FlatSix911
Porsche 918 Hybrid
Another great write-up of Day-2... remember to be careful out there and keep the shiny side up!The rest of day one, and day two of driving my car to work:
I got home late yesterday. I left the building at 5:30, but a coworker stopped me in the parking lot. He wanted to check out the car, so we went for a quick spin. When we got back, I parked in front to let him out. Another person walked out and wanted to see the car. Before I knew it, about 8 people were around the car. I demonstrated the suspension, sound effects, opened the frunk and took the rear cover off. It was 6:30 before they all left. As I was closing everything up, someone else came out and also wanted to go for a ride. I think there will be a lot of Tesla's at my work in the near future.
When I finally got home last night, I sat on the couch with my wife and dogs, thinking about the Tesla. I asked my wife if she would like to go sit in the car to mess with some of the options. She jumped at the opportunity. We spent the next hour messing with the audio controls, driver profiles, and sound effects. It was a lot of fun just sitting in the garage.
This morning, as I left for work, I noticed the seats were covered in the white dog hair that was stuck to our shirts. I realized black interior with a white dog is going to be trouble. Now I am in the market for a decent hand vac.
The drive in was just as fun as the previous day. I'm really starting to lean on the voice commands for audio streaming. I spent the whole trip trying to think of songs I haven't heard in awhile, and then sending Tesla out into the web to bring it to me. It did not disappoint. I love how each time I ask for a song, it tries to theme the next song based on that selection. I spent time using the left scroll wheel to click through the next selection, to see what else I might like. What I did not know is all of my requests are stored and displayed. I would get in trouble later tonight, when my wife frantically closed my audio app, so my 10 year old daughter did not see "She Loves My C@%& by Jackyl". Oops.
Word was starting to spread throughout the building from the test drives I gave the previous day. Several times I tried to get through the halls, only to be stopped by someone who heard about my car. While talking to them, someone who rode with me would stop to try and describe just how ridiculous the car is.
I ended up giving three more rides today. There is a stretch of straight road two streets over, so I show them the basics before we start, take them down the street, and with no traffic on the straight section, I bring the car to a full stop, and then punch it. It only lasts a few seconds, because by then I am pushing 70. I brake back to 40, and then punch it at 40 just to show how violently it accelerates even while driving. Most of the descriptions I get involve references to roller coasters, how it's the fastest thing they have ever experienced, and how they feel the acceleration in their gut.
I planned on the ride home being my last until Friday, because we are under a flash flood warning for the next two days. I decided I would get a few accelerations in, if I get the chance at a light, but other than that, I'll just flow with traffic. I hit a red light about a mile from work. There was a nice looking Audi behind me. That Audi would prove to be the most eventful part of my whole day.
The light turned green and I punched it. I pushed it to 50 and then released the accelerator back to 45. The Audi went hard as well, but also dropped off at 45 about 200 feet behind me. This road has been heavily patrolled with radar traps for months. This is a tourist town in the summer, so everyone knows to watch it on this stretch. A few miles later, traffic bunches up. The Audi has been behind me in the other lane up until now. There is a space of about one car length between me and the car ahead of me in the Audi lane. The Audi sped up and cut in front of me, with just a few feet of separation. That made me angry.
I beeped my horn. One because I was upset, and two to save the Teslacam footage. I completely forgot about my demo rides, so I got even more irritated when my horn finished off by playing La Cucaracha. I promised myself to turn that crap off, to avoid future embarrassments on the road. I'm laughing about it while typing this, but in the moment, it was humiliating.
The Audi slowed down and got beside me. It was two little *sugar* teen-ager boys, driving their daddy's RS 7. They spent the rest of that road just eyeballing me in the next lane. They turned off onto a side road eventually, and I continued to the freeway. There is only one way out of this section of town, the freeway I was heading to. What I did not know was they were planning to jump on that freeway an exit early.
As I merged onto the freeway, there they were, about 1500 feet behind me. There was no other traffic. They came up behind me at a fairly brisk pace, and then slowed as they approached. Right before they reached me, I saw there suspension shift and they pulled into the other lane to blow by me. I hit the throttle. Even though they started accelerating first, they never reached my front bumper, and lost ground fast. I slowed as we approached traffic. They pulled beside me and flipped me off, then took an exit. I hit the horn again to save the footage.
Never before have I been driving a car that is capable of shutting down anyone else looking to prove a point. I called my wife to tell her what just happened. I said I need to get this footage. Maybe I can put it on this forum, maybe even send it to Wham Bam Teslacam as my first submission. I can take the footage of them cutting me off, and then add that to the freeway footage. I couldn't wait to see them fading away in my side camera.
I got into the garage, put the vehicle in park, and pulled up the dashcam viewer. Man was this going to be awesome. That's when I found out my dashcam was not saving footage...
I had a bunch of corrupted files that were not viewable, but nothing saved from this day. I spent the next hour trying to figure it out. One thing I found, is even though I know I turned on horn beep for save feature, it was off again. Also, the Tesla SSD would not save anything. I set up my 500GB SSD, the one I should have set up last week. I verified it can record, and also with the horn. Hopefully, next time I will be ready.
All told, it was a very exciting day. Tonight we all went out for dinner, just because I needed an excuse to drive again. I saved a few dashcam files on the drive. I did one launch at a light, and wouldn't you know it, the file is missing two minutes of footage right where the launch happens. I'm guessing the force of the launch pulled on the cord. I'll investigate that more this weekend. Now to get through the next two days without driving the Tesla. I think this car may become my newest addiction. I guess there could be worse ones.
(Most sports car accidents happen during the first week of ownership and not at the race track)
put some winter / A/S tires on order now.
