Hi hiroshiy,
Thank you for the information and pictures!
My parking space at home allows for 240cm mirror to mirror, and 218cm tire to tire. It's not mechanized and there is nothing physical in the way of the tires: just lines of white paint and hopes that neighbors don't park too close
I haven't owned a car in Japan before--actually I just transferred my US license to a Japanese license a couple weeks ago. The last car I owned in the US was a MINI, so it was pretty small. In fact I've never owned a 4-door car (or sedan) before: only hatchbacks & a coupe.
I think a test drive to my place is definitely a good idea: the streets around it are very narrow! On the other hand, I've seen some pretty wide cars in my area, including a fairly large Aston Martin & an old-ish Bentley that have to thread through the same streets that I would.
I hear you about the issues with public parking & 21" wheels. If I chose the 19" wheels, do you imagine there would be a lot of issues parking at public places? It would be a bummer to be turned away by staff members at more than 50% of the places I try to park.
Seems like a good business opportunity: research width/height/weight restrictions of all public parking areas and sell data to GPS manufacturers, so that cars can filter and point drivers only to viable parking.
I'm not really sure where I would charge it weekly. That is a very important thing to think about as I most likely will *not* be able to charge at home.. I realize that it's very dangerous to let a Tesla (or any lithium ion) battery discharge completely, so I would definitely need a place to charge at least once per week. Do you know if the CHAdeMO stations around Tokyo would be good options for that? I would be okay with letting the car sit somewhere for a couple hours per week to rapid charge. No problem at all if there are public places available consistently (assuming I'd still be spending less than I would with gasoline).
Though I don't really plan to drive to work every day, it seems there is at least one CHAdeMO place in Roppongi 1-chome, which is where I work. Perhaps I would drive to work once per week to charge or something.
