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Larry's Most Excellent Adventure

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Larry Chanin

President, Florida Tesla Enthusiasts
Moderator
Aug 22, 2011
4,937
814
Sarasota, Florida
It all started at my friend Warren’s place where we were celebrating the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, (his wife is British). He has a low Signature reservation number and was facing the irksome prospect of committing big bucks without a test drive. We knew that Tesla planned something for June 22nd, and that test drives were coming first to Fremont, but agonizingly Tesla still hadn’t firmed the dates up yet. So while sipping lots of wine at the party we resolved not to wait for Tesla any more and decided to book airline and hotel reservations for us and the wives to fly out to Fremont on June 21st followed by a trip to wine country later. With only a few week’s notice fares and hotel rates were not great, but certainly better than waiting for Tesla to send out invitations.

The plan was that his wife, my wife and I would be guests on his test drive and maybe, if we were feeling mischievous, we would try to crash the party on June 22
nd. :wink: So in the morning of the 22nd the four of us are in my hotel room and we’re just about to head out to the Santana Row store, when my cell phone rings. “Lawrence, this is Doug from Tesla, we know that you’re on the Signature waiting list and we have a slot open for you, are you interested?” Whoopee, pandemonium breaks out! I tell him you bet and that I’m in Fremont. He says he’ll attempt to get me a test drive if one becomes available. Whoopee, pandemonium breaks out!


So we head off to San Jose to check out the store and the local sights. The folks at the store are super friendly and they invite us to come back at 3:30 PM to watch the Tesla party on their big screen. Well, that sounded a lot better than trying to convince the security that Elon sent us. Later we return to watch the festivities, drink fake champagne, and yell encouragement to the Tesla folks on-screen along with other gathered reservation holders.

The next morning we’re one of the first scheduled for test drives. George greats us. His enthusiasm is palpable. He tells me that he’s an avid reader of my posts. Golly.:redface: He also tells me that his wife and family were with us at Santana Row watching the festivities. George is the first to give us the instructions regarding the course and emphatically exhorts the drivers to “put the pedal to the metal”.

Warren is the second car out. It’s a performance model. Well, Warren owns a Roadster and it seems his idea of a test drive is to see if a 4,600 pound sedan, with five adults can out-perform his Roadster. Before we get to the test course we’re tearing around the parking lot. When the Tesla copilot tells him to floor it, Warren FLOORS it!! I’m not a very religious guy, but I had a religious experience at that moment!! We may have been the second to leave the "starting blocks", but we were definitely first to return.

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George "floor it".

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On the way out Warren is coasting at a mere 81 mph, on the return we were just a hair under 100 mph. (Notice that the speedometer shows 81 and we're only a few yards from a sharp left turn.)

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Yes, you could say Warren's driving style was "aggressive".

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Here's the first car out in front of us just before Warren passed him on the highway in front of Solyndra.

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Here's what a Model S looks like in your rear view camera.

Larry
 
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Minutes after getting the good news about my upgrade to Signature, we bumped in to our former Florida Store manager in the hotel parking lot. He’s since received a well deserved promotion to regional manager. Will took good care of us. Making sure I got my test ride and arranging for a private factory tour.

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Will Nicholas of Tesla and me in the Tesla jacket.

Speaking of my test ride, I drove a standard Signature model. Although not having the driving expertise of Warren I can honestly say that I tested the brakes a lot better than he did. :redface: At the end of the first long straight away I didn't realize that a sharp right-hand turn was coming up and had to apply the brakes very heavily. I'm happy to say that the brakes worked great.

Having had test drives in both a performance and standard model we were able to compare the ride comfort, particularly over the bumpy course of the route. We were all surprised that the performance model clearly provided more comfort over the standard model. This is counter-intuitive considering that the performance has the low profile tires. Perhaps it's suspension is better tuned, but the difference, at least for these two individual cars, was unmistakable.

Both cars handled extremely well and I have never felt so secure in taking turns at high speed.

We were also able to compare the headroom with and without the panoranic roof. I'm 6'0" and I found that my head brushed the headliner when seated in the rear side in the car without the pano roof. This wasn't the case with the pano roof.

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Here's a photo of the rear storage space and cup holders. As you can see it matches very well with the interior, but you do lose a passenger seat. We were about to get into this car for a test drive, but the all three guests couldn't fit. :smile:

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Here's a close-up.

Larry
 
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Wonderful story! When GB says "Reservation holders are treated like family" he really means it. Such a great experience for you, your guests and for all of us to read.

And I can't get over how white the white looks in your picture! WOW!
 
Awesome :biggrin:


did you ever go to Napa? (that was you right)

Yes, awesome really describes it.

The Tesla portion of our stay in California was one continuous adrenaline rush. Of course the car provided the stimulation, but in addition talking to George and the other Tesla employees was also stimulating. The raw enthusiasm of everyone we came in contact with was very contagious. For example, their VP of Finance took us on a factory tour and he was unlike any finance guy I had ever met in my career with a big utility.

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Here's a photo of Mike Taylor, VP of Finance explaining the details of how the massive press works. They were actually running it while we were there over the weekend to perfect the operation.


In contrast to the stimulation provided at Tesla, yes we made it over to Napa where we had the most mellow, laid-back time. We hired a driver to take us to a number of wineries so no hassle about drinking and driving. The two experiences were total polar opposites. :wink:

Larry
 
Wonderful story! When GB says "Reservation holders are treated like family" he really means it. Such a great experience for you, your guests and for all of us to read.

And I can't get over how white the white looks in your picture! WOW!

Thanks, yes we really did feel like family even when I handed over a check for $35,000. :wink:

When reading the description "white" in the design studio I was turned off. However, when actually viewing the "cream" interior in real life I completely changed my mind. Now I plan on getting the cream interior.


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Here's the "white/cream" interior, but the tan to the left.

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Here's the tan with the grey to the left and the "white/cream" to the right.


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Here's Steve Jurvetsons' tan interior.

Larry
 
Here's some more photos that may be of interest.

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You don't often get a good look at the underside of a Model S. It's as smooth as a pool table.

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Here's a closer view.

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Here's the business end of a Supercharger

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Here's another photo of Steve Jurvetson's Model S. It was taken to show the paint armor. I found it more obvious on the Model S cars that I have seen than my friends Roadsters. Here it is more difficult to see in the photo than in real life. You can zoom this photo to get a better look.

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As I mentioned earlier, the brakes really work. :wink:

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Cute booties.

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Powertrain

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Another view of Powertrain

Larry
 
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Here's some shots of the exterior colors in the California sun.


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Grey with 21" Performance Wheels.

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Sunset Red with 21" Silver Wheels.

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Green with 19" Standard Wheels.

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White with 21" Silver Wheels.

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Blue with 19" Standard Wheels.

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White with 21" Performance Wheels.

Larry
 
Larry - please explain more regarding the difference in ride in the Performance - vs - standard car. Did the standard have the air suspension too? Was the suspension settings the same on both cars if they both had the air suspension? Is the difference you experienced only due to the difference in wheels/tire aspect, or a combination of wheel/tire plus difference in suspension settings (I thought I read somewhere that the air suspension could be set to different levels of firmness). Congrats on the SIG!!
 
Larry - please explain more regarding the difference in ride in the Performance - vs - standard car. Did the standard have the air suspension too? Was the suspension settings the same on both cars if they both had the air suspension? Is the difference you experienced only due to the difference in wheels/tire aspect, or a combination of wheel/tire plus difference in suspension settings (I thought I read somewhere that the air suspension could be set to different levels of firmness). Congrats on the SIG!!

Hi Roger,

Both cars had automatic air suspension and we experimented with the manual settings. In every case we felt the performance model was more comfortable on bumpy roads. By that I mean that we felt the bumps more on the standard model. At first we assumed that the difference was due to the different tires, but it occured to us that it might simply be due to different tuning of the suspension on these early cars. It would have been nice if we had a third car to compare.

Larry
 
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Both cars had automatic air suspension and we experimented with the manual settings. In every case we felt the performance model was more comfortable on bumpy roads. By that I mean that we felt the bumps more on the standard model. At first we assumed that the difference was due to the different tires, but it occured to us that it might simply be to different tuning of the suspension on these early cars.

It will be interesting to see how harsh the ride will be without the automatic air suspension. Unfortunately, we won't know until 2013 since the air suspension will be built in all cars produced in 2012 .
 
+1 to Z's questions -- have some friends coming out from FL in about 5-6 weeks and while I've recommended J, Schramsberg and Ferrari Carano those are all a bit spread apart.

I'm not sure they'd appreciate the big Cabs like Stags Leap or Dry Creek... so interested in your opinion too.