Get Amped Tour: Washington D.C., 7/13 - 7/15

[brianman]

Hmm... Any chance that atleast some of the standout pics can be uploaded to the forums here?! For those of us outliers who steadfastly stay away from FB?! Please...

Heh, thought it was just me.

 

[Wattson]

Hmm... Any chance that atleast some of the standout pics can be uploaded to the forums here?! For those of us outliers who steadfastly stay away from FB?! Please...

I'd also love to see some of the pics at a non-Facebook source.

 

[loganss]

Some pics I took at the DC event:

 

[gg_got_a_tesla]

Thanks, loganss! Nice pics of the white, sunset red and the green!

 

[cinergi]

Another interesting tidbit from my Friday test drive.
At one point a car (I think it was the brown car) was sitting with the rear hatch open and when I looked inside, the top back of the rear seat looked like someone had sprayed the top band of light colored leather with a bleach agent.
It's a bit hard to describe, but across the top rear of the rear seats there is a band of leather (I think it's leather) that goes the entire width of the seats and is maybe 5 or 6 inches top to bottom.
In this car it was tan interior I think. Anyway, the entire band looked like either bleach had gotten on it and so it was really mottled looking, or else it had severely faded for some reason.
The effect was not even. As your eyes scanned the width of the band some of the material looked normal and then some looked completely faded or bleached out.
I took a picture of it (attached) because it was so obvious I thought you could easily see it.
However, for some reason it didn't show up at all in the pic.

I saw this and asked about it. It's from the child seats having been previously installed there.

 

[MikeK]

Do you mean the rear-facing kid's seats? What caused the discoloration?

 

[donauker]

I must say, I am jealous of someone who can own a roadster, a Karma, and a Model S! A tough life, but somebody has to do it!

Well, hopefully the tough part is over! Almost 7.5 years ago when I mailed a deposit that was almost equal to my most expensive vehicle as a down payment on an almost 6 figure little, impractical sports car that didn't yet exist to a start up company that had never delivered anything, I questioned my sanity almost as much as some other people did. But earlier that year I had decided to vote for what I believed in and committed to only buying plug in vehicles and my options were very limited.

Fortunately, years of crazy long hours invested some years ago, which for quite some time yielded rather disappointing returns, suddenly took off in totally unexpected manner allowing me to continue the pursuit of my ultimate dream garage. Eight years of dreaming over what I wanted in the way of vehicles in my garage is scheduled to reach completion next month with the delivery of Sig Performance #147. I guess I may have to expand that dream to include a 100+ mile electric cycle to compliment my collection of Vectrix's!

So, enlighten us as to the comparison between the Karma and the Model S. Having driven an early version of the Karma about a year ago, I would assume that the Model S will be your go to car except when you need to drive more than 300 miles and don't want to have to look for chargers, but tell us yourself.

The Karma and the Model S will become our daily drivers, and the Roadster will get a break after almost 3.5 years of grueling daily use and will get a bit of a refresh to become more of a fair weather car. The Karma will be my daily driver since its electric range readily fits my daily use and the Model S will be my girlfriend's daily driver with her 50 to 100+ mile daily use. Of course this will allow me to enjoy my Roadster on some of the nicer weekdays again!

Outside of the daily use, the options are going to be amazing! Nice weather and secondary roads to travel, we will use one of the funnest cars ever produced with its muted turbine like whine and roller coaster like ride. Under 40 miles or over 250 miles with no time to hang out in a campground for hours while the car charges, we will use one of the smoothest driving, quietest vehicles with the most beautiful interior I have ever seen. If we need to haul a lot or for any other trip profile that doesn't fit the above we will use an amazing performance machine with equally smooth, quite ride and with range of up to 300 miles, but we may be tempted to use the somewhat awkward looking, rather geeky giant "ipad" stuck to the dash to distract us from the rest of the somewhat disappointingly "minimalist" interior that is somehow not a all befitting of a vehicle for which the price tag has climbed solidly into 6 figures.

Having already been called a troll and a Fisker fan boy on this site for daring to post comments critical of Tesla and positive of Fisker, I probably won't post any more of a comparison here but may do so over here after I have some extended time with the Model S.

I had a deposit down on the Karma until EPA said that instead of 50 miles of electric range, I should expect 32, and that when driving on gasoline, I should expect to get 20 mpg! Fortunately, I discovered that Model S would be along in less than a year (still hoping!). Sig Performance 667.

Just as a side note, I feel the EPA has over shot the adjustment on electric drive. A recent typical conditions 43 mile round trip in my Karma with full time AC usage in our rural/suburban setting ended with 3 miles of electric range remaining.

 

[Robert.Boston]

Having already been called a troll and a Fisker fan boy on this site for daring to post comments critical of Tesla and positive of Fisker, I probably won't post any more of a comparison here but may do so over here after I have some extended time with the Model S.

Don, please continue posting your thoughtful views on the Karma. This is not a Tesla fanboy site! I will be especially interested in your views after you've had the Model S for a time. Nothing like living with a car to reveal hates/loves.

Just as a side note, I feel the EPA has over shot the adjustment on electric drive. A recent typical conditions 43 mile round trip in my Karma with full time AC usage in our rural/suburban setting ended with 3 miles of electric range remaining.

Interesting. EPA's got a basically impossible problem of trying to summarize a complex system in a single number. As long as it's a standardized test, though, we can at least make reasonable comparisons between cars. So, e.g., the 85kWh Model S should be able to drive 8.3 times further on a charge than the Fisker (265/32).

 

[Bradleybang]

Did you peak under those grey garbage cans hiding the chargers?

 

[brianman]

Did you peak under those grey garbage cans hiding the chargers?

I think this counts as "white trash" porn for cars.

 

[donauker]

Did you peak under those grey garbage cans hiding the chargers?

I didn't peek but they contained three Roadster HPCs probably distributed across the individual phases of a three phase panel under the smaller can.

 

[Bradleybang]

Thanks, I was just wondering if
a. covering standard hpc for safety reasons
or
b. hiding a supercharger

 

[cinergi]

Do you mean the rear-facing kid's seats? What caused the discoloration?

Yes. I don't think anyone at the event knew explicitly why (rubbing? material interaction? ...)

 

[Robert.Boston]

Yes. I don't think anyone at the event knew explicitly why (rubbing? material interaction? ...)

....excessive bleach used to clean up after rapidly accelerated children....

 

[weccman]

Thank you, Don, for your thoughtful response to my questions about the Fisker Karma and how it may compare with the Model S. I agree with you that the Karma has a more luxurious interior than the Model S does, at least at this point, but its relatively small storage capability was a strong offsetting factor for me in addition to the lower efficiency rating (52 MPGe for the Karma compared with 89 MPGe for the Model S). And then there is the performance. Based on my test drives, the Model S has the edge there, hands down.

I strongly agree with Robert Boston that you should feel it is worthwhile to post your thoughts on this site after you have had the Model S long enough to really be able to make more thorough comparisons.

Well done to have gotten to this point in your dream garage. Enjoy!

 

[Gator]

Here are my photos from the Gaithersburg (Washington DC) Get Amp'd event.

Improve Your Experience | Facebook

 

[Brian H]

...clean up after rapidly accelerated children....

+1
Though they seem mostly to revel in g-twitches that now leave me green!