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My wife and I both have that same stalk on our cars. It's never been an issue. It's too far in front of the wheel to accidentally move it.

Doesn't Audi have that additional dial for sensitivity? On Mercedes, there is some other, less intuitive way to set the rain sensor sensitivity. (I can never remember how).

The first Mercedes I had with autosensing wipers I think was 2003. They may have introduced it a few years before that. The switch didn't really change, though. The first detent which used to be "slow" on older cars is now basically "auto". And I don't remember exactly when we got 3-blink tap...

Here are some clips from a Mercedes owner's manual if anyone is interested. If Tesla goes with these stalks on final cars, I think you'll all find they are very good quality and proven over many decades now. The combined turn signal, wiper, high/low beam stalk has been basically unchanged since...

It's all standard Mercedes switchgear (probably sourced from ZF). On left side starting from the top to bottom: 1.) The cruise control stalk. The particular one in the picture here has the Distronic dial, which I think is not actually on the Model S. 2.) The middle stalk is turn signal...

Oh of course. I have an order in another car (June build), and so while I wait on that, it would be interesting to see if they are at least making progress toward the stated goal of German luxury car levels of fit and finish. I've seen prototypes from other companies that were much better...

Where there any changes in the design of the attachment points of the headliner and A/B/C pillar covers? The pictures seem to show the same climate control vents as earlier betas, is that true? Have they changed the material they were using for the carpets? Have they tightened up gaps at...

thanks, vfx. I'm not clever enough to search for "smart" here. Those are really helpful.

Oh, I mentioned this in another thread. I didn't mean to bring that up again, just providing context for why I'm looking at a Smart and not a Tesla. (short answer is I'm ordering more of a complete/refined luxury/performance sedan as the main family hauler, and then something small/cheap just...

Smart (as in Daimler) Electric Well, it turns the Model S probably isn't going to work for us as the primary "family" car or whatever you want to call it, but I do still have an itch to experience life with an EV, which I'm quite convinced is the future of cars. So now I'm thinking of getting a...

I would say the car the pictures didn't give me a good sense of the car (I have poor picture processing ability/imagination or something. :)). This is true for both the exterior and the interior. But if I had to travel that far, I'd probably just wait for the RC and see a more final version.

LTS is the Lotus specific version of that tire. I'm not sure if "LTS" is the general Lotus equivalent to "N0"/"N1" or "M0", etc, for Porsche and Mercedes. Or if "LTS" is just specific to this particular tire. I'm a track junkie, and I've had a lot of friends and track day students with...

What they explained to a couple of us on Sunday is that the vehicle will not allow you to drive below the 5% threshold. So that's a hard stop (no more motion). The 5% is there to give you 30 days to plug in and avoid any sort of bricking situation.

Is there a difference between the 40kWh and the 85kWh other than size/number of cells? To be clear, she and I were discussing the 85kWh pack in the performance model, which is what I had been planning to get. I'm not sure if that applies to the other packs also, but I would guess it does.

I heard that from a Tesla employee when I went to see the Beta on Sunday. I hadn't heard that before, so I asked her again and she was quite clear that Tesla does not think it necessary to have a separate range mode with these new batteries. You will always have 95% usable capacity on a normal...

Oh, I'm not at all worried about the range. Even 85kwh might be overkill. My daily commute is 7 miles. Our other house is 90 miles from here and we stay there long enough to charge the car 3-4 times over before returning (I was planning to put a 240V/50A outlet in our garage there, too.) Plus I...

Perhaps. But I'm not so sure that the TCO comparison is that straightforward. One, I would expect to pay full list for a Tesla, in an area where that is not common for other cars in the same price class. Two, the service costs are unknown, and the resale value is unknown. Three, Tesla pricing...

After seeing the beta in person for the first time today, I hope Tesla will be dramatically improving the attention to detail both outside and in. My concern is although the technology is very interesting, it may be difficult for them to compete in this price class against companies with decades...

I hope they source them from the same company (ZF) and just change the styling to make them "Tesla". The more they use proven components like this, the fewer problems we'll have down the road. Plus the Mercedes stalks have such a nice feel to them.

2007 Mercedes S550 with a Performance S.

Really? I think most cars I've owned in this price class have averaged more than $600/yr in routine maintenance. Certainly my current car does.

Someday people will learn that building your technology so that it is dependent on Adobe is never a good idea. I wonder why Tesla didn't just build this using Android?

Yes, that was what I was told when I placed my order also. I'm so far back in the queue that the fact that I'm getting the Performance won't matter at all in terms of priority. By then they will be in production with all 3 battery packs. At least that's what I was told.

I understand what you're saying. I had the same question a few weeks ago. I had heard about the "Tesla Sedan" when they first announced it a couple of years ago. But then I completely forgot about it (stupid!, stupid!) until I happened to walk by a Tesla Store in January and said "oh yeah...

Clever. I like it. Good luck to you! What type of position are you trying to get there?

The Roadster studio works fine on my iPad, so I'm guessing it isn't Flash.

Again, if anyone at Tesla reads this, I will volunteer to come down there and help with any and all development tasks for free in exchange for a signature slot! I understand the insistence on HTML5. I think it's worth the additional wait for that.

I'll do it if it moves me up the reservation list!

The performance version also has the extended leather like the sig cars, right?

Thanks for the pictures! These are better than anything I've seen from Tesla! Great to be able to see the details.

That really is beautiful. I'm seriously tempted. Should help take my mind off the 14 month wait on the S.

Our local dealership is in downtown DC. Even if I got a test drive around a couple blocks there, it would be pretty useless. In general, I don't get a lot of out of test drives anyway. It takes time to get a feel for the car, and the right traffic conditions. By the time you do that, the test...

My "fun" car does about that many miles a year, maybe about 30% more. It's not my daily car, I use it on nice weekends in the country and a few track weekends (road courses) a year. That's what fun cars are for. Nothing wrong with that, right?

At 25k miles, that must be under warranty, right? I wonder what it costs to repair the cooling mechanism on the battery pack of an S.

You guys are lucky! I was very late to this party, so I still have 14-15 months of gas station visits. And, yes I already hate them. Why can't my car have a full tank and be ready to go when I go down to the garage each morning? Why???

I hope it is not glossy also. Our local Tesla store apparently isn't important enough to have wood or leather samples yet, but I am looking forward to seeing the lacewood. I like what Audi is doing now with their non-glossy wood.

Well, that's not to say I wouldn't mind the higher power motor. Let's say the higher power motor and $10k have equal utility to me. If I can't get the full leather otherwise, then that tips the scale away from the $10k if that makes sense. Also, I've never had custom interior work done. Not...

I'm making the same decision between the perf and not. The car it will replace has about a 5.7 0-60 and I'm quite happy with that. So I don't know that I need the 4.4. But it will come down to the interior for me. I want the extended leather like you see in the sig. Assuming that will not be...

Man, 8:21 already. Who forgot to charge the streaming server?

Oh. Could everyone else please close that tab, so I can watch it?

Blank page here as well. So disappointed that I might be missing it!

Perfect, thanks for the precise lengths. I hadn't been able to find those. It would be awesome if they could offer a choice of right/left. Or if they could just go with right side in left-hand drive cars, that would be nice. As others have pointed out, that is the curb side when parking. I...

yeah, that was my first choice, because that way I can still park in the middle space, which is my habit. That leaves my wife with the left most spot nearest the door to the house. But there was some reason the electrician didn't want to bring the 100 amp option down the middle between those...

I had an electrician come in today to look at the cost/feasibility of installing a 50 or 100 amp 240V line for the car, and his feedback was that it will be a lot simpler and look a lot nicer if we can just install the plug/charger on the right side of the garage. Of course the plug on the...

I"m considering doing this if it is still open. But as I understand it, your summer daytime rates go up with this program, right? If so, I'm concerned that the extra expense on A/C in the summer may outweigh the savings on the Model S, since it will be our only EV car for now.

One thing Mercedes, BMW, Porsche, and especially Audi have in this price class (IMO) are well designed, high quality interiors. When I say I'm trading off luxury by getting a Model S, I'm not talking about electronic features and gadgets at all. I can stay in my lane just fine, thank you very...

I would love to get on the signature waitlist. I just didn't know that was an option. My plan is to get the performance model, but signature performance would be just fine.

Yep, I actually think "normal" is the right word. I'm a person who needs to buy a car this year because my other car is nearing the end of its useful life. I think that's how most people make purchases. I had planned to put in an order at Mercedes/BMW/Audi in Feb/Mar for Jul/Aug delivery like I...

I'm one of the "normals" I guess. I started reading about Tesla after seeing the Model S drivetrain in the shop window after walking out of the restaurant next door. Total coincidence. I had seen a couple of roadsters in SV, but didn't even know they had a sedan planned until I saw the...

Doug_G and drees, thanks for the explanations.