Tesla Motors Club
Great car. Everything I expected and then some.
Few comments/questions:
1. Did my first mod tonight: LED license plate bulbs. They look great, yay! But shouldn't those be standard by now? I can't see any reason why such an advanced car should have any incandescent bulbs at this stage, aside from possibly HID headlights (which may also be going LED by the looks of another thread around here).
2. With the air on, I can't hear my son talking in the jump seat unless he yells. Anything I can do about that, other than turn the air down? Seems to get hot back there easily. Will be putting tint back there soon.
3. A/C seemed to be working kind of funny today. Outside was 59 degrees (SF Bay Area), but inside the cabin it was probably 85 from sitting in the sun all afternoon. I get in, turn on the AC, and the air was barely working on AUTO, lightly puffing some warm air at me. i had to turn on manual control and set the fan to 11 and temp down to LO to get the car cooled off. Any idea what's going on? Range mode was off.
4. Speaking of Range mode... The car was delivered with firmware 140, and I updated the first night to 167. Anything i can do to get to 179 or do i just have to wait for it to download one of these nights? How long do you expect it is before the system gets around to my VIN? I'm leery of engaging Range mode until i get off of 167, based on other threads I've read here and elsewhere.
5. Does anyone know if Torque Sleep will be available outside fo Range Mode eventually? My delivery specialist didn't seem to know or else wouldn't commit. I think if they can get the transitions really smooth without a loss of apparent power, there should be no reason not to sleep the rear motor any time acceleration/torque is not being summoned.
6. I (think?) I nearly had my fingers chopped off going out to the car tonight... I pressed the the remote button once (used to doing that from previous cars) just as the handles were automatically presenting themselves. That caused the handle to retract just as my fingers went to grab it. I quickly took my fingers out in time. So, until I get used to the whole auto-present business and double clicking to open, does anyone know what would actually happen if my (or worse my kids) fingers got caught in one of dem handles? I imagine a car this smart is not going to chop them off, but I'm curious how much pressure it will apply.
7. How bad is it not to charge every night? I got the car on Friday and forgot to call PG&E in time, so they hadn't switched me to the cheaper time-of-day (EV-A) plan. So, with 75% charge remaining when i got home, I decided I could easily go all weekend without charging. I'm only down to 60% battery Sunday night and plan to commute ~40 miles on Monday. I expect I'll be on the proper plan Monday night, but it got me wondering, if I can go a few days and stay above say 30% range left, do I really need to bother plugging in every night? I understand that it's bad for the battery to stay really low or really high for extended periods, but is there an advantage to keeping it juiced up to 70-80% every night other than the obvious flexibility to drive longer distances at a moment's notice?
8. My previous car had full frame doors. I noticed that with the Tesla I have a bad habit of closing the door by pushing the window. It seems that it might be putting some stress on the door frame when I do that. Is it? I think I need to train myself not to do that anymore...
9. Is it just me or is the frunk latching mechanism ridiculously fragile? I tried to close the way the orientation guy showed me (hande atop where the rivets are), but I can literally feel the sheet aluminum flexing as I push down to click. I know about all the creasing issues and thought people were overreacting, but I think it's still a weak spot (even with the recent latch re-design) on an otherwise well built car.
10. My garage seems to be a wifi dead spot. it's weird, because my wireless router (a new powerful, 3-antenna 802.11AC model) is really quite close to the garage and has no problem connecting to other devices within the house, so not sure if there's some source of interference nearby or what, but my car seems to waver in and out, right on the fringe of the router's range. Is this common, or are others experiencing good Wifi with the Model S? Also, I started to wonder: is there actually any obvious advantage to having the Model S connected to Wifi at home if the 3G signal seems to work fine in my garage?
Few comments/questions:
1. Did my first mod tonight: LED license plate bulbs. They look great, yay! But shouldn't those be standard by now? I can't see any reason why such an advanced car should have any incandescent bulbs at this stage, aside from possibly HID headlights (which may also be going LED by the looks of another thread around here).
2. With the air on, I can't hear my son talking in the jump seat unless he yells. Anything I can do about that, other than turn the air down? Seems to get hot back there easily. Will be putting tint back there soon.
3. A/C seemed to be working kind of funny today. Outside was 59 degrees (SF Bay Area), but inside the cabin it was probably 85 from sitting in the sun all afternoon. I get in, turn on the AC, and the air was barely working on AUTO, lightly puffing some warm air at me. i had to turn on manual control and set the fan to 11 and temp down to LO to get the car cooled off. Any idea what's going on? Range mode was off.
4. Speaking of Range mode... The car was delivered with firmware 140, and I updated the first night to 167. Anything i can do to get to 179 or do i just have to wait for it to download one of these nights? How long do you expect it is before the system gets around to my VIN? I'm leery of engaging Range mode until i get off of 167, based on other threads I've read here and elsewhere.
5. Does anyone know if Torque Sleep will be available outside fo Range Mode eventually? My delivery specialist didn't seem to know or else wouldn't commit. I think if they can get the transitions really smooth without a loss of apparent power, there should be no reason not to sleep the rear motor any time acceleration/torque is not being summoned.
6. I (think?) I nearly had my fingers chopped off going out to the car tonight... I pressed the the remote button once (used to doing that from previous cars) just as the handles were automatically presenting themselves. That caused the handle to retract just as my fingers went to grab it. I quickly took my fingers out in time. So, until I get used to the whole auto-present business and double clicking to open, does anyone know what would actually happen if my (or worse my kids) fingers got caught in one of dem handles? I imagine a car this smart is not going to chop them off, but I'm curious how much pressure it will apply.
7. How bad is it not to charge every night? I got the car on Friday and forgot to call PG&E in time, so they hadn't switched me to the cheaper time-of-day (EV-A) plan. So, with 75% charge remaining when i got home, I decided I could easily go all weekend without charging. I'm only down to 60% battery Sunday night and plan to commute ~40 miles on Monday. I expect I'll be on the proper plan Monday night, but it got me wondering, if I can go a few days and stay above say 30% range left, do I really need to bother plugging in every night? I understand that it's bad for the battery to stay really low or really high for extended periods, but is there an advantage to keeping it juiced up to 70-80% every night other than the obvious flexibility to drive longer distances at a moment's notice?
8. My previous car had full frame doors. I noticed that with the Tesla I have a bad habit of closing the door by pushing the window. It seems that it might be putting some stress on the door frame when I do that. Is it? I think I need to train myself not to do that anymore...
9. Is it just me or is the frunk latching mechanism ridiculously fragile? I tried to close the way the orientation guy showed me (hande atop where the rivets are), but I can literally feel the sheet aluminum flexing as I push down to click. I know about all the creasing issues and thought people were overreacting, but I think it's still a weak spot (even with the recent latch re-design) on an otherwise well built car.
10. My garage seems to be a wifi dead spot. it's weird, because my wireless router (a new powerful, 3-antenna 802.11AC model) is really quite close to the garage and has no problem connecting to other devices within the house, so not sure if there's some source of interference nearby or what, but my car seems to waver in and out, right on the fringe of the router's range. Is this common, or are others experiencing good Wifi with the Model S? Also, I started to wonder: is there actually any obvious advantage to having the Model S connected to Wifi at home if the 3G signal seems to work fine in my garage?