I am happy to announce that on December 30th, 2013, we became the 4th owners of Model S in the Slovak Republic.
I had no time to write this earlier.
The Delivery
On December 30th we went to pick up the car to Tilburg in the Netherlands. We got to the Tesla plant around 10AM, as we agreed with our delivery specialist. But our car wasn't ready, yet so the DS took us for a tour around the plant. There were several cars waiting for the delivery. After waiting for about 2–3 hrs, the car wasn't ready, so they told us that we could go somewhere to have lunch. We went somewhere downtown. When we came back, our car was still not ready. So they asked us if we could come back the next day to pick up the car
. The thing was that we had scheduled an XPEL wrap in the nearby shop for that day. I had to call the shop and tell them that we couldn‘t bring the car that day.
The DS said that if we didn‘t want to stay for the night, they will take our car to the shop. For work reasons, I really couldn't stay any longer, so we signed the delivery paper and travelled back to Slovakia. The car stayed in the shop, until next Monday. It took them longer to wrap the car because of the New Year. The car is yours, but you can't have it, yet, and you must be so far from the car. Luckily, after the second day, I could at least get in touch with the car trough the mobile app. Our Model S was the first Model S that shop worked on in 2014. They have some pictures from full body XPEL installation
here, as well.
XPEL full body wrap
From Tilburg to Slovakia (1460km long trip) —the first charging station I have ever used was Supercharger.
On Monday and around 9AM, eager to get hold of the car finally, I went to the shop only to discover that the car wasn't ready, yet, again! We had to wait till almost noon. I wanted to leave Tilburg as early as possible, so we wouldn’t have to travel over the night. From the shop, we went to Tesla plant because the guy from the shop thought there was something wrong with the front trunk door. But all was OK. So, finally around 1 PM, we departed to the first of 3 superchargers.
Luckily for us, several supercharges had just opened few days before. We could travel with pretty decent speed and we could even test what the car could do; on some parts of the autobahn, we went around 200km/h. No problem for Model S. Travelling using superchargers was super :smile:. Instead of spending money on gas, we went for a nice meal. My concern was what we will do once we leave the supercharger area. I did some calculation and I knew that we would only need to charge twice outside of superchargers — once in Linz, Austria and once in Vienna, Austria.
Our first ever charging at Wilnsdorf. We were always the only one charging at all 3 supercharges we used.
We were ready to leave our last supercharger Jettingen, after 1 AM. Linz was around 333 kilometres away. Outside was around 0 degrees. I figured if we went slowly, we should make it. I wanted to make sure that when we got to Linz, we would have as much battery left as possible. That is because I was able to find only one charging station that was free with 22kW. So in case that charger was not working, I would still have enough left to get to another charger. I decided to travel as slowly as possible. We travelled around 70km/h. Luckily for us, it was night and the highways were really empty. Only occasionally, we passed by a truck. Some of the truckers couldn't resist honking on us. That didn’t bother me much. Just wanted to make sure we would have enough juice to find as quickly enough charger suitable for Model S. I never had an electric car before, and never used chargers before, either. Didn't know exactly what Type 2 or Type 1 meant. Kilowatts, volts, amps were never up my alley. I had no idea what to expect when we arrive at the charger. As the morning was approaching, more and more cars were on the streets and we were forced to speed up a little. But around 6:00 AM, we finally arrived at the address with 84km left to spare. It took us another 20 minutes to find the charger, as it wasn't exactly where the address was. So when I looked at the charging station, the good news was that the station was open and working and we had the right cable to plug it in. The bad news was the 22kW plug was in use by some other car. The only plug available was 3,7kW. We plugged it in, but it was charging slower than the Model S could display. So, that was frustrating. I was trying to find some other suitable charger, but couldn't find anything. The charger was in front of a business building. As people were on their way going to work, they were taking pictures of our car and we became some kind of an attraction for them, while we were trying to get some sleep in the car :frown:. Soon the word of parked Tesla in front of the building got also to the owner of the car that was charging from 22kW plug. So he came out to let us use the 22kW plug. That saved the day and around 1 PM, we were ready to leave to Vienna.
In Vienna, I found a charger that was free, but the problem was you needed some kind of card to be able to use it. We didn't have that card. There are many chargers in Austria, but as I mentioned before you would always need that card. I think you’d need to subscribe on the Internet and then they send you a card. Only after that you can use the stations. So that is not good for the tourists passing by. Up till now, I don't know how and where to get that card. So I called Tesla service in Vienna and asked them if we could charge in the service, and they told us that we could. So we charged there till around 7PM and around 9PM, we got back home after some 1460km long trip .
The Registration
We had only temporary plates and they were soon to expire. So after a few days again, I couldn't use the car because we had no plates. So you have a car, but you can't use it — quite frustrating. The registration took some time. We had to go through a car’s originality test/check and they had no Tesla brand in their system. So first they made it under the Volkswagen brand and later they changed it to Tesla. I don't know how the other 3 Teslas before us were able to avoid the originality check. The problem was that people working on the registration never heard of Tesla. Some even asked us questions like — can the car climb hills? Sometimes I was worried we will not be able to get it registered at all. But at the end of January, we could finally get the plates.
The Car
Works perfect, without any of the problems mentioned in this forum. In the streets, I can overpass any other car. Model S is superior to other cars. Wherever we go, people look at the car and it is a total head-turning. One Porsche owner, while driving in the street asked me to roll down the window and then asked what kind of car it is and how he could get one.
