Picked up my car today at 6 pm - WOOT! Third time was a charm. Car has two minor paint scratches that couldn't be fixed right then, but they said they'll take care of them in a future service appt., no problem. Here are some random thoughts/notes from my experience, in no particular order:
- I paid with a personal check, and had no issues at all. We arrived around 5:45 for a 6 pm delivery, and we were out of there at 6:27 pm.
- The staff in Littleton are super nice and chilled out, really a great experience signing the papers and going.
- Car came charged about 50%, 160 miles of range. Drove down to the Springs and arrived on the north side with 107 miles remaining even after having some fun on the highway with it.
- Other than the minor paint scratches, the detailers only put two wheel covers on and forgot to remove a protective film from the camera on the passenger side B-pillar. Took us a minute to convince ourselves we could just pull the film off.
- It tried to do a firmware update before I left the service center which I deferred to tonight.
- Autopilot finished configuring about halfway down to the Springs, but I couldn't try autosteer because I guess it has to be enabled for the first time while in park? I tried it (two taps down on the right stalk) and it told me that autosteer wasn't enabled, but I was able to enable it after getting the car home. Something to play with tomorrow.
- I learned that I have a habit burned into my muscle memory of driving with my hand up at 12 o'clock on the wheel and pivoting my hand to look through the wheel at the speedometer. Which isn't there in this car. But it's actually easier for me to glance at the screen in the Model 3 because I don't have to move my hand to see it, just going to take some getting used to.
- The acceleration and responsiveness of this vehicle is absolutely UNREAL. It feels like the other cars are stationary. I floored it once from a stop, and my two kids in back said they thought we were on one of those rollercoasters with the induction motors that launch you up the track without warning. Acceleration from 60-80 mph is also just plain unreal. Hard to explain if you've not experienced it (and this is my first EV).
- It took me about half the drive to fully adjust to regen, and now I'm hooked on it and probably can't live without it. I can already tell that it will be tough to ever go back to an ICE car (like the other two that I still have).
- My turn signal seems to work fine. I think. At times I felt like the left turn signal was acting wonky - like I've read others experience - but every time I test it deliberately, it works fine. I think it may take less pressure to trigger the momentary 3-flash setting on the left side compared with the right side. I don't know, can't quite decide if it's fine or just a little wonky.
- Could not find the rear heated seats for my kids while driving. Eventually found the setting once I got home. It's kind of buried in the climate controls if you don't know where to look.
- Car is quieter than I expected, even at high speed. At low speed it's downright silent. Still getting used to various noises it makes at times, though. Seems like it's more sensitive to pavement texture from a noise perspective - maybe because there's no engine noise to cover it up.
- Would not connect to my wifi in my garage. Actually detected no wifi at all, while my phone sees my network with 4/5 bars in my garage and detects dozens of spots from neighboring houses. I think I've read this may be a firmware issue - possibly fixed in the update it's doing now?
- Homelink setup to my garage door was perfectly simple and took about 3 minutes.
- I have a very short, steep driveway, and the damn thing scrapes its belly going over my curb! I think I can avoid that by going in at an angle, but I had mixed results experiment (slowly) and decided to punt the problem until daylight.
- My tennis bag fits PERFECTLY in the frunk.
Littleton staff told me that they set a record of 75 deliveries on Monday, maybe 70 today (?) but I think they said they had something like 220 deliveries lined up for tomorrow. Insane. Oddly the place did not seem very busy this evening.