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Nice. Ordered!

This inspired me to learn about the accounting for certain types of leases where you do NOT allow purchase after lease. Those who already know should skip over this post. I'm not an accountant, I just play one on TV. Check out PWC's guide to lease accounting here, and check out page 4-20 where...

The phone key works for all 5 of our family members, but the boys legit think it's cool they can just pull out their wallet and slap it on the car to unlock it. Power wallet!

Just hood. Or at least that's what shows, cuz aluminum.

Tesla sign missing. As a Tesla owner, you should have figured out that that was just straight up a Tesla charging spot, despite the missing sign.

If you haven't, take a look at @KarenRei's survey on Tesla Owners Online. She conducted primary research on Model 3 owners in 2018 to answer the question "How common are defects?" Everyone must wonder: Are the defects common, or are complaints just amplified by the tendency to report problems...

It's an awkward time for AP/FSD, no doubt. Believed in, relied on, but not finished. It's easy to forget—until you have to drive another car, like a rental on business—how good it already is. But you def have to keep an eye on it, just like you always have to given the crazy stuff that other...

The tide will turn on public perception. I have already noticed the tide turning a bit, as some news outlets begin to get "the scoop" that Tesla is actually doing pretty well. The news tries to serve the latest public opinion, not set it. So it's a lagging indicator. While California typically...

Mostly. But keep in mind that the software is also optimizing for long-term battery life. Tesla knows a lot more about battery life and optimum cycling than Audi, so if Tesla was to say something like, "We could charge faster, but it's an unacceptable battery life trade-off," I would not be at...

It has to be said that if a buyer REALLY wants a very cushy, comfortable, quiet drive in something that also looks comfortably familiar—manufactured by a company that is not :"risky" and associated with bad press that relatives will mention during the holidays—one might be averse to buying a...

Sometimes people might think the software part of things in cars is over-hyped. But it really is THE factor upsetting all other industries, so why not cars? As in the previous comment—but to use an example from another industry we are all familiar with that is further along than auto—you might...

There has been a great deal of overgeneralizing in the press: "Wait until Audi/Porsche/Mercedes/Jaguar introduce their electric cars." But here's the thing: while taking a car and putting an electric motor in it is a step in the right direction, it doesn't mean the car will be great. My test...

You only have to worry about souces of ionizing radiation (non-ionizing radiation doesn't change anything, they can only slightly warm them up sometimes, like a sweater does) Teslas emit zero ionizing radiation By far the highest risk when driving a car is from an accident Teslas are the safest...

If you don't have a Tesla yet, the best way to calculate what the energy cost per mile (or km) will be is to take the average energy consumption of the car you want (in my case a Model 3 LR 19" at 253 Wh/mi or 152 Wh/km) and multiply that by your electrical rate. But the exact model and how you...

FSD should show up in your Tesla Account > Manage > Show Details of your car.

Were you near an airport?

Wait, what's in the bottom spoke?

I guess just Y. Truck later, as stated. Will be cool to see what interior convenience improvements might be there versus the 3, and what that signals. Even small things like chrome—will there be less of it, like the Roadster 2.0? I'll be most interested in the dates/locations/plans for it. The...

Yeah, I think it's hunker down time on the stock. Stop checking where it's at for, say 6 months...

While some people will focus on what's MISSING from the lower end configs, I'm sure most people will just be thrilled by what they DO end up with. Even with fewer bells and whistles: best car ever.

I saw that deer in the pool and thought, "Who's their lifeguard, Mr. Steven?"

Every time I get into a rental car and survey the vast array of chromed out gauges and buttons, I actually say out loud something like: "Oh, for &%$3's sake. What is this, the space shuttle?" Then they give you two big fobs, steel-cabled together. So you go from No Keys to Fat Wad of Keys...

Maxwell has way more patents than a firm its size usually has, and some of them are rather broad. I wouldn't be surprised if the impetus for the acquisition involved potential infringement by Tesla on an aspect of battery tech or a product process that would have been impossible to change at...

Make sure you have peeled off the screen film that came with the car.

Bluetooth was initially designed and used for "static" applications, where the two ends get set up and don't move (like music speakers and headphones, 95% of historic use). It's only recently been coerced to work acceptably for applications where the two ends wander in and out of range often...

I just installed a NEMA 14-50 outlet and use the Mobile Connector that came with the car. No need to every carry the Mobile Connector in the car unless you are going somewhere like a cabin in the woods.

Most of these nitpicks share a theme with early magazine reviews: when you jump into the car some things take getting used to, and the interface is really geared (at least a little more) toward experienced users. In other words, after you are used to things, it's nice that many UI elements are...

I for one decided not to get film or coating, if anyone cares. In just under a year of ownership and 20K miles, I've gotten one tiny little rock chip, easily repaired with the $55 touch-up kit. My reasoning has been that buying PPF and/or coating is like "pre-paying for thousands of dollars of...

It is interesting to wonder what they could do to boost Model 3. When I went through that process, it made me appreciate how much they have ALREADY done to max Model 3 out quickly. They really got to P3D pretty fast, and the cars are pretty well equipped. I didn't come up with any great ideas...

To me, making plastic replacements would be a quick cheap way to fix the window myself—or at least as an immediate temp replacement while the $190 part is ordered—and if broken into the plastic would shatter in a much easier-to-clean-up way than the glass. Most of the standard time to repair the...

Cleanest = no plate holder at all.

I made the Exit label using a "white on black" P-Touch label maker, so I guess it's free(ish). To make the label less visible I tucked the ends of the label into the slots at each side when I applied it, and I trimmed the top and bottom edges a bit to remove a little border that can sometimes...

Now that the software drops the window when you use the latch, it's not as important. Here's what I use, but remember that almost no matter how you label it, no one expects an electric button as a door opener.

Me and a friend have had the small-window-smash happen to us. My friend: twice. But I haven't had a recurrence since I started leaving my seats down with a light on. I bought a cheap LED light that sticks to the bottom of the parcel shelf. The light runs for many hours. In this picture, the...

It's obvious here that not THAT many people want a Bolt, or you'd be hard pressed to find one on a lot here (plenty of other cars sell out and need to be ordered, but not this one). We have more people here that are interested in electric cars than they do in Ithaca by a long shot. Half of my...

There are tons of Bolts in stock in California (especially given the slow sales). 43 at my closest dealer. It's a mediocre car with "typical historic modest electrical car interest." Given a car with modest appeal and a poor cost position, even if GM execs had a "great attitude," they'd be...

I think the wisest course of action is to plug it in and see how it goes.

Whereas I always marvel that grown adults believe in "technical trading," and "reading tea leaves," and "tarot cards," and "palm reading."

Just shell out the $11 for a pair of slightly less strong struts. Takes < 2 minutes with a simple screwdriver. I did it after getting my Model 3 and the trunk has never been an issue since. STRONGARM 6304 Lift Support | RockAuto

The key difficulty in valuing Tesla as an investment—or even discussing it with friends—is what business gurus call "dislocation." People suck at forecasts and predictions whenever a market makes a sudden shift from recent history and starts to go a different direction. It's natural. Whenever...

Surprised no one asked about what the boxes looked like. Can we see a picture to compare to our boxes in our garages?

I have 13,000 miles on my RWD 19" and I've already rotated them twice. 5,000-6,000 miles is a good idea with this car. My tire shop does it for free, just it just costs a stop at lunch. They are wearing very evenly, with a slight amount of feathering.

Next time you hear it, press the left steering wheel button to pause, then again to resume. See if that helps. I have used this to fix what sounds like a flutter or crackle in my Model 3, but it's only occasionally. I think it's something to do with the codec glitching every now and then.

So, just to close this out, there were volunteers in Fremont on Sunday night (the last day of the quarter) past midnight. Pretty crazy to see a line out of the door of customers checking in at 10:30pm.

In California, front plates are the law. Unless you think it makes your car look less pretty, then you can leave it off.* *May require you to temporarily stick one on and slink to a local police department every few years if you get a ticket for something else or a meter maid targets you in an...

We had volunteers at the Fremont delivery center until after midnight on the last day of the quarter. Easy to pitch in when you see so many Tesla employees—from other departments like engineering—working so hard. Also: you can have some interesting conversations when you meet folks that work in...

I have a feeling word will get around and Houston may accept help next weekend. Anyone's initial thoughts would tend towards, "There's lots of ways this could go wrong..." but at Fremont it took only about a half hour before it began clicking with the service staff. They saw us happily helping...

Per Elon's tweet: I dropped by the Fremont Delivery Center Saturday morning to help. At first there was a little awkwardness as they figured out how to use volunteers, but by the time I left they had it down pretty well. "John, can you help the couple over in spot 22?" There were Model S...

The only time I got this set of symptoms was after a failed update. Had to do without EAP until they managed to push the next update (which required a special step to reformat the flash drive to allow the re-update to succeed, otherwise it kept failing).

1. Bring water, snacks, and patience. 2. If you are using a car loan, make sure everyone whose name is on the loan is present to sign. 3. If you are bringing a pre-printed check, make sure it's the exact same amount as they list in the MVPA 4. Make sure they give you: a. Your Mobile Charging...