Wanted to share my thoughts from our 1st road trip in 2019 M3 (AWD) and general summary concerns with Tesla. (It’s a fantastic car for family - yes tight in space but other things make up for it). Having said that I’ll list the negatives here (for others to point workaround(s), or user error to alleviate the issues)
- Autopilot is super good (not FSD, the auto steer cruise control that comes by default). Is more than sufficient and allows to focus on other things while having hands on the wheel esp with small family. That alone trumps all negatives in my opinion.
- Fogging (internal) is a problem! big problem. Esp colder weather.
- Small side mirrors - painful
- Even though I like trying new things but Tesla needs to have buttons (some non UI buried soft button! - that does not change!) for basic stuff like controlling fan or starting/closing noisy defogger or other many critical car while-in-drive operations. Sorry, with noisy children, voice controlled commands are pure useless. Tesla, please don’t change the UI - I’d rather focus on other important things in life rather than figuring out what software update did to UI yesterday night before a long long trip on I95! Playing with car critical controls is definitely my desired no 1 thing before any significant drive. Shoddy work Tesla on that part!
- In general, range with EV is a bit of hogwash (likely for all EVs, not just Tesla). You can broadly calculate range by calculating 70% of EPA range (2-3 yrs of ownership and slightly optimistic scenario… 10% lower end and not charging over 80/85% being conservative - leaves around 70% without accounting for RANGE LOSS!) For eg with AWD long range (started around 316 miles) I get about 200-210 max actual usage on highways esp in areas where supercharger is not as dense. With AutoPilot drive which makes more efficient drive. That’s low in general (time of charge less of issue, promised range and ability more of it). I’ve not had issue on I95 from Rhode Island to FL at all (though around Georgia SC are spread out more). They need to have better ways than do a science project to recover miles that should have been there (or are there even now but range calculator needs recalibration - someone needs to have Tesla provide free service to fix this loss of range so they have to figure a way to solve this and not burden their customers with topping off and then going <5% charge - shoddy but I can imagine this being EV issue but would still want Tesla to try to solve as highest priority)
- Autopilot is super good (not FSD, the auto steer cruise control that comes by default). Is more than sufficient and allows to focus on other things while having hands on the wheel esp with small family. That alone trumps all negatives in my opinion.
- Fogging (internal) is a problem! big problem. Esp colder weather.
- Small side mirrors - painful
- Even though I like trying new things but Tesla needs to have buttons (some non UI buried soft button! - that does not change!) for basic stuff like controlling fan or starting/closing noisy defogger or other many critical car while-in-drive operations. Sorry, with noisy children, voice controlled commands are pure useless. Tesla, please don’t change the UI - I’d rather focus on other important things in life rather than figuring out what software update did to UI yesterday night before a long long trip on I95! Playing with car critical controls is definitely my desired no 1 thing before any significant drive. Shoddy work Tesla on that part!
- In general, range with EV is a bit of hogwash (likely for all EVs, not just Tesla). You can broadly calculate range by calculating 70% of EPA range (2-3 yrs of ownership and slightly optimistic scenario… 10% lower end and not charging over 80/85% being conservative - leaves around 70% without accounting for RANGE LOSS!) For eg with AWD long range (started around 316 miles) I get about 200-210 max actual usage on highways esp in areas where supercharger is not as dense. With AutoPilot drive which makes more efficient drive. That’s low in general (time of charge less of issue, promised range and ability more of it). I’ve not had issue on I95 from Rhode Island to FL at all (though around Georgia SC are spread out more). They need to have better ways than do a science project to recover miles that should have been there (or are there even now but range calculator needs recalibration - someone needs to have Tesla provide free service to fix this loss of range so they have to figure a way to solve this and not burden their customers with topping off and then going <5% charge - shoddy but I can imagine this being EV issue but would still want Tesla to try to solve as highest priority)