Question from a guy having driven Manual transmission for 15 years.
I am debating whether to buy a CPO model S, and I rented a model S from Turo to try out.
I am having 2 problems with the regen braking aspect of the Tesla
1) My right feet feels so tired trying to modulate the amount of regen applied (in order to avoid jerkiness)
2) My wife and I both feels like my drive is way smoother when I drive manual than when I am driving the model S.
I would have thought such a technologically advanced car would actually making driving less tiring and smoother.
I tried TACC and thought that is also kind of jerky.
Maybe I just need a few days to learn to use the pedal.
But when I am driving my manual transmission car, when I know I am coming to a stop, I put my car in Neutral and let the car coast to a stop smoothly.
I’ve had ‘em all. Automatics, push button automatics, manuals, column shift, floor shift, cars without synchros on the first gear, a jeep with a low range and manual hubs, turbocharged manual sports cars, I’ve driven tractors, I can drive pretty much anything.
If the automatic transmission is the next level of automation over a good manual, then the Tesla is the next generation beyond that. It only has the one gear so it doesn’t need a transmission. When you’re stopped, the motors are stopped. There’s no spinning engine that needs to be disconnected from the wheels, then when you go, the motors turn, torque is instant, no revving, no feeling the engine start to pull as you ease out the clutch, there’s no turbo lag, just instant effortless magnificently controllable nearly limitless power.
The single pedal driving with the regeneration system to slow is easy to regulate, it becomes second nature very quickly. Your problem is you are muscle trained for the manual transmission cars. It isn’t that the Tesla is jerky, it’s you, you’re jerky because you are still in manual mode, revving a bit to start off, clutching when you stop.
Manuals are nice but they have drawbacks. Slow stop and go traffic is about the worst, where you creep along at walking speed when you go and end up stopping a lot. That’s hard on the clutch. Automatics are better. They’ll creep. That helps. The Tesla, though, you can set the car to follow at the speed limit and the car will just follow the car in front, it goes when that car goes, follows nicely. Then there is the steep uphill with the manual, stopped with some idiot right on your back bumper. It’s going to roll back, well unless you are better at it than I was. I’d have to use the hand brake until the forward pull was enough to prevent the back roll. Then there was the very slick road where the engine was connected directly to the back wheels. I’ve spun. Not often but enough.
I loved the manual transmission with the turbo, second gear was a thrill. I put a Jim Wolfe racing kit in a Nissan 300zx twin turbo, that car had just at 400 HP. I went to Germany and visited the BMW factory before ordering a 3 series convertible with a manual. I put a short shift kit in it, it had a stainless ball instead of the factory plastic, was a short throw notchy shifter. It felt so connected. I loved it.
The Tesla is better, though. It’s all round better than any car I’ve had. Driving is just effortless. You’ll get used to it, more quickly than you think. Then you can go back to a manual or a conventional automatic, it’ll come back in a heartbeat, and then you get back in the Tesla, and it’s just so easy, so strong, so capable, so controllable, so transparent. Me, I’m ruined. I’ve got well over 50 years of driving, and this Tesla is just superb. I don’t miss the shifting. I’ve done enough of it I think. I liked it, it’s just that this is so much better.
So do what you want, but your concerns about the jerkiness, it is something we all go through, but it doesn’t last very long. Then it’s nirvana. Just effortless fine control. And there’s no shifting at all. It isn’t that you are giving up the clutch and the shifter, it’s that the car doesn’t need it.
