A few years ago I wrote about my next car thoughts in Game changer, particularly whether a Tesla would be an appropriate replacement for the M5 we’d had for almost 14 years. In the end we went for a Jaguar XFR. A fabulous beast of a car - with 500bhp from its five litre supercharged V8 it sounded wonderful and went like stink.
I loved it but, being a confirmed petrolhead, would always wonder about the next car. I’d often end up on the Tesla configurator but always found a reason not to hit Buy.
Then the petrol crisis hit. We don’t drive a lot so I basically ignored it thinking our holiday would be unaffected. It was almost a month away after all. And if it came to it we could borrow my dad’s electric Mini (great fun - if you get a chance to sample one, grab it!). But it did make me wonder about a Tesla once more. New ones are still expensive. And. Hang on. What’s that quoted delivery date? The end of 2022?! Hmm. Let’s go looking for second hand ones. Hens’ teeth rare.
Long story short: we bought a second hand one. Big battery. Big oomph. Bigger money than I’d like but let’s skip over that…
Long story long: my dad and I went to a second hand dealer who had a couple of candidates. A test drive ensued. Dad is a rather more nervous passenger these days so I didn’t mash the pedal very often (a couple of 40-60 mph bursts shall we say) - this was more a case of reassuring myself it was the right choice.
On the drive home (in his e-Mini, no petrol concerns there!) dad confirmed what I’d thought: it doesn’t feel faster than the Jag. Indeed I later looked up the acceleration times and from 60-120mph the Jag is about a tenth of a second quicker. Meh, that is an irrelevance, especially at those I’m unlikely to do that anyway, honest gov speeds.
Slightly irritating that the car dealer said otherwise - ooh, no sir, I think you’ll find the Tesla is faster was the short version - it’s more nuanced than that. That sort of BS really puts me off people (and, BTW, one of the reasons I didn’t buy an AMG Merc five years ago was the stinky couldn’t give a sh*t attitude of the dealer).
What is relevant is the throttle response. There’s no doubt about it: the Jag is a properly rapid car. Put your foot down on the motorway, a brief wait for kickdown, and wallop you’re off like a rocket accompanied by that fabulous V8 roar and supercharger whine1. Getting it off the line is even more fun - an exercise in managing wheelspin despite the traction control2.
The throttle response in the Tesla is a different league though - it’s like always being in the right gear at optimum revs in an ICE car. Put your foot down and there’s zero waiting, you’re immediately off like a rocket. From low speeds the difference is stark - you’re launched down the road as if from an invisible massive catapult. With the roads getting ever more wintry there’s still a little scrabbling for grip3 but you’re thrown down the road at quite the rate.
I’ve seen the Tesla’s acceleration compared to that of a stabbed rat. Now I’ve never stabbed a rat but I can imagine such an animal would indeed sod off with fulsome rapidity. Unless it had been impaled too far. I guess, like all analogies, it breaks down under analysis … but the car is crazy quick - way faster from rest than the Jag. Four wheel drive helps there 
Our holiday went without a hitch - charging the car via a newly purchased monster extension lead worked just fine.
An entertaining evening with nearby friends was arranged and, naturally, I was happy to show off. There are many reaction videos on YouTube so I wasn’t surprised when I mashed the pedal and my passengers stopped speaking. Smiles on faces 
Internal organs rearranged
There have been a couple of inconveniences.
Initially we couldn’t charge the car in its garage. Instead the extension lead had to be trailed into the house. Bummer. Fortunately a pretty simple fix by a local spark - dodgy RCD replaced, home charging
The car also came with a CCS adapter (because I asked for it - the dealer paid for it, possibly because his profit margin was big enough as it was 
) which meant that I could charge at the charger at my local tube station. Easier than I thought it would be too - tap card to pay, plug in, do some shopping on the high street … done.
You can do a fair number of things via the Tesla App: check the car’s locked, its charge state, etc. I think you also need to associate your car with your account, via the app, before you can use superchargers.
To associate the car with your account in the app there are some simple instructions to follow to prove ownership of the car.
Theoretically trivial but, having followed the instructions, I repeatedly got connection problems on multiple occasions over multiple days. The internet agrees: lots of people have had the same problem.
Fortunately it’s relatively simple to fix: email Tesla service with proof of ownership and they’ll do the rest. It took a few days but … job done.
The other thing you do via the app is arrange servicing.
Unfortunately it’s something I needed as soon as the car had been delivered: the rear pop-out cup holders didn’t pop out #first_world_problem. The dealer said it’d be fixed under warranty so just call Tesla. Not ideal that the customer (me!) has to sort out stuff like this but once the car was with me I didn’t want to let it go… More connection problem reports in the app the first few times I tried but it worked the following day so meh 
Within a few seconds of successfully booking the service I got an SMS saying a Tesla tech would come and see me - yep, it’s a mobile service so super convenient. They’d come to my address in Staten Island, New York at the time allotted. Wait, what? With all its technical wizardry the Tesla machine can’t cope with my UK address #wtf
I responded to Tesla’s SMS thinking this won’t work 
Well blow me but it did - they also couldn’t correct their system 
but the tech showed up in the service window (having called on the day to apologise profusely he wouldn’t be with me at the start of said window) and sorted it out all under warranty.
Tesla gets a lot of stick for its (lack of) quality control4.
They should also get some stick about the reliability of their app but from this very limited experience the service has been somewhat better than I’ve seen from previous car dealers (I’m looking at you BMW, TVR, VW)5…
The app could do with some SRE love! Especially after this!
My car has enhanced autopilot but not full self driving which basically means it can drive itself on the motorway but can’t handle traffic lights or roundabouts. Like I’d trust it to do that anyway.
I’ve played with it a bit and I love the adaptive cruise control but mainly because it makes traffic jams so much simpler.
I’ve never had adaptive cruise before, just plain set it and forget it cruise control which is of limited use on the UK’s congested motorways. Plenty of other cars on the market have adaptive cruise - they’ll slow down / speed up according to the car in front.
But one which will stop and start the car is less common (unique?).
For the majority of my life I thought self-driving cars were purely in the realm of science fiction. Now they’re not. Well, not quite. Maybe.
I’ve played with it a bit but you have to keep your hands on the wheel, or rub it in just the right place every few seconds, so although it does work well enough on dual carriageways, etc. I don’t think I’ll use it that often. Maybe for traffic jams.
I certainly won’t use it for local roads6 … though to be fair the Tesla service chap said they only recommend using autopilot on roads with a central reservation. I’ve not used it much so take this with a pinch of salt but I’ve had a couple of instances of phantom braking and the collision detection warning is a tad over-sensitive. Let’s see how much use it gets after some longer trips!
Eventually the summon feature will allow the car to drive itself to you, say from a parking spot when it’s peeing with rain. I’ve seen a couple of YouTube videos where it does just that … in the US. We’re not there yet.
There was a Bond film a few years ago where he could control his car via a touchscreen type remote control thingy. Summon isn’t like that either.
It’s more: choose to go forwards or backwards via the app with no-one in the car. Theoretically very cool. I’ve tried it a handful of times and it’s worked … once. Perhaps because of dodgy mobile coverage. Perhaps because other things are too close. Or I’ve been too far away. Or the key has been too far away. Whatever, I can’t see it actually being helpful at any point. Cool trick if it works, embarassing failure if it doesn’t :shrug:
A bugbear of mine is people with permabrake lights - red lights seering like an over-enthusiastic lighthouse in an adult district into the eyeballs of the unlucky folks behind.
The Tesla doesn’t have a traditional handbrake as such. There’s a parking brake but that’s really meant for when you’ve finished your journey - the interior lights come on when it’s engaged.
There’s also a hold brake - push on the brake pedal when at a standstill and it engages. Fantastically convenient but it keeps the brake lights on. For the love of God WHY7?
At least make it an option to not have brake lights on please Your Muskness! Lights = I’m here. Brake lights = I’m slowing down. Fog lights = I’M HERE.
The longest journey we’ve done was about 165 miles so I topped the battery off to 100% a couple of days before we set off. The rated range for the battery is 370 miles. Ignore it completely. The guess-o-meter range is more like 295 miles - I think it guesses, sorry estimates, based on the last 30 miles8 usage.
My thinking before getting the car went along these lines… I’m not saying I wear lead boots but I have occasionally been accused of exploring the edges of a cars’ performance so that may go some way to explaining the lack of range I get. And that it’s been cold since I’ve had it and it’s mostly driven at night (lights take power too!) … I suppose as long as I get 200 miles out of it - by which I mean 200 miles from fully charged down to 20% left ready for (super)charging goodness - I’ll be happy enough.
Aftr our ~165 mostly-motorway mile journey we had about 90 miles of guess-o-meter range. Which from our calculations meant about 50-60 miles. But you don’t really want to drain the battery to 0%. In fact really don’t do this. Apparently it may require a new battery pack! So perhaps a comfortable 30 miles left.
The real test will be a ~270 mile journey for the summer holiday. One or two superchargers, sir?
However, Elon, that doesn’t mean no-one needs 500 miles of range.
More range = more options
I like options. Like the option to use the ludicrous acceleration whenever I want rather than having to consider range. That’s one thing my ICE cars had over the Tesla - I virtually never thought about range when considering whether a bootful of go pedal was appropriate9.
Ah, I can’t help but think of the next car even now. A Plaid is what a lunatic would have10. So I’ll have one of those … but can I have it without the silly yoke and with proper control stalks (from the factory not as an aftermarket fix) please? Oh and cut the price somewhat. Pretty please?
1. It’s a subtle whine, certainly more so than my old Impreza’s turbo.↩
2. The Jag’s TC was always more playful than the M5’s but an early swap to Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tyres helped tremendously: the OEM Dunlop’s just didn’t cut the mustard.↩
3. When the tread eventually wears, I reckon I’ll replace them with Michelin Pilot Sport 4S as I’ve always had good results with them.↩
4. e.g. I’ve recently been told my car may have the frunk latch problem that’s the subject of a recall. No home visit offered for that … super-inconvenient!↩
5. To be fair the experience with Jaguar was mostly reasonable: free pick up and drop off service for the car meant servicing was pretty easy. Getting hold of servicing in the first place was much harder. And mistakes weren’t uncommon…↩
6. There’s a bend near me with a tree at the apex. I’m pretty sure the car would’ve driven straight into it had I not intervened ↩
7. Don’t say safety. Sitting with handbrake on in a traditional car, with rear lights on if it’s dark, is plenty visible enough. We don’t need to be blinded by everyone’s brake lights. If you insist on saying you want it to be more visible consider what it’d be like if everyone had fog lights and main beam on at all times…↩
8. This is configurable, IIRC you can choose the last 5, 10 or 30 miles.↩
9. And it was almost always appropriate 
↩
10. 0-120 in six seconds. Oh wow, I want one. I’ll never use that performance but I want it. 500 miles of real range would be nice too, which I guess means about 1,000 miles rated ↩