Yesterday (June 2) my wife and I picked up Nikki, our new, Blue Tesla Model 3! Aero wheels, LR, RWD, PUP & EAP. Vin 29xxx. Here are my thoughts about the delivery experience and day one with Nikki:
DELIVERY EXPERIENCE
DELIVERY EXPERIENCE
- Adam has been my contact at Tesla Calgary for my entire experience. I first communicated with Adam 15 months ago to arrange a Model S test drive, then the next month for an overnight test drive with my family. I reached out to him again after configuring my Model 3 and he informed me that he'd switched to the delivery side. He was incredibly responsive throughout the entire process returning emails and phone calls the same day, often within an hour.
- The Calgary deliveries take place at the Service Centre. Their delivery bay has room for two cars. There was a black car in the bay next to mine that was getting delivered at 2pm (my scheduled time was 1pm) so at least for that day (a Saturday) they were only delivering one car at a time, one per hour.
- We arrived at the Service Centre at the same time as a couple other groups were showing up for test drives (X & S). I guess this is where they now do test drives, rather than at the Chinook Centre Tesla store, or are they out of both locations?
- Adam greeted me along with two young ladies in Tesla jackets. We went out to our car where Adam introduced us to our car, Nikki. He took a couple photos of us and got our Tesla apps on our phones hooked up, then turned us over to Alyssa (sp? - they should have had name tags) who then went over the car with us. I suspect the other young gal was in training.
- I tried to inquire about numbers - she just smiled sweetly and said she can't share that information . She did however share that mine was "probably" the 7th Model 3 in Alberta.
- I had already rented a Model 3 for 4 days in Chicago and the delivery team knew that so the orientation was more to do with the app (which I had not ever experienced before), connecting our phones, customizing my wife's profile and answering my specific questions which I hadn't figured out during our previous 4 day rental. Overall Alyssa was very helpful.
- About 40 minutes later we drove the car out of the delivery bay and parked it in front of the Service Centre. I transferred some items over from our Volt and bid adieu to my wife as she headed back home - first stop was to fuel up the Volt whose battery was depleted a few hours earlier!
- While setting up Nikki and trying to figure out the sound system a couple guys that had just finished their test drive came over to check out my Model 3 and we had a good discussion about the car. One of them was awaiting the AWD configuration and they were fascinated with the Model 3.
- Everyone is right. The car is far, far more beautiful in person than in photos online. The aero wheels also look really good in person, and I thought they looked dorky in photos. I have the Model 3 Aero Wheel Cap Kit and have popped off the aero covers on one side of the car so I can live with both looks for awhile and decide on which look I like better in a few days. I might surprise myself and decide to stick with the Aero covers - they do look that good in person.
- At delivery, the car thought I was in Stockton, CA rather than Calgary, AB. I was assured that as I got outside and started driving the car would sort out its whereabouts. I asked Nikki to "Navigate to Home" and she calculated a route from Stockton to Home! I decided to head out and figured that in a minute or two she'd figure things out. I headed East on Glenmore Trail and had to ignore the incorrect directions Nikki was giving me. In the process I missed the Northbound Deerfoot exit because I presumed that it would be a separate exit after the Southbound exit instead of both together - it would have been nice to have my Nav system giving me proper directions home! I exited at the next exit and got turned around and managed to get headed North to home.
- While on the Deerfoot I tried a two button reset in the hopes that would fix my nav problems. No luck...
- As I was approaching the outskirts of Sacramento, I decided to take the CrossIron Mills exit in the hopes that turning off the car and walking away would allow the car to get its bearings. I got an iced coffee from Timmy's and returned to the car. Still just outside Sacramento. I tried a hard reset (both buttons and foot on the brake). It took quite a few minutes to reconnect to LTE afterwards, but when it finally did - still outside Sacramento. At this point I decided to give Tesla Calgary a call. I got Adam on the phone and while he didn't have an answer for me, and no service guys were working that day, he said he'd text message one of their service guys and hope to get an answer for me soon. I resumed my drive and immediately the car finally figured out my true whereabouts! I called Adam back to report my status and continued my journey home.
- It didn't take very long for autopilot to become available, I was driving through Airdrie when it first became available. I set it at 125 kph and proceeded to enjoy a relaxing drive home.
- While on my rental in Chicago I was too nervous on the busy I-90 (not to mention driving a stranger's car) to try auto-lane change. I did use it many times on my drive home from Calgary though and it is awesome. It's so smooth and it's nice not having to wrest control away from auto-steer, then re-engage auto-steer after changing lanes as I had to do while in Chicago. Very nice!
- Nikki is a 29xxx, our Turo rental in Chicago was a 4xxx. The Chicago rental was only 2 weeks earlier, so is still fresh in my mind. I did notice some differences:
- The ride feels about the same. I like it, not at all too firm for my tastes. I don't know if 4xxx had the upgraded suspension or not, but it did have the sport wheels and I have the aero wheels.
- The wind noise was reduced significantly. In fact, I'd say that even at 120 kph the wind noise is negligible, it's pretty much all tire noise I'm hearing. This is great! Much quieter than my Volt.
- My torso is very long and never fits any seats well. I don't fit in the Model S's early seats and in the Model S with Next Gen seats I have to move the seats a bit further back than I'd like just to get the headrest to barely fit - a little higher would be better. Also the left side of my head rests against the headliner that surrounds the sunroof. On the other hand, the Model 3 4xxx car's seats were nearly perfect. I just found that the width at the shoulders was a bit two narrow, forcing me to hunch my shoulder forward a bit more than I'd like, but not really uncomfortable. The changes they made in the seat design by 29xxx are great. I now consider the seats to be perfect - the extra shoulder width is much appreciated and they're now the most comfortable seats I've ever sat in.
- My two kids immediately commented on how low the rear seat was in 4xxx. On Nikki they report the rear seat is more comfortable. When I sit back there, the back of my head touches the glass roof if I sit up tall and I don't think it was doing that in 4xxx so I think the extra padding has definitely raised the back seat a little.
- I love the speed and other controls being on the centre console. With my long torso, I've never been able to see the instrument cluster on other vehicle as even with the steering wheel raised high, the top 1/3rd or so was obstructed with the steering wheel. I always wished I could lower the steering wheel to a more comfortable height, but needed it set as high as possible so that I could duck down to see my speed. Now I can set the steering wheel height to where it's most comfortable to me AND see all the gauges. Thanks for that Tesla!
- My HPWC is still sitting in a box awaiting an electrician, so in the meantime I'm charging at 120V/15A. At first I plugged it in on the opposite side of the garage as my Volt. When I closed the garage door I blew the circuit breaker! Hmm, 2 electric cars and a garage door opener are too much for a 15A breaker; who would have guessed! I switched Nikki's UMC over to an outlet powered by the subpanel in my garage for my solar panels and all is working well. I'm getting 123V/12A and 8 km/hr.
- This is getting far to long already. Other than what I mentioned above, all the awesome things you've heard about the car are all true. Nikki thinking she was still on vacation in California for the first half hour or so is the only glitch so far, and I hope there are no others.
