Just placed order for 60D...

[JCL123]

Hello all,

Thought I would post because this forum helped me allot in making the decision. Thank you very much to all who helped me with this, even if you didn't know it until now ;-)

- 60D, Silver metallic, Pano, 19" standard wheels, black/dark ash/black next gen
- Premium Upgrades Package
- Smart air suspension
- Subzero weather package
- Ultra High Fidelity Sound

Ok, on the stuff I did get:

60D
I love how I have a car with a 75KWh battery, and I can upgrade anytime later. Here is hoping they have a sale or a promotion in the future ;-) My other thought is, you might actually get more life out of the battery pack this way. I don't think they are locking out 15KWh of batteries, they are probably limiting the 75KWh to 60KWh. And I came from a Subaru Outback so I could not see giving up AWD.

Color
I had a tough time with the color, and truth be told I have a few days to change my mind, but the more I look online and ask around, the more I think it is the right choice. I am a lazy engineer who does not polish cars, I am more likely to take it to a detailer and get one of those coatings.

Wheels
Got the standard wheels, I have tons of potholes here in Boston.

Panoramic sunroof
Does anyone seriously not get this?

Premium Upgrades Package
Filtration and power liftgate, everything else basically bonus

Smart air suspension
My driveway is wicked steep to get into my garage, and it might help to have more ground clearance in the snow. And besides, I was reading about "active suspension" in Popular Science magazine probably 20 years ago, believe it or not, Bose (yes the audio company) actually made one of these with transducers (speakers). Back when I first read about this type of thing, the computer power necessary for the calculations was too big for even a gas car, now your smartphone can almost do it. Besides, can't you just hear that James-bond theme start up like it does in the movies when you use this feature?

Subzero weather package
I'm in New England

Ultra High Fidelity Sound
Funny story here, I was NOT going to get this. And I have a home theater that costs more than this car, but I don't spend that much time in cars (which will likely change now). The regular audio is great --- but my wife and I brought a USB key with some songs in FLAC (shame on you blu-toothers, no good audio for you).... Sooo, I went there with the idea of justifying the regular audio and not needing the upgrade. Hah! I slid the sweet spot over to my wife while it was playing her songs, and she said, we're getting it! Ok, then. Actually I started reading the articles about how they designed it, pretty good read.


OK, now the stuff I didn't get:


Autopilot
I am a systems engineer / IT guy, and I have this thing about potentially trusting anything labeled "BETA", especially if it has a distant chance of killing you or others (even when you are not being stupid). That said, I probably will add it later, because my Subaru had Eye Sight with adaptive cruise control, and it was awesome (and not BETA). I really wish you could have just adaptive cruise control without adding full autopilot. I would REALLY like to have the self parking and parallel parking, because I have a very narrow garage. But BETA, and I saw that video of the guy who scraped a pickup truck during parallel parking. So I will feel a little better when this comes out of BETA.... yeah, I know it is going to gnaw on me with the 1-month trial of the thing... sigh.

Rear facing seats
Originally this was one of the reasons for actually getting the car in the first place. I went out for my first test drive and strapped my 4 and 6 year old's into it. Love the idea of 5 adults + 2 children in a sedan. Well, they hated it. They like to be up with us, so out that comes. I was disappointed.

High amperage charger
This is a nice to have, but most of the time I won't need it, charging overnight is fine. And it is really only useful for at home, the public chargers that can use this are rare. That being said my electrician is putting in the 2AWG wire so that I can easily upgrade to it later. I might still end up getting the fancier wall charger vs. the RV plug, because I don't see constantly taking the portable charger out and messing with it on every trip, and pushing an electric-oven sized plug in or pulling it out all the time will probably lead to injury or something. Since there is a $1,000 credit for getting plugs installed, I will probably have my parents on Cape Cod get one too - I don't see running an extension cord to their dryer, but there is a supercharger nearby. I do see that with the 60D on a cold day with heat on, you can get down to almost 150 miles of range, but that will probably be rare. Even here it is not often down to 0 F.


Some other notes:


Solar and powerwall
I have a 7.2kWh solar array (24x 300W panels) and wanted to get an EV since I got them. I have been on the waiting list for the powerwall for over a year, they sent me one e-mail and that is it, still waiting. Not sure if I can get up in the queue now that I am a MS owner. I am hoping to get the powerwall to allow me to have backup power, and produce power even in an outage. But I am also hoping there will be a way to do DC-DC charging to the MS so you don't suffer the inverter losses. It won't be anything close to supercharging speed wise, because on a really sunny day my solar panels put out 6kWh constant, and will get over 50kWh for a good day. And the powerwall is 2kWh output max, so even with 8 of them you could only hit 16kWh. Maybe this will come together at some point.

Further research
- I am currently looking through all the other destination charging options, and figuring out how many adapters I should carry with me beyond the one's they give you.
- I am also thinking of offering my charger up to those who need it through one of the sharing sites, because maybe I might need that myself one day



Well, that is about it. It was a major leap of faith to buy a car this expensive, but I feel good about it.

JCL

 

[Skione65]

Hello all,

Thought I would post because this forum helped me allot in making the decision. Thank you very much to all who helped me with this, even if you didn't know it until now ;-)

- 60D, Silver metallic, Pano, 19" standard wheels, black/dark ash/black next gen
- Premium Upgrades Package
- Smart air suspension
- Subzero weather package
- Ultra High Fidelity Sound

Ok, on the stuff I did get:

60D
I love how I have a car with a 75KWh battery, and I can upgrade anytime later. Here is hoping they have a sale or a promotion in the future ;-) My other thought is, you might actually get more life out of the battery pack this way. I don't think they are locking out 15KWh of batteries, they are probably limiting the 75KWh to 60KWh. And I came from a Subaru Outback so I could not see giving up AWD.

Color
I had a tough time with the color, and truth be told I have a few days to change my mind, but the more I look online and ask around, the more I think it is the right choice. I am a lazy engineer who does not polish cars, I am more likely to take it to a detailer and get one of those coatings.

Wheels
Got the standard wheels, I have tons of potholes here in Boston.

Panoramic sunroof
Does anyone seriously not get this?

Premium Upgrades Package
Filtration and power liftgate, everything else basically bonus

Smart air suspension
My driveway is wicked steep to get into my garage, and it might help to have more ground clearance in the snow. And besides, I was reading about "active suspension" in Popular Science magazine probably 20 years ago, believe it or not, Bose (yes the audio company) actually made one of these with transducers (speakers). Back when I first read about this type of thing, the computer power necessary for the calculations was too big for even a gas car, now your smartphone can almost do it. Besides, can't you just hear that James-bond theme start up like it does in the movies when you use this feature?

Subzero weather package
I'm in New England

Ultra High Fidelity Sound
Funny story here, I was NOT going to get this. And I have a home theater that costs more than this car, but I don't spend that much time in cars (which will likely change now). The regular audio is great --- but my wife and I brought a USB key with some songs in FLAC (shame on you blu-toothers, no good audio for you).... Sooo, I went there with the idea of justifying the regular audio and not needing the upgrade. Hah! I slid the sweet spot over to my wife while it was playing her songs, and she said, we're getting it! Ok, then. Actually I started reading the articles about how they designed it, pretty good read.


OK, now the stuff I didn't get:


Autopilot
I am a systems engineer / IT guy, and I have this thing about potentially trusting anything labeled "BETA", especially if it has a distant chance of killing you or others (even when you are not being stupid). That said, I probably will add it later, because my Subaru had Eye Sight with adaptive cruise control, and it was awesome (and not BETA). I really wish you could have just adaptive cruise control without adding full autopilot. I would REALLY like to have the self parking and parallel parking, because I have a very narrow garage. But BETA, and I saw that video of the guy who scraped a pickup truck during parallel parking. So I will feel a little better when this comes out of BETA.... yeah, I know it is going to gnaw on me with the 1-month trial of the thing... sigh.

Rear facing seats
Originally this was one of the reasons for actually getting the car in the first place. I went out for my first test drive and strapped my 4 and 6 year old's into it. Love the idea of 5 adults + 2 children in a sedan. Well, they hated it. They like to be up with us, so out that comes. I was disappointed.

High amperage charger
This is a nice to have, but most of the time I won't need it, charging overnight is fine. And it is really only useful for at home, the public chargers that can use this are rare. That being said my electrician is putting in the 2AWG wire so that I can easily upgrade to it later. I might still end up getting the fancier wall charger vs. the RV plug, because I don't see constantly taking the portable charger out and messing with it on every trip, and pushing an electric-oven sized plug in or pulling it out all the time will probably lead to injury or something. Since there is a $1,000 credit for getting plugs installed, I will probably have my parents on Cape Cod get one too - I don't see running an extension cord to their dryer, but there is a supercharger nearby. I do see that with the 60D on a cold day with heat on, you can get down to almost 150 miles of range, but that will probably be rare. Even here it is not often down to 0 F.


Some other notes:


Solar and powerwall
I have a 7.2kWh solar array (24x 300W panels) and wanted to get an EV since I got them. I have been on the waiting list for the powerwall for over a year, they sent me one e-mail and that is it, still waiting. Not sure if I can get up in the queue now that I am a MS owner. I am hoping to get the powerwall to allow me to have backup power, and produce power even in an outage. But I am also hoping there will be a way to do DC-DC charging to the MS so you don't suffer the inverter losses. It won't be anything close to supercharging speed wise, because on a really sunny day my solar panels put out 6kWh constant, and will get over 50kWh for a good day. And the powerwall is 2kWh output max, so even with 8 of them you could only hit 16kWh. Maybe this will come together at some point.

Further research
- I am currently looking through all the other destination charging options, and figuring out how many adapters I should carry with me beyond the one's they give you.
- I am also thinking of offering my charger up to those who need it through one of the sharing sites, because maybe I might need that myself one day



Well, that is about it. It was a major leap of faith to buy a car this expensive, but I feel good about it.

JCL

@JCL123,

Congrats! Enjoy!!! Post photos when you receive it!

Ski

 

[Footer]

You must have one heck of a home theatre. And you consider the car expensive?

Personally, I think the Pano roof looks great with every color but MC red.

 

[JCL123]

You must have one heck of a home theatre. And you consider the car expensive?

Sure, it's a dedicated home theater in the basement. By the time you hire a contractor to build the room, and an acoustic engineer to help with the sound material so you don't blast the neighbors, you are already into $30-$40k easy. A projector that can do a 12' screen (without sounding like a leaf blower) is at least $10k. My equipment is very good, but I know people who spend much more. And, all said and done, it is still a nice finished basement that adds equity to my home. I can't say that for cars.

I dunno, am I the little dog on this forum with my 60D, with all the P90D's around? Or are you all my kind of scum ;-)

I was VERY tempted to go red. I love blue, but I am still not sure I can go with a dark color. Silver could be considered kind of plain, I am hoping the state police think so at least ;-)

 

[Chopr147]

Congratulations and good luck!
I set up a really nice system years ago.(12 yrs. and update it every5 years or so) If I included the extension for the theatre room as the same finances then yes it costs nearly as much as my 60D. But like you said my 60D will not add equity to my home. The charger will add maybe $5.00 equity so theres that
Sounds like you did your research. My prediction for you? AP will be purchased before the trial is up. Another $3000 Sorry

 

[suraj1194]

Nice choice there! As a fellow engineer may I chime in about AP as a beta feature ? My car has AP . I've used it extensively since purchase . Probably 90% of highway miles have it on.

The beta term for AP is IMHO not a reflection of lack of testing rigor . Rather, it honestly reflects its role as an imperfect uber assistant.

It cannot handle all the vagaries of road markings and should never be treated as a 'flip it on and forget it' tool.

As a driver I found that I simply had to understand what it is and what it's not, and rather than actively guide the car, I simply look for situations where AP may bail out, and am ready with my hands on the wheel for that .

With that perspective I found that AP is both low in mental effort to supervise, and it has consistently outperformed my expectations of it, such that I consider it a bargain for the $2500 it cost as an add on when I purchased . I'd have paid twice as much if I had to .

 

[Model S M.D.]

@JCL123

I want to see your home theater!

Regarding AP, the term 'beta' doesn't indicate beta in the traditional software sense. AP has undergone rigorous testing and has been labeled 'beta' only to remind folks that it is not yet fully autonomous and to hopefully remind us to remain vigilant when using it. I love AP and would not purchase a Model S without it. At least you can add this later as a software unlock/update.

I have seen folks not get pano in order to reduce weight for the drag strip (see 'drag times' guy...he posts on here too)

Anyway awesome build, you will love you Model S!

 

[Ulmo]

I dunno, am I the little dog on this forum with my 60D, with all the P90D's around? Or are you all my kind of scum ;-)

Here in Silicon Valley and surrounding communities, there are a very healthy number of both. Nothing to feel ashamed about either way. I'd be tempted to de-badge if I had a high model, or a low model parked next to high models, but other than that, it's no big deal. I see lots of 60's all over the place around here. P90D's are rarer, but not much rarer.

 

[jelloslug]

On thing to remember about the Autopilot option: without it you only have "standard" cruise control. With the Autopilot option you get the following:
Traffic aware cruise control (distance control)
Autosteer (the other half of autopilot)
Summon
Auto high-beam headlights.

 

[JCL123]

@JCL123,

Congrats! Enjoy!!! Post photos when you receive it!

Ski

Will do, you can be sure of that ;-) I see that is a bit of a ritual here.

 

[JCL123]

Congratulations and good luck!
I set up a really nice system years ago.(12 yrs. and update it every5 years or so) If I included the extension for the theatre room as the same finances then yes it costs nearly as much as my 60D. But like you said my 60D will not add equity to my home. The charger will add maybe $5.00 equity so theres that
Sounds like you did your research. My prediction for you? AP will be purchased before the trial is up. Another $3000 Sorry

Yeah, if you built the addition specifically for the home theater, then I would count it. If you just "decided" to do that later, maybe not. Because in my book, the difference between a home theater and just a "surround sound" setup, is sound and light treatments, which make a huge difference.

OK.... so I mentioned to my wife about adding the AP, mulling it over ;-)

 

[JCL123]

Nice choice there! As a fellow engineer may I chime in about AP as a beta feature ? My car has AP . I've used it extensively since purchase . Probably 90% of highway miles have it on.

The beta term for AP is IMHO not a reflection of lack of testing rigor . Rather, it honestly reflects its role as an imperfect uber assistant.

It cannot handle all the vagaries of road markings and should never be treated as a 'flip it on and forget it' tool.

As a driver I found that I simply had to understand what it is and what it's not, and rather than actively guide the car, I simply look for situations where AP may bail out, and am ready with my hands on the wheel for that .

With that perspective I found that AP is both low in mental effort to supervise, and it has consistently outperformed my expectations of it, such that I consider it a bargain for the $2500 it cost as an add on when I purchased . I'd have paid twice as much if I had to .

Well, it is up to $3K to add now. Initially I was just not adding it because I could add it later, maybe when it is even more refined and developed. I certainly would be very careful with it. It took me a bit to even trust the adaptive cruise control in my Subaru.

 

[JCL123]

@JCL123

I want to see your home theater!

Regarding AP, the term 'beta' doesn't indicate beta in the traditional software sense. AP has undergone rigorous testing and has been labeled 'beta' only to remind folks that it is not yet fully autonomous and to hopefully remind us to remain vigilant when using it. I love AP and would not purchase a Model S without it. At least you can add this later as a software unlock/update.

I have seen folks not get pano in order to reduce weight for the drag strip (see 'drag times' guy...he posts on here too)

Anyway awesome build, you will love you Model S!

Here are some pictures of the previous theater, I had to disassemble it when I moved. I am currently building the new one in my new house (with many improvements). The new one will have a 12' screen instead of the 10' one in the picture. You can't really tell, but all the speakers and wires are hidden very well within the room treatments. If you look carefully you can see the diffusers/bass traps in the back. Actually, the new one is in a two car tandem garage, half will be the theater and half will be Tesla ;-) That should make an interesting combination. I am going to have the garage epoxy coated for that showroom effect.

The way I heard Musk recently explain it, it is autopilot in the sense that it is similar to the autopilot in an airplane, so it will do a straight line and a few course corrections, but is far from autonomous.

-JCL

 

[JCL123]

Here in Silicon Valley and surrounding communities, there are a very healthy number of both. Nothing to feel ashamed about either way. I'd be tempted to de-badge if I had a high model, or a low model parked next to high models, but other than that, it's no big deal. I see lots of 60's all over the place around here. P90D's are rarer, but not much rarer.

What, can you just take the rear emblem off easily?

That reminds me, I love that when you upgrade battery capacity, you can also change the rear badge, they think of everything ;-)

 

[JCL123]

On thing to remember about the Autopilot option: without it you only have "standard" cruise control. With the Autopilot option you get the following:
Traffic aware cruise control (distance control)
Autosteer (the other half of autopilot)
Summon
Auto high-beam headlights.

And also the automatic parallel parking, right?

JCL

 

[rgreen]

Well, it is up to $3K to add now. Initially I was just not adding it because I could add it later, maybe when it is even more refined and developed. I certainly would be very careful with it. It took me a bit to even trust the adaptive cruise control in my Subaru.

I own a Subaru Forester with first gen eyesight and also drove a refreshed 90D for 3300 miles over 3 months with extensive use of AP. The comparison is to the TACC only since first gen eyesight does not have auto steer. I found the Subaru eyesight system to be far superior over Teslas TACC as it generally does not fail to track vehicles under difficult circumstances (eg a car in front that is half in the lane). It's possible that the separated stereoscopic cameras help in this regard. I had many close calls with the tesla system that would have resulted in an accident if I was not paying attention. For this reason I have been much more comfortable relying on Subaru eyesight from a safety perspective. However Tesla TACC is smoother when lock on has occurred with less abrupt speed changes when tracking. And of course auto steer is very beneficial in stop and go traffic or relatively wide open roads.

 

[JCL123]

I own a Subaru Forester with first gen eyesight and also drove a refreshed 90D for 3300 miles over 3 months with extensive use of AP. The comparison is to the TACC only since first gen eyesight does not have auto steer. I found the Subaru eyesight system to be far superior over Teslas TACC as it generally does not fail to track vehicles under difficult circumstances (eg a car in front that is half in the lane). It's possible that the separated stereoscopic cameras help in this regard. I had many close calls with the tesla system that would have resulted in an accident if I was not paying attention. For this reason I have been much more comfortable relying on Subaru eyesight from a safety perspective. However Tesla TACC is smoother when lock on has occurred with less abrupt speed changes when tracking. And of course auto steer is very beneficial in stop and go traffic or relatively wide open roads.

OK, I really appreciate the warning, I will use caution. Mine was a 2016 Outback (I got a really good trade in quote from Carmax) so I am assuming I had whatever the "latest and greatest" eyesight was. I really liked the Eyesight system, when I got it I was taking a chance that it would not work well, or would just be plain annoying, but it was great and never annoyed me.

I did have it disengage in some bad weather conditions, but not that often. I would agree, the single small camera in the Tesla probably has trade-offs compared to the large stereo cameras for Eyesight. But Eyesight does take up allot more space too.

I agree when coming to stopped traffic on the highway Eyesight can be a little nerve-racking.... I sit there with my foot hovering over the brake ready to hit it. Usually I don't have to, but I am really close. And yes, it is a bit ragged.... And I don't always care for the sudden acceleration when you change lanes or the car in front does.

Truthfully I loved my Outback and would not hesitate to buy another one if I ever had the need again. Maybe they will have an EV one someday. I would have kept both if I had places to park them, and if I was not the only driver in the family.

My expectation for autopilot is to hopefully increase safety by having more eyes on the road than just me. Maybe it can react faster in some cases, I know Eyesight was able to avoid at least one or two possible accidents that I could think of. I never drove with Eyesight ACC without paying full attention, it was just nice to be able to relax my foot and not constantly switch between gas and brake in stop and go traffic, or just maintain a nice constant speed.

Other than that, I am really hoping the summon/self park helps me get in and out of my narrow garage, and maybe the parallel parking will be nice.

-JCL

 

[JCL123]

OK folks, I just confirmed my order.

And yeah, I added Autopilot.... so I can have the full Tesla experience.

I will keep you all posted.

JCL

 

[Chopr147]

You won't regret it. And the kids will be amazed at seeing the car drive itself
I find myself using it much more than I even expected. I changed my order 3 times in the week before confirmation
On the rear emblem I believe it is just glued on, no holes. Some have "very carefully" taken it off
Great looking home theatre. As far as mine is concerned. We added a 20 X 20 extension for a home theatre/Rec room. Not just for the HT, so I won't count that
While building it though with all the walls open I ran all kinds of speaker cable, electronics, telephone (don't use it) , cable (no longer use it)
extra outlets etc.....I just wish I had run fiberoptics but this was 13 years ago

 

[LastGas]

About 82% of buyers get the Pano roof. I didn't because I live in the South and I'm concerned about the heat (even though the Pano roof is supposed to block most of it) based on our test drive. I also bought white for the same reason.