Hello everyone, With the Canadian Beta tour being in full swing, I will finally get the opportunity to see an S in the flesh, but expect that I will not be able to assess the performance version (which I am considering getting) for quite a while. For those of you lucky enough to have seen the white perf beta, did you note whether the ground clearance was lower than the other cars on display? It's an important variable, given that my S will be driven in the snow quite often (and I do NOT plan to double it as a snow plow). If the air suspension can be locked to a "normal" setting on demand, this would be a non-issue, but I am unsure about this as well. Anyone with a tape measure in their car going to see the perf beta?? :wink:
Salut Jeeps, I have the same concern and plan to get the air suspension because of a pent up driveway, that requires higher clearance than normal, where it meets the street. So once you have the hardware, it is just a function of getting the software to support this feature. After all, this is a " software defined car "...
The Canadian tour car (44) was set to high air shocks, and it looked to be a couple of inches higher than normal.
The Model S with adjustable air suspension will be able to raise sufficiently to ingress or egress a steeper than usual driveway. It will already be part of the software offered. @Jeeps17 The Performance did not appear to be lower than any of the signature models on display when I saw them at Fashion Island last week.
When I sat in one in Nov 2011 I suggested they should have it go to high mode for easier ingress/egress. I wonder if it is higher now because of feedback like that. Would be a shame if folks just figured it was high like that all the time.
At the Tesla store... I was told that the lowest setting on the air bag setup is 6 inches of clearance and the max air bag height was near 10 inches for clearing snow drifts. Hopefully someone else can verify.
The white S at Fashion Island was much lower than the red signature they had on display. There was wheel gap was very small on the White Performance and rather high on the Red Signature. I mentioned it to the guy giving the interior demo on the performance S and he said they are all the same height, but that the Red S might have the suspension set to the highest level and that the white has it lowered.
Thanks for your responses everyone. This question, amongst many, should be conclusively answered when the first signatures are delivered in ~1 month. And as Agileone stated, these details will hopefully be software adjustable. Please post if you get any concrete information from Tesla.
Yes, thanks! For now I will assume that in regards to the air suspension, both models will be identical, with possible software tweaks.