Two weeks of ownership - few thoughts

[m3tx]

Two weeks in and 800 miles later, here are some thoughts (Black LR, RWD, PUP, AutoPilot)
I am coming from a 2008 Acura TL

Pros:

• Acceleration, it's really nice, as documented everywhere; quiet yet powerful acceleration at any speed without delay
• Regen braking; a bit of a learning curve, but once mastered the one pedal driving is great
• Autopilot when in stop and go traffic on the freeway. At 0-10mph, very little nagging and really a lot less tiring then driving in those conditions
• Black color looks great, don't hesitate to save the $$. Aero wheels look a ton better than on pictures. I was ready to remove the covers before getting the car but actually love the look in person. I already got a few compliments from strangers on the look of the car, from people that seemed to know nothing about Tesla, so purely based on car and wheels looks I think
• Glass roof: I curiously notice it more at night, when planes pass above, or glancing at stars...
• Software updates: it's great that the car improves (for the most part, see below) on a regular basis

Cons:

• FSD (which I paid for) is much further away than what I imagined from reading reviews, etc... even highway driving, the easiest use case to tackle by far, is far from perfect: hard braking in random places (shadows from bridges, etc...), hard time on strong curves, lanes merging issues, etc... It's doing good on the center lane of certain freeways though
• Autopilot nagging: they need to shift from monitoring steering resistance to use the onboard cameras to monitor drivers eyes; I find it easier to manually steer than having to prevent autopilot nagging, and this method of checking your attention seems unsafe
• Sound system: I don't get it; every review I see here and other forums mention how great the sound system is. Coming from the 2008 Acura TL, I find it to be inferior, the sounds feels tinier, phone calls/podcasts/etc don't sound too clear when on at freeway speeds, road noise is just too loud and audio system sound is too tiny. "Immersive" mode just turns on the sound on a couple of speakers but doesn't make it feel more immersive. I think the audio system is my biggest disappointment as I was expecting an upgrade from my previous car and feel like it is a downgrade.
• Frunk opens/close like a hood on an ICE car, which makes it not user friendly for daily use
• Air conditioning: not as comfortable as my previous car, as if it waits too much before kicking in. In my Acura TL, I had the temperature set to 72, and pretty much left it that way for 10 years. With this car, I set it to 71, which is fine 70% of the time, too hot 20% of the time, too cold 10% of the time; I feel I have to micromanage the AC more than I would like. I initially thought maybe this was a downside of the glass roof but this also happens at night. Maybe can be improved with software update...
• Removing charging cable in the morning requires unlocking the car first, should detect that the phone is around and unlock when pressing charger button, hopefully can be improved with software update
• Software updates fixes two issues but add two more, echo on phone calls seems to be fixed, the brake fluid warnings also seem gone, and homelink seem more reliable; but now the LTE connection comes and go since the last update, shifting in reverse show a black screen for a couple of seconds, etc... QA on these updates seem a bit light

Overall, I bought the car for autopilot and witness the birth of FSD through software updates, and hoping for good performance. But I find myself enjoying the car mostly for its performance/driving dynamics, and barely using autopilot beside stop and go traffic.

 

[irishndude4]

Agree on the sound system. Came from 2014 Nissan Maxima with Bose system, and I was hoping not to have much of a sound downgrade even with "premium sound" but I have been mostly disappointed in sound power especially when driving at high speeds. Sound sounds decent when idle or driving 20-30 mph.

 

[ecarfan]

FSD (which I paid for) is much further away than what I imagined from reading reviews, etc... even highway driving, the easiest use case to tackle by far, is far from perfect: hard braking in random places (shadows from bridges, etc...), hard time on strong curves, lanes merging issues, etc... It's doing good on the center lane of certain freeways though

I am glad you are enjoying your Tesla! But please be aware that so far Tesla has not released any FSDC features. None. And Tesla has been very clear about that, in my opinion.

What I think you meant to refer to was EAP (Enhanced Auto Pilot). Various features of EAP have been released over the past few years and in that time many improvements have been made. It will continue to be improved for years to come, I believe. Elon recently tweeted that a major new release, V9, is coming in a matter of weeks (first to the Early Access owners at the end of this month).

 

[m3tx]

I am glad you are enjoying your Tesla! But please be aware that so far Tesla has not released any FSDC features. None. And Tesla has been very clear about that, in my opinion.

What I think you meant to refer to was EAP (Enhanced Auto Pilot). Various features of EAP have been released over the past few years and in that time many improvements have been made. It will continue to be improved for years to come, I believe. Elon recently tweeted that a major new release, V9, is coming in a matter of weeks (first to the Early Access owners at the end of this month).

Yep fully aware of that; if hat wasn’t clear, I meant to say that EAP isn’t as advanced as I had hoped, it looked flawless on the freeway from most reviews but it’s not quite there. Therefore, FSD, is far from becoming a reality. Sure, they will release things under the FSD package in a month or so, but it feels like we’re 10 years away from full self driving rather than 2 years, we’ll see, i am excited to see the next updates though

 

[ebmcs03]

Oh! I thought it was just me. I keep reading that the sound system was so good. Blah blah blah. But when I listened to it I’m like. It’s “ok” not that good. My 5 series BMW Logic 7 was waaay better. Even my 2003 MINI Cooper S Logic 7 was way better!

 

[Trevor B]

Audio system sounds great to me (previous car was 540i with premium audio).

You don't need to unlock the car to release the charging cable .. it can sense the phone!

 

[bpjod]

You don't need to unlock the car to release the charging cable .. it can sense the phone!

If you approach from the back the car doesn't sense the presence of the phone. You can pop the trunk and reclose it, or better yet, just press the rear door handle enough to move it (but not enough to pop the door open). The car is alerted to the presence of your phone and will allow you to remove the charging cable.

 

[ebmcs03]

You don't need to unlock the car to release the charging cable .. it can sense the phone!

I haven’t been able to get th charging cable to unlock without having to stop charging then click unlock via the app. Maybe because I’m using th adaptor?

 

[buttershrimp]

Two weeks in and 800 miles later, here are some thoughts (Black LR, RWD, PUP, AutoPilot)
I am coming from a 2008 Acura TL

Pros:

• Acceleration, it's really nice, as documented everywhere; quiet yet powerful acceleration at any speed without delay
• Regen braking; a bit of a learning curve, but once mastered the one pedal driving is great
• Autopilot when in stop and go traffic on the freeway. At 0-10mph, very little nagging and really a lot less tiring then driving in those conditions
• Black color looks great, don't hesitate to save the $$. Aero wheels look a ton better than on pictures. I was ready to remove the covers before getting the car but actually love the look in person. I already got a few compliments from strangers on the look of the car, from people that seemed to know nothing about Tesla, so purely based on car and wheels looks I think
• Glass roof: I curiously notice it more at night, when planes pass above, or glancing at stars...
• Software updates: it's great that the car improves (for the most part, see below) on a regular basis

Cons:

• FSD (which I paid for) is much further away than what I imagined from reading reviews, etc... even highway driving, the easiest use case to tackle by far, is far from perfect: hard braking in random places (shadows from bridges, etc...), hard time on strong curves, lanes merging issues, etc... It's doing good on the center lane of certain freeways though
• Autopilot nagging: they need to shift from monitoring steering resistance to use the onboard cameras to monitor drivers eyes; I find it easier to manually steer than having to prevent autopilot nagging, and this method of checking your attention seems unsafe
• Sound system: I don't get it; every review I see here and other forums mention how great the sound system is. Coming from the 2008 Acura TL, I find it to be inferior, the sounds feels tinier, phone calls/podcasts/etc don't sound too clear when on at freeway speeds, road noise is just too loud and audio system sound is too tiny. "Immersive" mode just turns on the sound on a couple of speakers but doesn't make it feel more immersive. I think the audio system is my biggest disappointment as I was expecting an upgrade from my previous car and feel like it is a downgrade.
• Frunk opens/close like a hood on an ICE car, which makes it not user friendly for daily use
• Air conditioning: not as comfortable as my previous car, as if it waits too much before kicking in. In my Acura TL, I had the temperature set to 72, and pretty much left it that way for 10 years. With this car, I set it to 71, which is fine 70% of the time, too hot 20% of the time, too cold 10% of the time; I feel I have to micromanage the AC more than I would like. I initially thought maybe this was a downside of the glass roof but this also happens at night. Maybe can be improved with software update...
• Removing charging cable in the morning requires unlocking the car first, should detect that the phone is around and unlock when pressing charger button, hopefully can be improved with software update
• Software updates fixes two issues but add two more, echo on phone calls seems to be fixed, the brake fluid warnings also seem gone, and homelink seem more reliable; but now the LTE connection comes and go since the last update, shifting in reverse show a black screen for a couple of seconds, etc... QA on these updates seem a bit light

Overall, I bought the car for autopilot and witness the birth of FSD through software updates, and hoping for good performance. But I find myself enjoying the car mostly for its performance/driving dynamics, and barely using autopilot beside stop and go traffic.

Would love to see an update a year from now on this list. The frunk thing is absolutely true.

The sound system, I’m curious to the folks that don’t like it, what they are listening to and what source. If streaming sounds best, my guess is that encoding plays a role.

 

[chronopc]

Air conditioning: not as comfortable as my previous car, as if it waits too much before kicking in. In my Acura TL, I had the temperature set to 72, and pretty much left it that way for 10 years. With this car, I set it to 71, which is fine 70% of the time, too hot 20% of the time, too cold 10% of the time; I feel I have to micromanage the AC more than I would like. I initially thought maybe this was a downside of the glass roof but this also happens at night. Maybe can be improved with software update...

You can try manual fans instead of auto. My girlfriend uses manual because it gets too cold for her most of the time.

 

[gilscales]

One thing I have noticed about the sound system is it is extremely source dependent AND there is something going on in the bottom octave where there is either a hole or a hump (to my ears) depending on source material.

I know radio stations are the absolute worst source material but I cannot remember having listened to stations from one song to the next and heard such a drastic tonal balance from song to song, you can easily hear the difference in how the songs were processed in the studio (the overly compressed songs with their bloated clipped bass response to the minimally processed sometimes to thin bass response)

Having said all that I can say with a good quality recording I have heard a pretty balanced and natural sounding playback that is quite dynamic and pleasing to the ear.

 

[Phillyasian]

One thing I have noticed about the sound system is it is extremely source dependent AND there is something going on in the bottom octave where there is either a hole or a hump (to my ears) depending on source material.

I know radio stations are the absolute worst source material but I cannot remember having listened to stations from one song to the next and heard such a drastic tonal balance from song to song, you can easily hear the difference in how the songs were processed in the studio (the overly compressed songs with their bloated clipped bass response to the minimally processed sometimes to thin bass response)

Having said all that I can say with a good quality recording I have heard a pretty balanced and natural sounding playback that is quite dynamic and pleasing to the ear.

Totally agree with your assessment. It's VERY IMPORTANT to use the EQ and adjust the sound quality, especially the Bass.

 

[gilscales]

Totally agree with your assessment. It's VERY IMPORTANT to use the EQ and adjust the sound quality, especially the Bass.

I wonder if the 5 band eq could be replaced with say a 13 band through a software update, need more control over the lower regions for sure as it just can't be adjusted properly with such a wideband eq.

 

[Runt8]

One thing I have noticed about the sound system is it is extremely source dependent AND there is something going on in the bottom octave where there is either a hole or a hump (to my ears) depending on source material.

I know radio stations are the absolute worst source material but I cannot remember having listened to stations from one song to the next and heard such a drastic tonal balance from song to song, you can easily hear the difference in how the songs were processed in the studio (the overly compressed songs with their bloated clipped bass response to the minimally processed sometimes to thin bass response)

Having said all that I can say with a good quality recording I have heard a pretty balanced and natural sounding playback that is quite dynamic and pleasing to the ear.

Exactly this - the better the sound system, the easier it is to hear the problems with "bad" music (poorly mastered, low bit rate encodings, etc).

 

[North75]

I think the sound system is better than any other car I've had, and I pretty much stick with the streaming options (which apparently aren't the highest quality). I'm not a big premium sound system guy, so perhaps I'm not sensitive to audio quality.

I think the AP on highways is pretty rock solid. Interestingly I had multiple phantom braking events in the first 2-3 weeks I had the car, but haven't had any in the subsequent 4-5 weeks. Not sure if that's a coincidence or if the car goes through some amount of calibration for a while. I use a light single hand hold on the steering wheel and essentially never get nags unless I completely let go for something. I'm pretty sure that I could easily fall asleep while holding the wheel and the car would keep driving. (which is a little scary actually)

I'm super excited to see what AP features they release in version 9.0. If the car gets smart enough to change lanes by itself it's going to be awesome. (If Tesla somehow tries to claim that feature is only part of FSD however, I'm going to be pissed)

I haven't had trouble with the AC at night, but I have had issues with solar heating through the windshield. The roof sections are fine, not much heat gets through those, but quite a lot can come in through the windshield. Especially in the late afternoon when the sun is starting to lower but is still strong. I've had to manually override the fan speed on occasion. My wife also likes adding more flow to the footwells than the car wants to in auto. I do appreciate the ability to aim the air flow directly into your face through the steering wheel though.

I agree on the charging cable release. I'm not sure what's difficult about allowing it to release when the phone is detected. I agree that very lightly pushing the rear door handle next it isn't very hard, its more an issue of having to remember to do it before trying to remove the cable.

 

[Blue in NC]

Totally agree on the frunk. I would be a great feature especially with the grocery hooks but because it's a pain to close, I rarely use it.

 

[m3tx]

You can try manual fans instead of auto. My girlfriend uses manual because it gets too cold for her most of the time.

precisely what I don't want to do, having had a car previously where you don't need to micromanage the A/C, I'd just like a similar experience

I am somewhat hopeful that it's a problem for many, and therefore could be improved with software update (if it's a matter of adjusting the duration of each cycle), but I don't see too many people agreeing though

 

[chronopc]

precisely what I don't want to do, having had a car previously where you don't need to micromanage the A/C, I'd just like a similar experience

I am somewhat hopeful that it's a problem for many, and therefore could be improved with software update (if it's a matter of adjusting the duration of each cycle), but I don't see too many people agreeing though

I think for your situation using the manual mode will make it so your have a consistent experience each time. You can still set what temperature you want the car to be but the fan speed will stay constant.