2013 Tesla Model S: Brake Light Actuation
March 05, 2013
Our long-term Tesla Model S has a pretty aggressive regenerative braking system. When you hop off the accelerator pedal, the deceleration is as strong as easing into the brakes. It takes a little getting used to, but with smooth inputs, you won't be getting your passengers carsick. But the sharp deceleration had me a bit nervous about getting rear-ended.
2013 Tesla Model S: Plays Any Song by Voice Activation?
March 2, 2013
In a recent interview/product show-off with Bloomberg, Tesla CEO Elon Musk showed off a feature of the Model S even we as owners didn't know about: Press and hold the voice button, and the Tesla Model S will play any song you ask it for.
Of course, the Tesla doesn't have the world's largest hard drive, rather, the Model S is constantly connected to the Internet where it can take advantage of Stitcher Internet radio. It works great when Elon is demo'ing it for a smitten TV reporter. Does it work as well when we try?
2013 Tesla Model S: First Road Trip
March 1, 2013
We pulled our Model S out of the Tesla factory customer delivery center into a light rain with its range reading 249 miles. The Harris Ranch Supercharger, according to the sedan's navigation system, was just 153 miles away.
Range anxiety? Not even a little.
Southbound on Interstate 5 and it's easy to become enamored with Elon Musk's creation. The Model S is comfortable, luxurious and it feels substantial on the road. And it is fast. Like supercar fast. Still, we controlled ourselves and cruised around the 70 mph speed limit.
After 130 relaxed miles we got a warning message, both on the gauge cluster and the large screen center stack: "Service Tire Pressure System Contact Tesla Service."
2013 Tesla Model S: Taking Delivery
February 28, 2013
There are two ways to pay for and take delivery of your new 2013 Tesla Model S. Tesla will bring it to you or you can do what we did and pick it up at the company's assembly plant in Fremont, CA and drive it home.
Surely we understood the irony of taking two Lincoln Town Cars and a Boeing 737 to pick up our new electric vehicle, but we couldn't pass up the opportunity to see where the cars are built and to test Tesla's Supercharger network, which includes several locations between Fremont and our Santa Monica office.
We arrived at the huge facility, which was once owned and operated by Toyota, just before our appointment time of 9:00 a.m. We were greeted by delivery experience specialist Matt Alcorn, who was friendly, accommodating and extremely knowledgeable about Tesla, the Model S and the facility.
After some small talk, we took him up on some coffee and got down to business. Matt graciously accepted our $110,750 check, asked us to sign a few pieces of paper and the car was ours.
2013 Tesla Model S: New Touchscreen is Working Fine
February 27, 2013
Not sure why, but Tesla wanted to replace the touchscreen in our Model S even though it was working fine after some time with the technicians. Seemed a little over cautious but we weren't about to argue. I dropped our Model S off at the Tesla service center around 9:30 in the morning with a promise to have it back sometime midday.
2013 Tesla Model S: Touchscreen Getting Replaced
February 26, 2013
After yesterday's meltdown of the touchscreen in our new Tesla Model S, we ended the day at the local service center. This was after talking to a tech on the phone who asked us to try a hard reset of the screen by pressing the two roller buttons on the steering wheel. It didn't work, so a dealer visit was the next option.
2013 Tesla Model S: No Touchscreen, No Heat
February 25, 2013
I was looking forward to driving our new Tesla Model S into the office this morning. Figured I would sip some coffee in my kitchen for a few minutes while warming up the interior of the Tesla sitting outside via the phone app. No such luck. It wouldn't connect to the car even though it had been working great all weekend. No big deal I figured, there was plenty of time to try it later.
2013 Tesla Model S: The Key
February 25, 2013
Like virtually everything else having to do with the 2013 Tesla Model S, the folks at Tesla have decided that a normal key wasn't good enough and have given us this.
Look at it. It's slick, it's shiny and it has no visible buttons. It does, however, just like a fresh baby, have a bunch of soft spots on its dome that are made for pressing.
Pressing the front squishy spot opens the frunk. Double tapping the rear "button" opens the powered trunk (it stops with a single tap) and the top one locks/unlocks the door. Holding the middle button down for a few seconds will open all the windows. Of course, with the Tech Package, the Tesla Model S automatically locks/unlocks the doors, so the key may not ever be necessary.
But, with the exception of the faux buttonlessness of it all, it's kind of old hat. What makes this one unique is that there's no spare key hidden inside.
2013 Tesla Model S: Burnouts? Burnouts!
February 22, 2013
The thing about most electric vehicles is that they're incredibly conservative. Sure, they've got a bazillion pound-feet of torque, but they're so conservatively tuned that you get like, 9, from a stop and even then, if you get any wheelspin, the electronic nannies put you straight in the corner.
2013 Tesla Model S Long-Term Road Test: Introduction
February 22, 2013
Elon Musk is either a genius visionary or a complete fool. And we just paid him $110,000 to find out which.
We have bought a 2013 Tesla Model S. It's ours and, unlike other newspapers, magazines and Web sites, we're going to test it without Mr. Musk loaning us the vehicle and tracking our every move.
We've tested the Model S before. Several times. And it has consistently impressed us with its abilities and technology. But as with the rest of America's media, Tesla, which is based in Palo Alto, California and builds the cars in nearby Fremont, loaned us those sedans for evaluation. We would drive the car for a week or two and return it to Elon. In fact, the first Model S we tested was the man's personal car.
But this time it's different. There are no time limits. And no scary big brother black boxes watching over us. It's our car. We paid for it. We picked it up at the Fremont factory with 50 Tesla-test-track miles on the odometer. And our plan is simple. We're going to drive the hell out of it for a year. We're going to drive it as much as possible. Where we want. When we want. And Mr. Musk can only sit back and read about it like everybody else.
