Had to be in Los Angeles Monday afternoon... decided to drive there in the morning from home in Saratoga, CA. Drove back that same night. Overall 745 miles in 18 hours. Only doable thanks to Supercharger network. 5 visits. Gilroy, Harris, Tejon, then on way home, an RV park for an hour on a N14-50, then Tejon and Harris SC's to home.
Car was great, and comfortable, for such a long extended drive. Got to learn lots about it during that time.
A few tidbits:
Napping while charging:
Other things noticed/discovered on a long trip:
Car was great, and comfortable, for such a long extended drive. Got to learn lots about it during that time.
A few tidbits:
Napping while charging:
if you're stuck at a SuperCharger late at night with little open/interesting around you (I'm looking at you Tejon and Harris!), it turns out you can have quite a comfortable nap in your S. (Pulled into Tejon with just 9(!) miles range left on way home arter tooling around L.A. and climbing back up the grade going north).
Instead of reclining the driver's seat to nap, try instead leaving the driver's seat upright and fold your rear seats down flat, and climb in the back. You can quite comfortably sleep in the flat space now created from the trunk to the back seats. Made me want to put a little air mattress and pillow back there... it's actually quite spacious (I'm ~5'10"). Control your audio choices via iphone bluetooth, and quite comfy and functional. Given the amount of storage space you can still have while preserving the trunk and back seat for resting (Frunk plus floor of rear seats), you could actually do a bit of "RV-ing" in your S if you really were so inclined. (Sun shade and privacy shade of some sort for rear windows and hatch and pano roof would be nice additions).
Instead of reclining the driver's seat to nap, try instead leaving the driver's seat upright and fold your rear seats down flat, and climb in the back. You can quite comfortably sleep in the flat space now created from the trunk to the back seats. Made me want to put a little air mattress and pillow back there... it's actually quite spacious (I'm ~5'10"). Control your audio choices via iphone bluetooth, and quite comfy and functional. Given the amount of storage space you can still have while preserving the trunk and back seat for resting (Frunk plus floor of rear seats), you could actually do a bit of "RV-ing" in your S if you really were so inclined. (Sun shade and privacy shade of some sort for rear windows and hatch and pano roof would be nice additions).
Other things noticed/discovered on a long trip:
- Seats are great, handling and basic road mannerisms are excellent even after a long drive.
- Long drives help you realize the car is NOT silent. There's a constant "hum" from the motor itself above 65 or 70mph coming from the back of the car that I only started noticing on long highway stretches. Becomes quite annoying/tiring. I think it could use more sound deadening around the motor itself. (problem familiar to us roadster owners)
- Cruise "nudge" lever has +1/-1 MPH level as well as +5/-5 levels. smart. (Yes, it's in the manual but never noticed it).
- Nav basics work fine, but as detailed elsewhere on the forum, needs a lot of features to bring it up to the standards of even a cheap aftermarket unit today. Hate that you can't do multi-destination journeys, no favorites, no alternate routes, no route preferences, etc.
Interestingly, you can now type "Tesla Supercharger" into Nav search bar and the system does accurately bring up exact locations of each of the stations.
- Dome lights are a pain to turn on via the touchscreen. But, turns out you can just push the lens on a desired dome light to turn it on or off (also detailed in manual but didn't see that either)
- Energy app is a must-have, always-on touchscreen app when you're on a long trip. learn a lot about what costs you power, what saves it, and how much those things matter or don't.
- There are a ridiculous number of TuneIn radio channels and programs... interesting, bizarre and everything in between But what a horrible interface... can go 9 levels of lists of topics (often redundant topics) and then an item "More Stations" that opens another arbitrary list of topics/stations, plus more "More Stations" buttons. Really needs a complete UI rethink.
- The browser (during recharge sessions!) is really terrible. Sorry, but it's true. You want to treat it like an iPad browser, but it's nowhere close. Not only is the 3G speed too slow, but the UI and basic browser functions make it really tough to use. ("back" button that always takes you to TOP of page, not to the scroll level you left off at, check-box items on web pages that are impossible to click, even if you zoom in, unresponsive/slow UI or processor so multitouch gestures are a gamble if they even register, no cut/copy/paste, no highlighting of text in address bar for retyping as in iOS, etc.)
- Audio sources can vary wildly and blast you or become inaudible when you switch. Switch from XM to iPhone's music app or Pandora via bluetooth CAREFULLY...
- Bad bug in the system: once you start charging, if you're choosing to stay in the car and rest/relax, you can't turn headlights on, off, or to "parking lights" setting if charging has started. UI changes, but the headlights stay in whatever mode they were in before you started charging. Doesn't impact you when leaving the vehicle while charging, as the "lock" function overrides the headlight setting-stickiness. But if you want to stay in the car and read or listen to music, but change the headlights setting, you're out of luck if you didn't think of doing it before you plugged in. Workaround - click your keyfob lock, then unlock, and you now have control over your headlights again via the touchscreen controls while staying in the car during charging.
- also detailed elsewhere: Superchargers work best on lower-half of your battery capacity... 300 miles of range per hour added at start, 250A draw, but drops to MUCH lower once battery is at ~75%. Frustrating as you're waiting to hit a certain capacity level before leaving and you watch the car start slowing down its draw.
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