How often do we tend to own a product so close to heart? Especially when, its not a distant dream and in somewhat affordable reach with a few mental blocks away?
iPhone used to be one such, few years ago and people craved for it. I think Tesla car is one such possession for those who follow the technology close enough. It has all the parameters that one should aim for in a sports car, a luxury car, a safe car, an environmental friendly car. Name a feature, Elon Musk tends to have thought of it already, including the concept of a giant 17” ipad screen serving as an next to the dashboard as the infotainment system that gives close to a pilot’s feeling!
In last decade, like the way smart phone served as an agreegator of multiple functionality of human need, its integration into the car is also becoming crucial, adding another layer of personal assistance to the owner that includes to summon the car from garage with an overview of the calendar of meetings to attend, the path to follow to office to avoid traffic congestion, heating up the car seats based on climate forecast, just to name a few.
So we checked in few minutes before the scheduled booking time for the test drive. The Tesla employee in this case was a part timer student who has eagerness on automobiles with special keenness on Tesla. So, he wanted from us, how far we are familiar with Tesla models, super chargers, charging station, other functionalities, last but not the least the “Ludicrous mode.” The Scandinivian mall in Solna had a Model S, P90D at our disposal to try (he called P90DL, L-for Ludicrous). I had to accept an agreement on certain T&C for the drive (which included, any speed tickets I get enroute, was on me as a driver, well I agreed without rethinking :) of course.
So after a brief intro into the exterior, which boasted ~900 Litres boot space and ~150 lts hood space as well, with an auxiliary fitting ability of two child seats (below 140 cm level) in the boot space. The leg room is amazing for such a big car for all the passengers. We were briefly introduced to the interior, the 17” panel, angled towards the driver, virtually giving all the parameters that a driver keen on technology would be interested in.
Numerous videos already talk about what the screen and the dashboard displays. But, here is a brief on what it means to Sweden Tesla owners. The car comes with a Telia configured sim in the ipad that virtually resembles a cockpit with cool capacitive touch and a highly sophisticated google map giving the navigation functionality. The sim is 4G enabled (it actually showed LTE!) and has got a free roaming in Europe that comes with the purchase of the car. Of course, you will see lags where the connectivity sucks. Though it looks like a computer, it is (on purpose) not supported with the flash player feature, disallowing you to watch a movie in such a big screen (which it is not meant for). Otherwise, it serves rest of the infotainment system that the modern cars are built in with. The screen can be split for more functionality of navigation and music for example. Our host mentioned it was possible to switch the sim, if I wanted to drive the Tesla to India J
The software update happens in another way, which is through a black box like module, I dint get a quite a knack on this from the Tesla representative.
Now, it was time to take the beauty to the road, we wasted a bit of time in the parking area due to congestion though there was no pollution to complain for. We were sitting inside a P90D, which included a HEPA system, prohibiting all harmful biological ingredients such as pollen, bacteria, air pollution entering into the car. Additionally, every moment you take the foot off the gas pedal, you are generating some energy which is good for the battery. However, I was more up for flooring the car (thankfully the host we had also similar ideas in mind :). As soon as, I was in the portico of the parking, the host said STOP, STOP. I thought, I made some mistakes! Well he said, press the full throttle now, it was a good 150 m ahead of plain road without someone else judging the speed limit. So, I obliged, and the next moment was a miracle, The beauty kind of put Schaumacher into the shame and I had my Tesla moment for 3 seconds, well I barely glanced around ~77 kms in around 2.5s (no, there is no record for this speed and time registered in the car, unlike a computer sports you play) but you have to be attentive to get a knack of it. So, the next few minutes we hit the freeway and tried some more of it this time going well upto 111 km, in I am sure around 4s. That was a thrill, my wife described this as a roller-coaster, but for me, it was a moment to live with.
The car was equipped with a 22” tires, which were larger than the option of 19” I was told. This gave us quite a bit of road resistance noise inside the car, that I assumed will be totally silent and an odd thing to try. Well, I am not sure, if some of the sounds inside the compartments are recreated but at least I am aware that the pedestrians outside the car do not notice (the car approaching a stop) it!
There is a HD camera for the rear vision and that can remain on if the driver wants to and of course a front camera more for the control and even the dashboard senses the car in front reminding about it. I was told even it says to some extent what kind of car is in its front, in terms of heightened truck, sedan etc. in a silo form! However, I was not particularly impressed with the resolution of the rear camera, but I never observed it in broad daylight (I saw its performace only in not-so-lit up indoor parking space).
The speed, remaining kms, and regenerative curves are intuitive. We tested the sound system and the air conditioning. It was cool but not out of the roof. On parking we tried the sunroof opening among other features. After a bit of driving, it was now time to test the auto-pilot and how cool it is. It is another amazing feature added to the series of sophistication Tesla has.
First the shortcomings, I was told that the car cannot park itself with auto pilot, if there are not two cars on two sides of it, well I was disappointed to hear that but I think I have to do my own google since the representative was only 4 weeks in job and may not be aware of everything that Tesla boast of (that included the Garmin license Tesla has obtained alongside Google for the navigation). The autopilot wont change the lanes for you. You have to hold the steering and give the indicator if you want to change the lane, then the auto-pilot assumes the presence of the driver and has the confidence to change the lane, which I feel is smart.
At one instant it took us out to the exit from the freeway, that I must say is a bug in the system for Tesla to fix, because it presumed the exit as the designated lane!
Its built on a strong aluminium chasis that is virtually unbreakable and the battery stack sits over that.
We were told that along with driver profile offering every possible customization the driver might need (seat positioning, address speciality etc.) and it stores 10 such profiles together. The suspensions are also adjustable giving a flexibility of the center of gravity adjustment of the car.
Well that was most of it. Tesla dealers do not expect or push you to buy for the car nor force you to sign up their newsletter. The representative mentioned the tentative arrival of model 3 in 2018 and a pre-book is available for a 10k SEK (completely refundable anytime). So, I am looking forward to acquire one sometime soon and justify my yeah moment.
Till then, I sign off J
