I had a 2017 Model S 75 since Friday for 4 days while my Model 3 was in for some minor work, and I have to admit I was pretty impressed.
It obviously felt a lot looser than my car, in almost all respects, but in others it was rather lovely
The biggest plus, for me, were the seats. Proper leather seats that smelled lovely. I do miss the intrinsic elevation in ones mind of an leather interior, even though I can appreciate the "vegan leather" we get now (even though it's not leather, it just pretends to be). They had great side bolsters too, and were much more supportive than the ones we get in the Model 3. I might be inclined to care less about that if it weren't for the fact that I bought the Performance model, which has identical seats to the rest of the range, and I feel like I'd fly off the side of the seat if I cornered too quickly. Honestly if I could transplant the seats from the Model S into the 3 it would be a straight upgrade to me.
Having a screen behind the wheel - nice. It's one of those things that I didn't know I wanted, but having turn-by-turn navigation & energy consumption right in front of you, with the main screen doubling up as an overview of the route, etc was nice.
Pop out handles that appear when you get close to the car - nice I like "oooh" features.
The downsides were really trivial things. Being an older car I presume it was MCU1 (no dashcam or sentry either?), and it showed. It actually took a good 20 odd seconds from getting in the car for the binnacle screen to boot up, and everything was noticeably laggier than in my Model 3. I guess for 2017 it was fine though.
While it wasn't exactly a slouch, it was considerably slower than my M3P (it wasn't in Chill either). Regenerative braking was a lot softer than in the 3, but that could also be age or wear, I guess. I don't know how many miles the S had done (forgot to check) but it wasn't noisy or rattly, which was a pleasant surprise.
I did find myself wondering whether I woud have been happy to have dropped £100k+ on that car back in 2017. The interior was nice enough, with soft materials everywhere (no plasticky door cards), but even so.. I was wondering to myself where the £100k would've gone. I guess I have been spoiled by seeing what the likes of Mercedes, Porsche and co bring to the table at that kind of price point. The car I had didn't have a powered boot or bonnet, which I was surprised by.
The car wasn't as big as I was expecting either. For some reason I had it in my head that it would be akin to a Mercedes S-class in size, but it seemed more like an Audi A5 proportionally. That was a good thing, since I didn't feel when driving it that it was disproportionately sized for the road.
It obviously felt a lot looser than my car, in almost all respects, but in others it was rather lovely
The biggest plus, for me, were the seats. Proper leather seats that smelled lovely. I do miss the intrinsic elevation in ones mind of an leather interior, even though I can appreciate the "vegan leather" we get now (even though it's not leather, it just pretends to be). They had great side bolsters too, and were much more supportive than the ones we get in the Model 3. I might be inclined to care less about that if it weren't for the fact that I bought the Performance model, which has identical seats to the rest of the range, and I feel like I'd fly off the side of the seat if I cornered too quickly. Honestly if I could transplant the seats from the Model S into the 3 it would be a straight upgrade to me.
Having a screen behind the wheel - nice. It's one of those things that I didn't know I wanted, but having turn-by-turn navigation & energy consumption right in front of you, with the main screen doubling up as an overview of the route, etc was nice.
Pop out handles that appear when you get close to the car - nice
I like "oooh" features.The downsides were really trivial things. Being an older car I presume it was MCU1 (no dashcam or sentry either?), and it showed. It actually took a good 20 odd seconds from getting in the car for the binnacle screen to boot up, and everything was noticeably laggier than in my Model 3. I guess for 2017 it was fine though.
While it wasn't exactly a slouch, it was considerably slower than my M3P (it wasn't in Chill either). Regenerative braking was a lot softer than in the 3, but that could also be age or wear, I guess. I don't know how many miles the S had done (forgot to check) but it wasn't noisy or rattly, which was a pleasant surprise.
I did find myself wondering whether I woud have been happy to have dropped £100k+ on that car back in 2017. The interior was nice enough, with soft materials everywhere (no plasticky door cards), but even so.. I was wondering to myself where the £100k would've gone. I guess I have been spoiled by seeing what the likes of Mercedes, Porsche and co bring to the table at that kind of price point. The car I had didn't have a powered boot or bonnet, which I was surprised by.
The car wasn't as big as I was expecting either. For some reason I had it in my head that it would be akin to a Mercedes S-class in size, but it seemed more like an Audi A5 proportionally. That was a good thing, since I didn't feel when driving it that it was disproportionately sized for the road.
