The Life and Times of a Tesla Owner

Mike K

TCG Elite Member
Apr 11, 2008
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Alternative title: I'm putting all my Tesla stuff in one thread that you can easily ignore rather than spreading it out all over the forum.

I'll occasionally update this with Tesla oddities and other cool stuff you probably already know but that I can over-complicate and re-explain to you in 17 paragraphs.

Today you get a two for one. Enjoy, or don't. I don't care (yes I do).

Service

I don't know how many here had the original iPhone but when it first came out you could take it back to Apple with basically any problem and they'd swap it out for you no questions asked. Burnt pixel on the display? Swap it out. Display slightly off hue? Swap it out. You could go in there and tell them you thought the phone had a bad attitude and they'd proceed to reprimand it in front of you before swapping it out for a new phone.

And that was a good plan of attack because it was paramount to the phone's success that everyone that had an iPhone loved their iPhone. And that's basically where Tesla is with the S. Yesterday I hopped over to their service center and experienced this first hand. The drive unit (motor) on my car makes a quiet whining noise at speed that the other car didn't. I was right next to the service center and asked them if I could make an appointment. Instead they just pulled a tech off a job and sent him out with me. Cool.

As we're driving he tells me the noise I'm hearing is acceptable and then he goes on to tell me that if it bothers me they'll swap out the drive unit. That's akin to going into BMW, telling them my M5 doesn't feel as fast as my neighbors and them being like "hey no problem. We'll replace the engine for you". I mean it was so cavalier the way he said it like there was no problem with the noise but if I didn't want to hear it any more they'll take care of it.

So then I'm asking him about some of the bits on the car like the door handles. The handles on the S are motorized. When you approach the car they slide out and you pull them like a traditional handle. Only they're not mechanically engaging anything. They're just telling the actuator to disengage the door latch. On the early cars these handles didn't give at all. On the later cars they had about a 1/4 inch of give when you pulled them so it felt like you were actually pulling a door handle. He explained this to me and told me that if I didn't like the handles I had they'd swap them out for the new ones. WTF.

Obviously as the cars gain popularity this kind of service is going to disappear but for now it's nice.
 

Mike K

TCG Elite Member
Apr 11, 2008
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Simplicity

I have a hard time wrapping my head around how simple this car is. From the perspective of someone that likes to work on his own car, there's basically nothing here you can't do yourself, and easily at that.

The under-hood area is comprised of an electric power steering motor, an electric AC compressor, a suspension compressor, ABS & braking systems and various pumps for the battery coolant. And it's all so stupidly simple when you're looking at it. Replacing an AC compressor is probably all of a 15 minute job on this car, sans evacuating and refilling the system.

Even the super complex dash and 17" touch screen are just running Ubuntu. The only thing stopping the home mechanic from working on one of these right now is the access to diagnostic tools. Once that trickles it's way down to the common man I bet these are going to be some of the best cars to own out of warranty. The only wildcard is the battery. If batteries come down in the price there's really no downside to owning one of these out of warranty.

Then again, used batteries are only fetching 10 - 15k on eBay right now and that's only going to go down with time. By the time these cars are cheap enough that home mechanics are going to want to take a crack at them I bet the batteries will be under 10k.

As far as owning a car out of warranty though, when I compare this to how complex even the 2007 A8 was, it's startling in it's simplicity. In the A8 it was an obscure plastic part in the intake that broke off and caused a bunch of problems but if it wasn't that there were literally hundreds of other moving parts and thousands of different components in the drivetrain that could fail. There just isn't very much to break on this car. In a world where diagnostic abilities and parts availability were equal amongst this and a German luxury sedan, I'd own one of these out of warranty over a BMW or Audi any day of the week. It's just going to be so stupid easy to diagnose and fix down the road once even basic diagnostic gear is available.
 

Flyn

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Alternative title: I'm putting all my Tesla stuff in one thread that you can easily ignore rather than spreading it out all over the forum.

I'll occasionally update this with Tesla oddities and other cool stuff you probably already know but that I can over-complicate and re-explain to you in 17 paragraphs.

Today you get a two for one. Enjoy, or don't. I don't care (yes I do).

I laughed out loud, Mike. Thanks.
 

Mike K

TCG Elite Member
Apr 11, 2008
13,214
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Does yours have auto pilot? Saw some video of a tesla full autopilot at highway speeds and in traffic :rofl:

I don't foresee high-end German car owners rushing to trade in for tesla just yet so all that talk is just like your personal opinion. man. :p

No, that didn't start until 2014 and to get a 2014 with autopilot would have been at least another $10,000. That and they're limiting it now that they're seeing how it's being abused. Plus they say the cars won't be fully autonomous until the second suite of sensors come out which might be a couple years and wouldn't be able to be retrofitted.

And I'm a high end German owner that traded in for a Tesla. If you come out to LA the Model S is basically our Camry. They are everywhere, probably more popular than the 5 series.
 

Bruce Jibboo

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Apr 18, 2008
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No, that didn't start until 2014 and to get a 2014 with autopilot would have been at least another $10,000. That and they're limiting it now that they're seeing how it's being abused. Plus they say the cars won't be fully autonomous until the second suite of sensors come out which might be a couple years and wouldn't be able to be retrofitted.

And I'm a high end German owner that traded in for a Tesla. If you come out to LA the Model S is basically our Camry. They are everywhere, probably more popular than the 5 series.

because Cali

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMTkedIUX8U

and for the record, if I could, I'd have a primary house in Santa Monica for the weather/beach and be in South Tahoe for every storm system that came through in the winter. :rofl:
 

Mike K

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Apr 11, 2008
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because Cali

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMTkedIUX8U

and for the record, if I could, I'd have a primary house in Santa Monica for the weather/beach and be in South Tahoe for every storm system that came through in the winter. :rofl:

I think the majority of people that own them own them because they are the it car to have, not because they're green. I mean I literally could not care less about it being green.

Also I do smell my own farts.
 

Mike K

TCG Elite Member
Apr 11, 2008
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Now for today's installment!

Modularity

Is that even a word? Sure it is! One of the things that excites me most about the future of these cars is the ability to upgrade lower models to higher models. And with these cars it will be easier than ever. To understand this, let's look at the differences between the cars.

First let's look at the power each car makes:

60kwh: 302hp/ 317tq
85kwh: 373hp/ 325tq
85kwh Performance: 470hp/ 443tq

One might think that the difference between these car's power output is different size motors. In actuality the cars all have the same motor. The 60kwh cars are software limited because their battery pack can't deliver sufficient voltage to match the 85kwh car's power numbers. The difference between the 85kwh and performance 85kwh (P85) is just the inverter. Same motor. Same battery. Same everything else.

And the beauty of the cars is we know the parts are swappable because Tesla will upgrade your 60kwh car to an 85 and you'll get all the performance of the 85kwh car. They simply program the car to take advantage of the larger battery. Same with converting the 85's to P85's. Tesla will install the P85 inverter in your 85 and you'll have a P85.

Now through Tesla this is all pretty cost prohibitive. I think the cost to upgrade an 85 to a P85 is something like $18,000 and the cost to upgrade a 60kwh to an 85kwh is about $18,000 as well. Where this will actually get interesting is in the future when these cars start to get cheap enough that the parts aren't very expensive. The only wildcard (again) is being able to access the car's software and tell it that it has the larger battery or different inverter. Other than that, you could go out and buy a 60kwh car and turn it into a P85 with minimal fuss.
 

Mook

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Mike
I initially glossed over this thread b/c I wasnt ready for a Mike K novel BUT BUT....I'm glad I entered. This is actually pretty interesting stuff and I'm curious to learn / read more as you drive the car more.

I've never really given these cars a second thought aside from "hey, these look good". Thats definitely changing rapidly. Keep it going K Mike.
 

Mike K

TCG Elite Member
Apr 11, 2008
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I initially glossed over this thread b/c I wasnt ready for a Mike K novel BUT BUT....I'm glad I entered. This is actually pretty interesting stuff and I'm curious to learn / read more as you drive the car more.

I've never really given these cars a second thought aside from "hey, these look good". Thats definitely changing rapidly. Keep it going K Mike.

I'm not sure whether to be insulted or not. :rofl:
 

Mike K

TCG Elite Member
Apr 11, 2008
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So this is your frunk or front trunk. This is what's under your hood.

2012-tesla-model-s-front-trunk.jpg


And if you remove the frunk what's under it is surprisingly simple. My salvage car had no frunk so here's a shot of that.

MEDNAyF.jpg


Here's what you're looking at:

A - ABS Pump
B - Vacuum pump for brake booster
C - Air compressor for suspension
D - Power Steering Motor
E - Air Conditioning Compressor.
F - Various Battery/ Motor Coolant Pumps
G - Front of Battery
Not Pictured - Plastic housing to store farts for later consumption.

As you can see there's absolutely nothing here that's difficult to replace. The hardest part of working on this car would be accurately diagnosing it. Well, at least with respect to non-drivetrain issues. Even drivetrain issues should be quite simple to fix but would require knowledge of high voltage and of course proper diagnosis.

But I mean look at what you have... Very basic components, all easily replaced and none of the complexity or additional failure points of an internal combustion engine.
 

Turbocharged400sbc

3800 & 4T80E > ALL
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well they are using mostly tier one shit that the other usa built stuff does.

its odd the way the coolant pumps are plumbed, one feeds the other but maybe just as a backup? shit if the ac has to work for the cooling...then that ac compressor is drastically undersized even for a freon to coolant HE much less the cabin as well....im going to guess the only reason the ac is part of the batt/motor cooling system is that it uses the same cooling fans at the forward condensor and the air to water exchanger.
im pretty sure the ac loop and batt/motor loops are separate, just the controllers linked.

in that case even your air temp being unplugged on the other car would have probably not kept the battery system from commanding the HE fans on.
 
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