A. Center Console (3 out of 10)
1. The console has been mentioned a number of times before, but I hadn’t yet realized how silly the current situation is. There’s a big box between the front seats. This box contains some vents for the back seats and a couple of cup holders for the front seat, but there’s no internal storage. Why the heck not? Cars with transaxles have room for storage there. What’s inside this big box on the Tesla? The sliding arm rests seem unnecessary to me.
2. Add more cup holders. The ones on the floor under the screen seem worthless. No way I want to put a bottle there, take a hard left, and find the bottle rolling under my brake pedal. Lots of other cars have pop-out cup holders. Model S should have some for the back seat in that worthless center console.
3. The Tesla rep said that they were still adjusting things but that anything they made would be able to be added on to an existing car. I don’t want an extra console that drops on top of the rubber floor mat. I want them to redesign the current center console so that it’s useful rather than a big waste of space. Hopefully they will before my number comes up in 2013.
B. Touchscreen (7 out of 10)
1. Works well. Easy to use.
2. I still think physical knobs are easier to use to control things like fans, but the screen works as well as I think a screen can.
C. Comfort (7 out of 10)
1. Cockpit is well done. Adjustable seat and steering wheel work well.
2. Driver’s side mirror could stand to go a bit wider. (I think the idea that you should be able to see part of the car in the side mirror is a fallacy).
3. Seats are good for comfort. I’ve been in a handful of seats that I liked better, but Model S is good.
4. Rear headroom is so-so. Much less than a full sized sedan. More than a hatchback.
D. Construction (7 out of 10)
1. Door thunk isn’t very solid at all. My car also has frameless windows and it still feels much more solid
2. Otherwise it seems reasonably well built, but not super solid. I have a slight (hopefully misplaced) fear that something is going to make a rattle noise after a few years.
3. The car is very quiet inside. Very little engine/wind/tire noise at 70mph.
E. Acceleration (7 out of 10)
1. Am I the only one that’s underwhelmed by the peak acceleration? I was driving the black performance, yet its peak acceleration is much slower than my 4.8s 0-60 car. I know that sounds odd, but this car doesn’t have the huge dip in acceleration at the start of 1st gear or at the transition between 1st and 2nd, so therefore the peak acceleration can be much lower even if its 0-60s time is better.
2. The tires do a great job launching the car straight.
3. The battery makes an odd whine sound after flooring it. The rep said that they were trying to tune that out. It’s not very loud.
F. Driving Experience (10 out of 10)
1. It’s so nice to not need to downshift when you want power. The power is always there. Similarly, it’s nice not to get whiplash when shifting from 1st to 2nd.
2. The handling is great.
3. The tires grip well.
4. The suspension is great.
5. When I got the tires to break loose by flooring the accelerator on a right turn at a stop sign, the car was extremely well behaved. The car still allowed a lot of power to the wheels even though they were unstuck, yet the wheels were refusing to completely spin out, and control was never lost. I really can’t imagine the car doing this any better.
6. I really like the sound (or lack thereof) of the engine.
7. I’d prefer the regenerative braking to be more aggressive. It’s slightly stronger than engine braking on an ICE, but it’s really not the you-only-need-one-pedal braking that I expected.
G. Get AMPed event (9 out of 10)
1. I thought Tesla did a very nice job of the test drive event.
2. The course was good.
3. They had lots of Tesla staff members.
4. It was running reasonably close to on-time.
5. They spaced out the cars, so a fun test driver wouldn’t have to wait for a grandma test driver on the single lane roads.
6. They only had one performance car in the afternoon (the 2nd was charging), but I was one of the few that was willing to wait for the performance, so the wait was only 10 minutes.
H. Other
1. The Tesla folks said that only 10 owners had taken delivery.
2. VINs ending in 1xx are “marketing” cars.
3. In lieu of a spare tire, my car came with a can of Fix-A-Flat and an electric pump with a cigarette lighter adaptor with a designated cubby in the trunk for them. Since Model S doesn’t have a spare tire, I would think this would be a rather fair compromise rather than telling people to buy their own stuff to rattle around the frunk.
4. I’d like to issue an insincere apology to the guy who left for their test drive just before I exited the event in my own car. I wanted to see how my current car did compared to the Model S. The guy doing the test drive in front of me was going so slow, the comparison was largely worthless. You’re test driving a supercar, not a Prius. Step on the freaking gas.
In the end, I’m still not sure I’ll buy this car. The decision might come down to what they do with the center console.
Derek
P6852
1. The console has been mentioned a number of times before, but I hadn’t yet realized how silly the current situation is. There’s a big box between the front seats. This box contains some vents for the back seats and a couple of cup holders for the front seat, but there’s no internal storage. Why the heck not? Cars with transaxles have room for storage there. What’s inside this big box on the Tesla? The sliding arm rests seem unnecessary to me.
2. Add more cup holders. The ones on the floor under the screen seem worthless. No way I want to put a bottle there, take a hard left, and find the bottle rolling under my brake pedal. Lots of other cars have pop-out cup holders. Model S should have some for the back seat in that worthless center console.
3. The Tesla rep said that they were still adjusting things but that anything they made would be able to be added on to an existing car. I don’t want an extra console that drops on top of the rubber floor mat. I want them to redesign the current center console so that it’s useful rather than a big waste of space. Hopefully they will before my number comes up in 2013.
B. Touchscreen (7 out of 10)
1. Works well. Easy to use.
2. I still think physical knobs are easier to use to control things like fans, but the screen works as well as I think a screen can.
C. Comfort (7 out of 10)
1. Cockpit is well done. Adjustable seat and steering wheel work well.
2. Driver’s side mirror could stand to go a bit wider. (I think the idea that you should be able to see part of the car in the side mirror is a fallacy).
3. Seats are good for comfort. I’ve been in a handful of seats that I liked better, but Model S is good.
4. Rear headroom is so-so. Much less than a full sized sedan. More than a hatchback.
D. Construction (7 out of 10)
1. Door thunk isn’t very solid at all. My car also has frameless windows and it still feels much more solid
2. Otherwise it seems reasonably well built, but not super solid. I have a slight (hopefully misplaced) fear that something is going to make a rattle noise after a few years.
3. The car is very quiet inside. Very little engine/wind/tire noise at 70mph.
E. Acceleration (7 out of 10)
1. Am I the only one that’s underwhelmed by the peak acceleration? I was driving the black performance, yet its peak acceleration is much slower than my 4.8s 0-60 car. I know that sounds odd, but this car doesn’t have the huge dip in acceleration at the start of 1st gear or at the transition between 1st and 2nd, so therefore the peak acceleration can be much lower even if its 0-60s time is better.
2. The tires do a great job launching the car straight.
3. The battery makes an odd whine sound after flooring it. The rep said that they were trying to tune that out. It’s not very loud.
F. Driving Experience (10 out of 10)
1. It’s so nice to not need to downshift when you want power. The power is always there. Similarly, it’s nice not to get whiplash when shifting from 1st to 2nd.
2. The handling is great.
3. The tires grip well.
4. The suspension is great.
5. When I got the tires to break loose by flooring the accelerator on a right turn at a stop sign, the car was extremely well behaved. The car still allowed a lot of power to the wheels even though they were unstuck, yet the wheels were refusing to completely spin out, and control was never lost. I really can’t imagine the car doing this any better.
6. I really like the sound (or lack thereof) of the engine.
7. I’d prefer the regenerative braking to be more aggressive. It’s slightly stronger than engine braking on an ICE, but it’s really not the you-only-need-one-pedal braking that I expected.
G. Get AMPed event (9 out of 10)
1. I thought Tesla did a very nice job of the test drive event.
2. The course was good.
3. They had lots of Tesla staff members.
4. It was running reasonably close to on-time.
5. They spaced out the cars, so a fun test driver wouldn’t have to wait for a grandma test driver on the single lane roads.
6. They only had one performance car in the afternoon (the 2nd was charging), but I was one of the few that was willing to wait for the performance, so the wait was only 10 minutes.
H. Other
1. The Tesla folks said that only 10 owners had taken delivery.
2. VINs ending in 1xx are “marketing” cars.
3. In lieu of a spare tire, my car came with a can of Fix-A-Flat and an electric pump with a cigarette lighter adaptor with a designated cubby in the trunk for them. Since Model S doesn’t have a spare tire, I would think this would be a rather fair compromise rather than telling people to buy their own stuff to rattle around the frunk.
4. I’d like to issue an insincere apology to the guy who left for their test drive just before I exited the event in my own car. I wanted to see how my current car did compared to the Model S. The guy doing the test drive in front of me was going so slow, the comparison was largely worthless. You’re test driving a supercar, not a Prius. Step on the freaking gas.
In the end, I’m still not sure I’ll buy this car. The decision might come down to what they do with the center console.
Derek
P6852
