All,
I'm just back from spending 2 weeks in Iceland with a Model Y rental from Hertz and wanted to record a few thoughts in case they are useful to others. We spent a couple of weeks up there, 1 week doing a fair number of miles based from within the 'golden circle', and another in and around Reykjavík. This is partly thoughts on Hertz, partly on the Y vs my 3.
Part 1 - Hertz & Iceland
I was fed up of fighting scrums for 'good deal' car hire where you have to get a lift, bus or taxi to the hire place and they then take 40 mins to process your hire before finally driving off with a rattily horrible fiesta and just wanted to arrive and pick up a car from the airport. Knowing hertz had adopted the Y, I just went straight to them. Good deal? Probably not. OTOH, they answered questions by email about charging quickly in the weeks leading up to the holiday and it was 5 mins in the terminal to get the key fob for our car, which was ~200 meters away from the terminal. Once we were in the car and at our destination it took an email and ~4 hours to get the car added to my tesla account so it showed up in my app and my phone worked as a key etc. We brought our SSD with us, and combined with associating with my profile meant it really was a home from home. Overall, stunning experience and significantly de-stressed the start of a family holiday.
The car came with a type 2 cable and UMC+ shuko adaptor and use of the supercharger network by standard, which covers pretty much all bases. We didn't need the SC's and managed to do all charging at the properties we were staying at. It took a bit of managing, but was largely OK - just needed to plug in as soon as we got home each day. The first property we were at did have a bit of a problem in that the most accessible sockets turned out to be on a 10A breaker, which we kept tripping by charging at 13a. Pretty sure that is fairly dodgy, but moved the charger to the kitchen circuit which was 16A for kettles etc and all was well (stopped charging when using kettle/toaster etc). Second property had a 'EV charge point' which turned out to actually be a 16A commando with a shuko adaptor in it. Wish I'd known and I could have taken my commando tail with me.
Outside of that, I did notice a -lot- of charge points around. Most tourist activities in towns had at least 22kw chargers, most towns had 1-2 fast 50kw chargers. Plenty of infrastructure around, although it would have been a pain if we couldn't have got the UMC working at all. The speed limits are pretty low (80-90kmph mostly) and sitting near that definitely helps the charge go a longer distance! Also a huge presence of EV's in general. Many Teslas, but loads of Leafs, Zoe's and polestars. I even saw a Buzz and a Soltera (with wheels still attached!). These must almost counteract all the superjeeps they have for heading up into the Highlands.
Talking of which, the hired Y isn't allowed into the Highlands on their 'F' roads. It is allowed on Gravel roads, but the next step down to F roads isn't allowed (these can be pretty gnarly with fords and fairly serious inclines, rocks, and general low quality. Obviously the Hertz insurance was the main factor for me, but what I could not find was whether that was a legal position too - the rules I could find state that only 4x4's are allowed on F roads legally, but I couldn't find any more detail to decide whether the Y would have been allowed had it been private or not. Lots of opinions from non-tesla drivers its a bad idea, but no actual info. Some of the F roads we saw (by bus) would have 100% been OK and we saw Dacia Dusters, Volvo XC's and even a Passat on them, so I'm not sure what the deal really was, but didn't push the insurance, just in case.
Finally on the overall experience, on return we just drove the car into the Hertz return area, someone met us, took the keyfob, checked there were no obvious crash marks and waved us on the way. 100% would recommend TBH. Saved so much time and stress. Only thing outstanding is I don't seem to be able to remove the hirecar from my app, so request in with Hertz for that.
Part 2 - the car
Part of the reasoning of hiring a Y was as an extended test drive. I love my M3 P-, but a few times a year I have clearance problems and carrying capacity problems. But I was really worried about the drivability of a taller car, especially after the poor suspension setup my Fremont 3 came with (added MPP comfort plus coilovers years ago). The Y we had was an LR, but locked in Chill mode. TBH, it wasn't actually a problem, which did surprise me.
Overall, awesome holiday. Hertz, Model Y and Iceland all get strong recommendations.
"Tesla Model Y in San Ramon" by DestinationFearFan is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Admin note: Image added for Blog Feed thumbnail
I'm just back from spending 2 weeks in Iceland with a Model Y rental from Hertz and wanted to record a few thoughts in case they are useful to others. We spent a couple of weeks up there, 1 week doing a fair number of miles based from within the 'golden circle', and another in and around Reykjavík. This is partly thoughts on Hertz, partly on the Y vs my 3.
Part 1 - Hertz & Iceland
I was fed up of fighting scrums for 'good deal' car hire where you have to get a lift, bus or taxi to the hire place and they then take 40 mins to process your hire before finally driving off with a rattily horrible fiesta and just wanted to arrive and pick up a car from the airport. Knowing hertz had adopted the Y, I just went straight to them. Good deal? Probably not. OTOH, they answered questions by email about charging quickly in the weeks leading up to the holiday and it was 5 mins in the terminal to get the key fob for our car, which was ~200 meters away from the terminal. Once we were in the car and at our destination it took an email and ~4 hours to get the car added to my tesla account so it showed up in my app and my phone worked as a key etc. We brought our SSD with us, and combined with associating with my profile meant it really was a home from home. Overall, stunning experience and significantly de-stressed the start of a family holiday.
The car came with a type 2 cable and UMC+ shuko adaptor and use of the supercharger network by standard, which covers pretty much all bases. We didn't need the SC's and managed to do all charging at the properties we were staying at. It took a bit of managing, but was largely OK - just needed to plug in as soon as we got home each day. The first property we were at did have a bit of a problem in that the most accessible sockets turned out to be on a 10A breaker, which we kept tripping by charging at 13a. Pretty sure that is fairly dodgy, but moved the charger to the kitchen circuit which was 16A for kettles etc and all was well (stopped charging when using kettle/toaster etc). Second property had a 'EV charge point' which turned out to actually be a 16A commando with a shuko adaptor in it. Wish I'd known and I could have taken my commando tail with me.
Outside of that, I did notice a -lot- of charge points around. Most tourist activities in towns had at least 22kw chargers, most towns had 1-2 fast 50kw chargers. Plenty of infrastructure around, although it would have been a pain if we couldn't have got the UMC working at all. The speed limits are pretty low (80-90kmph mostly) and sitting near that definitely helps the charge go a longer distance! Also a huge presence of EV's in general. Many Teslas, but loads of Leafs, Zoe's and polestars. I even saw a Buzz and a Soltera (with wheels still attached!). These must almost counteract all the superjeeps they have for heading up into the Highlands.
Talking of which, the hired Y isn't allowed into the Highlands on their 'F' roads. It is allowed on Gravel roads, but the next step down to F roads isn't allowed (these can be pretty gnarly with fords and fairly serious inclines, rocks, and general low quality. Obviously the Hertz insurance was the main factor for me, but what I could not find was whether that was a legal position too - the rules I could find state that only 4x4's are allowed on F roads legally, but I couldn't find any more detail to decide whether the Y would have been allowed had it been private or not. Lots of opinions from non-tesla drivers its a bad idea, but no actual info. Some of the F roads we saw (by bus) would have 100% been OK and we saw Dacia Dusters, Volvo XC's and even a Passat on them, so I'm not sure what the deal really was, but didn't push the insurance, just in case.
Finally on the overall experience, on return we just drove the car into the Hertz return area, someone met us, took the keyfob, checked there were no obvious crash marks and waved us on the way. 100% would recommend TBH. Saved so much time and stress. Only thing outstanding is I don't seem to be able to remove the hirecar from my app, so request in with Hertz for that.
Part 2 - the car
Part of the reasoning of hiring a Y was as an extended test drive. I love my M3 P-, but a few times a year I have clearance problems and carrying capacity problems. But I was really worried about the drivability of a taller car, especially after the poor suspension setup my Fremont 3 came with (added MPP comfort plus coilovers years ago). The Y we had was an LR, but locked in Chill mode. TBH, it wasn't actually a problem, which did surprise me.
- Luggage wise, the Y was good, but weird. Definitely way more than the 3 could easily get in. We had 3 large cases, hand luggage and a weeks worth of shopping for self catering in and it absorbed it no problems.
- Not relevant to the holiday, but I -love- the 40/20/40 seat split - why the bleep de bleep doesn't the 3 have this? (can the y seats be retro fitted?),
- The frunk is usefully larger than even my pre-HP model 3.
- I just keep looking at the boot with the parcel shelf in place and thinking 'that just isn't that big', but then the underboot is massive, has the front underboot for cables etc, and the parcel shelf is actually just really low. Why it doesn't come with a roller shelf I have no idea, the solid one just doesn't work that well.
- 100% sold on the larger luggage capacity and hatch design. Again, why isn't the 3 a hatch, grumble grumble.
- Driving. This is the tradeoff for me. Could a tall SUV still be good enough to drive while giving the extra luggage space we would really like?
- This Y with 20k km on the clock (so I assume Berlin made) did deliver.
- It would never be a track day weapon or anything, but
- Sitting on the motorway was lovely, and
- Really quite composed over the twisties.
- The suspension is surprisingly firm when you hit actual bumps in tracks etc, but it runs a really fine balance. The roads in iceland were either beautiful, or gravel tho, so not 100% sure how it would translate to the UK.
- Still evidence of a lack of isolation from the road surface at speed, despite being on winter tyres. Rough surfaces make their way into the cabin very prominently, but smooth surfaces create a place of tranquillity you won't get in many places.
- I found I could get a really comfortable cruising position for spending hours on AP at 90km/h. No complaints about lack of lumbar adjustment from my passenger, and she used to have to take an extra support cushion in most cars.
- I actually forgot to check, but I assume no USS on this one, but AP and distance measuring for parking all worked flawlessly. A couple of False breaking events, but both easily explained by the oncoming huge lorry creeping over the centreline.
- Metallic white is very pretty, even if I'd never buy it. Did see a few of the new crimson colour Y which was gorgeous.
- Wife hilariously kept tripping and falling on the way in and out of the Y as other than the height it is otherwise so similar to the 3.
Overall, awesome holiday. Hertz, Model Y and Iceland all get strong recommendations.
"Tesla Model Y in San Ramon" by DestinationFearFan is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Admin note: Image added for Blog Feed thumbnail
