Greetings!
I'd been following along on the forums on the Tesla Motors site for a while and kept getting referred to this site, so I figured I'd join in the fun here.
I teach physics and astronomy at a local community college. I'll add discussions of solar power and BEVs to my lectures when they're relevant (OK - sometimes tangentially). Tesla first caught my attention with their safety ratings, then everything else that followed. At first, my wife thought there was no point in even considering spending so much on a car, but a test ride with a few launches in a friend's P85 changed her mind on that. We weren't sure a Model S would meet all our needs. Thanks to Chris Alan from Electric Car Insider magazine, we were able to get a much better idea. He had offered a perk for supporting his kickstarter campaign of using his Model S for 24 hours. We picked up the car at the SJC supercharger, and I loaded it up with my astrophotography gear and headed out to Joshua Tree. After getting some photos of Comet Lovejoy (image available here: https://flic.kr/p/qSoZC4), we packed up again and headed home. In total, we were able to drive about 400 miles in under 16 hours, and we had all our questions answered.
The answer is: wait for the Model X. Could I fit all the astro gear in the MS with room for passengers? Yes. If it was all camping gear? Also, yes. Both combined, plus pets? Not quite. Also, there are a lot of tall members of our families, and the back seat of the MS would be a little cramped for them.
I'm currently driving an electric smart car as my commuter vehicle and as "training wheels" while we save up for the MX. We went to the D reveal event back in October, and if they have anything for the X, we hope we get invited to that too.
Probably looking at about 22 months and counting...
I'd been following along on the forums on the Tesla Motors site for a while and kept getting referred to this site, so I figured I'd join in the fun here.
I teach physics and astronomy at a local community college. I'll add discussions of solar power and BEVs to my lectures when they're relevant (OK - sometimes tangentially). Tesla first caught my attention with their safety ratings, then everything else that followed. At first, my wife thought there was no point in even considering spending so much on a car, but a test ride with a few launches in a friend's P85 changed her mind on that. We weren't sure a Model S would meet all our needs. Thanks to Chris Alan from Electric Car Insider magazine, we were able to get a much better idea. He had offered a perk for supporting his kickstarter campaign of using his Model S for 24 hours. We picked up the car at the SJC supercharger, and I loaded it up with my astrophotography gear and headed out to Joshua Tree. After getting some photos of Comet Lovejoy (image available here: https://flic.kr/p/qSoZC4), we packed up again and headed home. In total, we were able to drive about 400 miles in under 16 hours, and we had all our questions answered.
The answer is: wait for the Model X. Could I fit all the astro gear in the MS with room for passengers? Yes. If it was all camping gear? Also, yes. Both combined, plus pets? Not quite. Also, there are a lot of tall members of our families, and the back seat of the MS would be a little cramped for them.
I'm currently driving an electric smart car as my commuter vehicle and as "training wheels" while we save up for the MX. We went to the D reveal event back in October, and if they have anything for the X, we hope we get invited to that too.
Probably looking at about 22 months and counting...
