Hahaha that's not early adopter, that's beta tester! .As an early adopter in adelaide, here is what I had to contend with;
- no showroom. I had to fly to melbourne and as they also had no showroom so the tesla person brought the car to my hotel. It received way more attention at crown casino than the lambo’s. I think he sold a few more whilst there.
- no public chargers at all anywhere in SA. There were no apps since ev chargers did not exist.
- the car did not come with a 240v plug in charger. I had to convince tesla to change their policy and include one.
- no service centre or technician in the state. If there was an issue, tesla would fly someone in and I would do the right thing and pick him up at the airport. Had lunch too….miss those person to person days. Even got to help him change a screen…all within my garage.
- difficulty in registering due to lack of engine, and therefore no engine number
- constant harassment, and I mean every time you stop, with curious onlookers asking what brand of car that is, and when you say Tesla they just ask “who makes a telsa”
- constant negative questions like “will it get to melbourne”. These days its ”will it cross the nullaboar in record time whilst towing a car trailer and 6 horses” (or insert your own crazy criteria)
- unique tyre size that no tyre shop carried, so I had to keep my own tyre stocks. On the plus side they were cheap as tesla sold them to owners at cost.
- spending $160k (i got the cheap version) on the sole tesla model (there were two variants of model s available) not knowing if the company would survive or whether I’d end up with an unservicable pile of metal. Back then tesla was on the edge of bankrupcy.
- convincing tesla to install a few destination chargers in adelaide/sa so that we had charging that was moderatly quick...and convincing the building owners that it was a good idea.
All of this was a blast and its become less fun as tesla became more structured and corporate, eventually dispensing with the deep person to person contact and resultant friendships.
So great that you have taken the ev plunge and you have your challenges, but as you can see those challenges were next level 10 years ago when tesla entered australia AND decided to sell outside of sydney.
Yup, it's definitely better now than it was, and will continue to improve year on year!