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Highest Mileage

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Looked around for a similar thread and didn't see one. So can someone post what they think is the most miles on an MS? We use the car in a livery fleet so we put a lot of miles on and have had it exactly 1 year.
We just blew through 43,000. Two drive units installed last week but otherwise no problems.


Philip MacAfee

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Found a somewhat similar thread, Probably should delete this but don't know how.
 
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Looked around for a similar thread and didn't see one. So can someone post what they think is the most miles on an MS? We use the car in a livery fleet so we put a lot of miles on and have had it exactly 1 year.
We just blew through 43,000. Two drive units installed last week but otherwise no problems.
Cool. Wait.... two drive units installed last week? This was on one car and it's on it's 3rd unit (original, 1st replacement, 2nd replacement)?

What were the reasons for replacement?
 
Cwerdna;
So we noticed a growl coming from the back of the car about 2 weeks ago. Our morning driver had heard it the day before and I drove the car coincidentally and heard it. So we put it in the shop on a Friday and they said "wheel bearing" bring it in Tuesday. Tuesday afternoon they changed the diagnosis to drive unit, kept it overnight and we took it home on Wed with a replacement unit. The next day, Thursday, after about 6 hours of driving we get a warning message on the screen (forgot what it was) and the car shuts off. Unfortunately we had a paying passenger in the car and it stopped in downtown traffic in San Francisco. Service center sent a flatbed and had it back out on Friday with another drive unit. Everything seems just fine now.

Philip Macafee
 
dsm363;
Because of the high mileage we put on cars (about 100,000/year) the fuel payback pays for the added expense of the vehicle. But there are other "payback" issues that affect the cost of fielding the car.

We cannot afford to pay a driver or have the car idle 3-4 hours in public garage 60 miles from the office to get enough juice to get back to the office and our HPWC. So right now the car is doing mostly short airport transfers around the central bay area. We just did a job from SF to Sacramento and came back without going to the Fairfield supercharger station. We have a morning shift driver take it between 4AM and noon. Then we put it on the "hose" for 2-4 hours and then an evening driver takes it to about midnight.

The car is too narrow to fit 3 people comfortably in the back seat so it really is not a full replacement for the Town Car. But all of the replacements for the Town Car are similar in size. There are at least about 10 MS's in livery service in the Bay Area now. I think three things will need to happen for Tesla to be a serious player in the livery industry . First, the remaining Town Cars will have to fade off the livery market. The last model year for the Town Car was 2012 and many corporate travel buyers do not want to deal with firms that have cars older than three years. Second is the introduction of the Model X. That body type would allow the third row seats to be removed and the second row seats to be pushed back for real leg room. The Town Car is produced in a special L series that is stretched 6 inches and this would also echo Lincoln's modification of the MKT crossover, the "official" replacement for the full size TownCar. Finally, there needs to be a charging solution for quickly charging the vehicle at every locale that we do business in. After a couple of hours on the road, we have to engineer the work the car does to fit it in to being back at the office to recharge in the middle of the day. We cannot afford to pay a driver or have the car idle 3-4 hours in public garage 60 miles from the office to get enough juice to get back to the office and our HPWC. A wide network of fast charging would go a long way to making the S and X a real livery alternative.

Philip Macafee
 
Thanks for posting about your experience with the Model S. It is nice to see the car "at work" instead of only pleasure uses.

When Tesla starts delivering their CHAdeMo adapter "soon," it should be a big help for charging during the day.

GSP
 
We cannot afford to pay a driver or have the car idle 3-4 hours in public garage 60 miles from the office to get enough juice to get back to the office and our HPWC. A wide network of fast charging would go a long way to making the S and X a real livery alternative.

Philip Macafee

How fast do you need the charging to be? Do you need supercharger speed? What about CHADeMO speed? 50kW?
Do you have idle time between pickups that could be used for opportunistic charging but there are no chargers that are fast enough to be worthwhile?
 
dsm363;
Because of the high mileage we put on cars (about 100,000/year) the fuel payback pays for the added expense of the vehicle. But there are other "payback" issues that affect the cost of fielding the car.
Yet in the first post you say you only put 40k miles on it in the first year (which means only about 130 miles a day which means no need to charge at all, not even remotely close).

So something doesn't appear to add up here. Literally.
 
Cwerdna;
So we noticed a growl coming from the back of the car about 2 weeks ago. Our morning driver had heard it the day before and I drove the car coincidentally and heard it. So we put it in the shop on a Friday and they said "wheel bearing" bring it in Tuesday. Tuesday afternoon they changed the diagnosis to drive unit, kept it overnight and we took it home on Wed with a replacement unit. The next day, Thursday, after about 6 hours of driving we get a warning message on the screen (forgot what it was) and the car shuts off. Unfortunately we had a paying passenger in the car and it stopped in downtown traffic in San Francisco. Service center sent a flatbed and had it back out on Friday with another drive unit. Everything seems just fine now.
Thanks for the info! Yowza! That 2nd drive unit obviously didn't last very long.

I will definitely be interested in following along as long as you have a Model S in the fleet.
 
Love to hear more details about this car, if you can get them, or encourage the owner to post directly here. How long owned? Confirmation of no significant issues? Tire wear? Battery capacity decrease, or not?

He is not a member of this forum. He has owned the car for 16 mos., no significant mechanical issues, never broke down/stranded, 246 max rated miles.