I set up an appointment last week. I'm actually seriously considering one if we move to LA. It seems like it would be an awesome choice for me. So I went into the store today. The sales associate showed me the car in the showroom, ran me through the features and then took me out to the car.
First impressions: it's impressive to see the attention to detail and the mass produced feel the car has. It doesn't feel like a car that's been put together in small batches. It has a very mass produced, well built feel to it... In a good way that is. So let's just dive right in...
Drivetrain - If you're reading you're reading for this I'm sure. It. is. Amazing. You have to drive the car to even get an idea but there is zero lag. The second you put the throttle to the floor you have instantaneous peak torque. No downshifting, no waiting for the converter to flash, the turbos to spool, the engine to rev up... nothing. It kicks you in the ass immediately and never lets up.
And it's deceiving too. You hit unreasonably high speeds with minimal effort. I ended up doing 85mph on a frontage road when I thought I was doing 60. There is just unrelenting power and on paper this car is just silly.
Around town in normal driving it is unbelievably smooth. A slight push of the throttle results in a silent creep forward. Through surface streets in day to day driving the electric drivetrain delivers a luxury feel no gas engine ever could.
Handling - I was expecting it to be great and I wasn't disappointed. No combination of throttle and steering could get the car to relent in the turns. It has grip for miles and doesn't make a fuss about it either. This is a car that makes anyone feel like a better driver than they are and it should. It's heavy and has a very low center of gravity.
The ride was compliant, not overly firm, nice and isolated but capable as well. My one complaint here is that while it doesn't seem to affect handling at all, you really feel the weight in hard turns. You can hear the tires scrubbing to keep all that car under control. A minor complaint that most won't care about...
Tech - There is just one giant 17" display in the center console. I'm a tech nerd when it comes to my cars so I was excited for this and it doesn't disappoint. Navigation is seamless, there's a built in web browser and control for just about every aspect of the car right at your finger tips and it's actually intuitive. You don't need a manual to use the system. Things are just obvious. If you want to open the sunroof you just touch it on the pictures and drag it as far as you want it to open. Done. The system completely blows BMW's iDrive out of the water. I can't think of a car that has anything close to this. It's revolutionary.
It's also a bit much. The display is *gasp* too big and looks like something a teenager would have fiberglassed into his interior. You could easily accomplish the same with a much smaller screen. There was a lot of wasted real estate here. The instrument cluster on the other hand is perfect. It's just one large LCD display but it's well used and navigation on it is awesome.
Then there's the other neat touches... My favorite was the door handles which slide out of the car after you give them a slight push. I'm a sucker for gimmicks like that.
Interior - No me gusta. I wanted to like it. I wanted to love it and it's not bad but it's got a very weird feel to it. There's no center console. That makes me feel like I'm driving a Prius but it's worse than that. Generally when you see concept cars they have overly simplistic interiors and then the bean counters get the car, add a cup holder here and a storage bin there and all of the sudden you end up with an interior that looks much different than the original concept. That didn't happen here. You feel like you're sitting in a concept car interior and all the sudden you realize why they add all those design cues before cars go into production: nobody actually likes that overly simplistic, intentionally futuristic look.
The interior is oddly stark and there's a completely absence of storage space. There are no bins on the doors, none in the console, none behind the seats, just nothing. And this lack of bins and buttons and stuff gives the car a very basic feel which some might consider to be on par with that of an economy car. Only now take your economy car interior and wrap everything in leather. The door panels: leather. The dash: leather. Everything is wrapped and stitched which leads me to my next issue...
You can't have young kids and own this car. The chances of them stabbing the leather, scuffing the leather, kicking the leather etc is entirely too high and it's all stitched together so having it repaired would be iffy. The interior is to be treated with care which leaves the car in a weird position because most interiors like that belong to high dollar luxo-barges and this car doesn't have that kind of interior nor does it have an interior practical enough (or resistant) to deal with bratty kids.
Conclusion - A sports car this is not. It's capable, much like the Lincoln MKS is capable but you don't feel like you're in a sporty car. There's no sense of urgency, no feeling that you're connected with the road. And the brutal acceleration? Well that's nice too but not in a way that I think enthusiasts want. It suffers from the same problem... There's just no drama. It so effortlessly gets you from a standstill to "holy shit is that a cop" fast but it manages to feel like an appliance while it does it. You can't argue with numbers and the numbers paint a compelling picture but if you took a car guy, put him in an M5 and then put him in this, he'd choose the M5 ten times out of ten.
So this all seems rather scathing but lucky for me my definition of a sports sedan differs from most of the general public's and that acceleration is going to win over all but the most devout petrol heads. This is a very good luxury car. The drivetrain is deceptively smooth and completely silent, the features are top of the line and the interior materials on par with their german equivalents. So Tesla won't be winning over many diehard auto enthusiasts but they represent a minority of the car buying public and as an overall vehicle, this is a great car with a few minor idiosyncrasies.
First impressions: it's impressive to see the attention to detail and the mass produced feel the car has. It doesn't feel like a car that's been put together in small batches. It has a very mass produced, well built feel to it... In a good way that is. So let's just dive right in...
Drivetrain - If you're reading you're reading for this I'm sure. It. is. Amazing. You have to drive the car to even get an idea but there is zero lag. The second you put the throttle to the floor you have instantaneous peak torque. No downshifting, no waiting for the converter to flash, the turbos to spool, the engine to rev up... nothing. It kicks you in the ass immediately and never lets up.
And it's deceiving too. You hit unreasonably high speeds with minimal effort. I ended up doing 85mph on a frontage road when I thought I was doing 60. There is just unrelenting power and on paper this car is just silly.
Around town in normal driving it is unbelievably smooth. A slight push of the throttle results in a silent creep forward. Through surface streets in day to day driving the electric drivetrain delivers a luxury feel no gas engine ever could.
Handling - I was expecting it to be great and I wasn't disappointed. No combination of throttle and steering could get the car to relent in the turns. It has grip for miles and doesn't make a fuss about it either. This is a car that makes anyone feel like a better driver than they are and it should. It's heavy and has a very low center of gravity.
The ride was compliant, not overly firm, nice and isolated but capable as well. My one complaint here is that while it doesn't seem to affect handling at all, you really feel the weight in hard turns. You can hear the tires scrubbing to keep all that car under control. A minor complaint that most won't care about...
Tech - There is just one giant 17" display in the center console. I'm a tech nerd when it comes to my cars so I was excited for this and it doesn't disappoint. Navigation is seamless, there's a built in web browser and control for just about every aspect of the car right at your finger tips and it's actually intuitive. You don't need a manual to use the system. Things are just obvious. If you want to open the sunroof you just touch it on the pictures and drag it as far as you want it to open. Done. The system completely blows BMW's iDrive out of the water. I can't think of a car that has anything close to this. It's revolutionary.
It's also a bit much. The display is *gasp* too big and looks like something a teenager would have fiberglassed into his interior. You could easily accomplish the same with a much smaller screen. There was a lot of wasted real estate here. The instrument cluster on the other hand is perfect. It's just one large LCD display but it's well used and navigation on it is awesome.
Then there's the other neat touches... My favorite was the door handles which slide out of the car after you give them a slight push. I'm a sucker for gimmicks like that.
Interior - No me gusta. I wanted to like it. I wanted to love it and it's not bad but it's got a very weird feel to it. There's no center console. That makes me feel like I'm driving a Prius but it's worse than that. Generally when you see concept cars they have overly simplistic interiors and then the bean counters get the car, add a cup holder here and a storage bin there and all of the sudden you end up with an interior that looks much different than the original concept. That didn't happen here. You feel like you're sitting in a concept car interior and all the sudden you realize why they add all those design cues before cars go into production: nobody actually likes that overly simplistic, intentionally futuristic look.
The interior is oddly stark and there's a completely absence of storage space. There are no bins on the doors, none in the console, none behind the seats, just nothing. And this lack of bins and buttons and stuff gives the car a very basic feel which some might consider to be on par with that of an economy car. Only now take your economy car interior and wrap everything in leather. The door panels: leather. The dash: leather. Everything is wrapped and stitched which leads me to my next issue...
You can't have young kids and own this car. The chances of them stabbing the leather, scuffing the leather, kicking the leather etc is entirely too high and it's all stitched together so having it repaired would be iffy. The interior is to be treated with care which leaves the car in a weird position because most interiors like that belong to high dollar luxo-barges and this car doesn't have that kind of interior nor does it have an interior practical enough (or resistant) to deal with bratty kids.
Conclusion - A sports car this is not. It's capable, much like the Lincoln MKS is capable but you don't feel like you're in a sporty car. There's no sense of urgency, no feeling that you're connected with the road. And the brutal acceleration? Well that's nice too but not in a way that I think enthusiasts want. It suffers from the same problem... There's just no drama. It so effortlessly gets you from a standstill to "holy shit is that a cop" fast but it manages to feel like an appliance while it does it. You can't argue with numbers and the numbers paint a compelling picture but if you took a car guy, put him in an M5 and then put him in this, he'd choose the M5 ten times out of ten.
So this all seems rather scathing but lucky for me my definition of a sports sedan differs from most of the general public's and that acceleration is going to win over all but the most devout petrol heads. This is a very good luxury car. The drivetrain is deceptively smooth and completely silent, the features are top of the line and the interior materials on par with their german equivalents. So Tesla won't be winning over many diehard auto enthusiasts but they represent a minority of the car buying public and as an overall vehicle, this is a great car with a few minor idiosyncrasies.
There are a lot of parallels to Steve Jobs with respect to the way he thinks.
and its the 85kw model as well. I guess I just expected more being that I know what the price tag was!
