I've had my Model S for a little less than a week now and probably haven't driven it as much as some did the first week. I did need to work as well as had some issues with the car that I'll get into.
I still think this is the best car out there, we had to go to Olympia, WA on Friday. My SO was on a state committee that was meeting for the first time and we took the opportunity to try out the car on the road. I got a chance to recharge the car at a supercharger and generally the trip was pretty good.
My experience hasn't been perfect though. There were a couple of minor manufacturing defect. It appears some red paint got mixed in with the white under the frunk lid. There were little blotches. After the car walk through and such they took the car into the service center to try and deal with it. It took them about an hour and they apologized for not getting all of it, but they got about 90% of it, which I can live with until the next time the car goes in.
Additionally a couple of the sensors weren't fully flush with the rear bumper and that will have to be fixed later, but as long as they work, that's good enough for now.
There are some quirks and issues some I think Tesla should address. Some are some software changes and some are hardware, but I don't think any of them are very big. I could probably do most of the software changes over a few weekends if I had the source code, I'm sure their programmers can do it quicker than I could...
1) Outgassing - I noticed some people on the forum said they were queasy in the car when they first got it. Some helpful people suggested it might be due to the different acceleration, but that's not it. I've been getting queasy in the car too, even if I'm sitting in it while sitting still! My SO got a severe sore throat the first time we took it out to run errands. I've had an occasional scratchy throat too when I've been in the car.
We're pretty sure it's all the new stuff outgassing in the car: carpets, upolstry, leather, etc. We both have some sensitivities to new stuff like carpet and such. When the car is parked, we leave the windows open a bit, and have vinegar and baking soda in the car. I also got some of these that I leave in the car all the time:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B015CPK4G2/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008K6FFF6/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008K6FFF6/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I don't know if they are helping any, but we have noticed the smell has diminished. My SO also swabbed down every surface with a mild solution of vinegar, baby shampoo, and water. That seemed to help too.
2) Eye strain from the blue in the LEDs backlighting the screens - This is the biggest one for me and was the reason I was very depressed Monday night because I didn't think I was going to be able to keep the car. I'm kind of the canary in the coal mine about this, but there is a growing body of evidence that white LEDs (which are blue LEDs with a special coating) cause headaches, eye strain, and mess with your circadian rhythm.
I have an unusual sensitivity to blue and the specific frequency of blue light blue LEDs produce is very intense to me. I can't focus my eyes on blue LEDs and I have to cover them up in my environment because they are like shining a bright light in my eyes all the time. White LEDs have a pleasant blue hue to them, but being around white LED lighting for any length of time causes to much eye strain it feels like my eyes are being pulled out of my head.
About 2/3 of the way home from picking up my car, I felt the white LED eye strain coming on. This was despite having the screens in night mode and the intensity turned way down.
Last year I had to replace one of my work monitors and I found EIZO made an LED back lit monitor with filters to remove the excess blue. Of the 4 monitors I use daily (2 desk top computers with two monitors each), it's the best one for eye strain. Monday evening I was doing research on anything I could do to filter out the excess blue on the Tesla's screens. I found several monitor makers are now advertising blue filtering monitors and there is more research on the eye strain issues with white LEDs.
If anyone is getting headaches, dry eyes, or eye strain driving their Tesla, it's probably from the extra blue coming off the white LED backlit screens.
I found 4 different brands of screen protection for the Tesla. Mostly they are sold as touch screen protectors, but the descriptions mention anti-blue properties, though only two quantify it. Here are the brands I found:
a) Glareshield - this is made by one of the competitors to Xpel and can only be installed by people who do that brand of wrap. One price I found was $90 and nobody in Portland does it, so that was a dead end. They advertise 35% blue reduction, which was the best I found, but they only make it for the center screen, not the instruments.
b) Abstract Ocean - They have 4 types of screen protection available on Amazon, relatively cheap (under $20), but only available for the center screen. They need to make one for the instrument screen too.
c) Topfit - also available on Amazon, but the Amazon descriptions are rather thin. On another site I found they do have blue reduction (but don't say hoe much), have an instrument protector, and they are thin glass (stiff rather than flexible). They are more expensive then Abstract Ocean, but they are the only instrument protection I could find.
d) NuShield - These guys make the biggest deal about blue related eye strain and make blue reducing screen protectors for many cars as well as many commercial computer screens. They advertise blue 32% reduction. You have to order directly from them and they are on the east coast, so it takes longer to get to me than Amazon.
In the end I bought the Topfit and Abstract Ocean from Amazon with one day shipping which got it to me Wednesday. I didn't drive the car Tuesday. I applied the screen protectors as soon as I got them and both worked worked! I had to pop the Topfit under the instrument bezel just a little bit, but it does the job. I also ordered the NuShield in case and it arrived Friday. I'm holding it in reserve.
Request to Tesla - please consider doing something about shielding the blue on the screens! I may have to drive a loaner car for a couple of days at some point and while I can mitigate the blue eye strain a bit with BluBlocker glasses, they make the screens very hard to see (the glasses liminate ALL the blue) and it is too dangerous to drive at night with them. I'm an extreme case, but others are probably affected by this too to a lesser degree. There is a growing awareness of this and anti-blue filters for screens should be getting easy to come by for an OEM.
3) Air Suspension and Long Legs - All my height is in my legs. I'm perfectly fine without the pano roof, but most cars leave me stove up on a long trip if they don't have enough leg room. The Model S has plenty of leg room for me, which was one of my first concerns. However, I found I am very grateful for the air suspension, I need it just to get out of the car without hurting myself. Because of my long legs, when the car is low, I can't get enough leverage to get myself out of the car if it isn't jacked up all the way. I was flailing around grabbing the window, door frame, steering wheel, etc. just to get out of the car. I have bruises all over my thighs from my attempts.
I was worried I wouldn't be able to get out of the car at all if I was carrying anything. Fortunately I found jacking up the suspension to max allowed me to get out of the car with ease. My only concern now is prematurely wearing out the suspension from jacking it up to high all the time. I'm no athlete, but I'm reasonably spry, I would expect people who have mobility issues would have a lot of trouble getting out of the car without it cranked up to max.
For anyone who is debating getting the Air Suspension option, I recommend it to anyone with long legs or any difficulties getting out of anything that is too low.
Instead of having to crank up the suspension every place I stop, it would be nice to have a setting that would automatically adjust the suspension to high every time I put the car into park.
3) Seats - I have the cloth seats which might have different stuffing from the leather next gen seats, but they feel about the same hardness. My SO has complained about how hard the seats are and overall I would say the seats in my 24 year old Buick are far more comfortable (both when they were new and now). These seats have the back adjustment settings my Buick doesn't have and I tweak them often. I have heard many talk about how comfortable the seats were, have car seats degraded in quality that much in the last 20 years?
4) Tunein - It's great for podcasts and such, but why no search capability? There are categories, but browsing for the show you want is fine if you are just looking, but if you know what you're looking for, it's a painful process. You can create a Tunein account on another device, save favorites, then log in on the Model S but I haven't been able to log in. The cell signal in my garage is non-existent and I haven't been able to get a reliable wifi signal out there yet either. I'm working on that.
5) Manual - I like the electronic manual in the car and I've used it several times already, but why no search function?
6) Normal Regen Braking and Light - I find normal regen is good for most driving conditions, but it's downhill to our driveway and if I try to "coast" with the regular regen, I end up crawling along at Creep speed (I have Creep turned on) which is usually under 5 mph. I can put the car into neutral for part of the hill, but it does get going a bit fast by about 1/2 way down. It would be very handy to have a quick way to switch to light regen temporarily for situations like this. Otherwise I notice I'm actually burning about 280 Wh/mi to go downhill if I want to maintain a normal speed.
7) Autopilot Warning - I've noticed the warnings always appear at the bottom of the instrument screen, which is blocked by the way I have the steering wheel. I can see it if I lean forward, but in my normal position, I can't see the warnings. At the top of the instrument screen would be easier to see. The tone for the Autopilot warning to put your hands on the wheel is also a bit subtle.
On our trip last Friday, we had some chaos on the way up. My SO is usually a paragon of steadiness emotionally, however she was nervous about the meeting, had to make some phone calls when cell service was spotty, and was generally flapping because she was up earlier than usual. With her flailing about trying to get organized, I missed the hands on the wheel warnings a couple of times and the car suddenly decelerated while in Autopilot. I was watching the instruments and the road, but because the warning popped up behind the steering wheel and I couldn't make out the warning tone with all the other noise going on in the car, it escalated to slowing down the car.
If the warnings popped up just above the current speed, they would be a lot more visible and this probably wouldn't have happened.
8) Operating the Windows - This one is a bit of a mystery to me. I've been opening the windows in the garage to help the car outgas and for some reason you need the key fob to do it. The A/C will come on and the radio will start playing when I get open the door without the key fob, but to operate the windows, I need it. Maybe it's a thing to keep kids from getting hurt playing in the car, but kids playing in the car could do quite a bit to change settings that could give the next driver a nasty surprise.
If it is some kind of safety thing, it would be nice if there was a setting to allow the windows to operate without the key fob. The youngest member of my household is a car old enough to drink in the US (21). Nobody is going to be messing with the car.
On the upside, my SO (who likes sports cars) was putting the car through its paces. She normally hates large cars, especially sedans, but I think she's getting to like this one. In about 20 miles of driving she burned off about 40 miles of range. She still doesn't want a large car for everyday driving, but she has said she would have a lot of fun with a P90DL. The local race track has open nights for people to drag race street legal cars. She has said she would do that if she had a P90DL.
With the instant torque and big acceleration I have found I can confidently slip into merging traffic on the freeway with ease. I can get much more precise speed control than I ever could with an ICE and it was amazingly easy to get used to.
It's also handy the Model S is a little shorter than my Buick (though same width and same wheelbase). It gives us a little extra room in the garage.
Despite all the negatives above, I am happy with the car. I am just so thankful the screen protectors dealt with the blue problem. It's depressing to feel sick after bringing home your new car!
I still think this is the best car out there, we had to go to Olympia, WA on Friday. My SO was on a state committee that was meeting for the first time and we took the opportunity to try out the car on the road. I got a chance to recharge the car at a supercharger and generally the trip was pretty good.
My experience hasn't been perfect though. There were a couple of minor manufacturing defect. It appears some red paint got mixed in with the white under the frunk lid. There were little blotches. After the car walk through and such they took the car into the service center to try and deal with it. It took them about an hour and they apologized for not getting all of it, but they got about 90% of it, which I can live with until the next time the car goes in.
Additionally a couple of the sensors weren't fully flush with the rear bumper and that will have to be fixed later, but as long as they work, that's good enough for now.
There are some quirks and issues some I think Tesla should address. Some are some software changes and some are hardware, but I don't think any of them are very big. I could probably do most of the software changes over a few weekends if I had the source code, I'm sure their programmers can do it quicker than I could...
1) Outgassing - I noticed some people on the forum said they were queasy in the car when they first got it. Some helpful people suggested it might be due to the different acceleration, but that's not it. I've been getting queasy in the car too, even if I'm sitting in it while sitting still! My SO got a severe sore throat the first time we took it out to run errands. I've had an occasional scratchy throat too when I've been in the car.
We're pretty sure it's all the new stuff outgassing in the car: carpets, upolstry, leather, etc. We both have some sensitivities to new stuff like carpet and such. When the car is parked, we leave the windows open a bit, and have vinegar and baking soda in the car. I also got some of these that I leave in the car all the time:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B015CPK4G2/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008K6FFF6/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008K6FFF6/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I don't know if they are helping any, but we have noticed the smell has diminished. My SO also swabbed down every surface with a mild solution of vinegar, baby shampoo, and water. That seemed to help too.
2) Eye strain from the blue in the LEDs backlighting the screens - This is the biggest one for me and was the reason I was very depressed Monday night because I didn't think I was going to be able to keep the car. I'm kind of the canary in the coal mine about this, but there is a growing body of evidence that white LEDs (which are blue LEDs with a special coating) cause headaches, eye strain, and mess with your circadian rhythm.
I have an unusual sensitivity to blue and the specific frequency of blue light blue LEDs produce is very intense to me. I can't focus my eyes on blue LEDs and I have to cover them up in my environment because they are like shining a bright light in my eyes all the time. White LEDs have a pleasant blue hue to them, but being around white LED lighting for any length of time causes to much eye strain it feels like my eyes are being pulled out of my head.
About 2/3 of the way home from picking up my car, I felt the white LED eye strain coming on. This was despite having the screens in night mode and the intensity turned way down.
Last year I had to replace one of my work monitors and I found EIZO made an LED back lit monitor with filters to remove the excess blue. Of the 4 monitors I use daily (2 desk top computers with two monitors each), it's the best one for eye strain. Monday evening I was doing research on anything I could do to filter out the excess blue on the Tesla's screens. I found several monitor makers are now advertising blue filtering monitors and there is more research on the eye strain issues with white LEDs.
If anyone is getting headaches, dry eyes, or eye strain driving their Tesla, it's probably from the extra blue coming off the white LED backlit screens.
I found 4 different brands of screen protection for the Tesla. Mostly they are sold as touch screen protectors, but the descriptions mention anti-blue properties, though only two quantify it. Here are the brands I found:
a) Glareshield - this is made by one of the competitors to Xpel and can only be installed by people who do that brand of wrap. One price I found was $90 and nobody in Portland does it, so that was a dead end. They advertise 35% blue reduction, which was the best I found, but they only make it for the center screen, not the instruments.
b) Abstract Ocean - They have 4 types of screen protection available on Amazon, relatively cheap (under $20), but only available for the center screen. They need to make one for the instrument screen too.
c) Topfit - also available on Amazon, but the Amazon descriptions are rather thin. On another site I found they do have blue reduction (but don't say hoe much), have an instrument protector, and they are thin glass (stiff rather than flexible). They are more expensive then Abstract Ocean, but they are the only instrument protection I could find.
d) NuShield - These guys make the biggest deal about blue related eye strain and make blue reducing screen protectors for many cars as well as many commercial computer screens. They advertise blue 32% reduction. You have to order directly from them and they are on the east coast, so it takes longer to get to me than Amazon.
In the end I bought the Topfit and Abstract Ocean from Amazon with one day shipping which got it to me Wednesday. I didn't drive the car Tuesday. I applied the screen protectors as soon as I got them and both worked worked! I had to pop the Topfit under the instrument bezel just a little bit, but it does the job. I also ordered the NuShield in case and it arrived Friday. I'm holding it in reserve.
Request to Tesla - please consider doing something about shielding the blue on the screens! I may have to drive a loaner car for a couple of days at some point and while I can mitigate the blue eye strain a bit with BluBlocker glasses, they make the screens very hard to see (the glasses liminate ALL the blue) and it is too dangerous to drive at night with them. I'm an extreme case, but others are probably affected by this too to a lesser degree. There is a growing awareness of this and anti-blue filters for screens should be getting easy to come by for an OEM.
3) Air Suspension and Long Legs - All my height is in my legs. I'm perfectly fine without the pano roof, but most cars leave me stove up on a long trip if they don't have enough leg room. The Model S has plenty of leg room for me, which was one of my first concerns. However, I found I am very grateful for the air suspension, I need it just to get out of the car without hurting myself. Because of my long legs, when the car is low, I can't get enough leverage to get myself out of the car if it isn't jacked up all the way. I was flailing around grabbing the window, door frame, steering wheel, etc. just to get out of the car. I have bruises all over my thighs from my attempts.
I was worried I wouldn't be able to get out of the car at all if I was carrying anything. Fortunately I found jacking up the suspension to max allowed me to get out of the car with ease. My only concern now is prematurely wearing out the suspension from jacking it up to high all the time. I'm no athlete, but I'm reasonably spry, I would expect people who have mobility issues would have a lot of trouble getting out of the car without it cranked up to max.
For anyone who is debating getting the Air Suspension option, I recommend it to anyone with long legs or any difficulties getting out of anything that is too low.
Instead of having to crank up the suspension every place I stop, it would be nice to have a setting that would automatically adjust the suspension to high every time I put the car into park.
3) Seats - I have the cloth seats which might have different stuffing from the leather next gen seats, but they feel about the same hardness. My SO has complained about how hard the seats are and overall I would say the seats in my 24 year old Buick are far more comfortable (both when they were new and now). These seats have the back adjustment settings my Buick doesn't have and I tweak them often. I have heard many talk about how comfortable the seats were, have car seats degraded in quality that much in the last 20 years?
4) Tunein - It's great for podcasts and such, but why no search capability? There are categories, but browsing for the show you want is fine if you are just looking, but if you know what you're looking for, it's a painful process. You can create a Tunein account on another device, save favorites, then log in on the Model S but I haven't been able to log in. The cell signal in my garage is non-existent and I haven't been able to get a reliable wifi signal out there yet either. I'm working on that.
5) Manual - I like the electronic manual in the car and I've used it several times already, but why no search function?
6) Normal Regen Braking and Light - I find normal regen is good for most driving conditions, but it's downhill to our driveway and if I try to "coast" with the regular regen, I end up crawling along at Creep speed (I have Creep turned on) which is usually under 5 mph. I can put the car into neutral for part of the hill, but it does get going a bit fast by about 1/2 way down. It would be very handy to have a quick way to switch to light regen temporarily for situations like this. Otherwise I notice I'm actually burning about 280 Wh/mi to go downhill if I want to maintain a normal speed.
7) Autopilot Warning - I've noticed the warnings always appear at the bottom of the instrument screen, which is blocked by the way I have the steering wheel. I can see it if I lean forward, but in my normal position, I can't see the warnings. At the top of the instrument screen would be easier to see. The tone for the Autopilot warning to put your hands on the wheel is also a bit subtle.
On our trip last Friday, we had some chaos on the way up. My SO is usually a paragon of steadiness emotionally, however she was nervous about the meeting, had to make some phone calls when cell service was spotty, and was generally flapping because she was up earlier than usual. With her flailing about trying to get organized, I missed the hands on the wheel warnings a couple of times and the car suddenly decelerated while in Autopilot. I was watching the instruments and the road, but because the warning popped up behind the steering wheel and I couldn't make out the warning tone with all the other noise going on in the car, it escalated to slowing down the car.
If the warnings popped up just above the current speed, they would be a lot more visible and this probably wouldn't have happened.
8) Operating the Windows - This one is a bit of a mystery to me. I've been opening the windows in the garage to help the car outgas and for some reason you need the key fob to do it. The A/C will come on and the radio will start playing when I get open the door without the key fob, but to operate the windows, I need it. Maybe it's a thing to keep kids from getting hurt playing in the car, but kids playing in the car could do quite a bit to change settings that could give the next driver a nasty surprise.
If it is some kind of safety thing, it would be nice if there was a setting to allow the windows to operate without the key fob. The youngest member of my household is a car old enough to drink in the US (21). Nobody is going to be messing with the car.
On the upside, my SO (who likes sports cars) was putting the car through its paces. She normally hates large cars, especially sedans, but I think she's getting to like this one. In about 20 miles of driving she burned off about 40 miles of range. She still doesn't want a large car for everyday driving, but she has said she would have a lot of fun with a P90DL. The local race track has open nights for people to drag race street legal cars. She has said she would do that if she had a P90DL.
With the instant torque and big acceleration I have found I can confidently slip into merging traffic on the freeway with ease. I can get much more precise speed control than I ever could with an ICE and it was amazingly easy to get used to.
It's also handy the Model S is a little shorter than my Buick (though same width and same wheelbase). It gives us a little extra room in the garage.
Despite all the negatives above, I am happy with the car. I am just so thankful the screen protectors dealt with the blue problem. It's depressing to feel sick after bringing home your new car!
