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12 months, 18,000 miles, countless Tesla grins later...

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gg_got_a_tesla

Model S: VIN 65513, Model 3: VIN 1913
Jan 29, 2010
6,534
789
Redwood Shores, CA
An year to the day I received our 60 kWh Green beauty at its birthplace in Fremont after a long, sometimes testing 3-year-long wait. It's been worth every second of it! I went from "gg_wants_a_tesla" to "gg_got_a_tesla" on that memorable day :)

My wife, son and I feel privileged and fortunate to have been on the forefront of this rEVolution although I get constantly ribbed by both of them for my obsession with Tesla and for the numerous hours that I've spent on these forums sharing that obsession with all of you fellow revolutionaries.

Thank you, all ye brilliant engineers as well as sales, marketing and support folks at Tesla for making this company, this game-changer of a car and the phenomenal Supercharger network happen. Thank you for letting us share in your success via TSLA as well.

Finally, thank you, fellow TMC addicts for being a reliable and enlightening source of knowledge, support, humor and entertainment over the past 4 years for me. I've made many friends, some in the virtual world and some in the real one thanks to Teslive and other gettogethers. Thanks much to the site admins and the hardworking moderators who do our community a great service.

Some memories:

On January 19th, 2013:

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(with my DS, John Scalmanini, now at Tesla Burlingame)

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(my son on the right with his best friend)

A homage to the first Supercharger at Hawthorne during our roadtrip over the Christmas holidays:

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My lifetime stats:

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Here's to many more years of this wonderful journey!
 
Thanks, AMPd. The Wh/mile average trended down from 320 to 314 as the year progressed, particularly with Range Mode ON and with our back-to-back mild winters and nary a heat wave in the summer.

It was otherwise a forgettable day yesterday with both my favorite teams, the 49ers and the Brady Bunch - given his Bay Area connection - falling by the wayside.
 
Hey, I think we met at Hawthorne a few weeks back! It was pretty crowded that day and we had to wait for a couple cars to leave we could plug in. In fact, I remember you got a slow charger. Hope we run into each other again. Congrats!
 
Congrats gg_, this is a great summary. About your wh/mi... have you noticed that your driving got more efficient over time, or is it mostly seasonal or random?

EDIT: looking at your other reply, it looks like weather did not affect it much. ~300 seems like a good number.
 
@damienvu, I remember you and your "quixotic quest" with your blue beauty :) Just saw your other posts about visiting superchargers; 9 and counting. Have a great trip to the Northwest and beat Brianman - at 19 now - in his own backyard!

@772, yes, here in Calif., the weather hasn't indeed been much of a factor. I've progressively gotten very good with timing my regen use when having to slow down from various speeds. Despite aggressive launches from stops, staying under 300 Wh/mile has been very doable on most days for me and the lifetime average is slowly ticking down.
 
Congrats GG! So fun to recall the excitement of deliveries a year ago. Just celebrated my one year anniversary last Friday with a first ever Supercharge, and today parked next to a gorgeous grey Model S at my favorite coffee shop. Tesla has come a long way in one short year! Three Greens in Pittsburgh now... : \
 
My 1 year anniversay was on 1/17/14, had about 13,000 on the odometer, Wh/mile is much higher than yours, we actually have winters and summers in the Northeast! Congrats though.. Have you had your one year service? Mine took 6 hours, lots of TSBs to apply.

P.S. I have still never SuperCharged! Visited the one in East Greenwich , RI on January 1st, but it wasn't powered up yet, it's only 52 miles from me.
 
@SFOTurtle, thanks! I've put the parcel shelf that I got from you to good use. Given your roadtrips, thought you may be ahead on the odometer but, I guess you put on fewer local miles.

@JakeP, my fellow early Green from the other coast, congrats to you too! Saw that slick photo of yours at the Supercharger. Yes, those were real exciting days a year ago.

@mitch672, yes, we've forgotten all about seasons out here in Cali. Congrats on your anniv too; once you do a roadtrip using the Superchargers, you'd never want to travel any other way! No, haven't gotten my service done yet; thinking of pushing it to 18 months except that a tire rotation is overdue now.
 
Nice gg. Im a couple of weeks behind you. Feb 2 for my anniversary, and im about 2000 miles short of you as well. I thought i was up there with 15k miles in a year.

I do get significantly worse wh/m here on the east coast. I had gotten my average down to 320 by the end of summer, but with the extreme cold thus far this winter my lifetime avg is pushing 328 now. Ive had plenty of days with over 500 wh/m from constantly heating the battery.

Either way, 100% agreed on the sentiment!

Tempus
 
@Tempus, thanks! I don't envy the severe winter you all have been experiencing!

@ORB/Oliver, not sure if I can describe it very well, but, here are a couple of things that seem to help:

- when riding from one stop (sign/light) to another (I do this between several sets of Stop signs in 35 mph zones in Redwood Shores every day), it seems that I get better Wh/mile numbers by speeding up rapidly to 35-40 mph and then letting go of the accelerator pedal entirely within about maybe, 50 feet of the next stop as opposed to doing a more gradual speed up and slow down by being gentle on the accelerator. This is probably because the regen fades away very quickly under 15 mph and doesn't engage enough during a gradual slowdown.

- in contrast, on highways, I try to feather the pedal to reduce the orange-green oscillations as much as possible by gauging the flow of traffic ahead of me, as opposed to speeding up to get too close to the traffic ahead and then having to slow down too quickly (and using the brakes to some extent in the process). Makes for a much smoother ride too overall. Get gobs of regen and a quick drop in the average Wh/mile for the trip when I finally take the exit with little or no accelerator pedal input.
 
congrats gg - it's amazing how fast time flies during the "got" year vs the "wants" year. My anniversary with my blue 60 is tomorrow and its been a joy to drive. My biggest Tesla Grin comes from the fact that I've taken more road-trips with MS in the first year compared to any ICE ever owned!
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gg... I have to ask: any regrets getting the 60, and not the 85 or P85? These are all pricey cars, but I can see how it's a slippery slope (and am struggling with my own configuration).

Sunil, absolutely none at all! The 60 has worked beautifully for all my needs including a recent 1,300 mile roadtrip down I-5 to LA/Anaheim and out east to Palm Springs from there. Given how dense the Supercharger network is getting (particularly around here in NorCal), the 60+SC is plenty. In the distant future, say 10-12 years from now, I'll be happy to swap my 60 kWh pack out for something like a 120 kWh pack.

Here are some past posts of mine that may help you a bit:


60 vs 85 - Page 3

60 vs 85 - Page 4

60 vs 85 - Page 5

A blissful drive to a NorCal beach!!

60 kwh vs 85 khw - Page 4


In hindsight, the only configuration change that I'd have done to my car is to get the Twin Chargers (which were a $1,500 option back when I configured in August, 2012 and weren't bundled with the HPWC as they are now - you can still get Tesla to take back the HPWC and give you a credit if you don't need it). Although I truly didn't need the twin chargers even on the road, there are many posts here about how they'd have come in handy in certain spots where there are > 40A AC charging stations (there'd be more and more of those in the future). The post-delivery install costs a stiff $3,600.

Hope that helps.