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Nashville P85D
Member
I think the Nashville market will come in short order. Now that the supercharger is live this will draw more interest and I have already driven a lot of traffic to the store. I do believe that until there is a supercharger to the West (Memphis), North (Louisville) and South (Birmingham) it's going to be a bit of a no-start for many.
Yeah. The lack of a Memphis charger is odd and too bad. It also is a pain that there isn't one in Asheville (yet). Tough to go either East or West!
I live in the Chicago area and my home office is in Memphis. Memphis flights are terrible (schedule-wise) so I've been stuck making the drive a couple of times. There's a complete supercharger void after St Louis and there is zip in Memphis. I'll be driving the F150 the next time I need to make that 610 mile trip.
Started this thread right after I got my car and received a number of PMs asking that I periodically update it. I’m two days short of my six-month Tesla anniversary so it seemed like a good time to do so.
Update on two comments I made previously:
9/9/15: Lease – As I mentioned in another thread the P85D is the first car I’ve ever leased. I[t] has nothing to do with money and everything to do with being honest with myself. I know that I will periodically want the newest model – heck I’m already a tiny bit irritated that the P90D is out. The lease puts me on a leash (I am stuck for three years) but gives me a defined upgrade schedule – and one that the wife is signed off on. I think this was the right move. The downside is that I am counting the days that pass without the ludy upgrade because that’s one less day over which to amortize the cost.
Update:
I’m beginning to wonder if leasing was a bad move. The key reason I leased was anxiety about Tesla releasing game changing hardware that would make me want to upgrade. They had done this several times during my brief investigatory period prior to buying the car. Most notably AWD and AP.
I wonder if they will make major changes on the scale of AWD and AP during the life of my lease. Living with the car for six months, I feel I can say that the only thing I’d want to “trade up” for would be a car with full autonomous capability. Tesla rightfully appears focused on MX ramp and M3 product development/management activities. I could easily see (probably would bet on) Tesla not releasing an update to AP during my lease period that would create the upgrade pangs I anticipated.
I’ve taken to modeling whether my buyout price ($69K) will be a good, bad or average deal. There is insufficient data to predict it but so far my bet is that it will be an average deal. Balance that against the fact that my car will be low miles (averaging 28/day), a known quantity to me and has add ons (Opti, Pinnacle tint, soon Ludy) it probably becomes compelling to buy.
At the end of the day, I think the reason that leasing isn’t more compelling for me is that the 85kwh battery is plenty for me. I use the car as a daily commuter so one of the biggest upgrade benefits (longer range) isn’t relevant to me.
Live and learn. Maybe this mistake costs me $10K or so over four or five years. That’s not a disaster and I still have flexibility at this point which is worth something.
8/24/15: Handling (note: I have the coil suspension)
As I mentioned I am a Porsche guy and my favorites for handling were my 2004 996 GT3 and my 2010 Cayman S. The GT3 of course required a lot more care when driving but you could get a whole heck of a lot out of it – especially that model because it had reduced nannie systems compared to other 911s.
The P85D handles nothing like those cars. Nor would you expect it to. I’d have to look it up but it might be almost 2K heavier than the GT3. It drives heavy and solid. Glued to the road and impossible to get rear end movement to the limits I’ve taken it so far. It overcomes this somewhat cumbersome feel with the power it applies instantaneously as you are coming out of turns.
It’s a GT not a sports car IMHO. It has a great blend of stability, smoothness, power and control. It’s not a race car. It’s a very capable high performance luxury sedan that has nice weight distribution/AWD neutral handling
For my money a perfect combo would be the Tesla and a GT3. That is a ying/yang pairing. So now I have to hit the lottery and convince my wife I need a GT3 on top of the Tesla (not likely in the near term)
Update:
I still feel the same about the P85D handling – it could be described a lot of ways and boring is one of them. For some boring, the way I mean it, would be a good thing. Predictable, confidence inspiring, neutral.
Something has changed however – I no longer want a GT3 (or any other car). Electric has killed me on gas cars. If I’m driving, I want it to be in an EV. I can’t imagine that I would use an ICE sports car frequently enough to warrant owning one. I’m willing to accept the “boring” handling of the MS as I get so many other joys in return.
Currently Tesla is the only game in town so I have no options other than the MS. I hope that other manufacturers, particularly Porsche and BMW, will develop driving enthusiast EVs. For now, I’m happy with my Tesla.
New Updates:
Ludicrous:
I’m going to do the retrofit. I’ve toyed with not doing it but I know I will. The comments on TMC, biased I’m sure, make me think that I will enjoy the boost. Yep it’s a waste of money but I’m cool with it. It does peeve me a little that time keeps clicking away on my lease and I don’t have the retrofit. Of course that won’t matter if I buy out the lease at the end.
AP Lanekeeping:
One of the things I have enjoyed the most about my car has been 7.0. I’m serious when I say that I’m glad I bought the car during 6.2. During that time, I enjoyed normal new car stuff, playing with the power and learning EV specific things like regen, range, home charging etc.
My early days here on TMC were mostly reading about the anxiety and irritation early AP buyers had about the prolonged period without real-AP (lanekeeping). I felt kind of bad for those folks but was enjoying my Tesla so I didn’t totally understand all the fuss.
Then 7.0 hit and my car was brand new again. Two things were meaningful to me – I got a second new car experience which was terrific and lanekeeping is an every drive tool for me. I couldn’t go back at this point. Driving my wife’s car or a rental is now an irritation and something I actively try to avoid. I use AP every day, every drive – it’s awesome.
Some have compared lanekeeping to a parlor trick. I fully disagree. I’d be surprised if a significant number of people who used it for a few hundred files would come away with that POV.
Lifetime Consumption:
I could go in to details about my energy consumption, but those are probably boring. What is interesting to me is that AP has clearly had an impact on my power usage. I watch my Wh/mi for fun, do some math on it now and again. I’d say that AP has dropped my Wh/mi by about 20 without me doing anything to make that happen.
I guess one could draw all sorts of conclusions about this. I land on thinking it tells me that AP is more useful to me than the power aspects of the car (which of course begs the question on the retrofit, but please don’t go there).
For those who care, in the early days I was averaging around 400 Wh/mi and I’m now trending toward a lifetime average of 365 Wh/mi. Some of that is AP, some of that is just settling in to the car and not doing Insane mode launches on a near daily basis.
Battery Size:
I used to think that battery size was just about whether or not you take road trips all the time. That’s kind of right, but mostly wrong. There are the obvious factors like climate, usage patterns (like road trips), elevation changes etc. But attitude is equally or more so important.
You have a lot of control over your consumption regardless of your climate and average trip distance. Your speed, your use of preconditioning, your HVAC settings all impact your consumption and range. You are largely in control.
When selecting battery size, I’d be honest with yourself. Are you in to the whole BEV thing and want to concern yourself with consumption? If so, great. Or are you buying a Tesla because it is a pinnacle luxury car and you want to treat it that way? If so, great too. If you are the former, you can do whatever you want. You’ll be fine with a smaller battery because you will watch it, adjust your behaviors, use public charging, etc. If, however, you are the latter and are buying a luxury car with the plans to drive it without much concern, a bigger battery is probably the way to go.
It’s great that Tesla can accommodate the full range of attitudes. Short range cars like the Leaf are really only for the enthusiast whereas Tesla has the battery capability to address either user profile.
More to come later.
Best,
Tim in Nashville
Update on two comments I made previously:
9/9/15: Lease – As I mentioned in another thread the P85D is the first car I’ve ever leased. I[t] has nothing to do with money and everything to do with being honest with myself. I know that I will periodically want the newest model – heck I’m already a tiny bit irritated that the P90D is out. The lease puts me on a leash (I am stuck for three years) but gives me a defined upgrade schedule – and one that the wife is signed off on. I think this was the right move. The downside is that I am counting the days that pass without the ludy upgrade because that’s one less day over which to amortize the cost.
Update:
I’m beginning to wonder if leasing was a bad move. The key reason I leased was anxiety about Tesla releasing game changing hardware that would make me want to upgrade. They had done this several times during my brief investigatory period prior to buying the car. Most notably AWD and AP.
I wonder if they will make major changes on the scale of AWD and AP during the life of my lease. Living with the car for six months, I feel I can say that the only thing I’d want to “trade up” for would be a car with full autonomous capability. Tesla rightfully appears focused on MX ramp and M3 product development/management activities. I could easily see (probably would bet on) Tesla not releasing an update to AP during my lease period that would create the upgrade pangs I anticipated.
I’ve taken to modeling whether my buyout price ($69K) will be a good, bad or average deal. There is insufficient data to predict it but so far my bet is that it will be an average deal. Balance that against the fact that my car will be low miles (averaging 28/day), a known quantity to me and has add ons (Opti, Pinnacle tint, soon Ludy) it probably becomes compelling to buy.
At the end of the day, I think the reason that leasing isn’t more compelling for me is that the 85kwh battery is plenty for me. I use the car as a daily commuter so one of the biggest upgrade benefits (longer range) isn’t relevant to me.
Live and learn. Maybe this mistake costs me $10K or so over four or five years. That’s not a disaster and I still have flexibility at this point which is worth something.
8/24/15: Handling (note: I have the coil suspension)
As I mentioned I am a Porsche guy and my favorites for handling were my 2004 996 GT3 and my 2010 Cayman S. The GT3 of course required a lot more care when driving but you could get a whole heck of a lot out of it – especially that model because it had reduced nannie systems compared to other 911s.
The P85D handles nothing like those cars. Nor would you expect it to. I’d have to look it up but it might be almost 2K heavier than the GT3. It drives heavy and solid. Glued to the road and impossible to get rear end movement to the limits I’ve taken it so far. It overcomes this somewhat cumbersome feel with the power it applies instantaneously as you are coming out of turns.
It’s a GT not a sports car IMHO. It has a great blend of stability, smoothness, power and control. It’s not a race car. It’s a very capable high performance luxury sedan that has nice weight distribution/AWD neutral handling
For my money a perfect combo would be the Tesla and a GT3. That is a ying/yang pairing. So now I have to hit the lottery and convince my wife I need a GT3 on top of the Tesla (not likely in the near term)
Update:
I still feel the same about the P85D handling – it could be described a lot of ways and boring is one of them. For some boring, the way I mean it, would be a good thing. Predictable, confidence inspiring, neutral.
Something has changed however – I no longer want a GT3 (or any other car). Electric has killed me on gas cars. If I’m driving, I want it to be in an EV. I can’t imagine that I would use an ICE sports car frequently enough to warrant owning one. I’m willing to accept the “boring” handling of the MS as I get so many other joys in return.
Currently Tesla is the only game in town so I have no options other than the MS. I hope that other manufacturers, particularly Porsche and BMW, will develop driving enthusiast EVs. For now, I’m happy with my Tesla.
New Updates:
Ludicrous:
I’m going to do the retrofit. I’ve toyed with not doing it but I know I will. The comments on TMC, biased I’m sure, make me think that I will enjoy the boost. Yep it’s a waste of money but I’m cool with it. It does peeve me a little that time keeps clicking away on my lease and I don’t have the retrofit. Of course that won’t matter if I buy out the lease at the end.
AP Lanekeeping:
One of the things I have enjoyed the most about my car has been 7.0. I’m serious when I say that I’m glad I bought the car during 6.2. During that time, I enjoyed normal new car stuff, playing with the power and learning EV specific things like regen, range, home charging etc.
My early days here on TMC were mostly reading about the anxiety and irritation early AP buyers had about the prolonged period without real-AP (lanekeeping). I felt kind of bad for those folks but was enjoying my Tesla so I didn’t totally understand all the fuss.
Then 7.0 hit and my car was brand new again. Two things were meaningful to me – I got a second new car experience which was terrific and lanekeeping is an every drive tool for me. I couldn’t go back at this point. Driving my wife’s car or a rental is now an irritation and something I actively try to avoid. I use AP every day, every drive – it’s awesome.
Some have compared lanekeeping to a parlor trick. I fully disagree. I’d be surprised if a significant number of people who used it for a few hundred files would come away with that POV.
Lifetime Consumption:
I could go in to details about my energy consumption, but those are probably boring. What is interesting to me is that AP has clearly had an impact on my power usage. I watch my Wh/mi for fun, do some math on it now and again. I’d say that AP has dropped my Wh/mi by about 20 without me doing anything to make that happen.
I guess one could draw all sorts of conclusions about this. I land on thinking it tells me that AP is more useful to me than the power aspects of the car (which of course begs the question on the retrofit, but please don’t go there).
For those who care, in the early days I was averaging around 400 Wh/mi and I’m now trending toward a lifetime average of 365 Wh/mi. Some of that is AP, some of that is just settling in to the car and not doing Insane mode launches on a near daily basis.
Battery Size:
I used to think that battery size was just about whether or not you take road trips all the time. That’s kind of right, but mostly wrong. There are the obvious factors like climate, usage patterns (like road trips), elevation changes etc. But attitude is equally or more so important.
You have a lot of control over your consumption regardless of your climate and average trip distance. Your speed, your use of preconditioning, your HVAC settings all impact your consumption and range. You are largely in control.
When selecting battery size, I’d be honest with yourself. Are you in to the whole BEV thing and want to concern yourself with consumption? If so, great. Or are you buying a Tesla because it is a pinnacle luxury car and you want to treat it that way? If so, great too. If you are the former, you can do whatever you want. You’ll be fine with a smaller battery because you will watch it, adjust your behaviors, use public charging, etc. If, however, you are the latter and are buying a luxury car with the plans to drive it without much concern, a bigger battery is probably the way to go.
It’s great that Tesla can accommodate the full range of attitudes. Short range cars like the Leaf are really only for the enthusiast whereas Tesla has the battery capability to address either user profile.
More to come later.
Best,
Tim in Nashville
Awesome update, thanks for sharing.
Obviously, as the battery chemistry improves, there are two places to invest the weight savings - additional capacity to improve range at the same weight or keep the same capacity to improve efficiency and handling. Now that we are probably approaching the limits of acceleration and with the build out of Superchargers, I hope they concentrate on reducing weight.
There is an interesting dynamic coming up... many of us buy sports sedans and sports cars to get a thrill from our on-the-public-road transportation. With the advent of autonomous driving, wouldn't that be irresponsible? In the 5-10 years, is it likely you buy a robot car for transportation, and you buy a track car for thrills, but you don't buy a sports car to get thrills on the street. What do you think of that?
As for leasing, I have always thought that the leasing company has to make a profit from the transaction... Which is coming straight out of your wallet. Therefore, there are a limited number of scenarios where you would come out ahead. One is a more favorable tax situation for a lease, so the profit comes out of the government in the form of reduced taxes. The other scenarios come out of the leasing company screwing up their calculations - either because the model of car you bought sucks bad enough that the expected market value at the end of the lease is significantly worse than expected or that you've mistreated the car enough that the market value is lower. So basically, unless the model of vehicle or the particular vehicle is worse than what the leasing company calculated, buying comes out ahead.
Obviously, as the battery chemistry improves, there are two places to invest the weight savings - additional capacity to improve range at the same weight or keep the same capacity to improve efficiency and handling. Now that we are probably approaching the limits of acceleration and with the build out of Superchargers, I hope they concentrate on reducing weight.
There is an interesting dynamic coming up... many of us buy sports sedans and sports cars to get a thrill from our on-the-public-road transportation. With the advent of autonomous driving, wouldn't that be irresponsible? In the 5-10 years, is it likely you buy a robot car for transportation, and you buy a track car for thrills, but you don't buy a sports car to get thrills on the street. What do you think of that?
As for leasing, I have always thought that the leasing company has to make a profit from the transaction... Which is coming straight out of your wallet. Therefore, there are a limited number of scenarios where you would come out ahead. One is a more favorable tax situation for a lease, so the profit comes out of the government in the form of reduced taxes. The other scenarios come out of the leasing company screwing up their calculations - either because the model of car you bought sucks bad enough that the expected market value at the end of the lease is significantly worse than expected or that you've mistreated the car enough that the market value is lower. So basically, unless the model of vehicle or the particular vehicle is worse than what the leasing company calculated, buying comes out ahead.
Part of the reason why I'll be leasing my next Tesla.
"LUDICROUS" Depreciation on my 2014 p85+ | Tesla Motors
I used to think that leasing was a bad idea too. But with the advances this car figures to make over short periods, some of which won't be obtainable through software update, I'm convinced that I'll lease my next one.
New body style, HVAC improvements, improvements in fit, finish and ergonomics, next generation autopilot and safety features, range improvements, charging time improvements, less variance in rated mileage, less vampire drain, better cold weather battery performance, are but a few things that I would not be surprised to see within the next 2-3 years.
Another thing about leasing that you won't hear talked about much, is that you can sometimes "extend" a lease on a month to month basis.
I found this out leasing my kids Hondas when they were away in college.
Time for me to turn the car back in, honda let me pay the same monthly payment until semester break when I could get the car back and turn it in.
They'd rather do that that than take it off you and then have to hold on to it until someone buys it from them, when they already have you and your monthly check coming in steady. It's likes landlord renting a house. It's not making any money as long as it's vacant.
You can always negotiate. The worst they can tell you is "no".
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So much about what Tim has posted here is reminding me of my own reactions that i cannot help but respond, given that I have now had my P85D for name months and 20,000 miles.
"Electric has killed me on gas cars. If I’m driving, I want it to be in an EV.":
Oh, so true! I am now getting rid of my ICE in brazil to replace it with a BMW i3, the only EV sold in brazil right now. I drive a Leaf the other day and noticed the instantaneous response even in that modest package. The EV driving experience makes me unwilling to have another one. I am even blowing a small fortune renting EV's on trips because i cannot stand ICE any more.
What is interesting to me is that AP has clearly had an impact on my power usage.
Handling: I have loved Porsche and Ferrari among others. Now I find boring is delightful.
"What is interesting to me is that AP has clearly had an impact on my power usage." even more, seeing the actual power usage suddenly has made me try to be smoother. My lifetime average has gone from 450ish at 2000 miles to 321 now, at 20,000. I still do use all the power but in between launches I pay attention. I have never done that before.
All hose things have nothing to do with economy or the environment. That all this indulgence comes with the equivalent of 99 mpg, by my calculations, adds a certain very special result. I now am paying far more attention to home energy use too.
an admission: I have known solar power for a long time. I powered an island in the Bahamas with solar twenty years ago. That, though, was simple economics because the alternative was ferrying diesel fuel from the nearest availability, thirty miles away. Then I found out how reliable, silent and clean it was, which i really had not expected. Still later i realized how much appliances improved running on pure sine wave. So, the idea of an EV appealed to me, but I was not ready to make any compromises.
"Electric has killed me on gas cars. If I’m driving, I want it to be in an EV.":
Oh, so true! I am now getting rid of my ICE in brazil to replace it with a BMW i3, the only EV sold in brazil right now. I drive a Leaf the other day and noticed the instantaneous response even in that modest package. The EV driving experience makes me unwilling to have another one. I am even blowing a small fortune renting EV's on trips because i cannot stand ICE any more.
What is interesting to me is that AP has clearly had an impact on my power usage.
Handling: I have loved Porsche and Ferrari among others. Now I find boring is delightful.
"What is interesting to me is that AP has clearly had an impact on my power usage." even more, seeing the actual power usage suddenly has made me try to be smoother. My lifetime average has gone from 450ish at 2000 miles to 321 now, at 20,000. I still do use all the power but in between launches I pay attention. I have never done that before.
All hose things have nothing to do with economy or the environment. That all this indulgence comes with the equivalent of 99 mpg, by my calculations, adds a certain very special result. I now am paying far more attention to home energy use too.
an admission: I have known solar power for a long time. I powered an island in the Bahamas with solar twenty years ago. That, though, was simple economics because the alternative was ferrying diesel fuel from the nearest availability, thirty miles away. Then I found out how reliable, silent and clean it was, which i really had not expected. Still later i realized how much appliances improved running on pure sine wave. So, the idea of an EV appealed to me, but I was not ready to make any compromises.
Thought I’d post what will likely be the final update to this thread. Lease end is coming in August. I’ve got 26K miles on the car against a limit of 30K.
Overall – I’ve loved my ownership experience. The car has been a delight to drive. And quite a good ownership experience – some continued nits here and there but it’s worth it.
About two years ago I returned to one of my hobbies – high performance driving. I added a 991.2S and a Radical to the mix. Obviously the Tesla is only good for getting to and from the track. That change has probably colored my thinking on the Tesla quite a bit.
Disappointments:
Pace of change – one of the things that was great about owning a Tesla in 2015/2016 was the rate at which we got meaningful new functionality. During my early ownership they added AP – amazing!!, summon – whatever, ludicrous, went from 85 as the top battery to 90 and then 100. But there really hasn’t been much since. It’s incredibly disappointing to me that we are still on v.8 of the OS. I get why this is happening but it’s disappointing none the less
Service – the service experience (maybe just Nashville store) has been pretty bad. Service appointments were challenging, repairs weren’t effective (one window continues to malfunction, a rear door handle tries to pinch me all the time, etc.) Example – I e-mailed the store mentioning to them that my lease is ending and I wanted to discuss the possibility of an X. I’ve heard nothing back and that doesn’t surprise me. Seems ridiculous for a tech oriented company. But these are things that Tesla has to fix if they want to ever become a mainstream luxury option
Next – It’s looking like we’ll take a break from Tesla. I wanted to arrange a 24 hour test drive of an X for the wife. If she wanted to trade her Cayenne on it, then I think we would pull the trigger. But for me I’ve had my fun. When I got the Tesla in 2015 it was like a kid on Christmas type thing – super excited about it. Getting another now would just feel like any other car purchase because they haven’t done much to improve it or get me juiced. If I could extend my lease I’d probably do that but laying out another big chunk on an alternative to the 911 doesn’t feel worth it right now.
I’ll for sure miss AP. And I bet when they finally get FSD going I’ll jump right back in but for now I think we’re on the sidelines.
Note: Someone will be getting a really nice P85D when Tesla puts my car up for sale!
Overall – I’ve loved my ownership experience. The car has been a delight to drive. And quite a good ownership experience – some continued nits here and there but it’s worth it.
About two years ago I returned to one of my hobbies – high performance driving. I added a 991.2S and a Radical to the mix. Obviously the Tesla is only good for getting to and from the track. That change has probably colored my thinking on the Tesla quite a bit.
Disappointments:
Pace of change – one of the things that was great about owning a Tesla in 2015/2016 was the rate at which we got meaningful new functionality. During my early ownership they added AP – amazing!!, summon – whatever, ludicrous, went from 85 as the top battery to 90 and then 100. But there really hasn’t been much since. It’s incredibly disappointing to me that we are still on v.8 of the OS. I get why this is happening but it’s disappointing none the less
Service – the service experience (maybe just Nashville store) has been pretty bad. Service appointments were challenging, repairs weren’t effective (one window continues to malfunction, a rear door handle tries to pinch me all the time, etc.) Example – I e-mailed the store mentioning to them that my lease is ending and I wanted to discuss the possibility of an X. I’ve heard nothing back and that doesn’t surprise me. Seems ridiculous for a tech oriented company. But these are things that Tesla has to fix if they want to ever become a mainstream luxury option
Next – It’s looking like we’ll take a break from Tesla. I wanted to arrange a 24 hour test drive of an X for the wife. If she wanted to trade her Cayenne on it, then I think we would pull the trigger. But for me I’ve had my fun. When I got the Tesla in 2015 it was like a kid on Christmas type thing – super excited about it. Getting another now would just feel like any other car purchase because they haven’t done much to improve it or get me juiced. If I could extend my lease I’d probably do that but laying out another big chunk on an alternative to the 911 doesn’t feel worth it right now.
I’ll for sure miss AP. And I bet when they finally get FSD going I’ll jump right back in but for now I think we’re on the sidelines.
Note: Someone will be getting a really nice P85D when Tesla puts my car up for sale!
It sold out before I enrolled this year.
I did it last year. You might remember a white GT3RS with a cage. That was me.
davidc18
Active Member
3s-a-charm
Active Member
Sorry to see you go (for now). This line really resonated with me as the P85D was my first Tesla too.
“Something has changed however – I no longer want a GT3 (or any other car). Electric has killed me on gas cars. If I’m driving, I want it to be in an EV. I can’t imagine that I would use an ICE sports car frequently enough to warrant owning one.”
Moving to an X satisfied my “need for something new” syndrome and adding a Model 3 this year will also help. Hoping for a refreshed Model S in the next couple of years though.
I do remember seeing a caged GT3RS last year. I hate you are missing it this year.
Thought I'd write what should be the final PS to this thread:
Couldn't leave Tesla. It's just too damn good for trips to ATL. 100D on order - want maximum range.
Couldn't leave Tesla. It's just too damn good for trips to ATL. 100D on order - want maximum range.
