With the application of a large amount of unjustifiable man maths I finally received permission from my wife and a new custom X has been ordered
Woohoo!
There must be many of you who are or have been in the same boat.
hehehe ... Model-S was about 3x what we normally spend on a car. I could afford a Ferrari ... but I never have, although I hankered after one, because I could never persuade myself that i should have something so utterly useless day-to-day. But ... the Model-S is faster, carries 5 adults, huge amounts of cargo, costs less than 3p a mile to drive; we are a very wannabe-Eco family and, at the time, I had just been shafted by VW DieselGate and was looking around for a replacement for Blue Motion Golf ... hadn't realised, until then, that Tesla existed and that 250 mile real world range EV was possible.
Some considerable discussion about "flashy", but discounted that and here we are more than 3 years on
I need an excuse (mainly for my wife)
Ah.. Man Maths, my First Language
But for you saying that you swung it past management I would have suggested (as above) getting your wife to the test drive. Driving EV is different to ICE, far preferable. My wife loves it ... especially when she has to ferry some business Blokes in the car ... she did have an RS4 some decades ago ... the Blokes were impressed with that. She knew nothing about it ... except to be able to quote the Horsepower and 0-60 time ... which was sufficient to make the Blokes think she knew about every nut and piston ring!
My wife hates automatics (the "not in control" thing), but Tesla isn't like that - no gears, no automatic-shift-jerk and so on.
I'll be amazed if you, and your wife, say anything other than "Never ICE again" after you've done 1,000 EV miles
Grandkids? Much easier to get them in/out of the back with the Falcon Wing doors "up" ... especially if raining.
nearly all on non motorway
Autopilot on Dual Carriageway dramatically reduces driver workload. Very important that you don't get lulled into false sense of security ... so beware of that, but you will arrive far more refreshed than you used to, and one "save" of an incident is hard to put a price on of course. The car's AutoPilot vigilance alongside the driver doing "lookout" is a far better outcome than "driver alone" I reckon
Software is my day job, and I hate most tech (as being poorly implemented). I have very high regard of the usability of Tesla Tech. If your ageing eyes are struggling you might have issues with top/bottom of screen because of that ... on previous version it was easier to move stuff top/bottom of the screen - my wife and I had difference preferences, due to different eye-abilities
So that might be something to be aware of.
I read about Tesla owners having all sorts of build quality and service centre issues
I'm not going to belittle it ... but read any forum and you will get the impression that that Brand is awful - generally only people with problems are posting - but that said plenty of "Happy campers" on the Tesla forum.
Getting Tesla spares and service is like being a naive apprentice and being sent to stores for "a long weight"
If Tesla give you a loaner that's one thing, but having a second car definitely an advantage. My car has been at Tesla for a month on a couple of occasions (in 3 years). One was for a headlight fault which I have not heard anyone else having, so I'm happy that was a one-off. The other was for some panel damage an idiot did to the car and took ages to get parts and have them fitted etc. (wish I had had the dent "pulled" instead of taking the other party's insurance money and getting "replaced panels" to be sure of a pukka job). Even a routine Service that also needed a replacement boot-catch because it wasn't always "grabbing" it electrically took a week ...
But I have had the car serviced a bit less than once a year (30,000 miles p.a. for me), and apart from that my grumbles are that I get cold air, in Winter, on my feet an hour into a journey, and some static on the radio - which was fixed in a software update .. .and then unfixed in a subsequent one
I would have another one without blinking - in the full knowledge that I would have to be ready to apply some "Tesla patience" to counteract Tesla Chaos.
There are definitely stories of repeat problems not being solved, but I am inclined to think that was mostly on older cars. The model-3s are being washed and handed over all within 30 minutes and, mostly, no faults found.
You are out in the sticks by sounds of it so don’t worry about guilt of diesel
Sorry, I have a different view, as I am always lecturing to my rich-barsteward-mates
If you can afford it you should be doing it NOW. The planet won't wait. Move your Diesel on to someone less fortunate who can make use of it (your old diesel is most likely much cleaner than their VERY old diesel), get the EV and then you will also be moving that on (sooner than if you wait-to-buy) which will also help, over time.
Those of my Rich-barsteward-mates, who haven't got an Eco-bone in their body, are starting to say "
If I buy a new Diesel, now, it will be worth Zilch in 5 years when I want to move it on" so that alone is putting them off Diesel ... not quite a level playing field Petrol vs EV ... but ...