Hello from Santa Clara, CA and new owner of Roadster #212

[DSA]

I've been trolling around for awhile and I have to say, TMC is an awesome resource - thanks to all those who are so willing to share your knowledge. I've hopefully put what I've learned to good use and purchased Tesla Roadster #212 on Friday and picked it up on Saturday - more on that to be posted soon in another thread in the Teslas For Sale forum. I made my first commute in the Tesla today from Santa Clara to Palo Alto, and it felt fantastic. Instant torque/acceleration. No wasteful burning of fuel at stop lights or while driving for that matter. Excellent design, craftsmanship and customer service. I'm loving the car and looking forward to getting more involved in the Tesla community.

Cheers,
DSA

 

[VolkerP]

Welcome to the Forum, DSA.

Acquisition of a Roadster is a great topic for your first post. Congrats!
Please share your experiences here. I recommend the Roadster sub forum. Posting in the "Tesla for Sale" might give the impression that you want to resell the Roadster :scared:? Well, hold on a few days and drive it, I suggest :biggrin:.

 

[DSA]

Good point, VolkerP - to clarify - there was already a thread in the "Tesla for Sale" sub forum about #212 and I just wanted to post in that thread that it had sold and such. I'm definitely looking forward to sharing my experiences in the Roadster sub forum.

 

[richkae]

Hi DSA, please consider getting a USB stick and retrieving log files from your car and sending them in for study.
Your very old ( by Roadster standards ) car with incredibly low miles will make an excellent data point and hopefully provide benefit to the community.

See details in this thread:
Roadster Owner Based Study of Battery Pack Capacity Over Time

 

[MAPC]

Have you reached out to Tesla yet to give them your contact info and have them assign you an 'Ownership Experience Advocate'? They have been great-

 

[wiztecy]

Hi DSA, Like you I'm also a recent Tesla Roadster Owner and thank the members and the forum owner for all the great information here. I picked up #268 last week and fell in love with it on 1st site I live in Santa Cruz and commute over to Cupertino, it works out perfect for that trip and I've found my commute to be more conservative where my avg speed has dropped as well as stress.... but the fun factor has rocketed! Would enjoy connecting up with the locals and sharing tips and possibly doing some trips. Would enjoy a nice Big Sur cruise one of these days.

I also would like to contribute to the battery usage data. My roadster has very low miles, 3,800 when I bought it and up to 4,200 now. Standard mode charging brings me up to 190 ideal miles consistently. Is there a pointer on how to retrieve the logs? I see the USB connection down by the iPod connector.

Thanks!
DBW

 

[richkae]

From this thread: Roadster Owner Based Study of Battery Pack Capacity Over Time there is a link to where to get the parser: VMS Log Parser for Tesla Roadster and it has good instructions.

 

[wiztecy]

Perfect, thanks Rich!

 

[DSA]

richkae - I'll definitely follow up and get back to you soon, maybe tomorrow.

MAPC - yes, I had already been working with the 'Ownership Experience Advocate' the previous owner worked with before purchasing and he'll now be my "OEA". He's been extremely helpful. I'm very impressed with Tesla in terms of Customer Service so far, even for buyers of "pre-owned" Teslas.

 

[wiztecy]

I pulled my logs from the Roadster and it appears I pulled the history back to the April 2009 build date. Shows the firmware upgrade paths too which is good. I can see the previous owner did multiple max range mode charges to 100% and I don't see anywhere of the battery going below 20% which is also good to see. My charge history in standard mode was clearly shown and I could see the SOC hovering between 20%-85% for that. I also can see in graph format that I'm charging my roadster so that it completes 1 hour before I leave to work each morning that the batteries don't stay at 80-85% all that long and partially get consumed and the SOC driven down to 60-70% . I read that 50% charge is the sweet spot for the LIPO cells to help preserve them over their lifetime and to use standard mode charging as much as possible. For a few days I started my charge at 12AM where the roadster was sitting from 3am to 10am at 80-85%. I haven't enrolled in the E-9 rates yet... I may have to schedule the charge to complete at 7am if I do to take advantage of the discounted rate structure.

Thanks Rich, the links and software were well documented and worked great! I'll mail/upload my battery data here soon to the Battery Pack Capacity study.

Congrats DSA on your new addition! If you have any questions on the software / pulling logs feel free to ping me.

 

[slcasner]

If you want to enroll in the E-9 rate schedule, don't dally too long. PG&E has just released a proposal to the CPUC to replace E-9 with Schedule EV, which is much less favorable, particularly if you have solar PV as well. E-9 will only remain open until Schedule EV becomes effective. Furthermore, E-9 will be discontinued after a couple more years (in conjunction with new rate designs as part of PG&E's 2014 general rate case), but that is another battle to be fought.

 

[DSA]

Thanks everybody for the warm welcome. On another note - yes, the E-9 rates look great. Living in Santa Clara, Santa Clara has its own utilities - which usually have great rates - SVP or Silicon Valley Power for electricity. However, it looks like their time-of-use rates are definitely not as favorable for off-peak compared to the PG&E E-9 rates. Oh well, I guess I'll just stick with the standard SVP rates for now. Maybe they'll get some more favorable rates at some point.

Also, I'm looking at getting the HPC installed. Getting quotes from SolarCity and some local electricians. Feel free to PM me or post any electricians you'd recommend in the Santa Clara area. Thanks!

 

[DSA]

Hi DSA, please consider getting a USB stick and retrieving log files from your car and sending them in for study.
Your very old ( by Roadster standards ) car with incredibly low miles will make an excellent data point and hopefully provide benefit to the community.

See details in this thread:
Roadster Owner Based Study of Battery Pack Capacity Over Time

I just sent the data over to you - let me know if you see anything useful!