Ten days and 1,800 miles with my 90D

[CmdrThor]

Great review. Did you notice wind noise seems to get a little excessive after 75MPH? I'd had my X for only two days and that was my impression. Will come to SC for some tuning of the chrome trims to see if that helps.

Wind noise didn't seem to bad to me. Certain road surfaces were much louder than others, but this is true no matter what vehicle you are driving.

 

[boofagle]

We got an umbrella and a coffee mug.

Haha, the alien is Commander Thor, Supreme Commander of the Asgard Fleet (from the tv show Stargate SG-1)

It reminds me of the alien from Independence Day. Congrats on your X! How'd your little one like disney? We took our 1 year old not expecting too much but we had a blast with him.

 

[David29]

I still don't understand why people walk around with a car key in their pocket if they aren't going to drive their car.

One reason to carry your key is so that you won't accidentally leave it in the car. Generally I carry my Model S fob in a jacket or vest pocket. Once or twice I have had occasion to remove the jacket when the weather warms up as the day passes, and I have accidentally left the key in the car when going into a store to shop. It is unnerving to realize that anyone could have hopped in and driven it away.

 

[Canuck]

The final takeaway is when we returned home I needed to remove our LEAF from the garage so I could pull Model X in. OMG the backup screen was tiny! The car was tiny!

To be fair, you forgot to say the price tag on the Leaf was tiny - especially compared to the Model X !

 

[mikevbf]

I still don't understand why people walk around with a car key in their pocket if they aren't going to drive their car.

Maybe so certain other little ones don't get a hold of them:

View attachment 174920

 

[halg]

We got an umbrella and a coffee mug.

Haha, the alien is Commander Thor, Supreme Commander of the Asgard Fleet (from the tv show Stargate SG-1)

We got an umbrella and a coffee mug.

Haha, the alien is Commander Thor, Supreme Commander of the Asgard Fleet (from the tv show Stargate SG-1)

I never watched SG1 but I've watched rest of the SG series. My favorite is stargarte universe.

 

[CmdrThor]

It reminds me of the alien from Independence Day. Congrats on your X! How'd your little one like disney? We took our 1 year old not expecting too much but we had a blast with him.

We weren't sure what to expect either, but we had a wonderful time, and he did as well. He usually naps 12-2 like clockwork at daycare so we were pretty concerned with how things would go. We did more rides/attractions than I ever could have guessed and he never really got fussy. Managed to get in a 45 minute stroller nap each day which seemed to be enough. I imagine we'll probably go back relatively soon as there is so much to see.

 

[CmdrThor]

To be fair, you forgot to say the price tag on the Leaf was tiny - especially compared to the Model X !

This is true, especially since we managed to get Georgia's $5k tax credit on the LEAF but not on Model X. After tax credits Model X was over 7 times more expensive than our LEAF

 

[CmdrThor]

I never watched SG1 but I've watched rest of the SG series. My favorite is stargarte universe.

Man, you need to watch SG1! It's where it all began (other than the movie with Kurt Russell and James Spader). SGU was good, but the plug got pulled on the series way too early.

 

[syosh]

Man, you need to watch SG1! It's where it all began (other than the movie with Kurt Russell and James Spader). SGU was good, but the plug got pulled on the series way too early.

Indeed

 

[EV Family]

(The TL;DR version of this story is, Model X rocks, no more range anxiety, my LEAF feels like a clown car)

A little over three years ago my wife told me about some of her coworkers who were getting nearly free 2 year leases on the 2013 Nissan LEAF due to a $5k Georgia tax credit. Naturally I was skeptical, but after some research and an increasing number of coworkers taking advantage of the deal we decided to take the plunge and lease our first electric vehicle. Shortly thereafter I discovered Tesla and initially thought it way out of our price range, but we really liked the Model X prototype. After doing a little TCO calculations we decided that although Model X was a bit more expensive than some ICE SUVs we were looking at, the ability to drive all electric, with falcon wing doors, and all of the other advantages of Tesla were well worth it and we put down our $5k in Oct. 2013.

We really wanted to take our new vehicle on a road trip so when the first deliveries happened in September 2015 and volume production was expected late Q1 2016, we planned a trip for my wife, myself, our 14 month old son, and his Granddad to Disney for a few days and the Florida Keys after that. At some point after all the delays, we had to just decide on some dates for the trip and it would either be the first road trip in our new Model X or our last road trip in our 2009 Honda Accord.

Taking Model X truly came down to the wire as our VIN 39XX arrived in our nearest SC the Monday before our trip was scheduled to happen. As I read the reports of VINs well before mine yet to be delivered I don't know what we did to manage a delivery so soon, but Tesla made it happen.

Once we knew our very own Model X was in our home state of Georgia we scrambled to get our Accord ready for sale (huge shoutout to Mike Malone at DentMagix for fixing up the Accord prior to its sale) and I finalized all of our Supercharging plans for the trip.

Delivery went great on the Wednesday prior to our departure and we set out Saturday morning from Marietta, GA. We hit our first Supercharger in Tifton, and met up with Granddad and his Ferrari California who would be joining us on this grand voyage. The car was charged enough for our next destination well before our toddler was done eating lunch.

We were able to skip the next supercharger and move right on to Ocala, FL, even with a side trip to Silver Springs, FL and a glass bottom boat tour (on an electric boat!). We were staying the night in Ocala, so we didn't have to worry about waiting for a full charge.

The next morning we headed on to Disney for two nights and even managed to plug in to a 120v outlet for about 40 hours. This allowed us to skip a planned stop at Fort Drum, FL and instead drive straight to our hotel in Plantation, FL since we were able to charge to 100% at our Disney resort. This leg of the trip was the sole instance of us needing to slow down to make our destination. We drove 75 most of the way but when we were getting close we had to drop to 70, and then even 68 when the speed limit dropped. We arrived at our hotel with 4 miles range late in the night and the next morning before breakfast we had 1 mile.

I made it to the supercharger in Plantation, FL no problem and Grandad shuttled me back to the hotel in his Ferrari so we could all have breakfast. Once we were ready to go we again had a nearly full charge and we headed down to the keys. We made a pit stop for lunch before we could make it to Marathon, but we eventually charged up there and headed down to Key West.

We spent some time checking out Key West, got our obligatory southernmost point pictures, had dinner on the beach, and then headed back to our hotel in Key Largo with a stop at Marathon on the way.

After a destination charger that was listed as 80A but was actually 40A, we found another 120V plug to charge overnight before we made the Key Largo to Atlanta trek the following morning.

On our trip back we hit Plantation, Fort Drum, Turkey Lake (only because the toddler needed changed and didn't eat well at Fort Drum), Lake City, and Tifton. Lake City was the only stop that we weren't waiting on our toddler and that is because it was raining at that 15 min stop!

Overall here are the highlights of the trip: No ICE, Autopilot, extremely minimum time waiting on superchargers.

The negatives at this point are the auto presenting door goes NUTS if I am trying to load my son in his car seat or am anywhere in front, the the side, or behind the vehicle. My workaround is to drop my fob in the driver seat in this scenario, but hopefully that won't be required in the future.

The final takeaway is when we returned home I needed to remove our LEAF from the garage so I could pull Model X in. OMG the backup screen was tiny! The car was tiny! Everything seemed like another galaxy compared to Model X, but I guess that is the new reality with electric vehicles ...

Great report and I really enjoyed reading this as a fellow GA soon to be MX owner (hopefully in the next 1-2 weeks).
We are also planning a Disney trip with our 2 and 4 year old's later this summer and I'm curious how much range you had left when you arrived in Tifton from Marietta on your first leg out of town? I am hoping we can comfortably make it from home ( in Johns Creek) to Tifton. Tifton is about 210 miles from our place and my concern is we might be pushing it if we choose to skip the Macon Supercharger, which I prefer skipping.
Also, did you have to charge to 100% on your way back from Tifton to Marietta as I know there is an elevation gain? Thanks so much for the insight!
PS
We are also fellow Leaf owners (twice over).

 

[CmdrThor]

Great report and I really enjoyed reading this as a fellow GA soon to be MX owner (hopefully in the next 1-2 weeks).
We are also planning a Disney trip with our 2 and 4 year old's later this summer and I'm curious how much range you had left when you arrived in Tifton from Marietta on your first leg out of town? I am hoping we can comfortably make it from home ( in Johns Creek) to Tifton. Tifton is about 210 miles from our place and my concern is we might be pushing it if we choose to skip the Macon Supercharger, which I prefer skipping.
Also, did you have to charge to 100% on your way back from Tifton to Marietta as I know there is an elevation gain? Thanks so much for the insight!
PS
We are also fellow Leaf owners (twice over).

Getting to Tifton is no problem, I think we had 20-30 miles left, we started at 100% and did not drive slow, probably averaged 75-79 mph. Getting back is more of a challenge because you likely won't start at 100%. We did charge up to 97% because we took an extended dinner break over at the Chick Fil A across the street and let our son run around in the playground after he ate, and changed him into his PJs. We were probably there for an hour an a half since it was the tail end of a 15 hour road trip (11 hours driving, the rest stops for food/moving around while charging). Tifton to our house is about 200 miles and we probably used 230 rated miles driving 75 the whole way.

If you stay long enough at Tifton and don't drive to fast you should still be able to make it to John's Creek. Our backup plan was to stop at Atlantic Station if we weren't going to make it as it is 14 miles closer than our house. That would have been less out of the way than Macon.

 

[EV Family]

Getting to Tifton is no problem, I think we had 20-30 miles left, we started at 100% and did not drive slow, probably averaged 75-79 mph. Getting back is more of a challenge because you likely won't start at 100%. We did charge up to 97% because we took an extended dinner break over at the Chick Fil A across the street and let our son run around in the playground after he ate, and changed him into his PJs. We were probably there for an hour an a half since it was the tail end of a 15 hour road trip (11 hours driving, the rest stops for food/moving around while charging). Tifton to our house is about 200 miles and we probably used 230 rated miles driving 75 the whole way.

If you stay long enough at Tifton and don't drive to fast you should still be able to make it to John's Creek. Our backup plan was to stop at Atlantic Station if we weren't going to make it as it is 14 miles closer than our house. That would have been less out of the way than Macon.

This is comforting info and thanks for the detailed response!
I appreciate it!

 

[halg]

Getting to Tifton is no problem, I think we had 20-30 miles left, we started at 100% and did not drive slow, probably averaged 75-79 mph. Getting back is more of a challenge because you likely won't start at 100%. We did charge up to 97% because we took an extended dinner break over at the Chick Fil A across the street and let our son run around in the playground after he ate, and changed him into his PJs. We were probably there for an hour an a half since it was the tail end of a 15 hour road trip (11 hours driving, the rest stops for food/moving around while charging). Tifton to our house is about 200 miles and we probably used 230 rated miles driving 75 the whole way.

If you stay long enough at Tifton and don't drive to fast you should still be able to make it to John's Creek. Our backup plan was to stop at Atlantic Station if we weren't going to make it as it is 14 miles closer than our house. That would have been less out of the way than Macon.

how long does it take to charge from 80% to 97%?

 

[CmdrThor]

how long does it take to charge from 80% to 97%?

About as long as it takes to get from 0 - 80%. Probably 40 minutes at least. It was down to about 15 kW charging above 95%.

 

[halg]

This is comforting info and thanks for the detailed response!
I appreciate it!

Hi I live in Johns Creek too, where did you find the electrician? did you get a Tesla wall charger or just NEMA 14-50 plug? how much did it cost you?

 

[aesculus]

The issue is either when I just drove or am getting ready to drive. I get out of the front and lean in to get my son out of his middle row middle seat car seat. The door will often open and close 2-3 times in this time period.

There is a post over on the Tesla Motors forum where someone encountered a Tesla engineer responsible for the doors at a supercharger and he was able to demonstrate this behavior to the engineer. He took video's and swore it would be fixed soon.

 

[EV Family]

Hi I live in Johns Creek too, where did you find the electrician? did you get a Tesla wall charger or just NEMA 14-50 plug? how much did it cost you?

We just built a new property on Bell Rd and had the builders put in a NEMA 1450. I believe the charged us around $300 for that install.
Are you waiting for an X or do you have an S? Curious what your last 4 of vin is. Hoping ours arrives in the next couple of weeks as we have a Charleston trip planed later in the month and I would hate to get an ICE for the trip.
We're current Leaf owners.

 

[halg]

We just built a new property on Bell Rd and had the builders put in a NEMA 1450. I believe the charged us around $300 for that install.
Are you waiting for an X or do you have an S? Curious what your last 4 of vin is. Hoping ours arrives in the next couple of weeks as we have a Charleston trip planed later in the month and I would hate to get an ICE for the trip.
We're current Leaf owners.

I am waiting for the X, I ordered in Apri, 2016, so don't have a VIN yet, they said the delivery date is around Jun, but I don't buy it.

I live right next to bell road, and there's a new property built recently, does your home have a steel fence and 2 pillars in front of the front door?

 

[EV Family]

I am waiting for the X, I ordered in Apri, 2016, so don't have a VIN yet, they said the delivery date is around Jun, but I don't buy it.

I live right next to bell road, and there's a new property built recently, does your home have a steel fence and 2 pillars in front of the front door?

We are in the new Bellmoore Park subdivision.
We'll have to unite once our X's actually make it to town!