Factory Tour today - very excited!

[richrootes]

15:00 today, we get to see it all happen - can't wait!

The drive down from Vancouver was a breeze - if you've not taken a road trip yet, what are you waiting for??

We did observe though that some Supercharger sites are faster to charge than others - Vacaville the best of the day, Corning the worst.

Anybody know a good 'Jet Wash' or touchless car wash near Fremont?

 

[AndyM]

We did observe though that some Supercharger sites are faster to charge than others - Vacaville the best of the day, Corning the worst.

Glad you're getting your Model S on the road!

Supercharger "speed" varies by:

- How much charge you have left when you start... the lower your battery state of charge, the faster the Supercharger kicks in.
- Whether you are the first or second to start at a pair of superchargers. Superchargers are arranged in pairs which share twelve 10-kW chargers... 120 kW shared by the pair. Example: If you plug in to 1B, and there's already someone on 1A, they will get 90 kW and you get the remaining 30 kW. (*This may have changed since my experience in summer 2014)

Enjoy your supercharging!

 

[richrootes]

Hi Andy

We arrived at each site with a pretty low state of charge, courtesy of the trip planner

Also, we made sure to use only one of an AB pair, so pretty certain it's either the site or the connector itself

Cheers!

 

[ny888]

How did it go? Do they allow pictures on the tour?

 

[Kalud]

Do they allow pictures on the tour?

No picture and you sign a NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement). Don't expect too much info. I highly recommend taking the tour, must be even more interesting these days with the Model X getting close to production...

 

[Shawn Snider]

How long of a drive is it from Vancouver? I plan to do a similar road trip when I get mine!

 

[ddimit]

Pickup up our car this Tuesday and did the tour Definitely worth it ! Was amazing the scale of production going on there. they are in the process of building the new line for the X you will see that on the tour.

 

[Khatsalano]

Welcome to California. The SCs really just depend on how many are using it. Corning has worked well for me before at 360mph+.

I'm doing the reverse of your trip up to Vancouver later this summer. The best all-hand wash place I know in the Bay is Luxury Detail in San Carlos, which is not exactly near Fremont. But I'm not sure where you're staying overnight. You have to call for an appointment, but the quality will not disappoint. Especially if you get a wax, your car just pops.

 

[richrootes]

Thanks everyone

The tour was pretty amazing, though we did hit a shift change unfortunately, so the lines weren't running particularly fast

There are absolutely no pictures or video recording allowed - not really sure why though, as I'm sure most automated assembly lines run in a similar fashion

We split the trip into two sections of around nine hours each and stayed overnight in two places (Springfield and Vacaville). Found a few bugs in the trip planner which I shall be reporting, plus I thought the car sent a message via the App when it had sufficient charge to continue, but that isn't working for me

The Waze alerts on the browser work really well - I'm sure the rozzers will soon try to get that banned somehow

The car really is a long distance cruiser though - no fatigue or aches and pains - if you're on the fence, go for it (the 60 battery in no way diminishes the fun nor adds to anxiety - it was the bargain of the lineup!)