Air Suspension and Straddling Road Debris

[jdeskins]

I'm new to the Tesla family with my Model S currently in production. While eagerly waiting, I've been playing through about every driving scenario in my head

Has anyone had issues when you are forced to straddle some debris on the highway? Guessing most of the time it happens too quick to manually raise the air suspension. Can the car detect something like this with its sensors and raise on its own? (or maybe possible future enhancement) Not sure the car will temporarily raise manually when over certain speed as it may change the driving dynamics.

Looks like the ground clearance is very similar to other cars - but lowers at higher speeds is why I was wondering. Obviously best to avoid these obstacles when possible.

Thanks

 

[SSedan]

No it is both too slow and the sensors won't be able to differentiate that well.

 

[shadownddust]

This actually why I keep my automatic lowering speed at 80mph+. For a while I dropped it down to 75+, since most days I don't hit 80 but do get to around 75, but I was concerned after regularly seeing a few bits of road debris on my commute that the aerodynamic benefits wouldn't be worth an expensive repair bill. I figure if I'm doing 80, it's on a long straight highway during a road trip with minimal traffic and I'm more likely to see things on the road well in advance.

Welcome to the Tesla family, the wait is well worth it.

 

[jdeskins]

Good to know @shadownddust. Yet another advantage of these cars where you can customize the settings to meet your preferences. Then you can know based on your speed if your suspension is lower and drive accordingly.

I was just notified by my Delivery Advisor that I am probably under 2 weeks before delivery!

 

[BerTX]

I'm new to the Tesla family with my Model S currently in production. While eagerly waiting, I've been playing through about every driving scenario in my head

Has anyone had issues when you are forced to straddle some debris on the highway? Guessing most of the time it happens too quick to manually raise the air suspension. Can the car detect something like this with its sensors and raise on its own? (or maybe possible future enhancement) Not sure the car will temporarily raise manually when over certain speed as it may change the driving dynamics.

Looks like the ground clearance is very similar to other cars - but lowers at higher speeds is why I was wondering. Obviously best to avoid these obstacles when possible.

Thanks

Not practical or safe to try to manually raise the suspension while moving. It requires taking your eyes off the road, finding the setting on the screen, and hitting the button, usually twice since I usually miss the button the first time. Then it still takes a couple of seconds to raise.

On top of that, you are speed-limited in how high you can raise the suspension. I don't remember exactly, but I think you can't use the Very High setting above 15 mph and you can't use High above 25 mph.

Another factor is that it really doesn't raise much -- I think about 3 1/2" total from Low to VH.

My numbers here may be wrong and somebody will correct them if so, but bottom line is that it isn't practical to raise the suspension to avoid road debris.

 

[jdeskins]

Very good points... I got to thinking about it after my original post. If you have time to look down and manually adjust the suspension to higher - you most likely have time to avoid the obstacle in the first place. That's what I get for watching Speed Racer's Mach 5 as a child and its "control A" to jump over obstacles