I unexpectedly came across a car rental place in Beverly Hills with a Model S P85. Since I missed the test drive event in Minneapolis, and since 20 minutes is too short anyways, I decided to rent the car for a day to see what it is like to live with it.
A co-worker accompanied me to the pick-up. We then drove along Mulholland Dr. By the end of the drive, I had a perma-grin, and she (a BMW driver) was quite impressed.
Next we went to an industrial area to do some acceleration tests. I previously posted (
Get-Amped-Tour Review) that the acceleration of the standard 85 left me unimpressed compared to the Volt. The P85, on the other hand, was delightful.
Volt acceleration:
Standard 85 acceleration:
P85 acceleration:
So, anyone that still thinks there isn't much difference between the standard 85 and the P85, you have no idea!
However, my back soon started to bother me. I made numerous seating adjustments, and created several driver profiles to experiment with different height and seat bottom tilt combinations, but nothing was satisfactory. After a 90 minute drive from Woodland Hills to Baldwin Park, I needed to get out of the car. About the only thing that provided some kind of relief was to tilt the seat back more, and sit in a hunched forward position.
Comparing the seats of my rental Chevy Cruze (which I find very comfortable) against the Model S show the problem.
The Cruze seats have bolstering at the top of the seat back, below the head rest, which the Model S does not have.
I stopped at the Hawthorne Super Charger with 25 miles rated and 48 miles projected range left. It's easy to beat rated range, even with lots of acceleration testing. :biggrin:
The obelisk looked like this two weeks ago:
Now it looks like this:
Less space ship and more gravestone. Also less polarizing, I suppose.
So, after spending 14 hours and 278 miles in the P85, my list of 88 concerns have been reduced to 34, with the top 3 being:
1. Cannot find a confortable seating position - insufficient bolstering at shoulder level.
2. Cannot find a place to rest right foot when using cruise control due to large size of pedals.
3. Seat belt anchor on B-pillar too high - belt rubs against neck.
My favourite feature, by far, is how smoothly it goes over pot holes and rough, unmaintained road surfaces.
I ordered a bare bones 60 for my wife, but I will keep the Volt until at least v2.0, or BlueStar.