge screen in the vehicle and a full browser. Cool stuff.

There is a long waiting list so if if you want one next year better get on it now. I can't imagine a better place to have one than SD!

[earlyretirement]

Yeah sfosyd. I agree with you that NYC wouldn't be the ideal city to own one. I agree with you about the cool software releases (ok, ok the ipad update that deleted Google Maps wasn't that great...LOL).

Yeah, I knew about the waiting list. You only have to put a few grand down to order one. Like you said, I can't imagine it getting much better than San Diego to own one. Surprisingly I've only seen like 1 or 2 so far driving around here.

[Think4Yourself]

I've seen three of them on the freeways. They look very nice and I hear they won Motor Trend's car of the year award.

[e30is]

Originally Posted by tonyinsd

My sister has a Tesla. And she drives it in Alaska.

So if it works for her there, I can't imagine it would be a problem here.

Tesla's best selling market is actually in N. Europe/Scandinavia.

The only problem with these cars is the range, electric infrastructure and the batteries. Batteries are a stop gap so they won't really be around for too long. But I know many jurisdictions are adding car chargers in many of their car parks.

[earlyretirement]

CNN's reporter didn't have any problems at all.

Test drive: DC to Boston in a Tesla Model S - Feb. 15, 2013

As far as the range, that part wouldn't bother me too much here in San Diego. If I got one, I'd go with the top of the line battery, which would be more than enough for me for around San Diego.

[tonyinsd]

So if their best selling market is in cold weather places, having one here should be a dream.

My sister was having her husband build a garage with a solar roof to help her charge the vehicle. I don't know how far along that got.

I emailed her to see how she likes the car. I'll let you know when she gets back to me. But she got it a few years ago, and if she's still driving it around, she must like it.

[sschibuola]

In terms of the weather issue . . . and again my experience is based on driving the Mini E which is obviously a different electric car but same type of batteries . . . the Mini E's stated range was 100 miles and I usually got somewhere close to that.

The few cold days we had . . . starting off an early-morning commute at say 35 . . . that number would drop by 10%.

Obviously not reported in a Times article written in February in the NE - but heat was actually worse. On the few +100 days we had that year . . . range would drop off by 20%

And, yes, if you are a lead-foot, you can drain the battery in absolutely no time. But with so much torque on tap, you really don't need to put the pedal to the aluminum to glide by most traffic. And you soon learn to "ride" the regenerative braking and can significantly extend your range that way. I remember one particularly spirited run up and back on the Ortega Highway, which climbs pretty continuously up from San Juan Cap. I had a lot of fun . . . and I conservatively turned around at the 50% mark in range. On the return downhill run, with all that regenerative braking, my range went UP to 70%!

[earlyretirement]

Fortunately here we don't have to worry much about 100 degree days either.

I just requested a test drive. And I do plan on lead-footing it if I get one. I'm not too worried about the range.

Ironically this negative article in the NYT seriously got me looking at it. I was thinking about it but didn't really spend too much time thinking about it until I went through all these blogs and comments from all these articles.

[e30is]

Originally Posted by earlyretirement

Fortunately here we don't have to worry much about 100 degree days either.

I just requested a test drive. And I do plan on lead-footing it if I get one. I'm not too worried about the range.

Ironically this negative article in the NYT seriously got me looking at it. I was thinking about it but didn't really spend too much time thinking about it until I went through all these blogs and comments from all these articles.

Actually:
A Most Peculiar Test Drive | Blog | Tesla Motors

Long story short, NYT did not follow proper charging and/or operating instructions and thus releases a factually inaccurate statement about Tesla.