Biggest Negatives about Ownership and Delivery
1) How disorganized Tesla seems to be in the face of going from a few hundred to 5,000 cars a week output. Delivery times aren't reliable,
title not delivered with car, and our delivery person in seems totally underwater. Not clear this is truly surprising but it has been frustrating, esp. since I can't register the car without the title.
2) Lag in getting car app initialized - and need to have some kind of email sent in to Tesla after delivery has been signed for? What's the point of that?
3) Fuggetabout getting anything off sticker - although this isn't a surprise as I didn't expect it. Seller's market
Biggest Positive Surprises About the Car's Operation
1) How much of a 'smooth cruisemobile' it can be instead of just a great performing sports sedan. Easiest car to drive I've ever experienced. Ease of just simple things like getting into Park, Drive, Reverse (in contrast with finding neutral, wich isn't so easy!)
2) Related to #1, really good ride quality despite the 35 series tires and the rather heavy wheels. It's a really, really comfortable car to ride in, although I am coming from a car that requires a kidney belt due to it's very stiff hard aftermarket suspension, and 12 year old suspension bushings, so perhaps I suffer from
too low expectations. But even with allowance for this, it seems to be really nice ride - and I can't figure how Car and Driver slammed the softer base model 3 suspension as "not great riding." Can't wait to experience the ride with much lighter alloys, which should improve its compliance over bumps even more. Somehow, this aspect of the car's behavior didn't register so clearly during the test drive, probably because I was too busy
mashing the throttle and feeling the G forces such that I didn't as much notice other things I
wasn't feeling, like NVH (noise, vibration and harshness). Very impressive and it spoils you.
3) How much I love regen braking. Not just from an economy and range standpoint, but from a safety standpoint, in that just lifting off gets you about .3 G's braking, such that if something unexpected is in front of you, you are slowing down to a non-trivial degree BEFORE you can ever hit the brake pedal. Really a great safety feature, and underappreciated from that standpoint (see #8)
4) How great the sound system is! Wow! And the streaming music channels, all laid out for you. Neat.
5) The amazing and paradigm shifting cell phone-centered entry and exit. Could NEVER go back to keys, key fobs, etc.
6) How quickly I've gotten used to the great touchscreen, the phone-centered remote control functionality, etc. I think this underscores how well Tesla made the whole process so intuitive, and how much thought and development time must have gone into the operating system.
7) how much SPACE the car has for such a compact body, and the phenomenal space utilization.
8) How safe I feel in the car, knowing its great passive and active safety features, including class-leading crash worthiness esp. around the side impact scenario, which is often lethal or at least injurious - did you know that in the frontal barrier collision, the windshield doesn't even break? The integration of warnings about cars crossing over into your lane, and the display in red of vehicles that represent potential dangers in left side of the touchscreen. The class leading braking (60-0 in under 100 ft)
9) that I just love the car as much as I do, can't believe that Tesla has made such an incredible vehicle that laps the sports sedan field, after just 6 short years of work on EV.
10) that I can get at least 240 whr/mi around town (140 MPGe)