Larry's Most Excellent Adventure

[Bradleybang]

Larry, thanks for sharing your adventure.

As for Napa winery stops... here are some good ones.
South to North
Domaine Chandon
Silver Oak
Groth
Opus
Niebaum Coppola
Robert Keenan
Schramsberg
Rombauer

And its always good to call ahead to get a private tour and check availability.

 

[Norbert]

View attachment 7159
Here's the business end of a Supercharger

Nice shot of the Supercharger connector and cable. The cable (labelled as 90 kW) is a good size, not too large looking for the connector. So seems to be very manageable (even if a prototype).

 

[Lloyd]

Nice shot of the Supercharger connector and cable. The cable (labelled as 90 kW) is a good size, not too large looking for the connector. So seems to be very manageable (even if a prototype).

I asked to take a photo of that and was told no. You were lucky to get that one!

 

[Larry Chanin]

BTW, do you have any other pics of the supercharge?

Here's another photo of Steve Jurvetson's Model S. The "refrigerator" with the number 6 is the prototype Supercharger. My understanding is that they are using his car to test the Supercharger.

Larry

 

[Larry Chanin]

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 .

Another variable between the two cars was the speed. Warren drove the Performance model faster than I drove the Standard model.

I want to emphasize again that we are dealing with just a few early cars. In fact, the number of cars available for test drives was so limited that Elon loaned them his personal car. So its conceivable that they didn't have sufficient time to tune the suspensions of all cars with equal care.

Larry

 

[Larry Chanin]

Larry-
Which wineries did you visit? Recommended?

I expect to head through Napa with the S probably next summer some time.

Thanks for the good pics and details you gave everyone!

+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.

Hi Guys,

Warren and his wife have the educated palates and they selected the wineries.

They were:

Nickel & Nickel
Chateau Montelena
Honig

To my uneducated palate they were all great. :biggrin:

Larry

 

[Jason S]

Chateau Montelena (in Calistoga) has lovely grounds as well. Their tour is worth doing. And I appreciate seeing some names in these lists I don't know as well.

Thanks!

 

[Larry Chanin]

Hey, we're on camera!

My wife and I made it to the official Tesla blog gallery.
Could you tell that we were having a fantastic time? :wink:

Larry

 

[SigS905]

Congratulations on the Sig upgrade.

 

[roblab]

Hi Guys,

Warren and his wife have the educated palates and they selected the wineries.

They were:

Nickel & Nickel
Chateau Montelena
Honig

To my uneducated palate they were all great. :biggrin:

Larry

Don't forget to drive up the hill to Angwin and see Cade Winery, whose owners have a Tesla HPC charger. If Tesla gets it figured out, I will have an adapter to Model S soon after I get my car, and if you can't borrow mine, maybe Cade will get one just to be sociable. They have great views, and it's a fun road up the hill.

 

[Zextraterrestrial]

I will definitely visit :biggrin:

 

[Todd Burch]

Great pictures and a cool story! Thanks! Very interesting the the ride was smoother in the performance model.

Thanks for the pictures and story Larry! Part of the difference in ride might have been attributable to differences in tire inflation as well.

 

[Doug_G]

I was told the suspension will be a little harder in the Performance vehicles than what we experienced at the ride event.