Sanity Check - Jumping Ship

[94jdh]

I think the negative stories shouldn’t really be ignored as it does give an insight of things that can go wrong.

My experience of customer service has been generally poor but has improved over the last year with issues being resolved in a week.

The main problem with taking your car in is now the lack of loaner cars and it being replaced with Uber credit which is fine if you live in the big city that has good coverage, I waited almost an hour recently.

Software bugs/issues, basically if there are any software issues nobody can do anything about it and seems support doesn’t get anyway with it.

Charging is a non issue if you have a home charger.

Driving experience is the best.

I've come across the same problem with loan cars - Leeds apparently will only loan a car if it's over 4 hours in their workshop. I'm have both front upper control arms replaced as they are squeeking like mad! 3-3.5 hours to complete and will have to sit and wait.

 

[yessuz]

Having now covered over 40k miles, charging hasn't been a problem until this last weekend. A visit to Whitby on a relatively cold day left me with only 31% charge (usually return home without charge).
On returning to the car 4 hours later this was down to 28%. My options were Scotch Corner with 1% on arrival (too risky) or Bridlington (Genie point 50kWh). Arrived at Bridlington with 7% and fast charger out of action. Luckily, 7kWh charger working and sat there until I could get enough distance to Beverly ( 3 charging options) - then sat on a 50kWh charger until enough to get home.
A journey that would normally be 2 hours ended up being 4.5 hours - in hindsight should have used one on the way up ( non supercharger as nearest would have been scotch Corner).

there is BP Pulse (and few others) in Middlesbrough... (shopping centre car park, 50 kw)

always good to have plug share / zap map with you

 

[AutomaticMan]

there is BP Pulse (and few others) in Middlesbrough... (shopping centre car park, 50 kw)

always good to have plug share / zap map with you

Agreed! As someone who has driven non-Tesla EVs for years, I'm used to either doing a bit of pre-planning or pulling in to do some charger planning/searching in apps on the fly. It really doesn't take too long usually now in most areas to find a reasonably conveniently located charger, but I do admit you get better at it the more practice you have... knowing which networks to avoid, things like that.

I guess in a Tesla it would be really tempting not to really think much about these things and just rely on the routing via Superchargers, but as you say it is good to have the apps you need to find alternatives downloaded and ready just in case!

But it's rarely difficult enough to drive you to distraction these days. My first EV had a range of 100 miles, and even in that I never got stranded. Worst case scenario is usually that you get to your intended charger to find it's broken or already in use, then you have to waste 10 minutes searching an app for and driving to the next nearest charger. Sure, it's less convenient in that one particular situation than an ICE car, but it's not exactly a daily occurrence unless you do big miles every day in areas without Supercharger coverage.

 

[94jdh]

there is BP Pulse (and few others) in Middlesbrough... (shopping centre car park, 50 kw)

always good to have plug share / zap map with you

I did actually use Zap map ( always handy) - Middlesbrough is completely the wrong direction if going South, as in my case, and the nearest being Bridlington. The comments also suggested it was working fine for 50kWh charger....

 

[yessuz]

I did actually use Zap map ( always handy) - Middlesbrough is completely the wrong direction if going South, as in my case, and the nearest being Bridlington. The comments also suggested it was working fine for 50kWh charger....

well, midlesbrough being much closer that bridlington would probably might make sense to feel comfortable...

 

[Nujec]

1 service has been very good the one time we had to use it though it was a serious and inconvenient fault - non functioning charge port.

2 charging. This has been totally fine especially since we got a charge point installed though need to budget for that extra cost. Very different if you don't have off street parking. The only time I've been really glad of having a long range M3 rather than standard rang was holidaying in North Wales which is bit of a charge point desert and not being able to charge where we were staying. Supercharger access means unplanned trips to the other end of the country or even Europe are perfectly doable. Good luck trying to do a bank holiday weekend long distance trip in another brand of EV in 2 or 3 years time.

3. Buying. If you can buy with a lower effective APR than a lease or loan then buy. Lease companies will nearly always make you pay for more depreciation than will happen. They'd go out of business if they got this calculation wrong regularly. 50k *is* a lot. I had hoped to make this cheaper by keeping the car for many many years but I'm not convinced the battery pack will last years beyond the 8 year warranty judging by model S precedents. Battery replacement is likely so expensive that it's end of life unless you have deep pockets. Too early to know yet, we will find out in a few years.

4. Jittery unsettled ride quality on poor quality surfaces. Test drive on the type of roads you'll be using the car on. IMO M3 ride either shows up Tesla's automotive inexperience or penny pinching with poor quality dampers.

5. Next: keep the M3 LR and possibly get a used M3 SR as a second car. Other EVs just don't seem like good value in comparison. No way I'd go back to petrol except as stop gap 2nd car until better value EVs or a decent EV convertible are available - current second car is an mx5.

I had similar anxieties and questions before taking the plunge. The driving and ownership experience leaves our previous Qashqai absolutely in the dust, no comparison so would make the same choice again.