Wow, so just ~2 weeks ago when I visited the Tesla show room in Toronto Canada, in response to my concern, "My condo building isn't letting me install an EV charger at this time, so i probably cant buy one" i was told "Well you can come here and charge any time, its free and not that much longer than having to fill up your car a gas station anyway"
At the end of the day, I feel like I avoided a bullet here, I ended up buying a Mercedes-benz instead...the interior of the Tesla (mainly lack of tactile feedback due to the touch screen, and simple things like there being no button for the sun roof) was just not up to scratch, and potentially a dangerous distraction to the driver, in my opinion.
"the interior of the Tesla (mainly lack of tactile feedback due to the touch screen, and simple things like there being no button for the sun roof) was just not up to scratch"
Setting aside the design differences (the Tesla interior is very modern and stark and has very simple design) the quality and featureset of the Tesla interior is roughly equivalent to a 3-series BMW or an Audi A4.
Which is to say, it's glaringly insufficient for what is usually spec'd out as a 90-120k car.
Let's tilt the field in favor of Tesla and compare only against mid-sized, mid-ranged competitors, which are the 5-series, A6 and E-class. Those have much, much nicer materials, more adjustable seats, features like ventilated seats ... it's hard to believe that this far through the lifecycle the model S interior is so lacking.
> it's hard to believe that this far through the lifecycle the model S interior is so lacking.
Moving to America, I found it really interesting how many cars have every possible interior gadget known to man, but the important parts are crap. Not only did my 1996 North American car have a mirror on the passenger sun shade, that mirror had a cover, under that cover was a light, AND that light had a dimmer switch.
Of course, the body panels were built to the nearest 1/4inch and it leaked oil like a sieve, but my god the interior was nice.
I'm happy to see an automaker spending money on the bits that count, i.e. the drive train, rather than do the same drive train thing they've been doing for 50+ years and pretty up the interior.
If your personal choice is that interior > drive train, then that choice is right there for you to make, and you are free to make it.
"Setting aside the design differences (the Tesla interior is very modern and stark and has very simple design) the quality and featureset of the Tesla interior is roughly equivalent to a 3-series BMW or an Audi A4.
Which is to say, it's glaringly insufficient for what is usually spec'd out as a 90-120k car."
This is a really good point. I agree, the Audi A4, BMW 3 series and, I would add, Mercedes-benz C class are all comparable. Disappointingly I would put the Tesla in that bucket too (but for its price tag, it should be in a much higher class)
I had told myself for the last 3 years "I'll get the Model S when I've got the cash" (I am/was the Tesla fan boy), but after driving it and realizing that it didn't have the upper class features I saw in the much, much cheaper luxury brands, and that the interior quality was seriously lacking, I couldn't convince myself to go ahead with the purchase. I hated having to actually LOOK at the touch screen just to adjust the climate control...i wish it was a physical button. In fact, I fear that this may actually be a grey area in the law and down the road we'll see these types of interfaces become a no-no.
The car i ended up buying was the Mercedez-benz C400 (same as the C300, but larger engine). Sure its no EV...i wish it was...and its a good 30k cheaper (after options I added to my C400) than what I would have gone ahead with the Tesla, but the car itself is in a completely different class of machinery. Essentially I love it, the Tesla was really interesting...but I just didn't love it.
If you bought a C400 were you "really" considering a Model S? Why didn't you buy another equally priced car? I'm just curious how you make the jump from Model S to C class. It sounds more like you decided you didn't want to spend that much money on a car. Which is where I am, although I don't have the means.
I have a CTS, lagging behind BMW/Audi/Mercedes in interior quality but ahead of the others that claim to be luxury brands. I really liked the P85S I drove and I would probably drive one if I could afford it. The interior was nice enough for me but the way it drives, exterior design and the fact it is electric is what interest me way more than interior quality. The interior quality is sufficient unless you're trying to buy the most luxurious car in that price range. In that case you get the S-Class. For the time being I'm waiting for the Model 3 debut.
Disclaimer: I've never actually been impressed by the C and E class interiors or the dealer experience at Mercedes.
"If you bought a C400 were you "really" considering a Model S?"
That is exactly what the Mercedes sales rep asked me too :) Honestly, I was willing to spend more to get an EV. In general the whole concept of an EV is just something I have a passion for and want to see being successful. Unfortunatly, the Tesla really just did not live up to the expectations I had...and if I was going to buy a car that was not electric, I did not want to spend the same amount.
Put the Tesla electrics in the C-class and i'd gladly throw an extra 30-40k at it.
Edit: If you have not seen the 2015 C class, i'd suggest checking it out. It is a very big step up from the C class of previous years.
I have not been in the most recent C-Class. I don't know but I think the Model 3 will fall short on luxuriousness on the interior also. Tesla is targeting the 3 series, so who knows? I'm anxiously awaiting the Model 3 announcement.
It may have just been the dealer I went to but they seem to be kind of pretentious. Anything I questioned I was wrong because "Mercedes does it the right way". I find this funny considering that Audi is eating up market share.
Yeah I'm very interested in the Model 3 too. If they keep the drive quality of the Model S and improve the interior, i think they'll have a killer product on their hands. The exterior is already great, its just missing that polish that justifies its cost.
Personally I found all the dealers out of Tesla, Mercedes and Audi (Unexpectedly not the BMW) to be a bit pretentious, but I guess it comes with the territory.
The BMW and the Audi are much more convenient to use. The economics of BMW's iDrive are really way above non-German brands. You just see they have years of experience building cars, while the Tesla interior seems to be mostly designed to look cool.
The quality of the Tesla interior felt in line with a Ford Mustang or recent Chevrolet. Both are incomparable to what Audi delivers in the A4 and up, which in my opinion is also a small step above BMW. Although Audi and BMW don't differ that much in interior quality.
> "Although Audi and BMW don't differ that much in interior quality."
For the previous years models I saw, i would agree. However, I personally felt the 2016 interior for the Audi models i saw was a big step up from the 2015 interiors. I suspect part of this was due to the added pressure by the 2015 C-Class which is also a step up from their previous years.
I actually think it's less good than the 3-series or A4. The 3-series and A4 have very well thought out ergonomics and the seats are comfortable and hug you.
The design of the Tesla's seat seems to be an afterthought and I found it uncomfortable after an hour and a half with my butt planted in it. In Texas, an hour and a half travel is almost nothing.
Other things about the car's fit and finish, like the rear hatch's tendency to leak water in heavy rain, really turned me off from even considering one.
If all the electric features are making the car already expensive... maybe the market would not react well to another 10k in price to add some luxury features like ventilated seats.
If things like ventilated seats are really only a few dollars to add, then maybe it was indeed a weird choice to make. But not seeing Tesla currently having a huge glut of inventory to unload, so seems to be filling some kind of market niche ("Not the nicest luxury car, but fast and eco and pretty nice")
The impression I got was that its a matter of development convenience.
The Tesla UI is a big screen. If i was given the problem of "We don't have much experience building car interfaces, and its likely something we'll want to change once we get more experience; what should we do?" the thought of throwing in a big screen that you can auto-update does start to sound pretty appealing.
Having said that, as a driver, the practice of having this style of interface just so the company can produce the cars faster and easier...i find less appealing.
This video shows how to open the sun roof (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5a3n-vTtuU), the fact that this button is more than 1 layer into the UI is pretty insane(Normally the radio is in the place you see the roof in this video, so you're pushing a button just to get to the sun roof slider). I often find myself making this kind of adjustment while driving. Having it in this part of the UI, i found to be a bit distracting and hard to use while performing my test drive.
"If all the electric features are making the car already expensive... maybe the market would not react well to another 10k in price to add some luxury features like ventilated seats."
That may indeed be the case, but there should at least be options. There should be an option for super-adjusto-21way-seats. There should be an option for ventilated and massage seats.[1]
Actually, now that I think about it, the missing features all largely have to do with the seats...
True but think about software. Ideally every software would have every possible option available. Font size button? Check. Font choice? Check. Etc. At some point
a) You end up with a bazillion options that makes the experience worse for many users
b) The time to ship the product increases a lot
And this is with SOFTware. Adding HARDware options is even harder, as there is tooling and physical widgets that need designed and produced. Even adding an option for 21-way seats would have cost money.
I'm pretty sure the niche is that it's a really nice car that happens to be electric. IE people who like electric vehicles and who don't want to drive a refrigerator (and can afford it).
A sign of the times: nobody is questioning the privacy issue of Tesla tracking individual usage history. Are they tracking usage by correlating GPS in the car to charger locations or does the car charger interface transmit a serial number back to the charger?
Is there reason to believe Tesla doesn't maintain long-term records of every vehicle's entire GPS-enabled driving history?
Automated-everything sounds great until something nefarious happens, but by then it's too late to put the convenience genie back in the bottle.
Well, it has to make sure that the person/car using the supercharger has actually paid for the privilege... which means it has to identify you somehow. The fact that it keeps a record of this data is no more surprising to me than a store keeping electronic copies of my receipts.
Seeing this is very disheartening to folks like me that really gush over Tesla and see free solar-powered superchargers as a bright future :-/
This is above anything else I've seen about Tesla ever bums me out the most. It is like getting "unlimited" data to find out that you're actually punished at more than 2 GB. It is super lame behavior.
I expected the worst - for it to be due to technical issue with the batteries, however it looks like it is mostly related to the Superchargers being congested and not available immediately to everyone in need of charging.
I live in the Midwest along the supercharge path. The mall by me has 3 or 4 supercharge stations, which I think is approximately 4x the number of teslas owners living in my city.
About half the time all 4 stalls are empty, about half the time I see 1 car.
Which is "good" in that people on a long trip can get their charge on without having to wait in line. I suspect if I lived in town and drove a Tesla, I would use it a little more often for the free power ;)
Maybe just adding a $5 charge cost would be enough to balance out supply and demand? $5 a tank is still a good deal on a long trip, but hardly worth going out of my way to do (when I can charge for $2 at home)
https://i.imgur.com/ruKYVHF.png
http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/51482-Supercha...