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Todd Burch's Delivery (S)tory

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The truck rolled up at 3:30 today. Driver (Bill) was a very nice guy. Other than my car, he had another Model S due for delivery in Asheville, NC tomorrow and a Bentley going--well--who cares :).

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Is that her?

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Model S on top, Bentley on bottom.

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Come to papa...

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There she is!

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All wrapped up. The steering wheel looks like it just came out of surgery :).

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Shaking Bill, the truck driver's hand.

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I love a beautiful looking woman from the rear :).

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Do I look happy?!?

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Posing by the car...

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...and again...

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...like the old Toyota commercials from the 80s...

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...and again.

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I have a 2 car garage, but the doors are 1-car each. Will it fit? (Did I measure correctly? Were the specs correct on the TM website?)

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It fit, but with small enough clearance that I'll be easing slowly into the garage each time I park it!

OK, so here are all the (un)interesting bits:

Config: 85 non-perf, dolphin gray, black leather, piano black trim, tech pkg, pano roof, sound studio, 19" wheels.
Res #: P1577
VIN: P01653
Reserved: January, 2010
Wait time: 1,075 days (a smidge over 1.5 million minutes)...
Delivery windows: Original (Nov), then December 7-21, then Saturday or Sunday, and finally Sunday or Monday. When Monday afternoon (New Years Eve) rolled around I was getting REALLY nervous...but the truck driver called soon after noon and said he would arrive in a few hours!

Car arrived with 27 miles on the odometer, ~169 miles of battery. Interestingly, it was in Max Range mode when it arrived. Upon reaching full charge, I had 241 rated miles in standard mode.

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Took friends and family for a few rides, including flooring it. Interesting to note how dramatically different both the regen and power output is reduced when the battery's cold. When I test drove the Model S, the regen didn't seem strong enough. Today, once the pack was warmed up, I was able to drive all over the place without touching the brakes. Loved it!

For some reason, the protective plastic on the touchscreen had a sticker on it that read "DO NOT USE Slacker, Maps, or Tune-In Radio". See the pic below. Anyone have any idea what that's about?
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I haven't had much time with the car yet. About 30 miles of driving (most in the dark) and about an hour of hectic daylight, so I will post more when I have more info. But here are my initial observations and grades:

Delivery Experience: D-. I understand most of this is related to the rampup and big Q4 push, but I'm sharing my experience. I'm sure it will get better.

A total of 3 delivery windows were missed: Original date of Nov, Delivery window of Dec. 7-21, verbal delivery date of Saturday or Sunday, and finally the last window (Sunday/Monday) was met. My car sat in Fremont ready for shipment much longer than it should have. Reservation holders in my geographic area and who reserved well after I did received their cars before me, leaving me feeling a bit shafted. Not a big deal in the whole scheme of things though.

I didn't get a call from the truck driver until about 3 hours before the truck arrived. That would've been a serious PITA if I was working today and had a meeting or something similar. 24 hours should be the minimum required notice. My DS was not involved since I was a direct ship.

While I understand the reasons for most of this, it still resulted in a lackluster delivery experience. The experience for my $15K Saturn was better. Of course, this car is WAY better...so what I'm saying is--once the car's here, the "delivery experience" ain't all that important ;).

Exterior Cleanliness: A-. Car looked great, although it didn't look to be as well-cleaned as it should have been. Tires looked good. The front-left vent window (triangular window near the base of the driver's door) had a smudgy coating on it. Perhaps they forgot to wipe that window off when cleaning?

Exterior fit and finish: A-. Gaps weren't as tight as they could have been, and there were a few minor flush issues (perhaps I'll post pics in the daylight :), but overall they were minor enough that they didn't bother me. Gaps looked fairly even. You'd really have to be inspecting gap and flush to notice the issues. I'm one of the earlier cars in a new factory. I understand and am accepting of that. (Frankly, I'm not that anal about it anyway).

Exterior Functionality: Not going to give a grade yet, because I don't know the car well enough.

-The door handles performed absolutely flawlessly. The auto-extending functionality works perfectly. My car is set to power down when I walk away, and the wakeup time is fast enough that I can sit and drive without waiting.

-Sometimes it felt like I had to double-click or single-click the fob to unlock the car or open the frunk a few more times than I should have. But this could very well be just me getting used to the car.

-Automatic hatch worked great. Frunk/trunk and door latches/window dropdown work great. However, as others have seen on their cars, there were a few people having trouble getting the passenger door closed. (I think it's fine, but it does require just a bit more effort than the driver's door). I'll see if it can be adjusted, but if not it's not a big deal to me.

-I can't seem to get my fog lights to go on. Maybe they only go on while moving forward in drive? I'll explore more tomorrow.

-When I turn on the parking lights, my side-lights (turn indicators) don't go on. I thought they were supposed to, according to the manual? (I know the lights work, because I can see them when using the turn signals).

-Headlights/brights, taillights, and the brake light bar at the top of the rear hatch (can't remember the acronym right now--tired and a little drunk on champagne!) all are fine.

-I even think the "door thud" sounds solid.

Interior Cleanliness: A-. There seemed to be a lot of grass pieces/grit on the floor, but there were floor protectors so it's not a big deal. In the frubby (the cubby in the frunk), there are some smudges on the uncarpeted walls. I need to inspect further in the morning to see if any of it can't be worked out.

Interior fit and finish: A+. From what I could see in my 30 miles of driving and the hour or so of daylight before the sun went down, the interior is extremely solid, and fit/finish is excellent. Great new car smell :). Feels very luxurious inside. No rattles at all. The car is rock solid,

Interior Functionality: Again, I'll leave this grade off for now.

-Delivered software was 4.0, but 4.1 (1.19.31) was waiting for me. I installed it after driving this evening. No issues with the install.

-I haven't seen any odd messages at all.

-I have the pano roof issue, as most do. Requires several swipes to open. Pain. Next software update should have this fixed, I assume.

-No rattles when driving. The car is rock solid, and drives like a friggin' dream. I had zero bluetooth issues pairing up my iPhone 3GS (yes, I'm getting a new phone soon) or my wife's iPhone 4. The trick is to have the car search for the phone right after you make the iPhone discoverable.

-The climate control seems plenty strong. Heat, seat warmers all work well...at least for me. Haven't had a weather situation where heavy fogging is likely yet. No extreme weather yet either, so will hold off on conclusions with this.

-My leather is tight. I'm very happy with it--no wrinkles. No issues with B-pillar wear yet :).

-As a few others have reported, the temperature on the touchscreen is wonky. I had the car thermally soaked in my uninsulated garage (about 50-55 deg F, and the car was reporting 75 deg F. I was charging @ 240V, 40A at the time, so wonder if the sensor is near a hardware component that gets warm? Either way, this needs to be fixed. Could have something to do with the wonky climate control some are reporting (wherein they have to set the temperature quite high to get warm air).

-I had zero issues with crashing or software funkiness.

-3G connection in the car is better than my phone. I can get a signal in my garage (1 bar) whereas with my phone, I get no signal outside. Pleased for this, but I need Wi-Fi connectivity for decent datarates.

-Radio reception seems very good to me at this point in the game.

-Haven't tested voice recognition or navigation yet.

Charging:
Plugged into the 240V 50A NEMA 14-50 circuit I installed, I was pleased to see the car charge normally. I was unable to exceed 22 mi/hr of charge, however, even with the battery at about 60% full. The car was reporting 239 or 240V at 40A. Something tells me the 31 mi/hr is a rare charging rate, and one I won't get in my garage.

I know this is just a blabbering of random stuff, but hope some will find something in here useful or interesting. I'll post more when I've had more time to cuddle with the car :).

Overall: Holy s@&t, this really is the future of driving. I will NEVER go back to an ICE again. Ever.

Suggestion: Keep working on the software, Tesla. Media browsing (such as looking through songs on a USB drive) needs search functionality, needs to display album artwork stored with the song, and needs to show metadata (album, artist, etc.) I'm sure all of this will come with updates.

Oh, and playlist support is badly needed!

One more thing to note: Sound system is pretty good, but there is a slight rattle at heavy bass levels. Could use a tad more woof, but overall very nice. I'm happy.
 
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Charging:
Plugged into the 240V 50A NEMA 14-50 circuit I installed, I was pleased to see the car charge normally. I was unable to exceed 22 mi/hr of charge, however, even with the battery at about 60% full. The car was reporting 239 or 240V at 40A. Something tells me the 31 mi/hr is a rare charging rate, and one I won't get in my garage.

There is something incorrect in the current software display as it relates to this miles per hour of charge display. If you do the calculations by hand, you'll find that the car displays time to full charge correctly (e.g., plug your car in with 180 rated miles left and it will tell you 2 hours to charge -- or 30 miles per hour of charge).

Funny enough, if you set the mileage mode to "ideal" vs. "rated", it will show the correct number. My guess is that they established the baseline in the wrong mode and then applied the divisor/multiplier to the wrong number.

Don't worry, you're actually seeing 30 rated miles per hour of charge -- at least I have been.
 
I had the same sticker. I've asked my DS for an explanation and will let you know if I get an answer before you do.

I wonder if the "DO NOT USE" sticker is an instruction for the car prep/delivery folks so that an owner doesn't have a history of slacker/maps/radio when the car arrives? It's a very strange sticker for an owner to get - clearly a high quality sticker meant for many cars. If that's the case, there should be an "Tesla owner: Please remove this sticker and enjoy!" on the bottom of it!

Congrats Todd! Hopefully I'll get to post my photos within a few days!
 
Todd,

Great post. Please post another detailed review after your second full day with the car. Very informative. I am in NoVa and am a P78** number with no VIN yet. Based on all of the intelligence out there, I do not really expect my car by the end of January, but it could possible happen. Not really on the edge of my seat or upset that others with higher reservation numbers are receiving their cars because I know many like yourself had to wait longer than they should have. I am using my time to become fully informed with new owner experiences and the one you posted was fantastic. Keep the information coming!!

Larry (Oakton, VA)
 
That was exactly my thought...Those three things all save previous selections, so they probably just want to ensure that the owner gets a "fresh" empty list.

I wonder if the "DO NOT USE" sticker is an instruction for the car prep/delivery folks so that an owner doesn't have a history of slacker/maps/radio when the car arrives? It's a very strange sticker for an owner to get - clearly a high quality sticker meant for many cars. If that's the case, there should be an "Tesla owner: Please remove this sticker and enjoy!" on the bottom of it!
 
That was exactly my thought...Those three things all save previous selections, so they probably just want to ensure that the owner gets a "fresh" empty list.

Ah, that makes sense. That sticker should come off before delivery...or should be crossed out :).

- - - Updated - - -

CHMSL: Center High Mounted Stop Lamps

Lovely acronym ;-)

Haha thanks...that's the one!

- - - Updated - - -

What was the total time, from the factory to your house?

Car left Fremont on Thursday, Dec. 20. So 11 days. That includes the holidays, so not too bad.

- - - Updated - - -

There is something incorrect in the current software display as it relates to this miles per hour of charge display. If you do the calculations by hand, you'll find that the car displays time to full charge correctly (e.g., plug your car in with 180 rated miles left and it will tell you 2 hours to charge -- or 30 miles per hour of range.

ah, yes, that makes sense. It seemed to charge up quicker than it was indicating, so...

- - - Updated - - -

Congrats!

Love your jeans.

Haha thanks! Fashion is not my strongpoint :).

- - - Updated - - -

Thanks all. I'll report more after today. Need to vacuum the inside, lay down floor mats, do a detailed inspection, and...DRIVE!
 
I wonder if the "DO NOT USE" sticker is an instruction for the car prep/delivery folks so that an owner doesn't have a history of slacker/maps/radio when the car arrives? It's a very strange sticker for an owner to get - clearly a high quality sticker meant for many cars. If that's the case, there should be an "Tesla owner: Please remove this sticker and enjoy!" on the bottom of it!
I think you are correct. Here is a response posted today on the Tesla forum:

"Mine had this same sticker. I was told it was for Tesla employees to let the know the radio has been configured. Was told I can remove it."
 
Hi Todd

This is *exactly* my config! Not one iota different. I have been just sitting back waiting for 2013.

I'm only waffling a bit in my mind about 21" wheels, I think they are beautiful but I don't really want to pay recurring costs for tires all the time or fill up the landfills even more. I'm curious on your decision making process on the wheels. I haven't found any good analytical numbers of tire wear and costs yet either.

Here is my config that I just blogged about over the last couple of days.

Model S Config Tesla Owner
Aesthetic Config Tesla Owner
 
Did you get the Tesla license plate frame delivered with the car?

Thanks for sharing your experience. Go drive and enjoy!

Also interested in knowing if you got that plate frame and placard. Not sure I have seen that on any other car yet. It might help withthe "what kind of car is that problem" from the back and might be something to add to the due bill.
 
Thx for the great write up! I just signed my mvpa this week 60kwh, dolphin grey, 19", sound, pano and air suspense. I was also waffling on getting 21" wheels. Curious in your pic it looks like the wheel well is huge relative to the 19" wheels. Is that because air suspense was high? It looks very funny to me from the pic. Can u repost a pic when in sport mode or lowered if possible? I'm thinking of upgrading with the grey 21" if I'm not thrilled with the look of the 19" wheels. Thx!
 
Hi Todd

This is *exactly* my config! Not one iota different. I have been just sitting back waiting for 2013.

I'm only waffling a bit in my mind about 21" wheels, I think they are beautiful but I don't really want to pay recurring costs for tires all the time or fill up the landfills even more. I'm curious on your decision making process on the wheels. I haven't found any good analytical numbers of tire wear and costs yet either.

Here is my config that I just blogged about over the last couple of days.

Model S Config Tesla Owner
Aesthetic Config Tesla Owner

I think you'll be fine with the 19" wheels: you're a Roadster owner so you know how much it costs to keep sticky rubber on the rear wheels, much more money than the electricity you bought to wear the rear tires out every few thousand miles. Since you configured the non-Perf you don't really need the extra grip, though to be fair the 19" all-season tires can slip when surface conditions aren't ideal. I've got 3000 miles on my S and if it were my Roadster I'd already be noticing how little tread life remained. Instead, there's nearly as much tread left on the rears as on the fronts...and I can rotate them whenever I decide it's time. Somebody, somewhere on these forums posted a link to aftermarket 19" turbine wheels, but I can't come up with it at the moment.