Hi
@WayneG, and welcome to the forum. Your questions largely answered I think, but here's my 2p worth ...
the 0-60mph times sound similar on paper, but how's about the 50-70 range etc. Am I going to see a noticeable difference in torque/mid-range "shove" in the real world?
Yes, but no.
The 100 battery can delivery more power, as well as power-for-longer (i.e. range). But even if its 0.1 or 0.2 of a second 50-70 MPH I very much doubt you'll notice it, and Tesla passes 50-70 so fast anyway, all your overtaking manoeuvres will be quick. Part of that is the instant-torque effect ... compare "
bend coming up, I know there is a straight ahead, change down [noise, vibration ...] come round bend ... clear? ok GO" with "
come round bend [silent, no drama] ... clear? ok GO"
The difference between 75 and 100 is:
#1 Range - obviously
On a nice, warm, day the MS75D will do 203 real-world motorway miles, and the MS100D 274 miles (I hope you haven't been seeing the "Statutory Test range figures", because they bear no relation to real-world I'm afraid)
Normally you will only charge to 90% (for a "trip" charge to 100%, but don't leave the battery sitting like that for hours) Deduct say 20 miles for "just in case". On a cold February day deduct 20%. So 90% daily range (with 20 miles spare) is Summer / Winter MS75D 163 / 126, MS100D 227 / 177
Note that you leave home, every morning, with that range. How many days a month do you drive further? I recommend using
A Better Route Planner, select the Car/Model and put some real-world worst-case journeys in and see where it takes you for Supercharging and how much time that will add to the Journey. London to Edinburgh is a single 30 minute Supercharging stop for a 100
If you divide the price difference by the extra miles of range you'll hate the amount-per-mile, but that's not the full story.
I do 27,000 miles a year and drive out-of-range a couple of days a month. If I had the smaller battery that would be 4 or 5 days a month, and extra charging time, detouring because I couldn't "quite reach" the ideal Supercharger, and so on would add a 2 or 3 hours to my overall Supercharging. For me, that time saving justifies for the extra cost. But ... if you don't need the range don't pay for it. You will be pushing a lot more battery-weight around, the whole time, which costs you some "juice" efficiency of course.
#2 the 100 battery Supercharges faster than the 75 battery. All Tesla batteries charge at about the same rate, in terms of percentage. So both 75 and 100 put on about 10% every 5 minutes from 10% to 70%~80% (and
much slower above that).
So in the 100 you have more range to start with, you then Supercharge adding 1/3 more miles in the same time, you maybe make fewer Supercharger stops (allow 5 minutes per stop getting into/out-of the Services), more choice of Superchargers in a 100 so much less chance of having to detour for a fill-up [that adds driving time, but also more charging time for the detour miles] and much less likely you would have to Supercharge a 100 into the "slow" 80%-100% zone than a 75 - i.e. because you "need the range"
If you don't need it, don't buy it (unless you want to)
have features such as the in-built dash-cam been confirmed?
My guess: picture quality will be nothing like as good as a dashcam, and that will make the difference between being able to identify the culprit ... and not. However, V9 is so imminent that maybe wait for a bit (and either see it and then choose, or decide "it's late, yet again"
and get Dashcam anyway,. I have no idea where the car is going to store the video; there isn't a lot of wiggleroom spare memory capacity.
US citizens can save $1000USD with a code when purchasing
Tesla have had various incentive programs over the years. Elon is trying to get the company profitable, so they are tailing off all incentives.
The car will come with free supercharging for life
Only if it is an inventory car, and only if you buy it before the end of this month. Note that use of a Referral code is a cash gift from you to the referrer (i.e. the cost of the Swag given to the referrer is baked into the price), so something like £500. If you have a Tesla mate locally, who can get your a Wall Charger (so either no referrals yet, or just one) he can give you that but, as already said, it will be "sometime never" before you actually see it. I haven't yet had Wall Charger from Referral that took delivery in March ...
I'd get a free home charger unit, but would have to pay around £300 to install it. Does that seem correct?
if you have off road parking you can get the OLEV grant to install a charger
I would get the Tesla wall charger and pay to have it installed, rather than OLEV. You can get a subsidised OLEV unit, but it seems that installers charge more for those (because of the red-tape paperwork involved?) and it works out about the same, and my (albeit old-model OLEV because Tesla didn't have a UK unit back then) has been unreliable [and for other users of that brand too].
Tesla wall charger will automatically adjust power - e.g. if your household gets a second Tesla in future - and so on. Looks smart too - if that is important to you.
If you have PV and could charge (daytime) then there are wall chargers that will divert any excess PV into your car. No use if you are out-to-work of course. Unless Employer pays for charge-at-work (no Benefit-in-Kind tax on that) and you only charge at Weekend and want to use your PV then)
brakes last a lot longer than a non-EV which makes sense, but is it the case?
Depends how you drive
I have the Performance model, but even so rarely use the brakes. Most of my driving is highway, and Regen is all I use. Probably reasonable to expect 150,000 miles from a set of brakes. Apparently "jumping on them" once a week is a good idea to keep them in good shape, because they are so underused.
Surely a garage wouldn't want to be missing out on this each time
Tesla service is hugely overloaded, they don't want your vehicle in for service. Currently 6 weeks lead time for a service I think?
But service is expensive. Jaguar is including 5 years service in price of i-Pace I think? Tesla should do that too.
V9coming soon but god knows when that really is
The fact that Musk is tweeting "in final testing" has, previously, mean that his "coming soon" prediction is accurate. Might be month late, but not more than that.
being a full new version number I’m expecting some cool stuff
Yes. But the last Big Version also bought with it a complete facelift to the presentation and 50% of people hated it (and many complained it wasn't the car they had bought).. I have old-eyes and agree with them, and I think that Tesla should have offered "Classic" mode too. The current vogue for "flat" my eyes find very hard to cope with and most old Tesla-owning codgers that I know say the same thing.
So my expectation is "some good", and "some not so good". Tesla have already said they are combining Model-3 screen features with Model-S/X and I fear the worst from an old-eyes standpoint.
The referral is only when buying a new Tesla
Two things here. Get £100 off supercharging with a Referral, or buy an Inventory car (before end of month) for the original "umlimited supercharging" referral deal.
it sounds like I wouldn't get the free supercharging,
If you get free Supercharging, or £100, great. But other than that forget about it.
I do 27,000 miles p.a., and TeslaFi (which has logged all the data from my car every minute, of every day, since I have owned it) tells me that 12% of that was "free" at Supercharger.
27,000 miles p.a. on Economy 7 is about £700 a year on "fuel". 12% is less than £100 p.a., so "unlimited free" not really going to make any tangible difference to me, given that I have bough a £100K car in the first place!
My workplace provides free EV charging, so that accounts for 50%, so I pay about £275 p.a.
27,000 miles @ 32 MPG and £1.30 / Litre = FIVE THOUSAND POUNDS p.a. for fuel !! And I save 8 hours a year not standing on smelly, wet, cold forecourts filling up.
I just get the feeling they're wanting to meet sales quota for the quarter,
Yes, happens every Quarter to keep Wall Street happy. As a consequence Delivery is hugely stretched and quality suffers. But they will sort out any niggles afterwards, they just might not have done so before collection which is disappointing for any new car owners to be taking home a "not 100%" car.
Pity Musk didn't manage to take Tesla private, as that would have fixed that problem for him.
I've never been particularly fussy about in car audio
Me too. An EV is so inherently quiet that you don't need the bass-boom to compensate for engine-noise, which means Audio is always going to be better. We had Bose in previous car, which was superb. Initially thought the Tesla (standard audio) not good enough, but I now think it is fine (either it is now "run in" [which I have read is-a-thing], or I have changed expectation ...). Proper audiophiles who ride in the car think the car-audio-quality of e.g. Adele on Spotify is astonishing. I mostly listen to FM (TuneIn / DAB is not 100% coverage) and I get static on radio now-and-then which is disappointing and even after numerous attempts Tesla have not been able to fix it.
The “enhanced” autopilot functions announced at the same are non existent
I reckon you'll be pleased in V9. I have heard nothing about speed-sign recognition (which I regard as a showstopper in upgrading from AP1 to AP2), and I think Tesla should have been prioritising that, rather than "better country lane AP driving" but its not my gaff!
also the 21" alloys I don't particularly want
Could cost you 10% - 20% range (more so if you, also, have sticky/performance tyres)
I would have thought that loads of 19" owners would want the swanky 21" wheels ... but how to swap them? as @DPJ31 said the "swap" would be a right palaver.
I reckon if you said to Tesla "
I'll take that inventory car, but put some 19" wheels on it" their quarterly sales targets will mean they will find a way to do that.
a lot of the inventory models are suggesting 5.2 seconds
Someone will correct me, but I thought all?? Facelift 75s had been "uncorked" from 5s 0-60 to 4s so you would need to double check any specific car, but most likely any info saying 5s is wrong.
if they can do 4.2 though, I guess its only the model hierarchy stopping them from making it even more accelerative with a semi-ludicrous mode etc
Don't anticipate better. The Insane / Ludicrous was some beefier wiring / fuse (and you needed the bigger Performance motor too). Thereafter just software (once they started making all cars with the bigger fuse fitted as standard), so anyone with an old Performance model can upgrade to Ludicrous with a flash of their credit card ... that's pretty cool of course, and you can buy AutoPilot etc. similarly
Then Tesla discovered (or had already planned ...) that the basic-version had more manufacturing tolerance than original thought, and their initial assumptions were too conservative, so they issued a software upgrade to enhance the whole fleet from 5s to 4s.
... about the time that the Jaguar i-Pace was announced which, surprise surprise (sceptic that I am!!), was around the 4s mark
And the whole rollout COMMS for the Uncorking was handled abysmally, in typical Tesla fashion. All sorted out now (except the Data on used-cars <sigh> as you have discovered)
If you are buying through finance then Tesla / finance company will require annual service
I think rather than Annual it is "manufacturers recommended interval" or annual, whichever comes first. Sadly its the same service-interval as an ICE, and totally unnecessary.
warranty work, and Tesla are proactive at service time in checking the car over
I [paid cash and] serviced mine at the first year interval, and again just before 50,000 miles when the basic warranty ran out, and plan to service at approximately 30,000 miles / annually from now on.
