Here is a quick review of the 70D that I picked up a few weeks ago.
The Good
1.) A completely unique driving experience that you can’t do it justice by trying to explain it. It’s not just fast, but its teleportation fast.
2.) It handles great, and seems to have plenty of grip on tight corners. I have the coil suspension with 19 inch tires. I haven’t driven it in the rain yet though. It hasn’t really rained properly since before I brought it home.
3.) The Next Gen seats hug me nicely, and work great for my taste.
4.) TACC is a lot better than I imagined. It’s not something you’d trust with your life, but it’s also not gimmicky at all. It’s a transformative experience. There is a process to it of giving it a little more power, but knowing the limits of it.
5.) SuperCharging is a bit addicting I must say. It’s like backing into some space port with a space ship and then you get out and explore the local cuisine. Well okay I’m in the NW so the local cuisine is Starbucks.
6.) Commuting back and forth to work is way more pleasant with this car than my other car (a Jeep Wrangler unlimited). This was the primary reason I got this car. In the greater Seattle area we don’t really drive anymore. The roads are so packed full we just merge into a road system and merge out when we’ve gotten to our destination. There is no real driving unless you make it somewhere south of Olympia or north of Burlington. Using a gas car on our roads is a complete waste. All that sitting, and all that shifting. Sure I still have to spend tons of time sniffing someone else’s tail pipe, but thankfully no one has to sniff mine.
7.) Being able to communicate with my car when I’m not there is awesome. I can easily unlock the car and even start the car remotely if I need to. It also comes in really handy when the weather gets to 90F in the Seattle area.
8.) Having an Average Energy usage of 268Wh/Mi from Centralia to Portland and back. Its 186.4 miles where the majority of it is a 70mph speed limit. In Centralia I charged to 95% and then I drove to Portland at 70MPH with the AC on and with range mode on (it wasn’t that hot). Once I got to Portland traffic was terrible and trying to drive 2 miles to my Hotel from the Freeway took at least an hour. From Portland to Centralia I drove at 65mph, and had the AC off and range mode on. I occasionally ducked out of whatever truck I was following to get around. There are some hills that the trucks can’t maintain their speed going up. I didn’t drive close enough to get any benefits of drafting and I didn’t use any hypermiling techniques. The TACC was engaged the entire time. I made it to the Centralia Supercharger with 47 miles. I didn’t achieve my goal though of making it with over 20%. No instead I was in that weird not green but greeinish color battery display. It’s like they wanted to show Yellow, but couldn’t for some reason. All I know is the color was butt ugly.
9.) The Trip graph (under energy when you have a destination enter into the Nav) is pretty cool. I hope they update it for winds, but it appears to work beautifully for hills.
The Bad
1.) Rattles/Rubbing Sounds from Dash. Took it in to fix a major dash rattle (around the touchscreen), and it solved that one. But, there are still some other rattles. There is also a rubbing sound occasionally from the touch screen.
2.) Road noise is terrible. Tires need foam, and the car needs better sound insulation overall. I need to do some testing with a sound gauge or an iphone app to compare against other car. It’s quiet up to around 65mph, and on decent roads. It’s really loud at 80mph, or on bad roads.
3.) The left LCD screen is really bright at night when telling someone what lane they’re supposed to be in. This GUI doesn’t have a night mode. So at night I’ve turning down the brightness to 50% when I use the navigation feature.
4.) Body pieces and interior trim pieces have inconsistent gaps, and overall the quality isn’t high enough.
5.) Nothing to protect the gear bumper when loading things into the trunk. I went with xpel ultimate to protect this part of the car from my own stupidity. It’s great that it has this huge amount of space, but it would be nice to actually be able to put something into it without damaging the car while doing so.
6.) The Fan Speed is weak (regardless of range mode settings). 11 should be like a hurricane, but its less wind speed than my sneeze at a symphony.
The Lame (that could possibly be improved with firmware)
1.) Blindspot monitoring is inconsistent at best
2.) Lane departure gives out so many false readings that I turned it off
3.) The AC seems lame even with Range Mode off. From browsing around these forums it seems like it just misreads the temp and you have to put it lower than what you want. It does do the job, but geesh can’t they use a thermocouple to test their stuff? Maybe it’s a California thing to say 75 is 70.
The Ugly
1.) Trying to explain that the car didn’t come with Waze.
2.) Holding my tongue when my mom had issues with the Seat Belt. I took her from the Seattle area to Portland and back and the Seat Belt was trying to strangle her. Now I admit it’s an awful design, but my mom has a massive Jay Leno neck too. I need to get a seat belt extender or some soft material to go over it.
3.) Nearly getting rear ended south of Portland when the car was less than a week old. The person in front of me went to the shoulder, and the person behind me went to the shoulder. I jammed the brakes and I actually stopped short of where I wanted to, but I had no idea if the guy in front of me would actually make it all the way over.
4.) Pulling into the Supercharger at the Dalles (in Oregon) and seeing all the ICE cars taking up the supercharger spots. Thankfully two were open. I doubt Tesla has weight sensors under the parking spots to detect ice cars. The signage was terrible. It actually said 2 hour parking between 8am and 8pm. So that meant anyone parking after 8pm would just leave their car over night. It was around 11pm when I arrived.
5.) A car that I just picked up a few weeks ago has 2600 miles on it. WHAT??
6.) What’s with the obsession over everything going up to 11?
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