Hi All,
I had a S-60 for about 2 years, and loved the thing. However, being up here in Canada I was worried about not having AWD since the winter last year was brutal. Driving a RWD car with insane torque on snowy roads was... fun. Last year in December I was at a mall here in Toronto (Yorkdale Mall) I decided to just stop into Tesla to see what the trade-in value of my car would be, and they offered me a pretty decent price for it. So that got me thinking about getting the 70D. So with the Canadian dollar sinking, and the price of the Model-S rising, I decided to jump and trade-in for the 70D.
I got delivery of this past Friday. Now, this might be that I'm still high from the fumes from the out-gassing of the interior, but wow... I'm impressed! We also had dump of snow this week, and the AWD is definitely a must have. The car's acceleration is much smoother and more controlled.
So I ordered almost a cookie cutter of my S-60, just without the power lift hatch. Tesla grouped it with the high-end trim package, and I really didn't need it. So it was almost the basic 70D but with upgraded the paint, next-gen seats, no sunroof, and that's about it.
So my comparisons (besides differences between RWD and AWD):
The Good:
- front-trunk latch is so much better than the cumbersome double-latch on the 2014 models
- mobile-data service is LTE (up from 3G)
- standard headliner is much nicer, instead of the cloth like material, it's the suede like material
- dash material looks more leather like, 2014 dash still looked like plastic
- interior dome lights are a warmer colour temp and much easier on the eyes
- I think the rear view camera looks a less noisy in low light. I don't have a screen grab from my old car so I can't be 100% on it.
- I don't know if it was a software fix, but the auto-open/auto-close HomeLink seems to work better and at a farther range compared to my 2014 S-60.
- the next-gen seats are comfy
The Nit-picking (like really, really nit-picking):
- the floor on the driver side is slightly longer, so if you're going to use your old Tesla rubber floor mats to the new car, you'll have about a 3 cm gap, not a big deal Even on my 2014 S-60 I still had gap, but it was smaller.
- the driver side wiper doesn't sweep as far to the left as the old car
- the top edge of the windshield is either a bit thicker or a bit lower, of the seat is a bit higher, I occasionally hit my head on it if I lean forward
- seems to take longer to remove the charging cable, surprised me the first few times since I thought it was stuck
- glove box is shallower than the older model years
- proximity sensors say "stop" a lot sooner than the old parking sensors. I have a narrow opening in my garage door it tells me to stop every time I try parking
- I miss the big circular speed/power/regen display. It looked more intimidating to passengers and provided some nice info at a glance. For power and regen info you have to use the smaller circular energy display which I find doesn't have enough detail.
One thing to note (which people probably already mentioned):
- The TPMS sensors are different between the 2014 and 2016 cars (I don't know when they changed it). So I had to change the sensors on my winter wheels.
- the signal and cruise control stocks are swapped
So there you go, 2 years and some great unannounced improvements. I don't plan on getting a new car for at least 5-8 years, so I can't imagine what improvements they'll have then.
--
S.Lam
I had a S-60 for about 2 years, and loved the thing. However, being up here in Canada I was worried about not having AWD since the winter last year was brutal. Driving a RWD car with insane torque on snowy roads was... fun. Last year in December I was at a mall here in Toronto (Yorkdale Mall) I decided to just stop into Tesla to see what the trade-in value of my car would be, and they offered me a pretty decent price for it. So that got me thinking about getting the 70D. So with the Canadian dollar sinking, and the price of the Model-S rising, I decided to jump and trade-in for the 70D.
I got delivery of this past Friday. Now, this might be that I'm still high from the fumes from the out-gassing of the interior, but wow... I'm impressed! We also had dump of snow this week, and the AWD is definitely a must have. The car's acceleration is much smoother and more controlled.
So I ordered almost a cookie cutter of my S-60, just without the power lift hatch. Tesla grouped it with the high-end trim package, and I really didn't need it. So it was almost the basic 70D but with upgraded the paint, next-gen seats, no sunroof, and that's about it.
So my comparisons (besides differences between RWD and AWD):
The Good:
- front-trunk latch is so much better than the cumbersome double-latch on the 2014 models
- mobile-data service is LTE (up from 3G)
- standard headliner is much nicer, instead of the cloth like material, it's the suede like material
- dash material looks more leather like, 2014 dash still looked like plastic
- interior dome lights are a warmer colour temp and much easier on the eyes
- I think the rear view camera looks a less noisy in low light. I don't have a screen grab from my old car so I can't be 100% on it.
- I don't know if it was a software fix, but the auto-open/auto-close HomeLink seems to work better and at a farther range compared to my 2014 S-60.
- the next-gen seats are comfy
The Nit-picking (like really, really nit-picking):
- the floor on the driver side is slightly longer, so if you're going to use your old Tesla rubber floor mats to the new car, you'll have about a 3 cm gap, not a big deal Even on my 2014 S-60 I still had gap, but it was smaller.
- the driver side wiper doesn't sweep as far to the left as the old car
- the top edge of the windshield is either a bit thicker or a bit lower, of the seat is a bit higher, I occasionally hit my head on it if I lean forward
- seems to take longer to remove the charging cable, surprised me the first few times since I thought it was stuck
- glove box is shallower than the older model years
- proximity sensors say "stop" a lot sooner than the old parking sensors. I have a narrow opening in my garage door it tells me to stop every time I try parking
- I miss the big circular speed/power/regen display. It looked more intimidating to passengers and provided some nice info at a glance. For power and regen info you have to use the smaller circular energy display which I find doesn't have enough detail.
One thing to note (which people probably already mentioned):
- The TPMS sensors are different between the 2014 and 2016 cars (I don't know when they changed it). So I had to change the sensors on my winter wheels.
- the signal and cruise control stocks are swapped
So there you go, 2 years and some great unannounced improvements. I don't plan on getting a new car for at least 5-8 years, so I can't imagine what improvements they'll have then.
--
S.Lam
