Introduction & Variety of Model S Questions

[DCGOO]

Dude, just test drive a Model S and you will throw all of this out of the window and wonder why you spent so much time analyzing

I realize this is mainly a complicated financial decision that includes convincing the 'Boss' to purchase one, but just thought I would share my story, good luck!

I would recommend taking the "boss" along for the test drive. I took mine. Her reaction after getting home was "that is the first car in my entire life, that I REALLY want!" Deal closed. It's that good.

 

[msnow]

^^^ that is exactly what did. She drove it while I sat shotgun sales guy in the back. Then we switched and as we walked around the car to change places I noticed the huge smile on her face and after my turn was over I was grinning too and the deal was done. I waited 2 weeks just to due more due diligence but that "Tesla feeling" was with me very day and I pulled the trigger. Never one regret and my wife LOVES IT!!

 

[hybridbear]

I agree.
It is a financial decision first but as soon as I took the test drive it was a completely emotional "decision".

I would recommend taking the "boss" along for the test drive. I took mine. Her reaction after getting home was "that is the first car in my entire life, that I REALLY want!" Deal closed. It's that good.

In due time I will do this. I just need to make sure it wouldn't be a completely irrational decision. I'll also probably go do a drive first by myself, and then if/when I'm blown away by it, I'll go about requesting an extended test drive so that she can be blown away too.

 

[hybridbear]

When I was looking through screen shots of the Tesla app I didn't see anything about scheduling preconditioning for the car while plugged in. How do you schedule the preconditioning so that the car always heats up or cools down while plugged in before you leave?

 

[BertL]

When I was looking through screen shots of the Tesla app I didn't see anything about scheduling preconditioning for the car while plugged in. How do you schedule the preconditioning so that the car always heats up or cools down while plugged in before you leave?

Its done by turning on the preconditioning option on the 17" display. MS then supposedly learns your schedule over a period of time and prepares it for when you normally use it. (Note that since the current implementation has no overrides, it only likely works well for people are a truly fixed schedule -- lots of variation and it may not meet your needs.)

 

[mspohr]

When I was looking through screen shots of the Tesla app I didn't see anything about scheduling preconditioning for the car while plugged in. How do you schedule the preconditioning so that the car always heats up or cools down while plugged in before you leave?

You can do this with VisibleTesla.

 

[msnow]

When I was looking through screen shots of the Tesla app I didn't see anything about scheduling preconditioning for the car while plugged in. How do you schedule the preconditioning so that the car always heats up or cools down while plugged in before you leave?

From page 95 of the Owners Manual:

"Note: Smart Preconditioning is available only if you save your home and work locations
(see Favorite Destinations on page 111)."

I interpret this to mean that it would only work if traveling from or to those two destinations.

 

[hybridbear]

Its done by turning on the preconditioning option on the 17" display. MS then supposedly learns your schedule over a period of time and prepares it for when you normally use it. (Note that since the current implementation has no overrides, it only likely works well for people are a truly fixed schedule -- lots of variation and it may not meet your needs.)

We would have a fair amount of variation 4 days a week, with a more fixed schedule the other 3 days. How does the car know what temperature to heat/cool to? We park in a heated underground garage at our apartment, so the temperature is about 55-60 F in the winter & about 75-80 F in the summer. We currently set our Focus Electric & Fusion Energi to precondition to 85 F in the winter & 65 F in the summer (the other option is 72 F which we don't use). This means that we always get into a cool car on hot & humid summer days when leaving home & a hot car when leaving home in the winter. Preconditioning to 85 F in winter allows us to drive about 10-15 minutes without needing any additional HVAC, thus saving range. Preconditioning to 65 F in the summer allows us to drive at least 15 minutes without needing A/C, also saving range. Since our day-to-day routine doesn't involve any normal trips that are more than 15 minutes behind the wheel we are able to save range this way.

You can do this with VisibleTesla.

Cool! I just pulled up the VisibleTesla website again & saw how you can configure it there. Thanks for the tip!!

 

[hybridbear]

I decided to go for a test drive yesterday afternoon. It was sort of spur of the moment. The high yesterday was around -1 F so I figured it would be a good day to see what the Model S heating system is like & test out the seat heaters in the Next Gen seats that some have complained about.

Overall, the store experience was not good. The Product Specialist who helped me did not make it a good experience. When we were looking at the P90D that they had inside and sitting in it I expressed both areas where the Model S is superior to the cars we have and areas where it could use some improvement. He was very dismissive of anything I mentioned as a potential negative point about the Model S. For example, I mentioned the issue of the driver profiles not being automatic based on the key. He first indicated that you'd need a massive sized key fob to have that capability. I said that our Fusion Energi has that & showed him the key fob which is roughly the same size as the Tesla fob. Then he said that you can just set an exit profile and that the shorter driver (my wife) would have to press that every time when stopping the car. When I said that adding steps like that wouldn't go over well, his reply was, "This really isn't an issue for anyone. It's not a big deal." I didn't care at all for his dismissive nature of what is the single biggest negative for us about the Model S.

A bit later went out for a test drive. He drove first & demonstrated autopilot. He also drove to a parking lot & demonstrated the auto 90 degree parking. He then let me drive back to the store. On his drive from the store to the parking lot he took a longer, more round-about route. The route he directed me to take back to the store was the shortest route & resulted in me driving only 3 miles, and only going one exit down the freeway. This meant that I barely had the chance to see how autosteer & TACC work on the freeway.

When we talked about vehicle options he heavily tried to push me toward not considering CPO cars. He kept emphasizing that the CPO cars only have the balance of the original 8 year HVB warranty and that you can't extend that warranty. Unless I'm mistaken, you can't ever extend the 8 year HVB warranty. He originally tried to say that CPO cars also only have whatever is left of the original 4/50 b2b warranty & I had to ask him about that again to get him to admit that CPO cars come with a 4/50 b2b warranty. He kept trying to insist that we only look at inventory cars. We aren't really interested in inventory cars since we do not have $7500 in tax liability & thus we would not get the full $7500 benefit.

After we returned to the store I asked about the annual MN registration costs. He first tried to tell me that it only costs $50 per year to register a Model S. When I pressed for more information, since I knew his number was wrong since our annual registration tax is based on vehicle MSRP & age. He conferred with an other Tesla employee in the store & the two of them flat out refused to provide this information. They said, "If you buy a Tesla your Delivery Specialist can tell you that information." That was another very bad part of the experience.

I really hope that my experience was an aberration. I did really like the Model S after getting to spend time with it & I think that it should be the front-runner for when our Focus Electric lease ends. But, I was not pleased with the store experience.

 

[BigAirHarper]

I would definitely say it was just an off day. I've driven the car 3 times at 3 different stores and they have bent over backwards. One store was closed but a couple employees were there, and a guy let us in to look around and ended up taking us on a quick acceleration run another time the store had no more test drives but an employee heard we were from the same area so he ran out really quick and took us around the block to demonstrate the then new P85D. I've always had great experiences!

 

[msnow]

Yeah my experience was great too. It sounds like it got off on the wrong foot when you were talking about driver profiles. He was right in the sense that it's not really a big deal for owners but you pressed on. On the other hand he wasn't knowledgable enough about local registration costs (I would have cut him a break on that though) and I'm not why he tried to steer you away from CPO. Mine did too but at the time last August virtually all of the available CPO's were not AP capable and I wanted that. In the end you don't really need that guy except for the test drive as the rest is all electronic and online. You can ask questions here and get a lot more information both pro and con.

 

[Parker]

I would recommend taking the "boss" along for the test drive. I took mine. Her reaction after getting home was "that is the first car in my entire life, that I REALLY want!" Deal closed. It's that good.

Exactly what happened with my wife and I.

 

[wdolson]

Overall, the store experience was not good. The Product Specialist who helped me did not make it a good experience. When we were looking at the P90D that they had inside and sitting in it I expressed both areas where the Model S is superior to the cars we have and areas where it could use some improvement. He was very dismissive of anything I mentioned as a potential negative point about the Model S. For example, I mentioned the issue of the driver profiles not being automatic based on the key. He first indicated that you'd need a massive sized key fob to have that capability. I said that our Fusion Energi has that & showed him the key fob which is roughly the same size as the Tesla fob. Then he said that you can just set an exit profile and that the shorter driver (my wife) would have to press that every time when stopping the car. When I said that adding steps like that wouldn't go over well, his reply was, "This really isn't an issue for anyone. It's not a big deal." I didn't care at all for his dismissive nature of what is the single biggest negative for us about the Model S.

When I did a test drive my experience was fairly good, though finding the Portland, OR store was not easy. Neither of us had been to the mall it's in before and the instructions about where it was in the mall were very vague.

The guy who took us on the test drive was a recent Mechanical Engineering grad from my alma mater (Cal Poly SLO) he was "slumming it" at the Tesla store for a year while saving up for grad school. It was a pretty pleasant experience overall.

As for the customized key fob thing, that would be a very easy software change, probably in the car only. The fobs send a signal to the car that has a portion that is always the same, and another signal that changes each time you press the button. The car and fob both have the same algorithm for generating the changing bit, so both should always be in sync. I think the car maintains two algorithms one for each fob, so the car already knows which fob was used. If it doesn't already know the fob, it would be easy to add a fob ID to the signal sent.

I've read that if you click the fob and nothing happens, but then you click again and the car unlocks normally, it's possible somebody recorded your fob signal and spoofed it to unlock your car. Some hackers have done that to people, but I haven't heard of any stories of Teslas getting hacked. It's a tough hack to do because they have to have their recording equipment close enough to pick up your fob's signal, then they have to run through the possible changing part of the code until they hit on the right one for the moment.

 

[hybridbear]

Another thing the Product Specialist said which surprised me & contradicts what many wrong has to do with air suspension versus coil suspension. I commented that at some point in the future I would like to drive a coil suspension car back-to-back with a car with SAS to compare the ride feel. He said, "That won't be necessary, the ride is exactly the same. There is no difference." Perhaps I need to find someone different to talk to...

 

[DCGOO]

Another thing the Product Specialist said which surprised me & contradicts what many wrong has to do with air suspension versus coil suspension. I commented that at some point in the future I would like to drive a coil suspension car back-to-back with a car with SAS to compare the ride feel. He said, "That won't be necessary, the ride is exactly the same. There is no difference." Perhaps I need to find someone different to talk to...

Apparently SaS helps with the 21 inch wheels. But w 19 inch, the difference is negligible. Now they didn't volunteer that advice. But after I asked, that is what I was told.